This is probably because your gear was sub-optimal for Blood; simply switching specs without making gear changes will result in a net DPS decrease. Particularly, Blood requires a substantial (>300) amount of ArPen in order to be effective, in addition to one of Grim Toll or the Mjolnir Runestone.
Anecdotally, I switched over to Blood a few weeks back (after accumulating some ArPen gear) and have noticed a net increase in my DPS. I've also found Blood to be far more useful in Ulduar, especially for hardmodes, with the inherent "bursty" nature of it's damage.
I haven't really looked up anything blood or frost recently, but my gear right now doesn't point to any spec. However, some observations I have based on being frost vs. blood. I generally do about 300-400 more dps as blood with 278 armor pen with FotFF and Greatness trinkets. Even on AoE I can do similar dps to frost, but it is still behind.
As for frost though, I am in a weird spot because I have a bit more armor pen that some, while having 4pc and vengeful heart not dropping 8 weeks in a row. Depending on the ease of AMS exploiting and heavy movement, I switch between the hydrid classic rotation and the current two disease one. With less movement, I can do a good amount more dps with an OB heavy rotation. I know that my spec (17/51/3) does not have extra disease length, but it is still quite easy to look at rune refresh timers and disease timers and just adjust when to reapply. Everything still works very smoothly, and seeing average 10k OB crits is never a downside. Again, maybe this isn't the top dps, but just an observation that hopefully could help others in a similar situation.
Hodir Normal
Save AMS for Frozen Blows. Real ballers can also get 2-3 stacks of Biting Cold at the same time, though your healers will complain. Hard
There are no major changes from the normal mode to the hardmode.
I've been using the HB single-disease rotation for the last couple of weeks and loving it. I do have one question about what it says in the OP, though. It says that runes are better spent on OB over HB. Why is this? I've noticed HB hits harder than OB with full raid buffs, am I just lacking the ArP to make OB worth it? Or is it because of the higher crit rate of OB?
When I wrote that part, OB was hitting for higher average damage than HB, so it made much more sense to use OB on cooldown than it did HB. If you can provide some parses showing that this has changed, I'll update the OP.
I've been using the HB single-disease rotation for the last couple of weeks and loving it. I do have one question about what it says in the OP, though. It says that runes are better spent on OB over HB. Why is this? I've noticed HB hits harder than OB with full raid buffs, am I just lacking the ArP to make OB worth it? Or is it because of the higher crit rate of OB?
I would be amazed if Howling Blast outpaced the average damage of Obliterate considering the critrate Obliterate has, especially if you've got gear with armor penetration on it (and most people do, it's just pretty common).
I do believe that HB deals potentially higher damage than OB, at least if you run a single disease rotation, BUT do remember that it'll never do more DPS than Oblit, simply because it crits much less frequently. Unless you ofc start using KM procs on HB, but that would be really bad in most cases.
The much higher crit rate on Oblit and the chance to proc rime makes it superior on single targets. On any situation where HB will hit 2 targets or more it will probably pull ahead though.
After reviewing parses from the last couple weeks, it seems that on average Obliterate DOES hit slightly higher (only about 2-300 more damage) on average than HB. Keep in mind that I have very very low amounts of ArP since I was previously Unholy and ArP is pretty terrible with that spec. Obviously any fight with any amount of AoE is going to prefer HB. The way we do XT HB would be better; of the easy bosses Kologarn, Auriaya, and Razorscale all favor HB; of the hard modes the only one that favors an HB>OB rotation is Freya. Others, like Mimiron, it would be better to switch to favoring HB at certain points in the fight (ie P3 on Mimiron, Brain Phase and P3 on Yogg).
So I guess it depends on the situation, though for purely single-target damage OB wins.
As for OB>HB for Rime procs I find that IF I'm going to actually use runes on a HB it generally means FF is going to fall off soon and so it should be done anyways. If Rime is already up then you shouldn't use OB anyways.
As far as rotations go, Doc, what rotation did you use for the sim?
I would think 6xIT would still be superior to an OB heavy rotation to fuel FS as nothing has really changed to address the lack of RP generation with a OB/Blood Pres. rotation.
I suppose it will mean everyone who wants to go frost for dps will have to spec DW? Considering they're nerfing Frost Strike and not buffing any 2h talents.
Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
It's a bit early to make assumptions right now since its hard to tell whether more melee damage will offset the weaker (right? unless my math is off) weapon strikes. I'm going to start collecting 1 handers just in case of course.
"Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike. "
So interesting move here.. so each invoked strike will toss over 50% of your main strike on top. Thats pretty substantial for DW, except that we need to fill 6 points now instead of 3 (3 for botn, 3 for thal) and of course 3 in cold steel (which was needed anyways).
I see a lot of tank nerfs though. Almost every tank ability is getting beaten up (not that we care in this thread) but still im sure we'll hear bitching.
It will be interesting to see how the tree balalnces out and if we get to allocate anything in other places, but from what i can tell, looks like we'll be a maybe a point short since you will get back the 2 points from 2H spec in blood, but in general should be interesting.
I agree expertise will be more important since FS is getting the dodge/parry/block put back on it. the 5% reduction sucks, but isnt that bad (500 dmg on a 10k strike). I'm going to wait to see what else they move around on the tree before digging into this, but I've always enjoyed DW, and have a nice collection of 1h blades ready to go for it.
Wondering when 3.2 is going to hit (being lazy and need to get my protodrake done).
I thought it was established that Frost isn't exactly overperforming in PVE or PVP, and this is what we get. Awesome!
Two talent points back from BotN and the Blood Strike buff (larger for double-disease, smaller for HB single-disease) don't make up for the expertise and 8.33% nerfs on Frost Strike. Question now is whether dodged/parried FSes will still cost the full amount of RP; no other ability has set a precedent for that, has there?
Hahah, I hadn't thought about that, Baph. Considering DC still used RP when it misses (as does FS, doesn't it? Have been hit capped for a while now), you can probably count on RP getting used regardless of dodge/parry.
I thought it was established that Frost isn't exactly overperforming in PVE or PVP, and this is what we get. Awesome!
Two talent points back from BotN and the Blood Strike buff (larger for double-disease, smaller for HB single-disease) don't make up for the expertise and 8.33% nerfs on Frost Strike. Question now is whether dodged/parried FSes will still cost the full amount of RP; no other ability has set a precedent for that, has there?
Unfortunately my assumption is that a dodged/parried FS will still consume RP, as missed DCs still consume RP.
Sort of amazing that they felt the need to nerf Frost and buff Unholy. The new Unholy Blight is probably gonna make up for the SS damage loss and then some, coming to bite Blizz's back like Deep Wounds did.
Anyways, the wording on the BS buff is by, not to, so it' safe to assume we're looking at 18%ish figures. Doubt it will alter Frost's calculations much.
I'm thinking about where to spend the 2 free points 2h Frost builds will get in the patch (assuming they stay "viable"). Probably Endless Winter is a good candidate - interrupting is in demand and the dps loss from being unable to use FS whenever you can is sensible.
12 weeks without a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart drop and counting.
06/15/09, 10:15 AM
. It seems to do more damage than Blood.
