Okay this is petty, but it's been annoying. Sheet "Paper Doll", cell K115 is "=K114*Blood!D3". On sheet "Blood", cell D3 is "Diseases". What is that supposed to point to and can you fix it please? I get #Value on tons of cells.
Delete it, that cell is suppose to be blank.
Now, mmo champion didn't report this (so I don't know if its in the latest build but):
Rune Strike has been changed to Strike the target for 200% weapon damage plus [ 20% of AP ]. Only usable after an attack is dodged or parried. Can't be dodged, blocked, or parried. (Old - Instantly strike the target for 65% weapon damage. Only usable after the Death Knight performs a critical hit with an ability that causes a disease.)
Black Ice changed to increase frost dmg by 30%. No longer increases shadow dmg. I can't wait to see the numbers of dk armor now. It might actually have an edge over druids now. Druid armor was reduced from 400 to 370%. So second highest health pool and highest armor seem to be a good place for dk to be.
Black Ice no longer affects Shadow damage. Unholy was continuing to do too much damage, even if you ignore the fact that they get more dps from their Ghoul.
We had to buff Frost's expertise to keep their threat per second up there with Blood and Unholy. Frost doesn't get enough boosts to white damage, even with their haste, to compete with things like Bloody Vengeance and Ebon Plague. Their dps is pretty close when doing dps though. They were just falling down tanking a little. Expertise and Rune Strike should help them make up for it, without changing their dps that much. Unholy has the lowest expertise, but they get enough buffs to damage (especially damage that can't be parried, like Death Coil and diseases) to make up for it.
I've got to say I love the change to Black Ice.
I always wanted to pick up Improved Icy Touch in my Unholy (tanking) Build but with Black Ice being pretty much mandatory I always came up at least one point short.
A nerf to Unholy Damage was expected and could not have come in a more convenient place.
It might have been discussed before but still I've got to ask: Why would you take OaPH in a Raid DPS Build, tzenes?
Looking on thottbot, we can see that runestrike has lost its cooldown. It seems EXTREMELY odd to me that we would have a spammable move that uses non-normalized attack power in its calculation. This would make dual wield tanking(and fast two-handers as opposed to slow) do far more dps from rune strike than from slower weapons. Also I think it odd that this is the only non-normalized attack power attack out of every attack we have. Between this and the expertise buff, it almost seems like they want us tanking with two one-handers.
Question: Unholy raiding seems to be the way to go with some Frost and maybe a couple points in Blood from what I've read here. Raids will probably want the Anti-Magic Zone from 1 DK at least but a lot of builds I've seen don't include it. Is there some sort of build that would include this without hurting DPS too much?
Unless I'm missing something fundamental, Anti-Magic Zone seems to be an absolutely terrible ability. It absorbs far too little damage, even after the slight scaling buff, and people have to move into it, wasting DPS or Healing time.
I've been playing a Holy Priest while TBC raiding and 10k (+a few thousand from AP scaling) raid damage every 2 minutes is nothing. Even light AoEs in TBC hit for 2kish, so oh wow a half dozen people if huddled together can absorb one light AoE every 2 minutes.
It's like a really bad version of Lightwell (given most Priest's opinions on Lightwell is quite a feat). The AoE has to be something you can anticipate (because the AMZ only lasts 30 seconds with a 2 minute CD), everyone has to huddle under the little thing and then it's absorption is ridiculously small.
Don't bother gimping your damage to save the Priest from casting 1 CoH.
Looking on thottbot, we can see that runestrike has lost its cooldown. It seems EXTREMELY odd to me that we would have a spammable move that uses non-normalized attack power in its calculation. This would make dual wield tanking(and fast two-handers as opposed to slow) do far more dps from rune strike than from slower weapons. Also I think it odd that this is the only non-normalized attack power attack out of every attack we have. Between this and the expertise buff, it almost seems like they want us tanking with two one-handers.
It's not spammable-- it's on next attack, and only procs on avoidance. Hence, one blue post jokingly referred to it as Heroic Overrevenge. It replaces your upcoming white hit with yellow damage, so you give up Necrosis, BCB, Killing Machine, or what have you. It also costs runic power, so you'd be burning it faster with a 1h weapon. The bonus damage is basically the equivalent of a free weapon swing, and you get to do it more often with a 1h weapon, or for more damage with a 2h weapon, which should balance out somewhat.
Also, given the latest changes, I'd think the best Unholy dps build would probably have more points in Unholy, given that our other options are now less desirable. Something like this, perhaps. Might also consider going for Icy Talons to improve Necrosis and BCB, unless the personal Icy Talons effect doesn't stack with Windfury (does it?). Of course, there's also been a significant buff to Heart Strike and a significant nerf to Scourge Strike, so it's probably worth testing out Blood spec again as well. Waiting for server to come back up, zzzz.
Unless I'm missing something fundamental, Anti-Magic Zone seems to be an absolutely terrible ability. It absorbs far too little damage, even after the slight scaling buff, and people have to move into it, wasting DPS or Healing time.
I've been playing a Holy Priest while TBC raiding and 10k (+a few thousand from AP scaling) raid damage every 2 minutes is nothing. Even light AoEs in TBC hit for 2kish, so oh wow a half dozen people if huddled together can absorb one light AoE every 2 minutes.
It's like a really bad version of Lightwell (given most Priest's opinions on Lightwell is quite a feat). The AoE has to be something you can anticipate (because the AMZ only lasts 30 seconds with a 2 minute CD), everyone has to huddle under the little thing and then it's absorption is ridiculously small.
Don't bother gimping your damage to save the Priest from casting 1 CoH.
When you stop looking at it as a raid utility buff and start looking at it as a magical damage version of Last Stand, it suddenly looks a hell of a lot better. 10k + double your AP damage prevented prevented is huge if only one person is in the zone.
EDIT: That said, last time I checked, 5/5 Magic Suppression made you Immune to spells, which means it makes AMS useless as a tanking ability.
It's not spammable-- it's on next attack, and only procs on avoidance. Hence, one blue post jokingly referred to it as Heroic Overrevenge. It replaces your upcoming white hit with yellow damage, so you give up Necrosis, BCB, Killing Machine, or what have you. It also costs runic power, so you'd be burning it faster with a 1h weapon. The bonus damage is basically the equivalent of a free weapon swing, and you get to do it more often with a 1h weapon, or for more damage with a 2h weapon, which should balance out somewhat.
Also, given the latest changes, I'd think the best Unholy dps build would probably have more points in Unholy, given that our other options are now less desirable. Something like this, perhaps. Might also consider going for Icy Talons to improve Necrosis and BCB, unless the personal Icy Talons effect doesn't stack with Windfury (does it?). Of course, there's also been a significant buff to Heart Strike and a significant nerf to Scourge Strike, so it's probably worth testing out Blood spec again as well. Waiting for server to come back up, zzzz.
Rune Strike also isn't affected by glancing blows, it's affected by Annihilation and you can get a major glyph that increases its crit chance by 10%. Not too bad, although the glyph may not be optimal for an Unholy Build since they get so many interesting glyphs to choose from.
Icy Talons doesn't stack with Imp Icy Talons or, as others have mentioned, WF. I did however get it to stack yesterday during a raid but I'm not sure how it happened, nor have I been able to reproduce it. A 3.40 weapon going down to 2.06 speed was fun for the 2 pulls it lasted though.
And as far as Blood Spec go: I'm willing to bet 50Blood/21 Unholy will come out of ahead of 51Blood/20Unholy due to how bad DRW is and how good the new Gargoyle is. And DRW doesn't move behind the target like other pets, which means even lower DPS and tank parries.
Theorycrafting procedures per role:
DPS = Theory -> Spreadsheet -> Practice
Healing = Theory -> Practice -> Logs
Tanking = Theory -> Theory -> Theory
Also, given the latest changes, I'd think the best Unholy dps build would probably have more points in Unholy, given that our other options are now less desirable. Something like this, perhaps.
I don't currently use the gargoyle as I use my RP for UB/DC and IBF and HoW as necessary, but I'm curious to know where do you fit it into your rotation? My rotation is PS > IT > SS > BS > BS > UB ... SSx3 When it comes time for me to reapply UB, I'm usually sitting at 100 RP. Would you fit it in with 100 RP and to maximize his full duration?
When you stop looking at it as a raid utility buff and start looking at it as a magical damage version of Last Stand, it suddenly looks a hell of a lot better. 10k + double your AP damage prevented prevented is huge if only one person is in the zone.
Interesting, you're right that as a targetabble AMS it may have some niche uses on some boss fights.
More likely is that you'd use it as a second AMS on yourself I suppose, since a fight where you're dropping a AMZ on a Warrior/Druid/Pally tank begs the question "why aren't you (or another DK with gear for it) tanking yourself and just using AMS?"
It still seems like far too much of a niche ability given it's position in the tree and high prequisite cost, IMHO.
I don't currently use the gargoyle as I use my RP for UB/DC and IBF and HoW as necessary, but I'm curious to know where do you fit it into your rotation? My rotation is PS > IT > SS > BS > BS > UB ... SSx3 When it comes time for me to reapply UB, I'm usually sitting at 100 RP. Would you fit it in with 100 RP and to maximize his full duration?
I haven't tried it yet actually-- I was just basing that talent point allocation on 1) people the last couple pages said new gargoyle is awesome, and 2) not much better place for a single talent point. Edit: my rotation has usually been PS - IT - BS - BS - UB - SSx4, with Death Coils added to use the extra runic power.
And as for DRW, I completely agree-- the nerf hurt it a lot. Not sure why the cooldown needed changing, other than maybe to keep it from synergizing as well with 2 min trinket/racial/hysteria cooldowns. With only DC to dump runic power into in Blood spec, gargoyle sounds more appealing now, if it's as good as everyone has been saying.
Black Ice doesn't apply to Shadow damage, as Ghostcrawler said (in case anyone was wondering if the tooltip was right)
Redid the exact same test that I did in this post. The changed build I used. I lost a whooping 40 personal DPS.
Theorycrafting procedures per role:
DPS = Theory -> Spreadsheet -> Practice
Healing = Theory -> Practice -> Logs
Tanking = Theory -> Theory -> Theory
The new Heart Strike is pretty decent now. Spent about 30 minutes hitting a lvl 80 target dummy in Ebon Hold using the following rotation:
PS - IT - HS - HS - Obliterate- DC - PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - HS - DC
I kept Horn of Winter up, kept Hysteria on cooldown and used Dancing Rune Weapon everytime I had 100 Runic Power (sometimes skipping DC in the rotation a few times, esp if I had Sudden Doom procs up; often not enough time to do 2 DCs in a row). I did about 3.1m damage in those 30 minutes. Here's the Recount breakdown:
It's about 150-200 dps better than previous patch. This was done with a Premade. I switched all the gems to mostly 12 crit (because there aren't really any other gems on the AH) and here and there some STR gems. I used no Glyphs at all. All in all pretty decent upgrade, I'd say.
Nice to see the good Blood results. It seems much more comparable to Unholy now, in terms of dps, at least as far as I could tell while beating on target dummies. It's hard for me to tell since the target dummies are so close together that wandering plague and unholy blight keep affecting nearby targets as well.
I can tell you that Gargoyle is definitely pretty damn good, though. I ran for 6 minutes and used it twice over that time; it accounted for 6% of my total damage. I was able to keep it up for 30-35 seconds each time, and could probably do more by using Empower Rune Weapon.
Also, I'm puzzling over the results I continue to see with my Unholy rotation. I'm doing PS - IT - BS - BS - SS initially for runic power buildup, then PS - IT - BS - BS - UB - SS x4. When I return to UB, it is just expiring when I refresh it. On paper, this rotation should be 21.5 seconds in Blood Presence, but it's always almost exactly 20. What am I missing? Do we actually understand how haste affects DKs? I'm stumped. My spec is the one I suggested above, unholy-blood.
If you do have enough haste you might have dropped your GCD just enough to almost push it to the 1 second, even a .1-.2 second shave would add up to a second after all of it.
That might hurt unholy more than the black ice change.
Also reduce the disease damage of other dks in a raid environment.
Together with the black ice change it reduce the damage of wandering plague quite a bit as well.
If you do have enough haste you might have dropped your GCD just enough to almost push it to the 1 second, even a .1-.2 second shave would add up to a second after all of it.
Well, not necessarily. It's believed, at least, that haste rating only lowers the GCD for spells.
But I just picked my rotation apart for a while, using the stopwatch. And here's the deal: sometimes, my runes pop in 10 seconds, and sometimes, they pop in 8 seconds. After messing around with it and testing a few ideas, I figured it out. The first use of any rune in combat will repop in 10 seconds. Any subsequent use of the same rune in the same combat will pop in 8 seconds. So that's why, after a warmup rotation of PS - IT - BS - BS - SS, I can do a <20 second rotation over and over and over. Subsequent rotations work like this:
PS - 0s
IT - 1.5s
BS - 3s
BS - 4.5s
UB - 6s
SS - 7.5s
SS - 9.5s
DC - 11s
SS - 12.5s
DC - 14s
SS - 15.5s
Diseases drop - 18, 19.5sec
Even with latency, there's wiggle room in there, and you have enough RP to do at least 2 death coils (edit: well, not every rotation, but at least one). Barring any other GCDs, you can start again at 17.5 seconds, usually closer to 18 with latency, so you're hitting PS just as Blood Plague is dropping. I wondered why it kept working out perfectly like that. :P
Leaf, I posted about that here about 5 days ago, but since nobody responded to it, I just assumed I was going batty or didn't understand things properly. I'm glad you were able to sort it out though.
While reading about a dps nerf to Unholy is not fun, it is good the devs want all three specs to do comparable damage. Having one spec doing 500 more dps than the two isn't good design.
I noticed this: And the big one... when you miss, your runes activate in 1 sec instead of 2. This makes misses, dodges and parries a lot less painful. Very nice change for the ungeared (pre-made) DKs.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
I don't see obtaining crit immunity being that much more difficult than it was back when people were first starting Kara. That said, yes, you can obtain the defense needed for DK tanking using mostly crafted gear. Here's a list I put together a couple weeks ago:
<snip>
Trinket 1: Seal of the Pantheon (65) (Halls of Lightning)
Trinket 2: ???
If the info on wowhead is correct, the new BoP Jewelcrafting trinkets will have 2 sockets on them, each - and while none have base defense, the tanking trinket Figurine - Monarch Crab has stam on it (as does the sprint on-use one I believe) - combine the extra sockets with using 3 BoP prismatic +defense gems for more defense while also matching any socket color you want, and switching to prismatic +stam gems when you don't need +defense while again matching any socket color, jewelcrafting may be a VERY nice option for DKs to hit the +def cap without needing to worry as much with decent stat benefits for tanking after you get better gear as well. Similarly, the bonus sockets from being a blacksmith would be a nice boost towards this goal.
From Ghostcrawler. I didn't see all of these posted yet.
The Black Ice tooltip may very well still be wrong. Sometimes text doesn't get updated at the same time. But the spell effect should be that Black Ice only buffs Frost. Frost got some other buffs and Unholy got some other nerfs too. These might not all be in the build. I am also going off of memory here, so I may be mistaken.
Tundra Stalker buffs Obliterate and Howling Blast. Adds double expertise.
Acclimation buffs Rune Strike (in addition to its normal effects).
Crypt Fever down to 10/20/30%.
And the big one... when you miss, your runes activate in 1 sec instead of 2. This makes misses, dodges and parries a lot less painful.
We are also getting reports of Tundra Stalker not causing extra damage as it should. I can't verify that, but keep it in mind.
But I just picked my rotation apart for a while, using the stopwatch. And here's the deal: sometimes, my runes pop in 10 seconds, and sometimes, they pop in 8 seconds. After messing around with it and testing a few ideas, I figured it out. The first use of any rune in combat will repop in 10 seconds. Any subsequent use of the same rune in the same combat will pop in 8 seconds.
Maybe I'm just stupid, but is this common knowledge? It's the first time I've heard it, and it sounds like a bug to me. Although I think it's been around for a while - it explains some weirdness I've been seeing for some time with a rune cooldown mod I'm working on. I've been attributing it to shoddy code that needs fixed, but I think this is it.
Anyways, this seems pretty significant - if it is in fact a bug and it gets fixed, that'll significantly skew all of our DPS numbers they're in the process of balancing.
10/03/08, 9:18 PM
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