Unholy DPS Discussion - Page 6

DateeForma · 11/25/08, 4:17 PM

So i decided to Try for the Glyph of Scourge Strike dps rotation. My question isnt exactly about that glyph in any way but what im finding is that after the PS, IT, BS, BS,SS theres about a 5 second cooldown on my scourge strikes to continue which is fine because thats supposed to be where i dump some RP. BUt then after another SS, theres another delay, and sometimes another, it seems really inefficient. Im not sure if my reaping is working or if im retarded or whats going on. other times in my rotation i will be able to effectively scourge strike immediately nearly 4 times in a row. Others im waiting 3 or 4 seconds between them. I wonder what im doing incorrectly.

◊ Embar · 11/25/08, 4:29 PM

For Gargoyle survivability, I found that sometimes it doesn't get summoned with full HP (4HM in Naxx10 was one fight). If I didn't heal it with death coil, it would proceed to die early. Sapphiron would be another fight on which the gargoyle tends to die rather quickly after it is summoned.

Writhe · 11/25/08, 4:33 PM

Originally Posted by Tel

Then posting it in the Unholy DPS thread is probably not the best way to get input.

The spec listed many times previously in this thread is vastly superior dps to the one you've posted.

I fail to see where your vastly superior dps wws numbers are coming from. Please don't discredit something without even checking some form of math. We all want the best unholy dps spec here. If something is competitive or interesting and new, I and I think the others too would like to hear about it.

Originally Posted by Shalymar

I don’t think that spec would be good in conjunction with an unholy build. You would lose a lot of critical hit which is arguably the 3rd best stat if you are hit capped and 4th if you are not for increasing our dps output. Our most important stat is Attack Power. You lose Bladed Armor which adds about 60 attack power based upon your current armor value and scales. And you loose a flat 2% weapon damage from 2h weapon spec.

In return you gain 30% more damage from IT every 20 sec in our standard Unholy rotation and 30% damage from Black Ice which only affects IT, the only frost spell we cast. In addition you gain Icy Talons which increases our attack speed, a lack luster ability since haste is near the bottom of the list for stats we use to increase our dps.

Effectively perma 20% haste is huge, just because the compendium says it isn't doesn't mean its totally crap. 30%+ of unholy damage is white hits/crits factor in necrosis to this and you have a worthy stat. You will make up the lost crit with more swings that can crit, loss of bladed armor isn't nearly as huge as you make it out to be, Neither is 2hand spec. The 30% damage from black ice probably that up easily. (It effects frost fever too remember.)

The only problem I actually see with why this spec shouldn't be used is you can easily get the haste from a shaman or specced frost dk and everything else is a moot point from there on in.

Eitherway, there are some adjustments I would make to the spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Butchery and annihilation(for the crit) is still up for debate in my mind.

Taking annihilation for the crit however in a deep unholy build will SS beat Oblit? purely on damage that is. There are more things to consider. Just verifying end points for myself.

halfpint · 11/25/08, 4:54 PM

Originally Posted by Writhe

What does more damage oblit or SS?

For unholy dps, it is not worth going deep enough in the frost tree to get the talent that prevents obliterate from removing diseases. Hence, SS will do more damage in the long run, even though obliterate should be hitting harder (not sure though, the modifiers such as ebon plague, might boost SS more than I think it does).

*updated quote*

Originally Posted by Writhe

Taking annihilation for the crit however in a deep unholy build will SS beat Oblit? purely on damage that is. There are more things to consider. Just verifying end points for myself.

*updated response*
A quick stab at the math... Assumes 3 diseases and rank 4 for the given abilities.
oblit: 1.00 x wd + 292 + (146 x 3) = wd + 730
SS: (0.6 x wd + 190 + (95.25 x 3) ) x 1.13 = 1.13(0.6wd + 466.75) = 0.678wd + 527

We'll just assume the same weapon is being used and equates to 1000 damage (only because I like the round number, but note that the gap will grow for larger weapon damage numbers).
oblit: 1730
SS: 1205

now if they were crits, we would have...
oblit: 1730 x 2 = 3460
SS: 1205 x 2.3 = 2771

Now the gap will be closed by armor mitigation on oblit and perhaps by impurity (from the numbers I've seen, ss doesn't seem to be affected by impurity, I haven't done any testing myself).

I would be interested in seeing what the actual difference would play out to be. If you picked up subversion, oblit would have a 3% crit advantage over SS. I just don't see it making up for the lost dps talents from blood though.

Slaanesh · 11/25/08, 6:39 PM

Originally Posted by DateeForma

So i decided to Try for the Glyph of Scourge Strike dps rotation. My question isnt exactly about that glyph in any way but what im finding is that after the PS, IT, BS, BS,SS theres about a 5 second cooldown on my scourge strikes to continue which is fine because thats supposed to be where i dump some RP. BUt then after another SS, theres another delay, and sometimes another, it seems really inefficient. Im not sure if my reaping is working or if im retarded or whats going on. other times in my rotation i will be able to effectively scourge strike immediately nearly 4 times in a row. Others im waiting 3 or 4 seconds between them. I wonder what im doing incorrectly.

Are you using any sort of runewatcher mod? Do you watch the rune cooldowns themselves or watch the macro "dial" type cooldown that shadows over the macro?

I have found that every so often (especially with bone shield and it's 1min cooldown) that the macro "dial" cooldown is inconsistent with with the availability of death runes. This may just be some perception on my part but when i spam a button that shows it's on cd, it goes off sometimes before the shaded "dial" makes a full 360.

Anyone else see this or know why it seems this way?

Writhe · 11/25/08, 7:06 PM

Originally Posted by Slaanesh

I have found that every so often (especially with bone shield and it's 1min cooldown) that the macro "dial" cooldown is inconsistent with with the availability of death runes. This may just be some perception on my part but when i spam a button that shows it's on cd, it goes off sometimes before the shaded "dial" makes a full 360.

Anyone else see this or know why it seems this way?

Using a death rune means a possible combination that was there, no longer is and most combo dials will need to refresh to show the timers of the new awaiting runes (most likely the frost or unholy rune still on cd it is waiting for).

Basically just a side effect of the rune system not meshing well with the traditional gui.

Learning to read a rune meter/whatcher and know exactly what you have available is one of the best thing you can do as a DK. It leads to a lot less confusion over what abilities are available and soon to be available.

Bungie · 11/25/08, 7:30 PM

Originally Posted by Slaanesh

I have found that every so often (especially with bone shield and it's 1min cooldown) that the macro "dial" cooldown is inconsistent with with the availability of death runes. This may just be some perception on my part but when i spam a button that shows it's on cd, it goes off sometimes before the shaded "dial" makes a full 360.

I have noticed the same sort of thing, alot of the time when Death Rune's come off of CD the count timer on SS will be off, so i just watch my rune timer and hit buttons accordingly.

Ommar · 11/25/08, 9:52 PM

Originally Posted by Slaanesh

Are you using any sort of runewatcher mod? Do you watch the rune cooldowns themselves or watch the macro "dial" type cooldown that shadows over the macro?

I have found that every so often (especially with bone shield and it's 1min cooldown) that the macro "dial" cooldown is inconsistent with with the availability of death runes. This may just be some perception on my part but when i spam a button that shows it's on cd, it goes off sometimes before the shaded "dial" makes a full 360.

Anyone else see this or know why it seems this way?

Can this be the result of blood strikes missing?do death runes get activated if bs misses?

LockApologist · 11/26/08, 1:00 AM

Death Runes that are used on an ability that misses come back as the normal rune in 1 sec. i.e. cap hit and expertise asap.

Ten · 11/26/08, 4:05 AM

Originally Posted by Writhe

I fail to see where your vastly superior dps wws numbers are coming from. Please don't discredit something without even checking some form of math. We all want the best unholy dps spec here. If something is competitive or interesting and new, I and I think the others too would like to hear about it.

My SS hits for 2000+ (minimum) unbuffed and my obliterate hits for 1700 (maximum) unbuffed. It seems pretty obvious to me, aside from the fact that you gain 0 haste from your points in Frost since the same buff is provided by either a Frost DK or a shaman, that putting points in Frost for a skill you should never use with this spec is not the best of ideas.

Not really sure what kind of math you were looking for since I know this is mostly just logic, but I can post a WWS of a raid showing me doing almost identical dps as what the Deathgraf predicts, around 4500-5000 (http://www.magegraf.com/deathknight/) on an average fight. Using your spec shows that I would lose 700+ dps if I switched.

I noticed nobody's mentioned [Extract of Necromantic Power]. Just grabbed it today since we didn't have a priest that needed it, and it seems to add about the same dps as BCB. Thoughts?

Morthis · 11/26/08, 4:16 AM

Originally Posted by Writhe

I fail to see where your vastly superior dps wws numbers are coming from. Please don't discredit something without even checking some form of math. We all want the best unholy dps spec here. If something is competitive or interesting and new, I and I think the others too would like to hear about it.

Effectively perma 20% haste is huge, just because the compendium says it isn't doesn't mean its totally crap. 30%+ of unholy damage is white hits/crits factor in necrosis to this and you have a worthy stat. You will make up the lost crit with more swings that can crit, loss of bladed armor isn't nearly as huge as you make it out to be, Neither is 2hand spec. The 30% damage from black ice probably that up easily. (It effects frost fever too remember.)

The only problem I actually see with why this spec shouldn't be used is you can easily get the haste from a shaman or specced frost dk and everything else is a moot point from there on in.

So far, my recount is showing around 30-35% of my damage being white/necrosis/blood-caked. That means only 30-35% of my damage would even be affected at all by that 20% haste.

Depending on how the talent works, if Icy Talons does not proc off the debuff refresh from scourge strike glyph, it would make this bonus even worse than it already is, by forcing you to add more IT/PS rotations when they might not be needed.

By grabbing those talents, and almost wasting 10 points getting there (the points spent in frost to get there are very mediocre at best for unholy), you are giving up bladed armor, (which currently gives me about 350 AP, and will only continue to scale), 5% crit, 4% weapon damage, and 9% crit for blood strike (which still does respectable damage, and has to be used twice every other cycle). I simply cannot imagine 20% haste, which only works on about 30-35% of our total damage output, to come even close to the loss of talents like 5% crit or a sizable chunk of free AP, which works on 100% of our damage. Now if you're grouped with a shaman, and you typically will be in a raid, it becomes even worse, to the point that you are essentially running a gimped build just in case there doesn't happen to be windfury sometimes.

I guess I simply don't understand what you're trying to spec for.

In 5 mans, the blood talents will pay off more, you will do less white damage than normal because fights are shorter, and you will often be aoe'ing groups down, further decreasing your percentage of white damage.

In raids you should spec based on your strengths, and create synergy with buffs. Grabbing 20% haste for yourself only does not promote that at all. Even if you somehow end up in a raid without windfury, it's a small loss for an unholy DK compared to some other classes.

In PvP sustained damage is typically pretty crappy, strong burst or debuffing matter much more, and haste primarily provides sustained damage.

Solo haste isn't very valuable either, mobs will typically die before you've even gone through one cycle of runes, haste will play a very minor part in your damage output.

I can't think of other scenarios, so I guess I just don't understand what your spec is supposed to do, because for every scenario I can think of, it just doesn't seem like a very good choice.

Originally Posted by tedv

I'm curious if anyone has tested Fallen Crusader versus Cinderglacier as their weapon enchant. I haven't been able to find good information on proc rates for either of these, but both seem strong. In particular, the Cinderglacier procs will almost definitely give 20% damage to death coil or scourge strike. I think the 30% strength proc on Fallen Crusader is better, but if Cinderglacier procs more often, it could be the better choice. Have we modeled proc uptime for these two enchants?

I just did some short testing, didn't have the time for longer tests to get more reliable results. Cinderglacier seems to proc more often than Crusader, although my tests weren't long enough to get a good PPM (mainly because of an odd streak of over 4 minutes of no procs). Cinderglacier either has no internal cooldown, or a very short one, it can overwrite itself, and I've had it proc 3 times back to back, with maybe a 5 second pause between procs.

As far as I could tell, Cinderglacier works on Scourge Strike (and obviously on death coil). I'm going to try and do some longer tests tomorrow to see what I get.

One thing I'd also like to test but haven't had the chance yet, not sure if anyone else did. Does Scourge Strike count entirely as magic damage, meaning it ignores armor? Or does it behave like divine storm, which is holy damage but mitigated by armor.

Tel · 11/26/08, 5:57 AM

Originally Posted by Writhe

I fail to see where your vastly superior dps wws numbers are coming from. Please don't discredit something without even checking some form of math. We all want the best unholy dps spec here. If something is competitive or interesting and new, I and I think the others too would like to hear about it.

As various other posters have stated, my vastly superior numbers are coming from logic. The math has already been gone through in this and the DPS thread by people far more capable than me at it, I suggest reading it.

You're essentially sacrficing talents that boost your primary damage dealing abilities as unholy to gain haste based talents, which only effect sub-50% of your damage at best and can be provided by a enh shaman who sacrifices nothing to do so. If you're looking to do some kind of hybrid build that takes Icy Talons, I'd suggest blood might be a stronger candidate then unholy due to a larger % of its damage being effected by haste.

Now if you can show me a WWS or something (anything!) to prove me wrong here, then I'll be more than happy to conceed the point, but all the math I've seen so far correlates closely with the conclusions stated. The fact you haven't bothered to look it up isn't really my concern.

crimsonsentinel · 11/26/08, 6:56 AM

Originally Posted by Morthis

As far as I could tell, Cinderglacier works on Scourge Strike (and obviously on death coil). I'm going to try and do some longer tests tomorrow to see what I get.

One thing I'd also like to test but haven't had the chance yet, not sure if anyone else did. Does Scourge Strike count entirely as magic damage, meaning it ignores armor? Or does it behave like divine storm, which is holy damage but mitigated by armor.

Cinderglacier does work on SS. SS does ignore armor.

Darston · 11/26/08, 8:00 AM

Ok i have an alteration. With 2 in NoTD instead of Unholy Aura (to keep my ghoul up), 5/5 in Desecration and Necrosis, and nothing in wandering plague or Gargoyle.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I have had a lot of people tell me this spec is better but they can't really say why.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

So i ask you guys. Does taking the 2 points from both Desecration and Necrosis not effect you? Does putting them in wandering plague and Gargoyle really boost your DPS that much? For instance/raid/ For Soloing/questing?

Sharrash · 11/26/08, 8:10 AM

I tried to synthethize the value of the different WOTLK trinkets in a table relative to each "point value" given in DK DPS Compendium. I've taken 1 PPM for most proc trinkets, 95% uptime for [Fury of the Five Flights] and Strength as stat for [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]

                                Blood    Frost     Unholy
Darkmoon Card: Greatness        421,91   390,23    409,98
Fury of the Five Flights        304      304       304
Mirror of Truth                 262,87   266,58    261,08
Grim Toll                       327,51   277,39    260,97
Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood    258,02   243,92    247,78
Chuchu's Tiny Box of Horrors    216,67   207,54    207,75
Loatheb's Shadow                207,87   211,58    206,08
Bandit's Insignia               190      190       190
Incisor Fragment                198,71   185       174,42
Crusader's Locket               179,2    159,55    165,83
Figurine - Emerald Boar         165,82   159,68    163,51
Mark of Norgannon               163,61   126,66    146,86
Scarab of Isanoth               128,67   128,67    128,67
Thunder Capacitor               127,6    127,6     127,6
Death Knight's Anguish          130,66   126,72    124,81
Fury of the Encroaching Storm   118,15   115,24    120,67
First Mate's Pocketwatch        101,16    99,62    102,5
Frenzyheart Insignia of Fury     97,77    89,85     98,7
Goblin Repetition Reducer        98       98        98
Automated Weapon Coater          93,25    95,14     92,33
Fezzik's Pocketwatch             87,84    83,87     91,28
Tears of Bitter Anguish          79,71    70,36     87,82
Warsong's Fervor                 86,17    87,54     85,51
Oracle Talisman of Ablution      81,32    84,45     79,8
Rune of Finite Variation         73,38    73,16     74,37
Sonic Booster                    71,67    71,67     71,67
Talon of Hatred                  68,41    65,23     71,16
Braxley's Backyard Moonshine     69,33    67,61     70,82
Talisman of the Tundra           62,77    60,25     64,95
Thorny Rose Brooch               44,18    38,99     48,68
Meteorite Whetstone              41,74    36,84     45,98
Vestige of Haldor                36,66    32,36     40,39
Foresight's Anticipation         36,47    32,19     40,18
Fury of the Crimson Drake        33,46    29,54     36,87
Horn of Argent Fury              21,33    21,33     21,33

I'm not sure of my calculation for most proc trinkets but it gives an idea of the value at least.

Tel · 11/26/08, 8:21 AM

Hrm, what method did you use to get those values, as the results vary considerably from what I've seen in game.

So i ask you guys. Does taking the 2 points from both Desecration and Necrosis not effect you? Does putting them in wandering plague and Gargoyle really boost your DPS that much? For instance/raid/ For Soloing/questing?

Taking points out does effect you, but as previously discussed desecration is a bit pants anyhow. And yes, putting them in WP/Garg is a big dps increase.

Edit: Also, Unholy Aura is a must have for raiding. Its one of very few unique buffs that DKs bring to the table and allows your raiders to all use more powerful boot enchants, while giving you an edge on movement based fights (makes switching on 4hm a joke)

Fugazor · 11/26/08, 8:46 AM

Originally Posted by Sharrash

I'm not sure of my calculation for most proc trinkets but it gives an idea of the value at least.

I think your table is mostly correct but one thing - you assumed 1 dps = 1 ap while it should be much more based on compendium table.

Here are (hopefully!) correct values for "bad" trinkets based on 1DPS (wpn) from compendium:

                                 Unholy    Blood     Frost
Bandit's Insignia                426,94    470,76    514,27
Vestige of Haldor                201,77    227,7     253,5
Horn of Argent Fury              161,47    191,33    221

We also need to count [Extract of Necromantic Power], assuming two diseases that tick every 3 sec we have 40 ticks per minute, trinket have 10% proc so 4 PPM. I do not know if D&D, UB etc. can proc it so value can be higher for Unholy if so.

                                  Unholy   Blood     Frost
Extract of Necromatic Power       636,3    736,68    838,25

I am not sure if I can value dps like that so those may be incorrect too

Dwwimm · 11/26/08, 9:54 AM

Long time reader, first time poster, here i'am.

Firstly, i wand to approve on scourge glyphe, I'm more and more using SS SS SS SS SS BS BS rotations as my plagues stay up.

Here is my current dilemma :

I valued stats weight according to DPS compendium thread, but, i do think that Hit is overrated, i mean after hit cap of course, take a look : Wowhead Weapons list

What do you guys think ?

Ps : Sorry for my english, trying my best.

• Zurm · 11/26/08, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Dwwimm

Here is my current dilemma :

I valued stats weight according to DPS compendium thread, but, i do think that Hit is overrated, i mean after hit cap of course, take a look : Wowhead Weapons list

What do you guys think ?
.

Those stat weights in the DPS compendium thread are UP TO cap. Once you have the 9% hit to be capped on specials, you really don't need any more, especially since virulence and moonkin will give you another 6% for spells and put you closer to cap.

On a different note, I bring a new WWS:

Xyrm - Naxx - 11/25

Things to note:

-I used the SS glyph, and found it to be absolutely amazing.
-The gear I had for these runs was BEFORE I picked up my 2 pieces of T7-25 (shoulders/legs) so I didn't have the awesome two piece bonus and still had blue shoudlers.
-Once again, the ghoul was not counted for Patchwerk. I actually placed 4th on patchwerk with a total dps of just under 4100 (something like 4091) just under the two hunters and the one rogue. The lack of ghoul counting in WWS lowered my apparent DPS on many fights, though the ghoul did die or have lower DPS time on some. I almost always placed 3-6th on fights.
-I noticed I need more hit, so I'm targeting two specific upgrades in boots and bracers slots for my next upgrades.... [Bracers of Unrelenting Attack] and [Bladed Steelboots].

All of you number crunchers can go to work on this one... I didn't experiment much this week and focused purely on maximizing my DPS.

tedv · 11/26/08, 10:31 AM

While I don't have a WWS to post from last night's raid, I did have a few comments. In particular, I feel like I've vastly underestimated the value of expertise, thinking Strength would be a better stat for some reason. I could really feel the impact of missed scourge strikes messing up my rotation, especially on strikes using death runes (which refresh as blood). Would our stat priority for gemming be Expertise (until cap) > Hit (until cap) > Strength > everything else?

Shalymar · 11/26/08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Writhe

Effectively perma 20% haste is huge, just because the compendium says it isn't doesn't mean its totally crap. 30%+ of unholy damage is white hits/crits factor in necrosis to this and you have a worthy stat. You will make up the lost crit with more swings that can crit, loss of bladed armor isn't nearly as huge as you make it out to be, Neither is 2hand spec. The 30% damage from black ice probably that up easily. (It effects frost fever too remember.)

I fail to see your logic that haste is such a huge benefit to an Unholy DK over attack power, critical hit and raw weapon damage with all the testing we have done so far. I am pretty sure what you see in the Compendium is accrue so I am mystified why you so easily discount this? As others have already said haste only affects a small portion of our damage while the other stats affect 100% of our damage.

Taking any talents in the Frost tree would suit a Blood build much more than it would an Unholy build, so you could get down to the Annihilation talent. There is nothing in the Frost tree that would benefit us more than what we can pick up in the early part of the Blood tree.

Amare · 11/26/08, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Blinks

Yep, coupled with Icebound Fortitude in the air I was only taking between 480-540 damage a tick in the 10 man version while keeping all my Bone Shield charges.

Unfortunately I also noticed my gargoyle dying prematurely, yet my ghoul managed to live long enough to port up to Malygos and melee him while he was flying up for phase 2. He stayed there as well.

Ghoul is completely buggy on Malygos, for some reason my ghoul usually stays way on top of Malygos for all of phase 1, in mid air and the petframe is not available during vortex.

When he stays in the air heals won't reach him and it quickly dies which is extremly annoying. Pulling of a rotation in the time he is on the ground is already tricky coupled with moving around and Death Gripping Sparks everyting will be messed up so much that you really dont want to have to re-summon the ghoul on top of all that.

When we were first attempting him, my ghoul also sometimes died within 10 seconds of the pull.

Another problem I have is automatically ressing friendly players with Summon Ghoul instead of making a Pet, any way to circumvent this? It is really annoying me to no end, wether I ress the AFK guy who didnt make a corpse run or have to ask for single ghoul buffs bc I had to wait or when I want to summon a perma ghoul during a fight and instead it targets a player corpse or the bug that people can't accept normal or combat ress after they were ressed as a ghoul and need to relog.
It should be that it always Summons a Pet unless you specifically target a player to ress him.

• Zurm · 11/26/08, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by Amare

Ghoul is completely buggy on Malygos, for some reason my ghoul usually stays way on top of Malygos for all of phase 1, in mid air and the petframe is not available during vortex.

When he stays in the air heals won't reach him and it quickly dies which is extremly annoying. Pulling of a rotation in the time he is on the ground is already tricky coupled with moving around and Death Gripping Sparks everyting will be messed up so much that you really dont want to have to re-summon the ghoul on top of all that.

This is a bug ALL pets have. Simply spamming a macro that puts the pet on passive will eventually dislodge it... there is a pathing bug with malygos at the moment for pets.

Originally Posted by Amare

Another problem I have is automatically ressing friendly players with Summon Ghoul instead of making a Pet, any way to circumvent this?

This absolutely infuriated me the first raid. It's a dumb mechanic, but one we have to live with. Just make sure you're more than 30 yds away from dead players, or target a nearby humaniod non-player corpse if possible. Or, wait until people stop being bad and accept their ressurections!

ansga · 11/26/08, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by tedv

While I don't have a WWS to post from last night's raid, I did have a few comments. In particular, I feel like I've vastly underestimated the value of expertise, thinking Strength would be a better stat for some reason. I could really feel the impact of missed scourge strikes messing up my rotation, especially on strikes using death runes (which refresh as blood). Would our stat priority for gemming be Expertise (until cap) > Hit (until cap) > Strength > everything else?

The biggest thing for expertise is the fact it can completely screw up a long SS rotation. If you do happen to miss your death runed SS, you lose out completely on it. Having to lose one SS in a rotation is bad, but losing upwards of 2-3 in succession and possibly having diseases fall off due to it is just massive. Honestly, im going to be going for hit cap and expertise cap first, then head on down str/ap.

boomix · 11/26/08, 11:37 AM

With SS Glyph do you still start off with your regular rotation? I have been starting same as always IT>PS>BS>BS>then moving onto SS. After that I know you can keep using SS to keep diseases up. At what point do you move back into BS or BB to convert runes to death runes?

Also I had to take some tanking talents so my dps is suffering greatly, and I've noticed that every time Blade Barrier is up my character stops to emote. It has interrupted my regular swings on occasion according to Quartz swing timer. Am I seeing this correctly or is Quartz just counting down regular swing timers regardless?