Yeah, my only real solution right now is to hold off on dropping DnD until right when the champions are picked up. I can still see the next spawn possibly getting some of the last ticks from DnD, but I don't remember the exact spawn timers on Champions. I don't use Blood Boil on that fight already because of accidentally pulling aggro. I'll see if I still pull aggro next week.
I'm not entirely sure about GC's comments myself. He lists examples like Ignis, but how high is DPS being padded by Unholy Blight on the constructs? I use Unholy Blight as a single-target ability, and if a construct wanders by me while being kited to the next Scorch, does that mean UB should be changed? It seems more likely that an Unholy DK would use Pestilence when a construct is passing by, for possible WP procs and possibly the melee speed reduction for the offtank. But it almost seems intentional now that Pestilence turns into a Death Rune. I use it every time I have Blood Runes up on Kologarn to increase damage on the Right Arm/Body, and for the off-chance that the Left Arm ends up being destroyed as well to damage Kologarn. Emalon I guess would work similarly if the adds were tanked close enough to the boss for Pestilence/Unholy Blight, but any damage done to the adds is completely pointless in general, and the fight is a bit of a joke now anyway. I guess I can see Unholy Blight being changed so that any fight with nearby multiple targets doesn't inflate an Unholy DK's DPS without them having to alter their single-target rotation, but it still seems like a weak reason.
Its really hard to provide a solution w/o looking at a WWS parse or something similar. That being said, I can provide the following generic advice.
1) You are below hit cap. Swap some gear parts and/or gem in order to get to the cap.
2) Ensure your ghoul is up for as much of the fight as possible. Use huddle/leap macros to get him out of AoE situations
3) You didn't mention Unholy Blight. Unholy blight should have a near 100% uptime.
4) Maintain diseases properly. Your rotation appears fine, but ensure you are using some type of mod that tracks your disease, so that you know when to break the SS chain for a new PS/IT.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "large downtime between SS". At most I have one or two GCD's between SS which I use for UB, DC, HoW (In that order).
[e] - spelling
Yeah, I'm going to do a wws report and post that for you guys, to help me see. I fixed the low hit, I seem to have trouble getting expertise cap, not sure how important that is. Until I get the report, thanks for the reply.
So while yes we are capable of tremendous aoe, it is quite situational, hard to setup, and depending on a number of variables.
In Ulduar though any AOE situation either has a Central target you can Pestilence off of to save 2 GCD (like auriya) or the adds are tough enough or constant enough to last (Thorim) so our setup time isn't that big of an issue.
I did the math a while back (I was trying to justify taking the Wrathstone, since I got one on our first Kologarn kill). I couldn't find it, so I just redid it while my server still isn't up. For reference, I'm comparing [Wrathstone] to [Bandit's Insignia], using the stat weights from the OP (Unholy BiS 0/10/61).
Bandit's Insignia:
190 AEP + 1504-2256 damage (45s ICD), able to crit for 150%, and modified by all relevant modifiers (Blood Presence, Bone Shield, Desecration, Ebon Plague). Crits based off spell crit%.
The proc is then (1504+2256)/2 or 1880 average damage (non-crit). 1880*1.15*1.02*1.05*1.13=2616.52.
Assuming 30% spell crit, the average damage is then 0.7*2616.52+0.3*(2616.52*1.5)=3008.998 Note: I'm really uncertain if this model of crit% is correct, but the number seems fairly reasonable so I went with it. Someone please correct me if it is inaccurate.
With a 45s ICD, assuming it procs on CD, it is 3008.998/45=66.867 DPS.
So Bandit's Insignia is 190 AEP + 66.867 DPS.
Wrathstone:
The passive 108 crit rating is 108*1.341 or 144.828 AEP. The on-use is 856 AEP/20 seconds with a 2min CD. If you pop it on CD, it is up 1/6 of the time, so it averages to 856/6=142.667 AEP. In total, 287.495 AEP.
So the question then, is how does 97.495 AEP compare with 66.867 DPS?
Next, lets look at the DPS gained (or perhaps lost) by using Wrathstone before Summoning a gargoyle. From the OP, gargoyle strike does 40% AP+150. For our purposes, the base damage does not matter, since we are only concerned about how much this trinket increases our DPS. 856*0.4=342.4 damage added to each gargoyle strike. Gargoyle strike can crit (~5% crit rate, from what WWSes I could find) for 150%, so the average damage added is 342.4*0.95+342.4*0.05*1.5=350.96 average damage added. (See above comment about crit modeling)
The number of gargoyle strikes varies based on boss/haste/RNG, but in a quick test on the dummies, I averaged about 13 casts per summon. With 13 casts, each increased by 350.96, using Wrathstone for gargoyle results in a net increase of 4562.48 damage per summon. With a 3 min CD, this averages to 4562.48/180=25.347 DPS increase.
We also need to take into account the lower AEP from using Wrathstone every 3 min, instead of every 2. The proc is 20 seconds every 3 mins, so it is up 1/9 of the time, for 856/9=95.11 AEP. Net: 95.11+144.828=239.939 AEP
Results:
97.495 AEP(Wrathstone) vs 66.867 DPS(Bandit's) -- Popping Wrathstone on CD, ignoring the benefits to Gargoyle.
49.939 AEP(Wrathstone) vs 41.52 DPS(Bandit's) -- Popping Wrathstone every 3 mins, with Gargoyle.
I'm still unsure about how AEP translates to real DPS, so I'm not sure how to make a solid decision based on this.
Note: As I mentioned above, I'm very unsure about how I approximated crit%, something seems wrong about it to me. The numbers seemed reasonable, so I left them in. I didn't add in the benefit to gargoyle when popping wrathstone on CD, because it varies depending on fight length.
Note2: If you are only concerned about the average, since you can pop wrathstone with every other gargoyle, it has 1/2 the DPS increase from popping it with gargoyle every time, so 12.674 DPS. I won't include that above, since in real application, the increase varies extremely on fight length.
Note3: I'm fairly certain I over-valued the DPS of Bandit's proc, since it will not proc on CD in practice. I was unsure about how to approximate time to proc after the ICD was up, so I simplified it. The proc rate is 15% outside of ICD, if anyone else wants to do the math.
I'm sure I screwed something up, so please feel free to correct my math. (First time doing it for more than myself)
This may be a dumb question, but does the AEP value for Bandit's AP include the damage 190 AP adds to gargoyle?
This may be a dumb question, but does the AEP value for Bandit's AP include the damage 190 AP adds to gargoyle?
I believe it does, since the stat-weights are derived using a standard rotation (with pets) as far as I know. If Bandit's had str instead of AP, the AEP value for it would still take into account gargoyle, if that makes clearer.
Should I consider swapping to Blood or Frost dps spec for the Yogg encounter? I've been primarily Unholy since Wrath was released, but on Yogg I feel like more "bursty" type damage is needed - or am I just doing it wrong?
Apologies if this isn't the correct forum for this question, but I figured Unholy DK's with experience on the encounter would be the best resource.
Slant I would like to point out something GC alluded to in relation to your post. There are a lot of things that players (and DKs specifically) can do to simply inflate their overall damage done. The example GC used was Ignis, where unholy blight and/or D&D was applied to the constructs. Now this serves absolutely zero practical purpose to the raid, but the DK might edge out and "win" damage meters as a result.
That was a terrible example and have serious doubts over whether dropping D+D on constructs will even grant you higher DPS then using your Runes on Ignis.
Should I consider swapping to Blood or Frost dps spec for the Yogg encounter? I've been primarily Unholy since Wrath was released, but on Yogg I feel like more "bursty" type damage is needed - or am I just doing it wrong?
Apologies if this isn't the correct forum for this question, but I figured Unholy DK's with experience on the encounter would be the best resource.
I have no problem on Yogg as Unholy. I usually top the meters as well, and it's not by cheating with lots of AE. Just straight up single target on phase 1 adds, phase 2 brain, and then phase 3 adds/yogg (depends how melee heavy we are).
If you find the tentacles in the brain phase die too fast, then run past the first or second one to the next one where you can stack diseases and get a rotation off before the other melee make them explode. This is more for the stormwind and wyrmrest rooms. For the shadow vault room, just drop DnD on the three of them in a pack, target the back one, stack diseases, and then pestilence and all that DPS jazz. We split up our melee into three groups (based on portal spawns) and we split dps the tentacles. You can easily divide all the rooms into three, tentacle wise (3 groups of three melee + healer = 10 portals).
We think Unholy dps is probably too high on fights with adds, which ends up being a lot of Ulduar bosses. From looking at the numbers, the main culprit seems to be using Death and Decay, Unholy Blight, Pestilence and Blood Boil all together. None of those are a problem alone, but they work really well together. Unholy Blight is the spell we would most likely change. It has never really found a niche-GC
Changing unholy blight doesn't seem like the right solution, but it does seem like the solution least likely to interfere with unholy's tanking or single-target damage.
If unholy has a problem with AoE, the problem is death and decay. DnD was intended as an AoE tanking ability, and blood and frost use it for AoE damage only situationally. For unholy, Impurity and lack of AoE strikes mean that DnD becomes an AoE dps staple. I doubt the class designers intended us to be dropping DnD for DPS on two targets, and an unholy DK who isn't using DnD looks a lot more in line with blood and frost.
The devs kind of backed themselves into a corner with the way DnD interacts with Impurity. DnD barely scales with crit, doesn't scale with haste, ArP, or weapon damage, and scales phenomenally well with AP, so the benefit it gets from impurity is out of proportion with our other abilities. That might not be a problem, except that unholy gears for AP/strength over all other stats. Past a certain gear level - around 8-9k raid buffed AP - glyphed DnD starts to compete with BS+SS for single-target damage. There's a possibility that we'll be using DnD on single targets before the end of this expansion, and they're going to have to change it eventually.
My guess is that they don't want to do it now, because straight-up nerfing DnD will kill DK threat generation. That leaves two options: change UB, or change blood boil and change the Bloody Strikes talent to compensate. UB seems like the better choice.
My unholy DK is always #1 on razorscale, auriaya, thorim, and freya and always in the top 1-3 on kologarn. Admittedly we're a semi-casual raiding guild. We're not even working on hard modes yet, the other players aren't theorycrafters, and they don't aim to mathematically optimize their gameplay (translate: read EJ and follow the guides), but I win every time. Beating other hybrids by a bit isn't a major concern, but I regularly and repeatably outdamage mages, hunters, warlocks, and rogues on fights with heavy AE, and I don't have death and decay glyphed.
This is the key that invalidates everything else you have said. It's not that unholy is broken, it's that the people in your raid capable of doing AoE DPS aren't properly utilizing their abilities. You can't punish one group of people that DO utilize their abilities properly because other people can't. That's ridiculous.
How much of that is player skill and how much is the underlying math? The top WWS reports are pretty clear-- even when everybody knows what they're doing, unholy DKs top the charts on AE fights. There are many possible ways to address this, armchair designing isn't difficult, but the devs have chosen to nerf (or hopefully, change) unholy blight. Being nerfed is always a bummer, but their design goals have been clearly stated so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise. DKs shouldn't regularly and sustainably outdamage pure DPS classes.
I disagree here, I think DK's as a hero class should be just as competitive with the legacy pure DPS classes despite being Hybrid. Otherwise there's really nothing that special about having a "hero" class. It's just another blase FotM class. I know that's against blizzard's design intentions though. I just think it's stupid to insist that the so called Hero classes have to be on an exact even footing with their legacy counterparts. The whole point was that they're a step above the rest.
This is the key that invalidates everything else you have said. It's not that unholy is broken, it's that the people in your raid capable of doing AoE DPS aren't properly utilizing their abilities. You can't punish one group of people that DO utilize their abilities properly because other people can't. That's ridiculous.
I disagree here, I think DK's as a hero class should be just as competitive with the legacy pure DPS classes despite being Hybrid. Otherwise there's really nothing that special about having a "hero" class. It's just another blase FotM class. I know that's against blizzard's design intentions though. I just think it's stupid to insist that the so called Hero classes have to be on an exact even footing with their legacy counterparts. The whole point was that they're a step above the rest.
Your first point is absoultely true if you're doing the hard work, the math and the min/maxing, and your co-raiders and guildmates aren't, then you should fully be allowed to consistently beat them, that's the case of a Great Hybrid players beating out average Pures.
However, your second point is a fallacy in blizzard eyes, Death Knights are "Epic, but equal", we're not going to be allowed to break general design intentions simply because we are a hero class, we are classified as a hybrid, and will be balanced accordingly as a hybrid
So when it comes right down to it, would the 17/51/3 spec be better than the 0/10/61 spec overall?
I have full T7.5, due to being a recruit in my guild even though we just downed Yogg, but I have the [Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]. Which would best suit the gear/future T8.5 gear?
I know the rotation for both and I would prefer 0/10/61 due to my playstyle, but since we don't have a Frost DK in the guild, lowering the overall DPS of the guild by having two Unholy, I need to know which is truly better.
They fixed EBP stacking problem with the Ulduar patch, theres no dps loss from taking multiple unholy DKs if thats what you were referring to. Unless your guild needed the haste buff from frost, but thats not what it sounds like you're saying...
I'm happy with how they equalized the specs pretty well, I recommend you play what you like.
Okay, i'm probably beating on a dead horse yet again, but - considering the t7 4piece bonus change goes live tomorrow (or today in the US), is it still worth it to keep it or we can now move to 2 t7 + 2 t8? So far the consensus was that until you have 4 pieces of t8 you should stick with t7 (at least according to Method's posts), but as of this moment I'm no longer sure what to do.
I have 2 t8 pieces - pants & shoulders (the 10man at the moment), and should have 2 more - chest & head (this time the 25man ones) by the end of the week if all goes as planned. Even if it's a small dps upgrade, I'll switch.
Okay, i'm probably beating on a dead horse yet again, but - considering the t7 4piece bonus change goes live tomorrow (or today in the US), is it still worth it to keep it or we can now move to 2 t7 + 2 t8? So far the consensus was that until you have 4 pieces of t8 you should stick with t7 (at least according to Method's posts), but as of this moment I'm no longer sure what to do.
I have 2 t8 pieces - pants & shoulders (the 10man at the moment), and should have 2 more - chest & head (this time the 25man ones) by the end of the week if all goes as planned. Even if it's a small dps upgrade, I'll switch.
Can anyone please give me an advice on this?
Going 2pcs of T7 and 2pcs of T8 would not be a good idea. Neither set's 2pc set bonus is very good- certainly not good enough to come close to eclipsing either set's 4pcs set bonus.
I have just recently started in Ulduar with my guild, and I am trying to get the best DPS I can(running 12/0/59). I know my rotation is fine as I have been out DPSing the better geared DKs (can't touch the rogues yet), but I am looking to some of you more experienced DKs for some help. I have been using the Jawbone with the rings Circle of Death and Ruthlessness. I just recently switched out for Armageddon and changed CoD to Ring of Invincibility. I have been reading and reading the forums and I have been getting conflicting info about the best weapon and rings, so just wondering about any suggestions. I have been experimenting with DPS calculators and gear calculators and they are not helping, and from what I have seen on mobs, there is not much of a change in DPS. Just wondering if there will be a bigger difference on Ulduar bosses (haven't been back since changing the new gear). Anyway, thanks for any responses.
I have just recently started in Ulduar with my guild, and I am trying to get the best DPS I can(running 12/0/59). I know my rotation is fine as I have been out DPSing the better geared DKs (can't touch the rogues yet), but I am looking to some of you more experienced DKs for some help. I have been using the Jawbone with the rings Circle of Death and Ruthlessness. I just recently switched out for Armageddon and changed CoD to Ring of Invincibility. I have been reading and reading the forums and I have been getting conflicting info about the best weapon and rings, so just wondering about any suggestions. I have been experimenting with DPS calculators and gear calculators and they are not helping, and from what I have seen on mobs, there is not much of a change in DPS. Just wondering if there will be a bigger difference on Ulduar bosses (haven't been back since changing the new gear). Anyway, thanks for any responses.
Both Circle of Death and Jawbone seem to be better items (based on the stat weights table in the OP), if you're expertise capped the Circle of Death should still be better, I don't know about the Jawbone though. 0.2 weapon speed against 58 crit, 1 haste and 0.1 DPS.
I just calculated the stat weights from the table, taking the average between the 12/0/59 and the Naxx gear number.
These differences are too small to be properly observed in a normal raid (escpecially considering RNG and the randomness of fights), but your old items should be better (definitely so if you're unter 26 expertise).
I have no problem on Yogg as Unholy. I usually top the meters as well, and it's not by cheating with lots of AE. Just straight up single target on phase 1 adds, phase 2 brain, and then phase 3 adds/yogg (depends how melee heavy we are).
If you find the tentacles in the brain phase die too fast, then run past the first or second one to the next one where you can stack diseases and get a rotation off before the other melee make them explode. This is more for the stormwind and wyrmrest rooms. For the shadow vault room, just drop DnD on the three of them in a pack, target the back one, stack diseases, and then pestilence and all that DPS jazz. We split up our melee into three groups (based on portal spawns) and we split dps the tentacles. You can easily divide all the rooms into three, tentacle wise (3 groups of three melee + healer = 10 portals).
I find that the portal phases cause my ghoul to despawn randomly and frost/blood are nice and "self contained" allowing you turn your dps full bore on any target with little to no setup. I've tried it as frost (and vastly prefer it to unholy on this fight) and I think I'll give blood a shot next week and see how it compares.
I have just recently started in Ulduar with my guild, and I am trying to get the best DPS I can(running 12/0/59). I know my rotation is fine as I have been out DPSing the better geared DKs (can't touch the rogues yet), but I am looking to some of you more experienced DKs for some help. I have been using the Jawbone with the rings Circle of Death and Ruthlessness. I just recently switched out for Armageddon and changed CoD to Ring of Invincibility. I have been reading and reading the forums and I have been getting conflicting info about the best weapon and rings, so just wondering about any suggestions. I have been experimenting with DPS calculators and gear calculators and they are not helping, and from what I have seen on mobs, there is not much of a change in DPS. Just wondering if there will be a bigger difference on Ulduar bosses (haven't been back since changing the new gear). Anyway, thanks for any responses.
Pertaining to the question about the best weapon and rings, please see: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t55505-o...9/#post1244330, for the BiS for Pre Ulduar gear, as well, you should be using Circle of Death and Ruthlessness over Ring of Invincibility, considering the fact that they both give strength and strength benefits from both talents and rune of the fallen crusader making them far better than ring of invincibility.
I find that the portal phases cause my ghoul to despawn randomly and frost/blood are nice and "self contained" allowing you turn your dps full bore on any target with little to no setup. I've tried it as frost (and vastly prefer it to unholy on this fight) and I think I'll give blood a shot next week and see how it compares.
I prefer doing Yogg as Blood, but even as Unholy I'm consistently in the top 3 for damage done during a fight. Heart Strike is quite nice for the Immortal Guardians in Phase 3, and DRW + Hysteria + non-perma ghoul makes for some excellent burst for being on the brain in Phase 2. However, we found that if our execution was good, we had no trouble getting the brain to 30% on the third portal phase, and would usually lay off DPS for about 15 seconds so the top group would have more time to clean up tentacles, so the extra burst in Blood was unneeded.
As Unholy, my Ghoul consistently despawned when taking portals into the brain and back out of the brain. My strategy was to make sure I summoned my Ghoul right after I got in the Ulduar entrance, and then mount up, thereby ensuring that Raise Dead would be off CD for Yogg. I'd then summon the Ghoul right after taking the portals down, and so I had nearly full Ghoul up-time on the portal phase (sans buffs, of course).
I've gone both as Blood and Unholy and had similar overall DPS numbers.
I find that the portal phases cause my ghoul to despawn randomly and frost/blood are nice and "self contained" allowing you turn your dps full bore on any target with little to no setup. I've tried it as frost (and vastly prefer it to unholy on this fight) and I think I'll give blood a shot next week and see how it compares.
If your ghoul attacks a tentacle outside when you enter the brain room he will often despawn. Likewise, if your ghoul still attacks the brain when you leave the room he will always despawn when the insanity cast ends. Just make sure to put your ghoul on passive whenever you enter a portal and all should be well.
Ok - so i've been on vacation for a week and since the changes to 4pc t7.5 i'm wondering if i need to tweak my rotation now or not when i get back to wow. Also I'll have the 4pc T8 after next raid and will be switching then I think...
So my question... Is the runic regen still enough without the T7 bonus or does the old "Standard" 12/0/59 rotation still hold water?
I'm referring to IT, PS, BS, BS, SS then SS, SS, SS while dumping RP when the next strike would push you over cap. Also not refreshing IT, PS if the SS glyph procced.
Glyphs i have are... Ghoul, Scourge Strike, Dark Death
I read back a few pages incase this was asked already but didn't see anything.
This may have been stated already but I have noticed people that are 0/10/61 take unholy presence. Isnt blood presence better to use in a raid setting due to the 15% dam increase? I would think taking the points from unholy presence and putting them into something that adds to damage would be a better choice or am i way off track?
This may have been stated already but I have noticed people that are 0/10/61 take unholy presence. Isnt blood presence better to use in a raid setting due to the 15% dam increase? I would think taking the points from unholy presence and putting them into something that adds to damage would be a better choice or am i way off track?
The thought process behind picking up Improved Unholy Presence is for the run speed bonus. More dps time on the boss is a huge bonus, although looking at a WWS, is often really hard to quantify.
ok i have a question for you guys about my gear/spec/rotation to maximize my dps
im about to go tho a big test phase right now so im just trying to get my facts straight.
if you think something is off plz tell me im always looking and trying new way to up my dps.
i just got rawr the other day and was checking it out..messing out with all the little things on there and i have a few questions
-1st question i have is about glyphing - as you can see i have Ghoul - Scoruge strike - death and decay glyphs. to increase my dps with the glyphs would it be better to replace DnD and SS with plague strike and dark death or just replace DnD with dark death
Rotation:
i use the 1st one most of the time.
PS-IT-BSx2-SSx3-DCx2
or
PS-IT-BSx2-SS-UB-SSx2-DCx2
-2nd question - with my current rotation and the new bosses in ulduar wouldn't it be pointless to have points in epidemic? not too sure in blood pres but in unholy pres i can go tho a full rotation w/o having to wry about keeping the diseases up on the boss
these might seem like stupid questions and or my rotation is completely wrong but thats why im going in to a test phase right now to see what works best and what doesnt
All your answers should be in the original post here.
05/14/09, 11:01 PM
