Nobles deck

[Kaspar]

I would actually imagine that with the 25% bonus benefits to Armor Penetration, Grim Toll would surpass Greatness as a BiS trinket. Preliminary tests on Elitist Jerks suggests that 1 point of Armor Pen is just as valuable as 1 point of Strength, and possibly surpassing strength when you stack past 500 rating.

Greatness Procs for 300 Strength, Grim Toll procs for 612 ArP Rating. Judging purely from the proc perspective, the EP on strength has to almost double the EP of Armor Pen in order for Greatness to be better than Grim Toll post patch (Greatness does last 5 seconds longer than Grim Toll). Most numbers on elitist jerks however shows a near 1:1 Ratio.

Now to compare the passive equip effects. Grim Toll has 83 Hit Rating, while Greatness has 90 Strength. Speaking purely in terms of +16 stat gems, 83 HR = 5.18 x 16 Hit Rating Gems. Since we can't round down when it comes to achieving hit cap, we need at least 5.5 gems (0.5 can be an 8 HR Gem Hybrid with something else). 5.5 x 16 Strength Gems = 88 STR. Of course, this changes quite dramatically depending on how much HR you currently have, but most people with a DMC: Greatness tend to be close to the lower end of the hit cap.

Greatness scales, because str scales with raid buffs. It's a passive, what ~200 AP versus a passive 83 hit which you probably already have (in mostly naxx10 gear I am 2% over the cap with no enchants or hit gems)

Furthermore, the proc is ~650 or so AP versus 612 ArP, again, scaling with raid buffs for Greatness...


Taking into accound the fact that only blood really benefits from Arp, Grim Toll COULD BE second best in slot AFTER Greatness for a Blood spec, but I doubt even that, as Bandit's Insignia should hold that second place pretty solidly at the moment

[Beachbum]

It is not that simple, and FWIW Bandit's Insignia is not that great for blood; the model of STR to ArP isn't linear, at all. The reason being is having more of one, makes the other more valuable in turn... and ArP isn't demonstrated to be linear in it's effectiveness either. It is akin to the old feral kitty model of STR to AGI, but there isn't a nice and pretty graph like there was there, nor is the math as straightforward. It's why people are doing endless simulations of it, but for Blood Ulduar BiS estimates currently, STR > ArP >> everything else (assuming hit/exp capped).