"Blood boil will probably be discarded in favor of Pestilence postpatch." I'm not sure where that came from. I've not heard anyone propose that we use pestilence in our rotation, but BB has some decent math in support of it, as least at high haste values - we don't generally cap expertise, and IT does so much more damage than BS that it's not worth the dodges. Because of this, "Outbreak is a 'meh' talent for 3 points" is true only for certain rotations.
Given that Pestilence is a spell the same as Blood Boil, the only real difference between the two is that Blood Boil starts out dealing 58 more damage (and of course Pest has a cd currently), and they even have the same coefficient according to the think tank post - although I could be missing something that would improve Blood Boil and not Pestilence. Really, the differences can be ignored - the ~70-80 damage after multipliers is negligible compared to the other talents you'd be gaining/losing for going either 40+ in frost or 30+ in Unholy.
Outbreak is a 'meh' talent because it... well, is heh. Some quick napkincraft, assuming PS/BB/Pest are 5% of your DPS (which on a single-target would definitely be lower than that), you're looking at a .15% increase in your overall DPS for three talent points invested.
32/39 is currently the best dps spec in the game right now for DK's with ideal gear. Blood presence. Fast/Fast. How many times are we going to say this?
I've yet to see it documented that Blood presence is the best presence to use beyond Kyrre's post on page 47 of this thread.
Using the same rotation with my build blood comes out short by 500-800 points every time.
I've yet to see it documented that Blood presence is the best presence to use beyond Kyrre's post on page 47 of this thread.
Using the same rotation with my build blood comes out short by 500-800 points every time.
I'm not sure what exactly your criteria for "documented" is, but I've never seen a 6k+ patchwerk WWS or recount SS in anything other than blood presence.
Don't you think the with the number of people who are participating in this thread somebody would come out with one?
In the hope of moving this thread forward we need to stop bringing presence up, its been beat to death and blood presence wins every time. If someone has some good evidence to show that Unholy is viable, please post. If not, lets keep this thread on track.
I've yet to see it documented that Blood presence is the best presence to use beyond Kyrre's post on page 47 of this thread.
Using the same rotation with my build blood comes out short by 500-800 points every time.
Then you either have
a) a less than optimal rotation
b) bad latency
or
c) Combination of both
main concern with DK dps is to utilize the runes for maximum damage while at the same time staying below 100 RP, with that spec and 32/39 this can be done in Blood presence since its the same rotation. There is absolutely no reason UH presence would perform any better if you can dump your RP while maintaining a flawless rotation.
im not 100% on this but I am fairly certain that spells can have their GCD reduced to 1 sec through the use of haste. This makes haste affect IT, HB, DC while in blood presence, but in UH presence you will already be capped and receive no haste benefits to the spell GCD
I agree that BB will be worthless pretty much after patch.
Using BB give you:
- 58 more damage per mob (unbuffed) which is pretty much nothing
- 30 yard range which is rarely useful as you need diseases be up on mobs anyway
Therefore it is better to just use PT as it will:
- make rotation easier
- make sure that you and fellow DK will not loose any ticks of diseases
- free up one button on bars
Also according to scaling data I keep PT gets 30% damage from CF while BB doesn't. I do not know if its true anymore.
What should be done is that Outbreak should be removed and new bonus (+45%) should go as baseline buffing lackluster damage of both PS and BB. BB going back to tank skill with aoe taunt would not be bad idea also.
Beyond the longer range, pestilence doesn't generate a death rune via reaping, so BB still has some use for unholy builds. I'll probably macro something like "/castsequence reset=4/combat/target pestilence,blood boil" to dump blood runes while AEing.
BB isn't so useless that it's disappearing from my bars, but it could definitely use a look.
- 30 yard range which is rarely useful as you need diseases be up on mobs anyway.
This is the big one. Perhaps not enough reason to spec into Outbreak, but I find this 30 yard range to be huge. You're right that diseases have to be up on mobs -- fortunately, Icy Reach increases Icy Touch's range to 30 yards (I think Icy Reach is underestimated as well, but that's for another post). With a 32/39 spec, blood boil is a way to create death runes from 30 yards away.
Anecdotally, I feel like I maintain about 40% of my DPS from 30 yards specced into Icy Reach and using Blood Boil. This is a lot more than most (all?) other melee classes can boast.
btw, /wave Fargom I'm that stalker dude that logs on level 1 alts and asks you questions.
Anyways...
Originally Posted by ranalin
I've yet to see it documented that Blood presence is the best presence to use beyond Kyrre's post on page 47 of this thread.
Using the same rotation with my build blood comes out short by 500-800 points every time.
If you haven't seen any documentation you haven't been looking that hard. Aside from that, let's look at the simple physics of this. Assuming you have 0 haste (which shouldn't be the case, but w/e) you have a 1 sec GCD in UP. Let's say you use all your runes. That's 6 seconds. You now have 4 seconds of RP dump/finger up ass. There's no possible way to effectively utilize 4 GCD's in any spec. There IS however, a pretty damn effective way to use 2 GCD's, which is what you're left with while in BP.
In addition, 15% damage is ALWAYS better than 15% haste. We're already seeing KM's overwrite each other in BP, and there's really not a lot of room for more procs from the 15% haste in UP. Best case scenario your white damage is 25-30% give or take. Adding 15% to that via Haste from UP gives you 5% ish more damage. Adding 15% to 70% of your damage (everything other than white) is more than 5%. It's more than double actually.
If you haven't seen any documentation you haven't been looking that hard. Aside from that, let's look at the simple physics of this. Assuming you have 0 haste (which shouldn't be the case, but w/e) you have a 1 sec GCD in UP. Let's say you use all your runes. That's 6 seconds. You now have 4 seconds of RP dump/finger up ass. There's no possible way to effectively utilize 4 GCD's in any spec. There IS however, a pretty damn effective way to use 2 GCD's, which is what you're left with while in BP.
In addition, 15% damage is ALWAYS better than 15% haste. We're already seeing KM's overwrite each other in BP, and there's really not a lot of room for more procs from the 15% haste in UP. Best case scenario your white damage is 25-30% give or take. Adding 15% to that via Haste from UP gives you 5% ish more damage. Adding 15% to 70% of your damage (everything other than white) is more than 5%. It's more than double actually.
32 RP Frost Strikes, Runic Power Mastery, and Rime procs can eat up four GCDs easy. This will be not uncommon in a 44/27 build. So it *is* possible to fill the GCDs. And I don't know why you are so sure 15% damage is so much better than 15% haste -- DW scales beautifully with haste. In your comparison between Blood an Unholy presence, you compare 15% damage to 15% melee haste, but forget that part of Unholy's "haste" buff is a GCD reduction by 30%. A more accurate comparison is as follows:
Blood increases all damage *you* do by 15%
Unholy increases your white damage (and likely the number of autoattack procs -- KM, FC, CG) by 15%, your ghoul's damage by about 8%, and the number of spells and abilities you can use by 30%
The comparison isn't nearly as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Blood wins, but that's only because the *quality* of its GCDs is so much higher. Specifically, the number of Icy Touches and Howling Blasts you can cast is capped and identical for both Blood and Unholy presence, and these two spells are SO much better than anything else you can cast to fill in those GCDs.
32 RP Frost Strikes, Runic Power Mastery, and Rime procs can eat up four GCDs easy. This will be not uncommon in a 44/27 build. So it *is* possible to fill the GCDs. And I don't know why you are so sure 15% damage is so much better than 15% haste -- DW scales beautifully with haste. In your comparison between Blood an Unholy presence, you compare 15% damage to 15% melee haste, but forget that part of Unholy's "haste" buff is a GCD reduction by 30%. A more accurate comparison is as follows:
Blood increases all damage *you* do by 15%
Unholy increases your white damage (and likely the number of autoattack procs -- KM, FC, CG) by 15%, your ghoul's damage by about 8%, and the number of spells and abilities you can use by 30%
The comparison isn't nearly as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Blood wins, but that's only because the *quality* of its GCDs is so much higher. Specifically, the number of Icy Touches and Howling Blasts you can cast is capped and identical for both Blood and Unholy presence, and these two spells are SO much better than anything else you can cast to fill in those GCDs.
He's specced 32/39 (without runic power mastey or FS) so that's the spec in question here. Like I also said, and many before me, stacking crit and haste to stack KM procs isn't necessarily good. I would venture to say that maybe about 20% of MY KM procs are overwritten simply because the rotation has some gaps in it. That number would only go up in you're in UP.
1 sec GCD does NOT equal 30% more attacks. Assuming DC is your rp dump, and if you have 4 spare GCD per rune set, that means you have to generate 160 rp with those 6 attacks to ultilize those GCDs effectively. That's not possible.
Just because UP has more text in the tooltip doesn't mean it does better stuff. I know you're not saying UP is better, but there's no point in defending something you know is inferior.
Regardless of the trial, the verdict doesn't change. Blood wins.
I am just saying your reasoning isn't completely correct. There's worth in correctly explaining why something's inferior. Doesn't mean I am defending it. And re-read my post -- I chose my words very carefully. I said UH increases the number of spells and abilities you *can* use by 30%, which is entirely true (disregarding haste on gear). Also, things like Rime procs and Horn of Winter eat GCDs too, and Blood Presence affords little to no leeway for dealing with these spells.
Finally, regarding KM procs. First, I think it's worthless to continue theorycrafting using the live (crit-based) model. We ought to work with it assuming it will be a PPM system. Second, I don't care how many KM procs you get that overwrite previous ones, until you are critting 100% of the time with both IT and HB, increasing the number of KM procs you get will increase the frequency of crits with your two most damaging attacks. If the 15% haste you get from UH will increase the number of KM procs you get, it *must* be considered in comparing Unholy and Blood Presences.
As I read through these pages, I keep seeing the "cookie cutter" 0/32/39 with 5 points in desecrate. Now I originally was pure unholy for quite some time, and found desecration to basically be worthless except on half of the bosses like anub (we just burn thru), patchwerk, KT, loatheb, and Gluth (off the top of my head). simply because they rarely move. Great if I want 5% extra damage on half of the bosses, but last time I checked there were many more.
I tend to find that keeping Bone Shield and full 3/3 virulenceas well as 2/2 in unholy aura for the raid buff gives more raidwide DPS (this was beaten senseless in the unholy thread) as well as much more raid utility as we have no enhance shammies, so I keep the aura for speed + imp icy talons. Now I've debated about removing the 2% bone shield in favor of NotD, but am still unsure about it.
I dont believe it could be a gear thing as I have pretty much everything you could get for both DW and unholy (except greatness). I keep myself at 8% because i get a better return on STR over +hit over 8 in DW from what I've read. I could use a bit more expertise as I'm at 20, but I dont think that would cause a loss of 500-800 DPS, would it?
So it comes down to rotation or something else. I only hit my garg when my crusader rune is active for the buff (from what i've read thats the way to maximize dps). Ensure i have frost fever (which is pretty hard not to do on that fight with a normal rotation) before HB. Pop AotD for that extra little bump right before bloodlust.
My rotation is the normal PS->IT->BS->BS->HB->RD -- IT->HB->IT->IT->RD. and make sure blood disease is akways rolling (which the rotation allows a refresh at about 3 seconds on that disease). I do not oblit normally simply because I do not believe oblit would be a better replacement for HB with a full 5 stack of razorice, frost fever and KM up.
I use the macros to cancel out Fog on IT and HB as well, and of course I'm in blood presence.
Now I do run into the issue where I have gobs of RP and after my rotation I'm trying to dump it as fast as I can, but i tend to run into the issue where my IT comes up before I can dump all of my RP. I do a slight delay to take advantage of the code latency so I can get the 8 second timer if at all possible on refresh.
As for the patch, it will be interesting as to what they settle on. I have had all my raiders including myself getting sidegrades like crazy to compensate for the changes coming, especially with gear itemization and uldam gear on the way. This has allowed a lot of gear switchouts to maximize things, but its all about the ideal combination of gear to maximize output.
Any thoughts on the process here and something I might be missing?
Personally I have found desecration quite useful. Here is a breakdown on where I found it to be useful and where it was deemed worthless.Keep in mind that 32/39 uses PS twice in a full rotation:
For Naxxramas:
Arachnid Quarter
Anub'Rekhan-Useful as you stay in place when tanking before locust swarm(where you'd have to move anyway)
Grand Widow Faerlina-Useful:Tanked in place
Maexxna-Useful:Tanked in place
Plague Quarter
Noth the Plaguebringer-A bit debated but useful overall due to ps used twice so you can refresh it once Noth blinks
Heigan the Unclean-Useless
Loatheb-Useful:Tanked in place and you'd only have to move for spore buff then back to a static location
Military Quarter
Instructor Razuvious-Useful:Tanked in place
Gothik the Harvester-Useful:Tanked in place once gates open
The Four Horsemen-Useful due to using ps twice and our guild usually nukes thane in place
Construct Quarter
Patchwerk-Useful (obviously )
Grobbulus-Useless
Gluth-Useful and the extra snare like benefit makes a desecration dk very helpful here
Thaddius-Useful:Even if switching polarity the 2 ps makes refreshing desecration on the new location easy
Frostwyrm Lair
Sapphiron-Useful:2 ps makes refreshing easy for blizzard repositioning
Kel'Thuzad-Useful
TRASH-Useful
So in conclusion:
-5% extra damage is a massive amount
-If HB cooldown was removed I wouldn't have been posting this
-I have counted 2 fights so far that you desecration is useless
-Please correct me if I have mistaken
Last edited by Ommar : 01/18/09 at 7:09 PM.
Reason: fine tuning and spell checking
just want to check with people who may be more in the know but i hear they added the cooldown back to HB. Can anyone confirm this. If so what are peoples views on it. I think with all the other possible nerfs this one may hurt the most since so many people had high hopes for a usable rime proc.
As I read through these pages, I keep seeing the "cookie cutter" 0/32/39 with 5 points in desecrate. Now I originally was pure unholy for quite some time, and found desecration to basically be worthless except on half of the bosses like anub (we just burn thru), patchwerk, KT, loatheb, and Gluth (off the top of my head). simply because they rarely move. Great if I want 5% extra damage on half of the bosses, but last time I checked there were many more.
I tend to find that keeping Bone Shield and full 3/3 virulenceas well as 2/2 in unholy aura for the raid buff gives more raidwide DPS (this was beaten senseless in the unholy thread) as well as much more raid utility as we have no enhance shammies, so I keep the aura for speed + imp icy talons. Now I've debated about removing the 2% bone shield in favor of NotD, but am still unsure about it.
I dont believe it could be a gear thing as I have pretty much everything you could get for both DW and unholy (except greatness). I keep myself at 8% because i get a better return on STR over +hit over 8 in DW from what I've read. I could use a bit more expertise as I'm at 20, but I dont think that would cause a loss of 500-800 DPS, would it?
So it comes down to rotation or something else. I only hit my garg when my crusader rune is active for the buff (from what i've read thats the way to maximize dps). Ensure i have frost fever (which is pretty hard not to do on that fight with a normal rotation) before HB. Pop AotD for that extra little bump right before bloodlust.
My rotation is the normal PS->IT->BS->BS->HB->RD -- IT->HB->IT->IT->RD. and make sure blood disease is akways rolling (which the rotation allows a refresh at about 3 seconds on that disease). I do not oblit normally simply because I do not believe oblit would be a better replacement for HB with a full 5 stack of razorice, frost fever and KM up.
I use the macros to cancel out Fog on IT and HB as well, and of course I'm in blood presence.
Now I do run into the issue where I have gobs of RP and after my rotation I'm trying to dump it as fast as I can, but i tend to run into the issue where my IT comes up before I can dump all of my RP. I do a slight delay to take advantage of the code latency so I can get the 8 second timer if at all possible on refresh.
As for the patch, it will be interesting as to what they settle on. I have had all my raiders including myself getting sidegrades like crazy to compensate for the changes coming, especially with gear itemization and uldam gear on the way. This has allowed a lot of gear switchouts to maximize things, but its all about the ideal combination of gear to maximize output.
Any thoughts on the process here and something I might be missing?
You answered your own question in the first part of your post. Most of the 5k+ dps WWS's are on patchwerk or similar fights, with desecration up. If they don't have desecration, they still have NoTD, which is a huge dps upgrade, considering your ghoul dies way too often to be kept up 100% of the time without it. Your ghoul is a good 700 constant dps in decent gear.
Which brings me to hit rating/expertise.
If you'll notice from your own WoWMeter, your melee is 22% of your DPS, yet I'm showing Miss/dodge/glancing as about 32% of your strikes. The melee cap is 8%, the spell cap is 17%, but if you have 3/3vir + a spriest or boomkin, you should shoot for 11%. Bottom line is, until you reach 11% hit and 26 expertise, you could do more dps with more hit/expertise.
Overall though, what i can guess is that the loss of NoTD and not having 100% ghoul uptime is what is bringing you down.
And if all else fails, problem exists between computer and chair.
On that fight, if my ghoul is getting hit, there are other issues i need to contend with, more like how I didnt die first let alone the other melee in the pile.
Realistically, if I want higher personal DPS i'll have to sacrifice the unholy aura for NotD (as there are no other unholy DKs). We do have a boomkin and spriests, so i'm golden there. As silly as it sounds, at the end of the day, I think I'd rather have faster raid kills than the value of my own personal DPS.
And if all else fails, problem exists between computer and chair.
I'll pass +2 points to you, that was funny.
Edit: I noticed one of the top DPS DK's with the same exact spec as I had the same thing (except expertise) but stats looks similar (the 32% miss/dodge/glance) here: Bloodboil
-I have counted 2 fights so far that you desecration is useless-Please correct me if I have mistaken
While you're correct that desecration isn't useless in many situations, it's 5 talent points for at best 5% extra damage. If it was active 100% of the time, it would be an appropriately balanced talent. It's clearly debatable how often you're actually motionless while raiding; I would say for naxx25, generously speaking, something like 60% of the time. That makes desecration 5 talent points for 3% damage, and that's an underpowered talent. The question then is where you can invest those points for a greater return. Desecration can be difficult to skip due to lack of better options in many builds.
Of course that's just looking at the damage effect and not the snare. The snare is useless in raids, and it covers up ground effects which gets people killed.
While you're correct that desecration isn't useless in many situations, it's 5 talent points for at best 5% extra damage. If it was active 100% of the time, it would be an appropriately balanced talent. It's clearly debatable how often you're actually motionless while raiding; I would say for naxx25, generously speaking, something like 60% of the time. That makes desecration 5 talent points for 3% damage, and that's an underpowered talent. The question then is where you can invest those points for a greater return. Desecration can be difficult to skip due to lack of better options in many builds.
Of course that's just looking at the damage effect and not the snare. The snare is useless in raids, and it covers up ground effects which gets people killed.
First of all, I'd say 60% is selling it short, not being generous. I'd put it closer to 75% since trash rarely moves around as well. Although, with trash, the AoE damage comes by so fast that wasting a GCD on a plague strike might not be the best strategy. But with bosses, 70% or so is probably pretty reasonable. I should start tracking time I'm in the desecration to settle this.
Also, the snare will become a lot more useful post patch for the blood strike glyph, and they're supposedly fixing the ground effect issue (which I agree is a pretty big deal).
If you'll notice from your own WoWMeter, your melee is 22% of your DPS, yet I'm showing Miss/dodge/glancing as about 32% of your strikes. The melee cap is 8%, the spell cap is 17%, but if you have 3/3vir + a spriest or boomkin, you should shoot for 11%. Bottom line is, until you reach 11% hit and 26 expertise, you could do more dps with more hit/expertise.
Ummm, don't forget melee hit (32.8=1%) is different than spell hit (26.3=1%). Thus if you have 8% melee hit, which is roughly 10% spell hit, and 3/3 virulence, a draeni, and a spriest, then you have 17% spell hit as well.
Also, Dominatus, you are comparing your 3:20 Patchwerk to Bloodboil's 2:20 Patchwerk. You really cannot do that; the short-term dps from heroism, gargoyle, and AotD skews the numbers.
Oh and that ArPen trinket is pretty terrible, get a mirror of truth or a Greatness deck.
Any thoughts on the process here and something I might be missing?
Any specific reason why you main hand (1.5) Hailstorm vs (1.6) Greathammer? I switched my 1.6 (widow) to main and hail to off, figuring the weapon speed would increase my damage a bit (bloodstrikes).
I run with the great in main and hail to off. Outfitter was still reversed on me. and i have mirror, necromatic and 5 flights trink as well. I normally use mirror or necro though. I'm still switching gear out as the 4 pc is pretty much useless to me now, so its optimal for me to use other gear that is better in different slots.
I'm slowly building my greatness deck and eventually will finish it off.
And im still playing with my talent tree, but will most likely settle with 2/2 NotD, 4/5 desecration as the rotation should get me pretty good uptime on it. I traded 1 point in crypt fever to the 2% flat from bone armor as I did the math on multiple runs and found a 24 dps gain with bone armor versus the 3rd point in crypt (10% disease damage loss vs 2% flat gain).
I also ran my cap to 11% and boosted my expertise up to 23 by using grim toll, frozen breastplate and toyed around with diff stats on gear (like ironspring jumpers) & hemo ring. Ultimately, it wound up increasing my melee dps, but nerfing my spell damage, so i'm not sold on the get to 11% thing just yet. I need to do more runs on it. But melee is always a minority of the damage from a DK (which is also why +agi sucks for us... great for melee crit, zippo for spell crit).
Took a closer look to your wow meter and compared it with Ren's latest. Few things i noticed that might influence your score:
- no enhancement shaman
- no unholy DK (ebon)
- rest of the raid doesn't push out as much dps (your raid hovers at 4k, while most of his raid clocks +/- 5k)
Regarding desecration discussion better question would be what else those 5 points could be used. NoTD is pretty obvious, even pre 3.0.8 I'm pretty confident that higher ghoul uptime will easily get close desecration damage increase. Not to mention any desecration builds under 5/5 which can leave you easily long periods without getting buff at all. Desecration also needs PS which does pitiful damage and rune could be spend elsewhere or later with epidemic...
After 3.0.8 I guess most will be using NotD unless they only want to see highest possible dps figure at Patchy.
01/18/09, 2:09 AM
)
Similar Threads
