How many DK Tanks are gunning for Shadowmourne?

[toonnamefail]

Pretty much title says it all, how many of you are moist at the possibility of tanking with a great big dirty 2h?? How many of you think your in a position where your guild will let you have it?

[Destruyen]

hrmm, arms warrior's best weapon spec is axes...and since it's a 2hander....im gonna go ahead and assume its an arms warrior weapon. especially an orc arms warrior weapon >.>



just kidding, but seriously, i don't think too many guilds will be handing one out to a dk tank before any melee dps that swings 2handers honestly.

[squats]

With the new proc giving 40 STR for every soul you get, there is almost no reason to give this to a DK ever. Besides, the armor from Agi weapons > The parry you get from STR.

[vine]

With the new proc giving 40 STR for every soul you get, there is almost no reason to give this to a DK ever. Besides, the armor from Agi weapons > The parry you get from STR.

How many DK's do you see with Agi weapons? Not many. DK's use strength for threat, the dodge from agi is negligible. A DK has as much right to this weapon as any other 2hander using class.

[squats]

How many DK's do you see with Agi weapons? Not many. DK's use strength for threat, the dodge from agi is negligible. A DK has as much right to this weapon as any other 2hander using class.

Im not saying they dont. im simply saying that I would think the armor you get from an agi weapon pared with the dodge beats out what little parry you get from STR. Not to mention that if history holds true, this weapon will not have sockets on it, so that just reinforces my thoughts that this will not be a good choice for a tanking weapon. DK's will just go after it because its a legendary weapon and for whatever reason that makes it better..

Edit: Giving this to a DK tank first would be like giving Val'anyr to a moonkin first back in ulduar. sure, val'anyr was near BiS for a moonkin, but did why would you ever give it to him/her?

[jaydee]

A DK tank's threat scales heavily on the weapon they're using. This is the reason why DKs rely on SSG, and that there are no tanking 2H weapons.

Personally, I pick a weapon primarily because of the threat it will give me, then the sockets, and then the stats.

[squats]

Indeed. Unfortunately it seems theres still considerable lack of knowledge from others about the class ...

The stats have been datamined : Shadow's Edge - Items - Sigrie

For convenience :

And yeah, i'll want one.

Thats shadows edge, not shadowmourne.
The fact still stands that giving this to a DK tank before the rest of you 2h wielding dpsers would be just like a guild giving a moonkin Val'anyr before the rest of the healers. was it BiS for moonkins during 3.1? Yes. Would any guild in their right mind ever give it to a moonkin? No.

And your comment on my knowledge was unnecessary and had no point in this discussion.

[Airowird]

You also forgot to mention the crit and ArP on the Axe.

The fact it has 'only' 185 stamina, red sockets and ArP on it make it more suitable for a DPS than a DK tank imo. That is assuming that the stats will get improved and the proc added on Shadowmourne (similar to e.g. MH rings).

You also shouldn't NEED a Legendary to keep threat, sure it helps just like Val'Nyr helps, but if it was required to heal with, nobody would've killed Anub HM yet.

[Satorri]

First off, I need to see the stats, but I like the idea plenty. My DK would look appropriate with a giant soul-eating axe! Need some t10 while we're at it, t9 makes me look all good-guy-ish.


And a side note, let's not get into Agi vs Str weapon arguments.

Strength weapons will have much better AP. Agi weapons will get more survival value at the cost of threat (dodge from Agi is *not* negligible, just not as big as dodge from rating point for point).

I want to see a weapon with Str/Agi/Stam again. It won't happen on Shadowmourne, but I can dream.

[Kazeyonoma]

Gorehowl - Item - World of Warcraft

fantasize fantasize Satorri =P

[Splug]

We had a ret paladin who probably would have been arguably justified in taking it ahead of me, but he had some class obligations coming up and chose to drop down to reserve for Icecrown. (Related: we're now recruiting for a retribution paladin...) Now the longest-standing 2h dps has only been in the guild for about two months, so I'm feeling pretty justified in putting some dkp down for a 2h weapon.

In general, I'd still have to see what the stats are before writing it off as dps or tank priority. I'd suspect it's no different than every other 2h weapon that has dropped in a raid, as a higher threat weapon on the tank gives an opening for trading more threat stats to survival stats.

-Splug

[Kazeyonoma]

To me, and probably in my guild, it'll just come down to who has Priority on it, we use EPGP so it's likely one of the DK tanks will get it, but since ICC will drop tons of tank gear, it's also pretty likely one of our 2handed dps'ers will have higher prio after our DK tanks have bloated their GP with gear pieces. As long as it's a net benefit for the raid, it shouldn't matter who gets it, as long as people don't create drama over it. If you play it by the books and use EPGP/DKP/SK/etc then there really isn't much legal recourse people can take against people who have the priority to get it. Regardless of Tank or DPS.

[Satorri]

I have that axe in my bank, Kaze. =)

I also have my Inevitable Defeat in my Bag o' Fame.

[Horaxe]

It's down to me and a Fury warrior on this one. We're both officers, we've both had pretty much the same luck with weapons. And we both have nearly flawless attendance, etc. So we'll see.

I'm drooling over it probably for the same reason DPS are drooling over it. It's legendary, it looks sexy (aesthetically, and mechanically assuming it's stats are similar to the quest starter). And would be a nice upgrade for me.

[Kazeyonoma]

Keep in mind guys, datamined information that isn't released by blizzard is NOT okay to post.

[Satorri]

Wait a tic. Can someone explain to me how this is not as ideal for a DK tank as it is for a dpser?

Valanyr has a healing proc. Does it work for a Moonkin well? Sure, but the proc is wasted. There's no analogy here. A DK tank wants the same stats.

Or were you saying that because you think it's more important to give a dpser that little bump rather than the tank?

[Synapse]

Wait a tic. Can someone explain to me how this is not as ideal for a DK tank as it is for a dpser?

There is no explanation for such. 2h dk tanks use 2h weapons in exactly the same fashion as dps dks/paladins/warriors, so there's absolutely no reason to say "Ok this goes to all dps first". It's just people envy about orange pixels.

[swelt]

I imagine you could structure a fairly good argument that a pure DPS toon will get a much larger personal performance increase from a weapon (and thus raid performance contribution) than a tank. Tank performance tends to rely less on weapons than dps... not denying that weapons are important, but when your sole contribution to the raid is damage, that's different from having a balance of threat, mitigation and avoidance. I'm also curious as to whether the proc is something a tank will want (waiting on real info which won't be around for a while I guess).

But I also imagine that mature guilds will also want to consider who is deserving of the reward. If you use tank priority on set pieces, you might want to consider prioritizing it to DPS to keep morale. If you use a pure DKP system, you might want to consider just letting it go to the highest points (although personally, I think that's a risky call and encourages DKP hording).

Have the mechanics of acquiring the weapon been officially disclosed? Is shadow's edge just a drop? From anyone in particular?

[Krenian]

There is a whole lot of oddities here that people assume and part of this can be blamed on Blizzard for making a class that only uses DPS weapons and refuses to give a 'tanking' like weapon.

Squats, your example of Val'nyr is a poor one. That's giving a Healer casting proc to a DPS class that would have no use to it. The proc would be a waste on the Moonkin and is one of the main arguments about giving Val'nyr the weapon. Shadowmourne has a proc that will do threat which is good for a DK tank in any sense of the word so the example is flawed.

Furthermore, having been a DPS all my life, I would have absolutely no problem if the DK tank would want it. Why would we penalize a class where Blizzard has ultimately asked to put DPS weapons as their tanking weapon? The class is made to use a DPS weapon as a tanking tool. The only reason some people look towards some specific two handed weapons is because they have 'defensive' stats such as Expertise which helps make us avoid dodge. But it is perfectly legit to fight with a weapon that has ArP and Haste or Crit.

This part of the argument is NOT 100% accurate as we have not gotten a final release and as such, is purely SPECULATIVE. However it's important enough that I have to put this in to show exactly the extent of the argument in which people are speaking about the weapon is not a tanking weapon.






Now, let's look at the proc of Shadowmourne:

Your weapon swings have a chance to drain a Soul Fragment granting you 40 strength. When you have acquired 10 Soul Fragments you will unleash Chaos Bane, dealing 1900 to 2100 shadow damage split between all enemies within 8 yards.

Let's go to the max of 9 shards before it does that Chaos Bane attack. That's 360 Strength given to your character. You get 5% of your Strength as a DK for Parry.

Forceful Deflection Increases your Parry Rating by 25% of your total Strength. Let's just look at the weapon proc itself, which would give you 90 Parry Rating. 23.625 Parry Rating is needed to get 1%. That's 4% Parry Rating from a proc alone.

Finally, as a final point, the weapon has a proc that eerily looks like Thunderfury's proc, although it doesn't happen all the time. That alone can make this weapon a great tanking weapon for Death Knights.






Again, this is IF the weapon has the same proc come release. This is by far the least likely possibility but if the stats would come out today, it is how it looks.

Just because it's a two hander, and just because it may have dps weapons, should not and cannot remove tanking Death Knights. That's just DPS being annoyed that the weapon is not going to them.

This is what Legendaries do, unfortunately. Everyone wants it, then people start overanalyzing the weapon and state "Oh well this stat makes it better for this and this stat makes it better for that". No, the weapon is what it is and anyone should have the right to it. You'll always be min/maxing it and sometimes you just can't do it.

[Synapse]

I imagine you could structure a fairly good argument that a pure DPS toon will get a much larger personal performance increase from a weapon (and thus raid performance contribution) than a tank. Tank performance tends to rely less on weapons than dps... not denying that weapons are important, but when your sole contribution to the raid is damage, that's different from having a balance of threat, mitigation and avoidance. I'm also curious as to whether the proc is something a tank will want (waiting on real info which won't be around for a while I guess).

But I also imagine that mature guilds will also want to consider who is deserving of the reward. If you use tank priority on set pieces, you might want to consider prioritizing it to DPS to keep morale. If you use a pure DKP system, you might want to consider just letting it go to the highest points (although personally, I think that's a risky call and encourages DKP hording).

Have the mechanics of acquiring the weapon been officially disclosed? Is shadow's edge just a drop? From anyone in particular?

While a dps will definitely see a much larger dps increase by using Shadowmourne over <nextbest> compared to a dk tank, the same upgrade for the dk tank will give a higher threat ceiling, benefitting the whole raid's dps cap.

Granted, threat isn't as big a deal as it was before,but it's still there, and the dk tank is ALSO doing some extra dps. There's really nothing on Shadowmourne that justifies dk tanks deserve it less than dpsers.