Here are the questions that should be answered regarding using 2h in dw build or not:

1-Has anyone tried a 2h in dw spec, and the folowing rotation: PS-IT-BS-BS-HB (RP usage) OB-IT-IT-HB ?(I will give it a whirl tonight)

2-Does obliterate do more damage with a 2hander than a dual wielding ps+it? (need to know ob and ps formula since IT formula was posted at page 41 I think)

3-Does missing less with 2 hander and the higher BS+PS+necrosis damage outweigh the more frequent necrosis+bcb and auto attack damage of dual wielding.

Time to dust off my titan steel destroyer. My only variation in testing will be: BP in dw vs UP in 2hander and anhiliation for 2h vs nerves of cold steel for dw

In regarding to the other specs above, in my opinion rime,howling blast,ghoul,impurity are all necessary talents as 32/39,44/27 or any variations should not be called dw but HB/IT builds now.

P.s. 32/39 rocks at pvp

AotD does roughly 1400 dps for 40 sec. If your guild is topnotch, they kill patch in 2:30 roughly.
That leaves an overall dps of AotD of:

1400*40/150 = 373 dps. Thats quite a lot...

P.s.: a little trickt from the Pet thread;
Before you start the fight, be in unholy presence and pop a speed pot, then cast AotD. The pot will get a 60 sec CD, because you arnt in in combat yet and you can use it again later in the fight. this boosts AotD quite nicely.

Just a quick question to clarify something about Killing Machine:

The talent reads "your melee attacks", and not successful attacks, but I was running some tests earlier and I noticed that my PPM dropped significantly when I had a second weapon equipped, could someone clarify this for me?

Blizz changed KM to only proc off your mainhand weapon and no longer proc off your Offhand weapon. However, the game cant discern between OH and MH for unarmed it seems. So when only using a weapon in your MH, you effectively OH unarmed, which does proc KM.

The loss in dp from not equipping an OH weapon is probably a lot higher then the dps inrease from the extra KM procs.

I understand everyones logic about going for a high dps build, as dk's seem made for high dps. I think my question lies with the spec recomendations and the amount of utility that seems to get passed up. I think everyone by now has tested up to the top tier on target dummies, but this is useless. They don't hit back, they don't debuff you, fear you, or stun you. It's akin to a martial artist breaking a block of wood to show how good he is. It only shows you what is possiable if conditons are perfect.

I tend to spec for pvp. I think most people min/maxing are thinking about the same. While patchwork is a good to test for pve viability, there seems to be no easy standard test for pvp, as there are alot of veriables. Thus it seems people are leaving that entirely out of the mix. This to me is stupid for anyone who wants the most effecient spec for pvp. I've been doing spec trials off a dps meter in warsong, and arena's. Things that are traditionally neglected, such as hungering cold, which usually means we lose the ghoul, actually raise kills and dps indirectly (hungering cold + Death Chill + Howling Blast). White damage generally got shut down 30% and diseases have a comparativly higher dps, as your entire dps generally drops 1/3. Gargoyle becomes even a bigger dps talent as it is a fire and forget, but ghoul becomes far less, as it can be killed, lost, rooted, snared, debuffed, stuned, etc. There are some talent builds that don't even take litchbone that plan on pvping, like the 50/0/21 spec. Yet it has the most utility of any of our skills in pvp (immune fear, high end meele damage reduction, self healing).

The other thing is i dont see anyone taking endless winter and chillblaines. It's a skill talent imho. The better you are sticking with an enemy, the worse the talent gets. However realisiticly as a duel wield class who is focusing on white damage, needs all the help they can get to stay within range or out of range when they need to. I'm curious if anyone has comparisions between dummies, patchwork and warsong, eye, arena or arathi (being AV and WG are to circus to get an accurate number)

Do you have the link to the blue on this? or is this conjecture through testing?

I don't feel like doing any math, but the higher miss rate of DW will be offset by at least somewhat by its potential 5-10% haste advantage through talents (Imp I.Ta; depending on what builds we are talking about) and gear choices (personally, my ideal DW set has 5% more haste than my ideal 2h set).
Honestly I'm kind of impressed; Blizzard balanced 2h and DW pretty well. In my experience, most builds can switch between 2h and DW (with a few talent points switched here and there) and get dps numbers that are only separated by 100 or so dps, allowing people to make decisions based on what they prefer and what weapons they have.

Thanks for the blue, i must of missed it.

This really blows, it seems DW is inferior to 2H spec's. I did some testing in bg's, doing half 2h half dw with a 20/51/0, 44/27/0 and a 32/39, 2h was a good 15-20% more. Mainly KM is so unreliable now, you just hit HB anyways. With the 5 second cooldown half the time you miss the HB KM proc's due to refreshing IT or hitting FS/IT by accident. 2H doesn't have a problem with that as you can just oblit. I'm going to do some more testing on KM proc's as it did seem that i was landing more with DW, they where just at the wrong times and seemed to be right when i was pressing IT or FS or so. I'm thinking it was just perception.

Thanks for stating the obvious about target dummies. I believe the thread you are looking for is this one: Deathknight PvP Thread

"Boards don't hit back." -Bruce Lee

You are not in the correct thread as it has nothing to do with PvP or testing in Battlegrounds.

im sorry if this was covered earlier and i just missed it but was aotd changed or is there something i need to do to make my little minions not taunt and send givin boss into a crazy spinning rampage?



Belai lvl 80 dk
<supremacy Reborn>
Aegwynn

The buffs and everything most likely will change it, plus with unholy pres, your abilities are doing less damage with each skill compared to blood because of the 15% bonus from blood. And even if you want to argue that unholy is better because of the haste for KM Procs, I doubt you are getting an increase that is sufficient enough to outweigh the 15% increase from blood.

Using the the relatively "classic" 32/39 build, and equipped with heroic epics and a few crafted blues, I've been regularly doing 2350-2500 dps (sustained, with Might) in 5-man heroics, with spikes on boss fights close to 3000 (2947 last night on Ingvar). Now, maybe its by chance that the other dps I have played with in the last week are simply just "okay" (or substandard), but I have easily represented 40% to 55% of the damage done by my 5-mans. Without exception every group I've been in has commented on my dps and the ease with which we burn down both trash and bosses, thanks not only to solid tanking and healing, but my group-leading dps.

First off, I just wanted to say I owe literally all of this to this topic in particular and this board overall. So, thank-you all who contributed meaningful, substantiated advice and results to this topic. It is greatly appreciated.

However, and more to the topic at hand, I'm wondering how many other 32/39 DW's have found that, overall, their dps is still ballpark to where they were pre-3.0.8? While I've seen people theorycrafting 2H alternative builds and also, in this thread, alternative DW builds, I've yet to see conclusive evidence, at least at the heroic-level, that 32/39 has been eclipsed.

Is there agreement yet, on the part of the board's leading DW number-crunchers, as to whether or not 32/39 has been eclipsed or not?

FYI: I didn't get Mirror of Truth until the conclusion of play last night, so my dps is only going to rise now. Also, I find that Sigil of the Frozen Conscience has gone a long way towards offsetting the change to KM's proc-trigger, especially (of course) against single targets.

Sardonic, it depends what metric you are using. My experience in 5-mans is the same as yours. It is my strong belief that even after the patch Howling Blast is the best AoE spell in the game, and 32/39 maximizes HB's strength. So for AoE situations, 32/39 is still an incredible spec.

As of the patch, it seems like all intelligent specs -- DW or 2H -- are within a couple hundred DPS of each other, and each has its own particular strengths. So which is "best" depends upon what you are trying to maximize. Metrics include: providing necessary raid buffs, single target DPS, AoE DPS, survivability/utility, pet damage, etc. There is no spec that excels so much at one of these aspects that it completely eclipses any other.

Long answer short, 32/39 is still an EXTREMELY competitive spec under all above metrics.

My build and DPS output is similar. The one thing I did do was take my points from Chill of the Grave and put them into Runic Power Mastery. With the IT glyph, I find that I'm never at a loss for RP and that the ability to churn out 1 more DC (or in my case a CE) comes in handy, especially on fights that require some ranged DPSing.

Technically 50/21 would have the strongest HB's (taking Impurity over Gargoyle would strengthen this) however the overall DPS of this spec suffers. As far as Sardonic's question I shifted from 32/39 Pre 3.0.8 to 33/28 Post (skipping CF for NotD and Deathchill) and saw a drop of maybe 5% in total DPS (rough estimate, naxx-to-naxx comparison factoring in changes in gear) the 5% loss was enough that while still topping DPS I'm now being pushed to perform much more precisely in order to do so. All-in-all 3.0.8 from my perspective has 33/38 DW exactly where it should be.

One of the many 32/39 posts being the highest DPS report in that thread isn't conclusive. The numbers are all over the place, with all five major specs/playstyles represented with a 5500+ report. If you look at the top ten WMO Patchwerk DK parses, you'll find that the highest 'actual' DPS report was 2H Unholy.

Spec	Number in top 10	Highest 'actual' DPS
2H Unholy	2	6473
DW HB	4	6431
DW UB	2	6395
Blood	1	6041
2H Frost	0	5867

So it could certainly be said that Blood and 2H Frost are still notably behind, it's hardly clear that 32/39 and variants are in fact on top. 20/51 is right on its heels despite being a vastly less popular spec, and 2H Unholy managed to top it, though that could be luck from it being a vastly more popular spec.

Side note: Regarding some of the more creative new variant specs that have been coming out, it's virtually impossible to tell whether any of the DW HB parses are 10/31/30 or the like, but the top Blood parse had diseases and no Necrosis (51/13/7), and the top 2H Frost parse was 21/50/0 (posted in the top DPS thread). The DW UB parses had extremely high IT critrates and so were almost certainly using 0/20/51 with a priority system. The highest DW parse that included Frost Strike that I could find was 5794 DPS. No 2H 0/44/27 to be found on the top 10 lists for any region for PW.

Long time reader, first time poster here.

I really can't imagine what numbers people where putting it before nerf/fix(whatever u want to call it). I picked up a Hailstorm the other day from Maly and decided to try out 32/39, offhanding Hatestrike.

I thought I was putting out some decent numbers as UH with 2,5k+ on most heroics, but really with this spec I'm seeing 3k+ on heroic runs and 4k+ on bossfights, and this is with having no 25 man gear at all and still messing up alot on the rotations(Tend to BS on the death runes), can't imagine what is possible to put out when u do flawless rotations and pop Garg with procs/trinkets.

Just a quick silly question: Apart from all the other Heroics I seem to be alot less damage in Nexus. There really is no valid reason for this sicne there are plenty of 3-4 man packs. Anyone have an idea what the issue could be?

Ahoi!
/
Nyli

Some Haste related questions/thoughts:

I seem to recall people discussing Blood Boil vs. Blood Strike on single targets earlier in the thread. Given that haste now benefits KM, I was wondering if it is possible (and plausible without utterly gimping your DPS) to see an inflection point where BB overtakes BS? This would be due to haste reducing the GCD enough to fit in more RP dumps, as BP's 15% damage modifier outweighs Unholy's 1.0 GCD.

I'm also mildly curious about the value of reducing 4 GCDs to 5 seconds rather than 6. (1.25 sec GCD) Theoretically I could see this would benefit squeezing in Rime Procced HBs with death runed ITs without having to clip as much at the end of your rotation, although 656 Haste rating needed for a 1.25 second GCD seems vastly prohibitive at current gear levels. With IIT it'd be 492 Haste rating.

Lastly, past the spell hit cap, would haste or hit rating be more beneficial to improve KM procs?


EDIT: With KM driving a ton more of our damage pre-3.0.8 and being crit based, I never put huge store in Expertise for 31/40 given that it only helped our white damage. With the necrosis buff and KM now based on hit, is capping against dodge now a definite priority?

1% haste should increase procs 1%, unless I'm missing something.

Let's say we have 90% hit to start off. So we get procs at 90% efficiency - 4.5PPM. Adding 1% hit means we proc at 91% efficiency - 4.55 PPM. 0.05 is 1.11~% of 4.5. So from a pure procrate PoV, looks like hit wins. From a pure DPS perspective, I find it unlikely that the extra 0.11% outweighs the extra 1% ghoul and gargoyle haste gained from 1% haste, plus any GCD inflection points that may arise.

Haste and hit have identical rating conversion, so a direct 1% to 1% comparison is valid.

Regarding BB vs BS, it's a very murky issue. The math seems beyond anything I'd want to go into by hand. But I find it unlikely that a Howling Blast spec has need for the global cooldowns that using BB and stacking haste provides. As 20/51, though, I'm constantly sitting on an unused unholy rune and thus would always gain something from faster GCDs. Whether it's worth it is tougher to figure, but in the anecdotal, I find that using BB over BS is a DPS increase. It's probably more the lack of dodges than it is the shorter GCD, though, and that's only for the fast/fast case. It also necessitates three talent points in Outbreak that could potentially be somewhere else, though no option is particularly compelling.

Is there any notable benefit to using Hit once spell and special cap is attained? Rawr is giving me weird numbers, it may just be cause it does not read DW builds well but I am very stubborn about using the spreadsheets available. They are not extremely user friendly nor quick in calulations.

I've been using 32/39 as my spec and modified the rotation a bit.
Instead of the "traditional":
IT-PS-HB-BS-BS-dump
IT-PS-HB-IT-IT-dump

I've started using:
HB-IT-PS-BS-BS-(rHB)dump
HB(IT-PS)-IT-PS(HB)-IT-IT-(rHB)dump
(brackets denote rotation adjustment following a rime proc)
What I've noticed this allows me to do is to keep focus on my rime procs instead of trying to also keep track of KB procs. I find that I'm unable to monitor both and adjust my rotation by priority due to lag problems.

By having HB first in the rotation I maintain the dmg output, but also leave a larger gap between any IT use and the HB; in effect this seems to give me a better chance at using a random KM proc for an HB instead of an IT (since they're all grouped together). I noticed that in our last 25 man raid clear I had an HB crit rate averaging near 50%. This is a full 10% higher than the previous week, with no significant gear changes. The other advantage I seem to have gained is that I can focus on using my rime procs with a minimal change to my rotation (recall rune cooldowns counting down for a few seconds even when not used immediately). I do not use a /cancelaura macro, but have a key bound to the macro in case of a poorly timed rime proc (ie, right before a true HB in my rotation).

Unfortunately, I don't have a decent parse to post a comparison between the rotations in a raid environment. Raid buffs were uniform through both weeks, and the only gear change was [Favor of the Dragon Queen] replacing [Fool's Trial].

One last point is that I've seen a number of 32/39 dk's specing into both epidemic and desecration. I don't understand why, given the need for PS every 12 seconds to maintain the desecration buff. Is there something I'm missing here?

Any thoughts on the above?