DK Alt Tank Advice

[Arodon]

I play a level 80 Prot Warrior and I have started playing my level 69 Blood Death Knight alt. I have tanked on him the past 4 levels and I have not had any major problems tanking, but I have some questions regarding: spec, rotation, glyphs, stats, and enchants/gems. I figure the basic stuff is the same as my warrior tank, but I know there are more precise things that need to be done on a DK.
1) Ideal Blood tanking spec?
2) What is the best rotation. I usually start off with DG, then drop DnD, BB, BB, then some single target stuff, but I'm not sure the best single target attacks and other abilities I haven't factored in.
3) Best glyphs?
4) Stats to stack? I know str and stam as always, but anything specific for a dk?
5) Best enchants and gems?
The World of Warcraft Armory
He has heirloom chest and shoulders, they are on palli atm.

I know he is only at lvl 69, but I am going to use this as a guide on how to get him set up for end game tanking. Thanks!

[Frostglaive]

To start you off, threat is no issue for death knight tanks. Rotations I am unsure of, but I know that starting off with Icy Touch, Getting your diseases on the target, then using Rune Strike and Obliterate when it comes up, and healing strike when you're taking heavy damage.

Blood tanking I know for sure isn't worth it anymore, for your parry has been diminished in returns, which of course nerfs the idea of blood tanking since most of their means of survival is getting health, and parrying attacks.

Try going mostly frost, and putting 5 points in Unholy for dodge, then some in blood for threat + health.

[Banterloft]

I'm not the greatest DK tank in the world by a long shot, but I've been haunting these forums for a couple of months now reading everything I can find.

The World of Warcraft Armory

AOE - Two diseases, pest, BB, tab, BB and they are glued to you, just refresh and BB when its off CD. You will have 0 problem with anything until you tap 80. DKs run thru Northrend like a spike.

Single I like to IT-PS-DS-HS-HS-HS-TAB HS-HS HS and again, crazy glue. If this is a bigboss then change out tab for ERW and DS-HS till your diseases are out and no one will pull anything from you.

Frost is leet AOE threat but I have no problems holding in blood. I really like my blood spec, I will be taking Mark o' Blood tonight tho. I can generate some insane threat and soak alot of the inc dmg. Vapiric blood is a GREAT tool as well as deathpack. The joke has been made that if my ghoul comes out beware of wipe, I'm expecting to us my only "Last stand" ability. I'm no where near the hitcap and haven't had a taunt miss yet. I did miss twice last night on Marrow tho. I have tried avvoidance specing and you just don't get enough health to stay alive in the 10mans. Stam is key, str is secondary. It doesn't matter how much dps you do, its about holding threat which I'm sure you already know with you warrior. If I were at home I would link SO many direct posts that I have bookmarks but here is the best thing I've found yet.
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/5...t-tanking.html
Satorri is a master and including EJ's forums, Sat's post is the best on the web as far as deathknight go.
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/6...-lot-math.html
Wars is also a master. Lots of math there tho.

[Nephelai]

Most of what you need to know to start off can be found here http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/5...t-tanking.html

I generally tank in frost, so can't give the best advice for alot of your questions, though allmost all of them are answered above. I do use a blood dps spec so I know rotation wise for single target you should be using something like

IT,PS,HS,HS,DS,DC,HOW,DS,HS,HS,HS,HS,DC (I don't remember what level you get HS so use BS until you have it, and the above rotation assumes you are playing a spec with 2/2 epidemic for longer diseases).

For multitarget aoe tanking open with D&D, your opening rotation will need some modification given the rune cost of D&D, but since I have never aoe tanked in blood, I have not worked out how I would adapt to that.

For your rotation after the opener I would just use the rotation above but substitute a pestilence for the first HS and substitute BB for the rest of the HS (unless its a two target aoe pull then I would just use the HS rotation while still replacing the first HS with Pest).

Macro RS to everything.

[Nephelai]

Lol, and try to ignore some advice you may get from some fictional sources. I don't use blood, but its a great tanking spec.

There is no such thing as a "healing strike" but "Death Strike" is correct for a blood tank. Don't use Obliterate in blood.. it consumes your diseases, Obliterate is for us frost tanks.

Parry is not central to blood tank survival... having a slightly bigger health pool and alot of self healing is the heart of blood DK tank survival. Threat is allways an issue, when your gear gets better Blizz gives you new fights with threat reducing debuffs, Tank CC, etc to make sure that this is the case. When you first start tanking heroics getting yourself defense capped will leave you threat starved at first, but when you get into higher i level gear your general threat output will be fine.

Pick up dodge and parry on your gear as available favoring dodge and don't take advice that dosen't make sense.

lol

[Banterloft]

I just saw healing strike! lol

Anywho, The real purpose of DS is to get the deathrunes. This lets you Heartstrike, which is your hardest hitter, many many times.

[Jaeden]

Basically, ignore everything Frostglaive said.

You can tank competitively with any spec. Check around here and EJ for some good tanking specs.

Your first priority is to get your defense to 540, then expertise to 26. That takes care of your primary defense and threat stat. Every other gem should be stamina. Your avoidance stats will be on your gear.

[Arodon]

Thanks for the replies! Haha, I have to go get a list of the different abilities so I can understand what the shortened versions stand for. Not as familiar as I am with my warrior.

Would switching to frost be a smarter choice? I know you guys said don't listen to the poster who said Blood Tanking isn't viable, but I also know you said that you are all Frost tanks. I choose Blood because a friend said I could tank and still do good dps for lvling and such, but I would not have a problem going frost. If it is a better tree, I would rather learn it as I level than switch at 80. Thanks.

[Banterloft]

Take a look at Satorri's post which I posted in my origional reply. It will have all of the Acronyms that you will ever need. I am a blood tank, but all three trees can tank. I haven't seen an unholy tank and a long time but it does have aoe and mitigation capabilities. Frost is the strongest AOE tanking spec with the simplest of the "rotations" One disease rotations can be used in frost efficently. Also, frost allows for dual wield tanking but you have to do the math for fast tanking weapons for mitigation or slow dps weapons for threat and less "spiky inc dmg" due to parry. Again, I like blood. Blood will give you the highest effective health of the three specs. You also have, what I consider, the best options for your "oh @$&% button with vampiric blood. You also have the best self healing and dmg soaking capabilities with mark of blood and DS. The best advise I can give you is to try them both once you 80 out. I run a blood spec for raid tanking and a frost spec for heroic, trash, and the Lady Deathwhisper add fight.

[Arodon]

Alright, that is something I will definitely look into. I think, considering your advice, I will tank in blood thru Northrend, because then I can also dps effectively in instances as well as when I'm soloing.