You are not in the correct thread as it has nothing to do with PvP or testing in Battlegrounds.

Try the forum thread that deals with AotD, Ghoul and Gargoyle.

The buffs and everything most likely will change it, plus with unholy pres, your abilities are doing less damage with each skill compared to blood because of the 15% bonus from blood. And even if you want to argue that unholy is better because of the haste for KM Procs, I doubt you are getting an increase that is sufficient enough to outweigh the 15% increase from blood.

Using the the relatively "classic" 32/39 build, and equipped with heroic epics and a few crafted blues, I've been regularly doing 2350-2500 dps (sustained, with Might) in 5-man heroics, with spikes on boss fights close to 3000 (2947 last night on Ingvar). Now, maybe its by chance that the other dps I have played with in the last week are simply just "okay" (or substandard), but I have easily represented 40% to 55% of the damage done by my 5-mans. Without exception every group I've been in has commented on my dps and the ease with which we burn down both trash and bosses, thanks not only to solid tanking and healing, but my group-leading dps.

First off, I just wanted to say I owe literally all of this to this topic in particular and this board overall. So, thank-you all who contributed meaningful, substantiated advice and results to this topic. It is greatly appreciated.

However, and more to the topic at hand, I'm wondering how many other 32/39 DW's have found that, overall, their dps is still ballpark to where they were pre-3.0.8? While I've seen people theorycrafting 2H alternative builds and also, in this thread, alternative DW builds, I've yet to see conclusive evidence, at least at the heroic-level, that 32/39 has been eclipsed.

Is there agreement yet, on the part of the board's leading DW number-crunchers, as to whether or not 32/39 has been eclipsed or not?

FYI: I didn't get Mirror of Truth until the conclusion of play last night, so my dps is only going to rise now. Also, I find that Sigil of the Frozen Conscience has gone a long way towards offsetting the change to KM's proc-trigger, especially (of course) against single targets.

My build and DPS output is similar. The one thing I did do was take my points from Chill of the Grave and put them into Runic Power Mastery. With the IT glyph, I find that I'm never at a loss for RP and that the ability to churn out 1 more DC (or in my case a CE) comes in handy, especially on fights that require some ranged DPSing.

Technically 50/21 would have the strongest HB's (taking Impurity over Gargoyle would strengthen this) however the overall DPS of this spec suffers. As far as Sardonic's question I shifted from 32/39 Pre 3.0.8 to 33/28 Post (skipping CF for NotD and Deathchill) and saw a drop of maybe 5% in total DPS (rough estimate, naxx-to-naxx comparison factoring in changes in gear) the 5% loss was enough that while still topping DPS I'm now being pushed to perform much more precisely in order to do so. All-in-all 3.0.8 from my perspective has 33/38 DW exactly where it should be.

Replace extremely competitive with still the top dps, and ill agree. Seems many here missed the top raid dps thread?

Why are people still saying things like

It boggles the mind, you do not have to ask for "number-crunchers", you have ACTUAL IN RAID numbers right here:

Finding Top Raid DPS 3.08

Although there is a 2h unholy parse very close (but that is with the, in my oppinion, ridiculous, heigan sigil), 32/39 remains at the top.

Long time reader, first time poster here.

I really can't imagine what numbers people where putting it before nerf/fix(whatever u want to call it). I picked up a Hailstorm the other day from Maly and decided to try out 32/39, offhanding Hatestrike.

I thought I was putting out some decent numbers as UH with 2,5k+ on most heroics, but really with this spec I'm seeing 3k+ on heroic runs and 4k+ on bossfights, and this is with having no 25 man gear at all and still messing up alot on the rotations(Tend to BS on the death runes), can't imagine what is possible to put out when u do flawless rotations and pop Garg with procs/trinkets.

Just a quick silly question: Apart from all the other Heroics I seem to be alot less damage in Nexus. There really is no valid reason for this sicne there are plenty of 3-4 man packs. Anyone have an idea what the issue could be?

Ahoi!
/
Nyli

Some Haste related questions/thoughts:

I seem to recall people discussing Blood Boil vs. Blood Strike on single targets earlier in the thread. Given that haste now benefits KM, I was wondering if it is possible (and plausible without utterly gimping your DPS) to see an inflection point where BB overtakes BS? This would be due to haste reducing the GCD enough to fit in more RP dumps, as BP's 15% damage modifier outweighs Unholy's 1.0 GCD.

I'm also mildly curious about the value of reducing 4 GCDs to 5 seconds rather than 6. (1.25 sec GCD) Theoretically I could see this would benefit squeezing in Rime Procced HBs with death runed ITs without having to clip as much at the end of your rotation, although 656 Haste rating needed for a 1.25 second GCD seems vastly prohibitive at current gear levels. With IIT it'd be 492 Haste rating.

Lastly, past the spell hit cap, would haste or hit rating be more beneficial to improve KM procs?


EDIT: With KM driving a ton more of our damage pre-3.0.8 and being crit based, I never put huge store in Expertise for 31/40 given that it only helped our white damage. With the necrosis buff and KM now based on hit, is capping against dodge now a definite priority?

1% haste should increase procs 1%, unless I'm missing something.

Let's say we have 90% hit to start off. So we get procs at 90% efficiency - 4.5PPM. Adding 1% hit means we proc at 91% efficiency - 4.55 PPM. 0.05 is 1.11~% of 4.5. So from a pure procrate PoV, looks like hit wins. From a pure DPS perspective, I find it unlikely that the extra 0.11% outweighs the extra 1% ghoul and gargoyle haste gained from 1% haste, plus any GCD inflection points that may arise.

Haste and hit have identical rating conversion, so a direct 1% to 1% comparison is valid.

Regarding BB vs BS, it's a very murky issue. The math seems beyond anything I'd want to go into by hand. But I find it unlikely that a Howling Blast spec has need for the global cooldowns that using BB and stacking haste provides. As 20/51, though, I'm constantly sitting on an unused unholy rune and thus would always gain something from faster GCDs. Whether it's worth it is tougher to figure, but in the anecdotal, I find that using BB over BS is a DPS increase. It's probably more the lack of dodges than it is the shorter GCD, though, and that's only for the fast/fast case. It also necessitates three talent points in Outbreak that could potentially be somewhere else, though no option is particularly compelling.

I've been using 32/39 as my spec and modified the rotation a bit.
Instead of the "traditional":
IT-PS-HB-BS-BS-dump
IT-PS-HB-IT-IT-dump

I've started using:
HB-IT-PS-BS-BS-(rHB)dump
HB(IT-PS)-IT-PS(HB)-IT-IT-(rHB)dump
(brackets denote rotation adjustment following a rime proc)
What I've noticed this allows me to do is to keep focus on my rime procs instead of trying to also keep track of KB procs. I find that I'm unable to monitor both and adjust my rotation by priority due to lag problems.

By having HB first in the rotation I maintain the dmg output, but also leave a larger gap between any IT use and the HB; in effect this seems to give me a better chance at using a random KM proc for an HB instead of an IT (since they're all grouped together). I noticed that in our last 25 man raid clear I had an HB crit rate averaging near 50%. This is a full 10% higher than the previous week, with no significant gear changes. The other advantage I seem to have gained is that I can focus on using my rime procs with a minimal change to my rotation (recall rune cooldowns counting down for a few seconds even when not used immediately). I do not use a /cancelaura macro, but have a key bound to the macro in case of a poorly timed rime proc (ie, right before a true HB in my rotation).

Unfortunately, I don't have a decent parse to post a comparison between the rotations in a raid environment. Raid buffs were uniform through both weeks, and the only gear change was [Favor of the Dragon Queen] replacing [Fool's Trial].

One last point is that I've seen a number of 32/39 dk's specing into both epidemic and desecration. I don't understand why, given the need for PS every 12 seconds to maintain the desecration buff. Is there something I'm missing here?

Any thoughts on the above?