Whether you’re using a 2H or dual wield, you’ll most likely be (and should be) doing green level quests while solo.
When doing green quests and fighting green mobs you’re chance to hit is greatly increased.
Now for the actual point of thread: Dual Wielding Daggers.
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Green daggers are dirt cheap on AH, you’ll always have the most level appropriate pair (use bear and tiger) and no one wants rare daggers on alliance in dungeons. The melee allies are always human and only use swords because of it.
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Rage generation with dual daggers is consistent.
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Rend is now a good ability, since it guarantees a significant reduction of dagger strikes to kill target, whereas with a slow 2H, rend very rarely reduces the number of weapon swings to kill the target.
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Sunder armor always reduces the number of dagger strikes to kill the target, whereas with 2H you often need an outrageous number of sunders (3 to 4) to reduce the number of swings. Non crit Heroic Strike gains no benefit from any weapon type, and heroic strike is once again guaranteed to reduce number of swings per kill. Also shield swapping becomes less of a chore. You also get huge number of overpower procs.
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You no longer have to panic when your slow 2H misses twice in a row (which will and shall happen many times each level). This means less usage of panic buttons and cooldowns, health pots and target dummies. Because of this, your OH S*** buttons are always available when actually needed.
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Combining points 2 and 5, you know exactly how every encounter will end 1v1 with each unique type of mob. If you ended with 70% health and 20 rage, you will end to with 70% health and 20 rage the time with that mob type, and third third, and everytime/
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Eating and Shadowmelding. Logging and Shadowmeldning
/use FOOD
/cast Shadowmeld
/logout
Will save you many trips back to Elwynn Forest. If a camp hyperspawns while your eating you can contemplate exactly what you’re going to do, and even call for help in general or guild chat (which I’ve done a few times). No hardcore wow leveling guide covers or even speaks to the benefit of shadowmelding. They also don’t mention the 1% dodge for extra revenge procs when tanking. I would only recommend Night Elf for solo leveling a warrior.
Often best to logout entire when surrounded by hyperspawns and call guild/volunteers for help on an alt at the location.
“But if I use a 2H and open with a crit, the fight’s already over…blah blah blah” So, does opening with a 2H crit and ending the encounter on the next swing award you an extra life trophy in hardcore? Nope.
But I’ll tell you what does you get killed: 2H weapons missing. Hamstring kiting with 2H weapons is also more likely to get you killed (by running into another mob) rather than just range pulling and standing still with dual wield encounter consistency and spinning your camera to observe your surroundings during the pre-determined outcome of the fight while dual wielding.
Yes, in softcore, 2H hamstring kiting as orc/human is the way to go, because when it goes wrong you come back to life.
But not in hardcore!