Looking to improve my Tanking.

[Charonites]

Hey! My main is a Death Knight tank called Charonites, looking to be a main-tank for my Raid Group, (I'm Raid Leader of 1 of the 3 raid groups for the guild, Exlidian)..

I don't know how to link my armoury, but if you can find me - my name is, as mentioned before, Charonites, and I'm on the Terokkar EU Server.

Can someone take a look and give me any advice on how to improve my tanking? I am not interested in changing from a Blood Tank to any other kind, as I am only comfortable tanking in this specification, finding it hard to tank in both Unholy and Frost.

Any gemming advice, enchants (if I have the wrong ones), and anything of the like will be appericated. I currently try to balance out my Damage Mitigation stats and my Stamina, meaning that my health is not particually high, but I've good avoidance stats, so I don't get hit all that much, and any damage I do take I can heal myself through to a certain degree being a Blood Tank, so high Health I find is not really super needed - my guild healers say they find me very easy to heal for a Death Knight - something they're quite shocked about!

I use a Rune of Swordbreaking due to the Parry buff I get from it which comes in incredibly useful, but if anyone has any good reason why I should use Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle, I'll gladly listen, though I AM Defence Raid Capped without it, so don't see why I would need to apart from the extra Stamina which doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment.

[Selene]

Looking at your Armory The World of Warcraft Armory

I see some glaring things right off with your gems.
Unless you are badly in need of Defense, never Gem for Pure Defense.
The current rule for Gems for Tanks the following:
Yellow: Def/Stam, Hit/Stam or Pure Stamina. Gem for Def or Hit only if you NEED it.
Red: Pure Expertise, Expertise/Stam, Dodge/Stam or Pure Stamina. Gem for Expertise or Dodge if you need Expertise or need a Red for a Metagem.
Blue: Pure Stamina.

Enchants:
Chest Enchant should be 275 Health.


As to Spec/Glyphs not going to touch that since I know nothing about Blood Tanking.

[!3M]

Took a brief look at your armory.

I'm a Frost tank so I'll just pose this question to you and let you decide but... don't you think you will receive more benefits from the Toughness talent from the frost tree?

I use a Rune of Swordbreaking due to the Parry buff I get from it which comes in incredibly useful, but if anyone has any good reason why I should use Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle, I'll gladly listen, though I AM Defence Raid Capped without it, so don't see why I would need to apart from the extra Stamina which doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment.

The rune of Stonesskin Gargoyle will allow you to free up gem slots that you have been hogging from all your def gems. This alone will give you more room to increase either your avoidance or stam.

Also, RSSG gives you defense... NOT defense rating which is waaay more than what you get from 20 defense rating.

===== RSSG tooltip from wowhead ======
Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Defense by 25 and total Stamina by 2%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
=================================

The only time I feel that you can say you don't need RSSG as you've hit the def cap is when you achieve it purely through gear (gems excluded), and some tanking enchants where there's nothing else that's better besides chanting for def. Example would be like what Selene said about the chest enchant, you get better mileage from the stam enchant imho.

Hope this helps you.

[Charonites]

Looking at your Armory The World of Warcraft Armory

I see some glaring things right off with your gems.
Unless you are badly in need of Defense, never Gem for Pure Defense.
The current rule for Gems for Tanks the following:
Yellow: Def/Stam, Hit/Stam or Pure Stamina. Gem for Def or Hit only if you NEED it.
Red: Pure Expertise, Expertise/Stam, Dodge/Stam or Pure Stamina. Gem for Expertise or Dodge if you need Expertise or need a Red for a Metagem.
Blue: Pure Stamina.

Enchants:
Chest Enchant should be 275 Health.


As to Spec/Glyphs not going to touch that since I know nothing about Blood Tanking.

Thank you!

And yes, my gem's are outdated. They was put in before I was def-capped without Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle.

I will look into replacing those gems as soon as I can.

I must admit - I totally forgot they was outdated.

And ofcourse, I'll talk to my brother about that enchant - he's an enchanter.

Took a brief look at your armory.

I'm a Frost tank so I'll just pose this question to you and let you decide but... don't you think you will receive more benefits from the Toughness talent from the frost tree?



The rune of Stonesskin Gargoyle will allow you to free up gem slots that you have been hogging from all your def gems. This alone will give you more room to increase either your avoidance or stam.

Also, RSSG gives you defense... NOT defense rating which is waaay more than what you get from 20 defense rating.

===== RSSG tooltip from wowhead ======
Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Defense by 25 and total Stamina by 2%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
=================================

The only time I feel that you can say you don't need RSSG as you've hit the def cap is when you achieve it purely through gear (gems excluded), and some tanking enchants where there's nothing else that's better besides chanting for def. Example would be like what Selene said about the chest enchant, you get better mileage from the stam enchant imho.

Hope this helps you.

I am aware that yes, the RSSG does give 25 Defence, rather then defense rating - as I mentioned in my reply to Selene - they are outdated, I would be Defence Capped without those and without RSSG. I will replace those gems as soon as I can.

As regards to Toughness - I was not aware I was missing it. >< Looks like I'm paying for a Respec, as I tell everyone they are staple tanking talents - I must seem abit of a hypocrit! Any idea what I can remove?

[!3M]

I am aware that yes, the RSSG does give 25 Defence, rather then defense rating - as I mentioned in my reply to Selene - they are outdated, I would be Defence Capped without those and without RSSG. I will replace those gems as soon as I can.

As regards to Toughness - I was not aware I was missing it. >< Looks like I'm paying for a Respec, as I tell everyone they are staple tanking talents - I must seem abit of a hypocrit! Any idea what I can remove?

Just thought I'd supplement what I said with some facts. Also just telling you why RSSG has more mileage, I admit that I should've checked your stats in more detail before I said it. But... you get what I'm trying to say.

Hmmm... tough question, because I don't tank in bloodspec. Seeing that blood tanks have no issues with single target tanking, I'd recommend removing Blood Gorged. If you're cool with tab targeting and all then removing some of the AOE talents like Corpse Explosion would work as well.

Does blood worms still cause unnecessary aggro like it used to? If not then I might drop those and keep Blood Gorged instead.

[Gotankadin]

Took a brief look at your armory.

I'm a Frost tank so I'll just pose this question to you and let you decide but... don't you think you will receive more benefits from the Toughness talent from the frost tree?



The rune of Stonesskin Gargoyle will allow you to free up gem slots that you have been hogging from all your def gems. This alone will give you more room to increase either your avoidance or stam.

Also, RSSG gives you defense... NOT defense rating which is waaay more than what you get from 20 defense rating.

===== RSSG tooltip from wowhead ======
Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Defense by 25 and total Stamina by 2%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
=================================

The only time I feel that you can say you don't need RSSG as you've hit the def cap is when you achieve it purely through gear (gems excluded), and some tanking enchants where there's nothing else that's better besides chanting for def. Example would be like what Selene said about the chest enchant, you get better mileage from the stam enchant imho.

Hope this helps you.

Total Stamina increased by 2% at 1000 HP thats an extra 200 hp. Also I cant see what gems you have everywhere but as a JC Enduring Eye of Zul is good to replace those +Def Rating gems. Use Dreadstones with +expertise/hit/agility(better over all avoidance)/parry/dodge(yuck)||Stamina. You're a tank; you need HP. Also I dont know why people overlook this +10 Stats to chest enchant. I would think that it scales better than just the +225 total health chest enchant, as it adds strength(Parry/attack power/overall better threat), Agility(parry/dodge increase), stamina(duh, but also helps your defense too iirc.).

Well as far as glyphs definately DND and pestilence (refreshes your diseases when you spread them) I have also heard Disease.but cant recall what it does. I would say Obliterate as well cause you still gain all the benefits of the obliterate without losing your diseases.

Anyway,
good luck

[Jaeden]

For spec, do this: The World of Warcraft Armory

That's my room mate and he's a pretty good blood tank.

Change gems out for exp/stam until you are 26 stam. You can use the 3 extra bs slots to put your 51 stam gems in. Runeforge Stoneskin gargoyle, it is still not there as of this, also pick up Ramaldini's Blade of Culling when you can, I like it for tanking.

Other than that, it's just a general upgrade of gear really.

[!3M]

Well as far as glyphs definately DND and pestilence (refreshes your diseases when you spread them) I have also heard Disease.but cant recall what it does. I would say Obliterate as well cause you still gain all the benefits of the obliterate without losing your diseases.

Pestilence is a minor which increases the range for pestilence. Disease is the one you're talking about for refreshing disease on main target.

Just updating it, sorry if it sounded arrogant.

[vine]

Glyph of D&D is terrible for single target tanking. D&D is a threat booster, and generally you should have no issues with threat. Any runes spent on D&D is runes not spent on DS self healing, which is survival.

[Sterbefall]

To address some of the above:
SSG is generally the rune of choice because it gives you 1% dodge, 1% parry, and 1% miss (all of which are NOT subject to DR), as well as 2% stam. By using Swordshattering, you're essentially trading 2% stam for 1% avoidance. For most people, the stam is the clear choice.

Regarding your spec, Blood Worms are a waste. They give you no threat and no appreciable healing. Two hand specialization should never be left out. Corpse Explosion is fairly unnecessary and too situational. As mentioned already, Toughness is mandatory. I highly recommend Improved Icy Touch (6% additional dehaste is quite valuable).

For the most part, Blood tanks DO want to stack health (stam especially). A couple reasons for this:
1. VotTW causes Blood to scale best with stamina.
2. Death Strike heals for a percentage of your health (the more health, the bigger the heal).
3. Vampiric Blood's power increases the more health you have.
4. I don't generally take it (though it works better with fast hitting ICC mobs), but MoB scales with health.
5. I don't like Rune Tap, but likewise, it scales with health.
6. WotN has a bigger health range to work in with a larger health pool.
7. The bigger your health pool, the more likely you are to be in the 75%+ range for Blood Gorged.

I assume you don't care that much about threat, so I won't comment on Glyphs.

You have DPS gear on, so I can't judge your gear. That said, NEVER, EVER gem parry despite it being on the list of acceptable stats above. Dodge will always be a better investment.

[Gotankadin]

Pestilence is a minor which increases the range for pestilence. Disease is the one you're talking about for refreshing disease on main target.

Just updating it, sorry if it sounded arrogant.

Not at all, its better to correct bad information than go with it. =D I do a lot of my posting from work where it is hard to have more than one explorer window open at a time. So I cant always look around for the correct stuff and have to rely on memory. Which at my age, is receding as fast as my hairline...