This is the DPS i am doing at the moment. Unbuffed and with Bone Shield up. I used Gargoyle twice. I used the rotation: IT PS BS BS HB dump runepower with Deathcoil repeat. How come i am stuck at 1800 when alot of people do 4000 and more?

You're using a dummy, which means you lack 25-man raid buffs (+blood-caked strike and necrosis doesn't seem to work well on dummies). Also get some 25-man epics and your DPS should go much higher.

You don't appear to be using your death runes on IT as you appear to have used BS around twice as much as IT.

Your rotation should be
IT PS BS BS HB Dump IT PS IT IT HB Dump

As for people doing 4000 dps, a lot of that has to do with raid buffs.
When you get an extra 2% stats, 550 attk pwr, mark of the wild, warriors sundering, crit buffs, totems, it makes a huge difference. You essentially get like 8% crit and 700 attk power just for being in a raid. Not to mention debuffs making all your attacks do more damage and such.

On a side note

I tried out DW last night for the first time. I was doing about 1950 dps on the boss dummy using
0/44/27
IT PS HB BS BS Dump
HB IT IT HB Dump

In my 10man naxx (had no warriors or paladins or feral druids), I was doing probably 22-2500 dps on bosses and 3.5kish on trash. I was very unwhelmed compared to my 2h frost where i was reliably doing 3k-3.2k single target and 4k+ on trash with an easier rotation (at least i think it's easier).

Overall, I don't know if my subpar experience as DW was due to me being very poor at holding the rotation, lack of raid buffs, my lack of crit to fuel KM (only had 18% crit), poor ghoul management, and didn't pop gargoyle often enough.

Perhaps after the patch (when it comes) i'll switch back and try a rotation that i'm more familiar with to see how the numbers turn out.

Edit: I was looking at the wrong post before. That *is* a lot of bloodstrikes - is he using some build that has no death runes?

He's looking at the Recount shot a few posts up.

On a different subject, I'm not sure I'm convinced about Blood v Unholy presence. Even using a pretty carefully monitored priority system when running Blood (since you pretty quickly hit a point where you are generating more resources than you have GCDs for), I can't seem to do much but break even with Unholy on the boss dummy. Both seem to sit at 3.2k over 1.5-2 million damage. Once this upcoming patch hits and HB comes off CD it seems like I'd consistently be doing more in Unholy because I can find room for a couple Rime procs in a single rotation.

Garg immedietly after a Mirror proc.

Ghoul before the fight.

I believe you want to burn AotD directly after the pull.

Ghoul best 5 mins before fight without NotD!

I've really come to like the DK DW builds, but I have one problem, and I assume I am not alone.

I see people pulling these numbers on test dummies, something like 3.3k, and while I have good gear (excluding weapon) I can't seem to get up there no matter how hard I try.

My rotation is: PS>IT>HW>BS>DC>BS>IT>PS>IT>HB>DC>IT>IT

My character sheet is: Franctures

I have a recount SS: Recount SS

I guess my question is, is this spec very weapon dependent?

In the 0/32/39 DW build, would it be a good thing to take 2 points off Crypt Fever and put it in Notd ? Started getting use it to it in my Unholy 17/0/54 build and since it gets buffed next patch, tought it wouldnt hurt getting that talent. I am just not sure how important it is to have 3/3 crypt for the 0/32/39 spec.

how are you guys keeping track of the mirror proc, any mods you guys use to make it easy to notice?

I've never tried DW myself (i'm a tank) but i've been following this thread for a bit and there are some very obvious problems you have.

First, talent spec. You took annihilation which is worth very little to DW, skipped Chill of the Grave + Bone Shield and didn't max out Desecration. Try this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (Disclaimer: I have no first hand experience with DW but from going through rotations in my head i'm pretty sure epidemic isnt essential)

Secondly, gear. Whether intentional or not, you have way too much hit rating (8% over the melee hit cap when including talents). Your Meta is bad, much of the DW spec's strength lies in its high crit rate achieved through KM - you should be using the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. You are lacking a good amount of ap due to not having enchants on your shoulder, chest, bracers, gloves. Your gems are not optimal, you need to gem for as much strength/ap as possible - forgo non-strength socket bonuses and use 2 perfect sovereigns to fufill the CSD's meta requirement. Your belt has no buckle (and gem). Your runeforges are wrong, you should be running Fallen Crusader on the Main Hand and Razorice in a raid setting (however Cinderglacier on the OH is fine for 10man/heroics i think). Your Main Hand should also preferably be a fast weapon (1.5 or 1.6 speed).

[e] added quote to Narro since new posts appeared in the time i was typing this

On enchants, I have noticed, based purely on training dummy tests, that FC on MH and CG on OH provides the best personal dps, now I dunno how much 5% extra frost damage would be in a 25man raid setting. However, as I can see it, the 5% extra dps on 3 or so mages, has to be more than 100 DPS, which, admittedly, it could easily become, I just dont know since I dont raid 25man outside of pugs (yuck)

On talents; Afaik you do not want desecration in any specc unless your sole purpose is to be the highest damage dealer on fights like patchwerk =)... Other than that Id say your correct in what you are saying.

u can make scrolling combat text alert you when you gain certain buffs

Desecration in my experience is actually pretty good when you have 5/5 (very worth it if you have another DK providing Unholy Aura already). For every fight like Heigan or Globulus, there is a fight like Patch or Sapphiron. Moving fights are often more about execution than pure DPS, so I don't really see a problem with Desecration being bad on moving fights.

What is more important is that you have Desecration for fights that are tank and spank DPS races, like Thaddius. (Again, if no one has Unholy Aura in your raid, prioritize that first).

Well even sapphiron you have to move out of blizzard, and during air phase your not getting any use out of those 5 points. Kelthuzad wont allow you to have desecration up 100% of the time either, nor will Sartharion. The only fights where you could, in theory (with patchwerk in practice aswell), keep it up 100% that I can think of is Gluth and Patchwerk. Anyway this has already been mulled over many times in the 2hd unholy dps thread.

You'll put Desecration back up very soon out of moving out of Chill. The worse case is going without Desecration for one rune cycle (20 seconds). You might not even have to step out of your original Desecration to avoid it. And in Air Phase I'm not trying to DPS, I'm trying to find the Ice Block.

You don't really worry about maximizing DPS on the add Phase. On KT, I can just avoid the Shadow Fissure then step right back into my Desecration, or not have to move completely out of it at all. On Sartharion I'm not DPS'ing when I'm avoiding the lave waves, so that doesn't matter. I'm applying Plague Strike on adds to Pestilence it, so I'll have Desecration up when killing them.

I don't see why you say "you won't have Desecration up" like it matters during times when you aren't really DPS'ing at all (referring to Sapph air phase and Sartharion Lava Waves)

You don't have to have a 100% uptime to get a decent DPS increase from Desecration.

Your forgetting one thing, its not a buff applied to you, if I understand it correctly, but a debuff on the targets... So, say the tank has to move KT due to a fissure = no desecration till your next plaguestrike, say the tank has to move sartharion = no desecration (granted he has a big hitbox so one might be lucky eh :P). These aren't the only fights that are like this, take Heigan as an example, desecration is, more or less, useless on fights like him. One other thing; in a 0/32/39 specc, where would u get the 5 points from? Id say that the ghoul, with next patch, would be more reliable and better dps, extra disease for blood caked strike is another added bonus, and 2% from bone shield beats it too, especially since it IS situational.

Granted its not a USELESS talent. Hell I used it to slow the zombies on gluth with it (we don't have any mages, and no hunters were online, I had the only aoe slow, shaman healer was offline aswell ^^), but Id say itd be a more useful talent if the aoe did the slow but using plaguestrike gave you a 5% dmg increase as a buff to yourself. Don't think that'll happen though =).

in a 0/20/51 specc it might become more useful, but I haven't looked into designing such a specc with desecration in mind too ^^.

Edit: Yes, I must be tired, its if YOU are stood in the aoe, YOU get the 5% dmg bonus... I still think that there are better talents for a 0/32/39 build, with next patch anyway. I must be tired, sorry =)

from what ive seen the debuff on the target is the snare (even if they arnt snared, debuff still appears) and the dk (who has desecration) gets a buff with 5% more damage.

As for where the points come from, in terms of ure spec, Corpse Expl, Dirge and Unholy Aura for 5pts Desecration

As far as NotD goes, I just don't feel like I need it. There are about four fights in all of the current raid content where he doesn't live through the fight, and on a couple of them trying to resummon him isn't going to do anything but get him killed again in under 30 seconds (like Sapphiron). The rest of the fights he seems to live through just fine with AoE melee heals. Honestly I don't think I'll take NotD even after 3.0.8 goes live; it will increase his uptime on those four fights, but I'd give up 20% disease damage for myself and any other DKs (and a slight boost to S. Priests), so it's not a guaranteed trade-off. Moreso when you consider you'll lose the 20% disease damage for 100% of the encounters, whereas the NotD gains won't be nearly for every fight.

As for Unholy Aura, if you already have a raiding Unholy DK I probably wouldn't take it unless he/she isn't consistently there. As far as 10-mans go, in general they're all pretty trivial and I don't feel like it would make much of a difference outside of 2D or 3D Sartharion. If I was going into one of those I'd consider taking Unholy Aura and just respec back afterwards. My guild's only real focus is 25-man content and the 10-man stuff is off-night or PuGs though, so you'll have to weigh the importance of that yourself.

This is the reason why I am leaning towards unholy as it gives me more freedom and time to use my death coils and gives me the run speed bonus, also the haste that my ghoul gets isn't bad either. For some reason unholy netted me more dps at patchwerk though.

Please do not just say go blood as I think this issue needs more detailed coverage.

It's a slippery issue, and depends, I guess, on how you define freedom. To get Unholy to produce, you have to use an ability EVERY SINGLE GCD. And with a 1.0 sec. GCD, that's actually pretty difficult -- there's very little time to analyze your moves and plan.

I think a priority system works well for the following reasons: a large portion of DPS comes from autoattack, which is unaffected by presence. Another large portion comes from HB and IT, which are essentially locked in because of runes. If you follow any decent priority system, you are going to cast the same number in either Unholy or Blood. So it comes down to the quality of your filler moves plus the amount of time you have to choose your moves.

DW is a very difficult spec to eke the most out of: you have to watch runes, procs, and cooldowns to plan your next move. There is no question that (for me, at least) the 1.0 second GCD of unholy causes me to make errors in judgment in choosing my next move. It's just a <.5 sec difference (with haste), but having that extra time to think allows me to lay out my moves better. That has to positively affect DPS, no? As to how we can measure it, who knows...