Need advice for a fun gear set (block cap - dps gear set)

Hi all,

Sorry for my bad English its not my primary language. First of all thx for this wonderful forum. Been a prot pal for 2+ years now and this forum really help me out. Right now I work on a "fun" block cap dps gear set. What I do is simple ...

I manage to have a gear set where I hit the CTC. Then I use gem / trinket to get hit 8% and expertise 26


Then I'm not sure ...
I try to cover up my parry with even more expertise but it doesn't seem to be that great dps wise. Should I focus on even more expertise or simply switch to "more strength gem" to increase my dps ? Also I notice how trinket are amazing for DPS so I need to use 2 dps trinket at all cost and cover up my block cap via gem / gear.

Any suggestion is welcome to help me out in this weird but funny project.

use a lot of mastery when reforging 7 gemming for exp hit cap. mastery gives you the itemization points you need. but be aware that it will cost you a bunch of stamina to do so.

in other words thanks to mastery you can indirectly sacrifice stamina for other stats, like in your cast exp and hit.


also some good items are, the FL neck and the Shannox belt. (if you have access to the HM version I recommend them, I still use them for DS HM raiding )

also the cloack for points is pretty amazing. with those 3 items there should be only about 71 expertise points missing for expertise cap. which are a couple of gems or one reforge.

Mcb wrote: Should I focus on even more expertise or simply switch to "more strength gem" to increase my dps ?

To my surprise, expertise does seem to be a better dps stat than strength up to the soft cap of 56:

viewtopic.php?p=593315#p593315

However, the one boss where you might really want to go all out for dps - Ultraxion - does not parry, so expertise will be less valuable for that.

One thing to consider is whether to try to benefit from any of the 2 piece dps bonuses from T11 prot, T11 ret or T12 ret. If you dig around theckhd's matlab thread, you'll find estimates of their benefits. I don't have access to heroic T11 so I am not sure it'll be worth it for me - I have a threat set with 2xT11 prot and 2xT12 ret but I am not block capped; I'll see if I go boom on Ultraxion.

This plot clearly shows the 26-expertise soft cap. After that point hit surpasses expertise, but interestingly Strength doesn't. Expertise stays ahead of Strength all the way up to the hard-cap at 56.

Thx for the link. Ill need to redo some testing but I didn't see any significant dps increase on Baleroc last night with my 8% hit / 37 expertise compare to my last try where I was 8%hit / 26 Exp.

I think trinket is very important and my last try I didn't have "2 dps trinket" on. I need to get 2 "dps/str trinket" from DS + my 3% crit head ench and focus on expertise via gem.


Thank you very much for the link ill read it carefully.

use a lot of mastery when reforging 7 gemming for exp hit cap. mastery gives you the itemization points you need. but be aware that it will cost you a bunch of stamina to do so.

That's what I plan to do, unfortunately a lot of my "dps gear" is also my "raid tanking gear", that's why so many gear have stamina gem and a "mitigation" reforge. But in a few weeks I should have my entire gear set twice, so every single stamina gem will be a nice expertise gem

And thx for the Shannox belt and the neck, you are right, those could be great upgrade.I farm FL heroic every week for a friend (legendary staff), I should be more careful on potential gear upgrade.

A small reply to say thank you very much for all the info guys.

I manage to get my T13 "ret pal" head piece via LFR. It got tons of exp/hit on it. I made a few change and here the final result.


(with expertise elixir instead of the hp flask)

8% hit
52 expertise
102.4% CTC raid buff.
3% crit damage meta gem
2 dps trinket with strength proc.


Can't wait to test this on Baleroc next week

I got a question related to this chart.




Its say that strength grant a little more dps that stamina per 10 itemization points. I'm not a 100% sure to understand the "itemization point" system.

If I understand correctly ...
100 strength = 150 stamina = same itemization points value ?

This is my Cap set; block capped, 8% hit, 55 expertise, incorporating 2pc T12 Prot and 2pc T12 Ret bonuses.

Mcb wrote:If I understand correctly ...
100 strength = 150 stamina = same itemization points value ?

Yes, that's my understanding.