DPS to Tank... in just 5 wipes!

I am currently leveling a DK through northrend. He is an Orc DK, with bright blue eyes and teeth that will make your skin crawl. i love the look of an Orc, especially one of the plate wearing variety. especially with shoulders and a big weapon, these things look monsterious. i've been playing him for about two weeks now since one of my wow friends decided to switch back to her old server (gamer boys drama, what else?) and tried to level as blood dps. it was a snorefest at best. i did find myself tanking a bit, but was rather keen on mining and getting enough funds to start my JC profession. This is the toon that will eventually amass 100k gold for god knows why.

In any case, i've found myself leveling through outlands pretty quickly, mainly through thrallmar quests, then garadar quests, all while waiting on the dungeon q to dps at my heart's content. what i find pretty amazing is that, for my second time around, DK dps rocks. it probably did before as well, but now, as i've already leveled a DK to 80 (leveled unholy, tanked in unholy and dps in frost), i find it so much easier to play even with terribad groups. The reason is that i know a lot of my abilities and what i can and cannot do. also, i know just when to switch to frost presence and emergency tank just in case the tank drops, or adds come. I know how long it takes for my DnD, Howling Blast and death grip to reset (like i have an internal clock ticking for each spell). Heck, i even know when my diseases will drop. so when wandering adds enter a fight and make a beeline for the healer, i know if i can DnD around the healer, or deathgrip the mob, or if i need to run to them and PS/IT them off the healer.

Why doesnt the tank do this? we're all learning. perhaps i stole the opportunity for the tank to actually intercept or dark command or feral charge - bear, or hand of reckoning the fools. but im sorry. im innately a tank in dps garb. well was. upon hitting 70, i donned the cobalt armor set and have seen every little decrease in DPS. in fact, due to the high strength stats the set offers, it has offset some of the wouldbe loss of dps that was inherent in my outland gear. i dont know what they were, dont ask. but i do know they had crit, hit, agi, and some others. but now, its been replaced with strength and stam and a little defense for good measure. i still top dps meters at 70, in nexus or utgarde keep with an overall dps of about 1k. at 72, it hasnt gained much steam tho. my dps remains pretty unspectacular as other classes are slowly breaking the 1k dps mark, overall, espeically the locks with seed of corruption (oh how i love that spell) and the mages with flamestrike+blizzard. there has only been one pally who's given me a run for my money. no now im innately a tank, in tanking garb, doing crap dps. but still liking dps and still wearing tanking gear just in case the tank drops group due to whatevers.

there have been sevearl occassions where this has happened. i dont know tho, im usually fine with a bad tank since i know everyone needs to learn somewhere and somehow, and everyone else needs to experience dungeoning with them (yes, i said dungeoning, its a very common thing to do) in order to remember that there are people still learning the game.

in any case, the other night, i came across a 0/4 boss nexus group that started off fine. i zoned in right before we pulled the alliance commander and immediately /focus'ed my tank. then went at it. we marched our way up the incline hallway to reach the mage boss. the one that splits into three aspects. i've killed her in normal and heroic about 50 times already and still do not remember her name. the sadness. but anyway, as it happens, we pull the groups and kill the mages one by one. it was fine. i get silenced a few times, and sheeped a few times. i tought it was just me, but others were getting the same treatment. during one pull i couldnt do a thing for what felt like forever, but in reality it was only 12 seconds, since i was silenced twice in a row. then i finally pulled out my DnD and went dps crazy. the boss was taken down with zero difficulty. the healer did a fine job but one person did die right before the boss dropped.

no big deal. we move on and leave the boss' room. then the tank decides to pull the groups to the right of us. you know, those mobs everyone else ignores? yea those. well we did fine for the first, i dont know, 15 seconds. then the magehunter entered the picture. ok two demon hounds and a caster. great. now dont forget this caster (or was it the hounds?) can iceblock the tank and destroy the group, but fortunate, he didnt for this pull. the mages werent so friendly. they sheeped the healer... twice. and we die.

was it all bad luck? no. it was also bad pull planning by the tank. but we're a group so we live or sink together. or whatever that term is. mi casa su casa. my weed your weed. something like that. in any case, i ran back. /danced. waited. then after a minute, the tank decides to inspect the healer. good god. no resto gear? actually i dont know who he was inspecting. there were two shamans. not sure if he was inspecting the right one. then said, "god healer has no healing gear, im out" or something to that extent. so he dropped group. i inspected said healer and he looked fine. plus, i would have typed "skill>gear, and we all survived the last boss fight right?" the healer had outland gear. so what? that works just fine. its nexus, after all.

new tank enters. does a few pulls. goes in the wrong direction, but maintains aggro for the most part. tho there were times where my screen did glow red, so i immediately switched targets. if the mob was about dead, i keep dpsing until they die and risk the one or two blows to me. i can live with that. what happens is that we almost completely clear out the mobs around amolus (the rift monster). so after i politely said, "up the ramp dude" we finally make it up to the platform before facing amolus. he tanks. i dps. dps dps. healer heals. we drop the rift monster and then tank d/c's. yes. DC. didnt even drop group so we had to waste a /kick on him. if he's gonna be a jerk and leave after he gets his quest done, just leave. be the jerk. dont hide behind some gimmicky trick and pretend you're D/C'ed. dooopid trick. doesnt fool anyone. or maybe i've just grown cynical about it. who knows. anyway.

one dps decide to drop group as well. so then there were three. me dps, shaman dps and shaman healer. we wait and i said i would tank. they said they dont care. wow. really? dps who said they will tank and you guys dont care? thats awesome! let me get on my warlock and tank this ish. no really. i dont think they really knew what chaos would have been unleash if i thought like very many others (ret pally tanks, or fury warrior tanks, or dps geared dk tanks... ) but luckily for them, i had tanking gear on. yea stupid. i know. but, well i did switch out my axe.

so i we instantly got 2 dps. ran through to the rock boss with no problems. the new pally thought she'd help me a little by pulling groups for me. i thought it would be funny to let her tank them, but instead, decided to just allow her to pull mobs for me. those impatient little pricks i tell ya. anyway, so we end up almost at keristrasz when someone said that i was doing much better than the other two tanks. much better, huh? i dont know. i felt maybe i should q as a tank from now on, since, after all, im a faker when it comes to being dps anyway. why not just come out there and tank? why hide behind the guise of a dps? although in tanking gear, my dps is keeping up with everyone else. so why even be dps when half the time i itch, yes i itch to tank. maybe it is because i hate looking at some tanks tank. maybe it just causes aneurisms every minute, on the minute, to watch these guys tank. but i know many of them are learning and many of them are just trying to avoid the dps q times (responsibly, i might add).

and then there's those tanks that are awesome. the ones that seem like they have everything under control. the ones that just came out of sunwell and decided to buy wrath finally. those tanks are a pleasure to dps for. i've come across two outstanding ones and a handful of good ones. i love dpsing for them because i can see what they're doing. i can check recount and see what they're using. i can see if they're losing threat, if they do or not. i can see their kill priority, their positioning, their tricks. all of these things help me to evaluate my own tanking. maybe that's why i run as dps.... in tank gear... with a tank spec. yes. grrr. i am spec'ed for tanking. frost tanking.

so with all that said, my reflection today is this. i am a tank at heart, and would love to see how other tanks perform. that is the reason i dps. that is the reason i melee dps. although there are many times where i would just want to turn frost presence on and tell the tank to take a backseat, i dont, because it takes away from their learning experience. i was once a beginner. i needed to learn to tank. it was tough the first few times. but after a while, it became me. i started off as a druid. switch to DK. then went to paladin tanking. my warrior is still level 65. my 2nd dk is now 72. i feel like there's a lot more to learn about tanking. its just refreshing when im lucky enough to group with a good tank and see him or her work their magic. its awesome. its something to look forward to. its one of those moments where i would imagine that the tank i think rocks could be me, or that will be me, cos that's some awesome tanking. and i let them know it.