I often joke that I minored in worrying… because well, I’m good at it. I’m starting to realize that I’ve let other people erode my self-confidence as a death knight tank.
On my pally, threat has rarely been an issue – randoms or otherwise. I can half sleep through the instance and keep threat on stuff. Not that being good at pallytanking is easy, because it takes work and practice. It is EASIER. On my warrior I knew the “problems” they face going in. I accepted them, and made a conscious decision to be fearless and plunge into heroics. It worked and my warrior tanking experience has been mostly successful. Now I’m working on getting my druid out there tanking… and I’m facing a lot of the same insecurities. I took her on a guild heroics run this evening and did alright… Had threat pulled a few times, and caught up with a bear tank friend who gave me a few tips… I may try it again. I won’t go into heroics until I consider myself good enough or until I make a conscious decision to be as fearless as I was on the warrior.
But back to the death knight… It’s been a struggle with her for a long time. Not because she sucks, or I don’t play her well.. or anything other than self-image. Now, don’t be thinking I’m considering giving up dk tanking here. I love it and I believe it complements my hubby’s pallytanking well… but I also have my own frustrations. I’ve let a lot of stuff get to me that shouldn’t. Former officer in the guild berating me on officerchat for low threat [dk versus pally], as well as in vent. Same officer taunting mobs off me in the 25 man raids in order to be the center of attention… pug healers that see me and “omg dk tank – drop group”. The many disastrous pugs I’ve encountered on my dk and the poison that is trade chat – espousing that dks should never tank and weren’t made to tank… It also can be a frustration when I can’t get a rune strike to proc in ICC and hubby’s aoe threat keeps yanking stuff, so I can’t get a rune strike… etc. Bad RNG can suck. BADLY.
My dk who was made and specced and geared with raid [mostly] single target tanking in mind… has trouble in heroics with ICC geared dps going all out [specifically bladestorming warriors, nonmisdirecting hunters and on occasion mages]. I see other dk tanks having the same issues… and warrior tanks, who are even more aoe threat starved than I am… And I realize that I’m not alone. I’m not the only one struggling and fighting to be the best and do their best. Maybe this is why I try to be more careful with warrior and dk tanks on my dps toons. I rarely have to tread very cautiously with pallytanks and bear tanks are rather rare in my random experience… so usually the ones that exist are very geared, very good, and have very few issues.
As several guildies have told me – my tanking talent is there and I’m good at it. I just need to stop worrying, be fearless and just tank.
So… Let’s all be fearless together. If you have a toon with a tank or healing spec that is ready for heroics but you’ve been too timid to try it, today is the day! Throw yourself out there and just do it! I declare today “Fearless” day! Feel free to reply and tell us how it goes, good or bad! Do it!!! Do it NAO!!!
ETA: “Fearless” day can apply to all toons eligible for dungeon finder!
You Yank It, You Tank it: Blog of a Tanking Death Knight Lady 
If everyone keeps telling you that you suck, then you’re going to end up sucking :p
I had that problem before when I was leveling a paladin tank. Squishy, bad threat, everyone hatin’ on me.
So she’s sitting still there at level 65, untouched. So when I leveled my druid, I made a concious decision that she would only tank in randoms, and I would never let her slip behind on the gear. And it worked… Today I’m one of those obnoxious tanks that has absolutely zero understanding of their own limitations. Show me the mobs and I’ll tank them, and I don’t care how big and nasty looking they are :p
All I know is you’re a super tank (on any toon) and even if you make mistakes, which we all do, you learn from it or correct it. You’re polite and know your stuff, which alot of those noobs who berate you don’t. I’d say don’t let it get you down, but…we all let it get to us. I haven’t clocked much time on my DK on Scarlet Crusade since she got cussed at for no reason. It got to me.
So I’ll endeavor to be fearless on her, because my confidence on her is shaky enough already and add to that the whole ‘PuG experience’ and I’m fearful when I queue up on her. And it’s odd, because my *other* DK, same exact spec, I’m more confident on. I think it’s cause I play her more.
I shall fearlessly pull all of ICC now.
Excellent plan, but just so you know, when you go splat, I’m going to bubble and run away. 😛
If you’re a bad tank, I’m /deleting xabre, and all of my other newb tanks. Because let’s face it, I’m nothing compared to you at this point.
heck, my DK tank is still 77, and has been for… what, 4 months?
But on a positive note, something for you to look forward to in the next patch: Insta threat! Remember, Icy Touch will have a HUGE threat boost when in frost presence…
We all psych ourselves out from time to time. It’s just that it’s really hard not to, especially as a tank. As a healer, I was a little hesitant to wade in, but then every day became fearless day. The thing about tanking is, it’s the position in which poor play on the part of others can reflect badly on you (healing also has this problem). The thing is that a lot of dps that have come up recently have never learned that part of their role as a dps is to manage their own threat to stay below the tank. They’ve kind of been spoiled into believing that threat is the tank’s responsibility alone. I’ve actually had dps argue with me when I tell them (even on my dps toons) that sometimes, yes, you are *supposed* to hold back or blow a CD to lower your threat (that’s why you have those CDs, after all). There are so many people that are all like “if the tank can’t out-threat me, he’s fail.” It’s sort of sad, really.
When i first started playing WoW i rolled a warrior to tank with. I first started playing MUDS back in early 90’s. My first morpg was City of Heroes wher ei played an earth tanker. then i moved from there to WoW basically because my brother switched games. I joined my brothers guild, and the guild leader was also the tank leader and was a warrior tank. He never had any useful comments to say, just how bad i sucked. We screw him, because now im a better tank than he ever was.
“pug healers that see me and “omg dk tank – drop group”.”
I swear, as a PUG healer, I have never left a group because it was a DK or some other class. I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience with it. If you’re defense capped and can hold aggro, I’ll heal you until the cows come home. Seriously undergeared tanks with blues and sitting at 28k HP aren’t an issue. Just do your part and I’ll do mine. 😀
If you can tank, go forth and do it! May you meet a healer who can heal and isn’t afraid of any challenge a PUG brings!
I’m just getting back into WoW and committed to being a DK tank. This is the kind of post I need to see.