I've had several people ask me for advice regarding Death knight tanking So I wrote this little strat for everyone who might be interested in tanking with their DK, enjoy...

Weapons:
Go two-hander! Although though viable two one-handers eat up way too many stats for hit and expertise IMO

Build:
The build I use is 15/51/5:
http://tinyurl.com/ybhc9nd

Rotation:

Always use Rune Strike when available. It’s a lot of DPS/threat for a mere 20 Runic Power and works in conjunction with your tanking Sigils to increase your dodge rating.

With the following rotations I use Frost Strike as an Runic Power dump

I’ve chosen to take Rime in the frost tree and go with Obliterate foregoing Plauge Strike and Pestilence. Rime is nice as it often gives you a no cost instant Howling Blast. Be looking for that proc for lots of free damage and threat

Single target:
Howling Blast* > Obliterate> Blood Strike** > Blood Strike**> Frost Strike

Multiple targets 3 and under:
Howling Blast *> Obliterate > Blood boil*** > Blood boil***> Frost Strike

Mutiple targets 4 and up opener:
Death and Decay > Howling Blast*> Blood boil*** > Blood boil***
After this then use the “Mutiple targets 3 and under” rotation. Be aware this opener will eat all your runes up and you may have to sit there for a second or two. Don’t panic, your threat should hold long enough for your runes cool downs to fall off and get back to using your abilities.

Glyphs:

Must Have Glyphs:
Glyph of Howling Blast
This one makes everything above come together. It basically allows you to eliminate Icy Touch and turns your Howling Blast into a AoE Icy touch

Glyph of Unbreakable Armor
No brainer here… makes your kick ass armor buff ability even better

Not must have but I recommend Glyph of Death and Decay. This one is great for those big groups and keeping them off everyone else


Macros:
Using the following macros with the rotations above allows me to focus on 4 buttons during 90% of the fight

* Howling Blast
I use the following macro in place of Howling Blast. I want that 100% crit chance Deathchill offers whenever it’s available and this allows you to do that automatically while going through your rotation. Mater of fact I’ve even taken Deathchill completely off my bars

/cast Howling Blast
/cast Deathchill

Rune Strike
I Macroed it into my attacks to help myself use Rune Strike as often as possible. Now I do still keep Rune strike on my bars just for notification purposes. Basically if I’m elsewhere in my rotation and I see it light up I just hit my Blood boil or Blood strike macro to use it. this allows me to scroll less and get my attacks off more efficiently

** Blood Strike for Single target:
#showtooltip
/cast Blood Strike
/cast !Rune Strike

*** Blood boil for Mutable targets:
#showtooltip
/cast Blood boil
/cast !Rune Strike

Other macros I sometimes use

Rut-ro! macro. If nothing is on cool down you’ll get around 90% damage mitigation however I prefer to single click them most of the time:
#showtooltip Unbreakable Armor
/cast Unbreakable Armor
/cast Icebound Fortitude
/cast Anti-Magic Shell

Lazy Interrupt macro:
#showtooltip Strangulate
/cast Strangulate
/cast Mind Freeze

Notes:

• I’d recommend against using Army of the Dead in most cases especially dragons. They typically do more harm than good.
• Always make sure you’re in Frost Presence if tanking. It’s real easy to forget when you change spec.
• Toot your own horn Horn! Horn of Winter is awesome. Keep that buff up, the others will love you for it.
• If you have some heavy hitters bombing away it never hurts to throw in an extra Dark Command once in a while for some extra threat especially if your runes are on cool down
• My way is not the only way. Don't be afraid to explore your talents and try new things
• Have fun

/cast !Rune Strike

I don't think I've seen the ! modifier in front of a spell before. Whassit do?

Ya know I don't really know... but it works. I picked it up somewhere, wowwiki maybe?

Lot of good info. Nice work. :D

I don't think I've seen the ! modifier in front of a spell before. Whassit do?

It's a toggle.

Normal casts (without the exclamation mark) will toggle an ability on and off with each press of a key.

Toggle casts (with exclamation mark) will only turn an ability "on"

To demonstrate the idea, try macros with Stealth or Shoot
/cast Shoot
versus
/cast !Shoot

spam the first, and not much will get shot off (half your keypresses turn shoot off)
spam the second, and you'll be shooting constantly (it's a one-way "on" switch)


/cast !Rune Strike
/cast Blood Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Above casts rune strike, if available, casts blood strike, and clears the "i can't do that" error if rune strike wasn't available.