Slaanesh

After tracking the progress of both the dps compedium thread and this thread for quite some time, I'm seeing conflicting views on the value of Necrosis. More or less it appears to be one of those talents that people are putting varying amounts of points in between maxing out either Necrosis, Desecration, or Outbreak.

Up to this point, I had gotten the impression that Necrosis was of roughly equal value to Desecration for an overall increase in DPS in a raiding situation. I tried to do a little bit of a breakdown of Zurms' WWS report to determine the actual damage that Necrosis was doing and came across something I found interesting:

Please be patient as I love trying to min/max but am not very math inclined.

Xyrms' WWS report shows a max crit of 8137 on a white damage swing. It also shows Necrosis at a max hit of 1441. Since the report obviously shows that Necrosis' shadow damage cannot crit on it's own, I can only assume that both of those damage numbers were applied on the same crit (or a similarly large crit). I may be wrong in this but it seems a safe assumption to make.

Doing Slaanesh's remedial grade math, I came up with 8137/1441=5.646% damage that Necrosis did on that swing. That seems roughly in line with Xyrms' current spec of 3/5 Necrosis (6% damage) but is lower than the advertised number.

I'm assuming the following things:

-Necrosis only scales with AP and 2H weapon specialization and does not benefit from Ebon Plaguebringer or Rage of Rivendare.
-Necrosis uses the same hit check as the swing it is attached to. If it does not, is it based on white hit chance or yellow? WWS shows Necrosis as landing 100% of the time but the total number of hits falls short of white swings that made contact by about 550. I'm probably missing something here.
-Xyrm's spec is the same right now (Nov 22nd) as it was at the time of the WWS parse with 3/5 Necrosis.

Basicallly my overall objective is to finally determine the value of Necrosis in a single target (boss) raid encounter when compared to Desecration and Outbreak. Currently my spec is not using Necrosis as it was based off previous opinions in the dps compendium thread.

My impression so far is this:

-Desecration is worth far less than the tooltip implies due to the high amount of movement required in most boss encounters.
-The 30% damage to PS gained from Outbreak is worth less than the value of 5/5 Necrosis due to more white swings landing during a rotation than a single PS every 16 seconds or so. Even with the PS glyph equipped, I can't see why you would want to refresh diseases that haven't fallen off yet.

In the end I'm just very confused by the combination of untested opinions, WWS reports, varying amounts of points placed in Necrosis and complex math (complex to me anyway).

Any insight from the guru's on my favorite WoW forum would be much appreciated.

 

Broseph

Necrosis can be resisted as if it were a spell. Show resisted hits in Zurm's WWS to check it out. 691 of 2036 Necrosis hits were diminished by resistance.

It's far more telling (in my opinion) to take the total Necrosis damage done and divide it by the total swing damage done. For Zurm, we get 8.8%. Assuming he did only have 3/5 Necrosis at the time, this implies Necrosis does benefit from Rage of Rivendare, Blood Presence, and Ebon Plaguebringer.

In Capitalism's Patchwerk fight, Necrosis did 13.4% of swing damage. Given BP, RoR, EP and Desecration, we'd expect a theoretical maximum of 15%. Subtract some for non-100% Blood Plague and Desecration uptime, and then subtract a little more for resists and 13.4% seems about right.

 

Slaanesh

That kind of response was exactly the type of thing I was looking for. Someone who can read (and understand) a WWS report far better than I and has the math prowess to deduce information from it. Thank you very much.

With this information, it seems to stand true that Necrosis is a far better talent than it was originally percieved to be and it's usefulness scales with crit, AP, and has synergies with more talents than I realized. I personally will be taking 5/5 Necrosis in any Unholy dps build from this point on.

Now on to part 2:

With this build being the base for an Unholy raiding DPS build, where will the last 4 points be best spent?

Yes I am aware it shows 1/3 Outbreak, it was required to reach UB but is movable between Outbreak, Desecration, and Wandering Plague.

I can max either Outbreak or Wandering Plague with a point to spare. With the unstable nature of Desecration, both of these options seem superior to put points in for the following reasons:

-While Desecration would be a flat 5% increase to all damage, combine the fact that with 4/5 points, the uptime would be further diminishing it's usefulness even assuming one would be allowed to stand in it.

-Outbreaks damage increase will behave similarly to Necrosis and scale with the same stats. The only difference being that it's dps gain will be less frequent. It's effect on BB and Pest is a nice bonus for trash but not the focus of a boss encounter.

-Wandering Plague also will scale in the same fashion as Outbreak and Necrosis. It's only difference being that it is all or nothing based on your crit chance. Also has alot of use in clearing trash but again, not the focus of this particular inquiry.

Keeping those things in mind, it seems to me that going 3/3 Wandering Plague would have the most value over any of the other two options. Even though the only dot we have that does damage is PS, it still ticks far more than you could hope to spam PS. The reliance on crit seems to be a non-issue and will only get better as you reach higher values. The last point would then go into Outbreak.

At this point I am more or less ignoring Desecration as I tend to shy away from talents that can't be modeled accuratly from one encounter to the next. If I shouldn't, please tell me why.

Once again, feedback is greatly desired and if there are any flaws with my base build please point them out.

 

Broseph

I suggest turning to Capitalism's Patchwerk fight for proof of your intuition. Wandering plague provided 4% of his DPS on a single-target fight for a three talent point investment. Great returns.

Two other points that I will reiterate: The value of wandering plague will increase dramatically in multi-target fights, since a proc on ANY target will damage ALL nearby targets.

Also you seem to be forgetting that both Frost Fever and Blood Plague have DoT components. Together, Capitalism's DoTs were ticking for an average of 627. So that's two chances to do an extra ~630 damage every three seconds, based on your crit chance. I see no reason whatsoever to skip this talent.

Finally, regarding Necrosis, faight had a very important post in the tanking thread that has been ignored:

DK Tanking Discussion

He says that Rune Strike procs Necrosis for huge damage, and that the assumption that rune strikes are not counted as autoattacks is incorrect. I know this is the unholy DPS thread, but if faight is correct, Necrosis is a hugely valuable talent for ANY unholy build.

 

• vank

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but when would you use Rune Strike while DPS'ing i.e. not tanking?

 

Slaanesh

Thanks again for the feedback.

I did indeed forget about frost fevers damage. I looked up the tooltip for icy touch and neglected to look up the actual disease "frost fever".

I do try to keep up with as many posts as possible but unfortunatly I still can miss some. That tanking post was very helpful thank you.

 

crimsonsentinel

He's saying that necrosis adds dps to white attacks while dpsing, and to rune strikes while tanking, so it adds dps whether you are tanking or dpsing. He never mentions using rune strike while dpsing.

 

Twinbladez

I would have to agree and throw 3 points into Wandering plague (as someone pointed out its Immense worth) so its 1 point in Desecration or 1 point in outbreak so

10% damage boost to Plague strike pestilence and BB

or

20% chance of (12 seconds of) 5% damage increase (Equals average 1% damage increase)
(this is where I could be seriously wrong, so feel free to point and laught)

Assuming an (IT,PS) BS*2 (UB) SS*4 rotation you will get 2*BS 1*UB and 1*SS with the 5% damage boost (due to Rune limitations)
Ill use The original WWS for numbers (as it has UB)
Average BS= 1392 (*2) = 2784
Average SS = 2483
Average UB = (214*20) = 4280

Total damage modified = 9547
Average PS = 641

So then 10% of 641 = 64.1
And 1% of 9547 = 95.47
Which boils right down to 1.56 DPS difference

So On single target Desecration appears to be better, however the extra AOE damage would probably win out on a fight with multiple targets however Its 4AM and I have probably made enough mistakes, so ill leave that to more apt minds

 

Lïnk

In case you guys may have a hard time keeping track of disease's on the target i've got a nice mod for you. I remember reading somewhere that some people were having trouble tracking them on trash/boss fights. Some of you guys mgiht already have this but check out RuneWatch : WoWInterface Downloads : Death Knight

 

Kroandar

I've been following the discussion in earnest, and had a few questions that I thought the community could help clarify. My current unholy talent build follows closely what is used by many on these forums.

Talent Build

However, from various damage parses on recount and WWS, the ghoul seems largely an important aspect of the Unholy DK's single target dps, and necrosis scales exceptionally well with gear. My question involves two things;

1. The relative value of 5/5 impurity, based on AP coefficients for unholy dk spells.
2. 1/2 or 2/2 Night of the Dead; and
3. Desecration

I'm wondering if going all 5 into impurity is really worth the points for what it is worth. As I understand it, it will scale very well with gear; however, the negligible portion of ap given as a coefficient for our spells. Basically, how much of a % dps boost does each point roughly equate to? and would going 4/5 be more worthwhile to put a point elsewhere (such as night of the dead, outbreak, etc.)

Regarding Night of the Dead, seeing as the ghoul is a pretty good portion of our single target dps, I'm wondering if it would be worth the 1 - 2 point investment to ensure 100% uptime of the ghoul. Mathematically, how does 1 (or 2) point(s) in Night of the Dead compare in % dps to other talents in the tree which are optional for raiding?

Lastly, desecration seems to have been an avid source of discussion. Statistically, anything less than 3 points into this talent make it unreliable in a raid setting, and even more so when on the move. Whereas putting all 5 points into this talent would make each point equivalent to 1% damage boost. How would this compare to other talents that are also considered optional for raiding? Furthermore, how would this compare to impurity for scaling and damage?

 

Broseph

The *same* thought regarding NotD just passed through my mind. Unfortunately, you cannot model it mathematically. If your ghoul goes down at the beginning of a boss fight, say just after rezzing and resummoning, you are out 400+ DPS until Raise Dead is off cooldown. At worst, five minutes.

However, if you take NotD, you gain insurance that your little bugger will almost always be up (at worst, you'll have to wait like 20 seconds or 10PS/SS to resummon). Since the ghoul is such a large part of unholy DPS, two points of insurance makes sense to me. Especially when the alternatives (e.g. outbreak) give such low returns.

I know I may get funny looks for suggesting this, but if you take 2/2 NotD for insurance purposes, all of the sudden the Explode functionality of Corpse Explosion becomes an option that could be utilized every time you get 10 PS/SS. Forget CE's normal cruddy damage. Instead, consider its main use to be an AoE strike that costs one global cooldown and one unholy rune and hits for 1/4 of your ghoul's health. If NotD assures us that we will be able to quickly replace our blown up ghoul, this might be a spell worth having.

I think CE and especially NotD have been left out of the theorycrafting equations because of the extreme difficulty in modeling them. Testing their worth might require more end game experience than we have to draw on at this point. How valuable is ghoul insurance? How valuable is a burst AoE in the form of Explode? Very hard to quantify.

(n.b. in a fight like patchwerk, the current metric we are using, these talents are worth precisely nothing)

Regarding desecration, I don't like it. "Statistically", it's unreliable at anything less than 5 points. I think what you mean is with 3 or more points it will be up "on average", but with Epidemic giving Blood Plague an 18 second duration and Desecration fading after 12, even if you don't move out of its radius and proc Desecration on every swing, it won't have 100% uptime unless you plague strike more than you have to. Low returns except in ideal circumstances.

So what build am I leaning toward? Something like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Making up the lost spell hit from Virulence with gear, or even ignoring it altogether. After all, it "only" affects IT and DC. Of course, I'll drop those points right out of NotD and CE should they prove worthless.

 

faight

While soloing I've abused the crap out of my ghoul in the form of CEing him during AoE instead of using DnD, especially when fighting against humanoids. In an AoE group I use it as long as my ghoul summon is off cooldown or will be by the end of the fight.

Also, ghoul CE -> Raise Dead -> Death Pact is extremely valuable in solo AoE situations as well. I haven't noticed it in my time using it, but can CE/Ghoul Explode crit at all? I as because Death Pact can crit.

As far as AoE cost per rune though, Ghoul Explosion seems to be the most efficient spell we have, with the best BB I've seen so far being a 700 crit, Pestilence being negligible initial damage (though winning in the long run due to diseases spreading), and DND being one of each type of rune.

I've seen ghoul health at 80 in other threads stated to be about 12k, so that would be a 3k explosion (1/4th of the health). The main question is: Is 3kish AoE damage potentially every 30-40 seconds (assuming a normal unholy rotation there would be 1 PS and 4 SS in a 20 second rotation, and at 30 seconds off of a 300 second cooldown it would take almost two rotations to take Raise Dead off of cooldown) worth the three points required to get this gimmick (1 in CE, 2 in NotD) or would they be better spent in Outbreak for BB/Pestilence damage or in another talent? I'm a big advocate of CE, but it's lackluster unless it gets buffed.

Also of note, you can CE your ghoul's corpse after you Explode him.

I still would like to test whether the CE glyph works with the Ghoul Explosion though. I never paid attention while leveling, and I'm specced more for tanking right now and don't have CE (and already at a 50g respec fee at 73).

 

Broseph

Instead of lumping NotD and CE together, I think we should ask the following two separate questions:

* Is NotD worth getting over the other unholy filler talents on its own, as ghoul insurance?

* If yes, then is CE worth getting for burst AoE? Also, I think 12k ghoul health in a raid situation might be too conservative considering the ghoul double-dips from stamina buffs and also benefits from flat health increases. Can anyone in Naxx give us a better estimate?

 

Sarkli

Has anyone noticed if abilities like Scourge Strike, Blood Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate are affected by other classes diseases such as a priests devouring plague? Or just the DK's diseases alone?

 

Octaviann

All of the DK abilities that refer to "Number of diseases" only count YOUR personal diseases, not the diseases of other classes and not even the diseases of other death knights.

 

faight

I personally get 1 point in NotD now, avoiding CE unless something groundbreaking comes out. Currently using this build for DPS and leveling. Should AoE situations get so big or have so many bodies that using the Unholy rune for CE becomes worthwhile, or the damage gets buffed/it applies another effect that makes it worth the talent point, then I'll probably pick it up, but right now the assurance that if my ghoul dies the second I raise it that I'll have it back in less than a minute is hugely comforting. Also, Death Pact while soloing is amazing, literally no downtime as long as I have humanoid corpses or am willing to spend 50 silver to get 20% (40% on crit) health to keep chugging until my next Death Strike.

This. Can you imagine how silly Death Strike would be for a tank if all diseases applied to the target affected it? As it is mine heals for about a 2:1 ratio with three diseases (more sometimes, but it could be critting the heal portion and I don't realize/pay attention). If it was the case where all diseases affected all of your strikes you could do 5 DK heroics and 10/25 DK Naxx with no problem because of the silly amount of healing from Death Strike alone, much less the damage bonuses to the other strikes.

I am curious though, Pestilence reads: "Causes X to Y Shadow damage to the target and all targets within 10 yards and spreads any diseases on the target to the additional targets."

Does this spread only your diseases, or any and all diseases from other DKs, feral druids, etc? If it spreads other diseases do they become "yours" and apply to your abilities, or are they still considered to be the other person's? I'm assuming it only spreads your diseases, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask as it would both increase DPS and also help with additional threat for tanking were it the case that they were considered your diseases should you pestilence them.

 

Kintaru

I know for a fact that pestilence spreads devouring plague as well as our own diseases. Our shadow priest was extatic the first time he grouped with me.

 

Nekali

Just a quick note on the scourge strike glyph: It doesn't seem to be liked on these forums, but is by far the best unholy DPS glyph, especially with the sigil and 4/4 t7. Just don't rely on that last ss to refresh you diseases. Once you get into a 5 SS cycle, chances are good you can maintain it for quite a while. I have had over 1 minute periods on Loatheb/PW without having to cast IT/PS once. Which also makes not speccing into desecration or taking a already bad plague strike glyph a no brainer. Best raiding unholy glyph set is SS,Ghoul+BoneShield. Without running any math it seems that RP generation is lower during such a cycle (without 4/4) and so one would be well adviced to use bloodelf racial / emp. runeweapon / bloodtap when you have the gargolye up and seem to be running low on RP or just stick to a normal cycle.

Another interesting observation: A SS glyph proc seems to refresh diseases even if they are not up. Of course that only happens when you screw up.

 

• Chicken

It should be noted however that the owner of the diseases does not change when spreading them with Pestilence. If you use Pestilence on a mob which has Devouring Plague on it, the Devouring Plague will be spread to all nearby mobs, but it's still in all ways the Priest's Devouring Plague.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Davia

It's nice for trash mobs that are dying too fast to bother casting PS -> IT on when the diseases proc on your first SS, and your 2nd and any blood strikes get the disease benefit.

 

Broseph

I'd suggest looking at Glyph of Icy Touch instead of Bone Shield. In a five minute fight WITHOUT glyph of SS, you'll cast Icy Touch at least 17 times. The glyph causes you to loose ~100 damage from a non-crit IT, but 17 casts gives you enough RP for another 4 deathcoils -- with 10 RP left over. DC hits for ~2100 non-crit for a total increase of 8400 - 1700 6700 damage, or about 22 DPS if nothing crits. Granted this number will go down if you use glyph of SS and get lucky with procs.

That said, it also solves your low RP problem. If you need RP, fire off a couple icy touches and you'll be right as rain. 20 RP for one frost rune is a great option to have.

This is in the wording of the glyph. [Glyph of Scourge Strike]

 

• Zurm

Just as a heads up, given some of the discussion occuring, as well as the other WWS, I plan on raiding this week with this spec. 0/5 Desecration, maxed necrosis, and one point in outbreak (for when I DO use pestilence and bloodboil to AOE).

I've basically determined that desecration offers little benefit while raiding. And often it gets confused with Grobbulus's aoe's, which throws off tanks. Mobs/bosses tend to move far too much for it to really be worth it on any fight other than patchwerk (and virtually all raid mobs are immune to the snare). I was genuinely impressed with how much damage necrosis is doing (versus how much we expected it to do), but I still feel that it is due to a low AP/high weapon damage situation.

I will also be trying the Scourge Strike glyph, since many seem to swear by it, and see if I can pull off these 5 SS rotations. Hopefully DOTimers wont be messed up by reapplied diseases, and I'll be able to use that as an accurate representation.

I'll post my WWS after the raid this week, should be a significant improvement with some upgrades and "rotation" practice.

 

Draegan

For diseases I've been using quartz to track them. Simple and easy. I have them stacked right above my Player Frame.

Looking for a guild.

 

Davia

Any timer mod should pick up the disease procs from SS glyph just fine. Seriously, it's not as hard to track as you think it will be.

 

Tel

I raided with a similar spec this week Xyrm, and according to recount ended up putting out 3.8k dps on patchwerk with a mix of 10 man / heroic / rep rewards. I firmly believe due to the movement involved on 90% of current fights that desecration is not worth taking, even though min/maxing on paper might say otherwise.

I'm not convinced that the DPS number is accurate, but i was keeping up with the sunwell/heroic geared mages no problem. Whatever anyone says, currently unholy is a very viable DPS spec if you can manage your timers and CDs correctly.

I'll try to get a WWS to see how it looked, but I'm not sure if anyone /combatlog'd the raid