Nexus with DK/4 shamans

I ran the Nexus yesterday for the first time, as I finally had a few quests to go there. Admittedly I was already level 73 on all 5 of my characters so the challenge was probably quite lower than it would have been if I was a fresh 70 or 71 (though I'm not sure how a fresh 70 would even go there with quests since I had to finish something like 110 quests in borean tundra before I even got quests for the Nexus).
Anyway, I went in with very little knowledge of the instance and decided to take the clockwise route (which I later found out a lot of people consider to be backwards). First, the trash. With a tank, all of the trash was easy. I was never in danger of dying, and my shamans have so much mp5 now I can spam LB/CL forever and not run out of mana if I have 4 mana springs down. My DK's stats are pretty good - going into the instance I had 13.1k HP, 14.6k armor, 14% dodge, 16% parry, 480 defense.

The first boss (3rd really, the Blood Elf Mage) actually proved to be a lot harder than I thought. Without really knowing much about what is done, I went ahead and ran in and tried to tackle her (him?). This failed miserably. The gravity well that kept my characters floating around made it almost impossible to do anything, and when I finally got her to 50% she split which I wasn't expecting and all 5 of my characters got owned. So, armed with a burning hatred, I went to the dual-boxing.com forums to look up strategies. The first nexus thread I found gave some general strategies and one post in particular caught my eye, saying that you can park your ranged DPS outside of the mage's room behind the invisible wall and they can still shoot her when she gets near the wall. This prevents them from flying all over the place when she does the gravity lapse - they still go up in the air but don't move any direction.

I tried this tactic a couple of times, and again failed miserably - first I accidentally summoned a ghoul (don't ask), and when I tried to pull her towards the wall the ghoul kept aggro. Another wipe. Third try, I got her near the wall, got her down to 50% OK, she split, and then 2 of the clones went straight to my shamans - another wipe. Now, I decided I was going to stop for a bit and think about things, read strategies a bit more, and plan out the encounter. Based on one suggestion, I decided to drop healing stream totems every time there was a gravity well as this somewhat negates damage from the attack. I also decided to conserve runes as much as possible and use a death and decay as soon as I got the split message, therefore holding clone aggro immediately.
So, try number 4, I downed her! Had to go slow and steady. Parked my shamans outside the room, pulled the boss towards the entrance so the shamans could hit her. Used anti magic shell right away to avoid having to heal at the beginning. Started firing LBs while I built aggro on my DK, healing as needed. When the gravity well got used, I would immediately drop 4 healing stream totems, then chain heal when it ended, then drop 4 mana spring again. Once she dropped to 50% and split I immediately used death and decay, pulling all aggro. I dropped an anti magic zone on myself to avoid having to heal myself, and started pummeling the clones one by one with regular lightning bolt spam. I know the best order to take them out is supposed to be frost, arcane, fire, but honestly it was tough to tell which one was which at first and instead of fumbling around wasting time figuring it out, I figured it would be a better idea to just pick one and start blasting. This worked quite well. Once the clones were gone, I popped bloodlust, trinkets, elemental mastery, and went to town. Post-clone she dropped like a rock. This boss fight was by far the hardest, the rest were quite easy.
Next boss/trash, the plant area. This area was really annoying. Not for the reasons a lot of people would say though. A lot of people say this area is annoying because the trash respawns a little while after you kill it (Not all trash, just the little non-elite plants). This is true, but rarely did they ever respawn on me, and if they did they can be 1 shotted. What was really annoying was the creatures that cast tranquility. Let me tell you, 2 centaurs, 2 trees, 4 little plants, and tranquility will drop your FPS fast. I got in one fight with about 9 mobs (5 elites and 4 non elites) and wasn't sure how I survived. My DK's FPS dropped to around 1. I was spamming keys on my shamans and throwing in random heals hoping it was keeping my DK alive, as I could barely tell what was happening. Fortunately I managed to kill everything and my DK didn't die, but sheesh.
The rock boss in this part was pretty easy. I've heard a lot of people complain about the spikes so I went and looked up a strategy for the boss before I got to him. What I found was someone claiming that if you keep your clones right on top of the tank, the spikes don't hit them. I found this to be true. I dropped a totem farm a ways away from the boss, then ran my DK right up to him with my shamans right behind. Built some threat on the boss, then started laying into him. Basically just healed my tank occasionally, did a chain heal occasionally as something was hitting my guys some, and dropped him without issues.
Third boss (first), the void thingie (giant energy guy). This guy was a bit tougher for me but probably because I got disoriented during the fight. I still downed him first try but would have had issues if my shamans didn't have so much mp5. Basically you just spank him, but he spawns rifts periodcally that will continuously damage you until they're dead, and they will also spawn non-elite wraiths that cast arcane missiles. To down this guy I made sure to keep grounding totems down, and as rifts spawned I would try to target them ASAP and kill them, then kill the wraiths before moving back to the boss. I don't think I used any trinkets, elemental mastery, or blood lust at all. I think if I was going to do this again, I would just burn 4 fire elementals, bloodlust, trinket, etc, and burn the boss down ASAP.
Last boss - I had heard mixed reviews about this guy, anything from "hes impossible for a boxer" to "its easy if you just make your shamans jump every 1-2 casts". For me, it was the latter. I was armed with the knowledge that jumping cancels the dot that increases over and over again. So, I dropped a totem farm, went into combat, built aggro on my main, and started nuking with my shamans. The DoT starts at 90/s and then goes to 180, 270, 360, 540, etc. I would jump while it was 180 or as soon as it hit 270, usually this would let me get 1-2 LBs, or 1 LB + 1 lesser healing wave on my tank. Once I took enough dot damage that my shamans were at 60% health I would do a chain heal. I also made sure to keep spamming Grounding Totems to absorb some of her magic. The boss really wasn't doing much damage at all on my DK so I was able to go nice and slow without much worry. Once the boss hit 25% or whatever, she enrages. I had heard at this point that she would do massive damage and could 2 shot my tank, but I didn't experience this. She didn't seem to do much more damage than before the enrage, and so I just hit bloodlust trinkets etc and finished her off at this point without much issue.

Thanks for your post - they're always great. Good to hear your DK is working out.

Got my DK and pally up to level 69/70 and they've started questing in Northrend along with the rest of my secondary team (mage and 2 boomkins). Almost ready to mix in a real tank to my current shammy 5-box team (at 73).

i was wondering if you had a pally tank before your DK, and howthey are comparable as tanks, i'de imagine the DK puts out more dps but i wonder if he can hold aggro as well as a pally tank?

Well, I leveled a pally awhile back to swap out with my main shaman for instances, but didn't really enjoy playing a pally (they're less "cool" to me, and having one was less useful in PvP and i just didn't feel the "vibe" when I had one). I abandoned it at 64. I had run ramps and BF with it and I did quite good. I did not run any outland instances with my DK so I have nothing to compare it to.

I can say I have 0 threat issues with my DK. I have yet to even use dark command or death grip as a taunt. If I use Death and Decay then my AoE aggro is perfect no matter how many creatures there are (I usually wait a couple seconds to DPS so my pestilence can spread diseases to a whole group of mobs but this is pretty much unnecessary with Death and Decay up). On single mobs I just hit a mob with icy touch, then as I get ready for my second swing I start DPSing and my shamans dont pull aggro off the DK. I have a feeling I could open my shamans up with bloodlust, elemental mastery, and the trinket, if I could drop a DnD, icy touch, and plaguestrike prior to starting DPS.

In short, the threat on a DK is very good. They're also infinitely cooler than paladins so I enjoy having one as my main now. They also have more PvP utility IMO between death grip, chains of ice, gargoyle, desecration, anti-magic zone, more single and multi target DPS, etc.

I've been tanking as feral from 60 raids till 70 raids and heroics etc.. and i would say that my DK are easier to keep agro with then the druid tbh. So that should give an idea on how it would be vs a pally. A DK is the only other then pally tank that agro thrugh aoe mainly so they should have sorta the same valuse as a boxing tank. And i belive that blizz basicly have made all tanks in the same way. They should all be able to keep agro good enough if played right and geared right. I see alot of "how is the DK as a tank" worryed ppl on the forum.. but the DK is really really okay.. maybe even the best one :D

BTW: for Nexus. .if you start it by going left with the Mage boss as nr 1 it will be easier in my eyes.. and on the mage boss. Just pop fire elementals and heroisem on max range and go insane nukings from the sec you pull here, by that i meen, that you start the pull with 100x lightening bolts :D. You dont need to tank here. Just go Blood presence and nuke with your DK. The point is to nuke so fast and hard that she will be spliting into 3 before she start throwing you around. At 50%to30% hp she go 3x, just heal up max and take it easy.. they are not really hard. you just had some unluck there.. Nuke them down and continue on the boss. If she should at some point throw you arond then just spam shocks at that time and hit with DK, he will hit each time he passes here in center.

thanks for the post. It is quite informative.
Just need to learn how to take out the trash first.