@Alatar: As Greatness instantly procs after going off CD, you'll have both at some point of time, just pop it then.

Something funny I noticed is that Ghoul HP now greatly scales with the player's gear, while tanking Gothik my Ghoul had 39k HP, that's more than our MT had.

Now that my server doesn't lag anymore i got time to test some more AotD fights. AKA Malygos and 3 Drakes. With the pet bug on malygos i didn't use my ghoul but if you use AotD on pull(before first vortex) i had no problem and it was a great boost to my guilds damage. A few people in my guild were worried they would cause the pet bug but don't worry they will all be dead or die with vortex.(had two armies attacking).

Next time im going to try after a vortex with two sparks down....see how that fairs out. Given that you have a few seconds of down time after vortex you won't lose as much DPS as you normally would.

On 3 Drakes AotD worked great too. If you summon AotD right as the first drake lands and gets into position you will get the full AotD uptime before they start falling off from flame waves etc.

The only down side is that they will taunt adds off your add tanks which takes away some DPS from drake 1 but it does give some avoidence to your add tanks. So it can't hurt.

Thanks for the response.

Another question...

Regarding gargoyle and bloodlust, is it better to pop gargoyle just before you get bloodlust (so that it in theory gains the bloodlust directly), or pop it just after getting bloodlust (thereby indirectly gaining bloodlust's benefit when it "snapshots" my stats)?

Some comments in this thread seem to infer that gargoyle should come after bloodlust. However, in the unholy DPS thread some have suggested that gargoyle should come before bloodlust.

I'm just wondering if anybody has checked this.

Any of you have a timer mod able to track the new gargoyle. I've tried TellMeWhen, NeedToKnow, SpellReminder and ClassTimer and they are all still showing a 1 minute Gargoyle. I thought the times were pre-set in the mods but they're not. They just look for AuraName in the Combat Log. All the mods will stop the timer at 30 seconds, but they all start at 1 minute.

Is this something that needs to be changed in Blizzards combat log?

The buff is a 50 second buff like it was pre-3.0.8, but the gargoyle dies when the buff is at 30 seconds. I'm not really sure why it's implemented like this, but I assume it's a bug of some sort.

I'm using Quartz buffs and that shows Gargoyle as a 30 sec timer. You might want to give that a shot.

Ghoul leap causes combat status, which means:
1) you can ghoul leap a raid/party member to interrupt their attempt at getting a food buff :-)
2) you can ghoul leap yourself to get about 4 seconds in combat which allows you to stack 100 RP if you have 2-3 minutes before a boss pull
3) ghoul leap a critter (rat, maggot, etc.) in Naxx, which does 0 dmg to it, and puts you in combat for 20 seconds while it scurries around in fear, making it very easy to stack RP

I believe they have fixed the ghould so his leap no longer puts you in combat. I tested this last Sunday in Shattrath while waiting for an arena queue and neither my partner nor I were put into combat by the ghoul.

Ah boo, they did stop it from putting you in combat.

I've been using DoTimer since before the change, and it has shown Garg as 30 seconds since the patch.

This may have to do with the fact that Garg displays as a debuff on the enemy so DoTimer doesn't care about the ability itself, just the debuff timer.

We were forced to use the Explode Thane on Naxx10 last night due to only having prime 2 healers. AoTD works wonders. Just need to time its summon before pull, but because we already timed Heroism, AotD was added by me as Tank on Thane. Could no really see a difference in Meteor damage though, even with 7 Ghouls added to the 7 people surrounding Thane. Still took us to stack 4 to get him down, but Glyphed Corpse explosion was fun with so many Ghouls.

Besides some fights (like heigan etc) my ghoul seems to survive almost all of naxx. He survives about the same on OS still.

The improved survivability of ghoul on Saph makes it pretty clear that NotD is working.

My Ghoul survives Heigan along with the rest of Naxx as long as our tank isn't being retarded (which is not a reliable factor because we keep bringing in new tanks). I haven't experienced any bugs with NotD, even my Gargoyle stays alive for its full duration now.

Some questions regarding haste primarily. I know gargoyle snapshots your AP when you call it down, does it do the same with your haste? AOTD - does it snapshot AP+Haste or does it update constantly?

Simplified version: Haste Potion before or after summoning Gargoyle/AOTD?

Well honestly that wasn't what I was addressing. I know that it got from increased survivability from NotD- that has been my experience as well- it usually survives almost the entirety of Naxx. That specifically is why the other night seemed so strange, and why I thought it prudent to post the experience.

Thank you guys that have said that you haven't noticed any problems over the past couple of days, it's possible that I just had an unlucky run. Haven't been able to get back on to try again, so hopefully it goes more "normally" in the future, lol...

Just as a tip. Kiblers Bits are even better.

Same amount of strength and Stamina, and both easier to grind and cook.

They are, but I farm the chunks for my hunter as well, and with the dk being so ridiculously tough (by comparison), the herds in Valley of the Ancients go down in seconds. Plus the added bonus of junk being worth more to sell, and greens disenchant to something usable.

You need to use your Haste potion before summoning (just macro it in). AotD doesn't update stats post-summoning (personally tested) and neither does gargoyle (assumed).

My recommendation is:
pre-pull: unholy presence, haste pot (out of combat), Horn of Winter up, WF totem down early (have to personally bug a shaman to get it), AotD channel while boss is being pulled; switch back to blood after channel
Save gargoyle for heroism (most guilds pop it for the last 35% or so, depending on fight duration), combined with haste pot (hopefully cooled) and any procs you can wait for (assuming boss will live for 30s more).

While you can't use the ghoul leap to do this anymore you can use Dark Command on critters to put yourself in combat. Did this on accident the other day and thought it was interesting.

You might want to look at the type of healer you had in your 5 person group. Unlike in a raid situation, there are not always constant AoE smart heals going around for a ghoul to absorb. While some healers have gotten better about healing pets when there is nothing else going on, there are definitely still some that completely ignore the life of pets and seems like a potential reason you saw your pet dieing. Night of the Dead will reduce damage by a large amount so your ghoul can get heals but not completely remove it.

Thanks. Just what i was looking for. I suppose my Army would be slightly stronger than better geared dks since i can pop loatheb's shadow with the haste pot pre pull and have it ready again with the haste pot for Gargoyle later.