Please help - New to tanking with DPS

[knopstr]

I suck at tanking and dps'ing with my shamans and new DK tank.

Whew, now that I said it, I would like your help getting better at it.

I'm not necessarily bad at one or the other, just at both at the same time. Like a lot of you I held out with my 5 shamans for as long as I could until I realized that I needed a main tank. The adjustment period has been kind of brutal though. I'm finding that while leveling is quite easy as a DK adding in DPS while tanking can be a bit overwhelming and confusing. I've been following James' guide from wow-pro.com for just DK leveling and DPS rotation. I've been very impressed with his guide. No, I'm not a paid advertiser lol.This is my only experience with a tanking type character. I've always played DPS characters.

This is my standard DPS rotation with my DK while taking on anywhere from 1-6 mobs. I'm currently spec'd Unholy (5 0 56) atm. I throw in D&Decay and Unholy Blight depending on the fight. My DK is lvl71 and my shamans are 80.

Icy Touch --> Plague Strike --> Pestilence --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil

My goal is to be able to run instances by myself as I usually am interrupted quite frequently and don't want to waste other people's time.

I understand the need to gear up my tank should be my #1 priority. At the moment, what I'm trying to do is to level her up but at the same time, have some fun running instances. Here's my armory link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...r&n=Laydnblack

Let's say I have the following keys bound ('cause I do but am more than willing to switch); #3 "Icy Touch" #4 Plague Strike #5 Pestilence #6 Blood Boil #7 Death Strike #8 Death Coil

My initial pull for a set of mobs is usually Icy Touch or Death Grip and then the cast sequence in purple up above. What I'd like know is what others do? I'm guessing the days of sequential number mashing for tank isn't going to work while trying to get the shamans to shoot LB's and CL's and heals. I can see that if I'm trying to pull with the #3 which will cast icy touch that if I have that bound to say "Chain Lightning" on the shamans that it's going to get ugly fast. When I pull with Icy touch about 1 sec later I have 4 CL's hitting my 1st mob which usually sends all of the mobs heading for the shamans and totems and then when I try to re-establish aggro, the mobs are either mostly dead or if I do manage to get aggro back beating me down before I figure out "oh snap" I need to heal...in which case spinning up healing takes too long and tank is dead....sigh. At which point, I kill everything with the shamans and rez the tank. I've only attempted instance near Valgarde Keep and would like to try the Nexus as they're lvl 71-73. I keep thinking that I shouldn't be dying so damn fast so frequently, but yes I am.

I'm a big fan of the videos from Hachoo. I'm attempting to emulate some amount of your success, but admittedly am failing hard and fast.

Is the correct way to make pulls in the following order?

1) Maneuver team near intended target - target actual NPC - if say LB lights up as cast-able in the 4 shamans UI's then this is the point to begin making attack
2) Spread out Shaman team in say a horizontal line - throw down necessary totems
3) Pull Trash
4) Try to hold aggro and not die

It would be so nice to know what keys you guys have bound and what exactly you are doing that makes you so successful from a button touching experience. I realize that not every fight is the same and that there are always other factors involved.

I would love to have a fight described - say Prince K (shadow bolt/ice tomb) in UK. Chances are someone has, but I'm talking down to the minute details of when I press #3 on my tank's screen to pull what is #3 doing on the slaves. Is the best thing to set up cast sequence macros for the tank and the random cast macros for the slaves. At this point, I really only have macros established to DPS and or heal the Shamans as a group, the DK is new to the group.

Please give me your thoughts and help.

Thank you kindly and again you guys are the best.

[Hachoo]

A lot of your questions can be answered by just watching one of the videos of instance runs in the sticky at the top of this subforum. That will show you how to position, when to pull, etc.

As far as your macro, personally I would not put ANYTHING in a castsequence that relies on runic power, as if you dont have it, you will then get stuck there forever.

The first 5 in your sequence are good - I would just leave those and take the rest off (it will automatically cycle through those 5 over and over again). I also use reset=target so if I switch targets it starts back at icy touch.

Other than that, you REALLY need to put 5 points in frost for toughness - it makes a huge difference. It also helps a TON to put 5 points in bladed armor (blood tree) because it will up your attack power by a large amount which will up your threat.

[Bot]

i dont MB my dk because currently im on mb break till i get tired of solo wrath content but i do tank with my dk and i can tell you that my unholy dk's typical rotation is

DnD (and if theres a caster death grip as close to simultaneous as i can get them)>PS>IT>pestulance>rune tap (i think thats the name)>blood boil>UB
then resume standard dps rotation keeping UB and possibly DnD up if the fight is long

i open with DnD because typically in pugs the dps has gone AoE crazy lately and if i dont open with AoE threat i would inevitably lose a mob or two before i get to pest/bloodboil., but that rotation gives me substantial AoE threat and ive never lost aggro in a 5 man with that rotation. as for binds and macros when i did mb i clicked all my tanks actions (utilising some of my extra mouse buttons as hotkeys) and did dps and healing with keybinds.


edit-i thought of some more stuff

[wowphreak]

yeh could turn
Icy Touch --> Plague Strike --> Pestilence --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil

into

/castrandom Death Coil
/castsequence Icy Touch, Plague Strike,Pestilence ,Blood Boil , Death Strike , Death Strike ,Blood Boil , Blood Boil , Death Strike , Death Strike , Blood Boil, Blood Boil

put that on one key
then create another cast sequence for yer other chars on the same key
that way what yeh could do is initially click on the key to get aggro then just mash the button for everyone to start dpsing

[Dorffo]

1) Maneuver team near intended target - target actual NPC - if say LB lights up as cast-able in the 4 shamans UI's then this is the point to begin making attack

Oftentimes I will setup my team about 5yds back from their max range, so I have some room to manipulate the pull if needed.



RE - keybinds / button mashing:
I have two keys bound to my tanking macro (both use same macro) and two keys bound to my dps macro on the shams - one key is shared by both, one key is unique to DPS and one is unique to tank - so I can spam my tanky key without DPSing if needed, or spam the tank/dps combo key, or click my tank abilities and spam DPS if needed.

[knopstr]

Dor....would you mind sharing your macros?

Any help at this point would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[daviddoran]

My shamans ara 63 and my DK is 62, but I basically just use /castrandom for now. Once i get higher and get the rest of my abilities, I wanna try out /click. but for now, /castrandom and rapidfire spamming works for me. I just manually add a few DK spells as needed.

At least make one button for that, and make it an emergency fallback while you figure out the ideal setup. I like panic buttons.

[Tizer]

I've just started doing heroics and managed to clear Gundrak last night. My main goal is to keep everything as simple as possible by using a few keys as i can. I'm currently only using "Q" and "E". Q is my DPS key and E being my DPS on 2 shaman and Chain Heal the MT on the other 2 shaman.

Im more keen to do the brute force approach with 4 ele shaman than i have one of them resto. Hachoo's videos are ace and i would recommend watching them!

Best advice would be to keep it simple and try not to bind too many macros away from your movement keys (WASD) in my case. :x

[shaeman]

My DK is lvl71 and my shamans are 80

I think this will be the biggest part of the problem. I suspect your DPS will be significantly outthreating your DK tank, even if you were playing it absolutely perfectly.
Get the omen threatmeter (or other) on all your toons and watch the threat your shaman are doing. This should confirm this.

I would suggest searching the forum for a dps rotation macro for the shaman.
There is a long thread by Fursphere with lots of great information.
Most importantly bind this to a key separate from any that your tank is putting out.
You can concentrate on tanking more fully and have your shamans dpsing by spamming 1 key (or can stop DPS if it looks like they are in danger of outthreating your tank).

Other than that make sure you are in frost presence on the DK. (I know I'm starting the obvious).
If you can get a full set of the cobalt gear (i think it is) for your DK (My dk is only 73 and I tanked with a couple of higher levels with that gear and did fine).

Take your DK out and have your shamans out of group and quest boost him a couple of levels (I'm sure that will make a huge difference too.

[Toned]

I currently run Prot Pally, resto sham, 3 ele shams. I am in the process in between my guild raids/2v2ing of replacing my pally for a DK. Once the DK is able to hold agro off my shamans I'll switch to 4 ele + DK. Here is what I would suggest doing you have a couple options on your key layout.

Option1: Convert your tank rotation into a single macro that you can mash, then bind a shaman dps rotation to that same button.
Then possibly have a second key that has your dk dps rotation and then your shamans with some dpsing others healing. - Down Fall to this Method = If your DK misses a spell you have to wait untill the macro cycles back through, or manually click the spell. -- I use this method currently for the paladin because they are lol easy to tank with.

Button 2 = Tank / Dps Button 5 = Tank /DPS +Heal If you run a Dedicated Healer 2= Riptide and 5 = all the ele shams just dps and the resto sham heals whoever has threat.
Rotation would be like this: 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2 then tank is taking damage 5,5,5,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,5,5,5,2,2,2,2 etc...

Option2: Using your purple rotation and bindings you listed of like 3-8 or whatever you press. Keep your DK keys as is and then bind your shaman dps rotation macro for 3-8 or whatever you press when tanking. Then use your F1=F5 keys for healing your group ( pretty standard setup all shamans have /cast [target=whoever] lesser healing wave) Upside is you are in control of you dk rotation = more threat, down side = You have a lot of key space taken up on the shamans.

Rotation would be like 3,4,5,6,7,8 whatever else you do then hitting your heal keys accordingly. I usually recommend having F1-F5 bound for healing your group regardless of which setup you use, but then always having a heal whoever has agro button. That you can mash while dpsing /cast [target=focustargettarget] or /cast [TankName-targettarget] or /cast [Target=Targettarget] if you are keeping the mob targeted on the shamans.

Option3: Convert your tank rotation into a single macro that you mash, and then overlay it with your shaman spells. This way you are doing a manual dps rotation on your shamans while the tank is mindlessly mashing your purple tank rotation.
Example:
Shaman Keys
1 = Chain Lightning, 2 = Lightning Bolt, 3 = Lava Burst, 5= All Heal Tank-Targettarget or FocusTargetTarget (should always be the heal the tank button if you are keeping agro) 6 = Wind/Earth Shock, 9= Flame shock
DK Tank Macro bound to 1,2,3,5,9 and then mindfreeze bound to 6 (i'd assume you setup a round robin /castsequence macro or whatever you use to round robin #6).
Upside here = Higher shaman dps... DownSide = Tank Misses a spell your rotation is off /cry.

Rotation would be like this:
Single Mob: 9, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 (if you have the haste otherwise only 3 lb's), 3, 9, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3 etc.. Any time Tank is taking more damage than you are comfortable with throw in a 5 or 2 5's.

See this thread: Utilizing /click to run concurrent castsequences for shaman dps rotation macros. If you want a 1 press shaman dps key.