Paladin vs DK tank, my experience.

[Niley]

Recently I switched my paladin tank that I used throughout whole tbc to a Death Knight one. With my paladin I cleared all heroics but oculus, then decided that I wanted to change, so i re rolled a DK in his place.
So far with my new tank, that hit 80 a week ago, I cleared about 8-9 different heroics, I also dps'ed in 10 man raids.
DKs are much more complicated to control then a pally, paladin isc simple, very simple, while boxing with a dk, requires You using all the abilities separately , watching all 4 or 5 o sh!it cool downs, and not messing up rotation.
First impression upon entering heroics, was aggro issues, yes i was a noob(still am), but unlike my pally, I cant go all out on all mobs right away, there is no instant aoe threat, its dots, I need to wait for a bit until i can go balls out.
Now comes the bit that I was really worried about, survivability. And also a big surprise, My Dk needs much much less healing then my paladin, between parries and dodges, I had bosses that I only had to throw one heal...or less. I just did drak'tharon and on 3rd boss I did one 8k heal, dodge, parries and using Your CDs right makes DKs amazing tanks.
All in all, to conclude this short post, i would like to say that I'm really happy, I think that right now death knight makes a better tank for us then a pally, and its only getting better next patch.

Armory links if anyone is interested in them
Paladin
Death Knight


PS, English as a second language :P

[Hachoo]

I disagree about the manually hitting all the buttons.

I have 1 castsequence I use and I never have to manually use any standard attack abilities to generate aggro, except one. Death and Decay. Coincidentally Death and Decay is also your instant-aggro ability. If I lay this down at the start of a fight I can start DPSing instantly afterwards, no need to wait at all. Generally thats how I start my fights - death and decay followed by spamming my tanking castsequence and then I never need to hit another button

[Niley]

I disagree about the manually hitting all the buttons.

I have 1 castsequence I use and I never have to manually use any standard attack abilities to generate aggro, except one. Death and Decay. Coincidentally Death and Decay is also your instant-aggro ability. If I lay this down at the start of a fight I can start DPSing instantly afterwards, no need to wait at all. Generally thats how I start my fights - death and decay followed by spamming my tanking castsequence and then I never need to hit another button

Ive tried castsequence, something along the lines of :
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6/combat/shift Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Pestilence, Blood Boil, Death Coil, Scourge Strike, Death Coil, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Death Coil

Agro isn't even close to what it should be with that. Im tanking here vs my main, which is in pretty much full 25 man t7, and doing crap agro gets him killed :P Also there si now way You will put DnD and do a EM+ CL right away with a Dk, with a pally its easy.
I'm talking here of a difference of doing 4-6k tps vs, 2-2.5k, it makes a difference.

[Hachoo]

Well I can't say my DPS have as much +dmg as yours do, but I have yet to ever peel aggro off my DK no matter how much damage I front load (even a flame shock + lava burst combo).

My cast sequence for tanking is:

/castsequence reset=target Icy Touch,Plague Strike,Pestilence,Blood Strike,Death Strike (Thinking about changing blood strike to blood boil though)

And yes, I can do an EM+CL on something after dropping a DND and hitting icy touch (which happens almost at the same time) and not peel aggro off. Not sure what your talent spec is or not but I definitely haven't had issues...dunno. Obviously we've experienced things differently. Once pestilence hits (which is only what, 3s after combat starts) then I could do 4x EM+thunderstorms if I wanted to and not pull aggro off - not to mention my DK does more damage then any of my shamans.

I only tanked with a Paladin in BC but didn't find the overall experience much easier. Maybe I just like the tanking "method" of the DK better, not sure

[Niley]

Well I can't say my DPS have as much +dmg as yours do, but I have yet to ever peel aggro off my DK no matter how much damage I front load (even a flame shock + lava burst combo).

My cast sequence for tanking is:

/castsequence reset=target Icy Touch,Plague Strike,Pestilence,Blood Strike,Death Strike (Thinking about changing blood strike to blood boil though)

And yes, I can do an EM+CL on something after dropping a DND and hitting icy touch (which happens almost at the same time) and not peel aggro off. Not sure what your talent spec is or not but I definitely haven't had issues...dunno. Obviously we've experienced things differently. Once pestilence hits (which is only what, 3s after combat starts) then I could do 4x EM+thunderstorms if I wanted to and not pull aggro off - not to mention my DK does more damage then any of my shamans.

I only tanked with a Paladin in BC but didn't find the overall experience much easier. Maybe I just like the tanking "method" of the DK better, not sure

are You lvl 80?

also Your dk is doing more damage then Your shamans? my shammies do about 2500ish for the less geared ones, and 3500ish for my geared one, now that's quite a difference vs my dk doing 1600ish
I can front load about 40k damage, my pally can hold it, my dk will not.

[Hachoo]

I am level 80, but relatively fresh. My shamans have ~1200 spell damage each, and at the end of an instance run recount shows my DK at the top of the list - its not too odd considering all the AoE Damage between Unholy Blight, DnD, and Pestilence though.

[puppychow]

Very interesting! Just curious, why did you go inscription on the DK versus Blacksmithing? JC is pretty obvious, the bonus gems are really superb (+27 defense!) and the trinkets. But BS gets a BOP 2h tank weapon next patch, in addition to extra glove/bracer sockets.

And man, in a week you got Kirin Tor exalted, Argent Crusade revered, etc? Wow, my pally has been 80 for nearly 3 weeks now and isn't exalted with anything yet My DK is still level 55, lol. I might level one up to 80, frankly running heroics is completely not fun for me at the moment (lots of wiping). Isn't the 3d Drak boss the giant dinosaur? Wow, you only needed to do one heal on it? I had to spam non stop heals on my pally when I did it.

[Multibocks]

It's seems the BOP is an error, but how long until Blizzard changes it? Dunno.

[Niley]

Very interesting! Just curious, why did you go inscription on the DK versus Blacksmithing? JC is pretty obvious, the bonus gems are really superb (+27 defense!) and the trinkets. But BS gets a BOP 2h tank weapon next patch, in addition to extra glove/bracer sockets.

And man, in a week you got Kirin Tor exalted, Argent Crusade revered, etc? Wow, my pally has been 80 for nearly 3 weeks now and isn't exalted with anything yet My DK is still level 55, lol. I might level one up to 80, frankly running heroics is completely not fun for me at the moment (lots of wiping). Isn't the 3d Drak boss the giant dinosaur? Wow, you only needed to do one heal on it? I had to spam non stop heals on my pally when I did it.

I went inscription/JC because those are the only professions that actually have tank specific boosts, shoulder enchant is amazing, cant argue with 52 dodge and def. Other ones are good, but all they usually give You is stam boost, which i have plenty of.
The BS weapons is a error, just like the swords tool tip says that its an axe(or the other way around)

Im just running heroic etc... rep is pretty easy, Im exalted with kirin, ebon blade and working on argent now...prolly today after servers are up ^^

[Niley]

Heres why I love my Dk tank, in this ss I pulled all 3 groups of snakes, 9 snakes in total, and You can see in combat log how it went:P
I didn't even heal, other then one riptide and earth shield.