what would the second rotation be?

i'm really liking the 0/13/58 spec.

was doing some testing last night with various gear/specs and this one was coming out ahead by far.

using slow/fast, fc/fc

375 hit
24 exp
195 haste

glyph of dark death, ss, ghoul

in BP i was pulling mid 3400s over 4 min test on target dummy. i'm pretty satisfied about that. i was around the 3510ish range most of the time but after a while my fingers got tired after raiding all night and i slowed down a bit. going to do some 10 min tests tonight and put up some SS's

armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory


edit: rotation:

it-ps-ss-bs-bs-dump (ub/dc)
ssx3-dump (dc)

gargoyle up when pyrite/fc or fc/greatness were up. no army

Gem only for strength, use your Bold Dragons eyes for blue sockets where the socket bonus is a benefit(IE: Don't waste using a Bold Dragons eye prismatic, to get a Stam socket bonus!)

Expertise is important, but not as important as raw Strength, which benefits all of your spell damage, your raw Attack power, and also benefits your ghoul! Expertise, while important, is better to pick up through gear, not precious dragons eyes!

The second part of a Scourge Strike rotation is up in the air depending on a number of random things, but mainly the Scourge Strike glyph I have been using.

If diseases drop, you obviously want to prioritize Plague Strike and Icey Touch to get them back up, otherwise, you are spamming Scourge Strike till every rune is burned.

The second part of the rotation would be roughly

PS-IT(Only if diseases have dropped) SS- SS- SS- Runic Dump(Keeping up UB if it is close to dropping, otherwise pumping out as many DC's as you can). The third Scourge Strike comes from the Death runes produced in the first part of the rotation with Blood Strike. By the time you get to those, you are usually only waiting a few seconds)if that) for the FU runes to be done cooling down.

I am using Blood Presence for everything atm. 450 Haste feels comfortable(but you may have a hard time getting that number) I run zero Armor pen, though I have access to gear with it, its not worth it with an Unholy build in my opinion. That may change with the Tier set changes on the horizon.

Keep in mind, if you glyph for Scourge Strike, it does you the most benefit to keep pounding it so long as Frost Fever and Blood Plague are on your target. The glyph is amazing in this regard and I don;t think I would want to playa Scourge Strike based build without it.

There is some debate about using Icey Touch glyph over lets say, Dark Death. I prefer Dark Death for the present time because with 4 pc T7.5 you generate a lovely(and functional) amount of RP spamming strictly Scourge Strike. Also, with Unholy builds, you do not go that deep into Frost to really beef up Icey Touch, though again, these choices are my own and players are free to experiment with the glyphs and rotation styles that suit them best.

What works for me, may not work best for others, some experimentation is required.

I like the Scourge Strike spam build because its very easy to adjust to adverse conditions when learning new content, and Scourge Strike hits a lot harder than Icey Touch ever could with these types of builds.

Do not read to much into this Screenshot, it is a kill, and yes the number is real.

This is the potential of Unholy DW DPS with a fight that features Adds and a stationary target. Ignis using the brute force method(not killing the moltens and just oting them while you burn him down). My blood runes were used to Pest every other rotation, to spread diseases to the moltens who were being tanked nearby. Results where ....pleasing.

No damage gimmicks, just thoughtful use of AoE where appropriate, and solid primary target DPS.

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/251...0509220849.jpg

Just to clear something out before I start. Everyone calls 0/13/58 my spec, but I have to set this straight. It was first brought up by pintor. All I did was some min/maxing of talents, glyphs, etc.. and my backing. Now that that's out of the way, back to your questions.

1. In regards to FotFF vs BI, I personally do not know. I have not picked up a BI so I just use FotFF so it's easy enough for me. For Gargoyle, FotFF is a lot better once you get to 12+ stacks and in general. Once you have 20 stacks, it gives you 130 more AP. Let's say it takes about 12 seconds to get 12 stacks, 1 stack a second. Over the initial first minute, BI will have an average of 190AP each second. FotFF will take 20 seconds to get all twenty stacks plus an extra 40 seconds of all stacks: 16(Σ20)+40(16x20)=16160 over 60 seconds, so an average of 269.33 AP over the first initial minute with FotFF, 320AP after the first minute as long as procs don't fall off. These are by no means the correct values, this is just figuring 1 proc per second. Now let's look at the first 20 seconds of Each, still assuming 1 proc per second. This comes out to 190AP average for BI and 168 AP average for FotFF for the first 20 seconds. For BI and FotFF to break even with AP average per second, It's take 23.38 secs, or 24. That's that for the AP Factor, remember, hypothetical values for proc time. Now let's look at including the Proc of BI. Let's say on average, it does 3k. It has a 45 second Internal CD and a 15% proc. Let's just say this procs once every 50 seconds. That's 1.2 times a minute. For the initial minute, it will proc twice. BI will do 190AP + 6k. FotFF will have 269.33AP. So it's 6k damage vs 79.33AP for the initial minute. Every minute after, we can assume 1.2 procs per minute since there's no build up with FotFF. That's 190AP + 3.6k damage vs 320AP = 3.6k damage vs 130AP. At this point, it comes down to how well your abilities scale. Will that extra 130AP deal >3.6k in a minute or not. Let's look at the initial 20 seconds again with the proc. Most likely it will proc once for BI. So that's 190AP + 3k vs 168AP = BI comes out ahead with 22AP + 3k. So It seems it comes down to how long the fight is and how well your abilities scale. Shorter fights (i.e. 30 seconds -45 seconds or so), Most likely BI Hands Down. Longer fights, It all depends but I'd guess FotFF.

2. Now with UB Glyph vs. SS Glyph. I could see where this argument might have some substance if it was UB vs DC glyph if they we weren't using T7 since they would most likely be producing only 60-65RP per Rotation, But there isn't a way for Unholy to generate more than this without some CDs. These are all the possible rotations that are logical:

IT(10)>PS(25)>SS(45)>BS(55)>BS(65) 65 RP total this rotation
IT(10)>PS(25)>SS(45)>SS(65) 65 RP total this rotation
SS(20)>SS(40)>SS(60) 60 RP total this rotation
SS(20)>SS(40)>BS(50)>BS(60) 60 RP total this rotation

So Unholy would generate about 1 UB and 2 DCs per 20 seconds. That's 3 UBs and 6 DCs a minute. The DC Glyph gives those 6 DCs +15% which comes out to 6.9 extra DCs a minute of the same damage of the 6 DCs. Now the UB Glyph would allow you to do 2 UBs and 7 DCs a minute, allowing the UB Glyph to pull ahead. UB Glyph + DC glyph gives you 7 DCs at 15% or the same as 8.05 DCs at the 6 DC damage. Now looking at UB Glyph vs SS Glyph, On average, you'll do 4 SSs if you need to refresh your diseases manually, or 5 SSs if they auto refresh. with 4 SSs with the Glyph, you have a .75^4 chance to not refresh your diseases after the 20 seconds or a 31.64% chance to not refresh. With 5 SSs, it's .75^5 chance to not refresh, or a 23.73% chance to not refresh. We'll compare SS Glyph + UB Glyph vs DC Glyph + UB Glyph since SS Glyph + UB Glyph would produce more damage than SS Glyph +DC Glyph. It comes down to 8.05 DCs (UB Glyph + DC Glyph) vs Refreshing diseases/Extra Damage from SS(SS-[PS+IT]) + 7 DCs = 1.05 DCs vs Diseases/SS Damage. This is the point where you decide what is optimal for you. I actually just stopped this to do a few sims, And DC Glyph + UB Glyph is about 60dps Higher than SS Glyph + DC Glyph, no T7. CURRENT 4pT7 bonus with UB Glyph + DC Glyph vs SS Glyph gives about a 40dps increase in UB Glyph +DC Glyph's favor. So yes, DC + UB is better than SS glyph.

3. You always want the Slower in the MH, Faster in OH. Only reason why You see me with Fast/Fast is because my Highest DPS Slow weapon is Naxx25 and that's a little too slow.

Orlgin: Might want to update 0/13/58 on the OP from SS+DC+Ghoul Glyphs to UB+DC+Ghoul.

EDIT: Morbidity is a very weak talent in this build. I tend to try and focus on Single Target Damage over AoE damage so I tend not to worry about Morbidity for DnD. This build still puts out a good amount of AoE. If you want to take 2 points out of anything to put into Morbidity, take them out of Desecration. It's horrible for AoE while Wandering Plague is quite good for it. Remember, The choices are ALWAYS up to you.

Thanks a lot Kyru, and I'll remember the origin of the 13/58 spec from now on ^^ Sorry pintor!

This has nothing to do with DW. You just did aoe damage in a fight, where everyone else normally does single target damage. This is exactly the situation, where Unholy has it's moments. Many adds around a boss who never die. Yes, it's nice, but it's also very pointless.

Even without the AoE, DW led that particular kill by several hundred DPS. The other DPS DK in the raid were all 2 hand specs. Thats part of the reason I made the comments I did.

Multiple classes also did plenty of AoE, unless you think a Paladin doing 6500 DPS is the norm.

A DW DK still produced the DPS shown, so its entirely relevant as pretty much every other encounter in Ulduar features adds of some sort that require DPS. Unholy happens to excel at it, no reason to ignore that.

The 2h/special melee hit softcap is 8% in WOTLK, so you're actually slightly over yourself. The extra hit isn't wasted while dualwielding, it's just likely to be less valuable than other stats. We don't have a great model of DW unholy DPS with equivalency points yet, so even that isn't assured.

Its DPS and obviously I am aware that DPS on those adds isn't required or needed, and it was noted as to the reasons why the numbers were so high, wether or not the adds have to die isn't relevant. Its just DPS capability in a situation with those particular attributes.

You need spell hit cap, which is why 9% is what you should aim for, because it corresponds to 11% spell hit.

Depending on gear I am usually slightly over cap yes.

Quick question(or 2):

Is it a dps loss if your hit percentage for DW goes above 9%?

Would it be better to switch my +hit gems with +strength gems if I'm over the 9% hit. I'm currently at 11.8% hit (just got a really nice trinket from uld which boosted it ALOT). So was wondering if I should switch some gear/gems round.

Gemming for hit (attainable levels, not including over white cap) will NEVER be a DPS loss. However, it CAN be less of a DPS gain than gemming for something else, depending on your current stats and spec. Do you raid often? Do you have someone in your raid providing 3% spell hit? If so, you're at the point where you can regem a few +hit for +str, and focus any additional slots on +str if your hit stays about the same.

Remember that any hit over these "caps" isn't evil. It's a good stat just like anything else, it just goes down in value as you hit these plateaus, making other stats more beneficial for the min/maxer.

Improved Unholy Presence seemed the best use of the remaining points. One point in Outbreak gives hardly any DPS at all given that it uses one Plague Strike every 20 seconds. Subversion gives 3% critical to Obliterate and Blood Strike which is fine except you can only put one point in it. Desecration would have spotty uptime at best.

I hedged between putting one point in Unholy Blight and one point in Subversion (1/18/52) or two points in Improved Unholy Presence. Given that there are so many mobile fights, I chose Improved Unholy Presence. While a perfect player technically wouldn't need it, it gives you a little slack if your reaction time is slow for whatever reason. It improves DPS uptime and survivability. You can also get an additional 24 AP from the boot enchant.

If you feel comfortable enough with the fights that you don't need it, then 1/18/52 is technically superior. However, I suggest you try both first and get a feel for your own comfort level.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...4&version=9868

This may work better for you if you do a lot of AoE since it has threat reduction for Death N Decay and Unholy Blight.

Thanks for the answer. I didn't think about Unholy Blight at all, thanks for pointing that out as it is probably better than Outbreak for most situtations. Also I don't have any numbers on how much of a dps increase 1 point in Subversion would be, has anyone ran calculations on that?

Sorry that my post caused so much consternation. It is deleted.

Cagey

A look at your spec and I am confused. You have Glyph of Obliterate but no points in Annihilation. You have a point in Scourge Strike but no Outbreak. You have 5/5 Killing Machine which would indicate Icy Touch spam.

The easiest spec to morph this way is 0/17/54. This spec used Improved Unholy Presence with Unholy Presence. It spams Plague Strikes, Icy Touchs, Blood Strikes, and Death Coils as fast as possible. With Glyph of Icy Touch and 2/2 Chill to the Grave, you generate a ton of runic power with your Icy Touchs.

Going with an Icy Touch theme, I shaved Unholy to the minimum 43 points. You get 3/3 Glacial Rot and 4/5 Killing Machine to make your Icy Touch spam worthwhile.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9855

You should find this more to your liking. It's easy to play. Use the single rune abilities every time a rune comes up, fire Death Coils whenever possible, and use Death Runes for Icy Touch.

Going with this will be a DPS benefit for your group overall but a DPS loss for yourself which is perfectly fine if that is what the group needs.

Hi! A long time reader checking in.


I have been playing 2h blood in Ulduar but I'd loved to play a dw spec. I tried dw unholy and did decent dmg but the ulduar gear has so much armor penetration in it and I'm really struggling to get the hit cap since I haven't got the Pyrite Infuser yet. On the other hand the obliterate build which uses ArP requires so much other stats that I won't be able to pull decent dps with it. At the moment I'm just waiting to pyrite infuser drop on our 10man runs and then spec dw unholy even if it's a dps loss 'cos I love dw.

2h might be the best dps at the moment but please keep up the great work Orlgin and keep theorycrafting. There are people who would pay anything to play dw properly again.

Armory link: The World of Warcraft Armory
As you can see I have a real problem with expertise.

ps. A friend of mine is editing our Mimiron (hc) kill and it will be out soon. P2 & P4 are from my PoV and I tried unholy dw in that fight.

edit: We're trying Yogg (hc) tonight but I doubt that I get the trinket from him.

That depends on the user. There are several factors here that determine it's viability;

1) How much melee damage are you doing? Certain stats such as Armor Penetration and Haste are cheap and make DW damage skyrocket due to it's naturally superior scaling. Note that talents such as Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade are white based and are included in this category.

2) How much Strike damage are you doing? This is important because if this number is high, you should strap on a two-hander. If this number is higher than 30%, you should grab that two-hander automatically.

3) How much damage comes from other sources? The reason Unholy can make DW viable is this category. No other build gets so much of it's damage from sources other than melee or strike damage. All pet damage can easy reach 20-25% of your damage (remember this includes Army of the Dead). Death Coil should be your #2 damage behind melee. Disease damage all falls into this category. So does Icy Touch. Wandering Plague belongs here too.

In a build like 0/18/53, white + white based damage can exceed strike damage by 40+%. As you can imagine, this means that it does better damage duel-wielding than it does with a 2-hander. I can't speak for the other specs but I imagine 0/17/54 IUP is better with Duel-Wielding.

Edit: I wanted to add more information here. Comparing specs is complicated. For instance, comparing 12/0/59 to 0/13/58.

12/0/59 has a higher base AP and scales slightly with armor value. It gets 4% extra weapon damage and weapon based damage. It also get 3% critical to Blood Strike and 4 runic power every 10 seconds. It's strikes due to using a two hander scale 37.5% better before modifiers than 0/13/58. 12/0/59 trades 4 points in Necrosis for Improved Unholy Presence and 2 points in Morbidity. It also has the ability to use Ghoul Frenzy using Blood Tap. They use the same glyphs once you break 4 pc T7.

0/13/58 scales better. It's white damage scales roughly 40% better. It's Necrosis will be substantially more. It's Death Coils will do the same amount of damage because the 10% from Black Ice negates the loss of 10% from Morbidity. It's Scourge Strike scales 37.5% less but it gets a 10% extra modifier. It's Icy Touch gets an additional 15% and 10% bonus. 0/13/58 gets a 10% modifier to it's disease damage. BCB will do roughly 33% more damage.

Each spec will stack different stats. Both want Expertise. Haste scales better for DW than Critical so it will stack some of that. 12/0/59 will likely have more critical rating instead. Because of the haste, 0/13/58's specialization of more white and white based damage will improve. Because of Critical, 12/0/59's Strike advantage is improved. 0/13/58 will have a hard hitting Ghoul because it's haste will improve it's damage.

So the answer is: it's complicated and gear dependent.

@Salsinor: The haste from Icy Talons doesn't stack with Windfury Totem or Improved Icy Talons. In a raid, you should expect to receive this buff so that switch would be a DPS loss. A considerable one at that. If you are in a ten man and won't get the buff, see the above 0/28/43 build. You should use that so the buff is present for your group.

I've been following along with this thread and I was curious if the points in dirge in the frost tree for 0/18/53 couldn't be moved around for something like this build: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...6&version=9889 . I just couldn't tell if the extra runic power from Obliterate and Icy Touch is neccessary or if the extra melee haste would make up for the loss. I was planning on actually trying both 0/18/53 and my 0/19/52 in the next couple of ulduar raids and checking it out myself, but I just wanted to see what others might think.

@ Salsinor : If you have a shaman in your raid then those 3 talent points are being wasted as their WF totem will over ride or provide the exact same thing. If you have a frost DK then they are completely wasted, either way, the points are better spent else where.

Hey there, been reading EJ for years, first post.

I've been following, and using, Orlgin's Obliterate built, however, after running some sims, I've come to question it's viability.

Using Kahorie's DK simulator, I get the the following general picture:

DW Oblit
Using gear from the OP. Skill priority from OP. DPS ends up around ~5500 (varies when I muck around with runeforges etc, but not really important for the point I'm trying to make)
Average Obliterate damage: ~4000

Using Pre-Hard Mode BiS gear from the BiS thread:
DW IUP single-rune ability spam build: ~6500 DPS
DW SS build: ~6400 DPS

Average SS damage: ~5600

2H SS build: ~6300 DPS

Average SS damage: ~6100

Ofcourse using the exact same gear for these 3 builds isn't completly fair, but you could generally conclude that they are in the same ballpark.

Now, there's a couple of things that jump out:

• DW Oblit's sim'd DPS is lacking quite a bit; ~800-1000 DPS.
• Obliterate's damage does not compare to Scourge Strike.

Now for my questions:
Do these numbers sound about right, or am I doing something wrong in the simulator?

If I'm not mistaken, the DW Oblit build was created on the basis that A) Oblit >= SS provided you have enough ArP, and B) ArP is nice for DW's white damage. Before doing any tests or calculations, my gut feeling said that this could work. Obliterate however seems to do quite a bit less then SS does, using appropriate gear for each.

I'm assuming comparing the "BiS thread"'s Pre-Heroic Hard Mode gear list is a fair comparison to the list given in the OP. (I don't see why it wouldn't be, should be same iLvL.) It has to be said that the BiS Thread gear gives quite a bit more Haste compared to the ArP gear. In fact, white damage is equal, if not higher with the BiS Thread gear thanks to the extra Haste.

I also notice in my numbers that my Ghoul does less damage using the Oblit/ArP spec and gear. I reckon this is because the ghoul receives no bonus from ArP?

Looking at these numbers, I wondered if the Sim calculates Obliterate's damage correctly. I've not really been able to answer this myself, although WWS/Recount's crude numbers seemed to be agreeing with the Sim's numbers.

I realise that in the OP it's said that the Oblit build starts out lower, but scales better with gear, eventually passing the other builds. Is this crossover point really attainable with the current gear? Reading the entire thread, I can't really get a grip on the general consensus concerning this.

Finally, the heart of the comparison between builds is having ArP or not. Does the simulator maybe error in the ArP calculation?


I'm hoping my questions, and ofcourse their answers, help people get a better view on the Obliterate build's capabilities.

I have played this spec quite a bit and taking 1 point out of Necrosis and putting it into Corpse Explosion and using the CE Glyph instead of the Pest glyph was actually a DPS increase for me. Might want to try it.

Nevermind, stupid post, forgot about windfury. :P