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Once you start gearing up for the end game as a Death Knight, there is a whole other area to consider. That area is the enchants and improvements you put on your gear. These improvements to the gear many times even outweigh the next upgrade you are likely to get. All that later though, what are the type of improvements you can get and where do they come from.
Types of Improvements
The simplest and most straight forward enhancement that you can get for most of your gear is an enchantment. These are magically cast on your gear by an enchanter or by yourself using a scroll or enchanting that an enchanter created for you or that you bought in the auction house. While there are other types of item enhancements these are the only true “enchants”, however most players refer to all types generically as enchants.
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Leg Armor Kits offer huge bonuses
Other types of item enhancements are crafted additions to items such as leg armor kits created by leatherworkers, threads created by tailors, and belt buckles created by blacksmiths. Many different types of these can be created by these professions, and can add huge bonuses to your gear. Some professions also can produce item enhancements for only their own items, such as enchanters being able to enchant their rings, blacksmiths adding sockets to their gloves and belts, and inscriptionists being able to inscribe their shoulders.
The next significant type of item enhancement is gems. Gems are added into the sockets found (or added) on many different pieces of gear. These gems are created by jewel crafters and come in various colours that you can match up to the socket colour on the item to receive further bonuses. It is important to note however that you do not need to match the socket colour. That's right, the socket colour is just a recommendation and following it will grant the socket bonus listed. However since most socket bonuses are not worth not using your class and specs best gems, in general you will end up just ignoring the socket colour.
The last common type of item enhancement is an extension of the enchantment system. These are essentially purchased enchants from various reputation vendors. These are the Arcanums for helms and the Inscriptions for shoulders. The Arcanums are found at various different reputation vendors and which vendor you need to visit depends on your talent spec. The end game shoulder inscriptions are all found at the Sons of Hodir quartermaster in the Storm Peaks zone. There are some available from the vendors in Shattrath as well, however they are based on level 70 content and it is easier to just wait until level 80 and grind the Sons of Hodir reputation.
Recommended Enchants
There are a huge number of enchants available and this list just scratches the surface. These however are the ones that you should aim for when you are gearing up to raid. Even if you can't afford all of them right away, this is your wish list.
|
|
Tank |
DPS |
|
Head |
Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - Argent Crusade Reputation – Revered (+37 Stamina, +20 Defence) |
Arcanum of Torment - Knights of the Ebon Blade – Revered (+50 Attack Power, +20 Critical Strike) |
|
Shoulder |
Lesser / Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle -Sons of Hodir Reputation – Honored / Exalted (+15/+20 Dodge, +10+15 Defence) |
Lesser / Greater Inscription of the Axe - Sons of Hodir Reputation – Honored / Exalted (+30/+40 Attack Power, +10/+15 Critical Strike) |
|
Back |
Titanweave (+16 Defence) |
Major Agility (+22 Agility) |
|
Chest |
Greater Defence (+22 Defence) |
Powerful Stats (+10 Stats) |
|
Wrists |
Expertise (+15 Expertise) |
Greater Assault (+50 Attack Power) |
|
Hands |
Armsman (2% threat and +10 parry) |
Crusher (+44 Attack Power) |
|
Waist |
Eternal Belt Buckle to add an extra gem |
Eternal Belt Buckle to add an extra gem |
|
Legs |
Frosthide Leg Armor (+55 Stamina, +22 Agility) |
Icescale Leg Armor (+75 Attack Power, +22 Crit) |
|
Feet |
Greater Stamina (+22 Stamina) |
Greater Assault (+32 Attack Power) |
|
Weapon |
Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle |
Rune of the Fallen Crusader |
Recommended Gems
Gems are a tricky business as you can spend a lot of gold playing with them as you put one in and then another trying to maintain either hit or defence cap. Not only are there the three primary colour gems, there are many different shades of mixed gems. In general I believe that players should stick to primary colours as much as possible, and only shift into the mixes when the socket bonus justifies it, or when you really need a certain colour to meet your meta-gems requirement. A good example of this is a DPS based Death Knight requiring two blue gems for their DPS meta-gem, so they put a purple +strength/+stamina gem in, even though a +strength red gem adds more by itself.
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|
Tank |
DPS |
|
Meta Socket |
Austere Earthsiege Diamon (+32 Stamina, +2% increased Armor value from items) |
Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (+21 Critical Strike, +3% Critical Damage) |
|
Red Sockets |
Guardian's Twilight Opal (+8 Expertise, +12 Stamina) |
Bold Scarlet Ruby (+16 Strength) |
|
Yellow Sockets |
Thick Autumn's Glow (+16 Defence) |
Rigid Autumn's Glow (+16 hit) |
|
Blue Sockets |
Solid Sky Sapphire (+24 Stamina) |
Sovereign Twilight Opal (+8 Strength, +12 Stamina) |
Cost of improvements
Ok, now that you know which enchants you can get as a Death Knight, an important question arises, which should you get? It is very important to keep in mind the cost of the improvement and what you are putting it on. Also a factor to consider is how quickly you are likely to replace that item.
For example when dealing with leg armour kits, the lower cost blue kit generally costs about 100g while the epic quality one can cost up to 300g depending on your server (Warning: server economies vary drastically, it is entirely possible for these armour kits to cost ¼ as much on your server or 4x as much). Is it worth putting the 300g better enchant on your blue quality legs that you just got to start raiding in? Probably not.
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The price difference is huge from the blue to purple quality armor kits
The same applies for gems and socketing them. When you are first starting out and have mainly blue quality gear, should you really shell out 100g per blue quality gem, or just pay the 5-20g for the green quality one. My vote would be go cheap until you have some epic quality gear to put be worth putting the better quality gems in.
This should all be taken on a case by case basis though, as you may need those extra stats to be able to be in the raid to begin with. A good example of a situation where you may need to spend the gold on the better quality item improvements is when you are going to tank and need them to reach the defence cap, or when you are DPSing and need them to get to the hit cap. These two caps are not optional, you must reach them to raid, therefore you might have to spend more than you want on some lower quality gear to hit them. For the situations where you are not forced to maximize the item enhancement, there are some options listed in the charts above that provide a few lower cost options that you can use.
When to equip your new gear
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Item bonuses add a lot to your character
The last area to cover is when to actually start using your new gear. Many players get a new piece of gear in a raid and excitedly equip it on the spot. They do this despite the fact that it is in most cases not gemmed or enchanted. Many times a lower level item, for example one from Naxxramas 10 man, once enchanted and gemmed is better than a piece that drops in Naxxramas 25 man before it is enchanted and gemmed. Also due to different itemization between the items the best possible enchant or gem may change, or it may require you to juggle the enchants or gems on other pieces of gear to maintain critical stats such as +hit of +def. Trying to do this in the middle of a raid is almost impossible, you really should finish your raid, then visit the auction house, guild bank, enchanter or jewelcrafter.
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