Could someone be kind enough to work up the DPS increase for Loatheb's Shadow? I'm currently using Loatheb's Shadow and the Fury of Five Flights trinkets. Is there a better combination for me? I have just about every trinket up through 25 Naxx.

Also due to ghoul frenzy being very tricky to work into a rotation I would think it should just be put on a RP basis. What you guys think?

It's been pointed out many times already.

[Bandit's Insignia] and [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] are the best. If you don't have the Darkmoon trinket then use [Fury of the Five Flights] instead

Not sure if it's a bug or intentional, but a missed (or dodged/parried) blood strike will generate a Death Rune now (being brought back up within the next GCD). Kind of makes me wish I could turn off all my hit/expertise for one attack. If you're not using Blood Tap for anything else, you can sneak an extra Scourge Strike in with this feature.

Would that be an inc in dps?

Thanks, I've got a better hit rating after last nights raid (not equipped atm) I wasn't expecting to get the 5-7k dps I've seen posted here, but I didn't know if I should be doing better than 3.5k. Thanks again.

Seems my other post was deleted. Anyway, I did 3600 that night as Unholy, 4500-5200 as Blood.
This night, I changed spec from 0/10/61 to 12/0/59 and did 4500-5200. My dummy dps went up from ~3100 to ~3400 (although dummy and recount don't like my Necrosis). I guess my gear is more suitable for the second spec, and I'll just presume first night I didn't have all raidbuffs or some of my addons was quite bugged. Also, we kited him way less this night so I guess that helped too [I didn't run away from my Desecrated ground]. We had Blood DK in raid so I didn't try Blood tonight.

Did you even bother to look at the first post in the thread? Thought so... But anyway, here you are:

Its not worth anything, just gem strength

Awesome as this is, it serves no benefit.

What attack did you want to get dodged / missed ? Bloodstrike ?
Hitting with that is more dps and turns the rune in a death rune too.

You can't get any benefit out of this really. The only benefit is that IF you miss your blood strike, you don't have to redo the attack. That is a nice advantage if you're limited in your GCDs.

@Phyrrus

That´s the best and most realistic math so far for IUP in my eyes. A very complete view on that topic.

I was thinking about exchanging the SS-Glyph for Glyph of Disease due to the higher value on multiple mobs.
But after a first night in Ulduar I have to say that Epidemic + SS-Glyph works really great. Your diseases hardly ever fall off during a fight.

Indeed, which is why I'm somewhat worried that me and another DK were consistently top in DPS last night.

On X2 Deconstructor 25, we were pulling around 6300 DPS (not surprising considering the increased dmg on the heart), but we were miles ahead of the 3rd+ DPS slots... in the region of 10-15% more. I'm expecting a nerf to be honest.

About the same reports here as well - 0/10/61 is doing quite well for me, consistently topping the meters in our tries. In most of the tries an enhancement shammy & retri paladin were also among the top 3, hybrids don't seem to have gotten the nerf-bat that we expected.

Btw, 0/10/61 performs really nice, if you even have a decent tank you won't miss the decreased threat. I'm going to stick with it, instead of 12/0/59.

Last night on X2 me and our rogue were both in the 6.3-6.6k dps range. I know were a hybrid class but it doesnt mean that other people cant step it up and do more dps. He was specced combat. I wanted to swap to blood to see what i could do but i kept forgetting. But on every boss him and i are always the top 2 dps.

I've been using the 12/0/59 spec and so far, its working pretty well.


my only issue is i'm having a hard time keeping ghoul frenzy up. anybody have tips on this?


i seem to get through my rotation and not have an extra rune to keep ghoul frenzy up.

His math is pretty solid. However I think with ulduar bosses in mind, he's underestimating the effect of movement. He said so in his post.

Simply said. Ulduar is NOTHING like Naxx.

I can give a short overview of what i think of movement in Ulduar of the bosses ive done so far (all 10 man, but i assume the mechanics aren't a whole lot different).

1. Flame Leviathan, we can skip this, not a boss where stuff matters
2. Razorscale, quite a lot of movement in the add phase, i was constantly running back and forth between the 2 add groups. Hard to give an exact percentage for the whole fight, but i guess it would be around 20%
3. Deconstructor, we actually tackled this boss the wrong way, we did it in a sort of hard mode (we thought that dpsing the heart was a bad thing xD), however either way, melee stays in melee so i'll just say 0 movement
4. "Big arm dude who's name i keep forgetting", our tactic was to just simply nuke down the right arm, have ranged take down the adds while melee dps the boss. I guess 10% movement here is about right
5. "Cat lady", i didnt do this one, but i believe there isnt much movement
6. Hodir, quite a lot of movement, you constantly have to run out of falling down iceblocks, and into freezing zones to prevent getting icecubed. Imp UP here besides dps value has a quite nice survival value too.
7. Thorim, constant movement throughout, if you're in the arena you're constantly fighting adds that come from all sides, if you're in the gauntlet.. well dont think i need to say more.
8. Freya, a lot of movement here too.
Exploding add wave doesnt contain much movement,
Big tree wave contains constant movement since you have to move from him to a mushroom to cleanse the pacify,
The wave with 3 adds that have to die Romeo and Juliet style, has some movement too since you need to alternate between adds and the water spirit constantly charges away.

Seeing your math, i think we're indeed overestimating Improved Unholy Presence from a dps point of view. I think IUP is however UNDERestimated from a survival point of view. Having that extra edge on fights with random elements is a huge help.

Whether IUP helps a lot on the ulduar fights from a dps point of view i doubt though. Its not really a big deal on Hodir dps wise, on Thorim, its simply fighting adds until the boss comes down, whether you're in melee of some adds in 2 seconds or 1.9 seconds hardly matters. Same on Freya and all the other bosses.

I'm still not 100% sure i want to get rid of it from a survival point of view though. But i think i'll give a shot at dropping it. See how much i miss it.

Don't forget that Deconstructor isn't a real good dps measurement. Both unholy and blood have insanely powerful cooldowns to pop to zerg the heart.

I specced 12/0/59 the day of the update, and tried the SS->BS->BS->SS->SS->SS->SS rotation suggested in the first post, and found that even such a simple rotation was akin to doing origami in a wind tunnel.

I've been hearing from other players that the rotation for 0/10/61 is nearly identical to the good old IT->PS->BS->BS->SS->UB->SS->SS->SS->RPD rotation for 17/0/54 (taking RPM into account with an extra DC, of course).

Is there any truth to this? I tried the new spec out last night in Naxx, but I only posted dps of 3.2-3.5k, as opposed to a pre-3.1 dps of 3.9-4.2k dps. I realize that, this early in the release, there won't be a 100% consensus on the best rotation for the new specs, but I'm just trying to get my head around the best THUS FAR.

Just wondering if I should torture my poor fingers for several hours until I lock in the new rotation, or if I need to stick with the old, and not expect better numbers until I get Ulduar gear.

Oh, I do...just didn't include it in the rotation I posted for the sake of simplicity.

I just want to make sure I have the best rotation for the dps...one that is reasonably forgiving for high-mobility fights, with as little CD-downtime as possible.

But then, I also want a pony.

Both specs use the same rotation. You should not be skipping PS > IT if your diseases are not up. I cannot wrap my head around how people are doing less DPS with unholy these days considering the massive scourge strike buffs.

Gotcha...and again, I DO use PS-IT to keep the diseases on the baddies...just didn't include it in my attempt to make my post as concise as possible.

I'll give the new rotation another try tonight. Thanks!

Depends. It's 5 yards at most from the Right Arm DPS Position to the Body Position.

Aurilaya's AoE fear is pretty annoying, so IUP isn't a bad thing at all, especially if you cannot pass the time running back with a DC or IT. If your tactic involves killing the Feral Defender a few times it's even better since it likes to jump/run around much (it can be stunned however).

The Iron Council involves a lot of movement. You have to run from one Council Member to another, you have to run out of Runes of Death, you have to evade Overload (but AMS can take care of that) and you need to dodge the dwarfs Lightning Tendrils (in the easy mode). This fight is the one I appreciate having IUP the most.

We only did Mimiron on the PTR, but there's also quite a bit of movement. Phase 1 has a "run away and run back"-ability, in phase two you can avoid a lot of damage by moving, in phase 3 you need to run back and forth between Mimiron and a few adds. Cannot comment on the last phase though.

While fighting General Vezax (also only on the PTR), you can probably do okay without any form of movement speed increase. There's one part I had trouble keeping up with him (when the tank is running away) since he seems to move a bit faster than your normal movement speed but it might have been caused by lag.

So like you said, many of the new fights give IUP a role, however it's not only about the DPS increase but also because it makes it easier to survive certain (random) elements.

Actually for Kologarn (or however he's spelled) you don't need to move at all, standing in front of Kologarn you can attack both arms and himself without even turning.

Death Coil vs Unholy blight?

So, what takes precedence? Most 25 player raid AoE Trash fights don't last very long... 20 seconds max? Is it really worth putting that 1 point into UB? What do you prioritize more keeping UB up or using Death Coil?