You can accomplish this by momentarily unequipping one of your weapons. I imagine this could be optimized programmatically by an industrious lua coder.

To start off this is my first post (and i imagine reading that 100 times per thread gets annoying)

I'm currently switching between a 32/39 spec and a 0-20-51 spec, because for some reason i find i get more dps from 0-20-51 I really enjoy both specs, but 0-20-51 is a much easier rotation for me to use, and i particularly enjoy how on movement fights my dps stays pretty much the same with it. and i don't lose alot on fights when melee have to run out for 10+ seconds. I don't have any WWS's or anything, and since i mostly run 10 mans and the occasional 25 man, my gear is obviously not optimal, but i can't help that right now.

Anyway, my question is:

Once the patch comes out, and they nerf gargoyal, while taking off HB cooldown, will my favored spec see a signifigant dps drop? if so, should i switch to 32/39? I can hit decent dps (for my gear anyway) with both, but i still enjoy 20/51 much more then 32/39.

My rotation for 32/39 would be something like

PS-IS-HB-BS-BS

HB-HB-HB

in the next patch, would this deal signifigantly more dps then my current spec/general rotation? (Armory i might be pvp'd or something if you check that)


Edit: Also, are there any particular mods you all use to tell you when things such as Freezing Fog (Rime) and other things proc? i occasionaly miss it, and as a result get my rotation scrambled up, which i can fix within 2 rounds, but its still an overall DPS drop when it happens.

That was one of my first thoughts, but are you sure that won't reset the swing timer on both weapons? I'll check this next time I get a chance, but that's a few days from now.

To [not] answer your first question, we can't know yet. There are too many things they haven't told us about what they're doing - we have only speculation about *how* gargoyle will be nerfed, we don't know how the KM ppm will work, etc. Given that, there's no way to usefully predict relative dps of the two builds yet.

A lot of people (myself included) use a combination of NeedToKnow and TellMeWhen to track procs, cooldowns, and timers. TellMeWhen is very nice for tracking proc-buffs like freezing fog, death trance, greatness, mirror of truth, and unholy strength.

I'm pretty sure weapon swapping causes a GCD, and if it doesn't i think i read somewhere that in thie patch they are making it do so.

would that kind of make it more of a self-nerf to do this?

Thats true. From what i've seen and tested, garg is about 13-14% of our total dps on shorter fights (with it's total dps addition being less slightly for fights longer then a few minutes, but shorter then enough to use it 3 times or more, and thats if you just use it at the beginning rather then waiting on a mirror proc.)

So depending on the nerf, it could be a substantial nerf. I feel like either way, it will hurt my build more then 32/39 builds, since 32/39 get a decent buff along with the gargoyal nerf.


I'll have to check that out, working on the greatness card atm, its expensive as hell,but once i get it i want to be able to somewhat synchronize it with my bigger dps abilities, so thank you.

You will most likely have an empty GCD or two while your gargoyle is up. If this otherwise empty GCD could be used to reliably increase the number of usable KM procs over the course of the fight, no -- it wouldn't be a DPS loss. The only real question is whether it will also reset the MH swing timer.

Another quick question. Since f/f is clearly the way to go, i wonder where we should draw the line.

I currently use Fang of Truth x2 until i can get better. However i've been wondering.

Fang of Truth has a 1.5 attack speed, however there is a level 77 blue craftable (Furious Saronite beatstick) with 50 haste and 64 AP. I realize you lose some hit/crit moving to this, but heres the thing: It has a 1.40 attack speed. What are the basic stat weights with weapon speed included?

Is it

base speed > stats > damage?

or

damage + low base speed> stats > higher damage

is the .1 speed reduction (and roughly 3% haste) worth more then damage/hit rating? if so, is it possible that the beatsticks are better then epics too? where does the line for speed > damage get drawn?

On almost every fight, yes. But on patchwerk (and a couple other fights), we can assume that, once they are synchronized but offset, they will *stay that way*. The GCD doesn't matter, since you can do it inside the GCD - just do it immediately after you use a blood strike. The loss is just part of one white swing with your offhand, which doesn't amount to much damage. In a two minute fight, getting your weapons offset is worth most of a KM proc on average, which is something like 50 dps, not insignificant.

As I've mentioned, people use that number a lot, but it's misleading. A gargoyle isn't worth 15% of our damage, it's really worth 5-8%. The number in a WWS is not a useful one because you had to sacrifice 11 Deathcoils to keep that gargoyle up,


That's an interesting question. My rough simulation estimates that that would gain you about 1.3 ppm, which is worth somewhere between 80 and 180 dps depending on what rotation you use. The stats on a pair of epic weapons are definitely worth more than that, but the beatstick seems to be oddly decent for its iLevel, probably beating out the top blues for 32/39, until you have a significant amount of crit (in the range of 20%). My sim takes a while to run, so I'm operating with sparse data points, hence the vague numbers :-)

I've never noticed a bug, no. I don't use it to track anything with charges though. I don't even know *how* to use them to track cooldown refreshes, perhaps you mean TellMeWhen? I've noticed that it (and the blizz ui) highlight an abilitity as if there are no runes for it if it would have to use a deathrune to be cast, which can be mildly confusing (and makes it kind of useless for tracking my HB cd). I only use NeedToKnow to track buffs and debuffs.

I hope everyone is completely reading our Theorycraft Think Tank article ok DKs (Death Knight: PvE DPS) (Thanks Illundai) before asking a question here. If we get the impression you're asking a question that's answered in the TTT I just linked, we're going to infract you and throw away your post. Get a few of those and we'll ban you and be better off for it.

Don't ask questions the answers to which are easily available to you, please.

I've noticed a minor bug, simply something like if I refresh boner armor while it's already on me, sometimes the stacks on NeedToKnow don't refresh right away. Suffice to say, they do eventually refresh.

Yes, NeedToKnow is bugged. HOWEVER, if you go to NeedToKnow's comment section on wowinterface.com someone there has graciously fixed the broken code. All you have to do is post the listed changes into your NeedToKnow.lua file. Since doing this NeedToKnow performs flawlessly.

Fails to go up entirely. If Crypt Fever is already up when Ebon Plague attempts to apply, it is removed and Ebon Plague takes precedence. Damage tests indicate when this occurs you are not getting counted as having a 3rd disease, so it doesn't appear to be fixed in the same way Shadow Embrace has been (on the same PTR build no less).

NotD is good, but if the patch goes live with that mechanic in place it'll probably take 32/39 out of the running for me.

EDIT - Regarding weapon speed discussion, has anyone calculated just what kind of value should be given to each .1 speed of weapon increase? For instance, [Slayer of the Lifeless] compare to [Hatestrike]? The latter has about 1% more crit and roughly 15 more AP, but is .1 speed slower than the former.

Ok... So, I was given an infraction for making a " useless " post about why I'm getting parried at 6% exp. I was then linked to this information:

"Expertise Rating

Unlike Hit Rating, Expertise effects a smaller range of attacks. Because a large portion of Death Knight damage comes in the form of Diseases and RP dumps which cannot be dodged (Frost Strike, Death Coil, Unholy Blight), its value is diminished.

While hitting the Expertise cap may not always be desirable, it is still one of the higher valued stats, and should not be avoided. Additionally, Blood spec in particular, due to its heavy reliance on physical based attacks, can benefit very well from this stat. Finally, Death Knights as tanks have a much higher benefit from Expertise than those in traditional roles, so these values should not be used to make tanking threat decisions.

Keep in mind, that each spec has innate expertise (11/5/5 B/F/U) as well as racial bonuses (5/5/3 O/D/H).

* 1 Expertise Skill reduces the chance your attacks will be dodged/parried by 0.25%
* 32.79 Rating is equal to 1% less chance your attacks will be dodged/parried.
* 8.20 Rating is equal to 0.25% less chance your attacks will be dodged/parried and thus is equal to 1 Expertise Skill.


Expertise needed to hit Dodge cap:

Spec % Rating Skill
Blood 3.75 122.96 15
Frost 5.25 172.15 21
Unholy 5.25172.15 21"

Can someone please point me where in there it says anything about there not being a parry cap or perhaps more incite?

Remember that FS builds running FS rotations will have HBs either completely insulated or at least very well insulated from FS, so in practice it is generally higher DPS to let your FS munch the procs.

Take, for example, this FS rotation for 0/44/27...

IT>PS>HB>fs>BS>BS
HB>fs>IT>PS>HB>fs

...of the three choices two are FSc+IT1 versus DC+ITc (roughly, as one of them is at end of rune set) and one is FSc+HB3 versus DC+HBc. All three cases are easy wins for FSc for single target DPS with 0/44/27 (raid-buffed).

Take this more traditional one...

IT>PS>HB>BS>BS>fs
IT>PS>HB>IT>IT>fs>fs

...again we have FSc+IT1 versus DC+ITc, which are easy wins for FSc.

FSc+HB2 versus DC+HBc is roughly where the inflection point is. You only get a clear win for DC in FSc+HB1 versus DC+HBc, but that scenario involves a FS rotation in which a HB immediately follows a FS, which is something to avoid when you design your rotation.

Of course, all of this can change depending on what kind of KM PPM the patch brings.

Mobs can't parry from the back (ie. where you should be while dpsing). If you're seeing parries as a dps, rather than try and fix your gear, fix your position.

Then my question would be can mobs dodge from behind? If they can then I see the point of exp but if they can't then I don't hehe.

Every single mob in the game can dodge from behind.

It's not part of the documentation because it has been a well know game mechanic for years now. Everyone and their retard mother knows that mobs dodge from behind. If you've ever done any form of grouping as a melee class you can easily see that by the big fucking DODGED message that pops up on your screen.

You aren't going to go very far in wow whilst rocking that kind of ignorance.

Unrelated: I will be moving to 32/39 DW for my thursday raid, and I'd like to check in on the value of haste pots with respect to attack speed. The mechanics of the spec seem to lend themselves well to attacking as fast as humanly possible in order to maximize KM procs, as well as necrosis and BCB. With that in mind, does +haste go up in value for us, if we can get it in substantial amounts for certain periods?

Example: [Potion of Speed].

Lanky -- there's a neat answer, and it'll make you go "oh, of course!"

There's one particular "certain period" for which guaranteeing a "substantial amount of haste" is awesome for us: Gargoyle time. If you peruse Ren's WWS, notice he waits for his AP effects to proc, summons the gargoyle, and soon after uses a potion of speed (bloodlust isn't used until much later in the fight). That, plus his 10% haste from gear, is enough for 31 gargoyle strikes -- close to what most DK's get when summoning during bloodlust.

That, combined with how well we scale with haste (relative to other DK specs), make speed potions among the best "on-use" effects we could hope for.

I keep seeing ppl say get 8% hit cap, and others saying get to the spell cap. Which should I be aiming for with the 31/40 or 32/39? is that the 8% hit cap w/ nerves of cold steel (5% from gear)? also 8% hit cap puts me at aprox 10% spellhit, add 3% from virulence only puts me at 13% spellhit. is getting the spellhit cap not important enough to get it?

Roughly speaking Texas, if you are raiding with a Shadow Priest or a Moonkin, you want to shoot for 11% hit from gear. The reason we don't stop at 8% melee hit cap is because a signifigant margin of 32/39, 31/40 etc spec's damage come from spells, and only 25-30% come from Melee, or Melee strikes.

Absolutely delightful. See, Haste is useful for something.