Examining the effect of Will of the Necropolis (3/3, Blood tree) and Unbreakable Armor (3/3, Frost tree).

For the sake of familiarity, let's use a level 70 attacker vs. level 70 target example: (based on the mitigation formula found here)


60% mitigation is 15836 armor. This is the equivalent of a mix of Tier 4 and Tier 5 / ZA / patch 2.3 BoJ gear.

15836 * 1.3 = 20587 armor, or 66% mitigation.

100 - (100 / 66 * 60) = 9.1% increase...

The basics
(this list assumes you are already familiar with current tanking mechanics and tanking classes)


Presences

Death Knights may take on three different Presences: Blood, Frost and Unholy. A Presence works like a warrior stance in that it is active until the DK chages to a different Presence, and it cannot be dispelled. Unlike with stances, all DK abilities can be used in any Presence.


Threat

Death knight...

Death Knights gain access to Raise Dead at level 56.

The talents Ravenous Dead and Ferocious Dead can reduce Raise Dead's cooldown to 2.5 minutes and increase its duration to 3.5 minutes.

The Shadow of Death talents lets the Death Knight play as a Ghoul when he/she dies, and the talent Master of Ghouls allow the Death Knight to control his/her Ghoul as a pet.


Ghoul abilities

Claw

Explode (old?)

Gnaw...

Ironic that I would start a blog about Death Knight tanks by highlighting what feels like could be their main weakness... and no it's not the lack of a shield.


Death Knights are the only tank class whose ressource system doesn't scale with damage dealt or damage taken.


Particularly damage taken. As a comparison, warriors and druids gain rage directly proportionate to the damage they take and paladins gain mana in a similar way via Spiritual Attunement....

I've decided (a while back now) that I'll be playing a Death Knight as my main toon in WotLK. I will be focused on tanking because it's the role I enjoy the most.

I was not in the Alpha and I do not have a Beta key, so for the moment I'm in the same situation as most of you where I can only learn about DKs via what's on the web. Fortunately there's a lot of information available already, making it possible to at the very least make some educated guesses as to what stats, talents...