This is the diseaseless build I figured to be the best for endgame 4.0.1, level 80, since I figured Mind Freeze isn't all that important for ICC and Ruby Sanctum, Icy Reach being very close to pointless for a diseaseless build, Abomination's Might being a fairly low DPS/TPS increase, and Crimson Scourge being an even lower TPS/DPS increase. Same goes for Butchery and BCB.

For LK heroic, Frost Fever is always applied to the Shambling Horrors through our DPS DKs, and I felt Unholy Command was useful for DGing Ghouls (or Shambling Horrors) more often, mainly because of the 10 second CD reduce, but also for the secondary effect that may proc from either HS killing something, or if the Necrotic Plague killing things count as your KBs (I've seen the damage from it on my screen, so I assume it's been counted as my damage somehow, maybe it counts as my KB in those situations as well?).

Thoughts?

Also, this spec may have already been suggested by someone (or even by a lot of people), if so, I'm sorry for my ignorance.

Well, professions are a bit different as far as weight goes in Cata, especially for tanking. HP pools for tanks are going up by almost 4x what they are at lvl 80 (ie 50k hp vs 200k hp) while profession gains are going up by only 2x (ie JC gain at 80 = 63stm and JC gain at 85 = 123stm).

I have browsed through quite a few different links involving Cata professions and whatnot and came up with a tentative list (pretty sure numbers and things will change between then, now, and when Cata goes live). Below is a listing of the two max stm professions for tanking then the +/- from picking up Eng over JC (JC being the 'weaker' of the two):

JC: 101stm Dragon's Eyes
41stm per gem over the 60stm rare gem. 123 total stm gain from JC.

LW: 195stm bracer ench
As far as I have seen, there is no upgraded stm ench for Cata, just dodge/exp/hit/haste. This puts the stm gain from LW at +155. However, I could just be missing the ench or something. If someone has knowledge of a ench more than 40stm please post a link. Barring any new stm ench to bracers, its looking like 50 dodge/exp/hit/haste vs 195stm and that is a no brainer.

Blacksmithing
2 sockets. 120stm (assuming you're putting 2 60stm gems). I haven't heard of any additons in Cata, so this is tenative.

Eng: Utility/Mitigation gain.
This is a bit more complicated to be a direct value on. I will list the following +/- values for Eng compared to dropping JC since, as stated initially, its the lower valued profession when compared to LW.

-123stm (JC)
+20k belt absorb / 5min cd Grounded Plasma Shield - Spells - Sigrie
+1500 armor for 12sec / 1min cd on gloves Quickflip Deflection Plates - Spells - Sigrie (doesn't stack w/ armor glove ench, but does with 'on use' ones)
+Rocket boost (have to choose between this or 20k absorb on belt) Awesome utility!
+Bombs/Ranged 'Gun" that hits for 10k High-Powered Bolt Gun - Items - Sigrie

Those above are just raw values that are going to stay throughout the xpac and whatnot. If you are looking at first teir only, JC also has the tank trinket (Monarch Crab 2.0) and Eng has the helms+cogwheels. Personally the appeal of all the utility Eng brings trumps the 'small' stm loss from JC. However, as I am sure is the case with most everyone, things can change and I'm ready to reroll another prof overnight in the event that takes place. Sometimes the only way to find out things sometimes is just test them out

Before this gets trolled or discredited, I wanted to throw out there:
I just did the above research through browsing mmodb and cata.wowhead. If anyone has any different results or sees an issue with any of that posted, please just let me know and I can fix it.

Source: Engineering - Skills - Sigrie

Thanks!

200K will be a BiS full-Heroic Mode Raiding Gear Tank gemming for near-full Stamina, so it'll be a while before we go that far. With just questing Blues you start off with 100K, by the time you've finished Heroic Dungeon Gearing you're at more or less 150K (Gem slots make a difference i believe).

There is currently (as of latest Beta Build) no Cataclysm (85) Bracer Stamina Enchant. There's Expertise, Dodge and Hit I believe. Probably Haste too. I'm hoping that Enchanting is just in-complete otherwise Leatherworking is facing a very, very large advantage (WotLK Bracer Enchant is +40 Stamina, the Cataclysm one needs to be +75 Stamina to even Leatherworking's Stamina to 120).

Mining also has 120 Stamina once you maximize it, you gain a new level of Toughness, and Blacksmithing as usual has it's two Sockets which also couple up to 120 extra Stamina if you use two +60 Stamina Gems in them.

Mind Amplification Dish no longer has Stamina in Beta (as of a while now I believe).

It doesn't make a very big difference but I believe Engineering Enchants stack with normal Enchants so you can have +23 Agility (Engineering) and +22 Agility (Cloak) or +225 Armor (Cloak) on the same piece of Gear, so it doesn't stack only for Boots, in Theory they should all stack (all the Engineering Enchants).

For Plate-Wearers I'm personally still leaning towards the Blacksmithing + Mining combo (assuming Leatherworking is equalized soon):

Blacksmithing means you'll be able to craft yourself a decent set of starter gear, although being Defense-Capped is no longer an issue, Heroics are tough and you'll want to get started on them as soon as possible. With just Questing Blues you'll end up having to run a few Normal-Modes. If you've managed to level Blacksmithing to a decent number you can get some Gear from there too which helps.

Mining means you'll be able to cut back on Leveling costs for Blacksmithing a lot. We all know how much people inflate item prices in the first few weeks so leveling say BS + JC will be very, very expensive just for 3 extra Stamina. If I'm correct you can also change the Bonus you gain from Mining between Strength, Stamina and Haste or something, or this was an idea, I'm not 100% sure if it was actually implemented in the end, if I'm wrong then feel free to correct me. Mining also helps cut back on Jewelcrafting costs a lot too however, so if you choose to go for that one you still gain the advantage of managing to save at least some Gold.

Not necessarily. Stamina may not end up as the best stat anymore. Also with reforging, +50 rating you don't have to reforge from gear so even if they don't add a +50 mastery enchant on bracers it might still work out fine (i.e. if you want to stay hit capped you can enchant hit on bracers and you free up more hit from gear to reforge into a "better" stat such as mastery). That said, I am pretty sure the WotLK stamina enchant was added a bit after release and I kept using the 12 defense bracer enchant until it was available so there is a good chance Blizz will add an updated version soon anyway.

That said, I am also eyeing Engineering for tanking. The bonuses from it seem to outweigh the loss of EH for some on-demand mini-CDs like the absorb or even non-quantifiable bonuses like Rocket Boots, grenades or even another interrupt with the Bolt Gun. I couldn't find a trainer for these items in Beta though which is a shame since I have no clue if things like the belt enchant can backfire (the flavor text implies as much). It would be ironic to pick up Eng for something like the belt enchant only to find out that Blizz gave it a chance to make you take 20k additional damage instead of absorbing it (or something equally stupid).

The second profession is most likely going to be JC or BS just for the flexibility of not being tied to always taking Stamina bonuses.

That is not entirely correct. On live there's two different types of glove enchants, passives and clickables, each of which uses a different slot. All glove enchants use the passive slot, so you can't have armsman and the armor, but you can have armsman and glove rockets, or armor and glove rockets, or armor and accelerators.

That would suggest the beta armor clickable should stack with regular glove enchants, perhaps someone in beta can confirm.

Thanks for the rundown Riggs, most of what you said confirms what I was thinking in the first place. I hadn't seen the absorption yet which is pretty nice. I'm currently JC/BS like 90% of the rest of the tanking population and like you, I have no problem switching if one is vastly superior. I was never a JC until I saw it's 63 stam boost was better than anything else out there.

A couple of questions for you since I'm pretty sure you've said you have beta. What kind of CD is on the belt and how does the bolt gun work? Does it take the spot of your ranged item or is it just a useable item you can click?

The guy who was talking about BS/Mining, I don't really care if I can make the gear. I have plenty of guildies who are more than happy to craft blues and a number of alts who can handle mining duty once I have a second to level a 2nd or 3rd lvl 85. What I'm interested in is pure raid utility/buffs, especially if blizzard follows through on the promise to make other stats/effects more interesting or at least as interesting as stam stacking the buffs from Eng looks very good. I just really hope they continue to make helms throughout the raiding tiers it would be really nice to be able to craft decent gear every tier and be able to use those spiffy new sockets and such the entirety of Cata.

Awesome, that helps out a ton. Edited my initial profession post to reflect.

Thank you.

Belt is 5min cd.

Vid of the bolt gun in action: YouTube - Cataclysm Beta - High-Powered Bolt Gun It's not an item slot, just an 'on use' from your bags which is very nice. I don't have Eng lvl'd on Beta, just using the premades which come with Ench/JC, so I can't answer how it would fit into the fight. If anything maybe on the pull or something. I'm sure there will be plenty of places to put it to use.

I am comparing 50 rating to 75 stamina. Those extra 120 stamina are the profession perk which you do not lose if you get anything but Engineering anyway.

I wrote a module for Raven designed to help with DK Blood spell priorities.

All info, download and video demos available here

Feedback welcome

Correct, forgot to consider that

In that same regard though I still don't see another raw stat outweighing stm by 50% pt for pt. You're basically gaining that as 'free' stm by picking LW as a profession over Mining / Ench / JC / etc.

To clarify: I'm not saying stm will win in every situation, but when comparing raw values I'm fairly certain any stat between Mastery / Dodge / Parry / Stm (main surv stats for a DK tank) won't be 50% more effective than the other on a 1:1 ratio since no matter what fight, you're going to need some type of balance. I'm sure there will be maybe 1-2 exceptions, but I guess we will have to wait to find out.

Another thing to mention for LW is speed drums for extra utility on your entire grp. Tons of fights where movement is involved and makes those a nice advantage.

Opinion: The potential to eat smart heals is not high enough to be the sole reason to avoid this talent.

I don't tank 25M yet, so my WoL wouldn't be helpful.

Searching WoL for a recent 25m ICC run with a DK main tank led me to World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis: Krasus Elite 25m ICC (turn on the "show pets" for easier reading).
Healing Taken Bloodworm only took 124,083 in heals or 0.43% of healing taken, of which 45.9% was from other Blood Burst (the bloodworm heal). If we remove bloodburst (55676) and AoE heals (efflorscence + holy word: sanctuary = 10726) we see the tank's bloodworm took 57681 heals or 0.2% heals taken from smart heals.
Healing Done Bloodworm provided 963,009 in heals, 3.37% of heals done, of which 24% was on the main tank.

I apologize for the small sample, but I'm having trouble finding more 25m ICC with a DK main tank in WoL.