Any what exactly are you trying to tell us? KM has been modeled, but you obviously didn't search.

Killing Machine Test results after a 5 min fight using fast/fast 32/39 spec, only melee attack. (Hatestrike/Avool's)
May try again over a longer period of time (10-15 min), however I don't think the new ppm will ever catchup to current mechanics.

Live - 39 KM buffs
Test Realm - 17 KM buffs

Just for fun tried a 2h (Wraith Spear), same 5 min peroid
Test Realm - 19 KM buffs

Well, the testing has to be taken with a grain of salt I'm sure, as it's so short a period, and for all we know nothing is permanent yet.

Still, Meatsack's results are pretty worrying indeed - KM would be more beneficial to 2h than to DW..ugh.

It is most likely worth the same for 2h and DW. PPM needs a very large timeframe to measure correctly.

That's the whole point of the change: 32/39 has been acknowledged to be a broken spec, and the devs are trying to ameliorate that. As it stands now, KM is almost completely worthless for tanking. With the changes, it will become a must have talent for tanking, and will provide a substantial boost to threat, which has also been acknowledged to be deficient in DK tanks.

Strictly speaking though, yes it is more of a buff for 2H.

We've done most of the KM math in the frost thread--with regard to benefit vs old KM--and I've personally mathed new KM to be worth approx 200% of old KM and this has rougly held to be true looking at PPM over a Naxx25 this past week (current rate comes down to about ~2-2.5 ppm).

I also did a quick & dirty check on PPM with haste vs without, to test whether haste affects the procrate, and haste from gear AND buffs is indeed factored in. Admittedly, the test was short (10m) and was testing fallen crusader but they both use the same ppm mechanic (just different rates).

If RotFC has an internal cooldown, it must be on the range of <5 seconds, as I know I've seen it refresh itself or see two heals from it in SCT at the same time.

I've been wrong before. Was that 2H or DW?

There is no internal cooldown. However it isn't worth comparing FC and KM, because KM only procs off whites at 5ppm(or whatever the number is), and FC procs 1ppm AND procs off all weapon attacks(strikes basically) which brings it closer to 4 procs a minute on average if I remember correctly what my tests concluded back in beta.

Quick question, I haven't looked at tooltips much recently, but today I noticed that Ebon Plaguebringer is saying "Increases vulnerability to magic by 13%" as opposed to "increases damage to target from magic by 13%". How long ago did that change, and what does "vulnerability" as opposed to "damage" mean exactly? I apologize in advance for the somewhat potentially noobish question.

The purpose was not to compare procrates but to confirm that PPM is affected by passive and active haste, which is loosely confirmed by my testing (1 ppm for 10m with 6.5% and 26.5% haste.

Because it can proc off of yellow swings, FC looks more like a 1.85 ppm ability during a raid but that can easily be controlled for on a target dummy.

Last I read, it was tested that ebon plague will not stack with another DK's ebon plague still correct? Just want to make sure to know how to direct the DKs in our guild to spec.

tauwyt:

The lack of stacking is true. The myth that the third disease is such a big deal that you need to actually worry about the lack of stacking is false. In fact, pre-patch, the CF/EP stacking bug makes it advantageous to stack two semi-unholy DKs, one with CF and one with EP.

Unholy is currently the best 2H spec with three diseases. Unholy with only two diseases, however, is quite competetive and even perhaps superior to Blood and Frost. Direct your guildmates to spec into whatever they are most comfortable with.

Yeah, the 3rd disease really doesn't mean much overall. That's why I was so irritated that they removed the 4th disease (disease component on UB); with the exception of Blood Caked Blade, all the disease damage bonuses are constants. That means they're basically irrelevant to scaling, and the constants are small enough (~100 damage per attack) that they have very little impact on DPS, either. UB was incredible when you could cast it and instantly have 2 diseases (UB + EP or CF) on every target in range for purposes of things like Blood Boil as well as for helping other AOE classes. Now it's just damage. Blah.

Because the patch is apparently "emminent", I logged on the PTR for some specc head to heads, trying to decide for myself what to go after 3.0.8. Im posting here my 5 min tests, and maybe others find these results useful.

Caveats: the dummy was constantly at 1%, so speccs with Merciless Combat are slightly inflated. Also speccs with Necrosis are undervalued. I decided not to use any dps impacting major glyphs, and to unequip sigil for all tests, because of practicality. I used permanent ghoul for the speccs that had it, summoned DRW/Garg whenever CD allowed, and used raise dead for 2 mins ghoul when possible, as well.

First i tested 32/39 DW specc, with a fast/fast weapon combo:



The result was more around 3154 dps, blame recount for dropping dps when you back off, but diseases are still ticking

Next the same specc, with a slow/fast weapon pairing:



Dps ~3300

Then I tried 44/27 specc with slow/fast:



around 3000 dps

Moving on to blood 51/13/7:



around 3030 dps (now with Heart Strike!)

And then the typical unholy 17/0/54:



2900 dps

Finaly the 21/50 frost build:



which managed 2930 dps.

I shied away from testing blood 51/0/20 because im not that comfortable with its rotation.

So aparently DW remains on top, obviously some speccs scale better with proper sigils/ glyphs (hi unholy), but would be too much of a hassle to fly over to undercity to swap glyphs for each test.

You claim DW is on top, but what presence did you use when testing blood and frost?

Unholy presence makes for a pretty big DPS increase over blood presence if you can react fast enough to use the extra GCD time.

Hi Cabal,

Could you please tell us what weapons you've used in this comparisons? Just want to be sure that the slow weapon isn't better than your fast one.

So we already know that the new defense glyph has a 100% chance to proc, but I'm hearing conflicting reports on whether it procs from activation, or successful hit on the target. Which is it?

Just wanted to point out that your test for 51/13/7 is flawed. You used Blood strike and not the main nuke of that build which is HEART STRIKE.

Also blood fairs bad on test dummies do to the fact is all about physical dmg and you do not have sunders and the like on the dummies.

All in all these tests show that the gap between all the diffrent specs is alot smaller now.. and being these were only 1 pass of a small time test the numbers are probably even closer since a lucky streak with one test and a bad streak with another makes a big diffrence in stats.

Overall tho I think blizzard is getting the diffrent specs more inline. Thanks for the tests :-D

Naturaly that was a concern of mine, to try and use comparable weapons

Fast was [Split Greathammer]

Slow was [Angry Dread]

In both tests my OH was [Hatestrike]

Oopsie.

Heh thanks for the catch, thats what you get when you try lots of speccs in a small amount of time, sometimes you forget to swap some buttons :p

I will retest blood on the PTR momentarily, thanks again.

Edit: done, 200 dps difference, making blood the highest 2h dps according to my short testing.

Oh and DRW is just amazing now, 1900 dps? Yes please, id say its as strong as the now-nerfed gargoyle, but it lasts less time.

Stop assuming theorycraft is always right and go test it for yourself. Every DPS DK I know who's gone from blood to unholy presence has seen an increase in DPS. The only time blood has been superior in practice is if you aren't full DPS spec.

Theory, as nice as it is, is never the full picture. Too many assumptions are made that rarely come to pass, such as having no lag, perfect rotation, 100% on time reactions down to nanosecond timing, full attention to combat, etc.