Post by Eridaud on Sept 5, 2009 19:02:24 GMT -5
Stats
A death knight's hit cap is 8%. With two-handed weapons at level 80, this is a hit rating of 262.
For Death Coil, Icy Touch and Howling Blast, the cap is 17% hit or 445.91 hit rating. This can be decreased with Virulence (2nd tier Unholy talent) by 3% or 78.69 hit rating, and again by Misery a Shadow Priest debuff by an additional 3%.
Death knights choosing to dual wield have an additional penalty of 19% (16% with talent) to hit with both weapons, but this only affects auto-attack damage. Special attacks such as Blood Strike have the normal 8% cap. Raising hit over 8% is expensive, so ignoring the 19% miss and investing in other stats may be the correct strategy.
Strength
Death knight's priority stat as it increases attack power and parry rating. 4 STR = 1 parry rating.
Runic Power
Rune-based attacks generate Runic power. Attacks which require one rune generate 10 Runic power, 2 runes for 15 and 3 runes for 20.
Defense
Minimum to be uncrittable by raid bosses is 540 at level 80.
Expertise
Caps at level 80 for Death knights is 60 or 15% for tanks and 26 or 6.5% for DPS.
Expertise Conversion
+ At lv80: 8.195 Expertise Rating = 1 Expertise
o 1 Expertise = 0.25% chance that your attack will not be dodged/parried.
www.wowwiki.com/Death_knight_PvE_guide
The problems of Dual Wield
Increased Hit to be effective
Dual Wield requires more hit (27%). Dual Wield is broken down by the base chance to miss (5%), plus the level difference (3% for level 83), plus 19% additional (considered the two hand penalty) for a total of 27%. Without that hit, all of your attacks will miss more and you will lose threat. Because 2 Handed Tanking requires only 8% (base miss chance + level difference) it is more manageable with the current gear, allowing the tank to focus on defense and avoidance.
Damage on weapon strike abilities not as powerful as 2 hand weapons.
All of our weapon related strikes (like Obliterate, Frost Strike, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Heart Strike, etc) will do damage based on the weapon. The damage range on a one handed weapon is not as good as a 2 handed weapon. This is because Two handed weapons do more damage per swing compared to One Handed Weapons. Because of this, each time one of those strikes is used with a one handed weapon it does less damage (thus less threat) compared to a DK using a two handed weapon.
Increases Boss Parry Haste
Each time a boss parries (or a DK for that matter) there is a chance that the swing timer resets thus decreasing the time between attacks. Not all bosses have Parry Haste (Patchwerk is a good example of one that has Parry Haste disabled), but most will. Although it is not considered as big a problem in current content, it is considered a larger problem for raiding guilds doing progression kills. This is because parry haste can increase the DKs incoming damage which makes problems for healers. A couple of these unfortunate Parry Haste attacks can spike damage on the tank. This could have unfortunate consequences that could wipe the raid if the tank goes down.
Dual Wielding Advice
DW's fire has all but extinguished from the galaxy. For DPS that is. It is still somewhat viable for tanks, especially for those tanks just starting to gear up and need the use of twin tanking one handers to reach 540 defense. It is generally agreed that for tougher content, a 2 handed weapon is the way to go. However, if you would like more information, go to the DW thread and read it in its entirety. They will have specs and advice for Dual Wielding.
elitistjerks.com/f72/t42539-death_knight_faq_read_before_posting/
Frost Tank
talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055320000000000000000000000305050003520330023012031013510050000000000000000000000000000&glyph=201318000000&version=10192
Skill Rotation
Single Target Rotation - IT-BS-OB-(Blood Tap if no Death Rune)OB RPDUMP = RS/FS
Alt-Single Target Rotation - HB-BS-BS-OB OB-OB-OB RPDUMP = RS/FS (assumes HB Glyph)
Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HB/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/FS
elitistjerks.com/f72/t44638-sunos_fireside_chat_dk_endgame_tanking_updated/
Blood DPS
www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfVMVh0Icfkf0stZfzhhxc:IpGMmV
Skill Rotations
The meat of your single target rotation will be
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS -DUMP- DS-HS-HS-HS-HS -Dump-
In the first dump phase of your first rotation you should raise your ghoul in general, there is a nice little free GCD there for you. Like this:
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS-Raise Ghoul-DC-DS-HS-HS-HS-HS -Dump-
If you are a creature of habit, or just want to make your life easiest, you can stick with this rotation, and do just fine.
At the beginning of fights you can switch your first rotation around slightly, as follows: Leading with Death Strike will proc Abomination's Might right off the bat, getting it up before making any other attacks. Making your initial rotation:
DS-IT-PS-HS-HS--Raise Ghoul-DC-HS-HS-DS-HS-HS -Dump- then return to:
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS-Raise Ghoul-DC-DS-HS-HS-HS-HS -Dump-
This is for raid situations where the raid DPS increase from your Abom's Might being up immediately will outweigh your personal DPS loss due to the mechanics of [Glyph of Death Strike]. Since you are using Death Strike first you will have no runic power, and therefore lose out on this bonus. This is only applicable if you don't already have a nonstacking buff like Trueshot Aura.
Blood isn’t an AoE spec, unless you count 2 mobs as AoE. In most AoE situations like the Arena for Thorim, I have simply found adding Pestilence to spread my diseases, then Heart Striking out DPSs trying to use Blood Boil. The main occasion on which I find myself using Blood Boil is on Freya’s adds when she spawns the ring of Lashers. This is because you really need to bring them down evenly to be successful.
Otherwise if you really have a lot of mobs, I think I’ve noticed around 5-6 mobs BB begins to outperform HS. In that case you would simply use the
IT-PS-Pest-DnD-Dump-DS-DS-HS…. Rotation.
Both Frost and Unholy are much better AoE specs, which is why I really don’t feel you should be focusing on it as a Blood DK, but I welcome anyone’s comments on AoE if you have differing opinions.
elitistjerks.com/f72/t61176-blood_simple_consolidated_blood_dk_dps_guide/#post1258803
Conclusion
Although Tank specs that are deep into the blood and unholy trees are viable with tanking, frost spec is the most well balanced over all (less weaknesses). Although frost and unholy dps specs are viable as to producing damage, blood spec is superior for dps. Lastly, due to the current downsides to dual wielding, Dks will be 2handed.
A death knight's hit cap is 8%. With two-handed weapons at level 80, this is a hit rating of 262.
For Death Coil, Icy Touch and Howling Blast, the cap is 17% hit or 445.91 hit rating. This can be decreased with Virulence (2nd tier Unholy talent) by 3% or 78.69 hit rating, and again by Misery a Shadow Priest debuff by an additional 3%.
Death knights choosing to dual wield have an additional penalty of 19% (16% with talent) to hit with both weapons, but this only affects auto-attack damage. Special attacks such as Blood Strike have the normal 8% cap. Raising hit over 8% is expensive, so ignoring the 19% miss and investing in other stats may be the correct strategy.
Strength
Death knight's priority stat as it increases attack power and parry rating. 4 STR = 1 parry rating.
Runic Power
Rune-based attacks generate Runic power. Attacks which require one rune generate 10 Runic power, 2 runes for 15 and 3 runes for 20.
Defense
Minimum to be uncrittable by raid bosses is 540 at level 80.
Expertise
Caps at level 80 for Death knights is 60 or 15% for tanks and 26 or 6.5% for DPS.
Expertise Conversion
+ At lv80: 8.195 Expertise Rating = 1 Expertise
o 1 Expertise = 0.25% chance that your attack will not be dodged/parried.
www.wowwiki.com/Death_knight_PvE_guide
The problems of Dual Wield
Increased Hit to be effective
Dual Wield requires more hit (27%). Dual Wield is broken down by the base chance to miss (5%), plus the level difference (3% for level 83), plus 19% additional (considered the two hand penalty) for a total of 27%. Without that hit, all of your attacks will miss more and you will lose threat. Because 2 Handed Tanking requires only 8% (base miss chance + level difference) it is more manageable with the current gear, allowing the tank to focus on defense and avoidance.
Damage on weapon strike abilities not as powerful as 2 hand weapons.
All of our weapon related strikes (like Obliterate, Frost Strike, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Heart Strike, etc) will do damage based on the weapon. The damage range on a one handed weapon is not as good as a 2 handed weapon. This is because Two handed weapons do more damage per swing compared to One Handed Weapons. Because of this, each time one of those strikes is used with a one handed weapon it does less damage (thus less threat) compared to a DK using a two handed weapon.
Increases Boss Parry Haste
Each time a boss parries (or a DK for that matter) there is a chance that the swing timer resets thus decreasing the time between attacks. Not all bosses have Parry Haste (Patchwerk is a good example of one that has Parry Haste disabled), but most will. Although it is not considered as big a problem in current content, it is considered a larger problem for raiding guilds doing progression kills. This is because parry haste can increase the DKs incoming damage which makes problems for healers. A couple of these unfortunate Parry Haste attacks can spike damage on the tank. This could have unfortunate consequences that could wipe the raid if the tank goes down.
Dual Wielding Advice
DW's fire has all but extinguished from the galaxy. For DPS that is. It is still somewhat viable for tanks, especially for those tanks just starting to gear up and need the use of twin tanking one handers to reach 540 defense. It is generally agreed that for tougher content, a 2 handed weapon is the way to go. However, if you would like more information, go to the DW thread and read it in its entirety. They will have specs and advice for Dual Wielding.
elitistjerks.com/f72/t42539-death_knight_faq_read_before_posting/
Frost Tank
talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055320000000000000000000000305050003520330023012031013510050000000000000000000000000000&glyph=201318000000&version=10192
Skill Rotation
Single Target Rotation - IT-BS-OB-(Blood Tap if no Death Rune)OB RPDUMP = RS/FS
Alt-Single Target Rotation - HB-BS-BS-OB OB-OB-OB RPDUMP = RS/FS (assumes HB Glyph)
Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HB/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/FS
elitistjerks.com/f72/t44638-sunos_fireside_chat_dk_endgame_tanking_updated/
Blood DPS
www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfVMVh0Icfkf0stZfzhhxc:IpGMmV
Skill Rotations
The meat of your single target rotation will be
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS -DUMP- DS-HS-HS-HS-HS -Dump-
In the first dump phase of your first rotation you should raise your ghoul in general, there is a nice little free GCD there for you. Like this:
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS-Raise Ghoul-DC-DS-HS-HS-HS-HS -Dump-
If you are a creature of habit, or just want to make your life easiest, you can stick with this rotation, and do just fine.
At the beginning of fights you can switch your first rotation around slightly, as follows: Leading with Death Strike will proc Abomination's Might right off the bat, getting it up before making any other attacks. Making your initial rotation:
DS-IT-PS-HS-HS--Raise Ghoul-DC-HS-HS-DS-HS-HS -Dump- then return to:
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS-Raise Ghoul-DC-DS-HS-HS-HS-HS -Dump-
This is for raid situations where the raid DPS increase from your Abom's Might being up immediately will outweigh your personal DPS loss due to the mechanics of [Glyph of Death Strike]. Since you are using Death Strike first you will have no runic power, and therefore lose out on this bonus. This is only applicable if you don't already have a nonstacking buff like Trueshot Aura.
Blood isn’t an AoE spec, unless you count 2 mobs as AoE. In most AoE situations like the Arena for Thorim, I have simply found adding Pestilence to spread my diseases, then Heart Striking out DPSs trying to use Blood Boil. The main occasion on which I find myself using Blood Boil is on Freya’s adds when she spawns the ring of Lashers. This is because you really need to bring them down evenly to be successful.
Otherwise if you really have a lot of mobs, I think I’ve noticed around 5-6 mobs BB begins to outperform HS. In that case you would simply use the
IT-PS-Pest-DnD-Dump-DS-DS-HS…. Rotation.
Both Frost and Unholy are much better AoE specs, which is why I really don’t feel you should be focusing on it as a Blood DK, but I welcome anyone’s comments on AoE if you have differing opinions.
elitistjerks.com/f72/t61176-blood_simple_consolidated_blood_dk_dps_guide/#post1258803
Conclusion
Although Tank specs that are deep into the blood and unholy trees are viable with tanking, frost spec is the most well balanced over all (less weaknesses). Although frost and unholy dps specs are viable as to producing damage, blood spec is superior for dps. Lastly, due to the current downsides to dual wielding, Dks will be 2handed.