Dk tanks

[golsonkp]

I've been a frost tank for some times now and I've always asked myself this question. I've always wondered what dk tanks have over a palidan, warrior, or even druid. I've looked around and seen tanks(palis/war), who are less geared, have similar dodge and parry. They even have similar armor. I know that block is almost everything for palis and warriors which dks do not have. I always believed that dks should compensate with higher armor. IDK, what do you think?
Belis - burninglegion

[grippingdead]

honestly, nothing. being a fellow dk tank ive come to know that pallys (idk about warriors) can be about far less geared than i, but can tank things taking less damage. its a sad realization but one i have made. and also, the only thing we gain that comes close to the boost they get from their shields is that frost presence gives us about the same amount of armor their shield does if u ever look at ur armor withour frost presence up, or go to wow-heroes where it shows ur stats 100% unbuffed, ur armor is super low

[Xenix]

In current gear (read as ilvl251-264), here is how the situation is for survival stats/cooldowns:

Health: Paladins have lower base health than Warriors and DK's, who have around the same as each other. On the other hand, paladins and DK's have better stam scaling than warriors to make up for the base health difference and the stam in the ranged slot that warriors have. In ICC-25 gear, paladins will have the least health (but effectively a bit more than the character sheet shows due to AD), warriors will have the middle and DK's should have the most. Blood DK's will have even more than that.

Armor: Paladins and warriors have the same armor. Death knights also have all the same slots except they get an additional 60% of the base armor from chest/legs/helm/gloves/back/belt/bracers/shoulders instead of shield armor. If you run the numbers, this comes out to slightly more than the armor a shield tank would get from a shield of the same ilvl as the rest of their tanking gear. This is pretty even across all the plate tanks.

Mitigation from talents (Not counting Sanc/disc priest 3% damage reduction since all tanks get that): Warriors get 10% physical mitigation from defensive stance, 15.4% magical. Paladins get 11.6% physical, 16.9% magical. Blood DK's will have 12.6% physical and magical mitigation, frost DK's will have 14.5% physical/magical mitigation with imp frost presence. Unholy gets more magical mitigation but no one uses them so I'm not going to bother.

Major Cooldowns: Paladins get a 50% DR 12 seconds every 2 minutes and can spec into Divine Guardian for a raid-wide 20% DR for 6 seconds every two minutes. They also get a free cheat death once per two minutes. (LoH cannot be considered a major cooldown because it's locked out if you shield wall, which you should have done if you get low enough to want to use LoH.) Warriors get a 60% DR cooldown for 12 seconds every 4 minutes or 40% every two minutes plus a 30% increase health cooldown for 20 seconds every 2-3 minutes, depending on glyphs. Death knights get a 50% damage reduction cooldown 12 seconds every two minutes, or 18 seconds every 2 minutes as Frost.

Minor Cooldowns: Paladins get +30% block for up to 1 block per second. Warriors get +100% block and 2x BV for 10 seconds once per minute with critical block giving a 60% chance to block for 4x. Death knights get their choice of +25/30% armor (depending if you glyph it) +10% strength which gives parry as well for 20 seconds every minute (frost) or +15% health + increased healing gained for 10/15 (if glyphed) seconds every minute (basically a half strength last stand as blood) and possibly a heal for 20% of their health once per minute and a couple other tank cooldowns that aren't specced into much (Mark of Blood, Will of the Necropolis). 4-pc T10's gives a 20% health PW:Shield for warriors, 12% damage reduction for DK's for 10 seconds and 12% dodge for paladins for 10 seconds, each once per minute.

Other: Warriors/Paladins get a chance to take 2-3k off melee swings, not guaranteed though because of Icecrown Radiance. DK's can use death strike to heal themself for at least 10% of their health (>5k) at least twice per 8 seconds, possibly more depending on talents. 2-hander DK's generate the least parry-hasting of all tanks. Slow/Slow dual-wield DK's, Warriors and Bears all generate a little more parry-hasting. Slow/fast DK's generate more than that, and fast/fast DK's and Paladins generate the most parry-hasting on bosses (due to every melee hit + hotr + shor counting as two parryable attacks once SoV is at 5-stack).

So, as a summary, DK's have more health than warriors/paladins in the same gear (possibly much more as Blood), the same armor in the same gear, more physical mitigation from talents (possibly much more if you're frost), less magical mitigation from talents and a variety of cooldowns so you can tailor it for the situation. Just from looking at the numbers from a pure damage reduction standpoint, I'd say Frost DK's have a complete advantage for physical mitigation on any boss that hits decently hard -and- a 25/30% armor boost that's up 1/3 of the time. Blood trades some of that mitigation for self-healing and more health, depending on your preference, although even they have more physical mitigation than warriors or paladins.

Regardless, after the latest buffs/nerfs, none of the tanks are in bad shape at all, with frost DK's having the slight edge on physical mitigation for hard-hitting bosses imo. It's probably more balanced now than it's been in a long time. (Unless you're overgeared for the instance, in which case the block tanks will take less damage).

[Proletaria]

I love tanking the lich king's adds with no ap debuff.

[grippingdead]

who said anything about an ap buff?

[Proletaria]

Food for thought.

[grippingdead]

lol

[PatrikL]

I love tanking the lich king's adds with no ap debuff.

Icy Touch

[Fledern]

Icy Touch is the equivalent of thunderclap. He's talking about the equivalent of demo shout/demo roar/vindication

[TomHuxley]

Food for thought.

No it isn't, get a warrior of any sort, a feral druid, or a ret pally in your group to spec into one of the AP debuffs. If you can't find one of them (or your raiders refuse to respec for the good of your raid) then you're the one with food for thought, not the developers responsible for tank balance.

[KnThrak]

Let me give my take on the "which tank brings what"-issue. First of all the usual background, I play a lvl80 DK Unholy Tank (Caritami), which as you'll see on the armory has a spec which will make plenty people frantically press CTRL+W to get the image out of their mind before it sears in (I have the permanent pet :P ). However, I have reasons for this spec and that is that I exclusively do 5man and 10man content on that character, and hence the pet is quite the nontrivial damage gain for the raid. I tried it with or without the talents, and this just worked better for me. Plus I like having the pet-feed ready at any given second.

That being said, my perspective for this is a mix of my own DK-perspective and my main being a shammyhealer who is usually assigned to tankheal.

Druids
I still value Druids for their overall consistency. More health, slightly higher reduction, Druids may strain your mana at times but they're extremely wall-ish in their tanking. They show nicely whether tank+healer gear is the issue because while they have plenty emergency options their strength does not come from those.
The "average" tank.

Paladins
I learned Paladins as the tanks which produce insane threat - and in a way they kept that stigma. More so than that Paladins are the tanks for healers with bad reflexes as their damage slows when low on health + they have an extra life. For the actual numerical survival this usually means little but it allows healers a bit more slack as long as they manage to provide the raw output, and help the Paladin with external cooldowns since he only has a single controlled one.
The "relaxed but dependend" tank.

Warriors
Warriors can be horrendously annoying to heal. They can easily zip around the battlefield to pick up adds or help people, but often this makes me engage the Nitro Boosters to try catch up before they die. Their damage intake seems on the low side on average, but is unstable due to the blocks + critical blocks. Any fight involving non-standard mechanics can usually make Warriors easier to heal due to them being able to bring their extra abilities to bear.
The "gadget" tank.

Death Knights
Share their spots with Warriors IMO, but without the unstable damage, but with more damage. It depends a lot on spec but I found that I can heal Death Knights comfortably as long as I can depend on them realizing the power of their utility moves. Death Knights I usually see survive the longest if shit hits the fan due to being able to counter so many attacks in some way or the other, but they do seem to suffer less wall-ish attributes in return.
The "oh shit" tank.

[Proletaria]

No it isn't, get a warrior of any sort, a feral druid, or a ret pally in your group to spec into one of the AP debuffs. If you can't find one of them (or your raiders refuse to respec for the good of your raid) then you're the one with food for thought, not the developers responsible for tank balance.

I run a 10man with a prot warrior and ret as the sole providers of ap debuff. Imagine my suprise (not really) when I realized that while tanking the lich king (perhaps you aren't familiar with that encounter? There are others like it, ask any career dk tank who has been around a while.) away from the rest of the group in p1 I took atrocious damage. We tank-swapped and then I took the adds. Suprisingly, I also took a lot more damage on add-duty (no block mechanic isn't fun with 10+ ghouls attacking you).

Long story short, this is much much more than being and irresponsible raider. Considering BM hunters are not a raid-viable spec in terms of competetive dps, and you'll quite frequently have no lock in a given 10man, having no ap debuff except from your melee dps will often leave the dk tank high and dry.

But, I and others, have told this story a hundred times. It doesn't seem to convince the mighty prot warriors, paladins, or druids that this is a significant inconvenince. I suppose our strong (a meager 12%) representation as tanks on the top 100 sindragosa kills backs up the hypothesis that we are fin in 25mans and that is the only place that matters. Even though we (by all indications) should have been amazing tanks for the encounter due to ams alone, we continue to plummet in representation. I wonder why that is? I guess all of us playing DKs are just bad players. Clearly something is wrong and your smug response is just as much non-sense as it always has been. We need an ap debuff, end of story.

[Theotherone]

DK's take effort and finesse to play well. We're cooldown dependent; time them right and we'll survive long after the raid has wiped; time them wrong and you're just more bones for the heap.

[Splug]

Ranged threat gets glazed over quite often when people talk about tank balance, but if you're looking for the death knight's ace in the hole, there it is. There is an amazing amount of value in making things come to you rather than having to run to them.

-Splug

[Fenier]

Long story short, this is much much more than being and irresponsible raider. Considering BM hunters are not a raid-viable spec in terms of competetive dps, and you'll quite frequently have no lock in a given 10man, having no ap debuff except from your melee dps will often leave the dk tank high and dry..

Like I told you in the other thread, You do not have to be BM to take a Carrion Bird. Any hunter can supply it, and as I go on to explain and point out in this thread there are currently 12 viable specs which can apply not just only a AP Debuff, but one at -575 reduction.

[Proletaria]

You're suggesting we have our hunter keep a specific pet for when i tank 10mans? Any melee who can apply is is a moot point. Saying there are 12 specs ignores the fact that any melee spec is not going to be there for the off-tank, most 10mans can't be expected to carry a warlock and/or hunter around.

If you're suggesting that forming a raid comp that can't cover the gimp dk tank's butt is a poor choice then I'd have to agree, but don't disregard the issue at hand. No other tank has to jump these hoops, and it's perplexing to me how people can still defend this as OK.

[Fenier]

No, I am simply stating that saying a Hunter is unviable because of a mistaken belief they have to be a unpopular spec is unfounded. Any Hunter can apply the Debuff with a common pet.

I am not positive I agree with the current dev standpoint, however if you feel you need a AP debuff there are currently 12 various avenues to acquire one, and you are able to pick from any of the above in order to gain it. I would venture it's likely the most common Debuff in the entire game, it's certainly not 'hard' to come by.

Does leaving DKs out of it make a lot of sense? No not really, but a ton of people can apply it.

[KnThrak]

You're suggesting we have our hunter keep a specific pet for when i tank 10mans? Any melee who can apply is is a moot point. Saying there are 12 specs ignores the fact that any melee spec is not going to be there for the off-tank, most 10mans can't be expected to carry a warlock and/or hunter around.

If you're suggesting that forming a raid comp that can't cover the gimp dk tank's butt is a poor choice then I'd have to agree, but don't disregard the issue at hand. No other tank has to jump these hoops, and it's perplexing to me how people can still defend this as OK.

Because it's just not a big deal.
The issue comes up (for AbA) maybe once a month. At most. Yeah, then one of the hunters has to switch pet, big deal. :P
Plus even ignoring that, how often is it an issue in ICC? Deathwhisper doesn't really count because all hard-hitters aren't really tanked. BPC the other tank stands behind Taldaram so if it's a Warrior or Druid, he'll debuff your mob along with his.

Yes, DKs needs external input for AP Debuff. But you need to look at the bigger picture here.
Your raid has no second shammy or an Enh Shammy, and the DK Tank specced Frost isn't there? Oh, no Windfury. 20% melee haste is crucial, the DPS loss is just as hurtful for the raidpower as the loss of AP Debuff would be.
Or maybe you have no Warlock, but also no Boomkin, and no Unholy DK? -11,5% casterdamage, wipe to enrage timer.
Same again for Blood's 10% AP, it's shared only with Enh Shammies (which are ~inexistant) and MM Hunters. Miss it, you miss a lot of tank threat and physical damage. The average AbA 10man group has 2-3 melee and 1-2 Hunters, now if the one hunter there has to run replenishment, we're loosing tons of damage.

The big difference is: lots of specs bring AP Debuff. It's much easier to get.


Hence my point: I pick up missing debuffs like AP Debuff on the way to REAL raidstacking issues. AP Debuff is not even a minor nuisance, it hardly registers in the raidleader brain anymore...

[Chamenas]

Ranged threat gets glazed over quite often when people talk about tank balance, but if you're looking for the death knight's ace in the hole, there it is. There is an amazing amount of value in making things come to you rather than having to run to them.

-Splug

It ends up being highly situational and often doesn't work the way you'd expect it to. :-/

[Bosk]

No it isn't, get a warrior of any sort, a feral druid, or a ret pally in your group to spec into one of the AP debuffs. If you can't find one of them (or your raiders refuse to respec for the good of your raid) then you're the one with food for thought, not the developers responsible for tank balance.

That may be very valid in 25man, but less so in 10man.

When my guild cannot keep me up, ask me to log to a less geared pally alt (which I have less experience playing), and keep him up without issue then something is awry.