Dreamwalker

You can't just add the value of a trinket proc as a flat value to the relative value of the trinket. Mirror of truth has a 10% proc chance and a 30s ICD. Assuming it procs every 30s on the dot(which never happens, but it's theoretical), the trinket proc would have a 33% uptime which would be worth 1000 * 0.33 = 333 making the total value of the trinket 445.644. Realistically the proc is more like once per minute, which decreases the value even furthur.

 

Nynx

Hello there guys,

Been reading for quite a long time this forum and all of your posts/comments and opinions are really quite helpfull.

Today i got the luck of having BoH weapon and i'll probly starting with 12/0/59 build on Ulduar to see how it goes on the first hit.

My doubt tho, is not about builds, glyphs or either rotation (this last one can probly enter on a future note) but is concerning expertise cap. I've read somewhere that, for unholy, the cap is somewhere like 21 (is this is true, then im capped) but i was wondering this: I dont have, either the belt from instructor or the head from Sarth 3D, so, i get the cap from gemming.

I got 2x 27 expertise rating and 1x16expertise to help me cap...but my question is: If i actually replace those 3 gems for strenght (2x27 + 1x16), would the extra strenght (and AP) compensate the lack of expertise ? Or is better to lack the AP for the cap ?
In my gameplay style, im quite a "cap fanatic", always trying to stay capped in hit and expertise, but this is really getting on my head.

Tips, advises and opinions, are always welcome.

Thx !

 

Bloodmourne

Thanks dreamwalker, I will update the numbers give you credit to of course. I'll get the other ones redone to with proc rate. The one I am not sure on is Bandit's Insignia

 

AmeroGER

Wasn't Necrosis superior to BcB?

 

Sekke

As far as I know, this info is outdated. Method's redid it after some gear/talent changes and T7 came out ahead again. I also saw a simulator run on the main WoW forums that supported this conclusion too.

Il dolce far niente.

 

slapkey

I've been using Five Flights and Mirror as DW, but now moving back to a 2H makes me wonder when my Fury would be outclassed by my next best trinket, Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood. How often would Five Flights have to drop off for Red Dragon's to be better, I wonder?

 

methods

This was before the stats were nerfed. It is now a slight dps decrease and therefor T7 is our set for 3.1 at least.

I was playing with some numbers and for a 12/0/59 spec the set bonuses line up like so:

Set Bonuses:

T8 2p: 23.7 APE
T7 2p: 78.3 APE

T8 4p: 115.7 APE
T7 4p: 320.4 APE
Edit: Corrected values
Using ~best in slot gear. I'm not sure how much this changes as stats scale or changing to other specs but it should stay fairly consistent.

Edit:Glyphs:

Glyph of Ghoul: 263.5 APE
Dark Death: 84 APE
Unholy Blight: 64.7 APE
IT (without SS Glyph): 53 APE
SS Glyph: Still too hard to measure accurately. With the new length of diseases and the buffs to PS it has diminished in value substantially. Still good but...

 

Orlgin

As long as you use Scourge Strike, it won't be worth it to use Armor Penetration until we reach higher gear levels. Armor Penetration's value depends on four factors:

1) What % of your total DPS is physical.

2) How much Strength/AP you have.

3) Your weapon DPS

4) Armor of your target.

The higher any of these factors are, the more Armor Penetration becomes valuable. Boss Armor is 10643 for most bosses so we know #4 already.

Your weapon DPS is easier for 2H spec: Just look at your weapon. For example, BoH is 222.9.

2 * ArP = ((wdps*14+sAP)- (2/(m * y))) + AP

This is the equation. sAP is your starting AP. M is your multiplier (% of physical damage). Y is the % of damage added which is 4.54% for 10643 armor.

If your physical damage % is less than 35%, then it generally is never worth it to take ArP.

If you decided to use Obliterate, you need approximately 14% armor penetration value to make it worth it. This also boosts your physical damage % high enough to make ArP worth it. However, you then need to consider that you need to add a Plague Strike and an Icy Touch into your rotation for diseases.

Obliterate scales really well in Unholy:

80% weapon damage. 37.5% Disease modifier (45% w/ 4pc T8), 10% RoR, 5% Desecration (if used), and 2% Bone Armor.

Catch is, you need to take 3/3 Outbreak and change it to 3/3 Annihilation. This frees up one talent point to place somewhere (the point in SS).

But barring a strange Unholy using Obliterate spec, Arp shouldn't be worth it.

Edit: I forgot to include the 25% improvement in ArP value in the equation. Arp will be worth 125% of that value.

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.

 

slapkey

*edit* Right after writing this, I was made aware that you could buy Awareness for 25 Valor on 3.1. Noob mistake, ignore the post

Oh, second question. My guild has had absolutely atrocious luck with Awareness sigils, and I still don't have one, despite the rest of my gear being solid. Should I go farm up the Sigil of Arthritic Binding, or just buy the Sigil of Haunted Dreams? A UH rotation getting in 4 SS's seems to heavily lend itself towards the first.

 

Sekke

In 3.1 SoA will be buyable for 25 Emblems of Valor.

Il dolce far niente.

 

slapkey

In the cookie cutter 12/0/59, why not Dark conviction instead of 5/5 Desecration?

 

Miracleknight

That's been addressed several times. Desecration = roughly 5% dps increase, Dark Conviction is roughly 3%

 

Mystearica

Deleted. Found my answer.

 

• frmorrison

It was before Necrosis got nerfed to not be affected by spell modifiers. Now it is just 20% of your white hit was.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Derps

a bit offtopic, but since I don't have a bandit's insignia i find this very relevant:

Darkmoon Card Death has been changed to be well....VERY good in my opinion. Been getting well over 4k crits from the proc, and it's definitely affected by all +%dmg talents/blood presence. desecration+bone shield+blood presence is leading to 3k-3500~ HITS from the proc, which appears to be on a 45s-1min internal CD. Also, they increased the damage from the proc itself as base to be 1750-2250.

well worth it for the 200g these are going for on the AH, get em while you can :P

 

ReverendSin

I was wondering if anyone had done the math on whether or not Fallen Crusader is still the best at the moment? I saw something earlier in the Frost DPS thread about them not using it any longer but what about Blood/Unholy?

 

Gahiji

Here's a list I've compiled using all known Ulduar loot. The intention of this list is to serve as a starting point for BiS gear discussion and after necessary tweaks, have it added to the first post in this forum. Please give as much input as possible, thank you. All items can be found at Patch 3.1 - Loot compilation.

Valorous Scourgeborne Helmet
Valorous Scourgeborne Gauntlets
Frigid Strength of Hodir
Belt of Titans
Valorous Scourgeborne Shoulderplates
Plated Leggings of Ruination
Drape of the Drakerider
Boots of the Underdweller
Valorous Scourgeborne Battleplate
Sif's Promise
Bladebearer's Signet
Bitter Cold Armguards
Darkmoon Card: Greatness
Wrathstone
Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion
Sigil of Awareness

If your a Human(+5 exp) and or JC(+27 Exp gem) a possible substitution for Belt of Titans would be the Belt of Colossal Rage.

Note: While I realize this leaves us woefully under the Expertise cap, the intention is to make up the difference via the abundant gem slots present in Ulduar gear.

 

Faerlun

I'm not convinced about the points in unholy aura. Right now the basis of the math that I found was that any movement portion of the fight would be decreased by 15%. To use what foxx was saying, if you spend 33% of the fight out of DPS range (in 'movement mode'), then doing that part 15% faster would mean that you only spend 28.05% of the fight in 'movement mode'.

The flaw here is that in the majority of the fights in in WoW history are not spent with movement time being running for point A to point B and then DPSing again, but in fact running and waiting. For example, Hodir will require you to run to an icey patch while he casts his spell. Assume that you want to play it safe, you'll run to it be there 3 seconds ahead of time, and then start moving again 1 second after the cast goes off. Now, the time it takes to run to that spot is the actual DPS loss time, not the time that you spend waiting. I can't say for sure until I actually try Ulduar, but unless there is a lot of new types of movement, I doubt the points will be worth it. Another thing to consider is that if you are moving to attack new targets, you can icy touch as you get into range. With global cd considered, that cuts out 1.5s of wasted time.

Also, would one point in epidemic be sufficient to achieve maximum benefit? With a decently right rotation and an 18s duration, you can fit all your scourge strikes into that time period:

00.0s: ps
01.5s: it
03.0s: bs
04.5s: bs
06.0s: ss
--dump--
10.0s: <unholy rune>
11.5s: <frost rune> ss
13.0s: <death rune>
14.5s: <death rune> ss
16.0s: <unholy rune> <frost rune> ss
--dump--

In reality of course you might have to throw in a death coil here and there to keep from runic power capping, but with 2 seconds of leeway that shouldn't be a problem. Assuming no affect from movement causing loss of rotation timing, the second epidemic point seems pointless. Could go into Necrosis or dark conviction.

Napkin math on those 2.... someone said here earlier that 5 point DC was about 3% dps, so 1 point is 0.6%. Assuming white damage remains at about 20%, 4% of that is 0.8% so the necrosis point would be superior.

 

Foxx2405

Well my post was taken a bit out of context.

The point I was trying to make, was not really to provide advanced and accurate math. Because i totally agree that when you're moving you're often not moving all the time.
My point was aimed, at a few posts before of people questioning the value of movement speed increase abilities. Most people even claimed it wouldn't help DPS at all.

I'm still pretty convinced that IUP is a great talent to take though, it depends a whole lot on where your priorities lie.
The same goes for other talents, Morbidity is a great talent, but if you're interrested in nothing more than patchwerk like DPS zergs to gain some e-peen on your dps numbers, than skip it. Because without the DnD factored in, morbidity is a pretty bad talent.

----------

As for epidemic, i see where you come from, but i still think you are wrong.

First of all, not everything can be put down in an easy table like you did. There are various circumstances where you simply cant press your key every GCD. Be it due to movement, or simply because you have to dump your RP first. With 4xT7 i have to dump my RP between rune abilities A LOT.
I'm not sure for you but i personally had the situation come up a lot, where i had have 2 set of UF runes coming up with diseases on 1 seconds to go.

Second With 2/2 you extend your diseases to 21 seconds. Even in your table that allows for an extra SS, because the next SS is up at 20 seconds. Which you conveniently left out.

Also extended diseases are way better in any multi mob situation.

I'm again gonna play the e-peen vs overall performance card. If you want higher e-peen dps, you should drop the point in Epidemic, but for overall performance, including movement fights, trash aoe, fights with unexpected errors. Epidemic will come out best i think.

 

teiglin

I'm not going to discuss the IUP thing; run speed has been pretty well argued to death, plus Foxx already covered the basics here.

As for epidemic, it sounds like you're not considering the SS glyph. If you were and just handwaving over the additional SS, then ignore this and read what Foxx said. But the reason unholy DK takes 2/2 epidemic isn't so that we can fit a single rotation's strikes within a single set of diseases from the initial IT+PS; that's essentially why blood specs have 1/2 epidemic, and it works well. For unholy, however, longer diseases mean more SS and less IT+PS, i.e. more effective use of your UF runes. I haven't seen conclusive math that this is, in fact, a greater DPS gain than Necrosis or Morbidity or whatever else you might put the points into (and if someone wants to do it I'd love to see, too tired atm even for decent napkin math z_z), but to claim that the second point is worthless makes me think you don't understand the unholy rotation.

 

Gavain

I agree with Foxx on Epidemic + Morbidity. You have to see your raid performance as a whole, not one or two dps-benchmarks wich usually suit one or the other Talent more.

IUP was discussed a bit in the old threat. There have been valid arguments for both sides. But please keep in mind that the math which "proofs" that when you move 4+ sec. per fight makes IUP worthwhile is based on estimations (and the formula provided via link on page 1 use "dps while moving = 0").

Glyph of Disease vs. Glyph of SS -> Yes, Glyph of Disease is a (slight) dps-decrease when compared directly, BUT while fighting multiple mobs within PE-range Glyph of Disease makes sure you re-apply diseases on ALL mobs right on time. Considerung how many situations with more then one mob you have and if you don´t like the RNG-like playstyle with the SS-Glyph, this is a solid alternative in my eyes.

I can resist anything, but temptation (O.Wilde)

 

kidairbag

This was a really helpful post! My question is, for each of the builds what sort of weight does hit get once you are melee capped but before spell cap? I assume the value is diminished greatly but I doubt it's worth nothing.

 

Foxx2405

Good question, Methods didnt include it this time (usually he places the hit after softcap between parentheses).

However I from memory I think it was in the area of 0.6-0.8 value.

[e]: As for the epidemic topic. Here was the post i was referring to by methods:
Unholy DPS Discussion

Again the info is somewhat outdated, so are the numbers. But the SS uptime factor hasn't changed much. (Ignore the 3th point he's talking about, that was back when they increased the diseases to 15 seconds, and changed Epidemic to 3 points; apparently they were playing with the numbers on that in early PTR)

---

As for the Glyph of Diseases you're right that on AoE this is more useful, although i personally tend to switch target a lot.
Also I very much prefer the gameplay of the dynamics you have with SS glyph (ok given its not a huge dynamic, but still). So I personally don't think I'll switch either way. However I have to say that for all around performance you have to consider that Glyph of Diseases is superior in an AoE fight.
I guess the only way we can truly make a judgment call about this is by trying it out in practice.

 

wogi

I'm still not sure if I should'nt drop iup and get 3 points in necrosis instead.. But this will probably never be a sure thing since it really depends on the fights I guess

 

Gavain

Dark Conviction vs. Necrosis/BCB

After digging through the math prvoided via links at page 1:

First: We are talking about marginal wins/losses. Dark Convictions value seems to manifest as 0,6-0,7% damage increase per point. Necrosis around 0.8% per point. So already we are only talking about a gain/loss of maybe 0,2% per point.

Second: Comparison based on the math is for single target only. BCB and Necrosis only "work" as long as you are standing at the mob, and only provide damage on one mob a time. Your +crit is affecting your ranged damage while moving around (not that big, yeah, but still there) and affects your damage on every mob you fight via diseases, BB, DnD (remember, DoTs do crit.).

-> So, as long as you are looking only at single-target fights and throw in the math, fine, Necrosis and BCB win by a slight margin.

-> If you look at your whole raid performance, view the raid as a whole (including trash etc.) I believe Dark Conviction is the real winner, because its worth is increasing with every additional mob you fight.

Not really something you can back up with math, because how high is the exact percentage of fighting multiple mobs vs. single target? And how MANY mobs? This would be rough estimations only.
But seeing the raid as a whole may shift the value of Talents like Dark Conviction quite a bit when originally calculated for single encounters.

Of course, if you try to grap some numbers you can only simplify it and use single target calculations. But I disagree to take these numbers as set-in-stone, because values do shift greatly when viewing raid as a whole thing. The Unholy tree is build around Minions and very strong AoE, they are core abilities to our gameplay. Single Target comparisons will hardly ever do to judge values for Unholy.

I can resist anything, but temptation (O.Wilde)