Your reasons for dropping Reaping appear sound, and i assume this will not damage the uptime of the sigil proc due to using less Scourgestrikes..

It will lead to lower SoV uptime, but not significantly so, and whatever loss from SoV you suffer is easily outweighed by the raw dps gain from those three talent points, the higher uptime on 2p T9, and the potentially higher uptime on Desolation.

So, yes, it might make SoV slightly less valuable, but SoV will stilll be the best sigil by far, and no Reaping will still be a free dps increase over the alternative.

With only 3 SS you have 1 - 0.2^3 chance of having at least a proc in a full rotation (80% proc chance from the sigil).
That's 99.2%, down from 1 - 0.2^4 = 99.88% chance with 4SS, so a pretty small difference which should not change the total uptime very much.

On the other hand with 2pT9 (50% proc chance) you had 1 - 0.5^2 = 75% chance of at least a proc in a rotation (if not in cooldown of course).
With 4 BS it will be 1 - 0.5^4 = 93.75%. The impact on the uptime should be very noticeable.

First time, Long time

I'm not sure if it would be a dps loss or gain to change the rotation to keep 2PC T9 up and SoV uptime maxed. Spreading out the strikes that can trigger the procs to help with internal cooldowns.

PS > IT > BS > SS > BS > RP Dump
SS > BS > SS > BS > RP Dump

I used this rotation in 3.0 before I started reading here about the benefits of reaping. I also liked that if I was in need of a DnD or Pest the blood rune wasn't far off.

Once i obtain my 4set i am most likely to be going this build in 3.2.2:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...1c3E,QJF,10433

I feel it has the right balance between AOE talents (bladed armor / dark conviction) and ST dps talents (Desolation, which will have a better uptime now and make more use of the t9 2set bonus). Though im still debating whether or not to put points in necrosis, as it really is a good talent. The obvious answer would perhaps be IUP, but having farmed ToC for a while now, i still argue it is an excellent talent (especially so for hard modes).

Edit: thanks for the above calculations on the procs.

I have a feeling that the idea of no Reaping wont last once Blizzard gets a wif of this discussion but if we asume it becomes the new Unholy rotation then we end up with a very basic first-come-first-serve cooldown rotation.

In fact you can easily macro it into a single button masher that follows the initial IT+PS using the following logic

cast SS
ifnot
cast BS

the rest is ... break for Rune Dump ... watch for diseases falling off

So much for skill.

Do tell.

They changed the macro engine 3 years ago such that you can't have a macro cast Spell B when Spell A is on cooldown, it will just keep trying (and failing) to cast Spell A.

Unless the first skill is without a GCD, then it'll work, but only then I think?

I guess that we'll see how much Blizzard thinks we should use Death runes, and if it's ok for us to dps without utilizing them. As long as the talents stay as they are, it seems we'll have to spec either way depending on the strength of SS at the time.

Blood's DRM and Unholy's Reaping both have never given dps benefits beyond making Death Runes, so the devs likely feel satisfied in how they are working. The devs are scared to buff SS even more (due to PvP, the 9% crit talent likely will not be taken by PvPers), so don't expect a Reaping buff.

hmm

I do believe "/castsequence Srourge Strike, Blood Strike" still works. Spam it fast enough and it won't matter which part of the sequence you're on when a rune comes off CD

I think /castsequence still doesn't pass through to the second spell unless the first casts successfully. Until 3.2, this is what people used to use /castrandom for, but that no longer works.

Yeah, forgot about that. Just use two buttons.

I've kind of got this feeling as well. I'll switch to whichever rotation/spec I can do the highest damage while still bringing ebonplague to my raid yet something seems off about the deathrunes actually hindering your maximization of your overall damage. If anything that seems symbolic of Scourgestrike not being buffed enough or the glyph change being too weak for what they're trying to accomplish with these changes. Scourgestrike being a deep talent bought ability it should in every sense be the move you want to get out every time the Runes are available for it.

As it was stated before Reaping is NOT a broken talent, as its main function is to make death runes, and it will still do that. 1x SS still hits harder than 2x BS on average, but its the three talent points you gain that push it over the edge. All PvP builds will still continue to take Reaping.

Playing without Reaping in PvE doesn't mean its a broken talent, and isn't something major that needs to be addressed. If anything I'm quite happy to have an extra 3 points freed up.

---------

On another note I have an idea here that maybe you can check out Consider (can't run sims atm, on a macbook).

Using GoDD, GoGhoul, and GoD with a rotation like so after diseases are up with all procs:

SS - SS - BS - BS
SS - SS - BS - PS

My quick napkin math says its a stretch to be viable, but its worth a shot.

As seen in the developers' Death Knight QA, they specifically implemented the death rune mechanic to add complexity to DK rotations and leverage player skill. We just discovered that reaping is a DPS loss yesterday and instantly people started posting about castsequence macros!

They want us to want death runes. You may not feel it's a broken talent, but the developers clearly don't agree with that sentiment. I wouldn't expect to be skipping the reaping talent long-term.

While I find it amusing how many replies my post resulted in, that was not my point. The point I was trying to make is that yes, this rotation feels overly simplistic and based on Blizzard's repeated statements that they want to make sure skill counts for something a rotation like this can be done by a 5 year old and achieve similar results to a hardcore raider. As such I agree with Slant that this will not be left unchecked, possible solution might be buffing the RP generated by SS just enough to keep you wanting those death runes.

Does anyone here really think there is any skill difference between pressing pressing Scourge Strike instead of 2 Blood Strike? At all? And if so, do you think that the Scourge Strike rotation demands more skill?

I certainly think that efficiently activating and then utilizing Death Runes requires more skill than rotations without. Sure, it isn't a vast difference, but we've got a fairly limited pool of options anyway.

While not quite as glaring as the Enhancement Shaman situation (i.e., SS/LL/ES) that contributed to the /castrandom change in 3.2, no Death Runes takes Unholy one step closer to the whole "press whatever isn't on cooldown for maximum dps" problem. There are several clear signals and some explicit statements that Blizzard wants more thought required/skill involved in optimal effectiveness, which makes the Reaping change odd/notable.

Death Runes definitely aren't that complicated (in PvE they are only remotely interesting when using Death and Decay or Blood Tap), but it is a core part of the Death Knight design. Much like Unholy using Obliterate over Scourge Strike being weird, Reaping being a mathematically undesirable talent for raiding isn't terribly game breaking, but it is unintentional. Reaping is a more active talent than most, so it will probably be adjusted. I could see it being baked into another talent like Outbreak or something.

Then again, I'm still waiting for Corpse Explosion and Ghoul Frenzy to be truly viable raiding talent choices.

Not taking Reaping is not nearly the same thing as not taking Scourge Strike. That is a flawed comparison in many, many ways. Reaping is a dps increase - a very small one. If you had the choice between 3 talent points in Reaping and 3 talent points unspent, you would be best off placing them in Reaping. Scourge Strike, currently, is a dps decrease. If you had the choice between 1 talent point in Scourge Strike (just assume Outbreak is maxed out or w/e) and 1 talent point unspent, you would be better with the 1 talent point unspent. That was (well, is, until 3.2.2) the issue - Scourge Strike is inferior to nothing (well, to Obliterate, which costs us nothing to be able to use). Reaping, on the other hand, is simply inferior to other talents, which is perfectly acceptable - some talents have always been and will always be stronger than others, that's simply how it is.

Thus drawing parallels between the two is just impossible. If two Blood Strikes outdamaged one Scourge Strike, there would be an issue, but that isn't the case.

The talent still has its place in PvP - where death runes are much more valuable, partially because the gap between SS and 2x BS widens, and partially because being able to CoI and junk off a blood rune can be priceless.

Unintentional it probably is, but a major issue (I would argue) it certainly is not.

Unholy will use the same priority system it always has, so I don't see the above mentioned "press whatever isn't on cooldown for maximum dps problem" any more of a problem then as it is now. Skill will come down less to how you handle your rotation (which, let's be honest, has always been pretty simple for Unholy. And for Blood, for that matter) and more to the little things - maximizing AMS for RP, keeping your Ghoul alive, timing your Gargoyle as optimally as possible, knowing how many targets it's worth pesting on, knowing how many targets it's worth flatout AoEing on, knowing when to pop a potion, starting a fight with max RP, so on and so forth. It's all those little things which will - and always have - separated the good Unholys from the bad, not the rotation.

That wouldn't actually change SoV uptime from what it is in the OP. For SoV uptime to increase you would have to separate your first SS and your last by a larger period of time, which those rotation doesn't do. SoV will still have a crazy high uptime, anyways, just not quite as high. Also, due to its CD, changing the rotation to what you suggest wouldn't actually change 2p T9 uptime.

.
I was still at work when you posted this, and am now currently running EP values (I had set them to finish while I was gone but apparently my laptop wasn't plugged in and it died =S), but I can do so later this evening if no one else has. Not taking Reaping doesn't actually have any affect on the value of a Pest build though. If a Pest rotation is viable with Reaping, it's viable without - or the opposite. With the introduction of the simulator being able to do X hours worth of Y second fights, it was previously shown that going the GoD route was not worth it, but that was in 3.2. Perhaps the presence of talents like Bladed Armor and such will shift things. I'll give it a go later, although I am somewhat skeptical - especially when you consider the nature of a lot of TotC/TotGC fights. Still, if it's a dps increase, it's a dps increase.

In regards to Glyph of Disease builds, I had a chat with one of my guildies (Zek, author of X-perl) somedays ago about making a mod that would track the "power" of current diseases on your target (to ease knowing if you should refresh with Glyph of Disease before the end of duration, or cast new ones). Well, he made a mod called BleedingHearts. It tracks what your AP was when you last cast diseases, as well as have a meter for what your current AP is. It's made for disease rolling, and with freeing up a glyph spot as well as fixing T9 4 piece in 3.2.2, people might wish to give it a try. Link provided below;

Bleeding Hearts - WoW AddOns - WowAce.com

It's still in Beta, and could use more testers.