I'm getting similar results from the simulator, showing 12/0/59 with epidemic and glyphed unholy blight as the superior choice by a small margin. Even if dropping epidemic and glyphing scourge strike were a small damage increase I would be wary of doing so as it would tradeoff significant AE damage capability. 3/10/58 is non-competitive.

I showed the same relationship between spec and glyph choices simulating the 4t9 set bonus. This assumes that it works in the simulator; the results output don't actually show any crits for frost fever or blood plague.

Aside from allowing a PS+IT-to-SS substitution, the SS glyph also effectively gives 4 additional ticks of diseases over a 60-sec rotation, because the disease ticks will line up perfectly with disease reapplication at 10 ticks 30 seconds apart (instead of 6 ticks 20 seconds apart, giving 18 sec of effective disease uptime every 20 sec).

However, even with that, I don't see how you can get a 250 DPS increase from the glyph. You get one SS-for-PS+IT substitution every 60 sec. I don't think SS will do 13+k more than PS+IT to account for that kind of DPS increase. With SS in its current obliterated state, the glyph possibly won't give that kind of DPS increase even if it lets SS extend diseases indefinitely.

Considering talent scaling 2-H spec (+4% 2H damage) would be superior to many talent points.

7/10/54 seems to be the way to go.

I simmed 7/10/54 with glyphed UB as markedly inferior (by 100DPS) to 12/0/59 with glyphed UB. It does not seem to be a competitive spec. Can you provide your templates/stats that provided a superior result?

The poster above you said "seems", which implies a gut feeling rather than proper simming/testing.

Since it seems 12 in blood is the best, it opens up new potion usage possibilities of pop an armor potion pre-pull, then use your normal Haste potion later.

Disease dropping is an overall DPS increase in this case. If you reapplied the disease at the 20+latency-sec mark, the disease would tick 5+latency seconds from the previous tick (which is very close to the worst-case scenario for a refresh); if you reapplied the disease at the 30+latency-sec mark, the disease would tick 3+latency seconds from the previous tick. As long as you reapply BP first, your IT will get the RoR bonus. Over a 60-sec rotation, you effectively gain 4 ticks of disease, which is significantly more damage than you lose from no RoR bonus for PS.

Didn't we have this discussion before Ulduar opened up live? That 12/0/59 would perform better as the instance began and then with better Ulduar gear 10/61(in this case 3/10/58) would pull ahead due to better scaling?

So wouldn't the same situation apply here?

No, since a few talents and SS have changed since the start of Ulduar, so any previous analysis is void. Also, back then the simulator wasn't as developed so the previous results could have been faulty.

Sadly, DK talents/abilities change every few months, so past ideas are not a indication of present performance.

I used my BiS Unholy set, so there's no room for any further scaling .


I bet it will be refreshed to 21s and the SS counter won't be resetted. The SS glyph would be a waste anyway, since you have to refresh your diseases after 20s.

12/0/59 simply is better than before because 3 of the 12 points aren´t completely wasted anymore.
I would be interested in a 7/10/54 vs 12/059 comparison, any specc without at least 7 points in blood doesnt seem to be viable with the new changes.

I completely forgot to think about that. The reason people are seeing better dps is because there are no longer wasted points in subversion to get to the better talents.

It didn't make sense to me until now.

Removed the Epidemic-less builds from the OP. Didn't consider the AoE implications - even if the lack of epidemic + the presence of GoSS are dps gains on single target, they aren't huge ones (<100), and the potential AoE cost just seems way too large (not just from an individual perspective, but from a raid one with EP falling), especially when you consider that is where we shine. You give up too much for too little.

The one thing I'm questioning is the possibility of 16/0/55 (similar to the old 17/0/54, except Desolation maxed). It comes down to what's superior - 1pt in Necrosis or 1pt in Dark Conviction. Previously, Necrosis won by a small margin, but now? With UB benefitting from crit (the old version didn't) and diseases benefiting from crit (obviously huge)? Might work out. Still can't swap builds in my sim, although it's likely due to user stupidity. Else wise I would test it myself.

Also, to Moon above, your build is wrong. You cannot sacrifice Wandering Plague. Well, I mean, you could, but you wouldn't want to. Not in any of the various specs being tossed around. It is that much dps on single target (let alone on multiple targets). 7/10/54 could work, but not at the cost of WP.

MMO Champion changed their format recently. They fully documented the changes, but the DKsim hasn't been adjusted yet.

To load a new build in the sim, create it in MMO champion as normal, click the "export" link in the bottom right of the page, then right-click and copy the URL from "MMO Champion #1" to your clipboard. The DKsim accepts this URL.

Either I did something really wrong in the sim or the new SS glyph just sucks.
This is the char I used.
11-0-60 is the best spec I got so far, anything with Black Ice unfortunately can't keep up. Then I switched the SS glyph with the UB glyph and my dps were a good 100 higher. I didn't really expect that .

Ah. Many thanks.

Results over 350 hours. Done with my current gear, so 2t9 and 2t8. If anyone wants to analyze the summaries, I have them all saved to word, but I'm not bothering to post them here, as they're quite space intensive. And, besides, they don't seem to have any oddities to them, so nothing much of interest. Unless you want proof I'm not just pulling numbers out of my magic hat =p:
7/10/54 with GoUB - 7086 DPS
12/0/59 with GoUB - 7236 DPS
16/0/55 with GoUB - 7178 DPS

Results with 4t9:
7/10/54 with GoUB - 7371 DPS
12/0/59 with GoUB - 7511 DPS
16/0/55 with GoUB - 7508 DPS

7/10/54 just doesn't cut it. Not sure why Black Ice is coming off so weak, but I suppose it's a mix of the new UB (the old one happened the same time we swapped to Oblit) and the nerfed SS.

Dark Conviction doesn't quite pull ahead, even with 4p t9, I suppose. Comes quite close though, at least once you get 4t9 - although if it isn't flat out superior, there's no reason to take it, as it doesn't convey any side benefits (if anything, it's more RNG prone, which is a worse thing to most people).

Working on EP values for 12/0/59 with GoUB, since that does indeed seem to be most ideal at the moment, in case anyone is curious. ArP will probably be way down, but aside from that, I doubt things will shift too significantly.

Edit: Hmmm. Running through some various specs with the SS glyph, first, I suppose! Better safe than sorry.
11/0/60* + GoSS w/ 2t8 and 2t9 - 7125 DPS
11/0/60 + GoSS w/ 4t9 - 7406 DPS
Doesn't quite seem to match up. I can do a few other variations, but doesn't look good, unfortunately.

11/0/60 + GoUB w/ 2t8 and 2t9 - 7243 DPS
11/0/60 + GoUB w/ 4t9 - 7516 DPS
Higher as you said, although only minutely different than 12/0/59. Still, better is better.

*Not sure if that's what you meant by 11/0/60, but I assume it is. Couldn't really think of any other logical possibilities.

You got it right . Can you provide your 12-0-59 spec? 11-0-60 seems to be better with a 281dps weapon, Necrosis scales nicely.

On the topic of the SS glyph--does the simulator clip diseases? Standard rotation will always clip the last tick of FF/BP, which trades diseased IT/PS damage for a tick of FF/BP. However, with 30s diseases, assuming more or less ideal dps conditions (no unexpected rune delays), it will be possible to get all ten ticks of FF/BP while still keeping 100% EP uptime, so while your PS won't benefit from RoR, IT should. The upshot of this is that in addition to an extra SS every minute, you gain two additional ticks of both diseases. Of course, there is only one GCD's lag time available to refresh your first disease (and keep EP up) before your second disease will fall off.

Anyway, I was wondering how the simulator handles this, since this is easily the sort of behavior that could swing dps by 100 either way. Does it attempt to clip diseases with a standard priority-based rotation, or will it always wait for diseases to fall off? Does the SS glyph affect this behavior, as it would a real rotation?

The priority doesn't clip diseases, you can accomplish that with a rotation. Forcing RoR could make a difference, yes.

You forgot FF.

You gain 2 ticks of FF as well as 2 ticks of BP; there is no EP downtime for the raid, because when BP drops and is immediately reapplied, FF is still 1 GCD away from doing the same. You only lose the RoR damage.

However, even with that, the SS glyph is underwhelming to the point of being a waste of [Resilient Parchment], unless something else yet undatamined shifts things in the glyph's favor. Given what we do know, the SS glyph is simply not the significant factor for the new Unholy Ghostcrawler expects it to be.

Bladed armor and dark conviction (with 4t9) also affect diseases as well as death and decay and have a significant impact on AE. I wouldn't find that an acceptable tradeoff for a single-digit single-target DPS increase.

The subversion buff and the dirge nerf are, however, so it's a somewhat moot point. SS Unholy will overtake Oblit Unholy and it will be at next to no dps loss - so Blizzard accomplished its goal, even if it wasn't exactly by the means they expected.

Besides, if Glyph of Scourge Strike was the significant factor, then Glyph of Unholy Blight becomes worthless. Is the opposite really any worse?

As well, it's not so much that GoSS is bad than the fact that due to AoE reasons, you can't go GoSS + No Epidemic (if you could, it would be a contender). If they could somehow make GoSS increase the duration of all of your active FF/BP diseases by 3 seconds until the cap of 9, or something of that nature, than it would be fine. Without redoing the Glyph completely, however, there is no other way to make it viable due to the AoE constraints (you could make it have no cap on the extension which would make it stellar for single targets, but that still wouldn't fix the AoE issues).

True, and thus you would want to go 16/0/55. It's still valuable to know, however, which talents are superior in terms of strictly single targets, and determining the differences.

That said, I'm sure most people would willingly trade ~20 ST dps for several (several) times that AoE dps.

Delete - hit quote instead of edit.