Dual Wield Builds - Page 43

immortalix · 01/08/09, 10:08 PM

Originally Posted by Ren

I started channeling Army of the Dead the second the boss was engaged and then followed this rotation:
IT-PS-HB-BS-BS
IT-PS-HB-IT-IT

I have recently specced 0/32/39 coming from 17/0/54 and changed my glyphs to PS/IT & Ghoul.

I have a question about this rotation, and similar rotations: does anyone else find that they are easily getting hitting the RP cap? In such case would you use DC so you don't "waste" the RP, regardless of whether runes are available yet or follow the rotation and only RP dump when the runes are still on cd?

I agree that on fights with lots of movement, it's difficult to stick with the set rotation and a priority system would be more useful. I have been following this thread backwards and I haven't been able to find more information on this, what is the priority system for the 32/39 build? Apologies in advance if this has been addressed already.

Thanks

Epicness · 01/08/09, 11:22 PM

Originally Posted by Inzo

20/51 is giving best results using a priority system. Since you regularly have 7 cooldowns to use every 6 rune cycle, you have to use the abilities that provide the best effect. That being said I usually use this system...

Plague Strike (when desecration or blood plague are down)
Icy Touch
Blood Strike (converting blood to death)
Death Coil
Plague Strike

In a perfect world it would look something like PS IT IT BS BS DC - PS IT IT IT IT DC. While bloodlust is up, you can typically squeeze all 7 cooldowns in every cycle (1 extra plague strike).

Inzo, you said you used death coil in your rotation? I'm not experienced on deep unholy builds, but wouldn't it make more sense to use Unholy Blight instead? I looked at your talent tree and you didn't even spec into unholy blight though you have 51 points in unholy. Is there a specific reason for this? Also about how much dps are you pulling in 25mans as 20/51? Last question, does anyone have an idea how well 0/20/51 with compete with 32/39 and 44/27 builds when the patch comes out and Howling Blast has no cooldown? Any feedback would be great, thanks.

mewse · 01/09/09, 12:06 AM

blizzard changed the wording on killing machine on the PTR so i was sort of worried that DW builds were facing a huge nerf, but i went to a target dummy and used this spec and a howling blast rotation and i did even more DPS that i do on live.

the rotation is a variation on a 2h frost rotation:

(before fight) blood tap
IT-HB-HB-BS-DC-DC repeat forever

sometimes there will not be enough runic power for two death coils but there might be a glyph or something that could boost runic power generation, i'm not sure yet.

but i do know that i'm excited about the patch now, i have no idea why they decided to remove the cooldown on howling blast but the future for dual wielding is looking good from my perspective.

edit: here is ghostcrawler confirming killing machine going to PPM.

gorfiend252 · 01/09/09, 12:11 AM

So with the changes to KM becoming a PPM, is it still safe to assume that a slow/fast will not out dmg a fast/fast still because of the BCB changes and Necrosis?

Janraea · 01/09/09, 12:12 AM

Originally Posted by everwatch

In what way don't I know what I'm talking about? I post on EJ plenty. I'm "one of these posters" here at EJ.

KM moving to a PPM is an awful idea. I stand by that assessment. If the concern is over too much benefit being gained by fast weapons, an internal cd like the WF weapon imbue internal cd would be a simple and easy fix. But note again, this was an assessment. Not something that a Blue post said they were considering. I in no way indicated that Blue posts suggested anything other than using a PPM method. Had you bothered to read my entire post, you'd have known that. A PPM mechanic will, imo, significantly hurt this talent for all DK builds. Whereas a short internal cd would not make it suffer except in context to DW'ing very fast weapons (which from what I understand from Blue posts is Blizzard's primary concern atm).

Blizzard had just previously posted this in reference to DW'ing and Patchwerk: Ghostcrawler 1/02/09 My post refered to a 15% Gargoyle because all of the major online discussion atm refers to 6k+ dps reports from DW builds which utilize Gargoyle at Patchwerk (considered the baseline comparison for potential dps). My personal best at 5700 dps also used a Gargoyle as UNHOLY spec (not DW), where the Garg did contribute a solid 15% of my dps (and had done so for multiple Unholy specs). The listed example for the DW only puts Garg in at 11%, however I cannot be sure if he popped his before a Heroism and/or before an AP on use/proc abilities/items. However I have seen other DW reports as high as 15% for their Gargoyle as well. So the same has held true for 2 different specs at the same fight on more than one occasion. That dps proof for my numbers is linked/SS'd on my site and in the Unholy thread.

While a gargoyle can and will range anywhere between 5-18% of your total damage done depending on numerous factors such as when it was used, where it was used, what encounter you face, lucky placement out of AoE damage, etc...the fact that it can be 15% of your damage even some of the time makes it problematic from a balance perspective. Moving it deeper into the tree to make it an "Unholy" specific trick could save it from a nasty hit by the nerf bat imo since Unholy is the "pet" tree. Leaving it placed where it is will likely see it suffer a massive setback for dps however.

I said you didn't know what you were talking about because you gave numbers that were misleading and gave opinions that lack basis in reality.

>KM moving to a PPM is an awful idea.

Your proposal that KM have an internal cooldown like windfury would be met by a mob with torches if you said it in the shaman threads. Do you have any idea what kind of *wierd* effects that has had on their weapon choices at various points in the game? It's a silly system, and they're doing their best to get rid of it from windfury, they're certainly not going to change KM to work that way.

>A PPM mechanic will, imo, significantly hurt this talent for all DK builds.

You're wrong. A PPM mechanic would take this talent from *absolutely worthless* for any 2h build to being useable. The effective PPM right now for a 3.6 speed two hander with 28% crit is roughly 3. No one with a brain takes this talent for a two-hander build right now, it's worth less than a .4% dps increase per point. Switching to a ppm would make it equally effective with all weapon speeds - I would consider it even more balanced to make it proc only on the main hand, to avoid any DW advantage.

As for the gargoyle.. Have you been reading anything I've said on the topic? Gargoyle is worth 7-8% of your dps *tops*. I know what your WWS says, but it fails to report the 11 DCs you skipped to keep the guy out - subtract them from his 'worth'. I would agree that it needs a bit of a hit, or a move. But the talent is not worth 15% dps in any situation, even if you kill the boss in exactly a minute.

Originally Posted by dr_allCOM3

Summon Gargoyle now persists up to 30 seconds (Down from 1 minute). Damage from Gargoyles has been reduced from 64-86 to 51-69

If the scaling hasn't been changed, this is not that terrible. If the scaling has been changed by the same amount, the talent is now worth nothing.

Goetterdaemmerung · 01/09/09, 12:13 AM

To my understanding, KM becoming a PPM mechanic is still only a theoretical.

I'm still testing on the PTR training dummy, but it seems that
(1) overall my DPS has not gone down
(2) gargoyle damage has been nerfed significantly. A 6200-AP-while-cast gargoyle hits for 1930 per strike, down from 2800
(3) KM procs at roughly the same frequency; I would believe it if blizzard has not yet made a change

Sacerdos · 01/09/09, 12:14 AM

Originally Posted by gorfiend252

So with the changes to KM becoming a PPM, is it still safe to assume that a slow/fast will not out dmg a fast/fast still because of the BCB changes and Necrosis?

No, they're changing BCB off-hand procs to work off off-hand weapon damage, but Slow/Fast is now better than Fast/Fast, but by VERY little because the only strikes a 32/39 or 20/51 build uses are Blood Strike and Plague Strike, which are a very small portion of our damage. Slow/Fast is, of course, still the way to go with 44/27. Necrosis gives the exact same benefit to Slow weapons as Fast, so that doesn't matter.

The interesting thing is that now that KM will be a PPM, Hit stacking might be a good idea because KM will only proc off of successful white hits.

Edit: Goetter, they put a new PTR with the PPM change.

Broseph · 01/09/09, 12:19 AM

Originally Posted by Goetterdaemmerung

To my understanding, KM becoming a PPM mechanic is still only a theory

PTR Patch 3.0.8 - Build 9438

So it's happening for sure.

@ Everwatch, the closest thing I think we have to compare to is Maelstrom Weapon for Enhancement Shamans. It was changed to a PPM system, and it's still great: full stacks are generated consistently and quickly, there's just a lot less room for abuse by stat stacking. I have faith Blizzard knows what they are doing, and DW viability will remain about where it is now, while the potential for absurd DPS will be lessened significantly.

Aisuken · 01/09/09, 12:26 AM

The official word atm is 1 ppm per point in the talent. Obviously this is the right move to make to balance its worth for DW and 2h.

What are people's thoughts on where we go from here? With a ppm system I don't think f/f will maintain the same attractiveness, even if it's DPS isn't significantly lower. I would imagine that s/f would at least be more consistent damage and less RNG prone. For what it's worth, I'm even wondering if s/s would be worth trying if BCB OH procs are based of OH damage now.

Janraea · 01/09/09, 12:34 AM

"Killing Machine now gives Your melee attacks a chance to make your next Icy Touch, Howling Blast or Frost Strike a critical strike. (Old - 10/20/30/40/50% from critical strike)"

If I'm reading that right, they screwed it up. 'Melee attacks' implies that PS, BS, et al will trigger the proc, which makes either useless to DW or overpowered for 2h Frost. It also means that for any Frost build with that talent, slower is better to a startling degree. Remember how shamans used to have a 2.6 speed *green* as higher dps in the offhand than a 1.5 speed t5 epic?

motif · 01/09/09, 12:36 AM

Killing Machine now is based on autoattack hits, not crits. Overall the random element will decrease, but it won't greatly benefit faster weapons. It will still benefit dual wield, just not as much.

-Ghostcrawler

Edit: and of course: "It is on a proc per minute system, 1/2/3/4/5 at 5 ranks. It procs based on autoattack hits."

Deathwing · 01/09/09, 12:37 AM

How does a PPM system work when DWing? I know when you have 1 weapon, the derived chance to proc is based on base weapon speed. Obviously, you can't abuse instant attacks here since killing machine only procs on autoattack HITS. However, if PPM is only based on MH base speed...I could see a Slow/Fast setup maintaining the current proc rate, which from a few WWS I've seen seems to be about 10 PPM.

Aisuken · 01/09/09, 12:57 AM

I can't say for sure, but my understanding is that the PPM system works such that no matter what you will get on average approximately x procs per minute, as the name implies. I doubt having 2 different speed weapons would change this, most likely each weapon has it's proc chance calculated individually, but I could be completely wrong. GC does say that KM should still be better for DW, which if the above is true should not be the case. Of course DWing would more consistently give the average number of PPM whereas 2H would vary a lot more, which may be what he was referring to.

kurokaze · 01/09/09, 12:57 AM

Note - this was in reply to a SPEC POST that is now in the dung heap, but the bile has been boiling inside me every time I see the numbers 32 and 39 in close succession. Yes, I'm aware that 32/39 is slightly superior to 31/40 for Patchwerk. Patchwerk is not the entirety of raiding.

Rant time.

So what's the deal with Merciless Combat? It's a crap talent. C R A P.

The last 35% health is closer to the last 20%-25% of the fight because people with GOOD executes use them. Howling Blast and Icy Touch are something like 24% of your damage. How much DPS do you get from 6% of 24% of 20%? 1%? No, try lower. Half a percent? Getting warmer, but not there yet...

Edited slightly to be slightly less angry.

Back on topic: What I have a burning desire to know at the moment is whether haste will affect KM procrate postpatch.

Janraea · 01/09/09, 12:58 AM

Originally Posted by motif

Killing Machine now is based on autoattack hits, not crits. Overall the random element will decrease, but it won't greatly benefit faster weapons. It will still benefit dual wield, just not as much.

-Ghostcrawler

Edit: and of course: "It is on a proc per minute system, 1/2/3/4/5 at 5 ranks. It procs based on autoattack hits."

Well hell, that's a *buff* for dual wielding. Currently, with good gear we only get about 10 ppm, and some of those are wasted (another proc before we use the previous one). If that's 5 ppm, then unless they do something wonky to the proc rate for DW, we'll be getting 10 ppm now without having to worry about weapon speed and crit.

Inzo · 01/09/09, 1:09 AM

Originally Posted by Epicness

Inzo, you said you used death coil in your rotation? I'm not experienced on deep unholy builds, but wouldn't it make more sense to use Unholy Blight instead? I looked at your talent tree and you didn't even spec into unholy blight though you have 51 points in unholy. Is there a specific reason for this? Also about how much dps are you pulling in 25mans as 20/51? Last question, does anyone have an idea how well 0/20/51 with compete with 32/39 and 44/27 builds when the patch comes out and Howling Blast has no cooldown? Any feedback would be great, thanks.

Dropping one point in Wandering Plague for Unholy Blight is something I had planned on doing post patch. As for now, I suppose it would also work though runic power will be tight. I don't usually have time to cast my 6th rune before I need to DC before Frost Runes come back up. This means that DC gets cast after the first rune set and UB gets fired off after the second (post patch it doesn't matter). This should work, however. I'll try and get some UB numbers later this week and early next. Most of my WWS have been corrupted by awful lag issues but the best I have seen is right at 5400 on Patchwerk 25 man (without UB).

Post patch, I don't think anyone is debating the fact that Howling Blast will be better beyond a reasonable doubt.

exidence · 01/09/09, 1:14 AM

I usually just read these dps threads rather than post in them, but in light of my appetite for top dps in my guild, I'll make an exception.

Here's a parse from this week with 0/32/39 (slow/fast): WWS Link

I did get a couple Tricks of the Trade (not by request), but I'm still pretty satisfied with the numbers I was able to put out using just 10man weapons. That said, I still feel there's room for improvement, so any advice on areas I could do better in would be greatly appreciated. I'll be testing out fast/fast next week, so hopefully I've got everything down to a science by then to help me really smash the charts.

Thanks ahead of time!

Silentwalker · 01/09/09, 1:25 AM

Originally Posted by kurokaze

Note - this was in reply to a SPEC POST that is now in the dung heap, but the bile has been boiling inside me every time I see the numbers 32 and 39 in close succession. Yes, I'm aware that 32/39 is slightly superior to 31/40 for Patchwerk. Patchwerk is not the entirety of raiding.

*facepalm* Rant time.

Why the hell is Merciless Combat so god damn popular? It's a crap talent. C R A P.

The last 35% health is closer to the last 20%-25% of the fight because people with GOOD executes use them. Howling Blast and Icy Touch are something like 24% of your damage. How much DPS do you get from 6% of 24% of 20%? 1%? No, try lower. Half a percent? Getting warmer, but not there yet...

To think that it's worth giving up a point in Reaping is absolutely absurd.

*clicks on talent build* Oh, or giving up Gargoyle. Double facepalm. Oh noes, now it will only be overpowered for 30 seconds, instead of being overpowered for a minute! Better drop it ASAP.

Your Right Patchwerk is not the entirety of raiding I completely agree which is why a number of nerfs are coming to dw dks because of patchwerk data.. at least that is my opinion.

Merciless Combat
Rank 2 6 2 Your Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Obliterate and Frost Strike do an additional 12% damage when striking targets with less than 35% health.

Well I don't know why Merciless combat is so popular.. maybe it's because you use those two talents a lot in a dual wield build.. Well I can see that there are plenty of other choices to get in the frost tree like.. oh Runic Power Mastery great talent, chill of the grave, deathchill, or annhilation because these talents are much better to put points into than merciless combat.

As for the last 35% well it is an "Execute Range" for some classes now but, that doesn't mean doing extra damage to a boss is terrible it gets the encounter done quicker nothing more nothing less.

so 2 points into reaping is better than 2 points into MC.. I find it odd.. so I have to ask.. Why are you saying this and with what build is this regarding? so far at least to me you are making no sense.

Aezoc · 01/09/09, 1:33 AM

Originally Posted by Janraea

Well hell, that's a *buff* for dual wielding. Currently, with good gear we only get about 10 ppm, and some of those are wasted (another proc before we use the previous one). If that's 5 ppm, then unless they do something wonky to the proc rate for DW, we'll be getting 10 ppm now without having to worry about weapon speed and crit.

I read that as DW DKs will have 5 ppm on average, same as 2h, as I was under the impression that normalized procs took dual wielding into consideration. Am I missing something? Unfortunately I won't be able to get on the PTR and test until tomorrow.

Broseph · 01/09/09, 1:40 AM

Originally Posted by Aezoc

I read that as DW DKs will have 5 ppm on average, same as 2h, as I was under the impression that normalized procs took dual wielding into consideration. Am I missing something? Unfortunately I won't be able to get on the PTR and test until tomorrow.

If Shaman's Maelstrom Weapon talent is any indication (it's about the best thing we can compare to right now):

* Main and offhand weapons are on separate PPM systems. You get twice as many procs per minute by dual wielding, and the proc chance for main- and offhand is calculated separately for each weapon and based on the weapon's own speed.

* Haste, including Improved Icy Talons and Unholy Presence, will *not* reduce the proc chance per hit. So adding 20% haste also adds 20% more procs.

Until we have proven otherwise, these are the assumptions we should use since MW is now functionally so similar to KM.

Janraea · 01/09/09, 1:41 AM

Originally Posted by Aezoc

I read that as DW DKs will have 5 ppm on average, same as 2h, as I was under the impression that normalized procs took dual wielding into consideration. Am I missing something? Unfortunately I won't be able to get on the PTR and test until tomorrow.

I'm not certain about that, I asked about it earlier. But it works that way for enhancement shamans - the ppm is per weapon. If DW and 2h were both getting 5 ppm, it doesn't seem to make sense that he'd say "It will still benefit dual wield, just not as much", since it would benefit 2h at least as much as DW if they had the same ppm.

Does anybody have tested knowledge of a ppm-style proc that works the way Aezoc describes for DW?

Lazare · 01/09/09, 1:42 AM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

How does a PPM system work when DWing? I know when you have 1 weapon, the derived chance to proc is based on base weapon speed. Obviously, you can't abuse instant attacks here since killing machine only procs on autoattack HITS. However, if PPM is only based on MH base speed...I could see a Slow/Fast setup maintaining the current proc rate, which from a few WWS I've seen seems to be about 10 PPM.

Well, the way a PPM system works with a single weapon is to take the PPM rate and divide by the number of autoattacks you would theoretically make in 60s. Logically, it should work the same way for DW, so if you had say, a 2.6s MH and a 1.6s OH you'd get a hair over 60 autoattacks in a minute. If the PPM rate was 5, you'd get a proc chance of ~8% per hit.

Of course, applying logic to WoW mechanics is often a good way to make really plausible mistakes.

I'm looking forward to seeing numbers from people able to get on the PTR...

Edit: And yeah, if it works the way MW works, then this makes no sense at all...

Smeegy · 01/09/09, 1:51 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong but fast/fast will still be better for DW after 3.0.8 even after the ppm chance to killing machine right?

My reasoning is that BCB is being changed to use off hand weapon damage when it procs with the off hand. So you will not be able to use a fast offhand and slow, harder hitting main hand in the hopes of getting a lot of higher damage main hand BCB procs.

Necrosis also does the same thing with fast weapons than slow ones right? more necrosis attacks but for less damage. Probably don't need this answered.. just thinking out loud.

We will also get the same amount of KM procs no matter the speed of the weapon so slow/fast or slow/slow will gain no benefit over fast/fast so in this respect fast/fast will still be better or at worst the same.

So more howling blasts is a nice buff but our crit chance is being neutered. Going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Hopefully if we see our damage decrease it isn't too bad of a nerf but if it is I always have a betrayer of humanity to fall back on :P

Deathwing · 01/09/09, 1:56 AM

If this does indeed work like maelstrom weapon, I'm guessing 44/27 variants with a rotation mewse noted on the previous page will be top. Some things to ponder, slow/whatever + frost strike? Maybe even go unholy stance, frost strike glyph, and just totally abuse how many KM procs you'll get? I can't imagine Slow/whatever + frost strike in blood stance being better than whatever/whatever + death coil due to running out of GCD.

EDIT: smeegy, I fail to see where you advocate fast/fast still being better. If anything, DW will truly be speed neutral, with the exception of how what I wrote above pans out(and depending on how much you care about your BS and PS damage). Since OH BCB procs will no longer use MH strikes, it's taking away any weapon speed favoritism that existed in the talent.

Also, I think the math was done about 7 pages back. Current implementation of BCB favors fast/fast.

Smeegy · 01/09/09, 2:10 AM

My reasoning was that even though fast/fast has lower hitting BCB procs the amount of procs you get and the damage from them(since you're getting more) far outweighs the harder hitting BCB procs from a slow weapon. In the current version of the game BCB uses the main hand weapon damage for all procs(which basically makes fast/fast king) but in 3.0.8 an off hand proc will use off hand weapon damage. This means that when BCB procs off the off hand it will do less damage than it does in the current version. That being said I was thinking fast/fast would still be better just because of the amount of procs you get when using fast/fast.