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Best tanks have shields? Not having one effects me how?

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Post by Craptastik

I have a lvl 80 pally and a lvl 80 dk the dk is in tanking gear and I've worked hard to get his stats to where he can tank anything without complaint other then the ppl who insist dks can't tank or frost is the only tank build.

My concern is are they right? How does not having a shield effect me? Does it make me unable to tank as well as a warrior or pally?

We get what seems like the same health and armor most tanks I see have around 24k health and 22k armor which is close to my stats as a dk but they get block from a shield. Frost gets extra 6 seconds of 50% less dmg and 10% more parry/25% more armor once a minute. Is this equal to having blocks from a shield. As far as agro is concerned as a dk I can hold agro just as well as when I was a pally basically I would really have to mess up or dc to loose agro.

On the frost note I've tryed both and each is good in its own ways. Frost seems better for 25 man raids while unholy and its more consistant AoEs seems better for me with heroics.

Before I spend more time making a gimp tank because of no shield I'd appreciate anyones advice who has knowledge of the subject. By gimp I dont mean can't tank well in any situation because as a dk i can tank well in every situation so far to the point of MT in 25 mans. By gimp I mean another class with a shield will be able to take less dmg so in reality be a better tank.

Post by skribs

Currently, frost and unholy are about equal in mitigation, but unholy is better at mitigating magic damage. Frost doesn't only have those, it also has access to frigid deathplate (3% incoming miss) and it's easier to hit lichborne in a frost spec than the others, which is also a very powerful cooldown. In 3.0.8., frost will take over the physical mitigation while unholy will still be high magic mitigation - albeit not as much as it is currently. As long as you have the 5/5/5 and a 36-pointer, you should be good to tank, assuming your gear is up for it.

As to the shield, the block is more powerful than it appears. It is a lot steadier mitigation than our avoidance, and once you get your total dodge/parry/miss/block above 102.4%, bosses can't even get a regular hit on you. However, in the next patch a DK is going to get more armor, and we should have more avoidance than a warrior or pally, so overall our mitigation should be about equal. If druids can tank (and we had a feral as our MT on progression fights in TBC), then DK's can, too. Druids can't even parry!

Post by Wildhorn

I have a lvl 80 pally and a lvl 80 dk the dk is in tanking gear and I've worked hard to get his stats to where he can tank anything without complaint other then the ppl who insist dks can't tank or frost is the only tank build.

Since when people are right? If you listen to people without them giving you facts and proofs, you are just as dumb as them.

Post by 186549

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Post by lokin

To be an effective tank, it's better to take 5/8/5 as a base instead of just 5/5/5

Post by 186549

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Post by GenXCub

To be an effective tank, it's better to take 5/8/5 as a base instead of just 5/5/5

You do realize the MINUTE amount of impact that Frost Fever has on attack speed, right?

Improved Icy touch causes a 20% total slowing to attack speed, which means the slowest possible boss melee attacks will gain .8 seconds per swing; assuming there is ANY monster with a 4.00 attack speed, the faster they are, the less of a gain it really is.

So yeah, Honestly unless you're Frost; and going to be getting a lot of extra damage out of Icy Touch and Frost Fever anyways; I think the 3 points can be used far more effectively elsewhere in any tanking build. Like for Guile of Gorefiend, Might of Morgraine, etc, etc.

Hell, 3/3 in Subversion would generate a much larger benefit for a tank then Imp. Icy Touch.

also remember that Improved Icy Touch is only 6% slowing of attack speed. IT on its own, untalented already gives 14% slowdown.

Post by anywherenotes

I have been given a chance to MT one naxx 25 man boss, and died in the beginning of the fight. Than a couple other bosses down, the other tank (paladin) died in the beginning of the fight, I grabbed agro and successfully tanked to the end. (it was the spider wing, I died on very first boss where you can't parry/dodge, etc, and other boss was the spider boss which does same thing with the webbing)

Point of the story? DK's are fine, but I think healing DK is slightly different. I will keep reminding healers that when the webbing or some other inability to parry/dodge comes up, I'm putting on my 50% damage reduction, but it will not last entire debuff. However so far my healers have been goofy and I noticed they see I'm not taking much damage, so they slow down healing significantly by the time buff goes away while debuff is still on.

Is block better than no block? I don't think so, in the fights I mentioned above you cannot block. On fights were you can block, we parry more than warrior/paladin. In the worst case scenario where you do not block or parry, well it can happen with warrior too, since block is only up 10 out of 30 seconds, so they may not be able to block/parry/dodge - same thing. (paladins can keep up block all the time, but who's going to argue warrior is a bad tank?)

I also find it hard to believe that blizzard will introduce a brand new tank/dps class. They call it 'Hero Class'. And than the class can't keep up tanking/dpsing with the best.
Who's going to roll hero class next expansion if this one is screwed up?

There will be periods of time where due to nerf/buff DK's will get worse and better than other tanks. But I expect them to be overall equal if not better than other tanks, just due to Blizzard's marketing expansion around this new class. This marketing pitch will be worthless next time around if DK's turn out to be underpowered.

Post by 164911

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Post by 259957

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by 186549

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Ghoso

imp icy touch is wonderful for AOE tanking, if you have 5 mobs beating on you, that slowing effect is veeeery noticeable. if not to hve that extra second to cast whatever, just a general damage reducer. its nothing for single target, but like i said, get 5 mobs on you at once and you'll be wishing they were all hitting you slower.

To answer the question, frost is not the only tank spec (all three are viable), DKs can be as good as any other tank class.

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