That would be nice indeed.

We don't really need to have a set as much as simply some stats that come close enough to BiS to be usable. I think 90% of us are using Kahorie's simulator (be it slightly adjusted).

I'm running some screening tests right now on a 3/52/16 kind of spec and see what i come up with. Changing some stuff around each time as a 100 hour test only takes like 50 seconds to complete anyway.

The only problem I've found so far is that i can not select in the priority rotation to use KM on rime procs. I can select KM HB and Rime separately but that's not really what i want. So for the sake of not bugging out the results i just opted for using KM FS's. If anyone has a solution for this let me know, if not ill just stick with this.

I was thinking of a way to use the Glyph of Howling Blast instead of the glyph of Blood Strike (assuming you needed to provide IIT).

The basic rotation (after a starter, probably one used in conjunction with empowered rune weapon) is:

OB>FS>OB>XX>YY>FS

Where XX is either HB, BS, or IT

and YY is alternating BS and PS.

Ok, now for the serious napkin math:

First, XX would break down ~27% IT, this is the chance that 4 OBs produced no rime procs, and you need to IT to refresh Frost Fever. ~48% would be Howling Blast as if Rime procs, its always used, and thats the chance of getting a rime proc on 2 consecutive Obliterates. That leaves ~25% BSs.

Using Astalions post at http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t64830-d...0/#post1322966 I took the BS and divided out the 1.2 multiplier from the BS glyph, to get values of IT, BS, and HB of 3419, 4903.33 and 7008 respectively. Using the ratios of HB, BS and IT above, this comes to an average damage of 5504.88 for XX. In constrast, alternating IT and BS would get you an average damage of 4161.17, a net gain of 1343.72. For comparison, on a per 10s basis, Glyph of Blood Stike generates 980.67 extra damage.

Its not quite that rosy though. In fact, you are losing RP using HB instead of BS or IT. Using the proportions again, you are producing about 8.97 RP per 10s, instead of 12.5. To generate the RP needed there are a couple of avenues open (Blood Tap, Empowered Rune Weapon, etc.) But I decided to look at if you just replaced your FS's with Rime HB's (alternating IT and BS in the XX spot). With the rotation having an imediate RP dump after your OBs, you can use 1.11 HBs per 20s, meaning that on a 10s basis you will average generating 19.04 RP.

That means that you can use HB in the XX slot about 79% of the time, with 21% of if being used instead of FS. When you use it as a FS replacement ~21%, you lose about 90 DPS. That means that overall with no outside sourse of RP, and not using ERW or BT, you get an overal lincrease of 970.66 DPS, only 10 off of GoBS. Considering the limitation of GoBS with slows, and the fact you can easily generate 75 RP with ERW (enough to run the HB, IT, BS rotation for 2+ minutes).

This of course isnt entirely accurate, because Im using ability damage numbers from another rotation/spec, but I think its enough to show that it is a competitive alternative to GoBS, and under the right circumstances, quite possibly better. Without having to worried about if there is a applicable slow to proc the GoBS bonus.

I was actually thinking about the same when I was making some specs for simulator tests.

I can see if i can run a HB glyph spec / rotation through the simulator. I just have to figure out how you would order the prioritization.
(Actually a set rotation might be easier for this idea).
----------

As for the simulator tests i've run.

I tested a couple of builds, namely:

- 3-52-16 (3/5 KM) ;; 6814 DPS
- 3-52-16 (0/2 MC) ;; 6795 DPS
- 3-53-15 (4/5 KM) ;; 6788 DPS
- 0-54-17 (2/3 BCB) ;; 6816 DPS
- 0-53-18 (4/5 KM) ;; 6836 DPS

Variables at the bottom of the post.

Things i noted (most already known though):

- KM is the best frost talent to steal points from, Merciless Combat (MC) is more dps.
- Apparently subversion is worse than BCB.
- I tested out razorice and FC on the offhand, RI is better
- Unholy presence is a huge dps loss, which I more than expected but i just tested it.

However, this is far from conclusive. The gear setup i used is far from perfect, not to mention you can not see the scaling.

If anyone wants raw data let me know, ill redo the test and post it.


Variables used

200 ms, 500 hour tests, FC/RI, Glyph of BS, Blood Presence.

Priority rotation for all specs:
Stats for all specs (same as Orlgin):

Actually my priority rotation is not so good in that manner.

I changed it too: Which gave me some better DPS.

53/18 is now at 6860 dps.

However they are all close enough to call it pretty much even. This build still seems to be an edge behind unholy DW spec though. Which i personally find annoying as i'm not a fan of the latter. Spamming the same single rune abilities (disease starters nontheless) to hoard RP seems a bit dimensionless.

@Foxx2405 I got the best numbers from a frost build with 2/51/18 taking points from KM and Subversion to boost bcb to 3 points. Then this is the priority i used.

FrostFever
BloodPlague
Obliterate
BloodStrike
FrostStrike
Rime

A km boosted frost strike isn't worth interrupting your rotation as you will never have enough rune power to full up your bar even with the glyph of icytouch.

Also if you go with the 18/54 unholy build using Obliterate your damage will be great and your rotation will be almost identical to 3x obliterate frost builds only with Death Coils instead of frost strikes. Thats what i gather from it anyways.

Looks like BS changes have been reverted back to the original amount. This make BS glyph pretty bad now compare to the others I believe.

So it looks like IT/HB/Disease glyphs are left to be compared for the 3rd slot for Frost DW.

I think IT would be the best unless disease is changed to refresh IIT. HB seems like it would be a confusing one to work in way Odii has it. Disease probably is the best for personal dps, but is a pretty big raid buff loss.

Yea my rotation was suboptimal, and i didnt really have time to improve on it.

You could be right about the unholy build in that regard. I personally think its really bad design by blizzard when obliterate does more damage because of a 3th disease then because you spec into frost, but maybe thats just me.
I'm in a bit of a divide at the moment, because i personally don't know what i should chose if unholy turns out to be just as good or better for DW.
On one side I was really looking forward to the dual strikes (ToT), not to mention my rogues already worship me for the possibility i'll provide them with 20% haste next patch.
On the other side, my favorite tree is still unholy. I like the ghoul (although he's a liability in a lot of fights), and the 13% magic damage buff would probably be more beneficial for my guild runs (we mostly do 10 man hard modes), than the haste buff. Yet i feel like its the bastard child of dual wield specs, because it relies on, i'd almost say gimmicks. You skip Scourge Strike, and using a 1H for all your strikes just feels counter intuitive, like you would do twice as good with a 2H. And yet, it works somehow.

What i worry about for the 18/53 (17/54 not sure, there is no such thing as 18/54 but i guess you'd want 3/3 annihilation). Is that it suffers from some scaling issues. But we'll have to find out about that.

Obliterate doesn't do more with a third disease, its just more damage in a build that gets damage from more sources than just about anything. 2/51/18 isnt far behind 18/54, its only about 200-300 dps in the sim, thats pennies when you take it to a raid. However, when you consider that its going to lose 10% of its damage when the pet dies 2/51/18 looks even better. I think if the sim randomly killed off your perma ghoul we would see more realistic numbers and 2/51/18 pulling ahead of it. Then you have to consider that 2/51/18 brings a rarer raid buff than 13% spell damage, 2/51/18 looks even prettier. 2/51/18 has better AOE now that UB is single target. I think they are just about equal but i rather have a commando build ready to handle any situation and brings it all to the table than the 18/54 that specializes in single targets. Ill most likely take vacations from frost to visit unholy though.

Good points.

I was planning on running some more simulator tests, but i'd really like someone to put together a gearset, or values for kahories simulator. I'm currently geared for 2H unholy with low ArP and high haste, so i don't have anything good to draw from at the moment.

About that frost spec though. You can not put 51 points in frost without skipping Unbreakable Armor. I'm personally not a huge fan of dps cooldowns like that because i always pop them at the wrong moments or forget them, but technically that should be a better point invested than any of the other things. That would make for a 1/52/18 build then though.

I'll run some tests, should have some results in a few minutes.

I thought about unbreakable armor but in the end i decided that since it costs a frost rune its going to mess up my rotations and timing a blood rune to convert to a death rune is a hassle. I like the 2/51/18 because its all passive. Its just simple brute force that frees up your fingers and your mind for adapting to situations. They are both a gain and loss depending on how you want to look at it. But 51 frost is a very flexible base to expand on depending on your preferences. In the end the best build is the one that fits you.

Ok well i ran some new tests, and the best result i got was:

Ability	Total	%	Landed	Hit%	Crit%	Miss%	Average
Obliterate	1710496807	27	337120	42	57	0	5073
Plague Strike	118233094	1	86790	53	46	0	1362
Icy Touch	153221035	2	43390	45	53	0	3531
Frost Strike	1293131362	20	341994	46	53	0	3781
Howling Blast	107769627	1	15976	61	37	0	6745
Blood Strike	365988840	5	161838	57	42	0	2261
Frost Fever	228658236	3	272663	100	0	0	838
Blood Plague	217344831	3	272134	100	0	0	798
Necrosis	281664321	4	785640	100	0	0	358
Blood Caked Blade	169811209	2	235892	100	0	0	719
Main Hand	893460067	14	392854	44	39	15	2274
Off Hand	514908822	8	392786	44	40	15	1310
Ghoul	132041581	2	176928	87	12	0	746
Raz	17353708	0	392786	100	0	0	44

DPS 6893
Total Damage 6204083540 in 250 h
Threat Per Second 4978
Generated in 121s
Template :1-52-18.xml(C:\downloads\games\wow\DKSimulator\DKSimulator0.9.5\Templates\1-52-18.xml)
Priority :DW-Frost.xml(C:\downloads\games\wow\DKSimulator\DKSimulator0.9.5\Priority\DW-Frost.xml)
Presence :Blood
Sigil of :Awareness
RuneForge :FallenCrusader / Razorice
Pet Calculation :True

Now i have to let you know that the other 2 builds i tested (2/51/18 and 53/18) were extremely close (within 10 dps). So as far as i can see the choice between subversion and KM is nearly equal.
The problem is, by using just this gearset you don't have an idea of the scaling. And that might have a big impact.

Use the macro between the two blood runes. That works for me.

Without set bonuses, Unholy Obliterate is around 189% for scaling purposes and Frost Obliterate is 259% counting both hands. With 4 pc T8, Unholy gains a little ground since it gets a 7.5% bonus and Frost only gains a 5% bonus. So the difference isn't as big as you think.

Actually 0/18/53 scaling isn't that bad at all. Do a EP simulation and compare the attack power gains. Remember that Unholy gets 25 runic power from Obliterate while Frost only gets 20. So the number of runic attacks is comparable. Disease scaling is far better for Unholy than it is for Frost and the 4pcT9 makes that disease damage disparity a lot higher. Unholy can also use the gargoyle for better runic power damage. Unholy's ghoul is an additional source of scaling that Frost only has a little access to. A raid buffed ghoul hits a lot harder than the ghoul Frost gets.

Just look at the attack power benefit listed on the simulation and compare it to the one I listed. Then multiply by the EP values and you get an idea of how well it actually does scale. When I created the build originally, it was designed to make Unholy scale better. The drawback of the build was that it required a lot of stats to make it work but that isn't a drawback in these scenarios because the initial assumption is that the user is geared properly.

This is what I do as 2H Unholy for working Ghoul Frenzy. Use GF on the first D rune that is activating from my two Blood Strikes, then when the other D rune comes up, hit BT and SS both D runes off. My BT also has the /cancelaura bound to it, so I can hit it again after the SS so the BT does not further interfere with the rotation. This basically allows you to use it without interrupting your rune CDs at all (because you would have been waiting for the second D to come up to SS them off anyway, so you have 1 GCD to do this between D runes).

Just to expand on the Blood Tap thing a little, it's best to do it when your FU runes are down, so that your pairs stay lined up correctly. So initially, you should have BBffuu.

Use Blood Strike (leaves you with bBffuu).
Use Blood Tap (DDffuu).
Use UA (dDffuu).
Use Blood Strike (ddffuu).

Blood Tap and UA are both off the GCD, so when done properly the net effect is you get UA without interrupting your rotation. Both of your blood runes will come back up as death, but once you use them on obliterate they will be refreshing as db (because the blood tap buff is still up). At that point, you want to /cancelaura Blood Tap so that you have bb and they stay in sync as they come back up.

And since blood tap has half the CD of UA, you can trade a BS for an Ob every other minute with BS->BT->Ob->cancelaura in place of BS->BS. This isn't really specific to frost DW, but is definitely worth knowing. I'm not sure how exactly UA is handled in the sims either, but I think this is the ideal way to use it.

My math on the Glyph of Howling Blast was off. I was overusing Icy Touch and underusing Blood Strike. I also looked at using HB every time rime procs, replacing either frost strike or the BS/IT spot. What I found in this scenario was that GoHB was worth about 105dps with no outside sources of RP, about 10dps better then Glyph of Blood Strike would be. Without having to use it to replace FS for RP purposes, the glyph was worth 150ish DPS.

Edit:

The breakdown of abilities used while saving HBs for the IT/BS/HB slot:

Ability	% used	RP+ in XX	RP Balance
Icy Touch	17.9	2.69	.179
Blood Strike	34.3	3.43	-1.372
Howling Blast	47.8	2.39	-4.302
Totals	100	8.51	-5.495

The breakdown of abilities used while using one OBs Rime procs to replace FS, and the other in the IT/BS/HB slot:

Ability	% used	RP+ in XX	RP Balance
Icy Touch	30.3	4.54	2.99
Blood Strike	41.9	4.19	2.04
Howling Blast	27.7	1.39	-.03
Totals	100	10.12	5.00

To have a 0 RP gain/loss, you need to use the upper decision making process 47.68% of the time, and the lower decision making process 52.32% of the time.

With the following values for average damage (roundish numbers similar to a recent stat set 2 simulator run):

Ability	Avg.
Icy Touch	3500
Blood Strike	3950
Howling Blast	7000
Frost Strike	7550

The top ability usage breakdown generates 1602 extra damage per 10 (160dps) over no 3rd glyph, and the bottom 782 extra damage (taking a largish hit when Howling Blast has to be used instead of Frost Strike. Using the % usage to maintain 0 RP for each approach, the average damage per 10 increase is 1173. In contrast blood strike would yield 790 extra damage per 10 seconds

I actually bind mine to BT itself, though I do not macro UA (or GF when UH) onto that button. It will BT on the first press, and pressing it a second time will perform the /cancelaura.

1. "Obliterate doesn't do more with a third disease" - What?

2. "2/51/18 isnt far behind 18/54, its only about 200-300 dps" - Are you talking about 17/54 or 18/53, as these specs play very differently? Either way, 200-300 dps in a sim is 200-300 dps in a raid, i would hardly consider that pennies.

3. "I think if the sim randomly killed off your perma ghoul we would see more realistic numbers" - Would you also like to add breaks for running, aoe and bursty moments? This is simming, you simulate the optimal raidsetting, a Patchwerk; there is no raid damage, there is no aoe, there is nothing but straight on single target dps. And even if you would take raid damage into account the only encounters in Ulduar where a perma ghoul-DK would lose his pet would be Mimiron and Yogg (although you just summon it for brain room anyway). Point moot.

4. "Then you have to consider that 2/51/18 brings a rarer raid buff than 13% spell damage" - Rather assume that all needed raid buffs are brought already, and that if you go with unholy a shaman will be there to carry the haste-buff. We simulate optimal DPS for ourselves, not for a non-perfect raid.

5. "... than the 18/54 that specializes in single targets." - I'll have to assume you are talking about the 17/54 spec then, as the 18/53 still keeps WP and thus 4/5 of it's AoE-arsenal, which if you ask me is just enough. It feels like 18/53 will be the new competetive UH-DW-spec anyway as it will scale better, with Obliterate, than 17/54 (and as mentioned it keeps its AoE).

Just a few points i felt i had to comment on.

Read my post he commented on. You are reading it out of context.

My remark was that it was so odd that a deep unholy build used obliterate so much with a 1H. Almost as if "it hits harder with a 3th disease than if you spec into deep frost".
Then he said that it doesnt do more damage with a 3th disease, THAN by speccing into deep frost.

Not really, sims are ideal conditions most of the time. These dps differences we see are rather small, about 2%. That difference can easily be made up by abnormalities in the fight, movement, spec preference by a certain boss. Or simply because you feel good playing a certain spec.

Wasn't your previous statement that a sims dps matches real raid dps ?
Anyway the point is that on a lot of fights the ghoul dies (believe me i know i play 2H unholy) and can be a huge liability at times. Bursty moments are quite leveled out, and nobody really cares that much about AoE dps as that is simply neigh impossible to simulate anyway.
However the ghoul for unholy is simply not available or dies a lot on nearly 50% of the ulduar bosses, if not micro managed.
Pet micromanagement makes it a lot better, and makes it managable on pretty much any fight but mimiron/yogg. However pet micro costs dps too.

Patchwerk sims are really nice to compare specs head on, but realistically unholy really suffers on a lot of fights, and though i agree you should not assume that position, you should most definitely take it into consideration.

On this I both agree and disagree. IMO we should compare specs with ideal conditions as basis.
However that does not mean we should discard non-perfect raids. Because the only way you'll get a perfect raid is if you have those buffs, which only happens in 25 man usually.

In a "perfect" raid where you are not taken for your buffs, a deep frost + glyph of disease spec most likely wins.
However if you don't have a perfect 25 man, or you do 10 mans. That is simply not an option because those raid buffs provide more dps than anything else you can think of.

If we start discarding builds with imp IT / Ebon Plaguebringer and Abom Might because: "Others will bring that buff anyway", we're being too shortsighted, and wont help people who eventually will come here for advice.

--------

I think its also (this is more a general remark) very unwise to assume a position where people will either pick unholy or frost based on dps alone.
People also chose a spec because they like it. Thats why we have unholy / frost / blood 2H topics on this forum, thats also why the unholy DW thread has 2 builds (different playstyles).

Ah, that explains it, I was confused there for a second.

Of course there are abnormalities but usually all specs have to take these into account.
I'm not saying that because you sim a spec 2-300 dps under another you should discard it, of course you play what you feel good playing - just saying it will show in a raid on the single target encounters.

I play 2H unholy myself too and I really can't see where a perma ghoul can be a huge liability at all.
Micro-managing your ghoul is part of the 2H-UH playstyle and I generally just assume that you do this to keep it from dying (I still can't see it dying on 50% even when not microd). I don't see where the managing generates a noticable loss in DPS either.

Since this is the DW-thread I can just say that I disagree that unholy suffers that much, and even if I would like to know what kind of fights you're talking about this is not the place for that.

I just assume we're talking 25 man here but I partially agree with you I guess.
If everyone played the exact same spec to maximize personal DPS on every class this might just end up with a raid with no haste and/or AP and/or spell damage buff - which probably would be an overall dps loss for the raid.
But fact is people don't discard these specs or talents anyway; blood specs bring abom might since it buffs themselves anyway all deep unholy builds bring EP and (most? i've never actually played frost) frost builds have the possibility to easily swap talents to bring IIT?

Point being that generally all the buffs should be there and if not you can always spec into it for your own guild. This is personal though and that is why I reacted to a statement such as "X spec is therefore stronger than Y spec because it brings Z buff".

As I stated above I obviously do not assume that all people will spec whatever spec comes out on top on the dps-meters (why on earth would i play UH 2H if so).

The disadvantages for unholy i'm talking about are mainly pet wise.

I agree that with micro management you can make the pet work on most fights. There are however fights where microing reduces your dps or you simply lose your ghoul.
Mimiron is the best example, if i want my ghoul to survive phase 1 or 2, i often have to recall it. Thats dps time lost. If i mess up and the ghoul dies thats a big (15%ish) portion of my dps that is lost for part of the fight. The 200 dps we mentioned earlier is easily gone by such habits.

Another example is that pets often don't benefit from buffs. Hodir is the best example. Having a ghoul is a bit of a disadvantage there as it does not gain the buffs that really boosts dps there.

I believe i lost my ghoul a few times on Thorim hardmode as well from random stuff flying around, and on council as well.
Some stuff is preventable, but it requires me to recall my ghoul quite a lot that I either miss out a GCD on something and/or my ghoul simply loses dps time.

There will always be fights like this. Today during mimiron Hard Mode, i had very very very little uptime with my ghoul, and not to mention gargoyle since the only time to use it during P1 is right after a shock wave, which gives you ~15+ seconds of uptime, which is much shorter then normal. This is due to the next incoming shock wave. The question is, will most fights in the new Teir 9 content be like this were there is a 1 shot aoe situation?

From experience ulduar, and especially hard modes have been a real pain to manage my ghoul and keep it alive as well as gargoyle and has lead me to a decent dps decrease as Unholy so far.