Dual Wield Frost or Unholy for leveling?

[GhoulTek]

Hello all,

I'm trying to figure out if going with dual wield would be good while leveling. The following talent spec is just an idea of where I would end up at level 80:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The spec is mostly unholy with a small amount of frost and blood talents. Looking forward to the next patch would dual wield be good for leveling or should I be looking at focusing on a specific tree while leveling?

Thanks.

[VerticalEvent]

The only problem I see is that you took a rune generating talent, but didn't take Gargoyle. I see that you are going to have a lot of extra runic power or a lot of unused runes during your fights. Pick up Gargoyle to use when you hit 100 runic power.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This one removed Wandering Plague, as I don't think you are planning on AoE grinding. As well, I put a few more points into white damage abilities, which Dual-Wielders are always looking for.

[Satorri]

Personally, in matters of leveling, I've always been of the mind that it's not often worth it.

You do more dmg but you lose a lot of self-healing. Generally I like leveling blood with a 2-hander for that very reason.

If you want to dual wield while leveling though, I'd highly recommend playing up HB a lot. When I did level dual wield frost, I found that a well set-up HB (i.e. apply frost fever first) would smash stuff to silly degrees. If you want to go the Unholy direction, play up Necrosis and Blood-caked Blade, though personally it feels like a much more single target build, and I find generous aoe ability to be very nice as a DK. For that you'd want to play up DnD and possibly UB. Personally I stay away from Gargoyle while leveling, most stuff dies too easily and it gets slightly wasted. I don't notice having too much RP at all if I don't take it.

The big thing to bear in mind is not the final 71 pt spec, but what you can get where you are. The talents tend to have a lot of synergy (that is to say multiplying benefits or talents that improve each others' performance like Necrosis and BcB), so play it smartly for the points you have so far. At 80 you'll want a whole new build, most likely.

[GhoulTek]

Thanks much guys. I intend on AoEing as much as possible. AoE grinding through quests in my current 2h Unholy spec is what I do now. I tend to gather a group of mobs and the IT, PS, Pest, DnD... and then heart strike/scourge strike/blood strike until stuff is dead. I sometimes switch DnD for blood boil. Heart Strike plus Blood Presence so far has covered my self healing.

I dislike the single target approach of Blood spec. It seems like one is playing a ret paladin. Also as silly as it might sound I don't want to give Pale Horse... slow mounts really annoy me.

I was questioning if dual wielding as either full frost or Unholy with enough frost talents was worth persuing versus a more typical full 2h Unholy/Frost/Blood spec for leveling now and after the next patch.

Also, for 1h weapons should I go with a slow MH + fast OH or 2x Slow 1h weapons?

[Geth]

The only thing that could possibly beat 2h Unholy for leveling is 2h Blood if you're grinding elites or anything where you need ridiculous healing.

I'm strongly going to advise sticking to 2h Unholy and trying DW at 80 after you get a little gear.

Unholy is such a good leveling spec that you're seriously gimping yourself if you choose to go another route.

Plus, you get On A Pale Horse. Point A to Point B 20% faster should be reason enough by itself.

[Bryenne]

Technically, going deep Blood is a dual target spec, since HS cleaves.

If you do go dual-weilding, you'll want Necrosis and Blood-Caked Blade, which work better with 2 fast weapons, or slower main hand + fast offhand for harder hitting strikes.

I do agree with other posters, though, Unholy works wonders for aoe grind leveling. For soloing group quests, Blood wins the prize.