Iron Man

Postings have been rather scarce this month, due mostly to my game time being based around Battlefield: Barrens. After my encounter with Janingvaar last week, I thought it was only right and proper to put my money were my mouth is, and investigate the Blood Death Knight.

Back in October 2012, I stated that Unholy Death Knights were wreaking balls, but I did discover later that this was an illusion that would disappear at around level 88 as the gear did not keep up with the decline in my powers during the levelling process. Blood Death Knights have morphed into the Paladins of old, able to dish out the damage, absorb huge quantities of damage and heal themselves in the their spare time. Blood Death Knights have evolved, they have no need for healing, they just spontaneously regenerate as part of their rotation and a choice of cooldowns for soaking up the damage.

I have never really played Blood before, except for a strange hybrid I used for PvP which was based on regenerative abilities and maximising the damage from the rest of the skills. Needless to say I had no burst damage, but I was a pain to kill.

I visited Icy Veins as my first stop to understanding the spec, but I discovered that the guide is aimed at producing a Raiding capable Tank, but my goal is completely different. I want a Wreaking Ball, an Iron Man, somebody able to stand up to an angry crowd and give back the damage in spades.

Talents seemed to relatively straight forward but the recommendations for Major Glyphs did not match my intentions. The following is the list provided by Icy Veins:

There are several Major Glyphs that can be beneficial to you as a Blood Death Knight.

• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude reduces the cooldown of Icebound Fortitude by 50%, but also reduces its duration by 75%. This glyph is excellent when you need to use Icebound Fortitude more often, but for very short periods of time. Unless you really need the reduced cooldown, you should not use this glyph.
• Glyph of Vampiric Blood increases the bonus healing received while Vampiric Blood is active by 15%, but Vampiric Blood no longer grants you any health. Depending on the fight conditions, this glyph can sometimes be beneficial. You should consult with your healers.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell improves your Anti-Magic Shell, by increasing the amount of incoming damage that it absorbs to as much as 100%, up from 75%. Note that Anti-Magic Shell's absorption still remains limited by 50% of your maximum health. This glyph always has the potential of being beneficial, so you should take it if you do not need to use another glyph instead.
• Glyph of Death Coil causes Death Coil to place a damage absorption effect, if cast on an ally. This will generally not be a worthwhile thing to do, but it remains a possibility in some remote situations.

Icebound Fortitude offers 50% reduction of cooldown but reduces the duration by 75%. This seemed like more faffing about than I was prepared to accept, for a minor improvement, I am not wanting to last for hours against a boss.

Vampiric Blood is another that offers a trade between bonus healing and granting health. I don't intend to travel around with a pocket healer so no thanks.

Anti Magic Shell, is something that I never use outside of PvP, I kill clothies not hide in a shell from them.

Death Coil, is not something I even added to my toolbar, due to the fact that it did not appear in my list of Blood spells.

In the end I choose Glyphs that I am familiar with like Dark Succor which grants 20% of your Health. Pestilience, because it increases the range, and Icy Touch because I had no idea what else to use.

Still wearing my DPS gear I went off to test my new spec. The first unsuspecting soul died a smooth bu slow death, and I was on full health which is not uncommon for a Death Knight. Next up was a party of 2, slow deaths but I was surprised to see how much AoE damage the other target was taking from my rotation, still on full health.

Next time I took on 4 Kor'kron Engineers and an Overseer,  I took a bit early damage to about half way, until I applied my Shields. Bone Shield and Icebound Fortitude up, now it was time regenerate. Death Strike, and Siphon and I am healthy again, 5 dead bodies and full health at the end of the fight.

One of the things that had most impressed when I met was Janingvaar, was the ability to take out the destroyers in the Oil Fields area of the Barrens. They are tough as old boots and come with 4 Engineers as an extra deterrent, so to test out my new experiment I grabbed a destroyer and 4 engineers, 2 Incinerators and an Overseer, applied my shields kept the regeneration process going and then mashed a series of buttons. In the end a huge mound of bodies, broken engineering parts and a nice collection of Oil.

In many respects this is all very easy, there is no risk involved and it is takes forever to kill one thing, but it takes a fraction of the time to kill the additional mobs. It does not seem worth engaging into combat unless there are at least 3 mobs present. On a Hunter you can deal with multiple mobs but you have to start breaking into your toolbox of tricks, Death Knights stand there laughing at the flailing army of mobs who are only able to scratch the surface of Iron Man.

As a playstyle I find it awesome in how OP they are, but another part of me is left thinking that this is cheating, in the same way that Druids can pickup items whilst still in flight form.

Run To The Hills

In the post Metal Guru I was trying to make sense of the Death Knight. I have covered Glyphs and Talents and got stuck at the Rotation stage. Before I try to tackle rotation here are some other things to consider.

Stats, Reforging and Gems

Strength is by far your most important stat. This is the case for Warriors and I presume Ret Pallies or anything thing that likes to smash you in the face very hard.

Gems: Always choose a Bold Inferno Ruby unless a socket provides 20 or more Strength or 40 or more of another important stat. In the latter case, use either Fierce Ember Topaz or Etched Demonseye as appropriate.
Reforging: Reforge to Hit up to the hit cap. Then, reforge to Haste, or Crit if that’s not possible. Never reforge Haste to anything else, including Hit.

The standard figures for Hit and Expertise apply. Just remembered that Hunters will need to load up on expertise for MoP. The important numbers are Hit Cap 961 and Expertise cap of 26

In order of importance stack Haste, Crit, Mastery,

Rotation/Priority

With a little help from MMO Melting Pot here is the list again.

Single-Target

Top Priority: Diseases and Dark Transformation. Apply or reapply diseases as first priority, preferably using Outbreak, and use Dark Transformation whenever it’s available.
Second Priority: Death and Decay or Scourge Strike if Death Runes are available. Use DnD even on single-target fights. Use Scourge Strike if DnD is on cooldown.
Third Priority: Death Coil IF Sudden Doom is up or Festering Strike. Only use Festering Strike here if it will extend your diseases.
Fourth Priority: Death and Decay or Scourge Strike. This is your bread-and-butter.

From my understanding of the term Diseases this includes:

Icy Touch - Infects target with Frost Fever
Plague Strike - Infects target with Blood Plague
Pestilence - Spreads Frost Fever and Blood Plague to other targets with 10 yard radius (AOE diseases)
Outbreak - Applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague instantly
Festering Strike - Increases the duration Frost Fever and Blood Plague

Dark Transformation - turns your ghoul into a killing machine. The icon flashes when available.

Experiment

Using LFR Siege of Wyrmrest -  I attempted to use more diseases than previously. Reading the above I was probably overdoing the use of Pestilence. Scourge Strike and Blood Strike I used as filler attacks, and Death Coil and Death Strike as the equivalent of finishing moves. Death Strike was used for healing top ups.

Results

I am still wearing the  PVP set with 397 Bracers and Boots and achieved around 15.5K overall. I still think with some tweaks to the rotation and to the talents I can get better results especially around Blood Tap and Anti Magic Shell. After checking MAXdps I have discovered that I am not using Festering Strike, so this also needs to be worked in to the priority.

Benchmarking

WoW lends itself to certain expectations of what is acceptable DPS and what is not, however in the process of researching this post it appears there is no definitive opinion or tool to determine what is acceptable DPS for your current gearscore. Blizzard has imposed some gating of content - 5 Man Heroics needs 329, 346 and 353, with  LFR set at 372 but we don't know anything definitive about the expectations for someone who just meets the requirements.

The de facto way to gear up, is buy PvP set at 377 do the 3 new 5 man Heroics swap the cache of PvE gear for the PvP. Buy the 397 Boots and Bracers from people selling the Valor points and then enter the LFR. So somebody with a mixture of Blue PvP and 378 and 397 PvE Purples and for the sake of argument they managed to get a 378 Weapon. What average DPS should they be able to produce without the huge buffs from Well of Eternity and Madness of Deathwing?

I am guessing that somewhere in the region of 10-12K is the bare minimum for the Siege of Wrymrest and around 15K for Fall of Deathwing. These figures will rattle the troll cages, but I think they are quite reasonable. Personally I prefer to be doing 18K + before attempting Fall of Deathwing, I guess I just don't like being in position 17-19 for damage done and when the inevitable wipe comes I am public enemy number one. In my opinion lFR is more about doing the right things at the right time than smashing out the numbers, Higher DPS which comes naturally from gear just makes us all a little lazier.

Mid Term Report

Showing signs of improvement but with some areas needing extra work. I will hone my skills in the LFD, and may attempt Fall of Deathwing if I can get my numbers up sufficiently. Plan to redo the talent tree as per EJ and make more use of Blood Tap, Anti Magic Shell and Festering Strike. A few drops of the Tier set would also be nice.