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  1. #1

    [Guide] Festerblight 101

    This guide is out of date and mostly useless! Follow it at your own risk! See the latest responses here:

    http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post22303902


    This guide will be continually updated when necessary! Feedback is appreciated!

    Introduction
    Welcome to the Festerblight discussion thread, FAQ, and guide for patch 5.3! Festerblight is an advanced unholy playstyle that has proven potential for a significant gain. The information contained in this post is intended for both new and seasoned death knights. This patch has brought quite a few changes to unholy and has sparked a greater interest in the community so it is worth discussing some basics for those who have never touched the spec!

    Festerblight is the logical expansion on a time tested way of improving unholy's dps. Since the early days of unholy it been a benefit to apply diseases with temporary buffs for that extra punch. This guide is an explanation on a great way to increase dps further than "traditional" unholy would allow.


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    Festering Strike and You
    When you dot is cast on a target, the game takes a snapshot of your attack power, crit raiting, mastery raiting, and some buffs. If one of these stats were inflated temporarily, the dot will retain the damage provided by the buff even after the buff itself has faded. If one was to overwrite their dot by recasting it, the game would snapshot again and replace the old dot with the new one and reset the duration to its max. This can be good or bad; it allows for reapplying dots that do more damage and can also lead to applying weaker dots by accident.

    Festering Strike is an unholy ability that extends the duration of our dots by 6 seconds every time it is used. Festering Strike does not count as recasting and is an entirely new mechanic from the one we discussed. Festering Strike, when cast, adds 6 seconds to existing diseases on the target and keeps their attack power, crit raiting, mastery raiting, and some buff values unlike normal refresh mechanics.

    This Festering Strike mechanic is key to Festerblight. By stacking temporary buffs at the beginning of the fight and casting outbreak or plague strike with temporary buffs we can get extremely powerful diseases on a target and maintain them for the duration of the fight.

    The Festerblight Phases
    Festerblight is best described in 3 phases.

    • The Setup
    • The Festerblight
    • The Finish

    Each phase is distinctly different from each other and they each last different periods of time. There is no set in stone time period for how long they last, nor is there a period for when they can occur. "The Setup" may occur as late as last phase in a given boss encounter. However it is worth noting that festerblight is at its highest potential when started at the beginning of the fight so this guide will cover that.

    The Setup
    This is the most vital part of Festerblight. You should begin a festerblight priority with a set of diseases applied by either Plague Strike or Unholy Blight. (Save your Outbreak!). Once you have all your temporary buffs up, reapply diseases with outbreak. The temporary buffs you should be looking for are found under the section Your Optimal Opener Now move on to "The Festerblight".

    The Festerblight
    This part of the fight is the main distinction between a "traditional" unholy priority and a Festerblight priority is this part of the fight. The main difference is spending all death runes on festering strike to increase the duration of your diseases beyond what would traditionally happen. The great part about festerblight is that it is flexible. As long as your diseases aren't in danger of falling off in the near future, you can revert back to a traditional priority and use death runes on scourge strike. It is very flexible. Personally, during the middle phase, I spend death runes on scourge strike when I have trinkets or other cooldowns up.

    The Finish
    The Finish phase comes at a time that is very dependent on the fight itself. It begins when your diseases will remain on the target until it is dead. The goal of this phase is to use scourge strike as much as possible and keeping to the "traditional" unholy priority. Spamming festering strike is a waste of dps in this phase because the fight would end with diseases lasting absurd amounts of time.

    Your Optimal Opener
    There are 6 buffs you can easily acquire to give your diseases the biggest punch.
    Rune of the Fallen Crusader
    Should proc fairly quickly on the pull. 15% strength is huge for your diseases
    Potion of Mogu Power
    Should still be active from your prepot and 4000 strength is another huge boost.
    Synapse Springs
    This engineering tinker is essential for someone wishing to min max. 1920 strength is another huge boost.
    Blood Fury
    This orc racial gives 4514 attack power further buffing your diseases.
    • Trinket Proc 1- haste proc trinkets are the only trinkets that are not beneficial to our diseases. If you have another you should use it.
    • Trinket Proc 2

    Festerblight Noteworthies
    Here are some things that make festerblight amazing.
    Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun
    This trinket is a massive upgrade for festerblight. Giving between two and two and a half times as much strength as trinkets with equal item level, this trinket can give supercharged diseases that extra punch. Recommended but certainly not required.
    Tricks of the Trade
    As of patch 5.2, unholy death knights using festerblight are the single best target for tricks of the trade when called for. A single application of tricks of the trade can grant massive dps boosts. Request it of a rogue in your raid team just before you apply your diseases but make sure to emphasize that you only need it once per fight! Recommended but certainly not required.
    As of 5.3, Tricks of the Trade no longer increases the damage done by our diseases. As such we are quite possibly the worst targets for tricks.
    Fight Specific Buffs
    Some fights have damage buffs that can be stacked with our normal buffs for added benefit. Refer to the fight mechanic section for detailed descriptions. Keep in mind that boss debuffs update with your diseases dynamically, meaning you don't need to refresh in order to get the benefit. This also includes raid debuffs like Curse of the Elements or, for physical dots, Physical Vulnerability.

    Simulating Festerblight with Simcraft
    -Courtesy of Mendenbarr

    Quote Originally Posted by Mendenbarr View Post
    Here is a slightly updated way to sim FB:

    Step 1. Run Simulationcraft (Found here)

    Step 2. In options, change threads to the number of cores you want your CPU to use, and iterations to either 10k or higher. Higher takes longer but is more accurate.

    Step 3. Find "Scaling" At the top of the options menu, go to that tab, and select every stat you want to find a value for.

    Step 4. Click "Import", search for your character, and hit import in the bottom of the screen.

    Step 5. Find this line "actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite", and this line "actions.single_target+=/empower_rune_weapon". Delete them, and everything in-between, and replace them with the lines below.

    Code:
    actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite
    actions.precombat+=/food,type=black_pepper_ribs_and_shrimp
    actions.precombat+=/unholy_presence
    actions.precombat+=/horn_of_winter
    actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats
    actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead
    actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion
    actions.precombat+=/raise_dead
    
    actions=auto_attack
    actions+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.dark_transformation.up&target.time_to_die<=35
    actions+=/unholy_frenzy,if=time>=4
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>10&runic_power>=32
    actions+=/unholy_blight,if=talent.unholy_blight.enabled&(dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3)
    actions+=/outbreak,if=dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3
    actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&unholy=1
    actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&(dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2))
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&(target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35&cooldown.soul_reaper.remains=0)
    actions+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking|!dot.frost_fever.ticking
    actions+=/summon_gargoyle
    actions+=/dark_transformation
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.shadow_infusion.stack=5
    actions+=/death_coil,if=runic_power>80
    actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=2
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&unholy=2&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0
    actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=2
    actions+=/festering_strike,if=blood=2&frost=2
    actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=1
    actions+=/death_and_decay,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0
    actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.sudden_doom.react|(buff.dark_transformation.down&rune.unholy<=1)
    actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=1
    actions+=/scourge_strike,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)
    actions+=/plague_leech,if=talent.plague_leech.enabled&cooldown.outbreak.remains<1
    actions+=/festering_strike
    actions+=/horn_of_winter
    actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.dark_transformation.down|(cooldown.summon_gargoyle.remains>8&buff.dark_transformation.remains>8)
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>=8
    actions+=/empower_rune_weapon
    Step 6. Add the following lines BELOW actions=auto_attack depending on your race/professions/trinkets:
    Orc:
    Code:
    actions+=/blood_fury,if=time>=6
    Troll:
    Code:
    actions+=/berserking,if=time>=2
    Engineer:
    Code:
    actions+=/use_item,name=(name of your gloves, example=gauntlets_of_the_allconsuming_maw),if=time>=11
    Feather:
    Code:
    actions+=/outbreak,if=buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack=10,line_cd=540
    Feather AND shadopan:
    Code:
    actions+=/outbreak,if=buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack=10|(buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack>=7&buff.brutal_talisman_of_the_shadopan_assault.remains<2),line_cd=540


    Festerblight in Throne of Thunder
    Here's the boss rundown for the question: Can I use Festerblight in ToT?

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    Yes, it can be an increase to reapply with the pool buff but this depends on your trinket setup. For instance Feather should be easier to proc inside the first pool than other trinkets. Use an addon to monitor your procs and decide for yourself if it is worth it to apply inside the pool or on the pull.
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    Yes, depending on your job and the speed at which you can kill the adds. The debuff updates dynamically so if you can keep the diseases up, go for it! Keep in mind that you can accidentally overwrite diseases if you switch to adds.
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    Yes, don't use rolling blood. Start festerblight on your main target and maintain it until you have to switch. Spread diseases to all the other targets with procs up as well. With feather this would be during the end of the proc. While your diseases may fall off, the damage from the dots is worth it! I would call this partial festerblight because you cannot stay on the "main" target the entire fight.
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    Yes, be weary of pestilence overwriting diseases on the boss if you are killing the adds.
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    No, too often do you target switch. However when you apply your diseases, attempt to do it with procs up!
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    Yes, stack with Primal Nutriment. The initial application at 100% buff is large but it may be an increase to apply again at 150%+. This is probably a very technical discussion but you will still get great results just stacking with the 100% buff.
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    Yes, however there is a bug that can cause your diseases to be reapplied with lower ap. Use an addon to track when this happens. Also rolling blood is not advised because its possible to overwrite your diseases on heroic from ice wall aoe.
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    Yes, though different claims exist of whether or not the buffs apply dynamically or not. ( When in doubt, reapply after you get your buffs and maintain for the rest of the fight.) There is a reasonable amount of evidence that fully mutated updates with dots dynamically however i've yet to see some that indicate the other buffs do. Apply diseases at the start and maintain unless you feel lucky enough to get procs up with the encounter buffs.
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    On normal it may not be worth it. On heroic melee should have high uptime on the boss so it is quite good.
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    Not on normal because the dogs die and waste alot of disease duration. On heroic, the dogs fly away just to come back at the end of the fight. Dots keep ticking so it is extremely potent. Would call this partial festerblight because your target leaves for a bit even though the disease damage is still occurring.
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    Yes, dots keep ticking when one of them goes inactive so you can get quite a bit of good damage.
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    Dots are not removed during the transition however they do reduced damage but is worthwhile overall. Don't use roiling blood for the ball lighting or you may overwrite by accident!

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Here is my armory...is festerblight right for me?
    The best way to find out would be to sim it yourself and compare it to normal unholy.
    That being said, unless your weapon is much better than your trinkets (we're talking 35 ilvl +) it is likely it will be an increase.

    I don't have Feather! Should I wait?
    Festerblight was a dps increase before Feather was ingame! As long as your trinkets proc something other than haste and your weapon isn't insane, it is likely better!

    If I accidently recast diseases, what do I do?
    You should transition back into a "traditional" unholy playstyle. If the fight is long enough you can start setting up your diseases again.

    If I pestilence with super-diseases on the target, will my aoe be supercharged?
    It depends, pestilence snapshots your current stats and applies diseases based on those values. If you pestilence right after your initial application then your diseases could be as strong but in most cases it will not.

    Roiling Blood was refreshing my diseases! Could I use this instead of Festering Strike?
    No, roiling blood causes a pestilence from the closest target to you when you cast blood boil. If your main target is not the closest, you may overwrite more powerful diseases with weaker ones. Outbreak and Plague Strike snapshot your stats when cast and will maintain them for the duration. Unholy Blight and Wild Mushroom: Plague snapshot with each application.

    Are there any addons to help me with this?
    DKDiseases will show you the strength of dots that could be applied compared to your dots you have on target. Since you should apply your diseases when they are at their most powerful it isn't the most useful thing but it can help, especially at times when you screw up and need to reapply diseases.

    What are festerblight's stat priorities?
    Sim it yourself for specific weights. Here are BIS weights courtesy of Mendenbarr.

    Normal unholy stat weights
    Str Haste Crit Mastery
    4.90 2.66 2.65 2.27

    Festerblight stat weights
    Str Haste Crit Mastery
    4.86 2.95 2.78 2.46

    And realism sims! (Realism contains light movement and AMS soaking every minute or so)
    Normal unholy stat weights

    Str Haste Crit Mastery
    4.77 2.94 2.78 2.59

    Festerblight stat weights
    Str Haste Crit Mastery
    4.93 2.46 2.78 2.59

    Why is it called Festerblight?
    This is why

    Additional Resources
    Advanced Death Knight Tactics at Elitist Jerks by MendenbarrA great advanced unholy and frost guide.
    Unholy Death Knight Guide at Elitist Jerks by Heartless- A great unholy dk guide.
    Simulationcraft- Simulation tool for min maxing dps.
    #Acherus (IRC)- Chatting irc channel for death knights!

    Additional Thanks
    Thanks to #Acherus for their valuable support in all this theorycrafting.
    Special thanks to Mendenbarr for the awesome guide this shamelessly poached off of.
    Thanks to Fnx and Nyanmaru, my fellow mods, for editing and providing feedback as well as making amazing art for this.
    Last edited by Nangz; 2013-10-14 at 08:01 PM.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Good job, specially whoever made the "boss icons" Wonder who made it, hmm.

  3. #3
    Please wait Temp name's Avatar
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    And here I was worried that this would be all complicated and stuff.. I think I'll stick with frost for now, but when we have a couple bosses on farm I might try this out on the farm stuff.

  4. #4
    4 posts, 4 ponies. Nice work on the guide Nangz!


    Here is a slightly updated way to sim FB:

    Step 1. Run Simulationcraft (Found here)

    Step 2. In options, change threads to the number of cores you want your CPU to use, and iterations to either 10k or higher. Higher takes longer but is more accurate.

    Step 3. Find "Scaling" At the top of the options menu, go to that tab, and select every stat you want to find a value for.

    Step 4. Click "Import", search for your character, and hit import in the bottom of the screen.

    Step 5. Find this line "actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite", and this line "actions.single_target+=/empower_rune_weapon". Delete them, and everything in-between, and replace them with the lines below.

    Code:
    actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite
    actions.precombat+=/food,type=black_pepper_ribs_and_shrimp
    actions.precombat+=/unholy_presence
    actions.precombat+=/horn_of_winter
    actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats
    actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead
    actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion
    actions.precombat+=/raise_dead
    
    actions=auto_attack
    actions+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.dark_transformation.up&target.time_to_die<=35
    actions+=/unholy_frenzy,if=time>=4
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>10&runic_power>=32
    actions+=/unholy_blight,if=talent.unholy_blight.enabled&(dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3)
    actions+=/outbreak,if=dot.frost_fever.remains<3|dot.blood_plague.remains<3
    actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&unholy=1
    actions+=/soul_reaper,if=target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=45&(dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2))
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&(target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35&cooldown.soul_reaper.remains=0)
    actions+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking|!dot.frost_fever.ticking
    actions+=/summon_gargoyle
    actions+=/dark_transformation
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.shadow_infusion.stack=5
    actions+=/death_coil,if=runic_power>80
    actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=2
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&unholy=2&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0
    actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=2
    actions+=/festering_strike,if=blood=2&frost=2
    actions+=/death_and_decay,if=unholy=1
    actions+=/death_and_decay,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&cooldown.death_and_decay.remains=0
    actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.sudden_doom.react|(buff.dark_transformation.down&rune.unholy<=1)
    actions+=/scourge_strike,if=unholy=1
    actions+=/scourge_strike,if=dot.frost_fever.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)|dot.blood_plague.remains>(target.time_to_die%2)
    actions+=/plague_leech,if=talent.plague_leech.enabled&cooldown.outbreak.remains<1
    actions+=/festering_strike
    actions+=/horn_of_winter
    actions+=/death_coil,if=buff.dark_transformation.down|(cooldown.summon_gargoyle.remains>8&buff.dark_transformation.remains>8)
    actions+=/blood_tap,if=talent.blood_tap.enabled&buff.blood_charge.stack>=8
    actions+=/empower_rune_weapon
    Step 6. Add the following lines BELOW actions=auto_attack depending on your race/professions/trinkets:
    Orc:
    Code:
    actions+=/blood_fury,if=time>=6
    Troll:
    Code:
    actions+=/berserking,if=time>=2
    Engineer:
    Code:
    actions+=/use_item,name=(name of your gloves, example=gauntlets_of_the_allconsuming_maw),if=time>=11
    Feather:
    Code:
    actions+=/outbreak,if=buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack=10,line_cd=540
    Feather AND shadopan:
    Code:
    actions+=/outbreak,if=buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack=10|(buff.fabled_feather_of_jikun.stack>=7&buff.brutal_talisman_of_the_shadopan_assault.remains<2),line_cd=540









    Notes on fights:

    Council: Try to apply diseases and then pestilence with feather still up. It's pretty tight, but doable, and that one pestilence counts as 5 festering strikes per target you hit with it, so if you hit all 3 dudes, 15 festering strikes.
    Last edited by Mendenbarr; 2013-04-21 at 10:06 PM.
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  5. #5
    Great looking thread! I'd just like to say I wish I could get a transmog set to look like that awesome picture!

  6. #6
    Please wait Temp name's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aeidial View Post
    Great looking thread! I'd just like to say I wish I could get a transmog set to look like that awesome picture!
    Yeah, a green T11 would be sweet.

    Also completely Off-topic; Mendenbarr, good job on liking best pony :3

  7. #7
    Some encounter specific thoughts:

    Jin'rohk - Use procs at the beginning. The fight is too short to waste 40 seconds. Shado-pan almost always comes up exactly at the end of the first pool - this can be tight, and I don't like it on this fight. Feather almost always comes up some time during first pool, so when it does, apply - and hopefully this is > 1 minute in so you can use your second pot here.
    Horridon - I can't imagine any raid where damage on Horridon is actually a problem, but damage on adds isn't, and Unholy is one of the strongest classes at getting adds dead, using Festerblight here except in some way-overgeard meter padding scenario seems pretty worthless to me.
    Council - I do actually like FB here, but I think the DKs doing the most damage are just BB spamming with RB. I'm not sure how that possibly wins, but it does seem to. If you are doing FB, I like to actually open with Outbreak, not so much for diseases but to get Feather to proc instantly so that potion is still when Feather hits 10 stacks. Then use tinker/racial at the appropriate time so you can use Unholy Blight to apply the maximum buffed diseases, thus hitting 2 or 3 bosses with them at once (and if Kaz happens to roll away at the wrong time, at least you got some half-buffed diseases on him).
    Tortos - This just depends on your comp, but I think if your goal is to maximize damage you can do way more by ensuring diseases are on turtles (and of course if you want to pad to bats). I question the usefulness here.

    Durumu - Go upvote my bug post about pestilence on this fight so it has a chance of getting fixed : http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8569859208 (or, if there's a better bug post, point us to it)
    Primordius - This appears to me to be proof that Fully Mutated updates dynamically. Whether you want to wait to racial/tinker/pot anyway because of the potential for 50% more mastery/crit is still a question:
    Code:
    [20:30:49.864] Primordius afflicted by Blood Plague from Riven
    [20:30:52.830] Riven Blood Plague Primordius *14408*
    [20:30:55.835] Riven Blood Plague Primordius *14408*
    [20:30:57.280] Riven afflicted by Fully Mutated
    [20:30:58.823] Riven Blood Plague Primordius 28817
    [20:31:01.852] Riven Blood Plague Primordius 28816
    [20:31:04.857] Riven Blood Plague Primordius 28816
    Lei-Shen - No question you can maximize boss damage by using FB here. I think you end up higher on meters with BB/RB on adds, but these are likely getting killed by your raid anyway, so you have to decide if you care about meters or the most effective damage.

  8. #8
    Update that header image imo :P



    FB not useful on Tortos? It's fairly stand and shoot. You can pestilence to the turtles as they roll by, ofc the dots won't be full strength, but still does a lot of damage with no movement. I don't see how FB wouldn't work on Tortos.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by fangless View Post
    Update that header image imo :P



    FB not useful on Tortos? It's fairly stand and shoot. You can pestilence to the turtles as they roll by, ofc the dots won't be full strength, but still does a lot of damage with no movement. I don't see how FB wouldn't work on Tortos.
    Biggest issue I see is unless you get your tank to position the bats perfectly you can't get diseases on them without possibly overwriting Tortos' and BB spam will only go so far to damaging them.

    I think I'll run full UH for this weeks raid just to play with FB, haven't been able to get rid of my blood spec due to having to tank a few times recently (plus blood spec got me the tier shoulders on bonus roll 1 item vs 3 as frost).

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by broodax View Post
    Some encounter specific thoughts:


    Horridon - I can't imagine any raid where damage on Horridon is actually a problem, but damage on adds isn't, and Unholy is one of the strongest classes at getting adds dead, using Festerblight here except in some way-overgeard meter padding scenario seems pretty worthless to me.
    I tried to be "all encompassing". While I do dps the adds on horridon in my raid team, some groups may not need their death knight to and it certainly is a festerblight viable boss

    Tortos - This just depends on your comp, but I think if your goal is to maximize damage you can do way more by ensuring diseases are on turtles (and of course if you want to pad to bats). I question the usefulness here.
    The difficulty with this fight is that pestilence from the boss to the adds requires reasonably good timing and positioning. It requires bats to be tanked in a certain area and if they're not you must apply diseases to them. If you spread, its pretty easy to overwrite diseases on the boss. RB makes this easier to do by accident. On this fight, unless you are not killing the bats, its not wasted damage to spread diseases!

    Primordius - This appears to me to be proof that Fully Mutated updates dynamically. Whether you want to wait to racial/tinker/pot anyway because of the potential for 50% more mastery/crit is still a question:
    Updated!
    Lei-Shen - No question you can maximize boss damage by using FB here. I think you end up higher on meters with BB/RB on adds, but these are likely getting killed by your raid anyway, so you have to decide if you care about meters or the most effective damage.
    Why not both? For Lei Shen I spec out of RB and just pestilence and then BB spam the adds to death. While I could take RB to for 1 extra blood boil per set of adds, the risk of overwriting on lei shen isn't worth it in my eyes.

  11. #11
    Ah, yah we haven't tanked them in weeks :P

  12. #12
    I have been very dubious about festerblight. I will absolutely do things like exclusively using FeS in anticipation of flying to an upper/lower platform on Ji-kun, rolling strong diseases. Even if it is a theoretical increase, which i can totally accept, I really can't see this being effective in raids.

    For example, Festerblighting on Horridon. Does a festerblighter ask his/her raid leader to be allowed to single target horridon all fight? On that particular fight I've found speccing roiling blood, which i never did for any 5.0 raids, got me the most deeps, as every single mob had diseases on them. What about target switching on Council? You can't pestilence off Tortos onto bats, whats the option there?

    Can someone who regularly uses this rotation talk about how often you can line up; last 2 secs of feather, shado-pan assualt trinket proc, fallen crusader proc, and pot/tinker/blood fury, during fights like Jin'rohk, Ji-Kun, Primordius, Iron Qon, Twin Consorts, Lei Shen (basically fights where you don't have diseases from the pull rolling the whole time)?

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Hemalador View Post
    I have been very dubious about festerblight. I will absolutely do things like exclusively using FeS in anticipation of flying to an upper/lower platform on Ji-kun, rolling strong diseases. Even if it is a theoretical increase, which i can totally accept, I really can't see this being effective in raids.

    For example, Festerblighting on Horridon. Does a festerblighter ask his/her raid leader to be allowed to single target horridon all fight? On that particular fight I've found speccing roiling blood, which i never did for any 5.0 raids, got me the most deeps, as every single mob had diseases on them. What about target switching on Council? You can't pestilence off Tortos onto bats, whats the option there?

    Can someone who regularly uses this rotation talk about how often you can line up; last 2 secs of feather, shado-pan assualt trinket proc, fallen crusader proc, and pot/tinker/blood fury, during fights like Jin'rohk, Ji-Kun, Primordius, Iron Qon, Twin Consorts, Lei Shen (basically fights where you don't have diseases from the pull rolling the whole time)?
    It is possible on a lot of fights... Whether or not your raid do things in a way that would allow you to festerblight is another matter. It's worth noting that you don't even have to have all those procs rolling for festerblight to be an increase. I'm pretty sure feather, synapse springs and fallen crusader would likely show an increase over traditional unholy and that's not difficult to line up. I'm lazy when it comes to festerblight so sometimes It works for me and sometimes i end up re-applying diseases halfway through the encounter by accident :-D

    From a normal (non heroic) raiding perspective:

    Jin'rokh - You'll want to apply your strong dots in the first pool. This will be about a minute into the fight and so your pot will be off cooldown. If you're using spark (normally pretty bad for festerblight) then it lines up pretty well with the first pool too:
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1051&e=1215
    ^^ Not a great attempt (beaten by a rogue with LFR daggers, "yay") but shows that it does work.
    Horridon - If your tanks don't keep Horridon on the platform then it's still possible to have (pestilence unglyphed) rolling blood or just pestilence off Horridon himself onto the adds without rolling blood (if they're close by) with a PS or two on stragglers. You don't have to be on Horridon the whole time, the initial phase will give you some time to build up disease duration and then swapping to him now and then to throw a couple of FS is viable. I personally don't bother and just blood boil all the things with rolling blood.
    Council - You can ask to be on sul permanently until he dies. Festerblight him and get a blood boil off now and again (rolling blood) when the other adds come close. Once sul is dead then switch to traditional unholy, spreading diseases when you see feather procs or w/e
    Tortos - possible but not worth it IMO, our tanks stick the bats infront of tortos and rolling blood is too valuable.
    Megaera - Not possible... I switch to frost for this fight :-P
    Ji Kun - I'm stuck on nest duty (we don't even go back to the main platform, meh) for the entirety of the fight until 30%. If you're not on nests then you can drop down to the first nest, pick up an unused feather and go back to the main platform - grab nutrients buff and unload some serious diseases. You'll be able to grab the nutrients buff a few more times until the feather's charges expire.
    Durumu - Best fight for festerblight. Apply diseases with PS though, outbreak seems buggy?
    Primordius - Wouldn't bother
    Dark Animus - Once you're on to the Animus himself then, if you're lucky with trinket procs you can use your pot and apply buffed diseases... RNG but possible.
    Iron Qon - Not possible.
    Twin Consorts - Half possible, you can festerblight one of the bosses and outbreak onto the other whenever it appears (it'll continue to damage her in the background).
    Lei Shen - Not had any attempts on him yet but, from all accounts it's possible. As long as you have 60seconds+ worth of diseases on him going into the transition phase then they'll continue to roll while he's unattackable. You could pestilence off him to the adds.

    For anything that isn't possible then, as you said - just use your judgement and re-apply stronger diseases when you think it'll be a benefit.
    Last edited by mmoc0cdb03e806; 2013-04-23 at 02:56 PM.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    decent write up, what's with all these pony dp's, nerds.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Nangz View Post
    I tried to be "all encompassing"....
    Why not both? For Lei Shen I spec out of RB and just pestilence and then BB spam the adds to death. While I could take RB to for 1 extra blood boil per set of adds, the risk of overwriting on lei shen isn't worth it in my eyes.
    Agreed, just providing more perspective. On Lei Shen, I find that if you get little sparks, or if you aren't fantastic at getting Ball Lightning together all at once, you don't really have a good spot to pestilence, and even if it's perfect you're losing like ... 15? or something Blood Boils per fight by not having Roiling Blood. In our raid I have to wait forever for the last Ball Lightnings to get in, so either I lose BP ticks or I have to pestilence more than once.

    On the other question - Nangz gave a pretty good rundown about how FB is useful on many fights and useful for portions of other fights, and I gave some perspective that yeah, for some fights you're probably better off just blasting diseases on everything without worrying too much about procs, but for this tier I think I'm FSing way more than I'm SSing (and when I'm not FBing it's usually because I'm using BB).

  16. #16
    2 Questions:
    1. Is Blood Tap still the highest DPS for Festerblight?

    2. Is it worth switching to Scourge Strike when procs are up if you're confident you can maintain the diseases by going back to FeBs when your procs fall off?

  17. #17
    BT/RE are tied. Pick whichever you prefer.

    Hell yes it is.
    <Midwinter> - 14/14 HM -25m - LF exceptional raiders
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Lyon View Post
    2. Is it worth switching to Scourge Strike when procs are up if you're confident you can maintain the diseases by going back to FeBs when your procs fall off?
    To elaborate a little, basic principle is to get as many SSs into the fight duration as possible while never letting your diseases drop, and best throughput will be if you can arrange as many of those SSs to happen during CDs/procs as possible.


    Druid / Demon Hunter SimulationCraft Maintainer

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Need some mathematical testing done. With the increased use of FeS I've found RC to be pretty damn good with the festerblight play-style. If sims are correct then it's worse than RE and BT by 1k DPS or so... However in testing it feels really smooth, even during heroism/UF.

    Oooh the choices. I've been an advocate of blood tap for unholy since the release of MoP but now I'm seriously tempted to stick with RC because it "feels" nice (subjective, i know) and minimises orphan runes :-(
    Last edited by mmoc0cdb03e806; 2013-04-26 at 05:32 PM.

  20. #20
    This is going to sound noobish, and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but what's the issue with pestilencing your dots off the boss onto an add, and then from the add back onto the boss (via rolling blood). I was under the impression that diseases you transfer via pestilence/rolling blood maintain the power they have off the primary target, so them bouncing from Boss to add and back to boss shouldn't be an issue?

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