death-knight-dps-gear
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Lichborne: Mists of Pandaria reputation gear for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. One of the first things you'll likely do once you hit level 90 in Mists of Pandaria is start looking into reputations. Faction reputation reward gear, at least at the start of an expansion, is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get the item level for heroic dungeons and raids. In Mists of Pandaria, however, it's a bit different. Valor and honor point gear is now on reputation vendors, and if you want it, you will actively have to grind out those reputations (via dailies, no less, as tabards no longer grant reputation in dungeons). This week, we'll take a look at the gear offered by these factions, and how it stacks up for death knights. Note that we will cover only those factions that offer gear specific usable for death knights to better their tanking or DPS. I hope getting rep for Tillers, Anglers, and Loremasters for the awesome vanity gear goes without saying.
Lichborne: Patch 4.2 raid gear for the DPS death knight
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. We've covered pre-raid gear and tank gear in patch 4.2, so there's only one real direction left to go. DPSers get their day in the sun this week. Unfortunately, strength DPS itemization is sort of crappy in a few areas this tier (more on that later), but there's still some pretty decent stuff you can pull out. Let's take a look.
Lichborne: Cataclysm pre-raid gear for death knight DPS
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Join World of Warcraft's first hero class as we head into a new expansion and shed the new kid on the block label. Now that you've had a couple weeks to run heroic dungeons and grind reputations, chances are you're raring to start tackling raids. Whether you already have a raid group or whether you're trying to find one, one of the easiest things you can do to give yourself an edge is to make sure your gear is up to snuff. This week, we'll be looking at the best DPS gear options for death knights looking to break into Cataclysm raiding. Since gearing requirements for most raids are a bit more stringent, this list is going to be a bit shorter and more focused than the pre-heroic gear list. I've tried to make it clear what gear is best for what spec in the list, but we should probably go over it in general here, just to be clear. Unholy death knights' main focus should always be strength. They'll want to go for 8% hit, of course, but even that's not quite as potent to as stacking more strength. After strength and hit rating, haste and critical strike rating are their main secondary stats. 2H frost death knights are going to want to hit the 8% hit requirement and the 26 expertise dodge soft cap. Their main focus should then be strength, with haste and mastery as their main secondary stats Dual wield frost death knights also want to hit the hit and expertise soft caps, and strength is supreme for them as well. However, their main secondary stats are mastery and critical strike rating. As you can tell, each spec's gearing requirements are just different enough to make things complicated. I've tried to simplify it as much as possible with this list, but in some cases, you may want to take the "secondary" choice for your spec in order to hit the hit and expertise soft caps. Remember that you can also regem and reforge to hit those caps if needed, or to shed extra hit or expertise rating above those caps. Also, be aware if your race provides extra expertise for wielding a certain type of weapon, as it can often inform your exact gearing choices. Finally, keep in mind that this gear list may not be completely comprehensive. I have focused primarily on gear of item level 346 and above. Some gear that feels sub-optimal (such as gear with low strength) or seems like too much of a hassle or expense to get for what it offers (mostly blue crafted gear) has been left out deliberately. This is the raid game, so you should be making an extra effort to get properly geared. With that said, let's dive in!
Lichborne: Ruby Sanctum loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly source for news, guides, tips and opinions on the death knight class. With the state of pretty much every class on beta in limbo thanks to the forthcoming talent revamp, we're taking a break from beta stuff to ransack the Ruby Sanctum. Hopefully, we'll see the new trees on beta in the next week or so, so we have more to work with than speculating on exactly what "signature abilities" everyone will get. In the meantime, we have shiny new loot and a new boss to tackle in the here and now. The Ruby Sanctum is ostensibly the last major raid of the Wrath expansion, and as such, ostensibly your last chance to get a few extra pieces of gear and uber yourself out before Cataclysm comes along and replaces everything with level 81 quest rewards. There are definitely some pretty prime upgrades to be had here, including a few straight-up best in slot drops, so let's get going and check out what you can grab. As with previous gear guides, try to keep your stat weights in mind, and when it comes to the heroic versions of these drops, unless otherwise noted, it's usually safe to say the same stuff about the heroic version, except even more so. Also, comparisons here are normal to normal, or heroic to heroic. Heroic versions of ICC loot are, for the most part, probably still going edge out normal Ruby Sanctum loot.
Lichborne: Gearing for new level 80 DPS death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at death knight news, guides, tips and tricks. So you've just dinged level 80. Now what? If you're lucky, you've saved up a few Emblems of Triumph from random dungeon finder runs -- but for now, you're new, you're only halfway geared and you want to start running the dungeon finder as soon as possible so you can see the Lich King die before Cataclysm hits. How do you do that? Let's give you a few tips and a list of gear to shoot for to get you in top pre-raid shape.
Lichborne: Icecrown 5-man gear for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's weekly look into the world of the death knight. This week, we're mostly waiting for the cold front to come in, but we got some other stuff we can talk about for sure. While we've all been waiting for Patch 3.3.3 to drop so we can decide if we're respeccing frost or not, It's become a pretty slow time in the death knight world. Debates continue on the best frost specs, whether Will of the Necropolis is worth getting now or even makes Blood the best tank spec, and so on and so forth, of course, so it's not completely quiet, but I've said my two cents on most of that before. It occurs to me, though, that I haven't really taken a good look at the Icecrown 5-mans for loot and opportunities for death knights. So for all my more casual and upcoming death knight friends, this one's for you.
Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for DPS death knights
We've known for a while that we were getting some pretty sweeping stat and gear changes in Cataclysm. The other day, the blues over at Blizzard put together a nice little post that outlined all the big points of the revamp. As you might expect, there are a few changes that DPS death knights are especially going to want to watch out for. Let's take a closer look at the changes that are most likely to affect the DPS death knight.
Lichborne: Frostwing and Lich King loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly death knight discussion center. This week, your host is playing it cool in more ways than one, what with the test server shakeups to frost DPS. Before we start into this week's column, I do want to assure any prospective frost DPSers that I fully plan to write a frost DPS 101 guide. In fact, up until a few days ago, I had every intention of writing that as today's column. Then I sat down at the computer on Friday, and we had a nice shiny new PTR with a whole mess of frost DPS buffs. It's probably going to take a bit for us to sort through those buffs, see how they affect speccing and gearing, and whether or not they'll make it live, so for now, we're going to focus on some other topics. This week, the subject is the loot in the final section of Icecrown Citadel, the Frostwing Halls. There's only a few bosses here, but you'll find some great off-spec pieces, a few best in slots items, and some interesting weapon choices. I'll offer my usual disclaimer here and recommend that you go back and review the opening paragraphs of our Lower Spire loot guide, since it lists some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. You may also want to review the stat weights discussed in blood DPS 101 and unholy DPS 101 as you pick out your DPS gear from these pages.
Lichborne: Crimson Hall loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, wow.com's weekly death knight column. This week, we continue our breakneck tour of the fabulous Ice Crown Citadel, premiere vacation getaway of the dead, rich, and infamous. Our look at ICC death knight loot continues this week with the Crimson Hall. Prepare for corny twilight jokes to go with your raiding (trust me, I know they're coming, and I will be making many of them). There's only 2 boss battles in this wing, but there's still plenty of loot to discuss. As before, I'd suggest you check out the introduction to the Lower Spire loot guide, as it does include some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. There's also a few wrenches in the gears (but good wrenches, since they involve buffs) for your loot selections as of Patch 3.3.2, which I'd expect will be live by the time you read this. We'll be getting an Ashen Verdict strength ring and a slight stat adjustment on tier 10 tank armor, so keep those in mind as you read. In short, you'll probably be keeping the Ashen Verdict strength ring as one of your main rings, and tier 10 tank gear looks a lot sexier now, at least for physical-based fights.
Lichborne: Plagueworks loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's weekly death knight column. This week, your host, Daniel Whitcomb, is busy applying for a slot as one of Arthas' pall bearers. Do you think I should wear the Ebon Blade Tabard or the Argent Crusade Tabard for that? Good News Everyone! With the Deathbringer down, you don't have to wait for some gnome in a frying pan. The Plagueworks are open, and you can go right in. Before we take a look at the Plagueworks boss loot, you might want to go back and read the opening paragraphs of last week's Lower Spire loot guide. It outlines the basic parameters and stat considerations we death knights use in picking out our best loot. Once you've done that, read on for a look at death knight loot from the Plagueworks wing of Icecrown Citadel.
Lichborne: Icecrown Citadel - Lower Spire loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, where your host is still figuring out the perfect roleplay celebration macro for when he downs the Lich King -- when he's not writing about death knights, of course. With Icecrown Citadel now properly breached, hopefully even some of the less uber among us are making our way into the breach to say hello to the father of all death knights, the Lich King himself. Of course, as we start upon the final leg of the journey that started so long ago at Light's Hope Chapel, as we trudge ever closer to our destiny to the fight that will bring our story full circle, that may lead to our damnation or to a brighter new destiny, there's certainly a question that's on everyone's minds: What about the loot? It's a good question. Let's take a look at the loot from the first few bosses up in the citadel. Before we do, though, it's a good idea to take a quicker refresher course in why we choose what we choose:
Lichborne: Emblem of Frost gear for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column. This week, Daniel Whitcomb is really regretting turning on his boombox in Acherus at the new year's party. By now, I assume a good portion of you have managed to get on your daily heroics at least a couple times a week, maybe even have an ICC raid or three under your belt. If so, you're starting to amass enough Emblems of Frost to maybe possibly think about buying a piece of gear. Of course, the problem with Emblem of Frost gear is that it's a little bit more expensive than, say, Emblem of Triumph gear. You're not going to get away with gearing up quite as fast, at least not until all of ICC is open and you have a good group for the place. No 25-emblem tier gear here. So that also makes it important, especially for the more casual player, to pick what you buy carefully. Let's take a look at the various options.
