Blood Caked Blade lasts for up to 27 seconds talented, i dont think you should need too much haste in order to keep the disease applied.

The 15% to 20% lower dps was rough guess based on what other people here have posted on unholy DPS. As mentioned Unholy DK's come into their own by buffing other classes. I was mainly thinking that since other classes in the group will probably be doing more personal DPS, then the scaling effect of speed buff would impact group members more than the DK himself.

I think many people here may disagree on movement speed not being a factor in raids. I've read on the theorycrafting forum here that some classes only need about 4 seconds of travel time for Cats Swiftness enchant to outdps the pure agi boot enchant. My question was regarding how many seconds of +10% speed travel time for a whole group would be needed to make up for the DPS difference of 15% dmg vs 15% haste on a single DK.

thank god

I was thinking "should I switch out that 51 pt talent?". But now it's a no brainer for AoE fights.

Well, I didn't read any blue posts that said it was broken, just the one about DnD overshadowing it. That's why I was asking.

Fair enough on BCB - but I'm thinking about burst dps here? As for movement speed, I'm not too fussed about the time it takes to raid.

I hadn't seen that, or my brain didn't register it, thanks for pointing it out. Anyway yeah I'll give frost a try again next patch when they change it cause they have a lot of decent changes, since currently, besides PvP, I don't really see a point.


About the unholy stuff, it's an interesting tree, which doesn't appear on the first look. Blight is terrible DPS in its current state, but it has potential, it's a rather large AE, that moves with you, on a pretty short cooldown. It applies a diseases so you can pop blood boil right after it and get a massive AE taunt(good for offtanking, but you'd pull the boss if the room is too small). It obviously helps with obliterate/bloodstrike damage too. And well, it stacks with D&D since it's RP based, giving some pretty good AE power. Add to this, Corpse Explosion, and you have some interesting AE tools. But then, you have one more talent that isn't very flashy, but does a ton of damage, Wandering Plague.

Since all your AEs are diseases or apply diseases, that means you get multiple ticks that can each proc an AE, leading to a massive spam of little numbers on your screen. It's very impressive, I used an unholy build to do Nexus, and we were doing huge pulls, and stuff was dieing, fast. I was dieing too, but icebound fortitude+bone armor+frost presence gets the job done. And I was the only AE, besides retadin consecration, which I don't think is quite as bugged as their judgements ^^. However my little AE dances were doing way more threat than RF paladin's consecration, with 2-4ticks headstart, and that's before I'm forced into frost presence to survive.

Anyway, unholy has this, and bone armor which is excelent for tanking really, and hard to give up. It is in my opinion one of the best tanking talent, since the cooldown is "only" 30secs, but you can actually choose when to apply it. The issue obviously is bone armor is quite deep in the tree, but there's a lot of good talents on the way though. Epidemic for tanking is pretty nice, because you never know when you need diseases for a taunt, so you don't obliterate much, at least I don't, unless I'm obliterating on pull with like D&D to secure aggro(and use empower rune weapon without wasting it). Unholy command is like, very very good for obvious reasons, Lichborne is a nice tool for specific fights, as well as a nice melee mitigation ability for berzerks or whatever, but what I found interesting was the ghoul stuff.

Having a ghoul while tanking is like having last stand ready. You can pop your ghoul at any moment with death pact for healing. Your ghoul also empower your bloodstrike all the time(disease stuff), and you can use it to generate a burst of AE aggro if the need arises(by blowing it up). Being able to keep the ghoul up 100% of the time(5points in ravenous dead, the str translates into parry with deflection, and 1point in ferocious dead, also adds some healing to death pact as a bonus) is a nice unholy perk. And the ghoul is DPS, not much, but it's not that bad actually.



However you end up with the same dilemna over and over. Bone armor vs Blade Barrier/Scent of Blood vs Frigid Dreadplate(and Unbreakable armor if you feel like wasting points in stupid stuff in frost). Can't have everything, it's a bit hard to find out what'll be the best, since so much of it is either cooldown based, or proc based. I guess Blood is the most steady, with Blade Barrier being up a lot if you're not slacking on runes, giving something like 12-14%parry, and scent of blood being up a lot, giving some decent self healing.

Something like this
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
There's a few loose points into stuff like Hysteria and Rune Tap(not a big fan of it it heals for crap, eats a blood rune and has a 1min cooldown), but couldn't find much better tanking stuff. Has Lichborne, almost perma ghoul, and frigid dreadplate, while having the most "safe" increases with blood tree. For raid tanking, I don't see people relying on activated abilities(bone armor) or proc based abilities(unbreakable armor) over passive parry. Too lazy to double check the spec on the current blizzard calculators, and also not very useful, I'll wait until I see the next build ingame, for now it's just random website changes if anything.

Does anybody have suggestions for how to test the way the Rune Mastery talents effect rune refreshes? Example being, if rune mastery procs with 6 seconds remaining on your rune cooldown does the rune refresh in 3 seconds. Assuming it does, if you use that rune the moment it activates, while you are still buffed with your rune mastery, what is the cooldown of your next rune? There are obvious answers here, but I think they need to be proven.

Pyros, while I somewhat agree on Unbreakable Armor(it's still mitigation though), I think Bone Armor is a great ability for raid tanking...that's where it shines! Bosses hit at 2.5s normally. 20% slow, that's down to 3s. 40% mitigation for 12s out of every 30s is damn good. Stack it with Icebound Fortitude and you've got Super Shield Wall on a 1m cooldown. Yes, I realize there will be other sources of damage during those 12s, but only if you don't parry/dodge/miss any other hits.

Also, does anyone know how Frigid Deathplate works? Full 50% slow on bosses? Or capped at 20% and won't even apply since tclap or CoW is already up?

I was thinking this for most tanking situations:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Bone Armor and Icebound Fortitude would have to be uses on cooldown to provide mitigation equal to(or surpassing) that of warriors. Sucks not to have them as reactive, but their cooldowns are so short, it's almost seems they were intended to be used as semi-passive mitigation.

Does Blood-Caked Blade refreshing suffer from the same broken refreshing as Deep Wounds? That is to say, if you get it to proc 2.9 seconds in, does it do zero damage?

Is there a cap to how many diseases can affect the bonus on Blood Strike?


Also, if two or more DKs put the same disease on a target, does the target become afflicted by two diseases? For example, 2 DKs use Plague Strike and have a Ghoul active; how many diseases are there on the target?



Edit: How does the Frigid Dreadplate effect work? Can it be resisted and if so, does it use spell hit (17% vs bosses) or melee mechanics? Is there a delay between the proc and the activation of the slowing mechanic?

2 DKs using Plague Strike will each put a separate debuff on the target. Same with Degeneration, same with Death and Decay.

Already explained how it works, it gives a 100% "haste" on rune cooldown for the duration. It speeds up rune regeneration when it's up, and when it stops it just goes back to normal. If there's 2seconds left on your runemastery when you use a rune, it'll regen in 10secs-(2x2secs)=6secs.

I don't like the idea of a fixed runesetup that much.

At least not with the way the rune masteries are working, as they're simply too much chance based. You can't build a rotation around them.

I'd love to see the rune masteries changed to permanently convert a rune of one type into a death rune.

Rune Mastery (in Unholy) -> 1 Blood Rune permanently becomes a Death Rune

Rune Mastery (in Frost) -> 1 Unholy Rune permanently becomes a Death Rune

Rune Mastery (in Blood) -> 1 Frost Rune permanently becomes an Death Rune

I've already proposed some fairly sweeping changes to the Rune Mastery talents, excluding Death Rune Mastery. Here is the thread: WoW Forums -> Rune Mastery, DPS Cycles, Flawed Resources

Anyway, I went to Blasted Lands and hung out with everybodys best friends, the Servants of Razelikh, in order to test the effects of the Rune Mastery talents. I wasn't really able to get anything that was 100% conclusive, but I have come to the conclusion that the Rune Mastery talents work in the following manner: As long as the rune mastery is active the cooldown on your runes regenerates twice as fast. This means that if a rune is used in the middle of the rune mastery buff that the runes cooldown with be 5 seconds, instead, if say you use a rune with 3 seconds remaining on your rune mastery the result will be this 10-8-6-4*-3-2-1-Refresh and not 10-8-6-4*-2-Refresh (* signifying the point at which BRM fades)

Here are a few combat log screenshots with which I drew this conclusion, take a look and let me know if you interpret anything differently. A note on the death rune mastery procs, they are irrelevant in this case as the game will always use a normal rune before it consumes a Death Rune. On that note, Death Runes do not count as Blood Runes for the use of Blood Rune Mastery. I.E. A Blood Rune that becomes a Death Rune will have a full 10 second refresh when Blood Rune Mastery is active.

runemastery1.jpg - Image - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
runemastery2.jpg - Image - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Deep Wounds is the %-critical-damage as bleed talent, right?

In that case, no, it doesn't, because BCB is a fixed-damage disease. At level 65, it does 200 damage/3 seconds (dunno if that changes with level or not). It works just like re-applying any other non-dynamic DOT before it wears off.

I've been looking at specs with the talent calc and was just considering blood rune mastery. I did some math but I am not sure if I have managed to work out the benefits correctly. If anyone could see if I am calculating it correctly or point me in the right direction if not that would be great.

Assuming dual weild with two 1.5 speed weapons.

1.15 speed increase from icy talons.

0.9 chance of no blood rune mastery proc. 5 second window.

5 / (1.5/1.15) = 3.83
3.83*2 = 7.66 white attacks per 5 seconds

Assume 4 melee special attacks per 10 second period. 2 per 5 seconds.
7.66 + 2 = 9.66

1-(0.9)^(9.66) =
1-0.361 = 0.639

Which means 63.9% uptime and so average 1.278 extra blood runes per 10 second rotation.

This is with no haste buffs or rating other than icy talons.

With windfury totem:

5 / (1.5/(1.15*1.2)) = 4.6
4.6*2 = 9.2 white attacks per 5 seconds

Assume 4 melee special attacks per 10 second period. 2 per 5 seconds.
9.2 + 2 = 11.2

1-(0.9)^(11.2) =
1-0.307 = 0.693

Which means 69.3% uptime and so average 1.386 extra blood runes per 10 second rotation.

I ran some numbers to compare Bone Armor to Blade Barrier

Assume base of 50% avoidance;
Boss X hits at 2.5 swing speed * 1.20 (slowing effects) = 3 sec swing speed - Melee hit only and the most ideal situation possible ie no sequential hits / parry strings.
10 min fight - 600 / 3 = 200 hits
Ordinary hit is 10,000 before mitigation, 65% mitigation = 7,000 per hit

For Blade Barrier calculations assume combat log of dodge, parry, hit, dodge (65%)
200 * 7,000 = 1400,000 total damage taken (no dodges / parries)
100% Blade Barrier uptime = 65% avoidance, ~1 in 3 hits connect
65% avoidance = 490,000 damage
1 hit per minute affected by Icebound fortitude proc
(7000 / 2) * 10 = 35,000 mitigated
490,000 - 35,000 = 455,000 damage taken in 10 mins

Bone Armor (untalented):
For Bone Armor calculations assume combat log of dodge, parry, hit, hit (50%)
50% avoidance = 700,000 damage
6 hits per minute reduced by 40% (BA) 2,800 mitigated per hit - (6 * 2,800) * 10 = 168,000 mitigated
2 hits per minute reduced by an 90% (BA + IF) 6,300 mitigated per hit (2 * 6,300) * 10 = 126,000 mitigated

700,000 - 294,000 = 406,000 damage from melee hits over 10 minutes

Results:
(BB + IF) - (BA + IF) = +/- mitigation
455,000 - 406,000 = 49,000 more mitigation from Bone Armor

Bone Armor (talented):
For Bone Armor calculations assume combat log of dodge, parry, hit, hit (50%)
50% avoidance = 700,000 damage
6 hits per minute reduced by 40% (BA) 2,800 mitigated per hit - (6 * 2,800) * 10 = 168,000 mitigated
3 hits per minute reduced by an 90% (BA + IF) 6,300 mitigated per hit (3 * 6,300) * 10 = 189,000 mitigated

700,000 - 357,000 = 343,000 damage from melee hits over 10 minutes

Results:
(BB + IF) - (BA + IF) = +/- mitigation
455,000 - 343,000 = 112,000 more mitigation from Bone Armor

Bone Armor is always 4 hits and its cooldown is always 30 seconds. That changes your numbers pretty drastically. Bone Armor also is only consumed by direct, single-target attacks, but it provides its damage reduction on all damage. DOTs and AOEs get reduced but don't consume a charge, for example.

Yes, it does. One frost rune is equal to the damage from an Icy Touch (admittedly low) plus a quarter to a half of a Deathcoil. You are also losing all the GCDs needed to re-apply your diseases as well as any bonuses diseases grant you or your party/raid (such as Ebon Plague's +9% spell vulnerability or Frostfever's -10% attack power) as well as all the damage the diseases would have done in the time it takes to re-apply them.

Oblit is actually a pretty poor choice in most cases. I only use it to finish off a low-health enemy, personally.

Exactly. We're hitting on things like the opportunity cost of using Heroic Strike or Maul vs, say, Mangle. Heroic Strike or Maul cost X rage + the rage you lose from not white-swinging when you use them whereas an instant only costs Y rage.

Obliterate costs 1F 1B, and removes diseases (untalented) whereas Blood Strike costs 1B and allows the diseases to continue ticking. If you're deep blood, with a minor in unholy, this is a good thing as a diseased target will cause BRM procs whereas a target without diseases will not.

Cost of using Obliterate:
-1F
-1B
-GCDs/Runes to reapply diseases (untalented)
-Cost of lost Blood Rune Mastery procs
-Cost of lost Sudden Doom procs
-Lost death runes through Blood of the North (deep Frost only)

Cost of using Blood Strike:
-1B
-Cost of lost Abom. Strength procs (50% vs 100%)
-???

Since we care about using Obliterate over Blood Strike, you only need to care about the loss of a Frost rune, disease reapplication, and Blood Rune mastery vs having a 50% chance to not proc Abomination Strength.

Blood strike is a solid ability as long as you need that Frost rune, or the diseases, for something else.

You're quite right, somehow I applied the same timer for Icebound Fortitude to Bone Armor, will amend the values.

Haven't seen it mentioned here yet - frost strike will be instant (source). I still think it should be RP-based instead of taking a rune, but this is an improvement at least. Hopefully heart strike also becomes instant.

Also, getting Blade Barrier excludes you from getting Guile of Gorefiend. Blade Barrier needs to be stronger or moved down the tree.