Zadus

Just out of curiosity, do you know what percent of your dps is from UB and what percent is from your DC? Talking about single target bosses.

 

• Lanky

Even before he answers that:

Death Coil is currently scaling way better than UB. Two reasons: UB can't crit (and typical DKs have around 30% unbuffed), and UB's coefficient is really tiny compared to DC's. One crit Deathcoil during the time it would take to get Unholy Blight going absolutely trumps all the damage it would have done, especially since my Deathcoils crit for close to 5k now. As gear scales, UB looks less and less appealing.

 

shed

Just read this entire thread since I've been going between Blood and Frost since Wrath was released, and played Unholy a few times on beta. One reason I've been Unholy is because our MT raids as Unholy already. Obviously Ebon Plague doesn't stack and in fact gimps whoever doesn't get it up there first, however there was talk of Crypt Fever earlier and if it worked or counted as a disease if an Unholy DK didn't have the Ebon Plague talent.

So has anyone tested this yet? If not I will respec and do some testing with our MT on a dummy.

 

Oxylos

My friend and I both leveled as unholy and one of us didn't take EP and EP+CF did in fact stack so we both got 3 disease hits. (also giving both +30% disease damages, though if you're only going CF for the disease you probably go 1/3?)

 

Zadus

I agree with you on this, but I'm not sure all rp should be used for just death coil should it? Say during our first rotation, i always make sure i end with unholy blight, then at the second end of the rotation i always dump Death coils.

Just to make things clear, are you suggesting that at the end we should be death coiling rather than doing unholy blight on single targets?

 

• Zurm

Pretty sure we've gone over this already. It's a pretty easy comparison to make...

UB gets 1.3% x 20 = 26% of your AP, plus 48 * 20 = 960.

Death coil gets 15% of your AP plus 443.

Given just this, your scaling comment is flat out wrong.

Death coil can crit, and is cheaper, but if you factor in that it only gets SPELL crit rates (which for me is about 30%, compared to a solid 40-45% melee crit in raids) and the total damage done, it is actually higher DPS (AND more efficient RP use) to use one UB every 20 seconds, the only exception being if the target is often out of range.

Given the above information, if he is, I strongly disagree.

 

Davia

With good uptime, UB is generally around 8% of my DPS on a single target, I believe.

 

shed

UB's strength regardless of scaling compared to coil, is that you use it and forget about it, it doesn't affect your GCD or ability to use death coils.

 

• Zurm

Sorry to backtrack, but I just noticed this.

This spec, and the whole post in general, is actually quite brilliant. I will be changing to this spec this week. It actually takes 1 spare point that we previously had no REAL place for (I put it in outbreak, which is decent, but this is far better) and moves it into something that addresses the very real problem of ghoul survivability.

While I can see arguements either way for 1/2 Night of the Dead and 3/3 Virulence versus 2/2 and 2/3, I think the idea holds in general. The ghoul does about 5-700 dps in raids depending on the encounter... when it doesn't die. This is there (at least, IMO) to offeset the difference between blood/frost's increased ability damage compared to unholy's.

I will certainly try this spec out this week, and just wanted to give props to this poster... his post in general covers a lot of good points that I think new readers should really check out before posting and asking questions.

 

Redux

I did some raiding with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, a similar build (I kept Pale Horse for obvious non-raiding reasons, as we've cleared all content and I don't feel I need to Min/Max). Those points would probably be better spent in dirge, and if you wanted to move point from outbreak to 2h or necrosis that works too.

Some numbers on the Necromatic Trinket...

I ran a Heroic Pinnacle today, and tracked it with Recount to give some numbers. This instance does tend to play well with Pestilence. I had 38 procs over 846 ticks dealing 3.2% of my total damage on the run, which is a 4.4% proc rate on ticks (this would be higher with an internal CD, since I was dotting multiple targets). The procs dealt 57,838 damage, ranging from 883 min hit to 1725 max, an avg of 1290 dmg a proc. I crit 31.6% of the time, 1593 min, 2533 max, with an average of 2025 on crits.

You can see my gear here: The World of Warcraft Armory

This run was done with a lock, mage, tankadin, and resto shaman not providing me totems. Hopefully that gives enough damage to help those with more specific questions. Ultimately it was my 10th highest form of damage, higher than IT, Pest, PS, Blood caked Strike, and Necrosis. It is most definitely a significant form of damage in a heroic or fight where Pestilence is used liberally.

edit: I just went and hit a dummy for 5 mins, I was seeing 6.5% procs, and it still produces more damage than what I listed above, even on a single target. I was still seeing 3.1% of my total damage.

 

Keline

Is there a reason Shadow of Death isn't working on pretty much all raid encounters?

 

tedv

I'm current raiding with almost that exact same spec, except only 1 point in Night of the Dead. I can confirm that the second point in NotD is very worthwhile. I mean, if there was anything in the tree that said "You gain 1% damage", Night of the Dead couldn't come close to competing. But the fact is that we have 4 spare points to burn.

The only disagreement I had with the post was the discussion regarding the third glyph, given that the first two are Scourge Strike and Ghoul. I firmly believe Icy Touch is the right choice for the third glyph. More often than you'd like on some boss fights, you will be stuck at range. That means your only damage options are Death Coil and Icy Touch. Being able to spam 2 Icy Touch and get off a death coil is not insignificant. If you have a pair of death runes, then you get 4 icy touch and 2 death coils in 10 seconds, and that puts you head and shoulders above all other melee DPS in such a situation. The glyph is really worthwhile.

One other thing I'd considered was how we have 4 wasted talent points to spare in Unholy, and the first 5 points in Blood are basically worthless. Those 9 talent points together account for less than 2% extra damage. Perhaps those 9 points could be shuffled into mitigation talents, making us a 25 man raid viable off-tank while sacrificing essentially none of our DPS use. Here's the spec I had in mind: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

That's only 6 points away from the ideal unholy tanking spec, which looks something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

So the first build loses 2 NotD, 2 Virulence, 3 Subversion, 2 Butchery. Here's a very rough estimate of damage lost for someone doing around 3000 DPS:

Night of the Dead: varies widely depending on fight
Virulence: 4 DPS per point
Subversion: 3 DPS per point
Butchery: 12 DPS per point

Total loss: 41 DPS = 1.4% of 3000 DPS

The second build loses an additional 2 points in Necrosis and 4 points in Dark Conviction. You also gain 15% extra benefit from Bladed Armor due to Toughness

Necrosis: 9 DPS per point
Dark Conviction: 24 DPS per point
Toughness: Gain of 2 DPS per point

Total loss: 41 + 104 DPS = 145 DPS = 4.8% DPS

Obviously this spec is irrelevant once the dual spec system is in place. But maybe it's worth losing a little under 5% DPS to have a main tank quality off-tank. I haven't tried either spec yet because gear is still stabilizing, and I want good feedback on which item upgrades are actually benefiting my performance. But I'm seriously considering doing full-time raiding with the second spec. I suppose I'd have to lose the Icy Touch glyph for Bone Shield, but that's not the biggest loss in the world.

It doesn't proc from some things like environment damage (eg. falling, lava). That might not be the reason for all the issues, but it's certainly a large part of it.

 

Keline

I'll try to keep an eye on that. I'm fairly sure I've been killed by npcs in TOS today a few times and I never ghouled.

 

Davia

That's the exact same spec I've been using since Ren posted about how much he liked NotD.

 

Ten

Just a couple things to note about the Extract of Necromantic Power that I don't think anyone has said specifically, it makes up roughly the same % of your damage that BCB does, and it functions exactly like Timbal's in that it'll shoot out from wherever you are when it procs regardless of range/LoS/etc (obvious I know, but it hadn't been said). Additionally I believe that it does get modified by any/all damage modifiers, since I've seen mine crit for over 2500 pretty regularly. Definitely one of the best, if not the best, trinket for a dps DK right now.

 

◊ forostie

The main times I have not seen SoD work are from environment damage on a boss encounter e.g. Flame Tsunami, Heigan splashes etc (not personally of course), and from large-ish overkill amounts of magical damage.

For instance, dying from Meteor, Marks or that ability Blaumeux/Zeliek use when they get close (I think thats when it happens, an emote goes off) on 4H will result in no SoD, but getting a melee hit from one of them will. Same goes for Malygos - dying from breath will result in no SoD, but dying from a melee hit will. There have been exceptions though; for instance on Gluth if you're the last to die SoD won't work which I believe is tied to the fact that there is a major reset occuring every time you wipe on the boss i.e. a bunch of mobs despawn.

I don't believe SoD is as random as it seems, but I'm not yet able to put my finger exactly on what will/will not trigger it.

EJ Discourages experimentation with unique play-styles/specs/glyphs

Farstrider: "Of course you can fucking pronounce it. It's L-rigaton-may, you wanker."

 

Keline

you don't actually "die" in game terms when you "die" and SoD fires off, do you? Your pet ghoul would disappear and he stays. Mobs don't reset until my ghoul form also died.
My head hurts now.

 

• Lanky

Those numbers are correct, I'll admit that on AP scaling Deathcoil loses to UB, but doesn't that mask the actual problem?

1. Simple math for simple answers, empirically I watch my Unholy Blight tick for roughly 150 a second, for 20 seconds. That is obviously 150 DPS, for a total of 3000 damage over 20. Cost is 60 runic power.

2. Every time I use deathcoil, it hits for at least 1700 raidbuffed (frankly I think it is more, on reflection, I will test in my next raid). If it crits (around 35% spellcrit chance raidbuffed), it gets into the 4.6 to 5 k range. 40 Runic power.

Now, with the 4 piece bonus coming to most of us in the near future, the standard IT< PS< BS< BS< SS< SS< SS< SS
Rotation will generate 40 additional Runic Power, or one additional deathcoil exactly, thus at least another 1600.

Isn't it more likely as our gear scales that Deathcoil spam on single targets over time is going to surpass Unholy Blight very soon? The DPS scaling on UB is strictly linear. The ticks slowly get a bit bigger as our AP increases, Crit is useless.

Therefore when I say Deathcoil scales better, I should be clearer. Deathcoil scales using more of our relevant stats, and one crit deathcoil in the space of 20 seconds means you have just done more damage than unholy blight could ever do, and are now halfway to your next death coil, which you will get when you SS next.

See my line of thinking here?

 

Randyll

I think the issue at hand here is that Unholy Blight and Death Coil are fundamentally different. The other is a direct damage ability whereas the other is just a DoT of sorts. If you were given infinite Runic Power, you will reach a situation where you can have Unholy Blight rolling and spam Death Coil endlessly. As a result, the more RP you get, the more death coils will you be able to use together with Unholy Blight.

But I digress, I don't know about your empirical evidence, but by pure math one unholy blight will do roughly the same amount as a Death Coil crit would. Hence, your Death Coils would only surpass UB in damage when their crit rate is a hundred percent. Although I realise that the number can be lower due to skewing caused by the Runic Power cost of Unholy Blight.

 

Oxylos

With the DPS Compen. closed, the only DK DPS chats are broken into these threads. When this begun there was a lot of talk of "all trees are competitive!" and this and that and thats great but now we have real world data. Surely one of the trees puts up superior numbers on a min/max level, on most of the encounters. Admitedly, this is relative to gear and the Heigan sigil and t7 bonuses but even still. I find it hard to believe that there isn't a "clear winner" per se. Yes, this content gets steamrolled by most anyway, so what does it matter eh? Well first, theres more content eventually, and second, this is EJ, its what we do.

Are there just not enough from each spec that actually have the gear? Are people just reluctant to burst the "everyone is viable!" bubble and not want to rock the boat?

 

• Lanky

Right, I keep forgetting the only important thing about Unholy Blight in a single target situation: The Runic power you use on it can made irrelevant over 20 seconds.

My primary worry was that the 60 runic power could yield higher damage as Deathcoils more often on average as gear scales. But since runic power generation only climbs higher with gear (mainly the set bonus), this can be offset.

 

Ten

Wow Web Stats

WWS from a quick Arch kill tonight. 2 dps DKs and a tanking one.

 

Alandriel

Soloed Onyxia today. Highest non-crit with Extract was 1479, and I was in Frost Prescence the entire time. That's higher than Rage of Rivendare can account for alone, although Ebon Plaguebringer could do it. The lowest crit was 1739, which shouldn't be possible with 200% crits. I foolishly neglected to combatlog it, but I'll try to remember to do so Tuesday.

 

Oxylos

Did you find being in frost presence more beneficial than being in blood presence and death striking for 15% more damage (and thus healing for 15%*2.5 more) not to mention just dpsing 15% harder

 

Brutorious

Thats interesting because, one dps is unholy 17/0/54 the other is frost 17/54. The frost DK looks ahead gear wise, and yet the unholy DK still had a marginable lead. The frost DK even has the sigil of awareness, while the unholy dk is still using the starting sigil.

as far as comparisons go, are there any others? I know there is all the all 3 are viable thing and thats great but it looks like unholy is pulling far ahead of frost now.