My DK dps isn't cutting it

[Zosi]

What do you mean overcapped on hit? and what do you mean replacments? D: replacements for what?

You've got 498 hit rating, the cap for melee (the vast majority of your damage) is 263. The big chunks that you could lose are on your weapon, shoulders and cape. Fortunately, there's plenty of good upgrades that you can get from the first four bosses of ICC10, which pretty much any group should be able to faceroll through with the 30% buff. My suggestion would be to pick up a Saronite Gargoyle Cloak from (heroic, if possible) gunship, then Ramaladni's Blade of Culling from Saurfang. In the mean time, pick up T10 shoulders with the frosties you get from running ICC, they're only 50. There are plenty of other options, but those are dead simple to get and you won't face much competition.

Aside from the hit cap bit, you're going to want a new helm with a +AGI/crit damage meta. T10 is a solid choice because it'd bring you up to 4pc along with the shoulders, but it'll take a while at 95 frosties. To activate the meta, just shove a Nightmare Tear somewhere where it'll get you a STR set bonus - your neckpiece would work fine for that. You'll also want new boots, check out the crafted 264 and 226 boots if you can't get any decent ones to drop.

I'd also like to add something on expertise. The gear I listed above brings you to 26 expertise, which is the "cap" for DPS. As people have noted, this is optional, but I *strongly* recommend it for beginning DKs. The reason it's optional is because Unholy's standard rotations have free GCDs, so you can afford a dodge or two - but if you're already dealing with dodges, you don't really have any room for error, and you'll be fucking up plenty while you learn raid DPSing in general and the fights in ICC. Keep the free GCDs for your own fuckups, and drop some expertise when you get awesome gear to replace it and know your shit.

Edit: One last note, all of this still applies if you decide to stay Blood, but the expertise bit becomes more important because Blood has fewer free GCDs.

[Norellicus]

You only need 8% chance to hit a boss level monster; currently you are "wasting" 6% of your total item budget on hit rating that you don't need.

There's not a lot you can do about this without just getting more gear to take its place (consequently I looked over some lists, there's not really anything in heroics to replace it with that's worth a damn, though you may consider burning another 50k honor and replace your current cloak with the one that gives crit rating instead, or spending 50 frost badges for that cloak if you have them).

Check out http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php, it's pretty cool for finding gear upgrades for you as you go along. It'll show you dynamically anytime an item's value changes in relation to the rest of your gear.

[Sta]

Today was my lucky day

First off I replaced my cape with the 245 pvp cape with crit instead of AR,
Then I joined an ICC25 and snagged myself a 264 Skeleton Lord's circle...
Then to top my day off I got my Scourgelord shoulders with the frosts from ICC and i was lucky enough to get a upgrade item from Saurfang so i immediatly upgraded my shoulders i lucked out.

Now my hit rating is down to 10.22%~ i was realy hoping Saurfang would drop the axe, and that would bring me to 8-8.5% AR but i guess thats just getting too greedy for 1 day. I'll go for ICC10 tomorrow and hope again

[Reii]

Skeleton Lord's Circle is pretty crap but it should be an upgrade for you anyway. (No one in my raid ever took it for mainspec, ever.) Also don't forget to pick up the ICC rep ring (strength DPS version, look carefully before you choose) if you hit Friendly with the Ashen Verdict. (It has hit on it, but should be an upgrade still)

[seph32]

No it's not, it's one of the better rings. Might of Blight is actually the best one if you are exp capped.

In normal cases you have a few exp items to cap expertise my DK has the ring and Lana'thel's Chain of Flagellation. If you are familiar with spreadsheets/theorycrafting the Might of Blight is a DPS loss based on my gear. It's all dependable on how much Exp you have.

[Sta]

Skeleton Lord's Circle is pretty crap but it should be an upgrade for you anyway. (No one in my raid ever took it for mainspec, ever.) Also don't forget to pick up the ICC rep ring (strength DPS version, look carefully before you choose) if you hit Friendly with the Ashen Verdict. (It has hit on it, but should be an upgrade still)

The SLC ring adds (compared to the Ashen Greater Might 259 ring)
+13 strength (with socket)
+5 stam
+3 crit
+52 exp (puts my exp to 22)

It's a nice upgrade for now~ since im not a hardcore wow player (ive never been in a raiding guild) I think that this ring will last me a long time i'm 6000/12000 for ashen rep so another ICC run should get me another upgrade

[Reii]

@seph32 - Well i was more referring to the fact that if you are shooting for BIS then the ring is largely ignored by all the strength DPS classes, but it isn't so bad a ring that everyone would ignore it. But yeah, i should have worded it better.

@Sta - As above, and yeah you should be using both rings in conjunction with each other unless you get lucky with Might of Blight. The Heroic ring from 10man Festergut (or Rotface, i forgot) should be better than Skeleton Lord's Circle though, unless yours is Heroic version.