DW Tanking Builds 3.3 - updated 12/01/10 - Page 29

Evilbunny · 10/13/09, 8:50 AM

I agree, but I believe that he was saying that using 2 fast tanking weapons is a huge TPS loss compared to using a 2h. Using slow 1h weapons will be higher TPS than fast 1h, but as of yet there aren't slow 1h weps with tanking stats. Depending on your gear you will either have to use a fast tanking wep or gem some defense.

rooj · 10/13/09, 11:15 AM

I only quoted the post from the other DK tanking thread since the conflicting advice confused me and I was hoping for some clarity.

Here are some questions based on what we are talking about.

1) Does the higher white damage and additional Rime Procs (because of how it interacts with DWing Obliterate) still allow me to out TPS using a generic ilevel 200-213 2Hander if i am only using 2 fast tanking weapons?

2) How much of a TPS increase is it to use 2 slow 1Hers vs 2 fast 1handers, (let's say 2.6 vs 1.5) given similar ilevel weapons? Is there a way to split the difference so to speak and use 1 fast def stats 1 Hander, and 1 slow weapon?

I am trying to figure out if I should try out using Burnished Quel'Serrar + Axe of the Sen'jin Protector. or if I should wait for some something like Frostblade Hatchet for the OH before even trying to DW.

My DK's TPS is just not very high right now using the Titansteel Destroyer, especially since this is my alt with mostly 213-226 gear. I was hoping that with Quel'Serrar, DWing may be a shortcut for me to increase my TPS until i get more badges for better gear.

Evilbunny · 10/13/09, 11:42 AM

At least according to rawr, the 2 Quel'Serrars are the best DW tanking weapons, though I am not sure how it applies the procs because when I use sigil of virulence it adds like 400 strength.

If you could get peacekeeper blade or really any 1h wep with at least ilvl219, you would probably see a fairly noticeable tps increase. You would essentially be going from a fairly nice ilvl200 wep to an ilvl232. You will probably still see a tps increase with the axe, but the h toc weapons are so easy to get, you might as well.

After adding in a couple of recent upgrades to my tanking set, rawr tells me that I should be able to dw tank without having to gem for defense. For now I will be using Gleaming Quel'Serrar and Titanguard. Maybe Burnished Quel'Serrar will drop for me today and I can move a few pieces around so I can DW Quel'Serrars, that would be exciting.

Either way, I'll post my results later.

VxinBR · 10/13/09, 10:17 PM

I was looking at the traditional 12/52/7 DW Frost spec and the 23/44/4 spec linked above in that profile. Comparing specs, why would anyone go 23/44/4?

Pros:
6% Strength
3% Stamina
1 Expertise
5% Crit
6% Crit to Obliterate and Blood Strike
1 extra point in SoB

Cons:
-10% Frost and Shadow Damage
-1% Dodge
-15% Damage from Tundra Walker
6 Seconds on Diseases

Is the gain on crit from the Blood Subspec along with the extra strength and stam better then getting Black Ice, Tundra Stalker and Howling Blast? I'm finding it hard to see how the trade off is worth it. I was also looking at Rawr, and it's ranking Crusader's Glory higher then The Grinder and Aledar's Battlestar for tanking. I was under the impression that slow weapons were better for threat, why does Rawr rank the tank weapons so high? I can understand QS being top spot, it's 2.0 which isn't too bad, and the proc is really nice, but 1.5 speed weapons?

Xequecal · 10/14/09, 5:34 AM

Originally Posted by slant

Unless it was changed, one-handed weapons are normalized to 2.4s, not 2.5s. Normalization only applies to damage contributed from attack power, and fast tank weapons still hit for far less than slow DPS weapons, but you're right that DW scales better with attack power so at some point it will win with instant attacks.

The problem is that DKs heavily rely upon rune strike for threat. Rune strike is not an instant attack, so it's not normalized at all. You could argue that attacking faster would allow us to dump more runic power through runestrike, but RP doesn't easily cap like rage so it's not a major concern.

I don't agree that dualwielding would lead to significantly increased RP generation from scent of blood. Assuming your target attacks every 2s, you'll get 4.5 procs per minute of three charges apeice. Even with slow 2.6s weapons those three charges will be used up very quickly.

Fast weapons wouldn't lead to additional rime procs as rime is triggered by obliterate and limited by rune cooldowns. They wouldn't lead to additional killing machine procs either, as it's a PPM effect. In fact, you'd get less KM procs as each instant attack would have a much lower chance to proc the effect.

I made that post, I did not know that Rune Strike wasn't normalized. However, you will get more RP from Scent of Blood while dual-wielding compared to a 2H, and the faster your weapons are the more RP you will get.

Scent of Blood only gives you RP on white hits and rune strike. With a 3.6 speed weapon, it takes almost 11 seconds for you to use the three charges. During that time, if Scent of Blood procs again, you will waste charges as it will only go back up to three. When you DW two fast weapons, however, the charges get used up very quickly, almost eliminating the problem of double-proccing it and wasting charges. It's VERY noticeable on bosses that hit fast, if you DW tank Algalon with 1.5 weapons you can pretty much just faceroll on Frost Strike and never run out of RP.

Also, I wasn't trying to prove that two fast tank weapons beat two slow DPS weapons at threat. Obviously, they don't. But the thing is, all threat in excess of that needed to keep aggro is meaningless. Since DWing fast tank weapons has comparable threat to a slow two-hander, and offers extra tank stats, why not use them? We know the slow two-hander can keep aggro, so we don't need to use DPS weapons if we don't need to.

Xequecal · 10/14/09, 5:36 AM

Originally Posted by VxinBR

I was looking at the traditional 12/52/7 DW Frost spec and the 23/44/4 spec linked above in that profile. Comparing specs, why would anyone go 23/44/4?

Pros:
6% Strength
3% Stamina
1 Expertise
5% Crit
6% Crit to Obliterate and Blood Strike
1 extra point in SoB

Cons:
-10% Frost and Shadow Damage
-1% Dodge
-15% Damage from Tundra Walker
6 Seconds on Diseases

Is the gain on crit from the Blood Subspec along with the extra strength and stam better then getting Black Ice, Tundra Stalker and Howling Blast? I'm finding it hard to see how the trade off is worth it. I was also looking at Rawr, and it's ranking Crusader's Glory higher then The Grinder and Aledar's Battlestar for tanking. I was under the impression that slow weapons were better for threat, why does Rawr rank the tank weapons so high? I can understand QS being top spot, it's 2.0 which isn't too bad, and the proc is really nice, but 1.5 speed weapons?

23/44/4 is a gimmick spec for when you need to maximize EHP and avoidance at the expense of threat. It gives you 3% STA AND 2% reduced damage taken, no other spec can boast that. DWing with 23/44/4 gives you that plus the tank stats from the two one-handers. The threat is pretty terrible, because you can't get Epidemic nor can you max out Blood of the North, but there are fights where this is fine.

Sadly, 23/44/4 is viable a lot more often than you think. Pretty much every fight Blizzard has ever released where high tank damage is a major challenge (Sarth3d, Thorim hard, Steelbreaker hard, Algalon, Gormok) involves one of two mechanics:

1. Threat is irrelevant.
2. The tanks need to be rotated.

Obviously if #1 applies, 23/44/4 is king. For #2, I'm not sure if this is universal, but the fact is right now Paladins are way ahead of the pack on tank balance. So DKs will often find themselves in a situation where they're tank rotating with a Paladin, because the guild can't find 2 good Paladins to put in front of it instead. 23/44/4 is a great way to help make up your big mitigation disadvantage and avoid gibs that the Paladin won't take. Your threat is low, but since you're rotating with a Paladin he can easily make up for it when he has the mob.

rooj · 10/14/09, 12:54 PM

Never mind, found the answer myself.

Marrak · 10/15/09, 7:00 AM

Not sure about but anyone has any numbers that compare RP generation between the 12/52/7 and the 10/54/7? Unfortunaltey I can't get on the PTRs for some reasons and I would really like to know if the 2/3 Scent of Blood or 2/2 Chill of the Grave pays out more.

Jackinthegreen · 10/15/09, 7:37 AM

Originally Posted by Marrak

Not sure about but anyone has any numbers that compare RP generation between the 12/52/7 and the 10/54/7? Unfortunaltey I can't get on the PTRs for some reasons and I would really like to know if the 2/3 Scent of Blood or 2/2 Chill of the Grave pays out more.

We don't even need to be on the PTR to determine them.

Given a boos swing timer of 2 seconds, 15% chance per hit/dodge/parry to proc 20 runic, or about 80% chance in 20 seconds. Average it to 16 RP for two points. CotG in a casual Frost rotation will give 1xIT, 3xOB, and possibly HB in there for a total of 5x5 equaling 25..

The chance of SoB proccing two times in 20 sec would be about 50%, so 50% of 40 is 20.

Going up to three times in 20 seconds could make them even, but having it proc 3 times in 20 seconds every single rotation isn't likely. It appears a tank would need all three points in SoB to come about even on average with CotG assuming getting hit every two seconds. Scent of Blood becomes much better the faster hits are coming in.

Marrak · 10/15/09, 8:05 AM

So I guess CotG is the better choice overall except you are doing lots of multitarget tanking.

germanator · 10/15/09, 3:17 PM

This really depends if you spend into Annihilation or if you do OBL in any rotations. I haven't spent into it and I do DS whenever I have my runes. So currently CotG has a marginal gain for me compared to SoB.

Shazear · 10/15/09, 6:44 PM

FYI - with the upcoming Rawr 2.2.24 build (not sure on the release date, but I just checked in a huge change) I'm seeing viable optimizer results that can select DW vs 2H with certain gear choices, on equivalent level gear. I did first setup the talents to match: 3.22 Death Knight dual-wield tanking | pwnwear and then threw up some various 1H and 2H weapons from Broken Promise to the Ony and TOC drops.
Some situations support the 2h, and some the DW.

When that release comes out, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Thank you.

Jeges · 10/16/09, 12:41 PM

A simpler and more precise way of evaluating Scent of Blood: If you're looking at a swing timer of 2s, that's 10 attacks in 20s. Assuming a miss rate of 12% (if you're not a Night Elf) that's 8.8 attacks that could proc Scent of Blood. With a 15% proc rate, we expect 1.32 procs in 20 seconds, on average, or 26.4 RP per 20 seconds. Assuming 3 Obliterates and one Icy Touch during that 20s, Chill of the Grave gives 20 RP plus, on average, 4.16 RP from Rime procs (That's 3 Obliterates * .2775 chance of proccing Rime from Obliterate, assuming you're using them always and as soon as they pop). So under these conditions SoB does a little better. But keep in mind that the RP you get from SoB is bursty and unpredictable, while CotG gives it in nice apportioned little bites. Also, any time that nothing's hitting you (you're waiting for your turn in a tank rotation, the mob is channeling something, etc...) SoB is worth 0 and the value of CotG is undiminished. Weight that against SoB's dramatic superiority in multi-tanking scenarios... I like them both!

mav1234 · 10/20/09, 11:31 AM

EDIT: New post, original one I solved myself.

Has anyone considered using two Bladewarding enchants? I think I read some place they stack... A nice thing about bladewarding is the extra threat - would it be worth it?

To expand on the bladward thing, if it does stack, and with our large number of instants and the like along with DWing, might it outweigh the parry we get? A concern is the fact it is subject to DR, and I'm not certain you could ever reliably have it close to 4% parry - but you would gain extra threat.

Evilbunny · 10/20/09, 12:35 PM

Do you know what the proc rate is? That seems fairly amusing, but I agree it would be hard to keep it relatively consistent. Even if you could only consistantly get 2% parry out of it, the threat increase might be worth it.