Blood Death Knight Tank Gear & Stat Priority for M+ (Dragonflight)

Blood Death Knight Tank Gear & Stat Priority For M+ (shadowlands)

General Gearing

Given that you’ve read about the tank performance measures, we are looking to build our character with an optimal combination of mitigation, EHP, and damage for the content we are doing. This section is going to briefly review the contribution of various attributes, explain how they contribute to each performance measure relative to each other, and give general recommendations for gearing in item slots without unique effects.

Recommendations

Itemization Rules of Thumb:

  1. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target Tier Set Bonuses
  2. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target Embellished Items
  3. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target items with Sockets
  4. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target items that do NOT have Critical Strike
  5. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target items that do NOT have Haste
  6. Target Versatility over Mastery
  7. Avoid excessive secondary stat Diminishing Returns

(Full explanations associated with each rule of thumb are provided at the end of the section)

Embellished Items:

Unconditional (1): [Allied Chestplate of Generosity]
With 6+ Sockets: [Elemental Lariat]
Unconditional (2): [Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch]
Optional Bonus Effect: [Alchemical Flavor Pocket]

Generalized Stats Breakdown:

Overall: Versatility >= Mastery > Haste > Critical Strike

Tier Set Bonuses

Patch 10.2 includes decent tier set bonuses that are obtainable from multiple sources. These tier set bonuses generally make tier pieces worth using over gear sets that do not make use of tier set bonuses.

2-piece bonus:

Consuming RP provides an additive 1% proc chance per point of RP spent to gain the buff [Ashen Decay], which causes your next [Heart Strike] to apply the debuff [Ashen Decay] to all targets hit; this debuff increases non-pet and non-item ability damage by 20% while reducing the damage they deal to you by 10% for 8 seconds. Multiple applications or extensions of this debuff can increase the debuff duration up to a maximum of 10.4 seconds. For the purposes of proc rate calculation, the RP reduction from [Improved Death Strike] counts as RP spent (similar to how it interacts with [Red Thirst]).

This tier set bonus can generally justify a combined item level drop of up to ~40 item levels assuming the other items in question do not have a tier set bonus of their own.

4-piece bonus:

[Soul Reaper] execute damage and all ticks of [Abomination Limb] damage apply the debuff [Ashen Decay] to all targets hit. Furthermore, [Heart Strike] and [Blood Boil] direct damage extends [Ashen Decay] by 1 second.

This tier set bonus can generally justify a combined item level drop of up to ~13 item levels assuming the other items in question do not have a tier set bonus of their own.

Implications:

The most direct implication of this tier set is that it buffs the relative effectiveness of every capstone talent in the Death Knight talent tree since they all increase [Ashen Decay] uptime (though particularly [Abomination Limb and [Soul Reaper] when they are being used appropriately). Since the primary method of triggering procs is through spending RP, anything that increases RP generation gains at least *some* value. Similarly, there is a marginal increase in the value of anything that increases the cast rate of [Heart Strike] and [Blood Boil] for more effective extensions.

As far as actual player builds and gameplay is concerned, not much, if anything, changes as a result of this tier set bonus outside of situational talent considerations with [Soul Reaper]. The extension mechanic is not strong enough to prioritize [Heart Strike] and [Blood Boil] over higher impact abilities or to create a significant haste feedback loop such as what was seen at the end of Shadowlands. Furthermore, the defensive effect of [Ashen Decay] is not strong enough to fully substitute for other defensive cooldowns in your defensive rotation.

The old 10.1 tier set also had similar and minor haste-scaling elements as well as direct damage buffs to [Heart Strike] and [Blood Boil]; these direct damage buffs did have an effect of penalizing all build options that reduced the frequency of [Heart Strike] and [Blood Boil] casts (which is now gone). Blood Death Knights will also now have less (significant) defensive uptime due to the loss of random [Vampiric Blood] and [Umbilicus Eternus] procs, which were more effective defensive cooldowns than [Ashen Decay]. On a similar note, [Umbilicus Eternus] goes back to its 10.0 power level with the loss of tier set synergy.

Embellished Items

New to Dragonflight, there are a number of crafted items that are “embellished”. These embellished items provide unique and strong bonus effects, while their main restriction is that only two of these items can be equipped at any one time (with one exception). Note, these effects aren’t overly powerful in the grand scheme of things, but they are strong enough to be worth using.

Balance-wise, patch 10.2 brings with it a 35% nerf to most direct damage embellishments effects, which mostly counters the ~86% buffs received by these embellishments in patch 10.1 and makes the secondary stat effects more competitive.

Relevant Embellished Items:

[Allied Chestplate of Generousity] – This chestpiece has an appealing mastery/versatility statline and, additionally, it periodically provides you and your group versatility from a proc effect assuming (again) allies are within 30 yards of you. Granted, since this item is in a tier slot, it would lock you into which four slots you need to use for the tier set bonuses.

[Elemental Lariat] – This neck has customizable secondary stats, so there is nothing stopping us from crafting it with an ideal vers/mastery statline. Furthermore, the embellished effect provides a secondary stat proc based on the element of the gems we are using. If you have followed the guide recommendations in the use of vers/mastery gems, then that means the embellished effect will be providing a mastery proc, which is a desirable secondary stat. Granted, the strength of this embellishment effect is based on our total number of gems.

[Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch] – An optional reagent-based single target damage embellishment effect. This is the strongest direct damage effect embellishment at the moment and it also allows for custom statlines on any armor slots, which gives it appeal even in M+. However, recent tuning changes have not been kind to direct damage embellishments, making them a lot less appealing.

[Verdant Conduit] – A new optional reagent-based secondary stat embellishment. It can be applied to any armor slot and allows for custom statlines. The strength of the effect does not significantly change regardless of the number of allies using it, and, at least at the moment, it does not have any significant advantage over other secondary stat embellishment effects either from the stats that are given or the average stat benefit.

[Flourishing Dream Helm] – This helm has a middling versatility/critical strike statline and provides an interesting shield effect that can also partially trigger on allies given some positioning requirements. That being said, this absorb effect, like so many others this expansion, is not tuned competitively with alternative types of effects.

[Alchemical Flavor Pocket] – This optional embellished effect ingredient can be added to any item and, more importantly, this embellished effect does not count against your two embellished item limit. The effect makes your food last twice as long and to persist through death, so, if you happen to be using a non-embellished crafted item, anyway, you may as well add this to it even if it isn’t technically a power gain in many situations.

General Recommendation:

Unconditional (1): [Allied Chestplate of Generosity]
With 6+ Sockets: [Elemental Lariat]
Unconditional (2): [Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch]
Optional Bonus Effect: [Alchemical Flavor Pocket]

[Allied Chestplate of Generosity] one of the better secondary stat embellishments for us at the moment (as long as you value the bonuses being given to allies as you would yourself). Even if the 10.2 crafting ilvl nerf makes a crafted chest less desirable, chest is the ideal off-tier slot in 10.2 regardless of embellishment choice, this piece has our most-desired statline, and the same quality of statline is not obtainable on any max item lvl chest piece this season.

With enough sockets, [Elemental Lariat] provides a strong enough effect to also see play after the 10.2 embellishment balance adjustments. Lower ilvl jewelry slots are not as costly as most other slots, even if you have an alternative neck with an ideal statline. You need at least 6 sockets to justify this placement.

Even with the 35% nerf going into 10.2, [Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch] maintains solid performance, though it no longer has both embellishment slots on lockdown. It simply provides enough single damage that it is able to outcompete *most* other embellishment options available, even in content that usually has an AoE focus. Having the ability to apply it to any armor slot means we can craft this on cloak (and wrist if you are using two) to minimize the loss of stat budget, while custom statlines are always a good feature.

Meanwhile, [Alchemical Flavor Pocket] is a nice bonus effect when you are using a third crafted item in any slot. Crafted items may not be able to go to max item level, but getting a better statline on a jewelry slot can easily overcome a 6 item level loss even if we didn’t care about the effect. Not losing food buff on death can potentially be a real positive benefit if you would otherwise not have it or need to spend time reapplying it during a key.

These embellished items, as well as a number of the others, will generally be stronger than ideally stated non-embellished alternatives even if the embellished items are 7 ilvls lower than this alternative. Though this obviously isn’t true for the bonus effect [Alchemical Flavor Pocket], since that effect is almost entirely quality of life.

All other options have relatively weaker effects for general M+ applications that hurt their competitiveness with the above options, either through weaker effects or worse statlines.

Attribute Overview

Primary Stats:

These stats are almost always present on items by default and, for any item slot where they are found, they are generally provided in proportion to the item’s level. These stats can also be provided by unique effects.

Strength This stat directly determines how much AP (attack power) we have and it’s one of the two main contributors to parry rating. With [Blood Shield] active, strength also contributes to armor.

In general, our attack power is equal to strength. Unique effects that provide AP, directly, are extremely rare. AP contributes to our ability damage using the following general formula:

(AttackPower + 6 * WeaponDPS) * AbilityAPConstant * Vers% * MasteryAP%

Armor and parry contribution are explained under their respective sections.

Stamina This stat directly determines how much base health we have with the following formula:

Health = Stamina * 20

In some cases, our health is used to determine the damage and healing of some abilities.

Armor This stat reduces the amount of incoming physical damage taken according to the following formula:

Physical Damage Reduction % = Armor / (Armor + K)

The “K Value” changes depending on what type of content you are engaged in and it is generally adjusted so that players maintain similar levels of physical damage reduction over the course of an expansion. The result is that physical vs. magic damage taken in M+ should be consistent across the whole expansion. The current “K value” for M+ is ‘18672.642’.

Weapon DPS As discussed under strength, weapon DPS is an input to all ability damage calculations.

Secondary Stats:

Two of the four secondary stats are present on most item slots by default, with a few exceptions. The ratio of the two present secondary stats is different from item to item, but the combined total is generally based on the items level. Secondary stats are also provided by several miscellaneous effects.

Critical Strike Every 180 critical strike rating provides an additional 1% critical strike chance and every 200 critical strike rating provides and additional 1% raw parry chance. The base critical strike chance is 5% and critical strikes double the damage and healing of abilities that can crit. Specifically for BDKs, healing from [Bloodworms], [Mark of Blood], [Bonestorm], and [Death Strike] cannot crit.

Haste – Every 170 haste rating provides 1% haste, which affects rune regeneration rate, auto attack speed, global cooldown recovery rate, [Blood Boil] cooldown recovery rate, and some proc effects. While most DoT effects are affected by haste, [Blood Plague] and [Death and Decay] are not. Since a fixed amount of runes are used on [Bone Shield] management, 1% more haste gives more than 1% RP generation, since all extra runes can be used on [Heart Strike].

Mastery Through [Mastery: Blood Shield], every 90 mastery rating increases the effectiveness of [Blood Shield] by 1% and every 180 mastery rating provides 1% increased AP. The base effectiveness of [Blood Shield] is 16% and the base value for increased AP is 8%.

Versatility Every 205 versatility rating increases all damage and healing done by 1% and every 410 versatility rating reduces all damage taken by 1%.

Diminishing Returns: All secondary stats have multiple rating thresholds that reduce the effectiveness of additional rating for that specific secondary stat. This reduction begins to take effect once any rating provides an additional 30% of any stat (with the exception of mastery, since different specializations use different percentage-to-rating conversions) and generally ramps up for every additional 10% unadjusted contribution after that. This diminishing returns only affects *rating* specifically, no matter where it comes from, but it does not affect stat multipliers or effects that add a fixed amount of % to the stat. Rating thresholds are as follows for each secondary stat:

image 3

Tertiary Stats:

Tertiary stats have a small chance of appearing on most items when they drop (a 7.5% chance to get one of the following three stats). Other than being a rare bonus stat, they can also be provided by a few miscellaneous effects.

Leech Every 110 leech rating heals the player for 1% of all damage and healing done. This is only applied once to abilities that naturally have leech, it does not affect raw self-healing, and it does not affect [Death Strike], [Blood Shield], [Mark of Blood], or [Bonestorm] healing.

Avoidance Every 72 avoidance rating reduces the AoE damage a player takes by 1%.

Speed Every 50 speed rating increases movement speed by 1%.

Diminishing Returns: All tertiary stats have multiple rating thresholds that reduce the effectiveness of additional rating for that specific tertiary stat, just like secondary stats. This reduction begins to take effect once any rating provides an additional 10% of any stat and ramps up at 15% and 20% unadjusted contribution after that. Rating thresholds are as follows for each secondary stat:

image 4

Miscellaneous Stats:

These miscellaneous stats can only be acquired through specific sources.

Parry Parry is an attack avoidance stat. As is the case for all strength tanks, it is generally provided by strength and critical strike, though some other sources exist. Parry probability is determined by the following formulas:

RawStrParry=(Strength-Base Strength)/P
RawStrParry=(Strength-Base Strength)/75500

RawCritParry=CriticalStrike/D
RawCritParry=CriticalStrike/24000

FinalParry=Base Strength/P+0.03+(RawStrParry+RawCritParry)/((RawStrParry+RawCritParry)*v+h)
FinalParry=2551/75500+0.03+(RawStrParry+RawCritParry)/((RawStrParry+RawCritParry)*(1)+1/0.94)

The values for ‘P’, ‘D’, ‘v’, and ‘h’ are spec-specific and are used in multiple game mechanic formulae.

(Final parry % is reduced by 1.5% for each level the target is above the player.)

Dodge – Similar to Parry, Dodge is an attack avoidance stat. Dodge is rarely obtainable by BDK, since strength tanks do not gain Dodge contributions from primary stats or critical strike, so the dodge calculations for BDK are simplified as a result. However, every once in a while we get access to an effect that provides dodge rating.

RawDodge = DodgeRating/D
RawDodge = DodgeRating/24000

FinalDodge = 0.03+ RawDodge/(RawDodge*v+h)
FinalDodge = 0.03+ RawDodge/(RawDodge*(1)+1/0.94)

(Final dodge % is reduced by 1.5% for each level the target is above the player)

Miss – Miss is the final attack avoidance stat and it generally cannot be interacted with.

Miss=0.03+DodgeRating/24000/(DodgeRating/24000+1/0.94)

Attack Avoidance The combination of all stats that prevent an avoidable attack from hitting. Total attack avoidance is determined as follows:

AttackAvoidance = FinalParry + FinalDodge + Miss

Mitigation

Your current character setup and what kind of encounter you are in will determine the exact value of different attributes. That being said, you’ll generally find the following secondary stat priorities to be true in Mythic+ dungeon content when ONLY considering mitigation:

Mitigation Only: Mastery > Versatility >= Haste >> Critical Strike

(Note: Talent and item choices can influence the relative value of secondary stats for mitigation)

Similar to dps, it’s possible for lower item level pieces to be better for mitigation than higher item level pieces. In fact, this is generally more likely to occur with mitigation compared to damage, since primary stats are relatively poor sources of mitigation value and secondary stats have historically had wider gaps in mitigation contribution compared to something like personal damage contributions.

More Details?

Mitigation for BDKs comes in a few layers: avoiding attacks entirely (dodge and parry), proactively mitigating incoming damage as it hits you (armor, versatility, avoidance, and other damage reduction effects), and reactively mitigating damage that you have already taken (self-healing). Any damage that we can’t mitigate through these methods will need to be healed by another player or it will eventually culminate in our death.

As has been the case since Legion for BDK, the influence of versatility, mastery, and haste on mitigation is expected to grow compared to primary stats and critical strike as we progress through the expansion for the following reasons:

  1. Increasing the “K Value” lowers the value of armor with every major content patch, which has also, indirectly, lowers the mitigation value of strength.
  2. Stamina does not directly influence mitigation outside of a few minor sources of healing, which are not overly large and don’t scale with incoming damage.
  3. [Death Strike] effective mitigation is a significant source of BDK healing and it heals proportional to damage taken (like armor and parry mitigation). However, its effectiveness is multiplied by three separate secondary stats (mastery, versatility, and haste), which results in increasing returns for all three of these secondary stats where most traditional forms of mitigation have some form of diminishing returns on their effectiveness.

For example, here are graphs using Shadowlands statistics comparing armor scaling to the scaling of a single [Death Strike] (adjusted to account for haste allowing for more [Death Strike] casts) in a five target encounter with increasing levels of secondary stats. On one hand, the physical damage reduction curve for armor has a decreasing slope; it is sloped in a way that each point of armor increases EHP by the same flat amount as the last point of armor. On the other hand, the [Death Strike] healing curve from the combined effects of versatility, mastery, and haste has an increasing slope for a characteristic that, like armor, ultimately negates all incoming damage by a certain %.

armor
dsscaling

This is the primary reason why non-critical strike secondary stats are so influential on BDK mitigation relative to other stats and is the main reason lower ilvl gear can sometimes be better than higher ilvl gear. And, again, this effect only gets amplified as an expansion progresses.

With more targets, a few things change that affect mitigation. First, our natural rate of bone shield consumption will be elevated from the higher number of targets attacking us, which means we will need to spend more runes on [Marrowrend] to maintain our [Bone Shield]. However, with [Insatiable Blade], this cost is offset with increased cast frequency of [Dancing Rune Weapon]. Second, you gain increased effectiveness on [Heartbreaker], [Hemostasis], and [Umbilicus Eternus] if you are taking any of those talents. All potential positive bonuses compound with existing healing effects and make sources of increased [Death Strike] mitigation more effective, either directly or indirectly, with the exception of [Umbilicus Eternus].

As for leech, leech doesn’t affect [Death Strike] or [Blood Shield] healing, so it is not a significant source of mitigation. It does have *some* value, but it’s very very rare that it will change any specific gearing decision.

As for avoidance, most of the damage we take in Mythic+ dungeons is not AoE, so avoidance does not provide a significant amount of mitigation.

What if we are taking high amounts of magic damage?

Critical strike’s mitigation is directly proportional to the amount of avoidable attack damage being taken by the player, so it gets less valuable with more magic damage intake. Mastery provides full mitigation as long as a high enough % of incoming damage is physical (enough to fully utilize your [Blood Shield]); once you drop below this threshold it starts adding noticeably less value. If all damage being taken is magical, both critical strike and mastery provide an insignificant amount of mitigation.

Effective Health

EHP Only: Versatility >> Haste

EHP is mostly affected by attributes that are tied to item level (strength, stamina, armor), with the big exception of versatility (and, in some cases, avoidance).

  • The amount of versatility an item has can have a large impact on how much EHP it gives, often allowing items with versatility to provide the same amount of or more EHP than items 7 ilvls higher without versatility.
  • Assuming two items both have Versatility, ilvl will generally determine which item provides the most EHP.
  • Most of the damage the tank currently takes in M+ dungeons is not AoE, so avoidance is not significantly useful for increasing EHP.
  • Beyond Versatility, Haste is the only secondary stat that provides EHP (indirectly) through [Red Thirst].

Extra Considerations:

EHP in this guide is generally referring to reliable EHP, which is either always available when you are taking damage from an attack or when it is 100% controllable like a defensive cooldown. However, there are a few other sources of EHP that also have some value depending on the situation. For instance, proc-based EHP bonuses can still have significant value in M+ where trash pulls are often dangerous for their entire duration even if they aren’t controllable. Even extremely unreliable sources of EHP, such as sources based on attack avoidance (dodge and parry) and the ability for [Blood Shield] to raise our total HP % above 100% are providing at least some EHP value, since it lowers the chance that you will be lowered from a high amount of health to dead in a short amount of time. Furthermore, since our main form of mitigation is [Death Strike], which is on the global cooldown, higher amounts of haste can potentially allow us to [Death Strike] faster in response to damage (which gives enemy targets less time to kill us before we can react).

Also, since we are generally pooling RP for reserve [Death Strike]s, it’s worth noting that mastery and versatility are the only attributes increasing the effectiveness of each point of pooled RP, which is effectively our “reserve” health pool.

Damage

Optimizing gear for damage nowadays is fairly easy, and, other than understanding the trade-offs involved, optimizing damage for tanks is not really any different than optimizing damage for dps specializations. In general, secondary stat priorities for damage, like everything, are going to change based on your character setup and circumstances. A general priority for ONLY damage can easily be generated with sims, but it may look something like this:

ST Damage Only: Critical Strike >= Versatility = Mastery > Haste
AoE Damage Only: Critical Strike >= Versatility = Mastery >> Haste

Unlike mitigation, secondary stats are relatively close in value when it comes to increasing damage, so the hierarchy of stat weights can very easily change depending on your current stats (and items). Furthermore, primary stats account for a larger portion of an item’s damage contribution. Because of this, it is generally more likely for higher ilvl items to result in more damage as opposed to other measures.

While all secondary stats are generally multipliers on the amount of damage being done, there are a few sources of damage that are not affected by haste. Opting into more of these sources of damage, such as [Abomination Limb], [Soul Reaper], [Blooddrinker], [Bonestorm] or [Shattering Bone], will devalue haste’s relative damage contribution. It is especially notable that most baseline uncapped AoE damage is not affected by haste, hurting its AoE damage contribution. A few damage sources are also not affected by mastery, such as unique damage effects on items.

Overall

So, let us now consider all secondary stat effects at the same time:

Mitigation Only: Mastery > Versatility >= Haste >> Critical Strike
EHP Only: Versatility >> Haste
ST Damage Only: Critical Strike >= Versatility = Mastery > Haste
AoE Damage Only: Critical Strike >= Versatility > Mastery >> Haste

Again, the general recommendation for M+ dungeons is to try and maximize mitigation as long as especially inefficient EHP/damage tradeoffs aren’t being made in the process. As such, the overall secondary stat priority ends up looking like this:

Overall: Versatility >= Mastery > Haste > Critical Strike

Itemization Guidelines

The following rules of thumb were developed when looking at generalized items with a 50/50 split on their secondary stat allocations; they are meant to provide general itemization rules that will be true a majority of the time, though it is not impossible to come up with specific circumstances that can justify larger or smaller item level differences than what is listed here particularly when comparing items that do not have 50/50 splits in their secondary stat allocation.

1. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target Tier Set Bonuses

The bonuses provided by the tier set are strong enough to justify using lower item level gear within some limits. The two-piece bonus can justify a combined item level drop of up to ~40 item levels, while the four-piece bonus can justify a combined item level drop of up to an additional ~13 item levels over non-tier replacements.

2. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target Embellished Items

The bonus effects provided by embellished items are strong enough to justify using lower item level gear within some limits. For the recommended embellished items and a number of the alternatives, an item level drop of at least 7 item levels can be justified (with the exception of the [Alchemical Flavor Pocket]).

3. Disregarding limited ilvl differences on jewelry (specifically), target items with Sockets

A socket is generally worth more than 7 item levels on jewelry and 3 item levels on armor slots.

4. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target items that DO NOT have Critical Strike

Critical strike in place of other secondary stats is a significant source of mitigation loss to the point where lower item level items without critical strike are often better in M+ settings, everything else held equal. Avoiding critical strike is generally worth more than a 3 item level difference when substituted with haste on armor (7 item levels on jewelry items), while 6 item level differences can be justified when substituted with versatility or mastery on armor (16 item level differences on jewelry and 3 item level differences on weapons).

5. Disregarding limited ilvl differences, target items that DO NOT have Haste

Haste, while a stronger overall secondary stat than Critical Strike, still lags behind the top two stats to a noticeable degree in either mitigation (compared to both Versatility and Mastery, but especially Mastery), EHP (compared to Versatility), and AoE damage (compared to Versatility and Mastery). It is to the point where substituting haste for either versatility or mastery on an armor slot is generally worth more than a 3 item level difference (7 item levels on jewelry). Again, this secondary stat modification out-prioritizes the manipulations listed below.

6. Target Versatility over Mastery

While a lot more subjective than the above rules of thumb, it is believed that versatility should be preferable to mastery in most cases, though the overall value of both secondary stats is generally believed to be about equal in most circumstances. The main difference between the two stats is that mastery provides significantly more mitigation, while versatility provides significantly more EHP.

7. Avoid excessive secondary stat Diminishing Returns

As previously mentioned, your secondary stats start getting penalized if you have too much rating in any one of them. The first diminishing returns range is not too difficult to reach, while the second range is very difficult to reach outside of temporary buff effects. Generalized secondary stat preferences hold throughout the first diminishing returns range of any stat (except for mastery if you are not taking [Iron Heart], for whatever reason), though the previously listed ilvl values do not assume diminished stats. Generalized secondary stat preferences are also not guaranteed to hold throughout the second diminishing returns range. Changing food buffs, enchants, and gems should be enough to rebalance your stats in extreme cases.

Trinkets

Upfront Recommendations

1. If Tank Survivability is a Concern: [Prophetic Stonescales]
2. If VERY GOOD at Maintaining Combat: [Cataclysmic Signet Brand]
3. Unconditional: [Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart]
4. If using Bloodshot: [Rezan’s Gleaming Eye]
5. Unconditional: [Ember of Nullification]

6. Alternative (1): [Idol of the Spell-Weaver]
7. Alternative (2): [Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge]
8. Alternative (3): [Rezan’s Gleaming Eye]

(Note: Trinkets were generally assumed to be at their highest available ilvl for the purposes of these recommendations. Depending on the exact two trinkets involved, ilvl deviations may or may not change the ordering)

Trinket Details

For M+, there are a small handful of trinkets we will be considering based on their overall performance in encounters against various amounts of targets and their accessibility. The final listing is intended to provide enough alternative options to also support early gearing, though a few other trinkets beyond those listed in the recommendations are also discussed below if the reason for their absence wasn’t due to an obvious power gap.

[Prophetic Stonescales] – This is a fairly standard cheat death trinket on an 8 minute cooldown. While the effect triggering will make your character inactive for a few seconds, you will be immune to all attacks over the trigger duration, all enemies will receive a damage reduction effect, you will receive a haste buff, and you will retain any absorb effects you had before the lethal attack.

[Cataclysmic Signet Brand] – A passive strength trinket with an exponentially ramping single target direct damage proc that continuously gets stronger as long as you don’t drop combat for a significant amount of time. For each stack you receive, proc damage increases multiplicatively by 20%. Given the proc rate and usual player haste ranges, it will generally take between 3 and 4 minutes of combat for the trinket to complete a full ramp. As such, the player’s ability to maintain stacks will have a SIGNIFICANT impact on how strong this trinket actually is. While [Control Undead] is active, your stacks will generally not expire even outside of combat, though there are some inconveniences with trying to leverage this in the current dungeon pool.

[Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart] – A passive versatility with a passive immolation aura along with an on-use effect that gives the user a shield along with a pulsing AoE damage debuff effect. Both the immolation aura and the pulsing AoE effect hurt the player as well as enemies. All things considered, the healing of this trinket outweighs the self-damage, but not by an excessive amount. The immolation aura provides uncapped AoE damage that does not split, while the pulsing AoE debuff on-use effect splits damage with 15% increased total damage for every target after the first to up to 75% increased total damage. Due to the damage generally being more effective at smaller target counts, it can sometimes be worth delaying the use of this trinket by some amount of time if it will allow you to use it in a more efficient situation.

[Rezan’s Gleaming Eye] – A passive strength trinket with a single target physical direct damage and bleed effect. The bleed effect can be extended 30% above standard duration on refresh. This trinket is notably stronger when using [Bloodshot].

[Ember of Nullification] – A standard versatility stat stick with a unique silence effect. The effect appears to be relatively insignificant, but it no longer comes at the cost of other stats on this trinket, so it doesn’t hurt to have.

[Idol of the Spell-Weaver] – All of the jewelcrafting trinkets require full sockets for full power. However, they are some of the better secondary stat trinkets with enough sockets.

[Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge] – This trinket is a fusion between a haste stat stick and a single target damage trinket in addition to passive primary stats. The budgeted combination of both is respectable and results in a trinket that is somewhat more oriented towards lower target counts.

[Gift of Ursuine Vengeance] – A unique trinket with passive versatility, a stacking strength effect that provides a moderate average strength benefit, and a counter attack single target damage proc that can only trigger once every 3 seconds. While the overall potential of this trinket is very strong if the effect is used on cooldown (particularly on single targets), real-world considerations mean that it will miss that potential by a significant amount (especially against single targets where the effect would be the most impactful). Ultimately, this is why the trinket does not show up on recommendations at all.

Overall

1. If Tank Survivability is a Concern: [Prophetic Stonescales]
2. If VERY GOOD at Maintaining Combat: [Cataclysmic Signet Brand]
3. Unconditional: [Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart]
4. If using Bloodshot: [Rezan’s Gleaming Eye]
5. Unconditional: [Ember of Nullification]

6. Alternative (1): [Idol of the Spell-Weaver]
7. Alternative (2): [Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge]
8. Alternative (3): [Rezan’s Gleaming Eye]

(Note: Trinkets were generally assumed to be at their highest available ilvl for the purposes of these recommendations. Depending on the exact two trinkets involved, ilvl deviations may or may not change the ordering)

While cheat death trinkets do not lend themselves well to traditional model-based analysis, 8-minute cooldown cheat death trinkets like [Prophetic Stonescales] have historically been among the stronger M+ options when they have been available in the past (even on tank specs that are already using talented cheat death effects) and log data from patches 10.1.5 and 10.1.7 point to this trinket having some of the best player outcomes among all trinket options in M+. Cheat death trinkets thrive in environments where tank deaths due to incoming burst damage (as opposed to a lack of mitigation throughput) are one of the more prominent failure conditions for a given dungeon, which may vary from dungeon to dungeon, may depend on particular player skill level, and may be impacted by key level. It is up to the player to determine whether or not these conditions sufficiently apply to them, though previous data would indicate that it is very often worth using. At this time, it is recommended that, if you are using this trinket, you use it in addition to [Purgatory] and not as a replacement. If you only want to run one cheat death effect, [Purgatory], alone, is better than this trinket, alone.

[Cataclysmic Signet Brand] is a very single target damage centric trinket which has unique considerations due to its very impactful ramping mechanic. Fixed at its starting power level, it is a very lackluster trinket; fixed at around 5 stacks, it is still very weak in its effectiveness; fixed at 10 stacks, it would be competitive for unconditional use; and fixed at 15 stacks it is significantly more impactful than any other trinket available. The tricky question, of course, is how many stacks a player will be able to effectively maintain throughout a dungeon run, which is affected by both player skill and dungeon design/tuning/routing. With a strong enough stack economy and no high overriding concerns, the damage contributions of this trinket are large enough to use it over other options, but hitting that point is easier said than done. In any situation where your stacks are resetting before you hit 15 stacks, the trinket has not provided enough value to warrant its position on this listing over that period of time. And in order to justify it, you would need to hold 15 stacks for a significant period of time to offset any periods of poor stack performance (with a particular focus on having high stacks for the important part of the dungeons). That being said, I would approach this trinket with a healthy amount of skepticism given its constraints. While it can potentially be a BiS trinket, realistically the conditions for this placement are unlikely.

[Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart] performs very well in Mythic+ despite having a large portion of the trinket’s benefits oriented towards single target damage and the healing being relatively inconsequential outside of meeting extremely short-term EHP checks. Furthermore, it is able to fulfill a very similar role to [Beacon to the Beyond] if situations arise where burst damage has premium value; elevating its worth in those circumstances. At least at the moment, there seems to be little reason *not* to use this trinket unless you wanted to focus on non-damage benefits more than what is generally recommended; even if you are limited to the heroic version of this trinket, this guideline does not change.

[Rezan’s Gleaming Eye] does a respectable amount of single target physical damage that can be further enhanced if using the talent [Bloodshot], and can excel in situations where this is appropriate over several other trinket options as long as you are not specifically looking for controllable burst damage. However, if using a more traditional build, its overall benefits are more limited.

[Ember of Nullification] manages to be our best secondary stat stick of the season with the current tuning of the alternatives. Unlike other options, it is giving our best secondary stat and it is extremely consistent in its benefit. It also has a bonus silencing effect, though this is assumed to provide no value for the purposes of this evaluation. Benefits are fairly well-rounded between mitigation, EHP, and damage, as is generally the case with secondary stat effects that include a healthy amount of versatility.

As for the alternative trinkets, [Idol of the Spell-Weaver] provides respectable focused secondary stat benefits, [Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge] provides decent split secondary stat benefits at an increased budget, and an unconditional [Rezan’s Gleaming Eye] provides respectable single target direct damage benefits.

Enhancements

All item modifiers and consumable usage is handled in this section.

Runeforges

Death Knights have access to unique enchants for their weapons called runeforges that are stronger than traditional weapon enchants. Notable BDK options are listed below:

[Rune of the Fallen Crusader] – This runeforge provides a moderate amount of damage as well as minor mitigation and EHP benefits. This is the best general damage option.

[Rune of Hysteria] – This runeforge provides a decent amount of mitigation throughput and a larger RP pool, with only a minor, and indirect, increase to EHP. This is the best mitigation option.

[Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle] – This runeforge provides a moderate amount of EHP, a minor amount of mitigation, and a small amount of damage. This is the best EHP option.

[Rune of Saguination] – This runeforge can provide a large amount of single target damage, and a near-negligible amount of mitigation. The damage doesn’t scale with the number of targets, though it actually does 100% more damage to targets 20% health and lower. This is the best single target damage option, though it isn’t the best at this by a large margin and it quickly falls in value outside of this specific circumstance.

[Rune of Unending Thirst] – While on-kill effects aren’t particularly useful in M+, the one unique benefit provided by this runeforge is its movement speed bonus.

Runeforge Swapping

Weapon swaps can be made out of combat at no cost, so we can potentially weigh the merits of using certain runeforges pull by pull instead of dungeon by dungeon (if you have multiple comparable weapons to put different runeforges on, which isn’t always going to be the case). The same approach can be taken with strong weapons that have unique effects, when competitive weapons of that type appear and when they are swappable during an active dungeon. Properly executed, you can improve dungeon success with smart weapon swapping swapping over what you would gain by using any runeforge alone, though it *is* kind of a pain to do and the weapon requirements limit the strategy to a good extent.

Keep in mind, weapon swaps made while in combat will incur a 30 second [Off Balance] debuff, which temporarily disables runeforge bonuses. [Off Balance] will easily remove most of the potential benefits related to swapping. Additionally, buff and debuff effects related to runeforges instantly vanish when the related runeforge is unequipped. So, be careful about swapping at the wrong times.

General Recommendation:

(Multiple Weapons)
Hard Pull Flex Option: [Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle]
Single Target Flex Option: [Rune of Saguination]
Out of Combat Movement: [Rune of Unending Thirst] (On a +Speed Weapon)
Otherwise: [Rune of the Fallen Crusader]

(Single Weapon)
Unconditional: [Rune of the Fallen Crusader]

[Rune of the Fallen Crusader] is one of the most efficient ways to increase damage relative to the other options (see the Build Modifications section for more details on this), enough so that it should be the standard pick and likely the strongest option overall in 10.0 if no weapon swaps are being used. That being said, the ability to swap weapons mid-dungeon does mean that, with smart play, the benefits of other runeforges could be applied selectively to dungeon sections where they may be justified.

[Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle] is a reasonably efficient way to gain more EHP if you need it, and a case can be made for its situational use in mid-to-high level dungeons as a weapon swap option, specifically when burst damage deaths are the primary obstacle in certain dungeon segments as opposed to failures related to mitigation throughput (which should be rare in the current season). However, outside of these situations, the benefits of this runeforge are limited.

[Rune of Saguination] is not a very efficient way to increase single target damage over [Rune of the Fallen Crusader] under normal circumstances, given the tradeoffs involved, but, like everything else on this list, it can be situationally used in easier priority target situations to speed up the dungeon at little cost.

[Rune of Unending Thirst] is only used to shave a few seconds off of a key with a speed weapon when running between packs in a dungeon when out of combat, if the player finds this level of micro-management acceptable. The gains are minor, but they are free for the taking if you want to exert the effort.

While Mitigation is generally desirable in M+, the mitigation being provided by [Rune of Hysteria] comes at a high cost relative to the damage gains of [Rune of the Fallen Crusader], and, even for weapon swapping purposes in a particularly dangerous dungeon segment, [Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle] is more likely to better perform that job given the almost excessively high resources of BDK’s in 10.0 and current dungeon tuning. As such, it is hard to make a case for its use even situationally at this time. Granted, if you wanted to make a build variation in the direction of more mitigation relative to the standard recommendations, this is pretty much the only option available that isn’t already recommended.

Enchants

General Recommendations:

Ring [Devotion of Versatility]

Versatility is currently the recommended stat for reasons previously explained.

Chest [Sustained Strength]

The choice between these two chest enchants is mostly an EHP vs. Damage tradeoff and, given the amount of stamina we are being offered relative to the strength that is being lost, [Sustained Strength] will generally be the superior option in M+.

Cloak [Writ of Speed]
Bracers [Devotion of Speed]

You can choose between more speed (a miscellaneous benefit) or more mitigation with leech. While the benefits of these enchant options are not directly comparable, historical player preference and large-scale log analysis both indicate speed is associated with the best key outcomes.

Boots [Plainsrunner’s Breeze] or [Watcher’s Loam]

You can choose between more speed (a miscellaneous benefit) or more EHP with stamina. These benefits are not directly comparable with traditional analysis methods and they provide a small enough benefit that it is difficult to determine the best choice through large-scale log analysis with a high amount of confidence, so feel free to pick according to personal preference. Earlier Dragonflight patches have shown a player preference towards the stamina enchant, though the fixed stamina effect gets relatively weaker with each patch due to overall stamina inflation (which is not as true of the speed enchant).

Legs [Fierce Armor Kit]

The main tradeoff between “enchants” in this slot is armor vs. stamina vs. a very small amount of versatility (with less strength than the other two options). At current tuning, the stamina option is the favorable option in all situations and the competition isn’t particularly close.

Belt [Shadowed Belt Clasp] and [Nitro Boosts]

There is only one normal belt enchant, so there is not much to consider with it; engineering tinkers can also be applied in addition to enchants.

In M+ dungeons, [Nitro Boosts] provides a 70% movement speed buff with an 8 second duration on a 2 minute cooldown (it will put potions on cooldown for 1 minute) and it does not conflict with the regular belt enchants. It will never backfire in M+. This is an exceptionally useful benefit for an otherwise slow tank class in many situations, but especially when setting up pulls.

Gems

General Recommendation: [Resplendent Illimited Diamond] then [Zen Malygite]

The same reasoning as the ring enchants applies here, though, with gems in particular, there are two different considerations. First, there is a unique primary stat and secondary stat gem that you are allowed to only use one of, which is generally going to be better than other options. Second, hybrid secondary stat gems provide significantly more additional stats in comparison to singular secondary stat gems, so they are generally the superior option given that our two best secondary stats are close in overall value.

Consumables

General Recommendations:

Phial [Phial of the Tepid Versatility]

The higher increased primary stats associated with Patch 10.1 (and now 10.2) gearing greatly benefited [Phial of the Tepid Versatility] at the expense of the other phial options, which made a once contested decision a lot more straightforward. As such, there is not much reason to deviate from [Phial of the Tepid Versatility] at this time.

Food [Great Cerulean Sea]

Food buffs are heavily biased towards secondary stat bonuses, and the dual-secondary stat food provides significantly more total stats than singular secondary stat food. Given current stat values, the Vers/Mastery food is expected to offer the best combined benefits compared to other food options.

Weapon Supplement [Hissing Rune]

The mastery from [Hissing Rune] is generally going to provide more overall value than the attack power from a [Primal Weightstone] or [Primal Whetstone] and it is preferable to the haste and critical strike rune options.

Potions [Potion of the Hushed Zephyr] / [Bottled Putrescence] / [Potion of Shocking Disclosure] / [Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power] / [Potion of Gusts]

  • Invisibility is a top priority when necessary to enable better routing, while [Potion of Gusts] can situationally be used for very specific skips and pulls.
  • Beware of locking out your [Nitro Boosts] cooldown if you are using that tinker effect!
  • [Potion of Shocking Disclosure] is only potentially used on particularly large pulls with no priority targets or as a dungeon pre-pot. Otherwise, [Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power] will now beat out other combat potions under most circumstances due to it scaling better into the higher item levels of Season 3 with no consumable updates.

 

About the Author

Kyrasis

Blood Death Knight Theorycrafter and High Mythic+ Player
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Bytash
Bytash
10 months ago

Superb!

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