Everything about doing BS over OB is very true in a high stat/gear setting. I do not know the exact threshold but from what i can tell if you are sitting around 21 crit from gear and 2200ap (6% hit and talented Expertise) the 15% crit on OB combined with the extra crit damage from Guile adds up slightly higher. That and the lack of GcDs for the BS model can really hold you back in the long run. I would assume once you have a crit buffed near the 40% mark it would be better to use BS anyway.

After all being said.... this build took a pretty bad hit with the latest beta build and I assume it wont be a contender much longer.

Sorry, about my stuipid Question, but what is "u" means?
Can anyone translate this for me?


Bloodstrike, Bloodstrike, ?, ?, Frostrike, Froststrike
2 * Obli, 2 * Blood,

D = ?

D = Death Rune
B = Blood Rune
U = Unholy Rune
F = Frost Rune

Eishara was listing how the runes looked in between each rotation for clarity.

Yes, sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear but Chicken has it right. All I was pointing out is the interaction between the Death Rune Talents, Blood of the North will only ever make Blood Runes into Death Runes, Death Rune Mastery will only ever make Unholy/Frost Runes into Death Runes but Death Rune Mastery is currently bugged and only makes one pair of Unholy/Frost Runes into Death Runes when using Obliterate with Death Runes.

Wow... So IT Spam is officially the highest DPS bar none for the DK class. No question really.

20/51/0 DRM + BotN Spec

IT expected hit after stats (including crit modifiers) and talents: 2662.077

IT Spam on second rotation like so (while keeping ps because it feels wrong not to)

IT->PS->OB->BS->BS->FS->*wait*->IT->PS->IT->IT->IT->IT->FS *repeat* with FS in the place of *wait* from now on.

Note: Having the IT glyph actually hurts dps due to GcD lockout.

In Naxx T7(including gems)
Stats after talents (no raid buffs or horn):
AP: 2752
Crt: 26.8%
Hit: 5.37%
Exp: 2.5%
Haste: 4.54% (before Icy Talons)
Armor: 13100
Weapon: 180 dps 2H
Mob armor mitigation: 40%
Presence: Blood
Total DPS showing max theoretical: 2356.92

Incoming nerf to IT or buffs to other specs.

Edit: I havn't adjusted for the recent nerf to disease damage (if someone could find those numbers i'd be in your debt).

A maximum theoretical dps of 2357 dps unbuffed in full naxx gear makes you think they are higher than every spec in the game?

Considering that frost benefits the least from armor penetration and raid buffs I hardly see your point. Maybe you should wait till someone posts 4k dps on patchwerk as frost before you make up numbers and say they are the best dps possible bar none. If you wanted to argue that 4x icy touch 2x frost strike is too much brust in unholy stance for pvp, than I could see your argument.

While that's promising, I don't expect IT to stay as it is. It's simply too powerful for using a single rune.

I would have thought unholy benefited less, given higher disease damage, fewer white hits, SS hitting harder on single targets, and no frost strike. I haven't run the numbers though, and this is a trivial arguement.

Also, I'm going to start working on the DK module for Rawr, but I realized the DK community hasn't yet come up with a clever name for tanking or dps death knights (primarily because we can't associate a single tree with a specific role). Any suggestions for clever names that I could use for a DPS or tank DK? (You can PM them, I don't want to clutter this forum with non-TC stuff).

True i may have overreacted on its power relative to other Specs. It's still about 6-7% over the others if my sheets are correct.

Really quick raid buff breakdown:

13% spell modifier, Horn of winter, 10% ap, 5% crit, Kings, Sunders+Fairy Fire

New numbers are showing a max theoretical of ~3549.58

It really shines in a non raid environment as you had pointed out but, which you can see above, it is very decent in one as well. Yes, PvP burst would have been my next point and is usually the reason things like this receive the nerf bat. Take this all with a grain of salt i guess since i haven't made my spreadsheets completely presentable. If you could test the spec out and let me know where it falls on a premade that would help me understand if I'm way off or not.

Edit:
Math breakdown in lue of the whole sheet:
Assumptions: 3.3 speed 180 dps weapon, Raid buffs, Base stats in previous post.

IT: Base 227, APC 10%,
CritMod (1+34.8%+(Killing Machine: (34.8%crit/3.3wpnspeed*50%)),
DamageMod (1.3*1.1*1.15*1.1*2*1.13) (ImpIT,GlacRot,Blackice,Tundra10%,Tundra100%,spellmod13% respectivly),
Spellhit (83% +5.37%hit) assuming 17% miss base

Math
(227+(3473ap*0.1))*(1+34.8%+5.27%KM)*(1.3*1.1*1.15*1.1*2*1.13)*(83%+5.37%)=
3217.767952*(Blood Presence:1.15)=
3700.433145 expected hit

That's pretty intense.... I'd lay out white hits, the effect of haste on killing machine, etc etc but i have to get back to work . Not to mention all of the other buffs and the entire rotation. My sheets have not included any weapon enchants really yet either.

You missed blessing of might/battleshout, ret paladin buffs(3% haste and 2% dmg), as well as I am unsure if you are using all the best chants, gems, gear, etc. Also there is the caster buffs which I assume apply of +10% crit on spells, +3% hit on spells. There is the +60% from diseases from crypt fever which you can indeed get from another dk. Then there is one heroism every 5 minutes, hemorrhage and trueshot aura. May be more, I am not quite sure.

The Reaping change is pretty great for Unholy DKs, I was able to use many SS so that it out dpsed autoattack.


IT needs a change or other DKs specs need an increase. Deep Blood is bottom of barrel now for single target DPS.

Could someone point me to a post that well summarizes the current state of DK tanking? As a tankadin, I have avidly followed the paladin changes, some of which are exciting, but am also quite interested in DK tanking.

I'm interested in how they stack up to warriors on mitigation, given their quite different mechanics, how their raid buffed health competes, their TPS, and also their DPS done both while tanking and when not needed to tank (but still spec'd for tanking).

So I was thinking of speccing Blacksmithing for my DK, given that Tier 3 weapons were so strong in TBC, and the benefits of BS in Wrath look really good.

Will make the Tier 3 weapon at 70, but undecided on what to specialise in..Axe gives a hefty amount of crit, whereas Swords have agility and a strength proc..but maces carry decent str/agi/stam. Maybe swaying Maces-->Swords--Axes. Opinions ? And what to partner it with? Again LW looks insane too with the bracer BoP enchants...

Considering you're horde, I'd make an orc (best racials for PvE anyway) and get the axe.

I couldn't resist...

Now including all your suggested buffs besides adjusting enchants/gems, hemo and the heroism every 5 i've found
~4220.73 dps 2H
~4293.58 dps DW(138.6 dps 2.4, 1.5 OH)...

Dear god...

I'm missing something in the current discussion over Frost's new power. Obviously, Frost needed a buff to compete threatwise and become a solid tanking spec, and it seems like that's what a lot of these changes are aimed at.

But in terms of dps, I'm wondering how many of your numbers are coming from spreadsheet modeling rather than the actual beta. I simply can't get the results you guys are talking about with frost. What I'm seeing is Obliterate and Frost Strike do the most damage, followed by Icy Touch and Howling Blast. The damage on all of them seems pretty reasonable in my tests, considering you want them all to hit pretty hard in order to be worth using a rune on them.

I'm also not seeing the demise of Blood Spec-- I can still do more dps as deep Blood, even without blowing cooldowns. I'll grant you I'm not level 80 yet, but it seems to scale pretty consistently. So, just to clarify, which findings are coming from actual observed results? What spell coefficients are you assuming in these calculations? They just don't seem to correlate with what I'm seeing.

From my experience at 80, unholy has offered far and away the best personal dps in 5, 10 and 25 mans. I can't comment on blood or frost solo, as I leveled as unholy from 55-80.

Frost dps just got buffed, but Blood got nerfed.

I tried leveling as blood and unholy, and due to the more passive bonuses in Unholy (better pet/dots and faster mount, and better AoE abilities), it kills faster than Blood. Now Blood does even less dps, so there is little contest there.

I will try Frost to see how it goes.

I leveled pretty much blood all the way to 80. Early on blood was a strong leveler just because of the high amount of self healing. Right now its toned down, but you can pretty much kill single targets continuously as blood with bloodworms, death strike, and vendetta. It feels like leveling as a rogue with the momentum of the warrior, and being able to carry your rage immediately over.

Actually, its like being a warrior with a pocket healer. A weak on, to be sure, you can't do the aoe grinding unholy does, but being able to dump a few DC's on your next target keeps things moving.

I've also leveled mostly as blood, primarily because of the minimal downtime and steady damage. The nerf to blood (vengeance change) is pretty minimal, considering most of your damage is physical anyway. Your Icy Touches and Death Coils don't get a 9% bonus-- that's it. The increased cooldown on Dancing Rune Weapon is a bit of a blow, though.

But yeah; right now my single target damage champion is Unholy, with a slight edge over Blood. My previous comment just meant I wasn't seeing Frost doing massive amounts more dps; it really needs those buffs to even compete.

I tried my level 60 Frost specced DK on a level 55 training dummy, managed to pull off 700DPS. I don't know what most classes do at that level with the new talents (or how much the 5 level difference helps against the dummy), but considering that I usually do around 1k DPS on live with my shaman that seems really high to me. This was in full DK gear except dual wielding some green quest rewards from Hellfire Peninsula, 2.4 speed MH with Cinderglacier and 1.8 speed OH with Razorice. Priority was IT (50% of my damage), Frost Strike, Howling Blast when Rime procced (I acknowledge that it hits all three of the training dummies, but it only accounts for less than 9% of my total damage), and Blood Strike when no other skill was usable, which I doubt is even close to the perfect rotation. Does this kind of DPS sound normal or did they just buff Icy Touch a bit too much?

Talents I used

Could you guys who are trying out different leveling builds in the various trees post links to talent calculators with the builds you're using? I've looked back a few pages to see, for example, an unholy leveling build, but with the constant talent changes the builds are obsolete by the time I find them, or the link doesn't work because the old numbers don't match the new tree.