BS is really nowhere as good as it was pre 3.1, 4 hits (6 glyphed) on 2 minute CD can't really compare to Vampiric Blood plus higher EHP and Unbreakable Armor plus Frost's higher mitigation and avoidance.

UB basically moves the single target damage from UB into DC. On most fights I see DC doing 10-15% of my DPS, and UB doing 3-5% of my DPS. Giving 30% extra damage from DC basically means the same total DPS from DC+UB. It's not a buff at all.

The degree to which you will be affected by the Frost Strike nerf probably depends on the degree to which you've been ignoring hit and expertise in your gearing. There is enough tanking equipment with both stats on them to minimize the impact of that particular change.

Even with an armor trinket popped, glyphed UA absorbs less than 2k damage for me. A boss only needs to swing for 10k for bone shield to provide more mitigation. Expected uptime with six charges even against a fairly fast-swinging boss (1.8s swing timer debuffed) and a measly 50% avoidance is still more than 20 seconds, and many bosses swing slower (2.4s debuffed). Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the ~2.5s internal cooldown on BS charges being removed means the worst-case uptime is still 12.5s. Most notably, BS is pretty reliable for two fusion punches on Steelbreaker. I mean, frost certainly has better physical mitigation and avoidance, but I don't see how you can argue that UA is as good as BS (maybe you weren't arguing this, but it seems fairly obvious to me).

Your UB calculations ignore the fact that you no longer have to _cast_ UB. That amounts to an additoinal DC every cycle against single target, and the corresponding UB damage. Without 4t7 or UB glyph but with butchery (generating 133 RP per cycle), that's over a 40% increase in the number of death coils you cast. Even with 4t7 and UB glyph, it's still over a 20% increase in the number of death coils cast (and of course the new UB glyph will further increase the bonus damage). Rough calculations of course don't take gargoyle or AMS into account, but regardless, it's a massive increase in DC damage against a single target.

I really don't agree with his assessment, especially of UA. I mean, the strength boost is great for threat and provides a little parry, but calling it a "mini shield wall" is just ridiculous when it mitigates maybe 10-15% of hits against a hard-hitting boss, and even less against Big Damage(TM). I find it pretty lackluster and just tend to pop it on cooldown for a little bit of extra mitigation and threat. BS provides 20% and lasts longer in most cases (i.e. not horrible luck and not algalon), and VB, as he says, will save your life if used intelligently, plus it lasts 30s and saves your healers mana the whole time.

I agree with DW tanking not being viable but we do have 2 one hander runeforges that are designed for tanking. I'm not sure if I've ever caught a blue post saying DW tanking was not viable. I don't want to actually discuses DW tanking I just wanted to make that point.

Can anyone on the PTR that has around 39.7k hp unbuffed with 26.6k armor in Blood spec comment on what their numbers came out to be with the recent nerfs? I have had trouble downloading and seeing for myself. I estimated 2.5-3k hp nerf unbuffed to hp, I'm curious to know how close I was. Thanks.

Edit:Removed. Overlooked the fact there aren't any slow ulduar tanking weapons. Makes DW tanking tps much lower than I'd thought.

Jeez that isn't as bad as I expected. This is a long shot though... have you had a chance to be full raid buffed, flask and food as well or are those numbers to hard to come by? I would just try to math it out but that was fail since I didn't math it out right to begin with.

I only logged into the PTR to prospect my titanium ore and see my unbuffed HP difference. I didn't take the time to get raid buffed because I think its to early because the changes to our class will probably be changed even more in a later build. I plan on doing a lot more when that time comes as well.

@Qaenyin
You really can't compare ~1% avoidance to ~800HP because it depends on the fight. I think DW may be a viable option for some fights but it would depend on if avoidance is the better choice and if the boss is subject to parryhaste.

I ran some numbers for the hell of it using rawr's estimated best in slot, using obliterate to check strike damage. Assuming furious 2h vs (uld 25 weapon), max rank obliterate with no glyph and no naxx25 sigil(naxx25 sigil would overinflate dual wield's advantage and glyph affects both DW and 2h equally), avg Oblit damage on 0 armor target would be 2550.41 2h, vs 2873.78 DW. About an 11.3% difference in damage. The problem however is the fact that you'd lose about 50% damage on Rune Strike per hit, but the boss' attack speed and your RP gain would limit the number of mainhand swings you could convert into rune strikes, meaning you'd probably lose about 40%ish of your rune strike threat. Maybe a little less.

Unfortunately I don't know how to model Rune Strike accurately, especially since the DW Tanking build I'm looking at incorporates Scent of Blood, which would favor dual wield due to ICD being removed but also make your RP generation spiky as all hell(which, considering rune strike's availability being reliant on chance, specifically your avoidance chance, makes the tps generation difference pretty RNG and difficult to figure out).

What's of course clear however is the less % of your tps is rune strikes, the more likely it is DW will out-threat 2h. And it's almost completely certain that DW will out-dps 2h, owing to the fact that not only will your strikes hit harder and your autoattack dps likely be higher, but Rune Strikes, much like Heroic Strike, will negate the dual wield penalty on your mainhand swings when it's available. Although, on the other hand, although your strikes will hit harder, the advantage DW has on strikes is solely from your bonus damage on your strikes, meaning it's possible, though very unlikely at least pre-icecrown if not in general, that 2h could outscale DW and take away its advantage on strikes. Largely due to the fact that in current content there are no slow tanking weapons(if there was an Ulduar equivalent to Broken Promise then DW would almost certainly have a solid lead).

I'd say it definitely looks plausible and probably competitive though, even if it isn't flat out superior.

Scent of Blood hasn't had an ICD, its just a tooltip error they are fixing. I did some testing awhile back in this thread showing that Scent of Blood can proc within a second of the first proc.

Ah, ok. Must have missed that, thanks.

Mimiron Hard Mode
Iron Council Hard Mode
Thorim Hard Mode
General Vezax Easy Mode
XT Hard Mode (to some extent)

I personally view BS as a stronger CD for these fights. Magic Suppression and AMZ help out a lot on the Mimiron and IC fights too. You can also use Unholy for Freya so you can spread Ebon Plague on all the detonating lashers and on the adds for Kologarn.