DPS Compendium - Page 8

Flamingcloud · 11/10/08, 9:50 PM

Death & Decay, Blood Tap, Rune Tap, Unbreakable Armor, Bone Armor, and Vampiric Blood were all at the very least generating rp OOC in beta. If you had 3/3 Morbidity it was fairly easy to keep your self at 100 rp out of combat.

c0nscript · 11/11/08, 1:05 AM

6.1.7. Haste Rating

Haste Rating will directly increase the contribution of white swings to your DPS - 1% Haste will generate 1% more auto attack DPS.

Unlike many other melee based classes, Death Knights draw a much smaller portion of their dps from White damage. As a result, Haste is a much less desirable stat. As you can also see, the value of Haste is effected by the spec. Abilities like Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade allow for Unholy specs to gain much better damage per Haste Rating. Additionally, Killing machine works similarly.

While Haste is never a particularly desirable stat for Death Knights, we must remember how it effects their GCD. Because of dense rotations additional haste rating can reduce the strain on a player and allow for a larger margin of error. However, stacking too much of it is also not recommended, due to its low value.

We require 32.79 Rating for 1% Haste.

My questions are:

Why does the T7 Death Knight DPS set have haste on nearly all pieces?

Why does the DPS set not give a boost to Blood Strike?

And my final question is, what is the difference between Blood Strike and Heart Strike? Just the weapon damage?

Sorry for these questions but I've been trying to study Death Knight for quite sometime since the beta came out I've read almost every post I could find on them. I plan on changing my main from a Fury Warrior to a DPS Death Knight in the expansion for the guild. We are currently a BT guild just to give my experience.

It just seems everything I have been reading from this guide clashes with the actual Death Knight set pieces. Don't get me wrong this guide is amazing and has helped answered A LOT of my questions but some remain unanswered and has brought up some confusion.

I was really pushing towards ( 50 / 0 / 21 )
but now I'm not so sure and I am thinking about leaning towards Unholy because of the set bonuses.

tzenes · 11/11/08, 1:40 AM

Originally Posted by c0nscript

My questions are:

Why does the T7 Death Knight DPS set have haste on nearly all pieces?

Why does the DPS set not give a boost to Blood Strike?

And my final question is, what is the difference between Blood Strike and Heart Strike? Just the weapon damage?

Sorry for these questions but I've been trying to study Death Knight for quite sometime since the beta came out I've read almost every post I could find on them. I plan on changing my main from a Fury Warrior to a DPS Death Knight in the expansion for the guild. We are currently a BT guild just to give my experience.

It just seems everything I have been reading from this guide clashes with the actual Death Knight set pieces. Don't get me wrong this guide is amazing and has helped answered A LOT of my questions but some remain unanswered and has brought up some confusion.

I was really pushing towards ( 50 / 0 / 21 )
but now I'm not so sure and I am thinking about leaning towards Unholy because of the set bonuses.

You really have two questions here.

In answer to the first question: Haste isn't useless, and obviously bliz wanted to add one more kind of stat to our T7 items. Plus the flexibility it gives us is always nice.

In answer to your second question: the t7 set bonus has a nice bonus to Obliterate which is a core ability in a Blood build. I think you'll find it to be a nice bonus, but not game breaking.

I recommend the 50/0/21 spec, because I believe it provides the best dps of any DK spec without having to micro manage a pet.

pldcanfly · 11/11/08, 3:53 AM

Originally Posted by c0nscript

I was really pushing towards ( 50 / 0 / 21 )
but now I'm not so sure and I am thinking about leaning towards Unholy because of the set bonuses.

Epidemic is completely useless in a 50/0/21, since Obliterate will consume your diseases and you have to renew them every 10 seconds.

Clemz · 11/11/08, 5:07 AM

I'm of that mind too, it's not entirely useless, Leaflock pointed out a situation earlier in the thread that would make Epidemic worthwhile, but I wouldn't suggest points in it hoping that situation comes to light. As for haste, it's not so much they wanted to add one more stat, it's that haste is a secondary stat, from Blizzard's own words(paraphrasing obviously) they can only add so much of the primary stats due to item budget, for instance, an item with 100 strength would cost mroe than an item with 65 strength and 30 haste. The more of a stat there is, the more expensive it gets to add. I'm sure comeone could explain that better than I could, but that's the gist of it.

Edit: Found the quote I was referring to! Thread here. Was directed towards Hunters, but applies to everyone.

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

We do put a lot of haste on gear. Part of that is because we don't have a huge canvas to work with. We can't put a ton of Strength and Spirit on hunter gear. Also, keep in mind that we aren't trying to make the best possible gear for you. We want you to toss out less optimal pieces for more optimal pieces. Finally, keep in mind that gear is one of the things we use to let players demonstrate mastery of the game. Making the decision of whether that new ring or belt is an upgrade should require a little bit of thought. That's what makes it interesting. But I will bring up the issue of haste and we can talk it over again.

• Zurm · 11/11/08, 9:19 AM

Originally Posted by c0nscript

Why does the T7 Death Knight DPS set have haste on nearly all pieces?

To answer this question, keep in mind that blizzard has also said quite often that they want death knights to be equally viable as dual wield or with a single two-hander. Haste is a VERY good stat for increasing white damage and procs, so its actually quite good with the tri-spec (at the very least, still far better than haste is for traditional 2h specs).

Leaflock · 11/11/08, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by Clemz

I'm of that mind too, it's not entirely useless, Leaflock pointed out a situation earlier in the thread that would make Epidemic worthwhile, but I wouldn't suggest points in it hoping that situation comes to light.

Yeah, it's also useful for longer diseases in AoE situations. I didn't mean to imply that it was a necessary blood dps talent, only that any dismissal as "completely useless" isn't really accurate. It can be handy. And, at higher levels of gear + raid buffs, I'd definitely take it over the spell hit talent.

Xotli · 11/11/08, 3:52 PM

/burp

• Zurm · 11/11/08, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by Xotli

I dont know why you pick up Unholy Aura and invest 2/2.

I have an explanation of why quoted directly after. Don't assume that just because it doesn't offer a direct increase in damage doesn't mean it won't increase your dps on boss fights. Here is a repost of my quote, in case you can't find it:

Originally Posted by Zurm

Let's do some napkin math, shall we? In a 25-man, let's assume we have 7 melee DPS. Now lets assume we are on a fight like KT, with approximately 10% running time with no run speed enchant, and let's also assume a personal sunstained dps of all melee to be 4k. These are all fair numbers from what we have seen on beta, shifted slightly to make the math easier to follow.

Now, without any runspeed enchant, we could expect each individual member to do:

4000 * (1-.1) = 3600 dps, and combined:

3600 * 7 = 25200

Now, if we increase running speed by 15%, we increase the (1-.1) = .9 multiplier to 1-.087 = .913. Re-doing this:

4000 * .913 = 3652 dps, and combined:
3652 * 7 = 25564

Or a net raid dps increase on this fight of 364. This is also just purely the DPS benefit from a running fight. This doesn't factor in the ability to hit your WHOLE raid with a 15% boost on fights like Heigan to make it easier (while it's not needed to have this speed boost on heigen, it certainly helps, especially with the achievement where no one can die t his bursts). Also, you will most likely be near to the tanks at all times, and allowing the tanks to grab targets more easily is extremely helpful.

If you are going to skimp points from unholy aura, you are hurting the raid more than if you were to take those points from impurity or necrosis, for example.

I took those points out of desecration instead, when I made that initial post we were aware of the DPS benefits comparing the talents as Methods hadn't provided that data yet. Now if this isn't reason enough for you to get it, so be it. But please make sure you read everything in that post before making corrections, there is a lot of information to cover.

Edit: Not to mention, the raid DPS boost of unholy aura scales with *everyone's* gear.

Nacht · 11/11/08, 4:02 PM

Originally Posted by Xotli

I dont know why you pick up Unholy Aura and invest 2/2.
You can relocate those points into necrosis to get 5/5 since the unholy aura talent does not improve your dps at all.

Looks like somebody hasn't paid attention to much of the Unholy DK raid dps conversation.

Eetabeetay · 11/11/08, 4:04 PM

Originally Posted by Xotli

To your Unholy talent tree.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I assume this is your dps build.
I dont know why you pick up Unholy Aura and invest 2/2.
You can relocate those points into necrosis to get 5/5 since the unholy aura talent does not improve your dps at all.
I would also not spend points in dirge. Unholy isnt in my opinion a build which requires alot RP, if you compare it to frost.
I would spend those two points in desecration.

my build would be

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Actually it has been proven that unholy aura is a RDPS increase, not to mention just plain useful in heavy movement fight. And most unholy builds include dirge, you have UB to keep up and Gargoyle to dump RP into, so the RP from Dirge is definitely not wasted.

Melchior · 11/11/08, 4:49 PM

Kind of a minor point either way, but I think the 51/13/7 Blood build might get more mileage out of Vampiric Blood instead of Rune Tap. I don't think a lot of DPS setups are going to run Glyph of Blood Tap to make it a party heal, which is really the only advantage I see to taking it over VB. Maybe I'm overlooking something, though?

Eetabeetay · 11/11/08, 5:49 PM

Originally Posted by Melchior

Kind of a minor point either way, but I think the 51/13/7 Blood build might get more mileage out of Vampiric Blood instead of Rune Tap. I don't think a lot of DPS setups are going to run Glyph of Blood Tap to make it a party heal, which is really the only advantage I see to taking it over VB. Maybe I'm overlooking something, though?

Well the way I see it is that unless you're tanking, you really shouldn't be needing a lot of healing. If you do take some heavy damage I'm sure Death Strike, Rune Tap, Pots, Bandages, etc will do just fine. The thing about VB is that the biggest benefit (heals from other players) relies on those other players healing you, and if its close to a wipe, they will probably be focusing on the main tank or other players. IMO there really isn't any great glyphs for you're third glyph dps wise, Glyph of Blood Tap adds some very nice utility to the raid though.

tzenes · 11/11/08, 5:51 PM

Originally Posted by Xotli

To your Unholy talent tree.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I assume this is your dps build.
I dont know why you pick up Unholy Aura and invest 2/2.
You can relocate those points into necrosis to get 5/5 since the unholy aura talent does not improve your dps at all.
I would also not spend points in dirge. Unholy isnt in my opinion a build which requires alot RP, if you compare it to frost.
I would spend those two points in desecration.

my build would be

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Dirge is an amazing ability when you consider its effect on Gargoyle.
With the 3 SS 20 second rotation, Unholy gets an extra 25 RP from Dirge (or 1.25rp per second).
This pushes the rp gen in the rotation from 5.25rp/s to 6.5rp/s, increasing Gargoyle life time by 54%
When you take into account that an unholy raid buffed gargoyle is pumping out 900+dps for its lifetime, a 54% increase is significant.

When we subtract the dps loss from DC during gargoyle up time (~200) and average the life time damage of the gargoyle over the cooldown (28.18 second over 3 minutes without dirge) we see that dirge is providing a 80dps total increase from gargoyle alone.

In addition, while gargoyle is not up, Dirge is providing an extra death coil every ~30 seconds (which unholy has room for) for an additional 60dps increase.

So, 60dps*(180-43.33)/180 +80dps = 125.6dps or 62dps per point.
Assuming the Unholy character in my example hits 3k dps, this constitutes a ~2% increase per point.
This pushes dirge from a useful talent to one of the best talents (on par with bone shield and wandering plague).

edit: for comparative purposes, Necrosis is about .6% increase per point.

Melchior · 11/11/08, 6:26 PM

Originally Posted by Eetabeetay

Well the way I see it is that unless you're tanking, you really shouldn't be needing a lot of healing. If you do take some heavy damage I'm sure Death Strike, Rune Tap, Pots, Bandages, etc will do just fine. The thing about VB is that the biggest benefit (heals from other players) relies on those other players healing you, and if its close to a wipe, they will probably be focusing on the main tank or other players. IMO there really isn't any great glyphs for you're third glyph dps wise, Glyph of Blood Tap adds some very nice utility to the raid though.

You really shouldn't need a lot of healing, I agree. However, in the situations where you take a significant chunk of damage, Rune Tap isn't really going to fix your problem. It just seems like you'd get comparable healing hitting VB -> DS or even just popping a Healthstone, and any healers that are watching over melee would be able to pick you up in a single heal in most cases. Glyph of Rune Tap does have a bit of utility there, but then if you're in a group with other melee they're also already probably being covered or don't need much healing themselves.

Illundai · 11/11/08, 6:56 PM

I've started converting the OP into the TTT format.

What I'm missing right now is a DPS per talent point breakdown for the other specs (only have numbers for Unholy right now) and the Pets section could do with some work. I've fleshed the pet section out a little bit, but nothing extraordinary so far.

Like always, feel free to PM me if you deem something useful enough to add.

Arkasi · 11/11/08, 7:19 PM

Originally Posted by Melchior

You really shouldn't need a lot of healing, I agree. However, in the situations where you take a significant chunk of damage, Rune Tap isn't really going to fix your problem. It just seems like you'd get comparable healing hitting VB -> DS or even just popping a Healthstone, and any healers that are watching over melee would be able to pick you up in a single heal in most cases. Glyph of Rune Tap does have a bit of utility there, but then if you're in a group with other melee they're also already probably being covered or don't need much healing themselves.

The power of rune tap though is it scales with your health. It's help then is based on hope healing scales compared to tank/dps stamina. Blood tanks take more damage than the other two tanks by virtue having less mitigation, so a VB/RT gets you 30% of your health back, meaning two of your blood runes just gotten eaten but you can still deathstrike since it's on a different set of runes. So it's really more of a pvp/tank talent. However I could see it being useful on dps race fights where having that extra healer isn't an option. So a support blood/frost dk pumping out a glyphed RT every 30 secs come alleviate a bit of the healing burden.

Clandestine · 11/11/08, 7:44 PM

Here are the numbers by which Ghouls scale:

Ghouls gain 100% of strength by default. Ravenous Dead increases this to 160%.
Ghouls gain 30% of stamina by default. Ravenous Dead increases this to 48%.

Source

edit: Not positive this is correct, it was pointed out to me that GC stated a couple days later that the Ghoul was scaling too well, so it may have been nerfed.

tzenes · 11/11/08, 8:24 PM

Originally Posted by Clandestine

Here are the numbers by which Ghouls scale:

Ghouls gain 100% of strength by default. Ravenous Dead increases this to 160%.
Ghouls gain 30% of stamina by default. Ravenous Dead increases this to 48%.

Source

Please tell me you have base stats for ghouls

Here are the dps numbers per talent point for the 50/0/21 spec

DPS per talent point	all	Max-1	Max-2	Max-3	Max-4	Max-5
Butchery	1.51%	0.80%	1.51%
Subversion	2.42%	0.81%	1.61%	2.42%
Bladed Armor	5.30%	1.08%	2.13%	3.18%	4.25%	5.30%
Bloody Strike	7.13%	2.48%	4.85%	7.13%
2H spec	2.14%	1.07%	2.14%
Dark Convict	2.91%	0.58%	1.16%	1.74%	2.33%	2.91%
Vof3 War	1.92%	0.65%	1.29%	1.92%
Bloody Veng	5.27%	1.76%	3.51%	5.27%
Abom	Exempt	2.75%	5.48%
Hysteria	Assume 4kdps	3.48%
Sudden Doom	3.61%	0.24%	0.54%	1.57%	2.59%	3.61%
Heart	HS->BS	3.72%
MoM	3.34%	1.11%	2.23%	3.34%
Blood Gorge	9.08%	1.82%	3.64%	5.45%	7.26%	9.08%
Vicious	0.27%	0.14%	0.27%
Morbidity	1.57%	0.52%	1.04%	1.57%
Virulence	3.38%	0.13%	0.25%	0.38%
Ravenous	No Ghoul	0.06%	0.10%	0.16%
Necrosis	2.04%	0.41%	0.82%	1.23%	1.64%	2.04%
Blood-Caked	6.09%	2.03%	4.06%	6.09%
SoD	0.10%	0.10%
Gargoyle	6.87%	6.87%

I assumed no Ghoul.
I didn't model Abom because it is based on raid dps, and there is always the possibility someone else will bring it. I did however put how it effects you personally (assuming all other raid buffs).
Hysteria assumes you're using it on someone doing 4kdps
Heart assumes you're using Blood instead
BCB feels higher than I expected, that might be an error (I don't know yet).

It is averaging 470 damage per swing (assuming 50% damage and 30% proc rate), and you are swinging every 2 seconds, so it is possible that 6% is right, but it was still surprising.

dr_AllCOM3 · 11/12/08, 3:32 AM

Originally Posted by tzenes

It is averaging 470 damage per swing (assuming 50% damage and 30% proc rate), and you are swinging every 2 seconds, so it is possible that 6% is right, but it was still surprising.

BCB is quite nice and way better than Necrosis, that is correct.

Oxylos · 11/12/08, 4:29 AM

The current accepted 50/0/21 rotation is
PS->IT->HS->HS->OB
PS->IT->HS->HS->HS->HS

This gives you, per minute
Plague Strikes: 6
Icy Touches: 6
Obliterate: 3
Heart Strike: 18

The very nature of the rotation suggests that 2 Heart Strikes > 1 Obliterate.

As such I present this rotation, a 30 second rotation:

OB->PS->IT->HS->HS
HS->HS->DS->HS->HS
PS->IT->HS->HS->HS->HS

Which gives you, per minute
Plague Strikes: 4
Icy Touches: 4
Obliterate: 2
Heart Strike: 20
Death Strike: 2

This trades 2 PS->ITs for 2 Death Strikes, and 1 Obliterate for 2 Heart Strikes.

It does, however, also require epidemic, and the initial OB is undiseased, but only the very first time, each other time through the rotation it is diseased.

Upon looking further, if you waited ~1.5s after the initial oblit before doing the PS, i believe its possible to get through the HS's before the 2nd PSIT application within 15 seconds, requiring only 1/2 epidemic, but I suppose this would require ~perfect latency and 2 is simply much safer.

Anyway, Just food for thought.

Randyll · 11/12/08, 5:12 AM

Originally Posted by Oxylos

<snip>
This trades 2 PS->ITs for 2 Death Strikes, and 1 Obliterate for 2 Heart Strikes.

It does, however, also require epidemic, and the initial OB is undiseased, but only the very first time, each other time through the rotation it is diseased.

Upon looking further, if you waited ~1.5s after the initial oblit before doing the PS, i believe its possible to get through the HS's before the 2nd PSIT application within 15 seconds, requiring only 1/2 epidemic, but I suppose this would require ~perfect latency and 2 is simply much safer.

Anyway, Just food for thought.

That doesn't look like a lot of a DPS increase to me, trading two PS&IT for Death Strikes doesn't look like a DPS gain, since I presume that the assertion of IT&PS > DS as 50/0/21 is true. How big is the difference between two Heart Strikes and an Obliterate in your model?

At any rate, although this is a subjective matter, it looks like an increase in rotation management, which frankly should be as minimal as possible. The requirement of epidemic also decreases the overall damage since that talent is outperformed by other talents, as has been stated previously in this thread. It would be nice if you could provide the numbers behind this rotation.

Hunglo · 11/12/08, 9:48 AM

Since this is a Compendium for DPS, it might be useful to include links for various specs with stat weights on Wowhead. It was posted for Unholy in the 160+ page thread, but it might be useful for this thread to include the unholy one and expand it for the Blood and Frost specs.

Thanks to Methods and Zurm for the stat weights and the majority of the work done for these comparisons.

I've done the Blood (except for AGI and Armor weights, so I just used the weight they had on the Unholy weight): Wowhead - Blood spec stat weight

And here is the one posted on the other thread for Unholy: Wowhead - Unholy spec stat weight

Here is the Frost spec weight, again I had to use the AGI and armor weight value from Unholy as I don't know those weights. Maybe Methods could provide those and I would be willing to update these. Anyways, here is the link for the stat weight: Wowhead - Frost spec stat weight

As always, if anything is wrong, please correct them.

Infectus · 11/12/08, 11:36 AM

Concerning DW tri-spec weapon selection:

Are we looking into a Slow / Fast or Slow / Slow weapon selection.

Runeforging selection: Obviously if we end up running 2 slow weapons the order doesnt matter, but if Slow / Fast ends up being better would it be more benificial to run fallen Crusader or Cinderglacier on the fast OH?

Severos · 11/12/08, 11:38 AM

I would really like to see the weight numbers for Agility for each spec, because it should change as crit changes. However as was pointed out eariler, agility doesn't apply for all crits only melee crits so the question is how do we capture that number?

Armor should be the same because it is a straight conversion from Bladed Armor, 5 / 180 = .02778, techincally it is repeating 7s at the end but you get the point.

The other things that I would love to put a number to is the value of meta gems. We all agree that Chaotic Skyflare Diamond is the best meta gem, but I am currently using Swift Skyflare Diamond as my placeholder because I need a value for the meta gem slot.

Another hole is that I am missing set bonuses for the tier sets. Anyone have numbers for these?