[Death Knight] Blood DPS, 3.3.3

[Vaudville]

Hey guys, this is my input here on Blood DPS in 3.3.3, and possibly 3.3.5 if I get the chance, but it won't be up for too long seeing as blood dps is dying soon. Which really sucks, but hey, what can ya do, right?

(to clarify, I meant blood is dying in cata and I may update this for 3.3.5, if it needs any updating at all.)

The main aim of this guide is to get new Death Knights (fresh 80s mostly) familiar with what they're going to need to do to be viable in the raiding world. And even then, only if you're looking to go blood.

Now, let it be known that some of this isn't just things that I picked up from levelling and playing the class, some of it I read, some of it I had to dig for with hours of testing to find what properly went where. I guess a bit of credit can go to EJ, and TankSpot, But at least 90% to Blizzard, for when in doubt, I played it out.

Starting out with Blood!
Blood is quite easily one of the more finer single/double target dps specs in the Death Knight world, once you get beyond that, may wanna go for an unholy or frost spec. I usually keep two specs, right now my main is blood for heroics/single target bosses, and I keep an unholy with reaping spec in my pocket just for the cause of big AoE fights. If you're just starting out though, and wanna gear up, your best bet ( and my secret love ) is a blood spec. Your gear doesn't much matter at this point, so I'll get right down to the dirty.

I'll get to the specs in a minute, but first, you may want to ask, "What are the strengths of Blood?" or, "What do we bring to the raid?"

Well, for Blood the strengths are fairly obvious. You hit hard as hell, therefore you're probably going to blow out anyone else on that single boss (Sarth anyone?). But remember! You won't see any dps on trash (not that it counts), but you will be able to burst. So if you don't like seeing overall numbers low, and high numbers when it counts, this spec isn't for you. The main strength of Blood is its incredibly high amount of burst damage. (potion of speed, hysteria, drw, trinket procs/on uses). Sure we don't get a gargoyle, but we do get a floating axe that copies all of our moves, swing for swing, and we get sent into a stage of frenzy.

As for what we bring to the raid, well.. not much. That's the unfortunate downside to DK's who're specced Blood. There's no buffs, except Abominations might, but you can get that elsewhere. There's no procs, there's nothing at all. We just bring good single target dps. (So if you have 3 Blood DK's in the group, one of you should go Unholy for Ebon Plague. Goddamn, it's sexy.)

But, what about gearing? And stats? Aren't you gonna edumacate us on those?

Why yes, good sir/madam, I am!

You may have guessed (correctly if so,) that Hit is the most important stat at lower gear levels. This goes double for Blood DPS'ers. You listening? Good. BE HIT CAPPED. If you are NOT at the soft hit cap, you're screwed. When you miss a swing, you screw up your rotation. Bloods rotation is incredibly tight, and you will lose dps and therefore effective use if you miss too many. Don't even think about joining a pug VoA unless you're hit capped, you'll get booted. Let me say once more: Hit is your most important stat at low gear levels. Once you are hit capped, you can start looking at other stats. The soft hit cap (for the less-informed) is 8%, or 263 hit rating. This becomes less with certain talents in the unholy tree, but I'll leave it to you to choose which talents you shall take. Note that these talents do NOT cover special attack miss rates, and you WILL need to obtain a 263 rating to never MISS an attack, I said nothing about dodge or parry.

On such a note of dodge and parry, another stat you'll be looking at is Expertise. This is another cap you'll want to obtain, mainly because you'll be attacking most bosses from behind. (You will, won't you? If you don't, I'll have to slap you with a trout.) Bosses cannot parry from behind. at all. They can only dodge, so you'll want to focus on the soft expertise cap. These integers are 6.5%, or 26 Expertise, or 214 Expertise Rating. Now I italicize that because it is very different from Expertise points. Expertise will mostly come from talents, whereas Expertise Rating is obtained from gear. For every 8 or so points of Rating you obtain, you will gain 1 Expertise. Remember this. It will be your key for not getting dodged, thereby removing your chance of losing precious time re-casting an attack and blowing your rune rotations.

Haste is something that you won't be looking at right away unless there is no other enchant you can put on your gear ( i.e. cloak. Haste > agi.). Other than the cloak, haste is useless as hell. The only thing you might want it for is to make up for your lack of hit cap, but you shouldn't be looking at other stats unless you're capped. So that won't happen, will it? Damn well better not.

Strength. Your most important stat. Worship it, love it, caress it, nurture it, make it grow. Gem for it (even if it doesn't match the socket colour), don't enchant for it though. WotLK has no AP/Str equvalent enchants. Now let me educate you on why us Death Knights should gem for strength, and make it get as high as we possibly can. For ever 1 Str, we gain 2.2 AP (Blood spec), after buffs in a raid (Kings, Sanc, MotW, etc) that becomes around 2.6 AP/str, thus resulting in incredible amounts of AP, and even moreso, special move/hit power. It's almost godlike.

ArP (Armor Penetration, if you're new.) is useless at lower gear levels, so we won't discuss that here. If you really want to know about it, head on over to EJ. They've got some comprehensive ArP vs. Str stat weights.

As far as stats go that's pretty much what we're looking at. The only thing you might see is a DK roll on a rogue neck, but that's only if the upgrade is going to far surpass their current, because agi helps crit. But don't ever gem/enchant for agi.

Okay, okay, we've got it. Strength is our stat. But... GEAR!

Calm yourself, I'm getting to it.

Gear is fairly easy to do at lower gear levels. You're looking for two main things. Is the strength/armor more than what I have currently? And, "Can it improve my dps overall?" If you answered yes to both, then you should probably take that piece.

...That's it, seriously? That's all you're giving us? No checklist?

Good God man, you're worse than a woman. Fine, I'll give you a pre-raid gear checklist. If you want to get into those big raids or hell just better yourself with welfare gear then you'll probably need all of these to not get vote kicked out of the group.

Note that this is a checklist of the gear you should obtain, it all comes from either crafting professions or is easily aquired from emblem gears/heroics, seeing as how everything drops Triumph now. These pieces are to get you to a decent gear level and never have to step foot in a raid.

Bracers: [Malykriss Vambraces]
Boots: [Grinning Skull Boots]
Ring: [The Lady’s Promise]
Ring 2: [Bloodshed Band]
Cloak: [Tapestry of the Frozen Throne]
Neck: [Painfully Sharp Choker]
Belt: [Bent Gold Belt]
Sigil: [Sigil of Virulence]
Trinket: [Banner of Victory]
Trinket 2: [Mark of Supremacy]
Weapon: [Tyrannical Beheader]

And there you have it my friends, the best possible gear without ever stepping into a raid.

Okay! I think I'm ready. I've got my stats where they need to be, I've got the gear... what am I missing?

Enchants and gems. They'll probably be the bane of your existence, but y'know, you need'em.

Enchants are actually pretty easy. It's just.. y'know, they cost.

Head: [Arcanum of Torment]
Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of the Axe]
Cloak: +23 haste
Chest: +10 All Stats
Bracers: +50 AP
Gloves: +44 AP
Legs: [Icescale Leg Armor]
Boots: +12 Crit +12 Hit
Alternative for boots: Cat's Swiftness
Use this if you're above the hit cap.
(Enchanter only)
Rings: +40 AP

To gem your gear, you need only follow this. All slots should be +16/+20 strength, depending on how much gold you have. If you have a yellow socket, and the Socket Bonus is +4 strength or greater, gem for it with: Inscribed Ametrine - Item - World of Warcraft

You should have one prismatic socket in your belt from the enchant. Fill it with this: Nightmare Tear - Item - World of Warcraft

Your meta will always be: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond - Item - World of Warcraft
It actually works out to be better for dps than the other selections.



I've got the gear enchanted! Now what?! Can I has a spec nao?!

Why yes, yes you can.

I'm going to shamelessly say that I am one of the masses who have used copied specs, however, using a copied spec requires you to use it to your playstyle. Say you don't want the extra healing from Imp. Blood Presence, you shouldn't take it, should you? The other guy has it, so why not? NO. Bad. If you want to play, then play. Do it yourself.

This is the widely agreed upon spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

However, as you may well see, there are a lot of points to play with. So you should do so and test them out, see what makes your meters tick, not everyone elses.

On the subject of rotations. There are a great many ways to start and end or continue a rotation. The most effective for my personal playstyle is as follows.

IT = Icy Touch
PS = Plague Strike
HS = Heart Strike
DS = Death Strike
DC = Death Coil
RP Dump = Death Coil. :P

IT > PS > HS > HS > DS > DC > DC
(Assuming you have death runes up)
DS > HS > HS > HS > HS > RP Dump (In this case, it refers to blowing cooldowns/dancing rune weapon on a boss. If no boss, DC.)

Repeat.

Suit to your playstyle needs, but always, always, (I can't stress enough) ALWAYS, open with your diseases. You will get higher attack amounts thus downing whatever mob/boss faster.

Well my fellow Death Knights, I leave you with this information in your hands and the very large world (of warcraft) ahead of you.

Should any further updates to this guide be needed, please do not hesitate to place them in well informed comments suggesting that I add them, instead of flaming me. Thank you.

Go Get'em!

[bloodshed794]

Stop ****ing posting threads in DK DPS. It's one of the easiest classes to learn ( main is DK 6035 GS )

[Vaudville]

Aw, look, someone has an ePeen. If you don't have anything constructive to say, gtfo.

[bloodshed794]

Uhm it is probably the most constructive thing I've said today. There is SO many fail DK guides over the forum, and honestly, I'm getting sick of seeing more and more pop up.

You say:

Hey guys, this is my input here on Blood DPS in 3.3.3, and possibly 3.3.5 if I get the chance, but it won't be up for too long seeing as blood dps is dying soon. Which really sucks, but hey, what can ya do, right?

No, it's not dying until Cata. It's actually doing better as people get progressed and geared. The first sentence you put in is fail.

[Barrt73Rus]

Boots: +12 Crit +12 Hit

lolo 32 ap PWN all.

[bloodshed794]

Yah, why would you need hit? Like 90% of DK's are Way the hell over hit cap? Mhmm lemee see if you posted hit cap . . . Nope skimming over it . . . again, says nothing about hit cap. . . . What about Expertise? mhmm one sec let me see, nope nothing ... Not even anything about rotations? Damn

[ChildeRoland]

lolo 32 ap PWN all.

Word :P

And I say as bloodshed, shouldn't guides include rotations?

[wac]

About the boot enchant.

The best boot enchant is, and will be until we get a better one (Captain obvious strikes again!) will be Tuskarrs Vitality.

Speed increase?!

Yes. Speed increase. The less you have to move the more you can mash your buttons to see your name climb up the Dee Pee Ess meter.

[ChildeRoland]

About the boot enchant.

The best boot enchant is, and will be until we get a better one (Captain obvious strikes again!) will be Tuskarrs Vitality.

Speed increase?!

Yes. Speed increase. The less you have to move the more you can mash your buttons to see your name climb up the Dee Pee Ess meter.

WRONG. Cat's Swiftness is a better enchant than Tuskarr's vitality for any physical dps.

[bloodshed794]

Word :P

And I say as bloodshed, shouldn't guides include rotations?

*Snorts Like a Hick* Hug! Exactly!

[jpoplive]

Uhm it is probably the most constructive thing I've said today. There is SO many fail DK guides over the forum, and honestly, I'm getting sick of seeing more and more pop up.

You say:

No, it's not dying until Cata. It's actually doing better as people get progressed and geared. The first sentence you put in is fail.

Really Unholy is the best spec for High geared DPS DK.

[jpoplive]

WRONG. Cat's Swiftness is a better enchant than Tuskarr's vitality for any physical dps.

Really +32 to AP is the better DPS enchant for feet. This will translate into DPS better then a speed buff. Speed enchants do add dps to some fight but not to all and the DPS lose to the one that speed does not apply is not worth the using of this enchant. Most players are not that good to really even see a DPS increase with the speed enchant anyways.

[jpoplive]

For a proper guide just head over to the Elitist Jerks website.

[ChildeRoland]

Really +32 to AP is the better DPS enchant for feet. This will translate into DPS better then a speed buff. Speed enchants do add dps to some fight but not to all and the DPS lose to the one that speed does not apply is not worth the using of this enchant. Most players are not that good to really even see a DPS increase with the speed enchant anyways.

Learning to read is also pretty good, don't you think? I said Cat's Swiftness is better than tuskarr's vitality, I never said anything about the best for dps. I go with 32 AP myself, but cat's swiftness>Tuskarr's vitality.

For a proper guide just head over to the Elitist Jerks website.

Not every1 wanna read such walls of texts as they got there.

Really Unholy is the best spec for High geared DPS DK.

Frost is just as good, if not better.

Oh, and nice triple posting.

[ero-sennin]

Really +32 to AP is the better DPS enchant for feet. This will translate into DPS better then a speed buff. Speed enchants do add dps to some fight but not to all and the DPS lose to the one that speed does not apply is not worth the using of this enchant. Most players are not that good to really even see a DPS increase with the speed enchant anyways.

But a dps who couldn't move out from a fire because of speed is a dead dps.