I know this ain't the Blood thread, but I figured I'd just reply to this person's question, anyway, instead of leaving it in the dust.


From looking at your combat log, it seems like you cast DRW before you got bit by the Queen or a raid member. Just in case you didn't know, DRW takes all your current stats (including buffs/blood presence) when it is summoned. That means DRW wouldn't get the damage buff if it was already active before you received the Blood Queen Essence.

However, if you wait a couple seconds and cast DRW right after you're bitten, at the end of a rotation (whereas you apply diseases right after activating DRW; DRW itself is affected by its own diseases, not yours. Thus making it cast its own diseases on the target crucial), you'll receive the damage buff from both diseases and the essence.

Summarized:

DRW is dependent on having its own diseases on the target, and it spawns with your current stats. If you have the buff before activating DRW, it should get the 100% damage buff. If you already have DRW up before you get the essence buff, it won't be affected at all.


4 pc: IT > PS > HS (x2) > DS > DRW > Ghoul > IT > PS > HS (x2) > DS > DC > DS > HS (x4) as your starting rotation. And always remember to activate DRW right before a new rotation, so it benefits from its own IT/PS.

IT > PS > HS (x2) > DS > DC > DS > HS (x4) > DRW >
IT > PS > HS (x2) > DS > DC > DS > HS (x4) - DRW will disappear after the 2nd/3rd Heart Strike.


I probably repeated myself a couple times there, but I'm not the best at explaining things briefly to everyone's comprehension.

This is what i did, one Rotation, pop Hysteria, Orc-Racial then DRW and it resulted in the numbers i posted before. Same goes for Essence of the Blood Queen.
I did some calculations and it looks like DRW does NOT benefit from ANY percentage-based damage-increase including Blood Presence, Bloody Vengance, Blood Gorged and Hysteria. In addition to this, DRW does not scale with ArP either.

Essence of the blood queen is a debuff on you. DRW most likely does not benefit from that. It has no direct implementation to your "stat sheet" for DRW to copy.

So I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong in the Sim. I was trying to replicate the non-reaping, sub-frost performance mentioned in the first post, but I keep coming out well behind my reaping, sub-blood build. Theoretically I could see this happening bc of some odd gear combination interaction or something, but what makes me think I'm doing something wrong is that the auto-attack count & damage done is LESS in the frost sim then the Blood. I do have the 3.3.3 box checked, so I dunno what else could be the problem. I don't know how to post the whole report all pretty like so I'll just post the MH damage #s:

MainHand Total: 638127342| Count: 118211 -- Reaping/blood
MainHand Total: 594894664| Count: 118158 -- Nonreaping/frost

Build was copied from OP's suggested build. Rotation I'm not 100% positive is correct for the sim (since the reaping rotation requires a specific rotation that isn't normal), but that shouldn't play a factor in main hand #s, at least to this degree. Same sim duration, similar % of attacks missed, crits, etc. Just not as many swings. Any ideas/suggestions?

I just made a quit test on PTR myself and my result are similar: DRW doesnt seem to be affected by blood presence or hystéria. I didnt made a long test (kinda hard with the cd and the duration of DRW) but from nothing to blood presence + hysteria, the difference should be easy to see, even with just a few samples.

As always, fantastic work, Consider.

One question for 3.3 as it stands now: If we wanted to work in a few points of Subversion to make it easier for our tanks, would it be best to just go with a blood subspec entirely, or are their points in the Unholy Tree that could feasibly be shifted over without too much of a DPS hit?

Necrosis would be the ideal place to take those points from, as it's not a huge dps loss. Whether or not it would be a dps loss relative to simply going full out on a blood sub-spec largely depends on your gear. It would be close, any which way.

Also, in case there was any question to it: Necrosis is still where you would take points from for Morbidity (in an AoE spec; it still isn't worth it in a single target one).

Simply not thinking this evening; yeah, you can't drop 3 from Necrosis for Subversion (although you can for Morbidity, in the case of an AoE spec) - thus if you really feel the threat reduction so vital, a Blood Sub-spec with Reaping is your best option. Dropping points from Endless Winter or Wandering Plague is simply too large of a dps loss. Taking them from Ebon Plaguebringer would allow Frost to remain ahead, but that has more than its fair share of downsides, as previously discussed.

Threat reduction should never be an issue, at least not on single target encounters: Blood Presence already contains a negative 20% threat modifier. This is on top of the fact that about 15% of our damage comes from our Ghoul or Gargoyle, and is thus threat-free. (100 - 15) x .8 = 68% of our damage done as threat, essentially. Fury Warriors currently out-damage us, and produce 72% (70% if Imp Beserker Stance happens to be additive) of their damage as threat, and that's not even factoring in Heroic Strike. If they can manage, than so can we.

The only way to justify Subversion is in regards to DnD and AoEing and that, unfortunately, is very hard to calculate and judge. AoE always is.

Agreed about the singletarget threat generation; on top of that our dps is slower than most melee to ramp up too. With or without Subversion the only time one has to hold back is with a bad tank, and I don't seem to recall any huge issues the last time we were Unholy/frost in terms of threat with my own tank. Now I am the tank though, and if my unholy DK pulls the boss off me I'll consider it a massive self fail.

I think you can always play it safe with DnD anyway, while setting up the diseases. Ultimately you just learn when each tanking class has established a good initial threat, given your tank is competent at their class.

Keep in mind that 1 point in Subversion (taken from Necrosis) isn't such dps loss. It's reduced threat, plus 3% crit for Scourge Strike and Blood Strike. Have to sim later on those to be able to tell you how much of a dps loss / gain would that be. So, Dps loss from taking 1 Necrosis point minus dps gain from Subversion 3% crit for BS and SS = resulted loss. Of course, there's more to it, depending on ammount of ArPen you have which will boost value of BS / SS crits.

Doesn't the 5% raid wide buff in ICC make frost-sub less attractive, since the ghoul doesn't get any benefits from it? Especially when it goes up to 10, 15%+ later on?

Also, the shadow portion of SS seems to be able to crit once again in 3.3.3, it might be intentional since it hits for less now.