Death Knight Challenge Gear Targets

We gave another shot at a challenge dungeon on Tuesday and just missed the silver time in two tries. My gear, sadly, hadn't gotten any better in the 4 days between tries. Part of that is my focus on rep grinds for the realm first. Part of that is playing/watching some League of Legends recently. Part of that is not leveling engineering yet because I'm irrationally waiting for my ore to bounce back from Robb's mailbox. And part of that is not having precise goals to know what I need to be running. I also want a tanking set since it's entirely plausible that a DK tank with a discipline priest is as nutty now as it was back in Wrath (with full absorbs failing to knock off bone shield charges). I also want to at least consider putting together a second DPS set for trash. Dual-wield frost is the best for AE situations while 2-hander frost is the best for single target situations. Both of those come up in challenge modes and it would be nice to be able to swap between them. Initially I thought maybe that would be as easy as collecting two more weapons but it turns out they have different stat weights that really make the difference. At any rate... What do I want, and where is it found?

2-handed frost - The secondary stat of choice here is haste rating. More auto-attacks and more rune regeneration for more obliterates. The auto-attacks have a chance of making the next obliterate be a guaranteed crit which devalues crit rating. Needs enough hit and expertise to be capped like any other gearset. Mastery is actually worse than crit rating here (frost mastery increases frost damage done and obliterate is physical damage) which is the real differentiator between this gearset and other ones. Mastery tends to be pretty good for most people... Not here!

Tanking - Mastery, mastery, mastery. The tank set also wants to cap hit and expertise to 7.5% each. Death strike can't be parried so I don't need even more expertise than that. Crit is really, really bad. They changed diminishing returns again which makes dodge pretty smelly. Parry is fine. Haste is looked down on by most people. I remember crunching some numbers last expansion and finding haste was sub-par but not awful. It's no crit rating! I suspect for challenge modes where damage done is quite relevant that it'll be fine to have.

Dual-wield frost - Mastery, mastery, mastery. This set-up is all about hitting howling blast as often as possible. Howling blast does a pretty substantial amount of AE damage, and it's all frost. This makes the frost mastery very good. I believe dual-wielding increases the 'auto-crit' procs for obliterate/frost strike which again suppresses the value of crit. Haste is very good since the faster your runes refresh the more times you get to hit the howling blast button. Hit and expertise to cap is again a given, with a focus afterwards on mastery and then haste. Throw crit away!


The first thing I'm realizing here is it's possible I'd want the same gear for tanking as for dual-wielding. Certainly if I'm willing to ignore parry and pick up haste as my stat after mastery, anyway. I worry a bit about enchants but it feels like there might be some overlap allowing only twoish gear-sets instead of a full three?

Another thing to keep in mind is every slot has to be at least 463 but I don't actually need to go any higher. Gear is scaled down on a piece by piece basis (with some fudging on top to keep hit/expertise even) so it's fine to go higher if it'll get me the right stat mix but not mandatory. Unfortunately this means I may well want another set of gear as my 'farming/pug raiding' set. Getting worse secondary stats is fine if I'm picking up an extra 40 ilvls worth of strength! And by another set of gear I may well mean two more sets of gear, since I probably want a tanking set and a DPS set for raiding, even if raiding is only done in the LFR tool?


At any rate, here are the pieces, by slot, without crit/dodge.


Helm
Helm of Rising Flame - tank - heroic SM
Reinforced Retinal Helmet - any - engineering
Malevolent Gladiator's Dreadplate Helm - tank/dual-wield - PvP
Helmet of the Lost Catacomb - tank/dual-wield - LFR

Shoulders
Malevolent Gladiator's Dreadplate Shoulders - 2-hander - PvP
Pauldrons of the Lost Catacomb - 2-hander - LFR
Shoulderguards of the Lost Catacomb - tank - LFR

Chest
Hateshatter Breastplate - tank/dual-wield - heroic Shado-Pan
Durable Plate of the Golden Lotus - tank - quest reward

Wrist
Bonded Soul Bracers - 2-hander - LFR
Malevolent Gladiator's Armplates of Alacrity - dual-wield - PvP/Sha of Anger

Hands
Hive Protector's Gauntlets - tank/dual-wield - heroic GSS
Starcrusher Gauntlets - 2-hander - LFR

Waist
Malevolent Gladiator's Girdle of Accuracy - 2-hander - PvP/Sha of Anger
Waistplate of Overwhelming Assault - dual-wield - LFR

Legs
Legplates of Durable Dreams - 2-hander - BoE world drop
Jang-xi's Devastating Legplates - 2-hander - LFR
Greaves of the Lost Catacomb - tank/dual-wield - LFR/Sha of Anger
Legguards of the Unscathed - dual-wield - VP

Feet
Spike-Soled Stompers - dual-wield - heroic Shado-Pan
Angerforged Stompers - dual-wield - quest from Sha of Anger
Impaling Treads - 2-hander - LFR

Neck
Whirling Dervish Choker - dual-wield - heroic Mogu'shan
Buc-Zakai Memento - dual-wield - BoE world drop
Helios, Durand's Soul of Purity - 2-hander - heroic SM
Soulgrasp Choker - 2-hander - LFR
Malevolent Gladiator's Choker of Accuracy - 2-hander - PvP/Sha of Anger
Bloodseeker's Solitaire - dual-wield - VP
Mushan Rider's Collar - dual-wield - Galleon

Back
Drape of the Screeching Swarm - 2-hander - heroic GSS
Hisek's Chrysanthemum Cloak - 2-hander - LFR
Malevolent Gladiator's Cloak of Prowess - tank/dual-wield - PvP/Sha of Anger

Ring
Firefinger Ring - dual-wield - heroic SM
Jan-Ho's Unwavering Seal - dual-wield - BoE world drop
Ring of the Bladed Tempest - 2-hander - LFR
Malevolent Gladiator's Signet of Accuracy - tank/dual-wield - PvP/Sha of Anger
Seal of the Bloodseeker - 2-hander - quest @ exalted Klaxxi

2-handed weapon
Lightbreaker Greatsword - tanking - heroic SM
Amber Flammbard of Klaxxi'vess - mediocre, but best option for 2-hander? - exalted Klaxxi vendor

1-handed weapon
Ook's Hozen Slicer - dual-wield - heroic brewery
Inelava, Spirit of Inebriation - dual-wield - heroic brewery
Kilrak, Jaws of Terror - dual-wield - LFR
Scimitar of Seven Stars - dual-wield - LFR

trinket
Carbonic Carbuncle - 2-hander, dual-wield - heroic brewery
Iron Protector Talisman - tanking - heroic Mogu'shan
Lessons of the Darkmaster - all? - heroic Scholo
Jade Charioteer Figurine - 2-hander, dual-wield - LFR
Relic of Niuzao - tanking - Darkmoon cards
Relic of Xuen - 2-hander, dual-wield - Darkmoon cards
Lei Shin's Final Orders - 2-hander, dual-wield - LFR
Jade Warlord Figurine - tanking - LFR
Darkmist Vortex - 2-hander, dual-wield - LFR
Lao-Chin's Liquid Courage - tanking - VP
Iron Belly Wok - 2-hander, dual-wield - VP