Archives for DPS category
There was a request made to go over Ulduar weapons for tanking death knights. Since there still are no two-handed tanking specific weapons I figured no one would mind if I went over Ulduar weapons for tanking and DPS. Read more… »
I’ve updated my previous Death Knight DPS Builds – Patch 3.1 and Death Knight Tank Builds – Patch 3.1 posts. There is no new information or talent changes, I’ve just switched to Wowhead talent links (I like them better) and changed the posts’ format to be (I hope) easier to both read and skim for key info.
The Death Knight Guides page has also been updated with links to all of the new patch 3.1 talent build posts I’ve done.
I’m glad the DPS post especially has been so popular and started so many conversations. Thanks for your support.
14 Apr
As with the tank builds I posted this information is based heavily on the Elitist Jerks Death Knight forum and are considered to be the top DPS builds in patch 3.1 for all three talent trees. As with any published talent build there are things to keep in mind. These were designed based on providing the best raid DPS and nothing else. They are cookie cutter builds and not everyone likes that. There is nothing wrong with adjusting these builds to suit your own play style or needs, however you should expect your tweaked build to lose DPS as, again, these builds are already tweaked specifically for raid DPS.
Based on both PTR testing and DPS simulators the following builds, all things being equal, are thought to perform best for raid DPS. They are ranked here from top to bottom as best to “worst.”
#2: Unholy Two-Hand: 12/0/59 (best in Tier 7 raid gear)
#3: Blood Two-Hand: 51/2/18
#4: Frost Two-Hand: 13/51/7
Yes, there are no dual wield builds listed. That is because dual wield is once again not a serious competitor with two-handed builds. There are viable dual wield builds, but you will be hurting your raid DPS significantly just for the play style. For more information on dual wield in patch 3.1 check out the Elitist Jerks thread on the topic.
Now let’s go over the details of the four top raid DPS builds listed above. Read more… »
A while ago I started to work toward getting an [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]. It is by far the best trinket available for death knight DPS and, if you can spare some defensive stats, is pretty good for tanking as well (threat and parry). There are actually four types of this card and they are earned by completing Darkmoon Nobles Deck, which itself requires you to collect the nobles cards 2 through 8 and the ace. The cards themselves are created by inscriptors via Darkmoon Card of the North, but the created card is random so it can be any of the numbers and of any of the four new decks introduced in Wrath. Oh yeah, fun with expensive mats and the random number generator to come. Read more… »
17 Feb
Blue socket gems are a bane for DPS classes. At best a blue gem provides you with half the DPS value of our favorite gem, [Bold Scarlet Ruby]. Socket bonuses aren’t worth going beyond an all strength gem strategy, given they are usually small amounts of secondary DPS stats or even worse, stamina. However we have to use blue socket gems
for one thing that makes it worth the trouble: meta gems. Read more… »
5 Feb
Here’s some additional stat weight links for Wowhead. The stat weight values are the same, but these links lead to item browsing rather than comparing items you specify. Just click on the armor slots you are interested in and you can easily see the top slot items in game right now.
You’ll note there are also weapon links here. For whatever reason this method allows for weapon DPS to be scored. It it worth noting that in many cases you should be more concerned with a weapon’s base damage than its DPS or stats, but a quick guide to look at doesn’t hurt.
Among the many features of Wowhead is their gear compare feature. It is a nice way to compare the stats between two or more pieces of gear and is a principle way I go over my gear wish list. A less used aspect of the compare page is the stat weight score.
Stat weighting allows you to assign a fixed numeric score to a piece of gear, based on its stats. Each stat is giving a fixed amount of points, usually ranging from 1 to 100 on Wowhead but any fixed range works, and Wowhead then calculates a final score based on how much each stat is worth and how many of that stat the item has. For example strength is usually worth 100 (being our best DPS stat) so 10 strength on an item gives the item a score of 1,000. If the item also has 5 crit rating, which is worth 47 in the stat weight presets I’ll go over, then the item is worth 1,235 (1,000 from the strength, 235 from the crit). Read more… »
One thing that can be overlooked from all of the patch 3.0.8 changes we went through is a lot of our glyphs can tuned, too. For the most part the negative effects of a glyph were removed, but a few changed almost entirely. I don’t want to go over the changes themselves (breaking news sites and blogs are good for that) but rather do a favor for both death knights and inscribers out there. What death knight glyphs are actually useful? Read more… »
20 Jan
As you’ve no doubt heard patch 3.0.8 is being rolled out. You can all thank me for the roll out, I respected and got some gear enchanted on Monday so now I get to respec again Tuesday and pine over the wasted enchanting mats.
If you’ve kept up with the various changes in this patch you know death knight changes are significant. The changes from the launch of the public test realms to today have also been significant. We’ve been teased with changes only for them to be taken away. Check out Blizzard for the official patch notes (as of this posting they aren’t up, but will be at the link provided). I also love MMO Champion’s coverage of patches, as they cover the notes and the stuff left out of them. I don’t want to do a point by point reposting of death knight changes this patch, but there are certainly plenty of items worth highlighting. Read more… »
