I will have to try if the two-handed blood tanking is really superior to dualwielding.

The fact, that my swords (Broken Promise x 2) already have acceptable maxdamage (509) combined with about 60% avoidance raidbuffed (give or take a few), makes it possible to push Runestrike almost to a maximum usage.
As you can see in the Faerlina stats 33% of all my thread was generated by Runestrike which produced 7.7k thread per strike in average.
With a two handed weapon i might lose some thread due to less Runestrikes.

Also I lose less global cooldowns on rp-dump because my Runestrikes are using up most of it.
This will even get better with the next patch since Sudden Doom will be proc-released and not an on-demand-release (I liked that change instantly when I read it).
The change to Blood Gorged could also increase thread production, but there is still testing to do which of the other talents I could spare.

While there won´t be any hard nerfs or buffs regarding blood dualwield tanking, I believe it to play a bigger role post patch.

Yeah, I noticed those buffs Torn. It looks like DW tanking is better again. Marginal still, but it always has been. At least there are once against talent-based benefits to going DW.

A few nerfs for DK tank cooldowns in general, but we can hardly cry over the state of the class as a tank as a whole. DW tanking was starting to look "uncompetitive" but now it's looking like a frost/ unholy hybrid will work quite decently.

The question then lies, how deep to go in frost and unholy respectively. Is HB still worth it? Is UA or BS and AMZ better?

Napkin maths on UA vs BS: I noticed in my gear UA was mitigating about 1430 damage on the PTR. The average NAX boss hits for like 8k- so 20% of that is 1600 damage. Now, assume that a boss hits roughly every 2 seconds. UA will mitigate against 10 hits if all connect, but with 60% mitigation only 4 will. Bone Shield will mitigate against 4 direct hits (6 with a glyph). UA looks to be worse at mitigating physical damage but will add more threat. And Bone Shield builds also get AMZ and continue to mitigate against indirect damage. UA scales with gear (in two directions, however- it gets worse as your avoidance goes up and better as your armor goes up), whereas Bone Shield scales with the difficulty of the encounter (Bone Shield would likely scale faster, too).

Which cooldowns are best will be a matter of debate for all DK tanks, but DW in particular will have to choose between UA and BS. At this stage Torn's build is looking pretty solid.

Hi Guys,

1st time posting here, after about 1,5 years of reading. I just wanted to post a build for 3.1

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Taking 15 Points in Blood for Threat, an then going down Unholy the normal way.

- Maybe drop Morbidity for Blood-Caked Blade?
- Drop what for Dirge?

I think with the new Expertise Scaling Rage of Rivendare and Tundra Stalker are not that important anymore?


Edith: Forgot the another point -> the new weapon enchant "Blade Ward" ... the new kickass for DW Tanks? After the loss of Parry through Blade Barrier maybe the PR from the enchant can kick some extra RS', which makes it better than Swordbreaking?!

Regards

I will likely go with something like this after the patch. The third major glyph will be death coil.

I had thought I would just be converting using BB (with the buffs to BB) to use IT for RP gen for more DC's however I tried it out a bit and I think moving the three points from Reaping to Ravenous Dead will work out better.

With the recent changes on the test realm (Necrosis and BCB nerfs removed) Frost/Unholy tanking builds might become interesting again specifically for DW.

In principle, you can test 9/26/36 type builds on Live, too. The results should be similar.
Possible Talent Build on Live: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Possible Talent Build on the PTR: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Since this type of build hasn't been tested here, yet, I tried it during a Naxx-10 run on Live last night.
Buffs: LotP, Kings, MotW, Replenish (Resto Druid)
Rune Enchants: +4% Parry

Results - tonight with 9/26/36:
Tormens produced 3792 tps vs Loatheb

Results - 4 week old report with 10/54/7:
Tormens produced 4110 tps vs Loatheb

The results are rather disappointing. I used a DnD > IT > PS > BB > RP Dump > IT > PS > BB rotation. Initially, I ran with Reaping but couldn't find a good rotation to fit in the death runes for extra IT without delaying the next DnD. Damage (and therefore: threat) should be better on the PTR because of PS being buffed. It might be worth trying after the patch.

So in the end, their is any advantage in going DW for tanking on a DK ?

I've got a question on gear and gem choices.

Currently I'm a 2H tank socketed with max stam (as my TPS and avoidance are fine).

But with 3.1 and the 10% Blade Barrier(and cooldown) nerf, I'm thinking of switching over to DW ( I have 2x Broken Promise), and gem for avoidance rather than stam. Granted I'll still have some stam offpieces for fights that matter, but seeing as how Rune Strike is a large part of DW TPS, would it be viable to 'make up' for some of that 10% parry loss in gems?

In addition, would it also be viable to gear up past the defense cap to make up for the 10% avoidance loss? I have 545 defense, but with 2x broken promise it will be 562. Would resocketing or gearing for stam or threat be better?

Sorry if these questions have been answered - I've read most of what I could and could not see any of these questions.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9658

I figure with the PS buff IT + PS will hit just as hard as HB used to hit for as a tank, Using this spec I feel I could pull off a rotation such as:

DND IT PS BS DC DC IT PS BS BS IT PS DC DC

This is coming from the 10/36/25 and just replacing HB with IT and PS

I keep hearing DW isn't good for tanking bcuz it generate lower aggro then going 2hander. But I don,t understand why ?

Also I am wondering if this would be viable to tank heroic as a DW without having naxx tanking stuff ?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9658

2 points changed. Death chill -> icy talons and 1 point from Impurity to UB for AOE threat.

With the change to UA and the glyph it looks like a big talent for tanks to really choose not to get now. ~1800 damage reduction on each hit glyphed which isn't too terrible but still not sure about the cooldown.