Every fight with even small movement means stacks will fall off and thus Mirror is better. Plus it takes quite some time for a 2H spec to get to the full stack. Unless it's a long, stationary fight Mirror should be better

Just to elaborate a bit on this:

FotFF vs. MoT for 2H also depends a lot on spec. Frost specs have the advantage of their RP dump being a melee attack, thus proccing FotFF. With 6xIT-spec I need 19 seconds on live to get full stack, which is still longer compared to other classes, but not significantly (my Survival hunter needs 16 seconds). But 6xIT has as mentioned the FS-advantage, as well as being played in UP with an additional 15% haste. For this specc FotFF is in my epxerience strictly significantly better than MoT for any encounter currently ingame.

Also, the problem is not "movement" as such, but more correctly "time where you can't dps". In the current game content there are just a few encounters where stacks actually drop off (fewer than I expected before I got the trinket). And 20 seconds of building-up-stacks of FotFF is still always strictly better than 20 seconds of MoT excluding the proc, so when comparing those two trinkets you have to take into account that at the beginning of that "time where you can't dps" MoT could just have procced, effectively wasting that 1k-AP-boost.

Comparing those two trinkets from a theoretical point of view is near impossible and from personal experience I would say, that FotFF is strictly better than MoT for all encounters where you have 45 sec+ windows of dpsing.

So, I've been running 32/39 since my DK dinged 80. It's dying, obviously, so I was looking into going blood for the patch. Is there a set blood spec thats looking to run away from the others? I was looking into 51/2/18. Also, I'd like to know if there's a definitive roation yet. I've seen a few different ones, but mostly its been

DS>IT>PS>HSx2>Dump
HSx2>DS>HSx2> Dump Rinse and repeat.

Any definitive answers would be greatly appreciated, thanks much.

You want to put the DS on the first part of the rotation at the end, especially if using the DS glyph, as it will increase its damage from the fevers on the mob and also from the RP you have generated.

In terms of threat for Unholy (in Frost Presence, more tanking oriented) in 3.1, which is better, Bladed Armor or Black Ice? For DPS as far as I understand Bladed Armor is better in terms of early Ulduar Gear. However for DPS Black Ice overtakes Bladed Armor. I am wondering if this is the case for Tanks as well, or does Bladed Armor still scale better than Black Ice due to having additional 107% contribution (80% from Presence, 15% from talent, assuming multiplicative).

Intuitively I think Bladed Armor is probably still better, but I am not sure.

Don't you want to start with it to get AM up asap?

The only reason to use DS at the beginning to get the 10% AP buff immediately, which makes perfect sense. However, once that buff is up, you should never use DS unless you have at least 26 RP in order to maximize its damage from the glyph. Add DS to the end of rotation 1 to ensure 26RP, and then HS until you get 26 RP, DS, then HS until you're out of runes for rotation 2.

All of the blood variants seem pretty close. Check the new Blood thread for some info on specs versus eachother.

Did a search on the thread but couldn't see this...

In terms of EP vs Crypt Fever (even with 3.1 in mind):

Is the 13% magic damage increase from EP multiplicative with the 30% disease increase from CF?

What I'm getting at, is it feasible with 2 Unholy DK's in the raid for one to spec EP, and the other to spec CF and have 3 points to spare , without losing any DPS?

What's going to be the new FotM tanking spec and it's rotation?

CF's bonus is still there (to your diseases). If the second DK only had CF, he would lose 3% crit damage and miss a nice buff if the other DK isn't around.

Of course, you'd lose the 3% crit. Thanks for the sense check

Regarding the new disease duration and Epidemic:

I've tried to search the megathreads for why people are advocating just 1/2 Epidemic, but never found a satisfactory answer.

As I understand it, 3.0.9 diseases were 12 seconds baseline, with another 6 seconds from 2/2 Epidemic, for an 18 second duration.

In 3.1, they're 15 seconds baseline, with Epidemic still giving 3 extra seconds per point, so you only need 1 point to get an 18 second duration.

Without going to deep into the math (although it would be great if someone can explain exactly), people are recommending just one point because while you can squeeze an extra strike in the 15-18 second range, you're always going to have to refresh diseases within the 18-21 second range, is that correct?

Secondly, that this 1/2 Epidemic assertion only applies to Blood and Frost. Unholy will always benefit from the extra duration since that means legroom for your Scourge Strike Glyph to refresh your diseases without having to IT+PS again. Is that right?

It also depends on wether or not you want to use Glyph of Disease (from now on abbreviated to GoD, Pestilence refreshes diseases on single-target).

If you rely on GoD to refresh you diseases, those last 3 seconds (to get to 21 secs) matter. In a normal IT+PS rotation, it would not matter that much if your diseases drop off as you'll refresh them shortly. With GoD, you HAVE TO refresh before the diseases run out or your optimal rotation is out of the window (21 secs > 2 10sec rotations > 18 secs).

Yes, in Blood and Frost that last tick would usually be clipped by applying diseases for the next rotation, so the benefit of the second point in Epidemic is non-existent for Blood and marginal for Frost, if there is any at all.

You also correctly asserted the Unholy-situation - 3 seconds of disease time yield 1 additional SS, so the probabilty that diseases are not being refreshed by SS chaining decreases even more.

Currently none of the theoretical top DPS specs use this glyph.

Clipping diseases in a Frost spec might not be that bad, IT does more damage if your target was already diseased (Tundra Stalker, Glacier Rot).

I have a BoH and this subsequently drops my strength to 1159. Do I want Berserking or FC?

Why is this a "must"? Since Paladin has three different Trees, each of them for another role to fill, you only got one choice when you decide to dps. So the choices to make when you want to dps are just a few.

DKs on the other hand have three different trees, every tree designed to be used for dps or tanking. So there are a lot more choices to make, not to mention that one tree can be better with this gear, another one might be better with that gear. It's a lot more complicated.


Anyways: I got another question. Since Blizzard loves Haste, lots of Ulduar-Loots seem to have much of it. I would like to know, which tree benefits the most from haste?

It's been a while since I tanked on a warrior and I don't quite recall how damage reduction from def stance is applied, but now that DKs have the same mechanic, it seems like a good time to find out. Does anyone know if the % damage reduction from Frost Pres/Blade Barrier is applied before or after armor is calculated?

It's a plus in my book. Taunting Malygos cause he decided to eat a spark when it was 10 yards away from him was always so much fun. :P

Anyway, the macro command you're looking for is /targetenemy. You can also use /console targetNearestDistance [# of yards] to change the distance that this works at.

It doesn't matter, since the reduction is mutiplicative. If you have, say, 65% damage reduction from armor, it doesn't matter if you say you have .35*.95 or .95*.35 damage taken; either way, it's 66.75% damage reduction (or another 5% with blade barrier for 68.4% damage reduction).

The DK forum reminds me of that Stephen King story "The Mist" except even less entertaining.

But enough QQ. My simple question is, since its so hard to find anything here. Whats the new tank spec? I was frost/unholy (with 5 in blood) like everybody else but now that the talent trees got readjusted so much I don't trust my own judgement. I MT in my guild 10 mans. What do you guys recommend?

Other simple question, for dual-spec, whats the new top dps spec? and with the armor pen changes etc, have any stats changed value?

All 3 trees are viable for tanking, as to which is truly superior that's unknown and probably less important than picking which tree interests you more.

DPS is the same way, right now it looks like it's blood -> unholy -> Frost but it's hard to tell since you know, everything you know about the class just changed four days ago. So I'd say the reason you can't find much info is because; no one is quite sure yet. I would say trust your judgment and give some feedback here so we can figure out.

Greets,

Just a simple question. I was wondering which legplates would work better for me: t7 or the one im wearing now.
The new one has some advantage: hit cap, more arm. pen., more ap but less crit.
T7's advantage: more crit and second set bonus which is important i believe.
Yes, I've done many tries on boss target dummy with the different legplates but still can't see which one does more dps for me.
Could you please tell me which one befits me better?

Thanks in advance.

Alyse