Sup,
As when I hit 80 I was DPS about a week ago, found dps was lame and went tanking, since tanks are hard to come by in my guild. Well we did naxx last night, all went well and dandy. Yet on Grob, I had trouble getting the adds, took me a few secs but I got them, but thanks to DnD being 30sec it's harsh for us.
Also, we did a few heroics after we called it due to healers leaving for bed. We did AN and I know that place is hard for any tank, any class, but for a DK that place is brutal.
And I know DK aren't the greatest tanks due to no shield or a AOE every 8sec like Pally. But are we good enough you guys think? I don't want to go back DPS but I know if I stick with tanking, my frustration might kill me. Should I ditch the DK and move to a Warrior or Druid tank?
You're the frickin' top at the moment. The 30 second CD on DnD is pretty much equal to the cooldown on warrior Shockwave (20 seconds). DnD also wins in terms of utility and ease of use in this case.
Death knights are awesome tanks, it boils down to the skill of the player. All tank classes are very viable, death knights are above warriors at the moment.
Thanks for the quick reply, The problem inst aggro, I hold it just fine. I just feel more squishy so to say without a shield. As I was a Pally tank.
I do thank you for the words, anything helps.
Maybe some suggestions to help improve a DK way of tanking?
Looking at your gear, i'd say you feel squishy because you are. Going by your armory, you're under 20k unbuffed, and you're not crit immune. I can see from your achievements you've been in naxx so i am HOPING that your gear was different then, because tanking a raid while not uncrittable is not the thing to do.
You mentioned having trouble getting the adds on grob, because of the 30sec DnD CD. You really shouldn't be getting more than 1 add at a time, but regardless of that, you have deathgrip on a 35 second CD, and Dark command on a 8 second CD. In addition to that, if you keep Blood Plague of Frost Fever on Grob, you can use pestilence to speard them to adds. You have to use all the tools at your disposal if you want to tank.
Don't take this the wrong way, but your DK has been 80 for 9 days. Perhaps you should try to improve your own skills before you assume something is wrong with the class.
You are squishy with 20k hitpoints and some DPS gear mixed in with the tanking stuff. Start running heroics and get some better tanking gear.
You cannot have an objective opinion about the tanking classes if you do not have a decent gear setup.
As far as dungeon tanking, you will feel a little squishier than the shield tanks. Block mitigates enormous amounts of damage in 5mans due to the small-but-many nature of the hits you take. For raid tanking though, you'll be fine once you grab some more gear.
Gear updated, that was my mistake had on some old gear. I now have 22,221 HP and 664 Def. Rating almost 684. I got 570 Def ingame, but you go by Def Rating correct?
See my Armory for the latest update.
Incorrect, for being uncrittable you just have to decrease the chance to be Critically hit by 5.6% how you get that is inconsequential as long as you at least get there, so if threats a bit of an issue you can prolly drop some def fo threat stats like expertise or hit, or drop blue stam gems in to give your healers a bigger buffer to work with.
the problem with DND in a fight like grobby is that its very mobile fight, DND is great for holding aggro if your holding adds on top of it so every tick hits them, but if your towing them alonside grobby or running for a safe zone to drop the fart then i doubt they're staying in the DND area that long, thats where howling blast (which is an 8 second AoE much like a pallies' consecrate, except its burst rather than ticks and can be cast at range, and glyphed its burst, and then ticks) is much better for holding AoE aggro
gear wise you really should look at your trinkets, neither are really tanky. AN might be tough but if you can grab essence of gossamer off hadranox you'll feel a lot less squishy, likewise the dodge emblem trinket would be very nice, hell even the seal of the pantheon from HoL (not HC) would prolly be better.
Staying 550 is more than enough, gem some stamina. Work your professions as well since blacksmithing gives a big boost to your sockets.Originally Posted by Gangstagirl
Doesn't the rating need to be 684 though? Not saying your wrong, But I followed Cider's guide to 684 Def. Rating.
So should I take a Def gem or two out and put in a stam gem?
Rune of the StoneSkin gargoyle gives you 25 defense(not rating, but actualy defense). That means you don't need as much d-rating.
So pretty much Im done with Def Rating, and just now gem for stam on new gear?
Uncrittable against raid bosses is 540 actual defense, everything above that is just avoidance bonus. After 540 it is a wise thing to gem and enchant gear for stamina.
Few things i notice on your armory,
1. Spec is fine, frost has many variations but you have all the necessary talents
2. Swap that glyph of dark death for something else, frost tanks will (almost) never use death coil since all our rp is turned into rune/frost strikes.
3. Your health is low, which will make you seem more squishy than you are, get the +55 stam +22 agility chant on you legs for starters, then hit H AN for the trinket.
4. You've got some +defense gems, which are a waste since you'd be uncrittable without them, swap them for pure stam or avoidance/stam hybrids
Also, you mentioned that you feel squishy without a shield, but really a shield doesn't provide very much mitigation when it goes up against a death knights cd's, so dont think that because you use a 2hander means you are vulnerable.
Up until 3.2 rolls out, every 60 seconds blow your Icebound Fortitude if you're in combat. Taking 35-ish percent less damage makes healers smile. I tried to look at the armory page, but my connection here is terrible. Thus, all I can say is once you hit 540 defense according to your in-game stats, max your stamina out to the best of your ability. After that, the difference between a squishy tank and a still-standing tank is a little mix of skill, raw talent, a good healer, and maybe a little masochism. After all, what other role in a MMO likes to get beat up for the pleasure of others?
...Thoughts of a philosophical Death Knight...
If death is the inevitable end of life, is life the inevitable end of undeath?
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9757
Follow this build. I think youll have a bit more luck with it. You'll notice the 3 major glyphs on the right. Use those instead, and your 2 minors are ok. Rotations I'd use are
Single Target Rotation - IT-BS-OB-(Blood Tap if no Death Rune)OB RPDUMP = RS/FS
Alt-Single Target Rotation - HB-BS-BS-OB OB-OB-OB RPDUMP = RS/FS (assumes HB Glyph)
Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HB/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/FS
here is a gear list to follow through with. listed from highest to lowest.
[3.1] Tank Gear List
Use this to run some heroics and checkoff gear as you get it. make sure to go after the pieces that balance your gear. I wouldn't worry too much about the defense rating stuff. If your defense says 540 on your character sheet. you are golden.
Some personal opinions. You are going to feel a little squishy with your current gearset. I would primarily focus on the gear list and running heroics strictly for the badges and the gear list that I provided. The big one being you want to get this....
Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight - Item - World of Warcraft
As quickly as possible. The mitigation form the extra defense is shaved during your tanking. it may not seem like much but on a boss fight. Saving 40k damage is saving 40k damage.
Alot of this information was pulled from here.....
Suno's Fireside Chat - DK Endgame Tanking (Updated) - Elitist Jerks
With grobbulous it has alot to do with the sheer fact that everything at your disposal to get the job done, like mentioned above. i'd keep your 8 second CD taunt available to you at all costs. If you are getting more than add, that's something to bring up with your raid lead. Thats a dps issue and not a tanking issue. And something that should be resolved very quickly.
Avoidance is everything to a dk tank. But so is health. Since the content is new for you as a DK tank, you always want to gem for EH (effective health). This is as much stamina as you can without effecting the requirements for your metagem. Deffinantly get the Stam and agility tanking patch for your legs. if it seems a bit too pricey for you for gear you may not keep. You can always use the lower blue ranked version. Which I believe is 45 and 15. Also make sure you go over to the argent crusade quartermaster. Get the tanking 37 stam 20 defense helm enchant. Gems to use are 24 stam unless for meta and then make it 8 dodge 12 stam I believe.
Enchants.....
gloves- 2% threat and 10 parry rating.
Cloak- Put haste on this unless you need the defense then use 16 defense.
Chest- get 8/10 stats to chest unless you need the defense (i.e under 540)
Wrist- 40 stam to bracer indeffinantly.
Feet- I do 22 stam but I mostly tank on my warrior. So i would suggest tuskars for you. As you cant always DG something. So the run speed will help. it'll be worth the less stam.
I suggest for a minor glyph get bloodtap. Almost invaluable for dk tanking starting out. Also be concerned with your hit rating. you want to be hit capped for your threat to increase. In your case its 283, alot of emphasis is on expertise cap which is 26. but I wouldn't worry about this too much as this will come with time. But I would get your hit cap rating up.
I highly suggest downloading atlasloot. So you can make a wishlist from the gearlist rather than checking out of game all the time.
I agree with gumurak most of the way...
But get some of the epic crafted gear - ring, and the BS stuff - level your BS quick and make it yourself (I hope you got lots of G already).
I would say that you dont need the sigil he suggest, even though the mitigation is fine, you are struggling with TPS atm. so keeps yours or get one of the DPS ones for badges.
With HB you really should not need to use DnD more often than 30 sec. but you can try and find 3 points for morbidity and get the CD down to 15 sec.
Remember to rotate between targets even though you spread deceases on them, you should still hit them with OB and the like from time to time.
If you are struggling with loosing a mob to the AoE I can recommend the addon called Aloft, if you enable the Threat glow you can see when someone gets close to pulling it off you.
But yeah, get some better gear, get the available enchants for leg, shoulder and head and get your BS proffession maxed out asap and you should be good for hc.
Best of luck
/Wolf :Q
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