Unholy Dps | 3.3.5, King of Anything - Page 6

bpcatt1 · 09/04/09, 12:34 PM

I noticed in the 10-man hard mode I'll be in tonight that we won't have a warrior or a rogue in the raid (i.e. no big armor debuff via sunder or expose... we will have fairie fire though).

In situations where your raid comp has no "true" armor debuff, have we determined if obliterate is still superior to SS in the absence of armor debuffs? I realize this is something that would likely not be tested since in our community the concept of max dps is a raid situation where all buffs/debuffs are present. However, I was wondering if anyone had insight here.

I realize we are talking about minimal differences, but knowing even the most minute details of our class is what separates us from those we leave behind on the meters.

Consider · 09/04/09, 1:07 PM

I specifically said in the OP, and I quote, "Obliterate wins out, unless you are missing a crucial raid buff/debuff such as Sunder Armor". Emphasis added. So, yeah.

Really though, if you are concerned about being "left behind on the meters", get all of the necessary raid buffs/debuffs. That is simply how it is. We're not going to theorycraft every possible combination of buffs/debuffs and see what it does to your rotation or stat weights. That would be an enormous task for little to no gain, hence why it's not done. Same reason why we don't try to figure out what spec is best in five mans (SS probably beats Ob here) or any such thing. It's a lot of time (more time than it is to figure out what's best in a normal raid) for much less - both in quality and quantity - information.

If you wish to spend a talent point for those rare occasions where you are doing something of importance and you might be missing Sunder/etc, all power to you. But, honestly, such occasions should not happen (not that they shouldn't happen where you are missing Sunder, but they shouldn't be important ones if you are).

Anyways, Doc was gracious enough to add the previously mentioned "X simulations of Y short duration" option to the simulator and, although it is not quite completely implemented yet, initial testing is showing for me that GoD is a fairly significant (~150) dps loss over GotG/GoDD in a 360 second fight. Which is kinda what I was expecting, personally. More testing to follow.

Also, unrelated, it's showing that Unholy still beats Blood in the short duration fights - although the gap is much, much, much smaller, and I'm not sure Cryptic Fever and such have been added as buff/debuff options yet.

Diello · 09/04/09, 1:28 PM

You could always have a BM hunter tame a worm for you! :V

Hopefully you've got a bunch of good casters and your debuffs will help the raid that way. I wouldn't worry about leading any meters on nights where your class balance is messed up. None of your melee are going to be as high as they should be and anyone analyzing the group's performance should accept that.

Leg · 09/04/09, 2:02 PM

Since I got 2 pieces of common T9 I am using 3/13/55, personally I prefer to waste more points on Desolation than Necrosis, is not that hard to keep it up during the entire fight. I think that Necrosis works better with more haste and melee hits. I am at 30% ArP as Unholy and now with the new weapon I got this week (Justicebringer), usually on top of meters even on single targets. Therefore I have some doubts about the GotG, but if I switch to GoD I will also loose the buff on my Army of Dead that I pop on begin of many fights. Anyone already tested what should our DPS will be with the T9 four pieces?

bpcatt1 · 09/04/09, 3:02 PM

@Consider - my apologies. Even though I've read the OP many times reacquainting myself with unholy, I must have skipped right over it. Thank you for pointing it out.

@Leg - I can't say what projected dps will be for 4-pc T9. They have to get it working first so we can understand what crit rate it's assuming (i.e. melee vs spell vs a hard-coded constant). As for GoD, I'm very inclined to agree with Consider's original observation and what has been shown through the initial test of the X encounters over Y short durations. While it looks awesome in theory, it's somewhat hard to maintain depending on what is going on in my experience. Also, as gear levels increase across the player base, the fights will only get shorter, which makes GoD less likely to keep up.

• frmorrison · 09/04/09, 6:02 PM

Originally Posted by bpcatt1

@Leg - I can't say what projected dps will be for 4-pc T9. They have to get it working first so we can understand what crit rate it's assuming (i.e. melee vs spell vs a hard-coded constant).

It is hard to know the exact dps of 4T9, since its crit rate is around 1% now. Only the devs know what value will be decided once the bonus is fixed, either melee, spell, or an exact value (I think it will be the last one).

Taizu · 09/05/09, 3:10 AM

Rolling diseases

Has anyone considered dropping one of the trinity glyphs for GoD? I imagine once we have SoV, 2p T9, [Death's Verdict], the difference between 'normal' disease ticks and properly timed diseases are going to be huge. We are looking at ~1.2k STR difference here. Which glyph can be dropped for GoD?

level12wizard · 09/05/09, 4:09 AM

Rolling diseases has been semi-considered for awhile now, and it's probably a decent DPS increase when you can make it work. Dropping either Glyph of the Ghoul or Glyph of Dark Death are equally viable. Dark Death will provide slightly more DPS, but Ghoul can prevent pet deaths and scales better in the long run. You gain not only the strength boost, but diseases do not clip when refreshed by GoD, which can be really powerful.

You must consider it on a fight by fight basis though. In situations where you can't Pestilence your strength induced super diseases to your next target it loses value. XT's heart, Mimiron phase changes, and most of Yogg Saron are all clear examples. On the other hand it is amazing on say General Vezax where you never move, and can easily Pestilence to your only other potential DPS target (animus).

Given ideal circumstances, I believe rolling diseases would push [Insane Strength Potion]s over Potions of Speed.

Necromir · 09/05/09, 7:17 PM

honestly most fights aren't long enough for GoD to pull ahead. Considering if your trinkets/fc don't line up at the beginning chances are it won't line up again for atleast a minute.

With the new simming allowing you to sim 6 min fights it looks like GoD is actually a DPS loss over the trinity.

Forswear · 09/05/09, 7:41 PM

Originally Posted by GhostCrawler

The nerf to armor pen in 3.2.2 is intentional. Compared to the recent buff where we increased the value of armor rating to 125%, this nerf would take it back down to 110%. While we are still evaluating the effects of this change in the 3.2.2 build, we did want to let you know of the possibility in case you were about to spend a lot on armor pen gems.

In fact, this was really the point. Several melee specs (and Marksman hunters) had begun to focus on armor pen at the expense of all other stats. Gear without armor pen was being passed over and gem sockets were increasingly being filled with just this one stat. While every spec has stats that are more valuable than others, this one felt like it was starting to trump everything. Not coincidentally, characters stacking lots of armor pen were starting to do more damage than their peers and more damage than we were comfortable with.

This change is largely for PvE reasons, though we won't cry at all if melee damage in PvP drops a little as a result.

Would Obliterate still be > Scourge Strike after 3.2.2 hits?Or would the nerf bring back Scourge Strike and making Haste >ArP because of the loss of value?

Consider · 09/05/09, 7:51 PM

Yes, Obliterate will still be superior, despite the change. The ArP nerf is actually relatively minor, and doesn't really touch upon what makes ArP so strong - the fact that it gets more effective the more of it you have (such as avoidance prior to WotLK. That was such a problem Blizzard had to implement Sunwell Radiance, and then add diminishing returns). That is what they have to change about it to truly balance the stat - how it scales with itself, primarily, and with other stats, to a lesser extent.

But, anyways, no, the ArP nerf won't affect us all that much. It will probably push ArP under Haste, it might push 3/13/55 under 0/17/54 in BiS, and it might change a BiS item or two, but that's about it - nothing so drastic as to shift our rotation. I've yet to do the math to see if those three things will actually happen, but I am fairly confident the first will, about 50:50 on the second, and relatively certain on the third, although not exactly sure which items. I'll do the math sometime in the next couple days, if no one else wants to, but it's not too pressing of a matter.

Sealpup · 09/06/09, 1:55 PM

Originally Posted by level12wizard

You must consider it on a fight by fight basis though. In situations where you can't Pestilence your strength induced super diseases to your next target it loses value. XT's heart, Mimiron phase changes, and most of Yogg Saron are all clear examples. On the other hand it is amazing on say General Vezax where you never move, and can easily Pestilence to your only other potential DPS target (animus).

What you are saying is mostly correct, however, even though pestilence cannot go from body to heart during the heart phase, there is still plenty of opportunity to keep rolling diseases afterward, considering the Heartbreaker fight is close to 10 minutes long. Rolling diseases is also very useful in phase 3 Firefighter when there are multiple mobs spawning, and especially useful in phase 4 when switches are required between body and hands. In Yogg-Saron, I have had great success bouncing the diseases between the Guardians in phase 3 for One Light in the Darkness, keeping them rolling the entire phase.

Rolling diseases is however not too helpful on certain achievement fights such as Disarmed, Crazy Cat Lady, and Algalon. Extra care and positioning is needed and the issue isn't as apparent until Algalon when the collapsing stars path randomly, and two or more uncontrolled explosions usually cause healing to fall behind.

Originally Posted by Necromir

honestly most fights aren't long enough for GoD to pull ahead. Considering if your trinkets/fc don't line up at the beginning chances are it won't line up again for atleast a minute.

Is this from personal experience or guesstimate? Personally unless I activate ghoul frenzy during down time, my Death's Verdict + Greatness + Fallen Crusader all proc together, 95% of the time. Then they go ahead and proc roughly around the same time again when their cooldowns are up throughout the fight.

Consider · 09/06/09, 2:49 PM

Originally Posted by Sealpup

Is this from personal experience or guesstimate? Personally unless I activate ghoul frenzy during down time, my Death's Verdict + Greatness + Fallen Crusader all proc together, 95% of the time. Then they go ahead and proc roughly around the same time again when their cooldowns are up throughout the fight.

Greatness and Death's Verdict are very reliable in proccing once off the ICD, but other stuff? Not so much. 2P T9, for instance, has a relatively low 50% proc rate, and you only have two chance to proc it per 20 seconds. If it doesn't proc in one of those first two Blood Strikes, it won't (have a chance to) proc again for 20 seconds - and, by that time, Greatness/Death's Verdict will almost certainly be down. Sigil of Virulence, although relatively high at 80%, only has one opportunity to proc during the first ten seconds of a fight, and if it doesn't proc on that one, it might not go up until after something else. Fallen Crusader, although it's uptime isn't bad (80ish%?), doesn't have the proc rate something like Death's Verdict/Greatness have due to lacking an ICD, and there's been many times I've gone without it proccing in those initial ten-twenty seconds of the fight.

And the reason why the first ten-twenty seconds are so important? If you can't get your stuff to overlap then, you have to go an entire 45 seconds until you get another shot at it (and that second time around, it becomes even harder for stuff to align itself).

In the sim you are inevitably going to get everything to proc at sometime over the course of a few hundred hours. Over the course of a few minutes? The odds are much, much, much smaller, and if you don't, the glyph loses a large chunk of its value. As the recent version of the sim shows.

puupi · 09/07/09, 11:33 AM

Does anyone have 4pc t9 yet? Would like to get it confirmed that the disease crits are in fact 100% more damage (eq. 1500tick crits for 3k, not 2250). I was disappointed to notice that on my hunter the 2pc bonus for serpent sting only did 50% crits (of course, it's a hunter and I should have figured it out earlier). DK spell crits should be 100% extra damage, but as we all know, DnD did 50% extra damage crits for 6 months, even though it should have been 100% extra damage crits all of the time.

• frmorrison · 09/07/09, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by puupi

Does anyone have 4pc t9 yet? Would like to get it confirmed that the disease crits are in fact 100% more damage (eq. 1500tick crits for 3k, not 2250). I was disappointed to notice that on my hunter the 2pc bonus for serpent sting only did 50% crits (of course, it's a hunter and I should have figured it out earlier).

I have seen lots of screenshots and the tics do double damage, however it is bugged to only crit 1% of the time. The Hunter bonus is fixed on the PTR.