3.2 DK Specs

[Satorri]

I use no points in Scent of Blood and never miss a Rune Strike.

[Evassara]

Dual wield tanking is possible, viable, doable, and not stupid or unduly hazardous.

I can't say it more plainly. Look for the pages on pages in previous threads discussing the math, or take it from the portion of the community that does it. It's really not the big deal a lot of people make it out to be.

In a tanking build? Did this come up somewhere in the DW tanking thread?

(not trying to restart the discussion, but this doesn't intuitively follow for me, and isn't what I've seen in personal tests, so if there's some evidence someone could point me to so I can have a look at it, I'd appreciate it)

I came from being a 2h Frost Tank and switched to DW Frost Tank. I was doing around 1500 DPS with the Jawbone (ilvl 216?) and switched to two DW Weapons were not as good (ilvl 183 and 213). My dps in DW with crappier weapons is usually around 1800-1900. I believe thats around a 25% increase in DPS if my math is correct.

[lyd]

don't worry Satorri. I'm always happy to dispel parry-haste myths.

Disclosure: My deepest progression is Ulduar-10, for which i've got several hard mode wins under my belt. Haven't been in Uld 25 or the new raid instance yet.


@Fathom: Splug's Vezax numbers from pre-3.2 pretty much dispel the myth that parry-haste results in higher throughput damage. When you look at these numbers, keep in mind that in the 2nd data capture, he DW'd fast/fast:

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay - 2hand

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay - DW

2h Threat: 4297
DW Threat: 3439

2h total damage taken: 1,817,837 (31.69%)
DW total damage taken: 1,394,429 (26.85%)

As you can see, DW trades threat for mitigation. without SSG DW loses 2% stamina but gains @2-3% avoidance. this is an average discount of between 500-700 hp. so for between 500-700 hp he reduced his total damage taken by @ 400,000 over the course of the fight. I don't see how any reasonable person could observe these numbers, garnered with fast/fast set-up, which maximizes parry-haste vulnerability, and still come out believing that parry-haste is a viable concern anymore. These caps are also pre-3.2, so with the addition of ToTh, DW Frost, imo, is actually superior to 2h frost. regardless, the point is that parry-haste vulnerability is dead letter. i hope this helps.

[Splug]

Yeah, the threat values in that post are completely irrelevant - it was dual wield unholy solely for the purpose of comparing mitigative effects.

I can produce a few parses demonstrating the effectiveness of dual wield frost from a threat angle. I wanted to see what the spec was capable of using a pair of slow dps weapons so I did a little test run on Steelbreaker. It may not be the most "pure" examination due to the overwhelming power effect for 30 seconds near the end, but here's the WMO log from the encounter, indicating 9,298 TPS generated.

-Splug

[lyd]

well the mitigation data is all that is needed to disprove the parry-haste mechanic vulnerability myth, since it is logically impossible that DW would suffer ~400,000 less damage with a fast/fast set-up if parry-haste created significant vulnerability issues, but your comments regarding the threat data confuse me. wouldn't the effects of DW vs 2h affect all specs equally pre 3.2, assuming 3/3 NoS in any spec? The threat results in your Vezax parse are pretty consistent with the low-threat, higher avoidance model that DW tends to follow, at least prior to 3.2 and ToTh.

[Splug]

well the mitigation data is all that is needed to disprove the parry-haste mechanic, but your comments regarding the threat data confuse me. wouldn't the effects of DW vs 2h affect all specs equally pre 3.2, assuming 3/3 NoS in any spec? The threat results in your Vezax parse are pretty consistent with the low-threat, higher avoidance model that DW tends to follow.

Right, and they'd still be roughly accurate for effects on unholy post-3.2. My point is that 3.2-frost has been dedicated as "the dual wield tree" to some extent, as it largely avoids the threat loss - or is capable of supporting a build that trades the avoidance back for threat while dual wielding.

I could dig up some numbers from when I was using avoidance weapons... but it would turn into a cross-spec evaluation since it was while frost, and we'd have to compare against unholy data.

-Splug

[lyd]

In that case, a post-3.2 frost 2h/frost DW comparison would definitely stamp out any inconsistencies.

It's great that you're willing to post these parses btw. It immensely benefits the discussion. I would post some of my own but i think yours are more accurate given your level of progression.

[Splug]

Posting WMO data is easy! It's collecting the data that can be tricky (EDIT: The hardest part being remembering exactly which pieces of gear I swapped in or out for a particular boss to ensure it's a fair comparison...). I doubt I'll get much for 2h 3.2-frost specs. I might try to do it next week... but I'll probably forget. =/

-Splug

[lyd]

I just picked up the pole-arm from 5-man TotC that makes for a decent 2h'er. I might try throwing on SSG and re-tooling for 2h and see what happens. Although oddly, since the piece has 100+ agility on it, the dodge gained from the agility might skew the results a bit versus a more convential str-based 2-hander.

[Splug]

The hunter weapons also have a relatively low attack power value due to the itemization invested in agility. It may be a more accurate comparison with respect to dual wielding than using my Voldrethar, which is more comparable to using dps weaponry. One of the big losses tanking weapons take relative to a dps 2h is the strength value.

-Splug

[Mofotrey]

I'm currently running with a Blood DW build on my DK alt that I never play... Yeah, you read that right... Blood... DW...

The World of Warcraft Armory

I played my DK for the first time since 3.2 yesterday and decided to try it and see what happen. I have Broken Promise, which is a great slow 1h for DW tanking, versus a blue 200 item level 2H, so when given the choice between tanking with a 2Her or two 1Hers, one of which does more DPS by itself than the 2Her, the choice is clear...

So... I went with a primarily Blood spec because I refuse to ever go Frost, and then tossed Nerves of Cold Steel in from the Frost tree and grabbed Morbidity in the Unholy tree over Blood talents like Scent of Blood, Improved Rune Tap, and Spell Deflection because I don't have time to raid n my alliance DK when I'm raiding on three Horde characters already...


So I ran HoS and it actually worked decently. I didn't have any survival problems whatsoever, nor did I have any threat issues... My threat wasn't nearly as good as the Unholy DW build that I used pre-3.2 but it was enough to comfortably get the job done.



Moral of the story is that cookie cutter specs aren't a requirement. Make a spec built around what YOU do, and what YOUR playstyle and content goals are, and go from there. That's always the best route to take.

If you don't like a DW playstyle then don't do it... But it doesn't mean that it's not viable.

[toonnamefail]

Have i attempted to DW frost tank.... No, has a decent blood DK guildy of mine attempted it.... Yes and both his threat and dps was pale in comparison to mine (Blood 2H). So until I attempt this (which is probably never) am I to assume there is a tps/dps increase from Blood 2H -> Frost DW or is the increase solely from Frost 2H -> Frost DW?? 3.4k TPS in a 25 man on a boss where you are not moving an inch is not going to cut it when the 10k plus casters are hot on your tail.

Good to see some numbers showing a difference in damage taken, even tho the raid in the DW parse is pulling ~8k more dps as a whole which will scew the results a little but it realli all comes down to what Mofotrey posted is you spec to your current progression.

Final note, there have been select few times where I have been parry hasted to death and there is nothing that annoys me more than dying because I have taken unhealable damage. So whilst DW might be working for you guys, you cannot say that you don't run a higher (even if still rare) risk of this happening?

[Tankkin]

althought my dps drops a little bit i find that my tps as frost is pretty neck and neck with my blood spec until sunders from any of the warr's come into play and the armor pen bonus to blood kicks in. im not sure whether thats just my good luck with rng, (constant km and freezing fog procs) or that im bad at blood since i only started using it for tanking in 3.1, most likely its the latter of the 2 that is true haha, however i am yet to attempt to use single handers with the ToT talent and until theres any real convincing information that shows it has an advantage i am not testing it and not gonna say anything bout something i dont know about.
However for frost using a 2 disease priority system, i usually net about 6k tps with spikes up to 9k, with the advantage of frost over blood being the amount of burst aggro you can generate off the cuff. (hodir is my fave fight for playing frost gotta love the increased crit damage buff)
I'm not gonna deny your final note but man i've heard parry haste this and parry haste that way too many times lately haha i don't duel wield but i'm sure that if you head to the 3.2 dw dk specs forum you will find more info on what they have mathemagiced cos i'm more than certain this topic keeps getting brought back to dw questions haha
edit: and dont be mean, /wave back next time im in dala haha, we on the same realm

[toonnamefail]

Must have been afk champ, my apologies.

<4

[PosiJoel]

I'm new to the site, new to tanking. But I've been messing around with the builds on armory, and I was wondering what you guys thought of this one:
The World of Warcraft Armory

I like this one because I feel like it utilizes a lot of the self-healing aspects of blood, and the "toughness" and CDs of frost.

I haven't really looked into it a whole lot, just wondering if there would be any quick easy opinions of what you guys thought.

I feel like D&D, plus Blood Boil creates enough threat without using HB. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Splug]

I'm new to the site, new to tanking. But I've been messing around with the builds on armory, and I was wondering what you guys thought of this one:
The World of Warcraft Armory

Well, there are a few areas for improvement. Whenever you're experimenting with a new spec, you want to decide what your goal and primary attack(s) will be. For example, you're running both Death Rune Mastery and Blood of the North. Either you're aiming to pull death runes from your blood runes to yield extra obliterates, or you're aiming to pull death runes from your FU pairs to yield extra blood strikes. But having both not only wastes the talent points (since there's going to be an option that's almost always better), it also creates extremely strange behavior when you have multiple flavors of death runes available, which tends to create rotation disruption. Furthermore, once you've picked a target ability, you can focus on stacking talents that synergize well with that attack.

Secondly, vampiric blood has several arguable advantages in current content encounters over unbreakable armor. UA has some application in the heroic level, but unfortunately it cannot fulfill needed roles in several raid encounters. Likely, you'd be better off taking the passive mitigation talents from frost and then running the cooldowns / ability rotations traditionally held by blood than the reverse. However, I suspect your threat generation would be significantly hampered in trying to do so.

-Splug

[dhthomps]

I'm new to the site, new to tanking. But I've been messing around with the builds on armory, and I was wondering what you guys thought of this one:
The World of Warcraft Armory

I like this one because I feel like it utilizes a lot of the self-healing aspects of blood, and the "toughness" and CDs of frost.

I haven't really looked into it a whole lot, just wondering if there would be any quick easy opinions of what you guys thought.

I feel like D&D, plus Blood Boil creates enough threat without using HB. Maybe I'm wrong.

I have seen a lot of these VottW plus a cooldown from another tree specs floating around and I'll echo what Splug said - you may have threat problems.

The synergy inherent in the three DK tanking trees usually inspire people to put 45-51 points in each tree. This is not a hard and fast rule by any means, but if you're new to tanking I would say pick a tree and roll with at least 50 pts in that tree.

[Keza]

In the 2nd frost spec did you mean to spec 2-handed weapon specialization under blood and for nerves of cold steel in frost?

[Fathom]

As you can see, DW trades threat for mitigation. without SSG DW loses 2% stamina but gains @2-3% avoidance. this is an average discount of between 500-700 hp. so for between 500-700 hp he reduced his total damage taken by @ 400,000 over the course of the fight. I don't see how any reasonable person could observe these numbers, garnered with fast/fast set-up, which maximizes parry-haste vulnerability, and still come out believing that parry-haste is a viable concern anymore. These caps are also pre-3.2, so with the addition of ToTh, DW Frost, imo, is actually superior to 2h frost. regardless, the point is that parry-haste vulnerability is dead letter. i hope this helps.

Lyd, my concern was never with parry haste (I agree with you, it hasn't been more than a minor tradeoff since they took out crushing blows), my comment above was more concerned with a comment someone made about DW frost providing better threat in a tank build than 2h,

My instinct from looking at the trees makes me think 2h tanking and DW tanking with slow dps 1hs would put out similar threat (you're getting a bit more raw dps from DW, but less flexibility in your spec to grab threat talents to prop it up and getting smaller Rune Strikes), though it would be nice to get a more precise view of what the difference is, and that DW tanking with fast tanking 1hs would provide the higher mitigation (seen in Splug's parses) at the expense of threat (smaller hits across the board, and weapons with mitigation stats rather than threat stats).

[DwayneDibley]

@Fathom: Splug's Vezax numbers from pre-3.2 pretty much dispel the myth that parry-haste results in higher throughput damage. When you look at these numbers, keep in mind that in the 2nd data capture, he DW'd fast/fast:

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay - 2hand

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay - DW

2h Threat: 4297
DW Threat: 3439

2h total damage taken: 1,817,837 (31.69%)
DW total damage taken: 1,394,429 (26.85%)

As you can see, DW trades threat for mitigation. without SSG DW loses 2% stamina but gains @2-3% avoidance. this is an average discount of between 500-700 hp. so for between 500-700 hp he reduced his total damage taken by @ 400,000 over the course of the fight. I don't see how any reasonable person could observe these numbers, garnered with fast/fast set-up, which maximizes parry-haste vulnerability, and still come out believing that parry-haste is a viable concern anymore. These caps are also pre-3.2, so with the addition of ToTh, DW Frost, imo, is actually superior to 2h frost. regardless, the point is that parry-haste vulnerability is dead letter. i hope this helps.

I'm sorry, but those figures are just downright misleading.
Its quite ridiculous to assume that you can go from 1.8Mil dmg to 1.4Mil from *JUST* going from 2H to DW - its 23.3% less dmg.

The likely reason for this improvement is because of buffs or debuffs being applied in one raid, and not in the other (Demo shout etc).

If you have a look at the data for 'Spyte' you get
2H Raid - average hit : 19,794 WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay
DW Raid - average hit : 14,918 WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay

In the DW raid, the tank is taking 24.7% softer hits. Which totally explains the great discrepancy. If you factor the softer hits out, It actually points to the tank taking more dmg (about 2% more).

Doing napkin math, 2 fast weapons (1.5's) (20%hasted) will lead to a boss parry every 8 secs. For a 2H 3.5 (20% hasted) speed weap this is every 33 secs. (Assuming 8.5% parry rate - 15%-6.5% = 8.5%)

If you outgear instances, DW to your hearts content, if you dont, I'd stick with a 2 Hander.