This isn't 100% true, 2h Weapons have more then 100 strength what is more then 25 parry rating.
Sure its not as much as 2 tanking one-hands give, but the amount of hit and expertise you need to stack to not get parry gibbed is so insane that you'll have to sacrifice alot of other stats what ends in dual-wield tanking isn't worth it (and ends up with lower stats then a 2-hand tank).
I'm guessing there are a few people here who have tanked in Northrend instances while levelling. Will these instances go fine with just a basic levelling/dps build or if I'm going to tank should I pick a more tanking oriented build and suffer the consequnces when soloing? Probably going heavy frost since I'm really loving it, so I'd be picking Lichborne/Unbreakable armor on the way in either build, the biggest difference between builds would be taking the Icy Talons path or skipping it for Frigid Deaathplate etc.
Thank you very much for your work i DO appreciate it even if looking back on my post it seemed a little bit hostile it was not intended to be so.
The way i ended up fixing HB even without APC was just to take into account the fact that it does double damage all the time vs targets affected with frost fever. i messed around with it some and at 3000AP to get the damage numbers right on max crit i had about 5% or so APC.
I understand that the technical limits of creating a rotation is painful but not all rotations are the same length even though it seems intuitive that they should be similar due to rune cooldowns and what not. Personally i have been using a rotation that clips the back end of my diseases and it turned out to do more damage per second than my other rotations. So if it would be at all possible to setup a rotation and then have the spreadsheet automatically assume you are starting over right there and thus calculate DPS at that point, that would be awsome.
As for my rotations i came up with the following
....
/edit just looked at your updated one few errors
crit mod for frost strike, obliterate and what are pointing to the wrong talent
crit rate for obliterate is affected by rime and t1 blood talent as well as annihilation
Probably more to it but thats just a first glance
First things first. I fixed the errors (thanks for pointing them out). Edit: I went with 7.55% apc on HB based on wotlkwiki but I have no clue if that is even close
I came up with a new system for doing rotations, its under the sheet "Rotation 2"
Right now its just a prototype (I don't have diseases or death runes implemented)
It will handle rotations of variable length (up to 40.5 seconds, although I can easily extend that).
It uses the stop character so you can specify the length.
Most of it is regrettably spaghetti logic, so I'll try to clean it up later.
I'm trying to see what you guys think of this new style though.
I`m reading this board for a long time now, but I have a question I can`t find the answer to.
On what place is the dps-dk in recount/wws at level 80? I saw a lot of dps-postings here where people talk about 1,9 - 2,2 k dps. That`s a litte low, considering they were Lvl 80 an had "quite" decent gear. I heard of warriors doing 4k dps on brut after the 3.0.2 patch yesterday, but they are level 70... Also I saw wws-logs from beta-naxx where hunters have done 6-7k and a dk in their raid did only 2,4k. Is there a bug I haven`t heard of, or will that be what`s to expect?
I don`t have access to beta, so I can`t test it on my own.
Pardon me for showing up 118 pages later but I haven't seen anything that makes frost spec a must have over unholy spec for raid tanking. Am I wrong? It seems both serve their purpose with success. I was starting to look deeply into frost and now I am moving towards unholy because the tree seems more interesting.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I would like to hear input from people, that are in beta now, about the success(threat generation, survivability, etc...)of the two tanking specs in raid situations(both boss and trash encounters). I dont think they are going to change the death knight much before xpac comes out so the posts that follow may define which way a death knight tank may spec for raiding.
Unholy has nothing, tank-wise, between Anticipation and Bone Shield that applies to every encounter. It has the best anti-caster tools (Magic Suppression is meh, but AMZ and BS are both excellent against casters), but virtually nothing that applies to every fight. Bone Shield is very strong, but it's not strong enough to carry the tree as a complete tank tree all by itself.
What Frost has going for it is complete self-sufficiency. If you're Frost specced, you can reasonably expect to be able to tank any encounter in the game except for Sapphiron (frost immune) with the same relative ease regardless of gear level. Unholy tanks can't say the same - they're much weaker against purely physical bosses and especially against dual-wielding bosses (who eat up Bone Shield charges faster), and their relative strength varies greatly based on their total avoidance. An Unholy tank with sufficient avoidance will be the best tank in the game for high-damage encounters thanks to the interaction between avoidance and Bone Shield charges, but an Unholy tank with only moderate avoidance will be a bad choice for the same encounter (thanks to the utter randomness of the spike damage he'll be tanking).
To put it more clearly and bluntly, Frost Tanks have less peak performance but much more consistent and higher average performance.
Several of those parses have people playing on bugs. THere was a serpent sting bug doubling the hunter's damage, there was an equip bug where stats would keep adding, etc. So its reasonable to say everyone should be in the 2k dps ballpark when everything works.
I'm guessing there are a few people here who have tanked in Northrend instances while levelling. Will these instances go fine with just a basic levelling/dps build or if I'm going to tank should I pick a more tanking oriented build and suffer the consequnces when soloing? Probably going heavy frost since I'm really loving it, so I'd be picking Lichborne/Unbreakable armor on the way in either build, the biggest difference between builds would be taking the Icy Talons path or skipping it for Frigid Deaathplate etc.
I have had no issues soloing with a tank build. The only issue you might run into with frost is your self healing won't be as solid as blood or unholy. But really while soloing you can just replace Oblit or HB with Death Strike for a little bit and you should be back to 100%.
First things first. I fixed the errors (thanks for pointing them out). Edit: I went with 7.55% apc on HB based on wotlkwiki but I have no clue if that is even close
Zurai showed me this link, and it has been EXTREMELY helpful with my Rawr model.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
First time poster here. I've been reading this forum for a good while now and have read over most of the pages. I want to prepare to make a DK upon release, but my exposure to the Beta has been minimal, so I cant really do much testing for myself.
What I'm really interested in is DPS, not so much in tanking. It seems that tanking is the primary concern of this forum, and rightly so, but I have a few questions regarding DPS specs, talents, and rotations if anyone could help me out.
This is the build that I am shooting for at 80. My biggest questions lie in Necrosis and Impurity. I have heard it discussed before, but I'm not sure that a concensus was released, especially for the latest version of Necrosis with 10% shadow damage, down from 25%. First, is 5 points worth it for Necrosis in this state. Many builds have been leaving it out. Same question for Inpurity, although it seems to have been received higher praise.
Second question. What would a proposed skill rotation be for this spec. I've tried it out and it like it. The Rune Power generation is awesome. My question lies in the use of BS vs SS. What I was considering was a rotation like IT, PS, BS, BS, SS, SS, SS (the last 2 using the death runes). From this point the rotation becomes situational. With little in-game experience I'm basically guessing here, so can someone either confirm, correct, and suggest an optimal rotation?
Any suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated.
For 5 points, Impurity doesn't offer that big of a DPS boost. Then again, there aren't many other places to put those points. Necrosis is considerably better while dual wielding, but its still good for a two hander.
For your rotation...generally speaking as unholy, you want to use plague strike before IT... this will apply ebon plague giving you a free 13% damage to IT, plus the added damage from desecration. Also, dont' forget UB and DC in your rotation. Most people seem to come up with something like
PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> SS -> UB -> SS -> SS -> SS -> DC
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
Update: 3.5k dps at brut is nothing now, so I hope to get some good numbers for dk-dps at naxx-like-encounters ;-) Would be so great.
Many(if not most) classes cannot do anything remotely near to this on live at the moment. 90% of raids done on beta are 10 man so you will usually have many missing buffs, additionally most people have bad gear, you might only find a very well geared dk in a fully buffed situation 1 of every 250 naxx raids done on beta at the moment. Additionally enchants, glyphs, gems, flasks, food, professions are for the most part non-existent or sub-par on beta. You will go from having 20-30% crit 10% hit from gear etc to half that at 80.
All that being said dks were doing as good or better than most classes on the premade server in the dozen or so raids I did. Last I checked hunters had a bug where they could get 100% crit, and the devs already said they were nerfing arms hard.
For 5 points, Impurity doesn't offer that big of a DPS boost. Then again, there aren't many other places to put those points. Necrosis is considerably better while dual wielding, but its still good for a two hander.
For your rotation...generally speaking as unholy, you want to use plague strike before IT... this will apply ebon plague giving you a free 13% damage to IT, plus the added damage from desecration. Also, dont' forget UB and DC in your rotation. Most people seem to come up with something like
PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> SS -> UB -> SS -> SS -> SS -> DC
Ah! Yes, I hadnt factored in UB or DC yet because of the RP costs. I'm pretty bad about watching the RP generation and it usually caps off at 100 before I notice. Is there an addon that can help with this in some way, or is this of minor concern as long as it is fit in somewhere at the end? I realize that RP expenditure is an important part of total DPS, so I dont want to waste it.
First things first. I fixed the errors (thanks for pointing them out). Edit: I went with 7.55% apc on HB based on wotlkwiki but I have no clue if that is even close
I came up with a new system for doing rotations, its under the sheet "Rotation 2"
Right now its just a prototype (I don't have diseases or death runes implemented)
It will handle rotations of variable length (up to 40.5 seconds, although I can easily extend that).
It uses the stop character so you can specify the length.
Most of it is regrettably spaghetti logic, so I'll try to clean it up later.
I'm trying to see what you guys think of this new style though.
Note: the numbers on the front still use the old rotation sheet, the new one is just a prototype.
Its looking GREAT, numbers look much nicer, just dont forget to include white damage:-)
Also when you set a stop event in a rotation and then setup abilities used after that, they add into the calculation, i dont even know if it is possible but perhaps only pull abilities whos activation start time is < time of rotation? currently its just a flat sum of the column. Obviously the modeling of killing machine and other nasty procs is a pain but i wish you luck.
One thing worth noting about DK rotations with Epidemic (18 second frost fever and blood plague) is that a 20 second rotation can keep at least one of frost fever or blood plague up at all times. This allows a death knight to take advantage of both Glacier Rot (increased Icy Touch damage on diseased targets) and Glyph of Plague Strike (increased damage on diseased targets).
For example, here's a Blood rotation that will do this:
IT - (wait 3 or 4 seconds) - PS - OB - HS - HS - OB - HS - HS - HS - HS
I theorized that this would be possible based upon the 2.5 second (I'd say closer to 3 second in my experience) grace period on rune refreshing. I am able to reproduce the above sequence on Beta, also. The timing is fairly tight, but doable.
Clearly there is a startup DPS cost with waiting between IT and PS, so the above is more of a sustained DPS rotation. I'm sure there are various ways to initiate this rotation better from a full set of runes, but the rotation does work well in a sustaining fashion. Perhaps with hitting IT on the pull, there will naturally be several seconds before the PS.
Last edited by Dayn : 10/16/08 at 6:11 PM.
Reason: Had the wrong rotation originally -- fixed
One thing worth noting about DK rotations with Epidemic (18 second frost fever and blood plague) is that a 20 second rotation can keep at least one of frost fever or blood plague up at all times. This allows a death knight to take advantage of both Glacier Rot (increased Icy Touch damage on diseased targets) and Glyph of Plague Strike (increased damage on diseased targets).
For example, here's a Blood rotation that will do this:
IT - (wait 3 or 4 seconds) - PS - OB - HS - HS - OB - HS - HS - HS - HS
I theorized that this would be possible based upon the 2.5 second (I'd say closer to 3 second in my experience) grace period on rune refreshing. I am able to reproduce the above sequence on Beta, also. The timing is fairly tight, but doable.
Clearly there is a startup DPS cost with waiting between IT and PS, so the above is more of a sustained DPS rotation. I'm sure there are various ways to initiate this rotation better from a full set of runes, but the rotation does work well in a sustaining fashion. Perhaps with hitting IT on the pull, there will naturally be several seconds before the PS.
That's basically the rotation most are suggesting for Blood, only the reason for waiting after IT is unclear. You're leaving out DC entirely, which is going to do more damage than a glyphed Plague Strike. Besides that, you also need Annihilation for this to work, which requires you to first spend 10 points in Frost that only buff one ability (IT).
However, I have found Epidemic useful as Blood spec, even without Annihilation-- you can get in all your DCs without worrying about diseases expiring before you finish your 4 HSes, for one.
Its looking GREAT, numbers look much nicer, just dont forget to include white damage:-)
Also when you set a stop event in a rotation and then setup abilities used after that, they add into the calculation, i dont even know if it is possible but perhaps only pull abilities whos activation start time is < time of rotation? currently its just a flat sum of the column. Obviously the modeling of killing machine and other nasty procs is a pain but i wish you luck.
Its actually trivially easy to handle the stop time, and I'll include it in the next update.
Killing machine is a little harder (not to mention dots), and I'm working on it now.
Edit: I've also added a "Filler" to burn extra RP you have left over from rotations.
How does Howling Blast compare to Unholy Blight? Unholy blight is up for 20 sec, in that about of time a player could throw up between 3 and 4 Howling Blasts. Admittedly the Unholy has more continuous damage and also three more diseases including blight. So can Frost keep up with Unholy in the Aoe tanking biz?
How does Howling Blast compare to Unholy Blight? Unholy blight is up for 20 sec, in that about of time a player could throw up between 3 and 4 Howling Blasts. Admittedly the Unholy has more continuous damage and also three more diseases including blight. So can Frost keep up with Unholy in the Aoe tanking biz?
Howling Blast doesn't compare very well to Wandering Plague + Unholy Blight. That's not to say that Frost DKs can't AOE tank (they can, just fine), but HB is kinda like trying to use a flat-head screwdriver on a Philip's head screw: they can get the job done, but you don't have quite the right tool for the job and that can lead to frustration and some slip-ups.
Howling Blast doesn't compare very well to Wandering Plague + Unholy Blight. That's not to say that Frost DKs can't AOE tank (they can, just fine), but HB is kinda like trying to use a flat-head screwdriver on a Philip's head screw: they can get the job done, but you don't have quite the right tool for the job and that can lead to frustration and some slip-ups.
I am not sure I agree. If adds spawn in bursts every 10 seconds I would put howling as better than UB, if they are constant spawn I would say UB. If they are a one time spawn of adds I would again say HB as a deathchill HB will be way higher than anything any other spec can muster. Now the problem is you need to keep runes up for when adds spawn, but if you do it right I think frost is the best aoe spec.
Not to mention Hungering Cold. While not stellar and not a staple of every frost tanking build, there's room for it if you were to be knowingly going into an AoE encounter. Applying Frost Fever to every mob in a 10 yard radius and rooting / snaring them for 10 secs is pretty big. I've been looking at Frost tanking builds and I usually end up with something like: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000
If Acclimation ends up buffing Rune Strike, I would take it. Grab Epidemic and Bladed Armor and have 1 point left... fits right in.
Howling Blast doesn't compare very well to Wandering Plague + Unholy Blight. That's not to say that Frost DKs can't AOE tank (they can, just fine), but HB is kinda like trying to use a flat-head screwdriver on a Philip's head screw: they can get the job done, but you don't have quite the right tool for the job and that can lead to frustration and some slip-ups.
While I agree with Zurai, Its not UB thats bringing home the bacon for Unholy (EDIT: not to imply that Zurai gives too much weight to either one).
UB is about 4k damage over 20 seconds (full raid buffs premade on Murmur). Howling Blast is 2-3k a cast.
If it was just those, I'd easily give it to Frost.
But Wandering Plague is a crit to everyone around it, and with Unholy dots doing about 400dps, that is just a ridiculous amount of damage. Not to mention that the rotation PS,IT,Pestilence allows for D&D, where as PS,IT,Pestilence,HB does not (at least not for another 8.5 seconds).
While I agree with Zurai, Its not UB thats bringing home the bacon for Unholy (EDIT: not to imply that Zurai gives too much weight to either one).
UB is about 4k damage over 20 seconds (full raid buffs premade on Murmur). Howling Blast is 2-3k a cast.
If it was just those, I'd easily give it to Frost.
But Wandering Plague is a crit to everyone around it, and with Unholy dots doing about 400dps, that is just a ridiculous amount of damage. Not to mention that the rotation PS,IT,Pestilence allows for D&D, where as PS,IT,Pestilence,HB does not (at least not for another 8.5 seconds).
You can go D&D/Howling and rely on another dk to spread frost fever with pestilence, or you can go D&D, PS, IT, Pestilence, Deathchill, Empowered Rune Weapon, Howlingblast, nothing is really going to compare with that on one time spawns (like someone accidentally pulling three trash packs). You might get a free howlingblast from icy touch, or you might just do the reg lead off and howling the 8.5 seconds later. Having Howling Blast gives you ranged snap aggro on multiple mobs, something Unholy just does not have.
Howling blast can crit over 10k in tanking gear. Deathchill + Blast = no one is pulling period. Not to mention that your crit rate is extremely low as a tank so wandering plague will pretty much suck, especially after the nerf bat it took. Pre-nerf to wandering, I would have definitely given it to unholy, but not anymore.
Also crypt fever and ebon plague will be affecting frost's dots if you have an unholy dps dk in the raid as I have had. Perhaps if there was no unholy dk in the raid unless you were unholy, then I would also give the edge to unholy.
10/16/08, 3:18 AM
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