2H Tanking?

[Suin]

Preface: I am not in a raiding guild, I'm a somewhat casual player, but I've done my best to get myself into some decent tanking gear so I can tank Heroics pretty well.  I was gifted a very nice Titansteel Destroyer  which blows away any 1H weapons I have, so I'm trying to find a good spec to tank 2H.

But I'm just not sure on what kind of a spec I should be using for tanking.  Atm, I'm working with a 27/44/0.  My ideas on that are to have big ol' Obliterates, KM for RC dumps via FS, free HB's every now and then, good armor, some decent "oh shit" buttons, and providing a couple nice buffs to the party.

Problems being that I feel like the shorter diseases (no epidemic) throw my rotation off.  I usually lead with PS, into IT, then BS/BS to get the parry bonus, then OB.  I HB when rime procs, FS when KM procs or I'm full of RP.

I know you guys are mostly lightyears ahead of where I'm at, but still hoping for some advice/suggestions to better my heroic tanking.

[THECames]

Since you are describing a situation that would require what I call "stretch" tanking (i.e. you are not massively overgeared for the job), you probably need to look at a spec with at least 5 in all 3 trees.  There are 3 Tier 1 talents that geared for tanks (Blade Barrier, Toughness and Anticipation).

From there, you probably want to look at both Single Target and AE threat.  From an AE standpoint, either Unholy or Frost builds have some advantage - Howling Blast and Unholy Blight.  3/3 in Morbidity helps as well as it allows you to keep D&D up almost 100%.  Blood is possible but has more of an issue with AE threat.

From there, generally Frost has been considered the easiest for most encounters to get started with.  Lichborne, Frigid Deathplate, and Unbreakable Armor are all there.  Hungering Cold + Deathchill + Howling Blast is a great AE aggro mechanism - for AE packs and only if you go down the Frost tree to the limit.  There are tradeoffs to do this, but this is the stuff you have to consider.  Frost Aura and Acclimation make solid caster tanking capabilities.

From an Unholy Standpoint, Bone Shield is obvious.  On a Pale Horse is normally not considered worth it, but some like it.  Magic Suppression and AMZ are good for caster tanking.  Unholy tends to have more Stamina buffing than Frost, and the ghoul stun can help on non-boss mobs.  Plus he is up a lot for Death Pact (something many forget about).

I would not start tanking as Blood but can I can outline how that to work that as well.

So, I don't want to give you specific tanking specs yet.  But if you are really starting out as a tank (and many of us here are 25 man geared) as indicated by your tanking weapon (it is not terrible but it is hard to judge your "tank gear" via a crafted weapon). 

So, I would not for a 27/44 as you are missing 5% avoidance right off the bat.  If you buff your threat exclusively (which is massively buffed by Frost Presence), you may not have the survivability. 

[Suin]

I'm at work atm, so I cant link my armory...plus I dont remember if I logged off in my "tanking" gear or not.  I'm wearing the Wyrmrest chest, some Heroic drops, mixed with some blacksmithed (high +def) gear.  From memory, I only have 1 slot that has a gem slot so I'm not worrying about that stuff just yet. 

I'm guessing the abom's might is not worth going that far into Blood for with the level of stuff I'm hoping to tank.  I think that (along with Mark of Blood) was my justification for going that route, so I'd have that and Icy Talons going most of the time.  I definitely wanted the 5 (pref 7 for epidemic) in Unholy but I also didnt want to give up the 44 in Frost.

[THECames]

Abomination's Might is a DPS talent.  As you develop tank gear, you can probably back off on the survivability aspects of a tank build and do more dps.  But to start with I would seriously start with the survivability factor.

Mark of Blood is not really all that good for a tank.  It is not horrible but 4% healing the following:

Hit for 1000 - Healed for 40

It is better on AE fights, but basically it can be viewed as a 4% damage reduction 1x per boss fight (2x on a long one).

Something like this build could work - it has 7 points left that you could play around with.  It has Icy Talons and the basic tanking talents from Frost + the other Tier 1 tanking talents.  From where this is, you can adjust some points to put more in survival (Rune Tap or Acclimation) or more in threat (Dark Conviction or Ravenous Dead). These are just examples.  I do not claim this as the best frost tank build.  I am posting this as an example.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=0055020000000000000000000003050505130030112301205101300005200300000000000000000000000

What confuses me is that in your opening post you are describing your DPS choices in a tanking question.  DPS should only be a concern as part of TPS.  Unless you get a wildly out of control dw dk (like me) or an enhancement shaman, you should not have huge issues with TPS unless you are really outgeared.

Edit:  I wanted to add this.  I AM in a raiding guild and use the leftover raid/heroic plate for my tanking set.  I can tank most heroics in my dps build with my tank gear on.  From the description of your tank gear, my tank gear is significantly better than yours.  What you described is similar to my tank gear when we were starting to raid in this expansion.  I think you might be happier with the additional survivability.  Since we run heroics for friends and achievements only, I am being healed by 25 man main healers in their raid healing gear.  I think what my gear and groups can do are a poor comparison to what you might expect.

[Blood]

My job is guild OT for our 10 mans so I focus'd on a build that brought good dps as well as tankability. I'm running a 13/50/8 build that I like very much. Can tank anything and can pull 3500 dps in naxx 10.

Tanking:
Single - IT,BS,IT,BS,IT,IT,IT  FS on KM proc
AOE - DnD,IT,PS,Pest,HB,BB  FS when able
Single with adds - IT,BS,IT,BS,IT,IT,IT  FS on KM proc  HB when adds join

DPS
Single - (start encounter with Blood Tap for death rune) IT,BS,Oblit,Oblit  FS on KM, HB on Rime
AOE - IT,PS,Pest,HB,BB  FS when able

GL
Blood~

[Darkonte]

I'm running a 13/50/8 build that I like very much. Can tank anything and can pull 3500 dps in naxx 10.

Tanking:
Single - IT,BS,IT,BS,IT,IT,IT  FS on KM proc
AOE - DnD,IT,PS,Pest,HB,BB  FS when able...

U cant HB with this specc. Try again :-)

[Hymn]

you just replied to a post from February...and claimed its inaccurate. >.>