I'm running Naxx-10 at the moment. I'm pulling a range of 2400-2500 dps with essentially all premade gear with a 2h frost spec, second to a BM hunter in full epics who does 2700-2900. I don't think we'll have trouble competing in terms of DPS, at least barring major overhauls.
This is all in premade pvp gear, no dmg gems, everything on character as you get when you make him.
I made 2 DK so I dont need to go respec, thats why 2 different names
Horn of winter, Hysteria, Dancing rune weapon, Bone shield, Ebon plague and Unholy blight all up at all times as possible.
Blood
Unholy
Any suggestion welcome, or if you want me to test something special I can do it.
Btw in instance in same gear I reach around 2k+ dps, the thing is its hard to get in raid as premade on beta server
I'm running Naxx-10 at the moment. I'm pulling a range of 2400-2500 dps with essentially all premade gear with a 2h frost spec, second to a BM hunter in full epics who does 2700-2900. I don't think we'll have trouble competing in terms of DPS, at least barring major overhauls.
That's not true at all.
If two cars start at the same speed, but one accelerates at 20 m/s^2 and one at 100 m/s^2, they won't end up at the same place.
Just because the damage is close at one gear level, does not mean it scales equally. By the time Naxx25 or CoA gear is out, DK might be doing 2800 dps, and hunters, mages, whoever may be doing 4k.
Ah, good point. What I mean to say is that I was wearing blue pvp gear and basically keeping up with or beating dpsers in near-full epics. Granted, it was a pug, which isn't typically where you find the brightest crayons in the box. You're very right that we might see vastly different scaling between classes, but based on the gear levels in this particular raid, I was more than satisfied with the spec's performance.
Thanks Mito for the meters, also i would like to ask every beta tester who have some time to post damage meters from Raids in Naxxramas. Altho it would be great to see a DPS meter compared to others, not a damage done meter. However i noticed that big amount of your damage came from melee physical damage, that was quit surprising since everyone told me haste is worthless for Deathknights.
For Lockapologist: If what you wrote is true then NO Deathknights should be allowed to raid in wotlk which i think is nonsense. It would be surprising if other dps-ers would do +1200dps compared to deathknights.
Thanks Mito for the meters, also i would like to ask every beta tester who have some time to post damage meters from Raids in Naxxramas. Altho it would be great to see a DPS meter compared to others, not a damage done meter. However i noticed that big amount of your damage came from melee physical damage, that was quit surprising since everyone told me haste is worthless for Deathknights.
I think that DK "white" dmg will be around that %. Every other melee has much higher % on "white" than specials, from WWS I looked at.
For example, Rogues have 50%+, Warriors 35%+, Shamans 45%+ only one that is close to us is Paladin at 30% white dmg, and they all have melee at the top then specials, were we have, from my test, specials first then melee.
When I get home I will find some time and do one more test, lets say 3 Million dmg, and will include frost spec.
Thanks Mito for the meters, also i would like to ask every beta tester who have some time to post damage meters from Raids in Naxxramas. Altho it would be great to see a DPS meter compared to others, not a damage done meter. However i noticed that big amount of your damage came from melee physical damage, that was quit surprising since everyone told me haste is worthless for Deathknights.
For Lockapologist: If what you wrote is true then NO Deathknights should be allowed to raid in wotlk which i think is nonsense. It would be surprising if other dps-ers would do +1200dps compared to deathknights.
Only about 20% of his net damage came from melee (white damage). That's lower than any other physical class in the game..
For what it's worth, we theorycraft DKs in naxx25 gear at around 4k dps.
For Lockapologist: If what you wrote is true then NO Deathknights should be allowed to raid in wotlk which i think is nonsense. It would be surprising if other dps-ers would do +1200dps compared to deathknights.
Originally Posted by Janraea
For what it's worth, we theorycraft DKs in naxx25 gear at around 4k dps.
That's fine. I wasn't saying that DKs scale better or worse than anyone. Just pointing out that one anecdotal account in of being 15-20% behind in pvp gear does not mean DKs will stay competitive. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. TC shows they are competitive, but 4k is well below what Simcraft is showing for the top caster DPS in Naxx25 gear. There's been some grumbling about how much haste is being thrown around on gear, and DK don't scale well w/ haste, for example.
And since we're seeing Hunters, Rogues, and others get near 4k in SW gear, 4k with 10 more levels doesn't seem that hot.
LockApologist you seem to miss the fact that bioh mentioned he was in premade gear and the hunter was in epics. I ran a heroic Gun'drak against a hunter with tons of PVE gear and 4 pieces of valorous gear and he was only doing about 200-300 more dps on single target mobs than my unholy DK. I realize this is anecdotal at best but when I get home from work I'll post the recount info if possible.
That's fine. I wasn't saying that DKs scale better or worse than anyone. Just pointing out that one anecdotal account in of being 15-20% behind in pvp gear does not mean DKs will stay competitive. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. TC shows they are competitive, but 4k is well below what Simcraft is showing for the top caster DPS in Naxx25 gear. There's been some grumbling about how much haste is being thrown around on gear, and DK don't scale well w/ haste, for example.
And since we're seeing Hunters, Rogues, and others get near 4k in SW gear, 4k with 10 more levels doesn't seem that hot.
Stop comparing things to dps at 70. Most classes will *lose* significant amounts of dps as they gain levels, just from the value of ratings and stats going down. I don't know of any classes that are theorycrafting past 4.4k in naxx25 epics (Though I don't follow the hunter threads, so they might).
I agree that the anecdote isn't particularly useful, but there's no point in snapping at him for it. It's not like it's somehow anti-useful.
Stop comparing things to dps at 70. Most classes will *lose* significant amounts of dps as they gain levels, just from the value of ratings and stats going down. I don't know of any classes that are theorycrafting past 4.4k in naxx25 epics (Though I don't follow the hunter threads, so they might).
Not to mention that 4k damage at level 70 in Sunwell gear is based on stacking Raid buffs, multiple heroism/bloodlust, multiple potions, etc, etc.
Not to mention that 4k damage at level 70 in Sunwell gear is based on stacking Raid buffs, multiple heroism/bloodlust, multiple mana potions, etc, etc.
I'm pretty sure he's talking about post-3.0. I seem to recall that endgame enhancement shamans, in particular, are doing pretty crazy dps at 70.
I just poked around with this tanking spreadsheet trying out the different races. I suspected it before, but the Night Elf 2% avoidance racial is huge.
I picked the TTL of the various races with the default settings and they hovered around 46s, then I chose Night Elf and it jumped up to 51.8s. Doing a bit of simple statistics, the mean TTL is 46.67s, the standard deviation is 1.73s, meaning the Night Elf TTL is 3 standard deviations from the mean.
Going from 13.2% chance to be missed to 15.2% is a really massive jump. I imagine it will be an even bigger difference on my druid since he has higher armor and lower avoidance.
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.
Most of the leveling instances are pretty easy to tank as a DPS build. They should be, that's the design. The 77+ ones can be a bit tricky for a DK (Or any newly rolled char) who isn't tank specced, but if you keep a decent tank set of crafted items and/or grab the tank quest rewards they are still doable.
Stop comparing things to dps at 70. Most classes will *lose* significant amounts of dps as they gain levels, just from the value of ratings and stats going down. I don't know of any classes that are theorycrafting past 4.4k in naxx25 epics (Though I don't follow the hunter threads, so they might).
I agree that the anecdote isn't particularly useful, but there's no point in snapping at him for it. It's not like it's somehow anti-useful.
Meh, worrying about scaling at all now is a bit premature really - Blizzard is still in the middle of the balancing phase for the expansion, and I expect that to continue for a couple months past release. DKs will be buffed if they don't keep up, and some classes are likely to be nerfed - for instance, the warrior discussions have recently been fairly heavily focused on how titan's grip will scale at 80 with deep wounds and 2h spec adding to it - long story short, Blizz got the penalty on TG backwards it seems from a scaling perspective, I'd guess the hit penalty may be changed to reducing the AP bonuses closer to the level of 1h weapons personally. But any comparisons to fury warrior testing or theorycrafting on beta right now is going to be a moot point if the mechanics are changed, and I suspect other classes may have similar concerns.
Originally Posted by Neddie
I just poked around with this tanking spreadsheet trying out the different races. I suspected it before, but the Night Elf 2% avoidance racial is huge.
I picked the TTL of the various races with the default settings and they hovered around 46s, then I chose Night Elf and it jumped up to 51.8s. Doing a bit of simple statistics, the mean TTL is 46.67s, the standard deviation is 1.73s, meaning the Night Elf TTL is 3 standard deviations from the mean.
Going from 13.2% chance to be missed to 15.2% is a really massive jump. I imagine it will be an even bigger difference on my druid since he has higher armor and lower avoidance.
Has anyone noticed this before?
Avoidance scales very well with avoidance, so your druid will get less benefit, not more. Still, I'd be surprised if that doesn't get nerfed down to 1%, 2% is a lot of avoidance with diminishing returns on ratings. Not sure I'd roll an NE DK for that either, I'd probably end up worried that I'd shadowmeld while tanking a boss... based on results on my hunter so far, shadowmeld is far closer to FD right now than to the "temporary aggro drop" that I thought Blizz said it was going to be... needless to say, a feign-death version of shadowmeld would pretty much have to be un-keybound for tanking, as that would be a very bad "oops" moment.
The human expertise bonuses, even reduced, as well as the new Every Man for Himself seems like a much more general bonus to tanking in my opinion, having a free PvP trinket effect for boss fights could be pretty big unless they become even more extreme about making PvE encounters ignore that mechanic.
I just poked around with this tanking spreadsheet trying out the different races. I suspected it before, but the Night Elf 2% avoidance racial is huge.
I picked the TTL of the various races with the default settings and they hovered around 46s, then I chose Night Elf and it jumped up to 51.8s. Doing a bit of simple statistics, the mean TTL is 46.67s, the standard deviation is 1.73s, meaning the Night Elf TTL is 3 standard deviations from the mean.
Going from 13.2% chance to be missed to 15.2% is a really massive jump. I imagine it will be an even bigger difference on my druid since he has higher armor and lower avoidance.
Has anyone noticed this before?
Yes I noticed that as well. I also noticed however that switching out the two 1-handers for [Inevitable Defeat] increased TTL by 3 seconds. Now the 1 handers might have the advantage when you are not defense capped and using them helps you achieve cap, but the spikes they create do not appear to be overcoming their value. It could take quite awhile before anything is better than the 120stam 80agility 78 expertise. The one handers seem same league as other 2 handers like Jawbone for TTL but that can be deceptive as the damage from parry counters will make things spikier.
As I thought in high levels of gear bone armor is completely op on fights where your bones aren't getting consumed by unavoidable attacks, when bone shields duration goes over 20 seconds it is just a joke to compare frost/unholy tanking, I can't see how blizzard is going to get away with not nerfing the hell out of bone shield, it borders on absurd even at these gear levels you can basically run either bone or ibf 100% of the time.
If they leave it as is, I will probably end up having to have both my specs tanking and just swap between the two based on unholy and frost depending on the encounter's bone shield absorption rate. If I modify some gear to the stats of what the next level of gear probably looks like, I get a 88 second average bone armor. Aside from gutting bone armor completely and starting over the only solution seems to be putting a 20 or 25 second max on bone armor, or perhaps make avoided attacks consume a bone, or every second avoided attack is like one that connected.
Skills
Frost
* Targets affected by Chains of Ice now regain 10% of their movement each second for 10 sec. (Up from 5% each second fro 20 second)
* Rune Strike now costs 20 Runic Power (Up from 10) and has been changed from "Instant" to "Next Melee Attack"
Unholy
* Corpse Explosion range has been increased from 20 to 30 yards.
* Unholy Blight damage increased (37 DPS to 48 DPS for Rank 4, 31 to 40 for Rank 3, 23 to 30 for Rank 2). Targets aren't considered diseased anymore.
Talents
Blood
* Hysteria doesn't cost a Blood Rune anymore. Cooldown changed from 2 minutes to 3 minutes.
Frost
* Tundra Stalker doesn't affect Icy Touch anymore. Now increases expertise by 1/2/3/4/5. (Down from 2/4/6/8/10)
* Acclimation now has a 20% chance to boost magic resistance. (Down from 30%)
* Improved Icy Talons now increases the melee and ranged attack speed of your group or raid by 20% for the next 20 sec. (Old - Didn't affect ranged attacks)
* Frigid Dreadplate now Reduces the chance melee attacks will hit you by 1/2/3%.
* Deathchill now only works if the ability is used within 30 seconds.
* Black Ice doesn't affect Shadow damage anymore.
Unholy
* Ebon Plaguebringer magic damage taken by 4/9/13% (Old - Vulnerability to magic, wording change).
* Crypt Fever now increases disease damage taken by the target by 10/20/30%. (Down from 20/40/60%)
* Summon Gargoyle now costs 50 Runic Power (up from 30) and lasts 10 sec plus 1 per 8 Runic Power. (Up from 1 sec per 8 runic power only)
With my experience as a dk tank and dps in heroics (no nax yet, however did do dps for a 10 and 25 man vault run)
I find that while tanking i am able to pull between 1750 and 1950 dps on average (depending on the number of mobs pulled and proc/crit timing) I am using all PVP premade gear (minus having gloves and a helm that drop some crit for hit and make about a 30ish AP difference for dps, and having blue tanking shoulders and epic tanking gloves that i switch out when tanking obviously). Other than that everything is pretty much baseline with the gear i started with on murmur. (no new weapons or enchants) Using the 20% to next 2 frost/shadow spells rune enchant.
Now my rotation seems pretty solid (however my execution of it is still far from flawless, especially when things get really hectic tanking) usually along the lines of getting my IT and PS up for diseases, Pest to spread the love and a Blood strike to get both bloods coming up as Death Runes. Howling blast, followed by Frost strike, with Obliterate frost strike, (if tanking I've probably thrown in 1-2 rune strikes somewhere in this too) put my IT/PS back up HB with the death runes, Oblit with the other two death/frost and then toss out two more frost strikes and finish up with a HB/Oblit depending on whats up and if i proc'd any free Howling Blasts or not. If everything is going smoothly and I don't have to chase anything down I don't have more than a second of waiting for rune cooldowns, even less waiting if I start the fight with a good amount of RP.
For tanking I usually go something along these lines, I usually move stuff around to try new things out Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
-I like RP mastery just because when i start out with RP while tanking I don't feel like i'm wasting as much RP (I know i can burn this by pulling with DC but like when i start with 20-30 and someone else is refreshing horn then I don't have to worry about hitting cap as fast) so it's more of a preference.
-I haven't been taking acclimation recently just because i haven't found myself in encounters where i need it. I'm sure it can be very useful but at the moment I haven't faced anything that my AM shield can't take care of. Once the changes that blues have hinted at making for it come about I will most likely be taking it consistently.
- One point into epidemic seems to be taking care of business for me as far as my current rotation. Also gives me a little room for messing up my rotation or getting blocked/parried/etc...
For DPS I would go something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Toughness isn't really needed, but I use it for a filler to boost bladed armor and in case i need to make an emergency tanking decision it can come in handy too. Frost aura and Unbreakable armor are both possibilities and can be helpful and picked up or dropped as you see fit, UA is 10% boost to strength so you can burn it as a dps bump every minute or as a OMGWTF tank helper in emergencies.
Could go a bit more into unholy also but since I'm not one of those super smart spreadsheet people I'm not 100% sure which talents have more weight than others at the moment.
I used to use Killing Machine, although I was severely reprimanded for this, since I only go the way of the two hander. It's a fun talent but I definitely understand that it's concept is favorable to a DW DK in comparison, especially when it procs just before you start your disease rotation (don't like to waste it on IT).
With my pick and choose testing I managed to pull 2500 DPS tanking pulls in Heroic Halls of lightning, and DPSing CoT: CoS and on the trash pulls in the Vault. But this is not always the case, though i usually maintain high 1700-2100 dps sustained in most heroics depending on buffs available from group comp.
I find it tough to stray away from Frost (i enjoy many aspects of the other two trees also) but I find myself feeling as though i may not be able to perform nearly as well with the tools given to me by other spec's. This could definitely be more subconscious or my own short comings in play style, but as far as ease of execution and a rotation that has some variance in moves used. Also I have not really gotten much if any real quality dps or tanking experience as the other two specs.
Does anyone else feel this way as well? In the sense that Frost has more of a gradual learning curve as far as getting your dps up to good/acceptable levels? Most times I find myself out DPSing other DK's, Frost or other by about 100-500DPS, being as i know none of these people from more than just a run or two through an instance, I obviously have no way of knowing how long they've tried frost or any spec for that matter, or if they're just poorly spec'd (i don't always inspect my fellow DK's) or if they're just bad in general. I'm assuming that I'm in the "average" DK group as far as dps output goes.
Oh one more question for fellow DK's, what is your preferred presence to dps in? UH is pretty awesome, but if I'm going to be putting out damage in a PVE setting it seems like i blow through my rotation too fast and end up with more downtime waiting for rune cooldowns. So I always DPS in blood for the lovely 15% boost to damage output. Now I assume this would be the case for everyone, however you know what they say about assuming, so I figured I would actually ask and see what the general consensus is.
I don't think you're accounting for the extra 10% parry from the glyphed UA. That should put frost and unholy closer. They're closer on mine(I modified Ziggy's spreadsheet), almost equal through all levels of mitigation. Still looking to see what could have caused the discrepancy.
* Unholy Blight damage increased (37 DPS to 48 DPS for Rank 4, 31 to 40 for Rank 3, 23 to 30 for Rank 2). Targets aren't considered diseased anymore.
RIP Unholy.
That was so not needed, I don't really get why they are trying so hard to nullify every kind of decent DPS output Death Knights could have by going Unholy. They should've halted with the changes one or two patches ago. There is also no mention about that fix on BCB.
* Unholy Blight damage increased (37 DPS to 48 DPS for Rank 4, 31 to 40 for Rank 3, 23 to 30 for Rank 2). Targets aren't considered diseased anymore.
RIP Unholy.
I think you're being a little over dramatic, you're still getting 200-250 dps from UB.
Unholy has been the top dps spec for a while, with this most recent change you'll notice its closer to Blood. I say closer because Unholy is still slightly better (~2%) and still scales better.
I've run some tests on the boss dummy and it looks like they've fixed BCB afterall. I've got 26 procs out of 91 melee hits and it averagely accounted for 2.6% of the total damage.
EDIT: I've tried some more with a 17/0/54 Unholy build: here are the results. I've been hitting the dummy for five minutes - Bone Shield, Horn of Winter and the ghoul were used during the test.
This was done on the training dummy with just horn of winter, and pretty much correlates with what I see in raids. The only difference I find in raids is that melee becomes my top damage done, due to haste from icy talons or windfury totem.
10/17/08, 3:05 AM
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