Hi all-- long time reader, first time poster

Through a bit of crazy luck my guild had a pair of [Broken Promise] drop this weekend in Heroic Naxx and I got both of them (the warriors were holding out for [Last Laugh]. As such, I decided to switch to DW tank (I was using the 2h axe from 10man KT).

I'm wondering mainly about hit rating and expertise. I'm currently at 275 hit rating and 22 expertise. Our raids always have 1 or 2 Shadow Priests for Misery. I'm currently gemmed

2 +16 hit
4 +8hit/exp
1 +8exp/12stam
1 +8hit/12stam

+24 stam on each ring, 450 mining (+500 health toughness), 55stam/22agi on pants, +def to cloak and chest, +expertise to gloves and bracer, +stam to feet, Hodir shoulder enchant (honored) and the Arcanum to helm (Argent Crusade)

I'm wondering if I need more hit rating (or less). I'm talented to add 3% to melee and 3% to spell My survivability seems very good in raid encounters but (as you can see from above) I'm not gemming or enchanting for avoidance.

You can armory me (Aisher on Runetotem). My spec is 10/51/10 with all the usual talents. Our guild has no enhancement shamans, so I'm spec'd into Imp Icy Touch to provide the raid buff (instead of killing machine). With the change to Killing machine next patch is that a better use of 5 points?

Thanks.

Drop Hungering Cold, Merc Combat, Epidemic, and 1 point out of Bladed Armor and pick up KM. Try it out for a raid to see if you see any threat difference.

As for Hit/Exp. As Frost DW, we'll still want to aim for Dodge cap ~28exp but it won't be as hellish as our +Hit seeing as the majority of our abilities rely on this stat more-so. My goal is to sit around ~12-15% hit unbuffed w/ the 3% DW talent. This would also push Spell Cap when we're in 10man naxx w/o a spriest or druid (which is almost improbable with our guild.)

Does that mean I'll be sacrificing stats? Not at all, dropping +8exp gems for +8hit/stam gems, and hoping on a few of the drops from Naxx (Broken Promise being one) to help me out a little more.

If you're finding yourself missing too much - look to see if they are Misses, Dodged or Parries then you can gem accordingly to that.

I edited my original post above to show what I was trying to type before and failed at.

I wanted to know with the changes to killing machine if its worth going duel wield or is 2 hand frost now considered superior.

I also would like to know how much hit people think is necessary to duel wield tank, I know its 8% for specials with a 2hand but what are people rocking that are successfully tanking 25 man content with duel wield.

I would think minimum requirements for a DW tank would be spell hit capped; due to the reduced threat on weapon hit abilities (1h vs 2h) the odus would be to always hit with your other abilities (spell hits: DC, IT, HB) to maintain status quo with a 2handed tank. From there any further hit rating would have minimal gain as it would only benefit white damage which is further reduced by parry/dodge.

as it stands my own reasoning would be: spell hit cap > dodge expertise cap > stam, avoidance stats accordingly.

my own question would be why is RS not calculated into DW tanking mechanics? The concept being is that as long as you (avoid) one attack before your next MH autoattack then your next attack is automatically an RS reducing the number of parryable attacks by 1/2?

To me it feels like maximizing the benefits of DW: many of the abilities you rely on are spells: HB, IT, BB, DC. these abilities benefit the most from DW: KM, Non-weapon based damage;cannot be parried/dodged/blocked. It would make sense to me to insure that you can always rely on these abilities rather than on Strikes which you do not benefit from as much. (weapon based damage, can be parried/blocked/dodged with the exception of frost strike)

in response to your other comment, I offer that DW DPSers have less to worry about: they cannot be parried, as they are (should be) at the rear; a missed rune in a rotation can easily be recovered; missing a rune in tanking however can be punishing in more ways than one.

Sort of the point I was trying to get across, I think gearing for around 10-11% hit then dropping virulence is the way to go.

Of course you don't neglect other stats to achieve this but once you've done enough naxx runs you should have that much hit and virulence points can be better spent elsewhere.

But what if a 2H Frost tank forgoes the emphasis that many current frost tanks put on Obliterate (thus gaining the benefits that you listed), and instead focus on Howling Blast? With the change to KM being a 1-5 PPM system, it benefits both DW and 2H equally.

I will admit that DW tanking comes out ahead as far as survival goes (off the cuff-estimates place equally equipped DW tanks at having 2.5-4% more avoidance than a 2H tank), but they also lose out a fair bit in the trade off. First off they have noticeably less Strength. Let's say a DW tank is going for [Broken Promise] in it's main hand (for when you do have to use a weapon based attack, like Rune Strike you want the slowest weapon available and Broken Promise is really the only option from current raiding content) and [Last Laugh] in it's off-hand. This will give a combined total of 66 STR, whereas even the lowest of the 2H epic STR weapons have 90([Demise]). Additionally, with a 2H, you're adding tons of damage to your Rune Strikes and Frost Strikes (your primary weapon based damage with this setup) and a minor advantage as far as damage on your AP based spells (i.e. Howling Blast)

The question basically boils down to, for me, "Is 2.5-4% avoidance worth a probable loss in threat?" Honestly I wish I was well geared enough to be able to test out both setups to see how much of a loss in TPS it is (if it's really any... I could be entirely wrong).

EDIT: While I'm aware that KM is currently having a 5PPM per weapon on the PTR, GC has stated that this was not intentional and they are checking it out.

I think the school is still open when contemplating the worth of 2.5%-4% avoidance. One easy matter is diminishing returns. How much longer can 2.5%-4% avoidance last than without? How many more rune strikes could you get in with the above avoidance as well as the reduced swing speed? while 2H builds consider expertise essential as a DW slow/slow with gear maximizing spell like abilities could they disregard expertise in the same manner that 2H disregard +hit over special ability cap?

consider this rotation: Build: 10/36/25 (taking into account 3.0.8 - removed cooldown from HB)

opening cycle: DnD > IT > PST/BB > HB > = 15+15+10+20 (60 RP)
continuing cycle: 2: BB > HB > PST/BB > HB = 10+20+10+20 (60 RP)
refreshing cycle: IT > PST/BB > HB > BB > BT > HB = 15+10+20+10+0+20 (75 RP)

Not counting glyphed IT (which most certainly would be a requirement) you could easily support a large RP expense for RS and still have enough to fill downtime between cycles. So I would ask the question, would a spelllhit capped DK maximizing spell like abilities and RS uptime compete with a 2handed build balanced between expertise and special ability hit? my answer is the same; I wish I had the gear to try.

Arguably the reduced swing timer on Rune Strike is a negative thing on multiple fronts. First off, since Rune Strike is based entirely on Primary Weapon damage and is a "on next attack" ability, thus meaning it's not normalized, using a two-hander will do more damage per attack. Essentially, it's just a white DPS (thus TPS) increase, and since the DPS of a 2H is, obviously, higher than that of even the slowest 1H of equal iLVL, Rune Strike is firmly ahead in this category.

In addition, since Rune Strike's damage scales with the damage done by the normal attack, that means that the more times you attack for less damage, the less powerful each attack in a DpRP situation. Even if you were to use two different 2H of equal DPS... for example: [Runeblade of Demonstrable Power] and [Sword of Justice] (I chose these examples they show a broad range of speeds while sticking to just 2Hs).

While both have approximately the same weapon DPS of 169. But there's a damage difference of 40-62, so that assuming that both are able to do Rune Strike for every attack a minute, the one weilding the Runeblade of Demonstrable Power needs to cast it 1.36 more times per minute than the one with the Sword of Justice to put out similar DPS. That's Runic Power that could be spent on something else, unless you have a Blessing of Sanctuary, whereas you probably have more RP than you can shake a stick at.

Not to mention that the damage difference is actually there no matter what RS is not normalized so the additional 0.3 attack speed that the Sword of Justice has translates into a more effective use of the DK's Attack Power.

These flaws mentioned above are even further exaggerated by using a 1H weapon. First off with a faster attack you need to spend more RP to try to have every white attack a DK does become a RS (assuming it's even possible with a 2H let alone a 1H). And the damage is no where even close with a 1H since RS only uses the main hand for it's damage.

The majority of us here understand RS is much higher when using a 2H (and the rest of our attack base.) The idea is that KM procs with our OH white dmg adds to the threat. We would also be able to use haste much more so than a 2h. In the end, we won't know until the patch goes live and we do testing. I really think it's going to be better than on paper but it's possible we may end up going back to 2h.

I've already come to the conclusion I will go 2h for any insane hitting mob - 3dSarth.

My damage has been:
#1 Howling Blast or Melee
#2 Melee or Howling Blast
#3 Rune Strike or Icy Touch
#4 Icy Touch or Rune Strike
#5 Frost Strike

I've been running this rotation (which inflates IT numbers) and the other tank is a Prot Pally so I have more than enough RP.
IT-HB-PS-BS-BS-FS*
IT-HB-PS-IT-IT-FS*

This is all pre-patch. (Just so it's clear)