Regardless of stupid tooltips both spells use the same mechanic. They cost 50 RP to summon for the initial 10 sec and then drain x RP per sec until you run out of RP or the max duration is reached.
Summon Gargoyle: 60 sec max. / 50 RP for initial 10 sec then 8 RP per sec => 450 RP / 60 sec
Dancing Rune Weapon: 40 sec max. / 50 RP for initial 10 sec then 5 RP per sec => 200 RP / 40 sec
Assuming same RP generation this leaves you with 250 RP for DCs if you use DRW.
So you have to compare Gargoyle vs. DRW + 6.25 * DC.
No idea what comes out on top, because i have no save numbers on Gargoyle and especially on DRW.
Does resist work same way as dodge? So one GCD later you get rune again? Because if so then given that you cast IT every 15 sec or so and 3% resist you would loose one GCD every 8 min or so. Even if rune is lost that is once per 8 min again. Granted you loose 3% dps from DC too but how much that is in reality - 0,5% dps less?.
So question is: it works for IT and DC only? What about diseases? What about UB? If only those two I think I would skip it for Necrosis, Desecration, Bladed Armor etc.
Indeed not going 5/5 Desecration would be strange. What annoys me is that this talent conflicts with Epidemic and SS glyph - it should be reworked somehow.
To the best of my knowledge, virulence gives normal spell hit, which would affect UB and diseases - however, I don't recall any DoT ticks being fully resisted while playing a lock, and I don't know how the UB mechanism works, so how much impact it has on them isn't clear to me. I'd hope the diseases are always applied if IT/PS (or Pestilence) land successfully, as 2 hit checks would be odd. There's also the question of if just gearing for the extra hit you'd get from virulence and spending those talent points elsewhere is a better dps return of course, and that answer may depend on gear level.
Desecration not being linked to blood plague rather than PS itself does seem rather odd, the mechanic of icy talons being triggered by FF rather than just IT could work well here, though there might be issues with triggering multiple patches on the ground from pestilence, etc, that aren't present a simpler haste buff.
Originally Posted by Gavain
2-Handed Weapon Specialization (2HWS)
Most people seem to agree that 17/0/54 is the way to go. But is 2HWS affecting the weapon damage used for SS and BS? Or is it only affecting your auto-attacks (20% of your damage). If it´s the latter, I would rather skip it and use the points somewhere in the Unholy-tree.
...
We also had the blood talents added into the "8.3.5 DPS breakdown per talent point" in the original thread. These should be added in the compendium too I think.
Unless 2h weapon spec works differently for DKs, it should be affecting SS and BS, as the warrior version affects MS, etc. The blood talents being added to the Unholy DPS breakdown here would be very useful.
Originally Posted by Hidden
I don't agree with that spec being the best DW trispec, the only DW spec that looks competitive is 13/32/26, speccing Impurity is much better than speccing Annihilation just for Rime procs which you can also use on HB doing double as much damage if you're willing to have a flexible rotation.
The theoretical max DPS trispec should be 13/32/26.
One further note past what's already been commented on picking up master of ghouls - virulence loses all dps value if you pick up enough extra hit, and as dual wielding, you'll cap spell hit long before capping hit for white attacks, so that may be the better option. Moving those points to ravenous dead, and one point in either outbreak or corpse explosion (for trash/boss AoE situations) should be a dps gain at that point, even without master of ghouls.
On the subject of ravenous dead, I believe that the 8.3.5 table leaves out ghoul use - a note to that effect would be nice, as it's not clear on first glance, and could lead people to under-valuing ravenous dead without considering the ghoul side of the equation.
Although (very) situational, would it be worth mentioning in 8.1.1 that warrior and druid tanks, and to a lesser extent DK tanks, would gain a lot of threat generation from hysteria being used on them? Naturally, for this to be a gain, threat has to become an issue again, and the tank needs to not be in danger of dying from the extra damage - could be useful on offtanks in multi-tank aggro reduction fights like VR or Bloodboil though, and might be a raid dps gain if the aggro drops are extreme enough to threat-cap the dps.
And one question I have myself and it may be worth added into the compendium for Unholy DK.
2-Handed Weapon Specialization (2HWS)
Most people seem to agree that 17/0/54 is the way to go. But is 2HWS affecting the weapon damage used for SS and BS? Or is it only affecting your auto-attacks (20% of your damage). If it´s the latter, I would rather skip it and use the points somewhere in the Unholy-tree.
I´m sure this question will come up for a new DK, so maybe we should include it somewhere under 8.3.2
We also had the blood talents added into the "8.3.5 DPS breakdown per talent point" in the original thread. These should be added in the compendium too I think.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization affects your auto-attack damage, and the damage of any ability which includes the phrase "deals x% weapon damage." This includes Frost Strike, Scourge Strike, Blood Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate, and Plague Strike (only affects the damage of the actual attack, does not affect the damage of Blood Plague). It does not include any spells, such as Icy Touch, Frost Fever, Blood Plague, Unholy Blight, Howling Blast, or Death Coil.
One thing that I think should be included in the front page is which weapon types a Death Knight can use, and whether or not they need to be trained. Death Knights start with 1H Swords, 1H Axes, 2H Swords, 2H Axes, and possibly Polearm Weapon Skills (can someone confirm this, I can't recall for sure either way whether or not you start out with Polearms) all starting at 270 upon character creation. Death Knights can learn to use 1H Maces and 2H Maces from the faction appropriate Weapons Master. Death Knights cannot use Daggers, Fist Weapons, or Staves at all.
Might still be worth including Agility. With 45.90 crit rating = 62.5 agility = 1% crit and 1/18 as AP (from Bladed Armor), it should be
1 AGI = 45.9 / 62.5 * "crit stat (rating)" + 1/18 = 0.7344 * "crit stat (rating)" + 0.056
Stat (rating)
Unholy
Blood
Frost
1 AGI
0.8810
0.8967
0.9290
If my math isn't off, it places agility above haste for all specs and above ArP for Unholy and Frost. (Ah, small typo in your list: should read 1ARP, not 1APR.)
Might still be worth including Agility. With 45.90 crit rating = 62.5 agility = 1% crit and 1/18 as AP (from Bladed Armor), it should be
1 AGI = 45.9 / 62.5 * "crit stat (rating)" + 1/18 = 0.7344 * "crit stat (rating)" + 0.056
Stat (rating)
Unholy
Blood
Frost
1 AGI
0.8810
0.8967
0.9290
If my math isn't off, it places agility above haste for all specs and above ArP for Unholy and Frost. (Ah, small typo in your list: should read 1ARP, not 1APR.)
Agility doesn't increase your spell crit chance unlike crit rating.
Might still be worth including Agility. With 45.90 crit rating = 62.5 agility = 1% crit and 1/18 as AP (from Bladed Armor), it should be
1 AGI = 45.9 / 62.5 * "crit stat (rating)" + 1/18 = 0.7344 * "crit stat (rating)" + 0.056
Stat (rating)
Unholy
Blood
Frost
1 AGI
0.8810
0.8967
0.9290
If my math isn't off, it places agility above haste for all specs and above ArP for Unholy and Frost. (Ah, small typo in your list: should read 1ARP, not 1APR.)
You also need to account for crit rating affecting spells whereas agility does not.
D'oh.. I knew I must have missed something (and the values did seem a bit high). I guess it's a bit more complex then, maybe methods could provide the numbers?
To the best of my knowledge, virulence gives normal spell hit, which would affect UB and diseases - however, I don't recall any DoT ticks being fully resisted while playing a lock, and I don't know how the UB mechanism works, so how much impact it has on them isn't clear to me.
UB has a hit-check every time it deals damage, since it works more like thorns or an imp's fire shield than an actual dot (with the small difference that people don't have to hit you to be damaged).
During beta I never had it happen that IT or PS hits and the respective disease is not applied, so I would assume they are linked (or I was just extremely lucky). Once a DoT is applied it can only be partially resisted by magic resistance, it's not being hit-checked again.
- value of the talent Outbreak ? (right now it´s value is calculated when fighting single targets)
I did some theorycraft for leveling and while those numbers can be completely wrong here are the results - percentage of total damage increase per point spent (Unholy spec of course).
EDIT: Those above didn't take DnD into account. Therefore they may be invalid (Impurity may be worth more, Outbreak less).
Sadly when I did this beta servers went down already so I had no chance to test it in practice and this was made for player level ~60 so again don't take those too seriously.
Originally Posted by Gavain
- under "5 How to dps..." With a high percentage of fights against multiple targets, there should be some words about that
Agreed, it also needs to be checked if you should use death runes for SS or BB.
Originally Posted by Gavain
- usage of BB and DnD for tanks only? How many targets you need to fight to make their usage wothwhile...or never?
The thing is that it is +threat ability. I think tanks may be unhappy if you would use that for DPS. Also it may do less damage than just doing another BB + SS (another thing to check).
Originally Posted by Gavain
So maybe it is worth to give the Unholy-section a stronger focus about aoe-damage and some summary about how your playstyle differs in these situations.
I think it is not that complicated. You just switch BS to PE/BB and just two questions needs to be answered:
1) Is DnD viable as dps skill over BB + SS?
2) How many mobs are needed to make you use Death Runes for BB instead of SS? Is 2 enough or do you need more to make it worthwhile?
Ad.1) How does DnD scale with AP?
Per tick:
DnD = (3000 * 0.0475 + 62) * 10 = 2045 per target
Per whole:
DnD = (3000 * 0.0475 + 620) = 825 per target
BB in comparison: 250 per rune so dumbing it down 750 per target.
So if:
- it scale per tick then it is win
- it scale per whole then it is just a little better than BB and given threat problems you will rather not dps with it, besides you can take Outbreak for 30% more damage for BB.
Ad.2) Let's assume 3000 AP and max rank spells, weapon damage would be 170 (from weapon) + 3000 / 12 if I am correct so 100% = 420, 60% = 252:
BB = 130 + (3000 * 0.04) = 250 * 2 (as you use two BB per SS) = 500 per target
SS = 476,25 + 252 = 728,25
So with two mobs it would be 1000 vs 728,25, three 1500 vs 728,25 etc.
BB wins unless I did something wrong.
Regardless of stupid tooltips both spells use the same mechanic. They cost 50 RP to summon for the initial 10 sec and then drain x RP per sec until you run out of RP or the max duration is reached.
Summon Gargoyle: 60 sec max. / 50 RP for initial 10 sec then 8 RP per sec => 450 RP / 60 sec
Dancing Rune Weapon: 40 sec max. / 50 RP for initial 10 sec then 5 RP per sec => 200 RP / 40 sec
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.
DRW takes all your rune power instantly and then costs nothing to maintain it. I don't think the tooltip is confusing at all. It lasts 10 seconds with 50rp, 20 with 100.
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:
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.
That's correct. There was a brief discussion on the Professions thread where Warriors, Death Knights, and Paladins are probably better off as DPS Tailors than any other class. It's a tough call though, because Blacksmithing can customize the gems with Strength instead of raw attack power, which might make them slightly better than the Embroidery.
If Agility and Haste are just that bad for Death Knights (so 22 Agility/Haste + 64 attack power < 90 Attack Power) then Tailoring is arguably better than Inscription, Alchemy, or Enchanting for Death Knights. Leatherworking is still a special case - while balanced for DPS purposes, the Stamina enchant is so insanely overpowered that anyone who thinks they might be a tank should be a Leatherworker. Meanwhile, Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting occupy a Schrodinger's-box existence where their power is directly related to the availability of epic gems... Jewelcrafting is much more powerful without them and maybe one of the worst profession with them, while Blacksmithing goes from above average (because of customization) to the top profession with epic gems being available.
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.
There was rumour of weapon smithing and armor smithing getting unique gem abilities. Given that list, it seems all fairly balanced with minor advantages to one over the other and additional meta sockets would be pretty overpowered. I guess all of that has gone out the window?
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.
Originally Posted by Dev93L
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.
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 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.
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.
You give up the "alright" utility of Lichborn, you lose 10 maximum RP (based on the expected rotation, I don't see this being a problem), and lose 2/2 Icy Reach, which I suppose can help your DPS in a fight where you lose melee range alot, but if you're losing melee range alot, your damage will probably be terrible anyway. For these sacrifices you get:
Death Rune Mastery 3/3
2% str, 2% stam, 2 expertise.
As far as pure, unadulterated DPS is concerned, this spec seems better. The question is, are the utility gains of putting those 4 points in Frost worthwhile?
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?
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.
Originally Posted by Althir
A possible alternative to the 17/54/0 Frost build:
You give up the "alright" utility of Lichborn, you lose 10 maximum RP (based on the expected rotation, I don't see this being a problem), and lose 2/2 Icy Reach, which I suppose can help your DPS in a fight where you lose melee range alot, but if you're losing melee range alot, your damage will probably be terrible anyway. For these sacrifices you get:
Death Rune Mastery 3/3
2% str, 2% stam, 2 expertise.
As far as pure, unadulterated DPS is concerned, this spec seems better. The question is, are the utility gains of putting those 4 points in Frost worthwhile?
Thoughts?
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.
Last edited by Zurm : 11/10/08 at 8:28 AM.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
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.
My tests seem to indicate 1ppm from auto-attacks, which obviously goes alot more than 1 proc in a minute with specials factored in. Also someone confirmed the original crusader was 1ppm, so I think it is a safe bet.
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?
11/09/08, 4:30 AM
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