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Since the Wrath has upon us, we have the ability to start leveling our Death Knights on the live servers. That's right, this time it's for keeps. One thing that we haven't gotten to do yet on live servers is tank a dungeon. It's not that we don't want to, it's that 98% of the people leveling through Outland right now are Death Knights, so finding a healer is a bit difficult. Still, we did our fair share of tanking on Beta servers, and we played a Druid tank for years, and we're figuring we'll do my fair share of tanking again at 80. Thus, we made a decision that is the perfect time to start getting ready to tank, even if Utgarde may be the first instance most Death Knights will get a group for.
Above all, if you haven't read Allison's Open Letter to Death Knight Tanks, you should now. There are some very solid basic rules about pulling and keeping aggro that any serious tank should be familiar with. Once you're back from that, we'll continue.
First thing first, to wrap your mind around is that every tree can tank, at least to the 5-man Heroic level. Blood, Unholy, and Frost are all viable choices to stand up against a big bad boss or a group of elite mooks. That being said, you still need to specialize if you're serious about tanking. Essentially, each tree has some solid early tree tanking talents, such as Blade Barrier, Anticipation, and Toughness, which almost every build should probably pick up. Then, the tree you specialize in has late tree talents such as Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield, and Unbreakable Armor.
Gear is a must for the most part, so you should pay more attention. As awesome as it looks, the newbie Death Knight quest-gear is not for tanking. You need stuff with more AC, more Stamina, and maybe a bit of defense before you can get seriously about tanking. Your healers will thank you, and your repair bill will thank you.
In part, you have the ability to start gathering tanking greens as early as Hellfire Peninsula, with quest rewards such as Flintlocke's Piloting Pants and the Underworld Helm. Of course, by the time you're ready to tank Utgarde, you'll hopefully have found more solid gear. I myself saved a selection of "Of the Champion" greens from my pre-BC dailies, and there should be a few good solid tanking quest rewards from Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra you can grab, such as the Blacksoul Protector, Amberplate Leggings, the Rigid Tuskring, or the Cragthumper.
And yes, we're still recommending that you grab a 2-handed weapon for tanking, no matter how tempting it might be to grab a Sword of Heartwrenching Slaughter and a Blade of the Empty Void. Any extra defense or parry skills you pick up will still be negated by the extra attacks the mobs get in when they parry you.
It has to admit that it's going to be hard to compete for a tank slot against old tank characters that have had time to build up a set of tier 6 tanking armor that breaks 20k health and already have enough defenses to make them uncrittable. Still, you should be able to find enough odds and ends that you can pull through a dungeon and not be too much of a pain to heal.
Above all, if you haven't read Allison's Open Letter to Death Knight Tanks, you should now. There are some very solid basic rules about pulling and keeping aggro that any serious tank should be familiar with. Once you're back from that, we'll continue.
First thing first, to wrap your mind around is that every tree can tank, at least to the 5-man Heroic level. Blood, Unholy, and Frost are all viable choices to stand up against a big bad boss or a group of elite mooks. That being said, you still need to specialize if you're serious about tanking. Essentially, each tree has some solid early tree tanking talents, such as Blade Barrier, Anticipation, and Toughness, which almost every build should probably pick up. Then, the tree you specialize in has late tree talents such as Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield, and Unbreakable Armor.
Gear is a must for the most part, so you should pay more attention. As awesome as it looks, the newbie Death Knight quest-gear is not for tanking. You need stuff with more AC, more Stamina, and maybe a bit of defense before you can get seriously about tanking. Your healers will thank you, and your repair bill will thank you.
In part, you have the ability to start gathering tanking greens as early as Hellfire Peninsula, with quest rewards such as Flintlocke's Piloting Pants and the Underworld Helm. Of course, by the time you're ready to tank Utgarde, you'll hopefully have found more solid gear. I myself saved a selection of "Of the Champion" greens from my pre-BC dailies, and there should be a few good solid tanking quest rewards from Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra you can grab, such as the Blacksoul Protector, Amberplate Leggings, the Rigid Tuskring, or the Cragthumper.
And yes, we're still recommending that you grab a 2-handed weapon for tanking, no matter how tempting it might be to grab a Sword of Heartwrenching Slaughter and a Blade of the Empty Void. Any extra defense or parry skills you pick up will still be negated by the extra attacks the mobs get in when they parry you.
It has to admit that it's going to be hard to compete for a tank slot against old tank characters that have had time to build up a set of tier 6 tanking armor that breaks 20k health and already have enough defenses to make them uncrittable. Still, you should be able to find enough odds and ends that you can pull through a dungeon and not be too much of a pain to heal.
