bionh

If the frost strike glyph does indeed reduce the RP cost by 8, we may end up seeing ourselves DPS in unholy presence to fit all of them in. I'll get the PTR going and test this out tomorrow.

 

EwokChilli

Crusader > Cinderglacier, there was math a few pages back proving such. Razorice is a better than crusader if you have frostfire mages in your raid/group.

 

nooneyouknow13

The glyph actually hadn't caused damage reduction per disease since several beta builds before release. The Glyph on Live adds 20% weapon damage, +20% damage to the static portion, and +20% damage to the bonus damage per disease. All that's happening to the Glyph of Obliterate on the PTR is the tool tip finally catching up.

 

Feorthas

Really? So it's "Obliterate = Obliterate * 1.2" rather than "Obliterate = Weapon * 1.2 + Constant + Diseases"?

For more readability:

 

nooneyouknow13

Aye, it's been like that since whatever build number "SMALL AWESOME CHANGES" was. Before that the penalty was in effect, but with that patch, vanished. I haven't been on the PTR to see if the new glyph and tool tip jive entirely, but I'm pretty sure it's just the tool tip playing catch up.

 

Hraka

So current trends in discussion recently appear to be:
Do we have the rotation right yet? (awwwww thought we were done with that!)
With the massive amount of RP generated by some of these rotations along with glyphs/tiers, is there a point of RP generation where Unholy Presence becomes competitive?
(One I'll add): With the new sigil and sigil designs does this change preferred rotation/sigil choice and before getting awareness how does the new frost sigil increase stack up to the new unholy sigil's increase?

What are the current rotations we're looking at that might give the PSless rotation a run for its money? I saw one a few pages back that has to do with double IT usage each go but didnt think it would be competitive considering you'd have to have your IT+PS+Disease bonus to both OB and BS> than 1 OB, currently with only 1 disease on the target I'm still showing some ridiculous 7k crits on OB and since OB scales much better than IT and PS it would be a very tough matchup.

In order to calculate out the presence question am I wrong in assuming we'd first have to determine if its beneficial to actually delay our rune activations in order to get more FSs into our rotation? In order to calculate this I'm assuming we'd have to determine the average dps of all the rune based abilities in a rotation and compare it to the average dps of a theoretical spammable Frost Strike. If a spammable Frost Strike is more dps than the dps of the rune based activities is there even a possibility of Unholy Presence being any use? I'm assuming the whole use of Unholy Presence as people are talking about is to make sure that we dont delay the activation of rune based abilities at the cost of 15% dmg on all but melee, so if our Frost Strikes are more dps than our Runes then does it matter at all that we're delaying the runes? On the flip side if our Frost Strikes are our highest dps then would being able to spam them faster be greater than a 15% increase in their overall damage? Am I incorrect in the way I'm looking at this?

With our standard currently popular PSless rotation seeing 2 ITs about ever 20-24 seconds how does the new IT sigil compare to the new Scourge Strike sigil if the current Unholy rotation has (if I remember correctly) 4 SSs every 20-24 seconds? What sort of buffing talents are we looking at for both of these moves in their respective trees/raiding? I think I might have been doing something incorrect in my original calculations for IT, does Imp. IT talent modify before or after AP? if its after then would this mean that the +203 sigil get modified by Imp IT, Black Ice, and Tundra Stalker if FS doesnt prevent reapplication before disease falls off?

Assuming that all of those modifiers happen at the end of IT calculations then the sigil would add either 203(0.9)(1.3)(1.3)(1.1) or 203(0.9)(1.3)(1.3) for no Tundra Stalker benefit for an increase of either 339 or 309 per IT before crit modifiers, 390 or 355 with Rimes crit added in (not going into KM at this point). Put together we're looking at either 780 or 710 dmg added per 20-25 seconds for Frosties.

The unholy sigil doesnt have as many modifiers but its pretty easy without factoring them in that it adds more damage to a basic unholy rotation than the frost sigil adds to a frost rotation as 203(4)= 812 which is better than the best the frost sigil could do. If you want to factor in unholy talents Vicious Strikes and Rage of Rivendare we're looking at 812(1.1)(1.06)=947 before factoring in the players individual crit rate which would boost this number slightly even more with the bonus crit damage added to scourge strike from the Vicious Strikes talent.

So.... Great.... Unholy got a sigil to help them compete with Frost DPS... thanks blizz

Anyways, without running the numbers thoroughly I'm showing FS being a ridiculously higher dps than the rune based abilities (cant just compare Obliterate to FS cause the runes will only come up every 10 seconds) so assuming this stands up to further examination there should be no reason to consider putting an extra FS into a rotation "delaying" your rotations, even with Tundra Stalker calculated in. Ignoring other strikes, assuming we have super weak Frost Strikes that hit for 1000 without blood presence. We would either have 1000/1=1000dps (unholy) or 1000(1.15)/1.5= 766.66 dps (blood) pushing for a dps increase at least for Frost Strike in Unholy Presence. If Frost Strike really is our biggest dps move then is everything else kinda just there to create RP for FS while still doing some damage? With Unholy Presence being a 30% increase in dps for FS what sort of loss are we talking about from our rune abilities that we would need to see to no longer consider Unholy Presence?

Also seeing as how some of our calculations earlier on in the thread might be skewed based on either improper glyph calculations or missing a talent here or there are we off on our preferred rotation? Hell, taken to an even further extreme, what about a OB, OB, BS, BS, RP, OB, OB, OB, RP rotation? We'd be losing out on the bonus diseases for an extra BS but would have absolutely no need for Glacial Rot or Tundra Stalker opening up hybrid builds even more and would scale quite a bit with increases in weapons...

Currently it seems like we've got almost as many questions pending as when we started the whole discussion but I think this is part of the reason why I stopped playing my Ret Pally considering how easy calculations are for that class.

 

Alvira

In most wws that I am seeing, melee autoattacks is around 20 to 25%, FS is similar to that, and obliterate makes up another 20%, and the rest are by IT, frost fever, BS, etc.

So, while FS is important, it is hardly the one and only dominant thing that makes up our DPS. Going without PS and using obliterates so much already compresses our strikes into as few GCD as possible so that we have more available GCD to spam FS. I don't think adding in PS into the rotation at the cost of a GCD, is going to make things better.

And the question to ask also is, with the new changes, in blood presence, are we running at full RP so often becasue we are unable to use it all. I doubt if that's the case. If its only a very small % of time where we might accumulate rp too fast to use it, then is it really worth sacrificing 15% of our damage by switching from blood presence to unholy presence just for that? I don't believe so.

 

Hraka

Well Obliterate is definitely a greatly powerful but is limited by how your rune cooldowns which you cant shorten (although would be a neat T9 bonus...), Frost Strike on the other hand is also a powerful move but this time restricted by global cooldowns and RP generation... Seeing as how these are our two strongest moves it seems like the most important thing to consider in designing rotations would be how we can maximize Obliterates and Frost Strikes. I think there is however some confusion in a lot of these discussions with everyone talking about trying to fit all these rotations into 10 seconds to utilize rune cooldowns all the time. We cant just say Obliterate does X damage compared to Frost Strike if we're having to use at least 2 other lower dps moves to set up the Obliterates we're using.

Also I think a lot of people are getting confused with the PSless rotation when they talk about juggling BS back and forth inside this Antiseptic rotation (get it, no blood plague... HAHAHAaa...) lets take another look at it assuming 4pc Naxx Tier:

0: BDFFUU- IT
1.5: BDFfUU- OB
3: BDffUu- BS
4.5: dDffUu- OB
6: dbffuu- FS
7.5: dbffuu- FS
9: dbffuu- FS
10: dbFfuu- still on global cooldown
10.5: dbfFuu- IT
11.5: dbFfuU- gcd
12: dbFfuU- OB
13: Dbffuu- gcd
13.5: Dbffuu- Heres where the juggling fails, if you try and mash OB it doesnt happen because you delayed the activation of the Unholy rune, if you instead opt for BS then you've shot yourself in the foot by using the death rune as a blood rune meaning you cant cast that second OB for another 10 seconds!

Instead you're much better off just waiting the extra 1 second in the rotation and casting IT, OB, OB, BS. You never run the risk of BSing a death rune. This however takes us from a 10.5 second rotation to a 11.5 (if cast perfectly) rotation if we throw a random rime proc into this we're delaying things even more. I'm actually starting to think that Rime procs may be worthless, yes its some damage but its not Obliterate lvl damage, its also not generating anything more than 5 RP which barely makes a noticeable increase for how it delays your next Frost Strike dump phase.

If this rotation 11.5 (13 every 8 rotations) second rotation was magically crammed into 10 seconds it would be a dps increase of:
100dmg/10 sec= 10dps, 100dmg/11.5 sec = 8.70 dps; 10/8.70= 1.15 or a 15% increase. So actually at this point with the 3 (sometimes 4) available FS each rotation we're actually at the point where Unholy Presence would equal blood IF it werent for one thing... Frost Fever. Going to Unholy presence will not benefit Frost Fever since it doesnt increase its tick rate but will nerf its damage by 15%. This means that we would need the slight increase in rime procs (by getting to the next IT 1.5 sec faster) as well as the ability to actually throw in the rime procs without delaying the FS dump phase along with an, albeit slight, increase in Fallen Crusader procs along with KM procs. So overall it may end up working out seeing as how FF is a fairly low dps ability and in raids if you gain a nice dps boost from the 15% run speed of unholy allowing you to get to bosses/mobs/away from AE dmg faster (or making that dang thadius jump where your computer always seems to lag out at just the wrong time).

Keep in mind the above endorsement for Unholy Presence is only applicable with the 4pc Naxx tier gear which guarantees you a minimum of 3 FSs per rotation. Without the 4 piece bonus you actually end up with a 10 second rotation anyways so Unholy would be a straight up nerf.

 

Feorthas

Meh. As long as you burn your blood runes as quickly as your GCDs allow, barring FF being down, you usually end up being at least somewhat stable. The blood strike slips around the rotation a bit (a LOT tbh) but you can often compensate by using rime procs or dumping RP. There will be occasions where you just can't do anything and lose your death rune--looks like every 3-6 rotations but the rotation itself seems to survive *random crap* rather well because you can drop an OB, pick up a BS (lose damage, sure, but it's better than 0 damage!) and still have enough RP to probably FS on time and continue on with the next cycle.

TBH, we really, really need to get some good Rawr Modules for DKs going; the sole module right now is for 50/0/21 and does a horrible job at helping with Frost gear and DPS predictions (additionally, a sim will always be superior to a spreadsheet as far as long term accuracy goes; afterall, our spreadsheets are just running averages of averages of averages to hopefully predict over infinite cycles that are totally static whereas a sim can either do the same with an on-the-fly mutable rotation OR truely simulate a long fight and use the results to let us see what will likely happen (again, we're back to averages, but the averages change if rotations get messed up and a sim, or absolutely godly spreadsheet similar to the old rogue one).

 

Keishi

Hey. I was wondering if you guys could help me out. Dont have alot of skilled/experienced dks in the guild atm so dont really have anyone to compare to. Also tapped out of gold from bs power lvling so just have to grind a bit before i can test other specs myself.

Atm Ive managed to pull around 1.86k dps on the boss dummy with my current spec/gear level. Does this sound about right? The thing is I know my rotation is spot on but it just feels like some unholy specced dks are just having a hell of an easier time hitting slightly higher numbers with less effort while I'm watching every cd and keeping my rotation as tight as I can. Im not too sure about blood as I havent met alot of decent blood dks.

The World of Warcraft Armory <- my armory profile

Is it my gear level that is not suited to frost spec or is it just frost spec underperforming? I've got a few talents Ive chosen more for flavour till they implement dual specs and Ive been lazy with enchants so please ignore that.

 

Nefertiri

2 things I noticed from your armory, is your hit is pretty low which is going to hurt your dps, and also your using Rune of the Fallen Crusader which if I understand it correctly gives you a heal but doesn't do much for your DPS. Mainly though that hit is a problem. I have more hit on my 75 DK.

Edit:

Ok so I forgot about the strength buff from Fallen Crusader so forget that.

Edit again:

Numbers to know:

Hit cap: 9%/295.11 rating

 

Hraka

Has the theorized 8% hit cap been disproven yet? I know since I heard of it I started running at 8.2% and didnt see a miss all week, am now at 7.99% so will see how that works out next reset.

 

Nefertiri

That number is from the OP. I assume it came straight from the dps compendium, and I couldn't say whether it's accurate or not. It's possible the cap is 8.2 but in Keish's case, it's probably a factor in his total dps since he has 198 hit currently in his armory profile.

 

Keishi

Thanks for the replies. Yeah I do need to fix some of my stats. But what I'm trying to say is that ghouls are gonna get buffed a hell of alot in the next patch. This would imply that frost is higher dps than unholy atm. Is this true? If I specced uh with my current gear would I see a dps decrease?

edit: screw it gonna grind 50g and try it myself now. Answers are still appreciated though.

 

Nefertiri

Hard to say since most of the discussions about the dps differences in the various trees smack more of feelcraft than actual testing. People are jumping specs faster than they can master them.

Initially I'm guessing you will see a decrease till you get your rotation down and learn to play UH but if you want to see an immediate increase in DPS stick with your current spec (with a few alterations in talents) flesh out your gear for hit and enchants won't hurt either imo. The hit, and enchants will work for you in any tree.

 

DrJekyll

I ran a bunch of testing on a boss lvl dummy in ebon hold. 7.99% hit (bout as close to 8% as i could get with gear variations), and did something like 1750 attacks (normal, no skills) and did not record a single miss.

Recount Testing

i've been using similar numbers all week and had exact same results in raids.

 

Hraka

The proposed new hit cap on raid bosses is 8% currently, 8.2 and 7.99 are just what my gear was comfortably falling at with different itemization.

 

Samurro

Hello everybody,
iam currently leveling my dk so iam not 100% into the class right now. But something catched my eye, frost strike seems to hit alot harder then it should and obliterate doesnt hit as hard as it should...i cant find an explanation for that. Some hints, anyone?

Obliterate Recount Data compared to Dr Dmg
Frost Strike "

 

zagor

These kind of questions would be better served at questions-answers thread.

I'm pretty sure what you're seeing is because oblit uses 100% weapon damage and frost strike is different. You got all frost talents boosting frost damage, and not a comparable weapon to bring obliterate to the same level of damage. Frost strike also ignores armor.

 

Bordon

Zagor pretty much hit it on the head. The fact that frost strike bypasses armor and has the other buffs in the tree really helps to bring up it's damage. And if you're still leveling, some advice I would recommend is switch out one oblit for a howling blast during your rotation. At 75, howling blasts are still hitting a bit harder than oblits self-buffed (may change once I get a better weapon).

 

Samurro

Good to know THAT! No documentation of this anywhere...

Thanks for the fast replies.

 

◊ Eej

It's documented right on the tooltip. Elemental damage is not mitigated by armour.

 

Samurro

"causing 60% weapon damage plus xx as frost damage" i thought its like two hits one physical 60% and the xx frost dmg...

 

Petersen

To bring this conversation back from the brink, there's some discussion over at Unholy about them having undervalued expertise relative to strength because of upset rotations, I was wondering how much that might apply to Frost, since a large chunk of our DPS comes from Frost Strike for which expertise does nothing. Is it worthwhile to gem/gear to cap expertise to ensure our rotations do not get botched since we end up having to cram GCDs anyway, we don't really have time to deal with attacks that fail to land.

¬The Original PalaTank, William Erik Petersen The Unbreakable
Tanking with a Paladin since before it was cool.

 

• Zurm

The Rawr module isn't complete. I haven't had much time to work on it since WOTLK due to a mixture of raiding and work, but I assure you its being worked on. In addition, the version checked in should allow for custom specs and rotations, and I know for a fact that it doesn't just work for 50/0/21 because I personally am unholy and designed it as unholy to start. I tried to resume work recently, but ran into technical difficulties (recently reformatted, and Visual Studio isn't cooperating).

Long story short, it's still a WIP. Making a brand new module takes a lot of time, time which at this time of the year between work and my other commitments isn't easy to get. If someone would like to help me, feel free to send a PM (you should probably have a good bit of C#/.net experience).

Methods just posted this in the unholy thread: