Dual Wielding DKs: Demystifying the Myth.

I think you've missed the point of what I, and others, have been saying. I have in no way been bashing AMiB for using math. I have been bashing him for his extremely poor interpretation of the results.

Look, it was concluded a while back that DW tanking is, mathematically, worse than 2h tanking. This has not been in question. However, it was also shown that DW tanking is marginally worse than 2h tanking, and the difference isn't meaningful in real terms. That's what AMiB is missing.

He's not wrong for using math. He's wrong for forgetting that this math isn't happening in a vacuum, and the goal is results in the game, not mathematical superiority. Using his own math, we can show that DW tanking results in 1 extra parry per minute. I'm not bashing him for any of this data. I'm bashing him for thinking 1 parry per minute is a big friggin' deal, when it's really not.

I'm not thinking "OMG, gotta prove that DW tanking is inferior!" I find the idea of emotional attachment to a particular way of holding weapons kind of silly. If tanking with a fishing pole were ideal, you'd find me out dutifully grinding Kalu'ak rep. But until it is superior, you're not going to see me zoning into raids ready to fish (unless we're slumming it in SSC or ZG, I guess).

We need to clearly quantify the advantages and disadvantages of dual-wield tanking.

The disadvantages and opportunity costs are clear: you will generate more parry-hasted incoming attacks until you are fully expertise capped, you need to be frost, you need to sink at least three talent points into propping it up, and you'll need two tanking weapons at least one of which is slow. (If you're about to reply to say either "Nuh uh!" or "Those don't matter!" stop and keep reading, because we've got about a page and a half of that already.)

The advantages are [?]. Please fill in this blank, with math preferably.

Nobody here (well, not me anyway) is yet saying "DW tanking isn't viable" or "DW tanking is just plain dumb." I am saying that DW tanking has a clearly identified cost in increased incoming damage, as well as a handful of other costs. What does that currency buy?


Also, parting shot:

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Using his own math, we can show that DW tanking results in 1 extra parry per minute.

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Using my own math, we can show that DW tanking results in ~2.7 extra parried attacks per minute, assuming no expertise and a post-3.0.8 rotation. (That's the 18.2 extra parryable attacks multiplied by the 15% parry rate everyone figures bosses have.) The one extra attack per minute assumes a reasonable amount (I forget exactly how much) of expertise and the "Each parry is a 40% speed-up" number, and is Sartorri's estimate. It's a reasonable one, assuming my math is good and the tank has two slow weapons.

Ok, I've gotten a wrong impression, please excuse my harshness.


Nevertheless, I've done some math on this whole runestrike/expertise matter. Long post :p

Assuming an DK with:
10/50/7+4 specc (Annihilation/NoCS)
70% avoidance including 33% parry
3.4 2H / 2.4+1.6 1H
buffed with improved icy talons

boss:
2.0 attackspeed
debuffed with improved frostfever
=> 2.4 attackspeed

rotation is:
PS => IT => 2 BS => 4 HB
runic power is primarily spend on runestrike
=> 9 parryable strikes per minute

If IIT and your own parry-hastened attacks are included, your average 2H attackspeed is roughly 2.2-2.3, resulting in 27 autoattacks per minute.

For DW, I haven't included your parry-hastened attacks for easier math, therefore it is favoring DW. After IIT there are 93 autoattacks per minute.

The boss attacks 25 times per minute, resulting in 18 avoided hits which cause a runestrike.

Due to your average attack speed with 2H being lower then the bosses attackspeed, I presume all possible runestrikes are done, both with 2H and DW.

For 2H: 18 parryable attacks per minute

For DW: 75 parryable attacks per minute


DK without expertise (15% to be parried)
2H => 2.7 are parried => 1.08 additional hits per minute
DW => 11.25 are parried => 4.50 additional hits
=> with DW you recieve 13% additional damage

DK with 20 expertise (10% to be parried)
2H => 1.8 are parried => 0.72 additional hits
DW => 7.5 are parried => 3 additional hits
=> with DW you recieve 9% additional damage

DK with 40 expertise (5% to be parried)
2H => 0.9 are parried => 0.36 additional hits
DW => 3.75 are parried => 1.5 additional hits
=> with DW you recieve 4.5% additional damage

20 Expertise are roughly the same itemvalue as 4% dodge, which, at 70% avoidance would have been 15% less physical damage (special hits included!).


TLDR
Considering mitigation, dodge rating is at least four times better than expertise rating. 2H has the same number of runestrikes (and they are far stronger).
So, in my opinion, DW has higher whitedamage, more killing machine proccs, and the badass look. Everything else favors 2H tanking.

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Originally Posted by A Man In Black

Nobody here (well, not me anyway) is yet saying "DW tanking isn't viable" or "DW tanking is just plain dumb." I am saying that DW tanking has a clearly identified cost in increased incoming damage, as well as a handful of other costs. What does that currency buy?

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Well, yeah, you actually have come off as saying "DW tanking isn't viable", to me, anyway. Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but that is what I'm reading. At any rate, yes, DW tanking has a clearly identified cost in increased incoming damage, this is not denied by anyone. The rest I disagree with, but at least that much is a cost.

Where we diverge here is in our analysis of what that means. You say, no cost is acceptable without gain. I say otherwise, depending on how big the cost is (small, in this case, very small), and how big the gain is (varies from person to person here, since the gain is going to be an intangible, or maybe some extra dodge/parry rating on your weap that you can't get on a 2h... that's just a random thought though, I don't know if that works out to be better or not than the extra stam from the 2h rune).

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Originally Posted by A Man In Black

Using my own math, we can show that DW tanking results in ~2.7 extra parried attacks per minute, assuming no expertise and a post-3.0.8 rotation. (That's the 18.2 extra parryable attacks multiplied by the 15% parry rate everyone figures bosses have.) The one extra attack per minute assumes a reasonable amount (I forget exactly how much) of expertise and the "Each parry is a 40% speed-up" number, and is Sartorri's estimate. It's a reasonable one, assuming my math is good and the tank has two slow weapons.

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That's technically true, but I hardly think it's unreasonable to simplify the number to 1 (specifically, I recall it being ~.8 or .9 if you gem red/colorless sockets for expertise, and ~1.3 or 1.4 if you gem only red sockets with stam/expertise). This is with a fairly reasonable set of 25-man raid gear, no going out of my way to pick up gear with expertise on it (the set is what I would've picked for a 2h tank set as well).

On second read, I think you agree that my interpretation of the numbers is reasonable, but I can't tell for sure, so I'm going to defend it anyway.

My point is, though, that what is preached about DW tanking is that it's completely unacceptable. It's suicidal, and if you do that, you're a complete scrub tank. Well, that may be true depending on what other axioms you accept, but if you don't accept the axiom that you must provide the maximum benefit possible in your role, then it isn't true. At this point, I consider it well-established that it's entirely reasonable to DW tank, as long as you're aware that it carries a very slight downside.

DW tanking is not currently the best (although it may be in the future, as we're dealing with a small difference here, so it's liable to flip-flop a lot as Blizzard tweaks the class, and gear changes over time), and I'm perfectly OK with this. I just want to drive home the point that it's like arguing which spec is the best for DPS - there's technically a best (as there surely always will be), but the difference is very, very negligible.

Edit: And when all is said and done, I think Satorri is right with his/her words on the last page. The thing to do now is to test in-game, and report results. If the disadvantage DW presents truly is a deal-breaker, it will quickly become apparent as we look at data. We're past the point where more napkin math is going to tell us anything new.

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Originally Posted by visualdeity

My point is, though, that what is preached about DW tanking is that it's completely unacceptable. It's suicidal, and if you do that, you're a complete scrub tank. Well, that may be true depending on what other axioms you accept, but if you don't accept the axiom that you must provide the maximum benefit possible in your role, then it isn't true. At this point, I consider it well-established that it's entirely reasonable to DW tank, as long as you're aware that it carries a very slight downside.

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If you have nothing to say for DW tanking other than "It makes me feel special," then it's on par with putting on a DPS piece or caster piece because you like the way it looks better. You probably won't wipe in Naxx for now because of it, because Naxx is srs bsns. But it is pointlessly suboptimal, and no "myth" has been debunked. I'm hoping that I didn't waste my time talking to people who aren't listening, or who cannot even articulate the advantages of their position.

If there are other substantial advantages of DW tanking, we are looking at a completely different situation. In case anyone's not got it yet: SOMEONE NEEDS TO GET ON IDENTIFYING THE ADVANTAGES OF DUAL-WIELD TANKING PLEASE.

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Edit: And when all is said and done, I think Satorri is right with his/her words on the last page. The thing to do now is to test in-game, and report results. If the disadvantage DW presents truly is a deal-breaker, it will quickly become apparent as we look at data. We're past the point where more napkin math is going to tell us anything new.

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I don't think much will come of Satorri's project, due to participation bias, a small data set of relevant data, and the vast amount of noise that must be filtered.

We need a bunch of WWSes of DWing DKs to have the raw data to work with. Problem is, the consensus among most theorycrafting communities (this one included!) is that it's suboptimal. So, you'll need DKs either willing to risk being suboptimal for the sake of science, or DKs willing to be suboptimal because they think it's cooler. The latter group is going to be less inclined to submit unsuccessful WWSes, particularly ones where wipes were caused because they caught the golden BB between the eyes. I doubt the former group exists.

We need a fight that has high damage to the tank (so failure is catastrophic, since "stressing the healers unduly" is hard to measure with WWS) and parryhaste. That's two/three-drake Sartharion and Malygos. Naxx doesn't really have that fight; assuming your raid isn't full of firestanders the main risks in Naxx are failing DPS checks due to death, the tank getting bursted down by non-parry-hasting bosses, or the healers going OOM on endurance fights. Enraged Faerlina might be enough, although I'm not sure if she parry-hastes. Other bosses parry-haste, and this may cause wipes directly or indirectly, but it's going to be very hard to filter that out of the noise.

Which brings us to the next problem. Assuming we somehow have a large body of homogenous data on relevant bosses, we need to dig into WWSes to find a hasted attack that was clearly caused by the tank. Since the really easy-to-analyze fights with little movement (Maexxna, Patchwerk) don't have parryhaste because the bosses are melee beaters, we'll need to dig for parry-hastes that resulted in tank death. Naxx doesn't have a lot of fights with high melee damage to the tank AND no melee DPS movement that can result in melee parries AND parryhaste, so we'll have to filter a lot of noise (including many wipes with unclear reasons). Additionally, close calls won't ever be obvious; a 95% spike that causes a raidhealer to move to the tank and an unhealed raid member to die causing a chain of events leading to a wipe isn't ever going to be obvious from a WWS.

Small wonder assembled WWSes are only rarely used to prove anything.

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Originally Posted by A Man In Black

You probably won't wipe in anything ever because of it...

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Fixed that for you. The numbers we're dealing with here are so small that even with insanely hard content, you are simply not going to be wiping much due to this problem. The stars have to seriously frickin' align for you to wipe because of one hit per minute (which, I might add, is only going down in the future, as our gear gets better).

You're making this ludicrous argument that small numbers like we're speaking of here are ever going to mean anything in the end. It's stupid. You can tank damn effectively as frost or unholy spec, even though there's a small difference between them. Tanking as 2h or DW is the same exact scenario.

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Originally Posted by A Man In Black

In case anyone's not got it yet: SOMEONE NEEDS TO GET ON IDENTIFYING THE ADVANTAGES OF DUAL-WIELD TANKING PLEASE.

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I don't think you're ever going to understand this, and I don't know why I bother trying. But let me remind you again: almost no one gives a damn about theoretical best performance, because it's almost never necessary. Hell, as I said before, the hardcore min/max theorycrafting I've seen says that DKs are non-optimal tanks, which, if true, renders your entire argument even more pointless! If a min/max raid isn't going to allow a DK to tank anyway, we hardly need to discuss ways to min/max a DK.

Regardless, we're talking about a difference that is so small that it will never, in the foreseeable future, make a dent in your raid's success or failure. Pretty much any other conceivable factor will be bigger than this: the random number generator, you messing up your button press when you reach for the IBF button, people not remembering to not stand in the fire, someone getting held up at work and not being able to raid, whatever.

As I keep trying to get through to you, you're completely missing the forest for the trees. Yes, dual wielding is sub-optimal. SO WHAT? It doesn't matter. It's sub-optimal by a small enough margin that you can pick whichever the hell you want and perform well, just like a talent spec. That's ALL that matters, and it's all that ever did. You analyze numbers in a vacuum, while refusing to remember that those numbers are only meaningful insofar as they affect your raid's performance... which they aren't, unless your raid is so exceptional that their wipes aren't caused by F-ups, and they're doing content way the hell harder than anything that is or probably will be in Northrend. You're talking about stuff in an "all else equal environment", which, as Blizzard has been happily reminding us lately, is almost never the case.

The myth has been handily debunked, however much you wish to protest to the contrary. The myth was not merely that dual wielding was sub-optimal. It was that dual wielding was so hopelessly sub-optimal that no tank with half a brain would ever do so, it was that dual wielding was as stupid as a warrior trying to tank without a shield. This has been neatly shown to not be the case. It's within the range of performance that any reasonable raid leader would allow to accommodate personal preferences. Nobody needs to "show" anything any more, unless it's to show that somehow, all of this napkin math doesn't hold water in the real game.

VD, this is your umpteenth post saying, "Well, it doesn't matter." I'm not sure why you're going on about theoretical optimization not mattering in Tankspot's theoretical optimization forum, or in a thread whose OP is "theorizing about the possibility that DKs dual wielding can potentially be as good if not superior", but whatever makes you happy. I guess.

Anyway. Some mathless theory.

DW DPS works on the quartet of Howling Blast (since every other UF spam is weapon-based), Killing Machine, Necrosis, and Blood Caked Blade. KM and Necrosis (due to the latter's ability to double-dip crit) both benefit disproportionally from crit. Additionally, the higher soft hit cap of dual-wielding and the greater haste benefit mean you can get more DPS out of the gear you have to use.

Now, there's no reason you can't fit the HB and Necrosis into a tanking build, and they serve ably there. (Necrosis even benefits from Rune Strikes' extra damage.) But BCB and KM aren't nearly as potent, because you lack the crit of a DPSer, and you likely won't have excess hit or any haste.

So all of the things that make up for the weaker weapon strikes aren't there.

So I can't see how the advantage is more threat/damage, unless there's some major thing I'm missing.


Going back a bit in the thread:

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Originally Posted by Sartorri

As for Berthold's simulator, the problem is it's a passable thing for a Warrior, but it neglects some very key features that DK's have and Warriors do not. Warriors use all physical/melee abilities. With the exception of Revenge all of which are subject to parrying, and their auto-attack does not change so it is a constant baseline for that (and a noticeable one since Warriors traditionally use fast fast tank swords ~1.5 sec swing speeds).

DK's have several complicating features that make it a lot harder to simulate casually. Rune Strike is unparriable, and replaces a melee swing (reducing the baseline vulnerability). It also causes DK avoidance to have a double or half-again impact (your avoidance saves you one hit and your next melee swing is not vulnerable to parry haste). On top of that, depending on the spec, weapon choice, and even just the player's in-combat play, you use a mix of parriable melee moves and non-parriable spells. In my admittedly cursory consideration I still noticed a very distinct part that these abilities play in the parry haste equation.

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I'm fairly sure that Berthold's simulator incorporates all of these things. In fact, he was even called on this, and adjusted the numbers, discussing the adjustments here and showing the results here. You're seeing fairly significant chances to get bursted unexpectedly, at least until the math goes all wonky because auto-attack hit + special ability hit is a wipe on its own.

why is everyone ignoring my reply?

i finally give REAL proof that dual wielding has increased my tps to around 5000 tps, sometimes higher sometimes a bit lower. This is in 25 men raids. We have everything on farm. Thats why i took the effort of posting my experience. But if everyone just keeps talking on about "we need real proof etc etc..", you will get no where...

happy new year btw :P

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Originally Posted by arthoer

why is everyone ignoring my reply?

i finally give REAL proof that dual wielding has increased my tps to around 5000 tps, sometimes higher sometimes a bit lower. This is in 25 men raids. We have everything on farm. Thats why i took the effort of posting my experience. But if everyone just keeps talking on about "we need real proof etc etc..", you will get no where...

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comparing those 2 swords with the titansteel mace is kind of retarded. Since i dont have a very good two hander with 200dps or more i can't give a perfect comparison for you guys.

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It was admittedly flawed anecdotal evidence, and I assumed that somewhere in there you picked up a bunch of new raiding experience and upgraded from level 78-80 blues to Naxx25 epics. (Also, "increased my tps to around 5000 tps" strikes me as a bit incredible.)

Now, if you had some inkling why dual-wielding was a major part of that threat increase, that'd be helpful.

a reply! :D

My comparison is made with the gear i have. The only thing i swapped in the past 2 weeks is the titansteel mace with the 2 one handers. and some gems, thats it. So the gear i have is the only gear i ever got. The only difference the item level of the mace, its a little lower then the 2 one handers.. but just a little.

I have been clearing naxx25 and 10 for 2 weeks now, 1 week with the twohander and this week with the dual wielding. Ofc i cant give a perfect result, since other raidmembers have gotten better gear aswell since last week, and maybe a few debuffs more or less on the boss. But i think you can neglect that.

About the 5000 tps, it is true, i can make screenshots with omen addon if you want. Keep in mind though, thats with raiding 25 men, it decreases when raiding 10 men and on heroics its quite low, around 2500 -3000 tps.

The biggest threat increase comes from proccing killing machine. I have a base crit of 10% unbuffed, in raid that increases to around 15 or so. Next to that, a big increase in tps comes from spamming howling blast and being able to use runestrike every second hit.

If the changes in the upcomming patch become real, i think the tps will be on scale with good warriors. So that would solve the whole tps problem in general. Being able to spamm howling blast and 150% threat increase on RS, is awesome.

some numbers when using the one handers, OUT of 25 raid (not buffed):
runestrike hits for around 1500
howling blast hits for around 2200
icy touch hits for around 800

when using the two hander and using parry gems instead of expertise, OUT of 25 raid (not buffed):
runestrike hits for around 1900
howlingblast hits for around 2200
icy touch hits for around 1300

i have to admit, i am not giving a conclusion to this topic, i just bring a commeners ingame experience :P. With that i hope i can give some others a little more insight on this matter. so dont ask me to wright down math and stuff :P

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again, i think dual wielding is only worth doing if you have the gear. Personally i think i have a good set of one handers, but my general set up still needs improvements. I think if you use blue's you will definatly decrease your tps to a point where its just not accceptable..

A swift comparison, what stands at the sides of both:
DW(frost)
-Not weapon based at all as it has mostly Gear-scaling moves such as HB, IT. Eventhough you'll use PS , FS, RS, and BS in rotation even with lower expertise (than parry-exp.-capped) there is only two attacks of yours which is parriable which are BS and PS. Currently how I looked up on 1H tanking weapons you can get are Slayer of the Lifeless(Gothik and Gluth) and Broken Promise (HC Gluth) , which is fairly a good amount of stamina. Currently Inevitable Defeat seems to be the best DK 2H for tanking, and some more will be added in a future patch. However those have 187 DPS which will can gimp your TPS).The DW combo beats the 2H in Stam, and Dodge.
-While you have to gimp your pure-avoidance for the sake of expertise, a 2H can go for more Stam or avoidance boosting. So in a way you may lose damage mitigation.
Just a short maths about 1% expertise or 1% Parry / Dodge.
At 1st DKs are the only class who gets the most TPS boost from dodging or parrying an incoming attack so we can use RS which is a nice 'burst' agro.
If you have 1% expertise--> It means you can hit the boss roughly 2% more than not having it. 1% less Parry and 1% less dodge occur --> 2% more hit.
Because expertise helps you to avoid parry-haste modified swings it also helps in reducing dmg taken in a way. 1% less chance to parry---> 1% less chance to get an incoming attack 20% faster --> 100% chance to reduce dmg taken by 0.2%.
At the other hand your FS and RS don't get affected by Expertise, so it will work on auto attacks, PS, and BS.
1% parry--> 1% chance to avoid X amount of dmg--> 100% chance to avoid X / 100 dmg Because currently bosses has their Dmg range from A to Z we can't say if it reduces more or less dmg taken from an X boss.
If the boss does 5000 dmg then:
1% parry--> 1% chance to avoid 5000 dmg taken. So if the boss hits you 30 times in a minute it means you parry 0.3 of his attack. As now it's been stated as Avoidance stats are time dependent in a way, we may see less use of it. So if we look at it as a good stat: 1% parry can't be seen in boss fights with less than roughly 1m40sec fights. However there comes the twist! Parry hasted attacks!
Because you may not be parry-expertise capped the boss may parry 14.5-X of your attacks where X is your chance in per cents not to be parried.As most of DKs has 5 expertise what is 1.25% to not to be parried (Correct me if I'm wrong) the boss parries 13.25% of the attacks we made. As DW it can also end in the so-called Parry Death as 2H we are less dangered with this factor however. Back to parry:
If one of the attacks made by you were parried and affects the boss' next attack than you still have 1% parry to negate this. So:
13.25% of your attacks are parried---> It means in a 60 sec time engage with 3.5 speed 2H 17 attacks made--> 13.25% of them was parried -->1,3 of your attacks were parried , which has roughly 70% chance to be in time between 2 swings of the boss.
Also about TPS--> 1% parry is 1% more chance to use RS, which cause 1.6 Threat point after every 1 dmg dealt.
So a sum up:
They are roughly equal. With DW your auto attacks may have a bigger part of your TPS than as 2H, on the one hand a DW tank will be better for TPS, but will have gimped Avoidance -which is compensated- via non-parriable attacks, and a bit more stam than as 2H Tanker.
With 2H Tank you may go for more avoidance and a bit less need on expertise. Your white's will be a lesser part of your TPS as a DW , but you compensate it with your yellows being bigger (At this part I mean weapon dmg based yellows). Also if you don't want to be a Frost Tank, 2H tanking is the best way to go ;)

PS.: The calculations were made by the base of white attacks only. I'll make further calculations to take part in which is the better.

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Originally Posted by arthoer

About the 5000 tps, it is true, i can make screenshots with omen addon if you want. Keep in mind though, thats with raiding 25 men, it decreases when raiding 10 men and on heroics its quite low, around 2500 -3000 tps.

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A WWS would be more useful; DK TPS is more or less proportional to DPS. Omen only polls the last X seconds, so it can have big bursty numbers that aren't indicative.

Also, identical gearing for both styles (save the weapons, of course) would be helpful. Expertise gems may account for much of your threat increase, as it is the best threat stat for any DK of any style.

What about the best button rotation??

My lvl 80 dk is Dual weilding but I have issues with argo any help here please

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Originally Posted by A Man In Black

A WWS would be more useful; DK TPS is more or less proportional to DPS. Omen only polls the last X seconds, so it can have big bursty numbers that aren't indicative.

Also, identical gearing for both styles (save the weapons, of course) would be helpful. Expertise gems may account for much of your threat increase, as it is the best threat stat for any DK of any style.

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what is a wws?
i agree with you that i didnt have the expertise gems when dual wielding. However, its just 2 gems, thats just 40 expertise rating, i doubt that it would give me an 1k extra tps when dual wielding :P
I know that omen is not the very best to give you concrete numbers. But lets just say that in 25men raids i have a tps around 4000 at all times. going down to 3500 and up to 5500. in heroics it drops to 2500, going up to 4000 and down to 2000.

again, i am no scientist, just posting my experience, you can make out of it whatever you want :P

the rotation i use for dualwielding is: icy touch, plague strike, (pestillence), howling blast, blood strike, blood strike (unless howling blast became available again). use runic and howling everytime its available. And keep ice disease up.
Be sure you have full epic gear though, its kind of gear reliant. My killing machine also proccs at almost every second rotation.

I have a separate post (with a copy of something I posted above) describing what WWS are and how to record one, along with an express request for dual wield DK tanking reports.

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Originally Posted by arthoer

what is a wws?
i agree with you that i didnt have the expertise gems when dual wielding. However, its just 2 gems, thats just 40 expertise rating, i doubt that it would give me an 1k extra tps when dual wielding :P
I know that omen is not the very best to give you concrete numbers. But lets just say that in 25men raids i have a tps around 4000 at all times. going down to 3500 and up to 5500. in heroics it drops to 2500, going up to 4000 and down to 2000.

again, i am no scientist, just posting my experience, you can make out of it whatever you want :P

the rotation i use for dualwielding is: icy touch, plague strike, (pestillence), howling blast, blood strike, blood strike (unless howling blast became available again). use runic and howling everytime its available. And keep ice disease up.
Be sure you have full epic gear though, its kind of gear reliant. My killing machine also proccs at almost every second rotation.

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WWS= Wow Web Stats --> You can upload your DPS ... meters there.
About 40 expertise: Yes it can if you aren't on a Howling -based spec. (For example Blood and Unholy Tanks).
Now a Frost tank spell rotation looks like this: (Post 3.0.8 now IT CANNOT BE DONE)
PS-IT-Pestilence-HB-BB // HB-HB-HB --> Multi tanking, base.
Deathchilled HB-PS-IT-Pestilence-BB // HB-HB-HB: Rarely I use this when it's a multi-tanking pull. It gives pretty fair of AoE TPS at start so they won't really go for healer.
PS-IT-BS-BS-HB // HB-HB-HB --> Basic Single Target
IT-PS-BS-BS-HB // HB-HB-HB --> A Basic Single Target, but used more when pulling it.
Advanceds:
Pull - DnD-PS-IT-Pestilence-Empower RW-(Deathchilled) HB-BB --> This is which is very rarely used even by me, every other DK Frost Tanks. Let me say it is the best AoE rotation with imba big insane AoE burst.
FS: Use to dump.
If you happen to have Hungerin Cold, you can also use it if you have 50RP at pull to spare:
Hungering Cold-HB-HB-BB-BB // HB-HB-BB-BB
Well this is a very rarely used way to do Agro, as I myself prefer not to have Hungering Cold. Of Course it's good but I can do it other ways too.

I see a lot of people still questioning what exactly the point of this thread is. Let me restate it:

This thread, in my view, was to open up the idea of dual wielding and it's possible advantages over two handed tanking. It also opens up the floor for anyone to give theory and ideas as to how dual wielding could be potentially as good for tanking as two handed tanking.

If in any area I posted that it may be superior, I have erred in my judgement and will fix this immediately. The point is simply to let people discuss, theorize and stipulate facts about dual wield tanking and to observe if there is a way that you can still dual wield tank without absolutely destroying your raid. So far, the only place I have found where Dual Wielding would be sincerely in trouble of getting a tanking spot is in a min/max situation on a fight where one parry gib will kill you without a doubt and you are required to avoid the attack.

Again, people need to realize this: A parry gib attack CAN BE DODGED OR PARRIED. Which means our avoidance plays into the parry gib nicely. Sure, your mob parries your attack and then swings, but that still gives you a good 65% avoidance for that parry gib. Yes, you do have 35% of a chance to get hit, and yes, it will probably make your healers go what in the hell was that spike, however, chances are you will have some buttons ready for that situation.

As a tank, not only is it important to watch your own threat, but it is increasingly more important to watch your own health as well. And once that health becomes a very dangerous number, this is where you must hit your abilities. And in essence, this is what they are changing in 3.0.8 for abilities to reflect: oh S$#T buttons for situations where you will take increased damage. If you see your health spike down to levels you're not comfortable with (And I'm usually not comfortable sitting at anything lower than 40%), that's when you hit your IBF and hope your healers can hit that potential heal they have to throw at you because of the gib.

Fact:

- Dual wielding, until expertise capped, does have severe risks of parry gibbing and causing spike damage that can potentially wipe your raid when you get killed because of it.

- HOWEVER: DKs are avoidance tanks, just like druids. They rely on their armor and avoidance to mitigate damage, and as such, can easily get a strong avoidance number to avoid the said parry gib.

It really doesn't take math to explain this. Common sense is how this thread started as I have a weakness when it comes to Math in any shape or form. (Let's face it, I will admit that I have yet to really push any type of math for my theory. I just moreso hashed out information that is well known.)

If anyone pushes math forward, then I'm all ears to read the math. There's a reason why I don't necessarily go to EJ much due to the insane amount of math that they use to theorize an idea. I rather approach this as the simple common sense route.

Now, everyone has the right to their opinions folks, keep it civil. Even if some people do not agree with the concept, that doesn't give you the right to tell them that they're wrong and they're blind to the light or whatnot. They are trying to get the same thing you are: Information about a subject in which they are curious about either debunking or finalizing to finish of the debate that's been going.

However, at the same time, everyone needs to remember what exactly a THEORY is:

An educated guess to a question asked.

Think of this as a group essay that everyone is contributing so a book could be written about it. Both pros and cons must be listed, and many people have different views. This shines the light on EVERY aspect of Dual wield tanking. At this point, we must take every bit of information and analyze it carefully.

Do we have the tools to properly test it? Probably not, not enough fights in the game right now are very challenging and can really make or break your fight. (Even Sarth 25, 3 drakes really. Although it could be contested that this could potentially be a make or break fight considering the intensity of heals needed through all the phases.)

EDIT:

I saw where it was hinted that it could be superior, and I fixed it in the OP. Many apologies. DK Dual Wielding can potentially come to be on par for tanking, but I'm not going to say it's superior until we have concrete proof about it. So there, fixed that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonypablos

Again, people need to realize this: A parry gib attack CAN BE DODGED OR PARRIED. Which means our avoidance plays into the parry gib nicely. Sure, your mob parries your attack and then swings, but that still gives you a good 65% avoidance for that parry gib. Yes, you do have 35% of a chance to get hit, and yes, it will probably make your healers go what in the hell was that spike, however, chances are you will have some buttons ready for that situation.

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Quote:

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- HOWEVER: DKs are avoidance tanks, just like druids. They rely on their armor and avoidance to mitigate damage, and as such, can easily get a strong avoidance number to avoid the said parry gib.

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Any DPS will tell you, the best protection is never being in the place to take the hit. While a parry-hasted attack can be parried or dodged, but it can also hit. If the parry-hasted attack never happens, then there's no need to avoid it and no chance to not avoid it.

"Avoidance tank" doesn't mean taking attacks is more acceptable; in fact, due to the naturally unreliable nature of avoidance, it is less acceptable. Avoidance tanking is always going to be vulnerable to the golden BB of X hits in a row, where X is more than you can possibly survive. Increasing the chance that you take an out-of-sequence hit only makes the golden BB more likely.

If dual-wielding had a significant avoidance advantage, we'd have an entirely different situation. It doesn't (or at least nobody has shown one).


Right now, there doesn't seem to be any dispute that there's an increase in incoming damage when dual-wielding. This is not the end of the world for dual-wielding; heck, there's a recommended prot warrior build on the front page recommending 2/5 Shied Specialization for most situations, which is an indisputable increase in incoming damage.

We need to identify, clearly, what advantages, if any, dual-wielding has. At the moment, the only identified advantage is the increased amount of def rating on traditional 1h tanking weapons, making hitting 540 a tad easier pre-3.0.8.

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Originally Posted by veneretio

I'm not seeing the massive dual wield HIT penalty discussed at all. How will that affect things?

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I believe that part of the reason that hit is not discussed is for two reasons

DK (afaik) threat is based mostly on special attacks which are yellow damage. Yellow damage attacks are not subject to the huge 19% penalty associated with dual wielding.

Still, you would have to gem or enchant to make the cap for special attacks(is it 8 or 9%). After all of that, THEN you have to worry about getting parry gibbed and avoidance. I seriously cannot see a DK wanting to tank as a dual wielder. It's just one of those things that COULD be done, but is not necessarily a good idea.

I CAN go take a leak on an electric fence. That doesn't mean I want to.