Learn 2 tankFollow

I rolled a DK and played him solo as DPS to 80. Now I want to play tank spec to get more dungeon runs. I geared up with crafted gear and tried a cookie cutter spec. I still have to get down the priorities and spell, and I read a lot on TankSpot and here on Frost DW and got 2 Cobalt Slicer, and put runes on them (after the last "FAIL" I am sure it was not totally my fault we wiped but it was sad to get kicked from a N UK where the rest of the group were 72s. Do you have any things that can help, and how I can improve as a tank?
DeadCattle

That, really. Because DK tanking specs are so similar to DPS specs (technically, DPS spec + Blade Barrier + Toughness + Anticipation = tank spec), Death Knights *can* tank some 5-man instances in their DPS spec by just wearing tanking gear. Before you really outgear the content you're doing, I really wouldn't recommended it though. You'd need full Ulduar 25 gear or up to do heroics safely that way, I reckon.

Be nice. :P

Idiggory is right - your gear is terribad and your health pool isn't enough for heroics. I'd hate to be the healer that has to keep you alive.

There are several things you can do to improve. Unfortunately enchants aren't going to be enough - you really need better gear. The jewelcrafting gear is good and the tempered saronite stuff is okay but the rest, including the cobalt slicers, really don't cut the mustard.

If you read Tankspot, you'll have seen the dk tank gear list. You've got mining as a profession so that enables you to smelt titansteel, which is excellent for tanks. You could do with the tempered titansteel boots and helm, as well as the titansteel bonecrusher as one weapon. For a 2nd, I recommend the Reaper of Dark Souls, for which you need Revered with Knights of the Ebon Blade.

I'd also suggest getting the titansteel destroyer - the 2-hand weapon. If you have that, you can play at being dps for a while and get into some dungeons fairly safely. Personally, I spent my first week of lvl 80 DK as dps, getting gear from heroics while letting more experienced people do the hard work. Doing it that way also gets you lots of reputation and some free emblems of triumph, which you can spend on excellent gear. Seeing how more experienced tanks handle the heroics will also help when you come to tank those places.

EDIT: I forgot something - if you can get in heroics as dps, you can probably get in some pug raids. Look out for people doing the weekly raid quest. I got one of my rings this way.

My armory so you can see my gear.


Edited, Jan 8th 2010 5:25pm by Leodis

Yes I am trying to get there got good advice here. Sitting at 496 before changes so should not be too hard.

My Spec is 0/53/18 and is a frost tank spec I found in my research.

I try to stay with HB/IT/PS/BS/BS/OBIT and RS when it is up and FS as my other RP dump. The party leader told me to start with DnD but I read it was not really needed, HB Does much the same thing and helps the frost spells I use.

Changing back to a 2H and using NC will stay the same as the 2 1h with NC/FC?
I ran Nexus on Reg and cleared it. The UK run was on Reg, I was losing some aggro but could re-tag them. The wipe was on the Twin Bosses which I think they used the wrong stat, killing the caster first, I thought you had to kill them at the same time.

I have been at 80 for 5 days. I knew I was getting some better gear crafted, I might have made better choices but I really am trying and was only looking for ideas. Your posters have given a bunch of excellent ones.

Thanks Leodis. I did get something put in every slot I could. At 20K armor, 20K health and 519 Defense with 2 weapons, although I am using the 2H for now. I have 4 TS bars made so 4 more for the TS Destroyer. Money is not too bad, probably 4k on main and Myself. Still not able to tank a 80+ elite yet( Chillmaw ) so the priest kicked me and got another priest to do the quest.

I think you simply mistook two links. Like Diggory said, your spec is definitely not a tank spec. Just look at it yourself - you've picked talents like Blood-Caked Blade, Necrosis and Ravenous Death (more damage and a minor amount of strenght) over talents like Unbreakable Armor, Anticipation, Improved Frost Presence, Frigid Deathplate, Toughness and Blade Barrier (all pure survivability talents). Your spec *avoids* all pure tanking talents that exist. Regardless of what patch we're in or what character or boss we're talking about, a spec that avoids all possible pure tanking stats is never a tanking spec.

I personally prefer blood over frost for tanking. You get more health, a last stand, and I think the single target threat is way better as well. I also think using a 2h for tanking produces much better results than trying to DW tank. To effectively DW tank you need a TON more expertise (on the order of 35-40) and the gear I save on expertise makes my overall stats that much better. Plus blood gets higher HP numbers than any other spec.

I think you're pretty crazy. I've never in my life seen a tank actually stack armor pen, nor would I ever recommend someone do it. And blood's AoE threat is just fine. First off the only thing that Frost has over Blood (AoE-wise) is howling blast. Even frost's AoE threat comes just as much from Death and Decay, diseases, and blood boil as it does howling blast. Blood has the same disease damage, same Death and Decay damage, and actually has MORE damage than frost when it comes to blood boil (by an order of 30%). If you're having AoE threat problems tanking as blood, that's an indication you're doing something wrong, more than it is a problem with the spec.

Now frost does have the best passive mitigation, more than any other spec, however (at least in my guild) threat generation has always been more important than passive mitigation, as our dps push tanks to their limit. Plus the fact that single target threat is almost always more important than AoE threat. AoE threat helps on trash (in raids and 5-mans), but still most boss fights are against a single target. Most dps don't use their big cooldowns on trash packs, but they unload everything they can on the boss target (again, both in raids and 5-mans). Honestly if people pull aggro on trash packs, they tend to blame the dps long before they blame the tank for lack of threat anyway. AoE threat is nice and all, but it's just not as important as people make it out to be.

The soft-cap expertise is referring to push dodge off the table. Dodges don't really impact you near as much as parry. If a boss dodges you, you miss, nothing special happens. If a boss parries you, however, it can (depending on the boss, some bosses don't do this) reset the bosses swing timer, causing it to swing faster or more often, making you take damage. Since you are using two weapons as opposed to one, DW increases the chance for the boss to parry you, and therefore you need more expertise to compensate for the extra swings. I haven't seen someone get parry-gibbed and killed in months, but it does increase the strain on healers, and you should want to avoid making healers work harder to keep you alive. Death knights are already on the squishier end of the spectrum when it comes to tanking, you don't want to make it worse. Most of the tanks I know shoot for 30ish normally (mainly warriors, since they're physical) and if you were DWing you'd want more than you'd want with a single weapon, and most DW tanks I know shoot for 35-40.

Finally, I don't understand where you're getting off at saying that tanking as blood is hard in any way. One of the biggest reasons why I've always enjoyed tanking as blood as the other specs, is because it is pretty much identical to dpsing as blood, just with using tanking cooldowns in the place of dps ones, and using Death and Decay and blood boil a bit more than I do as dps. The rotation is pretty much identical for single target. This means I can spend all day dpsing, then switch to tanking and not miss a beat.. or I can be tanking all night and then need to switch to dps for a fight and still do well.

Reading about tanking is similar to reading about learning to drive. You can only study so much - eventually you just gotta do it.

Do what the guys said above... Learn the rules of the road. After that - it's all about taking it slow and hopefully not killing anyone.


GL

I started tanking with a Frost spec to get the hang of it and learn the dungeons from a tanks point of view, tried switching to Blood and failed miserably because the rotation and things to watch for are completely different in each spec, Blood you really have to pay attention to AoE threat whereas with Frost you need to watch for single target threat, at least that's how I played it, but switching from AoE mindset to Single target mindset on bosses is easier than vice versa IMO.

Anyway, I swicthed back to Frost and never looked back, got a decent set of gear, crit capped my Defense for Heroics and gemmed and enchanted all my gear til I was sitting at about 29k health, which to me was good enough to tank any Heroic. Now with the new LFD system and I see tanks with 36k+ health I just want to cry, but I switched my focus to DPS since that's what I want to do anyway.

I ran through all of the Heroics as DPS to gear up and get badges, then once I had a full gear set with enchants and gems I started tanking. Unfortunate for you, but fortunate for the groups tanks run with is that you really can't start tanking when you're undergeared since it's one of those pass/fail things for tanks. Healers kind of suffer the same way, but not to the same extreme whereas DPS can suck big time and you still be able to get thtough an instance with a decent tank and healer pulling the group along.

I'd stay with the TTSD. Haste isn't an important stats for DKs (especially not 2-handed Frost). It's slightly better for DW Frost, Unholy and Blood (but not awesome). The extra hit doesn't make up for the loss of weapon damage. You get 20 more damage for each strike. Each point is rated much higher than hit, so the TTSD is still probably better.

That said, if you don't want to farm the TTSD and have the seals (and don't want BoA items, or the other crap) then go for it. The TTSD isn't ENOUGH of an increase to bother with if you can grab the sword easily. But if you'll have to farm seals for a week anyway, you might as well just farm the mats for the mace.

Actually, no. Smart HSing is superior AoE threat until you have 4 or 5 mobs. BBing is far easier, yes. But it does NOT produce superior threat. So playing Blood may be simple if you are taking the easy way out, yes. But doing it properly is quite difficult. And even spamming BB, you'll need to grab mobs more often.

Effective Blood tanking usually involves mixing BBs and HSs as necessary. It is far more difficult to master than the other specs. And, even when you have mastered it, still provides less AoE threat. And they no longer have a ST advantage (at least not a very noticeable one).

I'm not saying the spec is bad (and I firmly don't think it is), just that it will be much easier to learn how to tank in a different spec (due to the intense AoE damage flying around nowadays) and then switch to Blood if you wish to. It may be harder to learn the spec itself, but at least you won't be worrying about learning how to position mobs and you'll be comfortable with tanking enough that your reflexes will let you grab lost mobs faster. And, most importantly, if you have tanked as Unholy you'll have learned how to effectively place DnD.

[EDIT]

And, again, ALL DK tanking is nearly identical to DpS. That is not unique to Blood at all.

Edited, Jan 12th 2010 4:14pm by idiggory