http://media.mmo-champion.com/images...tober/ct14.jpg

Wow... any thoughts on this new RE/RC debate? I can't imagine why anyone would take Blood Tap over the other two. Does RC look potent enough to overtake RE?

It's too soon to be doing any theorycrafting about most MoP talents yet. We have no idea about core mechanic changes or spec changes and even if we did all of the numbers in the talents are likely to change. You can even see that Blood Tap has a cooldown of one minute which would make it completely inferior to the other two options in nearly every case possible. Seems likely it's supposed to be a passive with no cooldown and they just used the original Blood Tap tooltip as the base for that one.

Fair enough. I just thought it interesting that they would make a CHOICE on the core of how the Frost rotation works.

To be fair, it's likely easy to theorycraft between:

- 1 depleted rune refreshes every 3 FS (guaranteed) via new blood tap
- 1.35 depleted runes refresh every 3 FS (average) via runic empowerment
- the 100% additional rune regen rate provided by runic corruption if one uses FS every 3 seconds minimum to ensure 100% uptime

In most scenarios we'd pick the latter as frost is a very RNG plagued spec and RC solves the "rune casino" we currently play around. I'm sure blood tap will get buffed as it's vastly inferior for DPS purposes even as a passive.

On the RE/RC/BT debate (which shouldnt even happen yet, its beta, numbers change).

Its not even a competition.

BT still has a 1min cooldown. So one free rune every minute.
RE like on live. RNG machine. 45% chance on fully depleted.
RC on the other hand is AMAZING and extremely overpowered compared to the other two. 100% chance instead of 45% on live AND it works for frost, (which already generates more RP thanks to CotG on live, could be scrapped from MoP obviously).

I really like the new model though, like being able to get AMZ for all specs if needed.

It's relatively obvious the new blood tap won't have a 1 minute cooldown, they just copied the tooltip and forgot to remove that. It will be a passive.

I'm fairly certain (like 100% certain), that he knows how to read and what Blizzard put on the screen in terms of 1 min c/d. The reason he's saying it's obviously going to be a passive ability (i.e. once you get 3 charges, you can activate it - no c/d), is because if it WERE to be a 1 min c/d, it would be so vastly inferior to the other 2 choices that it wouldn't even be an option. Therefore, the only way to make it even remotely close is by making it a no c/d (passive) ability.

Exactly. This is a case where you have to read in-between the lines. All talent tiers have abilities that are similar in power and use. Tier 5 for DKs are all rune regeneration effects meant to fill the role RE/RC currently do. RE and RC are there are mostly the same as they are now, with Blood Tap being the new skill. Take into account that RE and RC have no CDs, add some dynamic elements to our resource generation, and have similar values as talents, and you can see that Blood Tap is nothing like them if you take it at face value, no one would EVER take it. However, remove the cooldown and assume that it automatically activates once you get three charges, and you have what equates to RE with a reliable activation rate instead of a random chance to occur.

We have no way of knowing for sure, but it's a pretty logical conclusion.

Assuming no c/d, Blood tap as it's written will be ideal for fights with frequent periods of 5-8s or more downtime (think heroic rag phase 2), where you want to store that extra rune for burst, particularly for AOE. Tanks may see similar value in that it guarantees their rotation, so if they're getting bursted heavily in intermittent spurts, being able to frontload that extra rune regen might be optimal.

RE vs RC is gonna be interesting, though. I wonder if we'll see people haste-capping by the 2nd tier of MoP content.

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Seems like the talents you would always pick up as a DPS are:

15Outbreak (Roiling Blood is basically pestilence that does a bit more damage? And I can't see CE being useful)

30AMZ - raidwall > personal CD

45Chilblains - this is a PvP tree so there's nothing too gamebreaking here

60VB or Death Siphon depending on the fight - if there is ranged downtime then Death Siphon could be pretty useful. VB on a Patchwerk fight.

75 Runic Corruption > other two talents? It's the least RNG mechanic compared to RE, and BT seems pretty lackluster for a DPS because you'd run into huge periods of downtime. Please tell me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure RC > RE. With 2H frost (assuming that still exists in MoP) you could pretty much have 100% uptime on RC due to the absurd amounts of RP you generate.

90 Remorseless Winter does more damage than Desecrated Ground. If there's some add fight where stunning them messes things up you could take DG.


As a tank you'd probably pick up stuff like this, except you'd take Gorefiend's Grasp. Wonder how they will balance tanking if they make you choose between LB/AMZ/BS.

I just noticed that Gorefiend's Grasp (GG, best acronym tbh) doesn't taunt the mobs (might change?). If so then yeah it would be pretty amazing as a DPS (and a bit worse for a tank).

As a tank I wouldn't consider anything but Runic Corruption. BT risks not giving you a DS and RE only gives you half a DE if you juggle it correctly. Tanks don't have nearly as much turnover rate of runic power as either FR or UH and as such the 100% reliability and the fact that it cleanly gives you both U and F runes makes it vastly superior. Provided they don't do something funky and leave DS being our mitigation tool and costing UF, there's never a scenario when you wouldn't prefer Corruption. It's like straight-up raw haste.

Frost works with rune pairs but has the uniqueness that the DD runes fill-in the gaps. Successive RE procs can't -not- give you an OB, as it's impossible to proc any two runes and not be able to obliterate with them. Frost has an incredibly high rate of burn of runic power and the RE procs are not an issue. Blood on the other hand doesn't get nearly as many RE procs over time and has to set everything up specifically to take advantage of them, which is annoying at the best of times as. Corruption on the other hand is smooth and non-intrusive.

Let me summarize my views on the talents
15 Rolling Blood: Could be useful for Blood DK during trash or bosses with adds go get aggro during bosses with adds
Corpse Explosion: Not very useful, if a mob died this quickly, spreading diseases isn't worth it
Outbreak: My skill of choice, slight DPS increase on single target (1 OB per min)
30 Lichborne: Only if a boss fears
Anti-Magic Zone: Perfect raid CD
Bone Shield: If we don't need AMZ
45 Death's Advance: Bosses with slows are rare
Chillblains: Finally we can quickly get it without losing DPS
Asphyxiate: Doesn't sound very appealing, even if a mob needs CC we are taking out as well plus we lose Strangulate
60 Death Pact: Same old
Death Siphon: Costs Death Runes, if a boss requires me to heal myself due to isolation, needs be be checked for actual DPS
Vampiric Blood: My choice, the increased healing does more than the other option could
75 Blood Tap: The cooldown needs adjustment probably not the final number otherwise it falls safely in the "3 DS/FS gives 1 rune" number but due to the nature of activating even a nearly recharged rune it's not worth the hassle even if the 1min CD is lifted completely
Runic Empowerment: again you need roughly 3 stikes to get a free rune 100% but still random
Runic Corruption: My weapon of choice, not only is it not random but increases regeneration of all the runes

This tier needs calculation
90 Gorefiend's Grasp: Doesn't seem to taunt but the application during bosses is rare, even if your tank needs to pull many whelps together they mostly can do that on their own
Remorseless Winter: Direct DPS increase and good during add phases if they aren't immune to stun
Desecrated Ground: In my experience boss CC usually overrides immunity

So, let's assume a "normal" fluffy pillow boss, unless a mechanic forces us to choose otherwise I would go with:
Outbreak, Bones Shield, Chillblains, Vampiric Blood, Runic Corruption, Remorseless Winter
as a default boss setup

Comparative between rank 5 talents (rune regeneration) :

First, I want to mention that I'm well aware about the fact that RC >> RE and BT. The purpose of this post is to formalize it properly in order to be absolutely sure about that fact and (more importantly), to be able to calculate the talents' efficiency as soon as the figures vary during the bêta.
Also, I obviously consider that the CD on BT is a glitch. (Having the 5.0 BT working with 1 min CD makes absolutely no sense, as it will make it so so far behind RC and RE).

I will compare each talent in term of efficiency, but will begin to calculate the efficiency by rune : E = (rune gained) / (RP-ability used). The reason why I calculate this value first, is the trickiness of RC, as you'll see. ^_^

Blood Tap : Each DC / RS /FS gives a Blood Charge. Using BT with 3 charges gives a fully depleted rune.
→ Very easy : E = 1 / 3 (one rune gained for 3 RP-abilities used)

Runic Empowerment : Each FS / RS / DC has 45% chance to give a fully depleted rune.
So 0.45 rune for 1 RP-ability gives :
→ E = 1 / 2.22

Runic Corruption : Each FS / RS / DC increase by 100% rune regeneration for 3 seconds.
This one is tricky. For the sake of having an easy calculation (for now !), let's say the rune regeneration time is 8s. In order to gain the equivalent of one rune, we have to have the RC buff up during 8 seconds (so during this time, a rune that would fully depleted -16 sec cd- would recharge in 8 seconds, ie an equivalent gain of one rune). /!\ Don't forget that we calculate efficiency by rune so I think as RC affecting only ONE depleted rune for the moment.
In order to have RC up for 8 seconds, we should have X procs. X = 8 / 3 = 2.67
→ E = 1 / 2.67

So we can see that by rune, RE > RC. (And as expected, BT is pretty shitty.)
However, it's quite obvious that most of the time, when you DS / RS / FS, you'll have more than 0 or 1 rune recharging. Let's say we have 3 runes recharging when using a RP-ability (seems pretty accurate as an average value) : E' = 3 x 1/2.67 = 1.12 (using one RP-ability gives more than one rune !)

Now basically, we can see that RC >>> other talents. However, this still is a particular case when t = 8s (recharging rune time) and N = 3 (number of runes recharging when DC/FS/RS -ing).


Generalisation :

The aime of this part is to be able to have the theorical tool to immediatly compare BT, RE and RC when the values into the talents will vary (as it will likely happen during the beta phase).

B : blood charge necessary to use BT
R : RE proc chance
C : RC proc chance
Tc : RC buff duration
t : rune recharging time
N : number of rune recharging

At the moment, if the beta would go out with current values, we'd have : B = 3 ; R = 0.45 ; C = 1 ; Tc = 3s.
t depends of your character, and N has to be averaged (imo N = 3 is OK but it's not important for now).

The three efficiencies are :

• BT : E = 1 / B
• RE : E' = R (you can calculate 1/R to write E' = 1 / (1/R) to comparate more easily to the others, as done above)
• RC : E" = (C x Tc x N) / t

How to compare RE and RC :

As they might be the ones in competition, let's see how to compare them. If we consider that N is known (or a value for N is generally known as a good average), we want to know for a value of t (rune recharging time) depending on your gear / gems / enchants, if your character will benefit the most of RE or RC.

We'll then seek t = t', time for which :
E' = E"
<=> 1 / R = t' / (C x Tc x N)
<=> t' = C x Tc x N / R
If t > t' on your character sheet, you'll want to spec RE.
If t < t' on your character sheet, you'll want to spec RC.

Example with current values :
We have :R = 0.45 ; C = 1 ; Tc = 3s.

• t' = 1 x 3 x 1 / 0.45 = 6.67 s, with N = 1
• t' = 1 x 3 x 2 / 0.45 = 13.33 s, with N = 2
• t' = 1 x 3 x 3 / 0.45 = 20 s, with N = 3
• t' = 1 x 3 x 4 / 0.45 = 26.67 s, with N = 4
• t' = 1 x 3 x 5 / 0.45 = 33.33 s, with N = 5
• t' = 1 x 3 x 6 / 0.45 = 40 s, with N = 6

Obviously, unless you consider N = 1 (which doesn't seem realistic at all), RC is by far more efficient than RE.
All the calculation may seem totally unecessary, but keep in mind that when they'll change the values of B, R, C or Tc, we might have a use of this !


Feel free to point out any mistake in the calculation or in the formalisation.

That is not quite correct, I am still looking up the correct formula (haven't used stochastic in a while) and will report back it it diferes greatly

It's modified by haste, it would be nice if you could check if it's usefulness goes up or down with more haste

Don't even try to understand stochastic
Their is a certain formula I'm trying to find to calculate how many tries you need with a set probability to get at least one hit you have to use here. You can't simply use 1/.45=2.22..
As an example: The chance of rolling a 6 with 6 dice is only about 62%

The formula is (p)^n<=X with X=certainty of ONLY MISSES. Let's say you want 95% certainty (100% would give infinite)
which means n=>log(,05)/log(.45) = 3,7166 stikes to get 1 hit 95% of the time
Adjust X as you seem fit

I'm pretty sure you are complicating things for no reason.
The equivalent of what you say with dices would be us looking the chances of "having a RE proc while using 10 FS/DS/RS". But what we're looking are simple probabilities : if we do 1000 FS, we'll have a number of proc close to 450.

And I'm pretty sure that's why the efficiency of RE is actually 0.45 : when you launch one RP-ability, you have 0.45 chance of having a proc, same for the next RP-ability (a launch are independant). In a 10 minutes long fight, you'll have 45% of your RP-ability giving a rune (again : launches are independant).


The bottom line being : I don't want to know what my chance of having ONE RE proc on many rolls is, but just how many RP ability, in average, I have to use to gain one rune.
Edit : In other words "I cast say X rp-abilities, I wanna know with which one I gain the highest amount of runes".

My thoughts:

Tier 1:
We already know that the Demo Shout debuff is gone (and with it, Scarlet Fever). What we don't know is if Frost Fever is still a tanking debuff or not. Either way, Roiling Blood looks best for AoE tanking and Outbreak might be good for single target tanking unless diseases are just threat/damage. Corpse Explosion might be situationally useful for a damage boost here and there, but it is probably not going to end up as the go-to-standard for Blood.

Tier 2:
Frankly, I dislike this tier. A lot. For tanks the choice is obvious: Bone Shield for personal use or AMZ if your raid needs it. Noone is going to spec Lichborne for PvE because it is so much inferior.
Seriously, there is so much wrong with this tier it's not funny. DPS DKs running around with a permanent 20% damage reduction in raids? Check. Every DK having a raid CD? Check.
Additionally, it really, really sucks to lose abilities you already had so Blood tanks are going to lose Lichborne even though they specced back the other talent they lost to begin with (Bone Shield).
But hey, atleast Bone Shield got it's rune cost removed and it only took them one expansion to do it.

Tier 3:
Awesome tier.
Both Asphyxiate and Chillblains are good choices to go with. The latter works as ghetto-stun as well (root a mob, back out - think enraged Shamblers on Lich King) and Chillblains might synergize nicely with Corpse Explosion/Roiling Blood for non-Frost DKs.
Death's Advance is meh for PvE.

Tier 4:
Another stupid tier. Once again there is little choice for Blood. You pick Vampiric Blood which you already had before and try not to get annoyed about losing Death Pact which no spec will pick up. DPS will either go with VB or Death Siphon depending on the damage scaling.
Again, such a pity to lose a situationally cool ability like Death Pact but whatever.

Tier 5:
Runic Corruption wins hands down. Not much else to say here unless Blood Tap loses it's cool down, is off the GCD and can stack infinite charges in combat or something.

Tier 6:
Remorseless Winter is probably going to be prefered add/trash tanking tool for Blood. AoE stun is just yummy.
Desecrated Ground may have uses for bosses that incapacitate your DK as well (though being already a human, probably not that much).
And Gorefiend's Grasp will also be situationally useful.

Another great tier.

So in conclusion I am looking at three tiers that are great (3, 5 and 6), one tier I am indifferent about (1) and two more I absolutely loathe (2 and 4) and the latter all shares a common theme: They make you lose abilities you already had to begin with which leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when speccing for stuff to improve your character. What's the point of stripping away stuff you had just so you can respec it again but in the process lose abilities on top (Lichborne, Death Pact)?
I really don't think the tank CDs should be diluted like that and if you look at the other, non-DK classes they offer DPS good survivability abilities without butchering the respective tank tree to pull it off.

I really hope that these DK tiers were just not as far in development as, say, the Druid ones.

In your comparison of rank 5 Talents you should take into account that Blood tap gives you a death rune which is clearly better than some random rune.

The difference will of course depend on the numbers of the various abilities but for instance as a frost dk a death rune will probably be worth much more than a blood rune (Edit: bad example, see posts below).

So while it is still clearly inferior to RC it might come quite close to RE (of course ignoring the silly 1min cooldown of BT).

Regarding RC there might be situations where you e.g. DC twice in a row for some reason (maybe you are not in melee range) which would slightly reduce the effectiveness of RC (Edit: it actually Stacks, see post below).

Both Points are however hard to evaluate right now.

Frost doesn't have blood runes, their blood runes are per default death runes.

As Acediar said, it's not an issue for Frost DKs.
For Blood, we'll still have the "blood rune trick" which will be even less forgiving as we won't have to maintain BB (so basically, we spend the 2nd blood rune just before or just after the first one is recharged).
For UH DKs, I don't know which one is preferable, if the effeciencies were to be the same. I guess RC due to the fact that it's quite reliable...

RC actually stacks : if you DC (and there's a proc, as it still is a proc on live) while you have X sec remaining on the previous RC buff, you'll gain a RC buff that lasts x + 3 sec. So it's not an issue luckily.