[Compilation] DK Questions and Answers

[bals]

I had been throwing it on our monk tank sometimes since he was typically top dps

[RedFlame]

Hrm. I've been wondering when it is most beneficial to cast army. i personally have been saving it to pop with hero, as the haste buff is inherited and it does more damge (or at least, i've always assumed so and it seems to be true). is it actually more beneficial to use it before the pull, even if you don't cast hero off the bat?

[Shiira]

Well if you aren't popping hero on the pull it's probably because you have a specific phase you want to burn through quickly at the expense of overall dps.

In which case you're probably better off delaying army for hero to do more damage when you need it even if it's less damage overall.

[Mendenbarr]

Depends on the fight.

There are two cases which change optimal army usage:

Maximum overall dps or
Maximum dps at a specific point.

Due to the large cast time and rune cost on army, even with lust further down the road, it's a net gain to use it at the start of the fight during the countdown, if all you care about is maximum overall dps.

Army is a significant dps cooldown though, and as Shiira said, if there is a specific point in the fight where you need a burst of damage, or damage is more important, right before then is a good time to use army.

[Murdos]

For Challenge Mode DPS, what would work better mechanically; Unholy or Dual Wield Frost?

[Darkfriend]

From what I've done (9/9 gold on DK/warrior) Frost>UH. By a lot. So DW.

[Tzunami]

Hello Mendenbarr,

Big fan of your theory crafting and I always suggest your guides to fellow DKs.

For DW Frost while using the talent blood tap would it make sense to macro plague strike and obliterate to consume a BT?
This would always turn an unholy rune into a death rune leaving your frost and death runes recharging. If you hit the cap you can always use BT to refresh a frost or death rune as well.

Something like:
/use plague strike
/use blood tap

This is most likely not as optimal as doing it manually, but I feel it makes more sense then macroing it to say FS like I see so many people doing.

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

[Mendenbarr]

While in theory, it is better to cap your unholy runes with a BT than capping your death/frost runes, in practice you don't use oblit/PS often enough to ensure you never go over 12 stacks of BT. People macro it to FS because FS generates it, and that keeps it from ever wasting charges. Manually is a lot better if you want to bother with it, but for those who prefer to macro, I'd still say FS is your best bet. It's very very very close either way though.

[Deleted]

Do you still have the numbers up for that talent tier somewhere by the way? I remember you having something up showing the simmed difference between regular BT, macroed BT, RE and RC (before the bug was discovered anyways). Is RC going to be a couple % behind again after the bug has been fixed? i'm finding i really like how it plays right now (bug or no bug).

[Mendenbarr]

Numbers for the talent tier remain up in my frost guide on EJ, but they are very outdated. I will be re-doing them for 5.4, but not until the changes stop, and everything settles down.

[Deleted]

Guys one question, I want to level an alt to do solo content, thinking between warrior or death knight. Would you recommend Dk over warrior to do it? Thanks

[Mendenbarr]

Guys one question, I want to level an alt to do solo content, thinking between warrior or death knight. Would you recommend Dk over warrior to do it? Thanks

Yes, dks are a lot of fun for soloing, and have a ton of tools in their arsenal. Quite often, the first solo of a boss is done by a dk, and we have a whole thread dedicated to it over at http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...olo-Thread-3-0

Sorry if it was answered but Can you use Tier15 for DPS Increase as Blood?

Yes, yes you can.

[nyyro]

Thanks for all your hard work Menden! I was wondering if you could add the timeless isle trinket to the trinket spreadsheets. It's higher ilvl than new lfr trinkets and want to know how it stacks up if possible.

[Mendenbarr]

Thanks for all your hard work Menden! I was wondering if you could add the timeless isle trinket to the trinket spreadsheets. It's higher ilvl than new lfr trinkets and want to know how it stacks up if possible.

I will, but it will take me a little while >..<
So much to do!

[Deleted]

Hey Mendenbarr me again!
Was wondering if in cases where we're overflooded with ressources for several seconds
thanks to AMS such as megaera rampages, 5.4 brought about any changes to which
ressource to prioritize. Single Target ofc, at 2+ HB is the obvious answer.
Until now ive been spamming FS til runic stopped flooding and sub 77 resuming normal rotation
(hence having runes banked). Should i now HB F/D runes away as they come over FS?
I assume being GCD capped will greatly affect this, lets say either way, once the ressources
are done flooding in you can still fill every GCD.

PS: Thanks again for your amazing work, i have no doubt that the only reason my dps has remained
competitive as DW even through 5.3 is thanks to you!

[Shiira]

What kind of numbers was everyone getting for the four piece for dw frost?

Mendenbarr's results claim that it's a 5.4% increase in 580 gear and a 5.0% increase in 553 gear, but during testing it was normally 2-3% of my overall damage.

Were my numbers low or are mendenbarr's numbers high?

[Mendenbarr]

Hey Mendenbarr me again!
Was wondering if in cases where we're overflooded with ressources for several seconds
thanks to AMS such as megaera rampages, 5.4 brought about any changes to which
ressource to prioritize. Single Target ofc, at 2+ HB is the obvious answer.
Until now ive been spamming FS til runic stopped flooding and sub 77 resuming normal rotation
(hence having runes banked). Should i now HB F/D runes away as they come over FS?
I assume being GCD capped will greatly affect this, lets say either way, once the ressources
are done flooding in you can still fill every GCD.

PS: Thanks again for your amazing work, i have no doubt that the only reason my dps has remained
competitive as DW even through 5.3 is thanks to you!

For single target, you should still be spamming FS with max runic, like when AMS is up. It's more important to waste as little runic as possible than it is to waste as little runes as possible. That's also a good time to bank BT charges, and not use PL, so it's off CD when you DO run out of runes.

What kind of numbers was everyone getting for the four piece for dw frost?

Mendenbarr's results claim that it's a 5.4% increase in 580 gear and a 5.0% increase in 553 gear, but during testing it was normally 2-3% of my overall damage.

Were my numbers low or are mendenbarr's numbers high?

I noticed the same discrepancy on the PTR, and could not figure out exactly why it was happening.
This is the way frozen power is modeled in simC:

(500 +0.08AP) * mastery damage * 2 if 2H
Executes once on every direct damaging attack used while PoF is up, twice on PS/oblit/FS as DW.
I tested that on the PTR, and at the time it was the correct formula for the amount of damage the ability did. It also seemed to have the right number of occurrences in the sim. I'm less confident about this than the other numbers, but for the time being I figured it was worth just getting some more data about the tier bonus on live to see if it's being modeling incorrectly.

[Josiiah]

Glad to be able to switch back to DW frost, how are we wanting to gem this go around?
Is pure mastery going to be the way to go or would I want to gem one of these two ways.

Red - str
Yellow - str/mastery
Blue - str/hit

or would I want something like

Red - str/mastery
Yellow - mastery
Blue - hit/mastery

[Mendenbarr]

The latter.

[Deleted]

Hey again,
the trinket rankings you have up on your blog / on your EJ guide are different.
Which is more accurate?
I just picked up N_Fusion_Fire_Core2, and can't decide what to combo with it, or if i should use it at all :/
Have that, HTF spark, HTF Feather and Shadowpan, figure with the AOE going on, its worth using.