pintor

You are correct that is the current double disease rotation. However, the extra PS is not needed now since we will be running with epidemic (assuming we delve into the unholy tree, which is most likely). Which means in the second half of the rotation we get an extra U rune since we want to maximize disease up time (with the buff to diseases). The second rotation should be OB-->OB-->ITx2 or some variant. Which, as pointed out earlier is only 13 gcd's which is perfect for a BP rotation.

edit: So it is not that OB is a better dump, it is that we will be taking advantage of epidemic

 

Travex

Didn't get a lot of "alone time" with the target dummy but I'm gonna throw a rotation out there for others to test if they have the time. The rotation I'm taking about is for course the single disease Glyphed HB rotation which nobody seems to have mentioned yet. Given the current mechanics of ToT and SoVH's nerf, this may actually be better with Sigil of Awareness.

Spec: 0/53/18
Glyphs: HB, FS, OB
Rune Forges: RI/FC on Slow/Slow
Presence: Blood
Rotation: HB,OB,BS,BS --> OB,OB,OB

Then it becomes a priority rotation of HB if Frost Fever is about to wear off, otherwise OB,OB,BS,BS-->OB,OB,OB while weaving in FS. The idea here is that this rotation is better since HB > IT + PS in damage. OB spam procs Rime which gives you "free" HBs allowing you to make up for the loss of Blood Plague. Also obviously stronger in AOE situations. Feedback appreciated.

 

Sylari

Still waiting for my DK to finish transferring over, so I haven't tested myself.. but have you compared this yourself to a double disease rotation? Seems that the buffs to Blood Plague and Blood Strike would make any sort of single disease rotation and the glyph of howling blast both nonviable.

 

Maraxus

Because Unholy Blight looks more apealing to me that frost strike without Tundra Stalker.

But testing will tell us which build does better DPS.

And your build is missing Merciless Combat, which you will be missing a lot (you dont need to skip Merciless Combat with a 0/44/27 Death Coil build).

And on your build Impurity is almost a filler.

the 0/44/27 build is well rounded with only 2 "fillers" on Killing Machine.

Sorry for the lack of testing but I had no time.

 

Valtiel

On the issue of UP vs BP, it's important to notice that the increased damage on diseases and the 4p9 setbonus do favour BP, and FS nerfs sensibly reduce the edge of UP.

In live, IT spamm UP rotations aren't pulling ahead of BP rotation by a strong margin (having played both, I think it's safe to say that at least with the VH sigil the difference is sitting comfortably close to the grey zone of RNG, as I've had some of my best results with BP rotations). With FS nerfed by such amounts, and diseases taking a further edge, I really wouldn't take the domination of UP for granted.

12 weeks without a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart drop and counting.

 

Maraxus

Ok, Im not that good with mats but I will try to make some theoretical calculation on dmg for both DW specs with permapet. One based on frost Strike and the other on Death Coil.

No sigil, with gliphs and no tier sets.
AP: 3000
No buffs.
Expertise cap
spell hit cap
Base crit: 30%
Weapon base dmg: 500
In BP
No Weapon Enchants.

Frost Strike (first part of the formula taken from Aezoc post on first page):
WPN = weapon_base + AP / 14 * 2.4
FS_base = .55 * WPN + 138
FS = FS_base * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.2 * 1.15 * 1.042
FS_crit = FS * 2.45
FS_crit_to_dmg = (FS_crit - FS) * 0,45 (no idea how to factor Killing Machine in this!!, I will gess a 15% add to crit)

FS main hand dmg = FS + FS_crit_to_dmg = 838 + 547 = 1385 * 1.2 (FS gliph contribution) = 1662 MAIN HAND AVERAGE DMG
FS off hand dmg: (FS * 0,575) + FS_crit_to_dmg = 482 + 314 = 796 * 1.2 = 956 OFF HAND AVERAGE DMG

TOTAL FROST STRIKE DMG = 2.617

Death Coil:
DC_base = 443 * (0,15 * AP)
DC = DC_base * 1.1 * 1.15 * 1.15 * 1.2 (DC gliph) * 1.3 (UB)
DC_crit = DC * 2
DC_crit_to_dmg = (DC_Crit – DC) * 0,3

DC DMG = DC + DC_crit_to_dmg = 2029 + 608

TOTAL DC DMG = 2.637

Ok... Im sure missing a ton of things here, Doing some mistakes, and I also took far too many simplifications and not considering scaling, sigils and tier bonuses.
All that said.. both DW pet builds look really close to me. Only ingame testing will tell.

Please dont kill me for this mats and try to help out a bit ;-)

 

Odii

Im not sure about the glyph being non-viable. The rotation of:

HB-OB-BS-BS
OB-OB-PS-BS

may be better damage then

PS-IT-OB-BS-BS
OB-OB-OB

with the new buffed blood strike and in Blood Presence. You could even get most of the benefit of 2 diseases without epidemic if you went:

HB-OB-BS-BS
HB-OB-PS-BS

You'd lose maybe 1-2 ticks of blood plague, but have 2 diseases for all your blood strikes and some number of obliterates.

 

Syrellia

@Maraxus: I'm having problem with your multipliers. I'll attempt to do it here (with glyphed FS, assumed builds with Tundra Stalker and Unholy Blight and no Impurity).


FS = FS_base * 1.1 (Black Ice) * 1.15 (BotN) * 1.15 (TS) * 1.15 (BP) * 1.2 (GC) * 1.13 (EP)
FS_crit = FS * 2.45 * 1.03 (Meta)

DC_base = 443 + (0.15 * AP) (I hope this is what you meant)
DC = DC_base * 1.1 (Black Ice) * 1.15 (Morbidity) * 1.15 (Glyph) * 1.15 (TS) * 1.15 (BP) * 1.13 (EP) * 1.3 (UB)
DC_crit = DC * 2 * 1.03 (Meta)

Also DC crit chance will always be lower than FS because FS gets contributed by Agility, DC crit won't. Also, try 7000 AP which is currently the amount you get for raid buffs.

If you want to try Impurity, take out the 1.15 (TS) multiplier for DC calculation, and add 1.2 multiplier inside the parenthesis of DC_base calculation: DC_base = 443 + (0.15 * AP * 1.2)

Also, where does that 1.042 in FS calculation come from? I can understand the other parts where you assume that BotN is 10% instead of 15% etc. but I can't figure it out where 1.042 comes from.

*Edit: To calculate how much KM increases crit %, do the following:

• Calculate how much KM proc per minute (if instant strikes proc it too on MH then it's no longer 5ppm but more)
• Calculate how much FS you use per minute (based on rotation)
• Under ideal situation, assuming you can use KM proc in all frost strikes, calculate the ratio of FS with KM proc / total FS in % (=A%)
• Keep in mind that those crits coming from FS with KM proc could've critted on its own. To calculate that portions, multiply the A% found earlier with the % FS natural crit chance. Then take away that amount from the A% then you find the amount of % crit you get only from KM.

For example: KM proc 6ppm, FS use per minute = 15, so A% = 6/15 = 0.4 or 40%. % nature crit = 30% so we have the crit % of KM contribution:
0.4 - 0.4 * 0.3 = 0.28 or 28%
The total crit % shall be 58% or close to that amount.

 

Valtiel

Is it? I think my gear isn't too horrible, and in my Blood subspecc I have around 4570 attack power unbuffed, and with that, I generally get around 6600-6900 ap with all raibuffs. A BiS blood Dk will likely have 7k raidbuffed attack power. A good geared Blood DK will struggle to get that, and a Frost DK in any shape or form will likely however around 6500 instead. Frost has sensibly less AP than Blood or UH.

12 weeks without a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart drop and counting.

 

waffletimeyo

Just to throw this out there, can a target that cannot be snared be flagged for ability modifiers that require snare effects (ie if a feral druid has a stack of infected wounds running)? If so, would it be worth it to use a glyph of blood strike in the place of the glyph for icy touch?

I will test this for myself later today when I am in a location where I have access to the game, and edit in my findings.

 

Fargom

According to the blood thread, the following abilities will activate the blood strike glyph, even though the boss is immune to snare:

Infected Wounds
Icy Touch w/ Chillblains
Frostfire Bolt
-Credit to Lujaar who posted this in that thread.

If blood strike comes up to be a serious contender for a glyph slot, I'll add this info to the OP, but I'm skeptical we would want to use a major slot for BS glyph under any circumstances. The early math in this thread looks like IT is still going to be the way to go with death runes, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Xerokamui

I'm thinking these specs are very nice and all, however, I'm feeling a deep frost build will come out on top as soon as the Sigil comes out.
Sigil of Virulence

Deep Frost Lovin

I've been using this one, with SotVH and sustaining around 4.7 with a mix of T7.5 and 10 Man Regular Mode Gear. I"m quite sure this will scale alot better with the new sigil even more so when you factor in unbreakable armor on the seal procs, though the seal proc percentage will probably play a huge factor in it. Though, I'm quite sure it will be about as much as the EoH sigils at least.

I use
BP
PS-IT-OB-BS-BS Dump
OB-OB-OB- Dump

UP
PS-IT-OB-BS-BS Dump
OB-OB-IT-IT Dump
(Using IT for the Runic power boost on the DRunes)


Using Frost Strikes

Silent Crusader MH
Rune-Etched Nightblade OH

 

Xentik

I've taken a stab at calculating out the behaviour of FS vs DC as a function of both Crit and AP. Here's the equations and variables I used:

• Talent/Glyph Values

  

  BlackIce = 1.10; (*Shadow and Frost*)
  NoCS = 0.15; (* Off-hand only *)
  MercilessCombat = 1.0 (* Normally 1.12, not used in calculations below *) (* Below 35% Health *)
  GlacierRot = 1.20;
  BoTN = 1.10;
  TundraStalker = 1.15;
  GoG = 0.45; (* Crits only *)
  CritMeta = 1.03; (* Crits only *)
  
  Morbidity = 1.15;
  Impurity =1.20;
  UnholyBlight = 0.30;
  NewUBGlyph = 1.40;
  Desolation = 1.05;
  BoneShield = 1.02;
  RoR =1.10;
  DarkDeath=1.15;
  
  SotVH(FS) = 113
  SotVH(DC) = 380

• Frost Strike

  

  FS(Base)=(0.55 * [WDPS + AP/14*2.4] + 138)*(1-0.5*__isoffhand?__) + SotVH(FC))*
                  (BlackIce)*(MercCombat)*(GlacierRot)*(BoTN)*(TunderStalker)*(1+NoCS*__isoffhand?__)
  
  FS(DW,NonCrit) = FS(Base,MH)+FS(Base,OH)
  FS(DW,Crit) = [FS(Base,MH)+FS(Base,OH)]*(2+GoG)*(CritMeta)
  
  FS(DW,Mean) = FS(DW,NonCrit) * (1-Crit) + FS(DW,Crit)*(Crit)

• Death Coil

  

  DC(NonCrit) = [AP * 0.15 *(Impurity) + 433 + SotVH(DC)]*(Morbidity)*(1+ NewUnholyBlight*NewUBGlyph)
                     *(Desolation)*(BlackIce)*(RageofRivendare)*(DarkDeathGlyph)
  
  DC(Crit) = DC(NonCrit) * 2 *(CritMeta)
  
  DC(Mean) = DC(NonCrit) *(1-CritRate) + DC(Crit)*(CritRate)

The final versions of these functions have mean DC damage as a function of AP and crit and mean FS damage as a function of MH/OH weapon DPS, AP and Crit. I'll write these as:

DC(AP,Crit)
FS(AP,Crit,MH,OH)

I then set :

FS(AP,Crit,MH,OH) == DC(AP,Crit)

and solved for AP as a function of Crit (with the assumption of MH/OH dps at 178.8). The resuting function is AP(Crit) and tells us whether FS or DC is superior at a given AP and Crit.

A few caveats before the plotted results:

• DC and FS crit won't be the same by default due to the Agi difference as mentioned above, currently this isn't accounted for, but shouldn't be too hard a change to make.
• The multipliers used were considering a Frost/Unholy build for FS (all available FS buffs in Frost Tree) vs an Unholy/Frost Build for DC. DC for a hybrid frost/unholy build might not perform as well as a heavy unholy build.
• MH and OH weapon dps values are fixed as the solution with them as variables is much uglier. Obviously increasing(decreasing) MH or OH dps will favor Frost Strike(Death Coil) accordingly.

Here are the results graphed.

There are 4 graphs, two showing the scaling of DC and FS, one being AP vs Damage and the other AP vs DPRP. The remaining two graphs are plots in the AP/Crit plane in order to make it easy to determine whether a certain value of AP/Crit favors DC or FS.

Let me know if there are any errors in my calculations, also if anyone is interested in the mathematica notebook with the calculations, let me know and I'll post it online.

edit: Fixed equation error, added Glyph of Dark Death as well. Scaling looks really bad for FS against a full unholy build. Going to check out a hybrid frost/unholy build to see if FS is actually competitive for frost.

edit: Merciless combat wasn't used in the calculations, so set the multiplier to 1 to avoid confusion.

 

Travaggie

So after alot of testing I've stumbled upon a slight variation of spec/glyph/sigil usage that has been much more effective than the current builds I've seen and tried out so far. I was able to put out 4.1 - 4.3k sustained DPS on the dummy through multiple 4 minute tests without popping ghoul or UA, although I do have 2/2 Merciless Combat (all my tests have it).

My rotation is the basic IT>PS>OB>BS>BS :: OB>OB>OB weaving FS's and rime procs when/if there is ever a spare GCD. In this rotation you and spec there's only 1 IT per 20 sec rotation so I glyphed BS instead and put 1 point in chillbains and the difference was quite noticeable. Also having equipped the Sigil of Awareness since it adds twice as much damage and I OB as much as I FS in this spec, I have dual crit OB's in the neighborhood of 10-11k, FS and BS's critting upwards of 7-8k dual crits.

Here's a screenshot:



Edit: Here's the spec I was using although it doesn't have Epidemic which leaves you a bit short on diseases but still comes out higher so I'll be playing around with a couple more variations with Epidemic to see how they test.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...&version=10026

 

Fargom

The Sigil of the vengeful Heart applies its bonus to both the main and the offhand frost strike hits, as shown in the 2nd post of this thread. There is also a link on the OP to this information. Your recount shot shows 100 frost strikes and 92 obliterates, you would gain far more benefit from SotVH.

Also, I would like to continue to discourage strongly the use of Targeting dummy tests to come up with a builds overall dps. It has been shown time and time again that dummy tests do not simulate a raid environment, due to the lack of buffs and debuffs. Targeting dummies should be used to help test mechanics, but not in any way to show a builds overall dps.

 

Travaggie

I'm not comparing my target dummy DPS to actual raid DPS, I'm comparing it to other target dummy tests because it is the only comparison we can use in the test realms so I'm not sure what else you'd like us to report on. That and the SotVH got nerfed to only a bonus of 113 damage vs. Awareness which gives 336 bonus to OB, and even if it doesn't apply to both main hand and off hand on OB (which I was under the impression it did apply to both), it's still 3x the value as SotVH hitting 1/2 as often (making it still better) and adds considerably more damage now.

 

Fargom

The general idea is to avoid posts that say "look at how much dps I can do with XYZ spec on the targeting dummy!" These types of posts are useless as the "best" dummy spec might be nowhere close to the best raid spec. This thread is about testing the new DW mechanics. Once we understand the mechanics we can use silulators to compare specs, that is the perfered method, as they are far more accurate than a 4 minute dummy test.

To give an example of something that you could report on, test the SoA sigil with Obliterate and ToT. We have already proved that the SotVH double tips with ToT, but this makes sense since it just received a nerf down to 113 damage. Why don't you see if you can prove / disprove if SOA gains the benefit from both strikes? That would be very usefull, as it is still an outstanding issue in the OP.

 

Travaggie

The thread title is very misleading then if this is the whole intention of this thread being that it is called "DW Builds - 3.2 Testing" not "DW Mechanics - 3.2 Testing". I will see what I can find out about the SoA though, although I don't see why we would assume it doesn't affect both weapons, especially if we know SotVH does.

 

Melchior

SoA applies the benefit to both hands as well. All of the sigils that apply to any strike modified by ToT will do the same thing.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Junon.png

 

Kyruski

The point is once we nail the mechanics down, we can then find the best spec based on the mechanics. It will also shorten the Spec Finding process because without it, it becomes a guess and check method that could end up taking time even into 3.2 to find a good solid build when with this method, we could find a good solid build before.

 

Fargom

It would make sense if it does, however, so far nobody has posted anything proving this. I think it was a more than fair assumption to make that it wouldn't since it's damage was not adjusted like SotVH's was. Again, if it does, great. Someone post some proof and I'll move it to the "things we know" part of the OP with a link to the proof. We can't assume that everyone will make the same assumption so I'd love to have the backup of proof.

 

Xentik

Here's there results for Frost spec set up for DC vs Frost Spec set up for Frost Strike.

First, here are the specs I used.

• Frost DC Build (0/45/26)
• Frost Strike (0/54/17)

I assumed for the purposes of this test that filling up Impurity would be better than getting GoG and that the weapons were again 178.8 dps weapons. Equations used were the same, with the appropriate talents multipliers dropped/added.

Here's the DPRP graph.

As can be seen, this predicts Frost Strike should be competitive up to 8k AP if you have crit rates above 25%. Higher(lower) levels of AP will require marginally higher(lower) crit rates.

 

Aenas

I've followed the developments in this thread over the last few days, and I'd like to raise several areas of investigation based on my own observations.

1. There's been very little mention of weapon speeds, in the broad sense of slow v. fast in either hand. It seems obvious to me that deep Frost with Blood subspec will favor slow weapons in both hands - likely dual [] will be BiS going into 3.2. However, an Unholy subspec - if proven superior - may favor slow/fast (namely, [] in the offhand) for the sake of Blood-Caked Blade, or - if the subspec is taken all the way to Master of Ghouls - perhaps even dual [] for the sake of Ghoul scaling. Not only will slow weapons hit harder with specials, but they'll also realize a greater benefit from the same amount of haste - and thusly so will Killing Machine by extension (1.6 speed weapon hasted 15% becomes 1.36, 2.7 speed weapon hasted 15% becomes 2.295).
2. In 3.1, the class design team made a conscious effort to quash the viability of diseaseless or single-disease rotations, and Ghostcrawler was very vocal on the Blizzard forums in promoting this as their official "vision" for our class. I'd infer that the 15% across-the-board increase in disease damage, and the raised Blood Strike multiplier are both to ensure that double-disease is the optimal play style for all trees. Of course abandoning a possible avenue of testing would be foolish, but I think it's important to understand the intent of the designers (whether or not they actually succeed in their stated goals ).
3. Itemization is far from complete, and this can have as much of an impact on spec as the talents themselves. For example, when comparing Sigil of Virulence with Totem of Quaking Earth, the Death Knight relic not only makes no mention of Death Strike or Heart Strike (for the sake of Blood), but is quite literally more than twice as good as its Enhancement equivalent. Both points may be intentional, but I'm skeptical whether that is actually the case.
4. And finally, the only one-handers with Strength have been and will continue to be geared towards tanks, as the design team has indicated they are unwilling to reintroduce niche items. That Death Knights have made use of tanking weapons for DPS purposes is probably unintentional. Given that Rogues are now able to wield Axes, and that Enhancement Shaman already prefer slow weapons in both hands, I see these changes - especially in the context of Blood subspecs favoring slow weapons also - as a means to ease the task of itemizing future instances.

Bored while waiting for my character to copy to the PTR...

 

Maraxus

Thx for you reply Syrellia!,

Both mats are without Tundra Stalker, like I said both builds are DW + Pet so TS is impossible to pick.

The 1.042 is just another inacurate way to factor in Merciless Combat. Its a 12% dmg increase 35% of the fight (the duration I took is what makes it inacurate) so it will add 12 * 0.35 = 4.2% DPS increase to FS.

Thx for the int on the KM calculation. I did a fast mental calculation with just estimations on FS per minute and based it on a 5 ppm and figured out a 15% crit increase. Like I said without gear. The T7 4p bonus and rotation will increase the value.

As this was a comparison of both skills, I factored the FS glyph. Which you did not. I took it as a flat 20% dmg increase from the RP reduction ( 100 - ((32RP * 100) / 40RP) = 20% more FS than DCs with the same RP generation). Once again it may not be totally acurate because of rotations and GCD but I think its still better to take it into account.

This are both builds to make it more clear (I belive both could be the best DW single target DPS builds):

- FS based: 0/45/26.

- DC based: 0/44/27.

 

• Darkside

This is untrue. While you will see a greater change in weapon speed (delta_t) the percentage change for a slow weapon v. a fast weapon is identical and therefore the damage increase is the same, assuming weapons with similar DPS. This applies to KM as well; a 15% increase in weapon speed will result in 15% more KM procs regardless of base weapon speed.

<XI|> if your dog barks do you debate the philosophical reason behind him barking
<XI|> no
<XI|> you say shut up idiot