The Dual Wield section should probably be expanded to at least mention the 0/44/27 and 0/32/39. Discussion's still very much in the air especially after 3.0.8, but the latter spec at least is still pumping out serious numbers, and I hardly ever hear of anyone using the trispec detailed here anymore.
"Gordon, the planet has been conquered by malevolent aliens. Humanity is depending on you. Here's a goddamned crowbar."
So i have played the ever popular 0/32/39 frost/unholy hybrid spec for a while and it has seemed to be quite a bit of dps. With this most recent patch, we got hit with what seems to be a hard nerf from Killing Machine. I decided to experiment yesterday by 2 things: 1. Seeing how Killing machine would effect a 2h, and 2. How it would effect Frost strike, since it is a weapon based spell deep in what used to be a DW tree.
I was sceptical about how often killing machine would proc with a slow 2h, but since Blizz has scaled the proc rate to the weapon speed, I am finding that it procs just as much as DW. Also a 2h gets more of a bonus from haste effect % wise than 1h's do. In the unholy tree Necrosis and Bloodcaked strikes are also doing more over all damage for me, at least according to recount. Next i tried altering my spec to include frost strike and a few other talents. First i removed Crypt fever, Desecration, and Reaping from the unholy tree. Sad yes i know. If you can run with an Unholy dk like I do then this more than makes up for the lack of Crypt fever or Ebon plague bringer on your part. (why do work when someone else can). Desecration is a sad loss but one that you can make up for later. Last you can replace reaping.
Now, moving oveer to the frost tree we need to add three talent poitns to get to the next talent tier. I personally put them in Runic power mastery. With glyph of icey touch and the chill of the grave talent, i am never out of runic power. next we put five points into Blood of the north. Not only does this completely make up for Reaping, but adds 15% damamge to your blood strikes. Next we get 3 into Guile of Gorefeind. This i beleive is one of the best talents in the tree to make up for the killing machine nerf. This increases your critical strke damage of howling blast, frost strike, Blood strike, and obliterate by 45%. Sadly the crit amount from my howling blast after the patch went from 80% crit, to 40% crit. Adding 45% damage helps immensly when putting that back on top fo the damage meter.
Last is frost strike. This argument sells itself. it does on avarage for me 200-300 more damage than death coil, it has at least triple the crit , with the glyph that reduces the runic power cost, and the talent for 30 extra runic power, with a full bar you can spam it 4 times. Also it cant be blocked, dodged or parried. With a 2h damage from the 60% base weapon damage, the massive crit rating, and the crit damamge bonus, for me it is criting almost evry other time and critting for about 3500-4k. This has been a massive dps boost from the old spec and rotation for me.
Please feel free to try it out and see what you think.
This is a great post for starting DKs, but I think it needs to be updated to more post 3.08 information. Such as the 51/0/20 spec for Blood, and more of the DW options.
You might look into updating the Blood Glyphs section for Glyph of BS. According to testing done HERE it applies to HS and can be activated on bosses through CoI and most likely FFB debuff.
Along the lines of everyone else, with the changes made in 3.0.8, wouldn't Glyph of Froststrike be more of a core frost DPS glyph, therefore giving a more concrete glyph set?
I'm currently planning a very big swoop of the article after 3.1 changes have settled down, I could start changing stuff now but I'd rather not do double work seeing how unstable these current announced changes are. I'll try and keep it better up to date after 3.1 too as my busyness seems to be settling down.
As of 3.0.8, Herbalism no longer provides a DPS buff based on consumables. The consumable was melee consumable, Fire Leaf, and the caster consumable, Fire Seed, had the underlying effects removed during BETA, but the tooltip and the ability to use the item did not get removed until 3.0.8.
Armor Penetration Rating is a bit of an odd beast for us.
It doesn't affect our damage from Diseases, Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Scourge Strike or Death Coil. This makes Armor Penetration have a reduced value for Unholy and Frost Specs. Blood however does have quite a lot of benefit from ArP Rating, due to the majority of it's damage being Physical.
We need 15.39 Rating to ignore 1% armor on our target.
First post ever! So is the above data accurate as of the release of 3.1 or is this not yet updated to account for the 25% increase DKs now receive from ArPen? Not trying to be a nag but I made a last-minute choice to take a Blood spec for my secondary DPS spec in raids (for those times when someone else is tanking) and I'm trying to gather as much good info as I can.
And am I correct that with the increase we'll now need 12.24 ArPen rating to equal 1% armor reduction?
Im sure you have been testing builds more than me, but about the unholy build you have linked, i have been testing it, and i do a lot less dps than with my pvp one: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
The improved unholy presence may come in handy at bosses where you need to move around a lot, but since there are tons of other bosses where you move just a little, or nothing at all, im not really sure about getting it. But you could improve your dps much more getting the master of ghoul (the pet will pack around 400-500 constant dps, and can get buffed by HoW and all other buffs) and ghoul frenzy instead (you can spend your death runes, and then blood tap and use it, to get around 100 more dps from your ghoul for 30 secs), so wouldnt a build like Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft do more dps?
I've started completely rewriting the article to update it for 3.1, it's quite a massive task in between doing some hardcore arena & raidleading 6/7 days a week, but I hope to have a first draft up next week. Just hang in there a little longer =P.
Is anybody updating this for current patch or looking into 3.2?
I don't know what Illundai is planning - but I plan to update and improve this with help of others.
REKYUKE STFU? Each step must carry the mark of one's blood - No one can hold a candle to me
Roudolf Khametovitch Nouriev
Vôtre score de connard prétentieux est très exactement de 95
I tried to stick to the original intent in the article, but it still needs verification due to all changes (and a bunch coming with 3.3).
Edit: it seems that for dual wielding this build is now preferred. (Taken from this thread about DK builds and patch 3.2. That thread also contains updated builds for the other specs, but all oriented on dual wielding.)
01/25/09, 4:16 PM
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