Weapons with armor -- Finally Useful?

[Stewy08]

Well if anyone recalls, theres currently 10 items ingame that are 1 handed and have armor on them.

Armor on weapons (becides druid weapons) has always sought to be almost useless but now with death knights without sheilds, could this be a viable item stat finally?

From past items and lore im thinking at 80 there will finally be more of these items but with more armor and more DK stat compiled.

First weapon I put out there is Widow's Remorsehttp://www.wowhead.com/?item=22806
This weapon has everything DK about it, and ever became the class icon and again has armor value.

Second weapon is The Hungering Cold http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23577
This weapon again has armor and the baseline death knight image and name, as death knights are always craving cold unholy lands.

Third weapon to help my point that current weapons with armor is made for a death knight is
The Unbreakable Will http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30874
This weapon has the tipical armor and the name maybe discribes the will that a death knight and the lich king have together.

Final weapon im looking at today is the Kings Defender http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28749Again armor seems a little unneeded even for a prot char, so back to the lore -- Does the title Kings Defender mean King Llane or is it in context of the lich king?


Call me crazy but it seems alot of the weapons currently ingame with armor are somehow related to death knights -- So hopefully these will continue and finally have some use for us.

[Lucyon]

...Call me crazy...

You're crazy

[Explosive]

Second weapon is The Hungering Cold

Sorry to disappoint you mate, but the weapon (as far as I can read) is impossible to get for a death knight, seeing as though Naxx 40 is removed from the game files or so.

Interesting theories though, but I didn't quite catch this - Why is armor more useful for a DK than it is for a prot warrior? You may be right, because I haven't studied the various DK abilities out there. I'm merely curious

[Vallos]

From what I've seen, armor isn't as big for the DK as it has been for other characters. They have a few talents that give bonuses to armor or bonuses from armor, but of course their primary mitigation is from a very high parry rating, and of course from talents and auras. I'm also curious to see how they do itemization, though. Extra armor on one-handed swords could help dual-wielding be truly viable (or even preferred) for tanks, and all of the talented amplification could potentially give them a very competitive armor rating. Again, it'll be interesting.

[Stewy08]

Sorry to disappoint you mate, but the weapon (as far as I can read) is imposible to get for a death knight, seeing as though Naxx 40 is removed from the game files or so.

Interesting theories though, but I didn't quite catch this - Why is armor more useful for a DK than it is for a prot warrior? You may be right, because I haven't studied the various DK abilities out there. I'm merely curious

Yeah sorry, I wasnt saying that these items would be useful for a death knight, just saying it seems like the stat on all the weapons I menchtioned always seemed like a filler but now maybe it can be put to use for a DK

[Shido]

Talented, Death Knights get 45% of their Armor extra.

that isnt from talent thats from Frost Presence

then you have Toughness (15% - when its max out) which is talent.

[Explosive]

Naturally - didn't think of them not using shield :
Thanks for clearing that up, and yes if they rely heavily on parry rating extra armor may indeed prove powerful, especially if they do not have super-high item values

[psychosis - Earthern Ring]

i dont think DK's will go for duel wielding whilst tanking, because with with duelwield you need massive ammounts of +hit rating so if this isnt capped then the DK will miss alot = less threat generation

(if bliz has removed hit rating then sry)

[FluffyWuffms]

Capping hit has never been a huge problem. Duel weildind as a Death Knight tank is a good idea. You can get a mian hand tank sword and a offhand sword with... extra stamina or w/e.

>_> off topic...

[Maenetus]

but of course their primary mitigation is from a very high parry rating

parry = avoidance =/= mitigation
and last I checked they don't really have uber parry. They have a 10% situational talent.

warriors and paladins get 5% always on. Rogues have the best parry in wotlk

edit: ah I got a better look, DKs do seem to have the best avoidance

Armour was never useless

QFT, once you learn the very basics of tank theory, you realize that armor is the most important stat for tanking. It's like stam but better.

Duel weildind as a Death Knight tank is a good idea.

until you consider parries. You'll trigger three times as much boss parry haste and get a third of the benefit from your parries. And while getting to the hit cap for specials is easy, capping duel wield white hits is very hard.

[Admuntour]

Armor isn't a problem really, I've calculated that a DK at level 70, with with toughness and frost presence, could reach 20k armor in sunwell plate gear.
And Fluffy, getting hit capped is a very big problem, even with sunwell level gear the rogues in my guild still stack +hit gems in their gear whenever they can and if they had the choice I think they would even put +hit enchants.
For a DK to tank in dual wield he would need; +hit necks, rings and cloaks instead of tanking necks, rings cloaks; he would need lots of +hit gems and enchants instead of getting tanking gems and enchants.
Overall a DK would gimp his tanking stats by quite a bit if he tries to tank dual wield, it might be viable but a 2h DK tank will have more armor, more avoidance, more HP and could generate good threat without needing +hit.