I am 95% sure this is incorrect, but I can't check again until Thursday, obviously.

I did use both in beta, though, and they do not use the same mechanic, as I recall. The tooltips, while somewhat vague, do have an explicit difference. DRW "Unleashes all available Runic Power", which corresponds with its observable behavior: it spends all your RP in one go, and lasts for a set amount of time, up to 20 seconds. Gargoyle has a set cost, and then it says "Persists for 10 seconds plus 1 second per 8 runic power up to 1 min." It doesn't specifically mention draining future RP, but it obviously explains that it has a variable length, unlike DRW. Gargoyle works the way you explained it.

Is the general consenus on spreadsheet development and their subsequent linking in the original post to wait until some testing at 80 on live is performed?

I'm rerolling from Rogue and the sheets in circulation there have became the default answer to basically any possible question they can cover that is posted in the threads. It has saved many members much time, albeit increasing terseness to an extent.

I found Tzenes' sheet, but I think it's a little more advanced than my level of understanding at the moment. I have searched this thread and the original thread for another DK sheet, but did not see any others. I could have very easily missed it, though. Links to any sheet(s) in development or circulation in the original post could save some future clutter/bloating.

The link to that sheet is here, by the way, if anyone needs it:

tzenes Profile, tzenes Details - FileFront.com

@Fugazor

Thanks for some number crunching there.

As I said before, every time I try to focus on DnD while running a heroic when 3+ targets were available it was an awesome lot of aoe. It came up second in my recount after SS with around 20% if I recall correctly. Auto-Attack+SS+DnD were something around 60% of total damage, with around 20% each.

Threat never was an issue. Subversion seems to take the edge of that.

Of course it´s using 3 Runes and I only used it in my first rotation, but if it is affected by Crypt Fever and scales that well with AP...it really seems to be something more then just a tanking ability, at least for unholy.

So we would need a "rule of the thumb" when it starts to be worthwhile using BB and/or DnD over BS+SS and "sacrifice" our second 3 x SS rotation for it.

The real value of Outbreak depends on how much you fight multiple targets and make use of PE+BB. You can´t really come up with solid numbers here, but roughly 70% of the fights in any heroic or raid are on multiple targets. Especially since aoe-tanking is a non-issue for every class now.

I beg to differ with the Jewelcrafting bit, even with the epic gems available. If you check plate gear carefully you will find quite some blue sockets. Just DK tier has 2. And all sockets are tied to worthwhile socket bonus (ie. no stam this time). The WotLK epic Sovereign (str/stam) gem has 10 STR, and socket bonus is 6 STR on average. So, if you go JC and socket Bold Dragon's Eyes into your three blue sockets, you get not only +21 STR from having JC gems, but another 18 STR from 3*socket bonus (getting socket bonus with purple gems just isn't worth it) and you get to whopping 39 STR (just from JC that is) bonus before counting in multipliers. Please correct me if I am wrong, but BS + JC is best combo for DPS DK even with epic gems counted in.

For those of you who haven't noticed, I've put up a new version of my spreadsheet:

tzenes Profile, tzenes Details - FileFront.com

Version 3 now includes:
Gargoyle
Hystaria
Bug Fixes on Strength Adjustments.

I still haven't worked out DRW and Ghoul, but save those two this should be mostly complete.



What is unclear about it?

While I understand all of it, I also wrote it. If you can help me understand what might be confusing I'm sure I could simplify it.

I have been reading the DK threads on this forum for some weeks and i found this spec here:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00100000000000

I think it really was a good idea and i was pretty suprised it wasn't included in the compendium. Did i miss some posts where it has been declared as a bad idea? I wasn't playing BETA so i couldn't really do any calculations but it seems pretty good, gathers the advantages of beeing an orc plus the mechanic of blood, buffing the physical and the deathcoil damage.

You're giving up 10% damage for Impurity (on a blood build) and Master of Ghouls.

While MoG is very good, its not 5% increase to dps good.

What's more, Impurity is worth about 1% per point for heavy spell builds (Unholy/Frost), but Blood is mainly a physical build.

edit: I also forgot you lose 5 expertise too

The rogue class has been around for a LONG time... you're going to have to give us some time to come up with a model to make theorycrafting easy-mode. My Rawr module is technically complete (all the functionality is coded) but the math seems a bit off, I'm registering almost 6k AP in raids (granted, Rune of the Fallen Crusader has to count as a static 7.5% increase to strength) and almost 6k dps. I'll be double checking my math off tzenes/methods' spreadsheets, but any of us could be wrong.

The sheets, as of now, are more of a private tool the authors were kind enough to share with us. Once I get the Rawr module more accurate (which I dont expect to really happen until 2-3 weeks into WOTLK) we will hopefully have an accurate model available that offers built-in talent, gear, and stat comparison graphs.

If anyone has screenshots showing DPS breakdowns (I need the individual DPS per attack type or total dps and the percent that a given ability provided) and could provide me your spec and rotation with that screenshot (sent VIA PM, to avoid forum clutter), I should be able to narrow down some of the math issues and hopefully get it out with the main Rawr release for WOTLK.

While the str/expertise is certainly nice, the Death Rune Mastery does absoutely NOTHING for you. The whole point of a Death Rune generating talent is to make your secondary strikes create deathrunes so you can use more primary strikes. DRM only affects your main strike, and therefore runes you would use for your main strike anyway. Meaning it does absolutely nothing for your DPS unless you are blood. You are honestly better off getting rune tap in that situation than DRM. In addition, while it's true those points are filler, Lichborne has many potential PVE applications... including preventing yourself from getting feared into another pack while clearing trash or increasing DPS time on bosses that CC with the appropriate abilities.

This spec seems pretty bad, because you are giving up blood gorged (which is a very significant dps upgrade) for impurity (which is a very, very minor DPS upgrade as blood). I did include a spec with this issue corrected, the 50/0/21 under Blood.

Anyone have a verified PPM for Fallen Crusader?

Last test I read about showed something like 1.05 or 1.1 PPM. I can't seem to find the thread though. They claimed in the thread that it's probably an even 1 PPM.

I haven't had a chance to play a Death Knight during beta, so heres a question regarding the feel of the class. I notice that rotations are all based around rune and runic power availability; does this imply that death knight tend to wait a lot to use abilities, as oppose to using an ability every GCD? Coming from playing a hunter, I am used to maximizing DPS by using GCDs as efficiently as possible. I imagine spec would play a roll in GCD usage also seeing as blood seems to use more abilities than the other two specs. Also, are any of the DK activated abilities such as the Deathchill and Unbreakable Armor off of the GCD?