Heavy incoming hits...

[Willis]

So I used to use my DK (my primary tank but an alt none the less) a lot back before 3.1 and eventually stopped before 3.2 came about.

Over the past few weeks I tried to pick it up again and it just seems impossible to make easy runs like I used to. If I'm not fighting to keep aggro over DPS - I'm taking serious incoming damage from mobs.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Origionally my two tanking objectives are to duel wield, AND be Unholy. Lately I've come to the decision that stepping away from Unholy is acceptable... but I want to duel wield.

My friends and I will do nightly heroics, two of us swap roles with him being a Paladin tank and I being a Shaman healer... but when I'm tanking on my Death Knight they have Priests. Heroic ToC is a nightmare if the team is not setup right.. sometimes I'll end up just using my DK to DPS and let the other guys cover tank and heals.

I'm really behind on the times, I don't know if it's my Specs (both of my duel specs are set for tanking) my gear, my choice of healer, or my play style.. it really feels like its the first or second because of how we swapped players around... the incoming damage can just overwhelm my character.

Any advice, be brutal, is welcomed. Just please keep in mind what I originally was designed for - Unholy Duel Wield.

[vine]

The simple answer is: Don't dual wield. I realise that's not what you want to hear, but it's the answer. My opinion is leave dual wielding to dps specs. As a tank you sacrifice too much in potential stats when you dual wield, namely stamina. Which brings me to the second point: your healthpool, it's dismally low. The reason it appears you are taking too much damage is because you don't have a large health pool to buffer the hits.

By using a 2handed weapon with Stoneskin Gargoyle you can drop the defense trinket and pick up a stam trinket, as well as replace all your +def gems with stamina.

Your professions: you are an engineer yet I don't see a single engineering enchant on your gear. My suggestion is drop engineering and level JC or BS.

Dualwielding tanks is a flavour of the month right now with the introduction of the ToT talent, but I just can't see a way to make it work for a) survivability b) threat until much much higher gear levels than you are at, even then... My opinion is heavily biased because I simply do not like dual wielding DK's, they are squishy, have terrible threat, and give the rest of us DK's a bad name :/

You asked for brutal.

[Willis]

*at work* Thanks for the quick reply, I did acquire Edge of Ruin from Heroic ToC so I'll throw Stoneskin on that and attempt a few heroics when the opportunity arrives.

For the time being I'm still wondering how big of a difference that can be. If the healer is going OOM trying to keep me (and everyone else) alive then how does extra hit points counter act that?

[vine]

You never mentioned the healer going oom keeping you alive, this may be the way they play or their gear. Or...

The less health you have, the easier you die. If you take a big hit the healer has to throw a heal quickly or the next hit might kill you. This results in a constant stream of heals and the healer is never outside the five second rule, so lower regen. Lower health also means the healer has to concentrate on you constantly and doesn't leave much room for error in raid healing. With lower geared tanks I end up using a lot more large heals, rather than small, precise, efficient ones.

[Insahnity]

I wouldn't drop engineering. It's damn fun, and as a tank, you should aim for the 885 armor to gloves.

Dual wielding tanks are not viable yet, unless you are exceptionally geared, skilled and knowledgeable in DK tank mechanics to the point where you wouldn't need to ask questions, you would know how to do it. Blame Bliz. Even I couldn't do it, but a very select few people on this forum could pull it off.

Without seeing the healer and how the fight went down, I can't definitively say that its your gear or skill that is the problem, or if it is the healer, or the DPS doing stupid things. It may not have been an issue before because DKs were overpowered before.

You can help out by using your Cooldowns more often (Icebound Fortitude and Antimagic shell for both specs, Unbreakable armor for frost, Antimagic zone for unholy and keeping up bone armor). Unholy gains as much healing as blood by using death strike, but it's not as good for threat, so if you have a good threat lead, weave in more deathstrikes in your unholy tanking routine once you have 3 diseases on a target, it will help the healer. You also have other oh-crud buttons which tanks forget, like death pact to eat your ghoul for health (your ghoul provides no threat for you, its just extra dps)

[Dormungus]

Besides the most obvious thing...dual wield...you can upgrade your gear like crazy just from badge loot. Your health pool about 1k more than I had when my warrior started heroics but it is not much more considering you've run so many heroics. What did you do with all those badges? You can easily upgrade ring, cloak, neck.....and the list goes on. Heck you can probably chain Reg ToC...You should chain reg ToC for the trinket.

healers OOM? That is a healer issue in my book....it only becomes your issue if they say, Villis! You are unhealable!

[Insahnity]

healers OOM? That is a healer issue in my book....it only becomes your issue if they say, Villis! You are unhealable!

You are jumping to conclusions, my friend. He may be healable, but the healer's attention may have been diverted away by DPS taking too much damage to the point of dying (like everybody standing in poison pools in ToC, for example). It's a crappy decision to keep up the tank and watch all the DPS die, or to start healing DPS and hope the tank can hold his own for a few minutes. Similarly, if the healer has 1200 spell power and no mp5, it may not be his fault. We just don't know.

[Willis]

Here's a couple characters to add for the knowledge-base:

Friend #1 Tanking Paladin: The World of Warcraft Armory
My Resto Shaman: The World of Warcraft Armory

Friend #1 Healing Priest: The World of Warcraft Armory
Friend #2 Healing Priest: The World of Warcraft Armory

[Eravian]

This probably isn't the problem, but make sure you're in Frost Presence. Also, bear in mind that Heroic ToC is harder than the other Heroics, and the enemies there will hit harder then they do in other heroics... Black Knight especially can be messy in the second and third phases. Also, although I don't have a DK tank, so I can't remember, but they may have reduced the amount of armor that Frost Presence gives you... I know they did at some point, but I don't recall if it was prior to 3.1 or not.

It may also be an expertise problem, particularly if you're dual-wielding. A parried attack will result in the hits coming a lot faster, and if a number of attacks are parried in a row, it can be brutal.

[vine]

I wouldn't drop engineering. It's damn fun, and as a tank, you should aim for the 885 armor to gloves.

Engineering may be fun, like I said though: as far as I can tell he's using none of the enchants...
If you are looking to min/max your character this is a good place to start.

[uglybbtoo]

I hope you aren't comparing Taalag damage to yours because he is ulduar 25 geared and you are naxx geared level except your helm. The healers you list are geared a bit higher than you.

You will struggle in H-toc if thats what you are talking about because its sort of ulduar level damage as are the drops. On the other side taalag outgears it the healers would hold him up easily and he is a pally he can self cleanse alot of the crap off himself in that instance.

[Esch]

Your sub 26 expertise is a concern, as it both allows mobs to dodge you, but allows a slightly higher chance for parries by mobs, which in turn lead to parry hasting. Small, but note worthy. Trading out +dodge gems for +expertise would help, as well as using the +15 expertise to gloves. Using rare gems, you'll be close to 26 skill, and epics may get you to 26 altogether. This will also improve your threat, as you'll land more attacks in your current Blood spec.

Your current spec is missing Improve Icy Touch, and this is a huge issue. We either dodge, parry or get hit by mobs' attacks, so the less we take in a span of time, the fewer hits we must soak. I would move points from Virulence (blood, your current spec is very melee/physically focused by talent design). (Afterthought - you would give up Necrosis first, but see below for further thoughts.)

Consider replacing your boots with the Wyrmrest version. High defense, but also hit, which will get you closer to 231 (hit cap for draeni). Note this change is for threat, with little affect on survival.

Finally, consider dropping Scent of Blood/Necrosis in favor of Will of the Necropolis (last ditch survival) and Rune Tap/Imp Rune Tap (trading a heart strike for 20% of your life, 30 sec CD). These buy time, where a healer can get that last heal through. The leeway is huge, and both benefit from the synergy of blood.

Ultimately you are going to get hit. How much damage you do, along with the various Blood spec healing methods, can significantly reduce how much healing you need. If you continue to struggle, you may wish to go Frost and use the assorted mitigation/avoidance talents that tree carries until you improve your overall gear. In heroic style, aoe focused fights, Frost's passive avoidance/mitigation is very obvious, and makes it great for heroic farming for upgrades/badges.

[Willis]

*catches up on posts* I got around to a couple more vendor upgrades, chest neck, the triumph sigil. Esch I'm not sure when exactly you seen my last armory for boots, right now I'm equipped with the ToC-5normal Heartfelt Repentance boots.


If 231 hit rating / 26 expertise (caps) - As I post this I'm needing 16 Hit Rating and needing 33 Expertise Rating.

I did step into Frost spec for a while but was not really feeling it and was still overly spiked. I took the blood spec currently in by recommendation of a Ulduar/ToC geared tank. It took a few days to get into the rhythm but between that change (I think the largest factor in my troubles was merely the idealism of DW) and some gear upgrades it's getting easier. I like being able to handle simple mobs without or while waiting on the healer.

As gear progresses, and hit/expertise/defense are maintained... I'd assume stamina/dodge/parry are primary focus points. Should strength be a concern? I'm wondering how I can close my threat gaps with high DPS.. if there are any benchmark values I want to aim for?

Also, as gear continues to progress should I be seeing decreases in the incoming damage values? Or just in the frequency?

Lastly, and this is an edited in question from random.. Rune of Stoneskin Gargoyle.. should I always plan on this rune (strictly talking in the world of 2h's) or should I try and rule it out for say Rune of Swordshattering (or something else???)