Death Knight tanking, threat issues.

[Salveras]

Hi, I've recently been using my death knight to be a tank.

The World of Warcraft Armory

At the moment, he is a frost DW tank and I've noticed I have issues holding aggro, people pull off me constantly,mainly in heroics. It doesn't help that my gear isn't that great >.< . Is there anything I can do to combat this? I was contemplating trying blood tankage. Help would be greatly appreciated.


Also, can anyone point me in the right direction for a DPS off-spec?

[Eisen]

Well, make sure your rotation is tight. HB and D&D should be down pretty much every time they're available, and all targets should have all diseases at all times.

Gear-wise you can certainly use some help..and if you're in the DF queue with lots of overgeared people I wouldn't be surprised if you get a little strained on threat. Expertise should be one of your biggest focuses right now, as that would help a LOT.

Doing a few of the ICC regulars would probably merit some upgrades (as you know since you got Lucky Old Sun), so keep with it.

Also, if you have some money, the ileve 246 and 264 crafted items would really help.

[Salveras]

Do you reccomend gemming for expertise then?

[Selene]

Personally I would say Gem for Hit Rating before Expertise.
Try to get to the "Hit Cap" before you worry about Expertise.
But before you even worry about that, you need to find out where the problem is first... see the next block of text.

Is your threat issues on multiple mobs or single mobs?
What is your rotation?
A "good" opening move for a Frost tank on multiple mobs is to use D&D, Howling Blast, Blood Boil.


@Eisen
Why do people always tell DKs to use D&D in their rotations?
D&D is not optimal use of Runes for a rotation. It uses half your runes and has a LONG CD (especially if you aren't spec for it).

[Selene]

Oh as to the DPS off-spec, that's harder to say. There are advantages and disadvantages to them.

Blood tends to be less squishy than other DPS specs, it is more "physical" than the other two and also tends to be more single target oriented.

Frost is good for both AoE and Single Target, but has the problem of being "Frost" which means some enemies (water elementals) will laugh at your damage.

Unholy is from what I have heard is the new flavor, supposed to be the "top" dps spec atm, because of stacking diseases to do nasty damage over time.

[ForgottenSlayer]

People use DnD b/c its nasty and gens alot of aggro i tank as blood. blood hasn't got the crutch of howling blast and what i do is drop dnd and icy touch ps and then pestilence then start spamming hs i hold most thing until their dead or have under 10% health then stronger dps can pull off me if i've been lazy and haven't targeted one of them but i highly suggest dnd in heroics. and howling blast is just epic so make use of it

[Selene]

People use DnD b/c its nasty and gens alot of aggro i tank as blood. blood hasn't got the crutch of howling blast and what i do is drop dnd and icy touch ps and then pestilence then start spamming hs i hold most thing until their dead or have under 10% health then stronger dps can pull off me if i've been lazy and haven't targeted one of them but i highly suggest dnd in heroics. and howling blast is just epic so make use of it

Oh I completely understand using D&D for opening.
As to DPS getting smacked around... I mark stuff most of the time in heroics, so if the DPS doesn't want to hit what I'm focusing on... well raid rules apply, you pull it you tank it...

[timconradinc]

One thing that I didn't see asked was whether or not they were pulling aggro off of the mob you were tanking or one of the mobs you just have aggro on. Assuming you get lead, adam's mark can automatically mark your target in 5-mans, which can be helpful.

I still find plenty of people pull aggro on random mobs even while using this mod.

Another method is once you've hit whatever target mob you're on, tab through the other mobs to see if you're losing aggro.

[Felycitas]

More than likely your issue is DPS that out gears you. You don't need to switch specs to fix this. You just need more gear (or smart DPS)

[Theotherone]

After the pull with HB and DnD, keeping your diseases up and spreading them around, followed by Blood Boils helps a lot.

[Salveras]

The threat issue appears in group pulls, single target I can do fine.

Also,when you say to use HB as an opener, is that without the diseases on? =S

For my rotation, I generally drop a D&D, then IT+PS, Pestilence, and then HB and go from there.

[Jaeden]

Personally I would say Gem for Hit Rating before Expertise.
Try to get to the "Hit Cap" before you worry about Expertise.

No, no, NO. Do not do this. Hit rating is not needed unless doing hard modes unglyphed, for taunting.

Expertise is the FIRST stat a DK tank of ANY spec should go for first. This removes dodges from the hit table and reduces the chance to miss as well.

I play on Hellscream too, Salveras. I'll look for you tonight if you are unable tog et on today and talk with you about it some if we can't get your questions answered here.

[Jaeden]

Oh yeah, gear/spec checking. Gem for either exp/stam or stam for now. Do not worry about anything else. You will get much more avoidance stats from gear than anything else.

Get two slow weapons. Much higher damage from slow weapons which turns to more threat once your expertise is up where it needs to be.

I would personally switch the Glyph of Disease for Glyph of Rune Strike. It is your threat attack above all else.

For your threat rotation, you are doing it the way I did when I DW frost tanked and I had no aggro problems so when your gems and weapons are corrected, you should do fine.