Cataclysm Classic Blood Death Knight Stat Priority

The stat priority for Blood Death Knight is as follows:

1. Mastery
2. Stamina/Strength
3. Hit Rating (to cap 8%)
4. Expertise Rating (26 Expertise Cap)
5. Dodge and Parry
6. Haste Rating

Mastery is the new stat added in during Cataclysm and provides a different, unique benefit for every single specialization in the game. For Blood DeathKnights, Mastery gives Blood Shield which causes our Death Strike ability to grant you an absorb shield based off of your Mastery. Death Strike is our primary form of self-sustain and adding a shield on top of the massive amount of self-healing is a great way to mitigate incoming damage.

At Level 85:

• 179.28 Mastery Rating = 1% Mastery

Stamina and Strength are the two primary stats you should be focusing on with an emphasis on Stamina, while gearing you will never have to choose between Stamina or Strength. Strength increases our Attack Power and grants Parry equal to 27% of your Strength. Stamina while still mostly a Tank stat also now increases your damage thanks to the addition of Vengeance which causes you to gain Attack Power equal to 5% of the damage you've taken up to a total of 10% of your total health. Death Knight has multiple tools that act as multipliers on Stamina such as Veteran of the Third War and Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle.

At Level 85:

• 1 Strength = 2.04 Attack Power with Abomination's Might
• 1 Stamina = 11.7 Health.

Hit rating causes our abilities to be able to hit the target and while you do not need to hit with your Death Strike to be healed and gain Blood Shield it is still ideal to land your attacks to maximize your DPS and threat.

At Level 85:

• 120.1 Hit Rating = 1% Hit Chance

Expertise Rating reduces the chance that the target will Dodge or Parry At 26 Rating you will have completely removed any boss level mobs ability to Dodge your attacks. While playing a tank you will almost exclusively be in front of the boss so this will not completely remove the ability for our attacks to be avoided but our focus should be on maximizing our Mastery, though any extra Expertise is never a bad thing assuming you are not hitting the cap. Veteran of the Third War also provides us with six free Expertise making reaching that initial soft cap of 26 much easier.

Dodge and Parry both provide a chance to entirely avoid an incoming Attack. Parry has been reworked to behave almost identically to Dodge rating so ideally you will have a relatively even amount of Dodge and Parry rating. Mastery however is much stronger consistently so consider Reforging which ever of these two stats you have more of in order to maximize the amount of Mastery you can have on your gear.

At Level 85:

• 176.72 Parry Rating = 1% Parry
• 176.72 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge
• 1 Strength = 0.27 Parry Rating

Haste rating is our most highly sought-after secondary as it causes our Runes to regenerate faster, the faster your Runes regenerate the more Rune spending abilities, namely Death Strike as a Blood Death Knight you are able to cast. This also scales incredibly with our Improved Blood Presence talent.

At Level 85:

• 128.05 Haste Rating = 1% Haste