Hi, long reader unstealthing here

Ive read the whole thread, and tested many things myself, but one thing i still dont know:

Is double Crusader worth it? Or is the ICD or PPM on it wasting the procs of the second weapon?

Has anyone tested this so far?

As GM of my guild, I send almost every DK over to this site to read and learn. And I've been reading all the threads myself as much as I can to gain knowledge from folks who are far better at math than I. I've found DWing to put the numbers up for me, and that's why I spec into it. DK playstyle all works well for me, so I'm sticking with what has the highest numbers atm.

I also use a priority system rather than a set rotation. I find my DPS is higher while actively choosing which abilities to use based on a variety of mechanics rather than to lock myself into a rotation. So far it's been working great, and hence I'm going to stick with it. Personally, I just bumble too much when I'm in a strict rotation and something gets messed up.

Now that is said, I've been toying with some ideas come post patch.

As we know, we are only going to have one DK as 0/20/51 for raiding. We usually run with 2-3 DK's, and I'm not the one who spec's into ebon plague.

I am currently running the cookie cutter 0/32/39 build, and I'm really enjoying it. But with the few changes upcoming with (mainly) crypt fever not stacking with ebon plague, it leads me to believe that a another spec might take the cake when it comes to damage.

I've looked at the usual 0/44/27 build but I can't say I'm too thrilled about it. I think there are some talents that can be moved around for better DPS, and so I've come up with this build which I think will be a viable replacement for the 0/44/27.

0/44/27 - Changed to allow for 3/3 Runic Power Mastery in Frost instead of 3/3 Annihilation. I think this would be a major boost because you would be able to potentially get a FS off while Gargoyle is up if you waited for full 130 RP to pop it. Also having 4x Frost strikes in a row in needed can flow well into a situation. It also leads to a bit more flexibility on ranged DC for fights like Malygos, where in vortex you may not be close to the boss for long periods of time.

I still am not sure how much the viability of the 32/39 (or variants within) will decrease with the patch. But I know the biggest change I really fear is not the PPM, but the lack of a 3rd disease.

As far as weapons go as well, I have Hailstorm and Hatestrike currently as my F/F set. I also have Silent Crusader in the bank. I'm going to do some extensive testing on my own when specs come out, but I have a feeling Silent Crusader/Hailstorm (or basically anything with high numbers and S/F) is going to be the most viable combination with the 0/44/27 build (because of Frost Strike being based on weapon damage).

I also believe that haste stacking (to a moderate degree) is a very undervalued stat at this point in time. With a large amount of haste, it will increase the PPM and also increases the attack speed on our weapons, which melee is still a large part of our DPS it still works out to be better that stacking armor pen for example.

I also find that Crusader MH and either Cinderglacier/Razorice offhand is the best for runes on weapons. Cinderglacier if another DK in the raid is running with Razorice, and Razorice if you will be providing it to the raid.

Thanks for reading this through, and though I have not sat down and done hard math, I've though about this a lot. I've tried to cram as much information as possible in here, and looking forward to feedback. Love the numbers DW DK's can put out.

Is crypt fever really not able to apply anymore when someone has Ebon Plaguebringer up, or do the disease bonuses just don't stack anymore ?

What I got from the patch changes was that the 30% disease damage bonus simply doesn't stack anymore, but that you'll still keep your 3th disease.

In which case NotD / Crypt Fever and Bone armor are still worthy talents to spec down to.

Anyway the benefit of Runic Power Mastery is limited, and depends on your playstyle as well. Some prefer to shift all RP dumps to the end, in which case it might be nice to have. Others use RP dumps in between attacks, which usually is best (if you look at the KM spread factor) and often prevents you from overcapping RP.

CF does not go on the boss if there is EP already there. only 1 DK gets the bonus disease until blizz fixes this issue.

Back on page 46 people were talking about how Guile of Gorefiend is providing half the bonus it should be to Howling Blast; has anyone reported that as a bug on the Blizzard forums? Be nice if someone could do that with some data in hopes that it gets fixed before the patch comes out.

I'm mildly confused right now.
On some of the WWS links for Patchwerk, with the 32/39 build showed people with at most ~25%-30% Howling Blast Damage followed up by Icy Touch and Melee.

However with my Patchwerk fight last night I managed ~29% Melee, 18% Icy Touch and 17% Howling Blast.


During the Fight I was using Widow's Fury and Hailstorm.

its because you are in unholy presence. you should be in blood for the 15% dmg to all instead of 15% haste for melee swings. blood presence will drop your melee dmg done a little bit, but bring all your other dmg up

Guile of Gorefiend increases the critical strike damage bonus of HB and the like. A critical strike with howling blast can be piecewise broken up into two parts.
Regular attack damage: 100%
Critical bonus damage: 100% (not 50% like most spells due to spells critting for 200% unlike most casters).
GoG will increase the second portion of the critical strike by 45%.
Your crit is now broken down into: 100% + 145%
While it is a 245% critical, lets say you originally crit a HB for 1000 damage. The normal hit would have been 500, and the critical bonus, 500. This pushes the critical bonus to 500+(.45*500)=725. Sum the normal hit component and the critical bonus component to yield 1225, or a 22.5% increase in critical strike damage. Do you believe this is incorrect functionality? Perhaps I misunderstood your problem or GoG's effectiveness ingame.

You're describing it correctly; however, your description does not reflect the numbers we're seeing (12% increase in total crit damage), thus we believe the talent is not working as advertised. Yet, I believe it's working as they would *want* it to, as they clearly would not want to buff our damage further at this point.

Fixing HB would not just fix it for DW specs,

it would also fix it for 2H frost specs so bringing it up with blizzard does not necessarily have to make it look like its a buff to DW.

No it would HELP in addressing the issue in the correct manner.
Fixing something by abusing bugs is hardly a good way to balance something as bugs rarely have only a single effect.

In the 44/27, is that really HB-IT, and not IT-HB? If IT-HB, that would make it exactly like the 2h rotation at that point, with swapping howling blast for Obliterate. Just needs a Blood Tap to start it off.

You want to 'cover' your ITs with HBs, so that more of your KM procs go towards HBs than ITs.

If you do HB, then IT. IT would take the KM proc if you get one right away.

Makes more sense to me to start with IT then HB, since then you would double your HB damage and more likely to have KM for HB. (That is if you are starting your autoattack with IT, which I do since you might not be in melee range all the time anyways) Plus it activates Glacier Rot talent for your HB to do more damage as well.

I think this simple rotation/priority would do more damage, for 44/27. Start with Blood tap & horn of winter. Using FS, IT glyphs and Chill to the grave.

For single target in blood presence.
IT, HB, BS, HB if KM is up else RP dump.
25, 45, 55 RP if you use how you would have enough RP to do 2 FS.

With no haste:
1.5,3,4.5,6 you have 4 seconds of leeway to use 2 RP dumps and Rime procs

with the
IT, PS, BS,BS, HB or w/e rotation you would be at 7.5 seconds which is not enough to use both 2 rp dumps and rime.


You could basically keep this rotation up all the time. You would always have F,F,U,U,D,B runes in each rotation.

But for maximum damage you can change the rotation if you have epidemic, to HB whenever KM up, then IT>BS>RP dump.

For AoE use Pest instead of BS and use it before the first HB.

PS+blood Plague do little damage anyways, so I don't use em in the rotation. And from looking at a Rens WWS from here HB + FS/DC is greater or about equal IT + PS + BP damage. But she/he was the 32/39 spec at that time I think, and 44/27 HB hits a fair bit harder and BP + PS would do less damage. So for 44/27 I think HB + FS/DC > IT+ PS + BP.

I have the HB + FS/DC since using that instead of IT PS for the F/U also gives your more time to do another GCD.

This is what I think for the new patch. Though you could use a somewhat similar rotation on live as well.
IT, HB, BS, dump, HB,
then HB, IT, BS, dump, HB.
There would be some dead time between the HB unless you have extra RP though.

The 3.0.8 patch may be coming this Tuesday (which changes everything), but until then here are some more 32/39 numbers on Patchwerk: 7203 DPS (Recount SS - WWS Link: no ghoul or army of the dead). I actually had to step out for ~7 seconds since I overtook the third hateful tank in threat, so numbers could have been higher. I'll try to stay logged out in my DW gear, but no promises on spec.

Using
IT-PS-HB-BS-BS
IT-PS-HB-IT-IT

Army of the Dead at the pull
/cancelaura Freezing Fog on my HB macro
Icy Touch, Plague Strike, and Ghoul glyphs

Haha, that's pretty absurd. Go go Grasscutter.

Very nice parse though, even with the step out I imagine it would be hard to beat; you've got a pretty short fight time, and a 96/91% crit rate on IT/HB. Also looks like your Gargoyle was hit pretty optimally.

Ok. First post for me here

So, I was thinking that since patch will nerf our third disease for the 0/32/39 Build maybe I could compensate damage from the bladed armor in the blood tree. It is roughly a 380 ap increase, which will provide a buff to our white dmg, spells, gargoyle, and pretty much everything. So my question is: Will a build such as the following be viable in your professional opinions:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The one point in virulence is because it will not stack more than 1% hit for spells, and the 2 points in epidemic will be beneficial because with the no CD on HB we could fit more free HB's in our rotations.

DW thread is getting way too much centered on pumping out max damage on Patchverk which is rather insignificant boss other than measuring potential damage on ideal condition. How many bosses are like g'old Patchy?

Desecration has been proven to be quite poor talent overall long time ago if there's any movement involved not to mention those people who spec epidemic also or not taking 5/5 in desecration. Speccing for permanent ghoul and yet skipping NotD? Yes works for Patchy but pretty much elsewhere ghoul dies often and 5min CD is reducing dps gain from several talent points to rather marginal increase. So called 32/39 desecration cookie cutter build is just Patchverk build in my opinion.

To Soath: Raid hit rating cap has been discussed to death pretty much everywhere if you had done any research. KM being changed based hit instead of crit will increase value of hit some but it's only talent "requiring" having hit over 8% it shouldn't matter that much. Since KM change news there hasn't been post about calculations how much increasing hit would increase damage in last 4 pages it means that there is no new hit cap "agreement" for next patch other than old 8%.

Would you mind please posting the macros you use for the 0/32/39 build? Right now I'm doing it all by hand (Just switched over from unholy 2h) and I can't find them anywhere.

Macros should be something along the lines of:

33/39 Icy Touch macro:
#showtooltip
/cancelaura Freezing Fog
/startattack
/cast Icy Touch

33/39 Howling Blast macro:
#showtooltip
/cancelaura Freezing Fog
/startattack
/cast Howling Blast
/cast Rune Strike

Why do people keep saying 33/39 and the like?

Anyways expertise and weapon speed, are we still wanting to have 26 expertise with the DW spec? Or is that diminished as well? And the only thing then we are shooting for hit wise is 8% for spells? Will using something like the broken promise be useful in a striking dw build? I'm having problems figuring out which way is the right way to go as far as using a fast/fast or slow/fast as a different spec from 32/39.

@Soath: you want to get spell capped if you are going 32/39. if you get 3/3 virulence then you need 11% spellhit if you have a boomkin or spriest in the raid.