I've had a few people ask me to explain how much slower weapons are worth in APE. The problem with trying to calculate that is that it varies from weapon to weapon and adjusts based on how much AP you have. Here is what I wrote recently in response:

I'm posting this to help with decisions between slower and faster weapons when considering BiS.

Basically the difference between a slower and faster weapon of the same DPS is it's damage range. There are two parts of a normalized weapon damage base:

Damage Range + AP conversion

So the difference between the [Betrayer of Humanity] and the Hammer of Crushing Whispers (New Hardmode10 Mace) is:

3.4 speed BoH = 606 to 910 or Avg = 758

3.5 speed HoCW = 624 to 937= 780.5

Difference of 22.5 damage on average

So you can already see that the base portion of damage is larger on the slower weapon.

Putting it all together means:
Lets assume 6000 AP
Normalized speed for 2h = 3.3 speed
Normalized damage for both calculates like this:
BoH = 758+ 6000/14*3.3 speed = 758+ 1414.29 = 2172.29

HoCW = 780.5 + 6000/14*3.3 speed = 2194.79

Which is exactly the difference between the base damage above. So basically the more AP you have the less speed really matters for normalized attacks.

How much that translates into dps is a bit more complex but it's a matter of applying the normalized weapon damage to each strike and going from there.

On my sheets an increase in 0.1 seconds of speed for a fully buffed Unholy DK (T7 Naxx) equals maybe a 0.22% dps increase so about 24 AP (rough number and probably shouldn't quote me ).

Obviously, it would mean a lot more for strike heavy builds like Frost and Blood.

My list looked very close to yours except a few minor things... [Plated Leggings of Ruination] should be better than [Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates].

Difference in items from [Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates] and [Plated Leggings of Ruination]
16 Sta
9 Str
63 Armor
15 Crit
1 Sockets
(OPTIONAL) Socket bonus. 8 Strength.
vs.

4 haste
+20 percent bonus disease damage (Thought I saw post where someone mentioned this was less than 1 percent of DPS)

Neck
Difference in items from [Insurmountable Fervor] and [Frigid Strength of Hodir]

46 Crit
36 Haste

vs.

9 Sta
2 Str
48 Armor Pen
40 Hit
1 Sockets (16 Str)
1 Socket Bonus (4 Str)
(22 Str. over all)
(Above Hit Cap)

With Paine's setup, whats really nice is that we are fully capped with suggested items.

Its a toss up for a few personal items but I think over all Paine hit it right on the head.

Especially if you can get your hands on [Warhelm of the Champion]

Happy Looting

I can't see those trinkets being all that useful because, again, there's just way too much hit rating. It'd be damn hard to work them into a set and not be way over the hit cap; certainly not if you wanted to use as much hard mode gear as possible, since that also suffers from hitratingitis.

edit: @ Lynx -- we already said though ref: Paine's set that Tier 8 is a downgrade from Tier 7 for Unholy, which makes the whole thing kinda moot. You need to balance around 4pc Tier 7 unless they nerf that bonus or buff the T8 bonuses.

Thanks for the kind reply. The reason i chose t8 leggings was for the reasonable 4set bonus which seems worth getting (yeye i know its worse than t7 but what ya gonna do?) and the dps loss from swapping out leggings was LOWER than the swapping the helm. Though apparently the stats have been changed on the warhelm so im not sure about this. As for the neck, Frigid Strength of Hodir has a lot of hit rating which is *wasted*, and when you count hit rating as 0 dps, Insurmountable Fervor becomes higher dps.

The one thing i would perhaps change now is to replace the Cloak with the one from General Vezax10 hard mode, which has 2 gem slots - Drape of the Faceless General.

[Conqueror's Darkruned Helmet]
[Insurmountable Fervor]
[Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates]
[Drape of the Drakerider]
[Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate]
[Armbands of Bedlam]
[Conqueror's Darkruned Gauntlets]
[Belt of the Titans]
[Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates]
[Boots of the Underdweller]
[Sif's Promise]
[Bladebearer's Signet]
[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
[Blood of the Old God]
[Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion]
[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]

Bold Dragon's Eye in belt, legs and helm if you're a jewelcrafter and Bold Scarlet Ruby in the rest. Otherwise Bold Scarlet Ruby all the way.

9,15% hit, spell hit cap
26,48 exp, dodge cap

Paine, another thing to consider (since so far your setup is the one I prefer among the ones listed) is that gearing for different speccs will end us up with massively different sets compared to what happened with T7 gear.

Not just the usual ArP considerations - for example at the moment I'm playing frost, and I'm finding moving from PS IT rotation to HB glyph rotations a dps increase in most fights, so I'm essentially running with one disease only. If double diseases don't win out for Frost the T8 setbonus may fade out as a necessity.

I think your setup is undoubtely the best I've seen for Unholy and the one I prefer for Frost. However, I'm gonna try to see if with 1 disease only it's not beneficial to replace some T8 with better pieces with a custom Frost set.

T8 Unholy/Frost set for BS/JC:

Conqueror's Darkruned Helmet (16 str) [50 ap/20 crit]
Frigid Strength of Hodir (20 str)
Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates (16 str) [40 ap/15 crit]
Drape of the Skyborn (16 str) [23 haste]
Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate (16 str x2) [10 all stats]
Armbands of Bedlam (16 str x2) [50 AP]
Conqueror's Darkruned Gauntlets (16 str x2) [44 AP]
Belt of Colossal Rage (27 str/16 str x2)
Plated Leggings of Ruination (27 str x2/16 str) [75 AP/22 crit]
Battlelord's Plate Boots (16 str x2) [Icewalker]
Sif's Promise
Crazed Construct Ring
Bandit's Insignia
Darkmoon Card: Greatness
Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion (16 str x2) [FC]
Sigili of Awareness/Sigil of the Vengeful Heart

Total stats from items/gems/enchants:

Strength: 1615
Hit: 273 (8,33%)
Expertise: 97 (4,21%) [including talents]
Crit: 679 (14,95%) [including agility]
Haste 271 (10,75%)
ArP: 167 (13,57%)
AP: 481
Total AP: 4130,9 (str + ap including bok & ravenous dead)

Gemming for expertise cap optional.

This is the best combination of gear I can come up with.

I haven't seen any mention of the PVP weapons here, but they seem to be rather good with slower speeds, although they do seem to lack in useful PVE stats. They do have 2 sockets and respectable AP + crit numbers. I think for sure they are the best tanking weapons, but they would seem to be a decent upgrade from BoH for pve as well (assuming you don't get a Voldrethar for a LONG time).

was about to say, the Furious Gladiator weapons are very nice until Voldrethar. Not to mention they give you the needed expertise if you are lacking it from racials.

[Furious Gladiator's Claymore]
[Furious Gladiator's Greatsword]
[Furious Gladiator's Bonegrinder]
[Furious Gladiator's Crusher]

Listing the Human weapons. There is axe polearm that has same stats and gem slots.

I'm toying with this altered Blood set. Can Methods or whoever perhaps run it through a spreadsheet/sim?

Head: [Conqueror's Darkruned Helmet] ****
Amulet: [Frigid Strength of Hodir] ****
Shoulders: [Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates]
Cloak: [Drape of the Faceless General]
Chest: [Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate]
Wrist: [Decimator's Armguards]
Hands: [Conqueror's Darkruned Gauntlets]
Waist: [Soul-Devouring Cinch]
Legs: [Clockwork Legplates] ****
Feet: [Melancholy Sabatons]
Ring: [Sif's Promise]
Ring: [Power Enhancing Loop]
Trinket: [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
Trinket: [Mjolnir Runestone]
Weapon: [Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion]
Sigil: [Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]

How good is wraithstone in comparison to the other trinkets? Wouldn't an on-demand ap buff be better than mirror?