Mildly curious about something I picked up on while reading a recent worldoflogs report. Over the course of a raid the other night (ToGC25), the report shows 405 melee hits from Scourge Strike, but only 363 Shadow Damage hits. Anyone have any ideas on the disparity?

Also keep in mind that the shadow part of the strike will fail to fire if the mob dies from the physical hit. While this isn't going to account for the entire disparity it might help explain it when you think of how many small adds said player might have finished off on anub'arak.

Two things I noticed today:
1) My SS macro reverted back to using rank 1, interesting because you can't even select rank 1 out of the spellbook. Might be a new error with a non-specific SS calling the min rank instead of the max, everything else was fine.

2) New recount shows SS phys and shadow doing nearly identical amount of total damage. Is this intended? That seems like a really awkward coincidence considering the difference in the damage types. On any given boss, or total for both ICC and ToGC 10, the totals for SS parts were nearly identical values - within less than 1000 damage difference. The secondary part is supposed to do 75% more (figuring 3 diseases) after the initial hit, but shadow instead of physical. I'm not sure how else to put it into words, wondering if it just works out that way or if there's an error in Recount/the ability.

I did consider deaths from the physical portion of SS, but (while I'm ashamed to admit it) the entirety of the raid was spent on Twins, dramatically limiting that possibility. I hadn't considered the effect of SS on a target with no diseases, though and that answers much. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to be a bit more vigilant with keeping diseases up.

note: in defense of my guild, we spent the last 2-3 months cheezing twins encounter using the door method. 3.3 effectively broke that crutch, rendering the door method obsolete, and booking us into Progression 1.0. 14 attempts later we figured it out.

Thanks again for the disease heads-up.

Thanks for that log, I've been trying to find some good comparisons of post-fix data. Did 10man ICC/ToGC tonight and got stomped all over by our shadowpriest, wasn't a great feeling. :P

Something I notice about the initial spec descriptions, mentions Unholy Blight in terms of ranking of damage abilities coming in 'distant'. Has anybody toyed around to see if there's any other replacements for UB as a single point? I haven't seen a single fight in my personal logs where UB has broken 1% of total damage done. More often than not it's 0.7-0.8% which seems less than satisfactory. Certainly not out of line for a single point, but I still wonder if there are other options. Something like an extra point in Morbidity, Dark Conviction, something of that nature.

The biggest thing I miss about the old UB was having an aoe that used RP. I've been tempted to spec into corpse explosion because of this. Plus, its just THAT much fun! I imagine there's no talk of it in the OP because it's not worth taking under any circumstances.

Aside from the old 'BOOM! Corpse Explosion Thread' are there any discussions that detail its pros and cons?

I honestly don't think that you can swap point from talent that does 10% DC damage into talent that increases DC damage by 5% and gain dps; and regarding Dark Conviction you should already have it maxed out ( if you follow Consider's teachings).

However removing point from UB could prove useful in some cases ( but once again, you`ll be sacrificing anywhere from 1 - 0.3 % overall damage done - rough numbers - dont judge me, it`s 7 am here) :

1. Morbidity - lower damage, but also you will be gaining faster DnD (although i don't know for sure how applicable it is in ICC boss fights )

2. Improved UP - if you care about it, but personally i dont think that it will be an issue. If you want 8% increased movement speed you can always switch feet enchant.

3. Ghoul Frenzy - must admit that my knowledge on this is rather limited, but it should increase ghoul survivability and damage ( ?% ) - but once again - survivability of a ghoul isn't an issue now.


In essence, while UB isn't the greatest talent to exist, it`s still a nice filler.


Edit: Not thinking before posting.

@Kapaneus: Corpse Explosion will actually contribute a good 2-3% of overall DPS for the night with trash and larger AE involved, I've toyed around with it now and then. Obviously just useless for anything single target.

This is where it's best to have a farming alt(s). Buy as much saronite as you can with gold and also farm badges on alts of yours so you can limit the amount you spend on your main for it.

I was looking at the stat weights for the t9 and t10 bonuses, and noticed that 4pc t9 is still worth the most. According to the math running 2pc t9 and 2pc t10 would be less dps than 4pc t10. Is this correct? If so, looks like it will be a while before I put much t10 on...

That was my understanding as well, and subsequently why I was so confused by the weights listed here for the set bonuses.