Literally the question in the title. how has life been with a dk tanking? good bad or ugly ? has he/she held agro in right plaes and interupted enough spells to help mitagate dmg? or have they run around willy nilly with no idea what to do at all?

Easy, fun and fast.

Shame my friend (DK) outdps's my rogue from time to time though :<

5/8/58 and I'm loving it. AOE threat is awesome and mitigation is quite nice with Boneshield, IBF and my JC dodge trinket.

Everyone in my guild has been quite impressed so far with how I've handled multiple mobs in heroics.

I've healed mostly good ones so far, with a few massively crittable exceptions. I'm pretty sure you could tank okay with a 0/0/0 spec, but you can't tank without the gear.

The only issue is the spiky damage when those cooldowns go away. I think the better DKs are learning to stagger their mitigation cooldowns so they don't scare the bejeezus out of their healer 40 seconds into a fight.

They're also much better if DPS needs to switch to tank - much better than a fury warrior in defensive stance and on a par with a druid going bear in cat gear. I've offtanked problem mobs and picked up bosses after the MT dropped, and haven't troubled the healer much at all. Then again, blood spec and the core tank talents is probably good for that sort of job.

I'm a quite good resto druid if I may say so myself and I healed all classes and I found that DK takes quite a lot of damage tbh, the DK I was with also had problems keeping aggro on multiple targetsss, his spec was something like quite deep into blood and frost and I have no idea ofcourse what a DK should spec (all I know about DK is pvp wise) but he sounded quite convinced it was a good spec cos of self healing from blood and damage reduction from frost.

He tanked Old Kingdom wich is quite a hard heroic imo and we had a great wipefest, maybe it was him or maybe it was me I don't really know, all I know is my first impression of DK isn't all that good ;)

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Q u o t e:
I'm a quite good resto druid if I may say so myself and I healed all classes and I found that DK takes quite a lot of damage tbh, the DK I was with also had problems keeping aggro on multiple targetsss, his spec was something like quite deep into blood and frost and I have no idea ofcourse what a DK should spec (all I know about DK is pvp wise) but he sounded quite convinced it was a good spec cos of self healing from blood and damage reduction from frost.

He tanked Old Kingdom wich is quite a hard heroic imo and we had a great wipefest, maybe it was him or maybe it was me I don't really know, all I know is my first impression of DK isn't all that good ;)

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He sounds like a pretty bad DK imo. All specs can tank, but there are a few very useful talents in the beginning of each trees which really are a must for tanking. I've never tanked as blood, but as unholy AoE tanking is really easy. I'm pretty sure the self healing from blood will be really small compared with your healing output, I think the self healing is good for soloing or pvping! I'm sure blood can tank heroics, but the specific talents chosen within each spec are important!

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Q u o t e:
I'm a quite good resto druid if I may say so myself and I healed all classes and I found that DK takes quite a lot of damage tbh, the DK I was with also had problems keeping aggro on multiple targetsss, his spec was something like quite deep into blood and frost and I have no idea ofcourse what a DK should spec (all I know about DK is pvp wise) but he sounded quite convinced it was a good spec cos of self healing from blood and damage reduction from frost.

He tanked Old Kingdom wich is quite a hard heroic imo and we had a great wipefest, maybe it was him or maybe it was me I don't really know, all I know is my first impression of DK isn't all that good ;)

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Your dps not interrupting the casts could be a factor. That place packs some wicked aoe at times.

Well here is my experince from a tanking standpoint. I dont really care for it.

I started a DK like many others just to see how they were and as a class they are great. The DK threat levels are outstanding, the damage is fantastic, I was having a grand time playing DK and thought I might have found my new main.

Then I hit Utgarde, threat was no problem the problem was the very very streaky damage. Didnt even do half the instance until I relogged to my Warrior and finished it with him. The streaky damage went away, threat still wasnt a problem and it was much easier on the healer.

Now I know alot of people are going to disagree with me but IMO DK will never be more than a backup tank or a main tank for an extremly high DPS group. The kind of group that can put mobs down super fast. Avoidance tanks will always have big damage spikes because its the nature of that style of tanking, the problem is when the RNG is not on your side you may find yourself on the floor wondering what happened.

As far as gear, both my DK and my tank were in close to the same gear, if you like you can look them up. Matherson is my DK this is my warrior.

Maybe Im just to used to my warrior for tanking. I love the DK class its great and Ill continue to level mine but I just cant see him tanking instance unless its something that he is overgeared for.

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Q u o t e:

Maybe Im just to used to my warrior for tankin.

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I'm pretty sure it's this, I tanked the Nexus and Utgarde without overgearing it with no trouble and I've never had to use CC, even in gun'drak with a level 73 priest (no epic 70 gear) healing - if anything I feel like I take way less damage than my druid (which is 80)

well, I've been instancing with a dk tank, almost 5h few days ago, and NOONE was even close to overaggro him, he was 76 ( we were about 75) and unholy specced, we've done almost all instances equire to our lvl then.
so imo unholy is even cool specc to tank, I wonder how frost looks.

my first experience with a DK tank was with me as healer on my shaman (lvl 70, epic geared :O )
It all started in Ungarde Keep and i had faith that he knew what he was doing, after all he had 15k hp
But it went miserable and i died at the first couple of packs due to overaggro.
I gave him a chance more, and we slowly descended into the forge of hate, 30 seconds between each pack due to markings and whatnot
The tank was miserable at holding aggro, and i had to heal almost everyone in the group at all times.
Well, we got into the third pack of dragons and handlers in the stables (on our fourth wipe) when we decided to let our kitty druid go bear and show him some real tanking.
He stayed dps for the rest of the run and we cleared the rest without wipes (exept for a single stupid one on the last boss) in less than 30 mins.

Sorry for the wall
-Rockhoof

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Q u o t e:
I'm a quite good resto druid if I may say so myself and I healed all classes and I found that DK takes quite a lot of damage tbh, the DK I was with also had problems keeping aggro on multiple targetsss, his spec was something like quite deep into blood and frost and I have no idea ofcourse what a DK should spec (all I know about DK is pvp wise) but he sounded quite convinced it was a good spec cos of self healing from blood and damage reduction from frost.

He tanked Old Kingdom wich is quite a hard heroic imo and we had a great wipefest, maybe it was him or maybe it was me I don't really know, all I know is my first impression of DK isn't all that good ;)

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1. sounds like your tank was a dps spec
2. he probably wasnt in frost pressence
3. he sucks

They still don't understand that tanking = 100% attendance or gtfo.

DK tanks aren't bad when they have their buffs up and aren't silenced.

But as soon as their buffs drop, the damage they take is massive compared to a warrior. Since I've not been in a raid or top end 5man with one I'm going to withhold my judgement but, going on the 7-8 runs I've done with a DK tank, I'm not going to be holding my breath really.

Good , unholy is great for aoe tanking

When you look at the posters in this thread, it seems like everyone that plays a DK says they're great for tanking and everyone that doesn't says they aren't.

In my opinion a tank shouldn't judge themselves as to wether or not they're any good at the job, I'd much rather trust the healers opinions... if healing them is easy and feels safe then you're onto a winner.. if it's sketchy and feels like they might die if you're not bringing your A game as a healer then no they're not great.

Generating threat is not the be all and end all of tanking, generating threat and mitigating damage (reliably) is.

It might very well come down to people learning their role as a DK and respeccing to whatever the good tanking specs are.. (like how arms and fury warriors can tank, but they'll be unreliable compared to prot) but generally it seems like people will still be picking the tried and tested protection warriors for tanking raids reliably.

Not to say that you can't tank a raid with a DK as a MT, I mean some guilds run with bear druids as MT's and tankadin's and have success.. it just seems that guilds using DK main tanks will probably be as common as those kind of guilds.

Well i have tanked all hrc, naxx 10/25, with great results. It is all about chaining ur buffs. And in overall dmg reduc I take ~13% less dmg as a warrior in comparable gear. Have never raided with a pala or druid tank with gear good enough to compare, so have no idea with those.

I still prefer to be offtank to a good warrior, since we have better total dmg output that way, and i love picking up the boss when tank dies and be the one standing looking down on his corpse :p

My agro is not as high as other tanks, but still way above any dmg dealer. Realy feel im lacking a high threat attack like sunder armor. Would hlp alot if our dots caused high threat. But not complaining, agro have not caused a problem in any fight so far.

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Q u o t e:
Well i have tanked all hrc, naxx 10/25, with great results. It is all about chaining ur buffs. And in overall dmg reduc I take ~13% less dmg as a warrior in comparable gear. Have never raided with a pala or druid tank with gear good enough to compare, so have no idea with those.

I still prefer to be offtank to a good warrior, since we have better total dmg output that way, and i love picking up the boss when tank dies and be the one standing looking down on his corpse :p

My agro is not as high as other tanks, but still way above any dmg dealer. Realy feel im lacking a high threat attack like sunder armor. Would hlp alot if our dots caused high threat. But not complaining, agro have not caused a problem in any fight so far.

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We got Rune Strike for that, which should be able to be used for like 90% of your white attacks anyway. :/

Tanked every heroic bar Pinnacle on my DK. No cc, no wipes (expcept a few comedy ones from bad pulls, or when we were just learning tactics on the bosses). I've only ever had one healer complain that i was too hard to keep up, and they were lvl 68 in a 70 instance, shadow specced, and i'd not realised that pulling first boss in HoL when he has lightning buff is a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake :p

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Q u o t e:
DK tanks aren't bad when they have their buffs up and aren't silenced.

But as soon as their buffs drop, the damage they take is massive compared to a warrior. Since I've not been in a raid or top end 5man with one I'm going to withhold my judgement but, going on the 7-8 runs I've done with a DK tank, I'm not going to be holding my breath really.

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Without buffs (icebound fort, unbreakable armor, magic shell, lichborne) I have 5% more avoidance than a warrior tank. This is in comparative gear, and both tanks taking the two avoidance improving talents on the lower tiers of their trees. Warrs get 5% and 5%, whereas I get 5% and 10% (which if you're good at math, is 5% more :p) since blade barrier is ALWAYS up on any fight. So without my buffs (as mentioned above) im on more avoidance than the war, my armor is with frost presence is 1k more than a comparatively geared warrior WITH his 7.5k armor shield. And that extra 1k armor, plus the extra 5% avoidance should make up for the extra mitigation he gets from block. And thats before I even bother with my cooldowns, which btw, keep me covered for almost 40s per minute between IF and UA. On top of that, I have various self heals to make any healers job easier.