I see that with 4 Piece T9 we have equal stat weights for both Haste and Crit.

In regards to gemming is there a point where one becomes better than the other?

At the moment I'm favoring haste however I cant help but think that crit might be better for AoE DoT spreading goodness in fights like Anub'Arak 25 HC (and many others to be honest).

The optimizer is always saying Haste which is why I'm rolling with that right now.

Any thoughts, or has anyone any solid info?

(Forgive me if it's already been posted, I cant see it talked about in the OP and do read the thread every day but may have missed it)

Don't forget that all those parses include FF crits from 4PT9. When 4PT9 no longer affects FF in 3.3, FF won't do nearly as much damage.

Reaping can be worth more than three talent points elsewhere even if 2xBS outdamages 1xSS. Remember that 2xBS takes twice as long to execute as 1xSS. Whether the cast time reduction is worth more than three talent points elsewhere depends on your effective latency and gear (specifically, how much haste rating you have from gear).

The big knock against Reaping currently is that Reaping is worth essentially nothing when executing DnD rotations. All encounters where Unholy DKs get to look big on the meters necessarily include substantial AE components, so specs you are going to see topping meters will be the ones leaning strongly toward full AE optimization.

Crit is superior to haste at certain gear points. There isn't an X AP or Y ilvl cut off, or anything like that. Personally, I would advise choosing crit over haste (in regards to orange gems with socket bonuses of 4 strength of greater) at any gear level. Even if you're at a point where haste is slightly higher weighted, crit will pull ahead on any fight with two or more mobs. And almost every fight - even if it's not what would be considered an actual AoE fight - has multiple mobs at various points.

To the first paragraph: Not exactly. That only holds true if you can take advantage of that cast time reduction. With Epidemic and with the GoIT change, we'll have free GCDs without Reaping, and as such that benefit of the talent is largely irrelevant.

Yes, for current patch Reaping discussion, the extra GCD is certainly valuable. But, even so, there are better ways to gain extra GCDs if you want/need them - particularly Epidemic.

As to the second paragraph: Although true, that's really not the main reason why it isn't taken. If it was, we never would have taken it, as it's never had any affect on our AoE damage.

I was talking about live, of course. Come 3.3, the GCD situation will be very different without the extra RP from GoIT.

If your effective latency and haste from gear make the cast time reduction worth more than three talent points elsewhere, Epidemic is inferior to Reaping for single-target DPS. Even Kahorie's sim with its rune timing kink can tell you that. This is because subbing PS+IT for SS instead of subbing 2xBS for SS for the extra GCD costs a lot of DPS from the substantial loss in RP generation with GoIT. The RP is worth more than two talent points elsewhere (I give the 2/2 Epidemic spec two points instead of one because I assume the Reaping spec takes 1/2 Epidemic for AE).

I don't follow the logic in your closing statement. Remember, substantial-AE encounters are not pure-AE encounters. Your overall DPS is a combination of your AE DPS and your single-target DPS. Back in the days when Reaping was a much larger gain in single-target DPS, the gain in AE DPS was not nearly enough to overcome the loss in single-target DPS, and you do less overall DPS without Reaping even in substantial-AE encounters. This is not the case currently where Reaping is on the bubble even for single-target DPS depending on your latency and gear.

The prominent "top parse specs" caters specifically to a handful of encounters. Most probably don't even run GoIT for the single-target DPS gain in favor of additional AE DPS gain. There are many good reasons not to take Reaping, I am pointing out that if you are going with simply "2xBS does more damage than 1xSS" or "all the FC/ANH top parse specs don't have it" then you are not making an informed decision.

Are most people going to be moving back to 2H come 3.3 with the changes?

I'm dual wielding at the moment and love it but a lot of specs I see floating around for 3.3 have 2H specialization.

I'm curious about that hit value. It seems somewhat off. Missing should be no more punishing than it is now - if anything, less punishing, as you have more empty GCDs. Of course, some variation is expected, but that seems like a bit much.

Haste is a bit lower than I would expect. Although it would obviously drop in value from the current one, seems a bit excessive.

Other than that, all seems pretty logical. Switching to 2p t10 will apparantly be a no brainer,
I am fairly positive you're wrong, and would be quite interested in seeing sims to the contrary. Yes, Epidemic causes you to generate 15 less RP. However, it also causes you to gain disease damage and it costs one less talent point than Reaping. The difference between PS + IT and SS and 2 BS and SS are pretty much equal, damage wise, so you can ignore that.

The last sims I did comparing the two showed Epidemic ahead, without question. I'ld be quite interested in any results to the contrary. Perhaps I was simply doing something wrong, or it was outdated info

Without the rune timing kink, both specs will get 6 ticks from each disease every 20 sec under normal single-target conditions on live. I don't have a live version of the sim installed on this computer, but I think you have run the sim enough to know that one point in Necrosis won't give nearly the DPS increase of 15 RP/20 sec.

At first glance, the rune timing kink strictly favors the sometimes-RP-starved 2/2 Epidemic build (it only gets kink-penalized when it has enough RP for 13 GCDs, which is more than half the time, whereas the Reaping spec gets kink-penalized every rotation). However, in this particular case the rune timing kink works both ways.

Whenever both specs chuck 13 GCDs (which is more than half the time), the Reaping build gets kink-penalized less because IT+PS takes less time to cast than BS+BS (in other words, the sim thinks Reaping's 13-GCD rotation is shorter than 2/2 Epidemic's 13-GCD rotation, even though they ought to be equal at 20 sec when modeled correctly).

Without the rune timing kink, the effective disease uptime is identical and 15 RP/ 20 sec obviously beats a point in Necrosis; even with the rune timing kink, 15 RP/ 20 sec is so far ahead of a point in Necrosis you will have to sim at unusual settings to get one point in Necrosis to come out ahead (with a live build of the sim, of course).

He is using the word kink clearly, and in context.

And yet some readers may not know what it means. Or, in my case, be fully confident he's referring to what I think he's referring to.

Your post is much more helpful if you just explain what kink means. And, if it's something meaningful enough to spend time arguing over, then it would be nice if the OP added it to the guide.

~H

Since kink has multiple meanings, it isn't clear in his wording.

Kink doesn't belong in the OP! Kink for me comes from the phase "kinks in your armor" which means a blind spot or bias/prejudge that you have.

Kink : A difficulty or flaw that is likely to impede operation, as in a plan or system.

It was used appropriately in the post, though I can understand those not familiar with English as a primary language having some issue with it. Sorry I was not more detailed originally.