Off tanking Kara - DW or two hander?

[Zakata]

I am tank #2 for my guild and am the usual off tank for our Kara groups runs. While I have always been prot I have come to realize that in Kara a second prot tank is really more of a detriment than a help. It seems to me that the off tank is really only required to tank on attumen, moroes, netherspite and a handful of trash pulls (we havent cleared all of Kara yet so if there are other fights where an OT is needed please by all means let me know.

In light of this I have decided to switch to a primarily DPS role with 15 in prot for defiance, last stand, imp shield block.

My main question is would I be better off going duel wield or 2 hand spec for this OT role (and also what is the most beneficial spec for each of those keeping in mind the 15 in prot).

MY DPS gear at the moment puts me at about 1500 AP, 23% crit, 8% hit unbuffed (still working on it).

My tank gear puts me at 12.1k hp, 12.5k armor, 25% block, 15% dodge and parry (apprx.)
All above stats are while not prot specced.

Oh and in case it affects feed back our current Kara group is usually 2 holy pallies, 2 warriors, 1 hunter, 1 mage, 2 shadow priests, 2 enhancement shammies.

[thugthedum]

I say DW.

Noone is going to get mad at a DW warrior (especially a DW OT warrior) for wanting [item]King's Defender[/item], [item]Spiteblade[/item], or [item]The Decapitator[/item] - but those would be weapons that are very useful to you not only in DW but also tanking (as aggro weapons).

There's just a nice synergy between Fury/DW and tanking if you ask me. Too many Arms talents are all about the 2h; a total waste while tanking. But precision, enrage, death wish, flurry, blood craze, improved demo shout, even improved cleave all have some tanking utility. And many of them are deep Fury, while the "arms tanking" talents are first two tiers (tclap, heroic strike, parry).

[item]Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings[/item] - arguably the Fury cloak in Karazhan, also makes a fine tanking cloak in the right circumstances.

[Alchamire]

I <3 DW FURY! The one thing you may want to keep in mind past Karazhan though, Blood Frenzy is a great DPS increase for your entire raid, but its damn near useless in Kara. I say go DW Fury!

[Arrivan]

As a DW fury warrior, I can quite often place in the top 3 in damage in Kara if I don't have to tank anything. Fortunately I rarely have to tank anything because we have a prot warrior MT and prot pally OT, so I'm brought along purely for damage (with the ability to OT). Yesterday on our run from Curator to chess with several attempts on Shade of Aran, I managed to place second after a very imba hunter (yes, a hunter). </end bragging>

As thugthedum said, fury has a lot of synergy with tanking (imp. Demo. Shout and Commanding Presence to buff Commanding Shout, etc.), however your DPS will have to wait a bit longer to attack if you're tanking something. This shouldn't be a problem though if your target is to be killed after the MT's. You'll also be a great benefit to your enhancement shammys because you can give them improved Battle Shout (and they can give you Windfury =D). So, go DW fury, you won't regret it.

[Stonehoof]

Personally for OT I go for a 33/7/20 build.

that give me alot of the midigation in prot that you need, imp tc, Blood frenxy and the MS debuff for raids, good DPS (if you have a good two hander), and the you still have enough for the base 2 in imp demo

its a great all around warrior build

[Bonerot]

Can you post the fury dw off tank build you were thinking of Zakata?

[Kazeyonoma]

DW fury is definitely the way to go, most of our offtanks go in as DW fury, with the exception of myself and 1 other warrior who will go in no matter what spec we are since we can dps well with our gear alone =P but 17/44/0 is a perfectly fine OT spec for kara as long as your healers are competent.

[Karaja]

If Im going to be running instances heroics/5 mans outside of kara what spec should I lean towards?

[Kazeyonoma]

I think the 17/7/37 build is a nice one, it gives you viability as a tank, and still be useful as an offtank with good SS damage and impale.

[gardek]

I think fury meshes better with prot... A lot of the abilities in fury are pretty useful while tanking as well.

I'd recommend something along these lines: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Bovafett]

I registed here just to post a queston like this then i find this thread >< I'm in the same situation as the OP is and totally agree that 2 prot wars in a KZ raid is a waste. So i want to find the right spec that lets me OT and DPS as well. In the same boat as far as whether to go MS or Fury. I'm leaning more towards Fury right now because i think it can sustain better DPS vs MS. The reason i think this is b/c when i was a MS build it was a 31/30 so i had enrage and flurry so it really worked out well. Now if i go Fury i will be able to go all the way and get Rampage but the only downside i can see to this is the lack of Impale = / Overall i still think Fury would be better due to the fact that alot of the talents in that tree will also add utility to tanking. Here's what i had in mind. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Alchamire]

Just fyi, 17/44/0 spec you can still have Impale with Rampage :P

[Bovafett]

yea but the whole point is me having enough points in prot (15 or 17) in order to be able to successfully offtank in kz ><

[Rak]

I OT Kara with no points in prot. You don't need defiance or imp. shield block if you set up your boss strats around you not having them.