Mortak

No i compared Bloodstrike DMG with Unholy specc (0/10/61 on live, 3/13/55 Oblit Specc on PTR) and the dmg was completely identical. But maybe i carried some kind of bug into the recent PTR build, like the Unholy BLight issues in the previous builds.

 

Nazh

Pretty sure u need a lot more then 420ArP and the trinket proc to get to 100%
ArP Hard Cap = 1231.6 ArP = 100% of the target's armor are ignored.
So you need:
ArP Soft-cap: 566.6 ArPen, if wearing Mjolnir Runestone - yes the tooltip is wrong, you actually get 665ArP.
ArP Soft-cap: 619.6 ArPen, if wearing Grim Toll.

 

Mortak

The 10% ArP From bloodspecc adds to the ArP you geht from Armor Penetration Rating. So you need about 123ArP Rating less than you calculated.

 

conwolv

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the 10% ignored armor from Blood Spec fall under the same category as Sunder and Faerie Fire?

 

AtheistGod

Nope, this was first found by Arms Warriors who's Battle Stance and Mace Spec are treated as ArP and not as sunder/faerie fire.

 

concept84

You are forgetting Blood Gorged which is applied like ArP and not like Sunder/FF. 420 ArP puts you damn near close to 100% ArP.

 

zombityboo

Hey guys, first time poster here wanting to discuss 2 nitpicky issues regarding a few errant talent points that not everyone can seem to agree on.

I believe it's pretty much agreed by most competent blood-spec dpsers that the first 18 points in unholy should like this:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Soilant's original post listed the last 2 points going into Morbidity and NOT NotD, and I'm wondering if this is worth visiting for real discussion beyond the handful of "well, in my experience" posts that I've seen in the thread thus far (which I've read all of). I prefer NotD for guaranteed and maximized ghoul uptime, which if used every time the cd is up and provided it doesn't die early is roughly 55 seconds of damage out of every 2:30. For me, 2 points in Morb would only equate to a 1 percent dps increase which is not outweighed by a lot in terms of a raw number, but from an overall dps percentage is significantly lower than the 2-2.5% dps increase I experience with the extra ghoul damage provided optimal conditions. This is what makes me wonder why NotD isn't considered a clear-cut winner. Keep in mind that I don't have SotVH, which would obviously make my numbers different.

The other issue I wanted to comment on is the stray point in the blood tree that everyone seems to put in Imp BP. I don't put it there. For whatever minute difference it might make throughout the course of any boss fight, I have always picked 1 point in SoB, simply because it's the ONLY place in the tree to put a point that could be considered "offensive". On top of that, with all of the self-healing and defensive cooldowns we have, I don't think 5 percent extra healing done to myself will ever provide a situation that can positively be identified as one where I didn't die where I otherwise would have.

That's about it. Thanks to all the people that make this site interesting and informative.

 

AtheistGod

The Morbidity vs NotD issue is personal preference mostly. While Night of the Dead does offer higher dps gains it is more situational. Morbidity also helps in allowing people to quickly generate 100 RP before combat and provides extra AoE damage. Night of the dead offers slightly higher dps and more uses of AotD on bosses. If someone doesn't wish to focus on their ghoul as much in combat morbidity provides decent passive damage.

 

Buffie

You've obviously put some thought into the NotD debate and I can't refute any of your points, but I can offer perspective on why I decided to spec Morbidity. Under optimal conditions, I can't say you're wrong, in fact, I agree, but the problem is, I seem to have more times where I'm not under optimal conditions than when I am. I chose the extended disease time & extra DC damage in lieu of mathematically superior choices due to the nature of my gear & the fights I do in Ulduar. I chose the extended disease time because at this point I can't get expertise capped in my current gear without making big sacrifices to other stats. The extra 3 seconds allows me 2 extra GCDs in my rotation to allow for dodges & parries. On movement heavy fights I've found that often I'm using the extra time & without it my last 1-2 heart strikes would be diseaseless. Along the same lines I chose more DC damage over more ghoul damage simply because I hate the ghoul. I'm more than willing to sacrifice 1-2% of my dps & put it back in my hands (with DC) than trust the brainless ghoul who is on several fights subject to instagibbing & prone to wander off & attack the wrong thing now & then. If you prefer the ghoul, by all means, go for it as I'm pretty sure the math is on your side.

On your second issue, I've specced differently altogether. I chose to take the defensive talents rather than the weak dps talents. To me, bloodworms will never do enough damage to be worth all the points & I'm not a fan of the healing from BP in the first place, so I ditched that point too. With those 4 points I was able to pick up Rune Tap (with a point in improved), Mark of Blood & Vampiric Blood. These are all situational at best, and in my experience (sorry to go to that, but situational talents are hard to assign numerical value to) Rune tap is great, but VB & MoB are lackluster. I keep MoB because I like to put it on rogues in pvp. It makes me giggle. As for RT & VB, I tend to use them together on things like Freya hard mode if I end up away from a healer. VB also makes it easy for healers to keep you up with only hots on things like tantrums & the like. RT has saved my ass more than a few times, but the other 2 talents are a bit lackluster & I could probably be convinced to throw points elsewhere, but for progressing through hard modes, I really enjoy the durability I gain by speccing a bit more defensively.

Hopefully I gave you a bit of insight on why different players may spec different ways, but I for one am pretty happy that I have the luxury of sacrificing some theoretical dps to make myself better in the situations I find myself in most often.

 

Darian_TruBlade

Regarding the first issue, some Blood DKs still use 1/2 Epidemic and drop the extra point in Morbidity. The last I saw it discussed in a Blood thread it came down to personal preference, largely dependent on the player's latency and personal precision. Buffie's anecdotes are a good example of why many DKs err toward 2/2.

As for the second, Scent of Blood is in a similar situation as the Fury talent Enrage. While the effects are potent, the conditions required for them to proc are very specific and rare for DPS. Recent posts in the Fury DPS thread indicate that each point in Enrage garnered as little as 13 DPS out of 6.4k over the course of an entire Ulduar run. Scent of Blood will probably generate similar, meager numbers. I'd rather have additional utility to help me or someone else survive at a critical moment, particularly with the incoming nerf to Icebound Fortitude.

"A man's IQ, yearly income, sexual prowess, ingenuity, physical appearance and generally every other aspect of his character can be condensed down to four digits: his Arena rating." - Zechsy [70 Rogue - Skullcrusher (EU) - 10/23/2007]

 

Velk

Something that has really been bugging me as blood is Kologarn. I can't find anywhere to stand where heart strike will hit an arm and a body - I have spent some time searching for anyone who knows with no luck. I figure if it's possible, someone who reads this thread should know about it.

Anyone know if it is possible ? If so, where do you stand/face ?

 

Taizu

When I tank Kologarn as blood, I manage to hit both the body and the arm (albeit I can't choose which arm it is I am hitting).

Run in perfectly center at Kologarn, then back off until you're barely in melee range. You should hit twice on your HS. This was when the body is my main target, so I can't tell if this works for DPS who need to focus different arms.

 

Fyrestryke

In theory it should work both ways. If somebody could test and confirm it would be greatly appreciated. I haven't been able to DPS lately as one of our main tanks has been LOA for work, so I've been stuck tanking.

 

Krom[Fenris]

I'll have to give this a try next week. I'm guessing the arc on our cleave is much smaller than a warriors or something, because they can hit them ok from the normal spot.

 

zombityboo

I've done the Kolo fight many times, and much to the chagrin of whoever's leading the raid, I've found that the spot that you need to dps the right arm to hit the body with the HS cleave is to the left of the belt buckle, about halfway between the center of his torso and the area where the arm will drop the adds when destroyed. You can find this spot by slowly moving to the left until you can pest your diseases successfully. It's not advisable to actually do this regularly as you will be targetable by eye beams standing there. The same holds true if you're attacking the left arm and travelling the same distance to the right. Hope this helps.

 

Alyse

I also notice in this fight that attempting to use pestilence can result in a "No Path Available" error message; would anyone know if this spot fixes this problem? I've encountered the error before, but Kologarn is the one fight where it is reliably reproducible.

 

Kollar

I can confirm that backing off just a bit, as described in the above post, does make pestilence work on Kologarn. At least for hitting the Right Arm and Kologarns main body (we never kill the Left Arm since getting the achievement).

 

• Soilantgreen64

Interesting bit of info, with the new items available in 3.2, it will be possible to exceed 100% Armor Penetration without the use of proc trinkets. The gear you'd have to use to hit the 1108 ArP mark is unfortunately not optimal, but it's interesting to know that it's now going to be possible. I did the calculations quickly, so no promise of 100% accuracy, but I came up with a max possible ArP rating of 1128 with the currently known gear.

While I don't think this is terribly important for 3.2, I think that this trend points to the next tier (Icecrown?) of raid gear allowing you to cap out armor pen, and optimize the rest of your offensive stats as well, putting Blood DKs in a very good position going forward. Just my .02.

 

Krom[Fenris]

I've never had problems spreading Pestilence on Kologarn, it's always been Heart Strike that's the problem. Did you have any luck with that?

 

Decaying

Actually, this is almost possible using current gear, and gemming for ARP, as well as ARP elixir and food. It may even be possible just by updating all gems to the new epic quality ones. I've been meaning to post on the subject - especially how it relates to "at what gear level do you want to bag your grim toll/mjolnir runestone". Currently, a lot of blood DK's are gearing around mid 400 worn armor pen so they don't compromise their proc trinket. I think its worth looking into even in 3.1 - what are the benefits to going for the ARP softcap while gemming for strength and using a armor pen proc trinket versus going all out armor pen and using a different trinket?

Current (possible) trinket replacements:

Blood of the Old God
Dark Matter
Comet's Trail
Vanquished Clutch of Yogg-Saron

 

Sani

Glyph of Disease: Blood Plague will now last its correct full duration when refreshed by this glyph.

1. IT PS HS HS DS
2. DS Pest HS HS HS
3. HS HS HS HS DS
4. repeat 2&3
5. ???
6. profit

(2/2 Epidemic)

 

Valtiel

The problem is the same old: you lose a major glyph. You don't really want to lose DS because you're using it even more often with this rotation, and we know how good the other 2 glyphs are, so what you need to calculate is:

+ one DS instead of PS IT

- less RP
- one less major glyph
- one less HS

I really doubt the damage difference between PS IT and DS is higher than 1 HS, 5 RP and one of the 3 glyphs.

12 weeks without a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart drop and counting.

 

Sani

But its fun!

No, srsly i was just thinking about my 50/0/21 test DK with UB. Without DRW there is a free Glyphslot anyway.
But since DRW rules and will be way easyer to use in 3.2 you are right about that glyph

But is the math realy that simpel?

IT PS DS HS HS - DS HS HS HS HS

vs.

DS DS Pest HS - HS HS HS HS HS HS (in the final rotation)

so in in fact you do not lose one HS but gain one with both plagues up (which may proc sudden doom) (6 vs. 7)

what you do is exchange IT for Pest and PS for HS since you do 2 DS in both rotations (dunno where you see more DS?)

btw pest generates no RP? (dunno where u got that -5 RP from?)

So we finaly look at:

-same RP
-one more HS
-2. HS target plagued (more dmg?)
-constant plage spreading (critting plagues in 3.2 anyone?)

 

Dardrious

The difference in RP is between the 1 DS and IT+PS. DS gives you 15 RP whereas IT and PS each give you 10 (totalling 20 RP)

20-15=5

 

AtheistGod

That's off.

(No glyph)
IT PS HS HS DS
DS HS HS HS HS
repeat

(glyph)
IT PS HS HS DS
DS HS HS HS Pest

HS HS HS HS DS
DS HS HS HS Pest
repeat

The same exact amount of RP, Gain of HS, loss of IT + PS.

Also Glyph of DS is already stronger than Glyph of Dark Death simply because it's a larger percent increase.