Death Knight Tank - Bryntroll, The Bone Arbiter vs Ramaladni's Blade of Culling

[Raenis]

I recently obtained Bryntroll, The Bone Arbiter and have been using it in place of my former weapon Ramaladni's Blade of Culling (both regular version). For a while I have been debating whether to use Bryntroll over Ramaladni.

-With Ramaladni I have 27 expertise 258 hit rating -- With Bryntroll I am at 16 expertise. (2.75% difference)
-Bryntroll has 57 more weapon damage when wielding it and 31.2 more weapon DPS.
-With Ramaladni I have 5.93% ArP -- With Bryntroll I have none.
-(Correct me if I am wrong) The proc on Bryntroll is 15% chance off of all physical attacks, yellow or white for an average of about 2250 damage without any outside spell damage buffs (It's damage can be increased by buffs such as the Unholy Death Knights 13% spell damage bonus on diseased targets, but not by the wielding player's stats).

This is what I have but I don't know how to compare the two. I did attempt to compare the damage output of each weapon but it's difficult to make it accurate using any sort of abilities because differences are bound to be made. What I found by only auto attacking at the front of a heroic target dummy with no buffs active in frost presence after 5 minutes with each weapon Bryntroll came out at 490 DPS and Ramaladni came out at 421, but in that situation the proc off of Bryntroll was up to 16% of my DPS, whereas going all out it probably wouldn't be anywhere near that much. Many like to point out that as a tank Expertise is a valuable stat, I still do not understand why it is so significant compared to hit rating (Besides parry-haste, which is a small factor I guess) or how important not being dodged / parried is as a Death Knight tank.

If anyone knows some other ways to test this out, or might just know the answer and can back it up with detailed information I'd appreciate your help. Thankyou Tankspot! :)

[Stompya]

bryntoll is better, gem expertise if you think your threat is low (although there really should be no need for it).

[Raenis]

Could you try to back up your reasoning? I have had lots of people simpley say "Bryntroll is better, do that" or "Remaladni because missing is bad (lol)"

[Mend]

Well I don't have any of the weapons but since you are a tank, maybe I can help.

It isn't essential for a tank to be expertise and hit capped, but there are times where you would like to be 100% sure that your Dark Command wont miss.

I would recommend Bryntol for the better survivability because of the proc but I wouldn't rely on it for efffective HP.

Keep Ramlandi's blade for fights where you would like an extra threat boost and to be expertise capped.

Good luck :)

[Raenis]

Well to be honest, from my experience even the mighty Death Strike heals aren't as useful as they'd appear unless you are in a situation where you aren't being completely overhealed constantly. I don't believe that 2300 healing is going to make much of a difference in survivability more than it would be useful for the proc's damage. Are you implying that you believe that Ramaladni is arguabley better threat?

[Mend]

Are you implying that you believe that Ramaladni is arguabley better threat?

I don't have any of these weapons, so I haven't tested the proc chance or the DPS on any of them.

But since Ramlandi's blade keeps you expertise and hit soft capped, it seems like a threat increase to me.

[Unger]

The next question is if you like Brynntroll better than the Ramaladni's blade, how about the Brynntroll vs. the heroic Ramaladri blade?

[Raenis]

Well I'm not a huge fan of procs because they are a chancey thing, but when you are comparing a chancey proc to a stat that is somewhat chancey it's the same idea. Ramaladni reduces chance to not deal damage, while Bryntroll gives you a bonus chance to do more damage. I just don't know which would be a better idea, it appears safer to go with Ramaladni but I'd like to find out how the proc compares as a tank. My biggest problem is I don't fully understand what the buzz is about "OMG EXPERTISE" when it seems like it does the exact same thing as Hit rating does (except for Parry Haste which I'm pretty sure isn't even noticable anymore for healers)

[Satorri]

The simple answer when looking at weapons is that if you are concerned with which will offer the best threat, the higher dps/ilvl weapon will give you more threat, pretty much without exception. The increase in weapon damage is on a greater scale than what stat shifts you will have.

Expertise is not a bad stat to keep your threat solid, but generally not *required* for good threat. For me the bigger concern is that I like to minimize my chance to not land hits for the sake of reliability. I want to know that when I use an ability it will land, as it helps with reliability (if not pure scale) of threat, and allows your rotations/rune usages to be predictable.

I had to make a similar decision recently between the same Blade of Culling and Cryptmaker, and I didn't really *like* making the switch until I accounted for enough Expertise to keep above the soft cap.

So, if you *need* the threat, Bryntroll will win. If you are more interested in reliability, it won't hurt you to use the lower level axe a bit longer and find ways to adjust for the Expertise loss.

[Raenis]

Thanks Satorri, well explained :)



Check out mah new signature :p

[situation]

I'm not sure why you're looking at dps or tps when evaluating these weapons. With the recent change to icy touch, there's no reason for a dk tank of any spec to ever do so. Use the weapon that grants a higher effective health.

There is no parry haste in icc for the most part.