Dark Knight : Just another mitigation tank

[Asierid]

Blood DK is also a mitigation tank that happens to heal. Just because DS heals or it runs on runes doesn't automatically make the tank something special. There are passive that allow for mitigation more than there are heals.

Anything that uses leeches/heals to sustain themselves with no sort of mitigation is just asking for failure. WAR 2.0 is an example of this.

[Duelle]

Blood DK is also a mitigation tank that happens to heal. Just because DS heals or it runs on runes doesn't automatically make the tank something special. There are passive that allow for mitigation more than there are heals.

Anything that uses leeches/heals to sustain themselves with no sort of mitigation is just asking for failure. WAR 2.0 is an example of this.

Indeed. The main problem with 2.0's WAR is that it had self heals as the sole way to stay alive instead of being part of a bigger tank model. This is something that was also repeatedly brought up in the tank forums because we knew that WAR was screwed unless it had some mitigation ability at the baseline. Self-heals are nice as part of your kit, but not as the only thing that makes you a tank.

It'd be as if Blizzard had designed Death Knights entirely around Death Strike's self heal and removed Blood Shield (the effect that Inner Beast's damage reduction was based on), Bone Shield and Icebound Fortitude.

Blood death knights in WoW used to be like that.

It was awful.

Well, I remember 3.0 Death Knights had to rotate cooldowns to make it through a fight. DKs came into their own once Blood Shield was introduced (they had to sacrifice my beloved Blood DPS spec to make it happen, but I can't argue with the results).