Hello,

I am sorry this has probably been asked a million times but I have yet to get a definitive answer. I have read several pages back and cant figure it out. Is rolling diseases now official better then GODD and if so what is the rotation for it and what is the best way to use it properly.

yeah this was the conflict on the shaman forums as well but i feel that in the current end game, i.e. ToC, the minor run speed may be better here for most fights because of the size of the instance. but the 3 min CD ends up being used many times during the duration of the instance.

Has any experimentation been done regarding pushing bosses into negative armor through Sunder and Expose Armor? I know it is possible, but I am wondering if testing has been done which show the values of ArP at this level of penetration. If it were possible, does it make sense to get to 100% passive armor pen when there is a warrior or rogue providing these abilities? It seems it would but I haven't seen if there is math which reflects altered stat weights at this point.

I've looked through the thread and I don't see any specific testing regarding this. I would be happy to work on some myself if it is not already understood or has been discussed elsewhere.

Can someone have the math on Death Coil?

what i am wondering about is that I usually dont dump my Runepower. I just use Death Coil as a filler when my Runes are all on cooldown and i dont have runetap. This means i always have 50 Runepower or so up whenever the fight ends.

I had the sigil of the vengevul heart and always used Death coil until my rp was gone. Thats why i have 2 points in frost for the extra rp. But now that the sigil of virulence is also proccing on Death strike i changed to this sigil.

without the extra dmg from VH is it still usefull to dump the runepower? is it a dps loss not to use Death coil? should i use it as a filler when runes are on cooldown? Or whenever i can use Death Strike or Heart Strike i shouldnt use Death coil beacuse DS and HS hits harder?

It's not possible. Your armor penetration from gear/talents is capped at 100%, and that is counted after debuffs--sunder, faerie fire, and shattering throw each stacking multiplicatively. Depending on the target's armor, 100% armor penetration may not reduce their armor to zero (boss with sunder/ff currently has ~315 armor when you have 100% ArP), but it is not possible to reduce armor below zero.

Sitting on your RP is a waste of dps, sigils won't change this. Even though HS may hit harder on average, the problem with not dumping your RP is you're going to be waiting on your cooldowns to finish your rotation, which is where the dps loss comes into play.

like i said, just use DC when all runes are on cooldown (as a filler). But never priority dumping RP over DS or HS
ie: DS and HS > DC


ok, clear for me, thnx

What % of your DPS is Death Coil? I haven't compared my own breakdowns with any other Blood DK's in a long time, but DC tends to be 9-10% of my DPS these days using a GoD priority system. If you only use DC when your runes are on CD, I'd suspect you get something similar since that's usually how I strive to play. Doing that, I find that the only time I tend to have free GCDs are at the very start of a fight if I don't have time to build up Runic Power using Horn/D&D, and sometimes right after popping DRW if I don't have full RP when I do it.

Blood uses enough GCDs on rune abilities (because of Heart Strike and Death Runes) that RP dumping isn't really an important part of the play-style, in stark contrast to Unholy and pre-3.2 Frost.

I can check mine as well when I get to my other computer, but I generally only use Death Coil when I don't have a strike up or when I am for whatever reason not within melee range of the boss. (Fights that come to mind, switching between mobs on Iron Council, Freya, Yogg, doing extra DPS on the "head" during mimiron) Otherwise I dump as fast as I can before I get in range while still retaining enough RP to summon DRW when it's available.

Edit: Mine is generally around 10%, sometimes jumps to 12.
Edit2: And I'm using Dark Death instead of Disease, I've been debating for a week now about changing back to Disease so I'd have Death Strike, Disease and DRW.

Keep in mind the grace period on runes. Using a rune the instant is comes off cooldown puts it on cooldown for 10secs, but if you wait and cast a DC and then use that rune, it cools down only for 8secs, so essentially you are not delaying rune abilities by throwing that DC.

The grace period is useful for when you have less than a GCD left on a rune's refresh so you can use a Death Coil or some other ability in the mean time instead of simply waiting for it. In practice I still don't feel it encourages a specific "dump phase." Sometimes you have time two use two Death Coils before your runes are off cooldown, which is essentially a dump, but more often than not I end up weaving them in-between my other abilities.

I didn't notice GoDisease doing anything significant until I got my 4 piece bonus and replaced Mjolnir Runestone with Death's Choice. If you have an unholy DK in your raid you might see a benefit earlier, though. GoDD and not using Disease is probably why your DC damage is higher.

I find Disease to promote slightly more spontaneous ability usage which usually tends to lead to less Death Coils being used. Before I switched to Disease, I would always dump all my RP with Death Coils at the end the 20 second rune refresh cycle when your first are about to come off CD, since at this time your diseases are also about to run out and DC isn't dependent on disease damage.

With GoD, you have to goal of rolling diseases, so they're nearly always present on the target. This eliminates the natural dump phase present when using GoDD and promotes the constant usage of Heart Strike whenever a blood rune is up.

Coincidentally, this also makes keeping a strict rotation difficult especially if you start fights by using DS HS HS and then applying diseases (and Hysteria & DRW before that if you started the fight with around 25 or 30 RP). I've noticed that starting like that will throw off the way that your runes refresh and unless you waste a little time waiting (which maybe I should try to do from now on) or started out with completely full RP so you can use a Death Coil right off to buy time, your next four Heart Strikes start by using a Death Rune, then two Blood, and finally the Death Rune that got separated from the first one by the two refreshed Bloods. I expect the DPS loss from this is only slight if not completely non-existent, though. It hasn't cause me any trouble other than being annoying (it always irks me when rune pairs don't refresh together), in any case.

**Edit** change RT for BT, complete Brain fart (at work and didn't proof read b4 posting)

@Kaejin

Try this:

Pre-pull Horn - DS - HS - BT - PS - IT - HS - HS

then keep with the standard rotation and pest if 3secs or less is remaining on your diseases.

I've found that the spontaneity provided by GoDisease to be very refreshing (pardon the pun). It allows much more prioritizing, and relies less on following any rigid rotations. I enjoy the challenge of managing my runes on the fly, and anticipating rune usage several GCDs ahead of time.

The downside is, as you mentioned, fewer death coils being used and an rp bar that is full more often than empty. Not complaining really, because for those times when you have to be sure you have at least one blood or death rune for Pestilence, using a few death coils is much nicer than letting GCDs go to waste.

If you have the T9 4pc bonus and haven't tried GoDisease, I can't recommend enough that you at least take it out for a spin one night. The difference for me was dramatic.

@7alisman: RT?

I went out on a limb and assumed you meant Blood Tap and tried it out just to see what would happen. Instead of having an FU pair mismatched, I just ended up with my two blood runes mismatched.

In the end having them mismatched doesn't really impact my DPS too much since I can just fill the space with Death Coils while the late rune catches up or else stall for a second and let my Blood Runes refresh before I start to use HS to prevent it all together.

Edit: I just decided to wait for my Blood runes to refresh during our attempts on Heroic Jaraxxus last night and coincidentally it turned out to be timed just right so that I could use my last Death Rune on Pest and spread my diseases to the first Nether Portal.

Looking at the arms warrior thread on EJ, they are recomending to gear for 100% armor pen.

"You will still stack ArP, you just have to reach a higher point before starting to stack it.

If you have a trinket with ArP proc, stack to the 100% - Value from proc, same as before, just a different number."

Everything I am reading there suggests that Sunder/Faerie fire does not count against what comes from gear/gems /talents. If they were counting Sunder they would be stacking to 80% ArP.

Sunder/Expose Armor and Faerie Fire stack for 25% armor pen. Aside from those abilities, everything else (gear and talents) are lumped into the character's armor pen. Debuff ArP and character ArP stack multiplicatively, not additively, and as such 100% character armor pen is what works on the mob after debuffs are calculated.

ArP Gemming

I tried to take it to simulator. Here's the first test, based around my gear:

Str Gemmed Diseased 29T9 DK

<Strength>2113</Strength>
<Agility>150</Agility>
<Intel>58</Intel>
<Armor>14442</Armor>
<AttackPower>5130</AttackPower>
<HitRating>203</HitRating>
<CritRating>751</CritRating>
<HasteRating>145</HasteRating>
<ArmorPenetrationRating>433</ArmorPenetrationRating>
<ExpertiseRating>177</ExpertiseRating>

Ability Total % Landed Hit% Crit% Miss% Average
HeartStrike 947874061 26,5 107910 53,8 44,4 1,8 8783,9
MainHand 917402688 25,6 128204 62 36,2 1,8 7155,8
DeathCoil 389487774 10,9 56633 65,5 31,2 3,4 6877,4
DeathStrike 305719019 8,5 28017 56,7 41,5 1,9 10911,9
Dancing Rune Weapon 203003290 5,7 62063 68,6 28,1 3,3 3270,9
BloodPlague 192367098 5,4 104426 100 0 0 1842,1
FrostFever 188746471 5,3 102544 100 0 0 1840,6
Necrosis 146787072 4,1 128204 100 0 0 1144,9
BloodCakedBlade 99051860 2,8 37803 98,2 0 1,8 2620,2
Ghoul 72598956 2 75534 85,2 13 1,8 961,1
PlagueStrike 66402888 1,9 14919 57,3 41 1,7 4450,9
IcyTouch 49426365 1,4 14650 64,9 31,8 3,3 3373,8
Horn 0 0 8451 100 0 0 0
DPS 9941
Total Damage 3578,87m in 100h
Threat Per Second 5534
Generated in 53s
Template: Blood 51-0-20
Priority: Blood
Presence: Blood
Sigil: Virulence
RuneEnchant: FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation: True


ArP Gemmed Diseased 2PT9 DK

<Strength>1673</Strength>
<Agility>150</Agility>
<Intel>58</Intel>
<Armor>14442</Armor>
<AttackPower>5130</AttackPower>
<HitRating>203</HitRating>
<CritRating>751</CritRating>
<HasteRating>145</HasteRating>
<ArmorPenetrationRating>815</ArmorPenetrationRating>
<ExpertiseRating>177</ExpertiseRating>

Ability Total % Landed Hit% Crit% Miss% Average
HeartStrike 995644104 27,7 107910 53,8 44,4 1,8 9226,6
MainHand 952701584 26,5 128204 62 36,2 1,8 7431,1
DeathCoil 361411241 10 56633 65,5 31,2 3,4 6381,6
DeathStrike 319164557 8,9 28017 56,7 41,5 1,9 11391,8
Dancing Rune Weapon 188182341 5,2 62063 68,6 28,1 3,3 3032,1
BloodPlague 176345015 4,9 104426 100 0 0 1688,7
FrostFever 173022046 4,8 102544 100 0 0 1687,3
Necrosis 152433151 4,2 128204 100 0 0 1189
BloodCakedBlade 102869985 2,9 37803 98,2 0 1,8 2721,2
PlagueStrike 69430484 1,9 14919 57,3 41 1,7 4653,8
Ghoul 62179464 1,7 75534 85,2 13 1,8 823,2
IcyTouch 45745310 1,3 14650 64,9 31,8 3,3 3122,5
Horn 0 0 8451 100 0 0 0
DPS 9998
Total Damage 3599,13m in 100h
Threat Per Second 5609
Generated in 52s
Template: Blood 51-0-20
Priority: Blood
Presence: Blood
Sigil: Virulence
RuneEnchant: FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation: True

A whooping 50 dps increase if I gem everything to ArP.

I decided to try out a diseaseless blood spec with HS > DS > DC priority system with ArP gems. Here's the results:


ArP Gemmed Diseaseless 2PT9 DK

<Strength>1673</Strength>
<Agility>150</Agility>
<Intel>58</Intel>
<Armor>14442</Armor>
<AttackPower>5130</AttackPower>
<HitRating>203</HitRating>
<CritRating>751</CritRating>
<HasteRating>145</HasteRating>
<ArmorPenetrationRating>815</ArmorPenetrationRating>
<ExpertiseRating>177</ExpertiseRating>

Ability Total % Landed Hit% Crit% Miss% Average
HeartStrike 1043138721 32,7 133031 53,6 44,6 1,8 7841,3
MainHand 954023774 29,9 128204 62 36,2 1,8 7441,5
DeathCoil 386908384 12,1 60507 65,4 31,3 3,4 6394,4
DeathStrike 349696728 11 30574 56,7 41,5 1,8 11437,7
Dancing Rune Weapon 186356825 5,8 63119 68,9 27,8 3,3 2952,5
Necrosis 152644646 4,8 128204 100 0 0 1190,6
Ghoul 62414797 2 75678 85,3 12,8 1,9 824,7
BloodCakedBlade 55229570 1,7 37789 98,2 0 1,8 1461,5
Horn 0 0 8385 100 0 0 0
DPS 8862
Total Damage 3190,41m in 100h
Threat Per Second 4931
Generated in 46s
Template: Blood 51-0-20
Priority: SBlood
Presence: Blood
Sigil: Virulence
RuneEnchant: FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation: True

For the Attack power value, you have to take what you have on you equipment (+ enchant) not the value displayed on your on screen char panel.

I've been experimenting lately with different ways to optimize my use of Dancing Rune Weapon during its limited duration, and wanted to pose this question regarding priority for DRW ability usage, specifically, does the community find that its worth using a Heart Strike or Death Strike in place of Death Coil during the limited DRW duration even if the DK is sitting at the Runic Power cap?

Consider the following example of DRW usage, please assume that trinket procs are up, abilities have proced, bloodlust is off, potion of speed, and you are have four death runes up:

Dancing Rune Weapon > IT > PS > HS > HS > HS > HS > Blood Tap > HS > Empowered Rune Weapon
HS > HS > DS > DS (usually run out of DRW duration about here) > DC > DC > back to typical rotation.

Usually I find myself Runic Power capped at or just after my use of Empowered Rune Weapon, and there are a few Death Coils that I could likely add to this rotation, but is it a good idea?

An early thanks for sharing your perspective.

You need to take into account how much damage your abilities do, and Death Coil is probably one of the weaker moves you could execute while DRW is up. If you have a free GCD and no runes, then by all means, DC away, but so long as diseases are up on the target and you can use Heart Strike or Death Strike, use those. DS and HS will always hit harder than DC and have higher crit rates.

In regards to Nighthavk's 2pcT9 ArP gemming being better than STR gemming:
Once you add in an add or two and you start tipping the scales more towards spell based damage(DnD, diseases, and deathcoil - both HS-free cast and manual cast) that very slight increase would become a loss.

Heck, the 4pcT9 alone would most likely do it.

When you have DRW up, or you have to burn something, like a portal, quicky you're not looking at what is DPS efficient. You are looking at what is DP-*NOW*.

A question regarding rolling diseases, would you benefit from using DRW on cooldown, or would you want to wait 45 seconds for all your buffs to have proced again, then use DRW and reapply diseases?