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Death Knight Stat Point Values

This chart displays the amount of rating required for 1% of each stat:

Stat (1%)	Rating Requirement (Lv80)	Notes
Critical Strike	45.91	+1% spell/melee crit
Melee Hit	32.79	+1% melee hit
Spell Hit	26.23	+1% spell hit
Expertise	32.79	-1% to be dodged/parried
Haste	32.79	+1% haste
Armor Penetration	12.31	-1% armor on enemy
Dodge	39.35	+1% dodge
Parry	49.18	+1% parry
Resilience	82.00	+1% Resilience

This chart shows the effects of Resilience:

Resilience	Enemy Crit Chance	Enemy Crit Damage	Enemy DoT Damage
1% (82 Rating)	-1%	-2.2%	-1%

This chart displays the amount of agility you need for certain stats:

Stat	Agility Requirement (Lv80)	Notes
Melee Critical (1%)	62.5	+1% melee crit
Dodge (1%)		+1% dodge
Armor (1)	0.5	1 agility gives 2 armor

This chart displays the amount of strength you need for certain stats:

Stat	Strength Requirement (Lv80)	Notes
Attack Power (1)	0.5	1 strength gives 2 AP
Parry (1%)	196.72	+1% parry

Notes and Useful Information: 

• Hit rating effects both spell and melee hit. The recomended +hit for PvP at lv 80 is 5% (164 rating) since that is enough for al your special abilities (strikes) to hit the the target. Two hand raiders should run 8% hit (263 hit rating)

• Strength is basically the main stat for deathknights, since it gives attack power and gets extra benefit from multiple talents. Because of this, it is always better to socket for strength instead of attack power. Your ghoul also gets extra benefit from your strength.

• Agility only increases melee critical strike chance as well as all special abilities aside from: howling blast, icy touch, and death coil.

• Expertise from talents give 0.25% chance to not be blocked or parried per point. 8.20 expertise rating is equal to 1 expertise, and 4 expertise is needed to reduce the chance to be dodged or parried by 1%. At the end 32.79 expertise rating or 4 expertise points from talents is required to reduce your chance to be dodged or parried by 1%.

Death Knight Hit Cap

 Two Hand Weapons:

This chart shows the +Hit cap at level 80 for both PvP and Raiding when using a two-hand weapon. This chart assumes that the enemy player (or raid boss) has no talents or abilities that reduce their chance to be hit.

Weapon	Hit % (PvP)	Rating (PvP)	Hit % (Raid)	Rating (Raid)
Two Hand (Auto)	5%	164	8%	263
Special Abilities	5%	164	8%	263
Spells	4%	105	17%	446

One Hand Weapons:

This chart shows the +Hit cap at level 80 for both PvP and Raiding when using 2x one-hand weapons. This chart assumes that the enemy player (or raid boss) has no talents or abilities that reduce their chance to be hit. This chart already includes +3% chance to hit from the 'Nerves of Cold Steel' talent.

Weapon	Hit % (PvP)	Rating (PvP)	Hit % (Raid)	Rating (Raid)
Dual-Weild (Auto)	21%	689	24%	787
Special Abilities	2%	66	5%	164
Spells	4%	105	17%	446

PvP: Blood

• The Spec: 54/17/0 or 52/11/8 (there are many variations)
• Presence: Blood
• Runeforge: FC (Fallen Crusader)
• Glyphs: Heart Strike, Death Strike, DRW (Dancing Rune Weapon)
  
• Sigil: Awareness or Vengeful Heart

52/11/8 is a variation of the spec that I used when testing blood. There are many variations of the spec that change the point allocation after the 51 points in blood needed for DRW.  I choose 52/11/8 since it helps to increase Death Coil damage, which comes in handy vs heavy plate teams. The standard sigil for the spec is Awareness, though Vengeful Heart can be useful vs heavy plate teams.

General Info about Blood:

Blood in patch 3.1 was not a very attractive arena spec. It was for the most part inferior in both burst and sustained damage due to the number of high armor targets in arenas. It also had issues getting kited, and the amount of armor penetration required for the most part was difficult to obtain. Blood has seen more use in raids, where bosses have considerably less armor then plate PvP'ers. In raids stat points could be put into ArP (Armor Penetration) as well, while most PvP gear has no ArP.

However, with the nerfs to both frost and unholy (an no nerfs to blood) in 3.2, blood is now looking to be a more competitive spec then in 3.1. Blood spec requires ArP gear in order to be viable against plate teams, which means you may end up having to raid to pick up some gear with ArP on it. It would be ideal to get near 50% passive ArP and raid to get a Grim Toll or Mjolnir Runestone as well.


How Blood is played:

Blood is mainly a physical damage based burst spec, meaning it is great against cloth and not so great against plate. Blood also has high survivability due to self healing and improved blood presence, as well as Vampiric Blood. The largest issue with blood is that they can be kited, and can not do much at range.

Arena based blood spec revolves around 2 abilities: Heart Strike and Death Strike. The spec has very low reliance on diseases, and many players don't even bother with diseases at all, since Death Strike is not effected by diseases on the target.

Unholy and Frost runes are almost always used for Death Strikes. Chain of Ice is sometimes used for a peel, but thats about it. Icy Touch and Plague Strike are generally not used at all against any team with a dispel (everything except very few druid healer teams).

Blood Runes are used Heart Strike. Heart Strike stick up a 50% undispellable snare on the target(s) it hits. Heart Strike also has a cleave effect, meaning it hits 2 tagets. There really is nothing else to use blood runes for, and many blood specs don't have Death Rune Mastery, so the blood runes will never turn into death runes (aside from Blood Tap).

The burst sequence for blood is pretty simple. For the most part it's [25+ RP] DS -> DS ->HS ->HS. Death Coils can be used if you have the runic power for them. As for cooldowns, Hysteria should be used before DRW (Dancing Rune Weapon) since DRW gets buffs the user has before it is casted. If using a disease spec the diseases should be used after DRW so that DRW will put up the diseases as well.


Optional Talent Choices:

• Endless Winter (If you want to play as a disease spec)
  
• Toughness or Runic Power Mastry (Improved IT isn't needed since IT is rarely used)
  
• Anticipation (2% dodge beats PS, since PS is practically never used)
  
• Unholy Command (-10 sec on Death Grip can be useful for peels)