Well I sure am glad they updated nerubian cara-wait, what?

[Exxile87]

Blood is a two-hand tanking tree now. However, premade 85s start with two one-hand tanking weapons. You can only spec for Blood-caked Blade as a tank. You have access to Nerves of Cold Steel. They updated the one-hand version of the tanking Runeforge. Looks like Blizzard is going to allow for those that liked to duel-wield tank. This is odd, since they've effectively killed duel-wield Unholy. Duel-wield Frost is way ahead of two-hand Frost in terms of DPS and its more comfortable playstyle (duel-wield frost only has a couple free GCDs every minute, but 2h is slightly overcapped).

In short, beta is beta.

[Wingwraith]

However, premade 85s start with two one-hand tanking weapons.

And premade 80's on the PTR only have like 15 talent points... so it's not like a whole lot of thought and planning went into these things...

[Albert the fish]

i was wondering about this myself.

we may be looking at the very beginning of allowing dw blood tanks?
maybe? bcb is t3 now so it's plausible if they trim down the blood tree a touch

[evan_s]

Dps have huge health pools. Normals won't be that hard.

Even if a plate dps has the Health pool to not die to a single crit it still doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me, as a healer. You've got a "tank" with little to none of the talents that increase avoidance, add additional mitigation and are still crittable. It sure sounds like you'd be making the healers job a lot harder and with healers mana being at more of a premium it sure sounds like a stressful situation.

[AlexGrey]

Am I the only one looking at the new nerubian carapace, thinking "um... Blizz please stop remotely implying that DW tanking is ok if you're not going to support it"?

Offering choices is great. Offering choices that are outside your stated design intent (nerves of cold steel on tier 1... don't get me started...) is creating the very trap doors of "really wrong decisions" that motivated the shaving down of talent trees.

Unless... the moving of bcb is meant to...

Naaaaw.... They wouldn't....

Would they?....

DKs were always meant to be two-handed weapon tanks, that was their original design. If they said otherwise recently, they just dug their own grave of commitment to passionate DK players.

[Brince]

There's going to be 1handers with strength on so "Forcefull Deflection - Increases your parry by 25% of your strength" so my idea is Blizz has removed the idea of 2h tanking only and allowing 1handers to tank as well which is sort of shown by the rune of nerub change because strength on 1 handers add forcefull deflection + the updated rune, seems pretty win to me.

Without threat of thassarian you'll gimp your tps too much. 1 handed hs and ds will never be able to hold aggro from the insane dps they're currently doing in beta.

[Daggy1111]

Actually dw tanking on beta is not all that gimped. I admit it is less, but 2 of your main tps skills(bb, dc) are not effected at all, and some of your your lesser skills(bcb,blp,dnd,dots,it) are not effected al that much. The only things that get gimped are ds and hs, which while losing about 20%, you make up for in the fact that you get so many more white hits.

[Deathquoi]

Actually dw tanking on beta is not all that gimped. I admit it is less, but 2 of your main tps skills(bb, dc) are not effected at all, and some of your your lesser skills(bcb,blp,dnd,dots,it) are not effected al that much. The only things that get gimped are ds and hs, which while losing about 20%, you make up for in the fact that you get so many more white hits.

So your rune strike and DS mitigation shield suck hard, but you make up for it with BCB procs and white hits? At least try to make some sense.

[Oneirophobia]

It's there because Frost and Unholy are meant to tank regular dungeons, and Frost is a DW tree.

FFS so many people in this thread posting stuff like this who obviously have no idea what the thread is about.

Blizzard has stated that Blood is the tanking tree in cataclysm. A ton (if not all) the defensive/tanking talents have been migrated over to Blood, the mastery awarded to Blood is for tanking, Blood has gained the vengance tanking ability, etc etc.
In short, BLOOD = TANK TREE.
Unholy and Frost will be NO LONGER VIABLE FOR TANKING. EVER. AT ANY POINT.
They're for DPS. If you're going to say "yeah but you can wear tank gear and--" NO. NO YOU CAN'T.
Thats like saying a Fury Warrior can slap on tank gear and tank, or a Retribution Paladin can slap on tank gear and tank, or a Boomkin can hit bearform and tank.
NO. BAD. >:C
You can't even say "well at low levels..." anymore (in terms of warriors/druids/paladins), because of the new "Surprise you're already a ___!" on your first talent point, doing things another tree is supposed to do (IE TANKING >:C) is quite a bad idea. Besides, DKs start at 55 and are quite deep in their trees when they get going, so for you to spec DPS and then try to tank (without any tank gear right off the bat, I might add) would be a VERY bad idea.

The POINT of the thread is,
If Blood is the standardized tanking tree, dubbed so by Blizzard, and its strikes, etc. are most efficienty with a 2h (without Threat of Thas at least), and your threat is going to suck and life in general is going to suck if you DW tank, and Blizzard has said "WE REDID THE TREES TO MAKE CHOICES EASIER AND HAVE NO TRAPS IN THEM" then why did Blizz update Narubian Carapace instead of just get rid of it?
THAT is what the Original Poster was asking.
Stop telling them that "Well Frost and Unholy can tank, duh."
NO. >:C Unholy isn't supposed to DW regardless anyways, DW Unholy has been dead for well over a year now. Furthermore Unholy tanking has been frowned upon for a looong while.
RAAAAAGE.
Anyways, in my opinion they should have made Narubian Carapace (If they insist on keeping it) a PvP resiliance grant or something unique.
Either that, or clone Threat of Thas and stick in Blood or something, or make a talent that increases your threat when DWing. Maybe they will, who knows.

[Kanzel]

DW is in no way supported by any talents available in the blood tree, nor is it made better than using a 2hander with any talents available in other trees. Nerves of Cold Steel is not enough to make DW at all viable, not even with BCB, not even if Necrosis still existed. Threat of Thassarian is mandatory for dual wielding outside of that gimmicky DC Machine Gun DW Unholy build that should be dead by now.

By dual wielding with blood you lose: Rune Strike damage, Heart Strike damage, Death Strike damage, DRW damage(+ amazing 50% threat with the glyph).

By dual wielding with blood you gain: Some white damage(maybe) and more hits to the face(if mobs/bosses can still be parry hasted in Cata).

Unchanged: DnD, DC, BB.

There is no reason to DW.

[Foibles]

FFS so many people in this thread posting stuff like this who obviously have no idea what the thread is about.

Arms/Fury/Ret have ALWAYS been able to tank normal modes. DKs could do it in dps specs in Wrath. Cata will be no different if you aren't terrible.

[Omedon]

(if mobs/bosses can still be parry hasted in Cata).

Nope, that's dead.

I still agree with everything else you said, though.

---------- Post added 2010-10-01 at 06:58 PM ----------

FFS so many people in this thread posting stuff like this who obviously have no idea what the thread is about.

Blizzard has stated that Blood is the tanking tree in cataclysm. A ton (if not all) the defensive/tanking talents have been migrated over to Blood, the mastery awarded to Blood is for tanking, Blood has gained the vengance tanking ability, etc etc.
In short, BLOOD = TANK TREE.
Unholy and Frost will be NO LONGER VIABLE FOR TANKING. EVER. AT ANY POINT.
They're for DPS. If you're going to say "yeah but you can wear tank gear and--" NO. NO YOU CAN'T.
Thats like saying a Fury Warrior can slap on tank gear and tank, or a Retribution Paladin can slap on tank gear and tank, or a Boomkin can hit bearform and tank.
NO. BAD. >:C
You can't even say "well at low levels..." anymore (in terms of warriors/druids/paladins), because of the new "Surprise you're already a ___!" on your first talent point, doing things another tree is supposed to do (IE TANKING >:C) is quite a bad idea. Besides, DKs start at 55 and are quite deep in their trees when they get going, so for you to spec DPS and then try to tank (without any tank gear right off the bat, I might add) would be a VERY bad idea.

The POINT of the thread is,
If Blood is the standardized tanking tree, dubbed so by Blizzard, and its strikes, etc. are most efficienty with a 2h (without Threat of Thas at least), and your threat is going to suck and life in general is going to suck if you DW tank, and Blizzard has said "WE REDID THE TREES TO MAKE CHOICES EASIER AND HAVE NO TRAPS IN THEM" then why did Blizz update Narubian Carapace instead of just get rid of it?
THAT is what the Original Poster was asking.
Stop telling them that "Well Frost and Unholy can tank, duh."
NO. >:C Unholy isn't supposed to DW regardless anyways, DW Unholy has been dead for well over a year now. Furthermore Unholy tanking has been frowned upon for a looong while.
RAAAAAGE.
Anyways, in my opinion they should have made Narubian Carapace (If they insist on keeping it) a PvP resiliance grant or something unique.
Either that, or clone Threat of Thas and stick in Blood or something, or make a talent that increases your threat when DWing. Maybe they will, who knows.

First of all, your post gave me a good early morning laugh, you are quite possibly one of maybe three people posting on this thread that understand what I was getting at so, thank you.

Now, to continue this tangent a little more calmly...

I play a DK tank. I also have 7 other 80's of different classes, whom I'd like to play through dungeons/heroics down the road when PUGing is made more reasonable by later layers of gear access. This is why I'd like the tanking and healing experiences (the holy paladin learning curve scares me, and I don't play one) to be as intuitive as possible, to cut down on "failboat" tanks and healers, so I don't have to tank ALL THE TIME, being someone who will go the extra mile to understand my class, as not everyone falls into that camp, nor, according to Blizzard, should they have to be.

For all of WOTLK, "the extra mile" has been incentivized by... well... default inclusion, in most cases. Blizzard is trying to kill that, because people paying blizz aren't paying, say our buddy Boubille, for access to default game understanding. WoW needs to teach WoW, not only MMOC, not EJ.

Unintuitive road signs pointing toward DW tanking, when it is not supported, work against this ethic, and that annoys me. That brings me closer to "if you want something done right, do it yourself"... and I'd like to play my warlock someday.

[Foibles]

How is it not supported in Cata? There aren't slow tank weapons anymore, and there are old blue posts saying they might allow DW Blood (same posts as 2h Frost) and none saying they won't any more recently.

[Omedon]

How is it not supported in Cata? There aren't slow tank weapons anymore, and there are old blue posts saying they might allow DW Blood (same posts as 2h Frost) and none saying they won't any more recently.

The thing is, there are tiny road signs pointing to DW tanking (Nerubian carapace's very existance, flat percentages in blood's proc powers as opposed to PPM... absence of 2h weapon mastery), and LARGE ones pointing to two handed tanking (Death strike, rune strike, heart strike, with no ToT effect).

So while it may not seem "unsupported" to some, it doesn't appear to be "supported" at all.

As I've said, I'll jump on it immediately if they DO put a DW talent in the tree (because DWing tank weapons, when they may be killing "the fast tank weapon", would be awesome!) but until then, I'm in "wait and see mode"... wielding a two hander.

[Foibles]

The only issue is Vengeance. It leads to HUGE hits for tanks from what I have seen/read (67k Shield Slams >.> ) so it might easily make DW tanking not as big a deal.

It could easily end up like DW Frost tanking. It's not best, of course, but it's very feasible to swap to a tank OH and even double tank weapons when you're a million threat ahead of the dps.

[Omedon]

The only issue is Vengeance. It leads to HUGE hits for tanks from what I have seen/read (67k Shield Slams >.> ) so it might easily make DW tanking not as big a deal.

It could easily end up like DW Frost tanking. It's not best, of course, but it's very feasible to swap to a tank OH and even double tank weapons when you're a million threat ahead of the dps.

Vengeance is a very god argument in that I can't rebut it, having spent all my PTR tank time with a two hander.

My big concern is snap agro, though. Weakening the individual hits of DS, HS and RS, justifying it with "more white/BCB damage overall" doesn't help me grab something NOW, you know?

[Foibles]

Totally, and if I do tank I'm going to do it with a 2h weapon, but just because Blizzard hasn't directly said they will let Blood DW (they have, just not recently) doesn't mean they don't plan on it.

[drukai]

Its very simple. Removing an enchant is a difficult (and potentially dangerous) thing to do.

[Sockgoblin]

The fact that this is being as heavily disputed as it is *here* only shows the amount of QQ that would undoubtedly show up. Regardless what ends up happening, the bigger playerbase to whine will win.

Frankly, as was already said, this is a pure case of beta is beta.

[Foibles]

Whine doesn't always win. Blizzard will do whatever they want. Look at how much QQ Unrelenting Assault caused with a 75% MS, and it lasted till Cata when they changed MS effects. Same with Bladestorm's damage, it may have recieved the disarm effect, but nothing else changed.