This should probably be changed. Its much less hurtful to drop a point from Butchery/Epidemic (end up with 2/3), as the fights Chillblains is good for (H Beth/Rhyo), you should just sit in FP if you are designated to AoE. Maybe not for H Rhyo if you just randomly slow the slimes and tunnel legs (which should be left to other classes anyways). Its easy to solo a lane on H beth just sitting in FP for example.

If you're "tanking" broodlings on Beth while handling a spiderling spawn, unholy presence's run speed is much more important.

I solo an entire spawn in 25-man without difficulty using unholy presence. Frost presence's extra damage is nice for the sustained AOE, but after the spiderlings are all dead you will have little to no time to DPS anything else before a new wave of spiderlings spawns, which you will need to run to in order to begin DPSing. Any minute gain you see from frost presence is lost from the extra time it takes to run from point to point. Also if you get Fixate, you are at a disadvantage unless you presence swap into UHP anyway.

For Rhyolith, Fragments live for a short enough period of time for frost presence to not provide a significant enough advantage here either. There is also sufficient running around catching bloods involved for runspeed to also be the biggest DPS increase here as well.

I haven't experienced any scenarios where frost presence has provided me much if any benefit thus far in this expansion, compared to unholy presence. The few places where you are sustaining AOE for a long period also happen to be places where you need to be constantly moving or running from fires or orbs or whatever.

On side note to this. It is far more beneficial to be running as Unholy during Lord Rhyolith even being slightly below hit cap from a frost setup. I swap a couple of items to bump up the hit. Unholy contributes so much more damage than frost can put out if you are on leg duty.

A log of the comparison although not a flawless try by any means.
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

I was under the impression we ran the numbers somewhere deep in the old thread and decided that unless you heavily stack mastery FP is never superior to UP, except in the case where adds have so few HPs that the faster rune CD on UH would not manifest, presumably because the adds would die within 4xHB.

Either way, I should echo that whenever there's been a move-sensitive encounter so far in the game, run speed (Even the pathetic 8% of the boot enchant) has outperformed any other damage gain. In these cases, your role is utility, and as utility provided your targets do eventually die, shaving a few % off the time they are up will make no difference, while ensuring you are able to do it by being 15% faster will.

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Nice work Cort.

As always it's worth noting that in Patchwerk situations our spell hit will be worth more than the obvious benefits to cleave damage given by more mastery in fights where adds etc get involved. This will both be due to mastery providing bigger boom on your AoE and any adds not being boss level.

Correct me if I'm wrong (wouldn't be the first time).

I got the chance to go in the air on a normal Alyrazor kill and got something that struck my as interesting.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

If you check my damage by spell, melee is at the top. Now given, this is obvious with the haste buff being so rediculous but it seems to me that as you get to higher levels of haste hit over 8% becomes more important.

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Quite, I'd argue a Fr DK is probably one of the least efficient choices for Alysrazor airphase. It's not so much that your melee is inflated, as your OB isn't as inflated as everything else. Arguably a firemage would be optimal for airphase. You also can't summon a ghoul while flying (I believe, correct me if otherwise).

You shouldn't bother gearing to maximize Alys air phase, if you're that bothered about overall raid performance, you should swap your spot for someone who can fully use the crit buff.

If you are playing 25man Alysrazor you can still go up after the last meteor cuddeling phase, get ~13stacks which is enough haste to just spam obliterate as heroism / bloodlust is also used for the burn phase. 25 stacks aren't necessary.

Is simulationcraft correctly modelling trinkets for dks? I know there is a general consensus that Frost DKs sim higher than is possible in game, however while checking the main bis trinkets(h-HoR is the second trinket in all sims) I see barely any difference in the dps values for the 4 best trinkets.

Simulationcraft Results
( I realize heroic Essence of the Eternal Flame doesn't exist in game, and that optimally it should be reforged to haste).

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My personal stat weights which supports cortdk's findings.
Simulationcraft Results

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Apparatus is tweaked in SimCraft to 'proc' as soon as you get 5 charges and it comes off cooldown.

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I think we've been made a mistake here: firstly, we always use Pillar at the beginning of the fight or when Time Wrap/Bloodlust, so Essence of the Eternal Flame shall be the best one to fit this 2 condition(and the cooldown time is same as Piller, 1min both), and besides all of this, for DW frost talent, only 601 hit rating to cap, so the License to Slay shall be waste of stats.

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My post assume Dual wielding and close to an average Item level of 391.

If the stats weight in OP is somewhat correct. Does it mean we will start gemming [+20str/20haste] for +10str and +20 haste bonuses/gem?

Stat 378 DW 391 DW
Strength 3.10 3.20
Yellow Hit 2.29 2.27
Expertise 1.64 1.87
Haste 1.47 1.78


Example: [Elementium Deathplate Breastplate] have 2 Yellow sockets and a socket bonus of +20 Strength. With an average Item level of 378 it suggest I should use 2 st Bold Inferno Ruby(+40 Strength) and skip the socket bonus to get the biggest stat weight gain since strength is more than double the weight of Haste.

But at an average Item level of 391, haste have changed to ~55.6% of strengths weight.

If I Socket Elementium Deathplate Breastplate with 2 st Bold Inferno Ruby I will get +80 Strength.
80*3,20= 256 Stat weight.

If I socket Elementium Deathplate Breastplate with 2 st Fierce Ember Topaz I will get +40 Strength, +40 Haste and 20 Strength from the socket bonus and this should add up to_
(40*3,20)+(40*1,78)+(20*3,20)= 128 + 71,2 + 64 = 263,2 Stat weight.

Sure Str/Haste will be better at a higher itemlevel. A while ago someone pointed out that the value of haste increases up to the point where your runereg lines up with your gcd (for UP at 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8... seconds of runereg time) and dropps afterwards.
This means sitting at 25,x% haste will favor 2x 40 Str, while 26,x% and more will favor Str/Haste. The next "softcap" would be at around 42% of haste from gear.

The "softcaps" don't come in 10% haste intervals though. It takes 11.1_% total haste for 9 second rune regen, then 25% haste for 8, ~42.85 haste for 7, etc.

One of the main reasons haste (and other secondary stats) gains ground versus strength is because those stats are percentage-based while strength isn't. Strength will always add a set amount of extra damage to each attack, while the secondary stats modify that extra damage in different ways and always by a certain percentage. Because of this, secondary stats technically have exponential scaling compared to strength, so the raw damage from increasing one of them will eventually be more than the same increase in strength. It's because of this that there are no universal stat weights, since each stat scales differently and simple ratios cannot accurately show that scaling.

Edit: Ran the haste numbers for multiples of 1.5. It's still 11.11_% haste for 9, then 33.33_% for 7.5, 66.66_% for 6, and 122.22_% for 4.5.

Regarding races, Orcs performs best for Frost DW and you should mention that. It's actually the race used by Simulationcraft in its Frost DW profile in the dps chart. There's still confusion around what race does the best atm and some people still believe Goblins/Worgen are better, but in reality they aren't.