Why have so many other classes forsaken BoK?

I always ask one question when I pug the minute the groups fills before any of us are at the summoning stone. “Kings for everyone?” It’s a question, in all honesty, that I ask for the healers.

See I have a resto druid and understand that all the healers get their mana regen stats from various places. Because of that, the 10% spirit buff a pally gets from Kings isn’t really going to help anyone. I don’t pretend to know all the other healers necessary stats, but I think there might even be a talent for shaman regen based on their intel. I believe it’s in the elemental tree, but don’t have a freaking clue. Wisdom may be better for certain classes that gear a certain way. I think over at the worldofmatticus.com (http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2008/12/22/10-tips-for-the-new-discipline-priest/) he asked the plusheal.com forums for tips for new discipline priests. I remembered seeing advice to gear your discipline priest for intel and crit and not worry as much about spirit like the holy tree brothers. Take special note of Takka’s advice “You benefit more from MP5 than spirit. It goes against everything you have learned as a holy priest, but because you chain cast there is no chance to cheat the five second rule with Clearcasting (you don’t even get this) and Inner Focus.”

My point here is I do not know who is right and who is wrong when it comes to their mana regen. My only strength here is I don’t have a damn clue. I know how I like my druid blessed, though that may change with the incoming nerfs to spirit based mana regen, though I will have to play around a bit with that once 3.1 goes live.

So now we get to things I think I know. More recently, the DKs and hunters I have pugged with are asking for might. Keep in mind that I do not currently talent for improved might, but, like with my druid, 3.1 may prove that pursuit of justice is just too enticing to pass up. I can’t comment directly on hunters because I do not think they have a flat buff that will work the same way that Horn of Winter does for a DK, but I am sure there is a magic number to tell be able to tell a hunter, “hey moron, you really benefit more from kings.”

So let’s look at Horn of Winter…

Horn of Winter: The Death Knight blows the Horn of Winter, which generates 10 runic power and increases total Strength and Agility of all party or raid members within 30 yards by 155. Lasts 2 min.

Since a DK gets 2 ap from their str, this casting horn will result in 310 ap. If you throw kings on the same DK who has horn of winter he now has 341 ap. 155+10%=170.5 str. 170.5 str becomes 341 ap. 31 ap is hardly anything to write home about but its only the start.

Our magic number is 550 ap. 550-31=519. To get 519 ap, all a DK needs is 259.5 str off their gear. This, of course, is without the +10% bonus from kings. With kings on, all a dk needs is 235.91 (lets go ahead and say 236 str) for kings to be more advantageous than might.

One of the great results of gear consolidation (and I will spare you all and not go into the reasons I hate it), is that Blizzard is now able to very specifically hone in on the stats they want you to stack. By doing so, they can manipulate the gear even more than they did b4. They want a dk to have more ap, but not more parry? Fine give them a plate piece with ap to account for the additional ap we want them to have and reduce that from the str of the piece so that they are not losing any ap, but are losing avoidance. With their lesser stat system, that we have all become so accustomed to, they are now able to budget an item to parts of a score and come much closer without going over.

Am I the only one who see item budgeting review meetings being something like Ghostcrawler playing Bob Barker and asking the team to budget something like Frostmourne without going over. The winner gets to run to the front of the conference room and pretend they are so happy to get to give GC a kiss and spin his wheel of fortune? “Go ahead item developer number 7, you are gonna have to give it a nice tug, it’s a BIG wheel.”

Um, anyway, back to topic. Where the lesser stat system is useful for budgeting items, it’s almost never as useful for the player. We have become to essentially ignore the greater stats because they are stats that we see as “always there.” All non-caster decent mail has stam/agi/int because it’s designed for a enhancement shaman or hunter. All caster mail bleeds that agility into stam/intel and then puts some key boosts into the lesser stats. I don’t pretend to know the Blizzard budgeting formulas, but it’s pretty simple to understand how it works even if you don’t know every nuance. Lesser stats are great, they help make the decision to upgrade something more than x>y every time, but they also cause some players to ignore them as naturally occurring stats like the DK who would rather have might over Kings when all he needs is 236 str for kings to be better than might after his own buff.

The crafted Titansteel Destroyer (a weapon accessible to every DK who just turned 80 with a few g and the patience to farm some mats) has 124 str. That means that if a DK is standing around with nothing but his destroyer and a smile looking for Nicole Kidman because he’s convinced that with her color she must be undead as well, he would be able to subtract 12.4 str from that magic number of 236. I am not subtracting the 124 str that is on the mace because he is going to have that whether he gets might of king.

What it does mean is that he now needs 223.6 str to make up for the debt caused but passing on kings. For a DK to get that additional 223.6 str from his gear with kings, he would need a total of 2236 str from his gear. Not a pretty number, but as a prot pally with mix of blues, epic drops and some badge gear who is defense and block capped, I’m sitting at 954 str. Not the best number but still impressive when so much of my gear budget has to be devoted to defense and other avoidance stats. Even if a DK doesn’t hit the number of 2236 str from all his other gear, as long as he comes close, the undiscussed bonuses (stamina, some agi for dodge and crit, and that str gives them parry as well) from Kings makes it worthwhile to them.

Why do so many of them ask for might?

-Rhab