The Naked Fear

I am the first to post in the Death Knight forums. Yay. Let me make this post not some worthless shit or something. I constantly bother Snarrf with questions...and he is really good with providing an answer or two. But why not ask the guild some questions, and not just in guild chat. I mean why bother those who have no choice of what they see in guild chat with these things? I can bother those who come looking with a clusterfuck wall o'text. Now for the question. Would duel wield tanking be better than two handed tanking at higher levels of gear? Is the extra avoidance you could get by doing that worth it? Next. With my current spec of 0/32/39 should I bother with tier gear and go in favor of non set gear? Or should I keep aiming for tier gear for spec flexibility? That is all for now, but there will be more questions. I always think of some..I think. Oh, and for those who care, this is Cumby.

HA! i'll answer you here as well....

DW tanking is a very intersting subject, the biggest thing against it is the idea of "parrygibbing" which would occur when you drop your swing speed so low, you get a string of parries from a boss, resulting in the same influx of damage as any crushing blow or crit. This is however, a completely worthless arguement since it's been mathematically proven a few times by EJ.

I've not looked into it much past that though...using the common theory that "a good tank is def capped" it is pretty much a requirement now that you have the stoneskin gargolye enchant as well as the badges sigil which would plant you firmly in the realm of 2handers.. However once you get to a high enough overall iLevel that the defense contribution from gear negates the need for gargoyle I'd be interested to see if 2h would again become viable. The last issue I would see would be threat generation since all of your "big threat" talents get cut in half (runestrike ss, bs/hs)

The key to the DW tanking question is "at higher levels of gear", where (among other things) [4% parry] is theorized to be more beneficial than [2% stam + 25 defense + 5% increase to IBF mitigation]. I expect DW tanking to become a niche (but established) role for Ulduar farming, and for it to come into the theorycrafting limelight for Icecrown progression, where endgame tanks approach an average ilvl of 239. I don't believe DW tanking will ever be better than 2-hand tanking in all respects, but it should definitely have its own set of unique pro/cons.

I have never DW'ed, but I will say that DKs are uniquely positioned for avoidance tanking due to talented avoidance being unaffected by diminishing returns, and anything that can accentuate that position will always have its place once itemization allows for more flexibility in gearing. I've always viewed avoidance tanking as being especially suited to add-tanking (Tenebron Drakes, KT Scarabs, etc) due to the increased number of (smaller) hits allowing for more even distribution of avoided attacks. Add to this the fact that many DW specs would allow for HB (and post 3.1, UB as well), I can see DW accentuating what I feel might end up being the DK tanking niche.

Side Note on Runes. There is a 2h tanking rune that provides the 4% parry as well, so that is not solely a DW tank pro.

Hooray! Time for another question...or two....two in one. Does blood caked blades proc off of just the main hand weapon and does it have an internal cool down?