Unholy DPS | Cataclysm 4.0.6, The Missing Frame - Page 5

Consider · 12/24/10, 7:54 PM

It was said less than a page ago, and hopefully won't need to be said again, but the uptime on HoR (or HoS) is not 20%. Very silly mistake to make. 18% is most accurate, although 19% isn't pushing it too much. 20% uptime would mean it procs immediately once the ICD is up which is utterly unrealistic with a mere 10% proc rate. The difference between 18%, 19%, and 20% uptime is actually pretty noticeable when comparing individual trinkets, and you can't gloss over the fact.

This lowers the value of HoR to approximately 1290 dps, and HoS to approximately 1165, which means the proc of DMC:H needs to be 300 dps to beat the first and 175 to beat the second, which is definitely within the numbers you posted, especially when you consider your data includes the effect of downtime for DMC:H while the actual math for HoR/HoS doesn't.

At any rate, if you could PM me some logs with you using it, it would be much appreciated. Should be able to determine proc rate/ICD/etcetera easily enough and pinpoint its value more accurately, although it still appears to be very competitive to my eyes.

♦ arison · 12/24/10, 9:00 PM

I think it's more complicated than the approach you're taking. With a 10% chance on proc, 20s duration, and 100s ICD, simcraft sims of varying length actually do show both as having 20%. I definitely agree it is important to be precise, but there is more to judging the uptime of a trinket than strictly adding the duration, the ICD, and the average time to proc -- you must also take into account fight duration.

We attack pretty often, roughly once a second (assuming scourge strike shadow hits don't proc the trinkets), including raw melee and strikes. So let's assume it takes 10 seconds to proc a 10% proc trinket. The problem is when the fight ends and the status of the proc at that point in time. You can divide up the timeline of the trinket into three regions: pre-proc, proc is up, and post-proc cooldown (which is duration - ICD) is active. Even if it takes ten seconds to proc, this entire timeline is 10 + 20 + 80 (pre-proc, proc, post-proc cooldown); the fight can end anywhere in this 110 second window. If it ends right after the proc finishes (say a 30 second fight) then the uptime obviously is quite high. If it is right before the next proc (say a 120 second fight), the uptime is quite low. If you assume the end time of a fight is random inside this window, then the shorter a fight, the higher the uptime on average.

The uptime basically becomes, assuming a 10 second average time to proc:

(number_of_cycles * 20s + uptime_in_window(t)) / (number_of_cycles * 110s + t)

uptime_in_window(t) is the fraction of time the trinket is up for a window of size t -- basically, this function:

uptime_in_window(t) = 0 if t < 10; (t - 10) if 10 <= t < 30; 20 if 30 <= t < 110

So the uptime in a window of 5 seconds is 0 -- it didn't proc. But in a 20s window, it is 10s (half the proc remains after the fight ends). In an infinitely long fight, the partial window doesn't matter, but we are dealing with pretty short fights in practice, relative to the trinket timeline.

For short fights, obviously the uptime is quite high. Most fights right now are in the area of 5-9 minutes. If you take the above formula and plug it into a little simulation, you end up with an average uptime of 20% -- some fights, like 372 seconds, have a 22% uptime, and some, like 325 seconds, have an 18% uptime. But the average still is 20%, assuming uniformly distributed fight durations. Using these times in simcraft independently verifies the uptime percentages.

Obviously this is highly affected by RNG, but I think it is appropriate to weight the trinkets at 20% uptime for reasonable fights right now; some fights it will be higher, some lower, but the average still is 20%, assuming uniform fight durations in the range of 5-9 minutes.

Bouli · 12/25/10, 6:10 PM

Originally Posted by Consider

That said, although it is now inferior to strength, hit is still the best secondary stat. Because of its number two status, you'll never actually want to gem it; reforge to the cap if you're not already there. 8% is still the desirable number, even if dual-wielding. With Virulence now being 9% at max rank, you're automatically spell-hit capped if you're melee-capped.

Hello all,
I am currently Dual Wielding Frost DK, but I am thinking to have my secondary spec Dual Wielding Unholy (just to get a hang of it and to check what suits me best). Want to try out which does more dps and which suits my playstyle the best.

The above quote is a bit unclear to me.
Because with Nerves of Cold Steel you get 3% melee hit for free.
If I want to get the Spell Hit Cap I need 8% melee hit, but does Nerves of Cold Steel also count towards that 8% melee hit so that with Virulence I get the Spell hit cap.
Or do I need to get 8% melee hit (not counting the Nerves of Cold Steel 3% melee hit for free) and be spell hit capped with Virulence this way and am at 11% melee hit (because of Nerves of Cold Steel).

That is something that is unclear for me.

I hope anyone can help me with the answer to this question.
Because then I know what to look for on gear and what numbers I need to reach to have my Hit capped.

Thanks in advance.

Consider · 12/25/10, 6:59 PM

The 3% hit from NoCS doesn't apply to our ghoul, and thus because of the fact that our ghoul is such a large portion of our dps and because of the fact that the ghoul double dips into hit (since it also gots an equal percentage in expertise), on top of the obvious benefit of increased white damage and spell damage, it's still worth going to 8% even though, yes, main hand and yellow attacks are capped at 5%.

Fongs · 12/26/10, 2:11 PM

I swear I remember reading the answer to this question somewhere, but I'm unable to locate it now. I was tanking a random heroic and a pug DW UH DK wasn't using 2xRotFC like it says in your original post. He then argued with me that having RotFC on your main hand will give 90% uptime and couldn't see why 3% heal was worth it. Now I swear I had read something where someone explained the reasoning behind why DW UH uses 2xRotFC, but now I can't find it. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Charybdis · 12/27/10, 12:52 AM

Originally Posted by Fongs

I swear I remember reading the answer to this question somewhere, but I'm unable to locate it now. I was tanking a random heroic and a pug DW UH DK wasn't using 2xRotFC like it says in your original post. He then argued with me that having RotFC on your main hand will give 90% uptime and couldn't see why 3% heal was worth it. Now I swear I had read something where someone explained the reasoning behind why DW UH uses 2xRotFC, but now I can't find it. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated.

To quote from DK mechanics discussion;

Runeforges
Runeforges with a PPM appear to have the same PPM when used in the offhand. Using the same Runeforge on both weapons while dual wielding still only applies a single buff.
...
Fallen Crusader is a 2.0 PPM enchant. The buff is called Unholy Strength [which] buffs your strength by 15% and lasts 15 seconds.

2 PPM means roughly every 30 seconds, and with a 15 second length its uptime is roughly 50%. Add a second runeforge and you roughly double your proc chances which can mean doubling uptime to 100%. In practice it's not quite like that, but one FC definitely does not have a 90% uptime. Two FC would have roughly that.

Charlatan · 12/27/10, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Consider

The 3% hit from NoCS doesn't apply to our ghoul, and thus because of the fact that our ghoul is such a large portion of our dps and because of the fact that the ghoul double dips into hit (since it also gots an equal percentage in expertise), on top of the obvious benefit of increased white damage and spell damage, it's still worth going to 8% even though, yes, main hand and yellow attacks are capped at 5%.

I think this point is well worth putting in the initial post. I'm dual-wielding and until I read this I was blithely going along thinking 5% would suffice. But I think you've made a very good point here about the ghoul's contribution to our DPS, and why you'd want to get to 8% even with NoCS (plus the fact that NoCS doesn't count towards the spell cap, which provides even more of a reason to get to 8% hit.

teiglin · 12/27/10, 2:32 PM

Originally Posted by Charybdis

2 PPM means roughly every 30 seconds, and with a 15 second length its uptime is roughly 50%. Add a second runeforge and you roughly double your proc chances which can mean doubling uptime to 100%. In practice it's not quite like that, but one FC definitely does not have a 90% uptime. Two FC would have roughly that.

This is horrifically incorrect, though I suppose it's a common enough misconception. A 2 PPM enchant means that it would proc, on average, twice per minute if you were autoattacking with no haste and no chance for a miss of any kind. From a practical perspective, it means that each swing has a 2*weaponspeed/60 chance to proc FC, so a 2.6 sword has an 8.7% chance to proc every time you land a hit with it. This applies to yellow hits as well and (at least in the case of FC) does not diminish with haste from gear or buffs.

Uptime is even more difficult to determine, as a proper calculation requires knowing the exact distribution of swings over a period of time. You could make a rough estimate if you know the average frequency of mainhand and offhand swings, but I don't have those data in front of me now. As for the advice in the OP, I'm assuming it's there because dual FC sims higher than running cinderglacier on the offhand.

Docan · 12/27/10, 6:42 PM

Removed.

deathbud · 12/28/10, 12:02 AM

Be warned; you don't want to use UF on yourself when Heroism is up (or shortly before it does). Even if the two were to stack, either cooldown on its own is sufficient to GCD cap us, and thus it wouldn't be worthwhile to have them coinciding regardless.

I am curious if this still holds true with current gear and current haste levels ?

Would it be better to use them both get caped and be able to throw out a large amount of SS and DC ? Would it maybe be better to have the CD's overlap toward the end of BL so that your Garg can get all the buffs it can ?
Or still just flat avoid using them together ? I am seeing some DK's us both and I myself have tried both approaches, and I was wondering if there was the math to see which is the most effective way to use it currently ?

kc102 · 12/28/10, 3:14 AM

I end up with around 4 seconds on my runes when I chain the two. They do stack, at least for rune-cooldowns.

As for GCD capping, that is true, but pumping out more SSs seems worthwhile as it does more damage then FeS.

Bobfred21 · 12/29/10, 7:43 AM

What is everyone doing with Blood Tap? Is it best to use on CD, wait for the lone blood rune? Wait until you have a dead spot in the rotation?

So far I've been mostly trying to utilize the double blood rune blood tap bug, but I'm having an issue lately where as unholy it will only refresh one of the runes even though I have one actual blood rune up and the other is down. Has anyone else experienced this issue? I should also note that this same trick works as it should when I play Frost.

Oldbugga · 12/29/10, 2:46 PM

I am surprised we haven't had any comments on the upcoming changes announced the other day.

Upcoming Class Changes - World of Warcraft

As Consider hinted viability of DW UH is going to be "tested". If, as they say we are near the top of the damage tree, they want to make UH DKs prefer 2H then that can only mean making DW unattractive....read nerf.

Looking at the general tenor it looks to me like we can expect some tinkering within the current damage budget and even some discounting of our overall output. With mastery to be revamped for us other strikes will necessarily be toned down to live within the budget. This could well alter the stat values especially around mastery.

Necrotic strike will be nerfed by resilience.

Edit: It also looks like Frost AoE will be toned down as well.

There may be plenty more hidden in there that some of you better skilled ones will unearth.

Dekrypt · 12/29/10, 3:02 PM

This was a question I have been debating on and would not mind some other opinions.
I personly find BT handy in an AoE environment, or when on a ST fight I've built up 5 charges of SI and need to DT but have no Unholy rune available.

Otherwise, field testing seems to show it helps to wait to use it when all Death Runes are on CD uudddd and I want to squeeze in one more SS or Drop a DnD. If you have all Blood and Frost runes up and use BT it will throw you off with a sitting Frost rune unless you IT to keep it on CD. The Blood tap macro might be helpful at that point to keep from throwing off your runes for instance having UUFDBB, or UUFFBD. (I'm referring to the /cancelaura macro of course)

Another thought here is, if the duration on your diseases is fine and your Outbreak will be off CD, keeping in mind the use of BT where you have uubfDF, it would seem that hitting SS and IT would be smarter than Fes. Please feel free to add to this.

I find BT to be more of a situational tool than something that can really be implemented into a "every 30 sec use."
I would, however, like to know if it could be fit into the "rotation," and if so what would be best? If we could get some feedback on this it would be great as Improved Blood Tap is being taken in the current OP specs, and I would assume for a good reason though it may not be a huge DPS gain.

HellHamsterr · 12/29/10, 4:24 PM

I find bloodtapping useful whenever there is a single blood rune available while the other is on cooldown together with the rest of your runes, if you use it then, you will get a death rune, and the neat part, your single bloodrune will mysteriously transform to a deathrune, so with 1 blood tap you get to use 2 scourge strikes.