[WoW] Which tank is the best for Multiboxing heroics?

[Negativ1337]

Hey guys.

I recently dinged level 60 with my 5 shamans. My plan is to MB heroics with them and make one restoration. I have a 71 feral druid, 70 protection paladin, 60 tauren warrior, 55 DK which i can level-up to 60.

I have enough money to gear them all up to a proper tank. I never played DK and i would like to try it. Would it be hard to multibox with a DK protection in my team?

Thank you in advanced,

Negativ

[Crucial]

Hachoo has been using a DK tank and has cleared many if not all of the heroics, check the videos in the PVE tactics section for the proof. You can't go wrong with Paladin tank either, that's what I use and lots of others have no troubles doing most of the heroics. Whatever you enjoy playing!

[Hairball]

DK or Paladin. Can't go wrong with either.

Druid's and Warriors are great too, but don't bring as much to the table.

[Siaea]

DK will add spell damage to your shammies. Plus, there's a lot of "Oh shi*" moves (death gripping casters, anti-magic, and the like). I played a druid tank before I started multiboxing, but I really love my DK tank. I can't tell you how a pally is, I've never played one past level 4.

[Catamer]

haven't used a DK for a tank but this is what I know roughly about the differences.

I hear several people are using DKs over a Protection Pally.
I'm biased to the Protection Pally myself, I find the Pally simpler to play.
the Pally doesn't have to use any type of combo attack like the DK ( i.e. a plague strike & frost strike and pestilence before obliterate increase the obliterate dps ).
one of the DK's AoE is a click to cast, not that hard to do since you usually put it down at the start of a fight but it is hard to reapply once the fight is going.
The pally AoE is an instant cast and drops where he stands( concecration ) very easy to reapply.

so, for pure simplicity... I vote for the pally you already have.
I'm sure the DK players can give you the pros of a DK.

I have an all DK team right now and they are lots of fun to play, they aren't as dungeon viable as I had hoped they would be ( as all DK that is ).

[Mokoi]

Beets, Bears, Battlestar Gallactica.

[Bollwerk]

Pally is easier, but DK will give you more DPS overall.

[Enndo]

Pally is easier, but DK will give you more DPS overall.This ;)

[Oatboat]

Beets, Bears, Battlestar Gallactica.


The story's kind of bland. It's about this guy named Dumbledore Calrissian, and he needs to return the ring back to Mordor.

[Rin]

I'd aruge that a DK tank is the best to go along with four shaman. If you're running 3 shaman + druid, then a Paladin will be superior because the druid will give you the +13% damage bonus on your targets, plus the moonkin bonus which stacks with the totem of wrath. The Paladin can give you Kings, or whatever other blessing you need. The Paladin will also bring auras (increases healing overall) and a bunch of "oh sh!t" and other useful moves, such as stuns, Sacred shield, and Lay on Hands. Also, now with Exorcism being usable on all targets, Paladin dps has gone up significantly; I personally am clocking 1100-1300ish with my Protection Paladin at level 76 (Sometimes my paladin dps is higher than my druid's dps... I'm still trying to figure that one out myself).

Cheers.

[BobGnarly]

It's definitely between paladin and DK, and I'm going to give the nod to pally. castrandom macros bring it close, but overall, the paladin is just more "fire and forget."

[Multibocks]

Use the search function, or use google. Seriously this question comes up 3 times a week and we all jump on the merry-go-round trying to pimp our choice for tank and disparage everyone that chooses differently. This game is so damn homogenized now you can pretty much use the blanket statement, "Pick whatever the hell you want for your group and it will be fine." Of course someone is now going to tell me how much their 5 priest or rogue group sucks.....

[Mercurio]

One consideration for you: In Mag horde we have a guildie who leveled his DK up first, geared him out (better geared than any of my 20 level 80s), and can tank just about anything.

Now that he's leveling up the rest of a team to do heriocs with, he's leaving all the time spent on his DK behind and starting to gear up a prot pally from scratch. He says prot pallies are just that much easier to play so he's shelving his DK.

[Diwa]

I have both but I prefer pally because of buffs, shield, resurrect, heals, threat handling and many others.

[wowphreak]

From what I understand druids swipe just became 360 which I think makes its a contender for easiest to tank with.

Here's my list order of preference

Pali one of the easiest to macro for one button spam, has kings or wisdom for regen.

deathknight Ebon Plaguebringer 13% damage increase this one yeh problem get the most outta of since yeh dont have a moonkin, anti magic zone

Druid for Gift of the Wild, ability to hot before charging in can be nice at the beginning when there lots of mobs .

Warrior spell reflect, shield wall, takes more to micro manage this class.

[puppychow]

One consideration for you: In Mag horde we have a guildie who leveled his DK up first, geared him out (better geared than any of my 20 level 80s), and can tank just about anything.

Now that he's leveling up the rest of a team to do heriocs with, he's leaving all the time spent on his DK behind and starting to gear up a prot pally from scratch. He says prot pallies are just that much easier to play so he's shelving his DK.

i have a 4/5 t7.5 pally and a 2/5 t7.5 DK and the DK is a better tank than the pally. Also much better DPS in my second spec. The only reason I'd choose pally is if you want to dual-spec tank/healer, a DK can't do that (however I'd argue a shaman as ele/resto is better). DKs also are better stats wise out the gate, my prot pally is 30.5k hp and my DK is now 33.5k hp, unbuffed. +3k hp and his gear isn't as good as my prot pallys.

DK tanking is insanely easy, you just rotate between 5 buttons as a frost or unholy tank, don't even need to lay down D&D as frost (howling blast). I use a /castsequence on my DK when spec'd unholy for tanking so I just have to mash one button. it does take 3-4 more hours to research and test the best glyphs/rotation for tanking, whereas a pally tank is just 3-4 buttons and you can mash them in any order you like.

Pallys are great tanks, DKs are just better. Its no difference at all in heroics or naxx but in ulduar the difference gets pretty big (more armor, better damage reduction cooldowns, death grip, chains of ice are huge).

Plus its a lot more fun tanking swinging a giant 2h axe/sword than it is a one hander and shield :)

[puppychow]

oh and here are the two tank macros I use

for DK unholy:
#showtooltip
/startattack
/castsequence reset=target Icy Touch,Plague Strike,Pestilence,Blood Strike,Scourge Strike,Death Strike
/cast Blood Tap
/cast !Rune Strike


for Paladin prot:
#showtooltip
/startattack
/castrandom Holy Shield,
/castrandom Consecration,Hammer of the Righteous,Shield of Righteousness,Judgement of Light,Arcane Torrent,Divine Plea,Exorcism

neither are "perfect" or optimal but it lets me mash one button and keeps threat just fine :) Obviously these macros are when multiboxing only, when I solo either one I tank with individual buttons (and I tank as frost on my DK since its single target threat is very good and AOE threat is fine with howling blast).

[Stealthy]

Hey Puppy,

Could you link your armory for your DK? I'd be interested in checking out your frost spec...I'm assuming you've gone frost since 3.1?

Cheers,
S.

[Negativ1337]

What spec should i grab for my deathknight? I tried some crap with the talent builder and came with this:

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=6&tal=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000005230035003210230151013103150

I really have no clue if its good or not. I wanted to go frost at first but then i saw a lot of frost talents were to increase dps.

I prefer frost so if anyone can throw me a good frost spec i'd be happy :) If frost sucks now with tanking, then show me a good unholy tank spec :D

Thanks for the trouble,

Negativ1337

[Ken]

For the healer, a Druid tank is the easiest.
But in rare occasions, Druids are very hard to heal, because damage is sometimes done percentage-whise (like some mobs in Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom).
Damage done to a Druid is more stable and predictable and thus easier to heal.
Your Rebirth skill is quite useful, even while tanking.

A Warrior tank has more utility skills, but lesser DPS than a Druid. It also has a lot less HP (around 30k HP with good gear ... versus 40k+ on a Druid). A warrior gets spike damage: it can have full HP for a while until health suddenly drops. This unpredictible pattern is slightly harder to heal.

I haven't got much experience with other types of tanks. I usually don't really have a preference for tanks ... except for some encounters, where I prefer a Druid tank because of the added health.

[Zaelar]

My advice is to use what you want. All of them have their advantages and disadvantages. Paladin is the usual choice because of how easy it is to use them/how little they lose by using a castsequence or castrandom macro.



i have a 4/5 t7.5 pally and a 2/5 t7.5 DK and the DK is a better tank than the pally. Also much better DPS in my second spec. The only reason I'd choose pally is if you want to dual-spec tank/healer, a DK can't do that (however I'd argue a shaman as ele/resto is better). DKs also are better stats wise out the gate, my prot pally is 30.5k hp and my DK is now 33.5k hp, unbuffed. +3k hp and his gear isn't as good as my prot pallys.

DK tanking is insanely easy, you just rotate between 5 buttons as a frost or unholy tank, don't even need to lay down D&D as frost (howling blast). I use a /castsequence on my DK when spec'd unholy for tanking so I just have to mash one button. it does take 3-4 more hours to research and test the best glyphs/rotation for tanking, whereas a pally tank is just 3-4 buttons and you can mash them in any order you like.

Pallys are great tanks, DKs are just better. Its no difference at all in heroics or naxx but in ulduar the difference gets pretty big (more armor, better damage reduction cooldowns, death grip, chains of ice are huge).

Plus its a lot more fun tanking swinging a giant 2h axe/sword than it is a one hander and shield :)

Paladins have a shield. That means they take almost 1000 less damage from every melee attack. Since BB got nerfed DKs lost their avoidance advantage too. Paladins also have a 6% healing increase to the party(/raid) on their auras, and can also get another 5% to themselves if you talent for it(one of the optional talents).

I've raid tanked with my paladin using castrandom just fine. It's great when you're lazy. With a DK you're screwed if IT or PS misses, and anything else screws up your rotation. If a paladin spell misses it doesn't change anything rotation-wise. Once you get enough hit and expertise this doesn't matter as much, but as a tank you don't want to need to be hit and expertise capped. To explain this to anyone who doesn't know, paladins are like BC shamans that just spam lightning bolt with a chain lightning thrown in sometimes. Using a sequence or random might not hit your ideal rotation but it'll get really close. Anything that misses doesn't matter, you're just going to do the same thing regardless. Because of the DKs rune system, they are like warlocks. Basically you need to keep putting dots on, and if they miss you need to press that dot again. I'm not just talking about DK dots, i'm talking about all of their abilities. If a blood/scourge strike misses it doesn't use a rune and you can(and should) use it again. There is no way to check for this in a macro. Also due to how they get death runes you are losing out on a lot by using castrandom. They also have runic power to pay attention to, which isn't as big of a deal since rune strike is easily macroable but you do lose out on a bit by not paying attention to it.

Boxing aside, previous patch DKs were the better tank by far but in 3.1 they are much closer. Unholy was the premiere tank build last I checked and I believe it still is but I'm not 100% sure. Team synergy aside, paladins are better against physical damage while DKs are better against magic damage. DKs have more tricks, while paladins are more passive. For boxing I say paladins are the better choice solely because they are simpler. DKs can work, It's been proven they can by people using them, but it's also obvious that they lose more by being simplified which is bad when you need to pay attention to another character.


What spec should i grab for my deathknight?

Ghoul is good for dps but doesn't help tanking. Desecration is bad. Stay away from Blood-Caked Blade as a tank since it can be parried and is a minimal threat increase. My build, which probably isn't Ideal:
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=6&tal=0055000000000000000000000000305000000000000000 0000000000235230235000015233001003103150

Paladins are about as spiky as warriors, and DKs are more spiky than them.

[puppychow]

what is blood caked blade?

There are 4 levels of tanking to worry about:

1. while leveling. It doesn't matter what you spec, any spec with decent enough gear and at appropriate level can tank anything while leveling.

2. 5-mans and heroics, especially multiboxing. Unholy (10/8/53) like above is great here, I prefer a slightly different build, 12/0/59 which is a DK unholy DPS build (NO tanking points or glyphs used). You can read more about it at

http://www.gnomedk.com/2009/04/14/death-knight-dps-builds-patch-31/

look for the 12/0/59 unholy DPS build. You do need great decent tank gear to pull this off so don't try it when you first hit level 80, since you don't have things like AMZ/extra dodge/etc, but you do awesome DPS when in dps gear and pretty good DPS even in tank gear (I pull off 2.5k+ dps in tank gear in heroics on bosses). Using 12/0/59 lets you keep one spec for DPS/multibox tanking and another spec purely for PVP or raid tanking.

3. patch 3.0 raid content - naxx, malygos, os. For this any of the 3 tank specs (blood, frost, unholy) works fine, although unholy is suited more for OTing than MTing (single target threat).

4. patch 3.1 raid content - ulduar10/25. As a MT you will want to be blood or frost, as an OT you will want to be frost or unholy (frost works for both). I'm frost as 15/51/5 as my "tank spec", I only use it when I solo my DK in raids. My frost tank spec is something like this

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055320000000000000000000000305050003 5203310030025101351005000000000000000000000000000&glyph=241413040605&version=9757

I've heard as well blood is a good tank spec at high levels of gear/raiding. Unholy is not great at high levels because its single target threat is quite crappy, while its great for AOE tanking, if you are MTing good DPSers will easily pull off you on bosses in ulduar or even naxx.

[hUi33]

An easier way for selection is, " do u like healing for yr mates? "

If u do, then go Pala coz u can dual spec Prot/Holy

If u r like some of my friends who dislike healing so much, then DK is the way to go~ Tank/DPS


As for which is easier to play? It really go down to practising it everyday. Eventually, u will get used to whatever buttons u ned to smashes to get the work done X(

[Gomotron]

Ghoul is good for dps but doesn't help tanking. Desecration is bad. Stay away from Blood-Caked Blade as a tank since it can be parried and is a minimal threat increase. My build, which probably isn't Ideal:
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=6&tal=0055000000000000000000000000305000000000000000 0000000000235230235000015233001003103150

Paladins are about as spiky as warriors, and DKs are more spiky than them.I always find it interesting to see how other people choose to spec. Personally, in my experience in tanking heroics, I try to maximize the number of "Oh Shit" talents when your tank gets bursted for 50% of their health.

As such, there are a few things that I do differently than in your spec:

1) Morbidity - I rarely have 3 runes up during a Boss encounter except at the start, so although DnD is a nice AE aggro spell, the only time I use it is at the start of a fight. WIth the improvements to Pestilence and Blood Boil, I personally am willing to sacrifice an extra DnD for other talents.

2) Desecration - not sure why you are saying it is bad. Granted, on a lot of Raid level encounters, having a static area of effect means that it is not terribly useful on movement fights, but since most MB'ers shy away from movement based fights, I typically take this for the 5% damage increase.

3) Magic Suppression is nice, but IMO Anti Magic Zone is nearly useless with the way that I play. 10 seconds is a ridiculously short time, even if it were combined with AMS for an additional 5 seconds of absorption. To me, it isn't worth the point.

4) Plague Strike - while this is a nice talent, it uses the same runes as Death Strike. The reason this is significant is that I am willing to sacrifice a little DPS on the DK if I am able to self-heal enough to either require less healing during a fight or avoid needing healing altogether. This allows for uninterrupted DPS on the Shaman. On Heroic Trash, I can pop Bone Shield followed by an Icebound Fortitude and spam DS when the runes pop in between refreshing diseases and BB and rarely need healing until after the fight is over.

5) Ghoul pet - I always have one up and I do have the Master of Ghouls talent. This is one of my OS talents, in that I have the ghoul for DPS (which, when combined with Ghoul Frenzy is a nice DPS increase with the added bonus of self healing your pet) but if I were to get into trouble, I can always sacrifice the pet for 40% health. They are a bit of work in that you have to have macros set up, but what I usually set up is the following:

Pre-pull macro:
/petstay
/petpassive

After-pull macro:
/petfollow
/petdefensive

6) Gargoyle - nerfed in 3.1 but still useful IMO. Basically, I like to have a RP dump for AE and for single target. For AE, obviously I do Unholy Blight. For a single target fight like a boss, I wait for max RP and then get the Garg out for a little more DPS.

7) Bladed Armor (Blood tree) - I pick this up to get a little synergy with Impurity. It also gives me enough points in Blood to get:

8) Rune Tap - 10% isn't a lot of health, but it may avoid a death or two over the long haul. Also, it's pretty useful in healing the Shaman if they are getting low health during a CH cast.

Here is a link to my current spec: current ('http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055001000000000000000000000005000000 0000000000000000000005200335003215003150013133051&glyph=000000000000&version=9806')

Having played with it for a few days, I am planning to move a few points around. For example, I am not sure that I am a firm believer in parryhasting for Heroic boss fights, but it would probably be points better spent on Virulence. Also, Wandering Plague does not seem that helpful so I may move those into Vicious Strikes with a point into Dirge as well.

Like this ('http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055001000000000000000000000005000000 0000000000000000000235200335000215103150013103051&glyph=000000000000&version=9806')

[Stormweasel]

So far I've only done UK, Nexus & DK on heroic but my bear tank and all I have to do is Faerie Fire, Demo Roar and Mangle the first guy

Then basically I have Maul and Swipe bound to my left/right mouse-wheel clicks.

I can't pull agro off him if I try. Survival instincts has saved the day many a time and with the 360 Swipe it's now less manoeuvering, more pew-pew.

Not progressed far enough with my DKs to speak for them yet but there's my 2p worth on the druid tank.

[Gomotron]

So far I've only done UK, Nexus & DK on heroic but my bear tank and all I have to do is Faerie Fire, Demo Roar and Mangle the first guy

Then basically I have Maul and Swipe bound to my left/right mouse-wheel clicks.

I can't pull agro off him if I try. Survival instincts has saved the day many a time and with the 360 Swipe it's now less manoeuvering, more pew-pew.

Not progressed far enough with my DKs to speak for them yet but there's my 2p worth on the druid tank.This makes me want to level up my Druid team...

[Duese]

My main is a warrior and while they are the best all around tanks in my opinion, but they are horrible for multiboxing if you are doing more than 2 roles in a group (dps and tank, heal and tank, but not all 3). Just to much positioning involved and individual threat.

I started up with my 4x shaman and Prot Pally about 2 weeks ago and I can say that tanking on my pally is incredibly easy. I basically have one button that does everything and I just spam that and never have aggro issues. I had to bust my ass on my warrior to AoE tank.


A warrior gets spike damage: it can have full HP for a while until health suddenly drops. This unpredictible pattern is slightly harder to heal.

Other way around, druids get spike damage (that's why they get more hp) due to them relying only on dodge for damage, where warriors and pally's get dodge, parry and block to mitigate the damage. The hp also gives them the effect of being able to take non-mitigated spell damage easier, especially on AoE and bosses that can't be spell reflected (for whatever reason).

Actually, I'm wondering how well a druid would do in my team. I was planning on bringing a DK up next to tank after I get my shammies geared out, but I think I might take my 60 druid up.

Pally + Judgement of Light
Shammy x 4 + Healing Stream Totem
=
About 1100 healing per tick + attack.

Hell, most trash pulls, I don't even have to cast a single heal because of this. Also works great on bosses with AoE damage like the last boss in Nexus.

[Taliesin]

Pally + Judgement of Light
Shammy x 4 + Healing Stream Totem
=
About 1100 healing per tick + attack.

Hell, most trash pulls, I don't even have to cast a single heal because of this. Also works great on bosses with AoE damage like the last boss in Nexus.

With all the pali talent modifications, specifically having the Guarded by the Light talent (hits refresh Divine Plea), I'm able to use both Seal of Light and Judgement of Light without risking running out of mana like before. That's about 1k hps to the tank every 2s, roughly, as well as the occasional +314 hps (depending on spellpower) to anyone else that hits the target (from judgement). On a lot of trash, I'm finding I rarely have to heal anymore, which was not the case for me before. I still need an occasional heal to keep up with the mana consumption at this rate, but it definitely makes it a /yawn fest for my priest.

EDIT: And this is all with just a single mana spring totem, no healing totems down.

[Rin]

With all the pali talent modifications, specifically having the Guarded by the Light talent (hits refresh Divine Plea), I'm able to use both Seal of Light and Judgement of Light without risking running out of mana like before. That's about 1k hps to the tank every 2s, roughly, as well as the occasional +314 hps (depending on spellpower) to anyone else that hits the target (from judgement).
EDIT: And this is all with just a single mana spring totem, no healing totems down.

^^ This sounds like fun... I've been using Seal of Wisom/Judgement of Wisdom up until now... do you have exorcism in your rotation currently for your pally too?

[Taliesin]

^^ This sounds like fun... I've been using Seal of Wisom/Judgement of Wisdom up until now... do you have exorcism in your rotation currently for your pally too?

You know, I've tried working it into the rotation, but I keep finding myself going back to what I had always been using until now. Part of the complication is that exorcism for me increases my mana consumption even more, so I'd likely have to either put Seal or Judgement of Wisdom back in to compensate. Exorcism would probably increase my DPS on the tank by about 100 on average, though I'm personally more partial to keeping all the passive healing up as high as I can. The relatively minor increase in DPS isn't going to be a gamechanger for me.

I'm going to play with it some more to find what works best for me. I'm sure others on here perfer increasing DPS anywhere they can. I may end up working it back in, probably right before Blizz reverts it back to undead-only again. :P

[gitcho]

Could someone please link their pally tanking rotation macro ? I've got a 73 pally but my /castsequence rotation is screwed up ..

Here's my armory spec : http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Bonechewer&cn=Team%C3%A2wesome&gn=team+%C3%A2wesome

[wowphreak]

Could someone please link their pally tanking rotation macro ? I've got a 73 pally but my /castsequence rotation is screwed up ..

Here's my armory spec : http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Bonechewer&cn=Team%C3%A2wesome&gn=team+%C3%A2wesome

check out http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=188714&highlight=#post188714
basic 9696 rotation

[Zaelar]

I always find it interesting to see how other people choose to spec. Personally, in my experience in tanking heroics, I try to maximize the number of "Oh Shit" talents when your tank gets bursted for 50% of their health.

As such, there are a few things that I do differently than in your spec:

1) Morbidity - I rarely have 3 runes up during a Boss encounter except at the start, so although DnD is a nice AE aggro spell, the only time I use it is at the start of a fight. WIth the improvements to Pestilence and Blood Boil, I personally am willing to sacrifice an extra DnD for other talents.

Death and Decay is the highest single target threat per rune ability.

2) Desecration - not sure why you are saying it is bad. Granted, on a lot of Raid level encounters, having a static area of effect means that it is not terribly useful on movement fights, but since most MB'ers shy away from movement based fights, I typically take this for the 5% damage increase.

There are better places to put the points.

3) Magic Suppression is nice, but IMO Anti Magic Zone is nearly useless with the way that I play. 10 seconds is a ridiculously short time, even if it were combined with AMS for an additional 5 seconds of absorption. To me, it isn't worth the point.

It's situational. Basically it's a pre-emptive 'oh-shit' button against magic attacks. It's not required, but for one point(if you're taking the prereq already) it's definitely worth it.

4) Plague Strike - while this is a nice talent, it uses the same runes as Death Strike. The reason this is significant is that I am willing to sacrifice a little DPS on the DK if I am able to self-heal enough to either require less healing during a fight or avoid needing healing altogether. This allows for uninterrupted DPS on the Shaman. On Heroic Trash, I can pop Bone Shield followed by an Icebound Fortitude and spam DS when the runes pop in between refreshing diseases and BB and rarely need healing until after the fight is over.

You're DPS is lacking if you're keeping threat with death strike. While boxing it's not a problem but between the loss of damage of scourge strike and the extra dps your other characters could put out with the extra threat the mobs would die faster so you'd be taking less damage and need less healing as well. Also the healing on Death Strike just got nerfed too.

5) Ghoul pet - I always have one up and I do have the Master of Ghouls talent. This is one of my OS talents, in that I have the ghoul for DPS (which, when combined with Ghoul Frenzy is a nice DPS increase with the added bonus of self healing your pet) but if I were to get into trouble, I can always sacrifice the pet for 40% health. They are a bit of work in that you have to have macros set up, but what I usually set up is the following:

If you have the spare points and just want dps this is where to put them.

6) Gargoyle - nerfed in 3.1 but still useful IMO. Basically, I like to have a RP dump for AE and for single target. For AE, obviously I do Unholy Blight. For a single target fight like a boss, I wait for max RP and then get the Garg out for a little more DPS.

If you have enough RP for gargoyle you're doing something wrong(or still have 3.09 blessing of sanc). I'm guessing you aren't using rune strike enough.

7) Bladed Armor (Blood tree) - I pick this up to get a little synergy with Impurity. It also gives me enough points in Blood to get:

8) Rune Tap - 10% isn't a lot of health, but it may avoid a death or two over the long haul. Also, it's pretty useful in healing the Shaman if they are getting low health during a CH cast.

You need to glyph for rune tap to affect the party. Not a bad place for a point, especially if you're running 4x dps.

Here is a link to my current spec: current ('http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055001000000000000000000000005000000 0000000000000000000005200335003215003150013133051&glyph=000000000000&version=9806')

Having played with it for a few days, I am planning to move a few points around. For example, I am not sure that I am a firm believer in parryhasting for Heroic boss fights, but it would probably be points better spent on Virulence. Also, Wandering Plague does not seem that helpful so I may move those into Vicious Strikes with a point into Dirge as well.

Like this ('http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055001000000000000000000000005000000 0000000000000000000235200335000215103150013103051&glyph=000000000000&version=9806')

Based on everything, it seems like you're losing a lot of what DKs have to offer to get it to work well with your boxing style which is exactly my point when I say that paladins are the better choice simply because of how easy it is to work them in without losing much.

Gitcho:

/startattack
/castrandom holy shield, exorcism, hammer of righteousness, judgment of wisdom, consecration

Replace judgement of wisdom with light if you prefer. Add shield of righteousness at 75. This is the most basic castrandom macro. Pull with avenger's shield, put down a consecration for threat, then mash.

[souhell]

Hey guys.

I recently dinged level 60 with my 5 shamans. My plan is to MB heroics with them and make one restoration. I have a 71 feral druid, 70 protection paladin, 60 tauren warrior, 55 DK which i can level-up to 60.

I have enough money to gear them all up to a proper tank. I never played DK and i would like to try it. Would it be hard to multibox with a DK protection in my team?

Thank you in advanced,

Negativ

[Gomotron]

Based on everything, it seems like you're losing a lot of what DKs have to offer to get it to work well with your boxing style which is exactly my point when I say that paladins are the better choice simply because of how easy it is to work them in without losing much.
I think that you are correct in that Paladins are far easier to play when MB'ing. For me, anyway, playing 5 and doing heroics is never going to be quite as easy and efficient as playing 1 with a group of 4 others, assuming equal levels of gear and skill.

Choosing 1 over the other I think is more going to be related to what you prefer play-style-wise, much like the decision to MB in the first place. If I was really that concerned about min/maxing, I'd have joined a high level guild and dropped the bots by this point.

Of course, at this point I am just trying to survive heroics, so for me it is an accomplishment just to clear a few heroics bosses. I suppose once I get the encounters down a bit, I can work on increasing DPS/efficiency. I have already improved significantly technique-wise doing Gundrak over and over (and over).

I think that in the end, your decision should be based more on what feels "right" to you. Of course, this is coming from a long-time Shadowknight in EQ...

[daviddoran]

depending on how your accounts are all set up, you should level a DK with your shaman, see how you like it, and when you hit 71, decide if you want to keep going that route, or if you want to switch to your Paly or druid. Also, one thing you could do is if you will be skipping a lot of gathering quests, DO them on the tank, and eventually the tank will be a whole level ahead of the shaman, then alternate with another tank. This way once you hit 80, you will have 2 tanks to choose from and you can decide for yourself which is better for heroics :) That, and you have another toon so you can do more raid CDs...

[Jezebel]

i play the more common paladin and 4x shaman. ive been thinking about leveling up a druid tank lately. the reason being, with dual spec, you could respec the druid to balance or resto for much better synergy in BG's/PvP. playing 4 ranged and one melee, your melee tends to spend a lot of time standing around doing nothing in PvP. the druid seems much more adaptable.

[Hachoo]

I just wanted to put my 2 cents into this thread and state that multibox tanking with a DK is in no way difficult, or even any more difficult than a paladin. I'm not sure why people are saying it is, chances are they haven't actually used a DK to tank any Heroics. Seriously, I have the same # of buttons on my DK tank as I had on my Paladin tank. I've cleared every Heroic with a DK tank (except Occulus cause I can't be bothered to set up macros, etc) and I can honestly say none of them would have been any "easier" with a paladin tank.

I was using a DK tank when they were considered "gimp" tanks at the beginning and had no issues - things only got better after they got major buffs. People mentioning that they don't have shields and this causes them to take more damage have no idea what they're talking about. DKs have quite a few mitigation abilities/talents that cause them to take a flat amount of damage less already (frost presence, blade barrier, etc) which basically makes up for no shield block. I find healing a DK tank to be quite easy.

As I said above, I basically had a single button macro to spam to tank on my DK, the only extra buttons I had were taunt and oh shit buttons (which the paladin needs also). If you choose to use DnD (which is a good idea for AoE aggro) on your DK, that adds 1 extra button that you (maybe) wouldn't need on your paladin.

Honestly, a Paladin or a DK will both be excellent MB tanks. But, for me it was a simple decision. DKs are infinitely cooler than Paladins (which are the most boring class in the entire game to solo play). If I was going to stop multiboxing (which I did) - which would I want to be a main? Certainly not a paladin which I tried to play during BC like 5 times and gave up before I could even gain 1 level because it was so excruciatingly boring, whereas now I am solo boxing my DK and its the most fun I've ever had playing WoW.

Just something to keep in mind :)

[wolpak]

I just wanted to put my 2 cents into this thread and state that multibox tanking with a DK is in no way difficult, or even any more difficult than a paladin. I'm not sure why people are saying it is, chances are they haven't actually used a DK to tank any Heroics. Seriously, I have the same # of buttons on my DK tank as I had on my Paladin tank. I've cleared every Heroic with a DK tank (except Occulus cause I can't be bothered to set up macros, etc) and I can honestly say none of them would have been any "easier" with a paladin tank.

I was using a DK tank when they were considered "gimp" tanks at the beginning and had no issues - things only got better after they got major buffs. People mentioning that they don't have shields and this causes them to take more damage have no idea what they're talking about. DKs have quite a few mitigation abilities/talents that cause them to take a flat amount of damage less already (frost presence, blade barrier, etc) which basically makes up for no shield block. I find healing a DK tank to be quite easy.

As I said above, I basically had a single button macro to spam to tank on my DK, the only extra buttons I had were taunt and oh shit buttons (which the paladin needs also). If you choose to use DnD (which is a good idea for AoE aggro) on your DK, that adds 1 extra button that you (maybe) wouldn't need on your paladin.

Honestly, a Paladin or a DK will both be excellent MB tanks. But, for me it was a simple decision. DKs are infinitely cooler than Paladins (which are the most boring class in the entire game to solo play). If I was going to stop multiboxing (which I did) - which would I want to be a main? Certainly not a paladin which I tried to play during BC like 5 times and gave up before I could even gain 1 level because it was so excruciatingly boring, whereas now I am solo boxing my DK and its the most fun I've ever had playing WoW.

Just something to keep in mind :)

I will certainly keep your boredom in mind when picking a MT.

[Taliesin]

There's nothing wrong with DK tanks at all. I was tempted to go that route because they actually seemed more survivable than paladin tanks at a lot of things, and paladin tanks were actually designed around the idea that they NEED to take damage so they could get mana back from heals. However, I didn't want to invest too heavily into a class that was still new enough to the game that major changes were more likely than any other class. That's just me being probably a little overly cautious on my choice. DK survivablility wasn't even a concern in my choice.

But I'm definitely liking every single change they made to the tankadin spec in the last patch; everything got just a tiny bit easier. Increased mana regen on a blue rage bar tank makes a big difference.

[Hachoo]

I will certainly keep your boredom in mind when picking a MT.Har har.

[David]

Pally + Judgement of Light
Shammy x 4 + Healing Stream Totem
=
About 1100 healing per tick + attack. Do healing stream still stack?

I thought both healing and mana din`t stack anymore.

[heffner]

Just base it on what you would prefer to play solo in raids and the off-spec.

[Duese]

Pally + Judgement of Light
Shammy x 4 + Healing Stream Totem
=
About 1100 healing per tick + attack. Do healing stream still stack?

I thought both healing and mana din`t stack anymore.

Mana doesn't but healing still does.