Elitist Jerks - Death Knight FAQ. Read this before posting!

Last Updated 12/12/2009.

WARNING: Before you post your inane shit, read this post entirely and see if your question is answered here. If its not, I encourage you to do your own research. Go to WoWwiki or Tankspot Forums and check there. Or read these forums. DO NOT POST WITHOUT AT LEAST TRYING TO FIND YOUR ANSWER FIRST. Ignore this at your own peril. You have been warned.

TANKING: (DPS section is further down)

Contents:
Definitions and Common Abbreviations
Introduction
- Runes
- Runic Power and “Dumps”
Mitigation and Defense
- Defense Cap
- Armor
- Mitigation Abilities
Avoidance
- Avoidance Caps
- Defense and Avoidance
Diminishing Returns
- What it is
Threat
- Threat Basics
- Increasing Threat
- Hit Cap
- Expertise
- Other Suggestions to Increase Threat
Dual Wield vs Two Handed Tanking
- Problems with Dual Wield
- Dual Wield Advice
Tanking Specs
- Specs
- Rotation and Priorities
- Improved Icy Talents vs Windfury
- Useful Macros
Gear
- Tanking Runes
- Stat Priorities
- Stamina vs Avoidance
- Gearing Before Naxx
- Glyphs
- Gems
Tanking Addons
Endgame

DEFINITONS AND COMMON ABBREVIATIONS

Avoidance refers to the chance to dodge/parry/be missed by an attack by you or a mob. This might also include the chance to fully resist a spell if we're talking about magic.
Effective Health is the amount of raw damage a mob would need to deal to you in order to kill you if no attacks were avoided. This is a combination of mitigation and total hit points and has nothing to do with avoidance. Talents like Vampiric Blood would count toward a tank's Effective Health.
Mitigation is the amount by which damage is reduced when an attack hits you. This typically includes values like block and armor, but since DKs don't have block it would just be armor. Abilities such as Unbreakable Armor, Bone Shield and Ice Bound Fortitude all count as Mitigation.

Common Abbreviations and Acronyms

AMS Anti-Magic Shell
AMZ Anti-Magic Zone
AoD Army of the Dead
BB Blood Boil (also used to refer to Blade Barrier)
BCB Blood-Caked Blade
BG Blood Gorged
BotN Blood of the North
BP Blood Plague
BnS Bone Shield
BS Blood Strike (sometimes used for Bone Shield)
BT Blood Tap
CE Corpse Explosion
CF Crypt Fever
DC Death Coil
DG Death Grip
DnD/D&D Death and Decay
DRW Dancing Rune Weapon
DS Death Strike
EP Ebon Plaguebringer
ERW Empower Rune Weapon
FF Frost Fever
FS Frost Strike
GoG Guile of Gorefiend
HB Howling Blast
HC Hungering Cold
HS Heart Strike
IBF Icebound Fortitude
IT Icy Touch
MoB Mark of Blood
MoG Master of Ghouls
MoM Might of Mograine
OaPH On a Pale Horse
OB Obliterate
PS Plague Strike
RoR Rage of Rivendare
SD Sudden Doom
SG Summon Gargoyle
SS Scourge Strike
TS Tundra Stalker
UA Unbreakable Armor
UB Unholy Blight
VB Vampiric Blood
VotW Veteran of the Third War
WotN Will of the Necropolis

INTRODUCTION TO DEATH KNIGHTS

Runes
No need to re-invent the wheel here. A good explaination on how the rune system works can be found here. The runic power part on that post is a bit outdated but the rest is good stuff. Thanks to Illundai.

Runic Power and “Dumps”
As a Death Knight utilizes his runes, he gains runic power depending on how many runes were spent on each ability. Abilities that only cost one rune like IT, PS, or BS will generate 5 runic power. Multi-rune abilities will generate 15 runic power. This is then modified by any talents you may have (example: Chill of the Grave) or glyphs that provide bonus.

A Death Knight can only have 100 runic power at max, unless he takes the frost talent Runic Power Mastery which allows him to have 15 more for each point spent up to 30 extra. Most tanks will not allow these points to build up. Ideally, a tank will want to be using all its runic power for Rune Strike. However, sometimes a Death Knight will get excess points and will need to “dump” the power else he won’t gain anymore. These “dumps” as they are commonly referred to usually consist of whatever runic cost power he has access to that does damage (most commonly Frost Strike and Death Coil).

MITIGATION AND DEFENSE

Defense cap

The defense cap is actually misnomer. Its not really a cap at all, merely the amount of defense you need to push boss crits off the table. There is no “cap” to defense, but the defense “cap” commonly refers to this number that makes you uncrittable.

There are two numbers that are important, Defense Skill and Defense Rating:

Defense Rating is what you will commonly find on gear. 4.91850 defense rating equals one point of defense skill.
Defense Skill is the number found on your character sheet. A level 80 character without any additional Defense Rating has 400 Defense Skill.

The number you’re shooting for to become uncrittable is 540 defense SKILL.

Note that’s 540 skill, not rating. You need about 690 rating (at level 80) to hit that from the 400 defense skill a level 80 character will have.

However you get your skill is up to you. Gear is easily obtainable between instances and crafting. If you got some spare sockets, use [Thick Autumn's Glow] or [Thick King's Amber] to help obtain the cap. If you only need a few more points, there are several good gems that add 8 (blue gems) or 10 (epic gems) defense and another stat. Refer to the Gem section below.

Defense will also add to avoidance. See the Avoidance section below.

Armor

Death Knights can wear plate, so they naturally will have a high amount of armor. When tanking, Death Knights use Frost Presence. Frost Presence does four very important things for tanking.

Increases stamina by 6%
Decreases all damage taken by 8%
Increases threat for each attack done
Increases armor value of items worn by 60%. (Important Note: This multiplier does not affect extra armor on rings, trinkets, amulets or any items with bonus armor.)

Frost tanks have an ability called Improved Frost Presence. While keeping the health modifier in the other stances does you nothing as a tank, each point (2 max) will decrease damage taken by 1%.

Mitigation Abilities

Icebound Fortitude (IBF) – IBF reduces all incoming damage by 20%. This percentage is modified by the amount of defense skill the DK has. It increases at an amount equal to approximately 0.143 to 0.15% per point of defense. This means at 540 Defense Skill it will increase to approximately 41%. A DK tank at 600 Defense Skill will increase IBF to approximately 50%. IBF lasts 12 seconds, more if talented. It has a 2 minute cooldown. Glyph is used for PVP.
Bone Shield (BnS, BS) – Bone Shield reduces all incoming damage by 20%. It lasts for as long as the DK can keep the bones up. When cast you have 3 charges (glyph provides 4 total). Each time the DK is hit 1 charge is taken away. When all the charges are gone (or five minutes passes, whatever first) the spell expires. An Unholy tank that relies on BS usually prizes avoidance as it helps the spell last longer. BS costs 1 unholy rune and is often preloaded prior to pull. It has a 1 minute cooldown.
Unbreakable Armor (UA) – This ability will increase the armor of the tank by 25% and strength by 10%. The glyph provides more armor. It has a 1 minute cooldown. It is possible (again) to reach the armor cap by using this ability, so be aware of that.
Will of the Necropolis (WotN) – This ability will decrease incoming hits by 15%, provided the following is satisfied (assuming 3 points):

If the DK is hit when his health is below 35% -OR-

If the hit (pre-reduction in damage) would take the DK below 35%

WotN has a 15 second "cooldown" so the effect can't be triggered on every hit. Blizzard also changed it so it will not trigger on a hit that does less than 5% of the tank's health. Which is useful so the 15 second counter doesn't start on something weak just to take a strong hit in the face. However, its not so useful when your at 3% health.

AVOIDANCE

Avoidance Caps

Without getting into too much detail, Dodge cap is 88%, Parry cap is 47% and Miss cap is 16%. All three are affected by diminishing returns, which means it is virtually impossible to max even one out to the cap. For gearing, all you need to know is Dodge > Parry > Miss.

Defense and Avoidance

Most tanks will stack defense to get to 540 then be done. From that point, they are busy gearing for stamina and threat (hit and expertise). However, sometimes you get a piece of gear that will put you over that cap and for comparison sakes, can't figure out what is better. In this matter, it is generally agreed upon that the following holds true for avoidance stats:

Dodge > Parry > Miss

They break down further based on diminishing returns, but this is a rough outline. Ideally, stacking one far over the other doesn't work as well as a tank that is balanced (ratio-wise) to the formula above. In the current patch Blizzard has equaled the values so the same amount of rating gets the same percentage. Please note however, that these are PRIOR to diminishing returns. Because of the cap differences, Dodge still scales better then parry.

Basically it breaks down like this at level 80 (again, before diminishing returns):

45.25 dodge rating = 1% dodge chance
45.25 parry rating = 1% parry chance

For a breakdown of defense at level 80:

4.91850 defense rating = 1 defense skill
122.9625 defense rating = 25 def skill = 1% miss/dodge/parry chance = 3% avoidance
122.9625/3 = 40.9875 defense rating hence equals 1% avoidance
40.9875 defense rating = 8.333 skill (as a comparison)

For gearing purposes, it looks like this at level 80:

40.9875 defense rating = 1% avoidance (broken up into .333% dodge, parry and miss, respectively)
45.25 dodge rating = 1% dodge chance
45.25 parry rating = 1% parry chance

Prior to patch 3.2, stacking dodge was preferable to Defense as point for point a tank got more avoidance out of it. However, since the normalization of Dodge and Parry, this seems to be no longer the case. It seems that Defense stacking could become a possible alternative. Defense not only adds to the tank's avoidance, but also pulls double duty by increasing IBF.

However, a few things to remember before going stacking large amounts of Defense:

1. Remember that even though it seems a better investment, this is only on paper at level 80. Diminishing Returns has yet to come into play.
2. Defense avoidance takes a hit from parry DR.
3. Defense avoidance takes a significantly larger hit from miss DR.

In then end, I believe that dodge is still better, unless the tank has stacked so much that the DR curve is really beginning to come into play.

You can find this and more in excellent post by Whitetooth. I also found this post at DK Info that breaks it down into an easy to read, by level comparison. Be warned, however, as I cannot vouch for how updated that information is due to no date on it. It looked okay when I was scanning through it though.

DIMINISHING RETURNS (DR)

What is diminishing returns?

The basic idea is something that you get less and less out of over time. An easy example is the DR on a spell like fear. The first time you cast it on someone, it lasts for 10 secs or so. The next time, 6 seconds. Then 4 then 2 then eventually it doesn't work anymore. Dodge and Parry don't exactly work like this, but the idea is the same. The more you stack, the less each is worth. It works on a curve, so you have to stack a TON of each to even get CLOSE to the cap.

However, it is a well know fact that you can stack dodge higher then you can stack parry. So if you have two pieces of gear that are similar and one has dodge and the other has parry, the one with dodge is worth more then the one with parry. This is because Dodge caps out at 88%, where as Parry is 47%. This means the curve is more aggressive on Parry then Dodge.

See this post from tankspot. It will help explain what diminishing returns are if you really want to get that technical. Bring cookies and a math degree.

THREAT

Threat Basics

Threat (for the tanking newbies) is what keeps the mobs on you and off your healer. Healers don’t like being beat on, and they don’t really have a sense of humor about it. Neither, for that fact, do the DPS which are going to ride your threat for maximum damage.

Threat is created by a couple of things.

1. Damage. Easy enough here, the more damage you do, the more threat you create.

2. Healing. If you heal yourself, you create threat split among all the mobs your tanking at about half per point. Not as good as damage but threat is threat.

3. Abilities. A few abilities create more threat. The first is Frost Presence which increases the threat of ALL your attacks. I shouldn’t have to say that, but you’d be surprised. The second is Death and Decay, which is an AOE attack that creates damage at an increased threat multiplier. The third is rune strike, which does increased damage and threat instead of your normal white swing. A real bargain at 20 rp.

The idea is to do more threat then the rest of the party/raid. Again, seems simple.

Increasing Threat

Threat can be increased a couple of ways. Getting Hit capped, expertise soft capped, using more increased threat attacks (DnD, RS), and getting a better weapon.

Hit cap

The “Hit cap” is the percent needed for your attacks to not “miss”. It only functions to push boss “miss” off the table. Even when your hit capped you can still be dodged and parried. Hit effects ALL of your attacks as a death knight and is generally capped first due to this.

The hit cap is 8%. At 8%, you will avoid any “miss” result for any melee attack. This is for all 2 handed weapons.

The hit cap is broken down by a 5% base chance to miss, then an additional 1% for each level above 80 the mob is. Thus, 8% is the amount you need to hit level 83 mobs.

However, as a Death Knight we also have abilities that function of spell hit. This is a bit hard for some people to wrap their brains around, as the same about of +hit applies to both melee and spell hit yet they are worth different amounts. Examples of DK attacks that function off of spell hit are Icy Touch, Howling Blast, and Death Coil. The percentage you need to be spell hit capped is 17%. Most don’t cap this high, as the 10 to 11% or so that being at 8% melee gives you usually does the job.

For Dual Wield, the percentage to avoid melee miss is something ridiculous like 27%. But DW guy loves his twin weapons because after all, looking cool is what’s important when you’re staring at boss crotch.

Expertise

Expertise reduces your chance to be dodged or parried. This is important as each % of expertise essential pushes both off at the same time. However, expertise only affects a few attacks (see list below). Generally the consensus is if you get most of your DPS from those attacks then gearing Expertise is a bit better then hit. However, it is mostly a wash and you’ll want to cap both hit and expertise to get the most threat.

Expertise affects:

Blood Strike
Heart Strike
Obliterate
Scourge Strike
Plague Strike
Auto Attack

Each point of Expertise gives you .25% to avoid being dodged or parried. The number you’re shooting for here is 6.5%, which is the number that pushes boss dodge off the table. In expertise terms, this is around 26 Expertise (found on your character sheet). So if you got a racial bonus of 5, then you only need 21 more. Frost and Unholy give 5 each if you spec that deeply into each tree, and Blood's VotTW gives 6.

If you’re hoping that 6.5% will push boss parry off the table, keep dreaming. Bosses have a lot of parry if they can parry at all, so it’s just not worth gimping everything else to avoid it. But just for reference, boss parry is around 15%.

Other Suggestions for Increasing Threat

Tighten up your rotations. If you’re just spamming IT that’s most likely your problem. Good rotations will use different skills and more then one attack for the max amount of damage/threat you can squeeze out of BBFFUU every 10 seconds.
If you’re not using DnD in your rotations, start. If you already are, try speccing in Morbidity (Unholy), which lets you use DnD every 15 seconds. Some people have a FPS issue with morbidity on certain fights, if your one this may not work for you. But it’s at least worth a shot. DnD is one of our largest threat producers at a 1.9 multiplier (in addition to what we get from Frost Presence).
Macro RS into all of your attacks so you can use it as much as (inhumanly) possible. With the changes to this ability to increase threat (patch 3.0.8) this is going to be a huge boost for any single target tanking.

If none of those solutions work for you, then time to get a new weapon. Cause otherwise there just isn’t a solution in the game right now.

DUAL WIELD VS TWO HANDED TANKING

The problems of Dual Wield

Increased Hit to be effective

Dual Wield requires more hit (27%). Dual Wield is broken down by the base chance to miss (5%), plus the level difference (3% for level 83), plus 19% additional (considered the two hand penalty) for a total of 27%. Without that hit, all of your attacks will miss more and you will lose threat. Because 2 Handed Tanking requires only 8% (base miss chance + level difference) it is more manageable with the current gear, allowing the tank to focus on defense and avoidance.

Damage on weapon strike abilities not as powerful as 2 hand weapons.

All of our weapon related strikes (like Obliterate, Frost Strike, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Heart Strike, etc) will do damage based on the weapon. The damage range on a one handed weapon is not as good as a 2 handed weapon. This is because Two handed weapons do more damage per swing compared to One Handed Weapons. Because of this, each time one of those strikes is used with a one handed weapon it does less damage (thus less threat) compared to a DK using a two handed weapon. However, the use of the frost talent ToT helps to offset this.

Increases Boss Parry Haste

Each time a boss parries (or a DK for that matter) there is a chance that the swing timer resets thus decreasing the time between attacks. Not all bosses have Parry Haste (Patchwerk is a good example of one that has Parry Haste disabled), but most will. Although it is not considered as big a problem in current content, it is considered a larger problem for raiding guilds doing progression kills. This is because parry haste can increase the DKs incoming damage which makes problems for healers. A couple of these unfortunate Parry Haste attacks can spike damage on the tank. This could have unfortunate consequences that could wipe the raid if the tank goes down.

Dual Wielding Advice

Dual Wielding does have some solid following and is somewhat viable. Its main problem (beside the minor ones above) is the weapon selection. "Tanking" one handers all have a very fast speed, and to get the most out of ToT strikes one would need to wield two slow swing speed one handers. Because these don't exist in the game, DW usually produces less threat, although it is been improved since the start.

TANKING SPECS

Specs

Keep in mind that these are basic specs, and can easily be switched about. Specs strike me a bit like snowflakes, everyone's going be different. But these are good places to start.

Frost
Deep Frost AOE Build 15/51/5

This build uses HB and BB for AOE tanking and can hold threat on Single Target using OB. I've added the HB glyph, as in my opinion the extra GCD you get by not having to apply FF then use a rune for no damage but to just spread the disease (Pest) is priceless. For single target you can set up as HB>OB>BS>BS||OB>OB>OB||OB>OB>BS>BS (repeat) and rely on the rime procs to keep FF up, while using FS to dump when you need to. For AOE tanking, HB>BB>BB should cement the mobs on you. If you need a bit more, drop the last BB in that rotation and put up DnD instead.

Although it doesn't have the pure Effective Heath as Blood does, it makes up for such a lack by taking less damage and having more avoidance. In all, a very effective spec.

Frost Duel Wield Build 12/54/5

With the new talent ToT, Frost can actually make Duel Wield a bit more viable then what it was previously. However, it is still being tested against the more popular two handed builds to determine if its addition is enough to raise duel wield tanking from the dead.

Blood
Basically, there are two main Blood builds. Those that run DRM, and those that do not.
DRM spec 52/8/11

Non-DRM 54/8/9

Important things to note. DRM spec mainly uses a IT>PS>DS>HS>HS\\DS>HS>HS>HS>HS type rotation, spamming HS in single target and using the extra death runes for BB in AOE threat. Non DRM spec trades DRM for Rune Tap. Mileage may vary. I use the DRM spec and find it quite flexible while still retaining good threat on both single target and AOE targets. Non DRM is more single target oriented (no BB spam) and uses a more conventional IT>PS>DS>HS>HS\\DS>DS>HS>HS type rotation. Those that like to have rune tap often leave one blood rune up just in case they need to use it.

Other points on the blood talents. Necrosis is point-for-point a larger threat talent then both Subversion and Sudden Death. However, its hard to get points in there unless you want to gimp IIT. A tank should put points into ITT unless they have a raid member who can provide a speed debuff. Otherwise you'll find yourself taking more damage. This is generally reserved for 25 man raids that can usually provide that debuff. 10 man is sketchy at best.

Unholy
Unholy 8/13/51

This makes use of the new Unholy talents introduced in patch 3.2. Single target threat should be better then it was previously. This build does a lot of shadow damage between Death Coil, Scourge Strike, Death and Decay, and the new Unholy Blight, thus the addition of Black Ice.

Rotations and Priorities

Each build has an optimal rotation. Usually with a post of a build the poster will include what kind of rotation he uses. Ideally, the rotations would maximize damage and threat for that particular build. However, even hit/expertise capped you will never push off boss parry of the table, so chances of hitting with every attack and never losing time in a rotation is slim.

Basically, DK tanking requires that you pay attention to what is going on around you and adapt when necessary. This is not an easy task. Thus, there really is no perfect rotation.

Most of the time it will run on priorities.

Priorities will be things like, keeping diseases up, DnD down, diseases spread to all mobs, top aoe or single target damage when it is up, rune strikes when they are up and a runic power dump when all of those other things are satisfied.

Remember, rotations are easy when you don't miss. The closer you are to hit cap and expertise soft cap, the easier it becomes.

Improved Icy Talons vs Windfury

Improved Icy Talons will increase the melee haste of your raid by 20%. However, it is generally agreed upon that this is a waste of 6 points in the frost tree. Why? Because Shaman's totems affect everyone in the raid and thus, it is a complete waste of points when a raid can bring one shaman who drops the one windfury totem. And no, Icy Talons and Windfury do not stack. Haste has been improved for DK's but it is still not a stat you should actively go after until you get threat capped.

Useful Macros

For tanking, the most useful macro you can have is one that Macro's in Rune Strike. What it does is it will light up rune strike if it is available while doing the other ability.

Code:

#showtooltip

/cast Blood Strike

/cast !Rune Strike

Just replace "Blood Strike" with whatever ability you want to combine with. Be careful, however, as this DOES make it easier to keep doing Rune Strike as much as possible, it will drain your RP. So if you have to keep RP back for IBF, mind freeze, or Unholy Blight for those adds you are expecting, this could make your life more difficult.

You can find more Death Knight Macros here at WoWWiki. Some of these have uses.... others I think are a waste. They are here if you want them though.

GEAR

Tanking Runes

Ideally, Rune of Swordshattering is the best avoidance wise. Its 4% to parry is the best avoidance you can get in a single rune.

Rune of Stoneskin Gargoyle gives you 25 defense skill and 2% health. 25 Defense equals 1% dodge, 1% parry and 1% miss. This rune, like swordshattering, is NOT effected by Diminishing Returns. Let me repeat that. BOTH SG AND SWORDSHATTERING ARE NOT EFFECTED BY DIMINISHING RETURNS.

However, remember that if you use SG you’ll only get "extra" avoidance over and above what you would normally have at 540 defense if you stay above 540 defense. Ie, if you use the SG just to hit 540, you would have the same avoidance as anyone else at 540 without a rune on their weapon. Someone with 540 defense and rune of swordshattering would have 4% more parry then you, thus they would have more avoidance. However, if you have SG and can keep your defense at 565, then you would have only 1% less avoidance then the former.

Other points to remember: Swordshattering is parry, so it works only when your facing the mob, where as SG gives you miss, which function in all directions. Dodge does not function in all directions, it only does so for Mobs. Some use SG to regem for threat. If you want to go in that direction, remember you have to keep your defense at 565 if you want to be as close in avoidance as 540 with swordshattering.

Rune of Stoneskin Gargoyle is good if you want to swap out some pieces of gear. Its also helpful for new tanks trying to reach the def cap. SG is only as good as what you put with it to regear or regem. The comparison most people make is that it is 1% avoidance vs 2% stamina. However, what they don't tell you is this comparison is made at two different defense levels. Its actually 1% avoidance at 540 defense vs 2% stamina at 565 defense. The rune does free up some gear so if you can make up the difference and it works for you, go with it.

Rune of Spellshattering is not an option just yet as the content has not warranted its use yet. It is situational at best, and if a DK needs it all a raid needs is a soul shard to summon him back from his Death Gate. With the addition of patch 3.3, there is now a 1 handed version of this rune.

Stat Priorities

Defense to at least 540 should be the priority of any tank.

After that, Tanks should gear for avoidance and threat, all while trying to increase effective health.

Stamina is the name of the game for effective health. In your quest to hit def cap, then respective hit and expertise caps, you should constantly be trying to find more stamina when you can. Because all the avoidance and mitigation in the world isn't going to help you if you can't take a few hits.

Other then that, Strength is also important. For Death Knights, it's important for a couple of reasons. The first being it will increase your damage. Remember, more damage equals more threat. The second is that it will increase your chance to parry through deflection.

Maxing those should keep you busy. I guess if your looking for something else it would be agility, which ups dodge and crit, but it should not be a priority in any way.

Stamina vs Avoidance

One of the arguments in the tanking circles that rages back and forth is stamina vs avoidance. Specifically, is stuffing all available gem slots with 41 stam gems and enchanting for stam better then using avoidance gems?

There are a few things to keep in mind here when considering gearing choices such as this.

More Stamina does not make you a better tank. The only thing more stamina does is provide you with more hit points which gives healers more room for error and the time to get those larger heals off. A tank that values stamina over avoidance also would take more damage which can test healers mana reserves.

Avoidance (or hit/expertise, depending on how you gem) does make you a better tank. Avoidance decreases the amount of damage you take in the form of missed attacks. Hit and expertise increases threat so DPS can hit harder. However, without enough stamina, a bad string of avoidance or a few lucky hits can wipe the raid. Not to mention you shrink that margin of error so healers may be using shorter, less mana efficient heals and run the risk of OOM from sheer volume.

My point here is one is not better then the other. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. There is no way to quantify (for a numerical comparison) stamina other then the max hit points a DK has. The best geared tanks will be ones that strive for balance over one side or the other.

Glyph Selection

Minor Glyphs
[Glyph of Blood Tap] - Very useful, especially for tanking. Being able to call on a blood rune without penalty is very nice. For dps this is less of a concern.
[Glyph of Horn of Winter] - Extra 60 seconds means less refreshing.
[Glyph of Pestilence] - Easily the most useful minor glyph. 5 extra yards on Pest is a godsend for AOE tanking or dps.

[Glyph of Raise Dead] - Generally not useful for tanking.
[Glyph of Death's Embrace] - Not extremely useful. Unless you have an elaborate macro where you cast Lichborne then Death Coil on yourself.... at that point I think its just reaching. But if its something you do often, have at it.
[Glyph of Corpse Explosion] - Becoming more useful for dps. Also helpful for AOE tanking that uses CE.

Major Glyphs
General
[Glyph of Dark Command] - Generally considered a waste of a glyph. If you aren't hit capped it is useful, but once at the hit cap, this glyph does essentially nothing
[Glyph of Rune Strike] - Excellent glyph for increasing threat. Blood tanking finds the most use, and some Unholy.
[Glyph of Death and Decay] - Extremely useful tanking glyph. 20% more damage on an ability that already has a 1.9 threat modifier means more threat for free. Less useful for DPS as there are better glyphs for more damage.
[Glyph of Disease] - Use of this glyph saves the DK from having to reapply disease every 15 secs. Useful for shaving GCD when multi-mob tanking.

Frost Tanking Specific
[Glyph of Frost Strike] - Great for Frost tanking (additional threat) and DPS. Less RP used translates to more of these strikes, RS or whathaveyou.
[Glyph of Icy Touch] - Increases damage of frost fever by 20%
[Glyph of Obliterate] - Any build (not just frost) that relies heavily on Obliterate will find this glyph useful. Great for tanks and DPS.
[Glyph of Unbreakable Armor] - Increases the armor bonus gained by this ability by 30%
[Glyph of Howling Blast] - Similar to glyph of disease as this will shave GCD's by not having to apply FF then spread it with pest.
[Glyph of Icebound Fortitude] - This makes IBF reduce 30%, regardless of defense skill (which increases it). It is not added to the defense amount. With this glyph is 30% (provided by glyph) OR 40% (provided by defense) whichever is higher.

Blood Tanking Specific
[Glyph of Death Strike] - 1% more damage based on runic power up to 25%. Since the buffs to DS, this is a good glyph if your build relies on DS over OB.
[Glyph of Rune Tap] - Extra healing is never bad. Extra healing on the entire group means more threat for the tank, divided among the mobs of course. Good for tanks that like using Rune Tap.
[Glyph of Vampiric Blood] - 5 seconds helps keep this active longer. Less useful then glyphs that bump threat but still viable.

Unholy Tanking Specific
[Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell] - Increased AMS by 2 seconds. If you need it alot (Sarth3D) this one can be useful.
[Glyph of Bone Shield] - Hands down the best glyph in slot for any Unholy Tank.
[Glyph of Plague Strike] - Good for unholy tanks and unholy dps that actually use PS. Now that PS hits harder, this makes appying the disease more desirable.
[Glyph of Scourge Strike] - Used to be very powerful, but now just extends diseases.
[Glyph of Dark Death] - Good for not just Unholy DPS, but tanking as well. Heavy Unholy builds use Death Coil as a rune power dump, so increasing damage will also increase threat.
[Glyph of Unholy Blight] - Increases damage of UB for more threat.

DPS/PVP
[Glyph of Blood Strike] - Not often will you find this useful outside of a PVP setting
[Glyph of Chains of Ice] - Again, mainly a PVP glyph
[Glyph of Death Grip] - It is not often in PVE content that you get a killing blow before the 35 sec cd timer is up anyway. Mainly for PVP.
[Glyph of Strangulate] - Again, good for PVP.
[Glyph of the Ghoul] - Good for PVP and perhaps unholy DPS if you find your ghoul stays alive.
[Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon] - More for DPS utility then tanking as DRW does not add to threat.
[Glyph of Heart Strike] - Mainly Blood PVP utility.
[Glyph of Hungering Cold] - Its HC. For free.

Guide to Tanking Gems (by slot)

The following is a guide to the various gems that are useful for tanking separated by slot color. This way, if you have a piece of gear that has a red and a yellow slot, you can simply index this list and see what gems would be the most useful, depending on your gear selection. Some of the explanations are a bit rudimentary, but for those of you who are having trouble with the pop feature can see quickly what each is about.

Red
[Bold Cardinal Ruby] - +str = more damage (threat) and parry thru deflection
[Flashing Cardinal Ruby] - Less useful due to the harsh DR of parry
[Fractured Cardinal Ruby] - if you are a blood tank and find a lot of this on your gear.
[Precise Cardinal Ruby] - Good way to get expertise capped to add to your threat
[Subtle Cardinal Ruby] - Dodge makes for the best in slot avoidance gem
[Balanced Dreadstone]
[Defender's Dreadstone] - Not the best (parry has harsh DR) but adds Stam as well
[Guardian's Dreadstone] - Stam and expertise for hp and threat.
[Puissant Dreadstone]
[Regal Dreadstone] - Best in slot avoidance/stam gem
[Sovereign Dreadstone] - Str and Stam for threat/hp
[Accurate Ametrine] - Hit and expertise for threat. Great replacement for when you don't need straight +def gems any longer
[Champion's Ametrine] - Str and def
[Etched Ametrine] - Str and hit
[Glimmering Ametrine] - parry and def
[Resolute Ametrine] - str and expertise
[Stalwart Ametrine] - Dodge and Defense make for a potent avoidance gem if you only need a few more points of +def

Blue
[Solid Majestic Zircon] - its added stamina to give healers more room for error. 'Nuff said.
[Balanced Dreadstone]
[Defender's Dreadstone]
[Guardian's Dreadstone]
[Puissant Dreadstone]
[Regal Dreadstone]
[Sovereign Dreadstone]
[Enduring Eye of Zul] - for when you need just a bit more def without sacrificing Stam
[Vivid Eye of Zul] - extra hit and stam

Yellow
[Rigid King's Amber] - Hit rating for more threat
[Thick King's Amber] - Defense rating if you need a bit more to reach the cap.
[Enduring Eye of Zul]
[Vivid Eye of Zul]
[Accurate Ametrine]
[Champion's Ametrine]
[Etched Ametrine]
[Glimmering Ametrine]
[Resolute Ametrine]
[Stalwart Ametrine]

Meta
[Austere Earthsiege Diamond] - One of the best tanking meta gems out there. Easy Gem cost.
[Effulgent Skyflare Diamond] - Good increase in stam and a reduction in spell damage if you expect to take a lot (Sarth3D maybe?)
[Persistent Earthsiege Diamond] - Okay if you find yourself getting stunned alot
[Powerful Earthshatter Diamond] - Better version of the above gem

TANKING ADDONS

First and foremost, you need something to be able to watch threat. For that, there is no better mod then Omen.

Second, you may find it a huge help to have something that helps keep track of runes better. For that I suggest either Simple Rune or Runewatch. I prefer Simple Rune, but Runewatch is a good one too.

Recount is good for keeping track of dps and hps for those times you need to assign people to different tasks.

ENDGAME

See Suno’s excellent thread on raid tanking. There you will find more specialized specs, advice and debate about current end game tanking.

Copy pasta off my post on page 49 in DW thread.

Dual Wielding as a Death Knight
1) Why to Dual Wield.
2) Gearing for Dual Wield.
3) Presences, Gargy, Ghouly and You
4) The Specs and Their Rotations
5) New Ground (Patch 3.08)

1) Why to Dual Wield
Hai, I'm Darklordxenu from (US)Misha. I'm here to give a quick reference guide to all those DK's looking to pump out as much damage as possible, as easily as possible. A quick reference Guide to show you how to DW DPS. DW'ing for Dummies if you will ;). Focused on pre 3.08 specs and handling.

Dual wielding as a Death Knight is currently producing more dps than any 2hd build. Note: This is extremely likely to change as nerfs have been introduced in 3.08 (albeit ineffective as of 10-12-09). It's an extremely simple spec to gear for, and rather fun and easy to play. DW'ing with your Dk will produce tremendous single target dps, as well as extremely competitive AOE dps.

I'm going to cover gear and overall ideas before divulging into the 3 major DW specs; as the gear and overall playstyle for both specs is *very* similar.

2) Gearing for Dual Wield.
To properly gear your DK for DW'ing, you need to hit about 8% hit. Ren was one of the first DK's to show going past 8% hit from gear is pretty much a waste in raw damage. After you get 8%, go for Strength. We have talents to boost it, our fallen crusader, our ghoul, and our gargoyle are all effected by it moreso than AP, and lolkingslol.

After strength, Crit rating is important for Killing Machine Uptime (pre 3.08.) Take expertise, more hit, and haste as they come on gear but *always* gem for strength, excluding the 2 blues you need for the Chaotic Skyflare Meta gem (If you aren't a JC.) As our DW spec is based around critting, 3% more crit damage is the best meta we can get. Armor pen is utter garbage for DK's considering about 30% of our dps is effected by it. Armor Pen is pure garbage for us. Haste will be much more valuable in 3.08 with the way the current implementation of Killing Machine is on the ptr (PPM system.)

As for Weapons and sigils. Currently, Fast/Fast is the way to go for either of the dual wield specs, but 44/27 will benefit from a slow/fast combination. Come next patch, DPS > Speed > Stats with the changes to bloodcaked blade offhand procs no longer triggering mainhand procs. Sigil wise, [Sigil of the Dark Rider] will hold you for now. [Sigil of Haunted Dreams] is DECENT, but next patch, the Icy Touch sigil from Grizzly Hills Daily Tokens (cant remember the name for the life of me) will be the best sigil a DW DK can use.

The best tradeskills to be for a deathknight are JC / BS. Prismatic gems, with 2 extra gem slots. This is rather expensive, so make sure you have some sort of major income to level both up to Northrend levels.

TLDR Version:
Get 8% hit.
Gem nothing but STR.
Starter Sigil is fine.
Chaotic Skyflare Meta.
Weps should be fast / fast or Slow / Fast *only* if 44/27 or DPS discrepancy or 10 or more.
Great Starter DW weps : [Fang of Truth] [Reaper of Dark Souls]

3) Presences, Gargy, Ghouly and You
Numerous tests and parses have shown that Blood Presence outpreforms Unholy Presence by a significant margin in almost every situation. So, use it!

Our DPS as DW comes in a large part from Gargoyle and our Ghoul pet. Thus, a large portion of our threat is not attributed to us. However, the draw back is you have to monitor and baby your pets constantly in order to stay top (or competitive) on the Charts.

Your Ghouly will do anywhere from 300 to 700 of your damage, so take care of him! Randomized Name Here Ghoul, will have about 11 to 14k hp fully raid buffed. That's a decent amount right? Not really. He has No AoE avoidance or mitigation at all. (Changes in 3.08 buff Night of the Dead talent to give ghouly 35% aoe avoidance per point invested.) Thus, you have to watch him like a hawk. If he's taking too much damage, pull him out of the fray and let the AOE heals pick him up back again before commanding him to rip faces once more. Also, on extremely AoE intensive fights like Sapphiron, he'll be pummeled into submission and be near worthless. Get used to it. You're going to get annoyed by it, but at the same time, who can't love a little guy named Ratdrinker?

Summon Gargoyle is the other powerhouse of this spec. Gargy can bump overall dps by 1000 while he's up. He's a monster, that sadly is getting nerfed. (Much needed however.) The way to use your Gargoyle is very similar to the way you use your ghoul. Gargy is fragile as hell, if you pop him out just before a major AoE , he'll get fried faster than chicken at KFC. So be careful with him. However, if there is no aoe to worry about (lolpatches) the best way to launch him is when you have every single trinket / weapon buff up simultaneously. Get an addon that shows when trinket procs are up (Procs off of [Mirror of Truth] and the like). The one I use is needtoknow. The reason to do this, is when Gargy is launched, he takes a screenshot of your stats, and uses those stats for his damage for the entire minute he's out. So if you have 1000ap proc from mirror of truth, 300str proc from Greatness card, and Fallen Crusader proced all at once, thats an extra 3k ap worth of damage he'll be doing for an entire minute, that lasts at most Seconds stacked on you. Learn to proc watch, love it, and watch that dps go HIGH.

TLDR Version:
Use blood presence!
Pet Owns, But be careful with him. He's fragile.
Launch Gargoyle when All your +ap trinket / weapon rune buffs are up.
Get Proc Watch addon like needtoknow to help with better Gargoyle launches.

4) The Specs and Their Rotations
FINALLY! How to spec / what skills to use! There's 3 major specs, I'm going to cover 0/32/39 and 0/44/27 as i have personally Raided as both. I'll give a brief glimpse into 0/20/51 but I'm not entirely sure how the spec rolls out on that one.

4a) 0/20/51
Your rotation is going to be:
IT>PS>BSx2>IT>RP Dump
ITx4>PS>RP Dump
Fast / Fast weapons will be the weapons of choice. As you can see, the spec is built around Icy touch spam, with Ebon Plague Bringer and Unholy Aura for your raid. If there is no other death knight raiding with you, you should be a spec with Ebon Plague bringer in order to help the raid. Sure boomkins and locks can do +13% magic damage, but for us, its a matter of Icy touch or PS, then pestilence and boom, its up on any mob in range; much, much easier for us to do on AoE packs then Boomkins or Locks.

If my rotation or Spec is off for this build, PLEASE let me know. I know very little about this build and am very willing to edit this section ASAP.

For glyphs, Boneshield, Ghoul, and Plague Strike. Getting Icy Touch glyph will hurt this build way too much as nice as it is.

4b) 0/31/40 The standard 0/32/39 is to remove my 1 point in Night of the Dead to fill 2/2 Merciless combat. I prefer at least ONE point in NOTD to keep ghouly up, and it was a dps loss of < 3% overall in raids for 1 point in MC from my parses. However, spec as you like there, its more preference than anything.
Your rotation is:
IT>PS>HB>BSx2>RP Dump
IT>PS>HB>ITx2>RP Dump
Yer RP dump is Death Coil (duh,) and if at all possible, save killing machine procs for howlingblast. Try to avoid using them on an icy touch, unless it pushes back your rotation too far (2 to 3 seconds or more.) Instead of using a touch, dump RP on death coil so you can save KM procs for HB. Simple, easy build.

There are people who use macros to cancel Rime procs so they can maintain a "perfect" rotation. If you're that interested about being top DPS, go through the thread and read it all to understand why. Otherwise, I'd use those rimes for free howling blasts just to make things easier and a little more fun. (WOW that 8k aoe crit was FREEEEEE! Free is always better imo ;). )

This build strongly benefits from fast/fast. However if you have a 140dps slow weap, and a 120dps fast wep, dont be fooled, go for the higher dps wep. Just try to "upgrade" to a faster equal dps wep ;).

Glyphs: Icy Touch, Bone Shield, Ghoul.

4c) 0/44/27
Basically the same thing, but lower ghoul survivability, and a different RP dump.
Your Rotation is:
IT>PS>HB>BSx2>RP Dump
IT>PS>HB>ITx2>RP Dump
Yer RP dump is Frost Strike in this case and DO NOT save killing machine procs. Your RP dump will consume KM procs, so saving them for howling blast will just be a drop in DPS.

Again with the Rime cancel mention...meh. Do as you like ;).

This build slightly, slightly favors Slow/fast due to RP dump relying on % wep dmg. The difference you see from Frost Strike dmg going up, will drop your KM / BCB procs however. So either setup will work fine for this build.

Glyphs: Icy Touch, Frost Strike, Ghoul.

5) New Ground (Patch 3.08)

Currently we don't have a huge amount of people PTR testing everything. We have the helpful few however. It's very hard to call what spec will pull the highest dps in the next patch. Once its clearly established and we have some live realms data, I'll update this ASAP to reflect our knowledge.

As far as we know AS OF TODAY (3.08 patch) DW and 2hd are pretty much balanced out. 10/10/51 seems to be the top. I'll update the thread after 4 or 5 days of time to settle out.

And there ya have it. Quicky How to guide for DW dps. If you have suggestions or need to point out inaccuracies, please please please, PM me so I know to check over here and update / fix anything ASAP. I'll be updating / cleaning this up as much as possible between raids / class.