I was wondering if its possible to slip in Improved Icy Talons with a dual wield tank build? I run a group with friends that has no melee haster and was hoping this was possible. Forgive the ignorance, but I'm still learning DK tanking.

I recently tried DW frost tanking at last, after toying with the idea for a long long time (I've always loved the frost tree, you see), and I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised!

I'm rolling with an 12/52/7 build (sometimes with 4/5 KM & HC + HC glyph for various reasons; 5/5 KM & Icy Touch glyph otherwise), and so far it's great. Tanked all of TotGC25 as DW frost (add duty on Anub25 <3) - good threat, good survival, fun playstyle.

Currently using a DPS MH & Burnished Quel'Serrar, going to switch to Relentless T1 MH & BQS on wednesday, at least for my survival kit.

Loving it so far. Not quite sure whether I'll go with dual carapace runes in 3.3, or carapace + swordbreaking / fc.

Well i'm using the same talent, glyphs and rotation as in the first post but somehow my aggro generation is jumping constantly beetwen 3000 and 5000. What am I doing wrong? I always for for the killing machine proc when rime is on, and watch for the diseases to be all time, but still a lock can easily pull aggro from my when i don't get any md's. I am not in a hc raiding guild and my gear is enough to tank toc25, the only problem is the aggro. So I would be very thankful for any help i could get based on this.

Get slow weapons. Fast weapons will produce very low threat.

Also, get rid of the hit gems, you'll be fine with a lot lower hit, and you'll need to gem some more defense when you change weapons.

I'm very apprehensive of DW tanking specs that favour GoFS over GoRS. Particularly so ones that don't spec into Scent of Blood. Has anyone had experience with DW tanking without SoB that indicates RP generation is enough to feed all the RS and still have enough left over to FS?

So with all the DW talking of tanking I thought I'd share my thoughts since I was DW tanking back in nax25 days, tons of fun and tough to do. First thing of course, macro Rune Strike to every ability in your rotation and you will almost never need to worry about aggro. Also to answer the above question SoB is amazing for rp generating with DW.

I'm taking DW tanking to not just be able to tank a boss's physical dmg, but more importantly the magic dmg that bosses will be dishing out. So consider this the DW DK Magic Tank:

Here's my spec: 18/51/2

With a rotation of IT-PS-BS-BS-OB-FS rinse, repeat and if BoN procs (b/c I chose to put 1 pt into it just for a filler) then an extra OB. Time KB with HB if possible. And as for all DK tanks, always keep your Blade Barrier proc up. Time Rune Tap for Unbreakable Armor.

Anyways reasons for this build:

Strengths:

High aggro, you will be seeing crits quite often with this build, especially when GoRS is used which I think all good tanks should be using

High survivability both phys and magic especially (the dodge debuff that all tanks will suffer in ICC makes parry much more attractive and makes abilities like Avoidance much less attractive since you'll only receive 1/2 the normal benefits).

The 1 CD that all DK tanks need to use, Icebound Fort, gains another 6secs from Guile of Gorefiend.

IFP a must have ability so FP will now give you 10% dmg red.

I focus on Spell Deflection and Acclamation to be essentially a go to offtank or MT.

Unbreakable Armor is nice to have and pretty essential if ur getting hit too hard.

Hungering Cold is good for bad trash pulls or when little adds get a bit too heavy like Anubs little scarabs or the Gothik fight from old Naxx.

Duel Rune of Swordbreaking is really helpful for avoidance and will be amazing come ICC when parry > dodge

FS damage does not rely on having both diseases up rather just 1, with Glacier Rot, so letting 1 of ur diseases fall off isn't too much trouble

Also GoRS really helps maintain RS crits b/c raid buffed and all, you should be getting around 20% RS crits, not the greatest but helps a lot

Finally: probably one of the most unique builds out there that has proven for me to work quite well. The magic resistance is awesome and with GoAMS you can pop AMS for dragon breaths, Anub leech swarm etc and take in the benefits from acclamation.


Weaknesses:

Health pools come into play big time with DKs as always b/c if we don't go Veteran of the Third War we sit with very little base health. (In fact even with VotTW DKs are still aweful in health pools)

Finding Slow/Slow Tanking wpns, basically I wouldn't suggest this spec unless you had a slow 1hander which I was fortunate to get on a 25ony run. The end goal for me is to have the 245 and 232 version of Quel'Serrar since the procs should stack and they both swing at 2sec as opposed to 1.6s.

Magic Defense somewhat erratic since Spell Deflection goes off parry % it's never 100% and acclamation has to build up to have a good effect (the idea of using acclamation is assuming ICC will have fights always dealing magic dmg like Sapphiron and Twins so it'll hit 3 stacks quickly)

Lack of DnD and Epidemic make disease refreshing a pain. Also 2t10 gives a DnD buff to tanking which wouldn't be using often in this spec other than initial pulls and for add down times.

Lack of Expertise cap in the build, I'm short 2expertise in this build which hurts and there's no way around it unless you wanna sacrifice HB.

Getting Dcapped without the 1h enchantments at this point is difficult. (I managed to do it sadly had to socket and enchant a few +d rating items)


Conclusion:

I personally love it as a DW tank spec. I think magic resistances is highly underrated at this point and will be very valuable for ICC encounters. I need a lot more hits, say 2-3k more but that's a gearing issue and not as much a spec issue at this point.

I'm looking for thoughts and feedbacks on this to see what people think. Also I understand that this build actually does rely on slow/slow wpns which means you NEED Quel'Serrar of some lvl and if you can get ur hands on both the 245 and 232 version of the wpn then ur looking at really sexy defense/armor buffs. Also, getting ur hands on the Ony tanking ring 10/25 either version would just make you an even sexier magic tank.

My only feedback would be that I don't think you'll *need* two tanking weapons. In fact, I think threat will be better with 2 2.6 speed DPS weapons and the new Def glyph. This sounds silly at first, given the fact that there are options as far as 1h tank weapons go, but at the end of the day it's not much difference that using a 2her without tanking stats (save the glyph), which is what blood and unholy do. Avoidance will be better with two tanking weapons, so it'd be nice to have them handy, but I'd keep my focus on some nice DPS 1hers.

A couple questions... the is about Quel'Serrar. I notice you said you'd use the 232 and the 245... I was under the impression that they couldn't be used together, much the same as having 2 of the same ilevel. Am I wrong?

Second question is a bit off-topic from your post, but on-topic as far as DW tanking goes. I've looked and can't this anywhere. Basically, I had a guildie tell me that he would use fast tanking weapons in favor of slow DPS weapons because there was a cap on rune strike's threat, making it useless to use a slow weapon. Now I was under the opposite impression... slow weapon = harder strikes (rune strike included) and less parrygibs. I know I'm right on parrygibs, but I'm curious as to where this guildie got the impression that rune strike capped out? While I like to consider myself fairly informed about my class, I'm not too well versed in DW, and this guildie happens to be one of the few people I know who really knows his stuff. So can anyone shed any light on this?

The two versions of the QS proc do not stack, but both weapons can be equipped at the same time. The proc from the 245 will overwrite the 232 version, but it seems (warning: anecdotal) that a proc of the 232 version will refresh the 245 buff back to 10 seconds.

They are 2 different spell ID's from 2 Different Items, similar to Deaths verdict stacking normal and heroic versions, I see no basis to how you came to the conclusion that they do not stack other than anecdotal thought.

I have both of them and watch the buffs as my character beats on the training dummy? Basically while the evidence lends towards your conclusion on paper (due to differing spell IDs), I have personally watched a 232 buff with 6 seconds disappear and the 245 buff at 10 seconds show up.

Regarding Quel'Serrar, there is no internal cooldown on the buff. I can't confirm or refute tjn's observations regarding buff stacking/overwriting, since I've only got the 245. A few other things I *can* add, though:

In real-world (raiding) use, the Quel'Serrar buff is up about 40% of the time I'm in combat. Some of that time is spent moving around, waiting for things to happen, etc., so its useful uptime is probably more like 45%. Adding a second QS to the mix should therefore bring useful uptime to about 70% (that's 1-(1-.45)*(1-.45)). Unlike a stats-based weapon, its proc-based nature gives decreased usefulness to a second one.

In terms of threat, the difference between dual-wielding Crusader's Glory (a level 232 one-hander with a 1.5s swing speed) and using one Crusader's Glory in the offhand and a level 245 QS (with its 2.0s swing speed) in the main hand is about 4%. This difference decreases as your attack power goes up - I'm geared for ToGC-10 or ToC-25 but not ToGC-25, so there's a rough point of comparison. I've also never had problems with threat; I tend to PuG raids, but some of those PuGs do have DPS that crack 7K single-target, and I'm still well ahead of them once I get a few Rune Strikes.

Let's extrapolate from the increase I saw going from CG to QS, using a pure DPS weapon in your main hand with a 2.7s swing speed of the same item level as a tanking weapon with a 1.5s swing speed. Not counting the threat stats on a DPS weapon vs. a tanking weapon, just from the raw damage increase alone, you'd probably see a 7% increase in overall threat. I carry DPS weapons just in case I run into a situation where I need them, but I have never needed them. If your raid would benefit from you putting out 7% more threat, swap in a DPS mainhand. If that's still not enough, swap in a DPS offhand, for I guess another 3-4% increase. I do like Quel'Serrar as a good compromise mainhand (and I take slightly less damage wielding it than I do dual-wielding Crusader's Glory).