Sael

No, you want to use either OB or DS. DS is better for blood due to the talents in the tree and the fact that you do not have to spec into frost to prevent diseases coming off. The frost talents are generally wasted and so are better spent in the Unholy tree. The rotation itself is fine, but replace the OB with DS.

 

Mulgero

Depends of how much you have to move but typically you will be at boss range most of the time hence it's just normally mentioned just PS+IT. Also have to consider that if you only have 1/2 epidemic most likely your FF will drop before last HS if you cast IT too early so it might not be that big advantage after all.

Same goes with aoe rotations posted on all major threads. DnD should be always cast first while running instead of spreading diseases first since in raids it's damage increase.

Since frost spec favours PS usage first it makes sense that people adapt overall mentality about order PS -> IT -> rest. I believe and hope that most EJ forum readers actually use their brains and use skills depending of situation. For this reason every possible situation affecting to fight rotations is not needed to post on forums.

 

shivand007

I noticed this last night and it was pissing me off hardcore. Is this a bug because I dont remember this happeneing before?

I kept getting stuck with FFDD or DDUU after rune CD and instead of being able to HS_HS_DS I would have to DS-DS and if I got caught looking at my RP or a CD or of all things the boss or something I would look up and lo and behold, I HS'd too many times and I was stuck with ****UU (* denoting rune on CD). I wanted the throw my mouse through the window.

If this is a bug does blizz know about it or is it "working as intended" because if thats how its inteded to work thats pretty crappy?

 

tetracycloide

No, the rotation is fine, you are reading it wrong. Rotations do not start from rest they start from the end of the last rotation, much like rogue cycle rotations do. Assuming a rotation has just been completed the player is already in melee range and the optimal order is PS -> IT because IT is instant cast. How you open on a boss is totally up to you and on most boss fights the difference between one open and another is pretty minimal. 1.5 secs of extra time, for example, is maybe 7000-10000 damage (probably much less) in a 3-5 min fight with damage totals in the hundred of thousands.

My vanity is justified.

 

Leaflock

Actually, there's some new rune behavior I've observed in 3.1 that helps with these situations. Death Rune Mastery is smarter now about which runes it chooses to come back as death runes, and it generally improves rotations if used wisely.

Let's say all your U and F runes are now Death Runes, but they're now all ready because of time off the boss. You want to start your rotation again, but you have:

BBDDDD (caps is ready, lower-case is regenning)

When you start off with your IT - PS combo, it will use the first two death runes, of course, which are both normally U.

BBuuDD

You throw out your HS as usual, using your blood runes. You have 2 death runes now for your first Death Strike, but if you do that, it'll just make your two F runes into death runes again, right? Your rotation is doomed to failure, but wait! When you use Death Strike on two death runes, it will always convert one U and one F to a death rune for the next rotation, no matter what two death runes you actually use. In this situation, when you death strike with the runes available above, you'll suddenly see:

bbuddf

Your runes are all set to continue your rotation as normal next time around (DS HSx4).

The short version: If you use two death runes to cast a UF ability, a U and an F will come back as death runes, even if they're not the actual runes you used to cast it.

 

shivand007

The problem with this is runes are BBFFUU, not BBUUFF, so they are instead getting used as:

BBDDuu, and when I use DS, it wasnt using the bahavior you are describing because I'd throw my DS out and I would end up with bbddUU and no way of using the 2 U runes. So I was sitting there picking my nose because I had used all my RP up already and all I could do is watch myself melee, which is quite boring, uneventful, and most importantly, un-effecient. If death rune mastery is supposed to be smarter then it must have smoked one fat as hell doobey before I logged in last night becaus it wasnt doing ANYTHING that you just described. =(

 

fearghaill

I have noticed and can confirm the DRM behaviour Leaflock is talking about.

 

zanthyst

Fixed *CLICK FOR LINKY - Sorry about that this should be an updated list here . New comparison shows

Lushen's set gains:
98 Armor Pen
24 Hit

Method's set gains:
37 Sta
32 Str
54 Armor
83 Crit
56 Haste

 

shivand007

Then I guess mine is just retarded or something because that is how mine was working last night and it was causing a dps loss. Is there anyway to clear your death runes out before a fight starts? I noticed I only had these problems when fights started with death runes already up.

EDIT: One other question, why are you using 2 death runes on Death Strike in the first place? Are you only using it to straighten out the rune issue or are you using it with death runes normally because that would be a dps loss, 2 HS > 1 DS. Or are you using it to ensure that you will have 2 death runes on the following rotation? I am using the disease glyph with a pestilence disease refresh which allows me to use a priority system rather than a static rotation. I guess if that is the case then I should start making sure I throw DS in the situation I was talking about to make sure I have at least 1 of each rune as a death rune on the other side of the rune cd.

 

Lollersk8er

Death runes have always been bugged like this. I've wrote several tickets on the 3.1 PTR about that topic. You can't really play a rotation as Blood because of it, you have to use a priority system.

Here is what I think is the cause of the problem. The standard rune layout from 1 to 6 is BBUUFF. Now if you have four death runes it is BBDDDD. The first available death rune is used. That leaves us with BBUDDD.
Blizz has to change the rune layout to FUFUBB. There is no point in having the F and U runes paired up with themselves. This is most likely a relict from the WotLK beta, when Blizz didn't finish polishing the DK class. Runes are always used as pairs, there just are no FF or DD abilities.

There is also a bug with Blood Tap. After 20s the first B rune turns into a B rune again, even if you used it to create a real D rune with Blood of the North. Screws over my Frost rotation every time. The timer has to be lowered to 8s.

(I don't have a Blood spec right now to confirm.)
Edit:
Got someone to test and confirm this.
There is just one thing, you rarely use D runes for DS. All the 'bug' described above does is that you delay your rotation a bit. After putting your diseases up with two D runes you'll have to plow through BB to get to the other two D runes.

 

Alborak

This is for the most part true. However, under ideal conditions a fixed rotation does work, but thats pretty rare these days. Priority is probably the best way to work it out, but for large interruptions (where you're oor of a boss for 6+ sec and end up with 4 death) you can use IT DS PS to "reset" your runes to 2 death + U F. Not saying its better, but for something like vexaz where you can generally apply a fixed rotation for a long time with infrequent but long interruptions its a bit more comfortable to use this to reset your rotation instead of relying on constant rune watching or sitting on 2 U waiting for a F.

It does seem counter intuitive for death runes to consume both Unholy before either frost rune though. It would smooth things out a good deal for Blood for them to follow your suggestion and rearrange the consumption order to U -> F unless no death(frost base) are available.

 

Zarplex

What did they change about the duration mechanics that makes RPM suboptimal?

Also, I'm seeing almost no builds with Ravenous Dead. Has it been proven to be that much worse point-for-point than necrosis? My ghetto napkin math makes it seem pretty attractive (even more so if you're going the NotD route).

 

• Siyx

The earlier versions of the 3.1 DRW gave a 1 second duration increase per 5 runic power (6 second increase from 3/3 RPM. The version that made it live on the other hand is 1 second duration increase per 10 runic power (3 second increase from 3/3 RPM), reducing the value of the talent to me significantly. Even with the ability to keep DS Glyph capped and Death Coil more, I can't get those two points in Frost to out perform anywhere I would drop them in Unholy.

 

Swarly

The way I've come up with to deal with this issue is similar to that, let me lay it out the best I can.

XXXXDD Once you reach this point (IT-PS-HS-HS with the first four runes) use one more HS.
XXXXXD Pause waiting for your first U rune.
XXUXXD Use DS.

From here the rotation can end as HS-HS-DS-Dump and then resets. This doesn't lead back into a standard rotation (it's backwards) but it allows you to get back into your priorities more easily. I should note this totally relies on 8 second rune refreshes (rune latency behavior) which should be the case in this situation as you've obviously spent time away from the boss not using your runes to get into a formation like this. I don't know that this is the most efficient way to recover from this situation, but so far its worked the best for me.

 

methods

It's probably worth mentioning that in the BiS gear I listed earlier, if you focus solely on 'your' DPS and forget your ghoul talent-wise (still summon him when you can) your value for ArP rises. If you were to focus on JUST ArP and use a talent spec that had Necrosis and BCB maxed while still getting 1-3 points in ravenous dead or 2 points in RPM you would see about a 3.11 ArP APE and 2.7 STR APE.

Keep in mind that these really are extremes. The chances anyone is going to be wearing all this gear when it really matters (progression) is slim. I still suggest STR over ArP gems for now but once we get more gear you can justify it either way.

 

Lollersk8er

I get Str 1 vs ArP 0.93 without the ghoul or DRW and with ArP gemmed. This is with the latest ArP formula. ArP is still good, but not worth gemming for.

 

Platelock

Probably a stupid question but I am wondering why people are taking Bloodworms? I have been told that the worms will actually eat up AOE healing and told by other people that it is a useless talent, hence why I am asking the pros.

 

Lollersk8er

How does that work exactly? I thought about it, but somehow I'll always end up again with four death runes.

 

concept84

Just redid my calculation for Armor Penetration with the help of Methods, although we both use different formulas still for the exact comparison between ArP to AP.

I'm getting a value of Str at 2.98 with 3 pts in Ravenous Dead and a value of 2.88 for ArP counting in Sunder+FF and Blood Gorged plus 150 ArP from gear equipped.

What is interesting is if you skip any of the Strength increasing talents for blood spec the value of Strength drops below that of ArP, but for this next part lets assume you have all those talents and Ravenous Dead maxed.

The relation between ArP and AP is interesting though because as you gain more AP (or more Str that adds to AP) the value of ArP rises. I'm currently modeling around 6000 AP before procs, but it seems anything over around 6300 AP and ArP starts to win out over Str.

For example at 7000 AP Str is still worth 2.98, but ArP is now worth 3.29 per pt.

Now of course gemming all ArP takes away from your Str which decreases your AP, also decreasing the value of ArP, but on the other hand stacking ArP also makes its value rise, making the gem decision even more complicated.

I think once you are sitting around 6200-6300 raid buffed it might be a good idea to stop stacking Str gems and start stacking ArP gems because they will be worth more.

Its really a filler talent and based off an overall parse (FL to Thorim 25 man) Bloodworms accounted for almost 2% of my overall DPS and 18% of my healing done to me.

Also my guild hasn't had any issues with Bloodworms eating our AOE heals even if they do.

 

Severity

This thread is full of "the proper rotations". It all doesn't matter, though.

Ulduar isn't Naxx. There is no Patchwerk. You have to react on the fly.

I've spent a lot (way too many) hours in Ulduar 10/25. The boss fights involve a LOT of running around. As such, finding the proper split second to use a Heart Strike while maintaining diseases is just pointless.

When fighting Mimiron, you won't have any rotation at all. You'll be weaving your way through land mines while running from his overcharge, but only in the direction that your healers will be running to avoid the turret. Trust me, the rotation you came up with on a training dummy in Ebon Hold will be pointless. Just keep your diseases up, use Heart Strike as much as you can, and Death Strike when the time is appropriate.

When fighting Hodir, you have to run away to get on the snow piles to avoid the flash freeze, meanwhile your dots tick away and your rotation is suddenly way off. You have to react.

The list of bosses that will throw your rotation way off goes on and on.

What I'm trying to say is this: Just play smart. Keep an eye on your runes and use them accordingly, according to priority (Diseases--> Heart Strike --> Death Strike). I picked up Blood, and within 5 minutes I discovered the rotation that has been discussed for pages and pages. I'm obsessed with improving my DPS, but let's be honest; tank and spank is (mostly) over. And for the bosses that are sort of tank and spank (Thorim?), just blow him up with the basic rotation you probably discovered long ago. I love this forum and I have a lot of faith in the competancy of its users.

 

Teme

The point I was trying to get across the whole time, I just suck at explanations

Don't get so caught up trying to keep diseases up because even with the damage bonus HS doesn't hit for THAT much more. There aren't many fights that let you can keep a perfect training dummy rotation in Ulduar.

Also when you pop DRW use diseaseless rotation to take full advantage of the duration.

All this Armor pen talk..Diseaseless looks even more attractive with 2pT8?

 

Warrentt

I don't think you would get 6200-6300 raid buffed without gemming for str. Not until later later on and thats just gemming minimal str. Seems like gemming for Arp wont even be viable in Ulduar because without any str gems in the current bis gear it would never amount to 6200-6300 unbuffed. I still say gemming for str is more beneficial to us due to how kings scales and our rune of the crusader procs. The proc rate of ROTC has doubled even though its 15% that scaling with your str is more beneficial. Iv'e seen ROTC proc a whole ton in fights also.

And no it has already been established that non-disease is no longer viable even with the arp craze.

 

yek366

Death coil has been roughly 10% of my dmg. Barring the AoE, morbidity adds 5% DC dmg per point. That's a grand total of a 1.5% dps increase for THREE points. I do not believe this is worth taking over RD or necrosis, especially when you get late naxx gear and into Ulduar.

 

Leaflock

Um, no. It's as if the 5 or so posts after mine didn't even read the post. It's not an issue or a bug-- this is a positive change that helps you return to a normal rotation if yours is delayed and ends up in a situation like the hypothetical one I posted. @Swarly: the whole point of the change is so that you don't have to do what you just posted.

Usually, no, you don't want to use death runes for Death Strike. The PS IT HS HS DS DS HSx4 results in using death runes for HS (and then 2 next time around end up getting used for PS IT). This is only for situations where your cycle is interrupted, and it's in your best dps interest to come back around to a normal rotation. The point is that if you have BBDDDD, you can still do PS IT HS HS DS, and you'll have BBUDDF to continue your rotation as normal, which isn't the way it worked before. Again, this appears to be an intentional change to help us.

 

Teme

Diseaseless has not been nerf into oblivion where is has become 'no longer viable' in fact, you have no choice but to use diseaseless in most situations. I agree diseased is more DPS on the dummy but it ends there. Not many encounters allow you AND the boss to stand still.

Take Hodir for example, lets say your diseases have fallen off from running out of falling things and you have the damage buff when you're back in range are you gonna waste time applying diseases again or are you gonna DS, HS, DC for 30k+, 20k+, 15k+ to make the most of the buff? Same thing for Iron Council and Freya.

No need to even bring up rotations unless its a shorter and more useful one. The standard DS, HSx4 has been done to death and we ALL know it by now.

Long rotations in Blood Presence are what we want to AVOID in Ulduar for obvious reasons.