I get so nervous while tanking

[:1]Blood leaves me with the feeling that if I so much as look away to sneeze while tanking, I'll die. I always feel like there's some poor healer sitting somewhere in the world having heart palpitations over my health bar. Does anyone else feel this way? And why wasn't it like this in WOTLK, where I felt powerful?
Coincidently, death runes make me mad as well.

"No, rune bar, I really did need another DS, not the HS you thought would be awesome."

Yes for the most part when doing general tanking, I do understand that "feeling" of taking more damage and feeling a tad squishier.

But the key is, its just a feeling, rooted from seeing all those big numbers popping into your face, rather than seeing the much smaller numbers that say a paladin or warrior would see, but the thing to remember is all the offsets for it (healing, shielding, cooldowns etc).

Once you get used to the feeling, you eventually realize, that even though DKs aren't turtle tanks you really do not lack survivability, hell if your doing it right, in most content (though i can not speak much for high end raiding content) you actually have more survivability.


*edited for spelling.....I before E except after C..*
In full rotation I am good for up to 4k HpS. This fluctuates by situation of course, but Isdar is correct. We, though a fairly unique class as far as handling damage, are not without survivability. On a related note however, I was lagging out badly in Heroic Deadmines the other day, though I could not cast or xmit into vent I could hear my healer yell "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!". Unfortunately if you are kept from your rotation for too long results in you getting punched in the face with little veritable means of mitigation.

Rotate your cd's and Death Strike your pants off, as your gear and thus mastery increases, the spikes in damage will seem very much lesser.
You should be taking damage... With high levels of mastery you will get your big heals and big blood shields with death strike. I like seeing big hits because I know I can get a nice shield stack going possibly!
As death knight tanks we have much more control over our fates than other tanks. Its all part of the fun, and its a hero class for a reason.