I'm quite familiar with gemming at lvl 80, but while I level (currently 65) my 2H Unholy DK I've come across a couple of items with sockets. On top of that I'm a lvl 450 JC.

While I'm in the 65 - 75 range I'm obviously going to be uncapped on exp and hit. Since I am a JC I have many gems laying around (in other words - money for gems is no object - I can change them every day if I wish.)

So... Should I just pile on the str while leveling, or should I try to get my hit and exp up? I'm pretty sure I could cap my exp, but I won't be fighting many bosses until I approach 80.

What do you suggest? Str? Sta? Hit? Exp?

Thank you.

It hardly matters at all. You're going to encounter almost no pieces with gear with sockets on them and what you do get you'll end up replacing in two levels. Leveling as a DK is the easiest thing you'll ever do, just grab the cheapest gem you can find and be on your way.

Just gem bold bloodstones in everything if you do run into socketed gear, but while there's a few in BC content, in northrend there's almost no socket gear at all, even when you run instances. You'd probably have enough if you cut like 5 of them.

Yes. Mainly because test dummy performance is not going to provide accurate enough data for you to calculate stat weights that are accurate in a raid environment, and because actual raid parses will vary immensely, not only on simple things like what raid buffs are present (which you could probably account for), but also vary by things like the other dps in the raid, as well as various "RNG" factors.

okay, so i've read the frost and unholy dps thread but frost says 9% for hit cap and for unholy it's 8%
which one is which?

The required hit percentage to hit the melee hit cap is now 8%. The confusion arises because it was previously 9% but changed with the introduction of Wotlk.

The dual wield hit cap (ie, your off hand has a higher chance to miss than your mh) and the spell hit cap are higher.

I had long conversation (read: argument) with my guildie about Acclimation. We are both DK tanks using frost spec and he is dead sure Acclimation is beyond awesome and worth spending points. I know common consensus is that acclimation is not worth it but is there math or any other solid evidence which would make my fellow (read: stubborn) DK tank understand it.

Thanks in advance.

I would show it that way : Loken and Sapphiron are the only fight where you take constant magic damage. Other than those, the buff cannot stay up for the duration of the fight.
Also, when you get the 3 stacks, the odds are that you can resist multiple times and lose the buff.

This is my understanding of the situation. Until Blizz introduces another resist fight like Illidan, Hydros or Mother, there is no reason at all to take Acclimation as a DK. The Unholy tree is just so much better for any tanking you are going to end up doing.

are you sure about that? I still read 9% in a lot of forums

Is melee hit cap really 9%?

I have the darkmoon card, should I use mirror of truth or bandit's insignia for 17/0/54? I know on the unholy dps discussion thread there is a list with their values, but I don't think it takes garg into account.

what is the death knight hit cap??

Dual wield

I wanted to play about with DW and have recently got my hands on hatestrike and grasscutter. Is Fast/Fast the best or ?

What DW spec should i go for? Glyphs, rotation, runes etc

As i have been a 2h blood for lvling and for all of my raiding at 80 i havnt a clue on DW.

Thank you

Dual Wield Builds

I currently have 3/3 Acclimation for tanking the adds on Sarth+3 (still working on the kill).

Is their fire damage resistable or are these three points wasted?

Their fire damage is resistable.

I greatly prefer Frost for on adds. I can't use Morbidity, but probably more importantly I'm simply more experienced and comfortable with Frost. Holding aggro is pretty easy for either Frost or Unholy, but I find securing initial aggro as the elementals spawn is easier with the harder-hitting Icy Touch.

I'm not sure if you've tried it since then, but the KM buff in 3.0.8 is a massive DPS boost for Frost AOE tanking.

With Shadron + twilight torment, even the non-enraged elementals start to hit pretty hard. Good to know that Acclimation isn't completely wasted, thanks.

Huh, hope this hasn't been asked before in some other thread, but here we go.

Melee classes DPS from behind to avoid getting parried and etc etc, but is there some other benefit from doing this? I've had different people tell me no, and other people tell me there's an increased chance to crit from being behind a mob. Is it true? If so, does it apply to Death Knights?

The main idea in attacking from behind is exactly what you just wrote there (to avoid being parried etc).

From my understanding one is capable to crit more from attacking behind inevitably for being parried less. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Cheers

While Blaze damage is resistable, I'm about 95% sure their attacks don't proc acclimatation, like most elementals melee attacks. Only actual spells/abilities proc it, so if you're "lucky" and get hit by a Fire Cyclone, it might proc and help a bit, but it won't proc off tanking the blazes. Making it a very poor choice of talent, obviously.


First don't start a post by "not sure this hasn't been asked before". There's a search feature, use it. With that said, I doubt anyone asked that before, because it's totally false. The only benefit of attacking from behind, besides obvious positionning requirements on stuff like backstab, is removing parry off bosses(and dodges off players). It is however a huge benefit, as boss parry rate is around 15%, meaning you do 15% less dmg from the front. There's also parry haste issues, so melee dps should always attack from behind. There's also no good reason to attack from the front unless you're extremely lazy.

The point of me saying that was that I did use the search function and couldn't find anything. Just a bit of politeness, and such. I was told that it was so old it was "assumed", so wasn't sure if it'd just been pushed off or blah.

Also, real quick one. The extra runic power generated through the 4p T7 bonus wouldn't be worth using the T7 chest piece, right? Currently using the [Undiminished Battleplate] which puts me at the dodge cap for expertise and a little above the hit cap, but if I were to switch it out for the T7, I'd get that extra runic power. Current the 21/50 2h frost spec, so no idea if the extra Frost Strikes would out-weigh the chance to be dodged, since Frost Strike can't be dodged or anything.