In this section of the guide, we will go over each stat that a Blood Death Knight Tank requires and explain how they function along with any possible stat caps that you will have to consider. Blood Death Knights Tanks have a similar stat priority to other Strength-based Tanking Roles, with one stat being exceptionally strong.
Stat Priority
- Stamina
- Strength
- Hit Rating
- Expertise Rating
- Mastery
- Parry Rating
- Dodge Rating
- Haste Rating
- Critical Strike Chance
Stamina is a primary stat, vital to any Tanking specialization. You will want this stat on most items as it increases your Health Points!
Strength is the second primary stat we will want on our items since it increases our Attack Power! Strength is also a source of Parry Rating through the Forceful Deflection passive effect.
Hit Rating is a secondary stat that is required in order not to miss your attacks on the target. You will only need an 8% Hit Chance, known as a Melee Soft Cap, as a Blood Death Knight since you gain access to Runic Focus, which helps you reach a 17% Hit Chance, known as the Hard Cap. Each 120.25 Hit Rating grants a 1% Hit Chance.
Expertise Rating allows you to prevent your target from dodging or parrying your attacks. You will need 26 Expertise to reach the Soft Cap upon which your target can’t dodge your attacks. and 56 Expertise to reach the Hard Cap upon which your attacks won’t be parried. You will only want to reach the Soft Cap. Each 30.0272 Expertise Rating will grant 1 Expertise.
Mastery is the most important secondary stat a Blood Death Knight can acquire after reaching the Expertise and Hit Rating Soft Caps. This stat empowers the Blood Shield effect, turning Blood Death Knight Tank into one of the most powerful Tanking specializations in the game.
Parry Rating is the next secondary stat that should be prioritized, allowing a Blood Death Knight to parry a foe’s attacks. Blood Death Knights also have Forceful Deflection, which passively adds an extra Parry Rating on top of any other Parry Rating gained from equipment.
Dodge Rating is another defensive secondary stat that has a similar importance to the Parry Rating. It allows you to dodge your foe’s attacks, effectively working as a damage mitigation tool.
Haste Rating is a secondary stat that increases your Attack Speed, reduces your overall Global Cooldown, and increases the rate at which your runes regenerate.
Critical Strike Chance is the weakest stat for Blood Death Knight. It increases the chance to deal critical strikes, however, you don’t rely on critical strikes, even if your diseases can now innately land them.
Reforging
Reforging is introduced in Cataclysm as an additional way to adjust your equipment’s secondary stats. Through reforging, you can acquire a plethora of different stats in exchange for a portion of your current gear’s secondary stats. However, you may not replace any of the main stats on a piece of equipment such as Strength or Stamina.
The main stat that Blood Death Knights will reforge any non-beneficial stats into is Mastery! Since Mastery is so impactful to your gameplay, allowing you to consistently generate an absorption effect, you will want to reforge as many stats as possible into it. The only scenario in which you won’t reforge stats into Mastery is in the case of Hit Rating and Expertise Rating if you are below the Soft Caps. Once you cross that threshold, you should reforge Hit Rating and Expertise Rating as well!
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outdated…..Haste over Mastery!
str no longer gives parry… that passive no longer exists.
nvm just did some testing .. It dues give parry, just the passive is not in our skill books…