What do you suggest people use as a test subject then? Seems to be test dummies are ideal subjects, removing far more variables than they introduce. They are a very controlled situation, accessible under similar conditions by everyone. Where else are you going to get that kind of controlled environment to make, as close as possible, to equivalent tests?
Test dummies, when used correctly are okay for getting the basics down, however, different builds scale vastly differently with raid buffs. A spec that includes Imp Icy talons, abomination's might, or Ebon plaguebringer might do very well on the dummy, and hybrid spec that doesn't bring any of these would clearly be lower on the test dummy. The problem comes in the fact that we are looking for Raiding builds, and it is expected that our guilds are using an optimized raidforce, meaning that if you are raiding as a hybrid spec you have others to bring the required melee buffs.
IE Target dummy =/= raid dps situation.
Edit- The next step here is to confirm the mechanics of both Blood strike, (Is it really 50% for each disease?) and Unholy blight. I have a hard time accepting that blood strike is really going to be receiving such a massive buff.
What do you suggest people use as a test subject then? Seems to be test dummies are ideal subjects, removing far more variables than they introduce. They are a very controlled situation, accessible under similar conditions by everyone. Where else are you going to get that kind of controlled environment to make, as close as possible, to equivalent tests?
The inherent problem with test dummies (one that has been shown again and again in threads here and many other threads across these forums) is that different specs perform differently based upon which buffs they get in raid, which buffs they bring etc. So, trying to compare say, 2H frost with 2H unholy doesn't make sense because each one has different benefits and is lacking different buffs. The point of target dummies should never be to compare two different trees, there are just too many variables.
@ Orlgin: Just curious which glyphs you used for the specs you did your initial testing with. There is also some reports coming in that BS damage may be 25% per disease instead of 50%, I wonder if this would bring things into line.
Here are my thoughts:
3/3 Subversion = 9% oblit crit
5/5 Dark Conviction = 5% crit
3/3 Annihilation = 3% crit
3/3 Rime = 15% oblit crit 15% icy touch crit
3/3 Guile of Gorefiend = 45 % more crit strike dmg bonus
total
32% oblit crit and 45% more crit strike dmg
23% icy touch crit and 45% more crit strike dmg
all of that with the new talent threat of thassarian = 100% chance to deal damage with all of those oblit (not icy touch)
I really am looking forward to this and would love any critiques.
Not to mention having both death rune master and blood of the north means that all of my runes have the chance to become death runes freeing up my rotation after I start off with my initial sequence.
Here are my thoughts:
3/3 Subversion = 9% oblit crit
5/5 Dark Conviction = 5% crit
3/3 Annihilation = 3% crit
3/3 Rime = 15% oblit crit 15% icy touch crit
3/3 Guile of Gorefiend = 45 % more crit strike dmg bonus
total
32% oblit crit and 45% more crit strike dmg
23% icy touch crit and 45% more crit strike dmg
all of that with the new talent threat of thassarian = 100% chance to deal damage with all of those oblit (not icy touch)
I really am looking forward to this and would love any critiques.
Not to mention having both death rune master and blood of the north means that all of my runes have the chance to become death runes freeing up my rotation after I start off with my initial sequence.
Confusing post. What's your rotation? You're diseases will fall off ... unless you're spamming IT?
No Necrosis or BCB? I dunno... don't see this being a max dps spec. Love to be proven wrong, though.
For those of you asking about how the new UB will work, if you check out the "Unholy Gains Shadow of Death" thread there is a really good explanation. It's on the last page, currently page 36, post #882.
Also, to those of you that are touting Blood Strike to be the main nuke of any Blood tree related build, the wording in the patch notes is misleading. Total disease damage is 50%, not 50% per disease.
@ Boldovar
The main thing I personally see wrong with that is that you would have 6 Death Runes. Having all your Runes turn into Death Runes makes your Rotation very susceptible to errors. It also causes sloppy rotations more often than not. Also, as Yubble pointed out, your Diseases would fall off. Otherwise, good job. Looks like a decent enough build.
Well frost doesnt really rely on plague strike or the blood plague because of the idea that most of your dmg revolves around icy touch and tundra stalker (15% more dmg to everything when frost fever is on target)
So I suppose a rotation could look like
icy touch blood strike blood strike oblit
rune dump with frost strike
oblit oblit icy touch and then use judgement on rime procs or blood strikes to build more death runes
(always can throw in a frost strike when killing machine procs)
as I said this is just a theory and I will test this out
the focus would be keeping up icy touch for the 15% dmg increase
maxing out on oblit strikes due to the new ToT talent and all the crit the build gives..
I do see what you are saying on leaving all my white dmg alone by not using blood caked or necrosis but I will move stuff around
I dont see how a rotation could turn sloppy if you have all death runes... its putting you in more of a control factor
Id rather choose my best dps option rather than wait for something to cooldown and the like before I continue a rotation.
I see a lot of runic power being available also.
Frost strike is really strong (too bad they are getting rid of the dodge parry block aspect)
I dont see how a rotation could turn sloppy if you have all death runes... its putting you in more of a control factor
Unless I'm mistaken, if an ability, like Obliterate, has more that two Death Runes to choose from, it chooses the first available, skips one, and uses the next. So say you have 6 death runes available, and you start on the back half of your rotation. Obliterate and your first available Death Rune will turn into a Blood Rune, while the next would be a Frost Rune. Obliterate again and you have another Blood Rune on CD with another Frost Rune on CD. Finishing out the Rotation with two ITs to cover the last two Death Runes, will put both your Unholy Runes on CD. That would put your first available Unholy Rune ~2 GCDs behind the first Frost Rune to come off CD.
You see why your rotation could be extremely sloppy.
Even beyond that.
Say you've got the same situation with 6 DRs. You Obliterate to start the second half of your rotation. The fight necessitates that you have to move. You're unable to get off anymore attacks until the Blood and Frost Runes have cooled down. Now you've a Blood Rune, a Frost Rune and 4 Death Runes. That much time spent not attacking means that you must restart your entire rotation. You IT and use the available Frost Rune. Your Plague Strike will use the first available DR which will put a Blood Rune on CD.
You can see that there are many other instances where 6 Death Runes is a bad idea.
Sorry I didn't respond earlier, I missed your post in the flood of new posts.
I would have to say yes. With our current information, ToT alone will bring DW Frost up to current 2h Frost numbers. Adding in the fact that Necrosis and BCB both scale better with DW will put DW Frost DKs over their 2h brethren. That's assuming that the DW DKs decide to go with Unholy subspeccing.
Even still, with UH DW as it is now, and with the change to UB, I believe that Deep UH will still be the way to go.
Blood Plague: Damage done increased by 15%.
Frost Fever: Damage done increased by 15%.
Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 25% per disease.
Did they just add the disease damage buff? Seems like Blizz really wants us to use both of them . Now IT+PS is the best use for FU runes by far, if you count in the dot.
This is just speculation as I have yet to get on to the PTR and test it myself due to RL issues however I'm thinking that this spec may be a contender with the current UH DW.
It work's a lot in the same way that the current 0/13/58 works however due to the use of OB instead of SS you won't have to fray away from items with ArP.
Here's what a rotation would like :
PS-IT-OB-BS-BS-RP
OB-OB-OB-HoW-RP
Using HB on Freezing Fog procs only and using KM procs for FS.
Here is a 40/29 build with obliterates generating a shit ton of runic power for lots of death coil + unholy blight spam.
Obliterates are going to be hitting hard (ToT) and generating massive amounts of rp due to chill of the grave + dirge combo that a deep unholy dc spam build won't have. In addition to the frost tree perks got from going deeper into the tree that arguably can hold their weight against the deep unholy talents a generic dw unholy build has.
Rotation:
PS-IT-BS-BS-OB-DUMP-OB-IT-IT
Using blood presence or unholy presence
Glyphs: Dark Death, Ghoul, Obliterate, Icy Touch, and the new Unholy Blight glyph are all viable for it. Have to see how the new unholy blight glyph is going to weigh in in comparison to others.
I am looking at a 38/33 spec with obliterates generating a shit ton of runic power for lots of death coil + unholy blight spam.
PS-IT-BS-BS-OB-DUMP-OB-IT-IT
Using blood presence or unholy presence
Glyphs: Dark Death, Ghoul, Obliterate, Icy Touch, and the new Unholy Blight glyph are all viable for it. Have to see how the new unholy blight glyph is going to weigh in in comparison to ghoul.
I am looking at a 38/33 spec with obliterates generating a shit ton of runic power for lots of death coil + unholy blight spam.
PS-IT-BS-BS-OB-DUMP-OB-IT-IT
Using blood presence or unholy presence
Glyphs: Dark Death, Ghoul, Obliterate, Icy Touch, and the new Unholy Blight glyph are all viable for it. Have to see how the new unholy blight glyph is going to weigh in in comparison to ghoul.
Without Guile of Gorefiend and Tundra Stalker I believe your damage is going to be pretty gimpy, so much so that I doubt a perma ghoul and excessive DC spam will make up the gap. Not only will you be losing out on a significant portion of the frost trees damage increases, you're losing 5 expertise from Tundra Stalker which you'll need to make up in gearing.
Also without Howling Blast you're wasting half of Rime.
If you want to focus on a heavy DC spam build I suspect you'd be better served with a more traditional Unholy build.
Has anyone considered that since ToT is going to include plague strike we could see a double stack with dw similar to the way we see a double stack with DRW? It's been speculated that it's basically the same spell used by both weapons, and if that's true wouldn't it make sense that the buff would stack?
Also since people are just throwing out specs for general debate, here is a spec I'm thinking of doing:
Has anyone considered that since ToT is going to include plague strike we could see a double stack with dw similar to the way we see a double stack with DRW? It's been speculated that it's basically the same spell used by both weapons, and if that's true wouldn't it make sense that the buff would stack?
I hadn't thought of that all. However I can't really see it happening. We'd have damage from four different disease going, and our strikes would get 2x the damage multipliers that they currently do. Overpowered to say the least.
As far as I can tell, yes. I've not done it enough to definitely go "yes, it always does," but after 20+ or so tests every time both attacks have been critical hits. I have terrible gear, so it's unlikely they would have all critted normally, and other DKs on the PTR have confirmed that it's working this way.
I haven't seen anyone suggest this, though it is unorthodox. I'm on the PTR atm, and I don't have the weapons to legitimately test this, but I'm curious toward this spec... with a reasonable amount of ArPen, spamming Blood Strike and Obliterate being the basis here. I'm unsure about Glyph of Disease, but I need to fix all my addons before I can test anything and post results.
Scent of Blood and Death Rune Mastery are useless, but I don't know where else to put the points.
Stacking Hysteria and Unbreakable Armor during Heroism would yield some ungodly dps.
The new sigil that procs 200 str has 100% uptime, by the way. Not sure if they overlooked an internal CD or what.
I haven't seen anyone suggest this, though it is unorthodox. I'm on the PTR atm, and I don't have the weapons to legitimately test this, but I'm curious toward this spec... with a reasonable amount of ArPen, spamming Blood Strike and Obliterate being the basis here. I'm unsure about Glyph of Disease, but I need to fix all my addons before I can test anything and post results.
Scent of Blood and Death Rune Mastery are useless, but I don't know where else to put the points.
Stacking Hysteria and Unbreakable Armor during Heroism would yield some ungodly dps.
The new sigil that procs 200 str has 100% uptime, by the way. Not sure if they overlooked an internal CD or what.
Without outlining a proposed rotation or even saying what the main nuking ability the spec would involved just makes this post clutter and a waste of space, if your looking for some feedback or some math on a proposed spec could you please next time add some more detail in what you were thinking the rotation and other things would look like.
06/23/09, 6:45 PM
. Now IT+PS is the best use for FU runes by far, if you count in the dot.
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