Frosty DPS Discussion (no magic hat required) - Page 31

Tadyrius · 01/21/09, 10:40 AM

You don`t "lose" the ghoul, it`s still up 2 Minutes, meaning that if you get really unlucky a fight ending after 5 minutes gives you 3/5th damage loss here, if the fight would be 7 minutes long you had lost just 3/7th of your damage as you can resummon the ghoul, for another 2 minutes, just to make my argument clearly understable

Not to mention that some encounters are fucking up ghoul`s a lot or don`t buff ghouls like the player so the ghouls dps % of your entire damage get`s lowered.

Now for my question, I am actually thinking about going 21/50/0, what enchant do I use on my weapon now? I read a post about a post answering the question lotsa pages ago, though I couldn`t find it.. Is a 30% strength procc superior to the 10% frost vulnerability? (considering we got 2 FF mages) I woulda go with OB OB IT BS dump rotation (just if you needed to know..).
And btw do I need to use IT Rune? 90 RP from Rotation 1 with another 90 from rotation 2 seem to be enough to cover my 5 FS (= 5*32= 160 < 180), so I would be better of getting my Ghoul pimped?

• Zurm · 01/21/09, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Tadyrius

You don`t "lose" the ghoul, it`s still up 2 Minutes, meaning that if you get really unlucky a fight ending after 5 minutes gives you 3/5th damage loss here, if the fight would be 7 minutes long you had lost just 3/7th of your damage as you can resummon the ghoul, for another 2 minutes, just to make my argument clearly understable

Not to mention that some encounters are fucking up ghoul`s a lot or don`t buff ghouls like the player so the ghouls dps % of your entire damage get`s lowered.

True, but you don't have the talents to make the ghoul more powerful. It will have MUCH less strength/stamina, meaning it will actually die much faster and do only about 70% damage. To me, a ghoul is not worth much untalented, because for any non-patchwerk boss it will get demolished... quickly.

Originally Posted by Tadyrius

Now for my question, I am actually thinking about going 21/50/0, what enchant do I use on my weapon now? I read a post about a post answering the question lotsa pages ago, though I couldn`t find it.. Is a 30% strength procc superior to the 10% frost vulnerability? (considering we got 2 FF mages) I woulda go with OB OB IT BS dump rotation (just if you needed to know..).
And btw do I need to use IT Rune? 90 RP from Rotation 1 with another 90 from rotation 2 seem to be enough to cover my 5 FS (= 5*32= 160 < 180), so I would be better of getting my Ghoul pimped?

Fallen crusader for a 2H. Our mages were saying that with this patch FFB was no longer the superior raiding spec... I would expect mages won't be FFB for long. Razorice or Cinderglacier are only really options for DW.

Originally Posted by Teme

Annihilation is no good since OB hits like a pussy as 44/27 and is a waste of 2 runes (HB hits harder), HB should be your only 2 rune attack unless you want that 3% crit otherwise points can be better spent elsewhere.

EDIT: Its even worth putting 3 points from annihilation into NoCS for DW/2H spec

Have you ever used obliterate on a raid boss in a 25 man? In no way does HB even come remotely close when you have [Sigil of Awareness], the obliterate glyph, and 4pc T7 (not in damage, but RP generation) when the target has a major and minor armor debuff, and you have all the extra ap. Lets not even mention that due to the fact that HB is a spell, even if it DID hit harder it would have a MUCH lower crit rate, even without subversion. (EDIT) It seems you were confused and thought I was going DW. I would have posted in the DW thread if that was the case.

Yotka's point about 3/5 impurity and 2/2 dirge is probably correct though, I didn't think of that.

Yotka · 01/21/09, 10:52 AM

Where the hell do you get +10% Frost vulnerability?

Razorice applies +1% frost vulnerability and stacks up to 5 times.

Cinderglacier for personal Dps is superior to Razorice.

Fallen Crusader is the best Runeforge you could apply to your weapon.

As for glyphs: Ghoul vs IT I would have to compare 10 RP/rotation vs +40% Str to ghoul.

I'll edit after some math.

Solithaira · 01/21/09, 10:55 AM

Zurm are you using the standard 2h frost rotation discussed in this thread? (i.e. Open with Blood Tap, no use of Plague Strike, etc)

My personal tests have also showed that Unholy presence is a better choice than blood (in keeping with some others in this thread) although it has been hard to really test this result thanks to Obliterate not providing the proper runic power return, and thus preventing any frost strike spam. What presence are you currently dpsing in?

Tepesh · 01/21/09, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by Zurm

.

Yotka's point about 3/5 impurity and 2/2 dirge is probably correct though, I didn't think of that.

Since i dont see a point in impurity, how would 2/5 impurity, 2/2 dirge and 1/3 Subversion fit in your idea?

Veala · 01/21/09, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Zurm

This is entirely wrong. Hit a warrior with frost strike, then hit a mage. They will hit for (approximately) the same damage. (EDIT) Beat to the punch!

And for those who are curious, here's what you get from a 0/44/27 build to replace the extra crit and AP:

-Permanent ghoul (~700 dps)
-Gargoyle (not sure if nerfed is a better RP use than FS with a 2H, but it I bet it probably still is if used when procs are up)
-Necrosis (at 20% now, much better)
-BCB (meh)
-5% strength (ravenous dead + shadow of death)
-VIRULENCE, NOT EPIDEMIC
-NO OUTBREAK
-Impurity (for IT and diseases alone it's worth it, not to mention AOE with HB).

What you lose:

-Tundra stalker (5 expertise and 10% damage)
-Bladed armor (~400 ap)
-Subversion (9% oblit crit)
-Dark Conviction (5% everything crit)

Here's an example of a proper 0/44/27 build. IMO, it's worth it.

I'm just not seeing it. You're also forgetting 2h specialization, Unbreakable Armor, Butchery, and Veteran of the Third War in the "What you lose" column. So add

4% 2hander damage
5.3333% strength
2 Expertise
+2 RP per 10 seconds.

To what you lose. Perma-ghoul is flaky at best. It's gonna require micro managing to not die once we start learning new encounters in Ulduar and with no NoTD it can quickly become a no dps gain. I don't know what it's hitting for now, but gargoyle is also flaky. Just a low guesstimate that you're losing 2 Frost Strikes per rotation means that Gargoyle needs to do 8k-10k damage every 10 seconds depending on your crit rate and KM procs, and is still really squishy. I'd say there's probably a good chance it does more than that, but how much more? You gain extra expertise from Blood/TS, you gain extra spell hit from Unholy, kind of a wash in a way, but the advantage definitely goes to Blood/TS. Necrosis, BCB, and Impurity are all that I see on the list of what you gain that are definitely flat dps increase, but they're only a 20% increase to 20% of your damage, a decent proc, and an increased AP modifier to 8% of your damage (you might work this up to 15% if it includes Frost Fever and Rime procs). Compare this to a 10% increase to 75% of your damage (TS), a 9% increase to 20% of your damage (Sub), a 5% increase to everything that can crit, and a 4% increase to 80% of your damage (2hander spec). That ghouls gonna have to work awful hard when he's alive ;-)

Yotka · 01/21/09, 11:05 AM

Since i dont see a point in impurity, how would 2/5 impurity, 2/2 dirge and 1/3 Subversion fit in your idea?

Didn't think of that.

It would come down to:

((1-0.03)+2*0.03) = 1.03 = 3% extra damage on OB/BS

I'm going to have a shit load of math to do after work...

But I would have to agree with Veala.

21/50/0 seems the better way to go.

PS:

4% 2hander damage

only applies to auto-attack.

Teme · 01/21/09, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Zurm

Have you ever used obliterate on a raid boss in a 25 man? In no way does HB even come remotely close when you have [Sigil of Awareness], the obliterate glyph, and 4pc T7 (not in damage, but RP generation) when the target has a major and minor armor debuff, and you have all the extra ap. Lets not even mention that due to the fact that HB is a spell, even if it DID hit harder it would have a MUCH lower crit rate, even without subversion. (EDIT) It seems you were confused and thought I was going DW. I would have posted in the DW thread if that was the case.

Yotka's point about 3/5 impurity and 2/2 dirge is probably correct though, I didn't think of that.

Point taken there, so there's atleast 2 directions you can take with 44/27

OB and IT+FS spam

I'm using IT, FS and ghoul glyph and IT sigil. I mentioned putting points in NoCS so you can have the option to DW if its better for a certain fight/pull. Don't forget HB benefits from impurity so it hits not as hard but close to OB and it would still have a higher crit rate due to KM since you would still favor HB over FS if they were both available.

Meneldil · 01/21/09, 11:11 AM

Long time reader first post in dk forum

After Duel Wielding for the bulk of pre 3.0.8 Wotlk i settled on the 44/27 spec, originally i had planned on using S/F with frost strike as my rp dump but eventually decided nothing was stopping me using my 2 hander after the km change (other then bcb maybe though it doesnt really matter).

To my surprise i managed 5.1k (by wws numbers) on patchwerk
Wow Web Stats

As you can see wws managed to pick up my ghoul for once though as usual it missed my aotd.

Aotd was cast just before/during pull, I was using /cancelaura Freezing Fog macros for both Icy Touch and Howling Blast.
Rotation was PS, IT, BS, BS, HB, RP dump, PS, IT, IT, IT, HB, RP dump. The rp dump obviously being frost strike. I decided against using Obliterate due to impurity and the fact i have yet to receive a sigil of awareness (and of course oblit being bugged atm and not generating rp). Gargoyle was used after heroism and during a Unholy Strength proc.

The World of Warcraft Armory
My Armory,
as you can see im using the new IT sigil and i was using the Icy Touch, Ghoul and Frost strike glyphs.

It was in the end a very rushed spec/idea for me having not read the 2h frost thread for some time.
Just thought the numbers might interest some people.

Feorthas · 01/21/09, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Yotka

Where the hell do you get +10% Frost vulnerability?

Razorice applies +1% frost vulnerability and stacks up to 5 times.

Cinderglacier for personal Dps is superior to Razorice.

Fallen Crusader is the best Runeforge you could apply to your weapon.

As for glyphs: Ghoul vs IT I would have to compare 10 RP/rotation vs +40% Str to ghoul.

I'll edit after some math.

Firstly, Cinderglacier and Lichbane are the two worst enchants.

Secondly, if the debuff averages 90% uptime, Razorice is barely short of Fallen Crusader; all of that +2% adds up really fast--it just doesn't quite make it (my numbers say it's ~90% as effective as Fallen Crusader, which adds 100 dps itself).

Furthermore, Necrosis/Impurity/BCB/pre-21pt UH do not make up for the lost blood talents and perma-ghoul frost (44/27) may not make up for the loss of the deep frost talents. I checked the former about a week ago (using the new numbers) and will try (heavy emphasis on *try*) to model 44/27 today; however, I'm not going to be a retard and spam out IT like a lobotomized monkey--I'll actually use a good max DPS rotation. I have no idea what to do with ghoul but I recall him being about 10-20% of an unholy friend's personal damage so I'll probably model personal output and then say "would ghoul beat/match frost sub-blood if he did 10-20% damage?".

Finally, stop threadcrapping this thread. I have my 'pages' set to 50 posts per and there was a whole new page--30 to 50 posts--composed of mostly useless, many of which are arguably reportable, posts that got discussion NOWHERE simply because most of the 44/27 discussion has been "zomg my new spec is teh awesum becuz frost dk is teh flavur of teh week becuz someone sed it wuz op now and perma-ghoul and gargoyle are also teh awsum so they must be in my spec".

I'm clearly exaggerating a bit here, and not every poster in the last 12-ish hours is responsible for this--but the quality of discussion in this thread has gone through the floor in the past few days and nobody seems to bring numbers to their side of the discussion from post 1; it's always "this spec makes me win at deeps!" and then, when pressed "well, the dummy has me posting bigger numbers than before" or some variation of "no, I haven't bothered doing napkin math or seeing if a spreadsheet supports what I'm trying to do". This needs to stop.

P.S. I've had / I'm having at least one discussion through PMs about the IT spam rotation that's pretty solid and I honestly don't mind talking about new rotations/specs/whatever in a manner backed up by somewhat credible argument (read: before/after numbers from a spreadsheet/sim. Any spreadsheet/sim, it doesn't have to be mine, especially considering that I don't really support custom rotations in UH Pres--my GCD doesn't change and I don't have 20 ability slots to fit all of the ability usage patterns). Regardless, I'm going to do the legwork for 44/27 to the best of my ability; however, I will go on a reporting spree to try and maintain some semblance of sanity in this thread if rules continue to be bent/broken to the same degree.

Xrkar · 01/21/09, 11:50 AM

Frost Strike is not like Scourge Strike.

Scourge Strike:"An unholy strike that deals 60% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus 190.5, and an additional 95.25 bonus damage per disease."

Frost Strike:"Instantly strike the enemy, causing 60% weapon damage plus 69 as Frost damage. Can't be dodged, blocked, or parried."

The key difference is Scourge Strike "deals 60% of weapon damage as Shadow damage" while Frost Strike "causing 60% weapon damage." Scourge Strike converts the melee damage to shadow damage while Frost Strike, in no way, converts that melee damage to damage of any given school. The additional damage dealt by Frost Strike is frost damage.

The easiest way to test this... is to simply go find a water elemental, and use FS on it. 100% of the damage is "immune"

The same thing happens if you use IT or HB on these mobs.

Kellhus · 01/21/09, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by Yotka

only applies to auto-attack.

Are you sure about this? If you put points in the talents that increases 2h damage, does the weapon damage range change on your tooltip? I never looked before, but if it does wouldn't that actually increase damage on strikes based on % weapon damage?

Apologies if this was already answered.

Xrkar · 01/21/09, 11:54 AM

I have a question regarding Glyphs after patch.

This is based on a frost 2h build.

Assuming you can only choose one of these glyphs, which one would you take.

Glyph of Obliterate (+20% damage)
Glyph of Frost strike (-8 RP cost).

My initial assumption was to use the FS glyph, as it is used more times per rotation than Obliterate... however this was based on pre patch damage. After the patch i am not sure what will be better.

I guess i should mention i have a ilvl 213 weapon.

crunchyblack · 01/21/09, 12:13 PM

You need both for a frost build, it's not an option. Read the thread.

Yotka · 01/21/09, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Feorthas

Firstly, Cinderglacier and Lichbane are the two worst enchants.

Secondly, if the debuff averages 90% uptime, Razorice is barely short of Fallen Crusader; all of that +2% adds up really fast--it just doesn't quite make it (my numbers say it's ~90% as effective as Fallen Crusader, which adds 100 dps itself).

Furthermore, Necrosis/Impurity/BCB/pre-21pt UH do not make up for the lost blood talents and perma-ghoul frost (44/27) may not make up for the loss of the deep frost talents. I checked the former about a week ago (using the new numbers) and will try (heavy emphasis on *try*) to model 44/27 today; however, I'm not going to be a retard and spam out IT like a lobotomized monkey--I'll actually use a good max DPS rotation. I have no idea what to do with ghoul but I recall him being about 10-20% of an unholy friend's personal damage so I'll probably model personal output and then say "would ghoul beat/match frost sub-blood if he did 10-20% damage?".

Finally, stop threadcrapping this thread. I have my 'pages' set to 50 posts per and there was a whole new page--30 to 50 posts--composed of mostly useless, many of which are arguably reportable, posts that got discussion NOWHERE simply because most of the 44/27 discussion has been "zomg my new spec is teh awesum becuz frost dk is teh flavur of teh week becuz someone sed it wuz op now and perma-ghoul and gargoyle are also teh awsum so they must be in my spec".

I'm clearly exaggerating a bit here, and not every poster in the last 12-ish hours is responsible for this--but the quality of discussion in this thread has gone through the floor in the past few days and nobody seems to bring numbers to their side of the discussion from post 1; it's always "this spec makes me win at deeps!" and then, when pressed "well, the dummy has me posting bigger numbers than before" or some variation of "no, I haven't bothered doing napkin math or seeing if a spreadsheet supports what I'm trying to do". This needs to stop.

P.S. I've had / I'm having at least one discussion through PMs about the IT spam rotation that's pretty solid and I honestly don't mind talking about new rotations/specs/whatever in a manner backed up by somewhat credible argument (read: before/after numbers from a spreadsheet/sim. Any spreadsheet/sim, it doesn't have to be mine, especially considering that I don't really support custom rotations in UH Pres--my GCD doesn't change and I don't have 20 ability slots to fit all of the ability usage patterns). Regardless, I'm going to do the legwork for 44/27 to the best of my ability; however, I will go on a reporting spree to try and maintain some semblance of sanity in this thread if rules continue to be bent/broken to the same degree.

I can only agree.

As for Cinderglacier being worse than Razorice that is completely wrong.

Using [Betrayer of Humanity]

758*1.02 = 773.16 so it's an extra 15.16 damage per swing.

Assuming 5 stacks of Razorice and CoE or EbP you add 18% to 15.16

15.18*1.18 = 17.88

So with the best weapon in the game (3.4 speed* you haste) and raid buffed you would need quite an amount of hits for those

+2% adds up really fast

Then the +5% damage from razorice is permanent.
But Cinderglacier is +20% damage for 2 attacks - 40% total.
You would need 9 Frost attacks to out do Cinderglacier if it was 1 PPM.

But GC seems to be 3 PPM so you would need 25 Frost attacks to out to it using Razorice.
Futher more on AOE fights Razorice does not have the time to stack on multiple targets (unless you have 1 tank 23 heals and yourself) so it would only be an incease on a single target.

Also

Dual Wield Builds it has already been discussed.

Fallen Crusader is the best in any raid situation anyhow.

Adrammelech · 01/21/09, 12:35 PM

Bleh, need to remember, "don't post before coffee."

Xrkar · 01/21/09, 12:53 PM

You need both for a frost build, it's not an option. Read the thread.

Yes i know that, however what i am working on does not allow for both. I am curious which by itself is better.

Kyroro · 01/21/09, 12:54 PM

I also just tried a 0/32/39 DW and a 0/44/27 2H comparison

To my surprise 44/27 is doing better DPS on dummy, at least 400-500 DPS more WITHOUT glyphs (still using the 32/39 glyphs).

KM is up nearly constantly, my IT and HB are critting like what they used to when I was 32/39

I am using the Icy Touch sigil that was newly added

Using the IT/FS spam rotation (I'm pretty sure there's an error somewhere in there)

IT > PS > HB > BS > BS > *FS DUMP*
IT > IT > IT > HB > *FS DUMP*

Be interested to know if anyone is finding out that the 2H frost build is doing more DPS than 32/39, although keep in mind my gear is not great.

Teme · 01/21/09, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by crunchyblack

You need both for a frost build, it's not an option. Read the thread.

New patch, things change you no longer have to keep to OB build.

Veala · 01/21/09, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Yotka

I can only agree.

As for Cinderglacier being worse than Razorice that is completely wrong.

Using [Betrayer of Humanity]

758*1.02 = 773.16 so it's an extra 15.16 damage per swing.

Assuming 5 stacks of Razorice and CoE or EbP you add 18% to 15.16

15.18*1.18 = 17.88

So with the best weapon in the game (3.4 speed* you haste) and raid buffed you would need quite an amount of hits for those

Then the +5% damage from razorice is permanent.
But Cinderglacier is +20% damage for 2 attacks - 40% total.
You would need 9 Frost attacks to out do Cinderglacier if it was 1 PPM.

But GC seems to be 3 PPM so you would need 25 Frost attacks to out to it using Razorice.
Futher more on AOE fights Razorice does not have the time to stack on multiple targets (unless you have 1 tank 23 heals and yourself) so it would only be an incease on a single target.

Also

Dual Wield Builds it has already been discussed.

Fallen Crusader is the best in any raid situation anyhow.

Two frost rotations add up to 22.5 seconds. In that time we do 7 Frost Strikes and 2 Icy Touches. Over the course of 67 seconds we do 27 Frost attacks, which probably comes close to breaking even with CG, if not slightly ahead. Rime bumps that up a little more, plus Razorice applies to Frost Fever and provides 2% additional weapon damage to every single attack you do. This isn't DW ;-)

Feorthas · 01/21/09, 1:06 PM

Originally Posted by Yotka

I can only agree.

As for Cinderglacier being worse than Razorice that is completely wrong.

Using [Betrayer of Humanity]

758*1.02 = 773.16 so it's an extra 15.16 damage per swing.

Assuming 5 stacks of Razorice and CoE or EbP you add 18% to 15.16

15.18*1.18 = 17.88

So with the best weapon in the game (3.4 speed* you haste) and raid buffed you would need quite an amount of hits for those

Then the +5% damage from razorice is permanent.
But Cinderglacier is +20% damage for 2 attacks - 40% total.
You would need 9 Frost attacks to out do Cinderglacier if it was 1 PPM.

But GC seems to be 3 PPM so you would need 25 Frost attacks to out to it using Razorice.
Futher more on AOE fights Razorice does not have the time to stack on multiple targets (unless you have 1 tank 23 heals and yourself) so it would only be an incease on a single target.

Also

Dual Wield Builds it has already been discussed.

Fallen Crusader is the best in any raid situation anyhow.

No, that's wrong.

Razorice:
+2% on every melée attack
+1% frost damage stacking debuff (max 5%)

Every yellow strike benefits from Razorice and Frost Strike double dips (+2% for being melée, +5% for doing frost).

Cinderglacier:
-1ppm proc for +20% frost/shadow damage buff (2 charges)

So razorice always gives you 2% and often gives you an addl 1-5% (for frost anyway) and cinderglacier only benefits the next two elemental attacks you do, at a hefty rate but it's 1ppm so that's pretty much a 800 damage increase over 60s (considering 3000 dmg FS at 33% crit), netting 13.3 dps (ymmv). Crusader nets you less BURST, maybe +100 damage on each FS, but it's up for a minimum of 15 seconds and effects EVERYTHING.

-----

Ok, just including personal damage (in my gear, no 4pc T7, no sigil, ymmv, etc etc).

17/54: ~2800
0/44/27: 2308 pre pets

I now need ghoul & garg math. Mostly expected DPS from your AP/Crit/Str (psst, this means "please reply to the thread with an approximate value for both/either pet's damage given 2800/2300 personal dps in deep frost/frost-unholy"

)

Assuming 15% damage from the UH ghoul and 10% *2/5 for Frost (4%), we get...

17/54: ~2912 (Ghoul does 280 dps with 40% uptime)
44/27: 2654 (Ghoul does 346 dps with 100% uptime)

Need Garg numbers still.
Self Buffed 44/27 Stats:
3455 AP
1112.6 str
662 agi
21.33% crit vs boss
Hitcap
1% expertise

Moving on, looking at scaling.

Buffing to:
7733 ap
1626 str
887 agi
30% boss crit
9% hit (with talents, spellcapped!)
2.5% expertise
3% haste
222 dps / 3.4 spd
2/4 pc T7, oblit sigil

4981 personal / 5728 with 15% ghoul

17/54 yielded
8073 ap
1547 str
887 agi
35% crit
9% hit (want to reassign 1% to exp but I haven't yet)
3.75% expertise
3% haste
222 dps / 3.4 spd
Sigil/4T7

5819 personal / 6052 with 4% ghoul

Important takeaways:
-If ghoul scales at 15% of your dps (it doesn't; it scales off of stats but this is napkin math) for UH Perma-Ghouls, Frost wins without counting garg.
-Garg will likely make our baseline case--me with my gear--tie 17/54 as 44/27 (probably surpass); however, it remains to be seen by how much and whether it will be enough to offset the loss in ghoul damage.
-Frost scales faster with no garg and % ghoul; will it scale faster with a properly scaling ghoul and garg?
-Holy Razorice becomes better than Fallen Crusader as 17/54 with these buffed stats Batman! (4 dps!)
--Not likely to hold true in real world; the str is lowish and should outstrip razorice at more realistic / less napkin-math-y numbers.

So, what do I need?
-Unbuffed char sheet values for 4T7; mostly ap/str/agi/expertise/arPen/Haste
-Garg dps numbers. Preferably someone with stats close to the baseline unholy build and someone near 4T7
-Accurate Ghoul DPS numbers; I'm in the ballpark with what I have, but I'm off by a bit (maybe even 100 dps off).

Flamingcloud · 01/21/09, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by Yotka

I can only agree.

As for Cinderglacier being worse than Razorice that is completely wrong.

Using [Betrayer of Humanity]

758*1.02 = 773.16 so it's an extra 15.16 damage per swing.

Assuming 5 stacks of Razorice and CoE or EbP you add 18% to 15.16

15.18*1.18 = 17.88

So with the best weapon in the game (3.4 speed* you haste) and raid buffed you would need quite an amount of hits for those

Then the +5% damage from razorice is permanent.
But Cinderglacier is +20% damage for 2 attacks - 40% total.
You would need 9 Frost attacks to out do Cinderglacier if it was 1 PPM.

But GC seems to be 3 PPM so you would need 25 Frost attacks to out to it using Razorice.
Futher more on AOE fights Razorice does not have the time to stack on multiple targets (unless you have 1 tank 23 heals and yourself) so it would only be an incease on a single target.

Also

Dual Wield Builds it has already been discussed.

Fallen Crusader is the best in any raid situation anyhow.

Correct me if I am wrong, but razorice benefits all the frost damage in the raid. Thus 2-3 frost-fire mages using 80-90% frost damage spells, and a couple dks with at a general minimum of IT+FF would generally put it well ahead of any other enchant. I think it would be correct in assuming the vast majority of raids have atleast 1 FFB mage, with the overall average being around 2.

Thus CG is worse for individual dps, and worse for raid dps.

Yotka · 01/21/09, 2:14 PM

Correct me if I am wrong, but razorice benefits all the frost damage in the raid. Thus 2-3 frost-fire mages using 80-90% frost damage spells, and a couple dks with at a general minimum of IT+FF would generally put it well ahead of any other enchant. I think it would be correct in assuming the vast majority of raids have atleast 1 FFB mage, with the overall average being around 2.

Thus CG is worse for individual dps, and worse for raid dps.

Correct.
But all mages will be Arcane/Fire in 3.0.8.

Also for individual dps FC is above all. But wasn't the point of the napkin math.

• Zurm · 01/21/09, 2:14 PM

Originally Posted by Veala

I'm just not seeing it. You're also forgetting 2h specialization, Unbreakable Armor, Butchery, and Veteran of the Third War in the "What you lose" column. So add

4% 2hander damage
5.3333% strength
2 Expertise
+2 RP per 10 seconds.

To what you lose. Perma-ghoul is flaky at best. It's gonna require micro managing to not die once we start learning new encounters in Ulduar and with no NoTD it can quickly become a no dps gain. I don't know what it's hitting for now, but gargoyle is also flaky. Just a low guesstimate that you're losing 2 Frost Strikes per rotation means that Gargoyle needs to do 8k-10k damage every 10 seconds depending on your crit rate and KM procs, and is still really squishy. I'd say there's probably a good chance it does more than that, but how much more? You gain extra expertise from Blood/TS, you gain extra spell hit from Unholy, kind of a wash in a way, but the advantage definitely goes to Blood/TS. Necrosis, BCB, and Impurity are all that I see on the list of what you gain that are definitely flat dps increase, but they're only a 20% increase to 20% of your damage, a decent proc, and an increased AP modifier to 8% of your damage (you might work this up to 15% if it includes Frost Fever and Rime procs). Compare this to a 10% increase to 75% of your damage (TS), a 9% increase to 20% of your damage (Sub), a 5% increase to everything that can crit, and a 4% increase to 80% of your damage (2hander spec). That ghouls gonna have to work awful hard when he's alive ;-)

I was actually making a comparison to a 17/54/0 spec. Lets look at the 21/50/0 spec, though. I never use unbreakable armor... it may in fact be a DPS boost, but one frost rune every minute seems extremely expensive for what, to me at least, is a small return for DPS. Also, if I have tundra stalker, I have absolutely no need for the 2 expertise from VotTW. There is no need for butchery (which btw is 2 RP per 5 seconds, not 10, with 2/2) in this build, if you work out the RP generation, you're set for 2x FS in the first 10 seconds and 3x FS in the next. 4% 2H damage is definitely something I forgot.

Originally Posted by Feorthas

Furthermore, Necrosis/Impurity/BCB/pre-21pt UH do not make up for the lost blood talents and perma-ghoul frost (44/27) may not make up for the loss of the deep frost talents. I checked the former about a week ago (using the new numbers) and will try (heavy emphasis on *try*) to model 44/27 today; however, I'm not going to be a retard and spam out IT like a lobotomized monkey--I'll actually use a good max DPS rotation. I have no idea what to do with ghoul but I recall him being about 10-20% of an unholy friend's personal damage so I'll probably model personal output and then say "would ghoul beat/match frost sub-blood if he did 10-20% damage?".

This is pretty much spot-on. While my spreadsheet tests (dr_allcom's) puts the pre 21-pt UH talents below what is lost in blood, the ghoul is enough of a spike to turn the tide. So even if it turns out that nerfed gargoyle is in fact worse than using that RP for FS, there is still a lead. I used the classic frost rotation of IT-BS-OB-OB-FSx2 : IT-OB-BS-OB-FSx3. I understand that the first tier in UH is entirely wasted points in terms of boss DPS, but Ghouls are extremely beefy... in my experience doing a good 15% of my total dps consistently as deep unholy (and with the points you get in 0/44/27, it would have the same stats, just no avoidance and faster cooldown).

Kyroro · 01/21/09, 2:22 PM

Further testing the 44/27 2H spec, it does do a lot of DPS, on-par or higher than 32/39 with my gear.

However one thing which bothers me is the lack of NotD, which means basically your ghoul (which is contributing at least 400-500DPS) is going to be dead a lot, and without any way to get it back up. I ran a few heroics with this spec and was impressed by the output, but again if your ghoul is dead, your DPS is going to suffer.

To be honest, every fight in Naxx aside from Patchwerk will have some AOE ability that is going to one-shot your ghoul

Anyone done testing with 20/51/0? Is it on par with 44/27?