Sorry - yet another DK tank build

[Deathliche]

I have been a tank for the past 3 weeks now, and I thoroughly know my abilities. However, I find that some people have ridiculous amounts of mitigation, and that I am lacking. I have messed with every build I have come across (and lost 200 g in the process). I find that my only way of holding aggro in my gear (link later) is to use some form of aoe tanking build. I went frost in this build to pick up Howling Blast and Improved Frost Presence. I went into unholy for Impurity and Corpse Explosion. Basic tanking back bone aside from that. Any thoughts or ideas are helpful, and I greatly appreciate them. I am using a 2h (Titansteel Destroyer /wince), so while trying for the whole Killing Machine / Icy Talons for insta crit HB's may not work out... it can help add threat.
Talent Link:WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator
Armory Link:
The World of Warcraft Armory
Thanks!

[Inaara]

You've got alot of talents that are not usefull for tanking such as Gargoyle, Rune Tap, Butchery, Master of Ghouls and Death Grip. I personally favor Unholy for tanking as it is a very high threat build and the best for AoE tanking.

I would suggest the following:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

As for your mitigation, it is something that will only come with gear. Every single piece of your current gear can be replaced so get to running those heroics and 10 mans. Run the hell out of Heroic VH for Bolstered Legplates - Item - World of Warcraft and heroic AN for Essence of Gossamer - Item - World of Warcraft and Ancient Aligned Girdle - Item - World of Warcraft. That will get you headed in the right direction.

[Deathliche]

Thanks for the advice; I was planning on switching from that build anyway. Any thoughts on the talent calculator link one? (It probably hasn't updated on the armory yet)

[Inaara]

I cannot access wow.com from work, sorry lol >_<

[Deathliche]

lol thanks anyway

[Eera]

I'm very familiar with your situation as I am in it currently on my own deathknight who has recently speced into a tanking build.
First of all I agree with what Inaara has said so far, mitigation will always come in time as your gear builds. As far as your build, again I agree with Inaara and something can be done to clean it up and make it more efficient.

I will preface this by saying that I don't support simply copy and pasting a talent build and using it, the closest I come to doing that is when I have sat and looked at a build for a length of time and decided I can see no possible way to improve it for what my aim of the build is, I think that being able to justify each point spent is very important, but maybe that's just me. With that said and done if I was going to suggest a two-handed tanking build for you I would suggest the following Improved Icy Talon, Deep Frost Tank build.
I think the Blood and Unholy talents are commonly accepted as solid tanking abilities. When you couple Morbidity with Lichborne you can get a decent self heal for 80 instances/heroics, an example would be the Frozen tome debuff on Prince Keleseth in Utgarde Keep where you will be without a heal for a short period of time.
A few frost talents may need justification:
- Why is there no Annihilation? The simplest way to answer this I think is to put it like this, for instances there is a LOT of trash clearing, it's true of all dungeons be they 5 man or 25man. As both Obliterate and Howling Blast share the same runes I think it is a choice of using one or another, as such I use my 3 talent points on other talents, party buffing ones such as going towards Improved Icy Talons, increasing the overall DPS. To top that off consider that there are bosses, from Grand Magus Telestra in Nexus to Sartharion in OS, which have AoE elements to the fight, Obliterate doesn't get used in my rotations, ever.
- Merciless Combat? In truth, filler. Feel free to put them into increasing your RP or put them into Blood of the north if you wish, speaking of which;
- No Blood of the North? I know, it's strange but I've never really liked them in my tanking build, Feel free to substitute points in if you really like them, but for me I dont like using them.

As you have probably gathered from going through that... large wall-o-text, that build is tailored to my personal preferences rather than what may be considered the norm with some people, I only have problems defending the Blood of the North because really there isn't anything WRONG with it it's just I don't like it that much.
Anyway hope this helped somewhat.

~Eera

[Deathliche]

Wow... you both went way beyond anything I expected. I'll give that deep frost build a try. Thanks for the help; I'm going to try and get a Naxx run in tonight and hopefully get some better gear.