Death Knights ill-suited to MT?

[Labguy23]

I switched from a mage to a DK.

My wife has been a priest since.... always. She is highly regarded in our guild, so if I wasn't up to snuff, it was going to be readily obvious.

Initially, I had problems in heroics. I thought it was my gear (which was mostly bought off the AH). I met all the Def numbers, but I was still really squishy and hard to heal (according to my wife). There were a few brave souls from our guild that continued to travel with me as I learned the trade.

Initially, I thought a lot of my problems were due to gear and just the squishy nature of DKs. Over the course of a week or two, I started to find my rythme. There were two key things I had to learn.

1) When to use cooldowns. I was blowing cooldowns all the time when I first started tanking. Now, I only use them "when needed." As has been mentioned many times, DKs take spikey damage. Rather than blowing cooldowns as soon as they were available, I learned to hold them back until I hit one of those spikes. Depending on how dire the situation is, I will blow one or more to stay alive. I learned how to use IBF and Lichborne combined with self targeted Death Coils to ease the burden on my healers by popping them when those spikes hit. This has proved a great boon to my survivability.

2) Leading with authority. Initially, I was constantly asking for advice and input on how to pull this or position this or that boss. Well.... everyone has their own opinion and style. Unfortunately, it took me quite a few wipes to realize that a skillfully executed poor tactic is infinitely better than a poorly executed superior tactic. As soon as I stopped asking for input and did things in a manner than was easiest and most convenient for me, I went from being an average (maybe even below average) tank to being a very good tank. I tell my group when I am going to LOS pull and when I am going to charge in. I tell my group where I am going to tank the boss and tell them where to stand accordingly. I let them know exactly what I am going to do and when I am going to do it. I do not take suggestions (anymore). Tanking is about being confident and decisive. Doing things the "right" way is a moving target and changes depending on who you have in the group. As long as you are having success, do things YOUR way.

It has taken me awhile, but I have earned a very good reputation in the guild. I often get invites the moment I log in. It's not uncommon for me to log in at 7pm and knock out 4-5 heroics on a weeknight and 7-8 on a weekend. I even had the chance to tank 10 man Naxx and cleared the plague wing this weekend.

Sure, my gear has improved greatly with all the badges and such, but I firmly believe that if I had to start over in blues again, I wouldn't have the same problems I suffered from initially.


On a side note: I have the glyph for increased runic power on IT. I LOVE it. Being able to kite caster bosses by rotating IT and DC such as the one in Occulus without having to worry about being in melee range constantly is awesome and is one of those situations I think DKs really shine. Plus, it gives me a little taste of being a mage... can't help it.

Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

[Lightmgl]

Our raiding DK has begun to struggle again but not cause of his mitigation but rather his threat. Some of the classes are pushing 6k in a few fights and the DK just gets smoked.

His mitigation is still the best but he is finding himself sitting out of tanking alot cause the War/Pally single target threat is much better.

Now obviously this isn't gonna be concerning to most of the population now but it could be the sign of poor threat scaling as we start getting into future content. It'd be quite funny if their mitigation scales too well and their threat scales too little, brings back memories of warriors in the past.

[Draconis-Azrael]

Our raiding DK has begun to struggle again but not cause of his mitigation but rather his threat. Some of the classes are pushing 6k in a few fights and the DK just gets smoked.

His mitigation is still the best but he is finding himself sitting out of tanking alot cause the War/Pally single target threat is much better.

Now obviously this isn't gonna be concerning to most of the population now but it could be the sign of poor threat scaling as we start getting into future content. It'd be quite funny if their mitigation scales too well and their threat scales too little, brings back memories of warriors in the past.

ok I have seen this problem a few times. first you must see what kind of weapon he tanks with. has he gone massive Def cap on his gear and useing a two hander. or did he spread his gear out more evenly, and take two one handers so he could get stuff like the red sword of courage and a high blue tanking weapon. the difference between these could mean a ton of aggression for a dk, I personally find that 2 one handers is better.

I have issues ONLY with one person who I raid with, he hits about 4000 dps on a good night, he is a hunter. All tanks will know, that hunters are a pain with their threat, not just for DK's.

A few tricks I have learned recently, is that 1. DnD = threat its like how paladins used to have to throw down concecration to tank, period. our dnd is that. I main tank OS and Naxx 10 man, and I use DnD one way or another.
2. you do have 2 taunts, the death grip counts as a taunt.
3. keep your deseases up and play more like a dps when your not useing dnD. this will be godsend when your tanking. believe me.

always take morbidity, for the cooldown on DnD, and always take blade barrier, since its only your 2 blood runes which you should be getting rid of fast enough and thats a free 10% avoidance. when you cant get rid of your blood runes, your avoidance means shit anyway, cuz your most likely stunned or incapasitated or whatever.

to be honest though people can say DKs are not good for MTing all they want, I will gladly off tank because I can hit about 3k dps myself, in my frost dps build, or I can tank just as good as any warrior aslong as I am given time to build a small ammount of threat on non tauntable targets.

all us old time tank fanatics aswell will know that nice little 5 second rule for dps. meanwhile alot of people have forgotten about it. remember, ALWAYS give the tank 5 seconds, and any tank will rarly, if ever lose threat if they are real tanks.