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3.2.2 DW tanking guide
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Post by
Bonurmum
This thread is intended to be a guide for those seeking to tanking by means of dual wielding. Up until this point it remained vastly in-superior to any 2H tank build, but with recent changes it will certainly be viable, if not a more efficient means of tanking.
What made DW (dual wield) tanking nearly impossible in the past was its threat generation. Having a low damage 1 handed weapon proc Rune strike (RS) did much less damage, and gave even less threat. They have changed the talent threat of thassarian to fix this major problem.
What benefits Do I get DW tanking?
For starters, your avoidance will see a major increase from using weapons that have beneficial tanking stats on them, as well as
this
enchanted rune weapon which provides undiminished avoidance.
You may also see an increase in threat generation of conventional 2H(2 handed) tanking, seeing as a DK tanks highest threat always comes from RS usage, and RS will both be proccing more and hitting sooner from faster weapon speeds.
What do I lose DW tanking?
The biggest fear of any DW tanker is parry gibbing. When you get parried by a mob, they will strike back from having their attack speed reset. It has been proven that a DW DK tank does in fact get parried more. However, not all bosses actually have the parry haste mechanic implemented (several don’t actually). It also is no where near the threat it used to be, as crushing blows no longer result from a parried attack. Know of its existence but do not be afraid of it killing you.
Also keep in mind that you shouldn't expect to ding 80, pick up a couple of welfare tanking axes and get some crafted blues and expect to be an efficient tank. I would strongly suggest being decently geared before attempting DW, you will need a fair amount of hit so that your white strikes don't miss to an extreme extent. Don't gem for hit so you think you can DW tank, that just gimps your stats overall. Just pickup some of that nice new ulduar gear from conquest emblems before you try.
Index:
Weapons
Specs
Glyphs
Rotations
Gearing
Post by
Bonurmum
Weapons:
The most controversial topic of DW tanking. The DW DPS community is well aware of how superior DW a slow/slow speed weapon maximizes their dps (slow is in upwards of a 2.0 speed). However there is
only one
tanking weapon with a speed thats considered slow enough to be sufficient. This deters many away from the idea of DW tanking, many think its dps wont be enough to warrant a great enough TPS (threat per second).
However, this is not entirely the case for tanking. RS is still your primary threat modifier. RS works as follow, after dodging/parrying/missing a hit from a mob you gain the RS effect. On your next white strike the rune strike will hit and increase your threat accordingly. As dw you will have more avoidance, increasing the amount of procs of your runestrike slightly. With a faster weapon, it will also hit sooner, allowing more time for another RS to proc and be used. As such, this offsets the slight damage loss from using a slow weapon, leading to a minimal change in tps if any.
However be aware there is a certain point of a weapon being too fast, ergo RS wont be proccing enough to offset its low damage output and will lower your overall tps.
Here
is a list of weapons with a speed of 1.6+, ensuring you have a good balance of speed and damage, and giving you a clear set of available weapons to you.
Post by
Bonurmum
Specs:
Note :while 3.2.2 has yet to hit this is all in theory as of yet so take the build's with a grain of salt.
Is one of the base DW tank builds (8/52/7+4)
You will notice 4 points remain, for good reason, its hard to tell at this point where those would best be spent.
Lets take a look at the places you could put them.
4/5
Bladed armor
: same concept as its 2H counter-part, tanks have lots of armor, more armor more AP, more AP more threat through higher damage. at an average of 25k armor you gain roughly 694 AP.
3/3
Subversion
+1 free point : Obliterate should top your dps meters. as such it does give a good portion of threat. 9% crit may not seem like much at first glance, but the principle behind this is that each individual weapon runs its own crit percentage, meaning you gain much more than a mere 9% crit from this talent. Its the same principle that DW dps builds use to gain an almost 80% crit chance on their main damage ability, and that could translate well in terms of threat.
3/3
Improved Icy touch
+1 free point : not much to be said about this, obviously taken for the debuff to slow mobs attacks. Some may call me crazy for leaving it out of the base build, but its also a debuff that other classes bring, and DW tanking trees are talent starved. If you raid with no other class that can bring the debuff or just simply are self reliant you may want to pick this up.
For the 1 extra point, you have a choice between
Ravenous Dead
and
Merciless Combat
, or
Deatchill
.
This (10/51/10)
is a build focusing on skipping FS entirely, in favor of more RP generation for RS and if any RP builds up, to be cost on Death Coil. Morbidity is taken for a rotation focusing mainly on spamming Death and Decay. Death and Decay spam would certainly be great for maximum threat, the rest of the build focuses solely on generating RP.
Glyphs :
Glyph of Disease
: same principal as DW dps, simplifies the rotation as you don't have to reapply diseases. Itt is doable without it however and could free up space for another useful glyph out there if you pay attention to your rotation.
Glyph of Rune Strike
: mechanics of how DW count critical strike chance for each weapon make this a promising glyph for threat.
Glyph of Obliterate
: Obliterate is still your primary DPS, and subversion builds would see the most benefit from picking this one up.
Glyph of Frost Strike
: DW tanks may get RP starved at some points in the encounter, if you want to have a chance of using FS on a Killing machine proc you willl likely need this glyph. It may be better to skip the glyph entirely however, and instead just let your RP pool to wait to use a FS and save any RP you have on RS.
Glyph of Death and Decay
: almost mandontory for the (10/51/10) build, a direct increase in its damage translates well into threat.
Post by
Bonurmum
Ill link any builds or useful info anyone posts as a write this guide :)
Thanks in advance for any help
Post by
213594
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Bonurmum
Ill likely post a base build with those 4 magic points absent and link the benefits for each different variation you could use them for, so many choices.
Post by
GenXCub
Until we see 3.3 drop lists for hopefully slower 1h tank weapons, would it just be crazytalk to use slow 1h non-tank weapons with high AGI+STA to just add avoidance and then get capped from the rest of your gear?
Post by
Bonurmum
I was trying to point out how little speed mattered in the long run for tanking as compared to dps. and 3.3 is still a good ways away, not to mention not everyone will be ready for that content when it debuts.
Waiting a few months in hopes that they might itemize a weapon for an individual class and spec is a lot to hold out for...
I'd love a great 1 handed DPS weapon with decent strength, doesn't mean I should wait to DW dps until they release one.
Post by
213594
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
GenXCub
What I think I'm getting at is that even though Bone is showing that fast tank weapons aren't as bad as people think at first blush, due to more RS swings, is there an optimum speed? Are we still saying 2.6ish would be ideal if they were to exist, and this guide is just to make due with what is available?
Post by
Nyito
Just a thought: I'll leave the whole debate of fast/fast vs. slow/slow to those smarter than me, but if you had, say one fast and one slow weapon, would it be a bad idea to put the slow in your OH, as RS replaces your main hand melee attack, increasing it's power at no cost of speed? So if fast/fast was to be called better than slow/slow, fast/slow would be even better? Stats aside, of course.
Post by
Bonurmum
Its kind of pointless to argue on a what if question. Perhaps if there were multiple slow tanking weapons it would be a simple thing to parse. There just isnt that option however. And if Blizzard thought it would be a big enough problem they wouldn't add these changes w/o any weapons available for us.
The problems I am finding are in the rotations as well, mostly from initial burst threat. I forsee it almost mandontory to use ERW at the start of a boss fight to lay down a DnD and get off a few fast oblits. Otherwise you dont seem to generate nearly as much burst threat from just obliterates alone. Past that, RS proccing should seem to take its full extent and generate enough threat to continue tanking. Doesn't seem that harmful unless you really were saving that cooldown on a predictable pull that the fight requires you to get threat on something fast.
Post by
Bonurmum
Would dark death glyphed really push out harder numbers as a tank spec with GoFS and talents that boost FS? If so would that leave some points to free up from KM? you would only then be using the proc for rime procs and reapplying IT. might free some more for more BA or subversion.
If you could do the maths for me Sam that would help me out so I don't have to log on and test my self, not too much of a math person when it comes to DPS terms.
Post by
213594
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
213594
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Bonurmum
Thanks for the info, I tried to move some points outta KM but it was necessary to reach higher tier talents anyway.
I also tried the slow MH/fast Offhand mentioned above but didnt really make a difference and Obliterate only hit a tad harder, and the only slow sword in the game doesn't have very desirable stats anyway.
Post by
213594
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
345177
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Engra
Nice thread but still 2H tanking will out do DW'ing simply because blizz wants us to use 2-handed weapons.
HF on Koralon with this
Post by
213594
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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