The Blood Boil change is interesting. If it's still going to be 30y range, not requiring diseases is... well, I can only assume it won't work on stealthers (though I can dream ).

Also very pleased to see Blood of the North finally dropped to 3 points. I kind of wonder if BotN and KM will be exchanging positions - safe to say KM is going to be deeper and BotN's current tier will need a 5-pointer.

A side effect of the Unbreakable Armor change is nerfing it's power to frost dps as a pseudotrinket if you picked up bladed armor (which you should have). Just sitting here in dalaran im at about 14000 armor and almost 1100 strength. I am under the impression that UA double dips here too. Some quick napkin math tells me:

14000*.25=3500 additional armor

3500/180= 19.44

19.44*5=97.2 AP from bladed armor when UA is up.

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1100*.1=110 additional strength

110*2= 220 AP

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So, unbuffed, UA gets a decent chunk of its AP gain from the bonus armor. Of course the weight of the contribution from the bladed armor gain becomes much smaller in a raid situation with kings, FC/greatness procs, and all that good stuff. But for purposes of min/maxing there is a potential loss there.

I agree here. They've really (possibly purposefully) set everyone on their heels with just those two releases of changing the Frost tree and switching Gargoyle and UB up. I think they've made it clear they don't like how DW is currently with our hybrid'ing, and want to change it up.

Keep in mind they've announced some really big changes thus far (hunter ammo), and anything is within the realm of possibility. I very much doubt they will kill DW entirely or force us all to go 51 Unholy. It just doesn't feel like Blizzard to me given their WotLK actions thus far.

Regarding the viability of 51 point talents, I've definitely read where Ghostcrawler says they don't want the 51 point talents to feel wholly necessary (with the exception of Warrior TG), so I agree with the other poster that HC will remain where it is presently.

I think someone at Blizz gets some laughs out of everyone panicking. The only thing I have even a twinge of negativity for is that the DW (along with 2h) theorycrafters have worked very hard on coming up with viable specs thus far, and that's all going to be nearly turned upside down. Which, with an infantile class like this one, it's to be expected.

AP from bladed armor updates every 30 seconds i believe. So i don't think UA really does anything for AP armor wise. As far as using it in a DPS rotation. It cost a rune to use UA. So you figure that frost rune could be used on something else for more dps say an extra icy touch ? I could be wrong on all this of course. I think blizzards intent was to make UA a defensive ability and is treated as such.

I agree as well it should remain 51 points in the tree, but right now a blood dps spec 51 points is necessary for DRW, and soon a unholy DPS spec 51 points will be necessary for gar. 51 points into frost is unheard of, and while i say i don't think any 51 pointer should "define" the tree, i think the 51 pointer should be useful in some way for pve and pvp. Currently (in my personal opinion) hungering cold is not worth the 1 point it is required to take it.

You should do the math for your own situation. For mine (ITx6), an additional IT handily beats UA, even assuming instant bladed armor updates. Keep in mind that IT grants 15 more RP than UA.

I don't think so.

Gargoyle was a bonus, but dual wield didn't gain its strength purely from gargoyle.

The core of DW lies in a combination of a bunch of talents including, but not limited to: Killing Machine / Black Ice / Howling Blast / (imp) Icy Talons / Necrosis / Impurity / Perma Ghoul

I think those are the backbone of dual wield. The only way dual wield would severely get damaged is if KM is taken way down the tree. Which is still a possibility.

TBH i think swapping gargoyle and UB is a good move for DW builds. Gargoyle is 30 seconds of burst every 3 minutes where you reduce the number of deathcoils you are able to throw out. UB is higher damage than deathcoil and can be easily woven into your deathcoil routine. On short fights we might see a damage reduction due to gargoyles burst, but in longer fights (which is likely what ulduar contains) we should see better damage.

Hopefully Sudden Doom change will be enough to make Blood more fun to play. I think that it still need some deep talent to lower GCD (Blood Gorged would be good place) and/or change Heart Strike to 2 Blood Runes.

I ran tonight without a garg in the below parse. For Sarth I was on drake tank duty in a spec designed for 6 min mal, which we didn't end up doing tonight. I switched out to the spec that should be showing on the armory now when we killed Sarth and moved over to Naxx. Many fights I didn't have bloodlust. I used no pots. Overall it was a lazy night.

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End result is without garg I'm sitting ~4500 dps without much effort nor optimal buffage on fights I can sit and just hit my castsequence macro (as I said, it was a lazy night hehe). I picked up my mainhand tonight which should improve my damage. I didn't take the time to deathgate and put a runeforge on it until after the run.

I'm using a rotation of IT, PS, BB, BB, HB -> DC (+1 DC after the first rotation) -> IT, PS, IT, IT, HB -> DC, DC

I do a lot of respec'ing and I think I still have the Frost Strike and Obliterate glyphs that I need to swap out.

For clarification, I was 10/32/29 for the Naxx part of the run.

Enlighten me, because I can't see how having automatic SD procs would make your gaming experience more fun. However, it would make it easier if anything, meaning you don't need to keep tracking procs.

Nobody can tell until Blizzard releases more information. However it's still a straight buff even if it doesn't.