Dual Wield Blood DK

[Mort-sause]

Looking at the available gear choices in the 346-359 iLvl range I find myself wondering if dual wielding as a DK tank is a good idea. Blood DKs need mastery, hit and expertise are good too. There are no 2H with mastery and hit for example, but there are a few options in 1H, same with mastery and expertise. Curious to see if anyone has "done the numbers" on this, but as far as I can tell the 2H choices are the Foe Reaper and Akirus the Worm-Breaker, but for dual wield there are options like dual Sun Strike and Soul Blade.

Granted, there is a small (-16 or -66) stam decrease, but really now that wrath is finally over stam is less of an issue, it's more about survival and threat now.

I'm willing to try this just to see, but I'd love some feedback.

[PatrikL]

You will severely gimp your threat and there really is no goo reason to dw as tank. To be honest I dont really understand this fascination people have with blood DW every now and then. The talent trees do not support it (you cant reach Threat of Thassarian as a tank).

Dont be too focused on reaching caps (hit/expertise), what you gain in those stats you will lose several times over by DWing with a spec that doesnt support it properly.

[Mort-sause]

The question was more about the lack of mastery on 2H weapons than anything else. Thank you for your input nonetheless.

[Kazeyonoma]

unfortunately that's the name of the game, they can't drop too many items with mastery on them because then it'll just become shard bait because only 1 class of 1 spec will ever want it (maybe arms warriors will want it because mastery is good for them too), but for the most part, 2handed dps'ers don't terribly care for mastery and it'd be unfair to take up more than 1 or 2 loot slots on bosses for those 1-2 class/spec combinations.

Akirus drops from one of the entry level bosses in BWD, that makes it within range to access early on in content for new raiders and it's not like you can't tank as a dk if you don't have a mastery weapon...

[Mort-sause]

I believe this thread is starting to be derailed. This isn't a qq about a lack of weapons, it isn't a question of tanks being hit capped, it isn't even a statement of "oh my I don't have the ideal gear I can't do mah jorb!" I felt the question was straightforward but I guess it isn't.

If you have numbers reflecting the difference between 1H DW vs. 2H tanking as a Death Knight, please share.

[Illidra]

the numbers have been run.

dw is nto meant to work unless your frost.

you lose ridiculous threat.

hit and expertise are useless.

get a haste + x stat weapon and reforge for mastery.

magmaw isnt hard for pugs.

[Muffin Man]

Just using conventional wisdom.

Dual wielding will increase auto-attack and BCB damage, but severely gimp Deathstrike, Dancing Runeweapon, and whatever instant weapon attacks Blood does. Icy Touch / Death Coil / DnD / Blood Boil / disease damage will be unchanged.

On the face of it, assuming their isn't something odd going on (like with DW Unholy and Sudden Doom) DW will be a net dps loss. But Icy Touch still works the same so initial threat may be ok (I'm assuming Icy Touch is still how DKs pull?)

Is mastery that good that reforging a 2h-er is worth giving up all that threat? I dunno, that's another place the numbers will have to be crunched I suppose, as well as how much dps/threat you actually give up (threat's a joke now though right?).

But intuitively it doesn't seem like it'll work.

Edit: Of course I completely missed the post above mine, so never mind, it really isn't worth the trade off.

[Mort-sause]

the numbers have been run.

They have? Sweet, that's exactly what I want to see. Got a link to them?

[Varitus]

The numbers are self explanatory. Look at your abilities. DRW will benefit more from a 2h weapon so will heartstrike, runestrike, and deathstrike. These are all instant cast abilities that take into account the numbers and stats of your main hand weapon dmg. In all cases it is a net dps loss and net threat loss. And in the case of death strike it also becomes a survivability loss, (as your off hand weapon affects none of your abilities) your blood shield will absorb less because it is hitting for less. In short it is not viable because your offhand never affects your main big threat abilities and in he case of deathstrike you lose survivability. Also DW increases your hit cap and exp. cap. You swing more with two 1handers you get parried/dodged more.

[Netheras]

Dual wield tanking has been stated by Blizzard (I'll find the post in a bit then edit) as a severe threat loss for Blood DKs and the reason for that is because threat only takes into account hits from your main hand weapon. I believe Illidra was trying to cut off any further discussion on the subject, because needlessly confusing people new to Blood Tanking by speculating on alternatives that are both no longer viable and inferior to using two handed weapons is not helpful.

If you want to give any evidence to support your own research on DW tanking, you can do so, just be sure to see how it fares with the numbers run on BloodSim, results of which were

Results:

Settings in BloodSim are taken from Zarko's excellent thread on tank stats at Tier 11 (World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> What we look like after one tier of raiding) and damage based on wielding 372 weapons.
- 175,685 health, 32.36% avoidance, 46841 armor, 21 mastery
- Boss hits every 2.4 seconds for 110k-120k unmitigated damage
- 100 eight minute fights

Difference in switching from 2H to DW:
- 7.9% less damage dealt
- 9.8% less threat
- 0.1% less damage taken
- 0.7% less damage absorbed
- 1.1% more healed
With those stats I can see no reason, at all, to ever Dual Wield if it results in equal stats. That's the major caveat. All of the simulations I run assume equal stats (except DW uses 3/3 SoB) between both specs.

Which I believe is what GravityDK over at EJ was talking about when he made his post about blood tanking and said

Dual-wield tanking is FAIL

Further: Wild Hammer has mastery and haste, drops from the last boss in Grim Batol, and both stats work towards tanking (haste has some minor benefits but again, can be reforged).

[Mort-sause]

Thanks Netheras, that info was exactly what I was looking for. You summed it up very nicely.

[Theotherone]

Might not be a bad idea to sticky Netheras' post for easy reference next time ths topic comes up. As long as DW stays near the top of a tree, it seems this topic will appear from time to time.

[Satorri]

I have no solid numbers and extensive testing to support this right now, but....

Do not write off dual wield tanking just yet.

There is room and support within the talent structure, particularly after 4.0.6 for dual wielding to do just fine. In some cases, for some reason, the damage is comparable or better (anecdotal, non-rigorous, and case-specific personal testing).

Logic says you will lose threat, but that can be severely mitigated with a different talent spec and glyphs, and different priorities in spell usage. The most conservative of purely math-based estimates would still only have you lose 15-20% of your threat if you changed little beyond your weapons. Using other tools you can tilt that even more.

Any way you cut it, there is also definite possibility for improvements in survival and raid utility (Blood Parasites proc on weapon swings, and dual wielding can boost the value here very noticeably).


So, without having quality data to back it up, I feel comfortable generalizing about this:
1.) If you have any issues with threat, dual wielding is not going to be helpful to you.
2.) There is nothing deficient or undesirable about 2-handers, everything works fine in its favor, so if that's what you want to do, don't think twice.
3.) *If* you are interested in dual wielding, it is not strictly a bad idea or an implausible concept, *but* do not think it is as straight forward as swapping weapons and profiting. Re-assess talents, glyphs, and spell priorities and remember to treat it as its own thing.

[Muffin Man]

3.) *If* you are interested in dual wielding, it is not strictly a bad idea or an implausible concept, *but* do not think it is as straight forward as swapping weapons and profiting. Re-assess talents, glyphs, and spell priorities and remember to treat it as its own thing.

Be warned though, after the rise of DW Unholy and Blizzard subsequently dropping the hammer on that spec (by nerfing Sudden Doom to only proc off main hand hits) it seems possibly that if DW Blood ever takes off that they'll do the same for Blood Parasites. But then again DW Unholy was *the top* spec for dps so that might have been another reason for the nerf.

[Netheras]

I can live with the possibility of DW Blood, but I guess we'll see soon. The latest build on the PTR is set as release.

[Swam]

my opinion, will dual wield blood be viable in a raid setting... no
in heroics for fun? yes

[proudmoore]

I realise that I may be spitting into a hurricane here, but please consider the definition of "viable". It may be a long way from the "best" way to play, but it is certainly a way to play that can result in boss kills, thus definitively viable. The word you're searching for is "optimal", which has a very different meaning.

[Netheras]

True. Mostly I just dismissed it after Blizzard cautioned against it (still have to find that post, just don't have the time to dig through) and while I spoke against it, I can live with it if it turns out to be a bit more workable. As it is, I stand by what I said before - I don't think it is a good option for new DK tanks, and will confuse anyone coming here for solid info, which is lacking as of yet.

[Stephanius]

By design, blood death knights are meant to use two-handed weapons. Testing shows that using a two handed weapon is better in every aspect. Yes, you can use two one-handed weapons and still complete a heroic. That doesn't mean that you should do it.

I don't know if it's people being simply fascinated with dual whielding - Drizzt does, so do I! - or people eying something shiny that drops and then arguing why they should have the drop. Yet, for all the people that cannot be bothered to actually read a thread, something like this boils down to 'the tankspot guys say it's worth keeping an eye on - so I'm rolling on this. suck it up warrior/paladin tank! HAHA.'

[Nightdemon]

Sword of the Bottomless Pit - Haste/Mastery - Reforge Haste to Avoidance? Hit and Expertise arent really major factors unless your having severe threat issues (Which, even with minimal Hit and Expertise, I'm far from experiencing). Personally, I'm favoring avoidance over Mastery.