Since all my guild dk has change to either frost or blood after this new patch, no one is providing that buff anymore. It makes me want to move 3 points to 13% magic damage debuff, so i dunno if it is good idea to keep nerve of cold steel or move to 13% magic damage debuff.
Nerves of Cold Steel increases more than white damage. You also get more Necrosis damage as well. All procs that rely on a hit also are increased. Depending on the spec, that can be a lot of damage. Remember that 20% damage bonus gets bonuses from various talents.
Example: 0/20/51 spec using Blood Presence
A base 1000 damage hit. He has Bone Shield, Desecration, and Ebon Plaguebringer already applied to the mob. That 1000 damage hit becomes 1231 damage. That 1231 damage gets a 20% damage Necrosis added to it. That produces a base Necrosis damage of 246 damage. He gets a 2%, 5%, 10%, 13%, and 15% bonus to his necrosis. A total of 376 damage. A grand total of 1607 damage.
As you can see, modifiers play a big role in determining how much damage Nerves of Cold Steel actually gives you. That same hit with just Blood Presence:
1000 damage hit becomes 1150. Necrosis is 20% of that so 230 damage x 1.15 which is 264. A total of 1414 damage.
So when you value a talent like Nerves of Cold Steel, you need to analyze those modifiers and take them into account.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Since all my guild dk has change to either frost or blood after this new patch, no one is providing that buff anymore. It makes me want to move 3 points to 13% magic damage debuff, so i dunno if it is good idea to keep nerve of cold steel or move to 13% magic damage debuff.
Do you not have any warlocks or Boomkins either?
That being said, taking those three points will probably be an overall increase in DPS for you and your raid. However, you are probably better off going 20/0/51 and playing 2h unholy than trying to hack it as DW.
Why don't people add in blood tap for an extra IT or HB?
(if in melee range) PS, IT, HB, BS, BS - Garg, PS, IT, IT, IT, HB, Blood Tap, IT.
Was also wondering about Deathchill compared to chill of the grave or runic power mastery? an extra crit is always useful
Then start your rotation over again? Also, if you have a use able trinket set it to the beginning of the fight so you might get to use it again near the end.
Was also wondering if any other guilds are running their WWS and not having pets show up on the the meters?
Last thing, I was wondering if using a the Titansteel 1h would be better than using widow's remorse for MH b.c if the speed and the stats. While using titan steel 1h, i gain an extra 74 AP, and was wondering if that out weighs the 143.6 dps to 153.6 DPS. any thoughts?
Was also wondering about Deathchill compared to chill of the grave or runic power mastery? an extra crit is always useful
I've always felt that Deathchill would make for a far better tanking talent than DPS, because it would give you an automatic crit at the start of a pull. That's a great way to establish threat early and reliably. DPS does not need help calling a crit. Think of it this way. Even with perfect usage of Deathchill (right at every 2 minutes, it is a crit when it wouldn't have been anyways which is a pretty ideal assumption given the high crit % of most DW DKs and KM) you're getting, at most, an extra 5k damage/2 minutes on a boss. Under the most ideal of conditions, you will be generating ~42 DPS with one point.
Obviously, you'd be generating more added damage by using Deathchilled HB on AoE trash, but with KM around, it just doesn't seem that great.
Why don't people add in blood tap for an extra IT or HB?
(if in melee range) PS, IT, HB, BS, BS - Garg, PS, IT, IT, IT, HB, Blood Tap, IT.
Was also wondering about Deathchill compared to chill of the grave or runic power mastery? an extra crit is always useful
Then start your rotation over again? Also, if you have a use able trinket set it to the beginning of the fight so you might get to use it again near the end.
Was also wondering if any other guilds are running their WWS and not having pets show up on the the meters?
1 - Most of the individuals on the board submitting their information to the public take into account that people are able to use ERW and Blood Tap correctly in the first place. It comes down a lot to personal playstyle as well. Personally I pay too much attention to an encounter and what is going on to always check to make sure my blood strike didn't just get dodged / parried and thus I lose a death rune, so I save my blood tap as a means to corrupt an error on my part. ERW I often put to great use (alongside arcane torrent) when gargoyle is up to refresh runes (which grants much more runic power gen) and give a runic power boost to allow me to maintain a standard rotation during gargoyle phase.
2 - Why would you *not* have chill of the grave? This is staple in all builds with enough points to consider taking Deathchill... runic power mastery isn't a necessary talent for any DK playing their rotation correctly (ie, using your runic power before using a move which would put you over the runic power cap). Deathchill is used as a left over point slot (ie most builds are 0/32/38+1 and a lot of people use the build I use and drop their spare point in deathchill).
3 - Getting off your trinket early is very important, its also important, however, that you use your trinket when its best put to use. IE you are at high runic power, crusader is up, and in a lot of DK cases, [Mirror of Truth] or [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] just proc'd, you want to blow your trinket and summon your gargoyle to take advantage of the stacking buffs.
Playing smart and using your cooldowns wisely are what distinguish a good player from a great player.
Starting a new direction in this thread, I've been wondering and working on hybrid DK specs. As someone who often offtanks Naxx but also spends a lot of fights just DPSing, I'm very interested in optomizing my spec to both tank and DPS. As people have said, rightly, splitting my focus means I can't do either as well as a focused spec, but I'm curious to know exactly how much one would have to give up on the tanking side or DPS side in order to include some capability for the other role.
I've been working on DW variants of this, mostly due to the fact that I'm a lazy casual and only recently came into weapons better than a Runeblade of Demonstrable power; I got a RSoC and an Avool's on the same day, so DW it was. You can see my DPS gear and spec at my Armory, and my tank gear is mostly of similar grade; about 28k unbuffed HP (of course def capped).
The other thing I am now looking at is 2h vs DW. Of course, within a week of getting the solid 1hrs, a 2hr finally dropped from Naxx for me; a Wraith Spear. So now I'm looking at 2h alternatives to my current DW tank/DPS spec.
The spec itself... works for most of my needs. My DPS ends up in the 2.4 - 2.5k range on PW. One of the questions I'm working on is how much of the shortfall between my 2.4 - 2.5k and a more robust DPS output is A) gear, B) non-dedicated DPS spec, or C) I fail at DK.
hi i have a question about dw. I read previous posts that if you put 3 points in Nerves of Cold Steel then you just need around 260 hit rating. If i don't want to put points in Nerves of Cold Steel, how many hit rating should i have to hit hit cap? I read some posts saying there are many others points can spend other places that is worth more than Nerves of Cold Steel, so i really want to use these 3 points on some other places.
Remember that two of your major sources of damage, Icy Touch and Howling Blast are spells. This means capping spell hit is a good idea.
You need 11% spell hit to cap spell hit (17-3 (Virulence)-3 (can't remember from where but I have seen it mentioned here)=11%), meaning 288.53 hit rating.
After that hit rating drops dramatically in value, still not useless, but worse than pretty much any other stat, except Agility.
Remember that two of your major sources of damage, Icy Touch and Howling Blast are spells. This means capping spell hit is a good idea.
You need 11% spell hit to cap spell hit (17-3 (Virulence)-3 (can't remember from where but I have seen it mentioned here)=11%), meaning 288.53 hit rating.
After that hit rating drops dramatically in value, still not useless, but worse than pretty much any other stat, except Agility.
The 3% hit you are referencing comes from Shadow Priests in the form of Misery and Druids from Imp. Faerie Fire.
Also, it should be mentioned that Death Coil is also a spell, further increasing the incentive to reach the hit cap as the DW Death Knight.
first off, thank you for doing all this research. after acquiring angry dread, widow's fury, and split greathammer, i've respec'ed to 0/33/38 and i'm loving it very much.
however, i'm uber new to dw'ing. after sifting through at least 25 pages of this thread, i have just 3 questions:
1) what should i get my hit % to for 25man naxx? specifically, if i'm at 9%, am i ok?
2) have we reached any conclusion to the slow/fast, fast/fast debate? from what's recently been written, post-patch, fast/fast is the route to go. but people in-game keep on telling me that slow/fast is really the better route, as procs have been buffed for slower 1h's.
3) post-patch, with a 0/33/38 build, i know i should definitely get the glyph of icy touch, but i'm a little unclear on the rest. do you think a glyph of plague strike and glyph of the ghoul would be the best route to go?
forgive me if all of this has already been spelled out in utter detail in the past. i won't make excuses, but i will guarantee that with these new weapons in tow, i'll be checking out this thread quite regularly from now on.
nzo, you realize the answer to one of your questions is answered directly 2 posts above yours, not to mention quoted in the directly previous post. I'll let you sift through that one.
as far as weapon speed, I think fast/fast still wins. post 56 on the following thread is updated numbers on PPM for different weapon speeds. Although he does not include fast/fast for some reason on his new tests, his old test numbers are still good enough to make them better than slow/fast World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Killing machine bugged (GC plz review)
I've found that with the IT glyph, I often have excess RP at the end of each half-rotation. I'm using the standard 0/33/38 rotation as follows:
PS-IT-HB-BS-BS-Dump
PS-IT-HB-IT-IT-Dump
with freezing fog canceling.
Is it a dps loss to throw in extra DCs mid rotation to alleviate the excess RP. It really makes me feel as if I have a lot of dmg going to waste. Don't get me wrong... I love the glyph. With it, I'm able to DC once each half rotation while supporting a Gargoyle. However, I'm still unclear as to what to do with all the extra RP when garg is not up.
I've found that with the IT glyph, I often have excess RP at the end of each half-rotation. I'm using the standard 0/33/38 rotation as follows:
PS-IT-HB-BS-BS-Dump
PS-IT-HB-IT-IT-Dump
with freezing fog canceling.
Is it a dps loss to throw in extra DCs mid rotation to alleviate the excess RP. It really makes me feel as if I have a lot of dmg going to waste. Don't get me wrong... I love the glyph. With it, I'm able to DC once each half rotation while supporting a Gargoyle. However, I'm still unclear as to what to do with all the extra RP when garg is not up.
What do you think is a DPS increase? Using runic power mid-rotation or letting runic power go to waste? By the time you get to the necessary runes on the second half of the rotation the time spent depleting your runic power mid-rotation is disregarded. Of course you should use your runic power if you are about to cap mid-rotataion. Runic abilities are major dps components.
It seems that wandering plague doesnt strike for much damage and is usually down on the dps meter at 9th or 10th. Unholy blight does a decent job, but most of those other Unholy talents are below my Melee/Icey touch/Necrosis. I am not sure if this is standard or if there is something I'm doing wrong.
Having Ebon Plague, and Rage of Rivendare are two nice talents for Icey touch hits. I have had my Icey touch hit for around 5-6 K (crits self buffed)
I skipped out on desecration merely becuase it gets annoying in certain fights, and I don't use plague strike too often to keep it up. Maybe if it was converted into an aura rather than a gigantic ground visual effect, I would choose it. But in raids, when we have other DK's spamming death and decay or using desecration. It jsut gets to be a giant sloppy mess around the tank that causes visual problems.
I went with outbreak/epidemic for filler points, but the outbreak and other things combined with E. Plague and Rage of R. Cause my BB to crit for nearly 1.9-2.1 k and I get crits rather often. This lets me work with a fast/fast build so I can take advantage of the Icey talons and strike at a 1.25 speeds It really lets the necrosis/BCB add up.
It's a decent spec, but I feel a bit gimped when it comes to certain fights or mobs, that I can't build my runic power fast enough before the mobs die and I dont even get a chance to use my Unholy blight. It just seems like there isn't anything big that strikes for damage, besides IT, and maybe the occasional BB crit.
So I went back to my standard 10/31/30 build that has howling blast that I've had for a very very long time pre-patch. I may stay like this until i find a suitable rotation for the 18/53 or if I can find a better way of gearing/speccing for it.
Is there a reason why wandering plague hits for so little?
What do you think is a DPS increase? Using runic power mid-rotation or letting runic power go to waste? By the time you get to the necessary runes on the second half of the rotation the time spent depleting your runic power mid-rotation is disregarded. Of course you should use your runic power if you are about to cap mid-rotataion. Runic abilities are major dps components.
Please don't reply as though you're stating the obvious when you don't have any actual data to back up this statement. If you're DPSing as 33/38 in Blood Presence you're not going to have more than one free GCD to use on a deathcoil per rotation, and pushing back your next rotation just because your RP bar is full is going to lower your DPS.
Just hit 5.9k dps last night on patchwerk, compare to my 5.7k dps pre-patch.
My gears are pretty much the same.
Using the standard 32/39 spec with CF(there's no EP in the raid).
Army pre-pull, gargoyle before bloodlust and trinket.
Use priority system, no cancel freezing fog macro, no timing on KM.
Blood presence all the fight, no switch for army/gargoyle.
Buffed with flask and fish feast, no food for pet.
Fight length's about 3 minutes, I think barely beat the achievement timer.
However, I'm still unclear as to what to do with all the extra RP when garg is not up.
If you're in blood presence (as you should be...probably), you will leave RP on the table. You just don't have time to burn it all. With enough haste, theoretically you could get 3xDC in every other rotation (during bloodlust or potion of speed). Short of tons of haste, though, you just can't use it all.
If the amount of overage was enough to keep you casting DCs all the time in unholy presence, then shooting for 100% use in UP might start to make sense (like it does with frost strike builds...where their rune dump costs less).
Weaving DCs into the middle of your rotation is a good idea though. The more spaced out your IT & HB are (so you have no big gaps between them), the less likely you are to have KM or cinderglacier procs overwrite themselves.
Is there a reason why wandering plague hits for so little?
Wandering Plague has a very short internal cooldown that prevents it from doing massive AE damage when you apply diseases en mass via Pestilence. Essentially what this means is that multiple synchronized (via Pestilence) disease ticks can get no more than one Wandering Plague proc per set of synchronized ticks (albeit with multiple chances to get that one proc). This is why it is more of a "spare points" talent rather than a "situationally uber" talent in DW builds.
If you're in blood presence (as you should be...probably), you will leave RP on the table. You just don't have time to burn it all. With enough haste, theoretically you could get 3xDC in every other rotation (during bloodlust or potion of speed). Short of tons of haste, though, you just can't use it all.
If the amount of overage was enough to keep you casting DCs all the time in unholy presence, then shooting for 100% use in UP might start to make sense (like it does with frost strike builds...where their rune dump costs less).
Weaving DCs into the middle of your rotation is a good idea though. The more spaced out your IT & HB are (so you have no big gaps between them), the less likely you are to have KM or cinderglacier procs overwrite themselves.
Please don't reply as though you're stating the obvious when you don't have any actual data to back up this statement. If you're DPSing as 33/38 in Blood Presence you're not going to have more than one free GCD to use on a deathcoil per rotation, and pushing back your next rotation just because your RP bar is full is going to lower your DPS.
Thank you! Yes, I am in Blood Presence, so my globals are definitely capped at two death coils pure dump. Now this begs the question... why use the IT glyph? Would I fall short on RP without it? Is it purely to sustain Gargoyles and DCs concurrently? It seems like if I could support my rotation's two RP dumps of two DCs without the glyph, then Glyph of the Ghoul, Plague Strike and Bone Armor would yield the most dps.
The IT glyph does exactly what you described: it ensures that you ALWAYS have enough RP to dump when your runes are on CD and/or you are in the middle of a Garg. The PS glyph provides an almost insignificant increase in DPS by comparison.
Wandering Plague is dependent on a few things. One is the obvious melee critical rating. The higher your critical, the more damage it will do. It also is very dependent on disease ticks. I'm guessing you are overwriting your Frost Fever a lot. If you space out your ITs instead of putting them together, you won't get Frost Fever ticks to trigger Wandering Plague.
If you weren't getting to apply Ebon Plaguebringer, you're also losing 30% disease damage.
Think of Wandering Plague as your diseases can crit. If your diseases aren't doing a lot of damage, neither will Wandering Plague.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Just hit 5.9k dps last night on patchwerk, compare to my 5.7k dps pre-patch.
My gears are pretty much the same.
Using the standard 32/39 spec with CF(there's no EP in the raid).
Army pre-pull, gargoyle before bloodlust and trinket.
Use priority system, no cancel freezing fog macro, no timing on KM.
Blood presence all the fight, no switch for army/gargoyle.
Buffed with flask and fish feast, no food for pet.
Fight length's about 3 minutes, I think barely beat the achievement timer.
I was having similar problems when doing dummy testing between those two builds, and found that I would pull slightly superior numbers when very close to the expertise cap to just push them off the table in BS' favor. Mind you to do so in my current gear required me to wear Mark of Norgannon over Mirror of Truth, my gloves are +15 expertise instead of +44 AP (from when I was 2H), and I've always worn Undiminished Battleplate over Breastplate of Frozen Pain. On the other hand, I could still move Obsidian Greathelm into the head slot, and Ruthlessness into the ring slot over Ring of Invincibility, as well as Sentinel Huntress over Unrelenting Attack in the bracer slot. Personally, I think it might be worth moving some of those stats over to expertise given that haste is going to be somewhat de-valued when you are GCD capped from the start in UPr.
Remeber that much of the gain is from Expertise simply being a significantly stronger stat in this type of builds than it is in Blood Presence builds. Aside from the devaluing of Haste you mentioned, you are doing 2xPS more, and the 4xPS are at +45% damage. More importantly, you don't have the RP leeway to absorb the RP loss from PS dodge-skip when using Unholy Presence (so a PS dodge-skip carries a corresponding loss of 15/40 DC).
Still, it is unlikely that this shifts the value of Expertise enough to put it above Crit (although it may be a remote possibility for the 0/20/51 variant). The correct strategy to maximize DPS is probably to gear for Expertise above all stats other than Str, AP, Hit (up to soft cap), and Crit, then run tests to see if that puts your BS above BB to decide which to use with your gear set (as there doesn't seem to be a good way yet to model the BB-vs-BS inflection point).
02/03/09, 11:56 PM
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