Unholy Dps | 3.3.5, King of Anything - Page 175

Shrakz · 02/16/10, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by baccaa

Ive read most parts of this forum and searched around for DBW in other sections and have yet to find anything about this...

Would it be ANY DPS increase at all to switch to Unholy Presence while under the effects of the 600 haste proc and to pop a Speed flask? Just picked it up last night and DK is my third alt so I'm not too up and up on the DK forums. I most likely will test it later tonight unless I get shot down in here.

It sure would be fun, but in terms of DPS, I don't think using 2 runes to switch to UH pres and then back would be worth it since you would be missing on a SS (1 less UH rune) and a BS ... Unless you incorporate blood tap in the mix but even then I don't see how a +15% dmg increase can be beaten with how a lot of our abilities double dip.

Kulgoss · 02/16/10, 3:24 PM

A little term I cooked up in reference to a very valid question posted back 10 pages or so regarding the issue of a summoned gargoyle performing melee strikes over ranged strikes and how to prevent it given a significant DPS difference the two have. There were only a handful of responses on the topic but since then I have been doing some testing to see if I could confirm or deny this.

I hate to admit that prior to that question I was not paying attention to whether or not my gargoyle was performing inferior melee strikes instead of superior ranged strikes. I took that scenario and have ran with it this past week for our ICC raiding and have had a great amount of success in keeping my gargoyle at distance to perform those ranged attacks, and keep him there. I'm calling this Gargoyle Twisting but that's only because I couldn't come up with a more snappy name.

Gargoyle Twisting
To help ensure that your summoned gargoyle fly's into ranged attack mode, instead of melee attack mode, spin your character 180 degrees around and THEN summon him. Now spin back 180 degrees into your previous position. If done correctly your gargoyle will fly out and away from you and the boss, spin around, and begin performing ranged attacks.

Even with movement my gargoyle remained at range. I'm looking forward to further testing from the community to share their results as well. I have this method down-pat at the moment and make the spin/summon/spin happen very quickly and don't feel as tough I'm throwing myself out of rotation. Of course your personal mileage may vary on this.

I've created a simple animated gif to demonstrate this concept as well but don't want to post it directly here in the forums because of it's size. If you'd like to see it and have a chuckle you can follow the link. You're choice.
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/767...letwisting.gif

Your thoughts and comments are welcome. I hope others find this useful after testing.

♦ arison · 02/16/10, 5:25 PM

For those who have seen the Lich King encounter, you know there is considerable target switching, movement, and downtime. Without spoiling too much of the encounter itself, phase 2 involves sudden DPS of three targets that must die within ~20 seconds, then returning DPS to the Lich King. Moreover, there is considerable movement in this phase, disruption in rotation, and general chaos. Diseases fall off and need refreshed, and there is limited time to dump runes and RP.

I will be experimenting with this during this week's reset, but I think the ultimate result will be increased DPS when it matters most, and little loss during other phases (since the phase changes provide ample opportunity to burn a rune without it materially impacting DPS). Desecration also provides value in phase two, so I suspect a number of UH DKs are already spec'ing differently for this fight.

UH is definitely already a win on Valithria and possibly in P1 of Deathwhisper, even untalented. Talented, it provides for very nice boost in rune usage even above the gcd reduction and movement speed increase.

jusion · 02/16/10, 5:34 PM

Originally Posted by arison

UH is definitely already a win on Valithria and possibly in P1 of Deathwhisper, even untalented. Talented, it provides for very nice boost in rune usage even above the gcd reduction and movement speed increase.

Only if you tank adds in the most ridiculously inefficient ways ever.

Derivel · 02/16/10, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Kulgoss

Even with movement my gargoyle remained at range. I'm looking forward to further testing from the community to share their results as well. I have this method down-pat at the moment and make the spin/summon/spin happen very quickly and don't feel as tough I'm throwing myself out of rotation. Of course your personal mileage may vary on this.

Someone mentioned doing this at the end of that discussion. I tried it and it does seem to work the vast majority of the time but I noticed one instance where he summoned, flew away from the boss as expected, then decided to fly down close to the boss anyway. This was on Saurfang so no movement involved. Even if this fluke happens once in a while, though, turning and summoning seems to be reliable and the only opportunity cost in dps should be a couple tenths of a second offset of your white swing timer.

♦ Darkside · 02/16/10, 6:07 PM

Originally Posted by arison

For those who have seen the Lich King encounter, you know there is considerable target switching, movement, and downtime. Without spoiling too much of the encounter itself, phase 2 involves sudden DPS of three targets that must die within ~20 seconds, then returning DPS to the Lich King. Moreover, there is considerable movement in this phase, disruption in rotation, and general chaos. Diseases fall off and need refreshed, and there is limited time to dump runes and RP.

I will be experimenting with this during this week's reset, but I think the ultimate result will be increased DPS when it matters most, and little loss during other phases (since the phase changes provide ample opportunity to burn a rune without it materially impacting DPS). Desecration also provides value in phase two, so I suspect a number of UH DKs are already spec'ing differently for this fight.

UH is definitely already a win on Valithria and possibly in P1 of Deathwhisper, even untalented. Talented, it provides for very nice boost in rune usage even above the gcd reduction and movement speed increase.

Most of my DPS on the Valkyr comes from diseases and DnD, which are largely unaffected by UP. Furthermore, with proper raid positioning I've never had any issue with uptime on the adds, you can get on them immediately after they spawn and stay on all three until they're dead.

♦ arison · 02/16/10, 6:30 PM

Originally Posted by Darkside

Most of my DPS on the Valkyr comes from diseases and DnD, which are largely unaffected by UP. Furthermore, with proper raid positioning I've never had any issue with uptime on the adds, you can get on them immediately after they spawn and stay on all three until they're dead.

The issue isn't uptime on the adds, it's (1) being able to dump more runes into them in the window available, and (2) being able to apply more damage to the Lich King himself by returning more quickly and getting more of a cycle in. Every 45 seconds you run out basically to the edge of the arena and back to the center (not to mention dodging defile). Certainly runspeed enchant is called for, but UHP goes well beyond that boost and allows for a better boot enchant at the same time.

Amroo · 02/16/10, 6:30 PM

Originally Posted by arison

For those who have seen the Lich King encounter, you know there is considerable target switching, movement, and downtime. Without spoiling too much of the encounter itself, phase 2 involves sudden DPS of three targets that must die within ~20 seconds, then returning DPS to the Lich King. Moreover, there is considerable movement in this phase, disruption in rotation, and general chaos. Diseases fall off and need refreshed, and there is limited time to dump runes and RP.

I will be experimenting with this during this week's reset, but I think the ultimate result will be increased DPS when it matters most, and little loss during other phases (since the phase changes provide ample opportunity to burn a rune without it materially impacting DPS). Desecration also provides value in phase two, so I suspect a number of UH DKs are already spec'ing differently for this fight.

UH is definitely already a win on Valithria and possibly in P1 of Deathwhisper, even untalented. Talented, it provides for very nice boost in rune usage even above the gcd reduction and movement speed increase.

Before switching to Unholy Presence for the entire fight it's definitely better to just spend two points from Dark Conviction or Necrosis in Improved Unholy Presence and do the fight in Blood Presence. 2% Crit is much less of a sacrifice than 15% non-pet damage in exchange for 15% haste.

Originally Posted by arison

The issue isn't uptime on the adds, it's (1) being able to dump more runes into them in the window available, and (2) being able to apply more damage to the Lich King himself by returning more quickly and getting more of a cycle in. Every 45 seconds you run out basically to the edge of the arena and back to the center (not to mention dodging defile). Certainly runspeed enchant is called for, but UHP goes well beyond that boost and allows for a better boot enchant at the same time.

The first thing a Death Knight usually does on the Valkyr is spreading diseases and D&D. The 15% damage loss on secondary targets will be tremendous. Also, you might get more hits on the Valkyr, but each does 15% less damage, so I don't really see the point.

gia · 02/16/10, 7:21 PM

While on the subject of the Valkyr and the Lich King in general, I've found GoD to be quite nice for that fight considering the amount of pestilence and target switching. I wouldn't recommend a full aoe spec with DnD glyph though, as most of the damage is single target (My ghoul did way more damage than my DnD). Still, I saw a noticeable improvement when switching to GoD even though my rotation wasn't as tight.

Amroo · 02/16/10, 8:02 PM

Originally Posted by gia

While on the subject of the Valkyr and the Lich King in general, I've found GoD to be quite nice for that fight considering the amount of pestilence and target switching. I wouldn't recommend a full aoe spec with DnD glyph though, as most of the damage is single target (My ghoul did way more damage than my DnD). Still, I saw a noticeable improvement when switching to GoD even though my rotation wasn't as tight.

I actually switched even to GoDnD for this fight as the only really "crucial" damage seems to be on the Valkyr and at that point DnD outperforms Dark Death by a lot.

Frostx · 02/16/10, 8:13 PM

I'm actually topping valkyr damage in my guild without runspeed bonuses of any sort, so I don't think its really needed. DND and diseases are crucial. As for glyphs, I feel GoD and GoDND aren't really needed. There are way too many interruptions for GoD to pull ahead and DND isn't used often enough throughout the entire fight to warrant the glyph.

Fargom · 02/16/10, 8:59 PM

Originally Posted by Frostx

I'm actually topping valkyr damage in my guild without runspeed bonuses of any sort, [...]

Evidence such as this is far too antactodal to base an opinion on, you might just be a stronger player than other dps in your guild, despite not using runspeed. The question you need to answer is if your performance will increase from the use of runspeed. Simply doing the most damage to the valkyrs without runspeed is not sufficient evidence to say that runspeed isn't a gain.

Frostx · 02/16/10, 10:55 PM

Perhaps I should have added more details. I have no problems maintaining a high melee up-time on the valkyrs without run speed bonuses. Would runspeed help me gain more damage? On paper, definitely yes. But in practice I move so little between valkyrs that any damage gain would probably not be enough to offset the difference in talent point/enchant trade offs. The valkyrs have a huge hit box for their model size, it is really easy to stay in melee of them if you are using a good strat for it. Stuns, snares and having them fly in the same direction coupled with the fact that a good portion of our damage when dps-ing valkyrs isn't hindered by melee range makes run speed bonuses not as vital for DKs as for other melee classes.

If one's guild is unable to control the valkyrs enough (lack of stuns/snares or if your valks always fly in a mercedez-benz logo formation) then yes, run speed bonuses would indeed be vital. But if said things are happening I think it will be very hard to get past that phase of the fight and kill the lich king. Hence in my opinion, DKs that actually need run speed will be fringe cases.

Amroo · 02/17/10, 6:19 AM

I suppose the real point of run speed is less chance of fucking up Defile. For the Valkyr there really isn't a point beside returning faster to damage the LK (which in itself might be good enough to warrant the talent points). The argument for GoDnD was that of course the damage over the fight is probably less than with Dark Death, but during the entire encounter the only time damage really counts is on the Valkyr and there DnD pulls far ahead. Even if you already get people out before they're dropped off, you might get them out a second sooner so that they (and you) can return to your tasks sooner.

diospadre · 02/17/10, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by arison

For those who have seen the Lich King encounter, you know there is considerable target switching, movement, and downtime. Without spoiling too much of the encounter itself, phase 2 involves sudden DPS of three targets that must die within ~20 seconds, then returning DPS to the Lich King. Moreover, there is considerable movement in this phase, disruption in rotation, and general chaos. Diseases fall off and need refreshed, and there is limited time to dump runes and RP.

What movement is there in phase 2? The tank should move Arthas near the edge as he reaches 70%, then you stand there waiting until the first raging spirit spawns, then stand there DPSing until the phase ends at which point you run back to Arthas. There should be no movement and no diseases falling off in phase 2. That four second run really doesn't justify the use of Unholy Presence.