Unholy DPS Discussion - Page 12

Strnad · 12/01/08, 9:50 PM

Originally Posted by Kaelith

Desecration isnt that great for most fights. I was considering removing all my points from it. Unholy aura is fantastic for any fight you have to move (most of them) and helps your entire raid.

Well it's fairly obvious I'll be respeccing when i hit 80, but for lvling the build im at as of 72 seems to work for me.

the last few points are going into lichborne,icy talons, and one point in runic power mastery. I built this to max out damage i can do while not only questing, but to fend off gankers. what do you guys think of it?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Hidden · 12/01/08, 9:54 PM

Originally Posted by 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

I've also done Onyxia today, I was still Unholy tank specced (from out Satharion+3 adds tries today) and in tanking gear. I used Frost Presence for P1 and P3 and Blood Presence for P2 but it's probably just as viable to do her in DPS gear and Blood Presence all the time, most of her damage comes from her breath anyway and 15% more heal is way superior to 5% less breath damage.

I also did Garr for fun, for him I needed to use tank gear and Frost Presence. I just spammed Pestilence, Blood Boil and Death Strike all the time while switching the target after each Pestilence and holding my damage reducing abilities on CD.

@Different Specs:
From my tests on Beta and Live, a spreadsheet I have and that DK Graph it looks like this (for 2h builds):
Including Pets:
Unholy is the best spec in any currently attainable gear.
Blood comes very close to Unholy in good gear and may even surpass Unholy in Armor Penetration heavy gear.
Frost is a few hundreds of DPS behind in any gear.
Excluding Pets:
Unholy is the best spec in bad and medium gear.
Blood is the best spec in better gear.
Frost is still quite a bit behind both Unholy and Blood.

That's obviously ignoring other benefits like Unholy Aura or Blood Aura.

Alandriel · 12/01/08, 10:24 PM

Well, I would take approximately 25% more damage comparatively (47% to 58% mitigation), and more magic damage. I didn't analyze it too much, but I doubt I'd be able to shave more than a minute off overall time.

Now, forgetting to change back (because I am almost never in Frost Prescence) MIGHT have killed me in CoT:Strath immediately afterwards.

Ragnaar · 12/02/08, 1:12 AM

I've seen several people post that UB > DC vs single target, but haven't seen any math proving it. Perhaps someone could post some, or at least point out the flaw in mine.

DC average damage = 1.15*(crit*2*(0.15*AP+443) + (1-crit)*(0.15*AP+443))
UB total damage = 0.26 * AP + 960

Let's assume an AP of 4000. UB does 2000 total damage, which is 33.3 damage per RP. Here's a little table showing crit rate, average DC damage, and damage per RP:

0.10	1319	33.0
0.11	1331	33.3
0.12	1343	33.6
0.13	1355	33.9
0.14	1367	34.2
0.15	1379	34.5
0.16	1391	34.8
0.17	1403	35.1
0.18	1415	35.4
0.19	1427	35.7
0.20	1439	36.0
0.21	1451	36.3
0.22	1463	36.6
0.23	1475	36.9
0.24	1487	37.2
0.25	1499	37.5
0.26	1511	37.8
0.27	1523	38.1
0.28	1535	38.4
0.29	1547	38.7
0.30	1559	39.0
0.31	1571	39.3
0.32	1583	39.6
0.33	1595	39.9
0.34	1607	40.2
0.35	1619	40.5
0.36	1631	40.8
0.37	1643	41.1
0.38	1655	41.4
0.39	1667	41.7
0.40	1679	42.0
0.41	1691	42.3
0.42	1703	42.6
0.43	1715	42.9
0.44	1727	43.2
0.45	1739	43.5
0.46	1751	43.8
0.47	1763	44.1
0.48	1775	44.4
0.49	1787	44.7
0.50	1799	45.0

So at 4000 AP, if you have more than 11% in spell crit, DC is more efficient use of RP. The only possible way that I can see UB doing more damage is if you are GCD limited and needed to dump more RP at a single point. Even with glyphed IT and T7 set bonus you have plenty of room. There's no way that a UB plus 1.5 DC in a 20 sec rotation would out-damage 3x DC. Unless there's something wrong in my math, if so feel free to point it out.

Ten · 12/02/08, 1:29 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

Part of the gap is due to the fact that he probably stood in the cloud for a bit longer than I did (note miss %). Additionally, while his weapon would, at first glance, appear to be massively superior to mine, if you calculate out its relative value, it's only about a 5% increase. Besides that and the sigil though, my stats are actually a bit better.

PS. To all you soloers who want a challenge, try soloing ZG (I did it twice...~250g-300 per clear) and AQ40 (got Skeram to 36% one time but got bad luck on ports the rest of the times).

EDIT:

@Ragnaar: I don't have whatever formulas handy/memorized for UB vs DC, but I can compare from my WWS (Wow Web Stats). My DC averaged 2533 with 58% crit and probably around 5k ap, although it might have been as high as 6500 at times. My UB ticks averaged 235. To even these out, we can multiply the DC damage by 1.5 to equal the rp cost,
2533 * 1.5 = 3799.5

Now if we check the numbers for UB, just do the damage per tick times the number of ticks
235 * 20 = 4700
and we get a number larger than the number for DC. If you want the exact dpRP here, DC gives me 63.325 dpRP and UB gives 78.3 dpRP. Thus it's always beneficial for me to have UB up.

Brutorious · 12/02/08, 3:46 AM

Thats interesting Ten, yeah second glance I did have a chance to examine each of your gear and the wws a bit more. Your right your stats are a bit higher regardless of the gear.

I leveled up and am still frost, so im just trying to get a good grasp of unholy for not actually having much experience with it yet. But your ghoul did 16% of your damage from melee and claw, thats a pretty good chunk (all though im sure its not like that all the time). It was kind of answered up in Hiddens post, i guess im just trying to min/max. and it seems unholy comes out on top. How do you guys compare on other runs?

you dont really want more then one unholy deathknight, so if the other slot is for dps wouldnt it then be better to spec blood over frost since bloods dps seems to be better then frosts as well?

sorry for all the questions

just curious. Regardless, its nice to see you both hit 1 and 2 respectively.

Melchior · 12/02/08, 4:22 AM

Originally Posted by 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

When I did this, it was pretty much trivial even in Blood presence w/ DPS gear on. Just stay under her in P2 and take care of the whelps quickly once they gather around you, they're more dangerous than she is. Death Strike is more than enough to soak the rest of the damage.

Zurai · 12/02/08, 4:39 AM

Originally Posted by Ragnaar

I've seen several people post that UB > DC vs single target, but haven't seen any math proving it. Perhaps someone could post some, or at least point out the flaw in mine.

You're missing the fact that Crypt Fever increases the damage from Unholy Blight.

Ragnaar · 12/02/08, 5:02 AM

You're missing the fact that Crypt Fever increases the damage from Unholy Blight.

You're right, that's the missing piece. That would make the crossover occur at 45% crit at 4k AP. I stand corrected. However, is this a bug? Crypt Fever is only supposed to affect diseases, and UB doesn't count as a disease for any other mechanic (strike scaling, blood boil, etc). I'm just wondering if this will be changed next patch. Until then UB it is!

Ten · 12/02/08, 5:13 AM

Originally Posted by Brutorious

Thats interesting Ten, yeah second glance I did have a chance to examine each of your gear and the wws a bit more. Your right your stats are a bit higher regardless of the gear.

I leveled up and am still frost, so im just trying to get a good grasp of unholy for not actually having much experience with it yet. But your ghoul did 16% of your damage from melee and claw, thats a pretty good chunk (all though im sure its not like that all the time). It was kind of answered up in Hiddens post, i guess im just trying to min/max. and it seems unholy comes out on top. How do you guys compare on other runs?

you dont really want more then one unholy deathknight, so if the other slot is for dps wouldnt it then be better to spec blood over frost since bloods dps seems to be better then frosts as well?

sorry for all the questions

just curious. Regardless, its nice to see you both hit 1 and 2 respectively.

My ghoul usually does the same % it did there; raid buffed it has ~2500 str. As for placing, I'm usually 1 or 2 on fights, despite much QQing from mages and hunters, with 4500-5k dps (or more for Thaddius/Loatheb). Arch sucks for dps because of the clouds that tanks don't feel like moving out of which kill my pets and give 50% miss.

faight · 12/02/08, 5:24 AM

Originally Posted by Ragnaar

You're right, that's the missing piece. That would make the crossover occur at 45% crit at 4k AP. I stand corrected. However, is this a bug? Crypt Fever is only supposed to affect diseases, and UB doesn't count as a disease for any other mechanic (strike scaling, blood boil, etc). I'm just wondering if this will be changed next patch. Until then UB it is!

Until just before beta ended UB was considered a disease, giving Unholy 4 diseases. Apparently Blizz deemed this too OP and made it a physical effect (I'm pretty sure it can't be Cleansed or Purged, I've never run in to a situation where that might happen). Perhaps it was just an oversight that left UB classified as a disease for CF, or maybe it was intentionally left as such? If it's not considered magical it won't be affected by Ebon Plaguebringer, so that might be why they left it as boosted the way it is.

Sekke · 12/02/08, 8:58 AM

Possibly a stupid question, but I just thought I'd bring it up in case it has any merit:

Is there any chance that forgoing casting IT and PS completely is viable?

I thought of the question initially because I misread the SS glyph; I thought the glyph only gave a chance to refresh preexisting diseases, not apply them outright. This led me to wonder if using Unholy and Frost runes that might otherwise be used for PS and IT could instead just be used for SS. More free runes equals more total SSs, which in turn leads to more chances to proc the glyph. Obviously you might still need to use PS if you take the Night of the Living Dead talent for reduced Ghoul cooldown, but other than that I wonder if it would end up being better damage overall since SS hits harder than IT and PS, even without diseases on the target.

Servers are down at the moment or I'd log on and test (and it's what I'm planning on doing first thing tomorrow), just wondering if anyone else had thought about or considered this.

gorsameth · 12/02/08, 9:05 AM

There is more to consider then just your own dps or the single damage of icy touch/plague strike
Are you also accounting for the 2 diseases? relying only on the glyph to keep diseases up will result in a fair bit of downtime.
Nor do you consider the probably immense loss of raid dps by dropping ebon plague. If there is no moonkin, this alone will invalidate your reasoning.

Sekke · 12/02/08, 9:28 AM

Originally Posted by gorsameth

There is more to consider then just your own dps or the single damage of icy touch/plague strike
Are you also accounting for the 2 diseases? relying only on the glyph to keep diseases up will result in a fair bit of downtime.
Nor do you consider the probably immense loss of raid dps by dropping ebon plague. If there is no moonkin, this alone will invalidate your reasoning.

Like I said, something that would need to be figured out is if the average time of having no diseases up but getting the extra SS would result in more or less damage than having all the diseases up but one less SS.

Of course if the raid is relying on the Ebon Plague debuff from you it invalidates the whole idea, I'm just curious to see the numbers and if it would be at all viable.

Tel · 12/02/08, 11:02 AM

So you're asking if

Damage of 'No-Disease SS' > Damage of IT + Damage of PS + Damage lost by disease downtime + Damage lost by Ebon Plague downtime ?

I'm not convinced it needs a great deal of maths on it. Especially considering how much damage loss having no diseases up is in terms of Blood Strike too.

Petersen · 12/02/08, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

Assuming this has not yet been answered...

What causes SoD not to 'proc' is dying with an HP (and/or possibly a stam) buff active. You get reduced to 1 HP, THEN you lose your buffs, and if your HP is buffed this drops you below 1 HP, killing you.

I've also noticed it seems to have an internal cooldown. Can anyone corroborate that?

Tel · 12/02/08, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Petersen

Assuming this has not yet been answered...

What causes SoD not to 'proc' is dying with an HP (and/or possibly a stam) buff active. You get reduced to 1 HP, THEN you lose your buffs, and if your HP is buffed this drops you below 1 HP, killing you.

I've also noticed it seems to have an internal cooldown. Can anyone corroborate that?

I'm not convinced on this arguement I'm afraid. I've had it proc in raid when I've died with fort on me (Hi to my guilds tanks who can't taunt the right drake on Sarth) and not pro when I've been solo with no buffs. Any other ideas?

I've had it proc twice after dying, being CRd then dying again too (in about 10 seconds), so I'm not sure on the internal CD either.

Petersen · 12/02/08, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Tel

I'm not convinced on this arguement I'm afraid. I've had it proc in raid when I've died with fort on me (Hi to my guilds tanks who can't taunt the right drake on Sarth) and not pro when I've been solo with no buffs. Any other ideas?

I've had it proc twice after dying, being CRd then dying again too (in about 10 seconds), so I'm not sure on the internal CD either.

Fascinating; and you're certain your warriors didn't let Commanding Shout drop? Would that I could do more rigorous testing on this. It's highly frustrating to have spent the point on a talent that doesn't always fire.

This is indeed an interesting issue.

Kurenai · 12/02/08, 11:34 AM

For me the only times when it does not proc is when some really high damage kills me instantly. Other than that i never had any issues with it not working.

guldburkan · 12/02/08, 12:24 PM

I was playing around with an unholy dps spec and a question popped up in my head.

With Epidemic diseases last 18 seconds, and there's absolutely no point in using Plague Strike again before the diseases are close to over. However, the Desecration talent lasts only 12 seconds. This made me wonder if it would be worth dropping those 2 points in epidemic to favor some other talent and use Plague Strike (and Icy Touch) every 12 seconds rather than every 18 to refresh diseases.

Question is: Would dps increase or decrease if we were to refresh diseases every 12 seconds instead of every 18 and then benefit from Desecration 100% of the time? Also we clear up 2 talent points that could be put elsewhere for even more dps benefits.

• Zurm · 12/02/08, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by guldburkan

Question is: Would dps increase or decrease if we were to refresh diseases every 12 seconds instead of every 18 and then benefit from Desecration 100% of the time?

I believe we discussed this already in this thread. Desecration is fine on a boss like Patchwerk, but most fights require too much movement, which limits the effectiveness. In addition, the graphic proves annoying on any fight where there are effects on the ground (such as Four Horsemen, Malygos and Grobbulus), as it will hide boss effects (at least at some video settings).

Broseph · 12/02/08, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by guldburkan

I was playing around with an unholy dps spec and a question popped up in my head.

With Epidemic diseases last 18 seconds, and there's absolutely no point in using Plague Strike again before the diseases are close to over. However, the Desecration talent lasts only 12 seconds. This made me wonder if it would be worth dropping those 2 points in epidemic to favor some other talent and use Plague Strike (and Icy Touch) every 12 seconds rather than every 18 to refresh diseases.

Question is: Would dps increase or decrease if we were to refresh diseases every 12 seconds instead of every 18 and then benefit from Desecration 100% of the time? Also we clear up 2 talent points that could be put elsewhere for even more dps benefits.

It has been established in this very thread that Desecration is a red herring. Not only do you have to refresh it every 12 seconds, you also have to stand still to reap its benefits. Take it if you want to maximize DPS on single-target stationary fights like Patchwerk. Otherwise, it is far less than the 5% damage increase -- simply because you will be moving around a lot. It's the movement aspect that causes us not to take it, not the epidemic aspect. Tying yourself to two extra GCDs (PS/IT) every 12 seconds is absolutely not worth it if movement will cause you to loose 100% benefit of desecration anyway.

As it is, Unholy is not really strapped for points, inasmuch as there aren't any talents that would give us huge benefit that we're losing by taking stuff like epidemic, night of the dead, etc.

Edit: beat to the punch!

Herrm · 12/02/08, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Zurm

Since the weekend is coming up and we are done raiding for the week, I will spec Frost to try it out, though I will post my results in the Frost thread so as not to derail the unholy discussion.

Regardless of my findings, I will still be raiding as unholy unless we have another death knight who wishes to try unholy. The utility that unholy provides via unholy aura, extra disease damage for other DKs, and an easily spread 13% magic vuln make it essentially required in a raid.

Hey Zurm, did you have a chance to try out Frost spec? I looked in the Frost thread but didn't see a post with your results unless I completely missed it. I'm curious to see what your DPS looks like as Frost.

Nastrodamus · 12/02/08, 4:01 PM

Alrighty....so end game raiding my spec should look something like this here:

My DPS Spec

Tell me what tweaks I should make if any....I set the glyphs also and those were the best I could come up with for the Glyphs.

Herrm · 12/02/08, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Nastrodamus

Alrighty....so end game raiding my spec should look something like this here:

My DPS Spec

Tell me what tweaks I should make if any....I set the glyphs also and those were the best I could come up with for the Glyphs.

My preference is Glyph of Icy Touch instead of Glyph of Plague Strike and 2 points in NotD over an extra in Virulence and 1 in Outbreak, just my opinion though.