Now, I know it's been well established that Unholy Presence is inferior to Blood Presence for a DW build, however I happen to enjoy the fast paced action packed style that unholy presence offers. That having been said I actually find that I pull significantly more DPS in Unholy then I do in Blood. Also, below are some of my observations and questions about running in Unholy Presence, please don't offer advice like "run in blood presence" I know it's been proven superior, I like Unholy Presence better and perform better in it (thus far).
Currently I'm pulling about 5.5k-6.5k single target damage depending on the fight, significantly more on fights with gimmicks, and while running in Unholy Presence I'm finding that about 25-28% of my damage is frost strike. about 20-24% is melee and an equal amount is Obliterate. Given the shift in damage I'm having trouble placing Armor Penetration in my stat priority. Most stat priorities for blood presence seem to go Hit (until cap)> Str> Exp (Until cap)> ArP> Crit> Haste> Everything else (off the top of my head, may be slightly off).
The basic problem is that UP scales less well with most stats than BP does, partially due to the nature of the damage spread and partially due to the free global cool downs. Str is just as valuable as ever, potentially more valuable due to the increased haste? If someone who knows could let me know I'd be greatly pleased. I should also note that because Obliterate is not as important to my rotation as it is when running in Blood Presence I've found [Sigil of Virulence] to be a DPS increase since it buffs all of my abilities rather then #2 or #3 on my list of highest damage attacks.
Expertise goes from extremely valuable to barely valuable because worst case you miss an attack in unholy presence and you can just use it again anyway no harm, no foul. (all the same, my gear brings me very close to expertise cap anyway)
Armor Penetration takes a hit as well due to frost strike being a larger portion of my damage, how much of a hit is something I'd very much like to know. My first instinct is to say that it's still very valuable, probably right after hit and strength, but I'm not sure what percent of damage Frost Strike makes up in a blood presence rotation so it's hard to judge properly.
Crit once again, due to the prominence of Frost Strike is less valuable because of KM procs and an already high crit rate. That having been said, I believe I only have 3 or 4 points in frost strike and am finding that not only do I rarely get more then one KM proc per rotation but weaving frost strikes into the rotation between runes is actually a DPS decrease due to runes coming off cool down at a later time. Typically I eat Rime procs immediately, and wait till the end of my rotation to do my frost strike dump. Rarely do I find KM procs overlapping, and I average about one proc per rotation, which is eaten by howling blast if it happens to proc, but most often eaten by frost strikes. In any case, it seems to me crit takes only a minor hit in terms of value.
Haste. This is another one I have trouble placing in Unholy Presence, largely due to my lack of understanding exactly how Unholy presence interacts with it. Does haste continue to decrease the global cool down or is Unholy considered at the GCD cap? If it did continue to decrease the global cool down it doesn't do much for Unholy presence anyway, the real draw I would assume would be to increase melee damage, damage from BCB/Necrosis and as I understand, scale well with the stats that still due well in Unholy Presence (primarily Strength and I suspect Armor Penetration). As an example, I recently replaced my tier 8 legs with [Legguards of Ascension] from 25 Twin Valkyr and noticed a significant DPS increase, despite having just broken my tier 8 four piece bonus. I didn't expect the extra strength on the item to account for a couple hundred DPS and was curious as to the value of haste on this particular piece.
So at the end of this long tirade this is the stat priority I want to stick with:
Hit (Before Cap)> Str> ArP (Unclear on placement)> Crit> Haste (Unclear on placement)> Expertise> Everything else. I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks about this stat priority and if I'm misunderstanding how any of these stats work in Unholy Presence.
I'd also like to comment that I find between glyphed IT, HoW, various cool downs and AMS soak I have very few empty global cool downs. The very bottom line is that I'd like to get some debate going on what I could do to optimize unholy presence despite the fact that Blood Presence is superior.
@Bobfred: These forums are used for discussing the very maximum DPS scenarios, it doesn't mean that everything we don't say is unviable. If you want to run in Unholy Presence so badly, then do so, you seem to be doing decent in it anyway. It's not going to pull ahead of Blood Presence however.
ArP scales with Obliterate, Blood Strike, melee attacks (and following Necrosis) and BCB if specced for it. While Frost Strike is 25-27% of your damage, the abilities I mentioned surely covers much more than that. It doesn't make ArP super, but it's still a better stat per point than Haste or Crit.
I find it a bit funny how you regard Expertise as a low priority stat when your runs are with near cap, as you say. WHile it might be room for one dodged ability in your rotation, the less Expertise you have the higher the chance of getting dodged abilities, and if you get two or more dodges you're starting to get in serious trouble DPS wise. Expertise also affects your auto attacks, so excluding potential rotation issues your autoattacks suffer a straight DPS loss for every dodge there.
Using normal Rime's probably what lets you fill more GCD's and pull a decent amount of DPS. Blood Presence doesn't have room to utilize normal Rime procs. Haste doesn't reduce GCD for melee attacks at all, and GCD is capped to 1 second for spells. Haste therefore only affects your white attacks, and to a very very small degree when running Blood Presence as your rotiation since the GCD for Icy Touch is shortened.
Your stat priority is pretty much what we use in Blood Presence, except for the shafting of Expertise. I really disagree with regaring Expertise like that, especially since you say you fill out almost all your GCD's through AMS soaking and high RP generation.
This may sound obvious to some, but it may have to be said. Playing in unholy presence has a predominant utility disadvantage: It's harder to produce optimal DPS rotations. Having to play faster requires quicker reactions, hence higher probability to not play optimally; in fact it's already hard as it is in certain complex encounters. Hence even if in a simulated environment two are equal the slower will win, out of ease of use.
PvP may significantly benefit from the reactive opportunities but this is quite rarely needed in PvE; and when it is, more so in tanking and healing.
This may sound obvious to some, but it may have to be said. Playing in unholy presence has a predominant utility disadvantage: It's harder to produce optimal DPS rotations. Having to play faster requires quicker reactions, hence higher probability to not play optimally; in fact it's already hard as it is in certain complex encounters. Hence even if in a simulated environment two are equal the slower will win, out of ease of use.
Depends entirely on what you're used to.
Personally I think in UP you're more "in control" of your abilities, you're never in a hurry to fit all your abilities in the rotation and you have room to play around and make mistakes, thus it's actually easier to play optimal.
Both of you bring good points to the table about Unholy Presence, but I must say simple math supports the possibility of more errors in UP. In a set amount of time the player in UP will hit roughly 1.5 times the keys someone playing in BP will, therefore opening up more room for error. Now this doesn't necessarily mean UP is a bad choice, because one can argue there is more room for error, but I guess that would all depend on the rotation used. UP should suffer a bit more though when you take into account latency and player reactions times. I think UP really shines with spam-style priority rotations that are jam packed with GCDs, like the Unholy DC Spam, which is a blast to play.
I think for Frost DW though this argument doesn't apply because it has been clearly shown Blood Presence is better.
Also, I remember a few pages back it was shown by multiple people that Awareness was a better sigil than Virulence, however I'm seeing alot of DKs and even some on these boards using the new sigil. Has this changed or have they just not been reading as closely as myself ???
Also, I remember a few pages back it was shown by multiple people that Awareness was a better sigil than Virulence, however I'm seeing alot of DKs and even some on these boards using the new sigil. Has this changed or have they just not been reading as closely as myself ???
As far as I remember the final word on it was that they were quite close to each other, SoA prevailing in single target fights and SoV pulling ahead in multitarget fights (Freya, Mimiron p4, Kologarn, aoe trash)
I'm currently very concerned about the suggestion of the OP to wait for KM before using Rime. The explanation given is that HB has lower crit chance. However, even if such an isolated technical advantage is reasonable, the proc rate of a 5/5 KM with IIT is quite frequent, making waiting for it more than 2 or 3 seconds worrying me that I may be missing an extra KM. I have resorted to spending Rime as soon as OBL runes are on CD and KM as soon as all runes are on CD or when Rime+KM are both procced regardless of runes ('normally'). I'd be interested in numbers proving the opposite.
You wait for KM not Rime. You want to use KM whenever you can.
Your starter rotation goes like this:
IT PS OB Dump BS Pest
Then it continues like this:
OB OB Dump OB
OB OB Dump BS Pest
Somewhere during the fight (pref early on) you want to replace 1 OB with an IT / PS combo with your procs up so that your diseases then carry on the entire fight at maximum possible damage output.
Asp, I trust you implicitly, but can you explain why your given rotations differ so much from the ones in the OP?
I know there has been a lot of discussion about SoA versus SoV for DW Frost and I understand that the former is considered optimal for single target and the latter optimal for multi-target/AoE, however, I do have one question.
Does the STR scaling from BoK and talents have much affect on which sigil to use when we include 2 piece t9 set bonus, Greatness, and FC? And what if we add in Greatness 2.0? That seems like a huge amount of additional STR when they proc, however I do understand it would depend on proc rates and the math around the SoA's single target strikes damage bonus vs damage gained from the STR procs. Has anyone looked into this?
Thanks!
Edit:
In addition, I meant to ask about this, but has anyone modeled Vengeance of the Forsaken? I'm using it to replace my FotFF and I'm currently being lazy as I have it macrod into my PS. As seen in my Armory character sheet, it has pushed me over expertise soft-cap, but I'm assuming the usable expertise plus the rounded out AP it gives me makes it a solid choice. Am I correct in this assumption?
I know there has been a lot of discussion about SoA versus SoV for DW Frost and I understand that the former is considered optimal for single target and the latter optimal for multi-target/AoE, however, I do have one question.
Does the STR scaling from BoK and talents have much affect on which sigil to use when we include 2 piece t9 set bonus, Greatness, and FC? And what if we add in Greatness 2.0? That seems like a huge amount of additional STR when they proc, however I do understand it would depend on proc rates and the math around the SoA's single target strikes damage bonus vs damage gained from the STR procs. Has anyone looked into this?
Thanks!
Edit:
In addition, I meant to ask about this, but has anyone modeled Vengeance of the Forsaken? I'm using it to replace my FotFF and I'm currently being lazy as I have it macrod into my PS. As seen in my Armory character sheet, it has pushed me over expertise soft-cap, but I'm assuming the usable expertise plus the rounded out AP it gives me makes it a solid choice. Am I correct in this assumption?
Thank you again.
Additional Strength does not increase the value of more Strength. As a matter of fact, the opposite is the case, the more Strength you have the more valuable other stats such as ArP and Crit become, since they stack multiplicative. However, Strength has such a comfortable lead before other stats that you won't realistically get into areas where Strength falls behind ArP (the next best).
About Vengeance of the Forsaken, personally I consider that trinket to be garbage unless you really need the expertise. The amount of rating falls far behind the static bonus of Trinkets with a comparable item level and the Use Effect definitely does not compensate.
For example, comparing the heroic version of that Trinket to the badge trinket (Mark of Supremacy, both ilvl 245) you get 83 Expertise vs 128 Hit Rating (which is weird, since both stats are worth the same on an item) and a static 1024 AP Use Effect vs a 1250 AP Use Effect that needs to be stacked first. Now consider that the badge Trinket is actually pretty bad and you'll understand why Vengeance of the Forsaken is not worth taking, unless you feel like hoping for Blizzard to fix the stats before you get a better one.
After reading the new stat weights produced by Orlgin for 0/18/53 DW OBhttp://elitistjerks.com/f72/t72364-u...obliterate/p2/ I got to thinking about the build and actually looking over the suggested set up in this OP and the Unholy DPS thread, now I have a question about the Unholy Obliterate Build in the OP and maybe Orlgin can answer it as he has put a lot of time into developing the build as it is now. Anyone else with input please feel free to share.
I am curious as to why points are taken in IUP, and Wandering Plague, instead of Morbidity and filling out Desolation.
Reasoning being, and I am only speaking from intuition and some practical evidence, but Wandering Plague is a very minute portion of my overall DPS as DW UH 0/17/54, in fact, it is usually less than 2% with 3 points invested in it, also, the Oblit builds are played in Blood Presence, which points to me questioning the value of IUP, is it solely for the run speed?
When I look over my damage allocation while on the target dummies practicing rotations, Obliterate even glyphed is roughly 14% of my overall damage, while Death Coil is sitting at 24%(using the spec below, which boosts Death Coil damage slightly and does nothing to adjust Obliterate via talents) I was using SotVH. The OP suggests Awareness, and Orlgin has been simming using Virulence, so I didn't use Awareness. The UH Oblit DW builds produce very high damage DC's, what is the consensus on why no points are placed into Morbidity? I am just slightly confused on the reasoning and would love a bit of clarification on that.
To me, the build looks like a Deathcoil monster(and from the bit of dummy testing I have done, it definitely is), why the movement away from beefing up that main nuke and the attempt to buff up a ToT-less Obliterate? TO me it feel like Obliterate is just a fueling mechanism for this build, the real performer is Death Coil.
I was using this particular variation on the build and I am going to test it out but would love some input on it.
Now I have put in far less time than some on this particular build, but there is such a small number of players who are running DW UH OB and testing it outside of Orlgin, I wanted to get some feedback from everyone.
I plan to raid with it tomorrow and will report back what I find, the fundamentals obviously stay the same, but some of the points are shifted, namely abandoning WP and IUP entirely and beefing up DC with full points in Morbidity, along with full points in Desolation.
Octopi - doing quick mental math seems to indicate that your proposed build would generate 150 RP per rotation (1xPS, 1xIT, 2xBS, 4xOB, 1xHoW), which puts it below the standard 0/13/58 (3xPS, 6xIT, 2xBS, 1xGF), which would generate 180. In addition, the DC spam build usually can fill all of its GCDs even with IUP, which would appear to put it ahead based on Darkside's post in the old Frost DPS thread. I don't recall seeing anything new along those lines, but I suppose it could be possible for a large amount of ArP to cause an Obliterate heavy Blood presence rotation to be better. I'll try to get the simulator set up to do some tests and see. At the very least, thanks for an idea to play with and some excellent points.
It's not really a new idea, it's been around since info about 3.2 leaked out. You're just mixing up the 0/17/54 DC-spam single rune-strikes-build with the 0/18/53 OB UH DW-build, the reason he has 17/54 is because he's discussing switching points around.
I am personally surprised you say WP produce such low numbers. I recall simming putting this build slightly (150-200) dps under 2H UH build and WP being well put points. I'll check the UH DPS-thread for more info about it; also curious!
For those enjoying unholy presence (Bob), I have seen instances where it is viable, sometimes better than blood presence. On tank and spank, single target, I do not see this. On Thorim (arena), Freya, Mimiron (phase 3), Yogg (except on the brain), Razorscale (phase 1), Hodir (our strat uses melee to break out adds), and Faction champions, I have seen that the burst from less GCD helps with dps tremendously. Also, I start fights in unholy presence and open up with:
IT-PS-OB-BS-Pest
ERW-OB-OB-OB-dump
What this does is gives a huge excess of RP (I dump before capping and use rime procs when up), while also maximizing the number of OB I can get with all of my procs up at the start of a fight (FC, Greatness, Mjolnir Runestone). From there, I continue the same rotation in OP with a small variant to switch back to BP smoothly:
OB-OB-BS-Pest
OB-OB-UA-BloodPresence
Using UA ~ 40 seconds doesn't like up perfectly with Mjolnir and Greatness procs, but they do get some overlap when I use it then. This seems to work out great, and I always see myself shoot on top of every at the start of fights.
@Octopi: You are using an altered version of the DC 0/18/53 which I posted earlier. Wandering Plague does a lot more damage with my setup than 0/17/54 because it's not constantly overwriting diseases. You should have this build instead:
According to the many sims I have done with the build, this one is doing the best. Try this one instead.
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.
@Octopi: You are using an altered version of the DC 0/18/53 which I posted earlier. Wandering Plague does a lot more damage with my setup than 0/17/54 because it's not constantly overwriting diseases. You should have this build instead:
According to the many sims I have done with the build, this one is doing the best. Try this one instead.
Thanks Orlgin! Your work on the build is appreciated.
I kind of thought that was the case(overwritting).
I will make some adjustments to what I am running now, I still think 5% more damage on Deathcoil would be worth more than the third point in WP based on intuition, but I trust you have put that variation through its paces. What kind of damage contribution are you seeing from WP while simming?
It's anecdotal, but I also run DW Frost in Unholy Presence. I tend to fall behind on most fights if I'm using Blood Presence, and I like actually being able to dump my RP instead of not really using it. UP is faster paced and it's also really hard to go back to BP after having used it for awhile. It's not much, but I also get to use Icewalker on my boots instead of Tuskarr's Vitality. I use Rime whenever it procs to fill in GCDs, as well as Horn of Winter. I'm not top DPS, but I'm very competitive with our rogues, and usually top 5, with the exception of Vezax.
I think Killing Machine works on a PPM basis but its proc rate is increased by haste and as Unholy Presence adds 15% haste, that probably counts too. I'm not 100% sure though.
This is just for those that are curious about my post above, I made some adjustments to the spec as I do not need to provide EP, and while I think the 3% crit would be valuable due to Spell crit, I decided to put the points into full WP based on the advice of Orlgin.
I wish I had a WoL of WMO of the kill, but we are a new guild and no one has set it up yet. Hopefully I have some more detailed data for you all to pour over in the coming weeks.
@GBF
Algalon is a good fight for unholy presence because of lots of aoe damage which druids heal and feed you RP.
Also, you have [Death's Choice], and that's a big dps buff.
I don't mean this to be rude but I know it may sound that way: Linking DPS lists from a 25-man is of little reliability. It's hard to estimate the level of effectiveness of raid bufs offered (the 25-man nature makes this harder than a 10-man) and it's hard to estimate the level of effectiveness of the rest DPSes that were there. In the end to put it simply: it's hard to estimate what your raid was doing. It will need at least a detailed log and even from there tedious analysis.
08/30/09, 12:35 PM
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