17/0/54 vs. 0/17/54

This is a hot topic nowadays and I am here to help you guys out.

14/0/57 'blood sub spec' with reaping was the spec to go with assuming you had your 2 piece t10. I personally was using this and the numbers were great, being able to hit more scourge strikes (thanks to reaping) and seeing big numbers with the change to SS was very nice. The upper tier of the blood tree offers very nice talents and definitely should be picked up. For those of you that aren't well geared and want to be Unholy still, you guys should go with 17/0/54 without reaping since it's the best spec for 'poorly geared' players.

0/17/54 'frost sub spec' without reaping, now many people have been talking about this new spec and are curious to know if it does more dps than the blood sub spec. The answer is yes, assuming you are at a higher gear level (251 and above). At first glance it's like whoa, there is a whole lot in the blood tree that's too good to pass up. But with Icy Talons and Endless Winter you will pump out more damage overall. Not only will you be swinging faster, means more Necrosis, Blood Caked Blade procs but makes your Gargoyle attack faster. Endless Winter is beautiful because we get free strength (a total of 7% from this and Ravenous Dead). And last but not least, more damage from our dots because of Black Ice. All in all this is the spec to go nowadays if you are Unholy.

Vacation

Just to let you guys know, I will be going to Florida for vacation (one month) and I won't have access to my personal computer. That being said I should have a computer with internet access (if all goes well) over there and you should see a good amount of new posts in the coming days. Thanks to all the readers.

Patch Day

Patch 3.3 was released today and I am very happy with the Dk changes. I logged in today wondering when we were going to receive the stamina increase with frost presence and was happy to find out it was today. Instead of having a 6% stamina bonus it's not 8% making all Dk tanks very happy. Blizz has made quite a few buffs from different classes passive now, including us Dk's. Abomination's Might is now always up assuming you are blood spec. Another thing is the Icy Touch threat, it's good to not have to worry about TPS at the very beginning of the fight (assuming no hunters / rogues). Our threat build up was a pain in the butt when let's say a very geared fury warrior is in the group. Tested it out today and had zero aggro problems throughout the run which was great. All in all these changes made to Dk's are great and hope you like them too.

AH week 2

Week 1 - 13,176 (started with)
Week 2 - 20,222 (current total)

Hey guys I know it's not Tuesday but decided to post today because I didn't have a whole lot of time this week to work the AH. Well as you can see I have made 7,046 gold for the few days that I actually did work the AH and I would say not bad. As we speak I have close to 300 things posted on the AH and have quite a few things that already have sold, so already starting a total for the upcoming week. I have not been canceling undercut auctions, atleast not yet. Here is a list of the things I have posted, hope this help you guys out.

- Green quality gems (20-25 of each color posted, post multiple times a day)
- Blue quality gems (2 gems of each one I post)
- Epic gems (1 of each cut I post)
- Netherweave bags (post 4 at a time, and sell them throughout the day)
- Frostweave bags (same as netherweave)
- Flasks (only posted 5 on Tuesday)
- Dragon's eye (1 per day, going for 115-155)
- Belt buckle (post 3 at a time and sell them throughout the day)
- Glyphs (selling the ones that I leveled with)
- Post blacksmith and Jc in trade (15g per epic cut, have 58 epic cuts and all ICC patterns)

Shadow's Edge

I am very excited because I finally got my Shadow's Edge. Better late than never, this is the guild's second SE and again very excited about it. I would like to give a special shout out to Redballz for helping me get this weapon, thanks again.

AH week 1

After working the Auction House this past week I end up with less gold than what I have started with, but with all good reasons. Started with 13,592 gold on day one (spent a lot of gold getting of p.saronites, ore, cloth etc I would say a good 25k gold was spent). After the week came to a end I ended up with 13,176 gold and the reason for the loss (besides what I had spent prior) is because I decided to level Alchemy and Inscription on my mage alt. Sure I spent some gold on the professions but in the long run it will pay off, even with prices going down on glyphs. Here is a list of the things I use to sell on the AH

1. Gems (epic / blue quality)
2. Bags (netherweave, soon to be frostweave)
3. Belt Buckles
4. Enchanting Scrolls
5. Dragon's eye (have a alt with JC)

Now I will be adding glyphs to the mix and I am looking foward to hitting the AH harder than ever, wish me luck.

Auction House

 Hey guys I decided to start talking about the Auction House. I am by no means a pro, still learning things here and there but I would like to help my viewers bring in the gold. I will try to keep track of what I spend, what I earn and what I use. Personally I am burnt out on doing dailies and since I got 1000 daily quests complete achievement recently I see no need to keep on doing dailies, well I still do the JC and random daily (weekly also). I will try to make a post every week, most likely every Tuesday, about the Auction House.

Finally got my 4 pc t10

As the title says, I got my 4th t10 piece a few days ago. I missed a lot of dailies and 10 man raids but the wait is worth it. The funny thing is I was in such a rush to get my 4th piece which happened to be gloves, just finished doing a 10 man ICC run and picked them up. Next day in 10 man VOA the gloves dropped and that same day in 25 man the 264 version of the gloves dropped. Lesson here is wait on your gloves / legs since VOA drops them :P
Anyway I am doing a lot more damage with the 4 piece and loving every minute of it. Shame to all you Death Knight's who went and bought the sigil or off pieces first. My advice to you all is get the 4 piece asap. Good luck to you all.

3.3.3 Patch Notes

Mmo Champion

I am very excited and can't wait to see these changes as it will be beneficial to Death Knight's both for tanking and dps. Let's take a look at these changes shall we...


Abomination's Might
Blizzard has changed this proc to be passive just like Hunter's Mark. This will be very useful but of course not stack with the hunter's or enhance shamans buff. We get to keep the 2% strength that this talent gives us too.

Scourge Strike
They changed this attack to do more physical damage and lowered the percent of physical damage done as shadow damage. "The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.

Icy Touch
Will cause a very high amount of threat, o m g. We produce good TPS as it is and this change to Icy Touch is just great. I personally use IT to begin fights and ALWAYS re-apply it when needed. Finally another move that gives us very high threat.

Improved Icy Talon's
This is now passive instead of being a proc which is better but no need to have it if you have a enhance shaman in the raid, unless you are DW dps.

Nerves of Cold Steel
You will now being doing more damage with your offhand, great for DW tanks and / or dps. "8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%"

Unbreakable Armor
They boosted this talent to get a total of 20% strength compared to the current 10% strength we receive from this talent live.

All in all these changes are great for all Death Knight's and hope you enjoy them as much as I will be when the change is live.

Guild first Shadow's Edge

I want to say grats to Rhetoric for getting the guild's first Shadow's Edge. Finally got Fester down the other night after finally getting together what looks to be a solid raid group. Myself and Rhetoric will be the only two in guild going after Shadowmourne so wish us luck.

Tier 10 Tank Gear Change

The title says it all, few things blizz has changed to the t10 tank gear. Gloves and chest pieces get a lot more armor, YES! This change comes with a downside which is less dodge and defense rating. These changes have been made to the 251, 264 and 277 pieces, I personally welcome these changes because armor is very important and we are way over the 540 defense mark. Anyways let me leave you guys with a link to MMO champ.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/

Tank changes

* Frost Presence now provides 8% Stamina, up from 6% Stamina.
* Icebound Fortitude now provides 30% base damage reduction, up from 20% damage reduction. For a geared tank with high defense, this translates to 50% damage reduction, up from 40%.
This is from MMO champion and makes all DK tanks very happy, more stamina and damage reduction is awesome. This should (haven't done the math / research) make us the 2nd highest health tanks again right under druids of course. DK's are able to tank all endgame bosses but this just makes life easier, healers will love to actually see a DK tank. All in all this is a great change for us.

Macros

Sorry about the wait for a new post, just working on a talent tree post that will come soon enough. There are a few macros that are pretty useful for Death Knights. I take no credit for these macros, just what I have found extremely useful and would like to share with you all.

Macros
Gargoyle Macro
#showtooltip Summon Gargoyle
/cast Blood Fury
/use Potion of Speed
/cast Summon Gargoyle

This macro is a beast. I recently changed to orc and man o man the burst damage from this macro is insane. If you aren't a orc just replace Blood Fury with a on use trinket or just completely take off that line from the macro. Reason why we want to pop a CD and speed pot before summoning the gargoyle is because the gargoyle will take a screenshot so to speak with all of your stats and uses it for the whole time he is out.

Rune Strike Macro
#showtooltip (place attack name here)
/cast (place attack name here)
/cast !Rune Strike

Make this macro for every attack you have while tanking. TPS will skyrocket for you as you spend less time trying to hit rune strike to get it que'd up.

Bone Shield Macro
#showtooltip
/cast Blood Tap
/cast Bone Shield
/cancelaura Blood Tap

Pretty useful while dpsing as unholy.

Hysteria Macro
#showtooltip Hysteria
/cast [target=PlayerName] Hysteria

As a tank this can work very well if you already have a lot of threat. If you are going to use this on a dps, aim to use it on a feral cat, warrior or rogue since most of there damage is physical. If you happen to be a blood spec dps do NOT use this on another dps, reason behind it because you want to pump out max dps and will need it to compete on the meters and help down the boss.

Enchants

People tend to ask me about enchants so I am making this post to answer which ones are the ones you want.

Tanking Enchants
helm - Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector
shoulder - Greater Inscription of the Gladiator
cloak - Mighty Armor
chest - Super health
bracers - Major stamina
gloves - Heavy borean armor kit
pants - frosthide leg armor
boots - tuskarr's vitality
weapon - Rune of the stoneskin gargoyle

Now you may ask why are there a few enchants on that list like armor to cloak and stam to gloves, reason is simple. Stamina and armor are the two top stats as a tank nowadays since the ICC dodge debuff and diminishing returns ontop of that. The goal is to have as high health as possible while having as much armor to mitigate incoming damage. Rune of stoneskin Gargoyle is the only way to go with the weapon enchant because it gives a little dodge, parry, miss rating and 2% stamina. Tuskarr's vitality is a extremely important enchant because in almost every fight there will be movement and as a tank you have to be there to pick up the target (very rare for a stand still fight).

Dps Enchants
helm - arcanum of torment
shoulder - greater inscription of the axe
cloak - greater speed
chest - powerful stats
bracers - greater assault
gloves - crusher
legs - icescale leg armor
boots - greater assault
weapon - rune of the fallen crusader

Not too much to explain for the dps enchants, pretty self explanatory. Some people like to put 15 strength on there gloves and I wish it was the better enchant to go with but at the end of the day it isn't since it gives less AP than the 44 ap enchant. I see some Dk's using 22 agility to the cloak and it overall does less dps compared to the 23 haste to cloak.

All in all these are the enchants every Dk should be using no matter which role you have chosen to play. I did not add any defensive enchants excluding the helm enchant since your gear will put you way over 540 defense. As for dps Dks these are the enchants you want to pump out max dps.

Ashen Verdict Strength Ring

Blizzard has announced that they will be adding a strength dps ring from the Ashen Verdict Faction. This is big news for us dps Dk's because the only option they had for melee dps at the time was Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance. I personally did not choose this ring and decided to choose the tank version ring for my offspec. Now I have yet to do the math or research to see if the new strength ring will be BIS with the current loot out in ICC but it is extremely easy to get, especially the exalted version with farmable trash. This ring will be available this upcoming Tuesday.

Stats

Here is some information on stats

1. Strength - Our best stat in terms of dps, 1 strength gives us 2 attack power and attack power scales with all of our attacks. Our ghoul and gargoyle benefit from our strength especially if you have Glyph of the Ghoul.

2. Expertise - 26 expertise is needed not to be dodged while attacking behind the target. 56 is the parry cap (which is hard to get with current gear). A tank should aim for 26-30 expertise thru gear alone and dps should aim for 20-26 expertise. Unholy and Frost specs give 5 expertise while Blood spec gives 6 expertise.

3. Hit - 263 (8%) is needed to not miss white and special attacks. 446 (17%) spell hit rating is needed to never miss a spell, if you have Virulence then 368 hit is needed. You should never aim to get past 263 since we are a melee class.

4. Armor Pen - 1399 is the hardcap, something we should not focus on. Arp increases physical damage done, even though DK's have a few dots it's still a very good stat for all three specs. With the changes to Scourge Strike you will notice a nice bang for the buck.

5. Haste - Increases your attack speed and lowers your GCD. Not the best stat for us but with Bloodlust, windfury totem, haste pot, swift retribution and any other loot that increases your haste, your 3.60 weapon speed will drop down a lot. I see my attack speed go as low as 1.75 with everything going.

80, Now what?

80, now what?

Tanking :

So you just hit 80 on your Death Knight and are eager to start tanking, well there are a few things that you have to do before being able to tank any instances and / or raid. First things first, you need 535 defense for heroic 5 mans and 540 defense for raids so you won't be critable. That's the first stat that you need to aim for, even if you have to gem for it. Blizzard has made it extremely easy to get gear and be ready to start tanking 10 and 25 ICC within matters of weeks. I will be going over a few things in this post to help you get started on your fresh level 80 Death Knight tank. First off there are two enchants you want to grind rep for and they are Sons of hodir and Argent crusade. Argent crusade provides Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector and Sons of hodir provides Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle. Eventually you will replace that shoulder enchant for Greater Inscription of the Gladiator which I will cover later on down the road. The reason why those two enchants are very important for tanks are because they provide defense, which you will need all the help you can get as a fresh level 80 tank and the other reason, atleast for the helm enchant, provides stamina. Before you are able to start tanking all the big bad bosses in game, you will need to start running regular 5 mans, yes I said regular and by regular I really mean toc 5 man. Now there are only five pieces (belt, trinket, legs, gloves and boots) of gear you can obtain from normal mode that are tank pieces but they are pretty solid for being a fresh 80. As for the other pieces (helm, neck, chest, bracers, ring x2 and trinket) you will have to run other instances for those and a great way to look up what you need from this or that instance is http://www.wow-loot.com/deathknight.htm and / or a addon called atlasloot enhanced which is a great addon to have. Now that you know what pieces of gear you should be aiming for let's briefly talk about specs. No matter which spec you decide to go with should have http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xZhxZ0x. Again I won't go into full detail, atleast not now, about specs, rotations, gems etc. All three specs are capable to tank and all have their plus and minuses. Blood has the highest survivability, the best single target threat and is widely used in end game tanking but also takes the most damage from all three specs. Frost dual wield or two handed spec gives very good AOE threat and good single target threat, downside is it is very tight with rotation and if you are DWing you are prone to being parry gibbed a lot more than a two hander. Unholy is unique and the most complicated spec to play. Used to be the spec to go back when OS was the hardest content in game especially with Bone Shield but with all the fast hitting bosses those bones do drop rather quickly, too quick if you ask me. All in all Blood spec is the preferred spec for endgame tanking and I personally use it on my Dk, although I would recommend testing all three specs and seeing which playstyle fits you.

Dps :

I know what you are thinking, I am a Death Knight and can faceroll to 10k dps. Wrong. There is one stat that is and always be the most important stat to aim for and keep, hit. You need 263 (8%) hit rating to not miss, that's not the hit cap for your spells though. Again there are two enchants you want to grind the rep for, Sons of hodir and Ebon Blade. Ebon Blade provides Arcanum of Torment and some nice starter boots at exalted, Death-Inured Sabatons, as for Sons of hodir it provides Greater Inscription of the Axe. As a Death Knight dps our #1 stat after being hit capped is strength. Strength is our bread and butter and here is why, we get 2 attack power per 1 strength and attack power scales with ALL of our attacks. No matter which spec you decide to go with you should gem for strength, unless you aren't hit capped. We need 26 expertise to not be dodged while dps'ing from behind the target, expertise and hit are two completely different things and isn't as important as hit is although you shouldn't ignore it. Now with your fresh level 80 Death Knight dps you are able to start doing heroics right away compared to tanking where you actually need some gear for heroics. A great place to start farming is h.toc 5 man everyday and also farming reg 5 man toc until you get all the pieces of gear you can from there. There are a total of 11 pieces of gear that you can get from reg and heroic 5 man toc. You may ask but wait what spec and presence should I be using before stepping into these 5 mans, it's very simple, blood presence and Unholy spec. With or without the 2pc t10 Unholy is the dominant single and aoe dps bar none and the 15% increased damage is hands down the presence you want. Blood Spec is very gear dependant and even after getting the gear you won't be happy with the numbers compared to Unholy. Blood at one point was the way to go for dps and is the spec that quite boring if you ask me in terms of dps. Frost duel wield in the other hand provide some nice numbers, again not as good as Unholy. Duel Wield Frost is very proc reliant too and needs a lot more hit which means gimping other stats in order to gain hit.