Hit Rating For Spells And Mages Explained

There really isn’t an easy way to completely understand hit rating.  There are so many variables involved when it comes to talents, abilities, resistances, and the fact that Blizz has a tendency to change their mind from time to time (such as making all hit rating just plain hit rating instead of both mele and spell hit rating, whew!)

But since you are probably looking for spell hit rating we’ll just leave it at that and separate out the different classes so that you can find what you need without having to root through some huge table (if you can even find one that makes sense).

So here we go with Mage Hit rating and caps.  To keep thing simple we’ll just go straight for the kill shot and not go into some tedious explanation of combat ratings and all that other what-not.  So here goes.

In order to maximize your DPS you need to get hit capped before you worry about anything else.  For every 26.232 hit rating you will gain 1% DPS.  There is simply no other stat that matters more until you hit the cap.  Once you ARE hit capped, more is worthless and then spell power (up to about 4k spell power for mages) haste and crit become more valuable.  Be sure to see our post on Making Gear Decisions For Your Toon.

So now that you know you must be hit capped to maximize your DPS,  we need to talk about what the heck the hit cap is.  You’ll hear two terms when people talk about the hit cap.  One is the hard cap, the other is a so-called soft cap.  The hard cap means that you have reached a point where more hit is worthless, the soft cap is a term used for abilities past which point have diminishing returns.  There is no such thing as a soft cap for hit rating.  You are either at the hard cap, or you are not capped and need to get there.

The absolute hard cap for hit is 446 Hit Rating = 17% in the tooltip

The hard cap represents the amount of hit necessary to ensure that you never miss.  That means the hard cap is a 100% chance to hit any and every mob in the game.  It may not seem like a big deal to have a 1% chance to miss, but if you miss on a big, fat Arcane Blast for 15K it will seriously erode your DPS in a big, fat hurry.  Now let’s talk how to hit the hard cap without having to get to 446 hit rating from gear and gems.

We’ll start at the top and work our way down.  For every one of these things you have available, your hard hit cap for spell hit drops to the next number down.  Just find yourself in the list and you’ll know how much hit you need to have to be hit capped and never miss.  Keep in mind that anything that adds +% chance to hit does not necessarily show up in the tooltip (like +17%), so the hit rating is a much better way of looking at things.

• Dranei or Dranei in Party – Hit Cap = 420

• Mage with Precision OR Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 368

• Dranei or Dranei in Party Mage with Precision OR Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 342

• Arcane Mage with Precision AND Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 289

• Dranei or Dranei in Party Arcane Mage with Precision AND Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 263

There are a few levels past this if you do a lot of 25 man raids, or have just the right combination in your ten mans.  If you always run with a druid that uses improved faerie fire or a shadow priest using misery you can get by with just 210 hit rating.  And if you happen to be a Dranei or have both a Dranei AND SP/ImpFf in your raid you can do as little as 184 and be capped.

Keep in mind that heroic Presence is party only, so folks may be fighting to get the Dranei in their group, meaning you might not always be able to count on this buff – plus it’s a 30 yard range so on fights with a lot of movement you may be out of range for it from time to time.  Your best bet is to stick with the absolute cap of 289 unless you ARE a Dranei (in which case you will always be in your party and can’t get out of range without some wicked bipolar debuff) in which case you can always be safe with a hit rating of 263.

The bottom line is this.  If you are an arcane mage your basic hit cap is 289.  If you are a Dranei or always party with a Dranei your basic hit cap is 263.  Everything else is just gravy.  Now, the more gravy you get, the more hit rating you can drop in favor of other stats.  But the reality is that it’s much harder to balance staying just barely above the cap than it is to find a bunch of gear without hit on it.  It can be tough to get hit capped when you first hit 80, but later on you’ll be looking for nearly every chance you can find to dump hit for spell power or haste or just about anything else.

One more factor to consider, however is that many bosses will have a certain amount of resistance to one or multiple schools of magic.  In the end the balancing act can be almost impossible to hit precisely between just enough hit to overcome both the regular combat hit rating and any resistances a boss might have.  It’s not a bad idea to just go for 289 as a mage and anything above that is going to overcome a certain amount of resistances that might be present.  But it would probably not be a great idea to carry around a hit rating of 350 at the expense of spell power or something else.  You can get anal retentive about it if you wish and figure it out for every boss, but only if you have a lot of time to kill.

So there is hit rating for mages made simple.  If you are arcane, your goal is 289 add in Dranei and it’s 263.  Once you get hit capped it’s far better to try to stay as close to 289 or 263 as you can (and still be over) and then use the Simcraft Engine to figure out what else you should be stacking and how much.  The less hit you can get away with and still be over the cap, the more of those other DPS stats you can stack which will really bring your DPS up to Domination levels.

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Not Just A Raid Buff For 25’s Any More – Shadow Holds Its Own In 3.3

Another class that gets the short end of the PvE stick because of how OP they can be in PvP is the priest.  One little change to keep these guys from melting every face in arenas and they get a little worthless for PvE – again.  But the interesting thing about 3.3 is that there doesn’t really seem to be any class that is just completely on the bottom of the pile.  Almost every class has at least one spec in the 10k range, and the priset is now no exception.

Gear

Shadow Priest Example Gear Setup

Talent Build

Shadow Spec DPS Build

Glyphs

Major

• Shadow Word: Pain
• Mind Flay
• Shadow

Minor

• Fortitude
• Fading
• Levitate

(As per usual; the minor glyphs are quite a matter of personal preference since they have little or nothing to do with DPS in most cases).

Priorities

1. Flask = Frost Wyrm
2. Food = Fish Feast
3. Fortitude
4. Divine Spirit
5. Inner Fire
6. Shadow Form
7. Vampiric Embrace
8. Potion of Speed
9. Shadow Fiend
10. Shadow Word: Pain
11. Vampiric Touch
12. Devouring Plague
13. Mind Blast
14. Mind Flay
15. Shadow Word: Death (if moving)
16. Dispersion

Damage Sources

Remember to run your own numbers to get your Pawn scales for your current toon.  Plus, re-run your scales in the engine every time you get a new piece of gear so that you are always completely up-to-date when it comes to making gear choices.  We show you how to do that in the Article Making Gear Choices For Your Character. It’s been so freakin’ long since Law did shadow (think leveling with Sherpaman before WotLK as in this article: The Solo Priest; You Can Do It! and The Lawbringer Rules ) that I won’t even attempt to give you insight into the priorities here, you’ll have to get that from the thread below.

But at least at this point the shadow priest is more than just a decent addition to a 25 man raid, they can actually be a big contributor on an individual basis in the form of some seriously massive, and quite Dominating, DPS of their own.

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Affliction Warlock Spec For Patch 3.3

Although all three trees for Warlocks have good DPS builds (over 10k DPS) the following Affliction build is between 250-500 higher than the rest in patch 3.3.  As with all of these builds, remember that they come from the Wowikki Simulationcraft engine, so any anger can be taken out on the engine itself – we are just the messenger.  With that being said, you might find that this build definately helps your DPS.

Gear

Best In Slot Affliction Warlock

Remember, at this point in patch 3.3 we have yet to see all of ICC and there are no heroic modes open yet.  So best-in-slot is still a mix of ToC, T9 and T10 gear.  Once ICC opens completely and heroic modes are available, you can expect plenty of changes to the gear you see above.

Talent Build

Tier 9 Tier 10 Affliction Lock

Glyphs

Major

• Curse of Agony
• Haunt
• Life Tap

Minor

• Whatever floats your boat

Priorities

• Flask = Frost Wyrm
• Food = Fish Feast
• Spell Stone
• Fel Armor
• Pet = Felhunter
• Life Tap
• Potion = Wild Magic
• Haunt
• Corruption
• Curse of Agony
• Unstable Affliction
• Drain Soul (when target health less than 25%)
• Shadow Bolt
• Life Tap (When Mana is under 20%)

Remember, the list above is NOT a rotation, it is a priority list, which means that you will use whatever is the highest on the list whenever it is available (not on cool-down) with certain conditionals, of course.  Master affliction locks will help you out in the thread below for more insight into rotations.

Damage Sources

You may also have noticed that the best-in-slot gear is min/maxxed with Tailoring and Enchanting.  That combo of professions is almost impossible to beat for caster DPS toons.  You will also note that while you may never see most of the gear from 25 heroic ToC (until it is not best-in-slot any longer) you can get a good idea about which pieces of Tier set pieces to use and what should be off set.  In the case of this lock, you can feel comfortable using all five set pieces.

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Welcome to the second insance of Icecrown Citadel: Frozen Halls last time I did a guide on Forge of Souls, now, here’s my guide on Pit of Saron.

Pit of Saron (3 bosses)

This is the second wing of the dungeon complex known as the Frozen Halls, located within Icecrown Citadel. The The Forge of Souls must be completed before a player can access the Pit of Saron, and this dungeon must be completed in order to access the Halls of Reflection.

Quests

Trash

<Cult of the Damned>

• Deathwhisper Necrolyte - Interupt Conversion Beam to reduce shadow damg.
• Deathwhisper Shadowcaster – just shadowbolts.
• Deathwhisper Torturer – Curses and debuffs.

Ymirjar ,Wrathbone and Other undead

• Ymirjar Deathbringer -Shadowbolts.
• Ymirjar Flamerbearer-Firebolts and does hellfire best to kill them first.
• Ymirjar Wrathbringer-meele.
• Ymirjar Skycaller with Iceborne drake- does Glacial Strike with healers must get off fast since drake and rider do frost damg.
• Wrathbone Coldwraith- Interupt frezzing Circle as much as possiable.
• Wrathbone Laborer – Meele.
• PlaugeBorn Horror-stay out of poison areas.
• Ghouls – Meele.
• Fallen Warrior-Meele

Boss Guides

Forgemaster Garfrost

A master of Scourge weaponry, the forgemaster hauls stocks of saronite ore and other precious materials to the cold forges where the mechanisms of death are born. With a host of rime weapons and exotic alloys at his disposal, it could get cold in here.

Garfrost smash

Abilities

TIPS

• Garfrost’s main attack outside of basic melee is to throw saronite boulders at ranged players. The boss emote appearing above only is displayed to the player who actually has a boulder heading his/her way. Thrown boulders carry a large amount of kinetic energy and will both knock a player back and deal tremendous damage to anyone foolish enough to stand in its shadow.
• At 66 and 33%, Garfrost AoE stomps the instance, then jumps over to one of the two forges in his room and reforges his weapon to increase his frost damage dealt by 50% (100% in Heroic mode). While Garfrost is in his corner it’s important that the tank (and everyone else as well) should stand behind a saronite boulder and let the stacking debuff wear off.
• After the second phase transition, Garfrost’s +frost damage bonus has increased to +100% (+200% on Heroic). Garfrost will use Deep Freeze on random players in the party. Make sure the player is at full health (and shielded if possible) when the debuff wears off, as Deep Freeze hits hard.

Krick and Ick

Zombies serve as mindless muscle in the Pit of Saron’s mines, stockpiling metals for Forgemaster Garfrost, and Krick – a devious leper gnome – supervises the operations from atop Ick, Krick’s ghastly means of transportation (Master Blaster anyone?).

TIPS

• For the most part, this is a fairly simple fight with a lot of movement. When engaging Krick and Ick, Ick will stick to basic melee, while Krick will ride atop Ick’s back, firing globs of poison that will land and create a field of poison.
• Krick yells: No, that one! That one! Get that one! Krick will target a random player. Whoever is targeted (except the tank) must immediately run away(not back-pedal), kiting Ick around the area taking care to not get cornered. Ick’s attack power is increased, so do not get caught.
• Krick yells: Quickly! Poison them all while they’re still close!-Ick will cast a poison nova, which is a point-blank AoE that deals extremely high damage (around 30k on Heroic) followed by a DoT ticking for 1500/6000 every three seconds. It only has an 18 yard range, so run away while he’s winding up, as it’s a five second cast or use the crates as a Line of Sight (to be confirmed). Healers: Decurse/cleanse or whatever else here is far more valuable than any heal you’ve got.
• Krick yells: Enough moving around! Hold still while I blow them all up! In this attack, Ick remains stationary while Krick continuously summons mines at every player’s position for 18 seconds. Said mines explode after a few seconds, so keep moving.

Scourgelord Tyrannus

Tyrannus is a terrible force who will no doubt demonstrate his powers to those brave enough to enter the Pit of Saron. The scourgelord must die if players hope to make their way into the third and final wing of this dungeon

Abilities

• Forceful Smash – Knocks an enemy back with a powerful blow, inflicting 28275 to 31725 Physical damage.
• Overlord’s Brand – Brands an enemy with the mark of Tyrannus, causing all damage dealt by the Branded foe to be mirrored to the caster’s primary target, and all healing done by the Branded foe to be amplified and mirrored to the caster.
• Unholy Power – Empowers the caster with dark might, increasing physical damage by 75% but reducing movement speed by 50% for 10 sec.

Rimefang

• Mark of Rimefang – Marks a target for attack by Overlord Tyrannus’s frostwyrm, Tyrannus.
• Hoarfrost – Deals 4813 to 6187 Frost damage to enemies within 8 yards of the point of impact and stuns them for 5 sec.
• Icy Blast – Deals 4813 to 6187 Frost damage to enemies within 7 yards of the point of impact.
• Icy Blast – Reduces movement speed by 75% and inflicts 2313 to 2687 Frost damage per 2 sec. on those caught within the lingering icy chill.

TIPS

• Tyrannus deals fairly heavy damage and can spike with Forceful Smash, so keeping the tank constantly at full is very important.
• Scourgelord Tyrannus roars and swells with dark might! Which he seems to do after a Forceful Smash. This will double Tyrannus’ damage and movement speed, possibly overwhelming the tank. To survive this, the tank needs to drag Tyrannus over the frost patches created by Rimefang, which will slow him and allow you to kite him around (the range of the patches are generously large for slowing Tyrannus, so it’s possible to simply skirt him over the edges to slow him). Once Empower wears off, you can return to tanking him normally.
• The only other major thing to watch for is Overlord’s Brand. Any DPS that receives this needs to immediately stop doing damage, as any damage they deal will also be done to the tank in addition to Tyranus’ own damage. Additionally, if a healer is marked with the brand, all heals done will be amplified and then mirrored on Tyrannus. but this isn’t as bad as it simply prolongs the fight a little.

And that sums up Pit of Saron. With the Scourge Lord dead, you’re now free to enter the fabled Halls of Reflection, the home of Frostmourne, The Lich King’s legendary weapon. We will be covering that in the next part of this series.

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Special Abilities And Pet Management

In this installment we’ll cover the little things that are important to know while playing your DK, some are common sense and some you might already know, but a quick recap never hurt anyone.

Keep in mind: your DK is a 2-Hand weapon specialist. Gearing up will be our next part of the series so I won’t go into details here.

What other skills will I need to use?  

Pestilence:

Is very useful for multi-mob as it puts your PS and IT on all causing damage to every mob. If you’re soloing, it works out just fine but in a group it can cause problems. In a group (5-10-25 man), the tank gets aggro on the first mob and you hit the main target right after. The tank in the meantime is making sure he has aggro on all the mobs in the group. If you hit Pestilence before he does get aggro on the group you could pull threat off the tank … and that is not good. Timing is very important. While you heal yourself for the most part, if you get aggro you will not be able to heal yourself fast enough causing your healer to start healing you as well as the tank. FYI If the healer has to make a choice between healing a Silly DK who pulled threat and the Tank that will keep the rest of the group alive, do you want to guess who’s getting the heal?

For the most part you should be able to keep yourself healed up without any help and sometimes….you get a healer that refuses to heal DK’s and up-time is critical for the success of any group.

Death and Decay:

D&D is not one of your very useful skills for a Blood build but it does have its uses.

Trash mobs! Now in Culling of Strath there are a few times to use it on the little turned humans being sure to get all your runes back up and ready for the next fight. Again this takes practice and there are a few dungeons you can use it but not many. It works alright when soloing a bit but again it’s not a skill used much for this build.

Chains of Ice:

Chains of Ice is mostly used as Crowd Control in PVP and does have its uses while soloing but rarely will you ever use it in a dungeon. All bosses are immune to CC and you want the tanks to keep the trash mobs busy. While soloing, you could be questing along just fine and fighting solo mobs that tend to run away when one gets away and brings back his friends en mass. OOPS!! This is about the only time it’s a very useful thing to use. It’s nice to have be be aware of it’s limitations: CC

The Pet:

Your Pet Ghoul (summoned from Raise Dead ability) and your Dancing Rune Weapon. These guys can boost your DPS quite a bit to the point of amazement. There are a few tricks however to using them that will help you get the most out of them you can:

• Make sure your Ghoul is ready for every boss. Summoning him is on a 3 minute cool-down and your Dancing Rune Weapon has a 1- ½ minutes. So this also takes practice and timing. Make sure both are off CD for every boss, (ie. Don’t click “Ready” on the ready check if you’re not ready!)

• Whatever you do, make sure you have your pet out on every fight and Keep control of your pet at all times. It should be attacking the same target you are. It won’t change target unless the target it’s attacking is dead. If it isn’t, command it to do so using the Gnaw ability or  Ctrl-1 to force your pet to attack a new target.

• If you control your pet in this way there is absolutely no reason to ever take your pet off of Passive mode, that way it can attack the Boss while you’re kiting some trash (Gluth fight).
• Keeping your pet on passive will allow him to attack a target that you death grip much faster. Otherwise your pet jumps 20 yds. to your target and is stuck running back to you at a leisurely pace, by which time your target is most likely dead anyway.

• If the pet is low on health, you can ask your healers to throw a little love(Heals) it’s way. Certainly not at the expense of the tanks, of course, but you can remind your healers that pets need health too.

• When all else fails and your health is really low, remember that you can sack your pet for the health benefit of Death Pact. Yet another “Oh, $H1T!” button at your disposal.

• Unless you’re Tanking yourself, don’t use the Dark Command ability (Taunt), every tank will be grateful, and so will you. The days of Crowd Control seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur with Wrath but thankfully, Blizzard has specifically stated they were bring it back “in the near future”, whatever that means.

Maybe by then the DKs will have to learn to use their pets again and so will Hunters. CC some mobs, protect the healer, even back-up tank (Yes, Hunter Pets used to be quasi-acceptable tanks back in the day). Until that day, focus on what you do best: DPS.

So there it is, mass destruction is a Death Knights purpose and it is key that when you’re playing one in DPS that you should do just that. Enjoy your Death Knight and remember practice and timing are your best friends.

The next, final, installment of the DK series will cover Gear.

… To be continued.

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Welcome to our next installment in the DK series. Today we cover Professions, Gemming, Enchanting and a few stats.

Professions:

JewelCrafting and Blacksmithing are you two top choices when it comes to professions for a DK. They combine the most Raid-Benefits to your character than any other professions. They are also the most expensive.
If you choose Jewelcrafting as one of your trade skills then you’re in for a treat. Jewelers’ Gems will be your best friends. You can have 3 of these unique Gems on your equipment with stats like 34 to Hit Rating or 34 to Strength and even 34 to Expertise that can produce results.
As a Blacksmith you’ll get two extra sockets to put those bad boys into.
One way to mitigate that expense, is to level Mining first while picking up twice as much ore as you really need. Get JC up and then drop Mining to pick up BS and use the remainder of your mats for that one.
If gold has always been an issue for you, feel free to pick up Gavin’s AH Mastery Guide

Your gemming priority is as follows:

1. Hit Rating
2. Strength,
3. Expertise / Armor Pen
4. Critical Strike

Enchants:

1. Strength
2. Attack Power
3. Critical Strike
4. Haste

Some Stats to make the above make sense

Hit Rating:

DKs and all melee classes share the same 8% cap on that, until you get 8% hit rating (263 Hit rating) this stat is your top priority. As long as your are not Hit capped you should be trying to get there. This is especially important when using a 2-H weapon, after all, every swing you miss is damage that you’re NOT doing.
Once you are Hit capped, Strength: you can never have enough Strength. For a DK 1 Strenght = 2 Attack power. Attack power directly translates into DPS …

Now the following comes from the guys at ElitistJerks.com. These guys really know the math.

Expertise vs. Armor Pen

Expertise
•1 Expertise Skill reduces the chance your attacks will be dodged/parried by 0.25%
•32.79 Rating is equal to 1% less chance your attacks will be dodged/parried.
•8.20 Rating is equal to 0.25% less chance your attacks will be dodged and parried (each) and thus is equal to 1 Expertise Skill.

Armor Penetration Rating
It doesn’t affect our damage from Diseases, Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Scourge Strike or Death Coil. This makes Armor Penetration have a reduced value for Unholy and Frost Specs. Blood however does have quite a lot of benefit from ArP Rating, due to the majority of its damage being Physical.
We need 15.39 Rating to ignore 1% armor on our target.

So although ArPen is cheaper to get (15.39 = 1% armor ignore) the Expertise affects both Dodged hits and parries which redure your DPS significantly. Bottom line, for a DK they are relatively equivalent because we use a slow 2-H weapon and Strength is always more valueable anyway, so gemming and enchanting for those stats may not be so wise. Don’t forget that most of your gear will naturally come with some of those stats

“What  do I need to upgrade first?”

Just remember, you will never be taken seriously as a player, for end-game content, if you don’t enchant and socket your gear.

WoW-Heroes.com

WoWHead.com/profiles

Both have a fantastic tool to look at yourself in the mirror so to speak. Using those web sites you can see, at a glance, what your character has equipped, what he is missing, what upgrades are available and where to find them.

That’s it for this installment of the DK series, tomorrow we’ll cover the finer points and before we’re done we’ll have gone over the gear as well .

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You just can’t beat this spec when it comes to DPS in PvE content.

It is the most controversial, talked about, and argued about character to date in World of Warcraft. You either hate them or love them but either way, right now, they are Dominating in DPS … if played right. What we’ll show you over the next few days may be a cookie-cutter build you can find on several servers and websites but it still is, hands down,  the best build for your DPS DK. While Blizzard has made been changing the DK since he was released a year ago, one thing has remained the same: The Blood DK is still the best DPS build for damage output … Period!

Over the next few days, I’ll show you the ins and outs of the Blood Spec DK.

Now I do have friends that are Unholy, and their DPS is reasonable, although I’m not sure if they’ll still be my friends after this (Cheers! Anibow)

Talent Spec:

First off your build will be 51/00/20 and here is how you do it step by step. I will show you the link to get you started but in order to be very successful you have a few things to do.

See the complete Build here (Including Glyphs)

While leveling, the first 20 points will go into your Blood Tree like this:

Butchery – Rank 2/2
Whenever you kill an enemy that grants experience or honor, you generate up to 20 runic power. In addition, you generate 2 runic power per 5 sec while in combat.

Subversion – Rank 3/3
Increases the critical strike chance of Blood Strike, Scourge Strike, Heart Strike and Obliterate by 9%, and reduces threat generated while in Blood or Unholy Presence by 25%.

Bladed Armor – Rank 5/5
Increases your attack power by 5 for every 180 armor value you have.

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization – Rank 2/2
Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 4%.

Dark Conviction – Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to critically hit with weapons, spells and abilities by 5%.

Death Rune Mastery – Rank 3/3
Whenever you hit with Death Strike or Obliterate there is a 100% chance that the Frost and Unholy Runes will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as a Blood, Frost or Unholy Rune.

While leveling, then you will put 13 points into the Unholy tree like this:

Vicious Strikes – Rank 2/2
Increases the critical strike chance by 6% and critical strike damage bonus by 30% of your Plague Strike and Scourge Strike.

Virulence – Rank 3/3
Increases your chance to hit with your spells by 3% and reduces the chance that your damage over time diseases can be cured by 30%.

Epidemic – Rank 2/2
Increases the duration of Blood Plague and Frost Fever by 6 sec.

Morbidity – Rank 3/3
Increases the damage and healing of Death Coil by 15% and reduces the cooldown on Death and Decay by 15 sec.

Ravenous Dead – Rank 3/3
Increases your total Strength by 3% and the contribution your Ghouls get from your Strength and Stamina by 60%

Then back to Blood to finish it out, then to Unholy to finish it.

Bloody Strikes – Rank 3/3
Increases the damage of Blood Strike by 15% and Heart Strike by 45%, and increases the damage of Blood Boil by 30%.

Veteran of the Third War – Rank 3/3
Increases your total Strength by 6%, your Stamina by 3%, and your expertise by 6.

Bloody Vengeance – Rank 3/3
Gives you a 3% bonus to physical damage you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

Abomination’s Might – Rank 2/2
Your Blood Strikes and Heart Strikes have a 50% chance and your Death Strikes and Obliterates have a 100% chance to increase the attack power by 10% of raid members within 45 yards for 10 sec. Also increases your total Strength by 2%.

Bloodworms – Rank 3/3
Your weapon hits have a 9% chance to cause the target to spawn 2-4 Bloodworms. Bloodworms attack your enemies, healing you as they do damage for 20 sec or until killed.

Hysteria – Rank 1/1
Induces a friendly unit into a killing frenzy for 30 sec. The target is Enraged, which increases their physical damage by 20%, but causes them to lose health equal to 1% of their maximum health every second.

Improved Death Strike – Rank 2/2
Increases the damage of your Death Strike by 30%, increases its critical strike chance by 6%, and increases the healing granted by 50%.

Sudden Doom – Rank 3/3
Your Blood Strikes and Heart Strikes have a 15% chance to launch a free Death Coil at your target.

Vampiric Blood – Rank 1/1
Temporarily grants the Death Knight 15% of maximum health and increases the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 35% for 10 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost.

Heart Strike – Rank 1/1
Instantly strike the target and his nearest ally, causing 50% weapon damage plus 368 on the primary target, and 25% weapon damage plus 184 on the secondary target. Each target takes 10% additonal damage for each of your diseases active on that target.

Might of Mograine – Rank 3/3
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Blood Boil, Blood Strike, Death Strike, and Heart Strike abilities by 45%.

Blood Gorged – Rank 5/5
When you are above 75% health, you deal 10% more damage. In addition, your attacks ignore up to 10% of your opponent’s armor at all times.

Dancing Rune Weapon – Rank 1/1
Summons a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 12 sec, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight but for 50% reduced damage.

Now you may be asking,  Why do I need to build in this order? Why can’t I just go Blood all the way then do Unholy? The answer is pretty simple when you look at your rotation.

We will cover Rotation and Glyphs, gemming priorities, enchants as well as some explanation over the next few days.

… To Be Continued!

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Part 1 Of Our Coverage Of The New WoW Expansion: Cataclysm

All of the information regarding the upcoming expansion to WoW is going to blow your socks off.  It’s so good that WoW is going to be like a whole new game, and that’s and understatement of the highest order.  When Cataclysm comes out, your whole WoW experience will be rejuvenated.  So many things are changing it’s a little tough to know where to start, but we drew from a hat and came up with something.

The new races look even better than we expected.  For the Alliance there are the Worgen.  The mysteries locked behind the Greymane wall in southern Silverpine are revealed as the great gate is torn down to reveal the human kingdom of Gilneas – but the humans are not merely human any more.  This new starting zone will run from level 1 to 15 and the graphics are fantastic.

For the Horde (sorry about that) we get the goblins of Khazan who have been shipwrecked on the Lost Islands between Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.  The zone looks an awful lot like Stranglethorn Vale, but you’ll get a big dose of the new water rendering all around the islands – and it is truly awesome.

So while we’re on the subject of the new races you should also know that every race in the game will get new class combinations.  There are some odd entries in the list – to be sure.  Dwarf Druid anyone?  How about a Tauren Paladin?  Combine all of that with the upcoming faction change service and there’s a pretty good likelihood that you might consider changing at least one of your alts to the other faction just to grab one of the new races without having to go from 1-85 (that’s right, the level cap is being raised – but more on that another time), although we recommend you not take shortcuts since Cataclysm will change almost everything about the entire world.

Here is the complete race/class matrix for your viewing pleasure:

When you find out just how much the entire game is going to change there is a good bet you’ll want to start all over from the very beginning and go from 1-85 on one of the new races.  The whole game is getting an overhaul from the ground up and nothing will be like it was pre-BC.  And that’s what we’ll talk about tomorrow.  Until then, just know that Cataclysm is certainly going to Dominate!

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