27% Hit rating for DW DK Tanking?

[DKTankaholic]

So after looking at the 3.2 possible updates it seems that frost is gonna be (from the new talent) DW orientated? But am I correct in thinking that as a tank you will need 27% hit rating?!

Is this percentage the right one to shoot for when DW w/ a DK for tanking?

How would you get there, sac some def armor for hit armor and gem/enchant the difference in defense?

[Tarigar]

Honestly 27% would be for white swings. I think you specials would be significantly reduced. I wouldn't stress it so much.

[Molohk]

I guess it would depend on how important white damage is in your overall tps distribution. Saying you need to be hard capped for hit rating with DWing sounds a lot like saying you *need* to be hard capped for expertise. Hit rating will surely be useful beyond the soft cap, but I'm guessing it wont be as good as other stats (hard capping expertise would likely be better than hard capping hit).

[DKTankaholic]

so what would be a reasonable % to shoot for?

[Tarigar]

Soft cap specials which i believe is 8-14%.

[Lizana]

8% is the special cap.

[DKTankaholic]

ok that is doable.. ty for not making me choke on my krispy kream

[lyd]

yep, try to get the cap for specials, and let expertise take care of the rest. i'm actually below the soft cap for hit but well above the soft-cap for expertise. if ToTh sticks through the PTR, it'll be a huge threat jump for DW.

[Tarigar]

I am below softcap as well for hit but at least I am expertise capped.

[Satorri]

I did the math elsewhere (I think in Dual Wield Tanking: Demystifying), but soft-capped (8% to never miss anything melee except white swings) you'll have a 19% miss chance on auto-attacks (but your auto-attacks will already do more damage than a 2h's with equivalent level weapons).

Previously you would lose strike damage when making this trade but no more.

Now, as Frost, IT and HB both use a spell-hit based chance which means 17% spell miss on a raid boss (though 8% melee hit will get you just over 10% spell hit, and Misery from a Spriest or Imp FF from a Boomkin will get you another 3% to hit there). So, that's still a 4% gap that you could cover with more hit rating that would also improve your white swing hit damage, if you cared to.


The take home message is that dual wielding can make use of more hit rating than 2h's can, but it isn't a necessary or even profitable investment if you start giving up other things to get it (like survival values if you're concerned about incoming damage).

[Nunes]

Virulence - Spell - World of Warcraft

[Satorri]

Which can be nice, and I personally only ever take it for Frost/Unholy dps. Too many other talents I value more. =)

[Bluespirit]

Im not sure how many bosses have haste on parry, but considering that you would attack faster, wouldn't you get parried faster, thus take more damage duel wielding?

[Satorri]

That is the common (and often over-inflated) concern with dual wield tanking.

[Splug]

Faster weapons will cause an increase in parry haste and occasional minor damage lurches. It is not to the extreme they were prior to WotLK, and while worth addressing and acknowledging will not create the hard barrier to dual wield tanking functionality that seems to often be preached. Parry haste was a significant concern when multiple attacks in a very short window could blow through shield block charges, leaving a tank vulnerable to a crushing blow. The real cause of the sudden burst damage wasn't the faster attack itself, it was the third swing landing for 50% more damage. This is no longer a concern due to mechanics changes in 3.0, where crushing blows were moved to a 4-level window instead of 3.

So while using a faster attack speed (or increasing the number of attacks) will increase your chance to induce parry haste. The last time I ran the numbers, it came out to about a 1-2% incoming damage increase, which from a throughput perspective is easily outmuscled by using tanking weapons with dodge/defense rating with dual swordbreaking enchants; the swordbreaking enchants should compensate for losing swordshattering/gargoyle, and the raw avoidance ratings are more efficient than agility/strength from 2h weapons.

EDIT: One other common misconception: lacking hit rating will not increase the amount of autoattack parries you receive. On a single-roll system, you'll be trading misses for hits by increasing hit rating; parry chance is unaltered. Expertise, however, does help.

-Splug

[Chamenas]

Wouldn't it be wise to go for the hard cap on expertise as it's a survivability issue as well? Currently this is the largest problem I see with switching to Dual Wielding for my tanking. I fear what I will have to do in terms of itemization to make up for defense lost from SSG, and to ensure that I am once again soft-capped on hit and likely at least near the expertise hard-cap, the number of attacks that could be parried could become deadly very quick, would it not? How much avoidance would I have to lose to fix that, I wonder.

[Satorri]

I've done a fair amount of math on the topic, though apparently others have done modelling. Word on the street is that at 21 expertise the gap in parry-haste vulnerability becomes small enough to reasonably call them on par. Since you'll want to soft-cap anyway (5 exp higher), you're really not in danger in the same sort of stats you have with a 2h setup.

As for itemization. I found back in Naxx level gear that using two tanking weapons (Broken Promise and Slayer of the Lifeless at the time) that I got enough defense from my weapons to not use a defense trinket at all (I didn't use SSG back then either), with only a little defense squeezed out of half a yellow socket.

It's not hard if you want to setup for dual wield tanking, though to perform well on threat you need to change your methods, your focus, and your value system on moves and stats. Different items will benefit you more or less, or further (hit rating and expertise for example will give you more threat value, for higher values than you could use as a 2h). In the next patch though, dual wielding Frost is just fun. Personally I prefer to dps that way, but tanking should work just fine. I can't wait to see how people respond to the fact that dual wield frost can out-threat 2h frost, for all the people who are frost tanks because they think that's the "best" tank tree.

[Chamenas]

for all the people who are frost tanks because they think that's the "best" tank tree.

I can tell you, sadly, that there are people who think it's the "worst". As a Frost tank, I don't think it the best, but I do find it quite well-rounded and capable of most any tanking task, as well as being fun and versatile.

[lyd]

i've always preferred frost to the other trees for tanking. I think it's the closest thing to a "traditional" tanking spec that dk's have. I don't like giving up the additional mitigation for Blood's self-heal mechanics, and i think bone armor is too unpredictable to trade for unbreakable armor. again, that's just my personal preference. i would never suggest that blood or unholy tanks are "worse." I just prefer the dependable mitigation that frost offers.

well...that and it supports DW tanking the best...even more-so if ToT makes it past the PTR.

[Satorri]

We can hope, Lyd. =) It is kind of like a carefully crafted present just for you isn't it?