Death Knight tanking

[Gortex]

Thought best start a new thread rather than spam in new comers section.m:norty:

Have had a quick look at the various threads on tanking and could not see much about Death Knights and as am very new to the ways of DK's (shammy, mage & warriors my trade) am thinking of giving the tanking side a bash.

Any advice or links to set ups / specks would be good. I understand that frost is needed but other than that am a little lost so anything would be good like rotations etc.

[FatBob]

you and me both gore !!
 
I have just got to the point where i'm reasonably happy tanking heroics on my toon Fleshmiller.
 
Single target i usually just start with Icy touch then Plague Strike and make sure i keep them up the whole time then Howling Blast and Blood boil whenever off cooldown.
 
As soon as i'm getting near 60-70 runic power built up i will start with the Rune Strikes and also Frost strikes, if i can see the healer is asleep i will use Death Strike as much as possible for the health regen.
 
Hit cap is 8% and is super important as is 6% Expertise rating (softcap you never gonna get hard cap so 6 is good enuff) 540 Defense cap remains the same and if you don't have it save the embarressment of attempting heroics until you do.
 
Whitey is the kiddie to ask on this one (and also the person to steal the talent selection off as well !!! but sshhh don't tell him or we'll never hear the end of it).
 
 
Multi mob i usually pull with Death and Decay then howling blast and bloodboil whenever off cooldown once i got some sort of aggro i will then use  Icy touch then Plague Strike then Pestilence to spread the plague love around, by now you'll have loads of runic powa spare so i tab target around the mobs and use a frost strike on each.
 
Obliterate is also nice and hits hard for good aggro generation, but make sure you have plenty in the aggro bin before adding into rotation (easy to get sidetracked !!)
 
Got a great lil addon called "Tauntmaster" that will help on fights where you need to taunt after X stacks by whispering/RW/say etc for all to see when a taunt needs to happen.
 
Thats all i got for now, hoping the real experts will share the love as well then we can both learn something (or at least i can find out i been doing it wrong!!!)

[Sithvid]

Is the Ice Tank getting removed ? when cata arrives ?
I love my DK Ice Tank

[Legolei]

Is the Ice Tank getting removed ? when cata arrives ?
I love my DK Ice Tank

While in WotLK all three specs have the possibility to tank, Blizzard has stated that in Cataclysm there will be a dedicated tanking spec: blood.

Announcement by our favorite crab.

[Priva]

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/

[Deminion]

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?43016-Death-Knight-Raid-DPS-Compendium-%28FR-BL-UH%29
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?59900-Comprehensive-Guide-to-Death-Knight-Tanking

[TeaLeaf]

Elitistjerks as linked above is probably the most comprehensive discussion board for theorycrafting.  

Personally I blood tank, self-healing and lots of cooldowns with high threat.  Most of the progress raid guild DK tanks I know are also blood spec for the same reasons.

[Whitey]

If I was a main tank, I'd be going blood too for ICC 25 but for HC's and the occasional 10 man I just love the snap agro you get with Howling blast on large mobs and the amount of dps you can get (yeh I know it doesn't matter as a tank but it's all about dps for me ).  It's easy mode tanking.  On boss fights if your having problems with threat, just spam icy touch whenever you can, it's silly the amount of threat it generates.  When in a taunt rotation with another tank, you don't want to use icy touch for a few seconds after the other tank taunts or you'll get the boss back!  FB has the rest covered in his post.

[Gortex]

Thanks all will be trying out some of these pointers and see what happens. Am a lowly 59 at the moment so I shall prob start some low lev instances to see what happens or practice some set ups and rotaions on mobs as a level.

[Twyst]

One of the best online resources for DK tanking is http://pwnwear.com/

[Slush]

Hello. Im currently having fun tanking instances with my 70'ish blood spec'ed DK.

My resources has been for talent tree (not glyphs): Wow talent calcultor
For glyphs and general tanking stuff, such as rotations: MMO-Champ DK tanking guide

Gonna look into your link now, Twisted. Im quite sure theres alot of stuff im missing :-)

Btw; I usually hold aggro very well when I:
1.D&D
2.DG Skull
3.Pestillence
4.Blood Boil
5.Icy Touch Skull

But, I have problems with well geared shamans getting aggro from non-Skull targets. Maybe even some mages. This is mostly when I pull without D&D (because of CD).
Yes, i do have D&D prime glyph.

How do I counter these aggro problems. Any ideas?
Slosh in Armory

[Twyst]

How do I counter these aggro problems. Any ideas?[/URL]

The problem is that now people are geared most HC's are facerolls which means, as you say, DnD isn't always up from trash to trash. In WolTK this was never an issue as the glyph (or talent, I forget) halved the CD time. This is no longer the case. So how do we DK chain pull without DnD?

The trick is all about snap agro. With a DnD in front of you, you can DG primary and agro easy. The other mobs will wander into the DnD and hey presto agro.
Without DnD, what gets the wandering mobs? My solution to this is body pull (as in walk right into the mobs) and do a BB. At this point it's worth mentioning that disease-less tanking is viable, it's just not optimal. Fortunately, one BB followed by an IT on primary is enough to hold agro from all. At this point you can either BB again or PS and spread diseases.

I tend to spec Unholy Command not for faster DG pulls, but to rein in any stray mobs that nomnomnom my healers ass.

[Tirkad]

I have done a bit of tanking on my dk, and looking at the /]elitistjerks Blood dk tanking thread i gave deseaseless dk tanking (not using Icy Touch or Plague Strike)a try. Surprisingly, it works nicely, and an extra DS is awesome for survival, in particular in the early stage of the pull where all the mobs are alive and spanking your shiny plate armor. My rotation while pulling is: Outbreak (note that outbreak has 30y range), pestilence and blood boil, followed by 2 DS on the skull and cross respectively, and some rune strike spam to hold aggro; after that just spam DS, HS and RS accordingly to the pull. D&D helps (mine is always on cd), but it's not needed. For lower instances and hcs i'm not having much problems, just using Dark Command or Death Grip if needed.