Lichborne: Buy your death knight some patch 4.2 valor gear
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jul 19th 2011 at 6:00PM
Now that patch 4.2 has been out a few weeks, if you've been faithfully raiding or queuing up for your random dungeons, you should have a pretty good chunk of valor points ready for use. That means it's time to start thinking seriously about what you should buy. This week, we'll be taking a look at the new valor point gear from patch 4.2 and figuring out what each brings to the table for you.
Protect your neck
Necklaces are a new valor point buy for this tier. For tanks, the Stoneheart Necklace is a pretty pro buy. Mastery and parry rating are both solid, so this'll definitely last you through Firelands heroic drops.
For DPS, the Stoneheart Choker is a much more problematic piece, due to the fact that it has critical strike and expertise rating. Critical strike is mediocre at best for death knight DPS, and unholy also tends to favor haste and mastery over expertise. As a result, you unholy DPS death knights may just want to pass on the necklace unless you can't get a Firelands drop and have nothing else to buy. Frost can still get use out of the choker if you need the expertise, though. Just reforge the critical strike rating to haste.
Lording over rings
In other jewelry options, we do once again have some rings for sale. The Deflecting Brimstone Band is your tanking option, containing dodge and mastery. Tank valor point itemization is pretty awesome for tanks this tier, and this ring is no exception. Buy it, wear it, and you've made a great choice.
DPSers can pick up the Serrated Brimstone Signet, which has the awkward combination of haste and critical strike rating -- the best death knight DPS secondary stat combined with the worst. Still, the haste makes it worth using, although a lot of DPSers may see themselves dropping this ring for Alysrazor's Band if they need some extra expertise.
A range of relics
If there's a safe buy for your valor points, it's the relics. These relics will last you for a long time -- probably the rest of tier. You'll even upgrade them to heroic level with Crystallized Firestones.
The Deathclutch Figurine is your tanking option. You'll still want to keep your parry and dodge relatively balanced, but if one of them is significant higher than the other, you can always reforge it to mastery. For DPS, you'll get the Relic of the Elemental Lords. Reforging the critical strike rating to mastery (or hit or expertise, if needed) should do you find for this one.
Binding bracers and gaming the system
Bracers are the BOE option for you this tier. The Bracers of Regal Force are your tanking options. With a lot of dodge rating and a little parry rating, they're a great way to make up a dodge deficit. And of course, if they give you too much dodge, you can reforge them to a good chunk of mastery.
The Gigantiform Bracers are your DPS option. Mastery is a pretty solid middle-of-the-road secondary stat for all DPS death knights, and everyone needs hit rating as well. Your basic question in buying these is to figure out whether you need the hit rating or not. If you don't need the hit rating, you may just want to wait for Earthcrack Bracers to drop.
It's also worth paying attention that whole BOE thing. If you're an altoholic like I am and you have multiple heroic-ready level 85 characters, you can let them do your work for you. Take your alts and run heroics. Once they hit 1,250 valor points, buy the bracers and send them to your death knight. That way, you can spend your death knight's VP on other stuff.
Tears over tier gear
Like last tier, you can buy your tier 12 chest, gloves, and legs with valor points. Tanks get the following pieces:
For tanks, it's pretty simple. All three pieces are well-itemized and should serve you well, and as the four-piece bonus is desirable, you'll want to get them. Of course, the two-piece bonus isn't incredible except as a little bit of extra threat, since you'll still want the debuffs from your regular diseases, but more threat is good, too. Also, be aware that Occu'thar in Tol Barad can drop the legs and gloves, so if you want to be extra stingy, you can buy the chest first and hope that Occu'thar lets you save a couple thousand VP.
DPS will get the following pieces:
For DPS, the argument as to whether to buy the tier gear is a bit murkier. The breastplate, with critical strike and mastery ratings, is generally considered lackluster when compared to the Ragnaros dropped Breastplate of Shifting Visions. Of course, that means you'll want to wear all four other pieces of tier gear to get the set bonus. So you may end up having to buy the gloves and legs from the VP vendor instead of waiting for Occu'thar to drop them, since you'll have very little better to buy. And of course, if your breastplate isn't dropping from Ragnaros, you'll probably want to buy the chest, anyway.
Learn the ropes of endgame play with WoW Insider's DK 101 guide. Make yourself invaluable to your raid group with Mind Freeze and other interrupts, gear up with pre-heroic DPS gear or pre-heroic tank gear, and plot your path to tier 11/valor point DPS gear.Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Khazard Jul 19th 2011 6:09PM
Ragnaros doesn't drop the Breastplate of Shifting Visions. Staghelm does.
Rydaan Jul 19th 2011 7:15PM
Your wording on these last few articles has been confusing. Specifically, parts like "unholy also tends to favor haste and mastery over expertise." While i agree that haste and mastery are AWESOME compared to crit, you still need 26 expertise, and by implying that expertise is a bad stat, some newer players might forgo expertise for haste and wonder why they're getting dodged so much.
Ilmyrn Jul 19th 2011 7:26PM
That's actually where I am. I'm a very casual DK player, so I've always treated my DK the same way I do my Ret paladin: Hit and Expertise to cap, then secondary stats. Is that wrong? Do I not need to cap Hit and Exp for a DPS DK? I know the guides say Feral druids can get away with that, but it doesn't sit right with me.
niko Jul 19th 2011 7:53PM
you're not using math to help yourself here.
If the math works out that it's "moar deeps" to get a haste piece over an expertise piece (loosely), then that's all there is to it. No need to worry about cap above all else if the math supports the haste piece.
AskMrRobot.com gets flak from time to time, but there's no better example that comes to mind that how stat weights play into itemization and upgrade priorities than MrRobot.
Live it, learn it, love it. Even casual players can geek out on AskMrRobot.
Tom Jul 19th 2011 7:55PM
Remember, the way they figure out stat priorities are by running simulations. If you perform differently than a simulator (and you do), you need to take that into account. If you're good about adjusting to dodges, then a point of Haste will certainly affect your DPS more than a point of Expertise. If you're not good about reacting to Dodges, though, you might want to value Expertise a bit higher than what simulations suggest.
Shadow Priests were the same way at the beginning of the expansion. If you could adjust properly to misses, then capping Hit was not as important as increasing Haste. It's a weird and unintuitive state at this point in the game, but numbers don't lie. The trick is interpreting them well! ;)
Also, it's worth noting that if you don't raid but want to maximize your DPS in Heroics, gear with those Hit and Expertise caps in mind.
DeathPaladin Jul 20th 2011 9:40AM
Unholy doesn't place as much priority on expertise than Frost does because less of Unholy's damage is dependent on strikes. For example, Frost's runic power dump (Frost Strike) is affected by expertise, but Unholy's (Death Coil) is not.
alexjashinski Jul 19th 2011 11:50PM
As far as Death Knight's go (My main is a DK) stat priority goes as following -
Hit to 8%, Exp at 26, Haste > Mastery > Crit. (Gem straight Strength unless your slot bonus is +20 strength usually.)
You can pass on the Expertise on Unholy, being as most of your damage comes from your ghoul and diseases.
Jaq Jul 20th 2011 1:35AM
I'm actually pretty happy my DK main switched to tanking as his main spec for Cata, because this tier is just LOUSY with items with critical strike on them, even the 365s from the Molten Front. More stats to reforge to my needed ones, I guess. The tank gear is amazing, though, so I overall have no complaints.
Matt Jul 20th 2011 8:11AM
While I'm sure this is all nice and stuff.... There are much better and more pressing topics you could talk about I'm sure.
Cor Jul 20th 2011 11:28AM
Agreed.
On this site, other classes and specs get in-depth discussions about mechanics and suggestions on what to do in different encounters. DKs get an article on what to buy with valor points (was this really a mystery to even the newest DKs?). It seems like Mr. Whitcomb doesn’t have anything interesting to say but has to write a column each week so he puts together whatever takes the least amount of work. The best constructive feedback I can give is to check out the other articles covering the other classes and emulate them.
Matt Jul 21st 2011 4:07PM
Agreed. Just take a look at this weeks warlock article. "How to: Firelands". Personally I'd love to see a DK tanking version of that thanks.
jmjessup93 Jul 20th 2011 10:29AM
Actually, hit and expertise (more importantly expertise) are not -as- relevant to an unholy DK, as other classes. Hit is still good to cap out, and in decent gear, isn't an issue. As for expertise, unholy DK's do so much magic damage, that making sure -every- auto attack hits, isn't as important as making all your damage more effective.
Gesera Leafblighter Jul 21st 2011 7:56PM
I read your column a lot, being a DK tank, but I keep finding one persistent error--DK tanks do NOT want to balance dodge and parry. Because of the way Death Strike works, parry is very strongly favoured over dodge. Death Strike heals for a percentage of the damage taken in the past five seconds, and if you dodge five seconds of attacks, then you've taken no damage and your next Death Strike heals for nothing. However, if you parry, then you still take some damage, and can funnel that into Death Strike healing later on. So--reforge your dodge into parry or mastery!
There's a full discussion, I believe including sim data, over at pwnwear.com, which site is aimed specifically at DK tanks.
Gesera, DK Tank
rapsam2003 Jul 22nd 2011 2:35PM
Blizzard really seems to be forcing DK dps to use critical strikes. There's a BoE trinket that'd be amazing for us, if it didn't get proc'ed by critical strikes (Apparatus of Khaz'goroth). In particular, despite the fact that Blizzard put Unholy & DW frost on an equal playing field, they didn't itemize gear very well for Unholy. Since I'm a Blood DK with an Unholy offspec, this pisses me off.