Why my DK sucks as Tank, pls help me to find my problem

[steveaustin1974]

Hi guys, it's my first post, i find a lot of helps in this forum i lurked from long time, and it help me. But now i cant find my problem. This is my story:
I play with DK 80lvl (dual spec tank/dps) before 3.2 patch i tank without problem with unholy tree, after 3.2 bang! All change! I change from unholy to frost. I have also increase my gear level but MY REAL problem is that i cant tank!!! And i dont know why?
Look my pg (in armor sometime is set as dps...):
wow armory link
The World of Warcraft Armory



My main problem is that i lost aggro too easily. I'm little bit noob i know that but i not find where is my error.
First question: Weapons and Def Rating.
Looking this screenshot:
with dual wield i have 533 in defence but 655 in def rating:



with two hand weapons runeforged i have 541 defence and 573 in def rating. (540 is cap for hc right?)

so i'm confused coz anyone tellme i have to do tank with dual wield where def rating is hight others tell me inverse... is better with one hand or with dual weild?
Axe i have (dropped in ToC) is not for tank dueal weild weapons is for tank.

Second Question:
Healers tell me that my heal reduce too quickly … and i have 29k of hp and 24k of armor.


3rd Question:
Anyone tell me that my problem is also rotation this is my basic rotation:

What do U mean about?


I think my gear to tank in hc is fine, but i wrong something to lost too easily aggro and threat on mob. Please if U have any suggestions (change talent or need this gear...or other) help me.
Thanks Guys

[Synapse]

First of all, your weapon: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle ggives you defense *skill*, which is what ratings convert to. That's why your twohander has more defense.
Second: Squishyness: Make sure the targets all have frost fever.
and you are in frost presence. Are you using your blood runes on cooldown? blade barrier must be up.
Threat wise, I don't know how frost works very well, so I can't help you there.

You might want to customize your bindings a litle, too. I found out it's much easier to rely on a few buttons once they are moved away from the 90-= range, and brought to adzx/mouse buttons

[steveaustin1974]

First ty for fast replay:

First of all, your weapon: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle ggives you defense *skill*, which is what ratings convert to. That's why your twohander has more defense.

Oky, but is better one hand axe with 541def but low defrating or 2 hand with 533 def and high def rating?

Second: Squishyness: Make sure the targets all have frost fever.
and you are in frost presence. Are you using your blood runes on cooldown? blade barrier must be up.

I think my rotation give me that.

You might want to customize your bindings a litle, too. I found out it's much easier to rely on a few buttons once they are moved away from the 90-= range, and brought to adzx/mouse buttons

Here i dont understand what u tell me (my english level is like my tank level ))

[Synapse]

Defense-wise, you must have at least 535 skill (540 for raids). Whether you do that with 2 weapons or 1 is up to what you have and like(your defense rating is irrelevant as a goal. It's just the means to get that 540 defense skill).

What i meant with the bindings is your keyboard. Basically, you want to make sure you have quick and easy access to the stuff you need the most.
I'm no specialist on dk tanking, especially frost, so I can't detail more.

[Davezznl]

As for build stay with 2H for a while and drop ToT and take 2 handed spec. this will improve threat .

Dw frost tanking has the problem that you got much more chance to get parried wich will result in getting much more hits, maybe in a much better it will be viable but i dont think it will in this gear.

also FS hits harder Then DC, why use DC when u can use FS as dump?

in a group pull u can also use BB, if diseases are up hitting it will get a lot of aggro from the whole group Though HB is a lot better.

if you got no problems with rune power, i would take points out of Sent of Blood and place them in subversion, cause OB is 1 of your main Threat abilities it will increase you threat a bit.

if you still think you a bit squishy try going blood with the amazing selfhealing abilities and good cooldown its a bit better then Frost, but frost is a lot better in AOE.

Def rating is a useless number, just watch the number in you character screen keep it at 540 and you shouldn't get critted.

also try to get you hit rating + Expertise rating up (256 hit + 26 expertise).

well hope this helps you a bit?

[muadeeb]

I had to reply to this cause i was actually looking for the expertise rating needed again. Some of the problems you are having as far as squishyness goes is that WOW since 3.2 all but screwed DW DK's..in order to pull it off you need an ungodly expertise of like 52-53 (not rating but actual points). The reason for this is that we automaticly take a 28% hit in expertise when dual wielding and the second and probably more important is the parry/gib effect. Every time a boss parrys you his swing timer resets. So if he dose say 8k damage on one swing then when your dual wielding it is "possible" for him to parry 2 attacks making him attack you 3 times (his normal attack then 2 attack timer resets) in the same amount of time @ 8k a hit = 24k damage (the spike damage being seen). So in order to avoid this you need to make your hits un perryable.

You may see post saying that the cap is 26 for expertise for DW..this is the soft cap and only effects the boss dodging your attacks. Parry is the real danger in DW.

Right now the tank spec of choice seems to be the 2nd'd frost spec.

and yes def must ALWAYS be at 540+ for raid bosses..anything less and your just begging to get crushed.

[Amamaeth]

Something that hasn't been touched on is that dual-wield frost specs threat right now is behind what it should be. This is because Threat of Thassarian doesn't (currently) affect Rune Strike, which is one of our top, if not the top, aggro abilites as a DK. Next patch this changes so you should see a jump in threat then. If it really bothers you now, go 2h frost or even try out a 2h blood build.

[!3M]

Hi there... 1st thing i'd like to say is that DK tanks don't suck (imho)... I've been tanking as dk frost since 77 (if i remember correctly) and am managing my aggro rather well.

I will have to agree with Amamaeth on how much better aggro can still be when ToT gets changed to affect RS but I've managed to hold aggro pretty well... there are times where I had to tab target so that I can hit them with RS but that's only when I get massive AOE DPS groups...

I took a look at your armory and one thing you might want to try changing is your Glyphs... they currently look like you're specced to DPS... or single target threats (as an outcome of your DPS) instead of trying to hold groups... I'd personally drop all your glyphs and go with these 3:
- Glyph of Howling Blast
- Glyph of Rune Strike
- Glyph of Death and Decay

my opening rotation for groups is usually DnD > HB > BB > OB... and then just to hit OB, HB and RS whenever they are available... I also find that I'm having to hit RS less these days which allows for me to weave in a few FS here and there... also, I'd drop the points from Scent of Blood and Epidemic so add some points into Merciless Combat to make up for extra dmg (read: threat) when mobs are low, this will help kill mobs faster and maintain your threat in the long run...

with DW, you will surely find a lacking in defence especially till you hit T8 or T9 items... Ulduar gear seems to be stacking more on hit and expertise so you might need to regem accordingly...

hope this helps...

@muadeeb: i agree that 26 expertise (not rating) is just a softcap but that should be good enough for any DW DK tanks as the stats that you'll be giving up to push it to hard cap is going to hurt you more than become a benefit... this is because parry-gibbing isn't as bad as it seems once you reach the soft cap... and a little bit more hurting before that... I think Satorri did a writeup on that and you might want to check it out... basically, it will only affect the boss if his swing timer is before 40% of the move (sry working in the office does make me forgetful and lacks any time i have to do a search)... I would like to say that it gets inflated IF your DPSers are hitting the boss from the front.. but all in all, DW tanking is very much viable atm... sry if i sounded rude