DK tanking early on?Follow

Once you get Death and Decay(level 60, right?), it'll make your tanking job relatively easy. Before then, it shouldn't be much different than your current AoE rotation, based on your spec. For unholy, I'd recommend you pull by running in, hitting the enemies with a Blood Boil(to keep them off the healer until you get diseases on them), then hitting one with Plague Strike and Icy Touch, pestilence those bad boys, and then you're set to just Blood Boil whenever it's off cool down, pestilence when diseases are about to fall(assuming you run a glyph of disease) and focus on then using Scourge Strikes on mobs to up threat on what's being killed. Once you get Death and Decay, I'd open with that on the run in(all of this assumes more than one mob), then put up diseases and pestilence. That alone should hold aggro against most AoE DPS classes, and then you can work on upping threat on the targets that are being focus fired with single target strikes.

Which brings me to another point. Mark things. It'll make life a lot easier.


As far as builds go, just build a solid leveling DPS build and run with that for now. You'll be fine using that til you're nearing 80 so long as you're in Frost Presence. Keep a close eye out for gear with good stamina, it'll help. Especially keep an eye out for pieces with sockets, as the rare quality Northrend gems are fairly cheap, and you can build a very solid stamina set pretty easily.

The reason I'm using Unholy as a reference is that it's a fairly common leveling build(well, that, and most of my tanking experience is as Unholy). You can do good things with other builds as well, so don't let my suggestion of Unholy force you to stick with that. It's just a suggestion.

Princess Resurrection, my current favorite.

And on the other hand, you already have above decent gear and should quickly be replacing 2 or 3 items with items with sockets in which you can use overpowered level 80 gems. I've been tanking an entire night in DPS spec yesterday, and barely had any problems. I think over about 5 hours of instancing, we had 3 or 4 wipes out of which at least 2 originated because my healer was lagging.

Got my rouge as far as he can go on Triumph gear so I started playing my DK more regularly in order to get him up. He was always intended to be a tank when I hit 80 and the new LFG was all the more reason (10sec queue for Tank > 30 min for DPS). I started off with my Unholy DPS leveling build in frost presense, but it was hard to stay up even in Nexxus. I went out and got a solid Frost build (IMO) for my dual spec and then started slowly getting into some defense gear. I was quickly at 440 def with just quest and a couple dungeon drops. I was doing good until now I am 76 and starting to get put in VH, DTK and Gundrak. I noticed last night that I was dropping real close to 20% health on many occasions and it was hard for the healer to keep me up. Looked at it, I was still 447 def at level 76.

Got a guildmate to make me the Tempered Saronite pieces. Now I am 497 def and have quite a bit more health.

The point to my rambling? DPS in frost might work, but nothing can compare to dedicated gear and spec.

Also, here is my DK for anyone who wants to offer suggestions.

edit: l2linage

Edited, Feb 23rd 2010 1:03pm by AtrophyGFour

Edited, Feb 23rd 2010 1:04pm by AtrophyGFour

The axe should be fine for now. Once you hit level 72 and can learn Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle, I would consider going with a 2h with that. Swordshattering is another good rune to use for the your leveling tanking weapon, though if you'd rather have the threat, I see no reason not to keep the Crusadered axe til 70(you'll get a much better threat runeforge then).

As far as the chest and shoulders go, that's fine. Try to get as much socketed gear as possible for the other slots and fill every socket with Solid Chalcedony, Perfect Solid Chalcedony, Solid Sky Sapphire, Regal or Sovereign Twilight Opal, or Enduring or Vivid Forest Emeralds depending on what you feel you need at the time.


http://www.wow-loot.com/V2-deathknight.htm

That ignores craftables to look at, and also ignores greens with sockets. Just keep an eye out for both.

Edit: Oh, and for some reason they seem to think DKs can use fist weapons. Um...ignore those.


Your build looks fine. Get Might of Mograine next, IMO. As for glyphs, Death and Decay + whatever, IMO. If you need single target threat, I'd say probably Death Strike. If you're having issues with taunt resists, then Dark Command.


I'd say stamina patches on head and shoulders, leg armor if you can get ahold of it on your pants(Clefthide til 70) then use cheap Northrend proper enchants where you can, even if it means going with a DPS enchant.


Edited, Mar 11th 2010 2:32am by Poldaran

Honestly, IMO, if you want to tank, do it in a tanking spec.
While we can hold threat and tank using frost presence in DPS spec, it's really painful for the healer.
Having to heal so much and as a result drink so often is no fun. I'm speaking from experience here as both a DK tank and a priest.

The only people who can run with almost endless mana are those trees with their innervate...

We might kill stuff a bit slower when solo-ing in tank spec but it should still be ok (we can AOE to our heart's content 'safely' in tank spec)

Also, for those who can afford it, that's what dual specs are for. Have one for tanking and one for DPS-solo play.

My lvl 80 DK is a Frost tank who got to 80 as DPS.
Tried to level another DK on a separate realm as a tank,.. due to 'shortage' of talent points, tanking at level 60 has a 'handicapped' feel.
No IBF, no Frost strike, no HB either. Fortunately there is DnD :) (a few more levels and life will be better, keke)

Got some compliments from healers regularly.... they always said it's so easy to heal and keep me alive (when running the same instance compared to their previous tanks). I guess they ran with tanks in DPS spec. LOL. Seldom ever lose threat either.

BTW, the socketed gear advice is very good. Lvl 80 gems on lvl 60 gear is no joke.

YES! That added to the 'handicapped' feel. I have to save DG for emergency use as taunt.