Moratia

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...53101203133151

You still can use it, but i guess it is better to use this template only on boss where AMZ is really hugh. Lose desecration is a pain for dps, worse than 5% dmg instant lose, target not snared anymore, you can't use BS too often since glyph won't work anymore.
So you have to take reaping, in all AMZ is more at 9 talent point than 6...

 

Frostx

Cleariy that DK in the highest parse you listed is skilled because his Scourgestrike did less percentage of his total damage than .... Wandering Plague???

Death Coil(R5) : 31 Times
Scourge Strike(R4) : 3 Times
Icy Touch(R5) : 32 Times
Plague Strike(R6) : 31 Times
Blood Strike(R6) : 34 Times

Obviously his rotation is... not optimal.

If you want to insist on relying on the utility card to get into raids that's fine. But i'd highly reccomend using non-bad players for your comparisons.

 

Infiniteone

By all means, show me somewhere where I can find said "non-bad players"

 

Leaflock

If your benchmark for "top dps classes" is that thread with the 15 highest totals, you're seriously misjudging where things are at. Those are the 15 buggiest OP dps totals from different builds throughout the beta. If you examine the parses you linked, the DKs are either doing fine or not performing optimally. For example, in the first one you linked where the DK did 3494 dps, Sugargiggles is unholy, but managed all of 3 Scourge Strikes over 3 minutes.

The only thing I see there that's remotely alarming is that hunters can do too much damage, which Blizzard has already said. And why shouldn't druids be doing dps on par? That's just a silly remark.

If the DKs here run raids, do everything exactly right, and consistently underperform, then I'll be concerned.

 

Infiniteone

Druids can heal/tank/dps, once we get the talent swap on the fly function, expect their to be less of a reason to bring a DK and more of a reason to take Druids, this is of course is excluding the other classes we haven't talked about and what their capable of with "spec on the fly" functions.

I'm not saying DKs wont' be raiding, I'm sure a lot of you are probably in "friends first, friends are the best! - Guilds" or the "lets at least gear one out and see if they scale/get buffed or use it for it's anti-magic zone and other neat gimmicks, too" but I don't think you'd be on this forum if you weren't the least bit curious as to what is ultimately the absolute best way to min/max something.

Again, show me some DK parses where their doing everything right, you also neglected to mention Arms Warrior dps, frostfire mages, and even mutilate rogues and enhance shaman, has Blizzard stated that all these classes are bugged too or are going to get a nerfing? Also, source would be nice when you say "Blizz said".

 

Ultimate

That's what I find funniest about most of the parsers. They don't reflect anyone who has raiding experience. They all seem to be random pugs. I got in a pug 10 man naxx earlier today. Decided to put all my starter gear on see how I fair against everyone else. 4 DK total. One was an OT. All three of the dps spec DK were blood spec(this includes me). Both of the others had at least 1 epic. Went to anub first. Needless to say we never killed him. I was averaging 21-2300 dps. Next highest dk was around 1500. I was doing essential 23-25% of the total dmg done. Never aoe on the adds. Strictly boss and add dps. Play style and skill MAKES this class or breaks it. Being a bad dk or even a good one isn't gonna be anything compared to a GREAT dk. Simply messing up on 3-4 rotations in one fight will throw off you max potential way off. Just looking at the parsers tell me what it's gonna be like 2 weeks in wotlk.

 

Infiniteone

WTB all these "raiding experienced" player's parses, you would think if some "random pugs" could do it, they could too. Another thing I forgot to mention is if these parses (the only thing we got out there that's definitive) and raids are all pugs and full of random "bads" then why are the hunters, warriors, rogues, mages, shaman, druids, etc all doing great dps (would they be EVEN BETTER with "raiding experienced" players?), they must be the only good players on these raids right? Also a DK in fresh pre-made gear wont put out the numbers these DKs are, this leads us to believe they have some pve gear and experience and are in facts friends/fellow guildies with the people that they are running the instance with since they merited a spot on the raid with such low comparable dps to their other classes.

 

Illundai

Those meters say jack shit. I did 3100 dps on Patchwerk 10 with minimal buffs in nearly full premade gear, next time we do it I'll make sure to screenshot my damage breakdown.


Edit:

To clarify why you should be way less worried is just the way the class works. Due to how our regeneration of runes works, the premade/starter gear is quite horrible to do tests with; missing any of your attacks almost completely screws up your rotation and will make you want to stab yourself with a fork. We did a raid with only premades to see how classes would fare up to eachother and we had me first as a blood DK, closely followed by the Unholy DK, then the BM hunter and so on. All of the classes were in the 100-150 dps range of eachother. I'd say Blizzard has done a pretty okay job of balancing classes towards eachother.

Now that I've gotten quite a bit of Naxx 10 gear I'm looking forward to seeing what numbers I can put out. I expect it to be on par with everyone else.

 

Ultimate

Fact of the matter is I haven't seen any parser showing anything close to optimal dk rotations. Yes all those other classes are doing great dps, because most those people are most likely playing those same classes in live. How many dk can say that. NONE. Most of the wow player base aren't leaders or trend setters. You can go to the beta forums and see the massive number of post of people asking for what spec is best. Asking the same posters what they think. What rotation to use. A lot of the dk community is made up of people who just wanna play something new. Nothings wrong with that. They pay to play like the rest of us. Also you say these dk(from the parsers) are good because they have epics to put of those numbers? If you haven't noticed yet, it's even easier to be cared through content now more than ever. Esp with classes that can do 75% more dmg than others. Three 6k dps hunter is pretty much = to 5 dk in dmg going by the parsers. All the dk have to do is be in the raid to collect the loot.

 

Arkasi

Chill of the Grave + Dirge + Gargoyle

I have found a use for runic power mastery. This partial build generates the maximum amount of runic power possible, combined with the cheapest runic power drain. Since Chill of the grave and dirge can be acquired in the same build your obliterates garner 30 runic power. Your typical disease application rotation would garner 100 runic power in total (it-ps-bs-bs-ob). With this it should be possible to keep your gargoyle up indefinitely. Your AoE is in form of having two semi-permanent pets.

Question is: is the synergy and overlap on obliterate between chill of the grave and dirge worth it? Is it too good? I looked through the thread and I didn't see a post that combined these two, but I could be wrong.

Major Glyph: Glyph of Death Grip

I'm pretty sure this glyph needs to be examined, changed, or avoided. If death grip is on the global cooldown, then you won't get off 1 ability (unless you are in unholy presence) before the stun ends. If it is off the global cooldown then you get 1 maybe 2 abilities. I'm fairly certain that you would have gotten off those abilities anyway. As far as I know it already interrupts spell casting, and any instant cast will still get you right after the stun. It seems as though this glyph was intended for pvp use but the 10 sec increase to the cooldown requires 2 talent points to make up. As a minor glyph this might be worth more, or a much lower increase to the cooldown time, but now I see no reason to ever get this.

 

Ultimate

Gargoyles have a 1 minute max timer.

 

Flamingcloud

Deathgrip is off the global, but yes I agree that this glyph is bad. I think they are ok with having some bad glyphs.

 

Leaflock

Ugh, no "pure vs. hybrid" crap in here please.

I guess the larger point is that you're screaming the sky is falling and DKs are screwed based on a handful of parses for which you don't know the context, individual level of gear or skill, or the players involved. Patchwerk isn't the benchmark he used to be, either-- notice that a lot of those kills are around a 2:30 duration, which can skew away from theoretical-max-dps towards best-use-of-cooldowns-and-burst. A lot of raiders on beta already significantly outgear Patchwerk, because he's an intro level raid now.

I liked something that Ghostcrawler said about Blizzard's raid design and where dps classes should be right now (link):

If you go to a raid, consistently do everything right, raid under ideal conditions, and still consistently come out with dps that's not worth taking to a raid, then something needs to be fixed. Raiding DKs here are telling you that's not the case. Blizzard has been working to ensure that's not the case.

Also, the link to the comment about hunters.

 

Infiniteone

In a forum which pretty much only garnered popularity based on its min/maxing data, I dunno if we can just throw out that "pure vs hybrid crap" I know many guilds and raid leaders that are min/maxers to the bone that read these forums, even if the difference is a consistent 100 dps between classes they wanna know about it + any utility of classes to know which ones to bring, especially with a new expansion on the horizon when pretty much everything gets reset.

GC also said they were just "keeping an eye out" which means they don't think it's out of hand yet, even though their doing 1000-2000dps more then other specs on parses we do have.

Also, my handful of parses vs you showing me zero parses and promising me that their are good dks out there they just don't do parsing, is at least something. Further, their is not just a handful, I went through nearly every single raid boss (which was challenging since the site appears to go down alot) and every single one shows basically the same dps gaps, I could take the time to post about 50-100 parses if you really want, but they all show the same thing the few ones I showed you, I'd have thought you would have checked these over as well to dispute me, guess you did not take the time to.

Another thing I'd like to add is that classes other then the death knight have far simpler rotations and abilities to juggle in all boss fights so their dps job is going to be vastly easier with any tactic and strategy needed on a boss. So if anyone's dps is to fluctuate across multiple encounters I would think it would be Death Knights the most.

 

tzenes

I would love to show you some parses with dk doing proper rotations (heck even proper spec), but they don't exist.

DK abilities have been in such fluctuations, that only a handful of people in _this_ thread seem to understand them.

I have yet to see a single Blood Spec parse with Gargoyle in it, yet about 20 pages ago it was proved higher dps (50/0/21 > 51/13/7).

So yeah, a completely new class with a large number of abilities that haven't been properly balanced yet, you're not going to find any min-max parses (or at least they are going to be really rare). I suppose you could wait... or you could keep looking at parses of people who don't know how to play their class. Or heck, reroll hunter. Honestly I don't care what you do.

I would appreciate it if you'd stop running in here and telling us DK can't dps, mostly because it hurts our ability to discuss specific things that will allow us to understand how to min/max a DK.

 

Leaflock

1) Min-maxing is one thing. The Pure vs. Hybrid debate is a pointless circular exercise in which every single class argues it's going to lose its raid spot to someone else because they can do similar dps, provide similar buffs, or the class lacks some nebulously-defined "utility". Raid-stacking to beat encounters is over. The GC quote I posted answers this beautifully.

2) I'd like to see anyone mathematically prove a 100 dps difference between two classes, let alone the players' actual ability to repeatedly execute that so precisely. When players are doing 4000 dps, 100 dps is well within the bounds of deltas like differences in gear, talents, skill, or even a missed rotation or the RNG. Over a 2:30 fight which you overgear (both points you ignored), you're going to see a significantly wider range of dps than on a 6 min or longer fight. Look at post-patch Brutallus kills this week from guilds that were already previously clearing Sunwell.

3) I'm not saying "all those DKs are bad, so those parses don't count". I pointed out one that was completely wrong by not using his/her primary dps ability, yet ranked pretty high in dps anyway. I'm saying there are way too many things you don't know about what happened there to actually judge what the state of every class is, beyond not even having played a DK yet. Parses are helpful for illuminating what happened on your own raid, but the data are always limited in what they can tell us and require reasoned interpretations.

4) Many classes' rotations got more complex in 3.0. Saying every other class has an easier dps job is ridiculous. Sure, DKs are meant to be somewhat more challenging. Variation in dps output because a DK is unable to perform optimally isn't a problem with the class, anyway, unless it's actually physically impossible.

If you're looking to always be number 1 on dps, then it looks like the flavor-of-the-month is hunter for now. We may not end up #1 (GC has said hunters, rogues, mages, and warlocks should end up doing more, all things being equal), but I see nothing on there to suggest that we're somehow a liability to the raid.

 

dr_AllCOM3

I'm currently writing a DK module for my simulator (Doc's PvE Simulator : WoWInterface Downloads : Data Mods), since I'm rerolling one.
Is there a reliable theorycraft source? I haven't found one, they are either totally outdated or incomplete. I guess I'll have to ask here .

 

Aylada

I’ve been running some tests on the dummies in Ebon hold, and while it seems that a few of the more complicated rotations do give better results, they also leave a lot of room for error. I’m wondering if people are considering this increased chance of an error as an element in deciding raiding specs and rotations? Since screwing up a rotation can have a serious impact on DPS, is it worth attempting to find the simplest rotation (out of the ones with comparable DPS)?

Also, I’ve unfortunately not been able to try more than a couple of raid runs on the beta, and I was wondering if people are using a castsequence macro for rotations or individual keypresses?

 

Frostx

I've always done it manually. A castsequence macro would only be viable when you cap hit and expertise - which will be possible eventually, but probably not possible during the first tier of wotlk.

Regarding tanking, i've always regarded Blood as inferior to the other 2 trees (least mitigation, no aoe threat apart from DND/pest/bb which every dk has).. However i'm kinda undecided between Frost and Unholy. Personally i really like Frost alot more, but at very high avoidance an Unholy tank with Bone Armor would probably take ridiculously low damage (and at what amount of avoidance would you get near 100% uptime of Bone Armor?) I'd like to hear opinions about DK tank specs at low and high tiers of gear if anyone is interested in discussing this.

 

Randyll

A thread with a thorough consolidation of Death Knight DPS rotation doesn't exist. They've reached a point in balancing where they won't do insane overhauls that'd render such guides useless in a single patch. Knock on wood though, by saying this I know the next thing they're going to do is just that . Is there anyone working on such a thing anyway?

I don't know if I've missed it but so far it seems they haven't implemented the lowered activation on miss/parry/dodge. I don't know what you mean with "screwing up", RNG as in dodge and parry and human errors. such as using the wrong skill at the wrong time, are two different things. The change I described should make the former situation less threatening, but as to the latter there is little one can do except for improving his play style. In that sense "dumbing" down rotations shouldn't really be a benefit, since it'll take the "skill" aspect out of it.

 

Aylada

Misses/parries/dodges were giving me a 1 second cooldown yesterday, so it would seem that this has been implemented.

As far as "dumbing down" rotations go, an simpler rotation will still be massively more complicated than more or less any other DPS class in the game. Aiming for a rotation that is more forgiving would seem like the best thing to do, especially considering the increasing complexity of raid encounters.

 

Arkasi

My mental math says if you are facing 1 mob with an attack speed of 3.0 sec, you would need at least 80% avoidance to have bone shield last until it's cooldown is up ( 60 sec / 4 bones = 15 sec/3 sec = 5 attacks so you'd need to avoid 4 of them). The trouble is that bone shields up time is entirely dependent on their attack speed and your avoidance, the faster that attacks are coming in the more avoidance you are going to need to meet the minimum.

 

Sojin

Not bashing on you when I say this but your max crit damage seems low. I'm too familiar with blood myself so this could be right in line with good damage, but going from what my Howling Blast crits could put out in PVE (last build).

After testing frost this weekend after the changes put through, my Howling Blasts on non-diseased targets (was running CoT: strat) seemed to be down by about 300-400 damage and no crits over 6k (highest I had gotten prior was 8.1k in PVE with the Cinder Glacier rune enchant on and other debuffs on the mob.) My DPS in PVE seemed to go down around the 1100-1300 range on average while tanking, down from around 1500-1750.

 

Flamingcloud

Two problems with this. The first is that it is 5 bones with the glyph. The second is that it really only needs to last 45 seconds to have 100% coverage of IBF or Bone Armor. According to the spreadsheet when bone armor lasts more than twenty seconds unholy > frost.

From what I can tell the spreadsheet does not take into account diminishing returns, but as a night elf I get 85.2% evasion in the best tier 7 25 man gear fully buffed, all gemmed and enchanted. With diminishing I have no idea where this number is but I am sure it is high enough to give a 30 or 40 second bone shield if not longer on a fight with no unavoidable attacks.

If bone armor stays as is, they will basically have to design encounters around always having attacks which consume bones being thrown on the tank.

 

Frostx

They could always make the boss do a short cooldown magic attack (eg: fireblast) on the tank. That would eat up bone armor charges and solve the possible imbalance