When I say raid buffed attack power I'm including all buffs minus procs such as FC, so the scaling is already factored in. My stat weights posted included ALL beneficial raid buffs a Blood DK can have.

Currently with only 1 piece from Ulduar25 (Bladebearer's Signet) I'm pushing almost 6000 AP as it is raid buffed, with a few gems for Expertise because I'm extremely low currently. I'm not saying drop Strength gems all together after breaking that threshold, I'm saying that when you reach that point, in two weeks, or six months, its more beneficial to gem for ArP instead.

FC procs increase the value of both Str and ArP, but if you are starting at a base of around 6200 AP before the proc, then it will actually increase the value of ArP more, because of the AP increase.

Greatness proc only increases the value of ArP because it raises our attack power. It has no bearing on the weight of Str because its a fixed amount added during the proc. With the change to ArP and how it scales incredibly well with increased AP, the Greatness card actually got better.

I can't imagine not taking it personally. The 3% str alone seems like a win/win since it affects literally every form of damage we do. I dont however max Notd though, instead I put those 2 points in morbidity. Makes my already glyph buffed DC's that much nastier. And when in a AOE boss fight, I usually dont even bother with a ghoul since keeping him up ends up usually being a dps loss anyway.

EDIT:Just noticed, you mentioned necrosis. How exactly is taking one take away from the other

This is my unholy tree

The only points I could see spending that I didnt would be 2 in NotD. Getting Necrosis shouldnt be a problem, even if I took NotD I would use the points from morbidity for it, not necrosis.

How about the 51/2/18 build where we're left with 3 points and a choice between Ravenous Dead or Blood Caked Blade?

Having tested both 51/0/20 and 51/2/18, the former has proved to be more DPS for me slightly, confirmed in parses.

Having 2 points in RPM didn't even raise my DRW damage by 1% of overall damage, same with 2 points in NoTD since the ghoul dies so fast anyway.

Only 2 points in Morbidity seemed to raise my DC DPS by around 1% of overall damage.

Having said the differences are so small I think its really a personal preference thing.

For me Ravenous Dead is a must, and BCB and Morbidity have performed better than RPM and NoTD.

Um, what? Every situation you appear to come up with, diseaseless always loses. So far, there are only 3 situations where Ill use diseaseless. 1.) The last 5-10 seconds on XTs heart, 2.) if my diseases are falling off and DRW is still up for another 5+ seconds, and 3.) low life adds on Razorscale.

Other than those 3 (so far), diseaseless always loses.

Are you still talking about stand still fights? I say that because the moment your rotation is delayed you are better off switching to DS, HS, DC till the rune refreshes line up nicely again. Unless you like that dead time in your rotation.

Fully raid buffed the gap closes between the two as well from my experience BUT when given the chance YES diseased is SLIGHTLY more DPS.

Have you only done those bosses so far? I already listed the other bosses where you'd have trouble with diseases.

The amount of time lost with moving/being grabbed by boss/target changes puts both rotations on par with each other. And I've already explained why on many occasions only to be slammed by post like 'diseaseless is no longer viable' and 'diseasesless always loses' so I'm just not gonna bother anymore.

I've done 13/14 twice now (clear minus Algalon of course ) and aside from the situations Lushen described, and the possible addition of Freya Lasher's and P1 Yogg adds (both very short duration, forced target switching situations) I have had zero problems or any desire to run without my diseases up.

I don't want to make you angry or something, but it IS a fact that diseaseless is no longer viable in nearly every imaginable situation.
If you just talk about the lost bonus damage on Heart Strike and such, then you may have a point (though i seriously doubt that as well), but most people seem to forget that diseases actually do some damage themselves. I normally run with an unholy DK and, profiting from Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague, my diseases alone (without the direct damage portion of PS and IT) add up to around 6-8% of my total damage, according to recent WWSs.
So, even if you're facing a very movement-heavy fight, just apply your diseases and let them tick away. With the new disease duration and adding in Epidemic, you got plenty of time for sneaking your (disease-profiting) strikes in, I dare to say.
I just can't see it, sorry.

On another topic: Many DKs seem to avoid [Mark of Norgannon] like hell and I'm wondering why.
Before 3.1, I capped out Expertise through Blood Gorged and food. But with the recent changes to Blood Gorged, I've found that this is one of my trinkets of choice. With its 8(.42) Expertise, it helps me to get very near the expertise cap again and opens up other food options.
Granted, the on-use haste isn't our best scaling stat, but it still adds a significant amount as well. It is an ilvl 226 trinket, after all .

Yes Im noticing the lack of Expertise gear as well. Given that neither of the set bonus are all that fantastic for Blood, Im beginning to consider dropping both set bonuses all together. I had planned on getting both the T8 helm and bp, but the expertise AND ArP on [Chestguard of the Recluse] is proving incredibly beneficial. As much as I want the Str from T8...Im not sure it outweighs the extra 28 Expertise and 63 ArP.

Currently trying out blood and I'm running with the Disease glyph instead of DRW. Is there any math that states that DRW is just plain better?

Cause right now I can in many fights just cast one IT and one PS and then just do HS/DS all the time and "waste" one blood/death rune ever 15+ seconds.

Chestguard of the Recluse keeps coming up as a good alternative in my itemrankings for those reasons. I agree that, looking at T8, it's hard not to consider the armor pen alternatives, particularly as ArP gains more value. The amount of Str and Exp on the T8 chest ranks it as BiS for me, but I'm using [Chestplate of Titanic Fury] from the 10-man right now for hit and armor pen, and it's definitely a solid alternative as well. Finding the right amount of expertise and hit (especially if you lose racial bonuses) will always be a juggling act.

@Teme: You brought the exact same argument up ten pages ago, and yet you're still on the whole "math is crap, I have real experience" kick. There are people in here who have done most to all of the bosses in Ulduar (minus Algalon) telling you that in practice, on actual fights, there is no issue with using diseases the vast majority of the time, and can clearly demonstrate it does more damage. It is not "slightly more damage". It is significantly more.

You're not contributing anything to the discussion by just coming in telling everyone they're wrong and railing against a substantial amount of evidence. The burden of proof is on you. If you have something backing you up about diseaseless (like say, damage parses competitive with the best disease rotations), then maybe people will listen to you.

Glyph of Disease was systematically proven in the old thread to be worse than Glyph of DC, DS, and DRW. Glyph of the Ghoul had math done as well, but it was done while Blood could have a Permaghoul. In any case, Glyph of Disease was at best half as good as the worst of the other three.

Got DRW glyph waiting, so thanks for the answer. Pretty nice sometimes to just spamming mindlessly though x)

You can't justify taking that trinket over another one simply because it opens up other food options. After the expertise was removed from Blood Gorged I just started using Expertise food to stay capped. I can't imagine replacing either Mirror of Truth or Grim Toll for MoN, given that no food will ever make up for the benefits lost for not having either one of those trinkets.

If you have some crappy green or blue trinket as the only alternative, then by all means use Norgannon. Other than that... there's no excuse for having it.

Thought I would make a quick post, was spec'd 51/2/18 last night for my first run in Ulduar after returing from holidays.

Went in and killed Ignis and pulled 5999.5dps in recount, which equated to 5704(6087) on WMO: WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish.

I got potted as the boss was killed, literally 5 seconds before he dropped-other than that it was a clean rotation and I hit pretty much everything.

Im obviously over hit and expertise cap, but the Grim Toll is worth the hit. As for the expertise, im not too sure, I can replace the chest with [Breastplate of Frozen Pain], or the bracers with [Bracers of Unrelenting Attack] which would further push me over the hit cap.

Can we have charts on raid fights for 44/0/27, I'm quite confident that there's a lot of differences in scaling vs 51/0/20, as well as situationnal differences...

For exemple, the permanent pet scale much better with raid buffs than the untalented pet. Army of the dead is pretty much always up for the boss fight (whereas sometimes it's on cooldown when not specced for night of the dead).

Also, I think Blood Gorged has a diminished effect on a target with reduced armor (like sunders applied). I'm not sure, but I think it would be how it goes : The boss has reduced armor from a debuff, and the armor penetration works for the current armor of the boss, which was reduced by sunders. That would definitly makes armor penetration and blood gorged talent less appealing to me. you must also consider you're not *always* over 75% health, there's quite a lot of fights actually where you take a lot of damage.

Also, would it be better in blood or unholy presence for 44/0/27?

I'm pretty sure it's being overlooked, I'd like more feedbacks on that spec, and not just "I tested it on a target dummie"...

(to tell the truth I dropped the 44/0/27 idea seeing how frost 2h was overpowered on dummies, but I realized that the dummies shouldn't be used as comparison, and since I saw that the spec was being discussed on these forums, well I'm curious...)

I saw that some said they performed much better in ulduar in comparison with 51/0/20, and some others says that 44/0/27 is not even worth talking. In both case I didn't really see numbers or maths concerning 44/0/27.


I'm also thinking that this spec, given its simplicity, makes it much better on fights where you have to move a lot

Just a little insight on how effective armor penetration is...

The World of Warcraft Armory

For some odd reason, armory is showing that i have less AP than i should have, my stats are currently 3950 AP (w/o horn), 286 hit rating, 30.85% crit chance, and last but not least, 254 armor pen (20.62%). There is of course, Blood Gorged for another 10%.

While testing out just how great the trinket Grim Toll is, I tested for a considerable amount of time, 612 ARP proc is GREATER than the 1000 AP mirror proc. I was able to hit 10k+ with critted Death Strike with grim toll proc, with the mirror proc and the base 254 arp, i could only get to around 9k death strike. The total armor penetration when the grim toll procs equates to around 70% ARP. I could NEVER get remotely close to a 10k crit with the mirror proc of 1k AP. I can say the same for Heart Strike as well, ive gotten 8k crit HS, and nothing remotely close with the 1k AP.

Im starting to think thats a good idea as well, when Grim Toll procs and gives us 612 ARP, that gives me a total of 866 ARP, I could very well hit 400-500 base ARP with Melencholy Sabatons, Greatring of Collision, Bladebreaker Gauntlets and keep around the same 30% crit rate and 8% hit... and theoretically, if i can reach around 600+ base ARP, who knows what numbers ill be able to pull.





SS of 254 ARP, 3950 AP, 286 hit, 30.85% crit, with Grim Toll (Horn of Winter not added in, but used on all tests)
DEATHSTRIKE


SS of 56 ARP, 3910 AP, 265 hit, 33.75% crit, with Mirror


SS of 332 ARP, 3992 AP, 272 hit, 28.37% crit, with Grim Toll (The gear used makes it hit or miss, I don't use it b/c it is lacking in the Crit Department, I got lucky in this short test, usually never crits that often =P)


HEARTSTRIKE







MELEE SWING







Comments are welcome.

Just curious what the BiS trinkets are for blood right now maybe I missed it in the thread already. I'm going to assume Greatness and Grim Toll? Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think that depends upon the ArP rating cap, which Im still trying to find information on. Either way, I think the two best (depending on gear) are [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] and either [Grim Toll] or [Mjolnir Runestone] (Mjolnir proc is actually 665). If either Grim Toll or Mjolnir put us over the ArP cap (assuming you have 500-600 ArP) then [Wrathstone] is like the next best.

Thank Lushen. I'm also wondering what kind of Armor Pen. are most of you guys running. I usually raid unholy but I was going to start using my dual spec to have a second raid spec and was testing blood and frost. You can check out my gear but I just get the kind of number I was out of frost and unholy. On the dummies I was pulling around 3.5k with both unholy and frost but blood was around 3.1-2k. I was using a basic priority system of Dieseases>Heart Strike>Death Strike>Dump. Just curious if you guys have an insight on this. Thanks.

I'd agree that [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] and [Grim Toll]/[Mjolnir Runestone] is BiS for now. If you don't have Greatness, then [Mjolnir Runestone] and [Pyrite Infuser] is what you should aim for. Will probably come better trinkets further on though.

[Wrathstone] isn't that good to be honest. I'd say that even [Mirror of Truth] is better. Probably better to go after [Bandit's Insignia] or [Fury of the Five Flights]

I have been 44/27 for a week now, but the only log I've been able to get so far is a night worth of Mimiron attempts. The WWS is screwy in that it did not seperate the 20 some tries we did as individual fights, but rather as a big clump. Look at it if you must.

What I found is that for fights that you struggle to maintain 75% HP reliably, it definitely is an alternative. I cannot get a direct comparison yet due to lack of data, but that's how I feel looking at recount. The other thing is that despite what everyone is saying about ghoul dying to aoe, I have had very little trouble keeping mine up in many fights where aoe damage goes crazy (read: Kologarn). There are definitely fights where the ghoul just won't live too long, but having a buffed ghoul helps with the uptime by a lot, nevertheless. And that is not to mention the 3.3k strength he has when he's up.

The other point to take home is that unholy blight is still quite a bit of damage in some fights with many adds. It is also, like others have pointed out before me, easier to fit in your rotation.

I used both blood and unholy presences, and I've found unholy to be the superior simply due to the ability to toss in lots of deathcoils (I have the DC/FS sigil, which helps with that, too), as well as the movement buff.

I'll post more data as I collect them.