Help with my DK tank

Im going to start with, I did use the search feature so If this has been covered before im greatly sorry. What I found were posts relating to which tank to use best.... no one to my question.

Currently my wife is tanking for my group. Toons name is Mystorie (mal'ganis) (sorry cant link armory -at work) She is having the most difficult time holding aggro off my rogue and only my rogue.... Its kinda funny actualy she can keep up with me I would say with in 400dps of me and yet I still pull aggro off her. I was hoping that someone could take a look at her spec and/or give some thoughts and options she could try to hold better aggro. Its frustrating for her since she really wants to tank raids when she finishes gearing out. her rotation is DnD, 2 disease's, pestilance, and BB... but from there she uses Blood Strike... I told her to try using something other than Blood Strike like Rune Strike or Obliterate (not sure on what she has.. I haven't played a dk :confused: )

Anway some help would be fantastic.


Thank you

I dont know how you play so dont take this offensively, but you also need to check how YOURE playing. Aggro management is not just the tanks job.

Thats an AOE rotation, does she use something different for single target?

Rune strike is a proc that she can use when she dodges / parries for threat gain so that should definitely help if shes not using it.

For single target depending on how she is playing we should see either death strike (for healing), obliterate or scourge strike. Those are the big hitters.

This is a stupid question but I have seen it often enough to warrant asking. Is she tanking in frost presence? I have been in groups where the tank decides to tank in blood where more dps=more threat.. Or unholy presence thinking that faster GCD's means more attacks thrown.. I usually don't stay much longer in these groups and it always reminds me why I don't pug and why I began multiboxing in the first place.

Jubber, just wanted to note that thats sometimes OK if the tank is very well geared and in a good group (i.e. think of a geared raid tank rushing through heroics for badges)...

but yeah usually thats bad for everyone lol.

good point.

That is definately a possibility. I have yet to meet any but that doesn't mean they don't exist. However it's perfectly natural to forget you are not in frost presence sometimes. When I am farming on my dk team I usually put the tank into blood presence too as there is usually very little need for extra threat and armor..

Then I jump into an instance and forget that I was in blood and pay for it on the first pull and am thinking to myself, why is my tank getting slaughtered and my guys passing me up in threat.... lol..

thank you for your responses and no offense taken. to jump ahead regarding the pressence. Yes she is frost pressence (forgot to mention) and I to have experienced groups that the tank didn't want to run in that pressence...

As for my play style, I do watch omen contsantly and I dont go just balls out - well I do if she has a good amount of threat on a boss, but the biggest issue is AoE tanking... No im not off targeting, it seems that I have to throw TotT for her everytime its up on AoE pulls, and again im not throwing FoK all the time either... I will right after TotT to get her additional threat on all the mobs, but then move to assisting her.

Forgot to mention, regarding single target she drops off BB and Pestilance. But the rest stays about the same....

Regarding the AoE pull's she uses corpse explosion when she can as well forgot to throw that in there.

Here goes...

I use a DK tank for my shaman team and also use her as a raid tank for my guild. Now I just looked up Mystorie on Mal'ganis and found a blood elf Death Knight, so I am assuming that is your wife's toon?

If it is I see she is Frost specced and does not have the talent for corpse explosion. If she has just changed, then good move, because I don't find it useful at all. I do find a frost spec the best for AoE tanking now since the unholy 3.2 nerf however.

With a frost spec, the best AoE rotation is: DnD-IT-PS-Pest then I tab to another target and HB-Pest-BloodBoil. Always tab to another target after blood boil. This means pest is always refreshing your diseases without having to reapply and also you are spreading threat from your single target attacks evenly through the group.

In frost spec I dump runepower into runestrike and frost strike. Because rune strike is cast on next swing you can make macros for every ability or at the start of a castsequence with /cast runestrike. If it is available, it will be queued up without altering your rotation. She should use runestrike at every available opportunity because as well as being her highest damage attack generally it has 150% threat.

I do find howling blast is brilliant for snap AoE agro however, as long as you wait for all diseases to be on targets, you should be fine to go balls out AoE dps without fear of pulling agro.

For single target rotations, I use HB-BS-BS-OB OB-OB-OB and RP dump is the same as above. This rotation is assuming howling Blast is glyphed to apply diseases. Alternatively substitute HB for IT at the start of the rotation. Note you don't need to use plague strike in a single target frost rotation, the unholy rune is better spent on the obliterates.

Finally, glyphs. Your wife should have Howling blast, rune strike and obiterate glyphed or swap howling blast out for the rune strike glyph. There are also some significant gear issues to look at, but obviously that will come with time :D

Hope this helps.

The one thing you haven't mentioned is Rune Strike, very appripriately raised by Redbeard. This is an amazing aggro tool, is on a swing timer and not GCD so she should be mashing this constantly in order to cast it every time it is available. I have noticed my tank (unhoily) has aggro issues when I'm focussing more on whats happening and forget to utilise the Rune Strike proc.

Thank you so much to all that replied. and Noids thank you for your detailed in put and taking a look at her toon. Yes she did just switch to frost. I will deffinately give her the rotations and have her either use them exactly or find what works best for her gear and paly style. She did just hit 80 and as you can see with the gear issues (pit fall of AV leveling :D ) we do have some work a head of us but all in due time.

Again thank you for the replies.

trying using feint? vanish?
Start off with a 5 point expose armor?

At a certain gear level you really have to let the DK get aggro for a few seconds before you lay into it.

When I was playing by DK as blood spec if I dropped my DnD there would be an intial burst of aggro but then I have to wait a few seconds for something to come off cooldown maybe yer having the same problem?

Doing BB on single target is kinda a waste. You really need 2+ targets for it to be better then tab+strike.

Just checked the the armory basically the DK is in what I call starter gear probably could put out about 1500 dps or more depending on buffs. I assuming yer running heriocs? Yeh its gonna be frustrating for awhile no way around that until yeh get her some better gear.

here some info on spec/rotation just scroll down to frost spec they give a nice rotation to follow.
http://deathknight.info/forum/index.php?topic=6806.0

I think the best thing yeh can do for yer is avoid pulling aggro till she has her rotation figured out once she works that out the rest will fall into place.

Here some nice info on gear compiled in and easy format.
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/5...loot-list.html