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

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.

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Originally Posted by 'puppychow',index.php?page=Thread&postID=196929#po st196929

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 :)

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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.

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Originally Posted by 'Negativ1337',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197037# post197037

What spec should i grab for my deathknight?

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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...33001003103150

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

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/de...ilds-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/?deat...5&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.

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(

[quote='Zaelar',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197055 #post197055]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:
[url]http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=6&tal=0055000000000000000000000000305 00000000000000000000000002352302350000152330010031 03150[/url]

Paladins are about as spiky as warriors, and DKs are more spiky than them.[/quote]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: [url='http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055001000000000000000000000005000000 0000000000000000000005200335003215003150013133051& glyph=000000000000&version=9806']current[/url]

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

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.

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Originally Posted by 'Stormweasel',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197401# post197401

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.

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This makes me want to level up my Druid team...

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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by 'Duese',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197412#post19 7412

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by 'Taliesin',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197427#pos t197427

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.

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^^ 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?

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Originally Posted by 'Rin',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197428#post1974 28

^^ 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?

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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