I've done a bit of looking couldn't dig up anything, i know 4pc t7 is superior for unholy.. what about blood, is it still superior or are you able to switch out to just BIS pieces? I haven't been really able to test my dps using either

Hey all,

Long time reader of the forum and figured I´d finally post something.

The following link WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish shows my guild's results on a Deconstructor kill.

And I must say I'm liking the results

Now for my build I took a 51/2/18 build which is basically built towards my personal preference.

Using the following build:
MMO-Champion talent build

In general the blood build gives insane survivability seeing 18-19k deathstrike (w/o vamp blood) heals pass by, with vamp blood offering another skill for emergency situations (extremely useful when learning encounters).
As for specifics on this particular build:

- I hate the pet, especially if I can't control it. In theory it provides a high dps bonus but in practice it just dies too much in my opinion. Therefore I 'save' 5 points to max out necrosis and bcb.

- Getting glyph of DRW when I can get my hands on it instead of the ghoul glyph.

- I find the 30 added RPM to be of some practical value, it adds an extra 3 sec to the DRW ofcourse but imo its useful in general to be able to store a bit more.

My gear is as following : Armory which is pretty basic nowadays with Jawbone as weapon (never saw a Betrayer drop) and a bit sub optimal trinkets (overcapping hit for now).

He's not smoking anything... he specifically said in his explanation that the first rotation will skim near the end of Frost Fever, but the subsequent rotations will not have the same problem.

[quote=Voxx;1198146]
As for the difference between 44/0/27 and 51/0/20 I'm pretty sure that the latter will win out in the end because with Night of the Dead, the difference between ghouls is 33% uptime and raid buffs which, in my personal opinion, will not outscale both Dancing Rune Weapon AND Blood Gorged.

The difference is not just perma ghoul, but perma ghoul+UB+Ghoul glyph. Plus, Blood gorged is not always active, esp. as we get more raid damage intensive fights, and less Patch type fights. 44/0/27 gains simpler and easier excution, and 51/x/x has on-demand burst.

4pc T8 is an upgrade from 4pc T7 for Blood. However you won't necessarily want to lose 4pc T7 right away -- in fact it's probably not worth breaking 4pc T7 until you have four bits of Tier 8, and certainly at least two bits.

Allow me to make it clear how this works. Here is the timeline starting with the first, priming iteration.

00.0: IT
01.5: PS
03.0: HS
04.5: HS
06.0: DS
07.5: DC
09.0: GCD Ends, but the first Frost Rune hasn't refreshed yet.
10.0: F refreshes, but the first Unholy Rune hasn't refreshed yet.
11.5: U refreshes, DS
13.0: HS
14.5: HS
16.0: HS
17.5: HS
19.0: DC
20.5: DC, end of the first iteration
21.0: Because of the notable delay in the first iteration, you would get additional DoT ticks here from 2/2 Epidemic.
21.5: UF Refresh
22.0: GCD ends, IT.
23.5: PS, this rune will refresh at the same time as the F rune.
25.0: HS
26.5: HS
28.0: DS
29.5: DC
31.0: GCD ends, but we still have a second before the UF refresh.
32.0: UF refresh, DS
33.5: HS
35.0: HS
36.5: HS
38.0: HS, it has been 16 seconds since we used IT.
39.5: DC
41.0: DC, end of the second iteration
42.0: UF runes refresh
42.5: GCD ends, IT, continue ad nauseam.

Compare what you have been doing against that timeline. You should be able to see A) why it works and B) what it is you're doing differently.

Based on this, couldn't you just RP dump again at 9.0 seconds instead of 20.5 seconds? These would leave you with only requiring pushing to the ideal rotation from 21.5 seconds to 22.0 seconds periodically, instead of every time. Of course this would require RPM to not DC below 25 during that dump phase without energy loss, since you are opening with DS. Worst case you enter 11.5 seconds with just under 65 RP, and reach ~130 when you hit DC range at 19.0 seconds.
Overall though, I would argue for the second point of epidemic. Take Salviastria's wws on page 4. One extra tick for 550 damage per disease every ~22 seconds is a 50 dps increase. He did 5.450k dps, the extra ticks are worth 0.92% dps* on their own, in addition to the effects of not losing disease buffs to HS due to fight mechanics breaking up the rotation. If you remember from earlier in this thread, morbidity is worth ~0.5-0.6% dps per talent point, making epidemic a higher priority talent to max then morbidity, ignoring the DnD CD reduction.
Based on this I advise we assume 2/2 epidemic is worthwhile and move to:
morbidity vs rav dead... morbidity we basically know, but rav dead calculations need to be specified: NotD or no NotD.

*Edit: Due to rune grace period the extra ticks from 2/2 epidemic are limited to the opening rotation, and places where dps contact is lost. So the disease ticks would yield lower than a 0.92% dps increase.

Is there an reason why you dont start with DS for an Abomination's Might buff right from the start?

This would although change the timeline, like


00.0: IT -> DS
01.5: PS -> IT
03.0: HS -> PS
04.5: HS -> HS
06.0: DS -> HS
07.5: DC -> DC
09.0: GCD Ends, but the first Frost/Unholy Rune hasn't refreshed yet.
10.0: F refreshes, -> F/U aka D/D refreshes, HS
11.5: U refreshes, DS -> HS
13.0: HS -> DC
14.5: HS -> HS
16.0: HS -> HS
17.5: HS -> DS
19.0: DC -> DC
.
.
.

Going backwards, you only get the extra tick on "priming" iterations or when movement forces you away from a boss. That may be often enough to make it worthwhile, or it may not. The lost HS argument doesn't resonate with me, as most events I've experienced which separate you from a boss do so to an extent that makes the point moot.

To answer your first question, if you have the RP for it you have a good point, a half second can be shaved off the priming iteration by using DC twice there and only once after the second half. If you don't have the RP you probably want to skip the DC at 20.5 seconds anyway in order to build RP.

You may actually end up skipping the third DC fairly often. With DRW being used every 90 seconds, you need to store 100-130 RP over 4.5-5 rotations, effectively requiring an average surplus of 25 RP per rotation. However, if we use 3 DCs every rotation we have a deficit of 2 RP (110 RP generated from runes, 8 from Butchery). Thus you can only use a third DC once or twice out of 4-5 rotations, barring outside effects generating RP (such as Resto Druids and Disc Priests).

Mostly because I was caught up in making it clear how, through repetition and what I thought was a simple example, the gap between the final HS and diseases dropping widens. In a "real world" scenario you should definitely open as you described.

It isn't just the priming rotation, all future rotations are 21.5 seconds long as well. The error that allowed for post-priming rotations is highlighted. Basically, every time you IT, PS then DS, your DS is 11.5 seconds after your IT. Your next IT is always 10 seconds later. So the time between IT's can never be less then 21.5 seconds (in BP). So every 21.5 seconds you gain a tick of each disease.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you objecting to my claim that the Unholy rune used at 23.5 seconds will refresh at the same time as the Frost rune used at 22.0? If so, the following section of the TTT might be useful reference.

Death Knight: PvE DPS

If not, I'll have to ask you to be more specific, as otherwise I don't know what it is that's wrong.

A lot of mention has been given on this very subject (more than necessary, in fact), at least once per page and in the old blood thread as well. This is not new and amazing information. The skinny of it is, it is not worth the loss of a major glyph spot. Do a search for more detailed information, but it has been theorized and tested to not be as efficient as just re-applying your diseases.

The part you're missing here is that runes have a 2 second "grace period". As long as you use a rune within 2 seconds of it refreshing, it will count as if it was used right when it first refreshed. So if you have:

0.0 IT
1.5 PS
...
11.5 DS

your frost rune should come back up at 20.0 and your unholy rune at 21.5, because your frost rune was used within the grace period and therefore counted as being used at 10.0, when it refreshed. Of course, if you just miss the 2 second window, it gets a little icky, so sometimes you will end up with a >= 21.5 second rotation anyway.

That's what I was missing. Thanks.

You may want to read, like, any page in this thread. It gets brought up a lot. I think the concensus is that it's the best third glyph you can get until you find someone who can make DRW.

Yes, the ghoul in a 44/0/27 build will scale with raid buffs. It works just like a hunter pet as in it will double dip on buffs (gets stats from you + your buffs and buffs tossed on it). I have been seeing some very nice numbers out of this build myself. However, in the build i am running, I have 2 points in Impurity instead of Dirge, and took GoDisease over Dark Death. I am not sure if Dark Death will give more DPS on this build since with Disease I can refresh my diseases with one rune vs. two therefore I am able to get in another HS on the refresh rotation.

44/0/27 Any pointers on this build are extremely welcome.

Using actual parsed average values from a WWS report on Sarth:
IT damage + PS damage + HS damage = 1165+ 1344 + 2548 = 5057
DS damage + Pest damage = 3776 + 0 = 3776

I realize that one has 3 GDCs and the other has 2 GDCs but it is easy to see why the 3 runes are more effective at producing damage using IT, PS, & HS then DS & Pest.

I ran some math on this the other day in attempt to prove that diseaseless wasn't really viable, and much to my surprise, that's not really what the numbers showed.

Assuming a blood w/ diseases rotation of:
IT PS HS HS DS <dump>
DS HS HS HS HS <dump>

and a diseaseless rotation of:
DS HS HS HS HS <dump>
HS HS DS HS HS <dump>

Both rotations generate the exact same amount of runic power (not counting IT glyph if you use it), though the diseaseless spec would free up points in epidemic for points in ravenous dead or morbidity, depending on your preference, but more on this later.

For w = weapon damage and assuming 33% crit, the damage done over 3 rotations from rune abilities (approximately a minute) will be on average

diseaseless: 36.66w + 22217.68
w/ diseases: 36.23w + 22104.77 + 2.38ap

Increase the crit to 50%, and you get

diseaseless: 42.63w + 25837.42
w/ diseases: 42.10w + 25625.86 + 2.43ap

To get w, you have (Wdps + (1/14)ap)*3.3 (3.3 is normalized 2h speed). In the case of a Betrayer and 4000ap, you have w = 1678.43 average damage. In order to account for death coil damage, let's assume a spec of 51/0/20 for blood w/ diseases. To make that diseaseless, move the 2 points from epidemic into morbidity. Each rotation will generate 110 RP per iteration, though diseaseless will generate more DCs via sudden doom. On average, diseaseless will generate 11.85 DCs that hit harder than blood w/ diseases' 10.95 DCs. All together after 3 rotations, using a Betrayer with 4k ap, ability damage will be around
.......................33% crit (dps).............50% crit (dps)
diseaseless: 104543.24 (1742.4) 120841.14 (2014)
w/ diseases: 109902.48 (1831.7) 125708.73 (2095.1)

I include calculations for two values of crit to illustrate that the value of crit is bigger for diseaseless than for blood w/ diseases, but that the difference isn't nearly enough to magically make diseaseless effective (even at 100% crit). In addition, you have to factor in an extra 9% physical damage from BV and an extra 4% damage on everything but IT, FF and BP (clearly favoring diseaseless). Adding those in yields an overall change of less than 5dps in the difference between diseaseless and blood w/ diseases.

In conclusion, the math presents that blood w/ diseases is the optimal dps rotation, though not by a huge margin. In practice, it comes down to whether you can squeeze all of the HS into the disease timers consistently, which depends heavily on the amount of target switching/moving around that has to happen in a fight.

(Disclaimer: Keep in mind that the above math assumed no raid buffs, assumed hit cap and didn't factor in for armor mitigation, which would make minimal differences at best, seeing as how both rotations are heavily reliant on physical damage.)

This certainly affects the damage of a DK swinging on a dummy with no outside influences, but here are some other things to consider, dwig.

• Only one point in epidemic is really needed, meaning that a point could be moved from the diseased build to Morbidity, closing the gap in the strength of DC
• Dancing Rune Weapon will ALSO be doing higher damage than diseased with its strikes, meaning that the gap widens when you take into account DRW uptime
• I don't think a minute-long theorized test is the best way to compare the specs, as that isn't a long enough period for any worthwhile statistics to be generated. Over time, the gap will widen, leaving a more notable difference.
• And on that note, you didn't take into account that the first runecycle of diseaseless is DS DS HS HS (unless I'm mistaken...), which would have a large effect on a 60 second test.

So basically, yes they may be close, but not as close as you theorized, I think.

Shouldn't these be:

DS It PS HS HS <dump>
HS HS HS HS HS HS <dump>

and:

DS DS HS HS <Dump>
HS HS HS HS HS HS <dump>

Thanks for pointing those out, Tiki. I left out the math regarding DRW under the assumption that it would simply mirror what was already happening, and the 60 seconds is meant to be a snapshot of a longer dps cycle (assuming the setups of DS DS HS HS and DS IT PS HS HS), but ignoring the setup's effect on dps was bad of me, especially if you start with 0 RP.

All in all, I'm very much a fan of blood with diseases rather than without (love those huge crits), and the points you make further emphasize that blood w/ diseases is the optimal way to go.

Grondarg: DS DS HS HS followed by HSx6 produces the same strike totals, 8HS and 2DC per rotation as the one I used. As far as I've seen, it's just a matter of preference as to whether you like more GCDs for RP dumping after part 1 or if you like the same number of GCDs between each part. I always went with DS HSx4 because it was easier for me to maintain, not that either is particularly difficult.

First one would be

DS It PS HS HS <dump>
HS HS HS HS DS <dump>

IT & PS don't turn into deathrunes