(hi ! long time reader, first time poster)

I've been dedicating the past week to testing some specs (both DW and 2H, even though I'm raiding as DWer and would rather remain such into 3.1), and so far, deep frost DW (0/51/20 variants) seems to perform pretty well.

In build 9658, from all I've tested on PTR tonight, Necrosis seems to be back where it is on live servers: 5% of our overall damage. I was lucky enough to be able to test it out right after a PTR crash, hence on a high-HP dummy.
Overall DPS looks solid, and hopefully competitive compared to 2H raid specs, and the new CD on Howling Blast seems to not hinder the rotation (which, basically, is the old 32/39 rotation).

Here are the shots, taken about 10s after I pulled away from the dummy (while in fight, I was around 3.1k DPS for the entire spam of a 8-mn run). Also note that it was done with noone else hitting the dummy for the entire span of the testing run (the unholy guy you see on the screenshots waited for me to pull away from the dummy to start hitting it).





Please note the ridiculous proc rate for the Fallen Crusader rune. In real life, it means that it procs again as soon as the buff goes. Ie, almost 100% uptime, as of the current PTR build.

Here's the talent build and glyph setup used: 0/51/20. Gear used is my raiding set: Armory. FC/RI rune setup (from what I gathered on various messega boards, Razorice would be the reason why Killing Machine proc rate is higher than supposed on tests).

Having raided as DW for the last 2 months (mostly as 32/39, starting in 3.0.3, clearing all live content up to and including heroic 3D Sartha), I must say I like the current PTR build. Both gameplay and performance feel solid enough. Obviously, I still need to try this out in raid situation, but I'm pretty confident it'll perform well. I most definitely intend to raid Ulduar as DW.

Didn't want to quote your entire thing but, Question. You mentioned using the same rotation as a 32/39 build on live. I dont however see what weapon speeds you were using... Fast/Fast or Slow/Fast etc.

Here are the results of some of my testing. I also tested the deep frost build with identical gear/rotation, simply equipping a 2h. That number is in parentheses. I have recount screens if anyone is interested, don't feel like digging through the folder. None of these tests were done with a FS glyph, I still need to get my hands on some before I do more deep frost testing. I'm curious how people are fitting HB into their rotations in unholy presence? I didn't try in this set of tests, but in the past I have always had an issue with periods of downtime when trying to use a FU ability in unholy presence. Perhaps with the FS glyph the time could just be filled with more FS spam.
edit: Note that I purposely excluded Merciless Combat from my frost build.

At any rate, results of my tests:


All tests done in Acherus heroic test dummy, 1% health
Glyphs used = Ghoul/IT/PS
Weapons used = Silent Crusader/Hailstorm (FC/RI)
2h weapon = Wraith Spear (FC)

0/20/51 DW - FC/CG
unholy presence
IT>PS>IT>PS>BB>BB>UB>DC
IT>PS>IT>PS>IT>IT>DC>DC
2883 dps
Felt decent, but personal DPS seemed a little low. Relies on Gargoyle a lot.

blood presence
IT>PS>IT>BB>BB>UB>DC
IT>PS>IT>IT>IT>DC>DC
2950 dps
Rotation feels a little sloppy with an unused U rune, but the result is obviously pretty good, with well timed Gargoyles.


0/51/20
Unholy Presence
IT>PS>BS>IT>PS>BS>FS>FS
IT>PS>IT>IT>PS>IT>FS>FS>FS
2660 dps
I liked the feel, was very similar to the 0/27/44 unholy presence below. DPS was a little low but adjustments
can be made. Either getting the FS glyph to add a 3rd FS in 1st rotation, or leave as is and save that spot
for Freezing Fog procs.

Retested a second time, same as above except using FF procs. Felt pretty solid and I like actually using FF procs. dps seemed to hinge closely on FF procs.
2789 dps (2h=2904)

Blood Presence
IT>PS>HB>BS>BS>FS>FS
IT>PS>HB>IT>IT>FS>FS
2873 dps (2h=2695)
Not much to say other than the DPS was pretty good, as its almost identical to 0/32/39 on live.


0/27/44
blood presence
IT>PS>IT>BB>BB>UB>DC
IT>PS>IT>IT>IT>DC>DC
2861dps
Same as 0/20/51 blood presence, without Gargoyle for the extra kick.

unholy presence
IT>PS>IT>PS>BB>BB>UB>DC
IT>PS>IT>PS>IT>IT>DC>DC
2975
Extra GCD at end of each rotation (w/ 260 haste). Good spot to refresh HoW, or throw an extra DC every so many rotations. Overall felt very solid. Interested to try a variant with a little extra RP gen for more "bonus" DCs.

Slow/Fast, I'm currently using Silent Crusader (Fallen Crusader)/Widow's Fury (Razorice), both live and on PTR.

Edit: forgot to mention it, but I'm using Unholy Presence, it allows me to cram a 4th glyphed FS into the rotation. I'm getting better DPS numbers than using Blood Presence actually (especially with the ability to use up to 4 FS per rune rotation).

Have you tried going with a Fast/Fast set up? Since Necrosis proc's only on MH weapon damage?

EDIT: Just curious as to why you chose slow/fast is all

Main reason is, slow MH means bigger FS hits. Check the 1st screenshot, FS is my #2 damage contributor, above IT and HB.

don't you try a IT/PS spammer rotation ? i mean, the 32/39 rotation is rather short and making more IT per cycle allows you to place more FS because IT generates 25pr.
Moreover HB would be use on Rime procs since IT would be spammed so you won't loose the HB's dps part.

Unless I'm mistaken, with recent changes, HB is still more damage than IT+PS, so you want to use it each rotation. Plus a Rime proc means another IT from the available F rune (I don't think using the spare U rune with a PS is worth the GCD, considering how little damage a 1h PS does), unless Unbreakable Armor is off CD, in which case I'd use the free F rune from the Rime proc for activating it.

Yeap, if you couldn't really maintain the rotation with the U rune, just do not use it, but an additional IT is additional damages and aditionnal chances to proc the free HB and finally this is 25 additional RP added by the new IT placed in the rotation (35 if you place the PS ) wich make 3/4 more FS per cycle

Actually, i was thinkin about this rotation:

PS>IT>IT>BS>BS>PS>FS dump (just a open cycle)

IT>IT>IT>IT>PS>PS>FS dump
IT>IT>BS>BS>PS>PS>FS dump
repeat the two lasts

and just cast HB whenever rime procs, just make sure to place the PS in the end of the rotation, thus, it would be easyer to control the rimes proc and do, or don't cast the PS to maintain a better rotation.
However, the first PS is casted in order to place the blood plague (for damage dot and increase BS damages). It doesn't get the tundra's stalker effect, but it's not a big deal for only one PS imo.

I've been lookin around for a good Optimal Gear list for a DW build but haven't seem to find one for DW DKs, all the ones i Find are for 2her builds.

Would anyone know of one, or would we be able to throw one together here, would like to get the best gear i can have before Uldar goes Live

Edit: with a 32/39 spec in mind here, and from the looks of things im thinnking 51/20 will be pretty good when 3.1 goes live

I think i saw such post in very beginning of this topic.according to it (which i tried to gather them all) %12 haste gear (w/o imp icy talons) and rest str you need to gather via gems.hit rating around 250-270

helemt from Obsidian Sanctum 2drakes up->[Obsidian Greathelm]
trinket from Obsidian Sanctum no drakes up->[Fury of the Five Flights]
trinket Darkmoon Faire->[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
bracers from Gothiatek the Harvester->[Bracers of Unrelenting Attack]
belt from Grobbulus->[Girdle of Chivalry]
boots from Anub'Rekhan->[Sabatons of Sudden Reprisal]
cape from Kel'Thuzad->[Drape of the Deadly Foe]
necklace from heroic iris key->[Favor of the Dragon Queen]
ring from valor vendor->[Ring of Invincibility]
ring from Grobbulus->[Sealing Ring of Grobbulus]
weapon from Kel'thuzad->[Last Laugh]
weapon from Malygos->[Monster - Hailstorm]
sigil from vendors in Grizzly Hills->[Sigil of the Frozen Conscience]
4x valor set gear

Anyone tryed conventional enchant over runeforging for 3.1 ?

Cindergacier beeing nerfed I am starting to think that moongoose or executioner might be bether ?.

Fallen Crusader MH / Moongoose OH seems a good combo to me. FC on a 2.6sec MH is probably enough to keep the buff up forever and moongoose on a fast OH would proc fairly often compared to the 3.1 cinderglacier.

Anyone tested it ?

The variables involved in testing dummies with merciless combat and necrosis are really bugging me on the ebon blade dummy. I would like to get a more accurate result, before I can go test on a raid.

I used a deep frost build: 0/52/19, with IT, PS and Ghoul glyphs (FS was not available). FC/RI, slow/fast.

I used the following rotation (using BT to start): PS IT IT HB BS FS dump (2 to 3 depending), when UA was available I used it instead of the second IT in the rotation.

UA was popped twice, here is the result of a 182 s test yielded: 2923.85 personal dps and 412.6 pet dps (the distinction is important), for a total: 3336.46 dps

*please note: There was no Ebon Plaguebringer on the dummy for this test, or I would have needed to adjust for this too.

I adjusted FS, IT and HB down by 12% (to accommodate merciless combat), and melee up 20% (to accommodate necrosis)

The important (to adjustment) damage numbers were as follows:

Frost Strike

Before: 131, 042

After: 117, 002

Icy Touch

Before: 95, 755

After: 85, 496

Howling Blast

Before: 67, 143

After: 59, 949

Melee

Before: 130, 290

After: 156, 348 - 846 (damage already done by necrosis)= 155, 502

Total Damage Done

Before: 532, 140

After: 525, 859

Adjusting ONLY for merciless combat we see a loss of 31, 493 overall damage, and we get these adjusted values: 2750.8 personal dps + 412.6 pet dps = 3163.40 dps, an adjustment of 173 dps.

Adjusting for both necrosis and merciless combat, there is a loss of 6281 overall damage, and we get these values: 2889.33 personal dps + 412.6 dps = 3301.9 dps, a total adjustment of only 35 dps.

So, what is nice about this conclusion, is that builds that use frost strike, howling blast and icy touch, with necrosis and merciless combat can nearly be taken at face value for their dps. Builds that only use Icy Touch will see a slight gain from the dummy to a raid boss (given that you are only self-buffed, after all that is essentially what we are testing on raid boss dummies).

edit: the math was off a bit, necrosis did 846 damage.

Why would you take Mongoose over RI? RI is far superior to Mongoose. If you wanted to try to go for a conventional enchant, your best bet would be Berserking...

Did you take off Merc Combat's effectiveness for 100% of the time or the 65% of the time that it wouldn't have been up, because this would probably make it break close to even, if not push the DPS higher.

I took it off for 100% of the uptime. The reason was simply JUST to compare <35% to >35%, for people who were wondering (like me) what the difference was and how much our data was skewed. The difference would be likely be even more negligible in a fight that lasted 3 minutes where the "raid boss" (again, sans any other buffs) went from 100-0.

edit: just quickly adjusting for 65% effectiveness on merciless combat, there ends up being a net gain of 26 dps from adjusting both merc combat and necrosis, for anyone who is interested in that number too :P.

Just for clarity then, the above rotation was done in BP.

Then some quick calcs,

25212 necrosis damage, +15% is 28993.8.
3781.8 additional damage over 182 secs is 20.78 additional DPS.

So then overall, it would've been around a ~47DPS increase after all calcs.

Necrosis calculations for 3.1 should look like this for 0/20/51 in Blood Presence:

Melee Swing Damage * 0.2 (Necrosis Base) * 1.15 (Blood Presence) * 1.13 (Ebon Plaguebringer) * 1.1 (Rage of Rivendare) * 1.05 (Desecration) * 1.02 (Bone Shield)

With all buffs and diseases up, it deals 30.6% of melee damage.

If you hit something for 1000 damage normally (say Frost Presence and no diseases up) and had Necrosis, you will deal 200 damage with Necrosis for a total of 1200 damage.

If you hit something with Blood Presence, Desecration, and Bone Shield (which it should have in 3.1), your 1000 hit becomes 1231. That 1231 gets multiplied by 0.306 so 376 Necrosis damage. Grand total: 1607.

So a 1000 hit becomes 1607 with all the buffs and Necrosis.

Dummy tests miss a lot of the damage that a 0/20/51 can do because of high armor. The hits are reduced in damage and trying to calculate necrosis damage based on reduced damage hits leads to errors. You need to calculate what the melee would deal when it's armor is reduced by both modifiers and calculate Necrosis from that.

Ah yes, in our 0/51/19+1 example, we forgot tundra stalker at 10% extra damage on necrosis as well. Which works out to an additional ~16 dps and overall increase of 63 dps, just factoring in merciless combat and necrosis.

So right now from the looks of the tests that people are doing on the PTR...

Slow / Fast would be far better than Fast / Fast variants currently on live due to the Frost Strike scaling. How is Frost Strike doing with a Fast main-hand, have people tried to see the numbers that it is currently putting out?

The general consensus that I am coming up with right now is the 0 / 51 / 20 build will have a very similar rotation in comparison to the 0 / 32 / 39 build minus the RP dump and possibly the change of presences. Is Unholy Presence that much of a DPS increase across the boards or is it just me?

If you want to compare it to any build in Live, it's most like 0/44/27, rotation wise, weapon speed wise, and if I recall correctly, Presence also, I could be wrong on this last part. But also, there is still a lot to come with the PTR.
The presence DPS increase for unholy should theoretically only be with the 0/51/19+1 build because you want to gain as much runic power for FS's and you'll have your rotations way too long with Blood.