DK tanks?

[jsn0x]

What are your opinions on the regarding a multiboxing team's tank?

I already have a level 80 dk with tier 7 tank and 7.5 dps gear and I was thinking about just power leveling my team with him doing the instances, but I dont really see any team builds with DK tanks mixed in.

Also seeing how this is going to be my first team what kind of group comp would you all recomend? I see that shammys are pretty powerful but I'm sort of a nub when it comes to shammys, or healing in general.

One more random question- Can you use a BC key on a trial account? Or do you have to use a vanilla key then a BC key?

[Tim]

Thats actually a really good question that I was wondering myself. Can DKs actually tank heroics? I've never seen a DK tank myself, crazy I know, so I'm not even sure you can. I think DKs are meant to be able to tank in any spec, but is this comparable to druid/pally/warrior tank?

[Lindline]

DKs are slightly more difficult to use as a tank. They're very cooldown dependent, and they are the only tank that utilizes a targeted ground AoE. They wouldn't be my first choice for a team tank, but its certainly doable. Just spec frost or unholy though, blood is very single target based.

[jsn0x]

I have tanked heroics before lol, DK's are pretty good tanks actually. Our main off tank (back when we had everything on farm before ulduar came out) was a DK. I think it would be simple enough for one to be a team tank... I'll give it a shot anyway lol.

And as for the rest I guess I'll just go with the 4 shammys to learn the ropes

[Ualaa]

As a DK, you have two Blood, two Frost and two Unholy runes.
The first two runes you use, regenerate (become available again) 10 seconds after use.
Every other rune refreshes 8 seconds after use.

It is hard to macro that effectively.
There's no issue with driving the DK as the tank.
And most of the time, even with an easy to macro tank (Feral/Pally), you drive with the tank anyway.

When starting out, a Feral is one of the better tanks (crit immune, crushing blow immune, even in horrible gear) and a Pally is almost as good (Holy Shield, threat on a block, threat when hit). When you don't outgear the encounter, a warrior or death knight tank has a lot more issues then a Druid or Pally. Flip that around, when you are very geared, the DK puts out the most DPS of any tank, and the Warrior is probably the hardest to kill.

Any tank will work, if you want to "drive" the tank.

Three Elemental shammies and a Warlock, would probably be the easiest four to break in a new tank, or learn a new toon.

[supamario00]

When I played a DK back in march I found it helped survivability if you used a terrible BLood spec and you rolled draenei. basically you get the three DK heals plus Draenei heal and then i chose herbs as a profession so basically i got a layon hands every 10 min.

It also helps that blood Dks are pretty much talented with 5 versions of Thorns so even if you arent attacking you do signifigant dmg.

[Ualaa]

DK's take more damage then other tanks, from the same content.
The trade off, is that you push out a lot more damage while tanking.

If the entire team is starting out, it can be a hard process.
But if the rest of the team is relatively geared, and you insert a DK into the mix.
They will have the dps to down things quickly, which means you don't tank as long.
And the healer will have the mana and healing power to keep the undergeared tank up a while.
Initially, even with equivalent gear to a warrior or paladin (which might be sufficient for them), it likely won't be the best for the DK.

Not saying it cannot be done.
Quite a few people are using DK's as tanks.
Just that, purely from the perspective of tanking, DK's are the worst.
They do provide a 13% spell power boost, which is very nice.
And have a ton of melee enhancing abilities to boot.

[Poyzon]

Originally Posted by Ualaa

DK's take more damage then other tanks, from the same content.

I've been playing my healer solo, running her up to 80 and I can definitely say that DK's take more damage. When I have a DK tank, I notice that they take damage in much bigger bursts and I'm kept on my toes.

For me, ease of healing goes: Paladin > Druid (bear) > DK. I haven't had a significant enough number of warriors in my groups (as tank) to tell you if they are better or worse than DKs (when it comes to me having to heal them).

Experience is based on approximately 67 BC/WotLK dungeons (non-heroic) run through the LFD tool.

[Teál]

If you are in tier 7 gear and know how to play a dk tank... then you should be fine. As a healer most of the time I HATE dk tanks. You really have to be on your game.. but if you control the heals.... then you will get to know what you need and dont need to do to take the load off.

3 shaman with their quick lesser healing wave at once should be fine if one is resto with earth shield. The last member could be any ranged dps really. Does the dk sp bonus stack with the dk sp bonus... if so you might be in good shape there with those shaman.

[Tim]

It seems like general consensus that DKs take way too much damage as a tank. But the thing I'm wondering about, wasn't the DK class meant to be able to tank? Or are they not meant to tank in Blizzard's eyes?