Guest Post: Confessions of a noob death knight
by John Zakour 
Sep 11th 2010 at 4:00PM
Here's the thing: I've been a mage from day one, when I first started playing WoW a good two years ago. I always liked being a mage in Dungeons & Dragons, so I figured I would like being a mage in WoW. I was right. In fact, I love being a glass cannon. (OK, I don't love the glass part so much, but I really dig the cannon part.) I'm not a great mage; age and fingers that were broken by judo or baseball have slowed me some. Still, I am a good mage. I hold my own, doing anywhere from 7-12k DPS depending on buffs and what I am watching on TV.
The thing is, as much as I love being a mage, making my own food and teleporting all around, I hate taking forever to queue. I also started thinking, "Hey, there must be more to simulated life than just standing back and blasting things." I decided to try a new character. Not having the patience to level a character from 1 to 80, I figured I'd go the death knight route. After all, DKs are mage-killers; they are the anti-mage. So after two years of being nothing but a ranged DPS machine, I rolled a DK.
My first surprise was that the leveling process was much faster and more streamlined than it was back two years ago. Second, I loved wearing armor -- plate armor, man. I lost count of the number of times I found myself telling people, "Boy, I wish my mage could wear armor." The end result was I made it to 80 quite quickly. I actually went from 77 to 80 over a weekend. It's when I hit 80 and started trying raids and doing tougher instances that I quickly learned two things: I'm not very good at melee DPS, and I am even worse as a tank.
The joy of moving targets
First, the DPS part. I'm used to being a little, breakable ranged dude, where the goal is to stay as far away as possible, lock on the marked target and blast 'em until they are dead. Repeat and rinse on other targets. As a melee DPSer, I thought it would work the same way: Lock on target, give 'em a few diseases, then hack 'em until they are dead.
The thing that never occurred to me was that targets move; therefore, I have to move with them. Yes, I know ranged DPS needs to adjust and move with targets also -- but we can do it from a distance, not locked in chaos like melee. There's just something about having to stay close to a target, surrounded by friends and enemies, that my brain doesn't handle well. I tend to let targets slip out of my range. Either that, or once I kill a target, I have a much harder time locking onto my tank's next target. I tried setting my focus on the tank and then attacking who the tank is attacking, but in all the commotion that is melee, I'm just not that good at it. I'm at the point now where I can maybe just maybe churn out 3K DPS. That's hard for me to swallow.
Tanking is hard work
The next thing I learned was: Dang, tanking is real hard. Since I knew I probably would have a very steep learning curve for tanking, I figured I would only tank non-heroics -- plus I would make sure they were mostly guild runs. To be extra-careful, I also always would force my son and his hunter to be in the runs I tanked; this way, I would have somebody right next to me saying, "Ah, please pick up that mob." (Actually, he never used the word "please" and would more likely scream things like, "Are you blind? Do you know what aggro is?" But still, it was helpful in keeping me in the game.)
Needless to say, I learned to really appreciate a good tank. When you are a ranged DPS, your goal is pretty much singular: Kill current target. As a tank, you have to be much more aware of everything around you, all the mobs and all your party. You need to collect them all, turn them away from the party and keep building up your aggro so that crazy hunter in your party doesn't have a beast rushing at him.
Plus, you have to worry about marking targets, to help make sure everybody is attacking the right target. Mages never have to mark. As a mage, if you screw up, usually you die; as a tank, if you screw up, it's quite possible everybody dies. Tanks are kind of like football offensive linemen; you only notice them when they mess up -- and man, when you mess up, do you hear it! The few times I tanked, the more my appreciation for a good tank grew.
More delicate sensibilities
Finally, I never before realized what a pain it can be to find a freaking mage to port you to town. Man, there never seems to be a mage near me when I need one. Then there's the issue of food. As a mage, you have all the food you need. Snap your fingers and you're fed, mana up, health up. Not so much for DKs. That took a while to get used to. I'm not even going to mention the number of times I tried to buff another player with Focus Magic and Arcane Brilliance.
Who am I kidding? Once a mage, always a mage. Give me something to nuke.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Sleutel Sep 11th 2010 4:05PM
"Actually, he never used the word 'please' and would more likely scream things like, 'Are you blind? Do you know what aggro is?'"
Thank you for the IRL LOL (4rilz, etc.).
My main is a Prot War, and my other 80 is a Mage. For me, the problem is when I haven't played the Mage in a while, and I forget how truly squishy she is, then try to solo something my Warrior could have easily taken on even before she was massively overgeared... only to find that it can't be rooted or slowed and is going to grind me into a fine paste in approximately one GCD. /facepalm
Zankoku Sep 11th 2010 4:09PM
Yea i have a lil bit of that too... Cat/Tree druid, BloodTank/FrostDPS DK, Enh/Resto Sham, BM/MM Hunter, and bringing up the Lock.
Sometimes id go after a target that one could solo easily..... only to get roflstomped lol
Elennoko Sep 11th 2010 10:06PM
#Zankoku
I know this has nothing to do with the article, but your list of characters creep me out a bit. It's nearly like mine!
Tree/Boomkin Druid, Blood Tank/Frost DPS DK, Elem/Resto Shaman, Demo/Affli lock and bringing up a BM/Surv Hunter.
Anyway,b ack on topic(Kinda). I find that I have the same problem. "Oh, I can easily solo this elite!" < Me on my Lock. I find out then that mob will nom my health into to tiny warlock bits, and then can't be feared.
Zankoku Sep 11th 2010 4:06PM
TBH, more players should be like you. Try your hand at tanking, and realize the difficulties we have. Heck... might even turn out that you are a great tank!!!
Anathemys Sep 11th 2010 4:31PM
I too tried tanking on a DK.
I have never appreciated tanks more.
Now, my only wish is that people would do the same with healers. It's not that the two jobs are the same (they're both equally hard in different ways), but I'm just good at healing. It's my niche.
But seriously though, good tanks: freakin awesome. I always try and thank people who have been good tanks, because, having tried myself, I know EXACTLY what a bad tank looks like. I also know what a bad healer looks like, but that, I can try and fix.
Byron Sep 11th 2010 5:03PM
Tanks should roll a healer, healers should roll a tank, and DPS should roll one of each.
I have three tanks and a Disc priest. Overall I think I learned the most about how the game works from tanking, but healing definitely filled in some gaps.
One of the biggest problems I notice now is that most tanks don't pay attention to their party's mana, and especially their healers. Esp Druid and War tanks trying to start the next pull b/f their rage depletes. Rolling a healer will quickly cure you of that.
If you're the tank, your healer's mana = your mana. Learn to watch it like you watch your own hp/cd's/rage/runes/whatever.
Stone_Rhino Sep 11th 2010 5:10PM
Actually, this has more to do with how gear dependent DK tanks are vs paladins and warriors. Almost all of a DKs damage, and thus threat, scale off the DKs weapon. So using a blue 2 hander you will be unable to hold aggro, especially on AOE packs. This isnt a problem for the other classes, as threat is baked into their skills. Obviously this fixes itself with better gear.
Then there is the issue of avoidance. Any other tank class can hit the defense cap fairly easily and still get a multitude of avoidance stats. DKs dont have the luxury starting out, and have to spend a considerable amount of their item budget on just defense before they can even hope to stack avoidance or stamina.
Moorit Sep 11th 2010 6:14PM
@ Byron,
Tanks and healers should learn to dps, too. I think it makes a difference.
arcady0 Sep 11th 2010 8:26PM
@Stone_Rhino:
I've got 2 80 Dk tanks, 2 80 Warrior tanks, 1 80 Druid tank, 1 76 Paladin tank (that was my main-tank back in BC), and a few lowbies filling out the this and that. Plus an 80 Holy Priest and my Druid is dual spec into resto.
- So with that in mind, I've found it very easy to get def-capped on my tanks regardless of class. I also find that while weapon matters a lot, its not that hard to get what you need to build enough threat.
Its not that gear dependent, it -IS- dependent on your priority list, quick reactions - moving mobs around right, and all of those 'finer things' that come with experience rather than gear.
But... you can have some fairly good threat early on by gemming for expertise rather than stamina - and in heroics that's the better move anyway. You can pop into a heroic as a fresh 80 with barely 19k health and mostly blues - argent crusade / wymrest accord gear, and find yourself having 3 fully ICC geared AOE-DPS that open up with the 'End of Days' as their initial move - blowing all cooldowns and trinkets in the first GCD...
- and still hold threat against them and their 6k+ DPS.
- Not easy, but possible. And mostly about what you do and how you do it, what order, and so on... Granted with that pack of DPS, you'll also probably be burning your taunt key a few times... but you -can- keep them alive.
Once you start raiding you'll need more stamina gemming, and that means needing more threat coming from the weapon. But get the iLevel 219 weapons and you're "good enough" if your priority list (similar to rotation) is right.
Tanking is not so easy, and you do have to be aware of all sorts of factors, but it can be fun. I tend to tank with my camera zoomed back and my eye shifting about looking for where mobs are going, and where DPS or the healer(s) are going, where my MT or OT is going, and so on... Think of it like watching a chess board - see the whole board, not just where your piece is. Look at it like a waltz of figures moving around, and 'feel out' patterns so you can anticipate where things will be before they get there.
I can often sit there and watch what for me seems like several minutes as some DPS or a healer stands in a spot where I know they're going to bite it, but I can't type in chat fast enough to tell that person to move, and it just seems so obvious to me, and then sure enough they don't, and they go down.
- and what makes that worse is when its me, and I'm sitting there watching myself and thinking 'why did you just use that ability when you know perfectly well you needed to use the other one... or 'why left when it should have been right...'
- and I see myself wipe a group in what feels like slow-motion... :)
(Which is another reason why I get annoyed at people who call out others for failure - I've reached a point where I know when I'm failing, if I am, or when its someone else. But I'm polite to them and don't say so when I see it, and I can't stand people who blame the wrong person - regardless of who is blaming whom. I think most experienced tanks can tell this, because to get to the level of being good at tanking, you've had to learn how to watch the entire chess board - so you can see where the actual mistakes were, and after a while you learn that everybody makes them now and then...)
lazymangaka Sep 11th 2010 10:17PM
My main is a DK specced for PVP and solo DPS. It seems that whenever I get into a group, I'm pigeonholed into a tanking role. I know the theory behind tanking, and I have done it before, but the end result is still generally pretty poor. While the fact that I can play two roles with my character is a nice feature to have, it can be tough when you really just don't want to do one thing or the other.
Shakeababy Sep 12th 2010 12:52AM
As a tank queing the DF is extremely frustrating. All DPS has to do is attack my target and watch their aggro. Yet 50% of you morons can't seem to do even that. Seriously guys, all you have to do is make a /assist
Sleutel Sep 12th 2010 11:10AM
@Shakeababy:
Actually, if YOU'RE doing it right, you should be constantly tabbing between the active mobs to maintain aggro on ALL of them, which would make an /assist macro useless (i.e., using your AOE threat abilities every time they're off cooldown, PLUS hitting each mob in turn with 1-2 high-threat single-target abilities). If you can't maintain AOE aggro, that's fine, but then you need to mark your targets and explain to the group that you'll need them to focus-fire and in what order. (Do you have raid marks keybound? As a tank, you probably should. Personally, I like using the function keys.)
A good DPS should ALSO notice if their AOE is constantly peeling mobs off you and single-target them instead, but at least half of this problem is your fault.
Croe Sep 12th 2010 5:20PM
@ Byron
Party members running out of mana was one of the first lessons I learned as a n00b tank. I was so focused on trying to hold threat and move it along, that I actually forgot that others needed mana. When one person left in disgust, I felt so bad, that I created a chat window dedicated to party chat, so I could always keep an eye on MP or OOM messages.
A good tank deserves respect. It's certainly not an easy job.
Rakah Sep 11th 2010 4:07PM
That picture is giving me deja vu
Umbra Sep 11th 2010 5:16PM
Me too, reaaly strong feeling of déjà vu dating back just under a year. But I didn't follow the site then! Where is it from!
Jan Sep 11th 2010 9:26PM
Wrath Box?
lishuss Sep 11th 2010 4:14PM
this is a very well-put story.
and, oddly enough, it turns out differently when you're used to melee dps. its a lot easier to become a tank after rolling nothing but a rogue for about a year before doing another toon because, lets face it, if your first character is a rogue you WILL pull aggro like a fiend so you know what to do to keep it. But i did have an insane time trying to roll a range dps. and now im starting to suck at melee because i've been nothing but for a good year now XD
Steve Sep 11th 2010 6:23PM
Not saying that you are the same way but your comment reminds me of a rogue in my guild. Him and his wife (a fury warrior) always rage about how we tank (and frankly how I healers heal) in our progression raids. One specific time that stands out was during Lady Deathwhisper she dropped DnD right under us, I had aggro so I moved out of it so she could follow me, the problem was she was still casting her frostbolt. He raged over vent for her to get moved. After this altercation I proceeded to tell them that they needed to roll a tank and see how easy it is and so I can rage at them.
My DK was strictly melee DPS until my guild asked me to tank. Let me tell you how hard it was to change. It's so different and a lot harder because you have a ton of different things to do. I have an 80 mage and I'm the complete opposite of the author. I have a hard time standing back and nuking when I'm so used to being up in the face of the target and pew pewing them.
Stilhelm Sep 11th 2010 8:39PM
Funnily enough, a rogue and fury warrior should have been interrupting the frostbolt on lady D rather than qq about moving the boss so they could pewpew.
lishuss Sep 12th 2010 1:44AM
oh god, that is sad. and, yeah, forgot to mention it, but that was a bit of a problem when i first started playing my hunter, i found myself constantly running in without realizing it for no other reason than i was so used to stabbing things that pewpew never occurred to me