Suffer Well: DPS vs Tank – Know What/What Not to Use

Welcome to Suffer Well, a column I’ll be penning approximately monthly.  In this series, we’ll be dealing with topics for new Death Knights.  To those of you with characters at 80, I apologize in advance; I’m assuming no knowledge of certain mechanics in WoW.  I’ve seen many a DK come in and do some things out of ignorance, not stupidity.  (Ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever.)  Now, Stand at Attention you worthless resurrected ape…

In this column, I want to look at the difference between Tanking and DPSing, not only how the play styles are different for DK’s, but why some folks very capable during solo questing have problems in group settings.  The roles of a tank and DPS are, of course, different; and they require that a different set of abilities be used.  Through the course of this series, and the evolution of WoW, I’ll attempt to cover each of these more in detail, but let’s start off with some knowledge of what basic abilities should be used when.

The “Other” Voice

Welcome to all.  I’m Rustbeard, better known as the poor dwarf hunter on Little Blue Dog.  I am, however, in the process of leveling my 2nd Death Knight, named Blackrune.

As Blackrune has recently dinged 70, I’m in the process of dual-speccing him, with the intent of tanking instances – which ought to be a change from the heroics everyone’s running.  So, stick around – I’ll be disucssing the Death Knight’s changing role both in tanking and DPS: from our uber-nerf in Icecrown through our place both in lore and in groups in Cataclysm.  This ought to be an interesting ride.