Another Post on Knowing Your Class...

I was on MMO-Champ early this morning, and I saw a forum thread regarding the validity of the EJ Forums, and its information (pertaining to Unholy DK's).

The player that posted the thread was having difficulty increasing his dps after switching to a recommended build and rotation from the EJ community. As it turns out, the build he had been using was pre 3.2--but this really got me thinking about all those players out there that don't understand stat weighting and gear itemization...

For all specs, there are stats that are considered to be "bread and butter." These are things like Hit (until 8% for 2H), Expertise, and Strength. No matter what your spec is, these stats are mandatory for you to be doing any sort of competitive dps. These are what you gem for. So what about all the other junk you see on gear: ArP, Crit, Haste, AP???

We see these "secondary" stats creep up on the gear we use everyday--the trick to utilizing it, is knowing what it does, and figuring out which of it is important to the spec we play. So let's explore.

ArP (Armor Penetration Rating)
This stat allows you to ignore a percentage of your opponents armor. For a DK, its pretty useful in all specs, but really shines in Blood, where most of the attacks are physical (as opposed to frost, which is frost, or unholy, which is shadow). In the current tier of gear, ArP is all over the place, so coming into an abundance of it is easily done, if you're looking for it.

Crit (Critical Strike Rating)
This is a money stat for Unholy 4-piece T9 right now, and has always been a decent stat for frost. It's rated very heavily for unholy because disease ticks have a chance to crit--after its nerf in 3.3, the weight for this stat will drop in value drastically.

Haste
For a DK, haste has limited playing field. It affects white hits in all specs, but plays a viable role for Unholy. Haste affects our ghouls, our gargoyles, and Necrosis; which is why next to crit, its an important stat for unholy DK's to have at the moment.

AP (Attack Power)
This is one of those stats you really don't want to see much of--because, if you are seeing this on gear, it means that you're not gearing strength. AP is usually seen on gear without strength on it, usually itemized with agility. For a DK, 1 strength= 2 AP.

Put into Practice:
Let's compare 2 different items: Dextrous Brightstone Ring (ilvl 245) vs. Strength of the Automaton (ilvl 226). In terms of item level, the Dextrous band wins hands down. But when we look at the stats, we see that overall, the Automaton has 72 str = 144 AP vs the Dextrous' 101 AP. The Dextrous edges out in terms crit, but as a DK, the strength outscales it. So in this scenario, that shiny new ilvl 245 ring isn't an upgrade over that old ilvl 226 one.

Moral of the Story:
Be smart when it comes to gear selection. A few poor selections and and your itemization is all over the place. I tend to base my spec from my gear--so if I'm heavily ArP'd I go blood, if I find myself crit/haste heavy I go unholy (not to mention 4pc T9). Stat weighting is sure to change in 3.3, but the knowledge behind it remains the same. There's a reason why the games top players min/max, so choose your gear wisely.