Hello everyone, and thanks for taking the time to read my post and possibly answer the question I'm having pertaining to our 51 point talent, Unholy Blight. I've been noticing my Unholy Blight to scale pitifully with attack power, it's averaging about 100 a tick in 5 mans and 150 or so fully raid buffed, and considering it cannot crit, is it more beneficial for me to just spam Death Coils on boss fights and save UB for trash pulls? My math is pointing me towards that, and I made the change last night in Naxxramas and I feel like my DPS improved considerably as opposed to when I was keeping UB for boss fights.

I recall reading that after a certain percentage of spell crit it would become more beneficial to spend my RP on DCs instead, is it the better choice to me to not use UB on bosses at the level of gear I'm at? For quick reference my spell critical is 26.86%, my attack power is 3364.

Thanks, DK community, just trying to make sure I'm not crazy.

Short answer: UB is better. For explanation/math pls read the this thread.

Considering only Coefficients, not base damage, nor other modifiers that would be present in the raid (they would affect both the same way with the exception of crit). Against one target only.

Assuming UB has a Coefficient of .013 of your AP per tick. It ticks once per second, for 20s, for a combined coefficient of .26. Dividing by the RP, you get Coefficient/RP, or .004333...

Untalented, Death Coil has a Coefficient of .15 of your AP. Divided by RP, you get .00375. Without crits, you see that UB has a higher Coefficient/RP (which will go up to .0065 come 3.0.8, due to cost dropping down to 40RP). If you include talents, you get a Coeff/RP of .0043125, which is still below UB.

If you consider a crit rate of 20% (spell critical), you have .15 * .8 + .3*.2 = .18.
0.18 / 40 = .0045, without talents, .005175 with talents.

The spell crit rate would be about right unbuffed for 26% melee crit.

Coefficients/RP:
UB (Pre 3.0.8)-.00433...
UB (post 3.0.8)- .0065
DC (no talents, no crit)- .00375
DC (talents, no crit)- .0043125
DC (no talents, 20% spell crit)- .0045
DC (talents, 20% spell crit)- .005175


Coefficients:
UB (over total duration)- .26
DC (no talents, no crit) - .15
DC (talents, no crit)- .1725
DC (no talents, 20% crit)- .18
DC (talents, 20% crit)- .207
DC (no talents, 40% crit)- .21
DC (talents, 40% crit)- .2415
DC (no talents, 100% crit)- .3
DC (talents, 100% crit)- .345

Which should answer your question pretty thoroughly. Double Check the math if you want.

Edit1: Included Coeff. Table.
Edit2: Included higher crit rates.

You're making the same mistake that nearly everyone who "downtalks" unholy blight makes.
And that is that you only see Unholy Blight for its individual ticks, and not for the whole package.

You're forgetting that Unholy Blight counts 20 ticks, and thus that minor 50 damage you mention turns into 1000 damage extra purely from some buffs.

If your math is showing otherwise, it's most likely wrong or incomplete at some parts. For example an often made oversight is to include Crypt Fever's bonus to diseases, since it works for unholy blight as well.

The reason you see higher dps in Naxx can be accounted to several things:
- Luck
- Better gear
- Less movement (UB doesnt like movement heavy fights, and naxx has quite a lot of those)
- You're overwriting your own UBs too soon normally
- You're more on the ball with Deathcoils, so spending your RP better

If you use Unholy Blight you have to know how and when to use it.

How does UB benefit from Crypt Fever when UB is not a disease? It doesn't count as a disease for any strike so why would Crypt Fever be different?

During beta, UB counted as a fourth disease for unholy. While the "it being a disease" part was removed, the "it scaling with crypt fever" part apparently was not.

My own experience has been pretty different on this. I use to be pushing around 4.5k-5k dps on fights like patchwerk with my 2-hand unholy spec, but that was before we had any other unholy DK's in the raid. Once we added one other unholy dps DK, my damage went down significantly, like 500+ dps loss. The only thing I can find, after looking at our WWS logs was that I never seemed to have EP, ever.

After looking at the math provided a page back on the dps loss, it just doesn't match up to what I'm seeing, but maybe I'm missing something here. Patchwerk wasn't the only fight I noticed a dps loss on, in both recount and in WWS, but here's a WWS log of after we added the unholy DK, (I wish I had a WWS to show before we had 2 unholy dk's but I couldn't find one for our guild).

Wow Web Stats

Looking at that WWS, your avg SS differences were within 100 damage of each other. You had a much higher crit rate though with both autoattack and SS. The Gargoyle that was attributed to you was counting both yours and his (heavy inflation to your numbers).

He did have a bit more damage from Wandering Plague, but that is RNG related. You actually had more blood strike damage than he did.

The chief difference between your parse and the other DK, was he did not use UB. Re-parse it, but take out the Gargoyle from your damage.

I'm not sure about the gargoyle being added to me, I think it's actually that the other DK didn't use his gargoyle (I'm working with him on his rotations, but he's still got a ways to go) but I actually was able to get 2 gargoyles off on that fight, as you'll notice our kill time is 3 mins 50 sec. Dps in general was low that night, so I figured I could pull out 2 if I hit the first one almost as soon as the fight got underway, but again, I could be mistaken on that.

I was really trying to squeeze out everything I could on the fight, but this WWS log is lower than what I was use to seeing on my dps numbers for that fight, where I usually compete with the rogue there for the top spot. Recount also showed me a lot lower on dps than I was use to. After several encounters where I was in the top 3-4 dps, I started showing up in 7th or 8th instead, and couldn't find anything else to attribute it to other than the DK that we added to the raid.

Hopefully I can get a parse sometime without the extra DK there using the same gear setup as I had in that log to show the discrepancy I had experienced.

Concerning the gargoyle. Is it best to wait for bloodlust/heroism or use it immediately when you get a mot proc?( so you can use it again soon) do you stop all rp dumps while it is summoned? Even UB ? I feel a bit weird standing there doing nothing because all my runes are on cd and I cant use any rp. Is it best to keep you Rp atleast around half full( in other words instead of using a an rp dump everytime you have an oppurtunity [ A gap in rune cds] you would not do so beccause using it would deplete all of your rp pool. so that you can use the rp used in the next Rune refresh to cap and summon Gargoyle if an oppurtunity like mot + FC, maybe bloodlust present itself?

Assuming you have 4pc T7, it's generally pretty safe to at least DC during gargoyle. It is entirely possible to keep up UB, but you can get screwed by unlucky dodges/resists (if you aren't capped). Basically, I'll pop UB right after summoning my gargoyle, during the 10 free seconds, and then refresh it when I'll be able to chain 2-3 SSes pretty quickly, in order to keep my RP high enough. I also usually will pop ERW during gargoyle, for a bit better buffer.

With regard to when to summon it, I try to wait until I have Greatness/Mirror/FC procs up at the same time, if I get that lucky. If it doesn't work out that way, I will pop it about 10 seconds before bloodlust, hopefully during at least one of the procs.

This is incorrect. Gargoyle does not receive Bloodlust/Heroism unless he is out when it's cast.

I thought the same thing until i tested it last night after a raid.

Gear/Build:

Be Imba! - the online Character Auditor for World of Warcraft


Combal log:
Unfortunately none, will get it in this wednesday

Glyph:
IT, SS, Ghoul

Rotation:
as any unholy with SS glyph:
IT, PS -- if disease will fall in 1-2 sec
BS, BS -- if blood runa is up
SS -- if RP < 70
UB -- if RP > 75
DC -- for RP dump

Garg:
Up then at least mirror proc is up. AotD is used before pull.

Temp buff:
Flask and food buff are used.


Problem:
Patchwerk:
4.6-4.7k DPS max.

Is it problem in my gear? Or it's problem in hand.sys and brain.dll?
Any idea?

Could be buffs.exe too . I'm guessing we're talking 25 man? Are there any buffs missing that would benefit you? Do you pop Gargoyle when you have Mot proc + Trinket use + Heroism? This can easily make a difference of several 100 dps. Your second trinket is also far from best in slot, there is lot of room there for improvement.

Besides that i don't think we can really say something definitive without more information and a wws

25 man. I get all buffs. Yes, garg is used with mirror + trinket proc + heroism.


Trink is only bad item.. all other is good. Often not best, but pre-best at least.


WWS... I will get it on next Nax 25 reset, but primary question is:

"How much max DPS is possible in this equip?"


P.S. And don't offer me use DW spec I don't have equip for patch-3.0.2-DW-build. So I should wait 3.0.8 at least...

Hmm that's an interesting thing to say.

Do you have any test results or anything? I might want to test this for myself though.

This would make things so much easier, as I personally find it a pain to let my guild have its bloodlust waiting for me to get my trinket procs.

I think the real questions are this:
- Can the gargoyle itself actually gain the bloodlust buff ? Or does it only benefit from the haste you personally get ?
- If so, does the gargoyle benefit more from the bloodlust on itself, or from the bloodlust on you ? As in how much percent of your haste does it actually get ?
- Can the gargoyle double dip from bloodlust ? As in get both the haste from the buff as from the extra haste you get from bloodlust ? (EDIT: NM this cant be true ofc :P, you cant summon it with bloodlust up and then get another bloodlust while its out)

I personally never seen the actual bloodlust buff on the gargoyle to be honest.

I guess I just need to find a shaman and test 3 possible scenarios:

1. Without heroism
2. Bloodlust while gargoyle is out
3. Bloodlust up while summoning the gargoyle

Probably keep a recount and perhaps even a WWS of all attempts, as WWS's often show how many attacks the gargoyle made, and allows you to review the combat log.

While testing you could actually take a look on try 2 if the gargoyle grows in size, and/or if the bloodlust buff is actually on him.

Maybe someone else wants to try this too (unless it has already been tested of course). Since my guild shaman are probably not fond of idling for 30 minutes or so to test things out.

There was some discussion about the gargoyle on the DW thread last week. I'll post it in a nutshell.

The effect of haste on a gargoyle (and ghoul) has to be tested after the patch (since it will likely change after 3.0.8). especially the way it functions with Bloodlust and the IIT/WF totem buff. These seem to work best for me when cast before the gargoyle is summoned, but other people have claimed the opposite.

P.S.: Maybe it would be a good idea to create a specific thread for the theorycrafting of our pets. Since gargoyle and ghoul stuff is now debated in both the 2H unholy and DW (and to a lesser extent blood and frost) threads, its getting very hard to keep track of all the testing everyone does on this subject.

Well, what happened was that I was always asking to be told ~5 seconds before BL was used to make sure that I had garg up on every raid. It was like a running joke on vent that we didn't cast Garg until I said I was ready. The problem was that on our wwws logs it seemed like my garg had the normal number of casts.

After a raid last week I took a shaman and had him cast BL THEN I poped Garg - his attack speed was 1.4(for the full 1 minute, even after BL wore off me). After the debuff wore off I used Garg then had the shaman cast BL - his attack speed was 1.9.

If I'm missing something I'd really like to know, just throwing what I found out there.

I'm just taking a wild guess here, but maybe the gargoyle doesn't benefit from the heroism buff itself at all.
It might just be that the haste YOU get is transfered on to the gargoyle, just like it gets a boost when you are in unholy presence.

If that is true, that would make the gargoyle a LOT easier to use for me personally. At the moment I'm often warned 5-10 seconds before the bloodlust goes out, at that point i often don't have time to wait for auto-procs from trinkets and whatnot, but if it gets the benefit of BL the whole 40 seconds its up it gives me much more room to wait for trinket procs.

The reason for this misconception might very well be due to the summoning. Or rather the delay in it. It might very well be that the gargoyle wont read your stats until a few seconds after you summoned it, as it takes a while to fly in and all.

I think this is worth opening a new thread for and get some testing numbers in. This could very well be several hundreds of DPS in difference.
We could discuss Army of the Dead there as well and the ghoul.

someone in the blood thread said how drw did mre dps if cast from within unholy presence. might this be the case here?

Well we already know that pets benefit from the haste from unholy presence.

The question however is, is it worth sacrificing 2 runes (1 unholy and 1 blood) and 2 GCD to switch presences just for the pet DPS.

I think thats another question for the new Pet Topic.