DW Builds 3.2 -Revenge of the Offhand - Page 102

Foxx2405 · 08/27/09, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Ruik

I have been playing as Blood Spec on my DK since WoTLK Launch, but recently I felt like trying out Dual Wield Frost with the addition of ToT in 3.2. I wanted to find out a few things, but to be perfectly honest, I don't have the willpower to trudge through a 61 page thread looking for information, so if someone could answer a couple of questions for me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

1. I assumed that since I'd be using 2x2.6 speed weapons and all my strikes hit with both weapons, that RoTFC would have the same uptime if it was on my offhand weapon, so I should us RI on my main hand for higher damage, is this correct?

2. I really don't like the idea of playing without Subversion, I've been playing with it all this time I'm not sure I could manage my threat without it, are there any viable Frost DW specs that include this talent? I came up with a spec on my own, but I'm not sure how it would perform.

3/52/16

3. Quick question I forgot to add, sorry if it is really obvious, but BP or UP?

Thanks in advance.

1. Yes to the weapon speeds.
What enchant you put on what weapon doesn't really matter. THe damage from RI is seriously neglectable.
2. Looks good if you don't have to provide the haste buff
3. BP

EDIT:
The BiS thread still presents agility as best cloak enchant, but I guess we can assume that haste is best now?

Saabik · 08/27/09, 2:54 PM

Some more data points:

Algalon-25 - 6816 DPS. (Actual DPS to algalon 6447)
Spec: Sub-UH w/ IIT
Glyph: GoD
Rotation: IT PS OB BS BS - dump - OB OB BS PEST - dump (the 2nd rotation in the used another PS/IT with greatness/racial/SoA/UA/wrathstone procced to max rolling disease damage)

Vexaz-25 HM - 6008 DPS.
Spec: Sub-UH w/ IIT
Glyph: GoD
Rotation: IT PS OB BS BS - dump - OB OB BS PEST - dump (the 2nd rotation in the used another PS/IT with greatness/racial/SoA/UA/wrathstone procced to max rolling disease damage)

Algalon-25 - 6551 DPS. (Actual DPS to algalon 6072)
Spec: Sub-Blood
Glyph: HB
Rotation: HB OB BS BS - dump - OB OB OB - dump (HB to keep disease up, if rime procced replace with OB, single disease rotation expect for the opening it/ps)

Buffs:
Standard raid buffs
Flask
Food

Sigil:
SoV

Enchants:
FC (main)
RI (off)

Weapons:
239-pvp axes

The GoD spec could have popped a point from BCB into 5/5 KM. I'm running basically the same gear in both parses. I rolled diseases in the GoD spec, averaging about 1050 / tick. The HB spec was running 1 disease most of the time, HB to keep it up.

Edit: Added actual damage to Algalon to give more realistic single target DPS.

Foxx2405 · 08/27/09, 3:40 PM

Originally Posted by Saabik

Some more data points:

Algalon-25 - 6816 DPS.
Spec: Sub-UH w/ IIT
Glyph: GoD
Rotation: IT PS OB BS BS - dump - OB OB BS PEST - dump (the 2nd rotation in the used another PS/IT with greatness/racial/SoA/UA/wrathstone procced to max rolling disease damage

The GoD spec could have popped a point from BCB into 5/5 KM. I'm running basically the same gear in both parses. I rolled diseases in the GoD spec, averaging about 1050 / tick. The HB spec was running 1 disease most of the time, HB to keep it up.

Sorry, but why do you pick up both GoD and IIT ?

I dont see the use of investing 6 talent points in 5% haste. And GoD doesn't refresh Icy Talons so, you can't use GoD if you need to supply the haste.

Vaedron · 08/27/09, 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by Foxx2405

Sorry, but why do you pick up both GoD and IIT ?

I dont see the use of investing 6 talent points in 5% haste. And GoD doesn't refresh Icy Talons so, you can't use GoD if you need to supply the haste.

He is only wasting the points in Icy Talons when he chooses not to apply Frost Fever but rather refresh it. Often times you are only able to engage bosses in encounters for short durations of time, but a guaranteed 20 second window of Icy Talons for yourself and the group when initiating diseases especially on spawns or adds can be helpful in high mobility, multi-target fights where you don't have the luxury of using GoD each and every time.

Konata · 08/27/09, 4:10 PM

Originally Posted by Vaedron

He is not investing 6 talent points for 5% haste, but rather 6 talent points for 25% haste. Icy Talons when fully spec'd gives 20% haste to yourself and Improved Icy Talons makes it raid wide while granting yourself an additional 5% haste for a total of 25% personal haste from 6 points.

GoD spec doesn't refresh IIT like foxx said so it would be 6 points just for 5% haste.

I find RI better on the main hand since it stacks up faster for me due to the delay in ToT strikes.

7alisman · 08/27/09, 4:21 PM

@Vaedron: We all know that those 6 talent points provide 25% total personal haste. That is not at all what Foxx2405 was talking about. His post is referring to Saabik using Glyph of Disease with IIT. Basically, the issue is that a well executed GoD spec -shouldn't- be using Icy Touch apart from initial application. IIT haste buff is achieved through the "application" of diseases, and not the "refreshing" of diseases the GoD provides.

So what we have is:

IT cast, IIT buff is given to the raid

Raid has: 20% haste
Player has: 20% haste + 5%haste

Pest is used to refresh diseases and IIT buff expires

Raid has: 0 haste buff
Player has: 0 + 5% haste

In order to use a GoD spec, IIT just simply isn't viable. If you don't have a shammy to provide the haste buff, then the IIT spec w/GoD is virtually useless for your raid if its only going to be up for 20 secs.

Saabik · 08/27/09, 5:49 PM

Originally Posted by Foxx2405

Sorry, but why do you pick up both GoD and IIT ?

I dont see the use of investing 6 talent points in 5% haste. And GoD doesn't refresh Icy Talons so, you can't use GoD if you need to supply the haste.

Some fights I get an enhance shaman (or WF period), some I don't. This is a fight where I was able to ignore IIT.

For more clarification:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
(no IIT)
+1 subversion (3% crit OB/BS)
+1 hungering cold (neat utility)
+1 KM (more DPS, though I often do not find the GCD to use my rimes)
+2 Imp Frost pres (neat at best)
+1 DC (very minor DPS)

vs
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
(w/ IIT)
+5 IT (utility when no sham available, at a loss of personal DPS)
+1 IIT (5% haste)

Certainly the former offers a slight increase in DPS, and would be ideal to max DPS. However, those 6 points aren't very efficiently spent for DPS increases as there are a lack of places to put them. The later allows me to have more rDPS/gDPS in 10m and garbage heroic daily groups. You could pickup some nice things such as lichborne, more range, free interrupts, etc. which are neat, too.

I will attempt to venture into a higher DPS next week.

Hunterlool · 08/28/09, 7:15 AM

Yesterday night, we went to Algalon the Observer 25man and had him down to 3% when he began to cast a fourth Big Bang... and right after he finished his cast, he despawned for no reason

Algalon 25man - 7000 DPS

I was running a 3/52/16 Specc with GoD. At that point I only had die T9 Spaulders, no Gloves, was wearing T8 Chest and Gloves, Thorim HM Helm and Leviathan HM Leggins. I also didn´t have the OH weapon currently shown in the armory but the mace from ToC Heroic with 163 DPS.
These infos are just for a better analysis of the DPS.

Actually my DPS will go up by like 200 or 300 with the new items for the next week. Just wanted to share this with you regarding the fact that there are not that much high DPS parses from DW Death Knights at the moment.

Saabik · 08/28/09, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by Hunterlool

Yesterday night, we went to Algalon the Observer 25man and had him down to 3% when he began to cast a fourth Big Bang... and right after he finished his cast, he despawned for no reason

Algalon 25man - 7000 DPS

While this is a good parse, be weary of how much damage you actually did to Algalon. I checked the 10 attempts you had and your DPS is significantly lower when you didn't get to use HB on multiple adds (especially phase 2). If you take the damage by actor value, you had 88.9% of your damage on this attempt to Algalon, making the actual DPS to Algalon 6271. I didn't realize this made such an impact until I saw this so I went and looked at my numbers as well, they were inflated a bit so I edited my post.

In most cases I wouldn't discredit AE damage, but in fights where it isn't a goal to kill the adds it probably shouldn't be counted (my parse made the same mistake)

direddyre · 08/28/09, 2:23 PM

Originally Posted by Foxx2405

Not only slow ulduar weapons would be an upgrade. That weapon is about as good as a slow blue reptuation weapon (like [Reaper of Dark Souls]) . If i remember correctly from my deduction a few posts back going from 2.6 speed to 1.5 speed is only worth it if the faster weapon has about 60 DPS more. That means that Lionhead Slasher is upgraded by anything from naxx and beyond with a speed of 2.6 and slower.

I couldn't find your deduction, in fact I couldn't find any proper calculation of the benefit of weapon speed, just simulation.

A simulation is sort of a black box, nobody can understand exactly how the weight came to be, we just trust it because we hope we fed it the right data. A proper calculation, aka theorycrafting, however is transparent and clean, so here's an attempt, feel free to nitpick.

I'll assume raid buffed, thus about
35% crit,
30% haste (7% personal haste is not unreasonable) and
15% miss chance for white attacks for simplicity. If you want to assume a different hit, just change the miss % in the auto attack calculation, assuming special hit capped should be a given.

I will only compare average weapon damage to average dps.

I will consider neither Boss level (glancing blows etc) nor Armor Penetration, Armor Penetration would only have an effect on Frost Strike (I'm not too familiar with boss armor after sunder and a reasonable amount of armor pen). Glancing blows could have a noteworthy effect, but I'm not sure exactly how the glancing blow mechanics work, so I'll assume that the damage difference can be ignored without influencing the results too much, especially since I always assume Full Subversion and no BCB in my examples. Boss level related reductions to crit would have the opposite effect (since specials scale better with crit) and I know even less about that, overall it should alleviate the absence of glancing blows.

Attack power does not change this calculation at all since Scaling is normalised. Main Hand or Off Hand is also irrelevant since the 50% damage penalty is consistent in all relevant aspects.

I will calculate for both Subversion and BCB, and I assume an Unholy subspec at least including necrosis.
I will first calculate the value of an average point of damage for every ability that uses Weapon Damage, then determine to how much dps that translates and compare to the benefit of dps for auto attacks. Numbers are rounded to 2 decimal points.

Obliterate:

100% weapon damage, 25% diseases, 15% frost fever, 15% (24)% extra crit, 45% crit modifier

(1 * 1.25 * 1.15) * (1 + ((0.5 * 1.45) OR (0.59 * 1.45))) ~= 2.48 OR 2.66 (depending on Subversion)

Blood Strike:

44% weapon damage, 25% diseases, 15% frost fever, 0% (9%) extra crit, 45% crit modifier

(0.44 * 1.25 * 1.15) * (1 + ((0.35 * 1.45) OR (0.44 * 1.45))) ~= 0.95 OR 1.04

Plague Strike:

50% weapon damage, 15% frost fever, 6% extra crit, 30% crit modifier

(0.5 * 1.15) * (1 + (0.41 * 1.3)) ~= 0.88

Frost Strike:

60% weapon damage, 15% frost fever, 13% extra magical damage, 10% razorice, 10% Black Ice, let's say 55% crit with KM (just a qualified guess), 45% crit modifier

(0.6 * 1.15 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.13) * (1 + (0.55 * 1.45)) ~= 1.70

In 20 secs, the normal Frost DW rotation (without GoD) uses 1 Plague Strike, 2 Blood Strikes, 4 Obliterates and has space for ~5 extra globals, of which we assume 4 go to Frost Strikes

So every point of average damage yields:
(2.48 * 4 + 0.95 * 2 + 0.88 + 1.70 * 4) / 20 ~= 0.98 dps without subversion and
(2.66 * 4 + 1.04 * 2 + 0.88 + 1.70 * 4) / 20 ~= 1.02 dps with subversion

Auto Attacks:

20% (35%) extra Necrosis/BCB, ~30% haste, ~15% miss chance

((((1 * 1.2) * 1.3) * ((1 / 1.15) + 0.35)) ~= 1.90 OR 2.07 dps (BCB calculation is simply adding 15% of auto attack dmg with haste and miss, but without necrosis or crit, since it doesn't scale with either.)

This means that a weapon needs to have from 1.86 to 2.11 times more average damage than it loses dps compared to another weapon to be better, disregarding stats on the weapon (which are usually in favor of the one with the higher dps).

Applying this to the example you listed [Lionhead Slasher] vs [Reaper of Dark Souls], we get (206 + 384) / 2 = 295 average damage and 196.7 dps vs (281 + 422) / 2 = 351.5 average damage and 130.2 dps.

Translated that means 55.8 average damage vs 66.5 dps, or 56.92 dps increase vs 126.35 dps loss, assuming no BCB and full subversion. Apparently [Lionhead Slasher] is clearly superior no matter the circumstances, the gap only widens if you consider other talent specs and the higher stats on the weapon.

Comparing [Lionhead Slasher] to [Grimhorn Crusher] we get 78 avg dmg vs 53.4 dps, 79.56 dps increase vs 101.46 dps loss, again with subversion and without BCB. [Lionhead Slasher] is still better.

Comparing [Lionhead Slasher] to [Aledar's Battlestar], again full subversion, no BCB: 129.5 dmg vs 33.4 dps. This time it's 132.09 dps increase vs 63.46 dps loss. So the slower weapons quickly catch up, but I'm pretty sure if we'd use the heroic version of [Lionhead Slasher], it would be better again.

Summarizing we can say that if you choose between similar quality items, the slower one always wins, but if you have vast differences in quality (more than 2 tiers), the faster one is probably better and the better weapon is always better equipped in the main hand, regardless of speed.

doomtusk · 08/28/09, 3:52 PM

I noticed that in the "most promising" Frost DW tree you linked to didn't have Deathchill. I always thought that being guaranteed a critical strike every 2 minutes was something that was too good to pass up.

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but could I please be given an explanation why this was ruled out? Is it lacking in dps or is it a waste of a point, etc.?

teiglin · 08/28/09, 3:56 PM

Originally Posted by direddyre

I will consider neither Boss level (glancing blows etc) nor Armor Penetration, Armor Penetration would only have an effect on Frost Strike (I'm not too familiar with boss armor after sunder and a reasonable amount of armor pen). Glancing blows could have a noteworthy effect, but I'm not sure exactly how the glancing blow mechanics work, so I'll assume that the damage difference can be ignored without influencing the results too much, especially since I always assume Full Subversion and no BCB in my examples. Boss level related reductions to crit would have the opposite effect (since specials scale better with crit) and I know even less about that, overall it should alleviate the absence of glancing blows.

Glancing blows are fairly easy; the best understanding (to my knowledge) is that 24% of your white hits glance against bosses and each glancing blow does 70% normal damage, which means, for the purposes of this sort of math, your white damage is reduced by 16.8%.

ArP is quite a bit harder to include, since it varies from person to person or even during a fight thanks to effects like mjolnir, time spent stacking sunders, or shattering throw, but here are a couple numbers assuming fully debuffed boss (sunder/ff): at no armor pen, mitigation is 35%; at 30% ArP, mitigatin is about 27%, and at 100% ArP, mitigation is 2%. Also, don't forget about FS partial resists, which account for ~5% damage loss, iirc.

One last note, you mentioned 30% personal haste, but because of multiplicative haste buff stacking, non-IIT spec only needs 5.2% haste on gear (not 7%) to break 30% melee haste with, and IIT spec has nearly that with zero haste gear (7% haste on an IIT spec has almost 39% melee haste).

7alisman · 08/28/09, 4:44 PM

@direddyre

It is fantastic to have 'clear cut' theorycrafting and thought process behind the numbers. But you are forgetting quite possibly the most important aspect of being a DK. Our damage is not based on weapon speed, but rather individual strike damage. The argument isn't so "clear cut" when you think of weapon DPS in this manor.

Take a look at base rank 4 Obliterate for a second:

Obliterate: A brutal instant attack that deals 80% weapon damage plus 467.2, total damage increased 12.5% per each of your diseases on the target, but consumes the diseases.

The modifier that is used, is not the "average dps", but rather the roll of that individual strike.

In the case of the items you used for comparison:

[Lionhead Slasher] strike damage is: 206-384
Average strike = (206+384) / 2 = 295

[Aledar's Battlestar] strike damage is 297-552
Average Strike = (297+552) / 2 = 424.5

295 / 424.5 * 100
= 69%

Meaning that your -average- strike with [Lionhead Slasher] will be 31% less than those of the [Aledar's Battlestar]. In fact, the [Lionhead Slasher] is so inferior, that its -average- strike damage is in fact, less than the MINIMUM strike damage of the [Aledar's Battlestar].

Hopefully this helps to iron out your confusion, and prevent the question from being asked again. Then again, that is what we thought last time the discussion came and passed.

Antimortem · 08/28/09, 4:47 PM

Originally Posted by doomtusk

I noticed that in the "most promising" Frost DW tree you linked to didn't have Deathchill. I always thought that being guaranteed a critical strike every 2 minutes was something that was too good to pass up.

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but could I please be given an explanation why this was ruled out? Is it lacking in dps or is it a waste of a point, etc.?

To put it briefly, it is a low value of DPS for the point.

Think of it this way, if you have a 30% crit chance in raids, and you also have Killing Machine procs, this devalues additional crit. The same goes for a button you can press every 2 minutes to guarantee a crit.

If it is used when you have a KM crit on a KM eligible attack, you would have crit anyway.

If you have a 30% crit rate, then you are gaining 70% crit chance on one attack every 2 minutes.

I believe if you ponder on this you will see it as a low value talent, at least in terms of PvE, with no mathematical figuring necessary.

direddyre · 08/28/09, 5:08 PM

Originally Posted by teiglin

Glancing blows are fairly easy; the best understanding (to my knowledge) is that 24% of your white hits glance against bosses and each glancing blow does 70% normal damage, which means, for the purposes of this sort of math, your white damage is reduced by 16.8%.

The interesting question would be how it interacts with crit. Does crit push glancing off the table like it does with hits? Or can a crit be converted to a glancing blow? Depending on that it could have a much lower effect.
Also it would probably not affect BCB since BCB cannot glance, but it would affect Necrosis.

(I think you calculated 70% of 24%, you probably mean 30% of 24%, making the dps loss quite a bit lower at 7.2%)

Good point about FS partial resists

One last note, you mentioned 30% personal haste, but because of multiplicative haste buff stacking, non-IIT spec only needs 5.2% haste on gear (not 7%) to break 30% melee haste with, and IIT spec has nearly that with zero haste gear (7% haste on an IIT spec has almost 39% melee haste).

Due to the way haste works (Increasing amount of attacks in the same time frame instead of reducing attack speed) I don't think it can actually stack multiplicatively, it's like crit in that it just adds on top. I did forget the 5% personal haste from IIT though.

Overall I'm a bit too lazy to redo calculations, especially since the point still stands/is even stronger than before.