The Epidemic-less results are interesting, but the problem is AoE. On a single target, it's essentially a matter of PS + IT verse SS, and similar to 2x BS, although the SS wins out, it isn't by much, and the extra talent points/RP apparently push the first option over. But on multiple targets? No epidemic also comes at the cost of additional pestilences as well, pestilences which could be blood boils or parts of DnDs.

For clarification, the problem isn't the same problem as with GoSS and no epidemic. There, on top of this issue, you also had GoSS becoming useless. GoIT obviously still functions when AoEing.

Like anything regarding AoE, it's a pain to actually work the numbers, since it all comes down to how many targets. That said, if your numbers are accurate (which I'm not questioning, simply haven't done it for myself yet) it might be worth the trade off as the gain is larger than the miniscule 11/0/60 gain. Although, speaking of such, the more points you take out of stuff like Epidemic and Reaping, the more identical the two builds become. The difference between 11/0/60 and 17/0/54, assuming Epidemic and Reaping become no-gos, is a single talent point. There becomes almost no point in differentiating the two.

Then again, perhaps the two builds of choice won't be 11/0/60 or 17/0/54 but, instead, 17/0/54 with Epidemic and 16/0/55 without Epidemic. You take the latter and you gain 60ish dps on single targets at whatever the AoE cost is or you take the former. Might be the best way to present the choice in the OP. Decisions, decisions.

Any which way, such a rotation also has the side benefit of being the shortest - which means that stuff like switching targets, having to run out/back in, so on and so forth become less painful as there's a smaller window for it to mess things up (and if you have to restart your rotation from scratch, there's less dps loss since the rotation is smaller).

Also, despite using the most GCDs, the spec is probably the most latency/error/etc friendly since the disease duration is longest relative to how often they're applied.

Does hurt the value of SoV a bit more than the lack of Reaping did, but that doesn't matter that much.

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I didn't realize that macro no longer worked, my apologies. I simply took it straight from the previous thread. Consider it removed.

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Edit:

Running the sims, the gap I got between the two specs was actually somewhat larger (I used my own current gear as opposed to the default 2H set, which could explain some sort of scaling difference between the two, which would actually be a good thing. I dislike the default 2H set due to the high amount of AP and low amount of Str, personally, which is why I usually don't use it. Not to mention the fact that most people are getting more and more TotC gear by the week, so basing spec choices on a previous tier's gear level is kinda silly. Although it's odd that you're numbers are individually higher than mine. /shrug).

17/0/54 without Reaping, with Epidemic, with Glyph of Unholy Blight: 7860 DPS
17/0/54 without Reaping, without Epidemic, with Glyph of Icy Touch: 7952 DPS

Closer to a 100 dps difference. Worth the 1 BB per 20 seconds you lose on AoE? A personal choice but, the more I think about it, and the more I look at my various parses, I'm going to have to go with yes. There's only one fight in CC where you even use Blood Boil - hard Anub - and even then, you aren't using it constantly. Looking at my 30ish wipes on the fight last week, BB seemed to average between 2.5% and 5% of my overall damage. If no epidemic cuts the number of Blood Boils you do in half (which it very nearly does), that's 1.25% to 2.5% of one's damage on an AoE fight like that lost. In return you gain ~100ish dps which is an approximate 1.5% gain on a single target and a 1%ish gain on an AoE encounter. So you gain ~100ish dps on a single target and lose ~100ish dps on an AoE encounter. Seems worth the trade off to me.

Also, irrelevant but amusing - without Epidemic and Reaping, Scourge Strike drops to less of our overall damage than Blood Strike.

Actually, looking at it, 2x BS does outdamage 1x SS, in either spec. I'm not sure if that's because of the different weapon (when I previously did the sims I was using an ilvl 232 - Aesir's Edge - now I'm using an ilvl 245 - Lothar's Edge - which is quite a gap in weapon damage) and BS simply scales better or what. Odd. So much for Reaping simply being a small dps gain as to a dps loss.

For those curious about the specifics, 1 BS was 3367-3377 damage, on average, between the various parses of the various specs. 1 SS, on the other hand, was ~6634 (almost exactly every time).

It seems to me that players who tend to get a lot of RP from revitalize/rapture and those who use AMS frequently (there are plenty of opportunities in TOC, just like ulduar) will find less of a dps discrepancy between an Icy Touch-no epidemic build than those who don't. The RP from outside sources when I raid seems to fill about half of my rotations with enough RP to skip HOW and fill in a DC in its place, and if I manage to AMS soak it can actually take a minute or so to bleed off the extra RP in our free GCDs.

When that is taken into consideration, it seems that the extra RP in an epidemic-free IT glyph *almost* becomes moot. However, that is my experience, the mileage this setup provides may vary.

You make a valid point Clark

I think where the difference in opinions comes from is that currently most people (correct me if I am wrong) do not use Blood Tap regularly in their rotation as it tends to throw things off balance. With the recently proposed changes to the rotation however it could easily become part of the rotation.

So while yes it definitely is a dps nerf to Bone Shield, the new rotation will more than compensate for it (or at least that's what the last page or 2 of posts sugests) resulting in a net DPS increase over the old rotation. Of course we won't know for sure untill the patch goes live as there might be more changes on the way.

Personaly I wish they changed Bone Shield to consume 1 Blood rune instead of Unholy which will make our lives a lot easier, but that's another story.

I think a lot of people are missing Clark's point. He's not saying not to use bone shield in favor of blood strike, just once BS becomes 1 min, it has to be cast a lot more frequently, assuming no damage removes it, which requires runes to be spent.

In a perfect scenario, Bone Shield will last the full 5 mins and only needs to be cast 1 time.

When it goes to 1 min, it now has to be cast 5 times in that same 5 min time period.

Instead of casting bone shield those extra 4 times, you could use blood tap to get an extra Blood Strike 4 times. Assuming you'd want to use the tap on the bone shield for the 2% boost, it's effectively a dps loss, because you have to use Bone Shield instead of Blood Strike.

Now, whether it is better to use tap + bone shiled or tap + blood strike is something that requires a bit more thought, because you'd have to assume you get the full benefit of the bone shield. If we're using Farno's numbers, then it's 8.4k damage a minute, so over 5 mins it would be 42k damage for tap + bone shield. For tap + blood strike, it would be a 3.2k blood strike 5 times or 16k over the 5 mins, easily putting tap and bone shield in the lead.

I'm pretty sure he's just trying to say that in live vs 3.2.2, there is a loss of rune usage that could be put to better use, not that he's comparing tap + shield to tap + blood strike once 3.2.2 hits.

Lemme know if I'm off Clark