so i should drop my death coil spam and opt for unholy blight? one of the reasons i didn't pick up dirge is 4 piece t7 i seem to be drowning in RP, only time it become an issue is when im popping garg, i try to sneak in a death coil every now and then, i undertand that if i put points in frost a gain more runic power which would be nice. does it allow garg to bout out longer? mine seems to always be out full duration even with me sneakin in death coils and not having dirge.
If your gargoyle is already out the whole duration it can't be out any longer. If you spec Unholy Blight you trade in your first Death Coil for Unholy Blight and then spam Death Coil like usual. It might be true that you have lots of RP, but you should still have enough time to dump your RP while your runes are on CD. Remember that in some fights it might also be beneficial to use AMS or Icebound to protect yourself. I personally never have any problems dumping my RP on rune CD's, but I don't have good gear yet either.
so i should drop my death coil spam and opt for unholy blight? one of the reasons i didn't pick up dirge is 4 piece t7 i seem to be drowning in RP, only time it become an issue is when im popping garg, i try to sneak in a death coil every now and then, i undertand that if i put points in frost a gain more runic power which would be nice. does it allow garg to bout out longer? mine seems to always be out full duration even with me sneakin in death coils and not having dirge.
If you're facing a single target and UB will have a chance to deal its full duration in damage then UB is more damage per RP and Death Coil. Obviously you should be using DC while UB is ticking. If facing more than one mob UB quickly becomes way better than DC. I believe Methods calculated that Dirge, point for point, is one of the best talents we have (correct me if I'm wrong, someone). There is no such thing as too much RP. Right now, when I pop Garg (unless it's at the VERY beginning of the fight) I can pretty much afford to continue my RP dumping as usual, no "sneaking" at all. No, RPM won't let you keep your Ghoul out longer.
Finally, even though 4P T7 "drowns" you in RP you can't actually say that you have too much RP until your RP generation exceeds your ability to use it (even then it would really only be too much if the generation exceeded use during Gargoyle). Unholy, from my understanding, has more free GCDs than any other DK spec, so there should be plenty of opportunities to dump any and all RP that you happen to get.
Since Morbidity is less than incredible would it be out of the question to pick up Annihilation after going in to frost for Black Ice? 3% crit on SS/BS/PS (assuming you prefer not to have IUP),
looking something like this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...4&version=9767
I see my ghoul getting fairly hefty critical hits with his Claw as well, so it may be even better if he also benefits from it. Just some food for thought.
//edit: fixed link
I can't really speak about an Obliterate build as Miracleknight alluded to in the post below yours, but I think it would be a bad idea, at least in a SS build, to abandon Morbidity for Annihilation. I'm no math whiz by any stretch, but I will try to apply some common sense to why this seems bad to me.
First, I think we're generally coming up with figures for Morbidity of around .4-.5% per talent point on single target dps. When speaking of Annihilation, we refer to it's increased crit for SS,PS,and BS (unless we're going to discuss going Obliterate I suppose). Disregarding the speculation about the ghoul for the moment, as I don't think it will significantly change this, and we don't know either way atm. Since we're talking about crit, let's compare Annihilation to another often discussed talent, Dark Conviction. I believe the current numbers on DC from this thread have it pegged at about .58% per talent point gain, though feel free to correct me if I'm incorrect.
Coming to the point, DC affects roughly 65% of our damage, since it affects everything that can crit. Annihilation, on the other hand, affects only our melee strikes. SS, PS, and BS contributed about 40.8% (36%, 1.5%, and 3.3% respectively) of my dps on my last Patchwerk recount (0/10/61 spec'd). Comparing the respective contribution of their damage, Annihilation affects about 62.77% of the damage that Dark Conviction does. Applying this to the weighting of .58% per point that DC has, we come up with a roughly .364% contribution per talent point.
This is worse than Morbidity's contribution, even disregarding the debatable utility of the DnD cooldown, and just comparing them as two direct single target talents. Please correct my math if wrong, like I said, I'm no math whiz.
Yeah, I came up with similar results when I did some math earlier. The OB unholy idea seems fruitless because it would require an amount of ArP and high-end gear that would make blood or frost a better option (unless I'm underestimating 3-disease Obliterates).
Obliterate is rather interesting for Unholy. Modifiers are Glyph of Obliterate, Rage of Rivendare, number of diseases on the target, 4 pc T8 bonus, Bone Shield, Desecration, and Blood Presence. It also gets 9% critical if you take 3/3 Subversion.
Glyphed Obliterate is 100% Weapon Damage and 584 bonus damage. 100% * 1.1 * 1.45 * 1.02 * 1.05 * 1.15 = 196.44% Weapon Damage using all of the modifiers listed. It gets 12% critical from talents.
Compare to Scourge Strike: 45% Weapon Damage * 1.1 * 1.4125 * 1.02 * 1.05 * 1.15 * 1.2 * 1.1 = 113.67% Weapon Damage that ignores armor. It gets a 6% critical bonus and 30% critical damage bonus. It also has a 25% chance to refresh diseases. It also refreshes Desecration which can increase it's uptime.
Using Obliterate means you are changing a large amount of your damage to physical which means you can use Armor Penetration. Using Scourge Strike means you don't need it at all allowing you to concentrate on other stats.
My conclusion was that it was worth it for duel-wielding. DW Unholy uses 3 additional frost points for Nerves of Cold Steel which means it can easily go two more for Chill to the Grave which gave it an additional rune power advantage. The increased melee damage also increased the physical damage percentage which made Armor Penetration more valuable.
As for 2H Unholy, you would use a 7/13/51 build which would add 4% to the numbers above. Obliterate goes up to 204.29% Weapon Damage and Scourge Strike goes up to 118.21% Weapon Damage.
Obliterate for a two-hander would be a whopping 0.481 AP conversion.
Scourge Strike for a two-hander would be 0.278 AP conversion.
It looks promising but I haven't run the numbers for what you lose to get it. Obviously taking Armor Penetration means losing other stats not to mention the DPS of talents you don't take to be able to use Obliterate. If ArP isn't a high enough EP value, you lose DPS by taking it.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Because he said the Glyphed Obliterate. The Glyph of Obliterate gives you 20% more Damage which brings it to 100% Weapon Damage.
Besides the numbers that you are trying to run Orlgin, I would love it when someone actually tries to do some testing.
Maybe I can get around to testing it at some point, even so I probably wouldn't use it, since I love the Unholy spec as it is.
I don't usually respond to these but I think you may have missed something.
My point is this: You don't like pets. You don't like DnD. You don't like Unholy.
Unholy DPS is designed with pet dps in mind and is balanced around the fact that every unholy DK has a pet living. You opt out on pet DPS and you opt out on ~20% of your dps.
If you are serious about DPS you would do yourself and your guild a disservice by nerfing yourself so much. You may want to try another alternative like frost or blood since they both focus on personal dps instead of pets.
That's open for discussion. You talk as if i gimp myself completely. I actually like unholy a lot, i just dont like pets, And i do like DnD, but i hardly seem to use it as i am dps'ing, so i chose not to specc it. Same with the ghoul, i could use the 3 points elsewhere. Even without the permaghoul, i think other dps skills can make up for it, but that's just me...
That's open for discussion. You talk as if i gimp myself completely. I actually like unholy a lot, i just dont like pets, And i do like DnD, but i hardly seem to use it as i am dps'ing, so i chose not to specc it. Same with the ghoul, i could use the 3 points elsewhere. Even without the permaghoul, i think other dps skills can make up for it, but that's just me...
The ghoul is 20-30% of your DPS. So if you see a better DPS with those 3 Talent points then it would be good. Fact is there is no other talent that gives you 6-10% DPS per point. You also don't spec into Gargoyle, which is our strongest DPS per Talent Point.
I have to agree with methods, that if you don't take the highest DPS Talents you are just limiting your DPS too much and would be better off with Blood or Frost.
And for your question earlier. I would never take a person with that build into raids and I would just /facepalm at that person.
I definately agree with your analysis Foxx that the DnD cooldown is pretty worthless. I rarely use it on trash because of the aggro but have used it on some of the boss's you mention. However, I've found +15% to my primary runic dump to be invaluable. Maybe it's because I DC more often during heavy movement fights while I'm running to a boss or adds but it's definately more than the extra 8% I'd gain from filling out necrosis.
Well that's quite a dangerous statement.
Using your WWS and putting it on All bosses (because for this comparison its all about boss dps), you have 12% of your dps from deathcoil.
12 / 1.15 = 10.4% dps from deathcoil after you remove morbidity from the equation again. In other words those 3 points in morbidity made up 1.6% of your dps, or 0.533% per point.
Necrosis with 3 points did 2% dps, or 0.66% dps per point. So even if you spam a lot of death coils, purely on this basis necrosis is already better, dps wise.
------
This whole discussion is kind of complicated though.
Morbidity, IUP are better on high movement fights (since you'll use relatively more DCs, and are less in melee range to benefit from necrosis
Necrosis is better on static fights.
Ghoul Frenzy is also a bit of a preference call. I find that I personally don't use it as much as i want to. I always use it at the start, and when my ghoul is taking damage. But i hardly ever combine it with blood tap, mostly because i use my blood tap for either bone shield or to straighten my rotation out.
The only thing I can say when i look at several (including my own) WWS reports is that:
- In ulduar i found the use of the -15 sec on DnD to be not needed. I tried playing without yesterday, i had no problems whatsoever, if i really needed powerful aoe i'd use 1 DnD, otherwise i just kept to UB, spreading diseases and blood boiling.
- Morbidity is if you look at overal ulduar performance worse than necrosis point for point. People are often mislead because DC produces big numbers and all, but keep to the math. Until DC becomes more than 15% of your dps (BEFORE morbidity), necrosis will probably be better.
- IUP is a preference call imo. You notice the difference with and without it. However as far as DPS gain, its hard to measure. And as for survivability, it helps, but you can do without easily.
- Ghoul Frenzy, is in my opinion again a preference call. Its a solid talent for 1 point, but unless you optimise it well with blood taps and in dead moments. You might want to spend it in something you use more.
I strongly agree. I was going through my WWS myself a while ago and checked Necrosis versus BCB damage and even at my gear level I had to find out that BCB was the same damage or even more than Necrosis was per Talent Point. And in my opinion BCB only becomes stronger as you get a better Weapon. So with the weapon that is used there BCB should be doing way way more damage per Talent Point than Necrosis.
I hope I didn't say anything wrong here, since I'm new to this.
I would recommend instead of telling that BCB is worse for you, that you link to your WWS. Because calculating BCBs worth is fairly simple. % of damage divided by 3 :P. And we can do the same for Necrosis divided by the # of points in it.
Also I will see if I can swing getting ARP and Blood type gear and giving this obliterate build a try, if anyone else wants to try it too I'd love that.
Last edited by Miracleknight : 04/30/09 at 9:22 AM.
Hi to everyone.
This is my first post, so forgive me if I’m bothering with old topics. I’ve read all I could but I’ve still some doubts and need help.
I started, as suggested, with a “classic” 12/0/59. My guild has just cleared Naxx, I’m well equipped for Naxx, so I think it’s the best way for me. But I have done some minor changes: NO point in Improved Unholy Presence and in Ghoul Frenzy (I do not feel I need them now. May be in Ulduar it’s different).
I have 3/3 Morbidity and got involved in the debate if it'is too much. If so, I could have the option to move 3-6 points into Blood. Moreover, I have 5/5 Necrosis and I could move up to 3 points (2 are needed if I move Morbidity).
So my doubts:
I could go 2/2 Two Handed weapon specialization e 5/5 Dark Conviction with 2/5 Necrosis (0 Morb.) or any combinations of the three talents
- Points spent in Two Handed w.s. are > more than Necrosis (dps terms) ?
- Dark Conviction >> Necrosis > Morbidity ?
- Should I have to sacrifice some points in Morbidity ?
I still see that a high amount of my % damage cames from auto – attack (even if I’m 2H), so less points in Necrosis are a dps loss that I hope to compensate. Am I wrong ?
In the end, I'll have a very classic 17/0/54. Is it so horrible ?
Thanks a lot for your help
However it seems the glyph when applied just changes the OB tooltip to say "100% weapon damage." So, it's probably safe to assume that the glyph actually increases the weapon damage scaling to 100%.
I realize that the whole point is to figure out the optimal build for optimal circumstances but in practice I find that it makes more sense for the cookie cutter specs to have some flexibility to allow for imperfect play. For me, a more practical build for maximizing DPS has been Armory Link
I readily admit that 3 of the 5 points in frost are wasted for DPS, but my guild is young and benefits from the attack speed debuff on IIT. RPM gives you more flexibility for Death Coils that actually get used than Dirge does. For example, if you have <80 RP and hit the SS, you've cost yourself RP. With Dirge, you get an extra DC every 8 SS for unholy (not an extra UB because you'll have that up anyway). That DC probably still costs you a GCD that you would have done something else with so there's actually a little more cost than that but even so what is Dirge really worth? Seems to me it's about a DC 45-60 seconds or less which is going to be a decent amount of DPS (~100?). So for me, being far from BiS gear that's about 3% of my damage or about 1.25-1.5% per point. Good talent.
By taking RPM instead, you gain more flexibily to keep a rotation going for example if RP>80 and your diseases have <2sec on them you're going to lose RP to keep diseases up or you're going to throw a DC in between FU runes and make your next SS slow. Third alternative is to DC first which may let diseases drop and will certainly mean you're going PS/IT and not SS hoping for a refresh-DPS loss either way when the situation arises. With RPM that threshold is 30 RP higher. Also, with all the movement fights, you can throw 3 DC's from range as opposed to 2, which sometimes makes up the 1 per minute advantage of Dirge outright.
The 3 points that have in IIT would probably go to IUP and another point in Necrosis if I weren't taking one for the team because my 30-50 DPS = 0 when we wipe. But I do think that 12/2/57 while not tops in DPS theory may be right there for DPS practice, which is the reason that all the theory exists in the first place.
....snip....
But I do think that 12/2/57 while not tops in DPS theory may be right there for DPS practice, which is the reason that all the theory exists in the first place.
Dirge is a DC every 8 (SS+PS). From my simulations you will realistically SS ~4.28 times and use IT/PS ~0.48 times per 20 seconds if using the SS glyph. That means dirge gives you roughly 1.19 RP per second. If the extra RP is used for DC alone (Which might not happen with Garg in the picture) lets say DC hits for ~4500 on average in Ilevel 213+ gear so you are looking at a 133.88 DPS increase.
GCDs are not a scarce resourse for Unholy.
If you want Imp IT why not just go 0/10/61 and mitigate your sacrifice.
Your RP cap conditions don't have to be stressed as much as you may think because Rune cooldowns are not fixed. You can delay a SS a full GCD to burn some RP on a DC/UB and not take any time loss due to Rune Cushioning.
However it seems the glyph when applied just changes the OB tooltip to say "100% weapon damage." So, it's probably safe to assume that the glyph actually increases the weapon damage scaling to 100%.
Never mind, I was right initially. It goes from (80% weapon damage + 803) * (1+(0.125 per disease)) to (100% weapon damage + 1004) * (1+(0.125 per disease)) with the glyph
Originally Posted by methods
Your RP cap conditions don't have to be stressed as much as you may think because Rune cooldowns are not fixed. You can delay a SS a full GCD to burn some RP on a DC/UB and not take any time loss due to Rune Cushioning
I believe I understand the concept, but is there somewhere that explains Rune Cushioning because I've never seen it discussed with much detail. I assume it's just an extra 1.5 seconds that will carry over to your rune's next cooldown time, should you choose to wait to use it?
Your RP cap conditions don't have to be stressed as much as you may think because Rune cooldowns are not fixed. You can delay a SS a full GCD to burn some RP on a DC/UB and not take any time loss due to Rune Cushioning.
I think I may not be taking full advantage of this because I'm not sure entirely what you mean here.
Right now when I DPS if my next SS is going to put me over my 130 rune cap I will burn one or two DCs, am I losing DPS then at this point? I don't have any set rune dump rotation it's just when I get to that point that I will do so. Is it better to completely empty your runic power when you go into a runic dump, or throw down a DC and then scourge strike?
To put this question in a more meaningful phrase, you're talking about the 8.5 second cooldown for runes right? Because that's not actually something I've ever fully understood.
Not all your damage is modified by crit. Pets aren't, Unholy blight isn't, diseases are but its a bit dodgy since Wandering Plague i believe has an internal cooldown.
If i take my WWS there are about 5 factors not affected by crit:
1. Unholy Blight
2. Blood-caked Blade (quite funny actually)
3. Pets, from what I remember pets only get AP / hit and haste from us, but correct me on this if im wrong.
There are 2 more dodgy cases:
4. Necrosis, of course it does double damage if your white attack crits, but it can not independently crit.
5. Diseases. Wandering Plague comes close, but due to internal cooldown doesnt quite make it. I have (raid buffed) around 40-50% crit rating, and my WP only did 30% of my total disease damage, so it doesn't quite make it.
Counting that all up comes to roughly 25%.
So crit only affects 75% of your damage.
On top of that 1% crit <> 1% more damage. Since you already have crit.
Say you have 40% crit raid buffed, DC would add another 5% on top of that.
That means you do 145 / 140 * 100% = 103.57% dmg.
Thats a 3.57% damage increase from 5% crit. Affecting only 75% of your damage meaning that DC adds about 2.6775% damage for 5 points or 0.5355% damage per point
Thats roughly the same as Morbidity does, without the benefit of shorter Death and Decay.
I think I may not be taking full advantage of this because I'm not sure entirely what you mean here.
Right now when I DPS if my next SS is going to put me over my 130 rune cap I will burn one or two DCs, am I losing DPS then at this point? I don't have any set rune dump rotation it's just when I get to that point that I will do so. Is it better to completely empty your runic power when you go into a runic dump, or throw down a DC and then scourge strike?
To put this question in a more meaningful phrase, you're talking about the 8.5 second cooldown for runes right? Because that's not actually something I've ever fully understood.
Thats what he means yea.
Take these 3 scenarios:
(Scenario based on 2/2 dirge; 4 set T7 and no RPM)
1. You're at 50 RP, and the runes for your next SS come up (UF runes). You're not capping on RP so you just burn the SS. You now have 80 RP, and your UF runes go on a 10 second cooldown
2. You're at 85 RP, and the runes for your next SS come up (UF runes). You're gonna cap RP. but you wanna push the SS as fast as possible so you just fire it. Your runes go on a 10 second cooldown, you now have 100 RP, and are missing out on a potential 15 RP. Roughly translating to 1500 damage.
3. You're at 85 RP, and the runes of your next SS come up. You're gonna cap RP, so you dump your RP into 1 DC first BEFORE you use that SS. You lower your RP to 45 RP, and then fire your SS.
This is where rune cushioning kicks in, your runes do not go on a 10 second cooldown, but because they have been waiting for 1.5 second while already being up (the 1 GCD you used on DC), that time will be substracted from the cooldown and your runes will be up in 8.5 seconds instead.
Basically in the last scenario you lose nothing.
HOWEVER, there are some restrictions.
For example say you have another set of UF runes ready after that, those have pretty much been ready for 1.5 seconds as well, because after all you're pushing the rest of your rotation back 1.5 seconds.
They can handle that with rune cushioning as well, but that does mean that you cant dump RP before the next attack without losing some dps.
Simply said:
0.0 - 90 RP - 1st set of UF ready; 2nd set of UF 1.5 sec away from getting ready
You dump your RP into a DC first
1.5 - 50 RP - 1st set of UF used on SS; 2nd set of UF ready
You dump your first set of UF in a SS, they go on a 8.5 sec CD
3.0 - 80 RP - 2nd set of UF used on SS
This is where you have a slight problem. You have to use your SS to not lose dps, however since the second set of UF have already been waiting for 1.5 seconds having them wait for another 1.5 seconds would break a bit past the run cushioning which i think only allows 2 seconds (?).
Of course this is a case of bad RP planning, because if you dump all your RP at the end of your rotation you shouldn't need more than 1 "in between RP dump" to get around stuff.
But the cushioning has its limitations.
Just saying that its always better to do 1 RP move before 1 Rune move, if you're gonna overcap RP.
One thing I've been toying around with the idea of doing, is getting a disease timer addon that lets me know when they are going to tick and to save my SSes for the moment a disease ticks or if I can somehow align my rune cooldowns up to that and induce burning my RP in the GCD. But I just typed out a long detailed rotation and realized that since you will be putting up your diseases at different times you couldn't really do that too well and automatically only lose half of a tick whenever you refresh with SS... is that something we've been including in these analysis?
The fact that Frost Fever and Blood Plague should be ticking every 1.5 seconds alternating and most likely based on the 1.5 second GCD you should only be using an SS after one of the diseases tick so that you'd only lose 2 seconds on the next tick of the opposite disease if it refreshes?
One thing I've been toying around with the idea of doing, is getting a disease timer addon that lets me know when they are going to tick and to save my SSes for the moment a disease ticks or if I can somehow align my rune cooldowns up to that and induce burning my RP in the GCD. But I just typed out a long detailed rotation and realized that since you will be putting up your diseases at different times you couldn't really do that too well and automatically only lose half of a tick whenever you refresh with SS... is that something we've been including in these analysis?
The fact that Frost Fever and Blood Plague should be ticking every 1.5 seconds alternating and most likely based on the 1.5 second GCD you should only be using an SS after one of the diseases tick so that you'd only lose 2 seconds on the next tick of the opposite disease if it refreshes?
I assume you're talking about the resetting of the disease ticks.
As far as i know this was being dealt with a while ago.
If you in fact have 1 second before your next disease-tick and you refresh it due to the glyph, then the next tick should in fact still be in 1 second and not 3 seconds later.
However that's how they did it for warlocks I believe (not that they mind, because they never overlap their dots IIRC), not 100% if DK disease get that same treatment, but it should be confirmable by simply checking the ticks in the combat log.
Oh ok maybe I need to go back and reread the info before then, because everytime we talk about glyph of disease vs glyph of Scourge Strike we talk about the damage lost; which I assumed was the damage lost from the loss of a disease tick. Yeah I'll test my combat log today unless someone does it before I get home from work.
04/29/09, 4:50 PM
