DW Tank buildFollow

If you want to find DW builds, check out elitistjerks.com. It has some theory crafting builds. I will tell you though, there is almost no dimension that DW beats out 2-hand tanking. It has SLIGHTLY less avoidance. But it sacrifices a LOT of threat, and will cause about 1% more damage from bosses from what I have heard. Potentially more, potentially less. If you aren't getting quite a bit more mitigation than that, you are just being a big drain on your party.



As a DW DK, your focus is on three things for threat. The "spell" abilities, proc abilities and +white damage talents. However, most DK proc abilities are PPM and don't benefit DW any more than 2-Hnd. Actually, PPM is better for 2-hnd for some. Your aim is for very high AP.

Unfortunately. These builds SUCK. You want Necrosis. You want Bladed Armor. You want Howling Blast. It would be great to get +crit and BCB. UB would be good. Guess what? That's impossible. You will likely need HB as a DW. That means your white damage won't be impressive enough to give you a threat boost. And, because your abilities will have to focus on AP over a weapon modifier. You'll want to take Bladed Armor to have a threat boost from them.



I must say, your usage of the word "please" is ASTOUNDING. It isn't like you are treating us as servants AT ALL. There



Honestly. Unless you have the best-in-slot gear. Don't go DW. It is a HUGE threat decrease for a mediocre boost to mitigation. Before HB was moved, it could have been somewhat viable. Now, it just doesn't come close to 2-hand. Your AP abilities will only be slightly higher than a 2-hander. DW isn't all that far ahead of 2-hnd for white aggro. And 2-handers will get more benefit from many of the procs, and will get higher aggro from their weapon-modified attacks.

Plus, as DW, you'll need more +hit, which makes gearing for AP even harder.

[EDIT]

I just tried to make you a DW build, but everything I come up with sucks compared to a 2-hand build.

For one, in the first tier of the trees, there are 18 points required. 5 in each avoidance talent and 3 in Imp. Icy Touch.

Second tier needs 8 points, for Black Ice and Cold Steel.

The next tier, you'll take Icy Talons if you don't have a Shaman. Other than that, there isn't much good. Might as well take Annihilation for a mediocre boost to threat from PS, Oblit and BS.

Next tier, you take 5/5 KM. This is not negotiable.

Frigid Dreadplate and Glacier Rot are not optional.

This next tier sucks. You'll take Imp IT if you don't have a Shaman. Then, you can take Merciless Combat, but it isn't that good. HB is once every 10 seconds. You really just take it to boost IT. Rime is unfortunate. You'll need to take it to boost IT, but you won't often get free HBs unless you sacrifice an IT for one. And your Oblit WILL do less than IT if you are properly geared.

Here you can take Imp Frost Presence for mitigation. You can take HC (which isn't that good). The loss of threat from RP is ROUGH for DW--you can use that for FS or DC (the latter will likely be superior to FS until you have the best weapons from my mental math).

Might as well take UA. No reason not to. The loss of an IT is hard on DW though. BotN is useful once your FSs do more (or it may push them far enough to make them do it). Your BSs will be pretty mediocre. But, you are only using them to get DRs anyway for an HB or an IT.

GotG is necessary for the HB and IT boost. Don't bother taking FS until you will actually be using it. Acclimation is okay on magical mobs, but useless on others.

Tundra Stalker is necessary. No debates.

HB is necessary.

If you actually only get 51 points in Frost, that will leave you with 10 more. You have a few choices.

You can boost your AP with Bladed Armor. After that you can boost your Crit.

You can extend your diseases (Probably pointless, since your main abilities aren't boosted by BP and HB will cause FF with the glyph). It is better to increase your Str and the DC damage (before you start using FS). You'll want Virulence to land your ITs (DW lowers accuracy).

After that you can take Necrosis, and BCB.


But, guess what? Just about all of those talents are an equal boost (or better) with 2-handers. And the mitigation addition with DW is mediocre at best.

Seriously, don't bother.

Edited, May 10th 2009 1:57pm by idiggory

I really just suggest waiting. I'm sure Blizz will do something in the future with it (and when DW DpS becomes viable again, assuming it isn't too gear dependent, it may be), you'll be able to do it all you want.

It is just important to understand that the bonus to mitigation is canceled out by parry gibbing. The only bonus is that you can get more offensive gems. But 32 AP in three or four gems isn't really enough to make up the difference.

I know. That is why I mentioned that the increased damage is only about 1%. Many people seem to think that using 2 tanking 1-handers will give superior mitigation, when it is actually only about .7-1% more and, like you said, comes at the cost of other stats for lower threat.

It is good when all you consider is that, but the grand scheme places it way below 2-hand tanking.

And, you are right. The OP doesn't even deserve our help. He actually ORDERS us to make him a build.

I like cars.^^

Does anyone know why we have a DW talent in the first place?

I mean, most classes capable of dual-wielding have some sort of talent or skill that benefits from it. Shaman do more consistent damage with a dual-wield build than with a two-hander, thanks to their main attack being a flat "attack with both weapons" ability rather than "based on weapon damage" which clearly favors big weapons over smaller ones.

Maybe if our attacks applied to off-hand as well... but they don't, do they?

Role players.


LOL... oh yes it most certainly did. 32/39 variations before the KM change to proc rate was leading the pack at one point.

Sadly, DW builds are pretty much just for fun now. I could see an IT heavy Frost/Unholy build perhaps but....

Nope, it was sick. Dual Wield was the clear cut winner for a while.

*Edit

I think it had to do with scaling issues. That is why so many abilities got the +13% damage per disease. Abilities like HB and IT had much higher AP coefficients. They scaled better with large amounts of AP.

Edited, May 12th 2009 1:42pm by ramera

What if you got all the Runic Power talents, and went with a DW dps spec? I'm looking at Scent of blood, and it might be a bit of a sacrifice to pick it up over other talents, but 3 pts isn't too much. If you got that, plus Runic Power Mastery, I could foresee some INSANE RP dumps.

Scent of Blood is for tanking. "Direct Damage" isn't something you're likely to get a ton of as a DPSer (AoE doesn't usually count).

Dual-Wield specs are Frost-focused, not Unholy. (see this one as an example)

A DW-DPS build can do just fine in heroics and even Naxx (non-achievement). It is not in any way currently competitive for progression raiding min/max.

With that said: Your biggest concern is pumping up hit rating which becomes HUGE with Blood-Caked Blade and Necrosis (my DW set has just under 500 hit in all plate). Secondarily you'll be looking at Haste over Crit and Expertise loses some of it's lustre. Also you need to sacrifice Frost Strike damage to faster weapons (ergo lower average damage weapons) to get your speed up enough to push the BCB/Necro damage into the over 5% range. It's very stat specific.

Hope that helps. =)

Yeah, that discussion is starting to convince a lot of us nay-sayers. I even tried a variant DW-Unholy build on a boss dummy and I can see the fun of it. Not sure if there is enough pure DPS to outweigh the itemization issues but it sure is active!

From what I can tell, 61 in Unholy isn't the current optimized build though. The 0/17/54 build (and variations) seems to be popular. I ended up with a 8/13/50 rune power spam thing (no Desecration) but wasn't doing a hard comparative analysis.

The basic idea is similar to the old 32/39 build: Focus on weapon-independent damage and speed. But the issues are the same as well: Hit rating becomes vital, haste and crit swap places in priority, not to mention that you're fighting over the better weapons with Shaman and Rogues. You have to give up a lot of gear stats to focus on so much hit, so it's a whole other set you need to build for it. But I stand corrected, looks like Unholy is a possible option for DWing.

Here's the EJ thread.

Darion Mograine dual-wields, so that excuse doesnt really work. I hope they do fix DW, it looks quite fun.