Thanks for reposting the obvious, but some original post that gives a one sentence "you should use fast\fast" doesn't really help me, especially since the spec is still in a lot of flux. I myself aren't really that very good at the number crunching. I'm interested in the numbers on how our dps will be affected now that they've changed KM yet again.
Have to say I noticed a vast increase in the dps in most cases, particularly where the pets survived or there was little movement (desecration ftl?). I sometimes find I wish I had NotD, because of various situations where the ghoul died, but then I'd loose from CF. In some cases I felt that the spec was definately way too overpowered and I can appreciate the definate need for the nerfs that they are planning.
My thoughts atm are really about how I'll be speccing after the patch. Considering dropping CF because of the whole EP thing, getting NotD and Corpse Explosion (supposedly pretty decent aoe?). Although I'm still not sure whether I'll go to a FS build instead, or simply revet to 2h Frost.
Well, we really can't say until Blizz settles on a nerf and keeps it. Until then its all hypothetical. Hopefully removing KM procs from the OH was/is a bug and not intended since this would probably nerf DW too much.
I'm really hoping they don't go over the top with the nerf. After seeing patchwerk reports flying around with crazy high numbers they may feel inclined to overnerf the spec without considering that patchwerk (or a fight with(out) the same elements) is an optimal scenario and not what we are doing or will be doing in more challenging, or rather, more complicated encounters.
Well, we really can't say until Blizz settles on a nerf and keeps it. Until then its all hypothetical. Hopefully removing KM procs from the OH was/is a bug and not intended since this would probably nerf DW too much.
I'm really hoping they don't go over the top with the nerf. After seeing patchwerk reports flying around with crazy high numbers they may feel inclined to overnerf the spec without considering that patchwerk (or a fight with(out) the same elements) is an optimal scenario and not what we are doing or will be doing in more challenging, or rather, more complicated encounters.
Making KM proc only from the mainhand was my suggested solution to the dilemma. It does not 'nerf DW too much', it makes the talent equally effective between the two systems. If the ppm is too low, no one will want it, but that's unrelated. They may need to make up for the dps loss elsewhere (Impurity is my favored solution), depending on how far we fall, but KM was an overpowered talent by a long shot for DW. The solution they picked also buffed our weakest dps spec (2h Frost), which makes it quite elegant.
We are well above the intended level of top-end dps, and it may take a few iterations to get us where they want us.
I've read a lot of different things about gargoyle, so I finally got around to doing some testing. The results are confusing.
What I don't understand is why the Speed Pots are only increasing the dmg of my gargoyle when I'm in Unholy presence. It's like there is some kind of haste thresholds that need to be passed to see a jump in gargoyle damage? But even that doesn't make sense when you look at some of the other results.
things for people to do (probably should just wait till after next patch; good time to re-evaluate UP and haste in general with the KM changes; also gargoyle spell is being changed):
try this out themselves and see if I'm just crazy
create two sets of gear with the same AP but >5% haste difference (i don't feel like resocketing everything) to see how on-gear haste is figured into things
see how heroism interacts with each condition (get 3 shammy friends so you can get one every 3.3 minutes)
I did some testing as well after my last post about the Goyle and had similar results. I didn't post them here yet because i thought i missed some variable somewhere, but now that i read this it seems i didnt.
I came to the same really weird conclusion:
Buffing the goyle with a large amount of haste = large DPS increase
Buffing the goyle with a small amount of haste = DPS decrease
Also, at very low amounts of AP and base haste (read: naked tests) the effect seems to be decreasign dps more, while being at high amounts of AP/crit/base haste it seems to increase dps. This does not make any sense if you asssume the goyle is a simple 1-spell chain caster. He should scale linear.
I am going to test this a lot more when the patch hits.
P.S: one thing that really strikes me as strange is the RNG you post for yuor different runs. When i tested it, my goyle got 100% stable dps when i ditched all my procs. I did 5 runs in my reasonable gear (3200AP / 8% haste / 25% crit) and every time i got 868 DPS Exactly (difference less then 1.0). I got similar stable results for my other tests (high haste / low haste etc.), I remember my high haste goyle dsps being somewhere around 797 constantly. Maybe my Recount is just bugged.
edit: the KM nerf might not be intentional as a blue has said they will investigate.
Well that sucks. So things for DW aren't going to change too much for 0/32/39 it looks like. Anyone have numbers on 0/32/39 assuming it stays with the HB cooldwon and the KM nerf?
Also, can you post where you saw the info about the KM nerf possibly not being intentional? I didn't see it in the thread you linked, though I only read a few pages.
From the blue post it would seem the CD being returned is intentional; the wording on the tool-tip not being updated is what they are investigating.
Off hand wepons are not proccing Killing Machine at all. It puts DW at around 5 PPM for KM (was around 10 PPM for DW, 5 PPM for 2H prior to most recent patch).
Not sure if this is a bug or an attempt to drive DW builds into the ground.
This is what the blue post said was being investigated, not the tooltip.
This is what the blue post said was being investigated, not the tooltip.
I believe Lucke is referring to HB and not KM in his post. That reading the blue post regarding HB it reads as if Blizz did put the CD back on HB intentionally and the tooltip is not reading correctly.
Oh god the cooldown on HB is back? This is terrible news.
The one thing i hate about playing DK is the cooldowns-within-cooldowns. As if there arent already enough things cooling down to keep track of (i'm talking about runes here) without having to watch for ability cooldowns too.
TBH - what annoys me a lot is that the default UI cant seem to keep up with this - and half the time something appears to be "ready" it isn't. When I click it, nothing happens - and that infuriates me. I've noticed it seems to be particularly bad at keeping track of cooldowns-within-cooldowns like Bone Shield, HB and D&D.
Don't even get me started on Death Runes. The default UI basically doesnt understand them at all.
[Side note: Why the hell is D&D on a 30 second cooldown (which everyone reduces to 15 by default)? It's not like we can spam the damn thing - and even if we did, what on earth would be the benefit of doing so?]
Looks like /cancelaura Freezing Fog will be sticking around and I'll probably be banking my 1-handers to test out 2h KM/frost strike spam.
IT is too good to not spam it. You just use HB because there is an unused U rune left.
I'd nerf the IT talents if I were Blizzard. That's why DW is so much better.
Pulling this back from yesterday, in light of the apparent reversion of the HB cooldown.
I don't know how much you look at this (you being any of the people who are making spreadsheets/grafs/etc for this stuff), but how much nerfing/rebalancing would it take to make IT better than HB when FF was down, but not a better use of two death runes? This is assuming HB had no cooldown. Would changing the IT glyph from 10rp to +10% damage or something even weaker than that do it? Would the IT sigil need to be adjusted as well? Does Rime also need tweaking (lowered IT crit, full rp gain from a Freezing Fogged HB, complete redesign)?
Similarly, would changing KM to only affect the crit chance on your primary target with HB, or halving the aoe damage of HB, or something else be enough to keep frost aoe in line without adding the cd back to HB?
I don't think HB builds should be miles ahead in single target or aoe situations, but I (mostly) agree with the complaint about cooldowns within cooldowns. (I think there's probably merit to not being able to drop two DnDs at the same time, even if they couldn't stack. The ability to cover a massive space with high threat persistent aoe like that probably isn't "fair.") I'd like to see HB balanced to a point where I could and usually wanted to use it any time I had the resources, same as SS, HS and anni-OB.
Constructive and reasonably-defensible suggestions from people with a stronger direct understanding of the involved math might be able to help direct those guys toward an appropriate, but still enjoyable, nerf. Reverting the cd on HB makes me want to see some effort at that, anyway.
This thread is like a lich except his phylactery is the mind-numbing idiocy of every imbecile that walks the earth. -Slake
Pulling this back from yesterday, in light of the apparent reversion of the HB cooldown.
I don't know how much you look at this (you being any of the people who are making spreadsheets/grafs/etc for this stuff), but how much nerfing/rebalancing would it take to make IT better than HB when FF was down, but not a better use of two death runes? This is assuming HB had no cooldown. Would changing the IT glyph from 10rp to +10% damage or something even weaker than that do it? Would the IT sigil need to be adjusted as well? Does Rime also need tweaking (lowered IT crit, full rp gain from a Freezing Fogged HB, complete redesign)?
Similarly, would changing KM to only affect the crit chance on your primary target with HB, or halving the aoe damage of HB, or something else be enough to keep frost aoe in line without adding the cd back to HB?
I don't think HB builds should be miles ahead in single target or aoe situations, but I (mostly) agree with the complaint about cooldowns within cooldowns. (I think there's probably merit to not being able to drop two DnDs at the same time, even if they couldn't stack. The ability to cover a massive space with high threat persistent aoe like that probably isn't "fair.") I'd like to see HB balanced to a point where I could and usually wanted to use it any time I had the resources, same as SS, HS and anni-OB.
Constructive and reasonably-defensible suggestions from people with a stronger direct understanding of the involved math might be able to help direct those guys toward an appropriate, but still enjoyable, nerf. Reverting the cd on HB makes me want to see some effort at that, anyway.
"How much nerfing/rebalancing would it take to make IT better than HB when FF was down, but not a better use of two death runes?" You'll have to give a better question - IT is 'better' than HB in some situations and not in others *already*.
As for redesigning HB, there are plenty of ways they could do that. Make HB a single target attack that dots everything else. Reduce the aoe portion of the damage. Make KM not affect HB at all (that would simplify our dps so much!). Make it consume frost fever.
It doesn't matter - they are great at redesigning talents, they'd come up with something, if they decide it's necessary. I think the devs just don't understand how *difficult* doing full dps as a dk is - it's even harder than pulling off the maximized feral dps rotation, and hardly anyone can do that.
I have no doubt that they can design whatever they want to. They made the game and all that.
I would prefer them to stick with no cooldown on HB, though. They made a move that direction and now appear to be going backward. While I'm positive they'll end up making a reasonable balance decision at the end, I'd rather see it balanced around using HB two or three times per rotation, before Freezing Fog. Their most recent choice at balancing appears to be to skip that idea. Because I'd prefer to see an alternative choice, I was wondering about concrete suggestions that would present alternative viewpoints. Not "Make it a dot" but something like, "Reduce the direct aoe damage by 75%, add a dot that does 50% of the current damage over 6 seconds," from someone who has done things to indicate they might have a clue what they're talking about and who isn't just making numbers up, the way I did.
Again, I'm positive they'll come up with a solution. Indications are their solution isn't one I'll like. Perhaps I'm alone in that and the rest of you are happy when you see Deathgraf suggest you spam IT for six minutes, with HB only on Rime and KM procs. If I'm not alone, we would seem to be better served by suggesting reasoned and clear alternative nerfs to HB that allow it to be fair and balanced without a cd, rather than ducking, waiting and hoping.
This thread is like a lich except his phylactery is the mind-numbing idiocy of every imbecile that walks the earth. -Slake
It seems apparent that the "right" solution is just to reduce HB aoe damage, but it seems like they've run out of time to tweak that and are just going to revert to the cooldown instead. The CDs within CDs is very annoying, and I hope at some point they're able to revisit HB damage balance, but this seems like what we get for now.
Originally Posted by Apate
Yeah, I'm barely OK with myself being in the room while I have sex
I don't know how much you look at this (you being any of the people who are making spreadsheets/grafs/etc for this stuff), but how much nerfing/rebalancing would it take to make IT better than HB when FF was down, but not a better use of two death runes? This is assuming HB had no cooldown. Would changing the IT glyph from 10rp to +10% damage or something even weaker than that do it? Would the IT sigil need to be adjusted as well? Does Rime also need tweaking (lowered IT crit, full rp gain from a Freezing Fogged HB, complete redesign)?
The IT sigil was totally unneeded. There are too many talents that improve IT. IT should be a utility spell, that you have to use to apply FF or generate power. Just like PS.
You could buff Olit (SS/HS too) to let it strike with both weapons. A HB with no cd would also be fine.
How does a no-cd HB compare to cleaving HS and UB+WP for aoe? If HB doesn't benefit from FF on the aoe targets, only the primary? With HB at base (non-doubled) damage on aoe targets, does it matter if KM affects the whole thing? Does DnD use affect any of those answers?
It seems pretty clear that "reduce the aoe" is right, but that doesn't provide a useful direction. Putting a cd on HB reduces the aoe damage, so it fits the proposed answer. Doesn't make it an awesome answer.
I quoted Doc's comment about IT being too strong because it seems to be a problem to me. Maybe 0 20 51 spamming IT with no other choice should be a viable build, maybe not. The strength of IT makes it better in many situations with many variants of x 31+ x to spam IT with unused unholy runes. If nothing else, it seems like HB should be strong enough for single target that you'd always want to use it to burn the extra unholy. That was the core of the initial question: What specific changes would make drop Icy Touch enough to prevent IT spam builds from outperforming intelligent HB spam builds? Then you'd need specific changes to insure the aoe damage on HB spam builds was at a sane level.
This thread is like a lich except his phylactery is the mind-numbing idiocy of every imbecile that walks the earth. -Slake
Howling Blast cooldown is 5 seconds now. Apparently without the cooldown DKs were doing more damage than they are now on any fight with more than two mobs even after the KM and Gargoyle nerfs.
Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast weapons less likely).
So which one will be better? Slow/Slow, Slow/Fast, or Fast/Fast?
Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast weapons less likely).
So which one will be better? Slow/Slow, Slow/Fast, or Fast/Fast?
Any thoughts?
If you had been reading this thread *at all* in the last week, you would know that that topic has been discussed to death. There is hardly any difference, and slow/fast has a slight lead for builds that use frost strike.
Originally Posted by nachrichter
I quoted Doc's comment about IT being too strong because it seems to be a problem to me. Maybe 0 20 51 spamming IT with no other choice should be a viable build, maybe not. The strength of IT makes it better in many situations with many variants of x 31+ x to spam IT with unused unholy runes. If nothing else, it seems like HB should be strong enough for single target that you'd always want to use it to burn the extra unholy. That was the core of the initial question: What specific changes would make drop Icy Touch enough to prevent IT spam builds from outperforming intelligent HB spam builds? Then you'd need specific changes to insure the aoe damage on HB spam builds was at a sane level.
IT spam builds do not outperform intelligent HB spam builds. HB *is* strong enough for single targets that you'd always use it if you have spare unholy runes (and often when they're not spare). There is no 'should' involved here - some builds are viable and some are not. If any build becomes unviable because of changes, or because another build gets better, then switch builds. And stop using the word 'should' to talk about the relative strengths of abilities or specs; if you aren't going to back up your opinion with logic, then your opinion is unimportant.
Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast weapons less likely).
So which one will be better? Slow/Slow, Slow/Fast, or Fast/Fast?
Unless it has been confirmed that BCB is no longer normalized, you are 100% incorrect. A normalized attack like BCB will always benefit more from F/F. This has been discussed at length in this very thread.
That said, the benefit a slow mainhand will give to BS and PS *might* outdamage the DPS contribution from a fast MH BCB setup, especially if the BS glyph really can be activated by so many sources next patch.
Hey guys, LONG time reader, just now able to post.
Few questions for you guys out there.
I am 32/39 spec right now. I love it. Here are my questions as of the game right now, pre patch.
-What presence should i use in raids to maximize my dps?
-Fast/Fast is still the best dps right?
And post patch questions.
-Will 32/39 still be the best DW dps spec, or will 44/27 be more favorable with a slow MH?
-With the PPM killing machine change will slow/slow, slow/fast, or fast/fast be the best dps?
thanks for any replies, im just really confused/curious on what will be our best dps DW spec and weapon combos with the new patch.
01/15/09, 1:08 PM
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