A deeper look at Necrotic Plague vs Defile (for 2H Frost)

[Challenge]

I'll prob give PL/NP as 2h frost a go this week, Defile PL as 2h is so awkward, especially during soul reaper phase.

[Deleted]

Also, the simple rotation leads to higher efficiency.

If PL+Defile sims at 30k
But you can only get 90% efficiency, you're at 27k

If PL+NP sims at 29k
And you can get 96% efficiency, you're at 27,840

Hallafuckinglluhya!!! Someone finally gets it!!

Too many people are just blindly following sims without actually testing the alternatives in game!!

This is the exact same reason people don't pick BoS as 2h frost even tho used at 100% efficiency it actually does more damage than defile (riehk has proved this already). Defile is just easier to use than BoS at optimal levels hence why a lot of people take it. But now people are identifying that defile makes the 2h frost rotation a pain in the ass especially during SR phase, so much so that unless your jonny on the ball with the rotation NP is not so much of a loss, or even a gain due to its forgiving nature, and the biggest reason for me, the rotation flows sooooooooooooo much better with it!!

[Cerunnir]

With the upcoming 37% buff to necrotic plague, it should definatly put it equal or ahead of defile if im correct.

[Deleted]

I tried PL/NP in a HM farm run the other night, it flows really damn well. I hate the fact that defile has to be manually placed on the ground.

Unfortunately I wasn't running logs for that raid, but meters seemed to suggest it wasn't a massive loss over using defile on most fights.

[Life-Binder]

I will absolutely be taking NP (with PL) as my de facto 100 talent for Frost and UH .. might try out BoS too sometime, but I doubt it'll stay due to its RNG


Defile will stay on my Blood spec for the 10% damage red

[Zanzz]

Just out of curiosity, why would unholy use plague leach instead of unholy blight? Wouldn't necroblight be the way to go here? This is assuming the use of NP

[bungie]

Just out of curiosity, why would unholy use plague leach instead of unholy blight? Wouldn't necroblight be the way to go here? This is assuming the use of NP

Wrong thread. But the reasoning is every tick of UB adds another stack to NP causing it to stack up to max the fastest causing the most damage.

[Omaar]

As a Frost dk:No matter how tight I keep my rotation, I seem to be doing better with necrotic plague on every situation except dummy testing.
All my sims have netted me defile being 600-800 or so higher than necrotic plague whatever my ilvl was.

900dps is not a big deal knowing that:
1- It is very improbable for the boss to stay stationary for the full duration of defile.
2- When aiming for cleave, you keep on doing St rotation and knowing that you diseases are auto applied by the NP jump.
3- When you are going for full AOE ( e.g. Kargath stands, Imperator last phase ) your constant barrage of howling blast get NP to 15 stacks faster for solid damage.

I am also suspecting that the raid wide damage the boss does at random times might cause NP to contribute to rune generation. 1rp is the difference between frost strike and none because of the wierd rp generation and the cost of FS.
If this is the case simulation craft might not take this into account and the dummies already have no damage output to benefit you.

If I am wrong please correct me.

[Deleted]

As a Frost dk:No matter how tight I keep my rotation, I seem to be doing better with necrotic plague on every situation except dummy testing.
All my sims have netted me defile being 600-800 or so higher than necrotic plague whatever my ilvl was.

900dps is not a big deal knowing that:
1- It is very improbable for the boss to stay stationary for the full duration of defile.
2- When aiming for cleave, you keep on doing St rotation and knowing that you diseases are auto applied by the NP jump.
3- When you are going for full AOE ( e.g. Kargath stands, Imperator last phase ) your constant barrage of howling blast get NP to 15 stacks faster for solid damage.

I am also suspecting that the raid wide damage the boss does at random times might cause NP to contribute to rune generation. 1rp is the difference between frost strike and none because of the wierd rp generation and the cost of FS.
If this is the case simulation craft might not take this into account and the dummies already have no damage output to benefit you.

If I am wrong please correct me.

Thats a very interesting point, and certainly could be a very valid reason for PL+NP performing better than it sims, plus it makes sense as many a time i've been stuck on 24 rp with no runes and PL on CD with ERW and all you can do is watch your runes slowly tick down( i still HoW out of muscle memory lol). That extra 2rp could allow that FS and proc RC so could be quite significant.

Some conformation on how NP interacts with raid wide damage, i.e does it proc RP would seal the deal.

[Vanaline]

Defile has and continues to be overrated by people who can't look past simulations. It's optimal, if the moon and stars completely align and you roll things flawlessly and the tank and execution on the encounter is completely predictable but that's very rarely how combat works in this game.

Shit will always happen, cooldowns will conflict with phases, bosses will suddenly need to be moved, etc.

[bungie]

Thats a very interesting point, and certainly could be a very valid reason for PL+NP performing better than it sims, plus it makes sense as many a time i've been stuck on 24 rp with no runes and PL on CD with ERW and all you can do is watch your runes slowly tick down( i still HoW out of muscle memory lol).

The amount of times I still HoW in dead GCD's is pretty damn high too. WTB it's runic back.

[Deleted]

Know what would be cool? If they could somehow incorporate Defile into weapon, let's say when you use defile instead of AOE on the ground your MH/OH weapon are enchanted and you deal additional damage maybe with some effect. Now we have Necrotic (AOE), Defile (Stationary AOE), Breath (Cone AOE). One of those talents should be mainly single target DPS increase.

Not to be offtopic, as UH i run Plaguebearer + Breath so i don't have to reapply dots and when i want to burst i just add Breath to the mix, works nice so far since Frost Fever and Blood Plague do more dmg then Necrotic, will that change now? PVP speaking.

[Therenis]

If they could somehow incorporate Defile into weapon...

That would just make it another mindless talent to pick and forget with a passive damage increase. A better fix would probably be similar to the Paladins Glyph of Consecrator, making a glyph that makes your DnD/Defile move with you. Would make it way easier to use both DnD and Defile, and making it exclusive with the glyph that makes DnD/Defile slow would prevent that combo from being op.

[bungie]

A better fix would probably be similar to the Paladins Glyph of Consecrator, making a glyph that makes your DnD/Defile move with you. Would make it way easier to use both DnD and Defile, and making it exclusive with the glyph that makes DnD/Defile slow would prevent that combo from being op.

I really like this idea.

[Raestin]

Has there been any more testing on this? I know PL+NP is a bit of a dps loss but it does seem like the HUGE QoL improvement might be worth it. My guild doesn't run mythics, so I'm thinking the loss of a few hundred dps isn't really that big of a deal for me.

[Deleted]

after the buff NP will be better than defile, there is no question about it, simple math.

Due to more runes for obliterate and the upped % dmg makes up for how weak it was.

But its not like it makes it flat "better" than defile, it makes it more like equal balanced to pick it.

This made NP viable option, before it was awful for frost, now its viable.

there still is the issue that unholy can keep NP at full duration 24/7.

there needs to be some incendament for frost to make it fall of or somthing, just somthing to reward frost does not reward blood or unholy the same way, same goes for blood needs one to.

or you just remove the possibility of festering strike to work with necrotic plague, or somthing.

but then again it might become to terrible for unholy not worth picking it up over defile/bos.

i dunno but somthing needs to be done, il rather have it work.

[Zanzz]

So noob question. Do I want to spam howling blast to force the stacks back up to 15 and then go back to the normal priority rotation? Or should I just let it do its thing naturally via howling blast?

[Deleted]

So noob question. Do I want to spam howling blast to force the stacks back up to 15 and then go back to the normal priority rotation? Or should I just let it do its thing naturally via howling blast?

naturally.