The posts I viewed can be found Here and Here.

Effect #2 Apply Aura: Add % Modifier (15)
Value: 100

Sounds likeit qould very well tie in with the strange "Spell crit + 15%" theory you heard of. However, none of the tests indicate that the crit chance would be spell crit + 15%, or 15% of spell crit, or 115% of any of the crits.

This is decently interesting I think. Check out the combat log in this screenshot.



It would appear that wandering plague and the dot crits are on different rolls. WP critting doesn't mean that FF/BP crits, and FF/BP critting doesn't mean WP proccs. However, when they do happen at the same time, both seem to be crits. WP still doesn't technically crit, it just does double damage. Maybe this should go in the Unholy thread though?

You pretty much explained it yourself. WP is not a crit, but a proc based on your crit chance that does damage equal to the disease tick to the target and all targets around. So if a disease crits and WP procs at the same time, WP technically doesn't crit (because it cannot), but simply copies the critical damage of the disease to its targets (so you get the impression of a crit).

Pretty much wath Amroo said, Tompin.

If you look just like a few posts back I clearly explained how WP works. It's not a crit. It's a different roll. It copies the exact damage from the disease, whether it's a hit or a crit.

@Sakuratei: Yeah, I actually don't believe in the +15%-crap myself. I think the parenthesis-numbers are just codes for different stuff, not actual percentage numbers or something. It's just mildly annoying how 2 tests shows melee, 1 shows spell, and it shares aura with a Resto-bonus... Whoever here (Tompin?) did the tests and found it to be spell crit - care to redo another test?

While I'm much more tempted to say we simply need a very extended test to see definitive results, it IS possible they somehow have the 4T9 bonus detect your spec. With frost and unholy diseases already hitting a fair amount harder than blood, a similar crit chance would make it much more ideal for those specs. However, if they somehow have it based off spell hit in f/u and melee crit in blood, it would probably even the value of the bonus.

But I don't really expect that is the case... seems too complicated for a set bonus.

Some more testing on spell vs melee crit for 4pT9. This time, I was unholy specced which brought my crit up to 20.95% for spells, and 28.39% for melee.

Frost Fever: 2021 hits, 613 crits (~23.3%)
Blood Plague: 1990 hits, 648 crits (~24.6%)

5272 ticks total with a crit rate of 23.9%.
Again closer to spell crit than melee crit, but also, again, consistently and significantly higher than spell crit.

I was actually thinking about that while doing the test, and I was indeed doing it on a Boss dummy. Doing some test on lvl75 dummies as we speak.

28,4% melee - 4,8% boss malus = 23,6%
It's definitely melee crit.

Yep, after about a thousand ticks on lvl75 dummies, I'm seeing 30%+ crit rates, so it's definitely melee crit. Good news.

Question to all ex-Bloodknights that have switched to DW post 3.2:

Okay, so I want to know what effects switching to DW has had on your dps? Higher? Lower? Same?

I'm wanting to switch, as Blood is becoming a bit stale atm, but obviously I don't want to hurt the raid with lower dps.

I have two main concerns right now about switching to DW Frost. The first are my weapons. I currently have this [Razorscale Talon] and this [Grimhorn Crusher] for weapons, but I'm waiting to get the mace for 5 man ToC to drop until I actually switch. Would the Talon and Mace be good enough to make the switch to DW?

And my second concern is cooldowns. As blood, I know that if something has to die quickly, I can hit my DRW/Hysteria macro and start throwing some heat around. I don't feel as though I have that with DW. And as a result, I feel like my dps will go down because of it.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

I don't think my dps has changed all that much. Not that I've noticed anyway. You are right, there is a lack of burst, but frost more than makes up for it in sustained damage along with a <35% hp 'execute' range. Its been said again and again, it really just comes down to playstyle.

I switched back to blood a week ago for a night and what I noticed the most was how bored I was with the rotation haha. KM+Rime has a bit of a slot machine endorphin rush to it that I had just gotten way too used to. I switched back the next day. Bottom line is, play what you feel is fun.

As for weapons, use whatever gives you the highest strike damage and you'll do fine.

Looks kind of bleak. With the change to Dirge and the fact that Subversion will be needed for extra SS damage coupled with the fact you can't get the points in blood for the 5% crit bonus to melee damage for 4pc t9, I'm not sure how DW unholy will work out. Atleast the 0/18/53 spec that boosted death coil damage. Now that crit will be much higher on the necessary stat weights and ArP will be dropping I'm just not sure how DW Unholy will survive.

@Necromir:
I used to Frost DW DPS and that was great. I suspect I'll go back to this after a few more patches.

However, at the moment I find I can get slightly better DPS with an Unholy DW build, focusing on single-rune abilities and Death Coil. So I use neither Obliterate nor Scourge Strike. The changes to Subversion are welcome, but I don't think this'll be enough to significantly change the way we exploit Unholy for DW.

To be honest, if I were in Blizzard's shoes, I'm not sure what I'd try to do to kill Unholy DW, and I'm not sure it's something I'd feel necessary. The Subversion change only helps encourage Obliterate-Unholy players to switch back to Scourge Strike.

@Joker

Didn't Blizz state they were going to try and get rid of Shadowfrost 2.0? Guess nothing yet is getting rid of it. Might have to give it a whirl.

I don't think Blizz said anything about getting rid of shadowfrost.

They did state that current PTR changes to DK's are to try to phase out obliterate as preferred strike for unholy. Hence Subversion and Dirge changes - a carrot and a stick to try to push in the issue.

Wouldn't nerfing the IT glyph do the trick? They could reduce the amount of RP it gives to 5 or give it an alltogether different use. Perhaps something like 10% more damage on IT. I assume 10% of IT damage is still a lot less then 25% Death Coil damage.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe GC was referring to Shadowfrost PvP in that post.

Your dps will go down like 500~1000 after you switch to DW frost, depends on your weapon.

I was top blood DPS DK in my raid and we have 4 DPS DK. After I switched to DW frost, my dps dropped to 2nd or 3rd.
I am using [Stormpike Cleaver] (iLv 245) and offhand [The Grinder](iLv 232) but my dps is barely higher than the 4th blood DK wielding 219 weapon.

Your probably just doing the rotation wrong or something. There should not be a dps loss/gain that would really be noticeable. We have 4 equally geared DKs in my guild (according to WH scores, but thats fine since we are actually using mostly the same gear just different weapons) and we all do approximately the same dps on all bosses. Some I do better by a bit, some they do better by a bit. One is blood, 2 are unholy(2H) and I am frost DW.

We are all using 219~ level weapons as well, but I just upgraded one to 232.

We all pull 5-6k dps on most boss fights.

On another note: Is Tier 9 worth upgrading to now for the GoD spec? We don't use BS much and the 4 piece bonus is bugged now. It seems to me that the GoD spec won't be as good for tier 9, and the other specs will beat it in damage.

I actually don't use BS much at all, I use 2 PT instead I find it a lot easier to keep up the diseases this way, making the tier 9 even less useful to me.

Yep. GC was referring to PvP. As long Shadowfrost 2.0 isnt the dominant PVP spec, Shadowfrost will not be nerfed.

I very much doubt this claim can be anything close to true.

I've had to emergency switch to Frost DW quite often recently. My Blood gear is what you see in the Armory. My Frost DW gear is more or less identical, but I dual wield (drumroll) [Aledar's Battlestar] and a 156 dps sword from Naxx. I doubt you can get much worse 1 handers for the tier of gear we're talking about, and I still managed over 7.2k dps on Iron Council HM and about 6.8k on XT HM without a presence on (I always forget that thing).

The single target dps of Frost DW is definitely higher than Blood - and Blood is no slouch either. Blood's true strength is in the cooldowns - as soon as any damage augmenting mechanic falls into place, wise use of cooldowns can bring Blood to very hard to match dps numbers. But there's no doubt that Frost DW, even with as poor 1handers as I'm using, won't bring your dps down by as much as you're claiming.

The ilvl 245 gear is a significant upgrade regardless of the set bonus - the 232 gear you will need to review with your own set of stat weights. Of course, with the fix in 3.2.2 you will want 4pc regardless, so it would be a wise investment to make room for it come 3.2.2 and to have badges available if you don't at least have it at that time.