Tanking Like A Boss

Anyone who knows me knows I've bounced back and forth between two "mains": A Demonology Warlock for DPS, and a Blood Death Knight for tanking.  Which I play more has largely been dependent on what my guild has needed; I've almost never main-tanked on the DK, but there's been several instances where an off-tank was needed, and that's where she would shine.

Enter MoP, and the release of the infamous "lock-tank" glyph, Glyph of Demon Hunting.  Great rejoicing could be heard throughout the lock player base, though many were skeptical.  Could a single glyph really provide us with what we've all wanted for so long, namely a way to be able to fill both roles, and still get all the lovely lock loving we've become accustomed to?

In a word, no.  As the link shows, Glyph of Demon Hunting does a few things: Provides a new stance that gives you several damage mitigation buffs; changes your Soulshatter into a taunt; and changes your Shadow Bolt into an instant-cast Demonic Slash.  My experimenting with it during the new Theramore scenario showed that, while I certainly held threat over my fellow DPS, I was next to useless without a healer backing me up.  I suppose I just hadn't discovered the proper rotation for "lock-tanking", as I know there's a couple of spells to leech HP off a target, but I just don't see myself holding my own in a 5-man or raid like my DK does.  I'd say the other downside to this glyph is that it only works for Demonology specs, but since I play that almost exclusively anyway, it doesn't really affect me.

All that aside, I'm definitely going to play the crap out of this.  My favorite thing to do on my DK is fill in as "emergency tank".  Since I absolutely hate tanking PUGs, I usually queue as DPS when I'm running randoms on her, ready to swap over to Blood spec if I see the tank go down, in order to attempt to avoid a wipe; a good 95% of the near-wipe scenarios I've been part of were saved by this, with the other 5% being saved by Raise Ally instead.  Now that I've got a similar ability on my lock, I see the save-style being used a lot as well, especially since I'm already a master at the Soulstone Save.