Bunch of tanking questions - getting ready for heroics....

[laeelin]

Edit - Forgot to mention - I'm a DK.

I'm getting ready for heroics, and from reading here I have found out one of my problems was not using my tanking cooldowns nearly enough, and not placing my debuffs nearly high enough in importance.

(Q1) Does this sound like a good start from some random pull? Enough aggro while still applying all the important debuffs and cooldowns.

1) Cast bone shield. (start that cooldown and rune refreshing asap)
2) Mark CC mobs and the Skull / "X" for the first two kills.
3) Pull with Outbreak/IT (or have CC pull, and hit skull with outbreak as they run in.)
4) Drop a DnD where I expect to tank them.
5) About a cooldown before they arrive hit VB.
6) As they arrive, use Pestilence to make sure they all have Frost Fever.
7) Heart Strike Skull for a bit more aggro on the main target.
8) Blood Boil for the melee damage debuff.
9) Death Strike

Continue as normal keeping Blood Boil and Frost Fever up at all times. AMS if there is need.

Icebound Fortitude and DRW are a bit more complicated. DRW because it requires so much runic power, and IBF because it takes 3 min to referesh.

(Q2) Should I save Icebound Fortitude for when things go really really wrong? (aka, pat or second group accidently pulled, CC problems, whatever) Basically, should I even use it in a normal fight?

With the 60 RP cost of DRW I just dont see how to use it in a normal situation. I guess I could drop it as soon as I have the rune power, but normally by that time your not taking as much damage anyway... that leads me to ask the next question...

(Q3) When should I use DRW?

From - http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?71144-Cataclysm-Death-Knight-Tanking-Satorri-s-Guide-to-the-Bloody-Future

Bone Shield = for one Unholy rune you get 3 charges for your Bone Shield. While the shield is active you take 20% less damage from all sources and get a 2% increase to damage done. Charges can be consumed on an internal CD of approximately 2 - 2.5 sec. Without consumption of charges the shield will last 5 min with a 1 min CD. Glyphing this will no longer increase charges, but instead give you a movement speed buff (non-stacking).

(Q4) I'm a bit confused about the internal CD. Does that say that the bone shield will not lose more than one charge every 2 to 2.5 seconds? If so, thats much better than I thought, and I'll make sure to have it up at all times!


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My character is: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/executus/plaguewall/simple

Notes:
Enchants - I'm broke right now, I'll have better enchants and the belt buckle in the next couple days.
I am going to respecing to remove the two points in Abomination's Might and place them in Crimson Scourge tonight/tomorrow.
I also will be getting the Dancing Rune Weapon and VB glyph tonight/tomorrow.
I am working on my factions/gear, but just hit 85 a couple days ago. :D

(Q5) Anything else I need to fix?

Thanks for the help.

[Sebadoh]

Your opening rotation looks fine, except that I wouldn't pop VB immediately. Wait a few seconds to see what your incoming damage is like. Also, having Bone Shield up will soften the first 6-7 seconds of the pull, and overlapping cooldowns is usually a bad idea.

IBF shouldn't be used as liberally as your other cooldowns, but is still a great mitigation tool - I wouldn't save it for dire emergencies, because then you'll never use it, but rather for a) predictable spikes in damage (if a boss soft-enrages, or something like that dude in Grim Batol who does 100% extra physical damage when you kill the add on top of him), or b) just regular old pulls where you run out of cooldowns but still need the mitigation.

DRW is interesting, it is both a good way to avoid physical damage (for example, if a boss has a soft enrage that increases his auto-attack damage), and with the glyph is good for threat if you have enough RP or runes to continue your rotation without much downtime. It takes some practice keeping an eye on your rune cooldowns and RP (something I am still working on), but with such a short cooldown it should be available much of the time. I use it rather liberally, either to avoid physical damage, or for securing threat/putting out addition damage (this is especially nice in conjunction with Empowered Rune Weapon, too bad that's on a 5 min cd!).

Yes, that's exactly what he means about Bone Shield. It's a good ability, obviously not as strong as some of our other cooldowns, but being able to use it before combat to soften the beginning damage is great to give your healers time to get into position, etc.

Obviously, you have several DPS pieces to replace, especially those boots. (the belt is okay) http://www.wowhead.com/item=66909 can be obtained as a quest reward in normal Lost City, and one of the bosses there also drops http://www.wowhead.com/item=55873 which would be a nice upgrade to your DPS ring. I"d recommend heading in there before you get to Heroics.

[laeelin]

Thanks for the advice.

I have ended up changing to my X-keys and setting up all my hotkeys on it. It will be a while before i'm used to it, but I can now access a lot more hotkeys without any problems.

I'm also going to change my mouse wheel up/down to be target next and previous enemy, and middle mouse click into target nearest enemy.

Any other suggestions are welcome.


I cant help posting an image of my new X-keys setup after spending several hours making and printing icons for it.

http://www.handmademodelships.com/media/personal/x-keys-dk.jpg

[Netheras]

Not sure why you would put them into Crimson Scourge, but that is up to you of course.

DRW uses less runic power than popping the Lichborne combo would, so it isn't like you are losing too much in a boss fight, and during trash pulls it isn't like your healer wouldn't appreciate not having to heal you as much so all in all it is a win-win. I rotate it in with my other cooldowns.

I like your keybind set up there =D