You can only really use UA when you have no runes available and no converted blood runes on cooldown. That's mostly why so many skip UA.
What I do with this for UH when working Ghoul Frenzy is have my Blood Tap macro like this:
#showtooltip
/cast Blood Tap
/cancelaura Blood Tap
So the first press activates it, and the second kills the buff.
Where I use it is the following:
Ddbbff (where dbbff are down, and d will be up in 1.5) - cast GF/UA with the first D rune that comes up, because your second D will not be up for one more GCD. BT the D back just as the second d is returning, and OB both of them off. Hit the BT macro a second time here so that the D from BT reverts to B while it is down, and the rotation isn't affected.
Why can't UA be used during the second half of the rotation (the three OB phase).
FFUUBB -> IT
FfUUBB -> PS
FfUuBB - BS X 2
FfUudd -> OB
RP DUMP
FfUudd -> OB
ffuuDD -> UA/BT/Cancelaura macro
ffuuDD -> OB
fFuUdd -> OB
I realize this means UA doesn't get used at the most opportune time; however, it shouldn't mess up the rotation, you're getting it for a nice RP dump phase for Frost Strike, and you should still get at least 4 obliterates out of it.
I think the unholy tree in general is a bit overrated. Blood seems to perform equally good - for me at least.
I found this interesting as this is similar to the old 2H build I used to use. I tried simulating it using DWstatset1 with a 15/55/1 spec and a priority rotation with 200 latency. I always came out around 6400 dps. I am not entirely sure that the sim can handle that priority correctly and I could not get a correct rotation going.
I am curious to try this out in game, but I was hoping that someone else with a little better sim skills could figure out how to work the priority correctly or a good rotation in order to get more accurate numbers?
Ability Total % Landed Hit% Crit% Miss% Average
Obliterate 3775528353 32 376694 30 69 0 10022
Icy Touch 5197992 0 1628 36 62 0 3192
Frost Strike 2736357011 23 345629 40 59 0 7917
Howling Blast 1123854168 9 147423 39 59 0 7623
Blood Strike 548012358 4 149301 45 54 0 3670
Frost Fever 449161825 3 522701 100 0 0 859
Main Hand 1899180158 16 815199 41 44 13 2329
Off Hand 1093993362 9 815746 41 44 13 1341
Ghoul 38437090 0 303016 86 13 0 126
Raz 6525968 0 815746 100 0 0 8
DPS 6487
Total Damage 11676248285 in 500 h
Threat Per Second 3912
Generated in 144s
Template :15-55-1.xml(C:\Users\jremingt\Desktop\DKSimulator0.9.9\Templates\15-55-1.xml)
Priority :DualFrost.xml(C:\Users\jremingt\Desktop\DKSimulator0.9.9\Priority\DualFrost.xml)
Presence :Blood
Sigil of :Awareness
RuneForge :FallenCrusader / Razorice
Pet Calculation :True
Same for the blood tree subspec. If you do more dps, good for you. Facts stay facts:
- Subversion is decent, but again overestimated by a lot of people because they only see 9% crit = 9% more dps or something.
- Bladed Armor is great, but HARDLY scales. So only good for undergeared people (basically).
- Dark Conviction is 5% crit on a build that with KM procs / 70% obliterate crit rate and high FS crit rate gets VERY little out of more crit.
I probably wouldn't be far off saying that Dark Conviction in a raid is about 2% more dps for 5 (!!!) talent points. Compare that to necrosis which is almost 5% dps per 5 talent points.
Looking at the Vezax top 20 parse posted on the prior page WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay I see Obliterate critting 62% on mainhand and 55% on offhand, with 3 points in Subversion. Maybe Dark Conviction/Subversion are worth a little more than estimated.
It also shows Necrosis as 2.9% of his damage, with 5 points in it. Seeing parses like these make me wonder just how much better the Unholy subspec really is, despite the math. Particularly for undergeared characters like myself.
After raiding some nights as 0/53/18 I personally feel that Subversion is severly underestimated. Not for the 9% crit (that's a nice bonus imo) but for the -25% threat the value of which you will never ever see on simulations or target dummys. I was pulling aggro ever other pull without it and as a plate class on trash this is not a big deal but on bosses it's a whole other story.
I took 3 points from BCB and added them to Subversion, I didn't see much difference in DPS but I could safely ignore Omen which is what I am used to doing on the DK.
Same for the blood tree subspec. If you do more dps, good for you. Facts stay facts:
- Subversion is decent, but again overestimated by a lot of people because they only see 9% crit = 9% more dps or something.
- Bladed Armor is great, but HARDLY scales. So only good for undergeared people (basically).
- Dark Conviction is 5% crit on a build that with KM procs / 70% obliterate crit rate and high FS crit rate gets VERY little out of more crit.
I probably wouldn't be far off saying that Dark Conviction in a raid is about 2% more dps for 5 (!!!) talent points. Compare that to necrosis which is almost 5% dps per 5 talent points.
1 - Subversion buffs your main strike - obliterate. It's good. I am not doing any BcB vs Subversion calculation
2 - Bladed Armor scales fine as armor increases as your gear increases.
3 - Dark Conviction provides a passive bonus to all of your white damage AND to your yellow damage. Necrosis only provides a bonus to your white attacks. All your white attacks even hit slightly harder due to Bladed Armor.
I am still not sold on the unholy subtree owns blood subtree anytime. As I said - I have full T8.5 gear. I wouldn't call that under geared. Doing a simulation on unholy vs blood proves your point. Unholy comes out at around 7527 DPS with my gear. Blood comes out slightly lower - 7498 DPS. Consider the fact that the blood rotation is so much easier to manage and you'll have a better build using the blood subtree. On top of that you see a lot of shorter fights where you'll end up having done much better using the spec I suggested as it requires little to no disease setting up.
2 - Bladed Armor scales fine as armor increases as your gear increases.
Don't be silly, the additional armor between tiers of gear is just about nothing. Bladed armor does not scale well, saying otherwise is simply deluding the facts.
After raiding some nights as 0/53/18 I personally feel that Subversion is severly underestimated. Not for the 9% crit (that's a nice bonus imo) but for the -25% threat the value of which you will never ever see on simulations or target dummys. I was pulling aggro ever other pull without it and as a plate class on trash this is not a big deal but on bosses it's a whole other story.
I took 3 points from BCB and added them to Subversion, I didn't see much difference in DPS but I could safely ignore Omen which is what I am used to doing on the DK.
I did Freya+3, Yogg+1 and Algalon last night with only 1 point in Subversion and the only threat issues I had where with Immortal Guardians on Yogg, due to their fast spawn rate. Even then, with competent tanks I would only pull threat well after they had shrunk down to harmless levels of damage. As this is an entirely unique situation, I can't imagine that I will have threat issues with any of the other fights in Ulduar or ToC.
I did some 200h runs in the sim to find the best talent contribution for my gear and taking into account at least 2/3 Subversion because of aggro reasons. The spec that did the most dps there was 2/53/16 about 20 dps ahead of 3/53/15. 53/18 did about 50 dps less in my gear and it isn't acceptable because of aggro issues.
I think because of my rather low crit from gear (only 22%) I get a dps increase from the first 2 points in Subversion over BCB but 3/3 is overkill again. I also switched around points from KM to Subversion or BCB but 2/52/16 is the way to go for me atm.
While my gear may not be the greatest, it is alot better than most of the tanks I ran with, while naxx25 is outdated I ran it yesterday and also had tricks spammed on me. My build doesn't pick up Subversion and I still didn't have threat problems. THe tank was in heroic gear/naxx10 gear and I didn't worry about threat once. Personally I see subversion as more of a judgement issue. If you think your tanks can't hold the threat then spec into it, if you are confident in their ability then don't spec into it.
Also, it says I should wait for a KM proc to use my rime proc, while I understand this concept is it a loss to wait too long? I have gotten a rime proc on my first oblit and while waiting for the KM the second oblit also proc'd rime so I missed out on a extra HB, while this may not happen often it does happen and I can count the number of times it did.
While I still did decent dps/damage (4.1k on KT, 5.1k on grand widow and 4.8k on patch, before I got my duel Silent crusader), I wonder if I hadn't waited to get the KM proc if I would have gained dps from the extra HB.
Here is what it looked like:
IT PS Oblit BS BS RP
Oblit (Rime) Oblit (Rime) oblit RP
So should I try and dump my rime before my next oblit or should I just still try and get the KM HB?
Is there any proof in testing so far that would rank Crit Rating for Frost DW above any other dps stat other than STR/AP and Hit rating (until cap, of course). I would think that with the faster white swings having them crit more often will help even out spikes and help with sustained DPS.
Not entirely sure if this has been discussed yet but I haven't seen it anywhere yet. Many of you have been talking about having more RP than you can spend while in blood presence. Wouldn't dropping points from Chill of the Grave and putting them in Subversion or NotD alleviate some of the RP flooding and give you extra dps from actually being able to take advantage of the other talents?
Dropping Chill of the Grave loses you 25 RP every 20, which is an awfully big hole to put in your RP pocket. Rime HB would also generate 5 less RP. 0 points is really a non starter.1 point in CotG is possibly more workable, a its only a 12.5 RP drop per 20.
You could patch that loss up with the GoIT (at least somewhat), but 1 more talent point to go in subversion/BCB is a pretty modest RP gain.
Don't be silly, the additional armor between tiers of gear is just about nothing. Bladed armor does not scale well, saying otherwise is simply deluding the facts.
I am not claiming otherwise. I'm merely pointing out that my tested results and my simulated results shows that
1: yes unholy scales slightly better
2: choosing blood talents over unholy offers an easier rotation
Calling T8.5 gear subpar is just... hmmm.... strange?
@Sadiera: He never claimed 8.5 was subpar, he just points out (the fact) that bladed armor does not scale well at all, if anything (noticable). You DID claim it DOES scale well. And exactly how does a blood subspec offer a "so much easier" rotation? I don't see how the rotation is any different at all except you don't have Epidemic only making it tighter. And it's not like the regular frost DW-rotation is very demanding (the IT-glyph one, the GoDisease and GoHB-rotations seem to be).
@Gunner52: It's a DPS-loss actually using those Rimes since you're GCD-starved, you should let the Rime-proc rot if you don't This has all been thought out and discussed for several pages and I really wish people would read the OP thoroughly and at least the latest (and earliest?) pages of the discussion before asking these questions over and over again.
I am not claiming otherwise. I'm merely pointing out that my tested results and my simulated results shows that
1: yes unholy scales slightly better
2: choosing blood talents over unholy offers an easier rotation
Calling T8.5 gear subpar is just... hmmm.... strange?
He wasn't calling T8.5 gear subpar. He's saying the difference in armor between 8.5 and lower level gear is very minor, and causes Bladed Armor to scale very poorly.
This makes General Vezax a bad fight for analyzing contribution from Necrosis and BcB, as they live and die from autoattack . The aura lower KM procrate as well.
If it is truly causing swamping and wasted RP that is 100% not useful the following glyphs add DPS/reasonable utility (order from mmo-champ's dropdown):
1. Death and Decay - increased DnD damage by 20%. Situational AoE damage boost.
2. Icebound Fortitude - if you pulled aggro, minimum 30% damage reduction might keep you up long enough to get that heal...or not.
3. Plague Strike - 20% damage to PS is better than no damage from GoIT.
4. Strangulate - Interrupts on casters don't suck. Even if many/all bosses are immune.
5. Unbreakable Armor - More damage absorbed. Same reasoning as #2 and remember: Dead guys do 0 DPS.
6. Ghoul - 40% more strength and stam translates to a bunch more ghoul damage for 1 of every 3 min. This is probably the best DPS glyph left after Oblit and Frost Strike.
I know this is pretty elementary for these forums, but people are looking at changing rotations and timing use of core skills because essentially they are wasting a glyph slot. This short breakdown is just to show what else is out there that allows more traditional playstyles and to point out that there are +DPS glyphs to replace IT with if people want. Somewhat farcically, you could also replace GoFrost Strike if you're really getting RP swamped, but that's generally going to be a DPS loss and thus irrelevant because nobody's going to get swamped that badly if they're playing well.
You can not lie against solid math. And i can pull it out again here.
People are totally deluded by the numbers on Subversion.
I can do the math again, but if you have 70% crit with subversion, that means you have 61% without. With a 45% crit modifier on obliterate that means the dps increase from that 9% crit is:
That means 7% obliterate damage increase for 3 points. Obliterate is 32.5% of your total damage thus 2.275% dps increase for 3 points. Factoring in BS brings this to about 2.5%. That still means only 0.83% dps per point invested.
Can we please stop posting gut feelings that are way off.
"Look at how my obliterate damage increased!" ; "I'm doing tons more dps"
That is either biased, false or simply due to RNG.
Don't get me wrong, I will probably spec subversion too, because i think its better than BCB. But don't glorify things here because you happen to see more enlarged numbers on your screen.
Same for the blood tree subspec. If you do more dps, good for you. Facts stay facts:
- Subversion is decent, but again overestimated by a lot of people because they only see 9% crit = 9% more dps or something.
- Bladed Armor is great, but HARDLY scales. So only good for undergeared people (basically).
- Dark Conviction is 5% crit on a build that with KM procs / 70% obliterate crit rate and high FS crit rate gets VERY little out of more crit.
I probably wouldn't be far off saying that Dark Conviction in a raid is about 2% more dps for 5 (!!!) talent points. Compare that to necrosis which is almost 5% dps per 5 talent points.
Sorry, but in my current gear through 1,000 hour sims I have *never* seen 3/3 BCB be dominant over 3/3 Subversion. Either your raw calculations are incorrect, the sim is incorrect, or the fact that stacking armor pen has a reduced effect on BCB and an increased effect on OB (considering I run 375 Arm Pen not factoring in my runestone).
edit: Since my sim kept running last night, here are my sims between the two specs...
3/53/15
Ability
Total
Percent
Landed
Hit %
Crit %
Miss %
Average
Obliterate
18318874225
30
1696601
35
63
0
10797
Plague Strike
1101154326
1
425953
53
45
0
2585
Icy Touch
1331821867
2
427575
45
54
0
3114
Frost Strike
13268806593
21
1839100
42
57
0
7214
Howling Blast
3417404094
5
356159
4
95
0
9595
Blood Strike
3386242643
5
844307
50
48
0
4010
Frost Fever
1984158558
3
2755078
100
0
0
720
Blood Plague
1805442100
2
2758213
100
0
0
654
Necrosis
2524181871
4
7707284
100
0
0
327
Main Hand
8003201390
13
3853873
45
39
14
2076
Off Hand
4617274110
7
3853411
45
39
14
1198
Ghoul
685665368
1
1151530
86
13
0
595
Raz
34680699
0
3853411
100
0 0
9
Total damage was 60,478,907,844 over 2,500 hours for 6720 DPS and 4019 TPS.
0/53/18
Ability
Total
Percent
Landed
Hit %
Crit %
Miss %
Average
Obliterate
3420516518
28
339296
44
54
0
10081
Plague Strike
220915959
1
85178
53
45
0
2593
Icy Touch
267513739
2
85504
45
54
0
3128
Frost Strike
2655734196
21
367797
42
56
0
7220
Howling Blast
687606128
5
71440
4
95
0
9624
Blood Strike
624508407
5
168885
59
39
0
3697
Frost Fever
398430272
3
551044
100
0
0
723
Blood Plague
362486142
2
551631
100
0
0
657
Necrosis
506496461
4
1541828
100
0
0
328
Blood Caked Blade
304128522
2
459412
99
0
0
661
Main Hand
1606018810
13
770983
45
40
14
2083
Off Hand
926343348
7
770845
45
39
14
1201
Ghoul
135434114
1
226825
87
12
0
597
Raz
6937605
0
770845
100
0
0
9
Total damage was 12,123,070,221 over 500 hours for 6735 DPS and 5361 TPS.
15 dps is roughly .2% dps difference, this is under the 100% most ideal situation that *never* have to stop striking and you never have to move. Factor in any *real* fight, where even a couple seconds of movement every minute causes the balance to tip in Subversions favor. This not even considering that you are pushing 5300 TPS. Let's take a balanced look at the more stand still and nuke fights. Most fights that kind of TPS is fine on bosses, as the tank should be pushing 7k+ on average, but on any fight which requires quick swapping to kill (Animus, Guardian pack on Freya, Conservator on Freya, Champion in arena on Thorim, Razorscale adds) you will need to take a few seconds prior to attacking, slowing overall DPS. This also becomes a problem for Hodir, where 25% difference in your threat is like night and day when you are pushing 11-12k dps.
This makes General Vezax a bad fight for analyzing contribution from Necrosis and BcB, as they live and die from autoattack . The aura lower KM procrate as well.
This is why the value I used for BCB calculations were more sim oriented and an average of the top 10 frost DW dps on XT 002 where they did not receive any Gravity Bombs or Searing Lights, as I explained in my math. I have seen it range (on the very high end) up to 3.3, but I have routinely seen 3/3 worth 2-2.4% between our two longest fights (Vezax and HM XT 002 - for XT I do *NOT* factor in any parses where the DK received Searing Light or Gravity Bomb as it subtracts from DPS time).
Regarding weights, I have ran 5 5,000-10,000 hour EP calculations via Kahorie's and none of them have come out with realistic numbers. The best numbers we have at the moment to work with are likely the ones I linked to in one of my prior posts here (I believe the weights are on page 40, or somewhere within that region).
@Sadiera: He never claimed 8.5 was subpar, he just points out (the fact) that bladed armor does not scale well at all, if anything (noticable). You DID claim it DOES scale well. And exactly how does a blood subspec offer a "so much easier" rotation?
1: I did not mean to claim at was scaling WELL. I'm meant so state that it DOES scale. It's not the best scaling talent at all - I give you that.
2: My point on the easier rotation? You're using 4 skills - howling blast, obliterate, blood strike and frost strike. It doesn't get much easer than that.
I run using only 1 disease - frost fever. It's applied using Howling Blast (glyph of course). I blood strike the blood runes and obliterate when they are death runes. I apply new diseases using rime. If the disease running out I use HB instead of obliterate.
It's THAT easy and there's no way I need epidemic to keep up 1 disease
Trust me - it works. I do know it scales slightly worse than the unholy tree but at the current gear level in the game it means pretty much nothing - 30 more DPS at 7.5k is just too little for me to bother and I actually think that the "easier" disease management and rotation offsets that margin.
1 - Subversion buffs your main strike - obliterate. It's good. I am not doing any BcB vs Subversion calculation
2 - Bladed Armor scales fine as armor increases as your gear increases.
3 - Dark Conviction provides a passive bonus to all of your white damage AND to your yellow damage. Necrosis only provides a bonus to your white attacks. All your white attacks even hit slightly harder due to Bladed Armor.
I am still not sold on the unholy subtree owns blood subtree anytime. As I said - I have full T8.5 gear. I wouldn't call that under geared. Doing a simulation on unholy vs blood proves your point. Unholy comes out at around 7527 DPS with my gear. Blood comes out slightly lower - 7498 DPS. Consider the fact that the blood rotation is so much easier to manage and you'll have a better build using the blood subtree. On top of that you see a lot of shorter fights where you'll end up having done much better using the spec I suggested as it requires little to no disease setting up.
How is a blood rotaiton easier to manage ?
You have to refresh PS + IT more often, I don't really see the point.
Your first point is exactly what i mean with deluded. This is a subjective redination rather than an objective one. I'm not going to do the math for the 4th time. Calculate it yourself. Just because obliterate is our main attack does not make subversion wonderful. Obliterate already has a very high crit rate, thus crit has reduced value.
Again i DO NOT think subversion is bad, i think its a better option than BCB. However i do think people are giving subversion more credit (dps wise) than it deserves, because they are misguided by the big numbers on the tooltip.
Second point has been discussed, its moot. Armor hardly scales for dps gear.
Dark Conviction does indeed. However its still worse scaling than necrosis.
Assume someone has 0% crit, then Dark Conviction boosts all his damage, except non crittable attacks by 5%. Lets just say 5% because its a bit more for obliterate and blood strike, but the diseases get substracted.
Necrosis increases white damage by 20%, mine is usually around 25% total dps, so that makes 5% too.
That is when someone has 0% crit, when crit rises in any way the Dark Conviction dps number starts dropping.
I think blood isn't as bad as we first assumed, but I'm hessitent to believe its better than unholy.
You'd lose epidemic (which results in losing an obliterate and 1 GCD for 1 PS and 1 IT), you'd lose 3% strength (not as good as BA but still it counts), you'd lose ~5% dps from necrosis.
For 2 RP/5 from butchery, extra RP on a spec that hardly needs more; 400 AP and 5% crit.
Also none of the blood talents really scale with gear.
The crit talents get relative worse when you get more crit, BA hardly scales.
The unholy talents almost all scale: Necrosis scales with all stats (as auto attacks do), 3% strength scales with gear, epidemic gives you an extra obliterate which scales with gear.
You have to refresh PS + IT more often, I don't really see the point.
"Managing" one disease is easier than managing 2. I suggest running only 1 disease. That disease will be refreshed using Howling Blast most of the time. In that sense I consider it a lot easier.
Most of your fights are short which means on trash you "setup" faster as you do not use Blood Plague (Plague Strike).
As I said - I have tried it and I have simulated it. I'll stick to the simulation result which provided a DPS difference of 30 at 7.5k. I do not claim that blood scales better because it doesn't. But spec'ing unholy as the 2nd tree is by no means a no-brainer.
So when I provide better hands down results in game using blood as second spec it's because most fights are short enough for blood to provide best overall damage boost. That's at least my experience so far.
"Managing" one disease is easier than managing 2. I suggest running only 1 disease. That disease will be refreshed using Howling Blast most of the time. In that sense I consider it a lot easier.
Most of your fights are short which means on trash you "setup" faster as you do not use Blood Plague (Plague Strike).
As I said - I have tried it and I have simulated it. I'll stick to the simulation result which provided a DPS difference of 30 at 7.5k. I do not claim that blood scales better because it doesn't. But spec'ing unholy as the 2nd tree is by no means a no-brainer.
So when I provide better hands down results in game using blood as second spec it's because most fights are short enough for blood to provide best overall damage boost. That's at least my experience so far.
Can you post some of your sim results? I'm at work and unable to run the sim at the moment, but I find it very hard to believe running a 1 disease rotation keeps up at all after the buff to disease damage and the primary damage source move from FS to OB.
"Managing" one disease is easier than managing 2. I suggest running only 1 disease. That disease will be refreshed using Howling Blast most of the time. In that sense I consider it a lot easier.
Most of your fights are short which means on trash you "setup" faster as you do not use Blood Plague (Plague Strike).
As I said - I have tried it and I have simulated it. I'll stick to the simulation result which provided a DPS difference of 30 at 7.5k. I do not claim that blood scales better because it doesn't. But spec'ing unholy as the 2nd tree is by no means a no-brainer.
So when I provide better hands down results in game using blood as second spec it's because most fights are short enough for blood to provide best overall damage boost. That's at least my experience so far.
Yea i just read your 1 disease rotation post.
Although i love the idea, and think the rotation is a lot more smooth and entertaining. I'm not really sure how it holds up.
You gain 1 obliterate and 1 GCD and give up:
- 1 IT
- 1 PS
- Blood Plague
- Disease modifiers
The latter is a bit harder to calculate but. Our obliterates do 125% damage, yours do 112.5% damage that is 90% of ours.
So if our 4 obliterates are the norm with an extra, but slightly weaker hitting obliterate you'd do 12.5% more obliterate damage.
( 1 extra obliterate, but all hit for 10% less. So you gain half an obliterate. 0.5 / 4 = 0.125)
BS hits for 25% less (2 * 12.5), so if you turn that around we do 33.3% more damage with each BS
So is +12.5% obliterate dmg higher than 33.3% on a BS + IT + PS + Blood Plague
Somewhere I'd wish it was, because i like the HB glyph 1 disease rotation. But in the end i doubt it is.
@Sadiera: Although a 1 disease rotation is an interesting idea and numbers might put it on the same dps as an unholy subspec it was this
Consider the fact that the blood rotation is so much easier to manage and you'll have a better build using the blood subtree
quote that I reacted on. The regular unholy subspec rotation is hardly compromising our dps, it's actually very, very, very easy once you get used to it. So don't go stating that blood is better because only you so far has simmed it and you, personally, find the rotation simpler.
I'd also like to see some parses from actual fights i.e. XT HM and Ignis with it since you claim you perform well.
08/10/09, 11:22 AM
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