Meletos

The dummy you were hitting I presume was at low health? (Presumably at 1 health?)

Just FYI, Necrosis is bugged on dummies with 1 health and does not do its full damage. Dark Conviction is not. That's why your spec w/o Necrosis seems to be 'better'.

I also believe you should test out the other specs in actual raids. Its been mentioned many times over, dummy tests are not very reliable.

 

Atmosfearic

Hey everyone I was just curious how the other Unholy DKs are still doing in Ulduar? I'm just asking because now that a lot of people have more gear and know the fights a lot more the adds seem to be going down a lot faster. For example, the Auriaya fight used to be my FAVORITE to AoE on (Unholy DKs paradise). The adds were up for long time allowing my full AoE rotation (which is IT+PS+Pest.+Death and Decay... and then when my runes were up Id start SSing and using Blood Boil) but now the adds go down super fast and all I really end up doing is just Blood Boiling without the Death and Decay. And on the Thorim fight its even worse. All I can seem to do is Death and Decay, put diseases up on the Champions and Warbringers (big dudes) and just use SS and Blood Boil.
*Keeping up UB at all times of course.*
Can someone please help me out? I want to maximize my DPS for AoE, since that's what I'm used for in a raid. And I don't think I have been delivering on that account. Is it just the way I'm doing my AoE rotation or are the adds just going down too quick for Unholy to really bring out the DPS in those diseases?

P.S Freya is my new favorite fight .

 

drnkn

@crazy:
there is great link in the first post:
DPS increases for Necrosis versus Dark Conviction, Necrosis wins out

@Atmosfearic :

I think Auriaya a SingleTarget Fight. Focus Auriaya and use only pest if the adds were up, nothing more.
At Thorim, its the really same thing.... focus the elites spread your diseases and use dnd (only when the adds are up^^)

 

Sekke

I would say that if your guild is killing adds so fast that your AOE is becoming ineffective, then stop worrying about it so much. The whole point of doing good AOE damage is to help kill things that are hard to kill. If the mobs are dying quickly and easily then why worry? If you want to do mad meter DPS go respec Frost (HB) or Blood (HS). Both will show much better numbers on brief AOE fights, like Thorim and Auriaya. As you've already noticed, Unholy is still great for Freya. Since Freya (Hard Mode) actually benefits from good AOE (Auriaya and Thorim don't need good AOE unless you're first learning the encounter) I'd suggest staying Unholy. Most of the time now on short AOE fights I just keep UB up and maybe toss a DnD or BB every once in a while, without trying to worry about Pestilence.

Il dolce far niente.

 

Lollersk8er

Even Freya doesn't need good aoe. You either focus the exploding adds or range aoe them. Most of the time Unholy aoe is unnessecary, the hard parts of the fights are about burst and/or single target damage. Most damage meters don't reflect that very well and you often can abuse that. It doesn't help your guild win that fight though.

 

evodk

whats the difference in rotatations say you go 0/10/61 or some other variation. my usual rotation would be IT, PS, BS, BS, SS, SS, SS then dump the last SS is on cooldown not sure if im doing it right. i keep seeing that people have the SS glyph but is that worth it? dont u have to wait for it to proc in order to set up your 2nd rotation? let me know.

 

Sekke

12/0/59 and 0/10/61 (and all other major Unholy variants) use the exact same rotation you listed above. There is no waiting for the SS Glyph to proc, it either does or it doesn't. Overall with the SS Glyph you should be using a sort of priority system (which is mostly just a rotation based around if the Glyph procs or not). The general rule is if your diseases are about to wear off and it hasn't procced, use IT and PS. If you diseases still have a fair amount of time left, use SS. If diseases are up but runes are on CD, use UB. If UB is up, use DC. If you lack RP or Blood Runes are about to rot, use BS. If everything is down, sit there and wonder why Blizz made it possible for a class to have so many free GCDs.

Il dolce far niente.

 

CrimsonTide

I can confirm this is how gargoyle works. It doesn't matter how much RP you have when its cast as long as you have enough to cast it. My WWS reports the same uptime everytime and i use it at varying "starting" RP based on bloodlust and self procs. Its probably just in your head, I track the timer on the buff and the debuff (using classtimer) and its always the same there as well.

 

Crazybones

Nice tread, but there is a very little increase of dps at all, what about aoe dps?, where DnD or BB can crit?

Does Necrosis deserve 5 points over Dark conviction if you guess necrosis only works on single dps target?

I still have doubts :/

 

Sekke

The only fight I can really see AOE making a huge difference on is Freya, and even then only on Hard Mode and only for one of the three add phases. Mobs die so quickly on Thorim, one portal phase on Yogg, Auriaya, and Razorscale (or not at all if you're doing the achievement) that any extra gain you might get out of crit for AOE will end up being worse than the single target gain you get on every other boss. I suppose you COULD make an argument for extra crit when doing Hodir Hard Mode, but in that case you're likely to see far more gains by simply switching to Frost (which has crit out the butt).

In the end, regardless of what Ghostcrawler thinks, Unholy AOE just isn't that great anymore. Most of the time mobs die way too quickly to make good use of it, beyond keeping UP up 100% of the time. HB and HS are for more effective for short, burst AOE.

Il dolce far niente.

 

level12wizard

The only thing that keeps me from switching to a Blood subspec from a Frost subspec is Runic Power Mastery. It gives you more room for error to not waste RP, and it gives you much better use out of any Resto Druid's Revitalize talent.

It's difficult to model, the RP gained is inconsistent based on how many druids you have healing you with Rejuv/WG, how often you're taking damage in the fight, etc. But it is a nice little boost, and with the extra maximum RP I almost never overcap.

 

• Mongoe

Have you broken the t7 set though? I rarely sniff 100 RP these days (using 2pc and 2pc and the UB glyph), and thats even with the modest rp benefits of a blood sub. There are lots of pro's and con's of each sub, but hitting the rp cap probably isn't as a big a concern as you're thinking.

 

Derivel

Personally even with T7 4p bonus I still never cap out without mastery. I weave in DCs any time I can do it without losing rune time. With the 3 second buffer there is almost always time to throw a DC if you have the RP to do it.

 

Richie Daggers Crime

Related to this, is anyone else finding themselves with downtime because of a lack of RP?

IT>PS>SS>BS>BS>*dump(DC or UB)
downtime
SS>SS>SS>*dump

I'm finding that I just try to use Horn during that gap, but to have that downtime feels off. I wonder if using the IT glyph over the DC glyph would help get 2 DCs into that space and smooth out the rotation.

 

Taizu

You don't use IT enough to justify sacrificing 15% more dmg from DC.

IT PS SS BS (BT) SS = 10 + 15 + 20 + 10 + (10) + 20 = 85
UB DC Horn
Then do your normal rotation

BT + SS after the first BS is key in order for you not to have a 'lull' in the first 10 seconds of the fight.

 

Qrio

I am slightly confused - why do the majority of the rotations in this thread (especially the latest posts) suggest the use of IT before PS?

Rage of Rivendare clearly gives a 10% bonus on your attacks of Blood Plague is up - and even if it's a small difference, for DPS maximization it helps. However times & times & times I still see the same "IT before PS". Anything I am missing, apart from the larger range on IT, which imo doesn't justify 10% less damage.

Remember everything, forget nothing!

 

Pruka

Typically I see IT suggested before PS because IT can be cast at range. Which means you have the gcd to apply PS as soon as the npc gets in melee range.

 

DarkAngelus

I would add that the 10% damage increase concern only the 1st IT since your diseases MUST be applied any time then.

So it's 10% added damage vs 1 IT vs 1 GCD you have to compare, I would prefer the GCD as well.

 

crazy dodo

my apologies if this has been discussed already but i'm having a hard time digging through this thread

My question is about Ghoul Frenzy.
I see a lot of people ask when they should be using Ghoul frenzy before or after BS. I did some testing and i found that what worked for me was using the following macro right before BS x2
/cast Blood Tap
/cast Ghoul Frenzy
I also happened to notice that if you use this macro instead of manualy clicking each button you seem to "gain" a ready to use Death rune. I tested this out with the blood runes on cooldown and got the same result. So unless my observations are completely wrong we seem to have a freebie there (i'll retest again later as it is rather odd)

So then i've been wondering what would be the best approach to this. (the following is based on a 30 sec rotation assumption)
option 1. stick with the norm:
SS1 > (BT/GF every other rotation) > BS > BS > SS > SS .. and so on (effectively using up a death rune for BS)
or do a double rotation removing 1 blood strike from every other rotation (BT needs 1 minute c/d)
SS > BT/GF > BS > SS > SS...
then
SS > BS > BS > SS > SS..
effectively loosing the DPS from one BS but gaining 1.5 seconds allowing you to tighten up the rotation
Before you say you can't do that, what are you talking about. give the macro a try and see if you get the same results as me.

My next question is: Is Ghoul Frenzy worth the hassle? I havent done any testing on it so i appreciate any info. But what if you spec 1 extra point in Necrosis instead? how much dps loss are we talking about, if any? (i dont care about the healing effect at all)

 

Derivel

How does this work? By the time you BT all you have left is the 1 death rune. How do you get an SS out of that?

Are you saying that when you use that macro to tap and frenzy the death rune immediately reactivates? I haven't tried this, but it doesn't surprise me as there seem to be all sorts of bugs with death runes. In my frost spec I have noticed that when I do IT > Pest my leftover blood rune magically becomes a death rune (something to do with BOTN I'll wager).

So far in unholy the only bug I've noticed is that half the time I try to SS with double death runes one of them turns back to blood when I press the button and SS doesn't cast. Sometimes one of them will turn back to blood while it is still recharging as a death rune too.

 

crazy dodo

correct. i will definitely be testing this out extensively tonight but i have a feeling that the mechanic for Blood Tap is more complex than it seems (converting blood rune to death rune then refreshing cooldown, or viceversa) and having Ghoul Frenzy macro'd into it seems to execute GF before the BT process is fully complete thus resulting in a freebie

However going back to my original thinking. If this is an "exploit" and thus unreliable since it will very likely be fixed, then simply using
/cast Ghoul Frenzy
/cast Blood Tap
will wield the same result provided you have a blood rune available, thus again placing GF right before BS as the ideal spot.

Any thoughts?

 

AmeroGER

The reason you observe this is probably this: When you have no runes ready and then excecute a macro that casts BT and something else, it won't work. This happens because the macro tries to cast the second spell in such a short succession that the DR is not generated yet. When you click the macro twice it should work. But if you only click it once it will cast BT and give an error message "can't cast that yet" for the other spell.

 

murder187

Would a stopcast command work?

Something like
#showtooltip Ghoul Frenzy
/cast Blood Tap
/stopcasting
/cast Ghoul Frenzy

 

AmeroGER

No it will not. I have tried.

Autohotkey can insert a delay between predefined keystrokes however I am not entirely sure wether this is legal.

 

Taizu

Read the tooltip for BT, try it out yourself, then come back.


When your runic strikes miss (or dodged/parried), the runes are refresh and come back as what they were supposed to be refreshed at.

Getting hit/exp capped is less important as unholy due to the abundance of free GCDs, but it doesn't mean you can ignore those.