But this in effect makes the armor bypass of shadow damage useless. The whole reason Scourge Strike was in anyway powerful was that it bypassed armor. The way it is written on the 3.3 PTR, it might as well be regular damage, since it is percentage of mitigated damage anyway, at least as written.

For example:

Weapon damage =2000

Base 50% damage is 1000

Assume 35% armor mitigation = 650

Will the 75% for 3 diseases be based on the 1000? or based on the 650? If it is based on the 650, then the "shadow" factor is pointless since it basically has already been mitigated.

As it stands this looks to be [(50%+whatever)((50%+whatever)(25%x3)] or 87.5%+something weapon damage and it is mitigated by armor since the base strike is mitigated.

Even multiplying the whole thing by 1.2 to account for outbreak gives 105%

Compare this to Obliterate (80%+whatever+12.5%x3)x1.2(for glyph of obliterate) =141%

Even if the shadow portion were affected by all modifiers, it could not make up the difference.

Unless something is faulty with my logic, I think that we are going back to obliterate.

Obliterate = (2200*0.8+467)x1.375 = 3062.125 +15 RP without obliterate glyph or 3674.55 with obliterate glyph.

I think your math is faulty. The 3.3 Scourge strike is not 125%. It is 87.5%.

50% weapon damage + 25% of whatever damage was done or basically 12.5% weapon damage.

EDIT: Clarification

The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.

That 25% per disease is not 25% weapon damage. it is 25% of the base strike which is itself 50%+whatever. So it is 25%of 50% which is 12.5%+25%of whatever.


As written it is utterly worthless.

Nevermind; I get it now. I'm dense.

Thanks for the clarification. My math skills seem to be better than my reading skills.

Hmm. In 3.2.2 we're using SS which does almost the same damage as 2xBS (and it's not mitigated while BS is). In 3.3, it's doing almost the same damage as 2xBS (and both are mitigated). So that means that it hasn't effectively changed anything as long as it's affected by Ebon Plague. Of course, it scales worse with Black Ice now... I'm assuming the only reason why OB isn't used in 3.2.2 is because the Blood talents are that much more attractive than the Frost talents. Does this change anything in that regard?

All good.

The real discussion should be how useful will this be?

As it stands it doesn't hold a candle to even the nerfed obliterate. According to my napkin math, it is a massive nerf.

Just compare it to live Scourge Strike. I am going to ignore the non-scaling flat damage modifiers for now.

40%+(10%*3) or 70% unmitigated damage.

vs 50%+(25%*50%*3) or 87.5% mitigated damage.


This means any mitigation greater than 20% will favor the live 3.22 Scourge strike. And this doesn't even factor in the fact that Live Scourge Strike benefits from Ebon Plague. And at best only 43% of PTR Scourge strike will benefit from Ebon Plague.

At 35% mitigation levels, 87.5%*(1-.35) = 56.875% weapon damage.

As written, the PTR Scourge strike should hit for about 19% less than the live version.

I see what you mean, and I haven't wrapped my head around it yet.

Remember 4T9 is only going to effect Blood Plague in 3.3 so it soon will not be so amazing, maybe 3-4% more damage. So 4T10 is just a straight 3% after you do the initial rotation. Likely going straight to 2T10 will be best (due to better stats/gem sockets/survival).

You are correct. It's 52% unmitigated dmg on Live, and 3.3 will be 87.5% mitigated (actually closer to 85.625%, because approx 5% of the shadow dmg will be resisted, a la Necrosis). Obliterate, by comparison, will be 110% mitigated.

What I don't understand is WHY they decided to change it again.

I have tried to test the damage on the PTR but it seems to be bugged at the moment. It is doing under half the damage of scourge strike on live so I am not sure what is going on atm.

In pvp gear just messing around with it I only crit for roughly 3.4k on a target dummy self buffed whereas on live it would have easily been over 7.5k.

Can anyone confirm this?

That's a very good point. I had always read the tooltip as 40% weapon damage +10% per disease as meaning 10% weapon damage. But I may be completely off base.

hmm.

If that is the case, then Obliterate should be king.

Let me redo the math based on what you are saying. This calculation ignored Ebon Plague.

SSLive would be (40%+317)*1.3*1.2 (for 3 diseases +outbreak) = 62.5%+ 494.5 unmitigated

SSPTR would be (50%+317(I am assuming))*1.75*1.2 = 105% + 665 mitigated

Obliterate Live would be (80%+467)*1.375*1.2(3 diseases +glyph) = 132% + 770 mitigated.

Please check my assumptions. You are almost certainly correct about the disease modifier, I guess I have been misreading them forever.

Based on the above then, assuming 2200 weapon damage

SSLive would be 62.5%*2200+494 =1869 unmitigated

SSPTR would be 105%*2200+665 = 2975 mitigated

Obliterate would be 132%*2200+770 = 3674 mitigated

This means that the ratio of SSLive/SSPTR is 0.6282352941176471

Which means any armor reduction of less than 37.2% favors SSPTR over SSLive but everything favors obliterate.

hmm.

Then we have to consider Ebon Plague.

With Ebon Plague

SSLIVE is (40%+317)*1.3*1.2*1.13 = 70.512% + 558.8 unmitigated

Assuming Ebon Plague affected the shadow portion of SS,

SSPTR would be [(50%+317)*(1+0.75*1.13)]*1.2 = 110.85% + 702.8 mitigated

Obliterate Live would still be (80%+467)*1.375*1.2(3 diseases +glyph) = 132% + 770 mitigated


If Ebon plague still affects SSPTR, then it pulls ahead at less than 36.3% armor mitigation

Thanks Consider, I had not realized my monumental error. You pointed it out very diplomatically.