I've been trying out this build - 52/19 actually - for the last few days and it seems to produce comparable results to 53/18. Anybody else experiment w/ NotD at all?

If the ghoul+UA+ghoul glyph combo does indeed provide 90+ dps over 1.5 min, that's worth roughly 2%+ of damage. Taking 1 pt from BCB and either KM/IIT to fill NotD might be worth it, especially since there are so many burst phases in fights these days.

I'd like some comments, as my original post received none, heh

2 piece T9 is very good and 4 pieces will be around 3-4% damage.

I have been curious about something. I skimmed through and didn't see anything about it so I'll post it, sorry if its a repost.

I've been trying the DW frost spec to see how it goes and so far I've liked it. If anything, I'll be keeping it as my dual spec with a blood spec for certain encounters. Recently, I went from the 53/18 spec to the GoD spec.

Not sure what my opinion is on it but I've noticed that on dummies the disease cycles are so close that if there is any fps or ability lag, the diseases fall off pretty easily. In a perfect world, that'll never happen and you'd be able to carry out the rotation with no fault, but personally I do have some fps or lag problems in intensive fights like hodir or mimi. So I've been playing around with a rotation that instead will give a 2-3 second window to renew diseases.
While prolly not optimal, I was curious about how much dps I would lose if I did use this rotation over the normal one for raiding.

The normal rotation is, after diseases: OB-OB-BS-Pest-Dump-OB-OB-OB-Dump.

The rotation I was using is, after diseases: OB-BS-Pest-OB-Dump-OB-OB-OB-Dump.

Basically, putting the BS and Pest before the second OB. It seemed to be working on the dummy pretty well, but curious to see how it would act in a raid setting next to the normal rotation.

Like all DK specs, there isn't really a rotation, there's a priority. I.E. you make sure your diseases are up, if they are you burn KM procs, if you don't have a KM proc, you OB, if you can't OB you BS etc. etc. Rotations are nice to discuss on forums and all, but in an encounter with movement and RNG factors, they rarely hold up.

Speaking of priority vs. rotation, I've recently been playing with GoHB and I've found that it adds a really fun mechanic when keeping diseases up. It works basically like this:

1. Start with Icy Touch for applying FF.
2. FF will stay up passively by using Rime procs most of the time, so only use Icy Touch to refresh FF if you don't have a Rime up.

In general, this feels a lot like using Glyph of Scourge Strike for 2-handed Unholy, and the spread of GCDs that open up make things easier in fights with a lot of movement. With AMS soaking thrown in for extra Frost Strikes, I find it offers a comfortably opportunistic style of play. Is anyone else trying GoHB? My gear is inadequate for data analysis, but I'm curious how it performs in higher level raiding compared to the expectations coming out of simulations.

GoHB doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me with the current mechanics. Since OB is your hardest hitting attack and diseases do 15% more damage now, you always want to have both FF and BP up on as many targets as possible at all times. If you're using HB to refresh FF and a U rune to refresh BP, this means you'll be left with a spare Frost rune which will rot until you have a U rune recharge. Glyph of IT would seem to me to give you a lot more mileage, esp. since youll have a lot more RP available for Frost Strikes.

I've been playing 017054 for the past month and a half now and I gotta say it's the most fun i've had as a DK since the old 32/39 spec.

Anyways, has it been said that the Relentless Earthsiege meta gem is better than the Chaotic Skyflare meta gem yet? A guildie mentioned the relentless to me and I can see how it might be more worthwhile to use it since one nightmare tear can be used for the whole requirement and the rest of your gems can be just pure str.

Also, I noticed the 0/17/54 build on the OP did not have dirge in it. Does the extra 2% from desolation outweigh the RP gain from PS because the rotation is not PS heavy enough?

What do you think about 3/51/17 and 2/51/18 for personal dps?
I can't sacrifice IIT, because my guild have some problems with enh shamans.

I'm given to understand that would want to dump your KM procs as fast as possible, in order to avoid overwriting them and therefore missing out on an auto-crit.

One thing i noticed for me (not sure if its been addressed yet) but im NEVER running out of RP. IF only using it for when I need a dump to pad rune cds. I was thinking of getting rid of it entirely in favor of the HB glyph, but only using it in the regular rotation in which rime procs. Might be nice for added dmg on AoE. It would replace the IT glyph.

Well naturally. If you're in danger of holding runes idle for >3s, you should burn them before dumping the KM proc.