heroic ready?

[dotOrion]

[Armory Link]

Stats in case armory shows DPS gear:
Note this is my Blood spec, with HoW.


Currencies I can use to get upgrades


I've tanked a few heroics, was carried through some others.

In any case, when PuGing I often got comments on how I'm hard to keep up (someone even said he felt like he was healing a tank in a raid setting).

Is my gear that bad or are the healers I meet just crap ?

I use my CDs when possible and deemed necessary, I have Rune Strike macro'd with some of my skills. I have no threat problems.

Thanks in advance.

[Wilhem]

Well, in all fairness, you aren't going to be, "easy," to heal, but that is to be expected with your gear. Having said that, if people want to breeze through a heroic then they should find some guildies to run with, not PUG into a group.

Your blood spec seems really heavy into the blood tree, which isn't a problem now, but as you get better and better DPS in your groups you may have a hard time holding aggro against them; Try checking out Satorri's thread on Blood DK Tanking.

Other than that, keep powering through heroics, get those emblems of conquest and grab your upgrades as you can. Go from biggest upgrade first, even it it takes a while.

Also, never gem for parry, do Stam or Dodge (or expertise if you're not capped, but you are well over capped from what I saw).

[Tyrz]

i wouldn't have a problem healing you in a heroic that's for sure! just rotate your CD's as needed and you will be fine.. don't listen to healer qq unless you actually die.

btw you have blue eyes? dosn't that mean your a high elf not a blood elf? o.O

[Athenodorus]

(someone even said he felt like he was healing a tank in a raid setting).

Unless you are tanking in the wrong presence or something, this person is either lazy or inexperienced.

[Esch]

Summary - You can meatshield a heroic. While you have plenty of stamina, you're suffering in other aspects. The reliance on your healer can be reduced to make it easier for healing and your own tanking.


Gear:

Your avoidance (in general) is low, but you can improve it with a varity of gems/enchants

The 158 hit rating is a serious concern, as it threat caps your DPS, but also reduces the effectiveness of Imp Blood Presence & Death Strikes' heals. Utilizing those helps smooth out healing, as Blood relies on stamina/soaking hits, while Frost/Unholy mitigate damage. The target hit is 263 (8%) for special attacks and normal 2H swings. This healing isn't going to save you if the healer dies, but it ensures you can Death Strike to heal and smooth out damage spikes.

I suggest Precision to Gloves (20 hit) and/or Icewalker (12 hit/12 crit), and possibly adding hit to your gem list when trying to make socket bonuses. Vivid (green hit/stamina), Etched (orange str/hit) and Accurate (orange hit/expertise) cuts come to mind as options.

You can also get the Sabatons of Draconic Vigor to improve you hit rating, losing extra expertise and dodge rating. You'll be able to drop these rep boots after you pick up other +hit gear. Adding Icewalker to this gives you a significant hit upgrade on one piece of gear, giving you flexibility to improve gear elsewhere.

The most helpful 'enchant' would be a belt buckle to give you a prismatic socket for a +hit gem. You can also acquire the 30 stamina/resilience enchant (from PvP honor) to buff your shoulders until you pick up the Sons of Hodir enchants.

Finally, once you can carry adequate hit elsewhere, you can consider a lot of other 2H weapons, such as Marrowstrike, to improve your avoidance. I'm using Fordragon's Blades atm, which amuses me. (The last time I used a polearm, it was blue and I was starting Naxx!)

Glyph:
I'd drop the Rune Tap glyph. It's fun, I used it in raids, and it can help, but 90% of the time Rune Tap is for you solely and has little relevance on your group. With your current spec, Rune Strike or Death Strike would be superiour.

Talents:

You really, really, REAAALLLY need to pry three points free and pick up Imp Icy Touch. This may be where healers are seeing your damage as 'high' as mobs can wailing on you without being slowed. On packs and harder hitting mobs (Bosses), the slow reduces spreads incoming hits over more time, which allows healers time to heal other people, move and/or use larger, effecient heals.

From my experience, i'd pry points out of Sudden Doom and SoB, as Blood's Heartstrike allows you to fill up all your GCDs, thus requiring less Death Coil RP dumps. Also, most of your RP should be reserved for Rune Strikes.

I believe that Sudden Doom needs both the Death Coil Glyph & Morbidity to justify the talent & subsequent DPS/Threat increases. Also, I believe DCs are considered spells and thus require 17% hit rating to be capped, making them less reliable for DPS/Threat.


Athenodorus - Deathknights are avoidance tanks. Stacking stamina is a way to survive. My healer experince on someone taking a considerable number of melee hits can be difficult to heal through. Against a group of mobs, it's easy for a healer to be overwhelmed if a DK isn't carying adequate avoidance and using cooldowns appropriately.

[Wilhem]

Hit is not as important as expertise up to the soft cap (26 expertise). After the soft cap, hit is equal to expertise up until the hard cap (56, I think). There is some very good gear with hit rating on it, but I would not gem for it at all.

[Xzanthos]

Esch has a lot of a good advice, some things to add though.

I do partially agree with Joker in that I value expertise more than hit, you can just put exp/sta in reds and hit/sta in yellows and that will put you on the right track.

Your gear is fine for tanking heroics, I was in your position a couple months ago and I really thought it was my fault. Healers get used to healing over geared tanks in heroics, so when they meet one that doesn't meet that criteria they're automatically "hard to heal".

I made the mistake of saving my cooldowns as "Panic Buttons" really, you should use them often, like when pulling a pack of 4 mobs.

I would however, suggest speccing Frost until your gear is better, if you're not too attached to it. The pros of Blood is that your HP pool is higher, however you get hit more often. Frost would boost your avoidance some, and lower the incoming damage more than Blood will.

All in all, don't get discouraged, if a Healer can't keep you up, it's likely they who are undergeared, or just playing poorly, used to being carried through heroics by well geared tanks. Keep grinding those badges and you'll be carrying bad healers in no time

[dotOrion]

Thanks for your answers, everyone.

I would however, suggest speccing Frost until your gear is better, if you're not too attached to it. The pros of Blood is that your HP pool is higher, however you get hit more often. Frost would boost your avoidance some, and lower the incoming damage more than Blood will.

As you can see on my armory, I am in fact dual-specced into a blood tank spec and a frost tank spec.

I use the frost one the most when tanking heroics, but I made that screen while in my blood spec - I didn't want to imply I value my blood spec more than my frost spec