Pali vs Death Knight "Tanking"

[Pact]

I still use 4x Healing Stream for the Aoe boss fights where i dont want to waste time with chain heal. With the Glyph to increases its effect by 20%. At 71 my normal ele shamans are healing for about 115 with each totem and full buffs, The resto shaman is doing about 160 or so. Granted they only have 1.1k spell damage fully buffed.

But in a fight like invarge in UK, I only need to focus on healing my pally as the shamans are always topped up within a few seconds by their own healing stream totems. it does work out to be around 550 hps to the whole group which isnt too shabby when there only taking 2k-3k damage every 10 seconds or so.

Will see how things work out later on in other instances anyway

[ahtremblay]

I have 5 shamans. I will retire 1 and replace him with a tank. I could not decide which to pick pally or DK. My thinking now is that if people are going to argue for 5 pages about the finer points of who is the best and still not reach an agreement, then my advice is to simply pick the one you like the most. I will pick the DK personnaly because its new and fresh (rotten?). And because it starts at high level.

[Mosg2]

I have 5 shamans. I will retire 1 and replace him with a tank. I could not decide which to pick pally or DK. My thinking now is that if people are going to argue for 5 pages about the finer points of who is the best and still not reach an agreement, then my advice is to simply pick the one you like the most. I will pick the DK personnaly because its new and fresh (rotten?). And because it starts at high level.

We're not arguing, we're just talking about the pros and cons. The "agreement" is that Paladins are still the easiest to multibox with due to one-button aggro generation while DK's bring more damage (ae and single target) and boosting group damage more than Pallies.

[phineas01]

Maybe I just suck at multi-boxing or using my DK but I was having an easier time with my paladin tank. I feel that overall I would benefit more from using my DK due to the higher damage output (since I'm only running four characters) but it just feels like I have to concentrate on him more than the pally and that I don't like as I think I have enough going on watching aggro and health bars and making sure my two dps are dpsing and making sure the the heals I just hit actually went off, etc, etc.

[Hor]

Maybe I just suck at multi-boxing or using my DK but I was having an easier time with my paladin tank. I feel that overall I would benefit more from using my DK due to the higher damage output (since I'm only running four characters) but it just feels like I have to concentrate on him more than the pally and that I don't like as I think I have enough going on watching aggro and health bars and making sure my two dps are dpsing and making sure the the heals I just hit actually went off, etc, etc.

You don't suck at boxing, or at playing a DK. Just at reading retension :P

I kid, but it's been said numerous times in this thread and others that Paladins take less effort/concentration than Death Knights. That being said, the DK does have some nice bonuses to weigh in if you're considering an either/or scenario. As has been said, it's really up to taste/personal playstyle, and preference.

[Hachoo]

I haven't had any issues yet although I admit so far I've only done Utgarde Keep..

I really only use 2 buttons on my DK. Button one is Death and Decay (F1 Key).

I have button 2 as a macro:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Rune Strike
/castsequence reset=target Icy Touch,Plague Strike,Pestilence,Blood Strike,Scourge Strike,Death Strike

I have that macro bound to the "1" key, and as a secondary binding alt+2

Now, on my 4 shamans I have a standard DPS macro that splits into 3 parts - this macro is bound to the '2' key

#showtooltip
/castrandom [target=focustarget,mod:alt] Lightning Bolt,Chain Lightning
/cast [target=focustarget,mod:ctrl] Chain Lightning
/cast [target=focustarget,nomod] Lightning Bolt

Last, I have a macro on all 4 shamans bound to my '3' key that lesser healing waves my tank on all 4, or if i use ctrl chain heals the entire group.

Ok so when I'm pulling I basically target a mob I want to pull and hit the '1' key on my DK to icy touch him - then I immediately hit F1 to drop a death and decay in front of me. Around this time the whole group of mobs is running into my Death and Decay which holds aggro very well. Now I just spam alt+2 and my DK will spam rune strike when its available and keep running through the castsequence - meanwhile my shamans are throwing lightning bolts and chain lightnings like crazy. if for some reason my DK needs healing I change from spamming alt+2 to spamming 1 and 3 with 2 of my fingers - DK will keep dropping rune strikes and the castsequence meanwhile all 4 shamans will do lesser healing wave on my DK, then back to alt+2 until everything is dead.

Really its only like 3 buttons for the entire combat - very easy, requires next to no thought. Haven't had to do anything more than that yet, although in the future I could see myself needing to use icebound fortitude, bone armor, anti magic shield/zone, etc, but I can just click on these.

[Saevio]

3. No +3% Crt to Judged Targets, so no extra 3% Crt bonus to bosses

Heart of the Crusader doesn't stack with the Totem of Wrath debuff :[

[phineas01]

Maybe I just suck at multi-boxing or using my DK but I was having an easier time with my paladin tank. I feel that overall I would benefit more from using my DK due to the higher damage output (since I'm only running four characters) but it just feels like I have to concentrate on him more than the pally and that I don't like as I think I have enough going on watching aggro and health bars and making sure my two dps are dpsing and making sure the the heals I just hit actually went off, etc, etc.

You don't suck at boxing, or at playing a DK. Just at reading retension :P

I kid, but it's been said numerous times in this thread and others that Paladins take less effort/concentration than Death Knights. That being said, the DK does have some nice bonuses to weigh in if you're considering an either/or scenario. As has been said, it's really up to taste/personal playstyle, and preference.

No you're completely right

Looking at Hachoo's post and his macros I see how playing a DK as tank would be almost as easy as a pally. I did however re-evaluate my setup and ended up respecing all three of my druids with my healer going full resto and made a /castrandom for my pally and I cleared Ramparts all the way up to the final boss but couldn't kill him. I only made two attempts though and I think with a little more focus on keeping my slaves out of the fire I could take them down with relative ease now. So YAY! to me, I feel much better as before I changed my setup I was wiping before I got the the first boss. I lost my healer once on trash though due to forgetting divine shield dumps agro inch:

One question for everyone about Omar in ramparts, any recomendations for when he knocks your tank in the air? I seemed to completly lose aggro when that happened and couldnt regain it utill all three of my druids were dead. It was just a stroke of luck I was able to kill him before he killed me.