Death Knight Runeforging

Earlier today a new ability was uncovered for the Death Knight, runeforging. Being some of the very first beta testers, the guys over at worldofraids.com were of the first to test out all the new changes to the beta client. Including this intesting change that allows the Death Knight to exchange the runes in his weapon, so long as he’s within Ebon Hold.

Runeforging Mechanic

• Rune of Lichbane – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to strike undead for extra Fire damage and stun them for 5 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of the Fallen Crusader – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to heal you for 3% and increase total Strength by 30% for 15 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Spellbreaking – Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that deflects 5% of all spell damage. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Frostfever – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to inflict a disease that causes Frost damage and lowers attack power by 10% for 20 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Cinderglacier – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to increase your Frost and Shadow spell damage by 10% for 15 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Swordbreaking – Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Parry chance by 3%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.

Agility vs. AP Gems

This post is in response to a question I received from a fellow arena player. I’ve posted it here as a reference for future players who may encounter a similar question.

Rogue Arena Gem Question…
Recently ive wondered if its better to stack agility (8agi) gems or attack power (16ap) gems. I have seen some rogues with one or the other, and now im not sure which is more beneficial. If anyone knows or can recommend something, please do!

Rogue Arena Gems Answers…
Zuggy’s Response:

Personally, I’m a fan of the attack power gems. Simply because stacking AP gives you a direct increase in damage on every hit. Greater AP = Greater damage.

Agility gives you ap / armor / crit / dodge…and while some rogues find this school of thought appealing, it’s just not for me. I don’t really care about defensive stats and crit is simply a chance to do additional damage.

The only way you could really justify all agility gems would if you were a fully committed sub rogue. Otherwise, I still think you should stack AP gems instead.

S-Scythe’s Response:

I prefer AP simply because I play more than one spec for PVP. I play Shadowstep and Combat so AP serves use for both of these specs. Whereas Agility really only benefits the 15% bonus of a Shadowstep spec. So if you only utilize a shadowstep spec in pvp I’d definitely say go for it, but if you change up specs for different teams AP is your optimal choice.

Diggu’s Response:

This is a question that doesn’t have a straight-forward answer imo. I like Zug’s comment about the different specs. I personally enchant/gem for Agility (if it’s not a hit gem) for PvE. Assuming you’re Combat PvE spec, the Agi (according to Elitist Jerks spreadsheets and others) maximizes your dps.

For PvP most of what I have seen is AP gemming. I seem to remember a lot of our top PvP rogues on Manno used to gem Agi back before/during S1, but now that everyone in Arena has 400+ resil, they all have AP gems.