What am I ready to tank (10m only)?

[serabeth]

I can only tank 10m instances because I'm playing on a laptop and get about 1-3 FPS (sometimes shoots down to 0 during heroism) in 25m raids.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'm ready for ToC 10 at least, even though some gearscore whores on my server won't let me in and won't join any group I form since mine is below 5k...5k gearscore for regular ToC 10, yeah.

I'm not sure if I'm ready for ICC 10 yet, though...Do I need the gear from ToC 10 first, or if I can find a solid alt group from my guild that wants to go with my tank, will I be ok?

Here's a link to my dk's armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Black+Dragonflight&cn=Seramae

I know, my cloak sucks. I haven't had any luck with the regular hor one, though (extremely slow queue times of around half an hour+ only to have the rest of my group be tank classes that roll against me on the cloak), so I plan on buying the 60 frost emblem one as soon as I can.

*****

And, just because I don't want to take up another thread with more questions, here are some:

1) How are my +hit and +expertise looking? I'm a little confused on which a DK tank values more -- I've gotten very mixed answers from the people I've asked. Assume I'm just talking about single-target and not about DnD threat on aoe packs, so the spell hit would just apply to IT. I know I need more expertise; I've heard there's a lot more on higher ilvl stuff.

2) Is my spec ok? It's slightly varied from what I saw posted on EJ as the cookie-cutter blood tank spec. I like the Death Rune Mastery talent a lot, especially for heroics (spam blood boils since it's hard to get 2 diseases and a pestilence before everyone has pulled threat off me). Not having epidemic might be hurting a little, but I don't know...

3) Are my glyphs ok? Glyph of DnD is more for the heroics I've been doing, but I guess it will come in handy for tanking trash in raids, as well. I was debating getting glyph of disease instead, but then I'd lose out on IT threat, so idk about that.

Any other advice to improve my current gear scheme or to give me advice for what to go for in the future would be very helpful :).

[Gutfang]

With a cloak and boot replacement (buy the frost emblem cloak and get the crafted boots or the boots from (H)FoS) you should be fine a good bit into ICC 10. Once you get the upgrades you'll want to gem them and chant them properly, and by that I mean epic gems.

I'd also suggest looking into the armor trinket, 245 helm and 245 shoulders from the triumph badge vendor. They're easy enough to earn with heroic farming and the 245 helm with raise your expertise level.

Your hit is good. It's most important to ensure dark command lands on the boss swapping fights. If you're finding your taunts aren't landing, use death grip. Worst case scenario, glyph dark command for that fight. Expertise is OK. The 245 helm will help. The Tier 10 legs and/or legs from Saurfang will also help. Shoot for 20 EXP as a blood DK, more doesn't hurt.

Spec is OK. No glaring problems. Just stick with what works for you. Right now you're sacrificing a little extra threat for more mitigation and that's OK while you gear up.

Replace the glyph of corpse explosion, you don't even have it talented. I'd recommend replacing with Horn of Winter.

DnD glyph is your choice to maintain. 2P Tier 10 will have the same effect, so you might want to think about replacing it sooner or later. I really only use DnD as a trash opener on my DK. Once you get both diseases up and spread around you can work in frequent blood boils to hold their attention. Glyph of disease helps facilitate a quick respread of the disease for more blood boiling fun.

[sifuedition]

Wow-heroes.com

As long as you are reasearching the proper way to gear/gem/enchant it is actually quite accurate on the instance scale. Yellow means you are fine to do it but pugs may be elitiest about it. Green means you pretty much overgear it but maybe there are upgrades and pugs should be more than greatful to have you.

[Dannyl]

Gear-wise, there are a few updates that you should work towards. These will also improve your chances of getting into those pugs, though if you want to actively raid, I would definitely suggest trying to get into a start up guild on your server that is just now working on ICC10. You will be slightly undergeared but gear always comes to those who play. A guild would also mute the need for pugs, which is always a plus. Ofc, if you can get your current guild to go for ICC, even better.

For the cloak and belt, get the ones from your frost emblem vendor. The belt especially is really good for more EH. For your boots and pants, get the craftable ones from ICC. I noticed you have five out of five T9 pieces, probably cause they were easy to get, so no worries but you should never gear for that if you can avoid it. There are always non-tier pieces that are better. For one, you could change your helm to the non-tier 245 helm from the triumph vendor, and/or get the craftable ToC chest piece. You don't actually need the 4pc from T9 so feel free to lose it when better upgrades become available. Also, do not use +24 stam gems. Always go with +30. Last, get a better first trinket. There is one at the triumph vendor, or if you can, key the one from the frost vendor.

Like the guy above said, your hit is fine and I would not worry about your exp either. I typically run with 180-190 ub hit rating and always carry around Snapper Extreme food. If I can get the heroic presence raid buff from a draenai, I eat Str food. If I can't get that buff, I eat hit food. Only when hit is really important for tank switches, like on LK and try get both hit buffs, but because DKs have Death Grip as a secondary taunt, I'm usually over-killing it. If you're doing ToC instead of ICC, I wouldn't even worry this much about Hit because there are no tank switching in ToC. If you worry about your exp, you can have raid food that as well.

Your spec looks pretty good. I would maybe exchange your glyph of disease. It isn't really that good for tanks and instead take glyph of death strike. If I had to knitpick your spec, I would question the need for Spell Reflection and Mark of Blood. Imp Rune Tap is good, if you find yourself using it a lot. It is basically a progression raid talent, but since your gear is low, I wouldn't underestimate it's value if you go ICC.

[Elechi]

Also keep in mind that because of the current buff in ICC (30% more health for you) ICC10 is actually easier then ToC10.

This buff also applies to DPS off course so if you have a very good DPS in the group it might cause aggro problems. Most of the time that is not the case in pug's though :D

If you manage to get in a few ICC 10 pugs (maybe as an offtank at first) you'll also be able to get the rep ring which will be quite an upgrade too.

You might consider a frost tank spec for trash in ICC. I don't know whether you have any decent 1 handed weapons though.