Depends on your meaning. If you mean 'less good than the 2h' then yes, if you mean 'less good for DW builds than they are for 2h builds' then no. Its certainly not been proven that RS are not a must-use on DW tank builds. Certainly a deep frost DW tank has more than enough RP to use one nearly every time its up, other priorities like HB aside.

However so far I have yet to see any numbers that prove BCB is a better tanking talent to have than it is DPS. Unless you are going deep enough in unholy that you want to pick it up on the way, but in itself, its not a must-have tanking talent. On the contrary, I fully expect DW to end up the better tanking specs just because they will be fiddled about with less. Blizzards design philosophy both in the past, present, and upcoming in the future, has shown that the class/specs that are played with least, perform better in the raiding environment over a longer period of time. Oh other specs in the revolving nerf wheel may temporarily be better at some functions, but thats the thing about wheels, at some point you get back to the bottom.

Tanking in mail? Although trying to find mail with str, agi & no int on it will be night on impossible

Well, let me clarify. Rune Strike costs the same amount of runic power whether you use a 1H or a 2H; but it does significantly less damage with a 1H weapon. Hence, whether it's worth using or not, it's decidedly less efficient and converting runic power to damage, meaning that if you have a fixed amount of runic power, it's going to result in less damage and threat with a 1H weapon than with a 2H weapon. So Rune Strike is *less* good for a DW spec. That doesn't mean it isn't still good, of course - but you do lose some damage due to doing it one handed versus 2 handed.

Regarding BCB - it may be, or it may not. It's certainly too early to say for sure. It's certainly much (much!) stronger for DW than it is for 2H, which, again, doesn't mean it's going to be worth using, but it certainly warrants consideration. Again: I'm not saying DW tanking is or isn't going to work, or that any particular talent is or isn't necessary; I'm just pointing out the factors that work in it's favor - then we have to do the theorycraft to figure out what actually works best.

I suspect tanking in mail is a very bad idea; I suspect where Agi is going to come in is less the plate pieces and more the rings/amulets/cloaks/etc. If you can make Def cap without using standard tanking pieces in all slots, using some pieces that would normally be characterized as hunter/shaman/rogue/whatever rings/amulets/etc. might prove to be valid way of continuing to boost avoidance while also getting good threat.

Like I mentioned earlier, if you are DW tanking you should have more than enough DEF providing you have atleast [Seal of the Pantheon] which allows you to have atleast 1 or 2 slots free for DPS gear (rings usually). I agree AGI is a good stat for DK tanks as it gives crit and dodge.

If your build includes KM then its essential to have some crit in your gear otherwise those 5pts are wasted. If you are going for a frost build then going into BCB will waste too many filler points to reach it not to mention for a very marginal threat increase and increased chance of getting parried.

I recommend this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft if you decide to put points into KM, I have been using it for awhile now and I have no AOE threat issues as the increased crit from dark conviction really helps with KM procs. After the first DnD rotation you just use it like the 44/27 build but you just prioritize RS for RP dumps.

Dare I ask why Morbidity and Epidemic rather than Tundra Stalker? I wouldn't imagine that you'd use D+D and Death Coil enough to justify taking those over 10% Frost Damage and 5 Expertise. D+D will be helpful for pickups, but I rather imagine once you get into a sustained AoE tanking duration you'd be using IT/Pest/HB/HB rotations rather than D+D.

Not to mention Epidemic is a wasted talent in any deep frost build, because you will be refreshing IT/FF way before it runs out. The extended time is intended for it to increase its damage/effect in non-frost based builds. And to go that deep in frost for tanking and not take rime...well...its a bit odd.

Well, the challenge of Rime is that it breaks the DW cycle. Which is not to say that it isn't ultimately worth taking anyway; however, consider the problem. A usual deep-frost cycle runs IT/Ob/Ob/BS/(HB) - the Rime cycle for Dual Wield would be IT/(HB)/HB/HB/BS. That is, the RIme proc, while it costs no runes, delays the triggering of all runes by 1 GCD. Now, the grace period on rune activation would cover this... but then you don't have the grace period to absorb the Death/Blood rune switching. So it may well turn out that Rime is a good thing, but there are definitely issues with it.

Also note that you're not using Obliterate, and IT is a relatively small portion of your damage, so those parts of the buff don't do a lot for you either. So Rime is of much more questionable utility than for a traditional frost build.

Well, the parses I've seen have it as high as 15%, but a 15% boost to 15% of your damage is... not really that much damage. Particularly since, with Icy Touch preceding Howling Blast in the cycle, it's the move that will most often be benefiting from Killing Machine procs, and, as such, it will have a quite high crit rate even without Rime. Overall, we're looking at a 2% damage increase, maybe less. And a 2% damage increase for 3 talent points isn't *nothing*, but it's certainly less essential than it is for 2H Frost builds, particularly with the Rune/GCD issues.

Edit: Actually, it occurs to me that there's a simple solution to GCD issue; simply do the cycle as HB/HB/IT/BS/HB)->FS. This is of course vastly inferior the first cycle of the fight, an issue that may need to be addressed; but thereafter, you still have Frost Fever up from the preceding cycle so the Howling Blasts do full damage; the Killing Machine procs go more often to a Howling Blast, which is a higher damage move; and you can safely use the Rime procs without lengthening your cycle. The only real problems are 1) if you're not hit capped, you can run into problems with the Icy Touch being resisted, leaving you with 2 blood runes and no Frost Fever up, and 2) The aforementioned issue of ramping up. But in terms of a sustained threat rotation - at least for a hit-capped DK - it seems very likely to be superior.

My experience so far with 10/31/30 have been mixed to say the least. Just like with any KM build I am finding that luck has more to do with threat generation (crits) than I would like it to.

I have seen the TPS stay at over 4-4.5k while KM procs are sustained (or within a few seconds of each other). On the flip side I have seen my TPS sink to 2-2.5k when I am starved for the KM procs. My primary (and usually only) rune dump so far is Rune Strike (have it macro'd to my IT key). I am going to try this out with 25 man raid buffs (previously been testing in 10 mans) and see how well it works out.

I have tried the spec I linked without morbidity and at 15s more on CD it really slows down trash pulls, I put points in epidemic to allow some flexibility between pestilence refreshes.

I have 23 expertise from my gear so instead of tundra stalker I put points into dark conviction as it increases KM proc rate by an substantial amount which to me is worth more than 10% frost damage.

As for rime, HB is still on 6s CD so its not so useful until the CD is removed.

This may be a stupid build plan, but it seems like there isn't much synergy in the unholy tree with DW tanking. There are some red herrings like Impurity etc, but it seems to me like Blood/Frost is stronger. I'm going to give a 23/45/3 build a try.

TS for VotTW may be a mistake, but it seems like it's a 6% sta/str for 10% frost damage trade. Dropping 2 points in Anticipation seems a little crazy, but part of the driving force for a DW tanking build is being able to use tanking weapons. 2% fixed mitigation seems like a decent trade-off. Is there something terribly wrong with Scent of Blood? It is a weak talent, to be sure, but it seems like it's a decent investments of points trying to reach VotTW for a DW spec concerned about RP generation.

Edit: Not really sure how I missed this in the first round, but wow Scent of Blood is a terrible talent. Butchery would generate 10RP/20 sec, and Scent of Blood is best case 15RP/20sec.

You might want to check that.

a) Butchery is 2rp/5sec for 2 talent points, giving 8rp/20sec, or 4rp/20sec/point
b) Scent of Blood is 15rp/20sec for 3 talent points, or 5rp/20sec/point, but on a proc basis.

While tanking, Subversion is probably equivalent to Butchery, but Butchery is guaranteed generation compared to the proc for Scent of Blood. Butchery also has the secondary effect, although that's basically a non-factor while raiding. Both only generate enough runic power to enable you to rune strike once per 80-100 seconds, for each talent point, which just seems terrible to me.

If you want Dark Conviction, I'd go with a build like this. It doesn't waste any more points in Blood than necessary (you're effectively using 8 points to get VotTW - the options are mostly pretty worthless apart from possibly rune tap fully improved), and it gains both the 2 points of Anticipation you were previously missing along with Virulence which is a significant threat upgrade and helps provide stability to both rune usage and threat throughout. You also get 3 points in Tundra Stalker, which is 6% damage to all abilities (not sure if rune strike is included - it's an auto attack for KM purposes, but I would guess it counts as an ability for this) and 3 expertise.

As to the value of 2 points in Anticipation, I currently run with about 25% dodge / 23% parry base, plus 9% miss. Take off 2 points of Anticipation, but add blade barrier, and you're looking at a total of ~65% avoidance, or 35% hits taken. Going from 35% hits taken to 33% hits taken is a damage decrease of approximately 6%. It it worth skipping 2 points to avoid 6% total physical damage? I wouldn't do that. Any tanking build I try building, I always start with Toughness, Anticipation and Blade Barrier as the base, and inevitably work my way to Frigid Dreadplate. Having 18% increased avoidance from talents is just godly. As a comparison, each point of VotTW is approximately 600hp with a 30k health pool (technically it's worse than that, as that's 2% hp rather than 2% stam). Is 1.2k health really worth dropping 6% (effective) avoidance?

As an addition, if you're going to bring up the strength benefit to parry from VotTW, each point is worth 2% strength. At 1000 strength, this is worth 20 strength/point, which is 5 parry rating. 5 parry rating converts to approximately 0.1% parry, before diminishing returns. I really don't think you can count this as significant. 6% strength is probably equal, or possibly worse, than the 3% hit to spells / 6% ability damage you gain from Virulence / TS, however you do lose out on 3 expertise.

Not yet known, as our rotations will still probably contain a minimum of 3 weapon-based instants (not counting Frost Strike) and will also contain an unknown number of Rune Strikes while fast/fast increases Killing Machine procs (by around 33%) for more crits from the primary damage ability (Howling Blast).

I think it's going to depend on which variant of the spec you end up going with; if you go for one of the more shadow-oriented variants, with BCB and Death Coil as a rune dump, fast weapons will be a lot more tempting; but my preliminary analysis of the deep frost variant (15/51/5, in particular) shows slow/fast to be significantly superior to fast/fast. In particular, it appears that in the OH the priorities are 1) speed and 2) stats, with weapon damage being, honestly, almost irrelevant; while in the MH the priorities are 1) slow 2) high damage, with stats - while not *un*important, much less of a priority.

I'm building two weapon sets for this reason. For OH I'm going to have a fast tank and fast dps. Going to try the same for the MH and figure out what is the best for TPS. The only *large* issue I see is the loss of Stone Garg which is amazing for us to switch out a few pieces of gear for.

I can testify that DW DK tanking works well in 10man Naxx. Threat is never an issue and neither does mitigation seem to be. Is anyone tanking 25mans with DW yet?

The World of Warcraft Armory

The 2 pts in Epidemic will me moved into Dark Conviction making it 12/54/5.

I did it on Gluth tonight with 10/31/30 (trash tanking the rest of the night as well) and had no issues with threat or mitigation. I am sitting at 24 expertise with food buff (use +hp Flask), throughout the fight I stayed at ~4.5k TPS spiking as high as 7k at one point and as low as 3.6k at another while tanking him. Did the same on Grand Widow last night as well though died about halfway through due to two frenzies in a row not being dispelled and had similar results.

And you could get two unlucky hits back to back while frenzied with no heal in between and die just as I did. My point is that DW Spec didn't cause the death and performs as well as 2H Tanking does.

I don't think that it's your DW tanking that have killed you but,
If you had Unbreackable Armor, a longer IBF or Bone Shield, you could maybe have lived.

Using your spec, you have not a lot of tools when thinks go wrong.
And some time things goes wrong. Because of a personal error of someone,a bad RNG or a DC.
Of course you can throw back the fault to the person, but as MT you have to be prepared and ready for anything. And not expect that everythings will appends as expected.

Quoting this for next.

No, it has nothing to do with mitigation problems during Enrage (we don't MC, just do Momma Said Knock You Out! every week), at one point tanking 10man Widow she just barely missed 3 shotting me (a heal came in right before the 3rd hit which saved my life). That was *with* BS up. She hits like a truck and if she hits even remotely higher than normal and goes on a 2-3 swing streak, it's easy enough to watch tanks collapse to that with no heals in between.

But, I do agree with your second paragraph. As a tank it is your civic duty (haha) to spec in to an actual tank spec for max mitigation. There is no reason to be MTing in a semi-tank/dps build. That can lead to unnecessary wipes, pissed off healers, and people thinking DKs are horrible. :p

Just chiming in on this thread, I've been thinking of going DW tanking for a while now.. Especially with the coming patch, one of the major upsides to me is that I can ditch my defense trinket and get two stamina trinkets while also having the option of putting the new stamina enchant for weapon on both my onehanders for a 150 stamina increase. Stamina is the major thing for me at the moment, because I'm hitting DR on dodge so easily and there's not a lot of parry out there on gear.

I'm just tossing out there, since people seem to be stuck up on mitigation from our runeforges (which are nice, I'm not saying 4% parry is something to sneeze at, especially since parry is not yet on my DR) but from my experience (tanking all 25 mans) the major thing to stack at the moment is stamina, for sure. YMMV.

I am curious what tank abilities (Minus UA/BS) you consider to be missing with this spec. Originally I had a spec that included BS but found that threat was an issue, so went deeper into frost.

Emphasis mine

Are you sure you aren't hitting DR on Parry?

I'm personally at 460 parry rating (largely from Strength) vs. 249 Dodge rating. Given that they are on the same curve with Parry having a lower "cap", I'm much farther into DR on Parry than Dodge. I'm fairly certain this is the case for all DKs.