tzenes

I'd like to examine Death Knight dps with respect to weapon speed for a second.

It is natural to assume (with so many of our abilities based on weapon damage), that slower weapons are better.
But how much better?



First a couple of things:

All abilities based on weapon damage are calculated as follows:

((base weapon damage + ap/14*3.3)*%modifier+bonuses for diseases+bonus)*damage modifier

So the contribution of weapon damage from Attack Power is normalized across all weapon speeds. This is true for BCB, and possibly Necrosis (unconfirmed).

Take the following Thought Experiment:

Claymore of Ancient Power does 186.6dps at 3.5 speed (so an average of 653 damage a hit).

A Tier 7.1 geared fully raid buffed Death Knight averages 5300-5500ap (depending on spec).
or 1273 damage after normalization.

Now take Heart Strike (blood spec). 60% weapon damage + 176*2+220 with a modifier of about 1.88

If we assume we're hit capped and sit on about 35% crit (same gear) we're averaging about 4k a hit.
((1273+653)*.6+220+176*2)*1.88 for non crit +
((1273+653)*.6+220+176*2)*1.88*(1+1.45)*.35 for crit
* 1-armor reduction (let's say 30%)
or 4 223
And we probably fit in about 6 of these every 20 seconds


Now take everything the same, but assume the Claymore is a 2.5 speed 2h (so an average of 466.5 a hit)

do the same math:
((1273+466.5)*.6+220+176*2)*1.88 for non crit +
((1273+466.5)*.6+220+176*2)*1.88*(1+1.45)*.35 for crit
* 1-.3
or 3950

So we've lost about 273 damage a heart strike, times 6 heart strikes over 20 seconds, or 82 dps.

At about 4.5kdps this constitutes a 2% dps change.

Now a 2.5 vs 3.5 speed is a very large change.

what if we compare a 3.5 to a 3.8:
(4305-4223)*6/20 =25dps or about half of 1% of your dps.

of course we have to consider the 1 oblit you get in in that time (a 10 dps loss) and the two Plague strikes (~6 dps) and let's not forget the BCB (15dps) which offsets this value due to its higher ppm.

And we're talking about 1% dps increase for .3 seconds of weapon speed.



Now I do not wish to comment on what you should do based on this change (whether it is too large to ignore or too small to notice), I merely am trying to contribute to the wealth of knowledge on the subject of Death Knight dps

 

Broseph

If BCB is, in fact, normalized, wouldn't its DPS contribution increase with as fast 2-hander? It's a flat 30% chance to proc. Taking your 2.5 vs 3.5 weapon speed example, you'd get 40% more swings, thus 40% more BCB procs hitting with the attack power bonus of a 3.3 speed weapon.

Not that BCB contributes more than 3-4% of overall DPS, but this should shrink the margin between slow and fast weapons even more.

 

tzenes

According to my records BCB contributes ~6% of total dps (about 2% per point)

BCB decreases with a faster 2h because the damage dealt is calculated as:

Base Weapon damage + AP/14*3.3

Same as every other DK ability. As a result, a slower weapon does more damage, but that additional damage it mitigated by the number of swings.

The result is exactly as you postulate: a dps increase (not a very large one as I showed), which offsets a portion of the additional damage provided by Oblit, PS and Blood Strike, but not all of it.

I'm sorry if this was not more clear in my original example.

I shall try to make it more so.

 

Broseph

I just noticed you are frost spec with all haste talents -- BCB contributes less for us Unholys :-D

 

tzenes

Actually that 6% number was for blood (whom I was doing the analysis on).

Both Frost and Unholy lose much less dps from weapon speed changes because their attacks are less dependent on weapon damage.

 

Cabal

This is interesting, and it solves my dillema of whether to steal [Cryptfiend's Bite] from hunters, or settle for my [Inevitable Defeat].

Since the difference is so small, I will happily stay with my mace for the time being (wink wink kel thuzad, old chap).

 

dr_AllCOM3

Actually Frost is the most weapon dependent spec.

DocsDK UI
Simulator

 

tedv

Being an Orc, the Axe from Halls of Lightning is a slight upgrade over the mace. Getting 5 expertise is like having a bonus 41 expertise rating on every axe you loot. For the record, the polearm looks like a clear downgrade over your mace from stats alone. It spends so many points on agility which are pretty worthless for death knights.

 

• Zurm

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but it seemed like you said the [Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver] was an upgrade over [Inevitable Defeat] for an orc. I just wanted to point out that the only reason I am expertise capped is because of the 9.5 expertise POINTS provided by this mace. In addition, the DPS difference, and increased stats, put it way above. I would trade 90 haste for an extra 37 expertise rating any day, and you comment on agi, yet the axe has only agi as well, and way less of it. Compare:

Going from the axe to the mace:

+10 str
+26 agi (about .5% crit?)
+37 effective expertise rating
~17 weapon dps
-90 haste rating

I have both, and I can assure you the axe doesn't come close. I'm sure any of the DPS spreadsheet owners will back me up on this. That being said, it MAY be possible that [Death's Bite] is superior for an orc. But the extra expertise is not THAT much of a boost. A lot of it also depends on your other gear and your spec. I, for example. have lots of hit and expertise on my gear, so going for weapons with those stats will generally push me over cap and force me to regem (which is acceptable) or re-gear (which isn't always possible). Also, when you spec blood, you get an additional 6 free expertise points.

 

tedv

Yeah, for some reason I saw 2h mace and thought it was [Titansteel Destroyer], which is better than the axe stat-wise until you factor in the expertise. Even ignoring stats though, the bonus 17 DPS on [Inevitable Defeat] makes it an upgrade over all heroic, crafted, and 10 man gear.

 

tzenes

Frost can be more weapon dependent, but in different ways.

Once we factory in Killing Machine, the value of faster weapons increases to help offset the damage loss to Frost Strike and Obliterate. Additionally, there is a damage minimum on Oblit provided by HB. If Oblit damage drops below HB damage, you can swap one for the other every 5 seconds.

Now, FS, Oblit and BS still make up a large portion of the damage done, but it is less than Blood.

 

Melchior

Looking at the stat weightings, aren't these actually somewhat close? For Blood the expertise would win out, but for say Unholy it's not as clear to me.

Although, I'm not really that confident in the stat weightings I've seen posted so far. For instance, whenever I swap weapons between Inevitable Defeat and Armageddon in Deathgraf, Armageddon always posts higher numbers for Blood spec, which is not what I would have expected given that they are the same speed & damage range.

 

• Zurm

I wouldn't take any theorycrafting tool as more than a general idea right now. I don't know much about dethgraf, but it's more of a simulator than a min/maxing tool. And weightings are dependant on gear and spec, and I know the ones in the compendium were with blue gear and a 180 dps weapon, if memory serves.

Vontre does an amazing job, but I personally find it to be a little off. Rawr is in no better of a state, and I'm working on it to fine-tune it as best I can. You can play with it for now as it's part of the release, but it's far from done. When it's more complete, I'll make a new thread for it and ask for some of the bigger posters here to play with it... hopefully we can get our tools as accurate as possible.

We are a new class, it's going to take a WHILE before we are able to make accurate models.

 

tzenes

I know the feeling. My own efforts to get the spreadsheet up to date feel futile at times.

For what it is worth, I show Armageddon as an upgrade over Inevitable Defeat even below the expertise cap (for dodge). And a bigger upgrade for unholy than blood. Also keep in mind, that Unholy doesn't have the extra expertise that blood has.

Keep in mind you have 5 expertise from talents (11 for blood) and Inevitable Defeat gives you an additional 9.5

However, neither spec shows more than a 1% change in dps.

 

Miracleknight

I've got the Skull Cleaver right now, and it's alright (I really need to do WWS) though I really wish it were hit instead of haste, I could stop worrying about hit all together if that were the case. Which is partially why I think Death's Bite is the second best weapon available for DKs behind the 220 DPS one which I forget; just due to it's stat allocations, none of it feels like a waste. Though sometimes I think I may be being a bit harsh on the value of haste, but it has Str, Hit, and Crit and that makes me wet in the proverbial form.

 

Kernunos

Does any one know if BCB has been changed in live? Over at Deathknight.info the data on BCB is that it has a 10sec internal cooldown that lowers the actual proc rate to about 14% for two handers and 9% for dual wield. I specced away from it for my unholy build because I was not seeing any real benefit to my DPS (based on personal testing)

 

Bloody_sorcerer

Unless they ninja changed this EXTREMELY recently, I know this is not the case, as I have seen quite a few back-to-back BCBs, and WWS parses put the number of BCB hits at ~30% of landed melee attacks, based off of this WWS parse:
Wow Web Stats

Although it comes out to be 22.3% of landed hits were BCB, i suspect that either the data set isn't large enough, or BCB might not proc off of glancing blows?

(Also, don't even ask why I'm DW unholy...)

 

Shalymar

I am working on a DW tri-spec build based around deep Blood talents and BCB proc a lot. I have done some testing over the weekend and haven’t noticed any changes recently.

 

• Zurm

BCB was changed in beta to a 10 sec ICD for about 2-3 builds. That change was since removed, or possibly made into a 1 second ICD. In my very limited DW tests, I saw plenty of BCB procs easily within 3 seconds of each other.

I believe BCB can be dodged or parried. I also don't think it can crit.

 

sc0rp

Hello,
I'm unholy dps with build 17/0/54 and I'm little confused which one weapon is better for me because they looks really similar.
[Titansteel Destroyer] and [Demise] Titansteel Destroyer imho has better stats for me but Demise is slower weapon anyone could explain mer how much worth for me 0,1s weapon speed.

Regards

 

Prinsesa

Do we have confirmation that BCB is normalized?

I ask this primarily because the decision to normalize or not normalize has always been about whether or not the behavior can be exploited either way.

Mortal Strike is normalized because its an instant attack on a 6 second cooldown.

Windfury Weapon is NOT normalized because it's a predictable 20% chance to proc per attack. You get more procs with a fast weapon, but those extra procs deal less damage, so it evens out.

It seems that BCB is on a similar footing: Normalizing it would actually be the worse design decision, as Broseph pointed out in the second post.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

flergh

The 89 haste rating makes Demise swing at roughly 3.4 (provided you have no other haste stats on your gear) which makes it a worse weapon choice than Titansteel Destroyer which has 34 more strength.

 

• Zurm

The word normalized indicates that an ability's speed modifier has been fixed to prevent the desire to go for slower weapons over higher DPS ones. This is not necessary on a % chance to proc ability like BCB. It is inherently normalized, because if you have a slower weapon it will proc less often but hit harder, and if you have a fast weapon you will see more procs but for less damage.

So I don't really understand how you can say BCB is normalized or not... that's like asking if sword spec procs or windfury procs are normalized. The only glitch I've seen with BCB is that it doesn't crit. Ever.

What IS normalized for death nights? Our active strikes. Rune strike, Scourge Strike, Frost Strike... I could continue the list, but if it involves your weapon and melee range, it's normalized. For a DK, there is no significant difference between a 1.0 speed two-hander and one with a 4.0 speed in terms of PVE DPS (though for PvP you obviously want the slower weapon for more burst).

 

Wayde

What would the best possible weapon speed for a frost build dk centered around using obliterate?

 

elemund

I think confusion comes from the OP and subsequent posts, which claim that BCB *is* normalized, that fast weapons do less strike damage but more overall BCB damage, and in the end it's all a wash. The wowhead spell description for blood-caked strike (untrustworthy, I know) also has Normalized Weapon Damage +, just like ordinary strikes.

Whether it's a good design or not, or whether rogue and shaman abilities act the same way, is somewhat beside the point.