BDK 2pc vs ilvl upgrades question.

[amishjello]

So I have the BDK 2pc (860 helm, and 875 gloves). I recently got a 880 helm (470 haste, 1062 mastery) and a 900 gloves (832 crit, 407 haste)

All together the upgrades that me from 888 to 891. Is the 2pc more valuable than the pure ilvl upgrade? I don't raid super hardcore I mostly pug normal and am looking to pug heroic next week. and I don't push keys at all.

[Deleted]

At Chronomatic Mythic, which is mostly single target, the 2pc Bonus gave me about 6% more HPS. Which is almost 3k Versatility. And the bonus only gets stronger when there are more enemies (since HS produces more RP, and thus the 10% more on top of that give even more DS).

So no, the ilvl upgrade is not worth it. Especially if the helm has that much mastery. You will want to get 30% haste and 20% crit, which is going to be diffcult given how our weapon, legendaries and tier pieces are itemized. You can't take non haste/crit pieces on slots where you don't wear a legendary or tier piece.

If you are worried about getting in. equip your highest ilvl gear and swap back to your actual gear once you are through the gear check. Nobody will care, especially not if you do your job well.

[Philondra]

At Chronomatic Mythic, which is mostly single target, the 2pc Bonus gave me about 6% more HPS. Which is almost 3k Versatility. And the bonus only gets stronger when there are more enemies (since HS produces more RP, and thus the 10% more on top of that give even more DS).

No one takes Heartbreaker these days, so the extra RP generated from more enemies doesn't exist. In fact, you generate less RP with more enemies due to having to Marrowrend more.

You will want to get 30% haste and 20% crit, which is going to be difficult given how our weapon, legendaries and tier pieces are itemized.

We have no strict breakpoints that we would like to hit as blood, especially not for crit. Crit has minimal defense value, so you only really want it for DPS--which, again, if you want DPS, why are you specing into Heartbreaker? People talk about how haste is our best stat--which it is--but it's not really worth dropping ilevel over unless your haste is abysmally low (less than 15% unbuffed).

I prioritize ilevel over everything (except for trinkets and set bonuses), have just under 18% haste unbuffed ( http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ondraxa/simple ) and routinely place in the high 90s percentile for my ilevel bracket in H-NH (my guild doesn't do mythic-- https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...&view=rankings ) for every boss other than Skorpyron, because my guild doesn't use the cheese strat.

As for the OP's question, the only way you're going to find out is to test on a dummy, but if you don't push mythic+ or raid in a structured environment, then just go with your gut. I would probably drop ilevel for the 2-set, but if i was trying to get into a pug I'd equip my highest ilevel gear before joining--it's only a 3 ilevel difference, but 891 looks so much higher than 888 to the average pug leader.

[Deleted]

In your specific case, no, I wouldn't prioritize the set bonus over ilvl. Since you mostly pug normal/hc and low keys you don't really need the 2pc tier bonus, which is a minor benefit anyway without 4pc, and higher ilvl makes it easier for you to join said pugs.
I wouldn't really swap pieces after entering a group either: a lot of people nowdays use addons to verify your equipped ilvl and you might upset someone lowering it after joining.

[Deleted]

No one takes Heartbreaker these days, so the extra RP generated from more enemies doesn't exist. In fact, you generate less RP with more enemies due to having to Marrowrend more.

Blood Drinker is only marginally better then Heartzbreaker, and only if you use it on CD. If you miss one BD cast during a whole fight, Heartbreaker is already on par. If you use Blood Drinker when you are full, you only generate overheal.
So yeah, while Blood Drinker is better on paper, Heartbreaker is much more reliable. But yeah, using Blood Drinker is often the better option.

We have no strict breakpoints that we would like to hit as blood, especially not for crit. Crit has minimal defense value, so you only really want it for DPS--which, again, if you want DPS, why are you specing into Heartbreaker? People talk about how haste is our best stat--which it is--but it's not really worth dropping ilevel over unless your haste is abysmally low (less than 15% unbuffed).

Its not about strict breakpoints, its about values that are good to attain. Haste is hands down our best stat up until a certain point. After 30% haste, we get runes back fast enough. Factor in heroism and proccs like Chrono Shard (I sadly only have an 895 one) and our Haste already skyrockets. I have 112% haste in the speed phase of Chronomatic Anomalie already. Thats why its not sensible to go much over 30% (and not even possible, our weapon has no haste, many of the good legenadries have no haste, most tier-tokens have no haste).

Crit is a way better defensive stat then mastery and even versatily. Crit gives us parry, which reduces the ate at which we loose BS stacks. Furthermore, via Skeletal Shattering, we get another 8% dmg reduce for every crit of our bone shield.

Together with high haste and high crit its extremely easy to keep BS up and aboce 5 stacks, even against lots of enemies. if you use DRW defensively, those 40% parry work great to keep BS up. With DRW active, I have 66% parry, and gain up to 9 stacks of BS per MR hit. Thats insane against lots and lots of enemies. Its great for m+, and still good for raids.

I used to do your approach and just took the highest item level, but thats a poor approach. 20% haste and 15% crit plays and feels vastly different then 30% haste and 20% crit. the rotation really starts to smoothe out at those values, and quickly gaining runes means you have a way, way higher flexibility. You are much less prone to get rune starved and being put in a bad situation.

Thats why I personally think that 30% haste > 20% crit > versatility > mastery is a very good way to gear a DK. I specifically wear haste rings and a haste neck to gain those values (I'm usually runinng Aggramars + Gorefiends or Gorefiends + Shackles, and only Aggramars have haste on them, so... and despite having almost every BDK leggo, I still don't have skullflowers).

But to be honest, a discussion about stats isn't really helping in determining wether or not the tier bonuses are worth dropping item level, and thus I don't want to delve too deep into this discussion. there are certainly some points where the community is split (e.g. the value of mastery or versatility). and thus I encourage everyone to read the associated topics and form their own opinion. I am only wearing about 903, despite having ~908 in my bags (granted, the good ol 860 arcano crystal is a huge bunch of that difference, I'm still gambling for an 880+ relinquished one).

I prioritize ilevel over everything (except for trinkets and set bonuses), have just under 18% haste unbuffed ( http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ondraxa/simple ) and routinely place in the high 90s percentile for my ilevel bracket in H-NH (my guild doesn't do mythic-- https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...&view=rankings ) for every boss other than Skorpyron, because my guild doesn't use the cheese strat.

I usually parse 95%+ on the bosses we progress on on mythic, and much, much lower on farm bosses. Tbh healing done is a very, very poor statistic to compare for BDKs. EHRPS is much more important, since our healing is based on DTPS and many many tanks just cheese their healing up by standing in bad stuff, just to pad the meters [at least on farm bosses], which I refuse to do. Looking at their DTPS and EHRPs will often reveal this. For example, you take about 20k - 100k more DTPS then I did in our last HC farm rum, most notably on Botanist, Tichondrius and Krosus with ~100k more, while the others are closer. My heal performance during those farm runs is often green or gray, but I still have low EHRPS due to the low amount of DTPS I took.

As for the OP's question, the only way you're going to find out is to test on a dummy, but if you don't push mythic+ or raid in a structured environment, then just go with your gut. I would probably drop ilevel for the 2-set, but if i was trying to get into a pug I'd equip my highest ilevel gear before joining--it's only a 3 ilevel difference, but 891 looks so much higher than 888 to the average pug leader.

"Go with your gut" is not a very good answer. The Op would have done that if he wanted to. OP was asking about quantitative statements as to wether its better to drop ilvl for tier pieces, and that can only be answered by quantitaive analysis.

I recently did a quantitative analysis of the set bonus to compare current T19 bonuses with the upcoming T20 bonuses. The T19 2pc bonus is worth about 5.3% of HPS, depending on encounter (I only used Chronomatic Mythic as that is mostly a single target fight with our strat, and haven't done an analysis for heavy cleave situations), while the 4pc gives about 14%. Thats roughly 19% of HPS through the set bonuses alone. You would need 10-15 ilvl average to pull those numbers.

T20 is slightly worse if you are interested in it. It comes out to ~7.5% for the 2pc and 7% for the 4pc for a combined number of 14.5%. Thats far better then the first iterations that hit the PTR and is actually usable. So the question will be when and how to replace T19 with t20, and how much an ilvl upgrade that will be. But as for non-tier vs. tier-bonusus, its a no-brainer. Tier bonuses, especially the 4pc T19 bonuses, are insanely strong. It cuts the cost of death strike by 25%, which is our main source of HPS.

I will have to do this for heavy cleave situations as well and will likely try to review some of our m+15 logs to get a sense where the tier bonuses are at in those situations. But against few targets, they are very strong, especially the t19 bonus.

[Deleted]

Thats a lot of wrong Information.

Blooddrinker is way better than Heartbreaker. its only on par if you are hitting 5 Mobs 100% of the fight Duration which never happens in any realistic Scenario.

Crit is not better than Mastery and Versatility. Versatility is nearly on par with haste, and way better than both Crit and Mastery.
Crit is usually better for Dungeon Content (more attacks to parry) than mastery and sucks against Magic damage.

Stacking Crit for parry and Skelettal Shattering is an ilusion. Parry has very high deminishing Returns.

Since our HPS varys heavily on Damage taken, as you mentioned, you cant give the Tier Bonus a number like "its 5.3% hps". Instead you should measure the Tier boni in extra DS/Min.

[Philondra]

Blood Drinker is only marginally better then Heartzbreaker, and only if you use it on CD. If you miss one BD cast during a whole fight, Heartbreaker is already on par. If you use Blood Drinker when you are full, you only generate overheal.
So yeah, while Blood Drinker is better on paper, Heartbreaker is much more reliable. But yeah, using Blood Drinker is often the better option.


Its not about strict breakpoints, its about values that are good to attain. Haste is hands down our best stat up until a certain point. After 30% haste, we get runes back fast enough. Factor in heroism and proccs like Chrono Shard (I sadly only have an 895 one) and our Haste already skyrockets. I have 112% haste in the speed phase of Chronomatic Anomalie already. Thats why its not sensible to go much over 30% (and not even possible, our weapon has no haste, many of the good legenadries have no haste, most tier-tokens have no haste).

Crit is a way better defensive stat then mastery and even versatily. Crit gives us parry, which reduces the ate at which we loose BS stacks. Furthermore, via Skeletal Shattering, we get another 8% dmg reduce for every crit of our bone shield.

Together with high haste and high crit its extremely easy to keep BS up and aboce 5 stacks, even against lots of enemies. if you use DRW defensively, those 40% parry work great to keep BS up. With DRW active, I have 66% parry, and gain up to 9 stacks of BS per MR hit. Thats insane against lots and lots of enemies. Its great for m+, and still good for raids.

I used to do your approach and just took the highest item level, but thats a poor approach. 20% haste and 15% crit plays and feels vastly different then 30% haste and 20% crit. the rotation really starts to smoothe out at those values, and quickly gaining runes means you have a way, way higher flexibility. You are much less prone to get rune starved and being put in a bad situation.

Thats why I personally think that 30% haste > 20% crit > versatility > mastery is a very good way to gear a DK. I specifically wear haste rings and a haste neck to gain those values (I'm usually runinng Aggramars + Gorefiends or Gorefiends + Shackles, and only Aggramars have haste on them, so... and despite having almost every BDK leggo, I still don't have skullflowers).

But to be honest, a discussion about stats isn't really helping in determining wether or not the tier bonuses are worth dropping item level, and thus I don't want to delve too deep into this discussion. there are certainly some points where the community is split (e.g. the value of mastery or versatility). and thus I encourage everyone to read the associated topics and form their own opinion. I am only wearing about 903, despite having ~908 in my bags (granted, the good ol 860 arcano crystal is a huge bunch of that difference, I'm still gambling for an 880+ relinquished one).


I usually parse 95%+ on the bosses we progress on on mythic, and much, much lower on farm bosses. Tbh healing done is a very, very poor statistic to compare for BDKs. EHRPS is much more important, since our healing is based on DTPS and many many tanks just cheese their healing up by standing in bad stuff, just to pad the meters [at least on farm bosses], which I refuse to do. Looking at their DTPS and EHRPs will often reveal this. For example, you take about 20k - 100k more DTPS then I did in our last HC farm rum, most notably on Botanist, Tichondrius and Krosus with ~100k more, while the others are closer. My heal performance during those farm runs is often green or gray, but I still have low EHRPS due to the low amount of DTPS I took.



"Go with your gut" is not a very good answer. The Op would have done that if he wanted to. OP was asking about quantitative statements as to wether its better to drop ilvl for tier pieces, and that can only be answered by quantitaive analysis.

I recently did a quantitative analysis of the set bonus to compare current T19 bonuses with the upcoming T20 bonuses. The T19 2pc bonus is worth about 5.3% of HPS, depending on encounter (I only used Chronomatic Mythic as that is mostly a single target fight with our strat, and haven't done an analysis for heavy cleave situations), while the 4pc gives about 14%. Thats roughly 19% of HPS through the set bonuses alone. You would need 10-15 ilvl average to pull those numbers.

T20 is slightly worse if you are interested in it. It comes out to ~7.5% for the 2pc and 7% for the 4pc for a combined number of 14.5%. Thats far better then the first iterations that hit the PTR and is actually usable. So the question will be when and how to replace T19 with t20, and how much an ilvl upgrade that will be. But as for non-tier vs. tier-bonusus, its a no-brainer. Tier bonuses, especially the 4pc T19 bonuses, are insanely strong. It cuts the cost of death strike by 25%, which is our main source of HPS.

I will have to do this for heavy cleave situations as well and will likely try to review some of our m+15 logs to get a sense where the tier bonuses are at in those situations. But against few targets, they are very strong, especially the t19 bonus.

Thanks for your feedback. Part of this may be my latency (about 250ms to the server I'm on), and I'm sure my opinion will change once we get into T20, but with the T19 4-piece and my ~18% haste, I'm already pretty damn close to GCD capped and when under heroism find myself using skills back-to-back when I didn't intend to and waste a Death Strike or capping on RP. I don't deny haste's value--I agree that it's our best stat--but its value does fluctuate with latency, which is always a factor to consider for those of us over about 150ms.

When I was talking about parses for H-NH, I was referring to DPS, not HPS or DTPS/EHRP. A tank death in H-NH is almost exclusively due to poor play on the tank's part rather than a failure on the healer side of things, so the challenge posed is to push yourself to the brink and see what you can "get away with." That's why you end up with things like taking loads of stacks and standing in Fel Beam for Blood Mirror on Krosus, face tanking bloods next to Tichondrius for Bonestorm, asking to go first on Spellblade so that you can disengage from the boss to AoE frost and arcane adds, tanking all three bosses on Botanist to ensure that you can cleave everything without worrying about positioning, and other myriad techniques to make the kill go as quickly as possible. When you have content on farm, these are the things that you do to spice up the instance while you wait for the next tier.

I agree with you that "go with your gut" isn't the best answer to give in a perfect scenario, but 1. We don't have sims for blood, so the best any of us can say is "try it on a dummy and check for yourself" and 2. the OP stated that he was mostly pugging, maybe get into H-NH a bit, and not going to push mythic+ keys, at which point the question becomes "what feels more comfortable to play," leading to sugar and I basically suggesting "put on your highest ilevel gear so groups don't reject you."

But you said you have an analysis of the T19 bonuses. Can you provide a link? I'd be very interested to see your findings, although I imagine the actual value fluctuates quite a bit with your exact gear setup and how often you are getting death strikes above the 10% minimum.