New to tanking

Hi, I have been reading a lot and absorb lots of information (to much ).

My main is a Rogue and I have decided to get a tank. Since DK are diiff. to others in that they are not as much as a punching bag, but a hybrid type, i figure it would be easier for me as per style goes.

Keep in mind my DK just turned 80 about a week ago.

OK here is the link to my DK
The World of Warcraft Armory

I know my expertise is low, and Health is also.

I want to start tanking heroics and then start with Nax 10. what should I be gearing up? I have been gemming for stam and I feel like i have a ROYAL MESS!

I'm Blood spec but I tank in frost presence which brings my armor up to around 25K+.

I feel kind of lost any help much apreciated, be it gear or reading up , gemming,enchants any thing.

Thank you before hand, I know its alot to ask, but I need help.

Thank you

540 defense. Gem for it until you get it.
Get rep with argent crusade for the helm enchant, and wyrmrest for some of the tanking gear there.
Thats pretty much the only thing I can help you with as I have not touched DK tanking

Edit: I realized you have an argent lance on which could be why you don't have 540 defense.

That's quite the post, new guy! Let's see if we can get you settled into the driver seat! Also, if anything in this post is a bit off, I apologize. After all, I'm a frost tank. ;)

Gear:
Get the Arcane Shielded Helm from H Nexus (Grand Magus Telestra) or a Tempered Titansteel hat. Gem the helm with Austere Earthsiege (Meta) and Solid something blue for stam. For trinkets, run regular toc until The Black Heart drops. Need roll IMMEDIATELY, then head to H Azjol'Nerub for Essence of Gossamer (Hadronox). As was mentioned, rep grind with Argent Crusade until you can get the Arcanum of the Stalwart helm enchant. BANG! 540 def skill and another 2500 HP. Just make sure you're chasing tank gear. Regular ToC drops some phenominal tank stuff, not just the trinket. ;)

Spec:
I'll just link you one I think might be decent. Saves a lot of words lol
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Note: I added Hysteria in there so that if one of your melee DPS is lacking OR you're losing aggro, you can kinda jump it up a bit.

Rotation:
First pull:
IT, PS, Pest, DnD

Second:
DS x2, HS x2

Third:
Pest, BB x2, HS x3

For bosses -
IT, PS, HS x2, DS
Pest, DS x2, HS
repeat step two until you're looting.

Use cooldowns and dump as needed. Always use IBF ASAP on trash, and make sure you mark on trash and stick to the marks, otherwise you're bound to lose aggro from my experience with blood tanking.

I took a quick glance at your armory and noticed that your sigil, trinklets, shoulders and helm looked a bit more dps than tanking items... like what the others said, 540 defense is a must if you're planning on hitting Nax10... if you're farming heroics then you could get by with 535, but i'd personally push it to 540 atleast...

just to comment on Hades's rotation for the 1st pull (sry Hades, it might seem that i'm contradicting you alot on your posts) but I'd make DnD as the 1st priority for the initial pull... this is to allow your 3 runes some 'extra' time to come off CD...

also, the Glyph of IBF is more of a PVP glyph and should be dropped as you'll always be at 540 def and above... as for the minor, i'd drop the glyph of HoW and go for Glyph of Blood Tap instead since you're blood spec...

last bit from your build (or if you're going with what Hades recommended) would be, are you feeling extremely squishy? if so, then i'd drop the 3 points from Death Rune Mastery and put it into Improved Rune Tap for the extra healing... i guess the bit here would be that blood dk tanks use self healing skills as a form of dmg mitigation...

p.s: please take this with a grain of salt as i'm mostly frost tanking... what i mentioned is more of the approach that i would take should i decide to tank as blood...

Guys thank you so much, i will look into the build recommended and much of the advise giving is real good. The more I read the more questions arise. Wow. The good thing is Im having fun doing this.!

I made a few changes in my talent tree, including rune tap, let u guys know how it works

Ok I have made a few changes and it works much better. Seems smoother, survival seems much easier.
i have notice i loose threat some times, any advice, is because my expertise is low?

Thanks.

Could you describe the situations that you were losing aggro? Things that could give us a better idea was the DPS that stole your aggro (how much dps was he pushing, etc), the situation that you were in, and also the rotation you were using during the time you lost aggro.

I took a quick glance at your armory and noticed that you had waaaay more hit rating than you required. If you're tanking with 2H weapons, 8% is the cap. You could drop some hit gems and improve on some other stats.

Here's a tanking tip.

Ask for leadership of the group, and always mark a mob with skull before you attack. Try to mark casters first (usually anything with a mystical sounding name like seer or truthsayer), once you get used to the fights, you'll be able to spot problematic mobs easier.
The mark is intended to make sure your dps focuses on that target while you build threat. You should be able to build enough AoE threat to not have to worry about killing order after that first mob, though. Ask the heavy AoE classes (in whisper) to not AoE untill skull is down.
That way you should have very few threat issues.

Your defense is, at 535, enough to be immune to critical strikes from mobs in heroic instances, and you should be able to tank most heroics. Try out tanking Heroic Uthgarde Keep, Heroic Nexus or Heroic Uthgarde Pinnacle, I consider those three the easiest heroics (though UP has some tricky spots, it's a good place to learn to deal with those same tricky spots.)

Stay away from Old Kingdom and Azjol-Nerub, those are quite hard for new tanks.
You could also try tanking normal trial of the champion - there are some fun challenges in those fights, and the loot is well worth it.

thank you guys. the guys in my grp where between 2.5k and 3k DPS.
Single Target , IT, PS, HSx2, DS, Pest, BB.
when Multiple Mobs , Dnd, Pest, BB, Rune tap, BB, HS Loot
My Deff rating is now 545 with addition0qw of T8.5 head piece.
Going to gem for Exp, and the meta (any ideas welcome).
BTW people are now asking me to tank for them, so i must be doing something right

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yauco

when Multiple Mobs , Dnd, Pest, BB, Rune tap, BB, HS Loot

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Um... this rotation looks wrong... what pestilence does is to spread the diseases on your mob... so if you have not put any on the mob pestilence does almost nothing... you should either IT or PS the mob before you Pest... unless offcourse there's another DK in your grp doing that but it's very situational...