My intention was that those points (as well as the one in HC) were only there for filler purposes. Personally I think I might go for 2p Endless Winter and 1p Icy Reach, but it all depends on the content really.

@Stat sets: I wonder if we could make some kind of standard that would allow people to trade the stats around for themselves, obviously putting some kind of caps (and/or diminishing returns, similar to how items are actually itemised) so people don't just put it all in strength. Maybe it really is better to go with fully premade stat sets for the sake of simplicity though, dunno.

The thing with having set stats is it alleviates the problem of different stats. Like I said, I tried to have group for each type, i.e. one for an Unholy Build, one for a Frost Build, and one for in between/Blood-like build. People can take it for what they want, but allowing them to edit them makes it harder and somewhat defeats to purpose of having set stats. The idea of caps/diminishing returns is nice, but that takes time away from the actual theorycrafting in exchange for just making stat sets.

@Kyruski: I guess it would take too much time to implement a "smart" system for stat distribution, yeah. However, looking over your stat sets, I noticed their stat totals vary quite a bit, and we probably want to normalise this. There's also the issue of overcapping Expertise - as far as I know nearly every build that's used gets 5/6 Expertise from talents, putting the cap at 173 rating. I also think it would be useful to differentiate the stats between builds a bit more - 70 Expertise Rating difference between the one with the highest and the lowest one seems like a too small difference for example. My suggestion for tweaks to the sets:

	Stat Set 1	Stat Set 2	Stat Set 3
Str	1860	1880	1880
Agi	200	200	200
Crit	790	770	735
Hit	300	270	365
Haste	200	125	320
Exp	175	175	125
ArP	225	330	125
AP	500	500	500
Total	4000	4000	4000

Note: AP counts as 1/2 stat for the total

Here is a quick 100h 200ms simulation of 0/18/53 with no set bonuses and Awareness Sigil.

Ability Total % Landed Hit% Crit% Miss% Average
Obliterate 386385859 14 71212 57 42 0 5425
Plague Strike 32138255 1 17811 51 48 0 1804
Icy Touch 50581315 1 17806 67 32 0 2840
Blood Strike 73285441 2 35611 57 42 0 2057
Death Coil 305785859 11 68100 66 32 0 4490
UB 91738185 3 68100 100 0 0 1347
Frost Fever 137053986 5 109237 100 0 0 1254
Blood Plague 136900356 5 109116 100 0 0 1254
Necrosis 130362894 4 291868 100 0 0 446
Blood Caked Blade 83592460 3 86999 100 0 0 960
Wandering Plague 113522485 4 90476 99 0 0 1254
Main Hand 413801620 15 145961 41 42 15 2835
Off Hand 237964207 9 145907 41 42 15 1630
Ghoul 328970473 12 364810 87 12 0 901
Gargoyle 103001320 3 30180 86 12 0 3412
DPS 7292
Total Damage 2625084715 in 100 h
Threat Per Second 4913
Generated in 473s
Template :OB001853.xml(C:\Users\Ben\Desktop\DKSimulator0.9.4\Templates\OB001853.xml)
Priority :MyOB001853.xml(C:\Users\Ben\Desktop\DKSimulator0.9.4\Priority\MyOB001853.xml)
Presence :Blood
Sigil of :Awareness
RuneForge :FallenCrusader / FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation :True

@Astalion: The newest simulation model added the 3% Strength bonus and the corrected BCB change which makes the slow weapon setup I used to deal more DPS. That is part of the reason why your simulations are coming short.

@Orlgin: Already had those ;P I was however missing some bug fixes for pets, and the addition of horn of winter (not stated in any of the notes I could find :/). I'm now getting 7022 dps, which matches up almost perfectly (within 10 dps) with your results (that is, removing the additional damage of RoR autoattacks and 30% UB)

I think premade stat sets are really the next step here to get everyone talking on the same page regarding the simulator. A trading system would require stat weights, and dynamic ones at that. Let's keep it simple.

Once we determine numbers we're using, perhaps we can update the OP to make it clear that simulations should be using those sets. I'd draw up the sets myself, but I'm more on the PvP side and definitely do not know what high-end raid stats look like

Valid concern regarding scaling. Perhaps we develop realistic premade stat sets for a few stat priorities? My concern with the "mix and match" gear approach is that we cannot conclusively state that one spec beats out another because of the talents if the gear is not identical. Furthermore, it would be pretty tough to establish the talent point or stat values we need if both talents and gear are dynamic.

If we can come up with some good normalized stat sets for the simulator I'd be happy to include it in my planned revise of the OP tonight. (continuing last night's work)

I think I'm going to remove the AMS soaking section and replace it with a "Using the simulator" section. I'll post a link to the Sim thread, and list the preset stats. Also, if anyone wants to right up a barebones "how to" on using the simulator and send it to me in a PM that would rock. I think there are quite a few people who are having problems getting into the simulator.

Edit- Having 3 baseline sets would be the easiest, but as posted above obviously frost and unholy have fairly different APE breakdowns. Could we perhaps come up with three logical presets for Frost, and three for Unholy?

-Frost-
Low
Mid
High

-Unholy-
Low
Mid
High

Also, since nobody is going to have tier 9 the first week, I suggest we have the "high" set as current ulduar hardmode loot. What we need to find is the best build to start the new content, so obviously we won't be considering new gear yet.


2nd edit- To clarify, I'm aware the simulator has a readme file, however, if anyone has any specific advice regarding using the simulator for DW builds, feel free to send me a write up.

@ the OP - Is there a reason that UA is not taken in both of your frost builds?

The disease build clearly states that one point can be removed from BcB to UA if the user wants, as for the other build, it uses the "core" 51 point frost talents, you could easily remove a point from blood or unholy to grab UA. I'm sure as time goes on and more frost builds get added, we will figure out if taking UA is worth the trouble of saving tap to use it correctly. (Hint- Still looking for frost builds for the OP)

I just tested KM's interaction with TOT on the PTR, and it seems like when performing a frost strike both hands now crit at 100%.

Test: I removed all of my gear other than two weapons to reduce my natural crit chance. Over the course of 100 frost strikes, (Only using frost strike when KM was active) I got a result of the following.

98 Crits
1 Dodge
1 Miss


Now, I can't explain the dodge and miss, but with a critical chance of 13% the only explanation I can come up with in regards to the 98 crits is that KM has been changed. I also performed around 20 frost strikes under KM and checked the combat log each time in-between strikes, always the result was double crit.

This change might not be massive, but it does make frost strike more appealing for sure.

I think its worth checking then if OB gets double chance to proc Rime still.

If you aren't Exp capped or Hit capped, then it's easy to see how it can miss. Remember, FS can now be dodge, parried, and blocked.

Right, I wasn't thinking about that change. I was too excited to see that it crits on both hands now.

If KM now works for off-hand as well, does this change the attack priority? Or will HB still out damage a double crit from FS? If a KM FS crit deals more damage than a HB crit, is it worth it to put more point into KM?

OB still does alot more damage than FS and HB. So it will still be better to use KM on Rime stuff anyways since it has a much lower crit chance and about same damage as FS. Not sure if KM would be worth more now though. But I doubt the change would make it better than the other talents you dropped points for.

Does this stat weight list still hold true? Expertise really holds that high of a value? or is that just until cap.

@murder187: Well, that's what the EP simulation gave me, it does kinda make sense as nearly everything the spec uses is melee attacks/strikes. Of course that's only until the cap - expertise has no effect at all after that (assuming you're behind the boss ofc), and for dps purposes there is no softcap.

Thanks for the reply. I'm trying to layout my gear choice upgrades before 3.2.

Edit: One last question, what’s the consensus on the 4 piece T8 bonus? Should keeping that bonus take priority or would a patchwork of gear yield better results?

@murder187: With the main dps source being Obliterate, it seems like the best choice would be sticking to 4p T8, and my testing so far agrees. I'll see if I can get some rough EP values for it though, since we very well might want to start grabbing loot from the new tier. Might even look at T9 set EP values, but that would mean some unconfirmed assumptions (Assuming no internal CD on the 2p proc as well as the listed 50% proc chance, and assuming the Disease crit chance from 4p would be based on our spellcrit - has any testing shown anything else?)

Simulation for 0/18/53 with 9.5 version of simulator (No Rage of Rivendare bonus for melee):

Ability Total % Landed Hit% Crit% Miss% Average
Obliterate 3829400286 15 709252 57 42 0 5399
Plague Strike 317846939 1 177336 51 48 0 1792
Icy Touch 505135199 2 177323 63 31 4 2848
Blood Strike 725811466 2 354628 57 42 0 2046
Death Coil 2901229472 11 647447 64 31 4 4481
UB 870391873 3 647447 100 0 0 1344
Frost Fever 1371045971 5 1094679 100 0 0 1252
Blood Plague 1363460717 5 1087198 100 0 0 1254
Necrosis 1154481963 4 2916480 100 0 0 395
Blood Caked Blade 808195754 3 875043 100 0 0 923
Wandering Plague 1104419698 4 881056 95 0 4 1253
Main Hand 3664739756 14 1458918 38 42 18 2511
Off Hand 2107328948 8 1457562 38 42 19 1445
Ghoul 3284041195 13 3648092 87 12 0 900
Gargoyle 1114565003 4 325972 82 12 4 3419
EP Stat DryRun
DPS 6978
Total Damage 25122094240 in 1000 h
Threat Per Second 4645
Generated in 1659s
Template :OB001853.xml(C:\Users\Ben\Desktop\DKSimulator0.9.5\Templates\OB001853.xml)
Priority :OBDW001853.xml(C:\Users\Ben\Desktop\DKSimulator0.9.5\Priority\OBDW001853.xml)
Presence :Blood
Sigil of :Awareness
RuneForge :FallenCrusader / FallenCrusader
Pet Calculation :True

EP Stat AttackPower
DPS 7048
Total Damage 25374149917 in 1000 h

******************EP CALCULATOR************************
EP :AttackPower = 100
EP :Strength = 308
EP :Agility = 94
EP :CritRating = 145
EP :HasteRating = 145
EP :ArmorPenetrationRating = 160


No set bonuses were used for this simulation data. The runeforges used were FC/FC. Glyphs used were Obliterate, Ghoul, and Dark Death. It uses a corrected version of statset2 that was editted to have 500 AP and 300 ArP. The EP calculator broke when it hit Expertise again as the values for Expertise and lower all looked wrong so I didn't include those.

Well regarding the lack of "Set Stats" for simulations that people are posting, would it be a good idea to make a BIS set(including hard modes) so that our simulations are unified? Since the BCB discussion is over, and we understand which weapon speed would take over in the next patch regarding off-hand, is it safe to assume that we can build a BIS set to use for data collection?