Threat hotfix - The Return of Dual-wield?Follow

i may on my DK would have to respec again..... really don't see the benifit of it other then MORE dodge and parry but less threat and healing from mastery

My experiences tell me that Death & Decay is the reason you don't pull aggro on trash packs and on bosses it really, really doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, dual-wield is inefficient, but I'm curious how many prefer it to swinging a two-handed.

As for damage output, Death Knights have a pretty high damage output for tanks. I ran a SFK yesterday on my Shaman and our tank, a Death Knight, was pushing 20k DPS average on the run. 15k on bosses, 25k on trash. That's more than my DPS geared Druid can push out (in Bear Form, ed.).

Edited, Aug 24th 2011 3:33pm by Mazra

See, the idea of a DK using some wimpy one-handers just seems boring to me. They should be cleaving things in half with massive runeblades.

DS heals based on your damage taken in the past 5 seconds, not the damage you do. You would be healed the same amount with a one handed weapon as with a 2.

Dual wield tanking is entirely weapon set up dependent.

If you have better 1H weapons and get better overall tank stats from them then your 2H weapon then DW, if not use the 2Her.

You can usually get better stats from a 2H weapon but do math and figure it out.

MATH

Because I like semantics.....

If you happen to take more damage using DW than 2H, DS would heal for more if you used DW.

DW tank weapons will likely net you slightly higher avoidance but less Str, Stam and Mastery. This is assuming same iLvl weapons of course.

Also I don't know how you would take more damage by DWing. Your main loss, outside of the above, would be in threat, DPS and utility talents.

If had two 1H weapons a tier over my 2Her I'd switch, otherwise aint gonna happen.

Hadn't thought about the lack of stats and I can see why min/maxers wouldn't want to do this. From a casual's point of view, though, and looking strictly at 5-mans, I don't see the harm. If the group wipes then it's likely not due to the tank dual-wielding, but rather because he didn't use enough AOE. Death & Decay is more than enough to hold aggro on everything, assuming the DPS doesn't use insane AOE to begin with, but in that case a two-hander won't save the day either.

I had the fortune of running three dungeons in a row where the tank was a Death Knight. None of them were dual-wielding, all of them were failing at life to a degree where I, on my Shaman, ended up tanking adds with my elemental, wolves and Shamanistic Rage to prevent a wipe.

My only concern would be the hit cap as I believe it's higher for dual-wielders (unless points are spent in Frost). Missed Death Strikes would result in a loss of self-healing and thus survivability. When my Death Knight tanks, she is responsible for roughly 30% of all healing taken (overhealing not included), so I imagine that would be bad.

In my Death Knight's case, her two-handed weapon was ilvl 316 and she went dual-wield with the 353 maces, which is probably a DPS upgrade even when dual-wielding.

Dual Wield Tanking... Just say "NO!"

Because your white cap is still 27%. Only specials are 8. Since auto-attack is usually in the top 3 sources of damage, that's significant.