I've been working on the DnD problem for a while. Death and Decay is the best attack a duel wielding Unholy Deathknight can use so getting it every 15 seconds is a major priority. It only requires one GCD to do massive amounts of damage so if you can fill the other GCDs, you can maximize your DPS potential. Once I'd determined that threat would not be an issue, I began doing the puzzle that it creates.

Death and Decay only generates 15 runic power. The runes used by themselves would deal more damage as a Plague Strike, Blood Strike, and Icy Touch and the 40-45 runic power they would generate. The reason it's better is that it concentrates a lot of damage into one GCD. You then use the extra GCDs that you saved to deal more damage. You trade one resource (runes) for another resource (GCDs).

The other resource that we have is Runic Power. You can use this to fill the empty GCDs that DnD creates. Icy Touch generates the most runic power at 20 each. Blood generates 10 and the Death Rune it generates gives 20. Unholy generates a maximum of 15.

In one minute, you generate a maximum of 12 Frost, 12 Blood, and 12 Unholy runes. If you use DnD 4 times, this means you have 8 Frost, 4 Blood, 4 Death, and 8 Unholy Runes. To cover diseases which are also on a 15 second timer, you need to use 4 Frost and 4 Unholy. That leaves a total 4 Frost, 4 Unholy, 4 Blood, and 4 Death Runes.

In one minute, you generate 40 GCDs if you have enough haste to compensate for latency. Four DnD, 4 Icy Touch, and 4 Plague Strike are already covered. This generates a maximum of 200 runic power. Which is five more GCDs for a 17. So filling the other 23, you have 16 runes. 8 Icy Touchs generate 160 runic power which is 12 GCDs total. Eight runes left and 13 GCDs remaining. 4 Blood Strike and 4 Plague Strike generate 100 runic power. That leaves 20 runic power and 3 GCDs remaining. You can Blood Tap for Icy Touch which means another Death Coil which drops the empty GCDs to 2. Butchery generates 24 runic power which is enough to enough to use a Death Coil every two minutes.

One and 1/2 GCDs require 60 runic power. Luckily it's pretty easy to start with that much. Thus, it's theroretically possible to use DnD every 15 seconds and use every available GCD for two minutes.

One minute will be used for the Gargoyle and generating runic power.

Three minutes is enough for a Patchwerk fight. For moving fights, not every GCD will be usable and it's easier to be more efficient with the ones you use.

The puzzle is this: Knowing exactly which moves you need to perform, how do you arrange the GCDs so that you don't exceed the 130 runic power limit or attempt to use a rune that is still on cooldown from the 10 second timer.

Still working on it. If I figure it out, I'll post the result. From there, theoretical damage can be calculated and based on data from other specs, it can be determined where 10/10/51 is compared to other specs.

Yes and yes. You're using a live talent calculator. Viable dw specs on live have long since been established - but they help us none at all come the patch with its reworked talent trees and nerfed abilities.

Just tried the DnD DW on ptr on dummy. Turned out almost 500 dps short from 2h frost.

Using optimal ilvl213 DW gears(haste/str/spell hitcap over expertise/strike hitcap/4pc t7.5 bonus). Spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. IT glyph, DnD glyph and ghoul glyph. IT sigil. Hailstorm x2. MH raz, OH FC. Blood presence. BB hitting multiple dummies. Dummy targeted at 1%. using rotation similar to the following

DND/PS/IT/BB/PS/IT/BB/RP dump(either DC or UB or gargoyle, depends on how much RP I have)/PS/IT/IT/RP dump

The dps I got on recount shows 3.1k merged with pet.

Compare to 2h frost, ilvl213 gears with 4pc t7.5. Spec Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. FS glyph, OB glyph, IT glyph. Awareness sigil. Armageddon with FC. Blood presence. Dummy at 1% hp.

Recount shows 3.5k

Edit: Accidental double post. Please delete.

Read a lot of this thread, but still remain a little confused.

I have been 2h for a long time with my Cryptfiend's Bite, but i recently optained my Widow's Fury and Split Greathammer, so i decided to try DW. AFter reading in this thread i decided to with the spec 32/39, because of my two fast weapons. Glyphs i use Plague strike, Icy touch and Ghoul

I use the rotation:
PS-IT-HB-BS-BS-Rune dump
PS-IT-HB-IT-IT-Rune dump

So my first question is, is there a better spec for my gear? Or is there a better rotation? my amory is:
The World of Warcraft Armory
Also i have been unlucky in getting Grim Toll. So i hav a lack of Hit, therefore i have but a lot of hit gems in my gear, and atm i have 258(7.87%) my class is Draenei so i have 1% hit more. Should i forget about this and just take str+hit gems and str gems?

How much hit should i have as DW? atm i miss about 13-14% of melee.
Should i be useing some other glyphs?

I also have Torment of the Banished, it is a slower weapon. Should i change one of my fast weapons with this and do another spec?

Hope this wasnt to much Thank you...

We need to remember that DW is going to see at least some marginal gearing improvements with ulduar as well. We'll actually have a sigil that is, argueably, better for DW than most 2h specs. We will also have set bonuses in t8 that benefit us. Even if the 4pc benefit isn't much it's still better than the current nothing we get out of tier bonuses.

I plan to test:

0/29/42

Designed to use only single rune abilities and imp unholy presence to increase total number of DCs available to us. We cannot hit harder, in most cases, than 2h builds but we can certainly hit more often. The priority on attacks would be:

Blood Tap > UB/DC > IT > PS > BS (UB is used in place of DC when it's duration expires)

This would leave a vacant 1 sec GCD every 26 sec which, in a perfect lag-free world, could be used for horn. In our non-perfect laggy world I anticipate the 1 sec gap will compress to nothing due to lag anyways. This would push out ~16 DCs a minute while maintaining almost 100% UB uptime.


I will attempt to get my results posted when I have time this evening or tomorrow hopefully.

Well of course I also tried BS instead of BB, the result is even more sad since BS hits only the boss dummy unlike BB, which hits for every thing in that room. The result of using BS instead of BB gives me 2.9k.

And yes I do find a bit of downtime from the rotation I use, but only for like 1 to 2 seconds every other rotation. Not to mention I occasionally need to apply bone shield and horn of winter, which will fill that spot.

Here's how that rotation will ideally look like, assume spell GCD haste capped, the number means the time the spell gets casted:

DND(0)/PS(1)/IT(2.5)/BS(3.5)/PS(5)/IT(6.5)/BS(7.5)/RP dump(9)/PS(10)/IT(11.5)/IT(12.5)/RP dump(13.5)/0.5 second downtime/DND(15)

But anyway the point is, this spec is not valid.

Well you wouldn't be able to do extra ITs if you used BB since they don't create Death Runes...

You should be using 10/10/51 with Dirge 2/2 if you want to test it. Using a suboptimal spec throws off testing. You should have 3/3 Desecration to fit all the points you need in Unholy. Don't take Ghoul Frenzy. As mentioned above, you need Butchery. You also need to start the fight with a minimum of 60 runic power or you'll have two empty GCDs. It's not that hard to build runic power out of combat but it needs to be done.

As for rotations, that's the hard part as mentioned above. Your spells should be 1.4 sec GCD with the right haste and your melee abilities should be 1.6 sec. You then do down a list listing the times that you do things and make a note of which runes are available when the GCD is up. Death and Decay typically takes 1.6 sec due to targetting time.

0.0 DnD BBFFUU
1.6 PS XBXFXU
3.2 IT XBXFXX
4.8 BS XBXXXX
6.4 UB XXXXXX
7.8 DC XXXXXX
9.4 DC XXXXXX
10.8 PS BXFXUX
12.4 IT BXFXXU

That's how I'm working on it. When I get the full list, I can then just list it as full rotations. Using the above, I end up wasting 2 runic power from Butchery but I have 4 to waste in two minutes. Going over 10 and then under 10 allows me to use the 2 sec rule to help with the runic cooldowns. I keep track of runic power so I can use it before I cap if possible.

Again tried 10/10/51, Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft.

Saw only about 100ish increase on dps. which only puts me at 3.1k ish.

I think you made some mistakes with the times... This should be better....

0.0 DnD BBFFUU
1.6 PS XBXFXU
3.2 IT XBXFXX
4.6 BS XBXXXX Changed from 4.8
6.2 UB XXXXXX Changed from 6.4
7.6 DC XXXXXX Changed from 7.8
9.0 DC XXXXXX Changed from 9.4
10.4 PS BXFXUX Changed from 10.8
12.0 IT BXFXXU Changed from 12.4

What I changed was you had the first IT have a 1.6 CD instead of 1.4, changed everything that was effected. You also had the first DC have a 1.6 CD instead of 1.4 also, changed everything that was effected. Also, wouldn't you want to start with PS so the DnD will gain the effect of RoR, or does it check each time DnD deals damage to see if PS is up if you understand what I'm asking. After that rotation ends, do you repeat it? Because if so, then you will start the second rotation with only 35RP if you started the first one with 60RP, Then you'll have a gap in between the runic dump and the PS when runes refresh. You could potentially add a second BS at 13.4 for some extra RP and your GCD should finish at 15.0 when DnD CD is finished.

Is there any real reason to get reaping either since it seems like there are no Death Runes used for anything besides a Blood Rune use? You also said 3/3 Desecration, did you mean 5/5 Desecration or 3/3 Outbreak? I'm guessing this is the build you're talking about 10/10/51.

I feel like I'm forgetting to bring something up, but ohh well...

EDIT: Build 9733 arrived.
Nothing really changed for the DnD spec. Should be 10/10/51.

I think for the Deep Frost specs, it might hurt a lot since they can no longer get a perma-ghoul. I'm wondering if they might dip into Blood and do a 15/53/3 build or some type of variant. I'm somewhat doubting something like that because of the loss of a Perma-ghoul, Necrosis, and BCB...

hey guys. long time reader first time poster.

as the new build went live on the PTR i started creating some new builds.
its possible to get perma ghoul a little earlier now so here are the ideas im goin to test from now on.
lemme know what you guys think.
0/26/45

15/26/30

Explain your rotation, what you're trying to do with this, etc... We also need some parses/ideas of the DPS.

Regarding Orlgin's DND based DW build, I've been playing around in Excel to try and come up with a decent rotation. A couple things that came up while working on this:

1) Note that I performed testing using 1.5s GCD increments. This isn't correct, but made the math much easier to work with and should by off only by an immaterial amount, i.e. less than 1 GCD.

2) While experimenting with my previous build, I noticed that with similar buffs to IT as this build (the exception being the boost from Impurity), Heart Strike, even with a 1H weapon, was performing more damage. The same should hold even more true for SS as it has a lower weapon % coefficient and a higher constant damage boost, which helps close the damage gap between 1H and 2H strikes. Since the PTR is down I can't test it, but it might be worth considering including in order to fit rune usage into the rotation in such a way that allows for DND to be cast every 15s. I wouldn't be surprised if it equaled or even outperformed IT+PS in regards to damage. In addition, with 4pT7 it supplies a boost of runic power. We also get the benefit of the Sigil of Awareness, which should contribute more than Frozen Conscience, and of improved damage scaling with 4pT8.

The rotation below, broken into two 15s segments, assumes a starting RP of 10 from HoW and will generate an excess of 20 RP over the course of both segments, allowing a constant rotation from there on, filling in an empty GCD once a minute. Note that without points in Epidemic, Blood Plague falls off for about 2 GCDs, but those are the only dead GCDs in the rotation, so it shouldn't have a noticeable effect.

Assumptions: Blood tap is used every minute, 4pT7.

DND-PS-IT-IT(BS)-UB-DC-SS-DC-BS
DND-HoW-PS-IT-SS-BS-DC-DC

Talent/Glyph build

EDIT: Made one adjustment to the rotation that assumed Reaping as a talent. Converted an IT that required Reaping to a BS and updated some errors in the above text and rotation.

EDIT: Tested this build tonight on the PTR boss dummy with the following stats:

Weapons: 2 x Last Laugh (FC/CG)
AP: 3783 w/ HoW, 4103 w/ full Five Flights stack
Haste: 11.89% (no Icy Talons buff)
Hit rating: 307
Expertise 16/26
Crit rate: 28.05% w/ HoW

Averaged 2836.5 DPS which doesn't include Necrosis or the Ghoul; Ghoul was bugged and was unable to be controlled, dismissed, or resummoned. Not sure what people are seeing for bonus Ghoul damage on the PTR so far, but I would venture to guess that with the Ghoul and Necrosis included it should bump that number up to around 3.3k at least, and that total is with a lot of sub-optimal gear on the version of my DK that's on the PTR.

% Breakdown was as follows:

DND - 22.3%
Melee - 20.2%
DC - 13.8%
SS - 9.9% (NOTE: Largest SS hit tracked was for 7,525, largest PS + largest IT was for 5,919)
Frost Fever - 7.6%
Blood Plague 6.7%
UB - 6.4%
IT - 5.5%
BCB - 2.9%
BS - 2.5%
PS - 2.2%

One thought, I noticed that UB does only slightly more damage than a non-crit DC to single targets. I wonder if it wouldn't be worth just converting UB to another DC and moving that talent point back into BCB for a bit of extra DPS.

Blood or Unholy presence?

Edit: Magmon, he was using Blood Presence.

A few things:

1) If you guys aren't using Gargoyle, then your numbers are off. No one mentioned Gargoyle in their testing at all. There should be a full minute of Gargoyle damage on each of those tests. Comparing Unholy without Gargoyle to Frost isn't exactly fair to Unholy.

2) Dummy testing will favor Scourge Strike over Plague Strike/Icy Touch because the Dummy has full armor. Unlike a raid boss which will have a major and minor sunder armor debuff on it. Remember that PS/IT generates more runic power but also reduces the amount of Blood Plague and Frost Fever ticks. So comparisons between the two are tricky. See #5 for another issue with this.

3) Dummy testing is useful for comparing specs with the same buffs. Comparing Frost to Unholy is comparing apples to oranges. Frost gets 20% melee haste. We get 13% more spell damage, 3% higher crit, and 30% more disease damage. That's not exactly fair to Frost.

4) Raid Specs will have 2/2 Improved Unholy Presence.

5) Assuming 4pcT7 is dangerous. That automatically favors 2H builds which use those abilities. That set will be broken quickly and the set bonus is worth a lot of DPS. A duel-wield build like this will be going for 2 pc T8 ASAP (preferably shoulders/legs) for the better stats and the bonus to Death Coil.

6) The new sigil available in Ulduar is much better than the crappy Icy Touch one. Without 4pc T7, the 2H builds will quickly discover runic power shortages. Builds like this that generate more runic power will get more mileage from it.

Using Horn of Winter every 30 seconds was a great idea. I should have been doing that from the start and makes it much easier to do the puzzle.

The movement bonus and the reduced rune refresh timers, most likely.

The nerf to Impurity happened in the first or second ptr build, if I recall correctly.

If I remember correctly the boss dummy in Acherus has auto-debuffs to simulate a raid scenario. I noticed that it has the 3% improved chance to hit/crit and the 13% spell damage increase, but I don't remember if it had the armor debuffs or disease damage bonus on. I'll have to check next opportunity I have to log on. If that's the case, though, then for comparison Unholy has the biggest relative disadvantage in regards to not having Icy Talons or Abomination's Strength active during our testing, which is something to consider in our numbers as Unholy is the only tree which will benefit additionally from BOTH of those buffs in a raid environment rather than just one.


I'm not sure I understand why this is the case. The movement speed increase is no question a DPS boost, especially to be able to use it in BP, but I'm not sure where those talent points will be coming from as it's already a pretty tight spec as far as required points go. I could see shifting some out of Outbreak if we end up not using SS at all, but other than that, it's a tough call. That's going to be the only benefit of those two points though, as this approach doesn't make sense to use in any other presence than Blood at the moment as we're already running up against empty GCDs, which means we won't gain the benefit of the increased rune refresh rate. Also, the fact that the movement speed increase no longer affects the raid, only ourselves, makes this much less attractive as a DPS talent.


Regarding SS, I think you're correct that assuming 4pT7 is very temporary, and 4pT8 is unlikely as there are higher iLvl items available that will probably be more beneficial that retaining those slots for what looks to be like a very small damage increase, depending on how the 4 piece bonus is implemented. However, that being said, SS scales significantly better than IT or PS, even for 1H. It's probably worth crunching some numbers based on the Ulduar gear that we're seeing to find out whether the benefits of an additional .375 * average DC damage are going to outperform it over time.

EDIT: Regarding SS, if it does turn out to be the case that it's preferable to the IT+PS+15RP, it might even be worth looking at some other glyphs to replace IT. In fact, given that this build approach is going to run on 15s rotations, the Glyph of UB would allow UB to work perfectly timewise with the rotation and might provide enough additional damage to outweigh the IT glyph, even in single target fights. That sounds like it's the direction the 2H Unholy DPS thread is headed anyway, and although our approach is different, we're running up against some of the same questions they are.

Improved Unholy Presence is indeed for the +15% movement speed. With a lot of movement fights, I cut 2 Desecration for two points in IUP. Makes sense since it's not as good for movement fights and some of it's power was nerfed out when they made the Necrosis change.

Why ? this is not raidwide anymore it is self only in 3.1

Nobody will spec into unholy-presence in 3.1

After reviewing the current DnD spec presented above (10/10/51), i decided to try a variant of it (0/18/53)

The original DnD spec (10/10/51) put me at roughly 2800 dps with the above rotation.

With my improved spec (0/18/53) i was sitting between 3k and 3200 dps. Pretty much the same rotation.

This is my first time posting, so I would like to thank all of you for the previous 107 of pages of work just in this thread

Keep in mind that the 5 points you used for Icy Talons won't be necessary in a raid environment as you'll ideally have someone else with Imp. Icy Talons or Windfury Totem up.