Tanking...Feel clunky?

[:1]So after doing some regular's and about to start heroics I experiment with frost and unholy dps and notice that both specs rotation seem very good. Consistent although still priority based and fun to play.

However, while tanking in blood my rotation seem very clunky. With Death Strike creating Death Runes I feel as though I need to be hitting heart strike to build more threat meanwhile I'm losing out on Death strike heal and Blood Shield. So I'm using Death runes to keep blood shield up.

Anyone else find this a little counter productive. If Blizz wants us hitting death strike as our unholy/frost rune dump, maybe Bloodshield would benefit more to be created off Heart strike/Blood strike rather than Death strike.

Thoughts?
I agree with the fact that they should redesign how our Death Runes are created. It feels like it's left over from the days when Blood still had a dps component and you'd spam HS with Death Runes. However, nowadays it seems like threat is a non-issue with RS being usable at all times and what we really have to work towards is survivability. This means more Death Striking and more "wasted" Death Runes.
I just think heartstrike could stand to use something that makes it desirable to use.

I can spec to make blood boil reduce damage done to me by 10%, so sometimes ill toss that in my rotation just to keep the debuff up, but heart strike is just there cuz it's all I can really use, it serves no purpose aside from being a cleave/aggro generator. On bosses I still opt to use deathrunes on death strike just to try and keep my absorbs up as much as possible.

honestly the only thing that feels clunky about it is that the GCD is 1.5s and after playing unholy, transitioning back to that pace is like playing guitar hero on easy after playing on expert for a few hours. You just get impatient at the timing I guess.
Yea I know what you mean about it feeling slow after playing unholy. I was thinking that Heart strike should either apply blood shield or instead of an aoe that does dmg, which breaks cc, putting up the 10% dmg debuff, that it should go onto Heart strike/blood strike.

Feels as though that would save a bunch of headache.
I have to say I love blood tanking. Just comparing it to the rage tanking of druids / warriors. I like a strong opening.
Yes, Blood tanking is unpredictable and really RNG.

It simply feels bad having nothing to do in a mass AoE situation once you've burned up your Blood Runes and Death Runes. You're basically sitting around spamming Death Strikes and Rune Strikes at that point. Then, in a PuG when some idiot decides to start attacking that ranged mob right at the back, you feel powerless as you Dark Command them and all you can do is auto-attack for 3 seconds and hope you get aggro back.

Tanking on my Warrior just feels so solid. Blood and Thunder gives you consistent AoE damage and you've got a mass AoE tuant. You've got a Shield Block on a 30 second cooldown, and your skills don't rely on assuming your healer is decent and saves mana by trying not to heal you over 90%, so your Death Strikes and Rune Taps don't go to complete waste.

On the other hand, single target Blood tanking is fine in my experience. You've got great aggro, great cooldowns, and AFAIK, we have replaced Bear Tanks as having the most 'consistent' survivability I.e. highest base mitigation and stamina. We have low armour, however, which is a concern.

I suggest having a spammable AoE threat drawer, which we can always rely on, like Thunderclap or Swipe. Perhaps Blood Boil could be changed to consume Runic Power instead, which would be great because you have few enough globals to use Rune Strike in AoE anyway, and it feels like Runic Power is banking up for no reason, but we can't do anything to use it up, unlike Warriors.

It's also incredibly frustrating to have to use Blood Boil instead of Heart Strike in 4-5 mob pulls, because you just KNOW that there's a good chance one of your clueless DPSers will attack the mob you're not targetting.
tabbing between mobs is pretty helpful if you're not a lazyass. dk aoe tanking is so easy mode especially with heartstrike and runestrike you should easily hit 200k threat per mob within seconds. then all you have to do is go back to whatever they're killing and add more threat just in case! other than that it's mostly focusing on self healing.

threat shouldn't even be an issue. it's the health spikes and your cd management abilities that make dk tanking fun!
The problem isn't with aoe or holding threat. It's just seems sevverely unpolished still compared to warrior and pally tanking. I've played both and for aoe or single target the rotation are simple as blizz wants it but exciting and challenging where the blood doesn't seem quite there yet.
i'm not sure i understand what you're looking for then =(

the appeal of dk tanking is the freedom to moderate your own mitigation through the rotation of your cooldowns and blood shield. it's not as rigid as other classes since you have a lot of control over your own health.

what would you want to see out of a dk that we don't already have? from what i can tell we have a very unique playstyle. moreso than having a sword and a shield.
Not so much a change to play style but to system mechnics. Like I was trying to say earlier it feels weird to be death striking to create death runes to primarily use them for more death strikes.

Like the one poster said thats more of a leftover mechanic from blood dos the. It is for blood tanking tree.

The idea to solve the problem was make blood shield work off of heart strike thereby giving dks the option, death strike for health or heartening for shield where some situation may lead to one or the other based on health or next mob attack.
If your dps is smart they will dps skull . . a DnD and a pest with a BB or 2 will keep threat on all other mobs easily. Some classes cleave so Tab+RS the ones youre low on threat on and go back to your "rotation."
Threat is NOT an issue for a DK tank.

Blood is unpredictable?
It has a simple priority system.

Debuffs off FF and Scarlet Fever. Right now I see no need for the other disease, whatever its called :D
DS when you drop a chunk of health
You have tons of other self healing that you can pop if youre taking massive damage.
For threat RS when enough RP otherwise HS on any open Blood runes (HS will most often be your most used/damage done ability.)

Keep RP around 70-90 (yes i talented for 130) because if things get hairy Lichborne is your single best option to go from 10% to 100% hp. I am getin around 35-38K per cast. 38K times 3 (120 rp) is a LOT of self healing. And it lasts 10 secs, so you can get in a Horn/DS to get 2-3 more after the initial burst heal.

After first 10-20 secs of a pull you should have enough RP to pop off enough RS to NEVER drop single target threat. I can stop all dps on most heroic bosses at 60% and still not get pulled off. I am seriously considering going WAY under hit/exp cap (as i am both) because i feel like i have too much threat atm. This WILL change as DPS get better gear, because all DPS is limited by the blue gear atm. Havent seen anyone above 14K in any run yet.
I am not ranting nor am I boasting. I am in love with how the DK tanks are atm. I am usually at 2000 to 2500 HPS overall in heroics. Thats almost 3K HPS that the healers dont have to waste mana on.
We wont see the true power of blood shield mitigation till we get to higher level gear where we can get past crappy 12% Mastery. But after talking to some of my healers I am seeing a pattern evolve. DK tanks take less damage or appear to take less damage and therefore require less healing.
The death knight itself is a very different class from all others. No other tank has as much control over what happens to them as a blood DK. (Im leveling a prot pally and it looks like they will have some decent self healing as well.)
I think thats why I really liek to play my tard . . I actually like all 3 specs, how many people can say that about their class? I'm sure some changes will come as we progress further into cata, but right now there should be no complaints. Hero class indeed.

I agree with whatbyou are saying but the problem isn't threat. I've not had problems holding threat. Maybe it just feels like my health bounces around so low and high because healers are still I wrath easy mode thought and/or dps keep taking dmg by standing in the wrong spot.