Blood DK

[NoFear 1]

Hi

Whats Better for Blood DK

Brackenshell Shoulderplates or Necrotic Boneplate Shoulderguards ?

Ty

[Amajed 3]

Its weird that the guide states that Brackenshell Shoulderplates is BiS , while Necrotic Boneplate Shoulderguards has a lot more Mastery and extra Gem slot..

will have to wait for others thoughts..

[Vlad 411]

I would say you should use Necrotic Boneplate Shoulderguards. Simply reforge the Expertise Rating into Dodge or Parry Rating.

The guide is indeed wrong in this regard, we will update it shortly

Any other questions?

[NoFear 1]

No. Thank you

[Reniat 23]

If you need it to complete the 4pc, tier shoulders all the way, but in terms of overall mitigation the Brackenshell will actually give you more. Mastery is our best stat, but its not so good that it's worth all that expertise that comes with it. They are VERY close, but the bracken comes out slightly on top :)

[Vlad 411]

No. Thank you

You are welcome.

If you need it to complete the 4pc, tier shoulders all the way, but in terms of overall mitigation the Brackenshell will actually give you more. Mastery is our best stat, but its not so good that it's worth all that expertise that comes with it. They are VERY close, but the bracken comes out slightly on top

I think it's quite sensible to even wear 5-part tier 13 with the Necrotic Boneplate Shoulderguards, just because of their Mastery. You only end up having to keep 106 Expertise Rating, which while not ideal of course, isn't so bad.

But, you're right, they're very close to each other :)

[NoFear 1]

I Think Curled Twilight Claw Should Be BiS.

What Do You Think ?

[Reniat 23]

@Vlad the difference is small, but the bracken do end up with more more survivability, both in the simulators and on paper.

An item comparison (with proper gems/reforge on both) show you are essentially trading 185 dodge and 186 parry for 280 mastery and 37 stamina. adding up the stats you see 371a vs 280m + 37s (where each variable is the weight of the stat compared to the other). The only way the t14 shoulders would become BiS (from a purely survivability standpoint) is if we weighed mastery (m) nearly 20% over what we weighed avoidance, which we generally don't. You can't put tank weights into a numerical weight, which is why I said generally, so according to the sims Bracken is better, but if you don't have a healthy amount of mastery (mastery scales linearly so "healthy" is completely subjective) then tier might be a better choice, even if it's not superior in raw (physical) dmg reduction. This is a lot of info to put in a BiS guide, so maybe you need to make BiS "bracken or necrotic" instead listing only on or the other?

@NoFear

We can do the same thing to the ring.

comparison shows 35s + 153m vs 215a, which gives a value for m at having to be 17% better than avoidance to maintain equilibrium. This is even closer than the shoulders from above, so close that I actually can't put one over the other. I'd take the mastery simply because I prefer mitigation over avoidance, but that doesn't make it "better" in terms of raw dmg reduction. The reason most people (including me) pick the 410 ring is that the hit + str means you're going to hit harder, which is nice when you already have H DS on farm and are trying to rank. which many people currently are.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Reniat

[Vlad 411]

You make good points, Reniat. Thank you very much for shedding more light on these issues :)

Hopefully it benefits many readers.