Blood high expertise

[lawrence131 0]

so most tanks need to go to 15% exp to never miss because their survival depends on landing hits to generate a certain resource.  while this isn't true for blood DK's anymore, if going for an offensive playstyle, the guide still says only aim for 7.5% expertise.

 

if we're easily surviving the content now and going for faster kills farming SOO which most raiders are doing now, shouldn't we still go to 15% expertise so none of our attacks miss if we're trying to maximize dps?  or does the extra riposte crit more than make up for all the misses even staying at only 7.5% expertise?

Edited September 22, 2014 by lawrence131

[Storm 426]

Death Strike and Rune Strike can't be parried. Icy Touch and Blood Boil are both spells. Diseases are also spells. The only attacks a blood DK's rotation that can be parried are plague strike heart strike and auto attacks, and all three of those make up a very small portion of your dps.

 

You'll gain more dps from extra parry (riposte crit) or just straight crit buffing death strike and rune strike than you would from 7.5% fewer parries on those few attacks.

[lawrence131 0]

great, thanks!   that explains the reasoning behind the guide.  just going for more parry makes a lot more sense then since you get to kind of double dip the survival/avoidance benefits while also gaining more dps than expertise capping.

 

on that note, using Thok's and Skeer's trinkets is a great combination for both mitigation and dps then right?  since STR gives parry  (is it like 1000 STR = 870 parry like it used to be for prot pallies?), and the 9% extra mastery are both pretty big mitigation stats.  each proc should act almost like a defensive CD with 14k STR/12k parry being a pretty significant amount of parry boost.

[Storm 426]

The str proc on Thok's will give you a decent parry boost, anywhere from 3-6% depending on how much parry you already have, and how much it'll be affected by diminishing returns. Parry you get from strength doesn't contribute to riposte though, and you can't really count on it defensively since you can't control when it procs. It will help reduce your overall damage taken for a fight, but it isn't going to save you when you need it. but the tailtip is still one of our best trinkets. the 7-9% crit damage is a big deal if you're playing high avoidance and riposte is getting you up to almost 50% crit. and the 7-9% mastery boost is a solid survival boost.

 

Skeer's is pretty much purely a dps trinket, not to say I haven't used it a few times back when I was trying to post ranks. The strength on the trinket will give you a little bit of parry, but not much, I think it was around 1% for me. the crit proc is better for our tank dps than a str proc though, and the proc sort of double dips with the 7-9% crit damage on the tailtip.

[lawrence131 0]

Thx again Storm.  I've been playing around with this trinket combo and the meters definitely look very impressive.  Can i get your opinion on a good opener sequence to maximize dps?  many encounters we just open up with lust/full burst, so i'm trying to time the perfect sequence to get the most out of the opener when everything is stacked up.

 

What I've been doing is blowing DRW about 5 secs after I pull when lust and both trinkets are up and just spamming as much rune/rp dump as i can for about 8-9 secs, then trying to reapply diseases as Skeer's proc is maxing and DRW is about to fade off.  I'm not sure if our dots snapshot this way since I haven't done enough logs to look at, but is this the best method to get the highest dps possible on opener?  Re-applying a double set of dots with DRW, high vengeance state, and both trinkets maxing out.

[Storm 426]

There really isn't a whole lot to it for the opener. Army before pull obviously, unless it's a fight where you're saving it for a burn phase at the end. make sure you pre-pot. 

 

waiting a few seconds for DRW is a good idea so you can build some vengeance first, and definitely re-apply diseases with outbreak just before DRW ends.

 

after that use Death strike and rune strike as often as possible, heart strike when you have to dump blood runes. rune for rune deathstrike is our hardest hitting ability right now, so there's no point using death runes to spam more heart strikes or anything.

 

snapshotting diseases whenever you can is a good idea in theory, but it's actually tough for a DK in practice, especially if you're using rolling blood (which makes 99% uptime a mindless task) since any free bloodboil proc will overwrite your snapshot meaning you may just have to sit on procs and waste them. if you're using plague leach you'll have more control over when you apply dots, but you may have more downtime on diseases waiting for the right time to apply, or spend more runes on re-applying diseases for your snapshot instead of using those runes on more death strikes, which is our primary method of survival, as well as way more dps than icy touch and plague strike. If you have to icytouch and plague strike to re-apply it's going to take at least 5-10 seconds of your stronger snapshot just to make up for lost dps.

 

In theory it's probably the one thing most DK's aren't doing that could really put you ahead in the ranks if you do it right, but it could also cost you some dps, and survivability if you aren't flawless, which is probably why most DK's don't bother.

[Antenora 3]

Blood only needs 7.5% due to the way Death Strike works.

 

Death Strike cannot be parried but it can be dodged.