just a quick question for you guys, i'm playing unholy DW spec atm, 0/13/58. What my question is, is what you all do on trash for dps? I know how to play the spec pretty well, and how everything works, on bosses I end up first or second on dps for our raid, but my dps on trash is terrible. Now i know that trash dps doesnt matter, but I at least like to keep up with other people in the raid. Any help would be appreciated.
How do you not end up as top 3 on trash just by playing a Death Knight? Icy Touch,, Plague Strike, Pestilence, D&D, Unholy Blight, usually Icebound Fortitude, repeat. I'm normally 20%+ ahead of the #2 DPS for trash, and #2 is usually an Arcane mage or a Marks hunter spamming volley talented for increased Volley.
How do you not end up as top 3 on trash just by playing a Death Knight? Icy Touch,, Plague Strike, Pestilence, D&D, Unholy Blight, usually Icebound Fortitude, repeat. I'm normally 20%+ ahead of the #2 DPS for trash, and #2 is usually an Arcane mage or a Marks hunter spamming volley talented for increased Volley.
I also use 0/13/58, but i start with D&D, just 1-2 seconds after DK tank, covering exactly the same area as he does, than i'll try to hit haredst mob with IT, than PS, Pestilence and finally BB. As we push the tempo hard all the time by chainpulling i keep UB at almost 100% uptime. Only rogues with Fan of the Knives are able to beat me sometimes, especially when mobs die in only a couple of seconds.
4) Black Ice changed to 20% Frost/10% Shadow damage. This is a small nerf at best.
5) Glacial Rot moved deeper in the tree. This is a nerf. Chillblains or Toughness aren't good choices as replacements.
6) Necrosis substantially nerfed. No off-hand Necrosis anymore.
7) Outbreak nerfed to 30% again.
8) All auras nerfed so they only affect the Deathknight who uses it.
9) Rune of Razorfrost only affects the Deathknight but increases damage to 10%
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
This is my variant of the 20/51 Deep unholy DW spec. In my experience, IT makes up roughly 30% of my DPS in Raid boss fights. Melee is around 28% and DC comes in at 18%, followed by Ghoul at 15%. It really shocked me when they moved Glacier Rot down past KM. not only that, but they buffed it by 10%, dangling it halfway in the Frost tree like a carrot on a stick. So I went after it. This cost me Garg, and 2 points in RoR and I had points sitting all over the place in the frost tree. I thought "Well, may as well consolidate these loose points into something good" so I went down the full Icy Talons line for the haste boost and raid utility.
It looks more like a 32/39 variant now, ha. Obviously you wouldn't use this in conjunction with a enhance shaman but, at least from my experience, EnhShamans are rare.
Also, As long as Ghoul frenzy is a 15 sec channeled spell, its useless. it sounded really great till I saw that channeled part. WTF? Ghoul is in the best cases only 18% of your DPS. Why would you stop all of your own dps just to give your lil ghoul a 25% haste boost? If he is about to die I'd just summon another one.
At any rate, I dub this build the "Nuclear Icy Touch" build because, in almost any situation your IT's are going to hit like atom bombs.
EDIT: Updated the tree based on further reading into the patch changes. Raise dead's CD procs after the ghoul dies, which means keeping the ghoul up and minimizing the time hes down after he dies is pretty important. Also thanks to the 3 sec CD in BCB you can probably get away with only 1 point in it. I took the points out of epidemic since you need to do PS once every 12 seconds anyway to refresh Desecration.
Last edited by Misao-Tan : 02/24/09 at 10:20 PM.
Reason: update tree
This is my variant of the 20/51 Deep unholy DW spec. In my experience, IT makes up roughly 30% of my DPS in Raid boss fights. Melee is around 28% and DC comes in at 18%, followed by Ghoul at 15%. It really shocked me when they moved Glacier Rot down past KM. not only that, but they buffed it by 10%, dangling it halfway in the Frost tree like a carrot on a stick. So I went after it. This cost me Garg, and 2 points in RoR and I had points sitting all over the place in the frost tree. I thought "Well, may as well consolidate these loose points into something good" so I went down the full Icy Talons line for the haste boost and raid utility.
It looks more like a 32/39 variant now, ha. Obviously you wouldn't use this in conjunction with a enhance shaman but, at least from my experience, EnhShamans are rare.
Also, As long as Ghoul frenzy is a 15 sec channeled spell, its useless. it sounded really great till I saw that channeled part. WTF? Ghoul is in the best cases only 18% of your DPS. Why would you stop all of your own dps just to give your lil ghoul a 25% haste boost? If he is about to die I'd just summon another one.
At any rate, I dub this build the "Nuclear Icy Touch" build because, in almost any situation your IT's are going to hit like atom bombs.
EDIT: Updated the tree based on further reading into the patch changes. Raise dead's CD procs after the ghoul dies, which means keeping the ghoul up and minimizing the time hes down after he dies is pretty important. Also thanks to the 3 sec CD in BCB you can probably get away with only 1 point in it. I took the points out of epidemic since you need to do PS once every 12 seconds anyway to refresh Desecration.
Wouldn't maxing out black ice be more beneficial than 2/2 merciless combat?
And I'm hearing reports that frenzy isn't actually channeled. I'm going to reserve judgment until I get clarification.
We end up cutting BCB because we're haste driven. Correct weapon preference now is: slow/fast with FC mainhand and Razorfrost in the off-hand. 0/13/58 is officially dead as of 3.1 patch. Which will make it easier for me on the opening poster.
1) Your Icy Touchs will deal less damage. You lose Glacial Rot, 10% frost damage on Black Ice. You gain 5% more frost damage from Razorfrost and 5% more overall damage from Desecration. The Sigil also provides less DPS.
2) Your Death Coils will deal more damage. You get a 10% bonus in Black Ice and a 5% overall damage boost from Desecration.
3) Necrosis will deal less damage. You lose off-hand procs. You gain a 10% bonus in Black Ice and a 5% overall damage boost from Desecration.
4) Blood Plague will deal more damage. It gains a 10% bonus from Black Ice and a 5% overall damage boost from Desecration.
5) Frost Fever will be nearly the same. It loses 10% from Black Ice. It gains 5% from Razorfrost and Desecration.
6) Blood Boil will deal more damage. It's coefficient with diseases is 0.9 which is more than it was with all bonuses before. It loses 45% from Outbreak. It gains 10% from Black Ice. It also gains 5% from Desecration.
7) Your Plague Strike will deal a whole lot more damage. It changes to 50% weapon damage. The Glyph changes to a 60% damage bonus.
8) You lose 15% run speed for the raid. This means you need to use the running speed foot enchant again.
9) No Blood Caked Blade. It was nerfed to oblivion. Ask enhance shamans about Windfury cooldowns and haste scaling. Since this build was designed around haste, it had to go.
The question becomes: how much better are the other builds? Especially 2H Unholy which seems buffed a lot. If this build is doing only slightly better damage but 2H Unholy goes through the roof, we know where to go.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
What would your rotation be for a build like this? I want to try it on the test server I have my 80 DK now on test server to test the viability of the DW after patch.
I'm curious, if it's worth enchanting your boots with foot speed, isn't it worth keeping the improved unholy presence, even if you can't give it to the rest of the raid?
Here's how it works: get enough haste so you can do a seven move rotation in Blood Presence. Start with a Blood Tap prior to the pull so one of your Blood Runes gets converted to a Death Rune.
PS -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> DC -> DC
PS -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
With the Icy Touch glyph, you produce and use exactly 160 rune power. Substitute in a Plague Strike for a Death Coil every line while the gargoyle is up so you don't run out of runic power.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Here's how it works: get enough haste so you can do a seven move rotation in Blood Presence. Start with a Blood Tap prior to the pull so one of your Blood Runes gets converted to a Death Rune.
PS -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> DC -> DC
PS -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
With the Icy Touch glyph, you produce and use exactly 160 rune power. Substitute in a Plague Strike for a Death Coil every line while the gargoyle is up so you don't run out of runic power.
Thanks for the rotation. I tested this rotation out and I was running in the 2400 - 2600 DPS not counting my Pet and Gargoyle summons. I then wanted to test out how the rotation would work if I changed one of the DC in the first rotation to a Unholy Blight. Example of this Rotation is below.
PS -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> UB -> DC
PS -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
When doing this rotation my dps climbed from the 2400-2600 range to 2700's.
My Stats with Horn of Winter II and Bone Shield are the following:
Str:1220
Agi: 410
AP: 3391
Hit Rating: 349
Expertise: 20/20
Crit: 25.95
Haste Rating: 136
Armor Penetration: 65
Gargoyle Macro I would use this macro when my next spell cast would be the first Unholy Blight or Death Coil. Then I continue to use this key(macro) until the Unholy Blight macro reset it self.
The first rune dump was supposed to be Unholy Blight. Good catch.
Testing without the proper amount of haste will throw you off. The whole reason to use this type of spec over the 2H version is superior haste rating scaling. That's what makes the build viable.
Here's how haste scaling works for this build for 3.1:
1) Increased white damage. This is important because it's the main reason we duel-wield. Increasing that advantage is the only way that DW can compete with a two-hander.
2) Increased pet damage. Unlike crit rating, Haste Rating also improves our pet damage. Our ghoul does more damage than a ghoul used by a 2H Unholy spec.
3) Decreased GCD for spells. A unique advantage for a spell based build is the ability to add GCDs to our rotations. Adding a move doesn't just add the move's damage. It also adds runic power that can be converted to Death Coils.
Compare the two rotations 2H vs DW
2H: BS -> BS -> SS -> SS -> UB -> DC
2H: PS -> IT -> SS -> SS -> DC -> DC
DW: PS -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> UB -> DC
DW: PS -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
We compare two Plague Strikes to their 1. Advantage: DW
We compare one of our Icy Touch to their Icy Touch. Advantage: DW
We compare 4 Scourge Strike to 5 Icy Touch. Advantage: Even
We compare 2 Blood Strikes to our Blood Boils. Advantage: 2H
We compare 2 Death Coils to 2 Death Coils. Advantage: Even
We compare Ghoul Damage. Advantage: DW (due to superior haste)
We compare Gargoyle Damage. Advantage: Even (they have more AP and we have more haste)
We compare white damage. Advantage: DW
We compare Necrosis damage. Advantage: 2H
We compare disease damage. Advantage: Even (we overwrite Frost fever but our diseases do more damage)
2H has BCB. We don't. Advantage: 2H
Thanks to the T7 set bonus and Dirge, 2H generates 165 runic power and uses 160. DW generates and uses 160.
It's an interesting comparison. 2H Unholy will have more AP and a higher critical. DW will have more bonuses, more white damage and higher haste. If Tier 8 has a generic set bonuses that benefit all builds, the spell style of play should pull ahead as suddenly they won't generate enough runic power to use all their GCDs.
If I made any major mistakes in my analysis, feel free to correct me. I am left wondering if 2H will simply adopt this style and scale better enough to leave DW in the dust. Given enough Haste, a 2H build could do this with an almost identical spec as us:
PS -> IT -> SS -> IT -> BB -> UB -> DC
PS -> IT -> SS -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
They would lose 10% extra frost damage from Razorice and not have as much white damage.
Last edited by Orlgin : 02/26/09 at 4:34 AM.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The first rune dump was supposed to be Unholy Blight. Good catch.
Testing without the proper amount of haste will throw you off. The whole reason to use this type of spec over the 2H version is superior haste rating scaling. That's what makes the build viable.
Here's how haste scaling works for this build for 3.1:
How much haste do you think is needed for effective testing? Is my 146 enough or should I get some haste enchants and stuff like that?
It's this simple. Can you do this rotation set in under 20 seconds? Begin before the pull with a Blood Tap so you begin with a death rune.
PS -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> UB -> DC
PS -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
If the answer is no, get more haste until you do and test again. Depending on latency, the amount of haste you need will vary. Dummy tests will be harder unless you have a friend who can provide Wrath of Air and Improved Moonkin Aura for you. They will provide 8% spell haste which makes the amount of haste quite doable.
New Casting Time = (Base Casting Time)/(1 + (% Spell Haste / 100))
BaseCastTime for instant cast spells is 1.5 sec. RatingConversion is 32.79.
So if you have 350 Haste Rating, using the formula
With 6 spells in the rotation, you save (1.5-1.253) * 6 spells which is 1.48 sec for every 10 sec rotation.
So yes, you need more haste. For dummy testing, you need one with Health (so Necrosis and Wandering Plague damage show up)
Last edited by Orlgin : 02/26/09 at 10:53 PM.
Reason: Made haste calculation incorrectly (thanks teiglin)
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
It's this simple. Can you do this rotation set in under 20 seconds? Begin before the pull with a Blood Tap so you begin with a death rune.
PS -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> UB -> DC
PS -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
If the answer is no, get more haste until you do and test again. Depending on latency, the amount of haste you need will vary. Dummy tests will be harder unless you have a friend who can provide Wrath of Air and Improved Moonkin Aura for you. They will provide 8% spell haste which makes the amount of haste quite doable.
New Casting Time = (Base Casting Time)/(1 + (% Spell Haste / 100))
BaseCastTime for instant cast spells is 1.5 sec. RatingConversion is 32.79.
So if you have 350 Haste Rating, using the formula
With 6 spells in the rotation, you save (1.5-1.255) * 6 spells which is 1.47sec for every 10 sec rotation.
So yes, you need more haste. For dummy testing, you need one with Health (so Necrosis and Wandering Plague damage show up)
First, I don't know how you got 1.4s GCD with 350 haste rating--you must have punched that into your calculator wrong. 350 haste rating comes out to 10.7% haste or 1.355s GCD. You seem to have come up with the right number in the second equation (10.67% haste used there), however.
Second, flat haste percentages from buffs like swift retribution and wrath of air stack multiplicatively, not additively. So you actually get 1.05*1.03=8.15% haste from raid buffs, making your GCD with 350 haste 1.5/((1+350/3279)*1.03*1.05)=1.253. Of course, the difference is small for these buffs, but it would be pretty large if you include time during lust/heroism (and had less passive haste--with 350 rating, lust brings your GCD down to the floor of one second).
Weapons: Best weapons you can find, the faster the better. Blood Caked Blade is normalized and you will, at most, have 4 weapon-based strikes in 20 seconds.
Does this mean 2 x fast weaps for leveling aswell? Atm I'm cutting through Northrend with 2 x 1.6 speed weaps, but got a 2.6s sword in bags, if you reckon that'd be better?
Or is the dps increase from going DW over 2handers not mentionable after the latest patch and furthermore since I'm just lvling?
Not really important since it's just for leveling, but I might aswell ask..
I've been examining the improved Unholy Presence idea. It's actually not that bad. Substitute Plague Strike Glyph listed for Death Coil (which isn't listed)
You trade Rage of Rivendare, Gargoyle, and 1 pt in Killing Machine for Glacial Rot and Improved Icy Talons. This is a DPS loss but if the raid lacks an Enhance Shammy, you will provide the melee haste buff and still provide the Ebon Plaguebringer buff.
How does the Improved Unholy Presence do more DPS than a build that runs 7 moves in ten seconds?
The advantages are:
1) + 15% melee Haste which makes duel-wielding very attractive. + 20% if you are providing Talons.
2) Allows you to balance haste, critical rating, and extra hit instead of forced to stack haste
3) Ghoul benefits from all the extra haste. So does Gargoyle if you have it.
4) Your rotation is nine seconds. Doing 8 moves in 9 seconds means you average a move every 1.125 seconds. With old build, you average a move every 1.428 sec. The old rotation takes 126.93% longer to generate the same amount of actions which means Blood Presence bonus isn't enough to cover the difference.
Edit: New Changes on PTR: They have reversed the nerf to Blood Caked Blade and Necrosis. Outbreak was nerfed to 30% Plague Strike damage again.
* Haste Rating: Shamans, Paladins, Druids, and Death Knights now receive 30% more melee haste from Haste Rating
I have updated the opening poster for 3.1 changes.
Last edited by Orlgin : 03/06/09 at 10:46 PM.
Reason: New Information
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I keep looking forward for this haste stacking and improved unholy presence.
Altho this thread not being that popular suprises me. So I thought I'd share my view for these icy touch spamming builds. I've been 10/10/51 and 0/20/51 as long as that icy touch relic/idol got implemented.
I've raided with dk from the beginning of wotlk and also followed ej for many years.
My guild killed 3d sarth for the first time about a month ago and my dps gear is currently pretty much the best available. So I hope that some of my knowledge might be useful for someone who might be trying out this spec.
I prefer using a priority rotation. I keep both diseases up(also desecration) and use frost runes asap for icy touches and blood runes for blood strikes to get death runes and more icy touches. There are times I don't use other unholy rune, because I use the gcds to rune dump. Unholy blight I time to be updated always after the last tick and death coils when no blood or frost runes and there is no need to get a disease updated. (Altho I'm spell hit capped in raid, but not expertise capped in raid I find me doing more dps with using melee blood strike instead of spell blood boil, this might chance soon when I get the haste gear for this longer rotation)
Since desecration is in this build, it makes up to use plague strikes every now and then with those pretty much useless runes for this spec.
Might look a bit confusing, but it's really simple when you play with it a little.
Here is a parsed log from our last sartharion 3d take down Sartharion . It's a fight with alot of aoe going on all the time so having that unholy blight on and big death and decay hits&crits with glyph show their power, well, the normal ss spam build has these, small things like desecration increase the overall dmg a bit. (The wipes in nax was because of achievement run, also I was specced 10/10/51 before thaddius,saph and kt)
Basicly at sarth I was at 6.2k dps before the 3 drakes were down, after that it's running and idling when running away from walls pretty much paid me the high dps. We don't currently have any active elemental shamans or boomkins in the raiding crew.
I just recently respecced to this 0/20/51 and I find it better, the crit chance in icy touch goes up quite nicely. This one Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I just recently also started to value haste, and it has proven to be quite valuable for this spec, since you'll be spamming spells and the gcd get's quite short. Also dw scaling with haste > 2h scaling with haste. With this spec your dps in a raid situation increases quite alot. You get 10% crit from a ffb/fib(/frost) mage, you get haste buffs from elemental shamans to reduce the gcd quite alot and the basic melee buffs for whites ofcourse. So with this 20/51 and a raid I'm really close to a 50% crit rate on icy touches. Them critting for 6,750 on average, makes it quite decent one rune ability and the additional 10 rp from glyph gives you quite alot of death coils and easy gargoyle uptime.
I use angry dead(slow, FC)/hailstorm(fast, RI). I used to use 2x FC, but even with my str stacking I get better result with that 5% frost dmg overal. I'm at 1369 str with horn. Unfortunately I'm tank specced at the moment, so can't see my through ap. But at the moment I use 4x valorous, just because I need the hit from the helm, would change it to obsidian greathelm if I'd get that stupid surge needle. That way I'd get my expertise up to the more appropriate numbers.
The main reason I'm using this spec is because it easies the guild's pain to get that 13% spell dmg bonus on all mobs, so I'm pretty much needed to spec for ebon plague, that means my options are SS spam, or something else. But I prefer dw more, so as long as it's viable for pretty good dps, I'll stick with it.
Well, after all the new changes to the PTR, Unholy Presence doesn't work anymore. Blood Presence shot ahead by a lot. This is due to several reasons:
1) Disease damage: The 8 move rotation constantly refreshes diseases. The 7 move rotation refreshes Blood Plague much less and Frost Fever less so you get more disease ticks in. Add 15% to those and Blood Presence clearly wins.
2) Unnerfing of Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade make Blood Presence more valuable. This is due to double dipping where the initial hit gets the bonus then the ability based on the hit also gets the bonus. The change in Haste values really upped the value of these talents and they may receive a nerf eventually.
3) Haste scaling is better. Without the 15% bonus haste, the haste rating we have goes up in value. The new change making haste scaling more valuable further emphasizes this.
4) Quality of moves: Even with Plague Strike getting buffed, it was still a lesser quality move than the others. Reducing the number of Plague Strikes in the rotation gives Blood Presence rotations an edge in quality.
Three cheers though. We are just straight up buffed from our current position. It's like the person who did the last set of changes was looking directly at this build and said "Thou shall be great!". The change in haste values, Necrosis and BcB unnerfing, just really rock for this build. It's amazing. Differences between 3.1 and now:
1) Plague Strike gets buffed to 50%. Outbreak lowered to 30%. This is a buff because even with just 2 points in Outbreak, Plague Strike deals more damage in 3.1 than it did with a 45% buff from Outbreak and a 20% buff with the glyph. This frees up a glyph spot which can be used for the new amazing Death Coil glyph.
2) Icy Touch gets nerfed with changes to Black Ice (20% instead of 30%) and Sigil (111 instead of current). The build gains Desecration (5% bonus) and increases Killing Machine procs from the haste buff.
3) Haste scaling dramatically improved. A 30% increase in melee haste to the most haste driven spec that Deathknights have to offer. Why thank you. That was very kind.
4) Armor Penetration buff. If you're forced to take items with this, this isn't as terrible as it used to be. In fact, the first few points are now pretty valuable so pick up a few if you can. 1-2% is pretty good.
5) Death Coil. Not only does it get a glyph that increases it's damage by 15% but with the addition of Desecration, it does even more. Glorious!
6) Desecration: Freed up talent points mean we now get this talent.
7) No Shadow of Death: We lose 2% Strength and Stamina. This does free up a talent point.
8) No Unholy Blight: With the new Death Coil glyph, this does less damage. It does free up a talent point.
9) No Wandering Plague: I cut two points from here to finish Desecration. If you prefer the plague, you can put them back. On fights with heavy movement, Wandering Plague will be better.
Major effects: Your AoE won't be as good but your single target damage will be much improved. Better for most boss fights and worse for trash. Since trash clearing still is fairly easy, this is a buff.
Last edited by Orlgin : 03/09/09 at 2:59 PM.
Reason: Grammer
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
3) Haste scaling is better. Without the 15% bonus haste, the haste rating we have goes up in value. The new change making haste scaling more valuable further emphasizes this.
...
2) Icy Touch gets nerfed with changes to Black Ice (20% instead of 30%) and Sigil (111 instead of current). The build gains Desecration (5% bonus) and increases Killing Machine procs from the haste buff.
...
4) Armor Penetration buff. If you're forced to take items with this, this isn't as terrible as it used to be. In fact, the first few points are now pretty valuable so pick up a few if you can. 1-2% is pretty good.
...
8) No Unholy Blight: With the new Death Coil glyph, this does less damage. It does free up a talent point.
Haste rating provides more haste, but re: your point (3) above, there is no change relative to the value of Unholy Presence. Since UP provides a percentage haste, your white damage is effectively the same whether Blood Presence or Unholy Presence. Of course your subsequent point about necrosis holds true.
I'm also confused as to your claim that you're suddenly able to pick up desecration; I've played DW in the majority of my raids and have always had 5/5 desecration, whether 32/39 variant or deep unholy.
Armor Penetration is not more valuable for the first few points; it provides the largest marginal increase to your DPS for the LAST points, as you bring the target's armor down to zero. Although it's not conclusive, testing thus far suggests ArP from gear and talents stacks multiplicatively with the new sunder/faerie fire and equivalent debuffs, and that such debuffs reduce boss armor to approximately the same total as before, meaning that its value per % is essentially unchanged (though of course its value per rating point is up 30% directly).
Have you seen numbers to show that glyphed DC > UB? Quick napkin math with 5000 AP: DC is (443+(15% of AP)*1.25)*1.15*1.15 for morbidity and glyph, for 1825.71125 damage before flat % buffs, which will affect both equally. UB is 20*(48+(1.3% of AP)*1.25) for 2585 damage. Assuming spell hit cap, you need 41.6% spell crit for DC to be better than UB, so it's pretty close on single target (I run just under 40% spell crit in raids usually, leaving UB a smidge ahead). However, there's a pretty good argument for the increased AoE utility of UB, though perhaps a max single target DPS spec would drop UB for another point in, say, outbreak or dirge.
edit: it seems DC glyph pushes its single target scaling ahead of UB; with 7k AP, you only need ~26% crit for DC to outstrip UB. I don't know offhand what my fully raid buffed AP is with/without procs and trinkets, but it does seem like DC will be a better option for single target in the long run.
Another quick question, I see your not picking up the new Ghoul Frenzy Talent in your recommended build, it seems the general consensus at EJ is that while its nice, it's generally not worth it.
However it would look like in your rotation it could be squeezed in at some point. Point wise you could grab it by sacraficing a point from say Desecration (which really only shines on none movement fights).
Is it still not worth the talent point or the use of the UH rune?
The rotation could in theory be:
BT ---> PS -> GF -> IT -> IT -> IT -> BB -> DC -> DC -> PS -> GF -> IT -> IT -> BB -> IT -> DC -> DC
02/21/09, 4:24 AM
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