Death Knight 5.4.2. January 6th hotfixes

[Schizoide]

Not at all. It doesn't matter if your statement was accurate. Top guilds taking DKs doesn't mean DKs offer competitive performance. They could be taken for utility (GG, AMZ) or because the specs were perfectly viable pre-buff-- viable, just not competitive.

[Clash the DK]

So...Frost was buffed from last place into........last place. You've got to love it. Such a very strange "buff" for Frost.

[Praxis]

Cycobi, I think it would benefit you to look at the evidence yourself, before you go tell someone else to. DKs being brought to raids doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the specs' DPS at the moment. The facts laid out over and over (AND OVER) again in the 30-page long thread on this same exact forum should help you understand where we are right now.

Anyway...
At this point, I'm glad to have any buff, though I definitely don't feel like it's what was needed. It strikes me as odd, too, that Unholy got a pretty significant buff to strength, while Frost got a buff to something that.. honestly, doesn't have a large impact on our DPS. I guess that this was the easiest choice for them to make that affected both 2H and DW, rather than strongly affecting one and not the other.

EDIT: BTW Cycobi, if you do read this - what I said wasn't meant to be inflammatory. I'm just saying that while I think every top-tier guild would probably prefer to stack their raid with the best classes, sometimes you don't always have that available. Taking a DK DPS doesn't cripple a raid, but it isn't necessarily ideal right now.

[Schizoide]

So...Frost was buffed from last place into........last place. You've got to love it. Such a very strange "buff" for Frost.

Actually going by overall DPS and that +2.6% number for quick napkin results, this buff moves Frost DK up from 18/19 to 15/19 in 25H and from 19/19 to 16/19 in 10H. Still very weak. Unholy should be solidly in the middle of the pack now, though.

Edit: Actually that's a smidgen optimistic, as hunters and elemental shamans were also buffed and they were also at the bottom... but I'm not going to calculate them too. You could call it accurate to plus/minus one rank, but the frost buff only affects single-target performance so even that is an optimistic approximation.

[Clash the DK]

Actually going by overall DPS and that +2.6% number for quick napkin results, this buff moves Frost DK up from 18/19 to 15/19 in 25H and from 19/19 to 16/19 in 10H. Still very weak. Unholy should be solidly in the middle of the pack now, though.

Edit: Actually that's a smidgen optimistic, as hunters and elemental shamans were also buffed and they were also at the bottom... but I'm not going to calculate them too. You could call it accurate to plus/minus one rank, but the frost buff only affects single-target performance so even that is an optimistic approximation.

Yeah, I was taking into account the slightly better buffs to the specs around us.

I haven't played Unholy this patch, so I don't have a good handle on the spec. Are you saying that Unholy will now be better than Frost regardless of the sim results?

[Maxweii]

Nevermind figured it out right after asking lol

Clash, it might be. The way I see it this buff benefits Unholy a lot more then Frost, and with them being so close it could push it ahead

[Schizoide]

Yeah, I was taking into account the slightly better buffs to the specs around us.

I haven't played Unholy this patch, so I don't have a good handle on the spec. Are you saying that Unholy will now be better than Frost regardless of the sim results?

Frost sims higher but unholy performs better overall in actual content (T16 raidbots all parses spec scores). Just another reason why simcraft isn't great for comparative performance analysis across specs and particularly classes. On the other hand it is very good for performance analysis within a spec, so you can feel reasonably confident that it was (for example) a 2.6% buff for frost on single-targets.

@Maxweii: Put it in the overrides tab.

[Clash the DK]

Anyway...
At this point, I'm glad to have any buff, though I definitely don't feel like it's what was needed. It strikes me as odd, too, that Unholy got a pretty significant buff to strength, while Frost got a buff to something that.. honestly, doesn't have a large impact on our DPS. I guess that this was the easiest choice for them to make that affected both 2H and DW, rather than strongly affecting one and not the other.

Any "buff" to melee attack speed just makes me cringe due to the situation with KM and crit. I would have preferred a buff to PoF instead if 2H vs DW was the deciding factor in what was buffed in the first place. But, whatever. I wasn't expecting any changes until WoD anyway.

[skype]

So do you guys think that strength will pull ahead of crit gemming wise for unholy? Sorry if this has been asked

[scabobos]

Any help is appreciated I guess. Not significant enough to really change us from being bottom of the pile dps in 25H, but whatever ill take it

[Schizoide]

Any "buff" to melee attack speed just makes me cringe due to the situation with KM and crit. I would have preferred a buff to PoF instead if 2H vs DW was the deciding factor in what was buffed in the first place. But, whatever. I wasn't expecting any changes until WoD anyway.

You should be ignoring KM anyway. Or were you referring to more frequent buff overwrites, before you have a chance to consume it? I guess that's a bit of a bummer.

I agree, a PoF buff would have been preferable, but that would have had PvP burst implications. The alternative would have been more nuanced buffs to Threat of Thassarian and Might of the Frozen Wastes. That's probably how I would have handled it.

[jwx]

dks were 'fine' as in they are near the bottom but you can bring one if you really want to.

you must be really terrible at DK then or play with really exceptional players if you are at the bottom.

[Schizoide]

So do you guys think that strength will pull ahead of crit gemming wise for unholy? Sorry if this has been asked

Nope.

Unholy T16N Weights w/ 35% Unholy Might
Str: 6.45
Crit: 3.57

@jwx: I look forward to your evidence as well. Will it be a top100 raidbots, a "personal experience", or will you go with top guilds not benching DKs so performance must be great?

[Clash the DK]

You should be ignoring KM anyway. Or were you referring to more frequent buff overwrites, before you have a chance to consume it? I guess that's a bit of a bummer.

I agree, a PoF buff would have been preferable, but that would have had PvP burst implications. The alternative would have been more nuanced buffs to Threat of Thassarian and Might of the Frozen Wastes. That's probably how I would have handled it.

Immediate resource management takes priority over KM in most situations (one pair down), but you should never completely ignore KM. And I'm assuming we are both talking about DW Frost here as KM has been a dead mechanic for 2H for a very long time now. But yeah, I was talking about more potential overwrites.

ToT and MotFW is the most intelligent choices. But for quick and dirty, PoF is a good option. Considering Frost's standing in PvP atm, I doubt than a tiny bit more "burst" would hurt anything. But, that might have been the reasoning regardless.

[Deleted]

Cycobi, I think it would benefit you to look at the evidence yourself, before you go tell someone else to. DKs being brought to raids doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the specs' DPS at the moment. The facts laid out over and over (AND OVER) again in the 30-page long thread on this same exact forum should help you understand where we are right now.

Anyway...
At this point, I'm glad to have any buff, though I definitely don't feel like it's what was needed. It strikes me as odd, too, that Unholy got a pretty significant buff to strength, while Frost got a buff to something that.. honestly, doesn't have a large impact on our DPS. I guess that this was the easiest choice for them to make that affected both 2H and DW, rather than strongly affecting one and not the other.

EDIT: BTW Cycobi, if you do read this - what I said wasn't meant to be inflammatory. I'm just saying that while I think every top-tier guild would probably prefer to stack their raid with the best classes, sometimes you don't always have that available. Taking a DK DPS doesn't cripple a raid, but it isn't necessarily ideal right now.

It's fine; I can deal with "harsh" comments as it were; having someone who mains a different class coming into your forums and saying you didn't need a buff isn't exactly what people love

But, believe me if I could link you logs of ScrubBusters progression from this tier; you'd understand where I'm coming from when I'm talking about DKs being "fine". Both Zoyt and Vyoh were actually competitive on DPS throughout the entire tier, in fact their lowest point was probably normal-mode week, whereupon gaining their 4sets they immediately started to scale pretty decently into the tier.

Granted, "top-guilds" are an anomaly in statistical senses, but the reality is the potential for DKs to perform well is there, it's just not being used.
I don't mean to be elitist or hell, say you can't play your class, but I am saying Frost in particular didn't require buffs. Unh I'm not particularly clued up on, at the time Festerblight was strong I had only just dinged one of my two DKs and was getting to grips with it and I'm aware it received indirect nerfs (as well as direct nerfs) through RPPM changes and Feather changes; DW I've had a lot more time with this tier and I can definitely say it's stronger than people here are making out.

But, anyway. I'll leave you guys to discuss it amongst yourselves.

[Schizoide]

You should indeed be completely ignoring KM. I go so far as to disable the Blizzard powerauras and use weakauras to turn off the button highlights. SSHA (Euliat) on these forums went into a fair amount of detail on the matter, search for "do you feel lucky".

[kallaesia]

Posted this in the other thread, but it looks like this one has legs.

Unholy was a bit ahead of frost in actual T16 content. This is a sizable buff to Unholy and a pretty small one to Frost, so that's a bit weird. But hey, at least Unholy should now be solidly middle of the pack. I honestly didn't think they were going to do anything.

Results from simcraft:

DW T16N: 272.8k
DW T16N w/45% Icy Talons: 279.8k (+2.6%)
2H T16N: 265.1k
2H T16N w/45% Icy Talons: 271.9k (+2.6%)
Unholy T16N: 241.0k
Unholy T16N w/35% Unholy Might: 256.6k (+6.5%)

how about the results in T16H BIS gear?

[Clash the DK]

You should indeed be completely ignoring KM. I go so far as to disable the Blizzard powerauras and use weakauras to turn off the button highlights. SSHA (Euliat) on these forums went into a fair amount of detail on the matter, search for "do you feel lucky".

That only applies to a priority involving Obliterate.

[Schizoide]

But, believe me if I could link you logs of ScrubBusters progression from this tier; you'd understand where I'm coming from when I'm talking about DKs being "fine". Both Zoyt and Vyoh were actually competitive on DPS throughout the entire tier,

Yes but you see, that is a sample size of one. There are any number of reasons to explain why they performed so well in your raids. Player skill, gear, latency, and of course the RNG all come into play. You need to minimize all those variables, and the only way to do that is to use a large sample size.

how about the results in T16H BIS gear?

DW T16H: 382.9k
DW T16H w/ 45% Icy Talons: 395.0k (+3.2%)
2H T16H: 373.4k
2H T16H w/ 45% Icy Talons: 383.9k (+2.8%)
Unholy T16H: 356.0k
Unholy T16H: w/ 35% Unholy Might: 379.4k (+6.6%)

That only applies to a priority involving Obliterate.

Ahh, I actually haven't really investigated mastersimple and KM. You may be right.

[Darkfriend]

If by "at the bottom" you mean DW Frost has been competitive all tier long, sure I'll agree with you.

DKs were honestly fine by any meaning of the word, buffs weren't needed. Unh maybe, Frost no.

My DK and Warrior both raid in fairly similar progressed guilds. They are similarly geared, with the DK being SLIGHTLY higher (better MH weapon, better trinkets). The DK sims 30k under the warrior, and performs around 50k, due to how fights favor warriors.