Stat Priorities
Stats for Blood are pretty straight forward. Item level is king and reigns supreme. If something is a higher item level, you equip it regardless of what secondary stats it has.
There’s a few exceptions to this, mainly for trinkets, embellished crafted items, and jewelry, but you cannot go wrong equipping your highest item level pieces. When comparing two equal ilevel pieces, the best thing to do is to sim yourself to see which is better.
Secondary stats for blood are all pretty equal in value and the amount of stats you have will also have an impact on the value on which secondary is better.
General Stat Priority:
- Item Level
- Haste / Critical Strike / Versatility / Mastery
Deathbringer Stat Priority:
- Primary Stat
- Haste / Critical Strike / Mastery / Versatility
San’layn Stat Priority:
- Primary Stat
- Haste
- Mastery / Critical Strike / Versatility
When playing San’layn you will favor higher amounts of haste including your enchants/gems etc, for Deathbringer you will favor haste to a certain point (5% from your secondaries) then you’ll want to focus on the other secondaries, with critical strike gaining significant value when playing death bringer.
Stat Outline
Critical Strike: Critical Strike has often just been referred to as a dps stat and generally not given the praise or consideration if offered from a defensive standpoint especially in Mythic+. Critical Strike is very strong offensively, but it is also a near-1:1 conversion to parry. The stat gains more defensive value in a Mythic+ environment due to the number of enemies hitting you, (if their abilities can be parried).
Haste: Haste provides faster rune generation per percent of haste thanks to Bone Shield, it can also contribute to ‘hasted’ effects, for example Blood Boil (Resulting in a shorter cooldown) or proc abilities like Carnage. More haste allows for a smoother rotation to fuel Death Strike and spend runes.
Mastery: Mastery feeds our Blood Shield and provides significant value against physical damage attacks and scales with the amount of damage you are taking. It also interacts with our talents Gloom Ward and Iron Heart, it’s not a strong offensive stat, and its value has actually dropped due to now only being able to build a Blood Shield up to 50% of your max HP(65% with Bloody Reflection)
Versatility: Versatility remains to be a strong secondary for most classes, it provides both a reduction in damage taken and an increase in self-healing, in addition to providing a small damage increase. It is an expensive stat though in terms of item budget, and not often the saving stat you might think it to be.
Races
Race doesn’t really matter for Blood. They all have their uses and benefits. For example:
- Goblin provides you with an extra movement cooldown.
- Dwarf and Dark Iron Dwarf are great for M+ because of the dispel.
- The dodge from Night Elf is great for increasing your physical damage reduction and Shadow Meld can be useful to reset packs.
- Void Elf if playing Deathbringer may have a slight edge due to the racial counting as shadowfrost damage.
Just choose whichever race you think looks the coolest and have fun with it!
Enchants
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Chant Of Winged Grace
Chest: Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance
Bracers: Enchant Bracer - Chant Of Armored Leech
Boots: Enchant Boots - Defender's March or Enchant Boots - Scout's March
Legs: Stormbound Armor Kit
Rings: Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste (San’layn) or Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike (Deathbringer)
Weapon: Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Deathbringer) / Rune Of Sanguination (San’layn)
Rune of Sanguination is taken for San’layn due to an insane amount of Death Strike modifiers. Fallen Crusader may still be a better pick for defensive purposes in Mythic+.
You’ll be able to add 2 x socket options to your neck and rings via Magnificent Jeweler's Setting and then 3x socket options to your head, belt and wrists via Technomancer's Gift (Great Vault Vendor).
Gems
1 x Culminating Blasphemite, then any of the multiple stat gems:
Be sure to continue to sim yourself with gear upgrades to ensure the optimal gem combinations.
Consumables
Food: Feast Of The Midnight Masquerade
Flask: Flask Of Alchemical Chaos
Potions: Tempered Potion
Health Potions: Invigorating Healing Potion
Weapon Oil: Algari Mana Oil
Runes: Ethereal Augment Rune