I'll be updating the statweights on the mainpage on Monday, once I'm back in town from Blizzcon. Spellhit has gone up due to correcting the bug in the simulator, and kahorie has been calculating the value of most of the "proc" trinkets as well. The only real thing that is missing is a solid calculation for hit's value after the spell cap. Obviously its not something worth stacking, but finding the exact value will help people when evaluating trinkets and gear. (IE If you are hit capped via gear, is blood of the old god still worth using.)
@ Blood subspec:
People are once again bringing up the blood subspec, I would like to respectfully ask anyone promoting it to show some solid parse data, or math to back up your claims. We have discussed this matter at length in the early part of this thread, and it was crystal clear that the unholy subspec is flat out superior. (Except for BcB vs Sub for threat reasons) If you want to run a blood subspec, fine, but realize that this is a place to discuss min maxing for endgame. We can't devote energy to working on an idea that is mathematically inferior.
First thanks for everyone who has tried out the spec I asked about 15/53/03 and your time I know is about finding the best overall spec and ability's. @Fargom Ive been on this site for sometime Ive never seen a practical sim that lines up to what Ive personally seen in game. Thats why i asked for someone to try it live besides me The math is better for the 53/18 spec but I think we are missing something in the other spec. This place is for not leaving any stone unturned and min/maxing. If you don't believe what I am saying try the spec LIVE on a boss and tell me your results. We have "devoted" more energy to lesser things in the past math explains a lot but it doesn't account for everything that's why I came here to ask for the help in the first place so please don't sweep it under the rug.
Why would you prioritize Blood Plague over Frost Fever when both Howling Blast and Frost Strike benefit from the latter and not the former. Am I missing something (probable).
The main reason why I used this priority is because during testing it increases the damage from simulations. I am not sure why this is the case but I suspect it has to do with KM usage.
When diseases fall off in the middle of a fight, there are times when you have a killing machine proc and no diseases on the target. I find Icy Touch a waste of a KM proc, but I also want to get the 20% benefit from Glacier Rot. The solution is to PS which gets up blood plague and then use the proc for FS or HB.
So which disease is best to put up at the start of a fight? I don't think it really matters much. PS increases the damage done by IT by 20%, IT increases the damage done by PS by 15%. The benefit to DoTs is moot because it's wise to refresh them both once greatness procs anyway, especially if you can stack it with UA.
So, I can't help but wonder if with the 4 piece tier nine bonus (diseases can crit) if Unholy dual wield will become flat out superior if it is competitive now. Has anyone already done math on this? I imagine it would just be a matter of taking unholy disease damage *1.(crit rate) and the rest should be the same as a current simulation. I imagine it would also benefit the Glyph of Disease spec as well, as much as I loathe not having any raid buffs.
So, I can't help but wonder if with the 4 piece tier nine bonus (diseases can crit) if Unholy dual wield will become flat out superior if it is competitive now. Has anyone already done math on this? I imagine it would just be a matter of taking unholy disease damage *1.(crit rate) and the rest should be the same as a current simulation. I imagine it would also benefit the Glyph of Disease spec as well, as much as I loathe not having any raid buffs.
If you manage to get 4/5 t9, then yes, you should be running a GoD spec/rotation to get the most out of it.
Anyone know if it's worth it to break the 4 piece T8.5 set bonus for the 2 piece? Should I wait to actually have ALL 4 tier 9 pieces (probably the ilevel 245 ones)? the 4 piece 8.5 set bonus seems like it's a pretty substantial dps boost for frost dw builds.
I'm currently working on perfecting the build as running long sims on each variation takes a while. Currently the closest cuts the two points in Epidemic for two points in Morbidity instead of taking three from Reaping for Morbidity. Since the differences are small, it takes long sims to determine the differences. The stats used were Doc's DW Ulduar which will generally have better results for Frost than Unholy. I'll update when I have more information.
The interesting thing about it is the unusually high Haste value. I'm uncertain if the simulator is overvaluing Haste but there seems to be an awful lot of haste in the new gear so if the value is accurate, that is definitely a bonus.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I've seen people talking about how they were doing 7k dps as dc spam unholy dw and much more with burst. But literally 99% of this thread consists about frost dw. Personally, when I tried unholy dw it wasn't so great.
Why is it that unholy dw isn't so popular? And if anyone does run unholy dw, can you post some parses?
I've been flipping back and forth between Frost and Unholy DW since 3.2's release, and like Fargom I'll be sticking with Unholy DW from here until the Unholy tree is adjusted again (which will probably happen when Scourge Strike is changed).
Here's our guild WoL section if you want to peruse some random parses:
Everything from this week should be 0/17/54, and there are plenty more going back, though some of those from me will also be 3/53/15 or 3/13/55. So far my best parses since 3.2 have come with 0/17/54, which is probably due to familiarity and my gear being stronger for the spec than what I have available for Frost right now.
The real strength of this build is that it is very good at target switching and movement fights, while still having very competitive single target DPS in the straight burns. It also really gains a ton from Bloodlust when CD stacking which is something I think Frost is lacking.
Regarding Unbreakable Armor and Deathchill, I think the best option for picking these up is to just dump Chill of the Grave. RP is constantly overflowing as frost DW, and Frost Strike is our weakest attack, there's really no reason to pick up this talent. You'll have a slower start, but after the first rotation or two you'll be where you usually are, 75%+ RP and unable to completely dump.
So far my best parses since 3.2 have come with 0/17/54, which is probably due to familiarity and my gear being stronger for the spec than what I have available for Frost right now.
For further information, what gear setup were you wearing for dual-wield unholy, and dual-wield frost? Dual-wield unholy would benefit from straight up from critical strike rating, whereas dual-wield frost would benefit from armor penetration rating. A rough description of each would be appreciated. For example, 4x T8 for Unholy, and 20% armor pen for frost, which trinkets were used, etc.
Regarding Unbreakable Armor and Deathchill, I think the best option for picking these up is to just dump Chill of the Grave. RP is constantly overflowing as frost DW, and Frost Strike is our weakest attack, there's really no reason to pick up this talent. You'll have a slower start, but after the first rotation or two you'll be where you usually are, 75%+ RP and unable to completely dump.
It's easy to look at RP dumping and think "Oh the solution is easy, just reduce the RP income to solve it". However, with 0/2 Chill of the Grave you generate 25 less rp per 20 seconds and Rime generates 0 RP, meaning that you will be GCD starved 2 out of 3 rotations (Borrowing earlier math from Page 42, 32+7-25=14 RP, 1 extra FS every 3 rotations roughly) unless you get a Rime proc.
Being RP capped is not a DPS loss, since FS is at the bottom of our priority system (note that lowest in priority doesn't mean weakest attack, the difference between a KMFS and a KMRime in damage is negligible, if not favoring FS, the reason KMRime is valued higher is because of HB's innate lower crit rate than FS.). However, being GCD starved in BP is a DPS loss.
It's easy to look at RP dumping and think "Oh the solution is easy, just reduce the RP income to solve it". However, with 0/2 Chill of the Grave you generate 25 less rp per 20 seconds and Rime generates 0 RP, meaning that you will be GCD starved 2 out of 3 rotations (Borrowing earlier math from Page 42, 32+7-25=14 RP, 1 extra FS every 3 rotations roughly) unless you get a Rime proc.
Being RP capped is not a DPS loss, since FS is at the bottom of our priority system (note that lowest in priority doesn't mean weakest attack, the difference between a KMFS and a KMRime in damage is negligible, if not favoring FS, the reason KMRime is valued higher is because of HB's innate lower crit rate than FS.). However, being GCD starved in BP is a DPS loss.
Is this assuming a GoD rotation? Because using the IIT spec with Glyph of IT I haven't had this problem, and I've been running with 0/2 Chill of the Grave to play around with it.
EDIT: Well, messing around with standstill on a dummy I can definitely see it arising, but I definitely think dropping 1 point from CotG would still be better than dropping one from KM. With 4/5 KM I just found I was waiting too long for it on Rime procs.
Sadly this is due to pvp regards.
Time will tell let's hope the best.
I don't think that's surprising, though I'm worried about the reluctance to buff Scourge Strike on his part since that is exactly what Scourge Strike needs right now.
It's easy to look at RP dumping and think "Oh the solution is easy, just reduce the RP income to solve it". However, with 0/2 Chill of the Grave you generate 25 less rp per 20 seconds and Rime generates 0 RP, meaning that you will be GCD starved 2 out of 3 rotations (Borrowing earlier math from Page 42, 32+7-25=14 RP, 1 extra FS every 3 rotations roughly) unless you get a Rime proc.
Being RP capped is not a DPS loss, since FS is at the bottom of our priority system (note that lowest in priority doesn't mean weakest attack, the difference between a KMFS and a KMRime in damage is negligible, if not favoring FS, the reason KMRime is valued higher is because of HB's innate lower crit rate than FS.). However, being GCD starved in BP is a DPS loss.
I don't think CoTG is as useful as you think. I did a heroic with a similarly geared DW DK 2303 WH mine was 2304 at the time. We used the same weapons, cept I had RI on mainhand. His spec didn't take IIT, but had CoTG, and the deathchill. Mine didn't, and I did a 300-500 more dps than him on single target bosses.
Both of us did pretty much the same rotation and had equal amounts of OB/FS.
The reason it works fine is, even with CoTG you aren't getting enough RP. While I just use as many Rime procs as possible since I have the GCD to squeeze it in, basically I make up for the damage from CoTG RP with rime procs instead. The other reason would be in raids with resto druids you are never RP starved, when I ran part of ulduar 25 I never was RP starved or capped.
5% minimum, but testing currently seems to be leaning towards you wanting 14%(13% alliance w/ a draenei aura) spellhit after talents, due to GCDs being in short supply for DW Frost.
I do not understand this statement.
I understand the 5% to be able to cap specials with NoCS. No dispute whatsoever there.
If you look at the OP, you will see:
Originally Posted by Fargom
Special attacks require 8% hit to ensure no misses against level 83 opponents. The talent nerves of cold steel effects this chance, reducing the requirement via gear to 5%....
Spell hit cap is 17% against level 83 opponents. The talent Virulence provides 3% hit for spells, the Druid talent Improved Faerie fire, or the Shadow priest talent Misery will further reduce this requirement by 3% (Hit debuffs do not stack.) The final result brings the requirement via gear down to 11%, at which point no spell will miss. Spells include Howling blast, Icy touch and Death coil.
If you are or have a dranaei in your group this will be reduced by 1% to 10%. I also have no argument here.
In several posts I see things like 'you should cap your specials and then your spells'. But, is not true that this value is the same?
Melee: 32.79 rating = 1% hit
Spell: 26.23 rating = 1% hit
8% hit (to cap specials pre NoCS) would then be 32.79 * 8 = 262
10% spell hit (with Virulence + Spacegoat + Raid buff) would then be 26.23 * 8 = 262, or 288 for horde.
So, with Virulence you need a maximum of 262/288 hit, regardless if you have NoCS or not (NoCS at this point helping your OH hit and damage only).
Maybe I am thinking about outdated values here, and if so please delete this post promptly. I'm not wanting to reinvent the wheel here, but if someone could please correct me I'd like to get this straight. Maybe we can also get this on the OP what the max hit rating you should get is with certain specs, because I am reading through this thread seeing all kinds of odd things.
I don't think CoTG is as useful as you think. I did a heroic with a similarly geared DW DK 2303 WH mine was 2304 at the time. We used the same weapons, cept I had RI on mainhand. His spec didn't take IIT, but had CoTG, and the deathchill. Mine didn't, and I did a 300-500 more dps than him on single target bosses.
Both of us did pretty much the same rotation and had equal amounts of OB/FS.
The reason it works fine is, even with CoTG you aren't getting enough RP. While I just use as many Rime procs as possible since I have the GCD to squeeze it in, basically I make up for the damage from CoTG RP with rime procs instead. The other reason would be in raids with resto druids you are never RP starved, when I ran part of ulduar 25 I never was RP starved or capped.
@apple GoHB does the IIT buff, and chillblaines doesn't work since most bosses are immune to it. (seems his post got deleted?)
I didn't consider the extra RP in a raid from resto druids and disc priests, but that's definitely worth considering in this case. Testing single target, going 1/2 in CotG seemed to be right where I wanted to be RP-wise, and I very rarely had a GCD with nothing to do, at which time I'd just renew Horn of Winter, since it has to be done at some point anyway.
It is easy to math out the expected contribution from deathchill:
Pop open a parse, and for each affected ability (OB/FS/HB), check the crit rate (call that C) and the difference in damage between your average hit and average crit with that ability (call that D). Your expected DPS contribution for using deathchill with that ability every cooldown is (1-C)*D / 120. Obviously, pick the best one. The contribution will tend to be 0.5% or less of your total DPS for that parse, which makes it a bad talent point. Gold star if you can link me a parse that shows I'm wrong.
I think there are two arguments that at least sound valid that go against this:
1. Speccing for AOE and using it with HB when KM isnt up: multiple targets makes the damage difference between hit and crit huge, and the low crit rate on HB means the expected deathchill contribution stays high (high 1-C). If you really want to invest a point for an AOE gimmick, go for it, but it comes at the cost of single target DPS.
2. Considering a competing talent to be a 0 dps gain, in this case, a point in chill of the grave:
The argument against chill of the grave is most apt when considering a target-dummy type fight, where you can say "it just means a slower start, and then im capped anyways". But even then, we are talking about such small margins that you need to consider that slow start -- e.g., a lost frost strike.
A parse I picked (on Ignis) shows that the expected benefit of one deathchill is about 4200 (thats the (1-C)*D). In a three minute fight, you get 23 DPS for your one deathchill. Those same parses show frost strike giving about 5k average, so that one FS is 28 DPS. In a five minute fight, deathchill is 28 DPS, the extra FS is 17 DPS... 11 more would be a 0.16% DPS upgrade.
When you aren't talking about a target dummy, and consider actual fight mechanics, CotG becomes more important. Mind freeze on cooldown is 120 RP/min, and is easily 80 RP/min in a realistic interrupting environment. Fade-away death coils on fights where you have to run out of melee let you squeeze out an extra few percent during the motion, but they will cost you frost strikes later if you don't have CotG -- no CotG its like getting a brand new slow start and losing another FS. Of course you could save the RP for FS, but then you miss out on a deathcoil or two every time you have to run out, which is probably going to top your 30 DPS from deathchill handily.
Overall... if you really contrive a situation to benefit deathchill... you are still probably looking at < 0.25% DPS per point compared to that point in CotG. As soon as that situation breaks, you are losing DPS.
Deathchill is a PvP talent. If you want it so its there, take it; if you are using GoD/pestilence and have extra points to spend, take it; but if you are sacrificing PvE DPS talents for it, your DPS is going to go down.
I understand the 5% to be able to cap specials with NoCS. No dispute whatsoever there.
If you look at the OP, you will see:
If you are or have a dranaei in your group this will be reduced by 1% to 10%. I also have no argument here.
In several posts I see things like 'you should cap your specials and then your spells'. But, is not true that this value is the same?
Melee: 32.79 rating = 1% hit
Spell: 26.23 rating = 1% hit
8% hit (to cap specials pre NoCS) would then be 32.79 * 8 = 262
10% spell hit (with Virulence + Spacegoat + Raid buff) would then be 26.23 * 8 = 262, or 288 for horde.
So, with Virulence you need a maximum of 262/288 hit, regardless if you have NoCS or not (NoCS at this point helping your OH hit and damage only).
I said 14%(13% w/ draenei) after talents. Talents net you a maxmimum of 3% hit, meaning for spell hit cap you'd need 10-11%(gear, depending on faction)+3%(talents)=14% hit total.
The reason that it is currently up for debate is the fact that NoCS grants you an extra 3% hit towards your special hit cap, meaning you would only need 5% melee hit if you only cared about special hit cap, but you would need 11% spell hit if you wanted spell hit cap as well.
At present I believe for non-GoD specs it's not really clear if it is more valuable to cap your spell hit or simply go to 5% melee hit and then stack STR/Arpen instead. The latest EP values suggest that capping spell hit is a better choice. Prior to that it was mostly accepted gearing methods to cap only special hit up until just recently.
It is easy to math out the expected contribution from deathchill:
Pop open a parse, and for each affected ability (OB/FS/HB), check the crit rate (call that C) and the difference in damage between your average hit and average crit with that ability (call that D). Your expected DPS contribution for using deathchill with that ability every cooldown is (1-C)*D / 120. Obviously, pick the best one. The contribution will tend to be 0.5% or less of your total DPS for that parse, which makes it a bad talent point. Gold star if you can link me a parse that shows I'm wrong.
I think there are two arguments that at least sound valid that go against this:
1. Speccing for AOE and using it with HB when KM isnt up: multiple targets makes the damage difference between hit and crit huge, and the low crit rate on HB means the expected deathchill contribution stays high (high 1-C). If you really want to invest a point for an AOE gimmick, go for it, but it comes at the cost of single target DPS.
2. Considering a competing talent to be a 0 dps gain, in this case, a point in chill of the grave:
The argument against chill of the grave is most apt when considering a target-dummy type fight, where you can say "it just means a slower start, and then im capped anyways". But even then, we are talking about such small margins that you need to consider that slow start -- e.g., a lost frost strike.
A parse I picked (on Ignis) shows that the expected benefit of one deathchill is about 4200 (thats the (1-C)*D). In a three minute fight, you get 23 DPS for your one deathchill. Those same parses show frost strike giving about 5k average, so that one FS is 28 DPS. In a five minute fight, deathchill is 28 DPS, the extra FS is 17 DPS... 11 more would be a 0.16% DPS upgrade.
When you aren't talking about a target dummy, and consider actual fight mechanics, CotG becomes more important. Mind freeze on cooldown is 120 RP/min, and is easily 80 RP/min in a realistic interrupting environment. Fade-away death coils on fights where you have to run out of melee let you squeeze out an extra few percent during the motion, but they will cost you frost strikes later if you don't have CotG -- no CotG its like getting a brand new slow start and losing another FS. Of course you could save the RP for FS, but then you miss out on a deathcoil or two every time you have to run out, which is probably going to top your 30 DPS from deathchill handily.
Overall... if you really contrive a situation to benefit deathchill... you are still probably looking at < 0.25% DPS per point compared to that point in CotG. As soon as that situation breaks, you are losing DPS.
Deathchill is a PvP talent. If you want it so its there, take it; if you are using GoD/pestilence and have extra points to spend, take it; but if you are sacrificing PvE DPS talents for it, your DPS is going to go down.
The point was mainly to pick up Unbreakable Armor, I realize Deathchill isn't very good, but until testing it myself, I didn't see the value of at least 1/2 CotG. I still feel that UBA is too good to not have however because not having some kind of on-demand burst button sucks for so many situations, like Yogg, which is one of the few fights I DPS.
Sadly this is due to pvp regards.
Time will tell let's hope the best.
So from this we can assume somebody knows something we don't and we should stop talking about frost and hop aboard the unholy train?
"Unlike the previous season 5 faceroll shadowfrost it has no burst, but on the flip side has unrelenting pressure.
It's currently the best damage unholy spec for pve and pvp focusing completely on disease applicators and deathcoil spam because strike damage is far to low as Unholy."
A guideline for the priority rotation is: Burn your runes first, leave the RP for free GCD when your runes are on cooldown. The only exception is when both KM and Rime have procced.
Simple question looking for simple answer. In the OP does this mean and/or OR does it mean if KM and Rime both proc together?
Kaveli, I think what is meant here is that KM+Rime together is your top priority. This is because you need to spend KM as fast as you can, otherwise you'll potentially lose another one (it won't proc while you still have the buff, obviously). And because Obliterate is our highest damage ability, you don't want to actually spend runes on Howling Blast (unless you are deliberately AoEing).
The priority ends up being:
KM+Rime > Diseases > Obliterate > Blood Strike > Frost Strike
As a side note: I've been taking Endless Winter in my PvE DW Frost spec lately. I'm usually on some sort of interrupt-duty for boss fights, and having Mind Freeze cost nothing definitely puts my mind at ease. It's obviously going to eat into my DPS a little, but it means I don't have to consciously save 20 Runic Power all the time.
I don't think CoTG is as useful as you think. I did a heroic with a similarly geared DW DK 2303 WH mine was 2304 at the time. We used the same weapons, cept I had RI on mainhand. His spec didn't take IIT, but had CoTG, and the deathchill. Mine didn't, and I did a 300-500 more dps than him on single target bosses.
Both of us did pretty much the same rotation and had equal amounts of OB/FS.
The reason it works fine is, even with CoTG you aren't getting enough RP. While I just use as many Rime procs as possible since I have the GCD to squeeze it in, basically I make up for the damage from CoTG RP with rime procs instead. The other reason would be in raids with resto druids you are never RP starved, when I ran part of ulduar 25 I never was RP starved or capped.
Using Rimes to fill GCD's simply means you trade a FS for a HB. As stated before, HB is not chosen for KM because it is superior to FS, it is chosen because they are very close but HB has a lower innate crit chance. Without KM active, FS is better than HB due to higher crit rate and partial resist on HB.
And again with the "Slow start" thing. Being RP capped is not a dps loss. Losing FS's from your rotation at any point is. Personally I love being able to use AMS, MF and IBF a minute into the fight without messing up the rotation.
08/19/09, 7:09 PM
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