WotLK Discussion - Talents and abilities. - Page 160

saiyajinmaster · 11/06/08, 10:36 PM

Originally Posted by Hidden

Healers and classes that are hitcapped by their gear without gearing towards hit anyway don't need the aura, so you'll need a maximum of 4 Draenei in a raid. It's also more efficient if healers/casters bring the aura rather than DKs because they don't lose Expertise for it and Gift of the Naaru scales with Spellpower (it's still like that, isn't it?).

Healers and nukers are more often than not max ranging things, or at least often enough to be an issue. Heroic presence is only 30 yards. Also, you're just offloading the 'burden' of it to another class, while I can appreciate that from a purely selfish DK only view, yes it is superior to just leech someone else's aura, the truth of the matter is it's highly possible that you might not be able to either because there's nobody in range if they're a healer/nuker, or your healers and nukers may not want to reroll draenei simply so you can steal their aura. It's worth noting that you should always want a draenei in melee range, and unless your guild has several rets/warriors that are spacegoats you are better off putting the burden on yourself than potentially not getting the benefit at all.

Again, you want a melee with the aura in your group, if your options are you taking it or not getting it 100% of the time, you should take it for max DPS.

Illundai · 11/06/08, 10:41 PM

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t36303-d...ps_compendium/

There. Done (for now). Let's keep this thread as the "talk" thread for now, shall we. I have no idle hope that the other thread won't get cluttered, but hopefully it won't be a complete mess :-).

Eetabeetay · 11/06/08, 11:03 PM

I noticed that the blood spec that zurm posted in the compendium included bloodworms. Is the dps gain from these very noticeable? From what I remember from the talk about them in this thread is that their targeting is pretty random and it's not a great choice for raiding. I personally was thinking about putting a point into rune tap and using the rune tap glyph for some pretty good raid utility, but if the dps contribution from the bloodworms is fairly decent then I think i would grab those.

Also: do the bloodworms benefit from the orc racial as well?
And improved rune tap probably doesn't affect the party heal from glyph of rune tap does it?

Flamingcloud · 11/06/08, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by Eetabeetay

I noticed that the blood spec that zurm posted in the compendium included bloodworms. Is the dps gain from these very noticeable? From what I remember from the talk about them in this thread is that their targeting is pretty random and it's not a great choice for raiding. I personally was thinking about putting a point into rune tap and using the rune tap glyph for some pretty good raid utility, but if the dps contribution from the bloodworms is fairly decent then I think i would grab those.

Also: do the bloodworms benefit from the orc racial as well?
And improved rune tap probably doesn't affect the party heal from glyph of rune tap does it?

The glyph does not benefit from the talent. Bloodworms were confirmed to benefit from the orc racial, though I doubt they are a good increase in total dps, when I was leveling as blood I don't think they did 1% of my damage.

Illundai · 11/06/08, 11:12 PM

It's basicly either 2 points in Blood Worms or Rune Tap & Mark of Blood. I don't think it matters much, but if the Worms' targetting is still messed up then they're not worth the DPS increase.

Eetabeetay · 11/06/08, 11:21 PM

About mark of blood, what abilities would proc this heal. Only single-target abilities, only melee, or what? I assume it doesn't proc off of aoe or dots, but when KT hits everyone in the raid with a frostbolt, would mark of blood heal everyone in the raid for 4% of their hp? I originally thought of this as just a tank healing ability, as it will be with a lot of fights, but are there any bosses where this can provide raid healing and which ones?

puupi · 11/06/08, 11:30 PM

I have a question/idea about Dual Wielding. The normal DW spec that people have figured out is the tri-spec with frost as it "deepest" build. What would you guys think of this build:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00100000000000

31/13/27

I guess the dps abilities would then be BS and Oblit. Ghoul as an unlimited pet. 2 DPS cooldowns, Hysteria and Gargoyle. 10% ap buff for the raid.

What do you think?

Arkasi · 11/07/08, 1:40 AM

Alright I saw multiple requests for attack power coefficients in the compendium thread, before this is officially put in there it probably ought to be verified. I did some searching and found these:

Blood:

Ability	APC
Blood Boil	0.0635
Pestilence	0.04
Strangulate	0.2

Frost:

Ability	APC
Icy Touch	0.1
Howling Blast	0.0755

Unholy:

Ability	APC
Death and Decay	0.023/tick
Death Coil	0.15
Corpse Explosion	0.04
Gargoyle	0.15
Unholy Blight	0.01/tick

Source: Wotlkwiki deathknight abilities section

Nitz · 11/07/08, 2:00 AM

Originally Posted by puupi

31/13/27

Doesn't the frost tri-spec works because of Howling Blast and Rime procs ? Your weapon dependant abilities won't hit for a lot with your spec.

jacclark · 11/07/08, 3:36 AM

Originally Posted by Hidden

What would you want a leveling thread for? Leveling a DK is just as easy as any other class even though it's a "new" class. The three specs are all viable leveling specs, gearing is quite straightforward, just go for Strength, Crit and Hit and "rotations" while leveling don't really matter either, non-elites usually die before the first rotation is even finished.

I just can't see a need of a DK leveling thread that's not that useful currently and will be totally useless in a few weeks.

[snip]

It is precisely because many people (lurkers and posters) are looking to these thread for advice on leveling this new and unknown class over the next few weeks to months. FAQs / leveling thread will minimize the detracting questions and discussion in the DPS and Tanking threads.

bathoz · 11/07/08, 3:59 AM

Originally Posted by Eetabeetay

About mark of blood, what abilities would proc this heal. Only single-target abilities, only melee, or what? I assume it doesn't proc off of aoe or dots, but when KT hits everyone in the raid with a frostbolt, would mark of blood heal everyone in the raid for 4% of their hp? I originally thought of this as just a tank healing ability, as it will be with a lot of fights, but are there any bosses where this can provide raid healing and which ones?

As I understand it, it's all damage. So something like a Baron Rivendare AoE Dot would be an ideal situation. The only one I'm not certain about is if it procs off thorns auras.

PS. I'm also really interested in the "what's the story with Player ghouls" question. For instance, do they count as a pet for Orc Command purposes. If someone battle rezes them while they're a ghoul, will they fall over. Will they get the full 53% if you try to CE them?

Caggy · 11/07/08, 5:23 AM

Well that FD should be put somewhere not near your other emergency buttons. A tank with FD, heh.

As for the Raise Dead, you create a generic Ghoul character, with Ghoul attacks, and Ghoul stats. It doesn't matter which class/gear they were before.

Oddly enough my Ghoul form seems to hit harder than my normal form. Was enough to finish off a boss once.

gorsameth · 11/07/08, 6:56 AM

I was wondering what people think about the use of Empower Rune Weapon for tanking.

Should this be saved for an emergency or is it better to use it early in the fight to boost tps.

Personaly i am leaning towards the latter by using it right after you finish your rotation before your first runes come back but i'm unsure how big of an increase this would generate(if at all).
Its use for emergency's just seems very limited with almost all damage mitigation talents using RP and UA and Bone shield on a predictable cooldown.
Note this is for single targets without adds since then i can see the use of saving it to be able to D&D without saving runes for it.

Fugazor · 11/07/08, 7:40 AM

Originally Posted by Arkasi

Alright I saw multiple requests for attack power coefficients in the compendium thread, before this is officially put in there it probably ought to be verified.

There seems to be updated list right here on TankSpot.

Hidden · 11/07/08, 7:46 AM

Originally Posted by jacclark

It is precisely because many people (lurkers and posters) are looking to these thread for advice on leveling this new and unknown class over the next few weeks to months. FAQs / leveling thread will minimize the detracting questions and discussion in the DPS and Tanking threads.

Generally known sites like wotlkwiki.info or mmo-champion.com give enough information about DKs to understand all the basics of the class, just as playing the DK for 30 minutes would. You don't need to know more to level effectively, if you do, you're most likely wrong here.

Healers and nukers are more often than not max ranging things, or at least often enough to be an issue. Heroic presence is only 30 yards. Also, you're just offloading the 'burden' of it to another class, while I can appreciate that from a purely selfish DK only view, yes it is superior to just leech someone else's aura, the truth of the matter is it's highly possible that you might not be able to either because there's nobody in range if they're a healer/nuker, or your healers and nukers may not want to reroll draenei simply so you can steal their aura. It's worth noting that you should always want a draenei in melee range, and unless your guild has several rets/warriors that are spacegoats you are better off putting the burden on yourself than potentially not getting the benefit at all.

Again, you want a melee with the aura in your group, if your options are you taking it or not getting it 100% of the time, you should take it for max DPS.

The difference between DKs taking it and other classes taking it is that there are classes/specs that don't sacrifice anything in PvE to get the aura. I'm agreeing about the range being a problem though, so you'll mostly have to rely on having an Enhancement Shaman in your group, which isn't unlikely, but not certainly given.
So you're deciding between 0.75% less dodges (and 0.75% less parries while tanking) for yourself permanently or 1% hit for your group if there aren't enough Draenei in melee range in the raid. I still find the second bonus way superior though, assuming Gift of the Naaru still does only scale with spellpower, it's a very weak casted HoT versus humans having a free insignia in their full PvE gear. I can think of quite a few situations where a free insignia could have a nice use in current raiding assuming it breaks all effects it does in PvP.

Edit: Just to make it clear, I agree that from a pure PvE perspective Draenei is better if you're low on Draenei/Enhancement Shamans.

• Zurm · 11/07/08, 9:20 AM

Originally Posted by Arkasi

Alright I saw multiple requests for attack power coefficients in the compendium thread, before this is officially put in there it probably ought to be verified. I did some searching and found these:

Blood:

Ability	APC
Blood Boil	0.0635
Pestilence	0.04
Strangulate	0.2

Frost:

Ability	APC
Icy Touch	0.1
Howling Blast	0.0755

Unholy:

Ability	APC
Death and Decay	0.023/tick
Death Coil	0.15
Corpse Explosion	0.04
Gargoyle	0.15
Unholy Blight	0.01/tick

Source: Wotlkwiki deathknight abilities section

This is out of date. I know for a fact that at least UB is wrong (now .013). There was a thread on the beta forums that listed all of this... Zurai linked it probably 20 pages back now or so. If I find it I'll link it.

Oxylos · 11/07/08, 9:52 AM

Originally Posted by Chicken

It should be further noted that Death Rune Mastery works somewhat different from what you'd expect. If you have all your Unholy and Frost Runes as Death Runes (so BBDDDD), and then use an Obliterate or Death Strike, the following happens:

1. Your two Unholy Runes which are currently Death Runes will get used by the ability.
2. Only one of your recently used Death Runes will remain a Death Rune. The other will turn back to Unholy, despite having just been used for an ability. (Or BBDDDU)

If you have only your Unholy Runes as Death Runes, and your Frost Runes are currently on cooldown, thus making it that your two converted Unholy Runes get used by Obliterate or Death Strike (BBFFDD), the following happens:

1. Your two Unholy Runes which are currently Death Runes will get used by the ability.
2. As before, only one of your two Unholy Runes becomes a Death Rune, however one of your Frost Runes (despite not being used by the ability) will also become a Death Rune. (BBDFDU)

That also applies if you have two Frost Runes as Death Runes and you use those for Obliterate or Death Strike. You end up with one of the Frost Runes staying a Death Rune, while one of the Unholy Runes will also turn into a Death Rune.

Or to put it differently, Death Rune Mastery will always convert what would normally be a Frost and Unholy Rune to a Death Rune, and not directly convert your Runes used on the ability that triggered it to Death Runes. It does have preference for converting your most recently used Frost and Unholy Runes however. Presumably the same applies to Reaping and Blood of the North but that's only possible to test if you have one of those talents and Death Rune Mastery at the same time.

I had asked this before in the thread (being a non-beta tester) and gotten one passing answer but this makes me question if its been tested.
If you have Death Rune Mastery AND Reaping and the following occurs
you have UFUFD(B)D(B) runes
You Death strike, now you have UFD(B)D(B) with D(U)D(F) on cooldown.
You Death Strike, now you have D(B)D(B) with D(U)D(F)D(U)D(F) on cooldown.
You Death Strike...what happens?
Do you now have DDDDBB on cooldown or DDDDDD?

The previous responder stated that the D(B)D(B) would indeed stay DD, but given this posts statement that DRM specifically looks for UF to change, even ones that are on cooldown, I'm wondering if anyone has actually tried this situation and what results they got.

edit:
It occurs to me that given this mechanic, even if this gave you DDDDDD in the next rotation you would PS IT, giving you DDDD | UF, and then when you used Death Strike with the D(B)D(B) it would change the cooldown UF instead of the BBs so you could not maintain PS IT DSx5

you could however (depending on if they come back DD that is) maintain a rotation of PS IT BSx4 DS BSx4 and be able to spec mograine/reaping. or even simply BSx6. Of course its likely that these rotations are terrible and you're better off HSing even if you get 2 less per 20 seconds. I'm just drawn to look at the extremes of what you can do in any given system.

gorsameth · 11/07/08, 10:04 AM

I Havnt heard of this before the previous poster and with the beta down we wont be able to test it for atleast other week but if what he reports is actually correct then you will end up with DDDDBB.

Falya · 11/07/08, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Illundai

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t36303-d...ps_compendium/

There. Done (for now). Let's keep this thread as the "talk" thread for now, shall we. I have no idle hope that the other thread won't get cluttered, but hopefully it won't be a complete mess :-).

Hi, i've a question about the 50/0/21 Build: why don't you use a 45/0/26 Build to get a permanet ghoul, some additional spell damage, more rune power for your gargoyle from dirge, and even corpse explosion, bcb or virulence.

You get:
-Permanent Ghoul with 3sek Stun (which adds about 5% to your Damage in fights that take longer than 3-4 Minutes, look at this parse: WOW Meter Online - More logs!!!!!! 50% of the ghouls damage wouldn't have happen if he had been killed after 2 minutes. im also not sure if a uncontrolled ghoul uses claw)
-10% or more extra gain from AP in Spellpower(which affects DC and Icy Touch)
-4% more white Damage from Necrosis.
-Mark of Blood, which is not that bad as a raid buff when a boss does ae damage or has something like an enrage. Im not sure if there is a limitation or something on how many targets the 4% heal it works(when a boss uses ae-damage).
-More Runepower from Dirge to support gargoyle and additional DCs.
-corpse explosion which isn't that bad in aoe situations(when your ghoul cooldown is ready) or if a group mate dies(to punish him for dieing :P)

Its also possible to take out BCB i think. If you look at some raid parses(see above) you see that the damage of this ability is about 0.7-1% of your whole damage. I think you can get more than 1% if you put it in something like virulence or impurity. BCB sounds like a dual wield ability that gets good benefits from the third disease of the unholy tree. But it sounds not really usefull for a blood dk.

So why not take this version? http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00100000000000

Im not sure if i've left something out while thinking about this 50/0/21 Build. It would be nice if you could rate this idea.

• Zurm · 11/07/08, 10:23 AM

From my experience raiding (and many others have seen this as well) ghouls, permanent or not, last a very short time in almost all raiding situations. They are dumb, and unlike hunter or warlock pets we don't have an easy heal (deathcoil requires a massive amount of RP for a small return in healing) or have the talents to make them take less AOE damage. As such, going out of your way to lose an almost permanent 10% damage for a little extra spell damage and a "permanent" pet which will die in <20 seconds is pointless.

Your statement about Mark of Blood is true. If you feel that strongly about it, you can take points out of blood worms for it. Regarding Dirge, you are going stupidly far into a tree to get extra RP on an ability you use once per cycle? Doesn't make much sense to me. In regards to BCB, I don't know what parses you are looking at, but it always comes ahead of necrosis. Always.

Solithaira · 11/07/08, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by Falya

You get:
-Permanent Ghoul with 3sek Stun (which adds about 5% to your Damage in fights that take longer than 3-4 Minutes, look at this parse: WOW Meter Online - More logs!!!!!! 50% of the ghouls damage wouldn't have happen if he had been killed after 2 minutes. im also not sure if a uncontrolled ghoul uses claw)

The stun is most likely a non-factor on raid bosses. Also i'm pretty sure ravenous dead and shadow of death are picked up for the personal gain rather than the benefit it provides the ghoul.

-10% or more extra gain from AP in Spellpower(which affects DC and Icy Touch)

Blood is the least dependent on magical damage, and the entire tree is geared towards physical dps. Note entirely sure this increased Spellpower would be worthwhile.

-4% more white Damage from Necrosis.

Sure

-Mark of Blood, which is not that bad as a raid buff when a boss does ae damage or has something like an enrage. Im not sure if there is a limitation or something on how many targets the 4% heal it works(when a boss uses ae-damage).

I actually haven't heard anyone else talk about this...would be interested if this works.

-More Runepower from Dirge to support gargoyle and additional DCs.

From what I understand Blood probably has the least amount of problems generating RP...shouldn't be a huge concern.

-corpse explosion which isn't that bad in aoe situations(when your ghoul cooldown is ready) or if a group mate dies(to punish him for dieing :P)

Corpse Explosion in general is considered rather lackluster and more of a gimmick than anything else. Not sure it has potential in raids and bossfights.

The bottom line would be whether you could justify the lack of 10% extra damage and 5 expertise with a combination of any of the above. The most interesting thing I see is Mark of Blood...and you could probably just pull one point out of Blood Aura and put it into MoB.

Falya · 11/07/08, 10:38 AM

Yes, that sounds like an valid argument against the ghoul. i wasn't able to test this in raids. Thanks for this remark. But one little thing i still have to think about is: [Glyph of Death's Embrace]

Im not sure if this rune is still in the game. But it sounds like a not so bad way to heal your ghoul. And since this is a minor glyph it doesn't replace a important major glyph.

Also Dirge gives you 5 rune power for two of the used abilities: Plague strike and obliberate. Its about one free DC per Minute. I've looked at some raid parses from the beta and found out that most of the time you do about 3-4 DCs per Minute. So one additional might be not that bad(if its a RP issue and no timing issue that leads to only doing 3-4DCs).

However.. i have no idea how good impurity is. So 10% and 5 Expertise seems to be indeed better than the permanent ghoul.

Thanks for your help!

EDIT: I have another question about [Glyph of Death's Embrace]. You get free DCs from Sudden Doom. Is it possible that i get not only a free dc but additional 20 RP if i have this rune and heal my ghoul?

Flamingcloud · 11/07/08, 11:15 AM

Not sure if mark of blood works on aoe, but it is pretty ridiculous on Razuvious, and probably would have been on Kalecgos as well, you can heal up the npc tanking to full.

jacclark · 11/07/08, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Hidden

Generally known sites like wotlkwiki.info or mmo-champion.com give enough information about DKs to understand all the basics of the class, just as playing the DK for 30 minutes would. You don't need to know more to level effectively, if you do, you're most likely wrong here.

I'll have to respectfully disagree here - neither website offers the in-depth knowledge present in this thread to effectively level / learn this new class. Players not satisfied with these general sites would likely go searching for a more detail-oriented site like this and opinions such as ours. Build discussion, itemization, and maximizing runic efficiency are probably what people are looking for that aren't present in depth on the other sites.

So you're deciding between 0.75% less dodges (and 0.75% less parries while tanking) for yourself permanently or 1% hit for your group if there aren't enough Draenei in melee range in the raid. I still find the second bonus way superior though, assuming Gift of the Naaru still does only scale with spellpower, it's a very weak casted HoT versus humans having a free insignia in their full PvE gear. I can think of quite a few situations where a free insignia could have a nice use in current raiding assuming it breaks all effects it does in PvP.

Edit: Just to make it clear, I agree that from a pure PvE perspective Draenei is better if you're low on Draenei/Enhancement Shamans.

This is an interesting debate -- traditionally, I've always been in favour of better dps to reduce strain on healing. But this 1% hit is very dependent on group organization -- tank grouping versus dps grouping. Other factors to consider: 10 man (2 x 5 man group) versus 25 man (5 x 5 man group) -- since Heroic Presence affect 1 group of 5 -- progession of raiding as people reach hit cap.

I'll probably choose NE simply to max my defensive capabilities and address the very serious concern of cosmetic appeasement.

(I'll add that Shadowmeld is a very nice ability in pve and pvp.)

• Chicken · 11/07/08, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Oxylos

I had asked this before in the thread (being a non-beta tester) and gotten one passing answer but this makes me question if its been tested.
If you have Death Rune Mastery AND Reaping and the following occurs
you have UFUFD(B)D(B) runes
You Death strike, now you have UFD(B)D(B) with D(U)D(F) on cooldown.
You Death Strike, now you have D(B)D(B) with D(U)D(F)D(U)D(F) on cooldown.
You Death Strike...what happens?
Do you now have DDDDBB on cooldown or DDDDDD?

The previous responder stated that the D(B)D(B) would indeed stay DD, but given this posts statement that DRM specifically looks for UF to change, even ones that are on cooldown, I'm wondering if anyone has actually tried this situation and what results they got.

That would indeed result in BBDDDD, while I haven't specifically tested it, it's the logical conclusion based on the parts I did test. If it would result in DDDDDD, then using a Death Strike with BBDDDD wouldn't cause you to end up with BBDDDU after all. It still warrants some in-game testing obviously, as the mechanic is already somewhat illogical, so further acts of it that aren't as expected wouldn't be too surprising.

That should (hopefully) answer the rest of your post as well.