Speculation

So a couple of nights ago a few guildies and I were chatting in vent about World of Welfare, as it's rapidly becoming, and WLK. Our general consensus was that WLK was closer than people think - all this new badge loot (see www.worldofraids.com), nethers and vortices becoming unbound, 25s dropping badges, extra tier tokens, and more gold, pvp gear being purchasable with tier tokens, new awesome craftables, and the new easy epics from Magister's Terrace all seem remarkably similar to patch 2.0, when people dropped raiding to get all this awesome new pvp gear. I'm anticipating a lot of trouble in guilds that aren't already in T6 content when 2.4 comes out - people who raid for loot are gonna say, well, I could spend all this effort raiding, wiping, learning bosses, buying consumables and paying for repairs... or, I could run heroics and kara, pvp, and make craftables, and finish with better gear. Then they're gonna not show up to raids, and when they get called out about it, they're going to leave and join a guild that doesn't care if all they want to do is pvp and farm badges. Despite what I think is going to happen with this, Blizzard seems to want to rush people into BT/Hyjal - lifting attunements, making awesome gear easily obtainable - before WLK, which is fair enough, they don't want this stuff to be the Naxx of TBC, where only one or two guilds per server even get inside. And honestly, I think that guilds that can survive losing people to welfare epics in 2.4 will be the better for it. If you have a large core of extremely dedicated people, who raid for progress not loot, then if you lose a few fringe members you can recruit some more who will likely be more dedicated.

Anyway, I think that the fact Blizz seems to be pushing for guilds to get into T6 stuff means that WLK is close.

So this got me to thinking about DKs, in respect to tanking. What specialty role are they going to fill? All the other tanks have a role, so to speak, that they fill in a raid, so I wonder how the new class is going to fit in.

Warriors - Best all-round tanking class. Somewhat superior anti-magic defenses. Can interrupt, is easily uncrushable on most bosses, and has several 'ohshit' buttons.
Druids - Best offtank or hybrid. Can switch roles midfight. Superior physical mitigation; is completely crushable but makes up for it in raw hp/armour. Cannot parry but high dodge makes up for it.
Paladins - Best AoE tank. Can pick up a theoretically infinite amount of mobs, although too many and they start getting behind him and stuff. Can pick up large groups of mobs that have recently spawned by healing (see: morogrim), can pick up groups of mobs that are being bottlenecked through a small doorway (see: dragonhawks in TK), et cetera. Also has higher threat generation and can generate threat at 10 yards instead of melee to an extent, and has a ranged Taunt spell, which makes the paladin tank suited for bosses like Leotheras. On the downside, has very strict requirements for being uncrushable (but has more charges on their Shield Block), and is extremely gimped in fights that don't deal them a high amount of damage, because Spiritual Attunement is inferior to rage.

So where do Death Knights fit in? Perhaps they have better anti-magic tank abilities than the Warrior? (Heavy-armour anti-magic tank class... INQUISITOR! *hearts in eyes*) Although, for a boss that deals mostly magic damage as a general rule a Warlock or Mage (on gimmick fights like HKM or IC) tanks it, sometimes in resist gear. They won't have the bluerage problem as they have the rune system, but at the same time they won't have the benefit of rage. Managing runes while tanking will be an interesting task - like, perhaps, you need to save one Unholy rune every 6 seconds to keep yourself uncrushable, and at the same time you need to manage your other five to maximise your threat generation. Perhaps they will have superior threatgen to any other class, making them a good MT for bosses with enrage times or the first add to go down. It'd be interesting to see guilds with two primary main tanks, a Warrior for the ones that hit really hard and a DK for the ones that hit less hard but must must must be killed before X time is up. Perhaps they will be immune to stuns, fears, knockdowns, disorients, etc, to a lesser extent. Who knows.

What I do know is I'm looking forward to seeing their abilities and talent trees as the day of WLK draws closer. And, if I like what I see, I'm looking forward to socketing Solid Eyes of Northrend in my offhand Blade of the Frozen North as I prepare to tank Malygos next Saturday.

(Disclaimer: I made that all up. Except Malygos, he's in).