DK Tank Getting Rolled in Heroic 25m ToC, HALP!

[Squirrelnut]

Ok so I decided to come post here for one of our guild tanks because something HAS to change. We are working on progression in Heroic 25m ToC and use a 3 tank, 2 stack rotation on Gormok.

Up to this point no one has really noticed that our DK tank doesn't do much theory crafting or gear min/maxing but his shortcomings were blatantly obvious on 25m Heroic Gormok and everyone was getting upset with him so I figured I would see if I can't get some tips for him.

His Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

His Stats (unbuffed currently showing from armory):

• Health: 36526
• Armor: 17035
• Defense: 566
• Dodge: 26.2%
• Parry: 22.77%
• Expertise: 19
• Hit: 149

As a Prot warrior I am used to seeing very different stats. First his health seems a little low but that may just be because he isn't a JC. Second his armor... wtf? 17k vs my 27.3k+ is that normal? Also his expertise is low if it was a Prot warrior, soft cap would be 26, is it different for a DK?

The situation:
- Warrior tank (me), Druid tank & DK tank
- Taunt tank swap after every 2 stacks when 40 seconds left on the stacks
- I and the druid handle our business with no problem, healers don't complain and we are usually fine other then occasional bad RNG with a stomp/impale/melee all within a second or two.
- DK however keeps getting 1 shot with nothing more then an impale or sometimes even tick+melee and the healers were freaking out saying how difficult he is to keep up. They ended up chaining 4 outside cooldowns to constantly keep something on him every time he was tanking.
- Threat is also a serious issue, after tank swaps between myself and the druid we continue on with our normal rotations however when he taunts I have to stand there and auto-attack for half the time he is tanking or I pull aggro.

I know nothing about DKs (and don't really want to know much lawl) so I am looking for advice from the experts here on all the basics for him: spec/rotation/gear/enchants/gems, anything you think is important for an end game DK tank. Don't leave stuff out that you think is common knowledge, I have been surprised many times at his lack of theory crafting made up for through free 25m loot.

I don't want to be a jerk to the guy and make it sound like he doesn't know what he is doing but something is clearly wrong and the raid getting upset on vent when we wipe 10+ times because he keeps getting rolled from things even a Prot warrior can handle won't help either. I need some suggestions for him.

[Kuraf]

Keep in mind the DK doesn't use shield (8k armor difference there).
I don't know much about DK neither but doesn't Gormok keep getting more dmg (rising anger buff) as time goes by (when snobolds jump)? Maybe it would be wise to have him do the pull and then tank again when "cycle" is over (so to speak)... He'll be taking less damage that way.

Other than that... the values you show seem pretty normal, at least judging from our DK tank (we don't do ToC HC tho).

It's not much info but I hope it helps

[Squirrelnut]

Snowbolds do their rising anger junk but we generally have our DPS take care of them to minimize the impact. Our DPS is a little low so we all cycle through tanking a couple times and you would think the healers would notice it on all tanks if it were just a snowbold thing. He dies with 1 or 2 stacks and I have had to just handle up to 5 stacks and blow cooldowns while our druid heads over to grab the first worm coming out...

My shield is 8309 armor, it appears he is missing another 2k on top of that compared with me.

He has never had a problem on normal diff so comparing him with another DK that does normal diff isn't a huge help, it is really only heroic 25m that problems are clearly demonstrated.

EDIT: What is the most frequently used end-game tank spec for a DK? He is currently blood but I know nothing about DK specs so I can't critique at all.

[Tryxx]

I can't answer the question, but I will say that the Armory does not take into account Frost Presence. His armor is actually 27,256. It also increases his stamina by 6%, which is not reflected there either (should have around 3k stamina).

He is lacking on many threat talents as a Blood Specced DK. Most of our threat is going to come from physical damage, and it looks like he's skipped out on most of those talents, such as: Subversion, Dark Conviction, Bloody Vengeance, and Might of Mograine. He's got some decent utility talents, but it really looks more like a DPS spec to me - going into DRW, Sudden Doom, and whatnot. It's not really part of the cookie-cutter tanking spec for Blood. It could also be helpful to put 3 points in Improved Icy Touch.

If I had to guess, though, he's not using his own utility to the fullest. The Blood spec theme really has a lot of self-healing behind it, and Rune Tap, Vampiric Blood, and other talents should make him pretty easy to keep up.

In the end, have him or you take a look here. You can't really go wrong after reading that.

[Squirrelnut]

Thanks for the info & link, i'll go through it and come back with my thoughts to get people's impressions. Do you have any suggestions for a revised spec for him? Is blood a good end-game raiding spec if he makes the adjustments you mentioned? Thanks!

[Tryxx]

Blood is essentially thought of as the spec for single target tanking. If that's the role he's providing, and he's specced accordingly you should have no problems.

I don't want to give any real definitive information, as I'm not at your content level at all (just experienced from reading the forums here). However, you can see my current spec here.

There are some talents that can be changed around a bit depending on your group composition and the like. Will of the Necropolis, and Spell Deflection are both worth while, but at my content level WotN works better for me. I've seen some players neglect Rune Tap whenever they have experienced healers. Really going to have to find what works for your common group make-up. This goes for Glyphs as well.

Edit: Didn't post the link to my spec correctly, fixed that.

[Kuraf]

As far as I know, the buff stays for as long as the fight keeps going (i think the buff doesn't fade away when the snobold dies but i got no combat log to confirm it)...

About the 2k difference in armor, I dunno tbh... currently @ work and i'm not able to check his gears "properly".

Regarding the low threat generation... take a look at this build (threat generation build I think): our DK tank
As I mentioned earlier, I dunno much about DK but from what i've been able to see (talent wise) your DK seems to have more of a survivability spec than a threat generation one (which may explain why you gotta wait on tank switch).

My suggestion would be to try to improve the DPS to make the fight take less time (lower risk of tank death)

[Squirrelnut]

So would this be a good choice for spec/glyphs? 52/8/11 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It is based off the info in the link you provided.

EDIT: How important is Will of the Necropolis? I see the spec I listed from the DK thread doesn't include that but Tryxx's spec did

EDIT2: What would you think of this spec taking the points from Epidemic and Necrosis to pickup Will of the Necropolis: 55/8/8 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Wilhem]

His hit and expertise are also low which is going to hamper his threat generation... I have no problem holding threat against people who outgear me with my spec (make sure to click on my blood spec), unless the difference in gear is huge.

As someone mentioned above, Armory does not take into account for Frost presence so armor will be really low and health will be a bit lower also.

[Tryxx]

So would this be a good choice for spec/glyphs? 52/8/11 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It is based off the info in the link you provided.

EDIT: How important is Will of the Necropolis? I see the spec I listed from the DK thread doesn't include that but Tryxx's spec did

EDIT2: What would you think of this spec taking the points from Epidemic and Necrosis to pickup Will of the Necropolis: 55/8/8 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Will of the Necropolis is really based on content level and group. It may not be necessary at all for 25 man content, as in more than two hits your usually gone. For bosses that maybe hit softer and/or faster, it does give your healers a slight buffer when you get into that danger zone.

Personally, getting rid of Epidemic doesn't seem like a good idea to me. It allows you to complete rotations without having to refresh diseases, which is something I prefer. Pair that with Glyph of Disease, and you have a one rune refresh for all targets. Other than that, both builds appear solid to me. As said before, WotN and Spell Deflection really just depend on content and group makeup. You can certainly get by. I am curious though if you've noticed situations where he's not been able to place Death and Decay due to the cooldown time? If not, there's not much of a reason to pickup Morbidity. Most of our runic power dumps will be going to Rune Strike and not Death Coil, so it's not a huge buff as a tank.

Since he is having issues with threat I'd trade out Glyph of Vampiric Blood for Glyph of Rune Strike. If he has the macro setup for Heart Strike/Rune Strike (and it's a good idea), it should make a small DPS increase, and a larger threat increase for him.

Echoing JokerFMJ's concerns: It would be nice if he could get a bit more expertise on his gear. He needs at least 26 expertise (skill) for the soft cap. 6 of which he gets from talents. This shouldn't be too difficult to reach. If there's room for itemization later, hit is always great. What makes that difficult is that most content is based around stamina, and most gem slots, unless the socket bonus is just amazing, are being gemmed for straight stam.

EDIT: Also, my spec does not include Hysteria, simply because I have issues using it effectively. If he can, go for it.

[Squirrelnut]

If it is any help on figuring out any rotation problems or other issues that he might have had here is a WMO log showing our night of Heroic 25m ToC beast fails lawl: WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay

Obviously our DPS needs to improve but at the same time we had some socials and a hunter that DCed in 90% of the fights so ignore that and just focus on the tank

[Tryxx]

If it is any help on figuring out any rotation problems or other issues that he might have had here is a WMO log showing our night of Heroic 25m ToC beast fails lawl: WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay

Obviously our DPS needs to improve but at the same time we had some socials and a hunter that DCed in 90% of the fights so ignore that and just focus on the tank

Wow, looking at a few of his logs he's hardly using Rune Strike, which is a HUGE amount of threat. He needs this now:

/startattack
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Heart Strike

After the respec and using that, I bet it will be a night and day difference. It's not until halfway till the fight that he's using it, which is probably why he's having an issue with initial threat.

Edit: Just to re-enforce the big issue with that, I'm quoting Satorri:

Rune Strike = this semi-passive tool is a major threat player for all DK’s and very easy to use without requiring active attention. There is also no better use of Runic Power available for threat, so it is well worth it to macro this into your other primary abilities and make sure it is used at every available opportunity.

[Wilhem]

If he's not getting directly attacked he's not going to dodge/parry and Rune Strike will not be available, and if there are three tanks taunting between Gormok for the impales then this would explain why he's not able to use it much.

Having said that, in the fight I looked at he landed 2 Rune Strikes which did 14% of his total threat... Make sure he's using that all the time.

[Squirrelnut]

Thanks for the input, i'll let him know about the Rune Strike input to hopefully help his threat

EDIT: Isn't DK's threat based more off their damage output then other tanks such as Prot Warriors? He recently got the ilvl 245 axe Dual-blade Butcher - Item - World of Warcraft isn't that damn near BiS until Heroic 25m ToC? Why would his DPS be so low, looking at some of our attempts in the log I posted above I see him doing 1.1-1.5k compared to 1.8-2.3k from me as a Prot Warrior with our stupid gimmick baked in threat mechanics + vigilance.

Is that all due to misuse of his abilities and a funky spec or is something else wrong?

[Squirrelnut]

Here is my msg on our guild forums to our DK, see what you think and whether I left anything out or misunderstood something, thanx for all the input:

I wanted to point some things out and make some suggestions to improve your survivability and threat for our heroic raids. I know it can be depressing to die a bunch and have people btching in vent, try not take it personally and just do what you can to be the best tank possible.

I got some input from people on TankSpot about your stats/spec/etc and although your gear is good your spec could use some work and possibly your rotation as well. From your armory people said that your spec looked to be more utility/PvP oriented and was missing some important threat talents for PvE.

The best way to improve is to take the time to do some theory crafting outside of raids and utilize the knowledge of other experienced DK tanks to min/max your spec/rotation/gear/enchants/gems and then put it to use and see what works best for you. I got some info that I wanted to pass along, this is considered one of the definitive Blood DK Tanking thread: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/5...d-tanking.html

Although it has a wealth of good information you can probably save time by focusing on the summary in Appendix 6 where he lays out what he personally uses in a synopsis of a good survivability/threat combination (post #7 - http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/5...tml#post273332).

Here are some highlights from that appendix 6:

Spec
52/8/11 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Info
Blood DKs are ideal for single target tanking with the most active availability of cooldowns, self heals and threat to work best in end-game PvE when used efficiently. With all the self heals and talents available to you it is a night and day difference in survivability when using everything available to you at the right times. It requires a synergy between spec/gear/rotation that can produce impressive results in both survivability and threat when combined efficiently or fail when not used correctly. Although less damage may be taken when Frost or Unholy, Blood is the recommended spec because fast reaction time in the correct use of self heals makes your damage intake seem like less to healers and is ideal for fights like Gormok.

The days of OP DK's are over, they are now on par with Prot Warrior survivability/threat and require more knowledge/effort to play effectively then the current flavor of the month OP classes (Pally / Druid - though Druids have been #2 OP tank for multiple patches now lawl).

EDIT
Update with additional DK impressions on threat:
- You REALLY need to be using Rune Strike more frequently, it is a HUGE amount of threat.
- Here is a macro you could use:

/startattack
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/cast !Rune Strike
/cast Heart Strike

- With the mentioned respec and improved use of Rune Strike they think you would have a night and day difference in your threat output
- Here is a quote on Rune Strike:

"Rune Strike = this semi-passive tool is a major threat player for all DK’s and very easy to use without requiring active attention. There is also no better use of Runic Power available for threat, so it is well worth it to macro this into your other primary abilities and make sure it is used at every available opportunity."

Any other tips I should include?

[Kurtosis]

Let me suggest an improvement to that Rune Strike macro:

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] some ability;[mod:alt] some ability;[mod:shift] some ability; Heart Strike
/use !Rune Strike
/use [mod:ctrl] some ability;[mod:alt] some ability;[mod:shift] some ability; Heart Strike

(and just turn on the 'start autoattack' option in Interface Options -> Combat so you don't have to include the /startattack line in the macro, saving precious macro characters)

The way Rune Strike works is that it procs, then you hit your Rune Strike button to queue it for the next autoattack, then on the next autoattack it fires. However, if you hit your Rune Strike button a second time before RS fires on the next autoattack, you'll de-queue it and it won't fire. This can easily happen if you macro RS into all your abilities, which you should. You prevent it from de-queuing by adding the ! in front of it. With ! it will only cast if it hasn't already been queued.

Regarding RS's threat gen, I've seen Blood Tank WWS logs showing RS did 40+% of their total threat. Your tank hit w/ RS twice and that got 14% of his total threat. Imagine the difference if RS is firing off automatically, immediately, every proc.

Also, regarding his survivability, if that's an issue I'd probably take Will of the Necropolis. Fixing RS should solve his threat problems, so you can give up Necrosis and Morbidity to get it. WotN has saved me a few times from getting 2shot gibbed, and I was able to pop Vampiric Blood then Improved Rune Tap, then Death Strike back to about 80% health in a few seconds. Buys healers time too.

[Griff]

And you were correct in that killing the snobolds does not get rid of rising anger in heroic.

[Caeala]

I am a endgame DK tank as well as him and i will say it now, DKs usually will have a hard time with gormok, and i personally get rolled by dreadmaw, but being a Frost tank i cant coment much on that tree, though . From his gear he is fine, but he probably isnt using his oh crap buttons well, suck as icebound fortitude when the damage is a bit much.
The only option i can think of for him would be to get a priest to shield him when he tanks, and any other classes that offer dmg reduction to pull him through it. but thats just my 2 cents. Good Luck In your TOC HC!

[Benihimey]

in my personal expearence tanking 25 man toc heroic dk tanks seem to have it alot eaiser then the pallys warriors or dks espically being blood.i have 7 with new spec im going to run.tanking cooldowns compaired to warriors with 5 druids with 4 and pallys with 3. your tank seems to have a dps spec for tanking. here is the spec i ran when i got starcaller and a slew of other achivs Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft as well as my armory The World of Warcraft Armory my exp is dodge capped and for hit i would sacrifice too much health to cap it for melee and for rotation i use it ps hs hs then ds to rune power dump


hope this helps you as heroic 25 man is a bitch

[PatrikL]

As a Prot warrior I am used to seeing very different stats. First his health seems a little low but that may just be because he isn't a JC. Second his armor... wtf? 17k vs my 27.3k+ is that normal? Also his expertise is low if it was a Prot warrior, soft cap would be 26, is it different for a DK?

I couldnt find that anyone had answered the armor question and beeing a DK tank myself here is the deal. When looking at an armory page for us you only see the armor we get from the gear. We always tank in Frost Presence (has nothing to do with spec btw. saying this because it might be the reason some ppl still think frost if the only tanking tree) because it is what allows us to generate more threat (I believe its something like 45% but not sure).

Frost presence also gives us 60% extra armor from our gear, 6% extra stamina and reduces damage taken by 8%. Because of these things it is very hard to compare us to the other tanking classes by simply looking at the armory pages (and yes I dont know enough about the other classes to say this might not be a problem with some of them as well).

P.S. Not sure if it was 100% clear but he should use that macro for several of his attacks to make sure it RS always used when it can be or at least a few if he really wants more RP for something else D.S.