[top]Frost

mendenbarr · 10/19/12, 8:58 PM

Last updated 5/11/13

[top]Frost

[top]Cooldowns and Timmy

Cooldown stacking is a common practice in wow. This means using as many cooldowns at the same time, for the multiplicative gain. For example, if you have 1 cooldown that increases your damage by 10%, and another that increases your damage by 20%, the total increase, if used together, would be 32% (1.1*1.2), instead of the 30% if used separately. For this reason, most people have one button to pop all of their cooldowns, lining them all up, to make them do that much more together, and this is generally a good idea.

However, one cooldown available to death knights has a slightly different set of rules. Our risen ghoul benefits from all of our cooldowns, if we have 20% more strength from pillar, so does he, but he also costs a GCD. The last thing you want to do is "waste" an entire second of the those cooldowns waiting for the GCD used to summon Timmy to end. On top of this, it takes him a few seconds to crawl out of the ground, time in which he should of been benefitting from your cooldowns. For these reasons, it's optimal to use raise ghoul a second or two before popping your cooldown macro.

[top]Trinkets and you

Frost trinkets can be found over in the frost guide, here.

[top]2-hand Frost

[top]Priority 1: Not wasting resources

This means you are always able to generate new resources, and never "capped" on any resources. Frost dks have 5 "resources" to worry about.
All of this section's rules ONLY apply when you're not wasting resources, and at times you'll have to make decisions on which resources to waste, as you won't be able to not waste them all. At these times, waste whatever is worth the least.

[top]Runes

Runes regen over time, without you needing to do anything. The rate changes based off your haste, but what's important is that the regen stops when you are rune capped. The solution to this is to avoid, whenever possible, getting rune capped. Think of dks as having 3 runes, not 6. We have 1 frost, 1 unholy, and 1 death. When a rune is charged 50%, you can spend that 50% on an ability, but the rune continues to recharge. However, when a rune is 100% charged, you have both frost runes up, it stops recharging. To avoid this is simple, always spend runes before they reach 100%.
To spend unholy runes, you generally use Plague strike if the target is missing blood plague, or obliterate if it isn't.
To spend frost runes, you use soul reaper if it's off CD, and the target is sub 35%, and you otherwise use obliterate.
To spend death runes is the same as spending frost runes.

[top]Runic Power

Runic power is generated while using abilities, namely abilities that use up runes, as well as horn of winter. Runic power is capped at 100, and the ability that generates the most is obliterate, giving you 24 runic power. To avoid capping runic, always use it before it reaches 100%. That means don't use obliterate at higher than 76 runic, and don't use any other rune abilities at higher than 88 runic.
To spend runic, use frost strike.

[top]Rime procs

Rime procs are generated using obliterate, and give you a free howling blast. You can hold onto a rime proc as long as you want, assuming you don't wait the entire duration, or use obliterate during it, which has a chance of overwriting the proc. In practice, you rarely, if ever, go the full duration without having a free GCD to use it, so just don't obliterate with rime up.
To spend rime, use howling blast.

[top]Tier 5 talent procs

Your tier 5 talent will proc on using frost strike, and depending on which you choose, you can change your play-style.
RE: Don't use frost strike when you don't have a rune below 50%
RC: Don't use frost strike when you have any rune at 100%
BT: Don't use frost strike when you have 11 or more charges.

[top]Killing Machine procs

Killing Machine procs on melee hits, and is used up by turning your next obliterate or frost strike into a crit. Killing machine is also the interesting proc, because you want to use it up as soon as possible to avoid overriding a proc, but you can't stop meleeing, and you also want to wait to use it on an obliterate instead of a frost strike. In general, it's more important to use up the proc to avoid missing out on the next one, but given the choice between using it on an obliterate or a frost strike, choose obliterate every time.

[top]Mastering rime procs

Rime procs are free damage, and should never be ignored. However, they can be put off. Rime, along with to a lesser degree horn of winter, are the main abilities we use on a regular basis, which do not use up KM procs. This means that we can spam them, HoW and then rime for example, without worrying about wasting a KM proc. However, if we use frost strike after rime or HoW, any procs generated during that GCD will most likely get used up on the frost strike. In addition, while obliterate procs more rime, frost strike doesn't. For this reason, it's normally optimal to wait on a rime proc until you've used up as many of your frost strikes as possible, and then to obliterate soon after. If killing machine procs during the frost strike spamming, with rime up, you want to hit the rime proc, and then obliterate.

[top]Mastering diseases with plague leech

Diseases are invaluable for death knights, especially frost, but not for their damage. Diseases do make obliterate much stronger though, and you should never use obliterate without both diseases up. However, missing blood plague when you frost strike is ok, most of the time. We have two ways of applying diseases (not counting unholy blight, which you can't take at the same time as plague leech), and two ways of losing them. We can apply them with outbreak, on a 1 minute cooldown, or with plague strike and howling blast, each costing a rune. We lose them if they are not reapplied for 30 seconds, or if we use plague leech to turn them into a free rune. However, plague leech is not always optimal.
Once every minute, when outbreak is no longer on cooldown, or is a few seconds from coming up, you can follow a plague leech with outbreak for a free disease refresh and rune. However, if outbreak is on cooldown, the best way to reapply diseases is to try to get a rime proc in the 10 seconds before the diseases falls off. If you do, you want to hold off on using the rime proc until blood plague nearly runs out, use plague leech, reapply frost fever with rime, and then use the free rune on a plague strike, which you would have to of done anyway.

[top]Mastering Symbiosis

On occasion, you will receive an extra ability, not typically present in a death knight's arsenal. This ability is wild mushroom: plague, and at it's core is a longer version of unholy blight with a longer cooldown. Running a 3 minute cooldown, and a 30 second duration, this placeable mushroom sends diseases to everything within 10 yards, and ticks every 3 seconds. At first glance, you can simply use it to avoid the need to plague strike, starting a fight with outbreak, using WM:P when diseases fall off, and then outbreak is up again for the next round. The ticks of the diseases also make it interesting to combine with plague leech. Leech off the first set of diseases for a free rune, and then pop WM:P. 25 seconds later, leech it again, only to have WM:P reapply without you even needing to hit a button. Because of the 3 second ticks, you may need to hold off on an obliterate for up to 3 seconds, but hey, free rune! When that set of diseases runs low, simply go back to your normal diseases spreading abilities until WM:P comes off cooldown. Fun fact, if you manage to D-sim wild mushroom: detonate, you can detonate your disease mushroom! This seems to destroy them and do about ~30k AoE damage around your mushrooms, and isn't that useful.

[top]Mastering Soul Reaper

Soul reaper is a definitive part of all death knight's rotations, and getting the most out of it has it's own special rules. Only worth using after 35% (45% with t15 4-set), soul reaper packs one hell of a punch, doing more damage than an average obliterate for half the runes. Clearly maximizing soul reaper casts is very important, and being able to do that revolves around the cooldown, and the rune cost. If possible, every 6 seconds you want to be casting soul reaper, and that means banking a rune, so that you can cast soul reaper as soon as it comes off the cooldown. The question becomes, if you have enough runes for either a KM obliterate, or a soul reaper, which do you spend the runes on?
Well, if you don't have the t15 4-set, which lets killing machine work on soul reaper, then you still want to use soul reaper as often as possible, so you spend the runes on soul reaper.

With the t15 4-set, soul reaper becomes a whole new ball game. Not only does it cost a single rune, it's still your hardest hitting ability, and now benefits from killing machine, which means whenever possible you want to line up killing machine with soul reaper. However, due to the nature of killing machine and soul reaper, you don't generally want to wait on either, when hoping to pair them. Please check out the swing timer section for more information.

[top]2-hand weapons

Here is a list of how well 2 hand weapons do in 5.1. 5.2 weapons incoming soon. All profile details are listed as a reply to the thread, as well as the profile used.

[top]To wait or not to wait.

Below is the old sections on waiting to increase dps, for reference. They are currently outdated. There has been a lot of discussion recently on whether or not waiting is worth it, and there will always be more discussion, but for the time being I'm convinced it's no longer worth it.
Euliat has provided a very good analysis here.

← Click Here

Priority 2: Getting as many obliterates to crit as possible.
With average values of mastery, obliterate will hit about twice as hard as frost strike. It will also crit twice as hard. For this reason, "wasting" killing machine procs on frost strikes is more harmful to your damage then ever before.
Interestingly, when you are not wasting any resources by using the above methods, and the boss isn't about to die in 5 seconds or less, you actually lose no damage by holding runes, or runic, or procs. If it allows you to increase your crit rate on obliterate, it is a damage gain.

Getting obliterate to crit as often as possible involves sitting on runes. Simply don't spend them unless you are about to lose a resource, via over-capping, or tier 5 talents, or you have killing machine procs.

The oposite treatment for frost strike is to never use frost strike when killing machine is up, even if you have the runic for it. Only use frost strike when you are about to overcap runic, or you don't have killing machine.
Sadly, more often then not killing machine will proc while we're spamming frost strike, and get used up a quarter of a second later. However, most of the time we have free GCDs, and the best way to use these is to spread them out in-between frost strikes. Instead of spamming frost strike when we have 80 runic power, hit it once, and 1.1 seconds later, hit it again. Another 1.1 seconds later, tap it again. You'll almost never use up KM procs prematurely this way, and will have ample time to change to obliterate, should killing machine proc.

Mastering your GCDs
Being able to wait, and still increase damage, requires having the time available. That time is labeled free GCDs by the wow community, and what it means is that during your normal rotation, you're not able to use an ability every second. Let's say you have 30 second "rotation" as a dk, starting when you apply your diseases. During that 30 seconds, you're going to regen each rune 5 times, for 15 runes total. Those 15 runes are going to give you 7 obliterates, or 7 GCDs worth of attacks. Those 7 obliterates net you 168 runic, or 8 frost strikes, and another 8 GCDs. That's 15 GCDs during a 30 seconds period. Sometimes procs will fill up the other 15, sometimes they will not. Waiting requires smart play, the ability to know if you have enough GCDs left to use up all your abilities before you get capped anywhere, and whether or not you can afford to wait, or for how long. You can almost always tap FS instead of spamming it for a gain, unless you are truly GCD capped, which often happens when you get a significant haste buff (sinestra p3) or lust/heroism is up. Knowing if you can afford to wait 3 seconds on an obliterate is a judgment call. If you find yourself over-capping on anything, you're waiting too much, if you find yourself never over-capping, you're waiting a good amount. The longer you can wait, without over-capping, the more skilled you are at this priority.

How long is it worth waiting?
There are two cases where waiting can be a damage gain.
With enough runes to obliterate, but no KM:
Assuming you have not wasted any resources, there is no penalty for waiting. You lose absolutely nothing, no runic overcapping, no T5 procs wasted, no rimes overridden, no km wasted, and no runes stop regening. The ~60k dmg boost from waiting is a 100% gain. Wait as long as you can without wasted resources.

With KM, but not enough runes to obliterate:
The math here was wrong, don't plan on updating since I'm retiring this section of the post, but I will re-do it if waiting ever becomes worthwhile.

[top]Dual-Wield Frost

[top]Priority 1: Not wasting resources

This means you are always able to generate new resources, and never "capped" on any resources. Frost dks have 5 "resources" to worry about.
All of this section's rules ONLY apply when you're not wasting resources, and at times you'll have to make decisions on which resources to waste, as you won't be able to not waste them all. At these times, waste whatever is worth the least.

[top]Runes

Runes regen over time, without you needing to do anything. The rate changes based off your haste, but what's important is that the regen stops when you are rune capped. The solution to this is to avoid, whenever possible, getting rune capped. Think of dks as having 3 runes, not 6. We have 1 frost, 1 unholy, and 1 death. When a rune is charged 50%, you can spend that 50% on an ability, but the rune continues to recharge. However, when a rune is 100% charged, you have both frost runes up, it stops recharging. To avoid this is simple, always spend runes before they reach 100%.
To spend unholy runes, you generally use Plague strike if the target is missing blood plague, or dnd/obliterate if it isn't.
To spend frost runes, you use soul reaper if it's off CD, and the target is sub 35%, and you otherwise use howling blast.
To spend death runes is the same as spending frost runes.

[top]Runic Power

Runic power is generated while using abilities, namely abilities that use up runes, as well as horn of winter. Runic power is capped at 100, and the ability that generates the most is obliterate, giving you 24 runic power. To avoid capping runic, always use it before it reaches 100%. That means don't use obliterate at higher than 76 runic, and don't use any other rune abilities at higher than 88 runic.
To spend runic, use frost strike.

[top]Rime procs

Rime procs are generated using obliterate, and give you a free howling blast. You can hold onto a rime proc as long as you want, assuming you don't wait the entire duration, or use obliterate during it, which has a chance of overwriting the proc. In practice, you rarely, if ever, go the full duration without having a free GCD to use it, so just don't obliterate with rime up.
To spend rime, use howling blast.

[top]Tier 5 talent procs

Your tier 5 talent will proc on using frost strike, and depending on which you choose, you can change your play-style.
RE: Don't use frost strike when you don't have a rune below 50%
RC: Don't use frost strike when you have any rune at 100%
BT: Don't use frost strike when you have 11 or more charges.

[top]Killing Machine procs

Killing Machine procs on melee hits, and is used up by turning your next obliterate or frost strike into a crit. Killing machine is also the interesting proc, because you want to use it up as soon as possible to avoid overriding a proc, but you can't stop meleeing, and you also want to wait to use it on an frost stike instead of an obliterate. In general, it's more important to use up the proc as soon as possible to avoid missing out on the next one, but given the choice between using it on an obliterate or a frost strike, choose frost strike every time.

[top]Mastering unholy runes

In the case of dual wield, even before stacking mastery, 2 howling blasts hit harder than an obliterate, and as such howling blast takes a far more prominent spot in our priority. Unfortunately, while both frost and death runes can be used for said howling blast, unholy runes cannot, often leaving us with 2 ugly green runes to get rid of before we can go back to spamming HB and FS. (single target)
There are three ways to get rid of unholy runes, let's see which is the best.
Death and decay: 63.7k dmg
Plague strike: 31.0k dmg + 162.2k (full duration disease, 16.2k per 3 seconds)
Obliterate: 105.5k dmg +45% chance for free HB = 151.7k dmg
HB: 102.7k dmg

Obviously your best bet is double HBs whenever possible, but let's say you have 1 unholy and 1 frost/death, what should you do?
In order from best to worst:

Using plague strike and HB gives 295.9k dmg IF diseases are about to fall off
Using plague leech, plague strike and two howling blasts gives 236.4k dmg
Using DnD and HB gives 166.4k dmg
Using obliterate gives 151.7k dmg
Using plague strike and HB gives 133.7k dmg
Ignoring the unholy rune and just spending the frost/death on HB gives 102.7k dmg

While it's true you can use plague strike and howling blast at half disease duration and count the 50% refresh as 80k dmg, it prolongs the ability to fully refresh diseases via the top option for 15 seconds, and is therefore not a damage gain. If blood plague is not just about to fall off, count it as if it isn't refreshing at all. This includes times when you use PL to take BP off early.

So, if diseases are about to fall off, plauge leech is off cd, or dnd is off cd, use the above options to remove unholy runes, otherwise just use obliterate if you have to.

Note: Due to DW's current state of being close to GCD locked most of the time, we need to reexamine the way to deal with unholy runes. While the above-mentioned list is accurate in terms of numbers, obliterate is more complicated than it seems. Obliterate has two possibilities, it either does 105.5k in one GCD, or 208.2k dmg in 2 GCDs. While we can average this out easily, as done above, the GCD cost has to be considered. Using DnD/HB does slightly more than obliterate on average, but costs 2 GCDs. Using obliterate over DnD is a gain if you are GCD capped. Depending on luck, you'll either gain free damage with the rime proc, or gain a GCD which will avoid overflowing resources which will be a damage gain. If you are not GCD capped, DnD/HB wins out.

[top]Mastering blood tap

Blood tap micro-management is very interesting, and useful. Whenever you use frost strike, you add 2 blood charges to a bank, and whenever you use blood tap, you trade 5 charges for a death rune. The first step to correct micro-management is to avoid allowing the blood charges to be wasted via over-capping, or letting the charges fall off. This simply means don't use FS when you have 11 or 12 charges, and don't go 30 full seconds without using FS or blood tap. After doing that, it's ideal to find the oppertune moment to use those built up blood taps. I've found two cases where it's worth not using them as soon as you have a free GCD.
Pairing blood taps with unholy runes, when DnD/PL are on CD, and diseases are not about to fall off, allows for very easy management of said unholy runes, and helps to avoid the case of overzealously spamming HB and not having the second rune to pair with the unholy rune.
Saving blood taps for times with your trinket procs are up, or lust, or potions, or burn phases, leads to a damage increase. If you are GCD capped when you have procs up, you're doing it right.

[top]Waiting DW style

The arguments and strategy behind waiting for DW are nice and simple. They are also easy to prove, and are currently in the default simcraft profile. Bank between 20-39 runic when you don't have a KM proc. That's it. Spend all your runes as soon as possible, don't hold on to blood charges (generally, see above), don't bank more than 39 runic, but save enough for one FS in case KM procs.

[top]DW weapons

5.2 list coming soon.
Here is a list of the weapon ranking for DW in 5.1, taking most combinations for normal and heroic kil'raks, as well as heroic scimitars. The first kil'rak always has the legendary 500 strength gem, and all kil'raks have the 160 strength gem in the prismatic socket. Highest weapon dmg always in main-hand. Scimitar is always gemmed with 80 strength and 160 hit.

[top]Unholy

[top]Festerblight in 5.3/5.4

So! Unholy has received a few changes which directly interact with festerblight, and as such we need to reevaluate the benefit of the spec.
Changes:

Festering Strike now deals 175% weapon damage, down from 200%.
Scourge Strike now deals 165% weapons damage, up from 135%.
Unholy Might now increases the Death Knight's Strength by 10%, down from 15%.

What does this mean for festerblight? Let's look at some sim results.

The data:

	Now	5.3
Normal Unholy:
ST	200800	205900
ST AMS	206300	211300
3tar	242700	247700
3tar AMS	249300	254200
Festerblight:
ST	203700	205700
ST TotT	209800	211700
ST AMS	211300	213500
ST AMS TotT	217400	219500

Formatting notes:

All sims used 25k iterations.
All sims were rounded to the nearest 100
All sims were 450 seconds (7.5 mins) in length
All sims used the default unholy T15 profile created by me and viewable under sample profiles in SimC.
ST = Single Target
3tar = Three targets
AMS = AMS soaking incorporated into the sim. I used the default values of 100k damage soaked every 60 seconds with a 5% variance in the interval.
TotT = Tricks of the Trade. Ignoring the 15% damage boost for the 6 second duration of tricks, as it is pretty closely balanced among all classes, this only takes boosted disease damage into account.

Conclusion:
What was once a minor nerf is now a small buff to normal unholy, and festerblight. Unholy gains about 2.5% damage ST, while festerblight gains about 1%. This brings the maximum potential gain from festerblight, or the "skill ceiling" from 5.3% in 5.2, to 3.9% with the UM nerf, and remains 3.9% with the revert of the UM nerf. Vanilla festerblight is still a downright loss, high risk for no reward, while decent AMS soaking brings festerblight up to a 1% gain. Assuming you don't have bad luck, and you have the right trinkets, and the fight allows it. Tricks of the Trade still seems "necessary" to see the gain go from 1% to 3.9%, and that is, with again, perfect conditions, the perfect fight, and perfect luck. SS solidifies it's place over DnD in our single target rotation. Not much to be done about it, and other than no longer using DnD on 1 target, it doesn't change our rotation in the slightest.

3.9% might be enough for some people. In reality, you'll never see that much of a gain, but some of the luckier/better players might come close, and that might give the playstyle continued use.

But wait! There's more!
Festerblight WORKS because of the feather trinket introduced in Throne of Thunder. A trinket that gives 500% of the strength of the darkmoon card, but only lasts 2 seconds, was made for diseases. What happens when we move into the next tier?
There are a few possibilites. One is that there fails to be any trinkets in the next raid that can compare with feather for unholy or festerblight dks. If that is the case, a 549 feather will remain BiS for the rest of the expansion (assuming we only have 1 tier left) Festerblight might still offer a tiny benefit on 1 out of 10 fights for lucky people.
Another possibility is that feather is nerfed next raid patch, similar to what happened to the T14 2-set.
A third option is to make trinkets better than feather.
These two options both have the same result: no more feather. While it's possible they can make a better trinket, I have a lot of doubt it will synergize as perfectly with festerblight as feather did. In any case, I've bumped up good old Relic of Xuen to 540 ilevel in my sims, and replaced feather with it to see how that changes things. This will not be as accurate as my other sims, as I can't begint o guess what types of trinkets will be available (or legendary weapon procs or tier bonuses for that matter) in 5.4, but should do a good job of illustrating the effect of losing feather.
Remember, RoX was an awesome trinket, and this one is 540 ilevel.

ST 541 Normal	194200	199500
ST 541 Festerblight	190300	192300

As soon as feather is gone, festerblight is dead.

Before talking about whether or not this is a problem, we need to ask ourselves does festerblight need to be better than unholy in order to warrant use? In it's short time in the limelight during 5.2, it's grown to be somewhat popular, but the game remains full of specs, some worse and better than others. However, the specs are balanced around being unique and around what I'm calling "niches". For example, in 5.0 and 5.1, DW was the dominant dk spec because it controlled the most niches. Single target damage, AE, burst AE, and free cleave were all dominated by the DW spec. 2-hand frost remained, IMO, easier to play, and therefore still saw significant use. However, unholy had several weaknesses from mechanics (most of which were fixed in 5.2), and didn't really have any niche to excel at, so very few people played it.

This changed with the balance tweaks in 5.2, we see unholy rise to challenge frost with it's fixed mechanics and nice number boost. In my mind, unholy and 2-hand frost remain competitive single target even now, with DW sacrificing a small amount of single target damage to gain still impressive cleave and AE. Enter festerblight, which we have to define not as it's own spec, but as an extension of unholy. DW, 2-hand, and unholy all can be defined as different spec, as they have different playstyles, different gearing, and you need to swap specs outside of combat. Festerblight, on the other hand, is incomplete as a spec of it's own. There is no festerblight AE. There is no outside of combat gear or spec swapping. It's just a variation on how unholy itself operates.

If unholy is "better" than festerblight now, does that mean festerblight is dead? Well many would say unholy is better than frost now, but frost sure as hell isn't dead. However, this leads back into niches. Frost isn't dead because it can still do something unholy can't. DW has more free cleave, more burst AE, and 2-hand has more downright burst, and is arguably easier to play.
This change takes away festerblight's advantage in single target damage. Festerblight has no AE of it's own. So what else does festerblight have, that other specs can't offer?

Festerblight offers the ability to control points of high damage and low damage through SS usage. Festerblight offers a disease centric unholy playstyle the likes of which no other class has ever seen, to my knowledge. Festerblight offers a higher haste window, with more GCDs available, and gets more out of lust, UF, and AMS soaking, as well as haste rating. Is this enough to get people to play it? Not for me.

But that is up for every dk to decide for themselves.

My one regret is that I never got to try it for myself. Curse you Ji-kun! For being covered in feathers but still never dropping any!

[top]Festerblight in 5.2

This section will be out of date soon, but will be kept here in hope that I'm wrong.
As on 5.2, this remains accurate.

Festerblight is a play-style for unholy which differs from the generally accepted one primarily with diseases. Most unholy players apply diseases via outbreak or unholy blight every minute or two, and use festering strike to bridge the 30 second duration with the cooldowns of those two abilities. However, when playing festerblight, you'll keep your most powerful diseases rolling the whole fight by using festering strike more often. Diseases scale with AP, and you'll have the most AP when your cooldowns, trinkets, runeforge, and pot overlap. In some cases, this is worth the loss from the lack of scourge strikes which are caused by the additional festering strikes taking up your runes.

[top]The Opening

By far the most important part of festerblight is applying the maximum strength diseases. Diseases scale with AP, and therefore strength, as well as crit and mastery, to a lesser degree. When you have all of the following buffs up, festerblight is a definite gain over traditional unholy.

Rune of the fallen crusader
Potion of mogu power
Synapse springs (from engineering)
Blood fury (orc racial)
[Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun]
[Brutal Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault]
Tricks of the Trade

You'll want to open with unholy blight, or plague strike, to start your initial set of diseases, and then do the normal unholy rotation. Feather should proc nearly instantly, while you want the VP trinket to take about 5 seconds. When feather reaches 5 stacks, activate any useable AP cooldowns you have, such as eng tinker, or orc racial, and your prepot should still be up. In a perfect world, you want to use outbreak with feather at 10 stacks, and VP trinket still up, but if the VP trinket is about to fall off, apply your outbreak with as little duration still left on the VP trinket, but make sure you don't let it fall off before the outbreak. It's also right around when your shadopan trinket has 6 seconds left that you want to get tricks of the trade from a rogue. Your super diseases are now on the target, and you want to keep them rolling the entire fight.

Festerblight prevents the use of plague leech, because doing so would reset disease damage, and it is therefore suggested you take unholy blight. It is advised that you use an addon to ensure all buffs are up at the first application of diseases.

[top]The Fight

After you've put your diseases up in the opening, festerblight differs from traditional unholy through rune usage. Instead of using death runes on scourge strike, for the middle of the fight, all death runes will instead be used on festering strike to extend disease duration. Even with moderate amounts of haste, it should be possible to get your diseases up to a very high duration. The major exception to this is during anything that could be defined as a burst phase, or a small period of time where doing more damage is important. During those phases, assuming you've built up enough duration on your diseases for the leeway, transition back to traditional unholy play, using scourge strikes on death runes.

[top]The End

Now, clearly finishing a fight with 2 minutes left on diseases would be a huge waste. In a perfect world, you would want to finish the fight just as diseases end. Learning how to do this is best done in practice on bosses, using death runes on scourge strike to reduce the remaining disease duration, and using death runes on festering strike to increase it. The fun part about festerblight is the ability to easily control periods of high damage and low damage, allowing you to focus on diseases during times when you would be expected to hold back your damage, and effectively banking the ability to use death runes on scourge strikes when high damage is needed. Even on fights without "burst" phases, you can control your festering strike usage to do less damage during parts of the fight your group already understands, and do more damage during parts when you're progressing.

[top]When Diseases Fall Off

On occasion, you'll screw up. Perhaps you'll miss-hit outbreak, or let diseases drop too low before a part of the fight where you can't hit the boss, or your trinket won't proc, or you'll even use unholy blight on another mob while the boss is out of range, and the boss will be brought into range and have his diseases reapplied at the lower AP. Whenever this happens, just transition back to traditional unholy play-style for the rest of the fight. A fantastic guide on which can be found here. It is advised that you use an addon to monitor disease damage, so you notice when they are lower than they should be.

[top]Addons

Festerblight management is not overly complicated, it's primarily set and forget diseases. During the opening, addons can be used to monitor buffs, and to ensure every buff is active during initial disease application. I suggest Tell Me When as a buff monitor, but if you have a better experience with another addon, feel free to discuss optimal addons in this thread. After diseases have been set, they require no micro-management other than ensuring they do not drop off. Any DoT manager will work, thought I prefer DDR as a rune addon and disease duration watcher. The last part of festerblight in which an addon may be useful is as a back-up check to ensure that you don't let diseases fall off or get re-applied without noticing. I don't know of any addon designed to do this however, if you know of one either reply to this thread or PM me, but I do know of DKdots, designed to become green when diseases could be reapplied with a higher AP, and yellow when they can be reapplied with the same AP.

[top]Fights where festerblight doesnt work

Festerblight doesn't work for every fight, some prime example would be horridon, where AE and quick target swaps are important, council of elders, which has multiple target changes, and lei shen, as diseases are (most likey) dropped in the intermission. Festerblight should still work for the first target, as long as you time the diseases to fall off when the target is about to die/become unattackable. However, in some cases it just isn't worth using.

[top]Talents

Festerblight compliments unholy blight in tier one, as it allows you to start the first with diseases and still gives all of your procs time to come up before the final application. Plague leech cannot be used with festerblight.
In tier 5, BT and RE are simming within 100 dps of each other, with RC about 1300 behind. Pick your preference.

[top]Trinkets

Anything that gives you temporary strength, ap, mastery, or crit makes festerblight better. It is suggested that you upgrade your trinkets ilevel before anything else.
[Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun] has by far the largest single strength proc available to you. During the last two seconds, the trinket has about 19000 str, compared to 3k and 4k from 5.1 trinkets.
Timing all of your other cooldowns together is essential in making festerblight work. I suggest using the following macro at around 6 stacks of the feather trinket, and saving outbreak or a rune for PS to make sure to apply diseases during that 2 second warning.

#showtooltip blood fury
/cast blood fury
/use 10

[top]Tricks of the Trade

A single tricks of the trade gives an "average" fester-blighting dk about 6k dps from diseases for the entire fight. That's 360k damage every minute, which adds up to 3.6 million damage for a 10 minute fight. That doen't include the bonus damage death knights get from having tricks up during the starting burst, which is an extra ~360k. Rogues bursting at 400k, which is generous, would get 360k out of the tricks of the trade. There is no good reason any class should be getting tricks of the trade over a fester-blighting death knight. But some people are greedy. And those people seem to play rogues. Here are some tips for convincing your rogues if they are stubborn.

Possible solutions:
Confront them straight up and say it gives you 1,000% more damage than it gives them, and tell them they are holding their raid and themselves back by refusing to cooperate. (The direct approach)

Talk to your raid leaders/officers about it. It counts as a legitimate concern for progression's sake, that single tricks means about FOUR MILLION DAMAGE by the end of the fight(if it's a 10 minute fight), point out that it is a large help for both progressing on a new boss, and farming an old one. Your raid leaders/officers are much more likely to be unbiased, and should have the authority to order the rogues to do it, if it comes to that. (the passive aggressive approach)

Offer to trade them an unholy frenzy at the start of every fight. This gives the greedy basterds who only care about their own damage a reason to tricks you. Has the downside that UF gives you more benefit than it does them, but it's a much smaller loss than not having tricks. (the bargaining approach)

Re-roll priest and life-grip the rogues in front of snails and off cliffs and into knockbacks, and onto fire with every single lifegrip you have. They will break long before you do. You can also stand in crap yourself, and void shift when they are at full. (the awesome approach)

Recruit new rogues (the last resort)

[top]Math

This section is for theory-crafters who want to help evaluate the math and benefit behind festerblight. If using simcraft, please make sure you have 520-4 or higher. The concept was originally presented by Deci, and he has helped me by providing numbers and thoughts on the subject. The name comes from Magdalena.

Here is the default simcraft profile used as a baseline to compare festerblight to traditional unholy. It is taken from the default unholy heroic sim, in 535 gear, with the significant alteration of gear, leading to a 1k dps increase over the existing 535 unholy profile.

← Click Here

#!./simc deathknight="Death_Knight_Unholy_T15H" level=90 race=orc role=attack position=back professions=blacksmithing=600/engineering=600 talents=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#db!2...0. spec=unholy # This default action priority list is automatically created based on your character. # It is a attempt to provide you with a action list that is both simple and practicable, # while resulting in a meaningful and good simulation. It may not result in the absolutely highest possible dps. # Feel free to edit, adapt and improve it to your own needs. # SimulationCraft is always looking for updates and improvements to the default action lists. # Executed before combat begins. Accepts non-harmful actions only. actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite actions.precombat+=/food,type=black_pepper_ribs_and_shrimp actions.precombat+=/unholy_presence actions.precombat+=/horn_of_winter actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion actions.precombat+=/blood_fury actions.precombat+=/raise_dead # Executed every time the actor is available. actions=auto_attack actions+=/blood_fury,if=time>=2 actions+=/run_action_list,name=aoe,if=active_enemies>=5 actions+=/run_action_list,name=st,if=active_enemies<5 actions.aoe=plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking|!dot.frost_fever.ticking actions.aoe+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=2 actions.aoe+=/death_coil,if=runic_power>90 actions.aoe+=/blood_boil,if=blood=2|death=2 actions.aoe+=/pestilence,line_cd=25 actions.aoe+=/empower_rune_weapon actions.st=outbreak,if=stat.attack_power>(dot.blood_plague.attack_power+5000)&time>15&!(cooldown.unholy_blight.remains>49) actions.st+=/plague_strike,if=stat.attack_power>(dot.blood_plague.attack_power+5000)&time>15&!(cooldown.unholy_blight.remains>49) actions.st+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.dark_transformation.up&target.time_to_die<=35 actions.st+=/unholy_frenzy,if=time>=4 actions.st+=/use_item,name=gauntlets_of_the_allconsuming_maw,if=time>=4 actions.st+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>10&runic_power>=32 actions.st+=/unholy_blight,if=talent.unholy_blight.enabled&(dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3) actions.st+=/outbreak,if=dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3 actions.st+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45 actions.st+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&(target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&cooldown.soul_reaper.remains=0) actions.st+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking|!dot.frost_fever.ticking actions.st+=/summon_gargoyle actions.st+=/dark_transformation actions.st+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.shadow_infusion.stack=5 actions.st+=/death_coil,if=runic_power>90 actions.st+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=2 actions.st+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&unholy=2&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0 actions.st+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=2 actions.st+=/festering_strike,if=blood=2&frost=2 actions.st+=/death_and_decay actions.st+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0 actions.st+=/death_coil,if=buff.sudden_doom.react|(buff.dark_transformation.down&rune.unholy<=1) actions.st+=/scourge_strike actions.st+=/plague_leech,if=talent.plague_leech.enabled&cooldown.outbreak.remains<1 actions.st+=/festering_strike actions.st+=/horn_of_winter actions.st+=/death_coil,if=buff.dark_transformation.down|(cooldown.summon_gargoyle.remains>8&buff.dark_transformation.remains>8) actions.st+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>=8 actions.st+=/empower_rune_weapon head=crown_of_the_golden_golem,id=96522,gems=capacitive_primal_80str_160haste_180str neck=amulet_of_the_primal_turtle,id=96429,gems=160str,reforge=hit_haste shoulders=pauldrons_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96573,gems=160str_80str_160haste_120crit,enchant=200str_100crit,reforge=exp_haste back=yellow_dawn_lightningcloak,id=95017,gems=80str_160haste_60haste,enchant=180crit chest=breastplate_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96569,gems=160str_160str_160str_180str,enchant=80all,reforge=exp_crit wrists=caustic_spike_bracers,id=96476,suffix=340,gems=80str_160haste_160str_60str,enchant=180str hands=gauntlets_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96570,gems=160str_160str_60str,enchant=170str,addon=synapse_springs_mark_ii,reforge=hit_haste waist=cloudbreaker_greatbelt,id=96373,gems=80str_160haste_160str_160str_120crit,reforge=mastery_crit legs=greaves_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96572,gems=80str_160haste_80str_160hit_120str,enchant=285str_165crit,reforge=mastery_haste feet=sabatons_of_the_superior_being,id=95012,gems=80str_160haste_80str_160hit_120str,enchant=140mastery,reforge=exp_haste finger1=radens_ruinous_ring,id=95022,gems=80str_160hit_60str,reforge=exp_crit finger2=band_of_the_scaled_tyrant,id=96500,gems=160str_60haste,reforge=hit_crit trinket1=brutal_talisman_of_the_shadopan_assault,id=94508,reforge=exp_haste trinket2=fabled_feather_of_jikun,id=96470,reforge=hit_haste main_hand=greatsword_of_frozen_hells,id=96619,gems=80str_160haste_160str_60str,enchant=rune_of_the_fallen_crusader

Result is 186676 dps for the following specifications:
10k iterations, 450 duration, 20% duration variance, optimal raid, patchwerk style fight, 1 target.

Here is the profile which is my first draft of mimicking festerblight. What I've attempted to do here was to get the sim to use FeS with every death rune, until the disease duration was only 55 seconds below the remaining length of the fight, after-which it switches back to the normal unholy rotation. SS use dropped from 127 to 71, while FeS increased from 38 to 71. Average BP dmg went from 24k to 34k, and FF from 16k to 23k. This yields a clear 700 dps increase, in 509 gear, and including the t14 2set. On 40% of fights, the sim feels the need to use UB a second time, indicating it let diseases fall off. However, it doesn't drop disease damage much from what would be expected if they ran the whole fight, so I'm guessing it drops near the end when it does drop. In practice, and perhaps with more optimal sim usage, the gain is likely higher. Prior to 510-10, FeS refreshed disease damage in the sim, making this impossible to sim correctly. Luckily, the simcraft team quickly responded to my issue, and fixed it.
Notes taken during creation of profile:
Swapped UB and outbreak
Swapped talents to UB/RC
Added conditional to the following abilities to only use unholy runes: soul reaper, death and decay, scourge strike.
Added a second run of the following abilities, right below the first, soul reaper, death and decay, scourge strike, and set it to use them whenever the disease duration was longer than the fight duration.
Added targettimetodie a -55 sec
Set it to RE

← Click Here

#!./simc deathknight="Death_Knight_Unholy_T14H_diseases" level=90 race=orc spec=unholy role=attack position=back professions=enchanting=600/engineering=600 talents=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#db!2...1. actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite actions.precombat+=/food,type=black_pepper_ribs_and_shrimp actions.precombat+=/unholy_presence actions.precombat+=/horn_of_winter actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion actions.precombat+=/blood_fury actions.precombat+=/raise_dead actions=auto_attack actions+=/blood_fury,if=time>=2 actions+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.dark_transformation.up&target.time_to_die<=35 actions+=/unholy_frenzy,if=time>=4 actions+=/use_item,name=gauntlets_of_the_lost_catacomb,if=time>=4 actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>10&runic_power>=32 actions+=/unholy_blight,if=talent.unholy_blight.enabled&(dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3) actions+=/outbreak,if=dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3 actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35&unholy=1 actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35&(dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die-55)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die-55)) actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&(target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35&cooldown.soul_reaper.remains=0) actions+=/icy_touch,if=!dot.frost_fever.ticking actions+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking actions+=/summon_gargoyle actions+=/dark_transformation actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.shadow_infusion.stack=5 actions+=/death_coil,if=runic_power>90 actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=2 actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&unholy=2&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0 actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=2 actions+=/festering_strike,if=blood=2&frost=2 actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=1 actions+=/death_and_decay,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die-55)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die-55) actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0 actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.sudden_doom.react|(buff.dark_transformation.down&rune.unholy<=1) actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=1 actions+=/scourge_strike,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die-55)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die-55) actions+=/plague_leech,if=talent.plague_leech.enabled&cooldown.outbreak.remains<1 actions+=/festering_strike actions+=/horn_of_winter actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.dark_transformation.down|(cooldown.summon_gargoyle.remains>8&buff.dark_transformation.remains>8) actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>=8 actions+=/empower_rune_weapon head=helmet_of_the_lost_catacomb,id=86915,gems=reverberating_primal_80str_160hit_180str,reforge=hit_crit neck=shackle_of_eversparks,id=90508,reforge=hit_crit shoulders=shoulderpads_of_misshapen_life,id=86986,gems=160str_60str,enchant=200str_100crit,reforge=mastery_haste back=hiseks_chrysanthemum_cape,id=86945,enchant=180crit,reforge=haste_crit chest=breastplate_of_the_lost_catacomb,id=86913,gems=80str_160crit_80str_160crit_120crit,enchant=80all wrists=bracers_of_defiled_earth,id=90506,enchant=180str,reforge=hit_haste hands=gauntlets_of_the_lost_catacomb,id=86914,enchant=170str,addon=synapse_springs_mark_ii waist=waistplate_of_overwhelming_assault,id=86955,gems=80str_160crit_80str_160hit_160str_120haste,reforge=mastery_crit legs=greaves_of_the_lost_catacomb,id=86916,gems=160str_60str,enchant=285str_165crit,reforge=mastery_crit feet=impaling_treads,id=86979,gems=80str_160crit_60hit,enchant=175haste,reforge=hit_crit finger1=ring_of_the_bladed_tempest,id=86957,enchant=160str finger2=dread_shadow_ring,id=87158,enchant=160str,reforge=hit_haste trinket1=lei_shens_final_orders,id=87072 trinket2=relic_of_xuen,id=79327 main_hand=shinka_execution_of_dominion,id=87176,gems=500str,enchant=rune_of_the_fallen_crusader

Here is my latest profile modeling festerblight, using the same gear setup as the baseline profile linked.
Notes: Changed disease duration being 55 seconds shorter than the fight to being half the length of the fight for the conditional for swapping over to normal unholy. Added trinket conditionals to get the sim to apply diseases at the best time.

← Click Here

#!./simc deathknight="Death_Knight_Unholy_FB_T15H" level=90 race=orc role=attack position=back professions=blacksmithing=600/engineering=600 talents=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#db!2...0. spec=unholy actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite actions.precombat+=/food,type=black_pepper_ribs_and_shrimp actions.precombat+=/unholy_presence actions.precombat+=/horn_of_winter actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion actions.precombat+=/raise_dead actions=auto_attack actions+=/blood_fury,if=time>=6 actions+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.dark_transformation.up&target.time_to_die<=35 actions+=/unholy_frenzy,if=time>=4 actions+=/use_item,name=gauntlets_of_the_allconsuming_maw,if=time>=11 actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>10&runic_power>=32 actions+=/unholy_blight,if=talent.unholy_blight.enabled&(dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3) actions+=/outbreak,if=dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3 actions+=/outbreak,if=buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack=10|(buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack>=7&buff.brutal_talisman_of_the_shadopan_assault.remains<2),line_cd=540 actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&unholy=1 actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&(dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)) actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&(target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&cooldown.soul_reaper.remains=0) actions+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking|!dot.frost_fever.ticking actions+=/summon_gargoyle actions+=/dark_transformation actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.shadow_infusion.stack=5 actions+=/death_coil,if=runic_power>80 actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=2 actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=2 actions+=/festering_strike,if=blood=2&frost=2 actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=1 actions+=/death_and_decay,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2) actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.sudden_doom.react|(buff.dark_transformation.down&rune.unholy<=1) actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=1 actions+=/scourge_strike,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2) actions+=/plague_leech,if=talent.plague_leech.enabled&cooldown.outbreak.remains<1 actions+=/festering_strike actions+=/horn_of_winter actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.dark_transformation.down|(cooldown.summon_gargoyle.remains>8&buff.dark_transformation.remains>8) actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>=8 actions+=/empower_rune_weapon head=crown_of_the_golden_golem,id=96522,gems=capacitive_primal_80str_160haste_180str neck=amulet_of_the_primal_turtle,id=96429,gems=160str,reforge=hit_haste shoulders=pauldrons_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96573,gems=160str_80str_160haste_120crit,enchant=200str_100crit,reforge=exp_haste back=yellow_dawn_lightningcloak,id=95017,gems=80str_160haste_60haste,enchant=180crit chest=breastplate_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96569,gems=160str_160str_160str_180str,enchant=80all,reforge=exp_crit wrists=caustic_spike_bracers,id=96476,suffix=340,gems=80str_160haste_160str_60str,enchant=180str hands=gauntlets_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96570,gems=160str_160str_60str,enchant=170str,addon=synapse_springs_mark_ii,reforge=hit_haste waist=cloudbreaker_greatbelt,id=96373,gems=80str_160haste_160str_160str_120crit,reforge=mastery_crit legs=greaves_of_the_allconsuming_maw,id=96572,gems=80str_160haste_80str_160hit_120str,enchant=285str_165crit,reforge=mastery_haste feet=sabatons_of_the_superior_being,id=95012,gems=80str_160haste_80str_160hit_120str,enchant=140mastery,reforge=exp_haste finger1=radens_ruinous_ring,id=95022,gems=80str_160hit_60str,reforge=exp_crit finger2=band_of_the_scaled_tyrant,id=96500,gems=160str_60haste,reforge=hit_crit trinket1=brutal_talisman_of_the_shadopan_assault,id=94508,reforge=exp_haste trinket2=fabled_feather_of_jikun,id=96470,reforge=hit_haste main_hand=greatsword_of_frozen_hells,id=96619,gems=80str_160haste_160str_60str,enchant=rune_of_the_fallen_crusader

Result is 194421 dps for the following specifications:
10k iterations, 450 duration, 20% duration variance, optimal raid, patchwerk style fight, 1 target.

75166.333 average BP damage
53218.873 average FF damage
128385.206 total average disease damage
42795.06866666666667 disease dps.
6419.2603 overall disease damage boost from tricks of the trade + 450k damage from starting 6 seconds with it on.
200840 dps with tricks disease damage
201840 dps total.

[top]Trinkets and you: Part 2

Traditional unholy trinket combo rankings:
All trinkets used 535 ilevel gear, with T15 4-set, and 9731 haste (not including haste added if using spark or LSFO); 10k iterations. Profile used posted as a reply. Spoilers due to the large size of the list.
Please note in the case of feather and shadopan, for every hit or expertise point you are over the cap because of them, the ranking goes down by about 2 dps.

Suggested ranking: HFeather > Feather > HRage > LFRFeather > HSpark > Rage > Shadopan > Spark > HGaze > LFRRage > Gaze > LFRSpark > HLSFO2 > HDMV2 > HLSFO > Relic2 > LFRGaze > HDMV > Relic

← Click Here

194908 0.7% HRage/HFeather
193688 0.7% HSpark/HFeather
192763 0.7% Feather/HRage
192730 0.7% Rage/HFeather
191799 0.7% HGaze/HFeather
191550 0.7% Spark/HFeather
191547 0.7% Feather/HSpark
191212 0.7% Shadopan/HFeather
190397 0.7% Rage/Feather
189978 0.7% Gaze/HFeather
189696 0.7% LFRRage/HFeather
189669 0.7% Feather/HGaze
189522 0.7% Spark/Feather
188997 0.7% Feather/Shadopan
188878 0.7% LFRSpark/HFeather
188724 0.7% HFeather/HLSFO2
188707 0.7% HFeather/HDMV2
188317 0.7% LFRFeather/HRage
188012 0.7% HSpark/HRage
187831 0.7% Gaze/Feather
187749 0.7% HFeather/HLSFO
187736 0.7% HFeather/HDMV
187582 0.7% LFRGaze/HFeather
187482 0.7% Feather/LFRRage
187132 0.7% HFeather/Relic2
187119 0.7% LFRFeather/Hspark
186675 0.7% Feather/LFRSpark
186616 0.7% Feather/HLSFO2
186598 0.7% Feather/HDMV2
186239 0.7% HFeather/Relic
186133 0.7% Rage/LFRFeather
185841 0.7% Spark/HRage
185763 0.7% Rage/HSpark
185634 0.7% Feather/HDMV
185615 0.7% Feather/HLSFO
185508 0.7% Feather/LFRGaze
185387 0.7% HRage/HGaze
185203 0.7% Shadopan/HRage
185169 0.7% LFRFeather/HGaze
185120 0.7% Spark/LFRFeather
184997 0.7% Feather/Relic2
184850 0.7% Shadopan/LFRFeather
184381 0.6% HSpark/HGaze
184218 0.6% Feather/Relic
183938 0.6% Shadopan/HSpark
183769 0.6% Spark/Rage
183610 0.6% Gaze/HRage
183490 0.6% Gaze/LFRFeather
183300 0.6% LFRRage/LFRFeather
183154 0.6% Rage/HGaze
182993 0.6% LFRSpark/HRage
182971 0.6% Rage/Shadopan
182920 0.6% LFRRage/HSpark
182606 0.6% HRage/HLSFO2
182599 0.6% Gaze/HSpark
182545 0.6% HRage/HDMV2
182367 0.6% Shadopan/HGaze
182363 0.6% LFRSpark/LFRFeather
182318 0.6% LFRFeather/HLSFO2
182254 0.6% Spark/HGaze
182141 0.6% LFRFeather/HDMV2
181917 0.6% Spark/Shadopan
181746 0.6% HRage/HDMV
181633 0.6% HRage/HLSFO
181326 0.6% Rage/Gaze
181262 0.6% LFRFeather/HDMV
181244 0.6% LFRFeather/HLSFO
181179 0.6% LFRGaze/HRage
181128 0.6% LFRGaze/LFRFeather
181113 0.6% HSpark/HLSFO2
181043 0.6% HRage/Relic2
180967 0.6% HSpark/HDMV2
180910 0.6% Rage/LFRSpark
180874 0.6% Spark/LFRRage
180864 0.6% LFRFeather/Relic2
180550 0.6% Gaze/Shadopan
180485 0.6% Spark/Gaze
180463 0.6% Rage/HLSFO2
180394 0.6% Rage/HDMV2
180293 0.6% LFRGaze/HSpark
180191 0.6% LFRRage/HGaze
180156 0.6% HSpark/HDMV
180147 0.6% HSpark/HLSFO
180127 0.6% LFRFeather/Relic
180111 0.6% HRage/Relic
180097 0.6% HSpark/Relic2
180096 0.6% Shadopan/LFRRage
179594 0.6% Rage/HLSFO
179474 0.6% Rage/HDMV
179299 0.6% HSpark/Relic
179261 0.6% LFRSpark/HGaze
179200 0.6% HGaze/HLSFO2
179139 0.6% Shadopan/HLSFO2
179090 0.6% Shadopan/HDMV2
179078 0.6% Spark/HLSFO2
179001 0.6% Shadopan/LFRSpark
178931 0.6% Rage/LFRGaze
178852 0.6% HGaze/HDMV2
178846 0.6% Spark/HDMV2
178828 0.6% Rage/Relic2
178412 0.6% Gaze/LFRRage
178234 0.6% Shadopan/HDMV
178200 0.6% HGaze/HLSFO
178174 0.6% Shadopan/LFRGaze
178172 0.6% Shadopan/HLSFO
178164 0.6% Spark/HLSFO
178158 0.6% Spark/LFRGaze
178055 0.6% Spark/HDMV
178037 0.6% Rage/Relic
178013 0.6% Spark/Relic2
178009 0.6% LFRSpark/LFRRage
177964 0.6% HGaze/HDMV
177898 0.6% Shadopan/Relic2
177764 0.6% HGaze/Relic2
177630 0.6% LFRRage/HLSFO2
177515 0.6% Gaze/LFRSpark
177450 0.6% LFRRage/HDMV2
177379 0.6% Gaze/HLSFO2
177180 0.6% Shadopan/Relic
177178 0.6% Spark/Relic
177062 0.6% Gaze/HDMV2
177000 0.6% HGaze/Relic
176687 0.6% LFRRage/HLSFO
176618 0.6% LFRRage/HDMV
176394 0.6% Gaze/HLSFO
176260 0.6% LFRSpark/HLSFO2
176196 0.6% Gaze/HDMV
176159 0.6% Gaze/Relic2
176133 0.6% LFRRage/LFRGaze
176079 0.6% LFRSpark/HDMV2
176069 0.6% LFRRage/Relic2
175605 0.6% HLSFO2/HDMV2
175385 0.6% LFRRage/Relic
175378 0.6% LFRSpark/HLSFO
175235 0.6% LFRSpark/LFRGaze
175223 0.6% LFRSpark/Relic2
175194 0.6% LFRSpark/HDMV
175188 0.6% Gaze/Relic
175141 0.6% LFRGaze/HLSFO2
175131 0.6% Relic2/HLSFO2
174779 0.6% HLSFO2/HDMV
174753 0.6% HLSFO/HDMV2
174727 0.6% LFRGaze/HDMV2
174591 0.6% Relic2/HDMV2
174359 0.6% LFRSpark/Relic
174275 0.6% Relic/HLSFO2
174141 0.6% Relic2/HLSFO
174103 0.6% LFRGaze/HLSFO
173889 0.6% HLSFO/HDMV
173841 0.6% LFRGaze/HDMV
173828 0.6% LFRGaze/Relic2
173825 0.6% Relic2/HDMV
173790 0.6% Relic/HDMV2
173367 0.6% Relic/HLSFO
172988 0.6% LFRGaze/Relic
172933 0.6% Relic/HDMV
152738 0.5% Death_Knight_Unholy_T15H

[top]Encounter specific tips, tricks, talents, and glyphs

Feel free to discuss more tricks in the thread, and I will update the OP. Please test any that are untested, should you get the opportunity, and report your findings back. Trying to gather info for 5.2! Submit your tips and tricks!

[top]Throne of Thunder

[top]Jinrokh the Breaker

Stand at max melee range, to spend as much time in conductive water as possible.
AMS soaking perfect during lighting storm, and in electrified water if there isn't a conductive up.
AMS can be used to ignore ionization on heroic, use it right before ionization comes out to avoid the debuff, but DO NOT use it after ionization, as it will dispel you. The timer on ionization seems to be about 1:33 seconds, so it's possible to use AMS about halfway through lighting storm as well, but it's very tight.
AMZ very good on a stacked raid, to take a major portion of static burst or focused lightning. I found the best timing to be the first focused lightning after the first pool came out.

[top]Horridon

Army after the 4th door is destroyed so they benefit from 200% increased damage. On heroic, you can army on the pull and it should be up again a second time when he's taking 200% more damage.
Stone gaze can be broken with IBF/DesG.
You can AMS soak the sand traps (yellow pools, 1st door), venom bolt volley (cast, 2nd door), living posions (green pool, 2nd door), frozen orbs (3rd door), and lighting nova totem (4th door).
You can gorefiend's grasp and stun(asphyxiate, remorseless winter) the "little" adds. Little adds seem to be any add coming out of the door, big adds seem to jump down from the top, and cannot be gripped or slowed or stunned.

[top]Council of Elders

AMS during overload will make FS give back more runic then it consumes.
Saving runes and cds for sandstorm adds will skyrocket your damage.
Loa spirits can be gripped and stunned/rooted/slowed.

[top]Tortos

Glyphed IBF will stop half of the quaking stomps from stunning you, as well as reduce the damage they deal.
You can use AMS for Rockfall for tons of RP. -Submitted by Usbeorn
Chilblains slows the turtles and bats.

[top]Megaera

AMS clears the Cinders spell effect, as well as giving you a hefty amount of RP
AMS soaking Acid Rain/Acid Bombs = free RP
AMS allows you to run through frost patches and take no damage and get free RP
AMZ is a ok but trivial way to prevent some raid damage from Rampages.

-Submitted by Nag
AMS during rampage gives pretty much infinite runic for 5 seconds.
Little adds can be gorefiended, remorseless wintered, and get AE interrupted by frag bomb.
Stun from little adds can be broken by IBF/DesG, or dispelled.

[top]Ji-Kun

Feed pools and flying food can be AMS soaked.
Death's advance makes down draft easier to deal with, while glyph of pillar of frost makes you immune to the pushback. The closer you are to the boss, the less pushback there is.
In some cases, you can go from one platform to another without using a feather, all you need is goblin glider.
Flying directly above the boss during feed young should give you the 100% damage buff 100% of the time.

"When using a feather, your summoned ghoul vanishes. If you land on the ground before the feather expires, your pet is not automatically resummoned and you have to blow the 2 min cd to bring it back. If you stay up in the air until it expires and fall naturally, your pet will be automatically resummoned. Note: This applies to Unholy's perma-ghoul, but I do not know how it affects Frost's ghoul nor Army of the Dead." -Submitted by Usbeorn

Ji-kun sounds suspiciously like chicken.

[top]Durumu the Forgotten

All light spectrums can be AMS soaked while standing in them for medium runic.
AMS seems to make you immune to drain life during it's duration.
Pillar of frost makes you immune to force of will/goblin glider will save you (untested)

[top]Primordius

Best way to avoid stepping on puddles when you are mutated is to stand between the boss and the wall.
Army is suggested for add damage, as they do 75% to the boss regardless of whether or not you are mutated (unconfirmed, might not be true, need more testing on this one)

[top]Dark Animus

AMS prevents damage from Massive Anima Golem's Explosive slam and the application of the debuff. -Submitted by Deathstapa
AMS for the Matter Swag is nice. You can be instantly dispelled, your team-mate take minimal damage & you generate 100 RP. - Submitted by Tohji
The best way to use AMS for DPS is on CD, for soaking Anima Font and Jolt! - Submitted by Tohji

[top]Iron Qon

AMS prevents scorched from being applied, and negates most of the damage from unleashed flame.
As expected, IBD/DesG breaks stuns.
Death's advance negates most of the movement part of frozen blood.
DesG removes frozen blood. - Submitted by Tohji
IBF removes Frozen Blood too! - Submitted by Tohji

[top]Twin Consorts

AMSing in fire trial gives runic.

[top]Lei Shen

You can ams every thunderstruck in p1, and every second thunderstruck in p2.
You can gorefiend's grip the adds, but the balls spread out again quickly.
AMZ negates thunderstruck for the melee ground.
AMZ also amazing on static shock during transition.
Death's advance helps to counter the wind in p3.

[top]Ra-Den

[top]Old Raids

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Mogushan Vaults

The Stone Guard
Having Death's advance makes you less susceptible to the petrification slow than other players, and activating it makes you move at 100%, regardless of how many stacks of petrification are out.
AMZ can absorb an overload quite nicely for the raid.
AMS absorbs the boatload of azure mines, and makes you immune to the root.

Feng the Accursed
Gorefiend's grasp is fantastic for stacking the adds during the shield phase, and moving them further away from the shield. I prefer using it as soon as the adds spawn, standing 10 yards away, and targeting myself.
You can also single deathgrip any adds about to run into the shield.
Chilblains can be used to slow the shield phase adds.

Garajal the Spiritbinder
Remorseless winter allows you AoE stun the adds in the spirit realm.
Death pact is very good for burst healing when you have a voodoo doll, or are in the spirit realm.
Glyph of dark succor constantly procs, giving not only exceptional, free self heals, but death strike also does decent damage for free.
Using army after the boss is pulled, resetting the boss by running him out of his room, and pulling shortly after he re-spawns allows you to have double the army ghouls up for a short time. Unlikey to be put up with during progression, but might be fun for parsing. (untested)

The Spirit Kings
Gorefiend's grasp allows you to stack the raid during maddening shout, allowing the group to avoid stacking beforehand.
You can use dark simulacrum on raid members during maddening shout. I suggest asking for a mages armor (1 min of 5% crit or 3k mastery), a warlock's darksoul, or a warlock's doom-guard. Fun fact, if you have symbiosis from a druid, and manage to Dsim wild mushroom: detonate, you can detonate your disease mushroom!
Glyph of Dsim makes the above even better.
Avoid using howling blast during maddening shout.
Icebound fortitude will remove the pinning arrow in the rare event you get hit.

Elegon
Glyph of pestilence allows your diseases, when spread from the boss, to hit all 6 orbs during p2.
AMZ is a nice raid CD during the final burn phase.
By pooling runes, and KM procs, death knights are one of the best classes for killing orbs.
AMZ should be able to absorb total annihilation outside for the entire group (untested)
Army does the most damage if used during the end of the second p3, before the transition to the final burn.

Will of the Emperor
Gorefiend's grasp can group the rages together quite nicely, they can also be deathgriped.
Line up your cooldowns with titan gas (irrelevant in heroic)
Chilblains works on both the rages and the courages, and can slow a courage before it puts it's shield up, if timed right.
Army as soon as the bosses come up.

Heart of Fear

Imperial Vizier Zorlok
Dark simulacrum works on raid members affected by convert.
AMS prevents the damage and silence from the gas in the center of the room.
Gorefiend's grasp can grip together converted people, and makes breaking them out much easier.
Army at the end of p1, around 41-40%

Blade Lord Tayak
Purgatory cuts down on gibs from unseen strike.
Glyph of shifting presences, makes switching to blood presence during the tornado run at 20%, and 10% even easier to survive, and all but removes the already slight runic loss.

Garalon
Using HB on the body hits front legs
AMS makes you unable to receive pheromones, and unable to pass it on. Use it right after receiving pheromones to stay alive.
IBF does NOT break the crush knockback, nor does PoF make you immune to it.

Wind Lord Meljarak
Both desecrated ground and icebound fortitude break the amber on you. Simply run 5 feet outside the melee, pop one, and run back in.
AMS may prevent the application of amber (untested)
Army is best used right before killing the first set of adds on heroic.
Death grip helps to postion the adds your raid plans to CC.

Amber-Shaper Unsok
Dark simulacrum can be used on amber constructs shortly before they break out, and remains with the player after they are broken out, allowing you to copy spells. I once again suggest going for mage armor, or warlock cooldowns, but it's normally worth trying your luck with whomever becomes a construct.
Glyph of Dsim makes the above better.
AMZ is great for absorbing an entire explosion, from either a free add or the monstrosity.
Army is best used at the start of p3/end of p2/ or even the start of p2. Not during p1.

Grand Empress Shekzeer
Chilblains slows the windblades.
Remorseless winter is a very effective stun to prolong the life of the trap, after you've trapped a reaver.
Lichborne breaks both fears in the final phase, and AMS prevents the application of fear. You can stay in the group and pop AMS with visions of demise.

Terrace of the Endless Spring

Protectors of the Endless
The lightning stun can be broken with IBF and Desecrated ground, as well as AMS. Use them before the stun starts to avoid the aoe DoT altogether.
Dsim can be used on lighting bolt every 30 seconds for a small gain, but not on water bolt.

Tsulong
The adds during the day can be both deathgripped and gorefiend's grasped.
AMS prevents the fear if used preemptively, and lichborne and desecrated ground both break it.
AMS absorbs the majority of terrorize, and can save your life if you don't get a dispell.
Glyph of unholy command procs constantly, allowing you to grip many more adds then you would be able to without the glyph.
Gorefiend's grasp can grip every unstable, if used when they are very close to the boss. This, combined with an aoe stun from a warrior or lock, makes aoeing them down easy.
Glyph of death grip is useful for gripping.
Death grip is very useful for positioning the big add in front of the boss.

Lei Shi
During get away, glyph of pillar of frost's root prevents you from being sent back, and the lack of overall movement during the fight makes the root nearly unnoticeable when get away is not being cast.
The adds can be moved away from the tanks, possibly saving them, with both gorefiend's grasp and death grip. Glyph death grip to not taunt though, or the adds will kill you instead.
Army CAN be used to mostly control an add phase, make sure it's unglyhed and check with your group.
Army, if not being used to control adds, is an awesome damage boost on heroic, ideally used after your group has 10-20+ stacks, and during a hide.

Sha of Fear
Lichborne/desecrated ground breaks both the breath of fear and the dread spray on the platform, while ams prevents them from being applied.
Orbs on the platform double your rune regen for their duration, which is about 7 seconds.
Adds in p2 can be slowed by chilblains.
Huddle cannot be broken by AMS, IBF, or DesG, but it can be broken with a pvp trinket, although one isn't suggested for the encounter.

[top]DK news reference

03/13/13

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Summary:
We added a bit of cheating in the player’s favor to avoid long streaks of bad luck. This change is now live.

Longer explanation:
Traditionally, trinkets and similar proc effects in the game had high proc chances with an internal cooldown (ICD). This made the procs random in theory, but really pretty predictable. You would know that a trinket would proc on the pull and then reliably every 45 sec (or whatever the ICD was).

For 5.2, we made a change to trinkets to make them less predictable and less boring with the RPPM system. Sometimes you can get lucky and get several back to back procs. This feels cool. Sometimes you can also be unlucky, and get long streaks when the trinket just refuses to proc. A trinket that is intended to proc every 1 minute could in theory go 8 minutes or more without activating.

Last night we hotfixed in a change for trinkets that use the RPPM system. Every time your trinket fails to proc, it increases the chance it will proc. Unlucky streaks will be more rare and extremely unlucky streaks should never happen. In addition, we increased the chance for these trinkets to proc on the pull. To top it off, we increased the proc rates of the Agility and Strength trinkets in Throne of Thunder by 10% and the Intellect and Spirit trinkets by 5%.

Painfully detailed explanation for theorycrafting:
As usual, you absolutely do not need to know or understand the following in order to use or best take advantage of these procs. This info is just for theorycrafters who want to understand the exact details of the system, so that they can model and simulate it better.

Calculate the proc frequency as normal. Based on that, you can figure out the expected average proc interval. We also now keep track of time since the last successful proc (this is different from the time since last chance to proc), capped at 1000 sec. Multiply the proc chance by MAX(1, 1+((TimeSinceLastSuccessfulProc/AverageProcInterval)-1.5)*3). For example, if a proc has an average proc interval of 45 sec, and it’s been 72 sec since your last successful proc, you’ll get a 1.3x multiplier to your proc chance. If you’ve been out of combat for a few min, and it’s been 5 min since your last successful proc, you’ll get a whopping 16.5x multiplier to your proc chance.

We increased the proc rate of the following trinkets by 10%:
• Renataki’s Soul Charm
• Talisman of Bloodlust
• Bad Juju
• Rune of Re-Origination
• Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun
• Primordius’ Talisman of Rage
• Spark of Zandalar
• Gaze of the Twins

Source: Real Proc Per Minute (RPPM) Trinket Changes - Forums - World of Warcraft

03/12/13

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03/05/13

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03/04/13

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RealPPM Functionality Changes
We changed RealPPM to use your true melee haste or spell haste (whichever is higher) to scale the proc rate instead of attack speed or casting speed. The difference is that things that buff your attack speed (such as the raid buff or Slice and Dice) do not increase the frequency of RPPM procs. True haste boosts, such as Bloodlust or haste rating on gear will improve proc rate. We felt this change was necessary to balance proc rates among different specs.

Strength DPS
- Brutal Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault - 15% chance on landing harmful abilities and spells, and melee/ranged abilities and swings. 75 sec ICD.
- Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun - 0.56 RealPPM on landing harmful abilities and spells, and melee/ranged abilities and swings. 22 sec ICD.
- Primordius’ Talisman of Rage – 3.00 RealPPM on landing harmful abilities and spells, and melee/ranged abilities and swings. No ICD.
- Spark of Zandalar - 5.00 RealPPM on landing harmful abilities and spells, and melee/ranged abilities and swings. No ICD.
- Gaze of the Twins – 0.75*(1+MeleeCritChance) RealPPM on critical harmful abilities and spells, periodic spell, and melee/ranged abilities and swings. No ICD.

Capacitive Primal Diamond – 21.00 base RealPPM on landing melee/ranged abilities and swings. No ICD.
- At 5 stacks, fires a Lightning Strike, which deals [280 + 75% AP] Nature damage. This is considered a ranged attack for Hunters, and a melee attack for everyone else.
- Base proc rate is multiplied by an additional coefficient:
Frost DK (2H): 2.098
Frost DK (DW): 1.479
Unholy: 0.639

Indomitable Primal Diamond – 1.40 RealPPM on damage/absorb taken from melee ability or swing. No ICD.

Tank
- Steadfast Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault – On Use, 120 sec CD.
- Fortitude of the Zandalari – On Use, 120 sec CD.
- Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire – 4% chance on dodge melee ability or swing. No ICD.
- Ji-Kun's Rising Winds – 100% chance on taking damage from melee abilities or swings, that leaves you below 35% health. 30 sec ICD.
- Soul Barrier - On Use, 120 sec CD.

Source:PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues, Part III - Forums - World of Warcraft

02/22/13

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02/21/13

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02/20/13

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02/19/13

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[top]Note

All damage data taken from BiS sim, adjust your own math for your own numbers.
I'm always looking for more to add to this post, if you have any tips or tricks that you use to play a death knight better, and some sort of math or logic to back them up, please share them here. We can do more, and better, as a community then we can do alone.

[top]Planned sections

Both, swing timers and you
Both, Openers
Create a better header image (some art from someone good at art would be awesome, pm me if you are interested)

[top]To-do list

PM me suggestions

[top]Change-log

10/19/12: Created
10/20/12: Added mastering GCDs section
10/22/12: Added mastering symbiosis section
11/06/12: Added how long is it worth waiting section
11/14/12: Updated note and fixed minor spelling and grammer issues throughout the post
11/20/12: Added encounter specific tips, tricks, talents, and glyphs and fixed more spelling errors
11/22/12: Touched up encounter specific tips, tricks, talents, and glyphs, and removed suggested spec due to controversy/started working on DW section
11/24/12: Added DW section, including priority 1: not wasting resources, mastering unholy runes, and mastering blood tap, as well as planned sections
12/13/12: Touched up encounter specific tips, tricks, talents, and glyphs, added title and header, added mastering soul reaper section for 2hand, formatted a bit.
12/29/12: Revamped waiting into its own section and hopefully discussion, added tips on when to army for some fights, added Waiting DW style section, touched up certain sections.
12/30/12: Done with waiting, I've been convinced by Euliat that it's no longer a benefit on live for going for.
12/31/12: Added DW trinket section and the value of upgrades, and a table of contents!
01/07/13: Added note for unholy rune section under DW.
01/15/13: Changed name to Advanced Frost Tactics, as I'm no longer focusing only on priorities, and updated note.
01/16/13: Removed massive simcraft spoiler list and added it as a reply to the post, and added DW weapon section.
01/18/13: Updated tips/tricks section.
01/23/13: Updated tips/tricks section.
01/25/13: Added 2hand weapon section.
02/05/13: Removed SR note on spirit kings, as I've been informed it's been fixed.
02/08/13: Added more planned sections.
02/15/13: Added Festerblight and unholy section, renamed to advanced death knight tactics.
02/17/13: Updated Festerblight with addon info and links.
02/20/13: Added dk news section.
02/26/13: Added cooldown section
02/28/13: Added tsulong tip back, and a new heroic sha tip.
03/05/13: Updated for 5.2! Proofread through the entire post and made the following changes; updated 2-hand km section, removed staggered comment from rime section and changed some other wording, added UB note to PL section and fixed grammer error, added Dsim note to WM:P section, updated SR section concerning the new 4-set, added a to-do list, updated DW's not wasting resource system, re-did math on mastering unholy runes section with 5.2 changes and gear, added notes on all weapon and trinket sections about being updated to 5.2, adjusted festerblight opening for 5.2, as well as trinket section, and wording throughout,and added new bosses for encounter specific stuff.
03/07/13: Added my observations from two nights of raiding. Skipped bosses I didn't get a chance to see yet. Please PM with tips/tricks/talents/glyphs!
03/18/13: Added festerblight revamp. Added tortos tip.
03/20/13: Added unholy trinkets, and some more encounter tips.
03/21/13: Added more tips fo ji-kun.
04/01/13: Added more tips
04/02/13: More tips! Keep sending em to me!
04/03/13: Typo.
04/03/13: Updated FB profile
04/08/13: Added Tricks of the Trade section to Festerblight
05/07/13: Added festerblight in 5.3/5.4 section.
05/11/13: Updated with UM revert

• Jessamy · 10/19/12, 11:41 PM

Originally Posted by mendenbarr

Getting obliterate to crit as often as possible involves sitting on runes. Simply don't spend them unless you are about to lose a resource, via over-capping, or tier 5 talents, or you have killing machine procs.

The oposite treatment for frost strike is to never use frost strike when killing machine is up, even if you have the runic for it. Only use frost strike when you are about to overcap runic, or you don't have killing machine.

This sounds like smart play -- managing your abilities to get the most use out of procs. However, it's in direct conflict with your first priority, not wasting resources. You list 5 resources to manage, but forgot to include a hidden 6th, time (or gcds, if it makes more sense to think of it that way to you). The more time you spend attacking, the better.

That's not to say that trying to use the correct skill when killing machine is active is wrong. Just make sure you don't do so by waiting while you could use one of your abilities. In general, it's better to push the wrong button than spend time waiting for the right button to become available. (This general rule holds for all dps classes, not just DKs.)

mendenbarr · 10/20/12, 12:57 AM

Originally Posted by Jessamy

This sounds like smart play -- managing your abilities to get the most use out of procs. However, it's in direct conflict with your first priority, not wasting resources. You list 5 resources to manage, but forgot to include a hidden 6th, time (or gcds, if it makes more sense to think of it that way to you). The more time you spend attacking, the better.

That's not to say that trying to use the correct skill when killing machine is active is wrong. Just make sure you don't do so by waiting while you could use one of your abilities. In general, it's better to push the wrong button than spend time waiting for the right button to become available. (This general rule holds for all dps classes, not just DKs.)

It's most definitely more complicated than it sounds. I'm finding it rather counter-intuitive, personally. The strategy also revolves around a fact that will not be true forever, but it's true now. That fact is that we have quite a fair number of GCDs, at present gear levels, that don't get used for anything. Under the traditional priority, and for most classes, these "free gcds" happen when you have no resources left to spend. You have no runes up, you have 8 runic power, you have no rime procs, and HoW is on CD, for example. I'm trying to propose moving those free gcds to in-between frost strikes, instead of at the end of a big spam, or to when you have KM procced but not enough runes.

From a logical perspective, if all 5 resources listed are not capped, you are generating attacks at 100% of the possible amount of attacks generated. It doesn't matter if those resources are used as soon as they are up, or 3 seconds later. This obviously changes if you're about to hit a stop dps phase, about to switch targets, about to kill the target, and for a multitude of other reasons. For most boss fights however, this is not the case.

Perhaps I should make a section on managing GCDs, as you are quire correct it's one more resource to manage. If you hold off on anything, and can't spend resources fast enough in the GCDs you have, that counts as over-capping. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I'm personally noticing a definitive improvement over the traditional spam tactics.

Edit:
Ignoring KM procs being overridden, and proper management of resources to avoid wasting any, I can't see any way this would reduce overall damage at all. KM procs being overridden is the biggest concern I have with this play-style, but considering that using 2 KM procs on a FS is about equal to 1 proc on an Obliterate, I'm still confident it's a damage increase. I'm not, however, confident enough to write a sim around this play-style, or adapt an existing one. Logic feels right, but I'm hoping for feedback on the subject.

xbit · 10/20/12, 1:33 AM

Originally Posted by mendenbarr

From a logical perspective, if all 5 resources listed are not capped, you are generating attacks at 100% of the possible amount of attacks generated.

True

Originally Posted by mendenbarr

It doesn't matter if those resources are used as soon as they are up, or 3 seconds later.

Not necessarily. You're forgetting to consider potential future resource caps. If you wait too long, even if you never waste any resource during that waiting, a sequence of good RNG can cause you to generate more resources than you are able to spend, causing waste. As an example, consider a case where you have 70 RP, KM is up, you have no capped runes, and you can Obliterate in 3 seconds (at which point you still won't be wasting any regen). Based on what you said, you should hold off and wait for that Obliterate to eat the KM. Assume even further than your KM isn't overwritten in that window.

But, what happens when your runes are in the state where you have 1F 1D fully depleted, 1U is up the other FU pair has 3 seconds remaining on regen, and the other D has 4 seconds remaining. You wait for 3 seconds, Obliterate. Rime procs. You use Rime. KM procs (and the D rune just came off CD so you can Obliterate). Except now your RP is at 94 so you can either Obliterate the KM and waste 18 RP or FS and waste the KM.

If you had used FS on the KM immediately you wasted the KM, but could then have Obliterated the next KM and not lost the 18 RP in the process. Net gain. Furthermore, the early FS could have procced a rune which could have caused another Obliterate and potentially another Rime proc. Alternatively, RNG could have worked out such that the second KM didn't proc and you could FS as normal, in which case you would have been worse off by not waiting.

This isn't exactly easy to reason your way out of because there are a lot of corner cases whose probabilities are non-trivial to calculate. Sims indicate that waiting is almost universally a DPS loss, so I trust that the probabilities work out in favor of not waiting. If you can find a case where adding a wait to the simc action priority results in a DPS gain I would be interested in seeing it.

mendenbarr · 10/20/12, 1:32 PM

Originally Posted by xbit

Not necessarily. You're forgetting to consider potential future resource caps. If you wait too long, even if you never waste any resource during that waiting, a sequence of good RNG can cause you to generate more resources than you are able to spend, causing waste. As an example, consider a case where you have 70 RP, KM is up, you have no capped runes, and you can Obliterate in 3 seconds (at which point you still won't be wasting any regen). Based on what you said, you should hold off and wait for that Obliterate to eat the KM. Assume even further than your KM isn't overwritten in that window.

But, what happens when your runes are in the state where you have 1F 1D fully depleted, 1U is up the other FU pair has 3 seconds remaining on regen, and the other D has 4 seconds remaining. You wait for 3 seconds, Obliterate. Rime procs. You use Rime. KM procs (and the D rune just came off CD so you can Obliterate). Except now your RP is at 94 so you can either Obliterate the KM and waste 18 RP or FS and waste the KM.

If you had used FS on the KM immediately you wasted the KM, but could then have Obliterated the next KM and not lost the 18 RP in the process. Net gain. Furthermore, the early FS could have procced a rune which could have caused another Obliterate and potentially another Rime proc. Alternatively, RNG could have worked out such that the second KM didn't proc and you could FS as normal, in which case you would have been worse off by not waiting.

This isn't exactly easy to reason your way out of because there are a lot of corner cases whose probabilities are non-trivial to calculate. Sims indicate that waiting is almost universally a DPS loss, so I trust that the probabilities work out in favor of not waiting. If you can find a case where adding a wait to the simc action priority results in a DPS gain I would be interested in seeing it.

Let's look at the case you provided following the old priority, and the new one.

Case new:
70 runic, 1F 1D fully depleted, 1U is up the other FU pair has 3 seconds remaining on regen, and the other D has 4 seconds remaining, KM up. You wait 3 seconds, instead of using FS. 1 obliterate with KM. Rime procs, and you suggest using rime, however, I'd say hold off on the rime proc until before you need to obliterate again. Since KM in not up the second after the first obliterate, you can safely tap FS for a non-crit. We're assuming KM procs at this point, so now you use rime, and then obliterate. You hold off on a GCD where you could be using obliterate, because you used FS before the obliterate to use up the proc, but you don't overcap runic. You start at 70, jump up to 94, down to 74, and up to 98. At this point, you are dangerously close to capping runic, so you want to tap out as many FSs as possible, waiting for that next proc. 90% of the time, you can get off 2-4 FS or more before that happens.

Total: 2 KM obliterate, 1 FS, 1 Rime, no over-capped resources, no wasted resources.

Case you:
But we're not done yet! Let's take the same case as above, but use rime when you suggest, leaving us with 94 runic, the runes for an obliterate, and a KM proc. The solution is simple. Use frost strike! You do end up wasting the KM proc, but you waste the second one, and not the first one. Admittedly, this isn't better than the traditional spam strategy, however, you break even. I've yet to find a case where you can't break even by playing perfectly, and many many cases where you can go higher than even. I'm sure there is a case where this is a loss, but it's rare enough to hardly ever show up.

Total: 1 KM obliterate (first one) 1 obliterate. 1 KM FS, 1 Rime, no over-capped resources, no wasted resources.

Case traditional:
You'd use the first KM proc on the FS, since you have the runic for it now. Then, on the second one, you would use obliterate.

Total: 1 KM obliterate (second one) 1 obliterate. 1 KM FS, 1 Rime, no over-capped resources, no wasted resources.

Dossou · 10/29/12, 10:09 PM

The way I play is essentially not ever waiting for anything with 1-2 exceptions.

1. Obliterate with KM up before end of next swing/GCD
2. If not waiting causes me to have a Frost pair or an Unholy pair not on CD

In my opinion waiting on Obliterates isn't really worth it unless one of the above conditions is the case.

Mendenbarr's statement about never using Killing Machine Frost Strike isn't really correct at all. If you're sitting on RP with no runes up and KM procs, you're wasting more potential procs by not using Frost Strike. My first condition applies this rule. I monitor my swing timer when I have a KM proc stored but no runes to Obliterate. If OB will be available before my next swing, I save the KM for OB. If not, I use Frost Strike. In my gear, my swing timer is ~3 seconds unbuffed, so it's not very difficult to track and hold/use KMs appropriately.

I also disagree with you when you say don't Obliterate with Rime up. The same tracking your swing timer applies here. If KM is procced and your next swing is about to land, it's best to use that KM with Obliterate even if you have Rime procced to avoid wasting a potential 2nd KM proc. However if you can safely use 2 Globals before your swing hits, Rime and then KM Obliterate is the way to go.

What it all boils down to is optimizing your usage of KM procs and ensuring you don't waste any.
When I got a swing timer and starting using to store/use KM procs for Obliterate my DPS increased by a noticeable margin.

Of course the practicality of monitoring a swing timer with the high speed of 2H frost with as the expansion goes on with more and more haste becomes increasingly difficult, but right now it's pretty reasonable.

P.S. Mendenbarr - Epeen Bot - RaidBots - Web Tools for WoW Nerds

mendenbarr · 11/02/12, 2:38 PM

Originally Posted by Dossou

The way I play is essentially not ever waiting for anything with 1-2 exceptions.

1. Obliterate with KM up before end of next swing/GCD
2. If not waiting causes me to have a Frost pair or an Unholy pair not on CD

In my opinion waiting on Obliterates isn't really worth it unless one of the above conditions is the case.

Mendenbarr's statement about never using Killing Machine Frost Strike isn't really correct at all. If you're sitting on RP with no runes up and KM procs, you're wasting more potential procs by not using Frost Strike. My first condition applies this rule. I monitor my swing timer when I have a KM proc stored but no runes to Obliterate. If OB will be available before my next swing, I save the KM for OB. If not, I use Frost Strike. In my gear, my swing timer is ~3 seconds unbuffed, so it's not very difficult to track and hold/use KMs appropriately.

I also disagree with you when you say don't Obliterate with Rime up. The same tracking your swing timer applies here. If KM is procced and your next swing is about to land, it's best to use that KM with Obliterate even if you have Rime procced to avoid wasting a potential 2nd KM proc. However if you can safely use 2 Globals before your swing hits, Rime and then KM Obliterate is the way to go.

What it all boils down to is optimizing your usage of KM procs and ensuring you don't waste any.
When I got a swing timer and starting using to store/use KM procs for Obliterate my DPS increased by a noticeable margin.

Of course the practicality of monitoring a swing timer with the high speed of 2H frost with as the expansion goes on with more and more haste becomes increasingly difficult, but right now it's pretty reasonable.

P.S. Mendenbarr - Epeen Bot - RaidBots - Web Tools for WoW Nerds

I can definitely agree that maximizing damage is all about proper usage of procs. You play-style seems to involve not wasting a single KM proc, by using them as soon as you get them. However, would you not agree that, when comparing the damage increase of a km proc used on a frost strike, compared to a km proc used on an obliterate, would you not agree that the proc is "half" wasted?

By choosing to not wait for obliterate, you surely are using more KM procs per minute, but is it enough to make up for the fact that some procs are only doing half the damage they could be doing?

In regards to your criticism on rime, there may be a legitimate concern there, so let's look at some math. Assuming you are not GCD capped, you have rime procced, let's say you have both death's recharging, and one frost and one unholy up, and KM just procced. Following my rules, you would use rime first, and that would take a full GCD, during which there is a chance you proc KM again, overwriting the proc.

The average amount of procs wasted is (KM PPM)/60 = KM PPS (procs per second)
KM PPS * value of KM proc = loss

Whereas, following your suggestion of using the obliterate before the rime:
Rime proc chance * value of rime = loss

Now we can delve into messy numbers.
Sub in your own numbers if you want to.

KM is 6 PPM before haste, and while I'm unable to check at the moment, being with no power, I believe 2hand frost has around 40% haste, with 6k haste rating. That means that you'll get 6 *1.4 PPM, or 8.4 PPM. 8.4/60 gives us PPS, which happens to be 0.14 PPS. Assuming you manage to use 60% of procs on obliterate, and 40% on FS, and that oblit hits for 60k noncrit and 120k crit, with no major str cds, and that FS hits for 30k noncrit and 60k crit, .4*30 + .6*60 = 48k, being the average value of a KM proc.

0.14 * 48k = 6.72k dmg being the loss of using rime.

.45 * 50k (HB's dmg) = 22.5k dmg being the loss of not using rime

I'll update the numbers to be more accurate when I get power back, but the difference seems big enough that slight alterations won't make much of a difference.

While I appreciate the criticism of my proposed frost tactics, I'd appreciate it even more if you had some math or at least in-depth reasoning to back up your criticisms.

P.S. Extenuating circumstances, which I would love to go over in detail sometime as we're on the same server, prevent me from personally being able to show the fruits of my labor so early in a tier. These circumstances, in fact, are preventing me from properly testing this method of frost tactics, for lack of a better name, at the level it deserves to be tested. So I feel the need to ask, based of the point of this thread, did you even try anything in it?

Dossou · 11/02/12, 5:12 PM

Originally Posted by mendenbarr

I can definitely agree that maximizing damage is all about proper usage of procs. You play-style seems to involve not wasting a single KM proc, by using them as soon as you get them. However, would you not agree that, when comparing the damage increase of a km proc used on a frost strike, compared to a km proc used on an obliterate, would you not agree that the proc is "half" wasted?

By choosing to not wait for obliterate, you surely are using more KM procs per minute, but is it enough to make up for the fact that some procs are only doing half the damage they could be doing?

In regards to your criticism on rime, there may be a legitimate concern there, so let's look at some math. Assuming you are not GCD capped, you have rime procced, let's say you have both death's recharging, and one frost and one unholy up, and KM just procced. Following my rules, you would use rime first, and that would take a full GCD, during which there is a chance you proc KM again, overwriting the proc.

The average amount of procs wasted is (KM PPM)/60 = KM PPS (procs per second)
KM PPS * value of KM proc = loss

Whereas, following your suggestion of using the obliterate before the rime:
Rime proc chance * value of rime = loss

Now we can delve into messy numbers.
Sub in your own numbers if you want to.

KM is 6 PPM before haste, and while I'm unable to check at the moment, being with no power, I believe 2hand frost has around 40% haste, with 6k haste rating. That means that you'll get 6 *1.4 PPM, or 8.4 PPM. 8.4/60 gives us PPS, which happens to be 0.14 PPS. Assuming you manage to use 60% of procs on obliterate, and 40% on FS, and that oblit hits for 60k noncrit and 120k crit, with no major str cds, and that FS hits for 30k noncrit and 60k crit, .4*30 + .6*60 = 48k, being the average value of a KM proc.

0.14 * 48k = 6.72k dmg being the loss of using rime.

.45 * 50k (HB's dmg) = 22.5k dmg being the loss of not using rime

I'll update the numbers to be more accurate when I get power back, but the difference seems big enough that slight alterations won't make much of a difference.

While I appreciate the criticism of my proposed frost tactics, I'd appreciate it even more if you had some math or at least in-depth reasoning to back up your criticisms.

P.S. Extenuating circumstances, which I would love to go over in detail sometime as we're on the same server, prevent me from personally being able to show the fruits of my labor so early in a tier. These circumstances, in fact, are preventing me from properly testing this method of frost tactics, for lack of a better name, at the level it deserves to be tested. So I feel the need to ask, based of the point of this thread, did you even try anything in it?

I don't think I need math to back up the fact that I play the way I state and consistently push Top 10 Ranks. I did 107k on Gara'jal going down twice (I didn't log myself though) and 86k on Spirit Kings. Gara'jal would have been Rank 1 and Spirit Kings was Rank 1. Like I said, maximizing your KM procs is a DPS increase over delaying for Obliterates unless you're not autoswinging in between. I really can't even monitor autoswings that accurately during Spirit Kings because there's actually mechanics.

Your PPM on KM is pretty inaccurate accounting for many DKs having extremely varying levels of haste. For example, someone without a Heroic Weapon is still probably gemming str over haste. I had 8k haste before I got Tier which dropped me down to 7k, still well above your estimated 6k. This leads to more autoswings, more KM procs, and therefore more Frost Strike crits, therefore more damage.

Additionally, the fact that you are assuming waiting for Obliterates with KM procced, why are you assuming only 60% accuracy of this in your math?

Using Math to value doing certain things that rely on KM procs to be accurate have little to no meaning due to the fact that Frost is so RNG based. Running 50k iterations with my gear simmed, the difference between my lowest and highest sims was 26k. TWENTY-SIX. That's an insane amount of RNG over a 6-7 minute fight.

When you ask if I've even tried anything in this thread, the answer is yes, I have tried most everything because there isn't anything advanced about it. It's just basic frost raiding information. I'm trying hard not to knock on you but there really isn't any new information in this post.

mendenbarr · 11/02/12, 6:47 PM

Originally Posted by Dossou

I don't think I need math to back up the fact that I play the way I state and consistently push Top 10 Ranks. I did 107k on Gara'jal going down twice (I didn't log myself though) and 86k on Spirit Kings. Gara'jal would have been Rank 1 and Spirit Kings was Rank 1. Like I said, maximizing your KM procs is a DPS increase over delaying for Obliterates unless you're not autoswinging in between. I really can't even monitor autoswings that accurately during Spirit Kings because there's actually mechanics.

Your PPM on KM is pretty inaccurate accounting for many DKs having extremely varying levels of haste. For example, someone without a Heroic Weapon is still probably gemming str over haste. I had 8k haste before I got Tier which dropped me down to 7k, still well above your estimated 6k. This leads to more autoswings, more KM procs, and therefore more Frost Strike crits, therefore more damage.

Additionally, the fact that you are assuming waiting for Obliterates with KM procced, why are you assuming only 60% accuracy of this in your math?

Using Math to value doing certain things that rely on KM procs to be accurate have little to no meaning due to the fact that Frost is so RNG based. Running 50k iterations with my gear simmed, the difference between my lowest and highest sims was 26k. TWENTY-SIX. That's an insane amount of RNG over a 6-7 minute fight.

When you ask if I've even tried anything in this thread, the answer is yes, I have tried most everything because there isn't anything advanced about it. It's just basic frost raiding information. I'm trying hard not to knock on you but there really isn't any new information in this post.

I want to clear the air and say I meant no disrespect towards you or your play-style. No one is doubting that you get very impressive results in logs.

However, unless I am mistaken, the point of elitist jerk's forums is to have a place to discuss theory-crafting of class mechanics. I'm unaware of another thread, or website, where anyone is discussing, in detail, the benefits OR problems with waiting on runes. I brought up this issue because I feel it's a damage increase, and I've presented both logic and math to support that.

Originally Posted by Dossou

Like I said, maximizing your KM procs is a DPS increase over delaying for Obliterates unless you're not autoswinging in between.

The auto-swing is a chance for KM to proc again, before you've used the current proc, over-riding it and causing a dps loss, because a KM proc becomes worth 0 (The wasted one)

Using a KM proc on FS instead of Oblit is a damage loss for that particular attack. The KM proc becomes worth (FS crit - FS hit), instead of (oblit crit - oblit hit)

Those are facts, not up for debate.

What we can argue about is which is a bigger loss.

Originally Posted by Dossou

Using Math to value doing certain things that rely on KM procs to be accurate have little to no meaning due to the fact that Frost is so RNG based. Running 50k iterations with my gear simmed, the difference between my lowest and highest sims was 26k. TWENTY-SIX. That's an insane amount of RNG over a 6-7 minute fight

While RNG may change your priority around, as well as the situations that you have to deal with, the nice thing about math is that is averaged out. The averages have meaning, and value, if we can interpret them correctly. I believe I prefaced my calculations with, the numbers are about to get messy. Luckily, I also put in all the formulas, so it should be easy for anyone else to calculate if it's a gain or a loss for their own particular haste value.

Some interesting math ~
0.14 * 48k = 6.72k dmg being the loss of using rime with 6k haste
.45 * 50k (HB's dmg) = 22.5k dmg being the loss of not using rime

In order to have enough haste to have not using rime be worth it,
x * 48k = 22.5
22.5/48 = x
x = 0.46875
0.46875 * 60 = 28.125 PPM
or 470% haste
or 178500 haste rating

We should chat sometime!

Qaajn · 11/02/12, 8:02 PM

Since you are discussing optimal proc usage, I wanted to throw out a somewhat crazy idea here. It was something that struck me with the pandaria changes to frost.

How much worse is it to actually DPS in Unholy Presence as a 2-hand Frost DK?

While this may sound completely crazy at first, think of it for a moment. You lose 20% runic power regen, and your Frost Strikes now cost 35 runic power instead. In exchange you get 10% faster rune regeneration and attack-speed. It sounds like a really bad trade, but is it that bad? Especially if used during periods of heavy haste.

Ponder this:

2H-frost rely heavily on Obliterate, you get "more" of those (for simplicity ignoring less use of t5) .
You want to use as many KM procs as possible on Obliterate, and the increased attack-speed give you more procs.
You want to avoid using KM with Frost Strike. And you obviously do fewer of those.

I did some very minor tests at 85, and surprisingly the DPS weren't that much behind. I also realised that the changes had taken the fun away from frost entirely, along with never liking unholy, so now I run 2x blood and can't even try it out myself, as I have no gear even if I respec.

Though the result is most likely that it's worse, I believe the discussion and the increased understanding of how the abilities work together make it worth evaluating still. Particular interest might be if this scale linearly with gear? Is there certain conditions where using unholy aura may be better?

Dossou · 11/02/12, 8:55 PM

Originally Posted by Qaajn

Since you are discussing optimal proc usage, I wanted to throw out a somewhat crazy idea here. It was something that struck me with the pandaria changes to frost.

How much worse is it to actually DPS in Unholy Presence as a 2-hand Frost DK?

While this may sound completely crazy at first, think of it for a moment. You lose 20% runic power regen, and your Frost Strikes now cost 35 runic power instead. In exchange you get 10% faster rune regeneration and attack-speed. It sounds like a really bad trade, but is it that bad? Especially if used during periods of heavy haste.

Ponder this:

2H-frost rely heavily on Obliterate, you get "more" of those (for simplicity ignoring less use of t5) .
You want to use as many KM procs as possible on Obliterate, and the increased attack-speed give you more procs.
You want to avoid using KM with Frost Strike. And you obviously do fewer of those.

I did some very minor tests at 85, and surprisingly the DPS weren't that much behind. I also realised that the changes had taken the fun away from frost entirely, along with never liking unholy, so now I run 2x blood and can't even try it out myself, as I have no gear even if I respec.

Though the result is most likely that it's worse, I believe the discussion and the increased understanding of how the abilities work together make it worth evaluating still. Particular interest might be if this scale linearly with gear? Is there certain conditions where using unholy aura may be better?

You get 4 Frost Strikes for every 7 if you were in Frost Presence, which means less Runic Empowerment, which means less Obliterates overall.

Qaajn · 11/02/12, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by Dossou

You get 4 Frost Strikes for every 7 if you were in Frost Presence, which means less Runic Empowerment, which means less Obliterates overall.

While it has a clear effect, it may not be as big as you think. Napkin math:

45% of the FS will return 1/2 of an obliterate. During 1 "rune recharge period" you gain 1.5 Obliterates

In unholy presence:
To get the 140 RP you need for 4 frost strikes, it takes 7 obliterates. Time taken to generate the runes needed to cast 4 FS: runespeed/UnholyAura*(7OB-4FS*45%/2)/1.5

Frost presence:
To make 7 FS you need 140/24 OB (5.8333). Time required to generate those runes: runespeed*(140/24OB-7FS*45%/2)/1.5

This show how long the rune cycles to generate 140 RP are. The relation is always the same, regardless of haste, unholy being 30.2259% longer. But since frost generates runic power 20% faster, we have to compensate for this to get the relation on rune generation. This make the final result that frost get runes 8.5216% faster then unholy.

Which is very much noticable, but perhaps not as vast as first assumed. And while you do lose out on frost strikes, you get more autoattacks for more KM, and a larger portion of those would also go to OB, due to less overall FS use. While under normal use, frost would obviously be the better option, with enough haste, you will fill out your free GCD, losing the option to decide what to KM and not cap. (OB:FS ratio would be <5:6 due to some runes not used for OB). So at one point, with enough haste, Unholy could still win out. But I think I reached the limit of my napkin math here... Perhaps it's not something normally usable, but the insight and the special-case might make it interesting enough to simulate.

irongnome · 11/03/12, 8:24 PM

I think there is something very basic here that we are missing.
The feedback loop.

As we are all aware, holding on to resources as a DK is a DPS loss. If you don't spend your runes, you don't generate runic power. If you don't generate runic power, you don't generate RE/RC/BT procs. If you don't generate procs, you lose out on DPS that is directly quantifiable as a percentage of your DPS equal to the amount of time you held Vs not having the talent at all.

So here is my problem. I don't have the math to quantify RE/RC/BT. It was something that literally want to make me rip my hair out. I also don't see this math accounted for in the OP's defense of the priority list detailed within. You are only comparing abilities against each other 1:1 without accounting for the opportunity cost.

I will try and take another crack at the problem in order to see what exactly that opportunity cost is but no promises. I would also try and take a stab at the problem via simulation using simcraft but I would need to compile version 505-5 in order to give you accurate results due to 505-4 (the latest public download) has a bug in it that affects frost.

mendenbarr · 11/04/12, 1:15 AM

Originally Posted by irongnome

.

As we are all aware, holding on to resources as a DK is a DPS loss. If you don't spend your runes, you don't generate runic power. If you don't generate runic power, you don't generate RE/RC/BT procs. If you don't generate procs, you lose out on DPS that is directly quantifiable as a percentage of your DPS equal to the amount of time you held Vs not having the talent at all.

While I felt the same way at first, surpringsly, this is not always the case.

Let's say you do nothing during a fight. Of the five resources listed, the only one you would be generating is runes, which would be capped, and therefore wasted. You don't generate runic unles you use abilities, you don't generate t5 procs unless you use fs, you don't get Rime procs unless you obliterate, and km doesn't proc unless you are meleeing. Spending those runes generates the runic and Rime procs, and auto-attacking and spending the runic generates km and t5 procs. We're very proc based.

Over the course of a fight, of any particular duration, we will only regenerate a certain numbers of runes. As long as you spend these runes before they get capped, you will not waste any, or generate any less than if you had used them the instant they became available. Every rune you use gives a certain number of runic, always the same a,out as long you are not runic capped. Every fs gives a chance at a t5 proc, this chance doesn't decrease if you wait a second, it only decreases if you "cap" on the way it generates, for example having no completely uncharged runes with re, or having 12 charges of bt.

Holding onto to your resources is NOT a dips loss, overcapping them it.

The math concerning the t5 profs is rather simple

100 runic = 5 fs = 5* .45 runes (using re as an example) = 2.25 runes.
100 runic always gives an average of 2.25 runes, as long as you don't cap anything.

In regards to up vs fp, I'd like to share more thoughts on that when I don't have to type everything out of an iPad, but it is worth a look.

Edit: Powers back on, heres UP vs FP.

Assuming RE for math
UP = 10% rune regen and attack speed
FP = 20% runic and FS cost 20 instead of 35

1 cycle is the time it takes to generate each rune 10 times (without unholy pres).

no pres cycle:
10 frost, 10 unholy, 10 death, 300 runic, 3.857 runes via T5, 38.571 runic
15 obliterates, 8.571 frost strikes, 1.928 oblits, 1.102 frost strikes, 7.617 rime procs, and let's say 5 HoW, for 50 more runic, which is 1.428 frost strikes,
All in all, about 17 obliterates, 11 frost strikes, 8 rime procs, and 5 HoW.
That's 41 GCDs, and I'd guess that cycle would take around 80 seconds.

frost pres cycle
10 frost, 10 unholy, 10 death, 410 runic, 9.225 runes via T5, 110.7 runic,
15 obliterates, 5 HoW, 20.5 frost strikes, 4.612 oblits, 5.535 frost strikes, 1.24 oblits, 1.5 frost strikes,
All in all, about 21 obliterates, 28 frost strikes, 9 rime procs, and 5 HoW.
That's 63 GCDs, and I'd guess that cycle would take around 80 seconds.

unholy pres cycle
11 frost, 11 unholy, 11 death, 380 runic,
16.5 oblits, 10.857 frost strikes, 2.442 oblits, 1.39 frost strikes,
Note: also contains 10% more auto-attack dmg and therefore KM procs.
All in all, about 19 obliterates, 12 frost strikes, 9 rime procs, and 5 HoW.
That's 45 GCDs, and I'd guess that cycle would take around 80 seconds.

The clear winner, with an 80 second cycle, is frost presence. But what if you have a 63 second cycle? (6.3 sec rune recharge rate) Then frost presence still wins, and is actually ideal, because you're perfectly GCD capped. However, as you'd be GCD capped, you wouldn't be able to game KM procs at all, or barley, and lucky rime/T5 procs would be wasting resources.

With frost pres, you ratio of oblits to frost strikes is .75 to 1, whereas for unholy presence, the ratio is 1.583 to 1.

Conclusion: Somewhere between a rune recharge time (not using unholy pres) of 6.3 seconds and 4.5 seconds, unholy presence becomes a dps gain over frost presence. More calculations would be needed to find exactly where, but I'm not sure where to start frankly.

Qaajn · 11/04/12, 8:07 PM

Originally Posted by mendenbarr

Conclusion: Somewhere between a rune recharge time (not using unholy pres) of 6.3 seconds and 4.5 seconds, unholy presence becomes a dps gain over frost presence. More calculations would be needed to find exactly where, but I'm not sure where to start frankly.

Very interesting to see some more detailed math and analysis on this!

Assuming ~40% haste from gear and bloodlust of 35%, we get a rune recharge of 5.29 seconds outside of unholy. This gets us decently into the lower half of the interval where unholy may take over from frost. With no special boss mechanics used, it seems as if this might need to be considered for use in some fights, especially once gear increases and more haste is available. I imagine it might not be so hard to simulate this if you are familiar with it. With frost being GCD capped and unholy closing approaching, I imagine you don't have to pay special attention to "timing" KM much either in the simulation. Don't forget about the increase in attack-speed in unholy, I assume it will have a decent impact on the final numbers, though the time used for switching presence need also be accounted for.

Contents

[top]Frost

[top]Cooldowns and Timmy

[top]Trinkets and you

[top]2-hand Frost

[top]Priority 1: Not wasting resources

[top]Runes

[top]Runic Power

[top]Rime procs

[top]Tier 5 talent procs

[top]Killing Machine procs

[top]Mastering rime procs

[top]Mastering diseases with plague leech

[top]Mastering Symbiosis

[top]Mastering Soul Reaper

[top]2-hand weapons

[top]To wait or not to wait.

[top]Dual-Wield Frost

[top]Priority 1: Not wasting resources

[top]Runes

[top]Runic Power

[top]Rime procs

[top]Tier 5 talent procs

[top]Killing Machine procs

[top]Mastering unholy runes

[top]Mastering blood tap

[top]Waiting DW style

[top]DW weapons

[top]Unholy

[top]Festerblight in 5.3/5.4

[top]Festerblight in 5.2

[top]The Opening

[top]The Fight

[top]The End

[top]When Diseases Fall Off

[top]Addons

[top]Fights where festerblight doesnt work

[top]Talents

[top]Trinkets

[top]Tricks of the Trade

[top]Math

[top]Trinkets and you: Part 2

[top]Encounter specific tips, tricks, talents, and glyphs

[top]Throne of Thunder

[top]Jinrokh the Breaker

[top]Horridon

[top]Council of Elders

[top]Tortos

[top]Megaera

[top]Ji-Kun

[top]Durumu the Forgotten

[top]Primordius

[top]Dark Animus

[top]Iron Qon

[top]Twin Consorts

[top]Lei Shen

[top]Ra-Den

[top]Old Raids

[top]DK news reference

[top]Note

[top]Planned sections

[top]To-do list

[top]Change-log