Looking at that graph, you can see the troughs are generally around 20 seconds apart (one rune cycle). I'm pretty sure the high points are when you are doing a string of scourge strikes and death coils, and the low parts are when you have spare GCDs. The higher DPS early in the fight is clearly from Bloodlust and Gargoyle, of course. If the graph were normalized over 20 second intervals, I bet it would look much smoother.

Are you spamming SS while waiting for runes to pop? Maybe the other guy is waiting for his UI to show him the runes before he SS?

If the rune pop is tracked server side, I could see how there would be some lag between when you actually could SS and when your UI displays the runes. Might be a virtual one deep action queue much like spell casting?

Wouldn't the small window of grace for rune cooldowns pretty much negate this from being the cause?

I had a browse through WoW Meter Online and found this.

Might be of interest.
WOW Meter Online -Player Ranking - DPS - Death Knight - All Region

I personally like to play it safe with disease ticks... possibly at a loss of DPS. If I see only 3-4 seconds remaining on diseases, I will make sure the next U/F rune combo will go to PS+IT, even if I can SS again in 2 seconds. I think my paranoia is probably the reason why.

A large reason I do this is because our moonkin specced out of the 13% magic damage talent (or at least, usually does for raids). If I let diseases drop, I could be screwing casters on DPS. Basically, what you found on this fight is that I'm still basically using the old, unglyphed 4x SS rotation (which was about 20 seconds long), where as you are getting glyph procs almost perfectly. Also, probably another reason, is that I will delay the next SS if it will push me over 100 RP, and drop a DC/UB. Since I got 4pc T7, this happens a lot more often. This may also be a personal DPS loss.

Again, though, that's not to say I'm right and you're wrong. No doubt I'm being paranoid about it, and probably at a loss in DPS. Given my recent sigil and weapon upgrade, I'm probably going to switch to a higher priority on SS.

While the guild rankings on this site are up-to-date, the player rankings are not. A few members of my guild had higher DPS than the listed #1's on a few fights, and yet aren't on the top-10 list, even for just US. I personally had higher DPS than the guy in first on patchwerk, if you look at the individual parse.

Whats your rotation on trash? My dps was higher on patchwork, but you dominate me by about 600dps on the trash... What gives?

I may have figured it out... Do you drop D&D right off the bat after a Thunder Clap or whatever? I've been doing PS>IT>Pest>D&D>UB>pick up single target rotation...

Do you have any problems getting expertise capped with t7? Not a single piece of it has expertise, as only secondary stat they have haste.
Would like the warrior stats more. At the moment i am using a blue chest which gives me over 8 expertise.

Impurity comes out to about a 1.1% damage increase per point for a full Unholy build. It affects any damage that we personally deal (ie, not pets) that is NOT based on weapon damage in some fashion (ie, everything but our Strikes). That also includes the ticks on our diseases, for the record. A complete list:

Icy Touch
Frost Fever
Blood Plague
Blood Boil
Pestilence
Death and Decay
Death Coil
Unholy Blight
Howling Blast
Strangulate
Corpse Explosion

I may be wrong, but it was my understanding that expertise is much less valuable to us than it was previously to other classes. I currently am not close to cap, and don't plan to be anytime soon.

You're definitely wrong. Missing (including dodges and parries) attacks screws up our rotations, and we're affected by that far more than any warrior, rogue, paladin, or feral druid. Now, it's less of a concern for DPS than for tanks simply due to the lower amount of expertise needed, but it's still up there with hit rating for the most valuable pre-capped stat.

It is less valuable in the sense that if you are attacking from behind the mob (which you should be) then the only thing that expertise should affect is how often the boss dodges.

But Zurai is correct in how much overall effect it can have on our dps in terms of messing up rotations if you do get dodged.

I believe the DK dps thread lists the importance of stats you should obtain.

DPS Compendium

Section 6 is on stat's and how they affect us.

Hi guys, i was wondering if anyone has a dps value for agility.

Here, i am going to solve for the DPS value of AGI, relating to unholy.

The Dps compendium does not give a dps value for agility, tho it does have it for every other stat.

Also, i saw someone on here state that 22 agi on cloak is better than 23 haste to cloak. I can calculate the haste dps increase, but calculating the dps increase from agi is tough. Let's start.

1 Haste = 0.6214 DPS Therefore, 23 Haste back enchant = 23 x 0.6214 = 14.2922 DPS

Now im going to take a crack at Agi values here.

First, 1% CRIT = 45.91 crit rating.

1% CRIT from AGI = 62.5 AGI

From this we can infer that 45.91 / 62.5 = 0.73456, which means that for every 1 point of CRIT rating, 1 point of AGI is worth 0.73456 of it.

CRIT rating is worth 1.1240 DPS

So, 1.1240 x 0.73456 = 0.8256 OR in basic terms, 73% of 1.240 = 0.8256

OK, now lets check our math.

45.91 = 1% CRIT, and crit = 1.240 dps >>>> 45.91 x 1.1240 = 51.60284

62.5 AGI = 1% crit >>>>>> 62.5 x 0.8256 = 51.60

VOILA!

AGI DPS = 0.8256

NOW, i understand there are some flaws here with this number.

1.Agi crit bonus only effects melee white damage and strikes, it does not effect Death Coil or Icy Touch.
This Diminishes the value, though i dont believe it dimishes the value too significantly. IT is only used at the beginning and when it has to be used, it isnt part of the normal rotation and accounts for a very small percentage of your overall damage.
As far as DC goes, it is a significant percent of your damage, especially with 4 piece bonus. So as stated above, i am not sure how much this would lower the value of the the AGI dps rating.

2. 18 AGI = 1 AP because of bladed armor, and AP = 1.0 DPS. So for every 18 AGI, you are able to add another 1.0 DPS to the item.

These 2 points alter the value slightly, though not much

Ok, so now lets go back to the original quesetion, is 22 AGI on cloak better than 23 HASTE?

22 AGI x 0.8256 = 18.1632 DPS

23 HASTE x 0.6214 = 14.292 DPS

ALSO, 22 agi is another 1 AP b.c 18 AGI = 1 AP, 1 AP = 1.0 DPS

SO 22 agi = 18.1632 + 1.0 = 19.1632 DPS

23 haste = 14.292 DPS

So if you wanted it proven, there it is. 22 AGI > 23 HASTE.

AGAIN, AGI DOES NOT EFFECT DC AND IT CRITS, SO ITS VALUE IS ACTUALLY LOWER THAN THAT

By how much, i have no clue or idea how to solve for something like that. If you guys would like to try, go ahead lol.

So, main point of this post? 1 AGI = ~ 0.8256 DPS

`Heiny

If you want a workable value, at least try to include real values for this information.

1. Take a look at alot of DK patchwerk kills. Figure out what % of damage Deathcoil is responsible for. Figure out what % of damage Icy Touch, Unholy Blight, disease ticks, Wandering Plague, etc. Anything that melee crit will not help. Total these up. Multiply the remaining % of damage (that % affected by the agi's crit contribution). For example, if 30% of the damage is affected, then take the value of crit and multiply by 0.70. This will give you a least a decent estimate of the value of "melee-only crit".

2. If 18 AGI = 1 AP, then 1 AGI = .055 AP. 1 AP = 1 DPS, then 1 AGI = .055 DPS. Just add this to your value of agi from #1.

Doing a bunch of math, then totally ignoring two of the major reasons that the math is complicated in the first place, doesn't really help.

As far as I know Wandering Plague is affected by melee critical strike chance. Although there is an internal cooldown on this "critical strike" which makes it a bit harder to calculate. Either way, the damage done by disease ticks should probably be counted as affected by agility seeing it is affected by our melee critical strike chance.

One of the new Sigils on the PTR from Venture Co. Coins adds 203 to Scourge Strike, and should be a good replacement for the Sigil of the Dark Rider for Unholy DKs.

The compendium is what I was looking at when I said that. Comparing it to hit, it's almost half as valuable. It's still our third most valuable stat, but it's not a "need to cap" stat like it was for rogues. In the case of a rogue, it was the highest DPS stat until they capped it, but for us it's just a nice stat to have.

That's how I view the numbers anyway, I may venture into using more at some point to see what effect it has on my rotation.

- Two BS per 20 sec in Unholy rotation so we have 6 BS per minute. If proc chance is still 15% then we may assume 1 PPM. 3.76% crit for 10 sec every min gives ~0.6% crit overall. With 4000 DPS that would equal to 24 DPS.
- You do at least three SS per 20 sec and usually more thanks to glyph, lets assume 10 SS per minute and 40% crit. That will be 2030 * 0.6 + 4060 * 0.4 = 2 842 / 60 = ~47 DPS from coin sigil.
- The current "default" sigil is 540 * 0.5 + 1080 * 0.5 = 810 / 60 = ~14dps (BS have 50% crit chance).
- Our "NEED THAT" sigil for comparison: 4200 * 0.6 + 8400 * 0.4 = 5 880 / 60 = 98 DPS.


TLDR: Sigil values for typical 17/0/54 spec:
1) SS Naxx 25 - 98 DPS
2) SS coin - 47 DPS
3) BS badge - 24 DPS
4) BS "default" - 14 DPS

When you're doing sigil values, don't forget that SS, and therefore the SS sigils are affected by Ebon Plaguebringer. This makes the numbers for the SS vigils 13% higher. SS also crits for 230%, not 200% further increasing the values listed unless the sigil adds on to the value after all other calculations are completed, but from what I've read from other posters, this is not the case. I'm unable to currently test this myself (screw you Heigan) but I believe that that would cause the Sigil of Awareness to come in ~130 dps instead of the listed 98.

For those of you using the sigil of awareness, how much average increased damage per scourge-strike are you seeing? and how much more on crits? I'd like to get a feel for the maximum self-buffed dummy crits we are going to see from SS, as SS scaling long term is currently troubling me.

For trash I just go balls out. I drop DnD the instant the pull occurs, then PS+IT the mob with the most hp and pestilence. UB goes up in this time as well, and I keep beating on the mob with the most hp. When diseases are about to wear off, I swap to a nearby mob with a large amount of hp and hit pestilence again to refresh it on my original target (sometimes I'm lazy and just hit it early on my original mob though), then swap back and keep dpsing it.

Basically I always keep dnd down when it's off cd, UB up, and diseases spread. I always attack the mob with the highest hp to maximize my SS use, and I use BB over BS if there's >3 mobs. Not really sure what other tips I can give besides that, but I'm generally #1 when I try, not that it matters for trash


For new sigils keep in mind that +dmg on any attack scales with all modifiers, including Blood Presence and RoR. The actual value for the 203 SS one then should be ~280 base with EP/Blood/RoR, and then an additional 6.4 per %crit including Vicious Strikes if I've done my math right, which is only somewhat likely. This means for me, having a little over 50% SS crit on average when raid buffed, the 203 SS sigil is actually worth 600 damage per SS, or ~90-100dps depending on how the SS glyph procs.

Sorry to swerve a bit off topic, but I was always under the idea that Blood had the highest single-target and boss fight dps. Looking at these results, it seems the majority is actually Unholy, even on fights that pets should die on.

Well, right now Unholy is gleaning a lot more from the gear that is in the game, especially the Sigil of Awareness and T7 set bonuses. The Gargoyle is probably a bit too powerful right now as well.

Strangely, with the changes on the PTR Unholy is going to get both more AoE power, as well as some single-target buffs from the Glyph of the Ghoul change as well as increased pet uptime and viability of relatively frequent CE ghoul bombs.