Decaying

The problem is that Blood has too many requirements to meet to flourish.

As far as DK specs go for end-game content currently its largely as follows:

Does your raid have Crypt Fever/EPB? If yes - then move to the next step. If no - spec Unholy.
Does your raid have improved WF? If yes then move to the next step. If no - spec Frost.
Do you have Shadowmourne? If no, then spec Frost. If yes - move to the next step.
Does your gear meet the requirements to gem armor pen close enough to the cap while remaining hit capped and being close to expertise cap? If no, then spec Unholy. If yes - spec Blood.

Basically you have to be lucky enough to have a Shadowmourne, a full-time Unholy DK with good attendance, a source for 20% melee haste, a specific gear set (worrying about 3 caps, as opposed to 1 cap as unholy), and a reason to focus on single-target dps with the understanding that your multi-target dps (3+ targets) will suffer because of this. The only time this is particularly important is on LK 25 HM - the rest of the fights with multiple targets are either: A) Superfluous, i.e. spreading diseases on Rotface to increase your WOL numbers, or B) Low enough AOE dps required that at current gear levels and 15% raidwide buff, and the assumption that you WILL have an Unholy DK in the raid who excels at AOE dps (otherwise you skipped the first most important step in the logic tree above) that it is negligible whether you're Unholy or Blood. Blood's multi-target DPS is fine - it's just not amazing.

For LK - the benefits to being Unholy are largely exaggerated. Bone Shield - you need damage reduction on demand, which DK's already have plenty of in the form of IBF and AMS, and VB if you spec into it. Bone Shield only really excels for your Unholy DK as he will most likely be the off-off tank for loose Ghouls in P1 until your tank can pick them up (you brought an Unholy DK already, right? If so, you don't have to worry about pulling aggro on Ghouls - he'll soak them up fine.). Furthermore - this utility comes at a cost - when its constantly being knocked off, you're losing potential DPS, and it will be knocked off frequently. Essentially - if you HAVE to have Bone Shield to survive this fight, either you, or your healers are doing something wrong. Blood self healing from Bloodworms/Imp Deathstrike is more than enough to make your healers lives easier, and unless you're going for a swim in defile, there is nothing to worry about in this fight that would cause you to drop ridiculously fast.

Proper plague handling in phase 1 makes AOE a joke if your raid isn't retarded - and you will be doing valuable single target dps on LK to bring him to phase 2 (an extra Shambler can make or break you, and getting LK to 70% in a timely manner is more of a DPS check in my opinion than Ghoul/Shambler dps itself). Also - with GoD and Heartstrike, you sacrifice NO single target dps to pull cleave DPS off - you're already using pestilence to refresh your primary targets disease and won't be dropping possible uptime on Desolation or firing off less Blood Strikes to get diseases up on adds. Even nerfed - Heart Strike cleave is still a LARGE amount of secondary target dps - If HS is in the 30-35% range of your damage done and you're doing 15k single target... You're doing almost 3k additional secondary dps with no extra cost (also factoring in Sudden Death procs from the cleave).

DRW is also very nice as it gives you extra opportunities to drop Burst - and it also cleaves/spreads diseases on secondary and tertiary targets. You can pop this every minute and a half - versus Gargoyle's 3 min CD. Which means more burst opportunities on Raging Spirits/Valkyr's than Unholy.

Gnaw is definitely useful on Valkyr's - however between Holy Wrath, Hammer of Justice, rogue stuns, Shadowfury, your Unholy DK's Gnaw (again - you brought one, right?) - the Valkyr's will easily be on DR whether or not you had an extra stun to offer.

At any rate - in my opinion Blood IS the highest single target dps available with the proper gear (at least prior to seeing some more dual 284 one handers in action for Frost). I don't think it's a coincidence that the first DK to break 14k single target was Blood and the first DK to break 15k single target was Blood. If I hadn't been Unholy for the past 3 weeks, I'm confident I would've easily broken 16k already.

The problem is - there aren't many DK's fortunate enough (or interested in Blood enough) to make it work for them, compared to the MUST HAVE-ness of an Unholy DK.

 

RADRyanD

Would like to really thank you for this post. I would like to think that when I receive my Shadowmourne in 2-3 Weeks or so time I have the gear level already to be able to make use out of it. My raid is lucky enough to have a full-time Unholy Death Knight at the moment as well as an amazing Enhancement Shaman.

I got to do Normal LK today after we finnished some Hard-Mode attempts. The damage seemed fine to me but due to the nature of the LK fight there were obvious padding advantages done by our Unholy DK that made it hard to distinguish. I noticed that damage to the LK and to the Raging Spirits is where I definitely won out, and considering Hard-Mode in those phases as well as the DRW Burst on Valkyr, I think I feel easy enough now to make the full-time transition.

EDIT: Just did our 11/12 last night, so I'm going to post back.

I did it with no Glyph of Disease. I easily maintained 13K DPS (with Heroic Crytmaker) when I wasn't lagging/dcing on tank and spank encounters, and performed extremely well on encounters like Sindragosa and Lady Deathwhisper. The only fights I "sucked" on were Rotface and Festergut due to our DPS Warriors letting Sunders drop on Rotface and a tree getting melee hit with a Goo and I don't even really count Blood Princes/Blood Queen (dumb melee can mess you up during Empowered Vortex, BQL is all about an early bite + I was using Hysteria on the Shadowmourne Warrior instead). My results as Frost are definitely a lot higher than Blood (aka 14k DPS on tank and spanks), but I'm not surprised since I have the most experience in the spec as well as my gear was tailored to it.

I still probably need to get more use to using my Cooldowns. I always tried to line up Hyperspeed Accelerators and Blood Fury every DRW but since my lack of experience with pet specs I'm not sure if the gain is worth the wait. It says in the OP to not go out of your way, but I feel like personally I'm losing a lot of Hyperspeed Accelerator up-time waiting the extra 30s for the CD (I'm actually pretty sure it isn't worth it, but I'm also new to Engineering since I leveled it to mindlessly press it in macro with Unbreakable Armor as Frost), not so much Blood Fury but a bit of that as well.

I messed around with GoD again after the raid on Dummies to try and get use to the rotation for the obvious advantage it would pull in Heroic LK. I'm guessing instead of an obvious static rotation like IT>PS>HS>HS>DS>DC>DS>HS>HS>HS>HS>DC>DC it plays more to the priority system of FF>BP>HS>DS>DC. It seems odd to me that the spec sits at 100 Runic Power a majority of the time because when you change things there is just no GCD available for a DC or you risk the fact of messing your rotation up. For example after an initial rotation of IT>PS>HS>HS>DS>DC>DS>HS>HS>HS>HS moving on to the next set of runes, I don't have the time to DC unless I have the Vrykul proc running or some form of high haste to reduce the spell GCD and just move on with HS>P>HS>HS>DS>DC>DS>HS>HS>HS>HS in fear of spending Death/Blood/Blood/Death making the rune CD's slightly off at that point. Of course that is just an example rotation, and it can change depending on when you fire off DRW.

So I guess my next question is this. Using GoD is it odd to just be sitting at 100RP the entire time not firing them off? I noticed on Kahorie's Simulator using the Blood Priority that my Death Coil damage is in fact really low and after looking over some of the logs on WMO that Death Knights that use GoD rarely cast Death Coil outside of the Sudden Doom proc. Just need some clarification.

 

LKratos

It's pretty much as you say, death coil is a very small percentage of damage for blood dps, and the only reason unholy worries about the excess RP is because a blood strike isn't worth 2 death coils.

Frost dk's have frost strike that is good for dump, and unholy has death coil for extra gcds, but blood simply doesn't have effective RP dumping. If you're worried about it you could always macro rune strike to your abilities for those times when an add happens to attack you, but don't worry about it otherwise unless as you said some proc or haste buff goes off that gives you room.

 

Chani

Is there a rule about thread necromancing?

Its bin some time since the last post here, and I was wondering, whats the status of Blood? I know, soon its dead, but its not dead yet isnt it? Was playing abit with a Frost-subspec and found my dps very competetive, and Iam not even ARP capped (900ish) or have Shadowmourne. (Reason is 10%AP buff lack in my raid...)

I tried some simulations with the frost-subspec, but I think the programmers already gave up on blood, and I think the 20% haste selfbuff in frost isnt modelled correctly. So, are there still some Blood DKs out there?

 

Afabar

I don't think the sim have issue with blood/frost spec. At least there is no reason that some talents work in unholy and not in blood spec.

Kahorie's DK Simulator.
Follow DK SIM news.

 

Chani

Ok, iam not very keen in this simulator things... heres my parse:

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances			Uptime
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
MainHand	1658873866	34,4	175309	12638	66418	37,9	7318	64843	37	14610,2	114	,1	44048	25,1	5118,5
HeartStrike	1363836218	28,3	108355	12586,7	55303	51	7368,6	53052	48,9	18026,3	70	,1
DeathStrike	518144416	10,7	35181	14728	19051	54,1	8841,6	16130	45,8	21680,3	21	,1
DeathCoil	331944750	6,9	46413	7152	28351	59,5	5148,7	18062	37,9	10296,4	1256	2,6
Diseases.FrostFever	185370256	3,8	90646	2045	90646	100	2045									76
Diseases.BloodPlague	184107071	3,8	90108	2043,2	90108	100	2043,2									75,6
DRW: Melee	116850143	2,4	28940	5393,2	10983	38	3117,6	10683	36,9	6248,3			7274	25,1	2180,1
PlagueStrike	97228858	2	18558	5239,2	11121	59,9	3738,7	7437	40	7482,9	16	,1
IcyTouch	84123996	1,7	18565	4531,3	11623	60,9	3299,2	6942	36,4	6594,2	532	2,8
BloodWorms	82013910	1,7	350450	234	350450	100
Ghoul	81751172	1,7	91862	1326,3	51764	56,3	1061,9	9875	10,7	1798,7			30223	32,9	298,6
DRW: Heart Strike	47080311	1	17264	2727,1	10953	63,4	1999,3	6311	36,6	3990,1
Army of the Dead	28146257	,6	317856	88,6	277591	87,3	87,3	40265	12,7	96,8
DRW: Death Strike	17506118	,4	5705	3068,6	3700	64,9	2267,4	2005	35,1	4547
DRW: Death Coil	12889101	,3	5712	2256,5	3512	59,6	1630,6	2200	37,3	4687,7	180	3,1
DRW: Plaque Strike	5825346	,1	2763	2108,3	1740	63	1537,3	1023	37
DRW: Icy Touch	4378659	,1	3050	1435,6	1902	60,6	1045,2	1148	36,6	2082,5	87	2,8
DPS	13389(+/- 3297)
Total Damage	4820,07m	in 100h
Total runic power used: 2111360 (3233 wasted)
Threat Per Second	7944
Generated in	28s
Template:	kathablood
Priority:	Blood
Presence:	Blood
Sigil:	Virulence
RuneEnchant:	FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation:	True

I think I messed with rotation an things earlier. I now changed it to priority which i edited to be: DRMdeathstrik, diseases, Heartstrike, Deathcoil. This is with my char and with 25% ICC buff.

Two things I notice.
First Runic Power wasted seams impossibly low with this spec (15s diseases) There is nowhere enough time to dump Rune Power, does the sim prioritize dumps over Runeabilities?
Second, Critvalues of say Deathstrike seams a bit low, its about the value I get from charsheet+talents, but there should be some 5+% crit from raidbuffs? What do you think? Iam going to raid on thursday, I try to make a screenshot of recount on say saurfang, and try to compare, maybe its not to much off the reality now.

 

Chani

So heres a Sim/Live comparison on Sauerfang:
This is with Frost Sub:

Live vs Simulation

Auto: 33% vs 34.4%
Heartstrike: 31.9% vs 28.3% 5500/13470 vs 7368/18026
Deathstrike: 12.3% vs 10.7% 7910/21338 vs 8841/21680
Deathcoil: 8.2% vs 6.9%

DPS: 12184 vs 13389


Well, the reason for subspeccing Frost was that the haste buff is damage wise the same as necrosis (for auto attacks) so you dont loose this but you gain shorter GCDs. And I think 10% schadowdamage (DC) and 1% strenght is better than BCB. On the otherhand you loose the longer diseases, what I found could only be useful if you used glyph of disease, which is really problematic in my eyes anyway.

 

Kyin77

Question for Blood DK's. I am getting Shadowmourne tonight and I am thinking about respecing blood for higher single target dps. My raid currently already has an unholy DK as well as an ench shaman.

My question is for subspec. I know that unholy offers necrosis and BCB which do about 8-9% of our dps when added together. Frost subspec though looks very tempting with the changes it has had. Also this would allow using obliterate instead of death strike in our rotations for what I would assume a harder hitting ability.

To line them up here: (assuming glyph of dease)

Unholy pros:
3% spell hit (DC/IT)
21 sec deases (rather mute with GoD though does help)
3% str
20% auto attack damage
BCB (roughly 3.5% dps)
10% DC damage

Frost Pros
10% Frost/shadow damage
4% STR
20% AA haste
3% crit
Allows Obliterate instead of DS (unknown by me how much dps this would add)

taking these into account frost seems to my eyes pull ahead if using obliterate increases dps by 3% over DS then it would cancel out BCB and frost would have the better talents point for point as well as utility.

If my logic is flawed please point it out.

 

Facerollinc

I think the only real benefit about going frost supspec is Icy Talons.. Black Ice would only affect your diseases/Shadowmournce Proc/Death Coil
As for OBL over DS I dont see that be viable at all either. You dont get the increased critical damage bonus talent for OBL unless you go down to Gorefiend in the frost tree which is impossible to achieve w/ out going frost. You would however be able to reach Might of Morgraine to increase your DS critical bonus dmg. Also, you HAVE to pick up Improved DS in order to continue down to DRW, the only way to pass it up is to pick up usless talents that wouldnt be an increase to your DPS anyways. (VampBlood/Bloodtap/etc)

So unless i'm missing something, Unholy supspec is the way to go as it has been for a while.

EDIT: Also, Unholy provides higher single target dps with Shadowmorune. So unless you want to go Blood for Hysteria buff and you have an enhance shaman/MM hunter, Unholy would be the way to go.

 

Kyin77

I think you missed my point. I was comparing the 2 subspecs to each other for what they bring.

from what iv seen, Obliterate does 110% weapon damage + 706 + 25%. Deathstrike does 98.5% weapon damage + 374. both have a similar glyph for equal damage. Hard to comapre how much dps this would add. The biggest loss for frost sub is 14secs on disease.

Now, im not intersted in if Unholy does more single target dps or what not, I am just concerned with which subspec does more dps and why. And if Obliterate can be viable for blood over deathstrike.

 

Chani

Well as I posted, the frost spec if very comparable to the unholy spec. Its a couple of dps... but if you can work with the short diseases (which means very much knowing when to ITPS or DS, which is the major task with this spec) then I would prefer the frost sub for short gcd.
As for Obliterate, maybe I get the chance to test it on live, but the OBL base dame is approximately only 25-30% higher, but you loose 45% dmg on 50-60% of all hits. Which would come out to be equal BUT you loose alot of crit on OBL...

ah if I see it right you gain 9% crit on OBL and only 6% on DS? Mh maybe we should give it a try... but then, the krit bonus was removed to render obl useless to blood.

 

Chani

I tried it bit with OBL tonight... and I had the feeling the the OBL crit where as high as the DS crits, which should in the end be more damage. I started a Sim then, whith this resulst:

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances			Uptime
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
MainHand	1617348500	34,2	171707	12553,9	65060	37,9	7275,7	63772	37,1	14520,5	132	,1	42875	25	5084,2
HeartStrike	1399458600	29,6	111195	12585,6	56614	50,9	7352,6	54581	49	18013,6	86	,1
Obliterate	428976568	9,1	28362	15125	14450	50,9	10154,9	13912	49	20287,4	23	,1
DeathCoil	300198374	6,3	44895	6686,7	27904	60,1	4853,1	16991	36,6	9698	1562	3,4
Diseases.FrostFever	196802990	4,2	104460	1884	104460	100	1884									87,5
Diseases.BloodPlague	196131121	4,1	104059	1884,8	104059	100	1884,8									87
DRW: Melee	117836394	2,5	30700	5111,3	11570	37,7	2954,8	11484	37,4	5906,9			7646	24,9	2068,4
PlagueStrike	109536358	2,3	21363	5127,4	12771	59,7	3660,4	8592	40,2	7307,8	17	,1
IcyTouch	92146382	1,9	21680	4250,3	13374	59,7	3072,8	8306	37,1	6146,2	723	3,2
BloodWorms	79268587	1,7	351080	225,8	351080	100
Ghoul	81665687	1,7	94771	1280,8	53280	56,2	1022,3	10479	11,1	1740,4			31012	32,7	289
DRW: Heart Strike	47031124	1	18014	2610,8	11406	63,3	1911,4	6608	36,7	3818
Army of the Dead	27982447	,6	335840	83,3	292044	87	82	43796	13	91,9
DRW: Death Coil	12693855	,3	5943	2135,9	3604	58,7	1531,3	2339	38,1	4788,7	201	3,3
DRW: Obliterate	11557985	,2	5414	2134,8	3385	62,5	1551,3	2029	37,5	3108,3
DRW: Plaque Strike	7435476	,2	3735	1990,8	2350	62,9	1451	1385	37,1
DRW: Icy Touch	4952780	,1	3639	1361	2209	58,9	978,3	1430	38,1	1952,3	111	3
DPS	13142(+/- 3170)
Total Damage	4731,02m	in 100h
Total runic power used: 2074460 (6588 wasted)
Threat Per Second	7795
Generated in	29s
Template:	kathablood
Priority:	Blood
Presence:	Blood
Sigil:	Virulence
RuneEnchant:	FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation:	True

DeathStrike	518144416	10,7	35181	14728	19051	54,1	8841,6	16130	45,8	21680,3	21	,1
Obliterate	428976568	9,1	28362	15125	14450	50,9	10154,9	13912	49	20287,4	23	,1

So two things:
(1) Obl does more average damage than DS.
(2) with OBL you do less damage. This is because in the SIM you have to change Prio from:
DRM DS->IT->PS->HS->DC
into
IT->PS->DRM OBL->HS->DC
So you dont have the advantge of a full damage DS without diseases on the boss, and this is especially important with 15s diseases.

 

Decaying

Your analysis is wrong. Post your full DS sim results and I'll go into more detail. This has been simmed before, and shown to not be viable. You can also tell it's not viable just by reviewing the talents you gain versus what you lose.

 

Chani

The full DS sim is the SIM a couple of posts above.

Your saying its not viable, what the result of my analysis is, and still say my analysis is wrong. Not sure where you're aiming for... Should be basic math that OBL is stronger than DS if their crit values are comparable. The Key is that you cant OBL as much as DS, for Priority reasons...

 

Decaying

Re-run the sims to show non damaging abilities and post both full results. I assume you're using GoD, correct?

Edit: I looked at your DS sim results above and don't see any necrosis or bcb entries. Why are you comparing the same subfrost build but only swapping DS for Obliterate? A more useful comparison would be comparing results from the standard 51/0/20 build to your proposed 51/20/0 obliterate build.

 

Chani

The original question by kyin77 was if with a frostsubspec OBL is better than DS, and I gave the answer. I already said that with my setup the dps difference is marginal between forst and blood subspec and I also posted why. I just wanted to show for those interested that even with a frost subspec OBL is worse than DS (but does more damage on its own)

 

Chani

Here are the two parses. And no I dont like the GOD builds... maybe they perform better, but not for my personal playstyle... as you can see the difference is a mere 300 dps (in SIM), I am pretty sure they perform equal on live.

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances			Uptime
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
MainHand	1607885282	34,5	170426	12575,2	64651	37,9	7288,5	63211	37,1	14548,8	132	,1	42564	25	5099
HeartStrike	1344211981	28,8	108359	12405,2	55208	50,9	7256,3	53151	49	17753,3	86	,1
DeathStrike	507248505	10,9	35141	14434,7	19065	54,2	8680	16076	45,7	21259,3	23	,1
DeathCoil	308324979	6,6	46075	6691,8	28680	60,2	4858,2	17395	36,5	9715	1598	3,4
Diseases.FrostFever	172991600	3,7	90721	1906,9	90721	100	1906,9									76
Diseases.BloodPlague	171716190	3,7	90159	1904,6	90159	100	1904,6									75,6
DRW: Melee	110822942	2,4	28848	5113,9	10890	37,7	2957,1	10781	37,4	5913,7			7177	24,9	2071,1
PlagueStrike	95588932	2	18593	5141,1	11163	60	3672,8	7430	39,9	7347,1	15	,1
IcyTouch	79923561	1,7	18601	4296,7	11459	59,7	3106,1	7142	37,2	6207,1	605	3,2
BloodWorms	78842543	1,7	351080	224,6	351080	100
Ghoul	79735182	1,7	91725	1288,2	51745	56,4	1030,7	10152	11,1	1748,3			29828	32,5	290
DRW: Heart Strike	44523134	1	17290	2575,1	10982	63,5	1887	6308	36,5	3773,1
Army of the Dead	27237302	,6	315992	86,2	274785	87	85,1	41207	13	93,6
DRW: Death Strike	16336464	,4	5649	2891,9	3617	64	2125,5	2032	36	4256,2
DRW: Death Coil	12073502	,3	5629	2144,9	3411	58,6	1540	2218	38,1	4410,4	192	3,3
DRW: Plaque Strike	5460242	,1	2757	1980,5	1735	62,9	1440,1	1022	37,1
DRW: Icy Touch	4133238	,1	3026	1365,9	1849	59,2	983,3	1177	37,7	1966,9	97	3,1
DPS	12964(+/- 3167)
Total Damage	4667,06m	in 100h
Total runic power used: 2110740 (3095 wasted)
Threat Per Second	7693
Generated in	21s
Template:	kathablood
Priority:	Blood
Presence:	Blood
Sigil:	Virulence
RuneEnchant:	FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation:	True

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances			Uptime
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
MainHand	1341505268	27,8	143135	12491,9	54242	37,9	7227,3	53148	37,1	14460,3	113	,1	35745	25	5062,1
HeartStrike	1336647269	27,7	107983	12378,3	58109	53,8	7410,8	49874	46,2	18166	86	,1
DeathStrike	502875191	10,4	36000	13968,8	20603	57,2	8619,6	15397	42,7	21126,5	24	,1
DeathCoil	327488985	6,8	47263	6929,1	29396	62	5028,9	17867	37,7	10055,4	133	,3
Necrosis	260660611	5,4	143135	1821,1	143135	100
Diseases.FrostFever	178984481	3,7	104344	1715,3	104344	100	1715,3									87,3
Diseases.BloodPlague	177053578	3,7	103213	1715,4	103213	100	1715,4									86,8
BloodCakedBlade	144946224	3	43137	3360,1	43137	99,9	3360,1				32	,1
PlagueStrike	101563378	2,1	18000	5642,4	10261	57	3621,2	7739	43	8322,4	14	,1
DRW: Melee	91688646	1,9	23952	5097,2	8944	37,3	2941,8	9044	37,8	5869,9			5964	24,9	2060,6
BloodWorms	68352579	1,4	340380	200,8	340380	100
Ghoul	99385533	2,1	83199	1741,1	47784	57,4	1410,5	9298	11,2	2351,5			26117	31,4	387,5
IcyTouch	60635518	1,3	18000	3368,6	11060	61,3	2435,7	6940	38,5	4855,4	46	,3
Army of the Dead	45037045	,9	283968	158,6	246600	86,8	157,7	37368	13,2	164,8
DRW: Heart Strike	41022796	,9	15403	2663,3	9696	62,9	1944,7	5707	37,1	3884,2
DRW: Death Strike	16858285	,3	5870	2871,9	3705	63,1	2103,8	2165	36,9	4186,5
DRW: Death Coil	12347320	,3	5746	2148,9	3455	59,9	1538	2291	39,7	4678,6	22	,4
DRW: Plaque Strike	6725394	,1	3370	1995,7	2095	62,2	1451,2	1275	37,8
DRW: Icy Touch	4576159	,1	3358	1362,8	2043	60,6	979,8	1315	39	1957,7	11	,3
DPS	13384(+/- 3346)
Total Damage	4818,35m	in 100h
Total runic power used: 2098400 (64 wasted)
Threat Per Second	7900
Generated in	25s
Template:	Blood 51-00-20
Priority:	Blood
Presence:	Blood
Sigil:	Virulence
RuneEnchant:	FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation:	True

 

Kaejin

If you don't want to use an Unholy subspec then no one is going to force you, but the evidence (including your own sims) supports it being superior to Frost.

Being stubborn about it isn't going to magically make Frost subspec better.

Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh.

 

Kaejin

You're right, I did dumb math on the % business and I'm not sure what I was thinking there.

I still maintain that 300 DPS isn't what you would want to call something trivial, though. It's definitely a big enough gap that most people wouldn't consider saying the two specs perform equally. As an example, blood builds take Bloodworms because they do 100-200 DPS, despite the fact that there are other options that effect utility and play and even though some people don't like them.

Now I'm going to try to figure out what I was doing when I thought 9.6% was a reasonable number.

Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh.

 

rh8452

I have no idea why disease uptime is so low in both parses. On a tank and spank boss your diseases should never, ever fall off.

Both sub frost and Obliterate were theorycrafted a long time ago and proven to be a DPS loss. Blood has not changed whatsoever since that time, nor have any game mechanics that affect it. In addition, GoD is also a DPS increase once near or at arpen cap due to the gain of an extra HS.

GoD is also exceedingly handy on heroic lich king. Blood is a solid spec for this fight (essentially one of the only fights which matters anymore), glyph of HS is an insignificant DPS loss replacing glyph of DS if you want an additional valk snare, Blood's cleave is exceptional when two raging spirits are active in transitions, and more.

51/0/20 is the -only- Blood DPS build which is viable. No other subspecs, no other FU strike, no futzing around, will produce more or even equal DPS than that build will. It has not changed since Ulduar. It has been proven many, many times now and will probably continue to be the same until 4.0.

 

Kaitliac

This is *always* an excellent reason to be blood, especially in a melee heavy raid, so long as WF and magic damage are already covered.

Sadly I believe you're probably mistaken. I think when playing, the gap would increase, not decrease. For reference, I was heavily into DW shadow-frost before the frost tree was redone to kill it, so let me shed some light on the root comparisons with what blood has access to.

Frost gains the 20% haste (always nice for a melee dps focused class), the 10% frost and shadow damage (negligible increases from either to diseases, a very small bump to death coil which should also be low). 3% crit on melee abilities. And 4% str. You can not take anything from UH and still get Endless Winter.

Unholy gains 3% spell hit, 6% crit and 30% damage on crit on plague strike, 15% damage on death coil (in a non GoD build), 3% str. Longer diseases. Then it also gains 20% non physical damage on auto attacks. And gains a 30% chance for 25% weapon damage + 12.5% per disease on auto attack.

So, let's break it down into a comparison. 20% melee haste versus necrosis, BCB, and longer diseases. While the haste does affect your GCD probably to the point where you can compress a rotation into your default disease duration, it's not really increasing your dps from anything except auto attack and maybe the odd death coil. Unholy pulls fairly far ahead here, since necrosis alone versus icy talons is fairly close to even.

The frost and shadow damage increases do help with disease damage, but even with someone else providing crypt fever, diseases shouldn't total more then 6% of your damage, probably less with more ArP. Which is really the point, this talent doesn't scale with your ArP, nor do diseases. 15% more death coil damage is obviously more than what death coil gains from 10% shadow damage. Between the two alone it comes out as fairly close to even. Plague strike gains a small boost (on a small portion of your damage) and should even out any gains Icy Touch would get from Black Ice and even some of IIT, especially since PS scales with ArP and IT doesn't. And your raid buffed crit should be nearing 50%.

What you're really left with are 3% spell hit (remember, if you miss with IT you just lost a GCD, which is huge in blood, although with a standard rotation an IT miss sets you back far less than DS or HS misses mid rotation) on Unholy's side, and an extra 1% str and 3% melee ability crit on Frost's. Really, the only thing interesting here is the 1% str... 3% melee specials crit can't even come close to making up the gap BCB creates. The 1% extra str is interesting and probably the only thing that gives something of a gear scaling edge to frost, but still shouldn't come close to BCB.

What you *really* need to focus on are how much of either provides scaling with ArP. Even without resorting to a sim it should be obvious that while the frost sub spec is "viable" it simply can't hold even with the unholy sub specs, especially as gear increases. While a sim might manage to play both to within 300 dps of each other in your gear, part of that is going to be the sim managing to make use of the 20% haste from Icy Talons very efficiently. In real play, this is likely to only really be a bonus to your auto attack. Not to mention that even a sim isn't going to magically find extra RP in a blood spec, even if it does gain extra GCDs. Also auto attack benefiting talents like necrosis, bcb, and icy talons tend to inflate in real play versus sims, especially if you don't sim with your latency set high enough, but also simply due to the human element. Or do you do you normally do your simmed dps?