Beginning heroics, feeling squishy

[dotOrion]

First of all: the info.
[Armory link]

Blood spec stats: 22.7K health


Frost spec stats: 21.9K health


My specs are probably erased due to the new patch by now, and because of some nerfs in this new patch the new numbers are probably worse.

This is selfbuffed with Horn of Winter, pre-3.2

Next: the problem.
I did heroic AN and heroic VH with this (apart from the trinket ofc, got the DK starter parry trinket before I got the Essence from H-AN) and felt kinda squishy.

In VH we got the Arakkoa and the voidwalker. Both sorta wiped the floor with me, though I was told I was moving the voidwalker a bit too fast.

Of course I use my cooldowns whenever possible (IBF, AMS, UA, VB+GotN depending on spec)

Anyway, I was wondering if it's just my healers that should be more on the ball or if this crafted gear is really not sufficient to reliably tank a heroic?

P.S. I am saving for a Titansteel Destroyer

[Qwolzor]

This comes up over and over again.
Thing is: DK tanks are squishy early on especially if you aren't using your cooldowns.

I would try using cooldowns at the start of each pull to mitigate some of the burst damage 3-4 trash mobs are capable of, and once you survived the first trash mobs death you should be fine.

[Hades]

Qwolzor, thanks for confirming that DK tanks are squishy when they're fresh. I was actually kinda worried about that myself. Dot, one thing I would recommend is that if you're at 564 def, either ditch the Seal of the Pantheon for a monarch crab if possible, or switch your rune to Swordshattering for the extra parry. The extra parry will generate more rune strikes, which means you took less damage and get to piss more mobs off Also, the Sphere of Red Dragon Blood would boost your hit significantly, and that's always a plus. Less misses and avoided strikes is more threat as well. As for a rotation, I'll go ahead and share mine since it seems to work ok.

Trash: DnD, HB, BB, IBF, and enough Rp for the inevitable rune strike in the first round.

Bosses: HB, BSx2, IBF, OB.

If you're not tanking in frost, then that was completely useless lol! Note that I didn't check the armory because most of the items I could indentify by sight, and the forced respec came into play as well in that decision. Also, the Destroyer's nice for the hit rating if you got the dough, but Thron'ja (last boss in Heroic DTK) drops the Masked Mojo Crusher, and the stats are almost as good (a couple points lower for bottom end damage, slightly less stam but added agi, and crit chance instead of hit rate. Not gemable.) and DTK's seriously easy mode unless you go for the achievement on Dred. He drops it about 1/3 of the time, so a couple runs and you should have it. A couple gold in repairs is much cheaper than 1200g for the Destroyer so unless you're dead set on having the Destroyer, it's a real nice option. Wall of text complete lol. Happy tanking!

[dotOrion]

@Qwolzor: yea, but like I said, I do use them when available.But it's good to know that it's normal I feel a bit squishy.

@Hades: since I'm still leveling JC I went ahead with the parry runeforge. And yeah that's basicly the rotation I was using ^^

Also thanks for the tip for the weapon, I'll bug people into going DTK now :P

[Hades]

You're welcome! There's also a chance Thronja will drop his epic tank ring too, or a blue-but-sweet tank shirt. Good luck!