Frost tanking- 2h or DW?

[Firestar31]

Sooo... I'm tanking on my DK, atm using a 2h Frost spec. Since I was able to acquire a decent one-hand weapon I' wondering whether DW tanking would be the better choice.
Also, should I use tanking weapons for DW tanking, or is it better to stick with DPS weapons?
Thx in advance.

[Trod]

DW is nevr viable opt for tanking because of the haste buff or instant cast melee swing bosses get on parried attacks you take a lot more damage

[ashblond]

DW is nevr viable opt for tanking because of the haste buff or instant cast melee swing bosses get on parried attacks you take a lot more damage

no offense, but this reply is quite dumb....I dont know how you get the conclusion of DW is never viable option for tanking.

if you are frost dk, you should go DW tanking, or at least try it. with ToT, frost DW tanking has better threat and dps than 2H. Parry haste is not something you should worry about.

Blizzard is clearly making frost a DW talent tree now. frost DW dps already shows it's surperior than frost 2H. with the new nerubian carapace rune in 3.3, frost DW tanking will be more than viable and certainly better than frost 2H.

My frost dk will never look back to 2H.

[Blaugrana1899]

if you're a frost tank, i think DW is the only really viable option... i used to be a 2h frost tank and i did just fine in ulduar and even at the beginning of toc. but when the DD in my raid started to get better gear, my threat just wasn't enough sometimes. so i switched to blood tank. i got a nice 1h weapon this weekend, so i'll go back to frost next week (dualwield this time). and yes, i'll use slow dps weapons... with fast tanking weapons, i guess your threat will suck and you might aswell stick with a 2h.

with 3.3 we'll get new tanking runes for 1h weapons AND an instance with some trashmobs in it... two nice reasons to switch to frost DW.

[Mayden]

Parry haste is turned of on most boss encounters, especially on those where it would be a problem.
If you use tankweapons you will notice that they often got expertise on them to overcome this.

I tried dualwield tankweapons for some time. Its fun, higher avoidance stats, but threat was a problem.
But i recommend you just give it a go, its a game, just try it.

[Hedstone]

2h is relatively much more convenient, especially if you have a bit of arena skill. Just snag an 1800 rating and buy the T1 weapon - loads of stamina plus two more gems for stamina as well. Further, 2h vs. 1h lets you distro points with a bit more ease since you do not need to spend six extra points in dw specific items.

[Offhand]

Parry haste is turned of on most boss encounters, especially on those where it would be a problem.
If you use tankweapons you will notice that they often got expertise on them to overcome this.

I tried dualwield tankweapons for some time. Its fun, higher avoidance stats, but threat was a problem.
But i recommend you just give it a go, its a game, just try it.

You're going to get 30 expertise skill from two weapons? Go on, this is news to me.

Not to mention, Blood and Glory, Ardent Guard, and Qual'Serrar don't have expertise on them.

[Apostolic]

A few things.


1. On most encounters where Parry Gibbing matters, it has been turned off. This is stated from a blue post that I can't seem to find.

2. At tank spot they have done testing on this question. A duel wield DK will actually be parried LESS then a warrior or a druid. Also, with the higher avoidance that a dual wield dk has, this is negated to the fact that it does not matter anymore.

If you would like to read up more on the subject here are a few links
Tank Spot Dual Wield DK Tank
Elitist Jerks Dual Wield DK Tank Thread

If you can get the gear to maintain decent treat and survivability, you should give it a try.

In my personal opinion though, I usually stick to the tree for tanking and DPS. You don't have to change your rotation very much when you switch back and forth on encounters.

[General Vezax]

Both are viable. DW frost tanks with 2 dps weapons can generate as much threat as Blood, but 2H will lack a little (but not too much)

[Morrigann]

Dw is definately viable, especially with the new rune coming out next patch. With Rune strike proccing ToT now, threat is off the charts and so is damage. I use two fast tank weapons at the moment, and it's not great, but with the new rune, I will be able to switch to slow dps weapons, put the stam rune on them, and gem for some of the avoidance that I'll lose.
Also, Expertise (while always a necessity) isnt all important as some in this thread have suggested. Boss that parry-gibb (like Patchwerk) have had it removed, and those that dont should not be a problem, since you should have the avoidance/stam to mitigate that extra hit.

[rabbimojo]

DW is nevr viable opt for tanking because of the haste buff or instant cast melee swing bosses get on parried attacks you take a lot more damage

To add to the replies to this:
Parry hasting does not necessarily create an "instant cast melee swing."

Wowwiki's parry formula (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Parry) entry (which may be outdated, but I haven't heard any mention to that effect) states:
"When you parry an attack, the remaining time on your current swing is reduced by 40% of your weapon speed, unless this would result in a reduction to less than 20% of your swing time remaining" and "This results in an average of .24 extra swings per parry".

But considering that tanks typically have 60% avoidance, that amounts to about 0.096 swings per parry. Considering rune strike is being added to ToT, it doesn't seem to be that big of a problem. Even without expertise, the boss has at most what, 14% to parry? So every 7 swings would cause a parry. IE, every swing would trigger 0.01344 extra swings from the boss. So, worst case, you're looking at something like a 1.34% increase to boss damage. (This is super rough, and realistically there are many more facets to it)

It just isn't a big deal, especially since the bosses for which parry hasting is a critical factor have it turned off. A DW DK tank will not be parry gibbed.

[Gunbuddy]

I personally use DW on my tank.
as the poster above stated, parry hasting is a minor problem
the only difference i saw was threat pre 3.2
if you can get decent weapons to use for DW, decent enough to hold threat, then 2H holds no advantage imo.
i DW the sword from H ToC (forget the name), which gives me a crapload more avoidance than DKs that use 2H with the stoneskin gargoyle rune.

[Fornaw]

To summarize things already said in this thread and others.

Currently max threat as frost is obtained by DW slow dps weapons. 2h Frost has, in my experience, been sufficient threat to not threat cap my dps. DW tank weapons is going to result in highly inferior threat, using 1.5 speed tanking weapons as opposed to a 2.6 speed dps weapons (most common speeds imo) gimps your threat from all strikes by 40% which is pretty unacceptable to me, your single target threat is generated mostly by runestrike and obliterate. The current tradeoff is losing 2% stam and gaining ~1% avoidance, most tanks would not consider that acceptable for hardmodes, but the difference is negligible for most content and from what I've read Blood is still considered the best DK tank spec for survival. In patch 3.3 the tradeoff is going to be a moot point, but its worth mentioning since the OP asked about current standings.

Parry gibbing is not much of a concern, current math has it that a DK dwing slow dps weapons takes approximately the same parries/time as a warrior, though admittedly significantly more parries than any other DK. The biggest reason why Parry gibbing isn't a concern is because designers don't like the randomness of it, given bosses like Gormak where 2 swings will kill a tank having RNG make the next swing come 40% faster just results in a frustrating play experience. As such parry haste is flagged off on all bosses where it would matter (though from what I've read this is rather lower than the majority of bosses). As a side note expertise is imo still a good tank stat because it boosts threat and reduces damage taken on all bosses that can parry haste.

[Azyoulike]

But considering that tanks typically have 60% avoidance, that amounts to about 0.096 swings per parry. Considering rune strike is being added to ToT, it doesn't seem to be that big of a problem. Even without expertise, the boss has at most what, 14% to parry? So every 7 swings would cause a parry. IE, every swing would trigger 0.01344 extra swings from the boss. So, worst case, you're looking at something like a 1.34% increase to boss damage. (This is super rough, and realistically there are many more facets to it)

The problem with this analysis is that you're examining it from a bulk damage dealt perspective, but bulk damage dealt is rarely what kills tanks - spikes are. One parry every 7 swings means two parries in a row roughly every 50 etc, and given that DKs start with the spikiest damage profile of any tank, that could be an issue on some parry-haste enabled bosses.

To really measure the increased chance of death would require a simulation, and obviously would be dependent on the parameters you specified. One of these days if I'm very bored I might have a stab at this.

[Trod]

no offense, but this reply is quite dumb....I dont know how you get the conclusion of DW is never viable option for tanking.

if you are frost dk, you should go DW tanking, or at least try it. with ToT, frost DW tanking has better threat and dps than 2H. Parry haste is not something you should worry about.

Blizzard is clearly making frost a DW talent tree now. frost DW dps already shows it's surperior than frost 2H. with the new nerubian carapace rune in 3.3, frost DW tanking will be more than viable and certainly better than frost 2H.

My frost dk will never look back to 2H.

I dont have a spread sheet to show you but what I do know and a lot of this im sure is affected by RNG but when I had DW frost spec and blood spec running ToTC on my DK for the first time and on Beasts I took almost 20% more damage in recount in my frost spec so say what you want as someone whos actually tried it and not just quoting something they read on a different forum DW is not a viable option unless your just lookiog to overstress your healers

[Fornaw]

I personally use DW on my tank.
as the poster above stated, parry hasting is a minor problem
the only difference i saw was threat pre 3.2
if you can get decent weapons to use for DW, decent enough to hold threat, then 2H holds no advantage imo.
i DW the sword from H ToC (forget the name), which gives me a crapload more avoidance than DKs that use 2H with the stoneskin gargoyle rune.

I have no idea how you hold threat like that, I use a hellion glaive so considering weapon speed alone my strikes hit 160% as hard as yours, this disregards the higher weapon dps, and 2h weapon specialization. Honestly DW threat is better than 2h threat if you use the right weapons, but the difference is pretty small, you have to go deep into unholy to get necrosis and bcb in order to DW frost dps, no tank really has that option, the most I could see in unholy is a 5/52/14 build which gives you most of necrosis but misses a lot of runic power talents (which I view as pretty crucial to a frost tank).

[homesickalien]

Here is a fantastic article that should answer all your questions about DW tanking:
http://pwnwear.com/2009/09/22/3-22-d...wield-tanking/

Includes a nifty little expertise table comparing parries to a warrior tank:
#attacks #parries(no Exp) #parries(26 Exp) (30 exp)
Warrior = 72 10.1 5.4
DK-2S = 58 8.1 4.4
DK-2F = 80 11.2 6.0 5.2
DK-2H = 31 4.3 2.3

“S” slow, “F” fast, “2H” two-handed.

The reason why the calculations above include 2 fast weapons is because most of the new tanking weps are fast.

[Fornaw]

Here is a fantastic article that should answer all your questions about DW tanking:
http://pwnwear.com/2009/09/22/3-22-d...wield-tanking/

Includes a nifty little expertise table comparing parries to a warrior tank:
#attacks #parries(no Exp) #parries(26 Exp) (30 exp)
Warrior = 72 10.1 5.4
DK-2S = 58 8.1 4.4
DK-2F = 80 11.2 6.0 5.2
DK-2H = 31 4.3 2.3

“S” slow, “F” fast, “2H” two-handed.

The reason why the calculations above include 2 fast weapons is because most of the new tanking weps are fast.

The accuracy of that article is rather questionable, why would you do math on ilvl 213 weapons? How does the tps calculation even make sense? You lose a ton of strike damage to gain a small amount of white damage and killing machine procs going double fast, and in reality you have the same white damage and more killing machine procs when going double slow.

Also I don't really believe that parry table, while true that icy touch, howling blast and rune strike cannot be parried all other attacks can be, and single target tanking uses icy touch rarely and howling blast on rime procs only. I'd like to see the assumptions behind that table in terms of rotation for both warrior and DK specs. Given full raid buffs and a 1.5 speed weapon you white swing far more often (about 3x) than you use your special attacks. Any table that puts a frost dk with double tank weapons close to a warrior with the same tank weapon in terms of parries/time is going to set off some red flags for me. TBQH I've never bought the argument that getting the same number of parries as a warrior is any kind of reasonable goal anyway, DKs tank like DKs, ideally you would want to be comparable in terms of parries to a 2h DK tank, in reality that is impossible so you really just want to look at it in terms of can I stay alive and build threat.

I know that I didn't exactly post math myself, I'm just going off what I've read on EJ. If nothing else the implementation of the nerubian carapace rune in 3.3 suggests that Blizzard believes I am right and DW frost tanking should be done with slow DPS weapons.

Edit: Some napkin math.

If I assume a DK uses 2x 1.5 speed weapons, has 60% dodge+parry, a boss has a 2.5 second swing timer, and all rune strikeable attacks are converted into rune strikes I yield a DK does 22 normal white swings every 20 seconds. I then add to that 4x obliterate, 2x blood strike, 1x scourge strike every 20 seconds to yield 1.45 parry possible attacks every second. I ignored frost strikes because attempting to estimate how many are used would be a nightmare. A warrior does 16 normal white swings+heroic strikes every 20 seconds, thus a warrior needs to use 13 parry possible special attacks every 20 seconds, or basically all warrior gcds must be parry capable to even the score without considering frost strikes. Perhaps someone knows what warrior abilities can be parried and if any cannot (I would think devastate can't be at least).

[ashblond]

DW is nevr viable opt for tanking because of the haste buff or instant cast melee swing bosses get on parried attacks you take a lot more damage

Look back this thread again...

[Dakara]

I dont have a spread sheet to show you but what I do know and a lot of this im sure is affected by RNG but when I had DW frost spec and blood spec running ToTC on my DK for the first time and on Beasts I took almost 20% more damage in recount in my frost spec so say what you want as someone whos actually tried it and not just quoting something they read on a different forum DW is not a viable option unless your just lookiog to overstress your healers

Then you were doing it wrong.

The only way a DW tank would take more damage than a 2H tank is due to Parry Hasting. But, a DK tank using 2 slow weapons will be parried less than a Paladin/Warrior with the same expertise. Using a Slow/Fast would be about the same, and using Fast/Fast would be parried more.

Now, while Parry haste is for the most part turned off in ICC, the example you gave was ToC.

So lets evaluate this.

Frost (2H or DW) has an extra 2% DR over Blood, and -3% chance to be hit. Also, it's 1 minute CD (UA) is a DR CD, not a Last stand/+ healing CD. Therefore, unless you were tanking in a DPS spec, a Frost spec tank will always take less damage than a Blood Tank.

If you were using fast/fast with little to no expertise, because of parry hasting, you would have received more damage sure. But 20% more damage after frosts increased DR and mitigation sounds like you're either making up numbers or someone forgot to turn Frost Presence on, while in a DPS spec, using fast weapons with no expertise.