This has been answered many times throughout the history of DW. If you don't go for Improved Icy Talons, then getting 1/5-5/5 Icy Talons is useless, A Shaman will bring the same buff and you'll have 5 talent points put to waste putting the argument very bluntly and simple. This question was even somewhat answered further up on in this page with a different build, but same outcome.

I also came to the conclusion that Obliterate isn't simming properly. I've done the math several times and the sim never agrees with it. That might also explain why frost builds sim so low.

However, looking at those numbers, an easier explanation comes to mind. Armor Penetration isn't implemented correctly. Obliterate's damage is being reduced by 39% Armor with 24% armor reduction from sunder effects. There appears not to be any benefit from ArP on it whatsoever. An easy way to check this would be to put in 1000 ArP and see if Obliterate jumps in damage. If it doesn't, that is the culprit.

Glyphed Obliterate may also still be simming at 96% instead of 100% Weapon damage. I left a post in the thread but never saw an update where he changed that. Due to the high disease modifiers, that makes a noticeable difference.

Ghoul gets no bonus from ArP. It only gets Strength, Hit Rating, and Haste rating from it's master. If 0/13/58 is using more haste gear, it's ghoul should be doing more damage.

However, Death Coil damage for my build should be noticeably higher. If it's not, then Obliterate isn't generating the correct amount of Runic Power either. A lot of people forget Dirge also adds 5 runic power to Obliterate.

The sim is still in beta phase and the creator is still working on it. It would not be surprising if the sim isn't modeling all specs correctly.

I would like to see some WWS or Recounts from a 0/18/53 that actually has a high amount of Armor Penetration on it. So far, I haven't seen any. I can't do them myself as I don't have the gear. It would help to have some real game data to compare to the math.

It's definitely including ArP. Before adding 1000ArP, 0/18/53 was doing ~5,120dps. After, ~6,370dps. Before. OB did ~4,110 damage per hit, After, ~5,890 damage per hit. The question is if it's calculating ArP correctly. These were done with 200ms. Just for reference, some of the changes:

Skill : Before | After

OB : 4,114 | 5,891
PS : 1,174 | 1,692
BS : 1,516 | 2,182
Necrosis (Only effected by White damage) : 212 | 307
BCB : 535 | 772
MH : 1,238 | 1,790
OH : 698 | 1,005

Now just for reference, don't try to use these in calculations, these were 24 hour sims, just to see if it was calculating ArP, not to see if it was calculating it correctly. If you wish to try and see if it's calculating it correctly, do you own sims and use those for calculations.

EDIT: These were with the Sim Version 0.8.3 because I did not know at the time of the new version. Sim Version 0.8.4 has had some ArP changes.

EDIT 2: I meant 0.8.3 and 0.8.4.

Going from 300 to 1300 ArP rating, Oblit's damage goes from ~4k to ~6k, so it does effect it. Atleast to a degree...

It's good to keep in mind that the simulator's data should be taken with a grain of salt, and it's good to hear that the ~900 DPS difference between the DW-Oblit build and other builds is (hopefully) a matter of the sim doing something wrong.

About 5 and a half hour of sleeptime remaining, so I'm outta here. I'll see if I can check a bit more tomorrow.

Edit: Kyruski types faster then me I was using v8.3.0

I have the correct spreadsheet information regarding Armor Penetration. According to the spreadsheet, armor reduction for 18.5% Armor Penetration is 30.37%. With no armor penetration at all, it's 34.66%. The sim is still using multiplicative for the Glyph so I'll use that and completely ignore the tooltip information:

80% * 1.2 (Glyph) * 1.15 (Blood Presence) * 1.45 (Diseases) * 1.1 (Rage of Rivendare) * 1.04 (Blood Frenzy) * 1.02 (Bone Shield) * 0.6963 (Armor Reduction) = 130.06% Weapon Damage

Now for Scourge Strike in 0/13/58

45% * 1.2 (Outbreak) * 1.15 (Blood Presence) * 1.396 (Diseases) * 1.1 (Rage of Rivendare) * 1.1 (Black Ice) * 1.05 (Desecration) * 1.02 (Bone Shield) * 1.15 (Cruelty assuming 50% crit rate) * 1.13 (Ebon Plaguebringer) = 126.949% Weapon Damage

So something isn't right at all. I didn't even include resists into the model and Obliterate is ahead. Checking Bonus Damage:

467.2 * 1.2 * 1.15 * 1.45 * 1.1 * 1.04 * 1.02 * 0.6963 = 759.578
357.19 * 1.2 * 1.15 * 1.396 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.02 * 1.15 * 1.13 = 1158.81

So Scourge Strike is producing nearly 400 more bonus damage. Now using critical modifiers:

OB: 759.578 * 1.47 (47% critical) * 1.06 (metagem) = 1183.57
SS: 1158.81 * 1.5 (50% critical) * 1.06 (metagem) = 1842.5

So that boosts the bonus damage separation by 658.93.

Fugazor says he did a quick test that showed that the Blizzard tooltip is wrong and that it's 20% so I'm going by that for now. It's possible the tooltip is in error but it's unlikely since it uses the same calculation that the game does.

The difference is noticeable. If the glyph is additive, add 5.4% Weapon Damage and 35.7 bonus damage before critical modifiers for Obliterate.

The reason my old sheet was showing Obliterate ahead was two errors:

1) I had the sheet using Obliterate Glyph as additive which is what the tooltip is showing.

2) I had incorrect armor penetration value. I had the old sheet data (39% instead of 41.1% armor for boss) which means that Obliterate was being reduced by less than it should.

3) The sheet used 5% partial resist number for Scourge Strike which I didn't use in the above numbers.

I , of course, interpreted the data incorrectly as well when trying to break down what it did.

Taking 0/18/53 off the front page again.

Using the latest build, v8.4.0, Physical damage goes up a wee, thanks to ArP. Obliterate does ~150 more on average. This makes the total DPS go up by ~300, reaching 5809
ArPrating is 312, simulated for 72 hours.

On a side note, I see DPS go up using FC / FC, next in line being FC/RI and lowest damage being FC/CG. Going from CG in OH to FC is a 60 DPS increase, reaching 5869. Still not alongside the other builds, but getting there.

Another thing I noticed, is that Auto attack has the same crit % as Obliterate, both being 39%. You'd say Oblit should be 3% higher thanks to Annihilation.
Adding 3% crit to Obliterate's damage, would add another ~205 DPS, totalling 6074 DPS. This would bring it ~200 DPS behind a 2H-SS build, using appropriate gear.

Conclusion: Tiny errors have a huge impact.

I suppose the difference in Oblit vs SS damage simply comes from the (slightly) higher AP that's on the SS gear (although it has slightly lower Crit). I don't see anything wrong in your math, but my guess is that the DW-Oblit build will lack slightly behind because of gearing issues. The BiS SS gear simply gives you more bang for your (iLvL)buck then the BiS Oblit gear does.
Or, in other words, even though stacking ArP will make you outscale other builds at some point, ArP is simply to expensive in terms of iLvL/sacrificing other stats to reach that point.

I think there's two more things to consider when deciding what build you are going to loot gear for.
A) This is all considering Pre-Hard Mode BiS gear. Entering with Naxx gear will make the Oblit build fall behind. I realise this is/was already stated in the OP, but I think it's important to realise that even after farming Ulduar, it's still debatable if Oblit equals other builds, let alone pass them. Having access to Hard Mode gear might make Oblit pull ahead though, but I haven't looked at that. (I don't expect to be doing many Hard Modes.)
B) The differences are fairly small, and change quickly when using different gear, or when exposing a sim/glyph/tooltip error. It's possible one of these things makes Oblit pull ahead in reality.

In conclusion, I reckon it's safe to say that going for an SS or Single-rune Spam build is "simpler". If you want to try something "special", give Oblit a whirl. I will.

On your WWS link, you're clearly Frost-specced for most of the raid, as you have Frost Strike and Howling Blast damage. I'm guessing you were only 0/10/61 for a small portion of that raid, and that's why your Necrosis damage is minuscule.

Also, Necrosis is bugged on Test Dummies--if you're hitting one that's at 1 HP, Necrosis will only deal 1 damage. (I don't believe that BCB has this bug, though I'm not certain).

EDIT: Just for reference, here's a link to a recent Ignis parse of mine. Necrosis is 4.1% of my damage.

That is true...I was going in and out of frost spec. I was actually 12/0/59 for that raid when I was unholy actually.

But even then, if you check my boss encounters, Freya 2, all my thorims, including the kills, My necrosis was at 0%.
I was unholy for all those bosses.

Furthermore, at 0/10/61, i hit the dummy 389 times with just melee with 5/5 necrosis, the numbers were

Total Dam: 598823

1. melee 551353 92.1%
2. BCS 31955 5.3%
3. Necrosis 15515 2.6%

And then i specced 7/10/54 with 0 points in necrosis. My numbers were

Total Dam: 617187

1. melee 585453 94.9%
2. bcs 31734 5.1%

That's a 5.5% increase in damage.

Now, I don't believe the bug for the dummy is accurate because my necrosis was hitting for more than 1 pt. The dummy i was hitting was the highlord's nemisis trainer. On 373 wacks, i hit for 15515 dam. Given iup is really a variable here, but besides that...

I'm hesitant to worry too much about the Thorim data, as trying to enumerate the various buffs and debuffs there could make my head spin, but it looks very much like you had only one point in Necrosis for the Freya-2 attempt.

Your melee swing damage: 293,751
Your Necrosis damage: 10,546

These are the stats from that attempts. Your *expected* Necrosis number should be:

293,751 * .2 = 58,750 (20% of your white swing damage)

Your actual Necrosis damage came out to be:

10,546 / 293,751 = .035 (3.5% of your white swing damage)

Given that the fight has a lot of adds, you could easily have lost half a percent of Necrosis damage on mobs that died before the damage could be applied. It really just looks like you only had a single point in Necrosis.

With the training dummy, you can easily start hitting it at around 5% of his health, at which point Necrosis will do full damage. When it gets to 1 HP, Necrosis will start landing for 1 damage. This would match the behavior you described where Necrosis "becomes less and less of my total dps as the fights get longer". I'd suggest taking another whack at it, making sure these factors are correct, and see if the numbers straighten themselves out.

@ debeucci : I believe (and I may be wrong) that what is causing your Necrosis damage to be so low is the fact that you are 2h speced. From what I've seen in parses it seems to scale better with DW, perfect example being here http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/log/665190 (excluding Ignis).

It doesn't. The difference is that Necrosis will be a higher percentage of your overall damage when you're dual-wielding simply because your white damage is a higher percentage of your overall damage.

Long time reader, nervous poster.

So I don't totally get most of the things you guys are talking about. I can sort of follow along most of the time though. See, I was never that great with Theory Crafting and things. So I just wanted to get a few things straight(from my perspective) with this spec.

1. Can i move 2 points from Desecration to Morbidity, cause I move a lot in raids. Would that be a bad idea?
2. Glyphs are UB, Dark Death and Ghoul. Would it be a DPS decrease or increase if I swap Glyph of UB with Glyph of PS?
3. Your ideally supposed to use the new Sigil that increases Frost Strike and Death Coil by 308 correct? If i dont have that yet what should I use?
4. And lastly, the general rotation is gonna be,
PS>IT>SS>BS>BS>UB>DC(max 2)
PS>PS>IT>IT>IT>IT>DC(Dump)<--- That's what i was really unclear on.


If anyone could help me out and clear these things up for me, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank You,

-An Intrigued Knight

2) Scourge Strike, Ghoul, UB
3) The badge gylph (awareness)

Is there any reasoning as to why some 0/13/58 specs have Glyph of DD while some have Glyph of SS? Above poster says SS whereas OP has SS. Which is correct?

If you click on the link for the spec, it shows the glyphs. Major Glyphs are Ghoul, Dark Death, and Unholy Blight.

Rotation: PS -> IT -> SS -> BS -> BS -> DC -> HoW -> SS -> SS -> DC -> SS -> DC

Replace HoW with Death Coil when runic power gets high. If Unholy Blight isn't up, use it instead of Death Coil. It lasts thirty seconds with the glyph so you won't be using it that often. That's all there is to it.

Since Scourge Strike has such high bonus damage and relatively low weapon %, it hits surprisingly hard for a one-handed weapon.

Orlgin, this is a repost of a post I made in the BiS Thread, but something I think should be reposted nonetheless.

Alright, for the past I'd say week and a half, I have been working on a BiS gear selection for both of the DW Builds(0/13/58 and 0/17/54).

Slot	BiS with Heroic Hardmode - 0/13/58	Pre-Heroic Hardmode - 0/13/58	BiS with Heroic Hardmode - 0/17/54	Pre-Heroic Hardmode - 0/17/54
Helm	[Warhelm of the Champion]	[Iron Riveted War Helm]	[Warhelm of the Champion]	[Iron Riveted War Helm]
Amulet	[Frigid Strength of Hodir]	[Insurmountable Fervor]	[Frigid Strength of Hodir]	[Insurmountable Fervor]
Pauldrons	[Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates]	Same	[Shoulderplates of the Eternal]	Same
Cloak	[Drape of the Faceless General]	Same	[Drape of the Drakerider]	Same
Breastplate	[Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate]	Same	Same	Same
Bracers	Armbands of Bedlam	[Bitter Cold Armguards]	Armbands of Bedlam	[Bitter Cold Armguards]
Gloves	[Conqueror's Darkruned Gauntlets]	Same	Same	Same
Belt	[Belt of Colossal Rage]	[Belt of the Titans]	[Belt of Colossal Rage]	[Belt of the Titans]
Legplates	[Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates]	Same	[Plated Leggings of Ruination]	[Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates]
Boots	[Battlelord's Plate Boots]	Same	[Boots of the Underdweller]	[Battlelord's Plate Boots]
Ring	[Sif's Promise]	Same	Same	Same
Ring	Seal of the Betrayed King	[Bladebearer's Signet]	Seal of the Betrayed King	[Crazed Construct Ring]
Trinket	[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]	Same	Same	Same
Trinket	[Blood of the Old God]	Same	Same	Same
Main Hand	[Caress of Insanity]	Same	Same	Same
Off Hand	[Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers]	[Remorse]	[Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers]	[Stonerender]

Notes

• [Caress of Insanity] is the BiS Mainhand once the iLvl is changed to 232, until then, [Vulmir, the Northern Tempest] is BiS.
• Both of these BiS item sets are not at the Exp Cap and are both ~400+ Hit Rating. This is Fine with a DW Build and actually is still optimal/BiS.
• [Stonerender] can be swapped in for [Remorse] and vice versa in the Offhand since there is only about a 1% difference in their Value in both sets.

After doing sims with the BiS Heroic Hardmode gear of each, both builds are pretty much neck and neck. 0/13/58 inches out ahead by ~30-50dps but what it seems like is the whole way, it is neck and neck. Which build you choose decides on your playstyle.

1/18/52

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9806

Pre-Heroic armor with good weapons

Head: [Conqueror's Darkruned Helmet] -- [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Arcanum of Torment]
Neck: [Might of the Leviathan]
Shoulders: [Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates] -- [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Greater Inscription of the Axe]
Cloak: [Drape of the Faceless General] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + [Fierce Monarch Topaz] + Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed - Spell - World of Warcraft
Chest: [Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate] -- [Bold Stormjewel] + [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats - Spell - World of Warcraft
Arms: [Bitter Cold Armguards] -- [Fierce Monarch Topaz] + [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault - Spell - World of Warcraft
Hands: [Gauntlets of the Wretched] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Gloves - Precision - Spell - World of Warcraft
Waist: [Girdle of Embers] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby]
Legs: [Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Icescale Leg Armor]
Feet: [Melancholy Sabatons] -- Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality - Spell - World of Warcraft
Ring1: [Bladebearer's Signet]
Ring2: [Strength of the Automaton]
Trinket1: [Blood of the Old God]
Trinket2: [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
Weapon1: [Caress of Insanity] (note: 232 version is better. These are old stats) -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby]
Weapon2: [Remorse]

What kind of statvalues do you base this on? Not arguing about the validity of the post just curious in-case of side-grades etc.

Also I was under the impression that expertise > hit after the hitcap. Are there any math done on this subject?(Since above poster said it was " Fine with a DW Build and actually is still optimal/BiS.")

Here are the Stat Weights for 0/13/58 with the Spell Hit Cap already reached.

Here are the Stat Weights for 0/17/54 with the Spell Hit Cap already reached.

Now just looking at the stat weights, you may think that 0/17/54 scales better, but you have to remember, these are AP Equivalency values, So One build might gain more out of AP than the other, which is why they somewhat even out. But as you can see, Hit is still a pretty good Stat.

Hiya. Long time reader, first time poster here.

I've been interested in dual-wielding DK for a while now. Currently I have access to Malice/Hailstorm combo, and my two-hander is sucky Death's Bite. So.. I ran some tests. Apparently with 0/10/61 2h spec I'm doing around 200 more dps than dual-wielding with 0/13/58. I'm a bit worried about this, simply because my 1handers are pretty good, while my 2h have loads of upgrades waiting for him. These are just self-buffed values, raid buffs not included, and I obviously regemmed correctly before each try.

Ever since then I've been working my ass off to up my DW performance. Simply because I love dual-wielding. But no matter what I do, I just can't beat 2h specs. My conclusion was that DW is simply not competitive enough to use it during serious progress raiding, simply because it falls behind 2h. Is this what you guys feel aswell, or am I just doing something wrong? I'd appreciate any tips.

Self-buffed is the reason why. The biggest buff you will receive in a raid will be Windfury Totem/Improved Icy Talons. You get roughly 40% more benefit from it as a duel-wielder than with a 2-Hander because of Necrosis, BCB, and superior scaling of duel-wielding.

Dummy testing isn't very productive for anything but perfecting your rotations. Different specs react completely different to different raid buffs. I suggest using the various tools that are available such as the simulator, spreadsheets, and actually trying it in a real raid.

Unholy is very well suited to duel-wielding. Pet damage is quite considerable. Death Coil damage is really high. Disease and disease based damage are high. What this means is that Strike damage % is lower for Unholy than for any other spec. This is the key to making duel-Wielding superior to a two-hander. If Strike based damage is high, a two-hander is always better.

A side benefit of going duel-wield is that the superior scaling option, 10 points in Frost for Black Ice, naturally leads to the 3 points in Nerves of Cold Steel which generate a lot of DPS for those points. Where the 10/61 is picking up less than optimal talents simply because there is nothing good to choose from. Talent point 59, 60, and 61 just won't be as valuable for you as Nerves of Cold Steel would be for the DW Deathknight.

An interesting thing about Scourge Strike is that a lot of it's damage comes from damage bonus. It's static and doesn't care if the weapon used is a 1-hand or a 2-hand weapon. The fact that Obliterate can actually do more damage than Scourge Strike in a tree designed around it with the right stats speaks volumes to the weakness of Scourge Strike scaling. A strike with so many points dedicated to it really should scale better than it does.

All of this contributes to Unholy being an excellent tree to build a Duel-Wielding spec around. I would go so far to say that until the Frost DW tree is created, no DW build will be viable without the Ghoul.