Why is my DPS so low?

Moghedien · #1 11-02-2009, 08:07 AM

I've been raid tanking on my DK for quite some time, I have life, and defense,there's nothing wrong with my survivability. But my DPS is atrocious. I've seen other DK tanks in comparable gear, and the same spec or close to it, doing 1k more than me. I've looked up rotations and they're all pretty much what I do, with the exception of me sometimes forgetting to do a runic power dump. Someone told me it would help to macro runestrike to my other spells so that I'm using it every time it's up, so I tried that, and it hasn't seemed to make a difference in either threat or DPS. What am I doing wrong?
Here's my armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

After posting this, I realized at least one of my glyphs needs to be replaced...don't think that could be much of the problem, though.

Bashal · #2 11-02-2009, 08:27 AM

Do you hold threat well enough? Holding threat and being able to take the big hits are the main purpose of a tank. If you do both of those well enough, then you are fine.

DPS meters are for DPSers.

Moghedien · #3 11-02-2009, 08:31 AM

As long as people don't do anything stupid and unload right off the bat, I hold threat fine. I have a little trouble GETTING it sometimes, but once I have it I don't lose it. I know DPS isn't my main purpose...but we're talking like 1k DPS all the time...I thought DK tanks should do more. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Bashal · #4 11-02-2009, 08:57 AM

It could be as simple as they have their rotation down tighter than you. One thing that does jump out at me is that you have gemmed for parry, and are below the expertise (soft) cap of 26.

Switch the parry gems to expertise gems. Less parried and dodged attacks = more threat/dps.

Switch your glove enchant to +expertise, too.

Those changes might not = 1k dps, but it definitely won't hurt.

JokerFMJ · #5 11-02-2009, 09:36 AM

You're not hit capped and you should get up to 26 expertise to hit the expertise soft cap. Both of those will help with your DPS but more importantly the expertise will help in those times when you have trouble getting threat to begin with.

Also, a quick upgrade would be the platinum mesh hide cloak from conquest badge vendor. Lastly, don't gem for parry, it's not worth it. Health or dodge (I do expertise too, just to be capped or right under cap).

Hades · #6 11-02-2009, 06:12 PM

Don't feel too horrible about 1k DPS as a tank. Before I server transferred, I was the guild MT and throwing 1300 with my rotation dialed as close to perfect as I could get it, and the only thing I've changed since was I picked up Shard of the Crystal Forest. Since my server xfer, I've been pushed into a DPS role in favor of a couple sword-n-board tanks so I'm pretty rusty as of late.

Raij · #7 11-02-2009, 06:29 PM

Well, I can pull around 2500 DPS as a warrior tank, I know my DK OT can pull more DPS in tank spec but not necessarily more threat. Not sure how that works, however his name is Virulence, realm Lothar. Look him up if you want?

JokerFMJ · #8 11-03-2009, 10:59 AM

I pull 2100-2400 depending on the encounter as Blood Spec... In an AoE heavy environment (like whelps in Onyxia) I'd pull around 5.5K as frost, but that's just very inflated, heh.