[DK] The DK Tanking thread

Figured I'd start this so we can condence any DK tanking questions to one thread.

Four piece Tier 8... how many of you have it and are you finding it? As a blood tank the distinct lack of hit concerns me a bit and there are quite a few non-tier pieces that I could use instead. (Normally I'd look around dk.info but with the new design I can't even find the forums anymore >.<)

@ Splug - I armoried Spyte figuring you would have 4pc already (and you do) and saw you went Blood and glyphed for Rune Tap. Which fight was that for? Hard mode Hodir?

@ Splug - I armoried Spyte figuring you would have 4pc already (and you do) and saw you went Blood and glyphed for Rune Tap. Which fight was that for? Hard mode Hodir?

"I love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning." (IE: Vezax hard). Any renewable healing there is worth the price. The rogues said the cloak we got from it was best in slot for them, and it turned out to not be that horrible once I did some spec tweaking.

As for the hit problem - my goal is to keep my hit rating where it's not capped, but flipping on Grim Toll puts it there. That lets me use a one-slot switch from threat gear to tanking gear. Though I am debating buying the badge gloves now that I have the fifth piece of Conqueror's armor - the dodge would be better than the parry, and it opens up another dragonseye socket. Then again, the saronite leggings from Kologarn may be a better swap if they ever drop. I swapped out my bonus armor ring and I wouldn't mind getting the stat back.

-Splug

Splug wrote:

@ Splug - I armoried Spyte figuring you would have 4pc already (and you do) and saw you went Blood and glyphed for Rune Tap. Which fight was that for? Hard mode Hodir?

"I love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning." (IE: Vezax hard). Any renewable healing there is worth the price. The rogues said the cloak we got from it was best in slot for them, and it turned out to not be that horrible once I did some spec tweaking.

As for the hit problem - my goal is to keep my hit rating where it's not capped, but flipping on Grim Toll puts it there. That lets me use a one-slot switch from threat gear to tanking gear. Though I am debating buying the badge gloves now that I have the fifth piece of Conqueror's armor - the dodge would be better than the parry, and it opens up another dragonseye socket. Then again, the saronite leggings from Kologarn may be a better swap if they ever drop. I swapped out my bonus armor ring and I wouldn't mind getting the stat back.

-Splug

I used Grim Toll for a while to achieve hit cap but always like the idea of a EH/Avoidance trinket in those slots. With the buff to armor pen the proc from Grim Toll would make it very useful as a threat trinket...

I'm looking at this situation because I have the XT shoulders and the tier shoulders don't look remarkably better by comparison. The Tier 8 Shoulders vs. Heroic XT Shoulders, basically substituting a little parry avoidance and a yellow socket for 1.3% hit.

What I'm trying to ascertain is whether or not 5 seconds of 10% physical mitigation every 45 seconds is noticeable or if you had the pieces would you break 4 piece for threat(hit)/avoidance/EH (example gloves: tier v. badge v freya (hard, if you had a shot at them)? Are you using it as a RP dump?

I get very little use from the four piece bonus, but I prefer to keep it on general principle. If I drop it and save the set to use 'situationally,' the one time I'll need it will be the time I'm not wearing it.

-Splug

That's kind of what I thought. I could see its use in a "I know I'm eating the next hit" kind of circumstance (Sarth breaths) but on a slow hitting boss you could use it, then avoid, and basically just waste RP.

Or am I missing something?

Nah, the DK 4pc isn't nearly as OP as some people make it seem. The definition of situational.

Yeah I stopped and did some math in my head. IF a boss fight lasted 5 minutes AND you had perfect execution you would get a total of 30 seconds of +10% physical mitigation. Think I'll hold on to my DKP for a bit.

The General's Heart or Furnace Stone?

Have them? Use them? Thoughts?

I have both now and am leaning towards the Furnace Stone because I like the secondary effect better than the General's Heart although I've been feeling a bit dodge heavy lately (equipping two pieces of T8 yesterday fixed that a little bit). Before the gear switches I was 32-33% dodge raid buffed.

Related question: Does Furnace Stone's use ability give AP from Bladed Armor? It would break down to about 143 AP if it does work although I'm not sure how often Bladed Armor "checks" your armor to give you AP.

I imagine both would be good, esp since you can't block things.

Falibard wrote:The General's Heart or Furnace Stone?

Have them? Use them? Thoughts?

I have both now and am leaning towards the Furnace Stone because I like the secondary effect better than the General's Heart although I've been feeling a bit dodge heavy lately (equipping two pieces of T8 yesterday fixed that a little bit). Before the gear switches I was 32-33% dodge raid buffed.

Related question: Does Furnace Stone's use ability give AP from Bladed Armor? It would break down to about 143 AP if it does work although I'm not sure how often Bladed Armor "checks" your armor to give you AP.

Previously, Bladed Armor would recalculate every 30 seconds. It now recalculates (and this is awesome - by which I mean retarded) every time your strength or attack power changes. This is occasionally exploited in arenas by beginning in frost presence, using horn of winter, and then flipping to blood presence- retaining the extra AP until horn fades. However, if rune of the fallen crusader or an AP trinket is fired, it will recalculate early. So if you want to be sure to gain the benefit of the AP boost, cancelaura your horn of winter and then recast it after firing the trinket. Depending on the stray raid buffs and other factors, you may end up resetting it anyway, or keeping it much longer than intended.

-Splug

Is this a good place to ask about lowbie-tanking as a DK? =) I am leveling unholy (++Mounted Speed), and have enjoyed tanking ... but am curious if that will bite me in the ass if I go to tank in Northrend as unholy. Does the mitigation from Frost and the self-healing from Blood make them noticeably better? Will a faster death grip be something I will regret not picking up? (I tend to use it so rarely when soloing, but it IS our taunt, so .. I guess I need it.)

Should I bother getting the crafted tanking gear at 70? Maybe I won't need to tank at all in Northrend, but I suspect my tolerance of other tanks will be ... poor.

Kelaan wrote:Is this a good place to ask about lowbie-tanking as a DK? =)

Sure. But I like one-liners for multi-question posts.

I am leveling unholy (++Mounted Speed), and have enjoyed tanking ... but am curious if that will bite me in the ass if I go to tank in Northrend as unholy. Does the mitigation from Frost and the self-healing from Blood make them noticeably better?

No. Both of those are fairly minor elements, and unholy compensates with its arguably superior cooldown: bone shield. It's hard to weigh all the pieces against each other, but at the end of the day unholy may have a minor shortcoming in survivability which is more than compensated by superiority in multi-target threat control.

Will a faster death grip be something I will regret not picking up? (I tend to use it so rarely when soloing, but it IS our taunt, so .. I guess I need it.)

No. Dark Command is your regular-use taunt; death grip is more of a fallback / utility ability. 35 seconds is plenty for it to do its job unless you need to keep up with someone's intercept cooldown for arenas; but that's an entirely different ballgame.

Should I bother getting the crafted tanking gear at 70? Maybe I won't need to tank at all in Northrend, but I suspect my tolerance of other tanks will be ... poor.

I'd recommend it. The cobalt set of tanking gear is about all you're going to have walking out of Outland, and it should be fairly cheap to get since smiths will use it to skill up. It's enough to do dungeons with at that level, and even if your tollerance of other tanks is sufficient, I know my tollerance of the lfg queue is not. Tanks get groups faster.

-Splug

Splug wrote:unholy compensates with its arguably superior cooldown: bone shield. It's hard to weigh all the pieces against each other, but at the end of the day unholy may have a minor shortcoming in survivability which is more than compensated by superiority in multi-target threat control.

Good point -- I've felt very happy about threat, even if I haven't mastered the first 3 or 4 GCDs yet. Why is Bone Shield so good? 2 minute cooldown on 4 attacks? .... OK, now that I think about that I guess it's better than I thought, esp since I already have Icebound Fortitide anyways. (:

Dark Command is your regular-use taunt; death grip is more of a fallback / utility ability.

/facepalm. I need to hit a trainer, as I am finally 65.

even if your tollerance of other tanks is sufficient, I know my tollerance of the lfg queue is not. Tanks get groups faster.

SO TRUE!!! I hadn't even thought about that. Thanks for the tips. =D

Kelaan wrote:

Splug wrote:unholy compensates with its arguably superior cooldown: bone shield. It's hard to weigh all the pieces against each other, but at the end of the day unholy may have a minor shortcoming in survivability which is more than compensated by superiority in multi-target threat control.

Good point -- I've felt very happy about threat, even if I haven't mastered the first 3 or 4 GCDs yet. Why is Bone Shield so good? 2 minute cooldown on 4 attacks? .... OK, now that I think about that I guess it's better than I thought, esp since I already have Icebound Fortitide anyways. (:

You can Glyph for Bone Shield which would increase the number of charges from 4 to 6 which isn't bad. There might be better glyphs for an unholy tank, but to me, that one seems to be pretty strong.

Keep in mind that bone shield works similar to shaman shield effects; charges are only consumed once per 2.5 seconds, but the effect is passive until all charges are consumed. Thus, with the glyph you'll get an absolute minimum 12.5 seconds of damage reduction, even if you're taking constant damage income. Also, charges are not consumed by auras or dot ticks.

-Splug

Well it seems, I am sorely lacking in the threat department.

Armory: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet ... langEffekt

I am not sure if I have a talentspec mistake, something with the equipment or simple rotation failure.

I am using the Howling Blast Glyph, open up with it, Obliterate, Blodd Strieks for death runes, Obliterate, FrostStrike/Runestrike as RP dump.

I suspect that´s either one of the following:
Not using the second disease
Rotation mistake, either systematic or am pushing something wrong.
Missing hit.
Talent mistake.

Macro Rune Strike to everything so you can pretty much forget about it. IT-PS will generally beat HB for single target boss fights, the only reason I haven't swapped back to the Icy Touch glyph in my tank build is the sheer level of OP that it is in AoE situations.

Spec's not bad, but 3/5 Bladed Armor will likely beat Subversion for threat. Glyphs are fine.

You were very vague, so that's about the best I can help, sorry. Give us a parse of something to see what you're actually doing and how bad your threat actually is. Many specs can and will push your threat to the limit these days. I always freak out at our Arcane mage, since he likes to invis at the last possible second. >_>

You're also using an 18-stamina glove enchant. If threat is a concern, you're going to get more out of the 2% threat / parry rating enchant. Bladed armor is a better payoff than subversion if you're in frost presence, and Deathchill has very little value in throughput threat generation. Pulling at least one point into Epidemic will allow you to use a steady two-rune-cycle rotation, which should help as well. So subversion -> bladed armor, deathchill -> epidemic, and that should get you a bit more passive threat and the ability to run a more steady rotation:

IT->PS->Oblit->BS->BS->__
__->Oblit->Oblit->__->Oblit->__

The underscores are openings to fire frost strike (or howling blast on Rime procs), assuming RS hasn't consumed too much already. If you get a chance to pull in the Sigil of the Vengeful Heart, it is superior for frost in my opinion.

-Splug

Vengeful Heart is fucking sexy. Like, I would sell my raid leaders soul for it sexy. Pity it'll go to the shitty 'DPS' dk before me and Ryukii can roll for it. :<

Unfortunately I've found it mediocre for tanking as blood or unholy. Between rune strikes sucking up a large portion of RP and blood's heavy demand on GCD's, I'm fairly confident Awareness is better for at least blood, and comparable for unholy. So until I run into a fight that significantly favors frost again, it looks like it sits in my bags. It is fun running around BG's dropping five-digit bombs on people with no resilience though...

-Splug

Do fights later on significantly disadvantage Frost tanking? Or is it more of a preference thing. I'll be exceptionally sad if I have to spec sighBlood to be taken seriously once we start to properly kill the Watchers onwards.

Also, it's worth noting just how strong Frost Strike is as an RP dump. It's not quite a Rune Strike, but it's pretty close. I'd like to see a Death Coil crit for 7000 in tanking gear.

Levantine wrote:Do fights later on significantly disadvantage Frost tanking? Or is it more of a preference thing. I'll be exceptionally sad if I have to spec sighBlood to be taken seriously once we start to properly kill the Watchers onwards.

Not really. Blood is nice for Vezax, and Unholy has more magic-based damage, and thus benefits more on Hodir- though I wonder if frost's higher crit rate would be a significant player as well.

I'd like to see a Death Coil crit for 7000 in tanking gear.

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/ability/4063756/47632/Death%20Coil

(Yeah I know, I cheated - but that there is a 7000 point deathcoil!!11!)

-Splug

Cheater. =.=

Of course, now I'm going to have to go crit Frost Strike for some outrageous amount now to one up you.

Splug wrote:Keep in mind that bone shield works similar to shaman shield effects; charges are only consumed once per 2.5 seconds, but the effect is passive until all charges are consumed. Thus, with the glyph you'll get an absolute minimum 12.5 seconds of damage reduction, even if you're taking constant damage income. Also, charges are not consumed by auras or dot ticks.

Reeeeeally. I was expecting to lose all four (or six) hits in basically the first couple seconds of an AOE situation. If there's a minimum time between activations, that's MUCH more powerful than I though, and VERY worth the talent point. Thanks for the education.

Interesting question, Lev, about there being particular specs that are disadvantaged at various stages of progression.

For a while, I heard Frost was the cookie-cutter DK tanking spec. Blood's self-healing advantage sounds exceptionally nice, though, especially when a guild is working on something like Ignis. I'd be interested in your thoughts for what "optimal" (or at least "good") specs are for:
- Heroics
- Naxxramas
- Ulduar

... and I am kicking myself for being so willing to tank my way through heroics or Naxxramas Yet Again on a DK. WTF am I thinking??? (Aside from the obvious "Getting groups is so much easier") That's mostly a rhetorical quetion, I believe.

I'm inclined to believe Splug when he says that there's not so much a disadvantage, more a flavor difference that helps a little. Blood on Vexaz where healer mana is limited, for example.

I've personally always been Frost since I'm not fond of the mechanics that Unholy and Blood tanks use, and I've never felt any kind of disadvantage in any fight I've been a part of. Admittedly I'm only 7/14 Ulduar though.