Toughness is NOT a DPS Talent

Small amounts of math incoming. I will keep the post relatively short to give your brains time to relax.

I would like to make one simple point. For Death Knights, Toughness is NOT a DPS talent.

Now, don't get me wrong, Toughness is a fantastic talent, both for tanking and PVP. However, taking this talent solely for the DPS boost through synergy with Bladed Armor is a mistake.

Let's assume your Death Knight has 10,000 armor. High-end gear with buffs will allow you to go well past this number, but it's a nice one to work with.

Bladed Armor, when maxed, increases your Attack Power by 5 for every 180 Armor.

10,000 / 180 = 56-ish
56 x 5 = 280

280 Attack Power is a very nice stat increase for 5 talent points. 14 Attack Power translates into 1 DPS. This is a 20 DPS increase for white damage, which is 60 extra weapon damage, assuming 3.0 attack speed. Many Death Knight abilities scale off weapon damage, and those that don't scale with pure AP.

Now, what about the benefit of Toughness?

10,000 x .15 = 1,500
11,500 / 180 = 64-ish
64 x 5 = 320
320 - 280 = 40

Forty. Trust me, 40 Attack Power is NOT worth 5 talent points.

If you're Frost or Unholy, those 5 points will have to come out of either your core Frost/Unholy talents (a very bad idea) or Dark Conviction. Trust me, 5% crit is a much better DPS increase than 40 AP.

If you're Blood, those 5 points will have to come from various Unholy talents. (And you SHOULD be sub-specced into Unholy as Blood, if you're serious about DPS) Again, not worth 40 AP.

Now, I usually go with the "play how you want" line. However, when I see so many people making a BAD decision, I feel it is my responsibility as a member of the community to educate. I mean, what else is a blog for, but to distribute information?