Death Knight Tanking Part 1: Rotations

Well here we are another week and another blog that no one will read. That is all based on my comment section but what are friends for if not to drag you down into the dirt and let you know your doing a crappy job by not posting in the comments? Pssh...friends...who needs them when I have you?

Let's get started, shall we?

Now provided you have a great spec for tanking and your gear is good meaning you have all the stats you need whether it be Defense, Hit, Expertise, Stamina, etc. We will be starting a hopefully several article series for tanking. Mostly focusing on tanking rotations, positioning, strats, etc for both Blood and Frost specced tanks.

Today we will focus on rotations. The following are a list of abilities that I will use two to three letter abbreviations for:

PS > Plague Strike
IT > Icy Touch
BB > Blood Boil
Pes > Pestilence
HB > Howling Blast
HC > Hungering Cold
FS > Frost Strike
DS > Death Strike
OB > Obliterate
HS > Heart Strike
BS > Blood Strike
DnD > Death and Decay
BT > Blood Tap
ERW > Empower Rune Weapon
DC > Death Coil
RS > Rune Strike

HoW > Horn of Winter

Blood Tank Single Target Rotation should consist of:
HoW > IT > PS > HS > HS > DS> DC > DS > HS >HS > HS > HS > DC

Following this while refreshing IT and PS whenever your diseases fall off will pull max threat from your target. Using Blood Tap generously to ensure a smooth rotation, due to the Rune cooldowns.

Now you should notice that I did not include Rune Strike in this rotation even though it is our highest threat inducer. I did it for one reason and one reason only. You should have Rune Strike macro'd to at least four other abilities. For tanking they should be macro'd to IT, PS, DS and HS(Blood Strike if your Frost Spec).

I use the following format macro:

#showtooltip
/cast someAbility
/cast Rune Strike

Some people may notice that I did not use an '!' before Rune Strike, like so: /cast !Rune Strike
This was so as not to toggle an ability off, since Rune Strike is used on the next melee attack, many thought the ability could be stopped before use. At the moment you cannot stop Rune Strike once you activate it unless your target dies or you stop attacking. So no '!' is needed in the macro. The one other macro I use for Runestrike is for IT and PS:

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=10 Icy Touch, Plague Strike
/cast Rune Strike

This is to save bar space and since IT and PS should only be used to refresh diseases it makes for a good use one multi-tap button.

Now if you happen to be Runic Power starved, only macro Rune Strike to Plague Strike and Icy Touch. You want to make sure you have enough Runic Power in case to you need to pop cooldowns such as Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic Shell.

If you happen to have too much Runic Power feel free to throw in Death Coil as your Runic dump.

Blood Tank Multi-Target Rotation should consist of:
HoW > DnD > IT > PS > Pes > DS > DS > BB > BB > BB > BB > etc.

Following this while refreshing your diseases and DnD should allow for maximum threat. If you can, throwing in Heart Strikes will definitely help since HS hits 2 targets.

Frost Tank Single Target Rotation should consist of:

HoW > IT > PS > BS > BS > OB > OB > FS > FS > BS > BS

Following this and refreshing your diseases and with Killing Machine procs (if your specc'd) should allow max threat. Throwing in Howling Blast if specc'd would be fine as well.

Frost Tank Multi-Target Rotation should consist of:
HoW > HB > PS > Pest > BS > BB > BB > HB > BS > BS > BB > BB

Refreshing your diseases and adding DnD would just increase your threat further. You should notice that I did not include Icy Touch into this rotation. This rotation is based around you being specc'd into Howling Blast. Meaning if your specc'd with HB, you should have the Glyph of Howling Blast, which states that any target hit with Howling Blast will be affected by Frost Fever, thus saving you a Frost Rune and a global cooldown.

Author's Notes
When I state 'refreshing your diseases', this implies two things. One: your making sure that your diseases are taking their full time to tick and Two: that Pestilence is being used for Multi-Target groups.

All of these rotations are on a situational basis, meaning sometimes you don't have time to punch all those buttons in that order, and all the rotations can be shuffled to your preference. In a Patchwerk type of battle, I found that the Single target rotations are the simplest, most effective means of threat gathering. In a mob type fight, such as ICC trash before Lord Marrowgar, I have found the above Multi-Target rotations to be the most effective.

Final Note: Due to time restraints, I will not be linking to wowhead.com with mouseover pop-ups. Instead just know that I use wowhead.com and feel free to have a second browser open to wowhead.com for reference.