DK Tank a bit of info plz

[dardack]

OK so I just got "yelled" at in trade on my realm Draenor. Here is my armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

I stacked stam over dodge/parry, because that's what I have read. I am uncrittable, i use the pvp chest over the rev Wrymrest Accord chest because of the stam on it. So should I have stacked dodge over stam? I keep reading stam>dodge>(block for non dk's)>parry, but then People like that were just in Trade think different. I'm just trying to get more info to be the better tank I can be.

Basically was told to go read more, and I thought I had. I hear a lot of good stuff about Tankspot, so Hoping i can get some good info. Thanks for any hellp.

EDIT: OK i did get a few tells saying those 2 people were fail, 1 had even partied with one and he felt he wasn't good. So I've had both sides now telling me what I'm doing is good. Would still like some info tho.

[DragonMageWTF]

You're a bit further along than I am, but it looks like your avoidance is a bit low. I'd try to lose some stamina in favor of more avoidance, possibly changing weapon runes if you can spare the defense or make up for it in other places. Just as you've said, when adding more avoidance do not gem for Parry, just do Dodge.

From my perspective, based on comments from healers, having a higher avoidance is easier on the healers possibly to the point of confusing them if you do have aggro. Hearing, "Yeah, I didn't know if you were actually taking hatefulls at the start" from a healer on Patch made me smile. Granted it's only 10 man, but having not tanked him before it felt good to hear.

Then the healer (my main) in me also says that a large health pool gives nice cushion. However if you can mitigate or avoid some of the damage it's not nearly as stressful because I don't feel like I have to be spamming heals to make sure I get as much of that huge health pool back to you before you take that next swing which is certainly going to land and hurt.

Just my thoughts. Take from them what you will.

[bloodomen]

I have noticed that alot of people still have the BC idea stuck in their head that stacking stam is the best. But that was when we didnt have diminishing returns and it made sense to stack stam. Now that we have diminishing returns on dodge and parry, it is ideal to stack dodge to make up for the diminishing effect. In this case dodge>stam>exp/hit>parry if your def capped. You should stack dodge over parry because you lose out way more point per point if you stacked parry. You will see your hp drop but you will notice that you dodge a whole lot more, and more dodge = more Rune strikes = more threat = happy group.

If you need gem ideas, check out my DK tank.
The World of Warcraft Armory

[dardack]

I hear you on the threat, but I don't have issues with threat, the closest someone has gotten has been like 75% in 25 man naxx. In heroics forget it it's like 35% and in 10 mans maybe 60%. Too me if there weren't dimishing returns why would you bother with stam at all since you could dodge 100%, where as with diminishing returns now stam would be more important.

[DragonMageWTF]

I think it's still relevant that your avoidance in total looks a little low, IMHO. It's good to have a nice health pool to give some cushion to the healers so that they can drop a large heal and know you aren't going to bite it before it lands. But at the same time, if you're just eating every attack you're making it simply a race between the boss running you out of health and the healers to get it back to you. This will typically just force the healers to do nothing but focus exclusively on you spamming heals and quickly going OOM.

At the other extreme is depending too heavily on avoidance. Then it's just a matter of luck until you get that super rare string of heavy hits back to back that eat through the majority of your total health. Thus if you weren't fully topped of, you eat it. Leads to spikey damage and increased stress on keeping the tank above the threshold of another hit killing them.

As a healer I'd like to be able to throw a GCD on topping off a DPS, take a second to reposition out of the fire, dispell whatever I have to, etc. without having to worry that if I stop spamming heals the tank is going down. This seems from my experience to be the tanks that have a good balance of health, avoidance and mitigation. So stacking anything seems like it isn't ideal, which is why most people argue for balancing things out. Get a good health pool and avoidance without sacrificing too much one way or the other.

[Omoh]

Once you get around 25k health, you really need to focus on avoidance. The stam will come, but it being your sole priority is not a wise move at all. 24% dodge, 16-17% parry, before blade barrier, is easily obtained, and should be your goal.

After that, focus on hit rating and expertise. It does make a world of difference. A lot of DK tanks have more health then I do, but i'm a far better tank because of my attention to avoidance and expertise/hit rating.

Gem everything you can for dodge and +12 stam, while staying crit capped. Or at 530 if you've got the sigil from the heroism badges. ( It's 100% proc, and most people have icey touch at the beginning of their rotation. )

And for god sakes... Lose the PvP gear. Resilence for crit cap is acceptable if you have no other option, but no one will take you serious as a tank.

[dardack]

Once you get around 25k health, you really need to focus on avoidance. The stam will come, but it being your sole priority is not a wise move at all. 24% dodge, 16-17% parry, before blade barrier, is easily obtained, and should be your goal.

After that, focus on hit rating and expertise. It does make a world of difference. A lot of DK tanks have more health then I do, but i'm a far better tank because of my attention to avoidance and expertise/hit rating.

Gem everything you can for dodge and +12 stam, while staying crit capped. Or at 530 if you've got the sigil from the heroism badges. ( It's 100% proc, and most people have icey touch at the beginning of their rotation. )

And for god sakes... Lose the PvP gear. Resilence for crit cap is acceptable if you have no other option, but no one will take you serious as a tank.

First, the chest was the best I had. I did just get the drop from H HoS that I am now wearing. I now have 23.6% dodge and 15.46% parry with 32k hp. Now i'm using the Jawbone, but I also have the epic off H HoL that has 54 agil, but no expertise, less dps, and less stam. I do get to 24.16% dodge and 15.40% parry, but again loose the other stuff. So wasn't sure what to do there.