Unholy Dps | 3.3.5, King of Anything - Page 18

Clark · 09/16/09, 5:07 PM

Originally Posted by Leperchaun

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

Exactly. And in PVE situations on LIVE, you almost always get the full 5 minute duration. I've never noticed losing charges to boss AOE.

Edit: to confirm. I have 2 accounts. I set up my mage on the second account to blizzard my DK. Blizzard tics do not reduce bone shield. Arcane explosion does remove bone shield charges. Living Bomb does not remove Bone shield charges. Flame strike will remove 1 charge with the inital damage portion, but the dots do not remove charges.

In PVE boss encounters this behavior is similar. Most boss AOE is environmental in the form of a DOT, and these do not remove charges. Occasional singe damage pulse aoe will remove charges.
iIRC, this behavior has been there since beta. Only direct damage attacks reduce bone shield charges.

Vindice · 09/16/09, 5:21 PM

Originally Posted by Souli

don't forget that if you use BT+BS and not use Boneshield than you also free up 1 more talent point. So it is not only the 2% dam from Boneshield compared to an average BS but you also have to count the bonus dps you get if you put that 1 talent points somewhere else

this discussion's gotten a little silly. i think people have explained what clark's post meant quite thoroughly. 1 min duration on boneshield is primarily a wash, and probably a very small DPS loss compared to if it were 5 min.

off the top of my head, there are really no talent points (that you wouldn't have taken anyway) that added to the 20rp and bloodstrike every minute are going to give you the DPS gain of boneshield, considering most talent points are <= 1% dps. not to mention the damage mitigation should you actually get hit. we went over this discussion a month ago in the old thread.

i think it's time to focus on epidemic and whether it's worth dropping. furthermore, if maybe there's a helpful way to go about testing things on the PTR when it's up. i do have confidence in the simulator but these discussions of latency settings, not to mention the whole GoDisease conversation, have certainly pointed out that it does indeed has its biases.

edit: haha, caught myself right as you posted. i'm not going to argue with you, it's a loss. it's just a loss of > .5% dps, and more annoying than anything else.

Clark · 09/16/09, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Vindice

this discussion's gotten a little silly. i think people have explained what clark's post meant. 1 min CD on boneshield is annoying, but effectively a wash, dps-wise.

off the top of my head, there are really no talent points (that you wouldn't have taken anyway) that added to the 20rp and bloodstrike every minute are going to give you the DPS gain of boneshield, considering most talent points are <= 1% dps. not to mention the damage mitigation should you actually get hit. we went over this discussion a month ago in the old thread.

i think it's time to focus on epidemic and whether it's worth dropping. furthermore, if maybe there's a helpful way to go about testing things on the PTR when it's up. i do have confidence in the simulator but these discussions of latency settings, not to mention the whole GoDisease conversation, have certainly pointed out that it does indeed has its biases.

If you think the bone shield nerf is a wash then you did not understand my post. This discussion is not silly and it is NOT a wash. Losing 4 runes every 5 minutes is a loss. Assuming you use those 4 runes for 4 BS for 4k each average, then it is a 53 dps loss. It may be small, but we are here to optimize, no?

Napkin math

4 runes = 4 Blood Strike for 4k each =16000 damage every 5 minutes that you are losing refreshing Bone shield,

16000/300 seconds =53.3333 dps lost.

Addendum:

Obviously I picked 4k as an arbitrary number for Blood Strike damage. On live, with my gear I am getting more like 2-3k. But the point remains. It is a significant DPS loss. We quibble here over 10 dps differences. Even if blood strike hits for 2k, it is a 26 dps loss.

Addendum 2:

I agree, it is damned annoying too. And losing the blood tap to cast bone shield is annoying as well. It was always there to save your rotation in case you flubbed something. And if you got the rotation right, it was a nice dps gain. This basically makes blood tap useless.

Vindice · 09/16/09, 5:36 PM

Originally Posted by Clark

If you think the bone shield nerf is a wash then you did not understand my post. This discussion is not silly and it is NOT a wash. Losing 4 runes every 5 minutes is a loss. Assuming you use those 4 runes for 4 BS for 4k each average, then it is a 53 dps loss. It may be small, but we are here to optimize, no?

Napkin math

4 runes = 4 Blood Strike for 4k each =16000 damage every 5 minutes that you are losing refreshing Bone shield,

16000/300 seconds =53.3333 dps lost.

Addendum:

Obviously I picked 4k as an arbitrary number for Blood Strike damage. On live, with my gear I am getting more like 2-3k. But the point remains. It is a significant DPS loss. We quibble here over 10 dps differences. Even if blood strike hits for 2k, it is a 26 dps loss.

Addendum 2:

I agree, it is damned annoying too. And losing the blood tap to cast bone shield is annoying as well. It was always there to save your rotation in case you flubbed something. And if you got the rotation right, it was a nice dps gain. This basically makes blood tap useless.

we're not optimizing anything because it is on a 1-minute duration, and this all of course assumes we're static on that target for all 5 minutes, which doesn't really happen these days.

i'm just saying you've made your point, and you are correct that the change is a dps loss in 3.2. i'd prefer to not spend more posts on it beyond recognizing that though; there are just more pressing things to cover.

Clark · 09/16/09, 5:41 PM

Originally Posted by Vindice

we're not optimizing anything because it is on a 1-minute duration, and this all of course assumes we're static on that target for all 5 minutes, which doesn't really happen these days.

i'm just saying you've made your point, and you are correct that the change is a dps loss in 3.2. i'd prefer to not spend more posts on it beyond recognizing that though; there are just more pressing things to cover.

Fair enough. I am frustrated because it is such a pointless change. Unholy did not need a dps nerf, even a minor one. And it is a really annoying change from a quality of life perspective. It isn't as if Unholy dk's need more buttons to push.

Edit:

I more thing. There are some otherwise good theorycrafters who are mistakenly advocating using bone shield and Blood Tap every cooldown on live 3.2 to generate RP. This is really suboptimal for reasons amply stated before. Some folks who don't know any better come here and take everything written here as gospel. That is one of the reasons I have been belaboring this point.

Now on to more about epidemic.

Consider · 09/16/09, 6:29 PM

Clark is right. Most people - and I'll be honest, I'm one of them - don't remember to use BT + BStrike due to plain forgetfulness/saving it in case BShield falls off early/messing up one's rotation if used improperly. That doesn't mean it's not optimal, to use on cooldown, however - because it is. ERW is another one people often forget or use suboptimally, but whatever.

So, yar, that's that.

Anyways, stat weights for 17/0/54 without Reaping, without Epidemic, and with 4p t9:

EP:50	AttackPower	1
EP:50	Strength	3.05
EP:50	Agility	1.05
EP:50	CritRating	2.1
EP:50	HasteRating	2.29
EP:50	ArmorPenetrationRating	1.3
EP:50	ExpertiseRating	1.65
EP:50	BeforeMeleeHitCap<8%	3.05
EP:26	AfterMeleeHitCap	1.4
EP:10	WeaponDPS	6.03
EP:0.1	WeaponSpeed	238.1
EP:	2T7	38.98
EP:	4T7	40.68
EP:	2T8	118.64
EP:	4T8	101.69
EP:	2T9	144.07
EP:	4T9	647.46
	Template	NoReapNoEpid
	Rotation	UnholyTest
	Presence	Blood
	Sigil	Virulence
	RuneEnchant	FallenCrusader
	Pet Calculation	True

Scales with stats much better than the previous build with epidemic and that build scaled better than its predecessor did with both epidemic and reaping. ArP is actually so-so, and not plain bad. Haste is pretty decent. Crit is strong (thanks to 4p t9, not really anything spec specific). So, yeah. The BiS lists won't change as much as they would have originally.

To some other various points: Even if you don't actually use DnD every 15 seconds, no matter how quick you are after toggling it to target a spot on the ground and cast it, it does take time. Even if right now it's only casted every 20 seconds, if it had a 20 second CD, it would be casted less than that - maybe just a second or two later, but still. What more, you have to remember that despite rune refreshes being 10 seconds after the initial go around they will be refreshing quicker than that (by how much depends on latency/how many gcds you actually used previously/etc) due to previously discussed "grace" mechanics. Thus, yeah, taking a point out of Morbidity is definitely a loss in DnD uptime, even in the most perfect of scenarios. I can present it as an option but, honestly, I would never do it myself. The single target gain is negligible - hardly noticeable at all and, in reality, it's probably a single target loss (as you will always do more DCs in game then the sim does, due to revitalize/AMS). The AoE loss, although not staggering, is pretty modestly sized when you consider how potent DnD is.

Also, your live conditions thing is completely faulty since the sim - even the older version of it - assumed 4pt9 worked. It obviously doesn't at the moment. That's going to cause it to overvalue Bladed Armor and particularly Dark Conviction by way more than they actually are, at the moment.

As to no-epidemic+IT-glyph being less valuable if you already get a ton of RP from AMS/Revitalize - that isn't the case. With such a build/glyph, DC is actually your single highest damage move. As such, you can freely dump RP if you're capped, even if you have runes waiting. It will be a net dps gain. The only case in which it wouldn't is if your disease were to fall but, with a 15 second duration and with them being applied every ~10 seconds, you have plenty of time.

Bensch78 · 09/16/09, 7:23 PM

Originally Posted by Consider

[...]
Also, your live conditions thing is completely faulty since the sim - even the older version of it - assumed 4pt9 worked. It obviously doesn't at the moment. That's going to cause it to overvalue Bladed Armor and particularly Dark Conviction by way more than they actually are, at the moment. [...]

Even without 4PCT9 with my own gear (actually only 2PCT8) this rotation shows 50 dps more than i would do with 3-13-55 Oblit. Just do the sims with the predefined Ulduar 2H Set. You will be surprised.

10rp per 10 sec will undo the dirge change, the 9% from subversion have to be calculated manually.

Consider · 09/16/09, 7:49 PM

5rp per 5 seconds is a better way to artificially undo the dirge nerf. 10rp per 10 seconds is slightly worse, and slightly less accurate, for fairly self-obvious reasons.

Anyways, using the default 2h Ulduar gear set (which I still dislike for a variety of reasons, but that's neither here nor there) I got 7210 dps for 0/17/54 Oblit (with said 5 rp per 5 seconds to cover Dirge) and then 7242 dps for 17/0/54 SS/Epidemicless. That's a 32 dps difference. However, you then have to factor in Subversion manually, as you say. SS having 9% less crit will mean you will do approximately 6% less damage with SS (57% crit rate would go down to 48%). SS did 8.4% of the sim's overall damage. Thus, 7242 x 0.084 x 0.06 = 36.49968. So, 17/0/54 comes out behind, and that's ignoring the AoE aspect and such.

If one wishes to respec just to get a hang of what playing in 3.2.2 will be like, or because they're already dropping ArP in preparation (not that you will need to drop as much as previously though, as discussed in previously posted stat weights), then that's cool, of course. The difference is minute. But it is a negative difference all the same.

/shrug

diospadre · 09/16/09, 8:23 PM

Wow, that's a really big jump up for haste.

Consider · 09/16/09, 8:39 PM

Yeah, I was considering the reasoning behind why it would show that. I am fairly positive it has to do with the GCD clipping aspect of it.

With 17/0/54 and no Epidemic, you are typically using 15 GCDs per 2 rune refreshes (~20 seconds) which is obviously putting you over 20 seconds (and this is ignoring anything from AMS/Revitalize). The fact that you go over 20 seconds doesn't matter from a disease cut-off point of view, due to diseases being refreshed every 10 seconds, but what does matter is the fact that the lower GCD means you can condense those 15 GCDs from the base 22.5 seconds it would take, and each fraction of a GCD haste cuts off is a direct dps increase as you will already be sitting on the resource for your next ability, so if you can do the next ability that much sooner, it's a win. This isn't the case now since we run with free GCDs and have to typically wait for our next resource. When you are, in part, GCD limited, however, lowering that GCD becomes quite good.

It's hard to compare to another class as other melees don't actually benefit from the spell GCD reduction (7 out of the 15 GCDs we'll be using are spells, btw).

This, on top of the already decent value the stat has thanks to Necrosis and the Ghoul, makes it seem logical to me.

It's also the same reason why 0/17/54 currently values haste more than 3/13/55, simply to a larger extent.

• frmorrison · 09/16/09, 9:36 PM

Originally Posted by Consider

It's hard to compare to another class as other melees don't actually benefit from the spell GCD reduction.

Paladins use 2 dps spells (Consecration and Exorcism) and a mana spell (Divine Plea) which are all used frequently. However, Haste is about the same as ArP for the weakest dps stat (for a Paladin).

Enhance Shaman use Shocks and Lighting Bolt so they really like Haste since it also affects autoattack, Maelstrom Weapon and Lightning Shield procs.

Consider · 09/16/09, 10:33 PM

The thing you have to remember is that as 17/0/54, we will not be rune constrained. If runes refreshed in 9 seconds instead of 10, it would actually make no difference for us. If they refreshed in 11 seconds, it wouldn't make a difference. Not with the GCD the way it is.

(If they refreshed in longer than 11 seconds we would then have empty gcds so haste would lose value. If they refreshed in less than 9 seconds, another spec would win out anyways, so this would become moot).

Since runes are not a limitation - they already refresh as fast as we could want - the comparison to Paladin doesnt quite work out. If they get haste, yeah, they can use more abilities more often. However, they cannot use all of their abilities equally more often (if that makes sense) due to the individual cooldowns. With us, however, we can - 5% haste would increase how often we end up using all of our active abilities against a single target by X% (X% being 5% times the fraction of our total gcds which are from spells, essentially) equally. If you ignore RP from AMS/Revitalize, anyways.

I'm not sure if I'm quite making any sense or getting across the point I'm trying to get across. Think of it this way - with a paladin, they are more cooldown limited than gcd limited. Haste doesn't allow them to use their hardest hitting abilities any more often because of those very cooldowns. Us, on the other hand, are not cooldown limited (if you consider runes our cooldowns, which they kinda are). Our hardest hitting active ability - DC + UB - will be able to be used more often if we are able to do everything else more often (and all of that stuff we do more often will help as well).

Hope that was somewhat understandable.

Intropy · 09/17/09, 12:31 AM

Consider, I think you are being fairly clear. You are simply saying that because we have a resource that refreshes at a constant rate and we cannot consume it as quickly as we accrue it, haste is a large dps increase. Other melee classes either do not have such a resource (paladins, shamans, warriors) or do not increase casts per time by increasing haste (rogues, warriors).

Becoming GCD capped does raise the blood vs unholy presence question again.

• frmorrison · 09/17/09, 12:39 AM

Originally Posted by Intropy

Consider, I think you are being fairly clear. You are simply saying that because we have a resource that refreshes at a constant rate and we cannot consume it as quickly as we accrue it, haste is a large dps increase. Other melee classes either do not have such a resource (paladins, shamans, warriors) or do not increase casts per time by increasing haste (rogues, warriors).

Becoming GCD capped does raise the blood vs unholy presence question again.

Unholy triple dips on Haste with having few useful spells, a haste scaling pet, and a haste scaling guardian.

Reaching the spell GCD cap (1 second) would require a ton of haste (over 700). However, it does make Unholy Presence even weaker, since you are encouraged to get lots of Haste and you wouldn't get full use (since that Presence already caps spell GCDs).

Leg · 09/17/09, 2:44 AM

If haste becomes so good, weapon speed is a very considerable weight and we got a shortly GCD IUP still not viable for a single target gain? Perhaps dropping two points on desolation.