Why would you even go for a DK tank?

[Darkama]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on tankspot and I hope to find some advice and fellow compasion.

So my DK has got 33k hp, 20% parry, 30% dodge, 560def. Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with my stats and gear. I also dare to call myself quite the skillful tank and I don't have any problems holding aggro. Oh yea, at the moment I am frost DW because I think it is just awesome.

Now the thing which is bothering me the whole time is that people are always judging you by your hp. I mean I can hardly get 33k hp as a frost DW tank. And I saw a really good DW frost tank and he barely had 35K hp. I am kinda frustrated with only have this less hp. If I compare myself with warriors or paladins with the same gear, they always have 4-5K more hp then me. I repeat, my gear is good. I am just getting fed up by the fact of people kicking me when they see my hp and not looking at my gear. I am also wondering if I should stay DW frost. I don't think there is any chance in getting a large amount of hp as frost. Then again, blood provides another 6% health which is not to much of a difference.

I hope you guys can find the reason why my hp is this low or give me tips in getting more hp. Because I am at the borderline of quiting my DK tank and rolling another tank. Help is appreciated, greets.

armory: http://armory.wow-europe.com/charact...han&cn=Krotten

[Fledern]

What content do you wish to tank? for icc, even 10man, 33K unbuffed hp is way too low.

Looking over your gear here's some changes you can do to "upgrade" by a large margin.

The offset helm & shoulders. They're ilvl 245 and have higher stats on everything.
The crafted chest & bracers. They're also ilvl 245. The chest has 3 sockets and the bracers plain rock.
Use the pvp shoulder enchant instead of the Hodir one, it's 30 stam right there.
Buy the armor trinket to replace the dodge one you have. It wont up your hp but the armor alone will greatly increase your Effective Health.
If you've managed to grab 50 frost emblems, spend them on the tank cloak. Just about the best buy you can get with your emblems. And enchant it with armor, not agi.

we've recently boosted a warrior friend to gear him up for icc10 tanking. Our objective was 38K hp unbuffed, 28K armor unbuffed. He achieved both targets and successfully tanked Icc10 all the way up to and including festergut which is the real tank gear test. We basically geared him up with the stuff i outlined above. We also boosted him through a Totc10 & 25 so he filled out some of the harder items like a 2nd ring, a neck & shield with better gear than is available with badges.

Basically, farm more badges & dont hang onto 4pc bonus too tight. Oh and get something better instead of Glyph of IBF. I'm not up to spec on the latest frost tanking but that glyph is mostly for pvp, not pve tanking.

[Bosk]

If you are worried about having enough health consider blood for a while. I have basically badge gear from heroics and have 43k unbuffed.

Still get smashed to pieces in ICC10 though

[Darkama]

Okay thanks for the fast replies guys!

@ Fledern: Thanks for the advice man, I will definetely keep those things in mind. I was planning to get some of the things that you mentioned. I am going for the head & shoulders of 245. though the chest & bracers are to expensive for me. I am definetely going for the ICC10 so I hope by getting these items my hp is going to improve bigtime.

Thanks!

[Bosk]

Oh and have a look at PvP booties. Silly stamina on them.

[PatrikL]

If I compare myself with warriors or paladins with the same gear, they always have 4-5K more hp then me. I repeat, my gear is good.

I dont understand where this comes from, have never experienced it myself and dont think there is any theoretical evidence for it either. If you put on the same gear on the different tank classes they will have ebout the same hp today. Sure there are small differences but nowhere near 4-5k.

Edit: With the exception of bears ofc

[Musclebound]

Your health isn't really all that low for the gear you're wearing. You've still got a tier 8 chest piece, which makes a lot of your stats right there. Replacing that and your level 226 belt should go a long way towards getting your health up. Also, you're only using one stamina trinket, which is fine. But a lot of the tanks you're comparing yourself too are probably using two stamina trinkets, like THe Black Heart and Essence of Gossamer from H AN, or the Brewfest Trinket, or The Corroded Skeleton Key (which is a pretty decent trinket btw). There's a few other stamina trinkets that drop, at least one in Ulduar, ToC and ICC, but those are the easiest to get.

Personally, I switch between the Black Heart and the Rotting Thumb depending on the fight. I always keep the Skeleton Key on me though.

[Wilhem]

I dont understand where this comes from, have never experienced it myself and dont think there is any theoretical evidence for it either. If you put on the same gear on the different tank classes they will have ebout the same hp today. Sure there are small differences but nowhere near 4-5k.

Edit: With the exception of bears ofc

Off topic, but:

With a bit less gear than I had a Paladin friend had about 1K more health than me as a blood DK tank.

As far as the original poster: You can run Onyxia and try to get the Signified Ring of Binding out of there for a bit more stam, some armor and some magic resistance. Also, ToC25 is a good place for you to pick up some more pieces (Trinket, Cloak, etc...).

[Aitch]

If you are worried about having enough health consider blood for a while. I have basically badge gear from heroics and have 43k unbuffed.

Still get smashed to pieces in ICC10 though

Can you tell me which items you have? as I looked up Vincto and he's in DPS gear atm.

I've bought the badges tanking gear and I dont get close to 40K in blood. I've gemmed up for hit and expertise to reach the caps, rather than going for straight out stamina. By my reckoning even if I did that I'd only gain about 2.4K health, minus the socket bonuses I'd lose.

My armory is http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...denar&cn=Aitch

[makkaveli]

i have 41.3k hp and take a look at my gear. i had mostly 245 and 232 gear was getting 38k hp in blood. I dunno how people are struggling.

makkaveli - alonsus if u wanna look me up

[Darkama]

Okay guys thanks for the replies!

Now as far is my gear goes, I managed to do Toc10 and I upgraded my bracers and ring! I really want to do ToC25 ( I know I am geared for this ) but there are still people who kick me by just looking at my hp... I mean at the moment I have 33.2K unbuffed, and almost all of my gear is 232+. The thing I am really wondering about now is: should I stay DW frost? I mean, I love DW frost but I will always be the off tank. I have considered blood but it only provides another 3% hp which is not too much of a difference.

I am also considering whether or not I should go for Mining/Jc. I mean both of these professions provides more hp but then again I don't think I will be able to get it to 450 and have to give up my main professions.

The weird thing is, I see these other DK's who have like 40k+ hp, it's insane! And their gear isn't that great. I am so wondering what it is that gives them that much hp. I want to be able to MT but with only 33.2K, I am unable to do this. Looking for more hp!

Btw, sorry for my overreacting on the warriors/paladins with the same gear that have 4-5k more hp. I wanted to stress out that DK's always have less hp.

More advice is welcome!

[PatrikL]

The weird thing is, I see these other DK's who have like 40k+ hp, it's insane! And their gear isn't that great. I am so wondering what it is that gives them that much hp. I want to be able to MT but with only 33.2K, I am unable to do this. Looking for more hp!

The difference is in their gear, trust me. Be it the gear itself, gems or enchants. There are no special secret to getting extra hp from other mysterious places The ilvl itself doesnt guarantee the same amount of hp so inspect their gear a bit closer and I am sure you will find the reasons for it.

[Eravian]

If low health values are your biggest problem, picking up the Corroded Skeleton Key with Frost Emblems might be the way to go. Replacing Ick's Rotting Thumb with that will give you an extra 2.3k health before Frost Presence is on.

Of course, this isn't necessarily the best way to spend your Frost emblems, as the offset pieces you can buy with them are very nice as well. If you can pick up a different stamina trinket rather than the Skeleton Key, like the Heart of Iron from 25-man Ignis or Satrina's Trinket of 25-man Faction Champs, you can use your Frost Emblems for other gear.

Other than that, just keep running heroics and upgrade what you can at the Triumph vendor. It'll go up eventually. Keep working at it!

[Bosk]

Can you tell me which items you have? as I looked up Vincto and he's in DPS gear atm.

Yeah I swap around between dps/threat and full tank all the time depending on encounters. My recommendation is that you keep some +hit items in your bags (50 triumph badge +hit trinket) for things like Saurfang which don't hit hard but you can't afford missed taunts. The rest of the time put a heavier weighting on stamina. For average encounters I don't really notice any issues if I have only around 5% hit.

That ~2k stam you mention from gems adds up, as does having 2x stam trinkets (I have 2x brewfest 170 stam ones). I'd at least regem your gear to go exp/stam instead of exp/hit. The main thing is to look at each encounter and see what you need (eg. your armor trinket is pure win on a hard melee boss, but a poor choice when you are being shadowbolted the whole time).

A final serious thing - you must go around the place in your maximum stamina gear - in guild or looking for pugs. It is really all people tend to look at and you will be treated as the big man if you have a big HP pool. Regem a bit, get +18 stam on your gloves, wear the essence of gossamer as your 2nd trinket, and check out these babies: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40884 +30 stam gem and 22 stam enchant. I'm not saying wear it for every encounter but get used to swapping items around as a very normal part of your tanking.

[Insahnity]

Okay guys thanks for the replies!

Now as far is my gear goes, I managed to do Toc10 and I upgraded my bracers and ring! I really want to do ToC25 ( I know I am geared for this ) but there are still people who kick me by just looking at my hp... I mean at the moment I have 33.2K unbuffed, and almost all of my gear is 232+. The thing I am really wondering about now is: should I stay DW frost? I mean, I love DW frost but I will always be the off tank. I have considered blood but it only provides another 3% hp which is not too much of a difference.

I am also considering whether or not I should go for Mining/Jc. I mean both of these professions provides more hp but then again I don't think I will be able to get it to 450 and have to give up my main professions.

The weird thing is, I see these other DK's who have like 40k+ hp, it's insane! And their gear isn't that great. I am so wondering what it is that gives them that much hp. I want to be able to MT but with only 33.2K, I am unable to do this. Looking for more hp!

Btw, sorry for my overreacting on the warriors/paladins with the same gear that have 4-5k more hp. I wanted to stress out that DK's always have less hp.

More advice is welcome!

If you wanted a big HP, you should have gone blood. If they kick you for having low HP after telling them you are frost, then they don't know what they are about (and you could probably fool them with a fake gear score wearing cloth).

As mentioned before, you really are losing a lot of stamina from a few places, namely the trinket slot (111 at the worst with the H AN trinket), and then getting no stamina from your professions If you consider my paladin's gear when I had compareble gear to yours, I had a brewfest trinket (+170 stamina), Mining (+60 stamina) and smithing sockets in my bracers/gloves (+60 stamina). 290 stamina + frost presence (8% now) is 3k health (more, with raid buffs). As an alchemist, you can drink a stoneblood and get 600+ more HP than I would, which is pretty close to a mining buff, but you are still behind by 230 stamina, which you could make up with the corroded skeleton key trinket. But again, you are letting other people's perceptions cloud your view on things.

You could go blood. You could get the corroded skeleton key. You could get LW/JC (the current highest stam contributors, by a small margin). But at the end of the day, those are things I would not do myself just to appease somebody's view of HPs. But if my guess is correct, as of this post, you should have about 34.5k HP unbuffed with frost presence, which is just fine. Keep at the more sane upgrades, like saronite sword breakers for wrist, a new chest, etc. and you will be fine.

As a side note, you should have hit/stam in your helm and expertise/stam in your glove slot. You don't need more dodge or defense, but you are way under hit cap and expertise cap, which are more important as a DW tank.

[Darkama]

Okay, at the moment my hp is 33.7k unbuffed ( on armory it shows less.. ). I know if I can grab my hands on 'The Corroded Skeleton Key' my hp will improve to almost 36K hp unbuffed. But at the moment I only have 34 frost emblems ( doing daily heroic and weekly raid ) which is 26 emblems away from the trinket. The problem is that I can't do any ICC 10 yet because people just kick me, judging me on my hp. I mean my gear score is almost near 5K and I am still treated like a noob tank. Yes I know that I have to replace my neck, chest, trinket but this will not improve my hp by a large amount ( except the trinket ). I think at the moment, replacing my 'Icks Rotting Thumb' with the 'Essence of Gossamar' is currently the best option. Then I will have around 35k health and if I can spec blood I can add another 3% hp which brings a total of around 36k hp unbuffed. Do you guys think by doing this I will have more chance of doing ICC10 and less chance of people declining me? I mean my dodge is 30%, parry is 20%, armor= 27k, and def around 560?

Thanks for the replies guys!

[Selene]

Upgrade your Chest to http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48558 or http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47592
Upgrade your Bracers to http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47571

Those two upgrades alone will net you a big increase in Stamina.

Upgrading your Cloak to http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50466 is a huge gain in both stamina and armor.

As to going to ICC, how does your DPS set look like?
Might just have to go as DPS to get those Frost Emblems.

Your Expertise is a bit low, especially for a DW Tank.
Also regarding Socket bonus if there are 2 sockets with 1 being blue and a bonus of +9, it is generally considered worthwhile to socket for the bonus.
Red being Dodge/Stam or Expertise/Stam or even Expertise (if you need it bad).
Yellow being Def/Stam or Hit/Stam.

Spec/Glyphs:
For a DW Tank, Scent of Blood is much better for Runic Power generation than Chill of the Grave.
Glyphs: few Tanks use IBF or UA glyphs.
Usually it is Icy Touch or Howling Blast, Rune Strike or Frost Strike, and Oblit.
Oblit is pretty much the core for any Frost DK.
Fill out your Minor Glyphs: Horn of Winter, Pestilence, Raise Dead or Blood Tap.

Also your Professions are two of the worst Profs for a Tank to have as far as bonus goes. Since with JC, BS, Enchanting, LW, or Mining you have a gain of 60 stamina each.

As to people kicking you, are you sure they are looking at only your Health?
Get to know raid leaders, even if it is only for ToC10. If you impress them, they will give you a try for ToC25 or ICC10.

[Grombrindal]

Yeah, the glyph of IBF is a wasted major glyph slot since it's really only for PvPers. With the proper defense to be uncrittable you'll see around 40% damage reduction, the glyph is only if you don't have any defense....

[deathdaddy]

Hi

just a couple of things, personaly JC and blacksmith, 3 x +51 stam gems, extra socket for gloves and bracers does make quite a bit of differance. I have this on my main tank, and a few alts for the other items stoneblood etc etc.

Expertease is quite low, parry gibble there my thinks, but hey if it works for you then go for it. Your gear isnt bad, better than some tanks that i have seen, like fellow posters have said people are blinded by gear score and HP and dont really understand chow a class works.

Gear will come, your either lucky on drops, or need to farm for badges. Get rep runing in icc to get the faction ring, this will help also. Not sure about your server, but this is allways farmed.

I am blood spec for the high end raiding, ICC 10 / 25 and it works well, and use dw frost for the 5 man stuff, as i find this works alot better.

good luck and if you need help advice please dont hesitate to ask.

DD
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...n&n=deathdaddy

[robowarriorx]

Also something to keep in mind, especially with ICC10 having Chill of the Throne, dodge is reduced by 20%, so it may not be as effective having any gems for avoidance if your goal is endgame. Gemming nothing but stamina is what a lot of tanks do, not just DK tanks. I have to be honest though, and maybe this is off topic, and I apologize if it is, but it seems like frost feels a bit squishier than blood in regards to tanking. I really liked the dw tanking idea, especially because I have the 1 hander from ToC 10, but it also seems like 2 handers just come with a lot more stamina. I've wanted to try unholy tanking, but I know unholy seemed to rely more on avoidance as opposed to raw stam. Anywho, sorry to derail the topic a little there, but yeah heheh gemming pure stam on everything, except for your meta, may help a little. Keep us updated!