Blood DK with 1handed weapon? (450 blue 2h vs. 569 heirloom 1h)

[Thaylen]

Hey all, I just dinged a Blood DK to 90 over the weekend and finished up all the LFRs available. One sigil of power away from completing that part of the legendary quest line and gear enough to get me up to around 505. There were a few items in particular though that loot Gods were not kind to me on. Most importantly was a weapon.

Even though I used my TI coins for extra rolls on ToT bosses and bonus rolled every weapon dropping boss, there were none to be had. Having burned two seals on Celestials and Ordos, I only had one for SoO but it was a no go also.

So long story short, I’m stuck wielding the 450 2hander from the Arena of Annihilation scenario. Now I *could* buy one of the BS 2handers or I *could* pvp and get the honor 522, but neither of those options are particularly attractive to me knowing that whatever I get will soon be replaced in the upcoming weeks as I get into Flex and then Normals.

So… here comes my very noob DK question. The DK is the 4th tank for me to gear up and I have the 569 Garrosh BOA one hander (Doomblade) from my Paladin drop. Although completely anti-DK in theory as well as effectiveness, I’m still left wondering if I shouldn’t use the Doomblade temporarily until I get an upgraded 2hander. I’m honestly not even sure if it is possible to equip an 1hander and am sure there is a slew of reasons why not to, but for a weapon that is more than 100ilvls better, this question is pounding in my head.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning is I have the Flex version of the Doomblade also. Not sure if I would be able to dual wield both of them together, but it would be PDC if I could.

[Incognito Noctix]

It's a big upgrade both stat and damage wise, so if you can equip it and still use all of your abilities, might as well give it a go and see how it works out for you.

You can always bring along your old weapon and switch back if it doesn't work out.

[Nyanmaru]

Ruling is simple: Doomblade has more DpS, more Weapon damage, more stats and iirc none of our skills requires the weapon to be 2h.

If you do not use an offhand you will not have to combat the 17% miss rate, so just use it single handed and you are fine.
This is paramount, as soon as you use an offhand you will get -17% hit rate for both weapons white hits, so don't equip an offhand.

The only reason not to use a 1h is that some procs are more inconsistent with a faster weapon (e.g. SoB will not proc on every auto hit but sometimes only on every 2nd or 3rd hit but still give you the same amount of procs a 2h would give you over time)

[Ghostile]

Blood dual wield isn't viable due to the skills hitting with just 1 weapon.
Tho, if the stats are higher then it's worth the change.

[Donald Hellscream]

Compared to the 450 weapon you currently have the one handed is a big upgrade in every way so until you get a suitable 2 handed weapon you should be able to tank effectively with that though threat could be a problem if you run with very wellgeared dpsers.

[Nyanmaru]

Blood dual wield isn't viable due to the skills hitting with just 1 weapon.
Tho, if the stats are higher then it's worth the change.

He can just skip the offhand alltogether if it's not on the same level his MH is.

In effect the 569 has the same average weapon damage that a ToT raid finder weapon has and like 30% more white hit dps, so he's easily fine for ToT and likely all of SoO too... (of course, about 200% better than the blue 450 weapon)

The only stigma he may face is that people will go apeshit because he's not using a 2h weapon.

Edit because of edit of the OP: If my napkin math doesn't fail me: The flex offhand is a ~7.5% white hit DpS increase over not using it. (If you are "only" hit capped, if you over-cap hit the increase is bigger)

[Thaylen]

Thanks all. I'll give it a go tonight and hopefully get a 2H to drop this week.

[Nnyco]

Ruling is simple: Doomblade has more DpS, more Weapon damage, more stats and iirc none of our skills requires the weapon to be 2h.

If you do not use an offhand you will not have to combat the 17% miss rate, so just use it single handed and you are fine.
This is paramount, as soon as you use an offhand you will get -17% hit rate for both weapons white hits, so don't equip an offhand.

The only reason not to use a 1h is that some procs are more inconsistent with a faster weapon (e.g. SoB will not proc on every auto hit but sometimes only on every 2nd or 3rd hit but still give you the same amount of procs a 2h would give you over time)

i am pretty sure only the offhand has the 17% misschance, ergo usin a 1hand alone is a big lose, not to mention the extra miss chance is only for your autoattacks

[Deleted]

i am pretty sure only the offhand has the 17% misschance, ergo usin a 1hand alone is a big lose, not to mention the extra miss chance is only for your autoattacks

Nope, all autotacks have an additional misschance. But since autoattacks are very minor i would say its still worth it equipping any 1hander in the offhand just for the stats...

[Kraeth]

i am pretty sure only the offhand has the 17% misschance, ergo usin a 1hand alone is a big lose, not to mention the extra miss chance is only for your autoattacks

It's deffo both hands.

[Faenlyn]

It's deffo both hands.

I agree that if you're going to use a 1H you might as well just DW. Not just to gain the stats (+FC Enchant) but even incurring the 17% miss chance, the white damage is probably still higher DW. Recalling to the days when I used to play a rogue, that 17% miss chance was implemented after all so that DW is not completely OP white damage. It nerfs it hard but not so hard that only single wielding a 1hander is more damage

This is easy enough to test. Autoattack a target dummy with just 1H equipped for 5 mins. Then DW and autoattack again for 5 mins. I'm fairly sure the DW white damage will be substantially higher despite the increased missed chance.

EDIT: You don't even need a target dummy to test it. The math is obvious and clear. Factoring a 17% miss chance DW then
83%(MH Damage) + 83%(OH Damage) > 100%(MH Damage) with any kind of decent OH weapon.
Subtracting common terms. 83%(OH Damage) > 17%(MH Damage)

The MH would have to be massively better than the OH to flip that equation around.

Thats not even factoring in the extra stats or benefit of the FC enchant. The choice is clear to DW unless the OH is an absolutely terrible junk weapon.

[Anetulan]

The 17% miss is just for melee hits, so that isn't that big of a deal. With all those extra stats and the extra runeforge, I'd say duel wielding will be worth it.