Newbie DPS DK curious about Tanking. Questions may vary in number.

[Eistvenn]

Yo, My name's Eistvenn. I'm on US|Malygos|Alliance side of the track, and I've got a few questions.

I recently speced in blood for tanking (mainly for faster dungeon que's and raids). (people want tanks more than they do dps anymore, and I get tired of waiting.) My rotation is simple. For trash, I use DnD, IT,PS, PEST, DC, DC, BB, and DS. (For single targets, I use IT, PS, HS, OB, and DC (for the initial confrontation) and IT, PS, HS, HS, HS, HS, OB, and DC/RS for the -dump.
(Well, I havn't used them yet, that's just the way I have them set up on my action bar) (and also plan to use horn of winter as often as possible.)

My first question is, what should a tank look for in gear? (for starters?) Because I have like 7 pieces, but I need more. What do they look for in trinkets, sigals, and rings? I'm not sure what I should roll with.

If there is anyone in game on Malygos server that knows their stuff, and can give me live information and help me look for things that would be better for me, I would appreciate it.

Secondly, what defense cap should a blood tank be? Everyone on this bloody server are pricks and give false information. So I'd appreciate some honest answers, and possibly some hands on help.

Thanks.

[Tengenstein]

Def cap for 5 man HCs is 535 defense skill. For raids its 540 Defense skill.

gear wise toy want stuff with lots of stamina, or things like Bonus armour, Def rating, dosge rating, parry rating. expertise and Hit rating also won't hurt.


trinket wise anything that has or affects the above stats is good.

[Harmacy]

Defense minimum that Teng posted is correct. For a starter tank, you want to get to the defense minimum first and foremost, then stack a mix of stamina, avoidance (dodge + parry + defense), and threat stats (hit + expertise + strength). Bonus armor (mitigation) is fantastic but aside from a few Emblem of Triumph pieces you can pick up, relatively rare outside of ICC and the Frostie vendor.

Later on when you get into raiding, avoidance loses a lot of its importance and, if you get to true progression raiding, so do threat stats. But for now, use a lot of hybrid stam gems and aim for a nice mix of stats.

Farm what you can from reg ToC 5-man. There are 5 good pieces out of there, gloves belt legs boots and trinket. http://www.wowhead.com/item=47216 in particular is outstanding.

Sigil you should be using http://www.wowhead.com/item=47672, make that one of your first purchases from the EoT vendor. It's a ton of dodge and it's up almost all the time.

For rings, make one of your first purchases from EoT (after the sigil) http://www.wowhead.com/item=47731. Amazing ring.

I won't delve too deep into the DK-specific advice as my DK is full of epic fail, but one thing you most certainly want to do is macro Rune Strike to everything. It has a tremendous threat modifier, making it wonderful for single-target aggro and something that you want to spam as much as possible. I don't remember how to do it offhand, but searching either the forums or Google for "rune strike macro" will find something workable.