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Changes

• Included Frost rotation based on IT spam
• Included Armor on items for Bladed armor (thanks to Giant)
• Fixed bugs for Icy talons and Frost Strike

I'm still missing good models for:
Dancing Rune Weapon
Rime
Merciless Combat
Unholy Blight

So I'll try to get those into the next version.

I ran a series of DPS tests on the Ebon Hold target dummies both today and yesterday (before the new build), and the difference is pretty significant. I was using Violation to track DPS, using all premade pvp gear and the pvp 2h mace with Rune of the Fallen Crusader. I was keeping Horn up.

All tests were 5 minutes long.

Yesterday (old build)

Frost-sub-Blood
Unholy Presence: 1.9k Blood Presence: 1.9k
Unholy-sub-Frost
Unholy Presence: 2.1k Blood Presence: 2.2k
Blood-sub-Frost
Unholy Presence: 2.8k Blood Presence: 2.6k

Today (new build)

Frost-sub-Blood
Unholy Presence: 2.3k Blood Presence: 2.2k
Unholy-sub-Frost(w/Reaping)
Unholy Presence: 2.7k Blood Presence: 2.9k
Blood-sub-Frost
Unholy Presence: 2.4k Blood Presence: 2.2k

As expected, frost goes up, blood goes down, unholy goes way up.

Interestingly, I also fooled around with the Scourge Strike glyph a little, and when it procs it re-ups Icy Talons. It also appears to re-up only Blood Plague some small fraction of the time, which leads me to suspect that either it's an obvious bug or the re-applications have their own miss check. Anyone experience anything that might shed light on that last?

I wonder if plague strike will get a bit of love soon. Not to the degree of IT to be sure, but maybe so that its base is maybe 10% higher or so. The only reason I seem to hit it these days is for the disease and because I will have 1 U rune left over after a IT and Oblit/HB.

Speaking of HB, am I the only one who is happy with the balance between HB and Oblit as deep frost spec?

Nevermind, I'm tired. :<

Bolded there, just the stuff your premade starts with, except that I switched sword to mace for aesthetics.

EDIT: Gah, outedited me! Pay never no mind---^

So, no matter what builds, it seems DW is not the way to go and to stick to 2H for the strikes?

I was debating on going the DK starting sword -> Blade of Misfortune -> Halaani Claymore for 2H or DK starting sword -> 2x Fist of Reckoning -> 2x Axe of the Legion for DW.

I was planning on going Unholy/Frost as the talent tree.

Premade stuff is about half and half. Bulky pieces are savage, but neck, cloak, bracers, belt and one ring are hateful, and the other ring is deadly. Weapon is savage. Trinkets are the DPS-irrelevant Medallion of the Alliance and the less irrelevant Battlemaster's Conviction (190ap).

The gear does come enchanted, but every gem socket is stam/resil besides the meta, which is crit rating/3% crit damage.

Concerning the Unholy-sub-Frost build, would the three points in Blood not be better placed into the Frost tree for Annihilation? I'm not in Beta, and I'm not 100% knowledgeable on dps rotations, but wouldn't the guaranteed uptime of diseases and 3% crit for all melee specials be better than the 9% crit for BS/HS/Ob? Or, is the only reason you have points in subversion for the threat reduction? If this is the case, is threat reduction necessary for the DK? From what I understand, threat seems to be less of an issue in WotLK.

Correct, but if you do not spec threat reduction you can pull off an inexperienced tank.

If threat were to have become a relative non-issue, the points would definitely have been shifted to Annihilation. Of course, with the new build, you want to pull those points for Reaping anyway, so it's kind of an obsolete discussion.

Quetzal:

What is your DPS cycle with the Unholy/Frost spec (assuming Reaping)?

Do you have any basic theories or general statements regarding the play style of the final version of the DK? I am fairly certain that there will be changes before WotLK goes live, but are there any generalities that you can point to that would be good to know for those of us who want to hit the ground running?

For example, I understand that the value of IT is quite high at the moment due to the fact that it is a single-rune ability.

Thanks for your time.

[edit]

Frmorrison:

I'm actually going to be playing with a static group. Our tanks are exceptional. As this is the case, in your opinion, would an intelligent DPSer who plays with highly skilled individuals be able to manage his threat well enough without the points in Subversion?

So your group is going to wait until you hit 70 on you DK?

I haven't played with the new threat buffs to TC and Swipe, but I feel with an great tank (now of any class) you can AoE dps instances pretty well, which is the fastest way to level and Unholy excels at it.


Reaping is an awesome ability, it makes Unholy quite a bit more fun, so you don't want to pass that one up.

Just wanted to point something out: It seems the only thing keeping HB from completely phasing out Obliterate is that it has a 6 second cooldown now. Is this cooldown in fact new, or am I just really not good at paying attention?

6 second cooldown is newish. It used to be 10.

I wouldn't have expected Icy Talons to outperform 3 points in Bladed Armor for Unholy.

It's not that simple however. While it's true that a HB crit is higher than a Oblit, you can't forget that oblit, when talented frost with blood subspec, will crit 27% more often than HB. So what is more powerful depends on what kind of dps you are looking to do. Over a longer PvE fight, Oblit will be higher and you can still use HB with rime procs. In PvP, the higher burst potential, armor ignore, and ranged AoE will make it obviously superior.

I thought Icy had an apc of 3%? If so, that'd kill about 3/5s of your damage...
Of course I could be wrong, which is why I am asking.


Also, I was playing around with the gargoyle and it seems as though he continues to drain rp even after cast, which brings the question how long can I keep him up?

He does 650dps (according to my meters) so its a better expenditure than two dc every 10 seconds.
Obviously this doesn't take into account the fact that you can't put up Unholy Blight, but I'm curious as to whether keeping him up constantly is just a better expenditure of rp

Ok, I was completely off.

I did some testing and Icy does indeed have an apc of 10% base.
I took the time to try out a couple of the other ones.

It looks like Deathcoil has a 12% (I had thought it was supposed to be 15%)
Frost Fever and Blood Plague were both consistent with 5.11%

I think this is right, but I could have my math off

About Gargoyle duration, the talent tooltip is really clear :

Providing you can keep a steady stream of runic power, the gargoyle will last 1 minute, consuming 8rp/sec

All tests done on the Ebon Hold training dummy: Highlord's Nemesis Trainer (boss level dummy). All tests done in Blood Presence. My DK is a dwarf, so +5 expertise from the racial with the maces. I didn't summon any ghoul in any of the tests. Why? Because ghoul DPS is 100% dependent on what you're fighting.

Sigil: Sigil of the Dark Rider (90 dmg on BS/HS)
Trinket 1: Rune of Finite Variation (47 crit rating, on use: 208 haste rating for 20 seconds, 2 min cd)
Trinket 2: Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood (55 hit rating, on use: 670 AP for 20 seconds, 2 min cd)
DW Weapons: Titansteel Bonecrusher with Fallen Crusader (143.6DPS 2.50 speed Mace, 140AP 29 expertise) + Hatestrike (143.4DPS 1.60 speed Sword 25Agi 39Stam 27 crit 22 hit 76AP)
2H Weapon: Demise (186.6DPS 2H Mace 3.50 speed, 90Str 103Stam 89haste 45hit)

0/0/0 stats with Demise equipped: 1189-1491 weapon dmg (417.9DPS), 3.21 speed, 2050AP, 323 hit (9.85), 18.12 crit, 14 expertise, 9.37% spell crit
0/0/0 stats with Titansteel/Hatestrike: 717-966 weapon dmg (358.1DPS), 2.35 speed 18 Expertise // 199-269 * 115% (179DPS), 1.50 speed 18 expertise // 2086 AP, 300 hit (9.15), 19.11 crit, 9.96 spell crit
10739 armor (Leather and Mail, lawl)


IT spam, DW with points in Unholy: 1900 DPS (this test was done while the dummy was under 35% health but above 1HP, Recount counted Necrosis' damage properly), Hatestrike weapon with Razorice. Rotation: IT IT BS BS FS > IT * 4 > FS FS, throw in HB/PS when able.

IT spam, DW with points in Blood: 2120DPS (test done with the dummy under 35% health) Rotation: IT IT BS BS FS > IT * 4, PS used when out of RP and waiting on Frost rune to refresh, UB used while Blood/Frost runes are on cooldown, under 110RP and with Freezing Fog procs. Deathchill > HB used whenever possible. Unbreakable Armor + Trinket 1/Unbreakable Armor + Trinket 2, rotate every minute.

IT spam, 2H with points in Blood: 1980DPS (Rune of Razorice gave me about 80dps over crusader, same rotation as above)



Unholy "Scourge Strike spam" 2H with points in frost: 1880DPS (Demise with Cinderglacier No ghoul/no gargoyle) Rotation was IT > PS > SS > BS > BS > SS > SS > SS, whenever SS refreshed Blood Plague and Frost Fever, I'd save a GCD and was able to use another SS isntead of IT > PS. Not sure how losing Desecration/Icy Talons every now and then affected by overall DPS compared to getting an extra SS in. Putting the points into Blood for Dark Conviction, 2H spec and Bladed Armor produced the exact same DPS, close to 1890.


Just a few things to note: I didn't use Blood Tap for Icy Touch spam builds because I completely forgot to do it. It would give a noticeable increase in DPS due to getting 1 free IT and then not having to BS the Blood rune into a Death Rune.


On a side note: I have no clue how Krayte reached his numbers. I'd be willing to suspect that he either used the non-boss dummies or that one of our damage meters is off.

Could you add a DW unholy test to that? as an Unholy sub frost spec preferably. Thats what I plan on playing, and all my calculations point toward it being viable.

You would use a rotation of SS BB BB SS / SS IT PS SS but add in a primer of IT PS BB BB SS so you dont go one full rotation without diseases. Reason for this is because it uses BB instead of BS to make p for the weaker strike (BB does comparable to BS with a 1H weapon) and the wierd order is to keep it a 20 sec rotation and not 21.5.

could someone please give my blood /unholy spec a try for dps? I'm not quite sure what a good rotation would be as I'm not in beta. I think if you had control of your ghoul, theoretically you might do more dmg then going the dancing blade route. Please also let me know if this makes me look like I'm completely off my rocker.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=230502053000330323123001300000000000000000000000000000023020031500310420 0100000000000