With the future buffs to 10-man Hard Mode weapons being reported, I am extremely curious as to what the end results will be like on some of the weapons. [Aesir's Edge] might be a serious competitor for best-in-slot pre-Voldrethar, assuming it keeps the two gem slots. Even if it doesn't, the crit and armor penetration alone (if those two stats stay on the weapon) would appear extremely desirable for Blood and Frost compared to some of the other weapons available in the 25-man right now.
3% extra critical damage is too much to pass for a class with such an high crit ratio as DKs.
Even for the-not-so-crit-reliant Unholies? All we have for talents is +6% crit on Scourge Strike. Maybe the crit from our gear is enough though?
Please enlighten me if any theorycrafting has been done on the subject
Hit is such a high weighted stat for Frost because most of the abilities that are used are 'Spells' instead of melee strikes, so Frost has to contend with the Spell Hit Cap, not just the Melee Hit Cap.
That doesn't make sense because the hit is only values so highly below the 8% softcap. Between that and the spell hardcap the value reduces greatly. So I don't think that's the reason.
If FS consumes RP on a miss that'd make sense I guess. Perhaps Methods can clear it up once and for all though seeing as they're his stat weights.
That doesn't make sense because the hit is only values so highly below the 8% softcap. Between that and the spell hardcap the value reduces greatly. So I don't think that's the reason.
If FS consumes RP on a miss that'd make sense I guess. Perhaps Methods can clear it up once and for all though seeing as they're his stat weights.
FS can miss but it works on the melee hitcap, not on the spellcap.
With the future buffs to 10-man Hard Mode weapons being reported, I am extremely curious as to what the end results will be like on some of the weapons. [Aesir's Edge] might be a serious competitor for best-in-slot pre-Voldrethar, assuming it keeps the two gem slots. Even if it doesn't, the crit and armor penetration alone (if those two stats stay on the weapon) would appear extremely desirable for Blood and Frost compared to some of the other weapons available in the 25-man right now.
Anyone else curious?
Currently on PTR, they are making a change to [Aesir's Edge], making it a 232.6 dps 2h, and improving the crit rating by 5, and armor pen by 4, this is going to be what every plate wearing DPS person will want now, at least until Gen Vez HARD MODE.
For the Unholy set, I don't understand why hit is such an issue. I've brought this up a couple of times now, using Drape of the Skyborne over Drape of the Faceless General while dropping Icewalker and hit gems gives an almost exact melee hit cap (265 rating), and gives a higher score than any combination I've seen. Other than probably being easier to get, is there any reason to hold onto DotFG? This is with up to date item values.
As far as hit having a huge weight for Frost, I would imagine a lot of it has to do with Frost Strike consuming RP on a miss.
This is true. I think I missed it before because I wasn't including the Algalon Drape for some reason or another. To clarify then, the best set in the OP (No restrictions) should switch out Drape of the Faceless General for Drape of the Skyborn.
With two Fierce Monarch Topaz instead of Etched, and the usual three slots for Jeweler gems, that set has 266 hit rating, which is right where we want to be. It has a total score of 10054.3 points, which is higher than any of the scores I posted yesterday. Thanks for pointing this out.
That doesn't make sense because the hit is only values so highly below the 8% softcap. Between that and the spell hardcap the value reduces greatly. So I don't think that's the reason.
If FS consumes RP on a miss that'd make sense I guess. Perhaps Methods can clear it up once and for all though seeing as they're his stat weights.
FS does consume RP on a miss but so does DC so I'm not sure what use that is to an argument. However, since you use more FS and they are more potent than Unholy/blood DCs it starts to make sense. Norg is correct that Hit loses the majority of it's value after 8% softcap for all specs including frost. Also, frost is more GCD restricted than Unholy so that is also a contributing factor.
I realize we're sort of beating the Unholy horse to death here, but there's one more thing I think we need to discuss. If we assume that my spreadsheet is accurate, then the weighted score for the BiS Unholy set listed on the front page is 10054.3 APE. Now, that's all well and dandy, except we also need to consider the value of the four piece bonus for the best set that exists that uses four pieces of T8.
Using Method's post here in the Unholy thread, I found a value of 115.7 APE for the four piece Tier 8 bonus. As such, my goal was to see if the best set using the Unholy weights and four pieces of T8 was greater than the best set we have listed minus the four piece bonus. Since I'm at work I couldn't run a detailed simulation, but I was surprised to find that (assuming the validity of Method's weights here) that it might work keeping four piece T8.
I made the following switches in my ghetto-attempt to beat a score of 10054.3 - 115.7, or 9938.6 APE.
Just using those three switches with the same gemming ([Fierce Monarch Topaz]x2, [Bold Dragon's Eye]x3), the set has a score of 9953.66 APE. This is above the cutoff of 9938.6, so in theory it should outperform our existing hard mode set by approximately 15 APE. I realize it's not a large difference, but our goal here is total optimization.
There are two things left for me to do here. One is to run a full set of optimizations once I get home to determine the true best arrangement of four piece T8 sets, as the one I did here was a very ugly estimation. The second is to verify with Methods that the stat weight used for the T8 bonus for Unholy posted above still holds water. It was posted the middle of last month and the bonus has not since had any changes, but I would want to verify that. If it does, I imagine we'll be seeing a change in our ideal set again, unless there's some caveat that I've overlooked.
Edit: Too slow on the trigger - basically the same sentiment in the post above.
....snip....second is to verify with Methods that the stat weight used for the T8 bonus for Unholy posted above still holds water. It was posted the middle of last month and the bonus has not since had any changes, but I would want to verify that. If it does, I imagine we'll be seeing a change in our ideal set again, unless there's some caveat that I've overlooked.
Edit: Too slow on the trigger - basically the same sentiment in the post above.
Though my sheets show that approximate value still, I'll need to do more work on ensuring their validity on a later date. For now I will say they are, at the very least, close. The 4P T7 weight is approximately half of what is stated in that post though since the change (obviously).
If I read the post right, you're ignoring weapon speed even though most of a DK's damage comes from strikes?
At least pre-hardmode including weapon speed probably changes a few of the suggested weapons to Earthshaper(Furious weapons if you include them).
With the change to Aesir's Edge from HM 10 man wouldn't it edge out (no pun intended I swear) Earthshaper/Lotrafen for BiS pre Heroic HM weaponry for either Blood or Frost?
Not even taking into account the Min/Max Jewelcrafting option when looking at gemming it the Blade gives more AP while still boasting a good chunk of ARP and Crit, and for those looking for a slower weapon speed it's a 3.5 to Lotrafen's 3.4.
Last edited by Valimar : 05/14/09 at 12:59 PM.
Reason: Reformatting and addenum.
It will depend a LOT on whether or not you're hit capped. If you're significantly below the cap, Earthshaper is going to be BiS no matter what, just because of how incredibly valuable hit is up until the cap. If you're capped, you probably will see a much bigger gain from Aesir's than anything else, though.
[e]: I always forget about the YS-Hardmode mace. It would probably be a better choice than ES, assuming you can get your hands on it.
It will depend a LOT on whether or not you're hit capped. If you're significantly below the cap, Earthshaper is going to be BiS no matter what, just because of how incredibly valuable hit is up until the cap. If you're capped, you probably will see a much bigger gain from Aesir's than anything else, though.
Surely if you're relying on the hit from Earthshaper then the mace from Yogg 10 HM will (safely assuming that it recieves a buff to the same degree as Aesir's Edge did) will outdo it simply on the strength of the gem socketing.
There's no stats up for Crushing Whispers in 3.12 yet but I don't see it being given any less of an increase than Aesir's Edge did.
Currently on PTR, they are making a change to [Aesir's Edge], making it a 232.6 dps 2h, and improving the crit rating by 5, and armor pen by 4, this is going to be what every plate wearing DPS person will want now, at least until Gen Vez HARD MODE.
[Aesir's Edge] is going to be amazing now...starting to farm it this week for sure. I've already got 4 piece t8, and I've been trying to create a true BiS gear set for all the obtainable gear for me based off of what my guild can kill at the moment. Assuming we do not do any hardmode encounters in 25man, and I don't have [Bandit's Insignia], would it be a bad idea to rely on [Pyrite Infuser] for hit? The [Pyrite Infuser] seems like a very viable trinket to me.
Thanks for the update on the weights, Methods. It's appreciated.
Per my post yesterday I ran a full optimization of all sets with 4-piece T8.5 forced in order to get the highest score there. It turns out that the set is identical to what I guessed in my quick and dirty attempt, but to be clear I'll repost the entire set here. The total score of this set, including the set bonus four piece set bonus of 115.7 APE, is 10069.36 APE, making it the best known set for 2H Unholy 12/0/59. I have not run the weights for 0/10/61, but I can only assume that the results are quite similar. So anyway, the best set should be:
Hopefully we can close the book on the optimal Unholy set, but I'm sure some new argument will come up. If anyone is able to beat the score of this set using the 12/0/59 weights in my spreadsheet, let me know. I don't think it's possible due to the extensive nature of the optimization set I ran, but it's always possible I missed something.
Edit: Looks like Norg updated the OP About an hour ago. This post is the justification, if nothing else.
I am grouping Algalon 10/25 under Hardmode25 Gear since it is about as hard to attain as Hardmode25 Gear. If you have any objections, send me a PM and don't clutter up the thread.
Thanks for those, Zerack & Kyruski -- I've updated the OP accordingly.
I also tweaked some things for Unholy and Blood tonight and I'm fairly sure they're all optimal for the time being. Pretty sure we can do better for some of the Frost sets though.
@ Norg.
Actually the Frost - Pre Heroic hard mode set is a little incorrect with the gemming option. [Soul-Devouring Cinch] is 2 red gem slot but u have it listed down in the Jeweler's option as a blue gem.
So with 2 red gem in there, that would free up a Bold's Dragon Eye for the headpiece instead.
Surely if you're relying on the hit from Earthshaper then the mace from Yogg 10 HM will (safely assuming that it recieves a buff to the same degree as Aesir's Edge did) will outdo it simply on the strength of the gem socketing.
There's no stats up for Crushing Whispers in 3.12 yet but I don't see it being given any less of an increase than Aesir's Edge did.
Given the upgrade to Aesir's Edge, I would assume that Hammer of Crushing Whispers will get the following stats:
HoCW
Earthshaper
Speed
3.5
3.6
Stamina
141
129
Strength
113
129
Crit rating
81
81
Hit rating
66
66
Socket 1
Blue
None
Socket 2
Yellow
None
Assuming two red gems in the sockets, HoCW gains 16 strength and 12 stamina. On the face of it's therefore a slight upgrade over Earthshaper, but I wonder how important the slower speed is for some specs. Would the 0.1 slower speed outdo the 16str?
edit @ Nazh -- thanks. Edited the Frost sets quite a bit today and fixed that mishap
The first post says to add 3 to expertise when using Earthshaper and being a dwarf, but dwarves get 5 expertise with maces, just like orcs do with axes.
On another subject i'm a bit puzzled with the dps weight of weapons. Currently i'm using a The Jawbone and recently acquired a Relentless Edge. With frost stat weights this polearm is an upgrade even it's a very small one. But the reason that it has a higher dps is its 3.2 speed, in truth its dmg range and mean dmg are lower than the jawbone. If we ignore the mods on both of the weapons , does the polearm still superior to the mace ? Or should we consider another method of calculating dps weights ? (like dmg range )
Considering that people are looking to a more IT based rotation to generate RP for Frost Strikes, is 4pc still worth it over double HM items in the Head and Legs for Frost Builds even if you reduce the number of Obliterates used?
Considering you could also then swap the Shoulders for the Eternal ones from Auriaya (with Crit having a slightly higher stat weight than Haste for Frost) how much of a DPS gain/loss would it be assuming no more than 3 Obliterates (assuming PS/IT/BSBS/Ob > Ob/Ob/ITIT with FS dumps inbetween.)
I was reading the unholy and the blood dps discussion as well as this topic for some month now.
When raiding I switch from blood <-> unholy for many bosses / special requirements so it's hard for me to really find my BiS gear since the two specs require some different items.
The Problem I have now is that I don't know if it would be worth to get ArPen Items at all, since it's fairly week in Unholy.
Currently I'm following the Statweight lists from this thread to aquire items that are top in both specs.
Additionally I now face the problem of too much hit, since I made the mistake to only rely on stat weight which counts hit as a good stat which it isn't after the cap ..
I got some really nice items like auriaya 10man chest and the flame leviathan 25 head, but both have hit on them and I'd loose dps if I'd wear them now.
As of some days ago i rerolled to jewelcrafting and changed my sockets to str only so I can't get rid of more hit.
How could I improve under this circumstances of using blood and unholy equally?
05/14/09, 4:04 AM
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