DK - super useless tank

[magwo]

I have been running heroics a lot lately.. sometimes with DKs.. and.. running with a DK is a study in fail.
Not only do they get 2-shotted by meelee bosses within milliseconds - their pulling techiques with death grip messes up a lot of group mechanics. I find myself pulling aggro quite often.


Just now I ran heroic Drak with a 27k hp DK, uncrittable.. 3-4 wipes.. it's pretty hopeless.
And.. to put this in contrast.. I've successfully run this with 21k hp paladins in blues, EASY.



IMO it seems like DK needs a dmg nerf and a tanking buff.. cause at the moment, they are so bad.

[balboa]

Not so sure why they are doing so bad. My DK is sitting at 65 and starting to get used to tanking with him. My shammys are at 70 and they haven't pulled aggro off of him. Death and Decay with a simple dps macro and things have been going really well. I've been leveling unholy and swinging a 2hander. If the DK's you running with are DW, then like Fur says, they do have a tendency to miss a lot.....

[Naysayer]

It's all a matter of gear and spec. You don't take an arms warrior with dps gear to heroics to tank for you.

And the Dual wielding parry bomb is a myth. Many high quality raiding guilds use dual wielding DK tanks.

[algol]

It's not so much a matter of gear, as a matter of people having easy access to a high level DK, which they can then attempt to tank with while having no clue how tanking or even necessarily melee works. Therefore they tend to suck at tanking.

The class still needs work (irregular mitigation for a big one), but a good player can tank with one just fine.

[magwo]

Yeah they usually dual wield.. however.. the biggest problem is that they seem to love death grip.. so they pull a mob right into the group, which makes me generate a lot more threat because I'm close..

Not to mention all the times I've had to heal like a madman because they deathgripped an AOE mob into the group, or AOE silencing mobs.. etc.. meh!

[Svpernova09]

Run with better DKs imo. Theres 3 really good DK tanks on Madoran and they're all using 2H and unholy. Remember just like any other tank they have to get defense capped. Don't say a class is useless when you're running with craptastic people playing those classes.

[Grimmace]

I have been running heroics a lot lately.. sometimes with DKs.. and.. running with a DK is a study in fail.
Not only do they get 2-shotted by meelee bosses within milliseconds - their pulling techiques with death grip messes up a lot of group mechanics. I find myself pulling aggro quite often.


Just now I ran heroic Drak with a 27k hp DK, uncrittable.. 3-4 wipes.. it's pretty hopeless.
And.. to put this in contrast.. I've successfully run this with 21k hp paladins in blues, EASY.



IMO it seems like DK needs a dmg nerf and a tanking buff.. cause at the moment, they are so bad.Its not the class its the players...

The massive influx of dk's due to them being a new class has of course flooded the gates with the majority of them not being any good at anything other then mashing their different rune dump abilities.

For instance I had a dk tell me on my resto shaman I was a bad healer in UK due to going OOM all the time keeping him alive.... and no matter what I said to him about tanking in blood presence it was still all my fault he was getting his so hard by everything.

Then this afternoon I did nexus with a same level frost dk using frost presence to tank is (any spec should use frost presence to tank in... if they don't kick em from the group) and we had zero trouble at all ( and his gear wasent anything to write home about either but he at least knew how to play the role) only time I ever went oom in nexus today was when people didnt kill the portals fast enuf and we got overwhelmed by adds spamming us with arcane damage :P

[Naysayer]

It's not so much a matter of gear, as a matter of people having easy access to a high level DK, which they can then attempt to tank with while having no clue how tanking or even necessarily melee works. Therefore they tend to suck at tanking.

The class still needs work (irregular mitigation for a big one), but a good player can tank with one just fine.If you're not gearing for tanking, then people will make posts like this thread about you. The right gear is pretty much a priority.

[Basilikos]

Run with better DKs imo. Theres 3 really good DK tanks on Madoran and they're all using 2H and unholy. Remember just like any other tank they have to get defense capped. Don't say a class is useless when you're running with craptastic people playing those classes.That's been my understanding of the situation thus far. Supposedly, the modifications coming in 3.0.8 should help with this, but I'm still nervous about the Def. capping problem.

[Siaea]

You also have to remember that most level 80 dks are, in theory, level 25. They're new to the class, and have only played 25 levels, so there's still a lot of learning to do. I'm starting to really get the hang of using my DK for a tank for my 4 shaman. You possibly just haven't grouped with people that understand tanking. When I single boxed, one of my mains was a feral druid tank, so I guess I already had the basic gist down of tanking.

[Hachoo]

I have been running heroics a lot lately.. sometimes with DKs.. and.. running with a DK is a study in fail.
Not only do they get 2-shotted by meelee bosses within milliseconds - their pulling techiques with death grip messes up a lot of group mechanics. I find myself pulling aggro quite often.


Just now I ran heroic Drak with a 27k hp DK, uncrittable.. 3-4 wipes.. it's pretty hopeless.
And.. to put this in contrast.. I've successfully run this with 21k hp paladins in blues, EASY.



IMO it seems like DK needs a dmg nerf and a tanking buff.. cause at the moment, they are so bad.Sorry but your logic is completely broken and you're whining like a 2 year old. You say the DK had 27k HP and was uncrittable but he got 2 shotted by a melee boss? LOL. You realize the mechanics of armor, parry, dodge, crit, etc, don't actually change between classes, right? The only difference between the mitigation of a paladin and the mitigation of a DK is the shield block skill. DK will have comparable armor without a shield due to frost presence, pally will be able to block but the DK will have enough parry% to make up for the lost block% - thats how it works. Your story is either a flat out lie or is missing a lot of details.

Sorry to come off as a prick but your post was pretty silly.

[algol]

It's not so much a matter of gear, as a matter of people having easy access to a high level DK, which they can then attempt to tank with while having no clue how tanking or even necessarily melee works. Therefore they tend to suck at tanking.

The class still needs work (irregular mitigation for a big one), but a good player can tank with one just fine.If you're not gearing for tanking, then people will make posts like this thread about you. The right gear is pretty much a priority.

It's certainly both a priority and an indicator of baseline competence. But you're calling out one symptom - of several - not the problem.

[Multibocks]

I've seen some very good things from my short time PUGing with DKs and with the new changes I will make two folders of WoW. One folder for a paladin tank and 4 shaman and the other folder for a DK tank and 4 shaman. That way I can switch back and forth based on what tank is best for a certain boss or dungeon. With that said, I think its pretty hard to replace paladins Lay on Hands... It's a very nice OOPS button and I just don't think DKs have anything that compares.

[Zal]

been running instances with my DK friend. He has 24k hp, and is almost uncrittable (for heroics). Ran non-heroic Halls of Lightning yesterday with him ~9-10 times in 3 hours. Only have to stop to healing him 1 time during every boss fight. DK tanks are insane if you ask me.

[Dominian]

Even after 80 levels i see so much horrible people play this game and the worst experience you can have is to pug with a crappy tank.

But people dont know crap about it and it doesnt make sense to me WHY they wont read a guide that would improve his tanking ALOT!

A real life friend of me plays retadin and he plays with a /castrandom judgement of whatever/divine storm/Hammer of wrath/crusader strike.

Now he hammers this buttong and HoJ/arcane torrent when he needs to stop casting, he might drop a repentance if the mob/player is out of range.

Everytime a item with str,agi,critt,hit or speed drop he ask ME if its better for him, kinda funny since reading a guide would take him 10 mins and improve SO much!

[Svpernova09]

been running instances with my DK friend. He has 24k hp, and is almost uncrittable (for heroics).
*snip*


There is no uncrittable target for heroics, and non-heroics. its all the same. 540 Defense to be uncrittable. When a few of us in TGO hit 80 we were running with an unholy DK tank that WAS crittable. We never had a problem because he was running 24k HP, and high parry / dodge. Yeah he was hard to heal somteimes. but it was a rare occasion he would get instagibbed by a boss.

DK tanks are built around short cool downs. If you're running with a DK that doesn't realize how to effectivly manage his cooldowns, then thats something he needs to learn. And for the record, Deathgrip is a FINE way to pull. If you're pulling aggro on a mob that gets Deathgripped, there is one of 2 things going wrong. You're blowing shit up way too early (lrn2watchyourthreat), or he isn't laying down Death and Decay or Pestilence every chance he gets (l2aoetank).

[Bigfish]

There are a number of factors in tanking with any class, and bottom line, if you haven't been familiarizing yourself with them from the beginning, you're going to hit a learning curve as you figure out how everything works. DKs in particular face the problem that they are excellent DDs from 55-80, and their most efficient leveling methodology involves not tanking, but kicking the crap out of whatever they're fighting as fast as they can. So of course, you get people to 80, realize their is a shortage of tanks, and hop on the band wagon having no idea what they are doing.

Dems da breaks.

[Pikey]

I remember when Paladin's were in the same situation. T4 and most of T5 was terrible for prot paladins. They were very hard to heal and ran out of mana very quickly (because small mana pools from gear that lacked any Int) when AoE tanking. By the Time T6 + ZA gear came out Pld's pwnd. Right now in heroic Naxx we use DK's for dps and OT's. To say that DK's are useless, just means they are useless to you atm. Because I if you ever played one you could see how with the right gear they would be overpowered.

My favorite DK WAS harder to heal at first because he would take 0 damage for 2min then all of the sudden be at 22% health. But with upgrades in gear he has 35k raid buffed and still isn't uncritable, but still he is never 2 shot'd unless you are talking about Patchwork, even then its not his fault. Most I have ever seen him crit for is 8k in heroics that still leaves him unbuffed with 20k health.

[blbjtb]

Run with better DKs imo. Theres 3 really good DK tanks on Madoran and they're all using 2H and unholy. Remember just like any other tank they have to get defense capped. Don't say a class is useless when you're running with craptastic people playing those classes.

QFT

Im currently running with my DK and I seem to be doing fine. Sure its a small PITA not having a nice block or what not but its really NBD

[blbjtb]

I have been running heroics a lot lately.. sometimes with DKs.. and.. running with a DK is a study in fail.
Not only do they get 2-shotted by meelee bosses within milliseconds - their pulling techiques with death grip messes up a lot of group mechanics. I find myself pulling aggro quite often.


Just now I ran heroic Drak with a 27k hp DK, uncrittable.. 3-4 wipes.. it's pretty hopeless.
And.. to put this in contrast.. I've successfully run this with 21k hp paladins in blues, EASY.



IMO it seems like DK needs a dmg nerf and a tanking buff.. cause at the moment, they are so bad.Sorry but your logic is completely broken and you're whining like a 2 year old. You say the DK had 27k HP and was uncrittable but he got 2 shotted by a melee boss? LOL. You realize the mechanics of armor, parry, dodge, crit, etc, don't actually change between classes, right? The only difference between the mitigation of a paladin and the mitigation of a DK is the shield block skill. DK will have comparable armor without a shield due to frost presence, pally will be able to block but the DK will have enough parry% to make up for the lost block% - thats how it works. Your story is either a flat out lie or is missing a lot of details.

Sorry to come off as a prick but your post was pretty silly.


LOL I love you

[darkxer]

I have been running heroics a lot lately.. sometimes with DKs.. and.. running with a DK is a study in fail.
Not only do they get 2-shotted by meelee bosses within milliseconds - their pulling techiques with death grip messes up a lot of group mechanics. I find myself pulling aggro quite often.


Just now I ran heroic Drak with a 27k hp DK, uncrittable.. 3-4 wipes.. it's pretty hopeless.
And.. to put this in contrast.. I've successfully run this with 21k hp paladins in blues, EASY.



IMO it seems like DK needs a dmg nerf and a tanking buff.. cause at the moment, they are so bad.Sorry but your logic is completely broken and you're whining like a 2 year old. You say the DK had 27k HP and was uncrittable but he got 2 shotted by a melee boss? LOL. You realize the mechanics of armor, parry, dodge, crit, etc, don't actually change between classes, right? The only difference between the mitigation of a paladin and the mitigation of a DK is the shield block skill. DK will have comparable armor without a shield due to frost presence, pally will be able to block but the DK will have enough parry% to make up for the lost block% - thats how it works. Your story is either a flat out lie or is missing a lot of details.

Sorry to come off as a prick but your post was pretty silly.I agree with the quoted post.
This post is a blatant example of anecdotes instead of detailed evidence.

Thanks for wasting everyone's time, Can someone delete this thread.

[magwo]

I just know that whenever I play with prot palas, bosses are going down left and right. Whenever I play with DK tanks, DKs are going down left and right.
Not entirely sure why, I just seem to be unsuccessful while playing with DKs.


I'm not so sure it's a l2play issue.. maybe it is.. but these have been pretty good DKs that I ran with.
Trollgore heroic has killed my DK tanks maybe 5-6 times.. NEVER had a paladin tank get killed on that boss.. ran it 15-20 times heroic.

[Ellay]

DK's are the best tank for 4x Ele Shaman, if it is played by someone else. They may not have a shield, but they offer so much more to the table and the healing issue is actually not that bad if they use their cooldowns at the right times.

[magwo]

What do they bring to the table? Personally I still see much better synergy with paladin - they benefit from almost all our totems, and BOW + healing stream is reeeally good on tough AoE bosses.
They benefit massively from mana spring x4, and they can res.

[Multibocks]

Uh your paladin should never need 4x mana totems, ever. One mana judgement and you should be fine on mana.

The thing thats great about paladins is block, it makes healing easier since the paladin consistently loses health to melee mobs. I don't run enough with DKs, but from what I have seen (anecdotal, yes) they can be dropped pretty fast by a string of hits (whereas paladins would mitigate some of that damage through block skill.) I want a DK purely for magic bosses (19.5% mitigation on magic is pimp!)

[Svpernova09]

There is no uncrittable target for heroics, and non-heroics. its all the same. 540 Defense to be uncrittable.

That's not exactly true.

In BC - No heroic bosses were above 72, so uncritable for heroics was 485. Bosses in raids were 73, so it was 490.

Depending on the boss levels in Wrath heroics, it could be 535 or 540 (82 or 83).

All depends on what level mobs you're getting hit by.


I'm certain the horrible DKs he's running with can tell the difference.

[Hachoo]

Uh your paladin should never need 4x mana totems, ever. One mana judgement and you should be fine on mana.

The thing thats great about paladins is block, it makes healing easier since the paladin consistently loses health to melee mobs. I don't run enough with DKs, but from what I have seen (anecdotal, yes) they can be dropped pretty fast by a string of hits (whereas paladins would mitigate some of that damage through block skill.) I want a DK purely for magic bosses (19.5% mitigation on magic is pimp!)This is not true at all. This is simple math. Heres an example:

Paladin: 8% parry, 10% block
DK: 0 block, 18% parry

They mitigate (approximately) the same amount of damage. A shield doesn't absorb 100% damage, and parry allows the enemy to hit you slightly faster. Basically the fact that Paladin has block means absolutely nothing. The DK will always have a higher parry (passive skill plus runes or whatnot) and in many cases the DK might have more dodge as well.

Bottom line, if your DK tank gets a "string of hits that kills him" its because hes undergeared, not because hes worse than a paladin. Same gear level between a paladin and a DK = same amount of effort required to keep them alive.

[Dominian]

Gear > class atm!

[Kaynin]

My guilds maintank is a DK.

They excel in just about every aspect of tanking. And will probably get nerfed. The problem you're running into is prolly badly geared or badly skilled dk's.

[Niley]

Ive switched my main tank from paladin to DK, so far so good, shaman damage is great, keeping her up is pretty easy, although she isn't close to be as geared as my pally, but now i have an option to bring her to our alt naxx/malygos/sarth/pvp boss raids(as i can spec her dps), so that should help a lot with gear.
RIP my dear pally, You served me well throughout whole tbc =(

[Fat Tire]

well the patch should help. More consistent dmg coming in rather than spikes. If the DK isnt using he CD properly they can take some big spike dmg. Dmg is more streamlined with pallys,warriors. Druids are having a really tough time atm tanking wise and are considered the worst tanks of the lot. They are making changes to druids, now idea if it will help.

My wife who is full t7 resto shaman and sometime subs in for one of my shamans in heroics, says she hates healing DKs (except mine). Its like " I am so bored, do I ever have to heal this guy" to "O shit is my heal going to make it in time!"

[Marious]

Hehe can't say that I have experienced the whole DK Tank being one/two shotted since I always bring my pally tank, normally I play solo cause its easier to bring him a group most groups are either still looking for a healer or tank, so I can fill in the tank position and most times get a group. My friend has a 61 almost 62 tank that he likes playing I need to get him up to 70 so he can come with me since I only run a 4 man group. But in his case he DPS's and he does a real good job about it, to the point of where he can beat my lower level guys in the charts, I am not sure how he would do as a tank I might try him out as a tank later and see.

Now as per the OP I can say the same of some healer I have run with, one run I ran with a healer priest that wa great he had no issues keeping me healed, then ran with a shaman healer and I kept dying which was no fault of the healer he/she was doing fine I was for some reason having bad luck and getting owned, ran with another priest and he/she had no issues healing me or the lv 70 of the group which would get hit a bit, alive. Then comes in another healer that let me died like 10 times in the instance, which was Old Kingdom this place is cake and fast to but this priest just could not keep me alive or the rest of the group for that matter, first boss killed us many times when we finally took boss down the priest was like "About time." Oooh that pist me off, I was so ready to leave. He could not keep us alive and then had the audacity to say about time, when you have a mana pool of 10k+ and are a healer if you can't keep your group alive there is something wrong.

So the same can be said about any class, depends on the person, if they are terrible at the game it does not matter what class they play they are still going to be terrible.

[Multibocks]

Uh your paladin should never need 4x mana totems, ever. One mana judgement and you should be fine on mana.

The thing thats great about paladins is block, it makes healing easier since the paladin consistently loses health to melee mobs. I don't run enough with DKs, but from what I have seen (anecdotal, yes) they can be dropped pretty fast by a string of hits (whereas paladins would mitigate some of that damage through block skill.) I want a DK purely for magic bosses (19.5% mitigation on magic is pimp!)This is not true at all. This is simple math. Heres an example:

Paladin: 8% parry, 10% block
DK: 0 block, 18% parry

They mitigate (approximately) the same amount of damage. A shield doesn't absorb 100% damage, and parry allows the enemy to hit you slightly faster. Basically the fact that Paladin has block means absolutely nothing. The DK will always have a higher parry (passive skill plus runes or whatnot) and in many cases the DK might have more dodge as well.

Bottom line, if your DK tank gets a "string of hits that kills him" its because hes undergeared, not because hes worse than a paladin. Same gear level between a paladin and a DK = same amount of effort required to keep them alive.

What? No, mitigation and avoidance are completely seperate. You cant compare 18% AVOIDANCE to 8% avoidance and 10% block. No, don't do it. Also parry gibbing is only based upon weapon speed. If both tanks use 2.6 speed weapon they both have same parry gib rate(as in you swing the boss parries and his next hit is faster thus you taking more damage, not the other way around.) Most likely a DK will have a high 3 sec 2h for tanking making him actually take less damage. This is also why you don't dual-wield as a DK if you are a tank. Lastly expertise is a very very good stat for tanks if you want to avoid this phenomenon.

And my example is fine, compare: 10 hits for 2.5k each for 25k damage(after armor mitigation.) Both tanks are 25k health. Both tanks take all hits. Armor is equivalent. Paladin has 1k block and holy shield is up(which it should be on a boss.) DK takes 25k and dies, paladin with holy shield and a base 10% block takes 6 full hits for 15kand 4 blocked(40% block rate) hits for 6k = 21k. Paladin survives and DK doesnt. Yes this is contrived, but point stands. DKs seem more prone to "bursting" which is addressed in new patch notes.

[Hachoo]

Your argument is flawed because you say both tanks take ALL hits. If a DK has a parry rate 8-10% higher than the pally (likely with the gear, rune, and passive ability), then out of X number of hits theres a large chance the DK will take LESS hits than the Paladin.

[genocyde]

Uh your paladin should never need 4x mana totems, ever. One mana judgement and you should be fine on mana.

The thing thats great about paladins is block, it makes healing easier since the paladin consistently loses health to melee mobs. I don't run enough with DKs, but from what I have seen (anecdotal, yes) they can be dropped pretty fast by a string of hits (whereas paladins would mitigate some of that damage through block skill.) I want a DK purely for magic bosses (19.5% mitigation on magic is pimp!)This is not true at all. This is simple math. Heres an example:

Paladin: 8% parry, 10% block
DK: 0 block, 18% parry

They mitigate (approximately) the same amount of damage. A shield doesn't absorb 100% damage, and parry allows the enemy to hit you slightly faster. Basically the fact that Paladin has block means absolutely nothing. The DK will always have a higher parry (passive skill plus runes or whatnot) and in many cases the DK might have more dodge as well.

Bottom line, if your DK tank gets a "string of hits that kills him" its because hes undergeared, not because hes worse than a paladin. Same gear level between a paladin and a DK = same amount of effort required to keep them alive.

What? No, mitigation and avoidance are completely seperate. You cant compare 18% AVOIDANCE to 8% avoidance and 10% block. No, don't do it. Also parry gibbing is only based upon weapon speed. If both tanks use 2.6 speed weapon they both have same parry gib rate(as in you swing the boss parries and his next hit is faster thus you taking more damage, not the other way around.) Most likely a DK will have a high 3 sec 2h for tanking making him actually take less damage. This is also why you don't dual-wield as a DK if you are a tank. Lastly expertise is a very very good stat for tanks if you want to avoid this phenomenon.

And my example is fine, compare: 10 hits for 2.5k each for 25k damage(after armor mitigation.) Both tanks are 25k health. Both tanks take all hits. Armor is equivalent. Paladin has 1k block and holy shield is up(which it should be on a boss.) DK takes 25k and dies, paladin with holy shield and a base 10% block takes 6 full hits for 15kand 4 blocked(40% block rate) hits for 6k = 21k. Paladin survives and DK doesnt. Yes this is contrived, but point stands. DKs seem more prone to "bursting" which is addressed in new patch notes.

While I do agree that it is hard to compare mitigation and avoidance.... You also went on immediately comparing them again in your own statement!!!! Parry = complete avoidance of all damage but less reliably

I think this is a slightly more reasonable comparison

10 hits for 2.5k each - 25k ttl dmg

pally has a 50+% block chance that blocks what like 1-2k dmg per block maybe?
10 hits - 5 blocked - 1 parried (4*2500)+(5*750?) = 13750 dmg
10 hits - 5 blocked - 0 parried (5*2500)+(5*750?) = 16250 dmg

DK has 40% combined parry+dodge (might be a little high %)
10 hits - 4 parried/dodged (6*2500) = 15000 dmg

The difference is a moot point because this is before taking in to account mitigation and cooldowns
Blizzard did not design this class wrong.

Also the parry-bomb death is not a complete myth but any tank worth his weight will have enough +hit/expertise to avoid this completely

And yes I'm aware of the irony of my first statement + following post

[Multibocks]

Your argument is flawed because you say both tanks take ALL hits. If a DK has a parry rate 8-10% higher than the pally (likely with the gear, rune, and passive ability), then out of X number of hits theres a large chance the DK will take LESS hits than the Paladin.

I'm not saying blizzard designed the class wrong, I'm just pointing out that DKs can be going along all fine and dandy and then BOOM they are almost dead. (High damage boss or multiple trash target tanking.) My paladin seems to have a much "smoother" damage take than what I have seen of DKs thanks to block mitigation. I was trying to point that out with an extreme example. Oh and for the above poster that provided a different combat set, you ignored the paladins dodge while conveniently adding it to the DK avoidance.

[Hachoo]

Your argument is flawed because you say both tanks take ALL hits. If a DK has a parry rate 8-10% higher than the pally (likely with the gear, rune, and passive ability), then out of X number of hits theres a large chance the DK will take LESS hits than the Paladin.

I'm not saying blizzard designed the class wrong, I'm just pointing out that DKs can be going along all fine and dandy and then BOOM they are almost dead. (High damage boss or multiple trash target tanking.) My paladin seems to have a much "smoother" damage take than what I have seen of DKs thanks to block mitigation. I was trying to point that out with an extreme example. Oh and for the above poster that provided a different combat set, you ignored the paladins dodge while conveniently adding it to the DK avoidance.I understand what you're saying, but no one yet has posted anything in this thread that would actually show that to be the case. Not having shield block means not being able to reduce damage on incoming attacks. However, having a MUCH higher parry rating than another tank class (like a Paladin) means you will parry that many more attacks then the paladin would have, negating ALL of the damage that would have been done.

How does a paladin that will occasionally block an attack and reduce the damage = less spikes than a DK who can't block an attack but instead can parry an attack eliminating the damage completely? If anything it would seem that the DK would take LESS spike damage... I haven't run any heroics yet but my DK doesn't take spikey damage at all in regular instances so far, its actually been very smooth. I've even had boss fights where I didn't have to heal at all. I have yet to be going along fine and then suddenly "oh shit I have to heal RIGHT now".

Paladin gets attacked 10 times, parries once, dodges once, blocks twice.

DK gets attacked 10 times, parries 3 times, dodges once.

And this is assuming both classes are uncrittable at this point. I mean seriously 90% of the arguments I've seen about how DKs suck at tanking someone was comparing a fully uncrittable warrior or paladin to a DK with < 500 defense. This isn't even a remotely fair or even sort of valid comparison.

Seems like in this case the DK would actually take less damage then the Paladin. If thats not the case please let me know why (thats how I understand it anyway). The actual mitigation percentages would lead towards the above scenario based on how much more parry a DK would have then a Paladin (and most likely more dodge as well, but of course no shield block).

Furthermore, the DK has BASE 5% damage reduction to any form of magic, which the Paladin doesn't have and shield block does not mitigate magic damage. And, in the next patch, the 5% is getting boosted to 15% - this should make the DK actually LESS spikey then the other tank classes when facing off against any boss that uses a lot of magic damage.

The main original point I was trying to make in this thread was that DKs are actually quite awesome tanks. But now, I truly want someone to explain to me exactly how/why (with actual MATH) the Paladin is less spikey, because so far none of the responses have actually tried to prove anything, just spouted out about how shield block makes paladins less spikey.

[nomenquis]

Also parry gibbing is only based upon weapon speed. If both tanks use 2.6 speed weapon they both have same parry gib rate(as in you swing the boss parries and his next hit is faster thus you taking more damage, not the other way around.) Most likely a DK will have a high 3 sec 2h for tanking making him actually take less damage. This is also why you don't dual-wield as a DK if you are a tank. Lastly expertise is a very very good stat for tanks if you want to avoid this phenomenon.Weapon speed is only part of the problem though. You should not forget that you can get parry gibd on styles. Thats why a warrior has a lot more problems with that than a paladin (warriors use parry-able attacks like devastate and a lot of others). The same is true for DKs. Pallies have the edge here since they do nearly no parry-able styles.





I understand what you're saying, but no one yet has posted anything in this thread that would actually show that to be the case. Not having shield block means not being able to reduce damage on incoming attacks. However, having a MUCH higher parry rating than another tank class (like a Paladin) means you will parry that many more attacks then the paladin would have, negating ALL of the damage that would have been done.

How does a paladin that will occasionally block an attack and reduce the damage = less spikes than a DK who can't block an attack but instead can parry an attack eliminating the damage completely? If anything it would seem that the DK would take LESS spike damage... I haven't run any heroics yet but my DK doesn't take spikey damage at all in regular instances so far, its actually been very smooth. I've even had boss fights where I didn't have to heal at all. I have yet to be going along fine and then suddenly "oh shit I have to heal RIGHT now".

Paladin gets attacked 10 times, parries once, dodges once, blocks twice.

DK gets attacked 10 times, parries 3 times, dodges once.

And this is assuming both classes are uncrittable at this point. I mean seriously 90% of the arguments I've seen about how DKs suck at tanking someone was comparing a fully uncrittable warrior or paladin to a DK with < 500 defense. This isn't even a remotely fair or even sort of valid comparison.

Seems like in this case the DK would actually take less damage then the Paladin. If thats not the case please let me know why (thats how I understand it anyway). The actual mitigation percentages would lead towards the above scenario based on how much more parry a DK would have then a Paladin (and most likely more dodge as well, but of course no shield block).

Furthermore, the DK has BASE 5% damage reduction to any form of magic, which the Paladin doesn't have and shield block does not mitigate magic damage. And, in the next patch, the 5% is getting boosted to 15% - this should make the DK actually LESS spikey then the other tank classes when facing off against any boss that uses a lot of magic damage.

The main original point I was trying to make in this thread was that DKs are actually quite awesome tanks. But now, I truly want someone to explain to me exactly how/why (with actual MATH) the Paladin is less spikey, because so far none of the responses have actually tried to prove anything, just spouted out about how shield block makes paladins less spikey.Well, it's simply not true that a DK has a huge / meaningful advantage on avoidance. If they'd have that they'd be pretty op. Remember how in late BC avoidance became _really_ overpowered (the more you have the better any additional avoidance becomes). Also, just having some % more parry does not mean that _overall_ avoidance (miss and dodge + parry) is higher at all.

Have a look at http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t37272-parryhaste_raid_bosses/
On p2 someone actually wrote a sim to have a look at how parry hasting from styles + white hits affects different tanks.

[Hachoo]

I didn't look at the link but why do you say DKs dont have a meaningful parry advantage over paladins? My DK is only level 78 but has 700 strength without any enchants or anything. I would assume at 80 it will eventually get up to ~1000 strength, which means my DK will have at least 250 parry rating more than a Paladin (25% of my strength). Plus the runes you can use at this point are 4% parry for tanking, so thats >9% rating more than a Paladin at level 80 :)

[genocyde]

[quote='Hachoo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=159164#post159164]Oh and for the above poster that provided a different combat set, you ignored the paladins dodge while conveniently adding it to the DK avoidance.

I was merely providing an example of how the two balance out. I never intended that to be precise #'s for anyone, i excluded parry+dodge for the pally to make the math simpler for illustrating my point of "dk avoidance == pally block+avoidance on long fights (this is still subject to argument for 'smaller windows of bad luck are more probable the longer the fight') . I wasn't trying to manipulate numbers in my favor and nothing was "conveniently" placed to make my argument work. You don't want to know how complicated the math for tanking can actually get especially since it changes boss to boss.

Also I believe the 'Spikey' damage award goes to the deathknight for a few reasons:
1) they don't mitigate %'s of incoming damage like block does, it's all or nothing
i.e. Pally: 500(block),500(block),1000(hit),0(parry) = 2000 dmg ** numbers not based on anything factual just a visual example
DK: 0(parry), 1000(hit), 1000(hit), 0(parry) = 2000 dmg
as you can see they took the same damage over the same 4 hits but the pally's dmg was more steady.

2) most of their current mitigation comes from cooldowns. The reason they are able to tank successfully with such a spikey nature is they have several large damage reduction cooldowns they can blow upon being in any danger of dying to drop incoming damage severely.
3) they have a much higher +parry giving them a signifcantly faster attack speed (dual wielding). This actually amplifies the chance they will be parried and get parry bombed by the boss in quick succession. It is possible for a character to achieve 100% chance to hit and eliminating this risk 100% on most fights.

Now if you want to get more in depth with the math to prove any of this, I will need some time to sandbox up a deathknight and a pally with identical gear sets and compare the actual numbers of avoidance. It's hard for me to even ballpark the numbers as I have neither a pally or a deathknight tank. I run a druid tank because I consider them to fit my team the best since they have remarkable mitigation and I'm a capable multitasker to play what i consider the hardest multiboxing tank.

Druids are uncrittable at 80 with absolutely NO gear on. My druid is slightly over 50% dodge and very close to 100% chance to hit. The reason I prefer the druid tank however is i can shift into cat and still hold down 2500 dps in tank gear and tank specced (Bear DPS isn't bad either but they have the weakest aoe tanking ability).

[Multibocks]

remember there are diminishing returns on all defensive ratings (parry/dodge/block). I'm not sure this comes into play on DKs parry, but I'm guessing, given that it exists for all other tanks, that it does. Also genocyde put together what I was trying to say, DKs appear "spikey" when they take damage. Which means I would suck as a MB healer on them, lol. I always wait until 25% to heal!

[nomenquis]

I didn't look at the link but why do you say DKs dont have a meaningful parry advantage over paladins? My DK is only level 78 but has 700 strength without any enchants or anything. I would assume at 80 it will eventually get up to ~1000 strength, which means my DK will have at least 250 parry rating more than a Paladin (25% of my strength). Plus the runes you can use at this point are 4% parry for tanking, so thats >9% rating more than a Paladin at level 80 :)250 rating is more or less 5% parry yes. But you should not say that your rune enchant is a 4% advantage. You're forgetting that pallies and warriors typically have a lot of defensive stats on shield and weapon, so you're 'loosing' quite some stats there. (well, at least until the next patch).

Also, depending on your blade barrier uptime warriors / pallies have an up to 5% avoidance advantage from talents (they get 10, dks have 5 + 5 from this 'proc'). So if blade barrier is not up you're most certainly at a
disadvantage with a dk (which sucks, blade barrier as a proc is a stupid idea on blizzards side).

Pallies also have a better agi / dodge% ratio than death knights, which depending on buffs / enchants will also be quite nice for them.

Imo what I said is still true, dks have no huge / meaningful avoidance advantage.