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Deathknights tanking capability
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Post by
Daluur
Hi, I've been thinking (for a long time) that when WotlK comes, I would reroll DK, and when I hit 70, I'll be a tank... Atm I have a tanking druid, I would also lvl my druid, but to become resto (so I have a tank and a healer... But recently, I've started to doubt DK's tanking skill... So I would like to know (mostly from u guys with beta) if u think DK's can be a good tanking class...
I have also been thinking about lvl'ing a shammy, to be healer, and just keep my druid a tank.... What do u guys think is the best idea?
Thanks in advance
Post by
189852
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Post by
visas
I've done quite a bit of tanking in ramps/furnace/slave pens as unholy spec so far, and we're awesome =P
Granted, I dont typically have any 'real' healers, which would greatly improve my ability to tank... I dont have any tanking gear either, just the standard quest reward dps gear.
I would say, with full confidence, that a heavy-unholy deathknight in proper gear will be as effective an aoe tank as a protection paladin at level 80. We'll probably have slightly less damage mitigation, but more avoidance, and the aoe threat gen is about the same (actually favors us a bit, because we have more than one aoe threat spell).
I think the same goes for blood and unholy in regards to being 'capable' tanks - as long as you have the proper gear (crit immune, stacked avoidance, high stamina) you should be able to tank anything that any of the other tanking classes can. There will inevitably be some fights which are geared towards a specific class - but other than that we're just as capable as the others.
I play both a prot paladin and feral druid as raid tanks on live right now, and my deathknight will be unholy for tanking as well.
Post by
143569
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Post by
visas
so visas im a little fuzzy on how exactly a DK tanks i mean i no they rely on avoidance rather then mitigation but say at 80 do you think there will be deathknights with like "dodge sets" and so on?
The first thing you'll be doing as a DK tank is getting enough defense to become crit immune - that's the first thing -all- tanking classes aim for when they want to start raid tanking.
After that, you'll want to focus on stamina, avoidance, and armor - in that order. Shortly after come threat stats (strength/AP, crit chance, etc.)
Threat generation should not be a problem for us. Right now in beta, we get +45% threat generation from frost presence, and several of our abilities (death&decay and pestilence) cause "high threat".
Just like any other tank, most of your damage reduction will be coming from avoidance stats (dodge and parry). After that comes armor to reduce physical damage taken. We have a lot of 'tool's available to us to reduce the damage we take, and they are very nice compared to what is available to other tanks.
Icebound fortitude is a 12 second duration buff which makes you immune to stuns, and reduces all damage taken (magic AND physical) by 50%. It can be buffed up to last The duration can be increased to 18 seconds with frost talents - and the spell only has a 1 minute cooldown.
Frost also has unbreakable armor, a 2 minute cooldown buff which increases armor by 25% and parry by 5% for 20 seconds, and costs almost nothing to cast.
Blood has blade barrier and vampiric blood to increase parry chance and healing taken when active.
Unholy has bone armor, which is -extremely- good if you stack avoidance. Bone armor reduces damage taken by 40%, but only lasts for 4 'hits' taken (works against spells too). If you have high avoidance, bone armor stays up longer and is 'saved' for those attacks that do hit you.
All in all, we are shaping up to be a very effective tanking class, without completely overshadowing any of the others. You will be able to raid tank, and you'll be fine in 5 mans and heroics.
Post by
189036
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Post by
176331
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Post by
189036
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Post by
visas
I'm still only level 65 in beta right now so I really cant provide anything on endgame tanking yet, other than assumptions.
All three builds will be capable of tanking fairly well. Frost and Unholy will tank better than blood in almost all situations. Frost will be a better single-target tank, Unholy will be a better aoe tank. Frost will have better physical damage mitigation, while Unholy will have better magic damage mitigation.
I would advise against going with a tri-spec build, the top talents in each tree are all very powerful and very useful for both tanking and cc/dps.
Post by
104395
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Post by
visas
We are very much like feral druids, but expect us to be like the 'new' feral druids, not like they are currently.
The new ferals will still be able to both dps and tank, but they will have to pick one type of talent over the other in order to maximize effectiveness at either role. You want to DPS better - you take DPS talents over tanking talents, and vice-versa.
Deathknights are the same, we have both tanking talents and DPS talents in all three trees, and you have to pick one over the other - there arent enough points for everything.
Post by
Daluur
hi again, I'am happy for your fast answers XD... I think I'am going to keep playing my druid, and when WotlK hits, I'll take on the role of a DK...
thanks again
Post by
104395
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Post by
BenjenStark
Personally, my attitude is that it's a mistake to punish a new class for the design failures of earlier classes. Punishing druids because the warrior talent trees aren't as strong is bad, and punishing death knights because druids got too powerful on too few points is also a mistake.
The REAL fundamental issue is that the healer/tank mechanic is the fundamental flaw in this game. Having one guy whose job it is to get hit all the time, and another guy whose job it is to refill his hit point bar is a simplistic, boring and ultimately unrewarding play synergy. It shoehorns a significant portion of your player population into roles that are less fun than just kicking tail, and unfortunately the synergy is SO strong that the content assumes that you're using it, and so you have to use it to beat the content.
When you dump the tank/healer cheese, you get to have a more balanced, more dynamic game, where everyone brings their own synergy and playstyle to the group, without requiring a particular class or role makeup.
Post by
visas
It shoehorns a significant portion of your player population into roles that are less fun than just kicking tail,
Personal Opinion. I like tanking - it takes some skill and situational awareness, anyone who says otherwise is either not a tank, or not a good one. DPS, on the other hand, is fairly simplistic in raids. I've done both with my feral druid main, and I much prefer tanking to sitting there and spamming mangle, shred, and rip for an entire fight. Tanking keeps you on edge, keeps the adrenaline rush going, keeps you paying attention to everything that's going on.
There's a lot of players out there who like healing as well. Some like it because it makes them feel 'needed' - you cant raid without healers. Some like it for the big numbers, it aint damage but you can crit heals for more than you can crit damage in 90% of situations. Personally I dont like healing all that much, it feels to me like playing electronic whack-a-mole, but just because I dont like it and just because you dont like it doesnt mean there arent people who do.
Post by
176482
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Post by
visas
not all of them are set up like that, starwars galaxies didnt really have healers (medics and such, but they werent required for most parts of the game).
Anyways... i've had some pretty "wtf awesome" moments as a feral tank... A while back when my guild was first starting to run ZA, they pulled me in to tank halazzi the lynx when another tank had to leave - it was my first time ever running ZA as well.
Now, halazzi hits like a friggen mac truck on nos. I was maintanking and we had a poorly geared warrior handling the add. During the last half of the fight, our best geared healer went down... I managed to battle rez him -while- tanking without getting killed by the burst (shifted out of bear, hit barkskin, battle rezzed, popped a potion, went back to bear asap). The whole raid was like "omfg dude how did you do that?"
Moments like that are simply awesome =)
Post by
189036
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