I've pretty much settled on a 0/32/39 build using f/f and FC/RI, at least until 3.0.8, but there are a few other things that have been on my mind.

First regards rotation. I have been using:
IT > PS > BS > BS > HB > RP dump
IT > PS > IT > IT > HB > RP dump

but I have been wondering if this is really optimal. Specifically I hear a lot about priority-based rotations, or other rotations which fit in 3xHB. I can't help but wonder if those would be better, particularly with HB's cooldown being removed.
this post a few pages back has helped me understand the differences a lot better. For now anyways I think I will try replacing the 2 IT in the second half of my rotation with HB (after patch), or perhaps try using unholy presence and using the IT glyph (which I don't currently have) to squeeze out extra DCs.

On a separate issue, I was wondering how best to go about using Blood Tap and ERW to boost my DPS. Neither seem very significant but I'm feeling like using them properly could make a noticeable difference in my output. My problem stems from the way my rotation works (posted above). I suppose Blood Tap could be used to replace 1 BS with another IT for 1-2 rotations, but would that be that much of an improvement? I can almost see ANOTHER IT just sucking up more KM procs.

As far as ERW is concerned I don't see any way to really use it other than cleaning up rune cooldowns following some target changing, movement, whatever, or simply for the RP if say gargoyle is eating it a tad too fast for whatever reason. The only time I really use it now is if I want to get out a couple of quick Death Strikes. I suppose the same logic could be used for Howling Blast come patch time. Say something like:
IT > PS > BS > BS > HB
ERW > HB > HB > HB

I think maxing CF at the cost of Bone Armor and 1/2 Merciless Combat would be a no brainer if you were running with an unholy DK. Also, I think everyone running 32/39 should run with an unholy DK :-D

what presence are you in with this build? Also is there any aggro issues?

I've been using both presences, haven't seen much of a difference either way, although my gear is terrible right now.. and no, no aggro issues except under special circumstances.

DW DK's do not generally meet any aggro issues as a general rule, due to so much of their DPS being supplied by pets.

So I've been wanting to make a DW class for awhile now, and unfortunately Hunters, Rogues, Shamans, or Warriors never really intrigued me.

So I've been doing a lot of research on DK's, and it seems to be really interesting to me. That being said, I've yet to find anywhere that shows any kind of "stat weights" for DK DW DPS. Everything I find seems to be for a 2hander. Do these stat weights exist?

We don't even have a consensus on the best build yet. The top DPS numbers came from a deep unholy build (0/20/51) and a semi-deep unholy build (0/32/39). The build that looks very promising with the new changes is (0/44/27). Here's a breakdown of strengths/weaknesses of each one:

0/20/51 is the spell damage build. It uses primarily Icy Touch and Death Coil. It has the durable pets, the hardest hitting Icy Touch, the hardest hitting Death Coil, and works best with a Fast/Fast setup to maximize Blood Caked Blade damage. It also has a harder hitting Plague Strike. It also has Unholy Blight which is a nice DPS talent that also can double as more AoE as a runic ability.The best build likely won't have desecration as most Unholy DKs agree it's not worth the points and can kill you (you can't avoid fire you can't see). This works best if you have an enhance shammy in your raid and time your gargoyle for the Bloodlust. You get the haste and AP bonuses and you provide the Ebon Plaguebringer debuff and Unholy Aura to your raid. This one has posted the best DPS report of all builds. It's biggest weakness is the lack of Howling Blast.

0/32/39 is also a spell damage build. It uses Howling Blast, Icy Touch, and Death Coil. It has durable pets as well. It deals less damage with the Icy Touchs, Plague Strikes, and Blood Strikes but deals more damage when it can Howling Blast. This build brings the Icy Talon raid contribution that 0/20/51 lacks as well as more personal haste. More haste means more Blood Caked Blade procs and more Killing Machine procs. It uses Fast/Fast as well. This one has a solid record and is pretty good for AoE damage once the patch hits and Howling Blast gets no cooldown. This build has a number of supporters who regularly post numbers in the 5k-6k range.

0/44/27 is a Frost Strike build. It uses Howling Blast, Icy Touch, and Frost Strike. It gets the pets but they are not durable. This one has the hardest hitting Blood Strikes and Howling Blasts. Unlike the other two builds, this version gets two diseases which lowers the damage output of Blood Caked Blade. It also requires slow/fast which lowers it further. However, it's strength is quality of GCDs. Because of Frost Strike's lower cost (upcoming changes) and higher damage, this build is looking very strong when the changes hit. However, for bosses that like to AoE, your pet contributions may be very low. If your raid doesn't have a shammy but does have a Unholy Tank, this build is very good. If the boss pops your pets like a shooting gallery, you will cry bitter tears as they are easily 15%+ of your total damage output.

My personal favorite is now leaning deep unholy at 0/20/51. I'm looking at the numbers to see if a 0/18/53 would be better (remove two points in Killing Machine for 2 pts in Wandering Plague). It scales really nicely. It can use haste to lower the GCD time on it's spells so it can squeeze more moves out of Blood Presence. It has nice AoE potential with Unholy Blight and Wandering Plague as well as a harder hitting Death N Decay. Having Icy Touchs that hit like Howling Blasts on single targets is very nice as well as the harder hitting Death Coils. Depending on your latency, this build can come out a clear winner if you manage the haste to do a 7 move rotation in Blood Presence in 10 seconds.

044/27 - I thought for this build we concluded that using DC instead of FS yields a 2.8% increase in dps due to FS eating KM procs which does less damage output than IT and or HB using the KM procs? It was also apparent during my testing as well. Also the accepted rotation of

PS-IT-HB-BS-BS DC
HB-IT-IT-HB-DC

for this build is broken when gargoyle is active as we are not able to weave DC.s into the rotation to cut CD of runes. The wait is approximately 4-5 seconds for some runes during gargoyle and RP generation is really low.

Hi peeps, just a short question - i've looked thru latest patchnotes and dont see howling blast CD is removed. Can anyone confirm that either CD still exist or it is removed? Thanks in advance!

Hello, I've been following along in this thread and came up with some pretty amazing DPS numbers on patch this week.

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The ghoul did not show up in the WWS parse, but that recount shot was taken just up the path from Patchwerk. I've never experienced recount to be wrong for myself, so I have no reason to doubt the results.

Areas I'd like to see discussion go:

1. The howling blast change will solve the Rime problem, but will it effect other parts of the rotation? Should we grab epidemic to be able to blast more often? I'm thinking not, but I'd like to see if anyone has any math.

2. We do blood strike twice per rotation, has there been proof on if Frostfire bolt activates the "snare" requirement of the glyph for boss fights?

-Thanks to everyone who did hard work so far in this thread. Much appreciated.

The cd for HB is removed in the upcoming 3.0.8 patch.

To those wondering what weapons to use in the pre-raid gear phase I would suggest the Jin sword, emblem sword or failing those the sword from Wyrmrest Accord. Slow mainhands just don't seem to cut it.

Using 2 Jins and a build near 32/39 (a few random pts which doesn't matter) with unfinished heroic gear I can reach 4k dps without BL and with subpar 10man raid buffs. I am using CG on both my weapons but my gear has changed so much during the last week that I can't say for certain it's actually the best choice. It does however work very well and 10k HB's (per target) is juicy as hell.

Necrocis doesn't eat CG charges btw as someone seemed to believe earlier on.

While a rotation will change alot during the course of a fight and obviously depends on which stance one is in I am surprised that so many seem to propose a PS in the second part of the rotation as in:
(blood presence in mind)
PS-IT-HB-BS-BS
PS-IT-HB-IT-IT

I exchange that early UD rune for a DC and use HB-IT-IT-HB instead. While the first will refresh the runes sligthly faster and my rotation isn't 20sec I still believe that it will produce much better DPS since it also includes a spare GCD between the first and second part of the rotation, which results in a DC which does 2-4k more than that PS.

Does anyone with knowledge/math skills care to prove me wrong/right?

I think for the DW setups, with the new IT sigil and how much damage IT currently outputs, it is going to be more beneficial to spend all D runes on IT instead of HB. It should be a net gain in damage, especially with all Rime procs being accessible.

This is a great post, you should message Illundai with it, as I think this is exactly the kind of concise info regarding DW he was looking for!

What rotation are you using? Also, what glyphs?

We'd have to see how ITx2 compares to HBx1, DCx1 then. Maximizing Rime procs will be interesting with no HB cooldown, though.

I was thinking about:
IT-PS-HB-BS-BS
HB-HB-IT-IT

Or a 4/4 rotation:
Bloodtap:
IT-HB-BS-HB
BS-HB-IT-HB

But I can't really test because the PTR isn't working, and I'm not sure if that extra HB is better as having BP tick and those PS hits.

You could always.. you know... look at your buff bar and just hit DC over FS if you seem KM up.

Mindless spamming of skills without situational awareness lowers your DPS more than anything else.

I do not think situational awareness has anything to do with it. The post states that FS is your RP dump but it does not state that you need to reach for DC when KM procs. Why would this information be omitted if it was to be submitted for the DPS Compendium thread as others are asking it to be? If we assumed everything we would not need a DPS Compendium thread which summarizes to begin with.

I think mindless trolling on forums...

The post does not say you use only Frost Strike as your RP dump, period. It says the build features frost strike as the primary RP dump. Orlgin was highlighting the main features of each spec, not the finer points.

Writing the build off by saying FS results in a 2.8% DPS loss is shortsighted. (The tenth of a percent accuracy of the DPS loss is also absurd: modeling of all proposed specs and rotations up to this point has been quite crude)

Asari has a great point. 44/27 will probably benefit most from a priority system and not a fixed rotation due to the high density of Icy Touches causing Rime procs and the desire to hold off on FS when KM is active. You'd also want to raise FS's priority if your frost and death runes are on cooldown. That said, the 32 RP FS *is* an excellent ability. Especially with 130 max RP and with a stack of Razorice.

Again... If it is to be submitted to th DPS Compendium thread, finer points should be part of the submission especially if you are going to call it a 'Frost Strike Build'.

If you read earlier posts I am currently specced at 0/44/27 noone is writing it off, if they are it is definitely not me. I do not see any points about a priority system over a set rotation [your post excluded]. It is assumed.

I think FS > DC in man situations, even with eating KM procs.

I find a priority system works best for DW builds.
I almost never play with a set rotation for DW. There are just too many fights where you have to move and it screws up your rotation.

Being on the ball and being situation aware means that priority rotations works best.
Lately I have also been trying to do a hybrid approach.
I like to think of it as being "rune aware". If you are aware in which order your runes are about to become off cooldown, given the current situation you are in a boss fight, you can plan out the exact rotation you are going to do next.
And this "rotation" changes each time. If for whatever reason you lose track of your runes you just switch to priority spam and then concentrate on figuring out your rune cooldowns again.

Using this approach I am able to with much crappier gear keep up dps wise with our fully kitted out 2h unholy DK in the guild, because his approach is to lock himself into a set rotation with no flexibility.

Okay your post had several merits that I would like to address.First off HB in 3.0.8 will fix the issue with Rime,only because the GCD has been removed.

Secondly,yes Frostfire mages slow does activate the glyph.