DW DPS and You! Spec Comparison and Results

[Shazbawt]

¿Sticky?

Dual Wield DPS, something that was frowned on in the past, now more and more acecpted due to a few good players proving it can be a serious path. The following are a list of DW specs that WORK, why they work, and which one is best for you. Yes I named my specs for dramatic effect...and it sounds cool when you talk about them when they have names!

0/21/50 - http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=171421040506 - AKA Solo Artist

This build is primarily for 5 man and 10 man. It allows you to retain the 20% melee haste while focusing on a large amount of disease damage. Infact over 40% of your damage in this build will be based around your disease and Icy touch. This build is highely reliant on hit rating, and caps out at around 350-400 hit before you start losing DPS. Due to the high attack rate and overall % damage bonus from Bone shield, Desecration and BCB you need to make sure that your actually hitting the target at least 85-90% with your auto attacks. This will result in a majority of your damage coming from auto attacks.

Tips: Make sure that you keep your diseases and desecration up! Due to the high generation of runic power, you have 2 cooldowns that you need to use whenever you can. Gargoyle and DC spam.

Raid Role you Fill: Single target and AOE DPS - Boss Spell Damage increase and Crit %.

DK Runes - Fallen Crusader x2

Presence: Blood 100%

Ratings for this build:
Single target DPS: Great
AOE DPS: Good
Gear Required to pull this build off: Heroic or better

0/43/28: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=131221040506 AKA Howler

This build can be used preaty much anywhere, but excells when your 25m does not have an enh shammy because you will add 20% melee haste to your group. This build focuses on 1 thing, getting the most out of Howling blast as you can while retaining a decent single target DPS and runic power dumps.

You will retain the ghoul pet here, as it will be adding around 400+ single target DPS. Note that there is a change in the glyphs to Obliterate and Icy Touch. With your auto attacks hitting crazy fast you will be proccing Killing machine alot. This needs to be used as soon as it is up, as for it will give you a free crit. Howling Blast is great here, along with Icy Touch spam. Obliterate should be used when you have nothing else to spend your runes on. Granted Obliterate is based off of your MH weapon damage and is physical damage...you really have nothing better to burn runes on and it has around a 50%+ (depending on your crit) chance to crit with this build.

You will want to make sure you hit the SKILL CAP (+-310) because almost 80% of your damage will be coming from skills. Gear more towards crit and pure attack power (or STR). As always keep those diseases up and burn runic power on death coil whenever you have a spare GCD.

DK Runes to use - Fallen Crusader MH - Razorice OH

Raid Role: Melee Haste increase, AOE DPS, Moderate Boss DPS (Don't expect to break 4k dps without bloodlust/heroism).

Presence: Blood works for bosses, Unholy on Trash

Ratings for this build:
Single target DPS: Good
AOE DPS: AWESOME (Howling Blast is OP for aoe dmg)
Gear Required to pull this build off: At least 80 Dungeon Blues (make sure you get the hit rating).

13/8/50: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=171421040506 - AKA The Beast

This build is for those that REALLY love their melee DW DPS. It is only for the GEARED that can pull this off. Basically it takes the best of the % based damage increasing Unholy abilities, mixes it with a little frost and blood to optimize DW dps.

This build completly relies on gear and hit rating. You will want to cap expertise and get at LEAST 400-450 hit for this build to be even viable. 40-50% of your damage will be WHITE DAMAGE. You should miss no more than 10% of your auto attakcs or you are losing out on damage. Seriously, when isnt having both diseases on your target a good idea? KEEP THEM ON THE BOSS. You need the increased crit and from EP. Basically gear yourself like a fury warrior (lots of STR crit and hit). You have 2 runic power dumps here Garg and Death Coil. Garg early in the fight and reserve your death coils for when you have 100% runic and need to dump.

This build should only be used when you have an ENH Shammy and Fury Warrior in the raid (For attack speed and attack power increase). This is not a 5 man (or even 10 man spec). It relies entirely on PROCS, the more you can get the better. Trinkets, rings, Sigils, 2x Fallen Crusader. Anything you can get to PROC is awesome. This build is very similar to the 2H DPS Unholy spec with small alterations for DW. It works.

Raid Role: Awesome Single target DPS, Moderate/Low AOE DPS, Magic Damage increase + crit.

DK Runes - Fallen Crusader x2

Presence: Blood 100%

Ratings for this build:
Single target DPS: Awesome
AOE DPS: Moderate/Low
Gear Required to pull this build off: You will need at least iLVL 235 to pull this off (aka 25m raid gear). DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT A VERY GOOD MAIN HAND WEAPON. Doing this spec in blues is just a BAD idea. SLOW MH, Very Fast offhand

28/43/0 - http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=141216040506 AKA Tech Support

This build is to only be used to replace the raid slot of a ENH shammy. You bring 10% attack power and 20% melee haste to the raid without suffering a huge loss in dps. Granted your Disease damage will most likely be horrid as you will be fighting to keep them up the entire fight.

DK Runes - Fallen Crusader MH/Razorice OH

Presence: Blood Bosses - Unholy Trash

Ratings for this build:
Single target DPS: Low-Moderate
AOE DPS: Moderate-High
Gear Required to pull this build off: This is not a build you want to be focusing on unless you are required to raid in this spec to bring the raid buffs.

THIS IS A RAID SPEC AND NOT MEANT FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN RAID SUPPORT. You bring 80% ALL Resist, 20% melee Haste, 10% attack power.

To Wrap things up:
You can fill alot of different roles as a DW DPS class...Raid Melee Haste, Raid Spell+Crit Buff, Awesome AOE dmg, Awesome Single target DPS...it really just depends on 3 things:
Gear
Raid Makeup
Personal Choice

What do you want to do? That is up 2 you...There are alot of builds, but these are the 3 that really stand out for me. I have tested nearly 15-20 different DW builds in 25m and 10m raid situations. These ended up working out best for me.

Why I didn't post the EJ Tri-Spec? Because It is not built for optimum dps based on the raid needs. You arn't going to spec imp icy talons if you have a Enh Shammy. Your not going deep into blood to get 10% attack power if you have a fury warrior. Infact if you already have a Unholy DK in the raid, you might want to go unholy because the utility you bring (EP) isn't needed...so you might go frost.

DW is not easy to gear, play, or decide what you want to do with it. Just remember, keep truckin and keep tweeking. There is no ONE spec for DW, there are a TON. Enchant your crap, Gem it properly, and FFS don't let anyone talk you out of DW if you want to do it.

[Gomexus]

Thanks Shaz Gonna link to this in my DW thread so that maybe one of our threads won't get lost

[Nyanmaru]

Speaking of next Patches Spec:

About "the beast" I doubt that 3% crit is worth having a perma-dead ghoul + gargoyle and at the cost of 40 RP Unholy Blight does a lot more DpRP than DC, so I'd put them into Night of the Dead and Unholy Blight

Going for this spec I end up at about 2700 unbuffed DpS (just ghoul, no gargoyle, no horn, no outside buffs, just UB up and DC with leftover RP) on the doll in ebon hold.
But my mainhand still sucks (only got the reaper from ebon hold) and Hatestrike as offhand.

I sit at unbuffed 491 hit, dodge expertise capped, 3300 AP and 29% crit (gemmed for hit+exp)

Maybe I'm just too used to playing unholy that I kinda suck at the other specs (been unholy since level 58).

I'm still wondering if I'd spec into "15% more AP from Bladed Armor" aka Tougness and drop the Icy Touch skills for this and just go with this rotation...

So I'd end up with a rotation that kinda goes like this:
PS IT BS BS SS - Enchant Runeweapon + UB - BS BS SS SS - PS BS SS SS - UB
1 Death Rune from BS for the PS and the 2 FU runes for SS, hopefully SS Glyph will be enough to keep IT going

I really need a fine 1h to get this going *sigh*

Haven't been able to test it in raids yet, since I'm one of our most active tanks


I just noticed an error: "Solo Artist" doesn't get UB as "cooldown" if he's 0/21/50

[Shazbawt]

Edited, thanks

about going into blood for BEAST

15% AP from Armor really adds alot more than the "chance" to resummon ghoul when its dead. My garg almost never dies on bosses unless there is alot of aoes, in which case your gar is going to die before the timer runs out anyway. Beast is suppose to basically be the most physical and auto attack damage that any spec can pull off without sacrificing 2 much in the way of disease damage.

[Nyanmaru]

I kinda got confused from your comment *g*


2/2 NotD will be 70% less AE dmg for ghoul + gargoyle and if your ghoul should die you can summon him multiple times if he really is to die (extra RP and extra Dmg from a nearly permanently active ghoul). Each rune cycle except when you have to refresh IT will shorten the CD by 100s so you can resummon the ghoul every minute hence you can even resummon him so he's back at full HP and doesn't loose his buffs. And with the Raise Dead Glyph it's like a 90% buff to the RP generation of Butchery.

Also I'd say that UB is a lot more dmg than 1% crit is. (I'd use it even if this is against the philosophy of maxing out phys dmg, hell for 40 RP it's really sexy)

Just so we don't misunderstand us, this will be my UH DW spec if the current changes from the PTR make it live: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=171421040506

[Shazbawt]

I kinda got confused from your comment *g*


2/2 NotD will be 70% less AE dmg for ghoul + gargoyle and if your ghoul should die you can summon him multiple times if he really is to die (extra RP and extra Dmg from a nearly permanently active ghoul). Each rune cycle except when you have to refresh IT will shorten the CD by 100s so you can resummon the ghoul every minute hence you can even resummon him so he's back at full HP and doesn't loose his buffs. And with the Raise Dead Glyph it's like a 90% buff to the RP generation of Butchery.

Also I'd say that UB is a lot more dmg than 1% crit is. (I'd use it even if this is against the philosophy of maxing out phys dmg, hell for 40 RP it's really sexy)

Just so we don't misunderstand us, this will be my UH DW spec if the current changes from the PTR make it live: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=171421040506

I agree that UB is infact a increase in AOE dps. BEAST is a optimization of Melee DPS based on Single Target DPS.

Here is the raw break down of UB on a single target

UB Ticks for 185 (generous) x 20 = 3700 damage over 20 seconds (obviously 185 dps)

Death Coil hits for 1850 damage for 40 RP = Instant damage.

DC Crit hits for around 4300 damage for 40 RP = Instant Damage

So basically for the 40 RP you are looking at a MUST crit for the DC to be more dps for the RP cost. At around a 45% chance to Crit DC (with decent gear), it becomes a more effecient burn of RP than UB based on basically because it scales alot better. w/ raid buffs my death coils hit for around 5400 crit, 2300 non crit but UB still would tick for around 190-200 at most.

Being that 1% crit vs 180 DPS, I would go with 1% crit, but it would take some serious number crunching with DC + 1% crit vs UB&DC.

[starvethedead]

I guess this is a "Howler-Beast" Hybrid:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfV0m...khoZfM0htckL0o

This may seem at first to take a little out of Howling Blast (Death Runes & Guile) and put into white damage (Bladed Armor / Conviction) but in reality it accentuates it, as Bladed Armor factors into Impurity and Conviction will proc more KM's, not to mention the straight up added AP & crit.

I choose this over the pure Howler spec because more points are wasted getting down to Blood of the North. Those points being in Annihilation. With this build and 1h weapon, IT does more damage than Oblit. So while using either IT or Oblit you are wasting an Unholy Rune, with Oblit you are also doing less damage, so I choose IT.

Maybe I will explode a corpse or two..

[Shazbawt]

Maybe I will explode a corpse or two..

Corpse explosion is a gimmick:P

Don't be lured in by exploding bodies this isn't diablo 2.

Blood of the north isn't a waste at all. Not only is it the only generation of Death Runes, but it also unlocks 45% extra crit damage. Trust me, when your howling blasts crit for 9k youll love it (especially when you hit 10+ targets). Even if you spam IT and just use PS, it is still better. And obliterate should only be used when you need to burn runes.

[starvethedead]

Blood of the north isn't a waste at all. Not only is it the only generation of Death Runes, but it also unlocks 45% extra crit damage. Trust me, when your howling blasts crit for 9k youll love it (especially when you hit 10+ targets). Even if you spam IT and just use PS, it is still better. And obliterate should only be used when you need to burn runes.

Oh no, I didn't mean BotN was a waste, only Annihilation. But I suppose some of those blood talents are a waste too, when it comes down to it. Although I would hate to lose the crit from Dark Conviction, and some AP from Bladed Armor, the Death Runes from BotN and HB crit damage from Guile are hard to pass up, and definitely harder to replace with gear.

[starvethedead]

Ok Shaz, here's an improved "Howler" for you:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZG0e...V0cZfM0htckx0o

Note the changes:

Replaced Annihilation with Runic Power. Annihilation is worthless because Oblit is worthless when were are using 1H's and our IT is so buffed. You are better off spamming IT & PS because they will do more damage for the same runes. Also, 3% crit to melee specials won't help your HB or IT, which are the main skills.

Replaced Virulence with Deathchill and Corpse Explosion. Deathchill is perfect for when you haven't proc'd any HB/IT modifiers. And corpse explosion is the perfect way to get rid of those extra unholies. Virulence is worthless because we are already going to have to stack tons of +hit for our OH, we won't be missing any spells. And I'm not to worried about most mobs dispelling diseases.

Let me know what you think.

[Gomexus]

Quick Shaz...you better put a 40 font bold italics disclaimer at the top of your post to say 2h>DW before Tigercat finds it and comes in with a gem like:

"You're a retard for going DW for DPS lrn2play."

Other than that. If I ever go to a dps spec I will seriously try out one of your builds. DW is alot of fun to me...I dunno why...I just like the idea of DW'ing.

[Shazbawt]

Replaced Annihilation with Runic Power. Annihilation is worthless because Oblit is worthless when were are using 1H's and our IT is so buffed. You are better off spamming IT & PS because they will do more damage for the same runes. Also, 3% crit to melee specials won't help your HB or IT, which are the main skills.

To be totally honest here, I tried that exact spec. This is what I ran into.

Not enough RP dumps. I was actually losing parts of my rotation due to the fact that I was spamming death coil so much. Believe it or not, it was making me lose dps. When I have to stop swinging because I need to dump 130 runic power (thats 3 death coils) thats 4.5 seconds of down time (DC GCD DC GCD DC GCD). After 2 DCs from only have 100 runic power, I was able to recover the rotation.

The main issue I found with using HB is this: 6 second cooldown means you have a 12 second rotation. With 130 Runic power I was not able to burn it all and still keep that rotation. So with this you end up spending over 1/3 your time in the rotation spamming death coil. I hope this makes sence.

Replaced Virulence with Deathchill and Corpse Explosion. Deathchill is perfect for when you haven't proc'd any HB/IT modifiers. And corpse explosion is the perfect way to get rid of those extra unholies. Virulence is worthless because we are already going to have to stack tons of +hit for our OH, we won't be missing any spells. And I'm not to worried about most mobs dispelling diseases.

Deathchill is a good ability, but also another GCD use. With this spec my HB was already critting almost 75% of the time. Ended up being a waste of a GCD and a tallent point. Increase my ability to crit by 25% but useless when killing machine is proccing like crazy..not worth it.

And Corpse Explosion is only good now because it scales with the wrong modifier. It is a gimmic that is only useable on trash, thus it was taken out.

And about Virulence. I stress, you are not stacking HIT with this build. This build is pure Frost damage/Disease damage. With 2% less hit needed, you are able to stack alot more attack power/str. Basically it is there because it helps, and there is nothing else worth using.

You will want to make sure you hit the SKILL CAP (+-310) because almost 80% of your damage will be coming from skills. Gear more towards crit and pure attack power (or STR). As always keep those diseases up and burn runic power on death coil whenever you have a spare GCD.

:P I hope that answered your questions, feel free to comment

And Damnit Gyx I would be Dpsing if my guild didn't need a tank 90% of the time im logged on lawl

[Gomexus]

Damn guilds and their needs

I hope ya get back to dps soon and can keep us all up to date on how the DW-vs-2h thing works out.

[Mofoe]

hey Shaz I looked at all ur dps dw specs but there doesn't seem to be a blood dps dw spec. Does blood and dw suck or you just haven't messed with it? Just thought it would be cool for more proc to blood worms and now with the patch 4% healing what are your thoughts on a mostly blood dw spec?

[Zhalseran]

I'm curious if you've tried a 0/32/39 build (Fallen Crusader/Razorice)

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=041421060504

I've been using this for a little while now and its by far the highest DPS build I have personally tried, though I've not done much raiding yet, and my gear is pretty much full heroic epic/blues/emblem gear. It's excellent for 5-mans, and the few raids I've done I've been around 3100 dps if the gargoyle + ghoul don't die in 2 seconds.

[Shazbawt]

I'm curious if you've tried a 0/32/39 build (Fallen Crusader/Razorice)

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=041421060504

I've been using this for a little while now and its by far the highest DPS build I have personally tried, though I've not done much raiding yet, and my gear is pretty much full heroic epic/blues/emblem gear. It's excellent for 5-mans, and the few raids I've done I've been around 3100 dps if the gargoyle + ghoul don't die in 2 seconds.

Your spec is great for 5 mans! BUT...:P

These are raiding specs, which means one of the following to make parts of your spec kinda "iffy".
You will have a shadow priest
You will have a Unholy DK
Either of these will put poop on ur spec. Any Unholy DK will have EP, which nullifies the use of 3 points in CF. Desecration and Bone shield is an awesome aoe snare + 7% damage to all abilities...it works great in 5s because it will snare everything + give you damage bonus. But in raiding 7% damage bonus is alot but not worth sacrificing 45% crit damage, 3% melee skill crit (your still going to be using blood strike and plague strike alot). Considering your Howling blast is going to be critting almost 75% of the time, 45% additional crit damage is a HUGE bonus.

I would almost go as far as saying the crit bonus would be worth dropping your spec and trying it out.

As always thanks for the feedback, I love hearing about other people's specs and experiences.

hey Shaz I looked at all ur dps dw specs but there doesn't seem to be a blood dps dw spec. Does blood and dw suck or you just haven't messed with it? Just thought it would be cool for more proc to blood worms and now with the patch 4% healing what are your thoughts on a mostly blood dw spec?

I originally went blood for DW because I thought DRW would make up the difference. Here we go, the reason why blood just isn't viable:

Blood relies almost entirely on physical damage and does not augment diseases in any way. Heart Strike is the core of blood, and it deals PHYSICAL damage. The only reason scourge strike works is because it is not PHYSICAL damage, it is shadow. Why is this important? Unholy is all about increasing your magic/disease damage, thus your scourge strikes could be critting for up to 5k (easy). With heart strike, you will be lucky to crit for 3.5k.

About Worms...yah..they add 150 dps total and have a internal cooldown of 45 seconds. So even if you proc them everytime they arn't even worth putting points into for a dps spec. There is only 1 reason why I would ever go blood...

If the raid had no Enh shammy and needed you to bring raid buffs. Then I would use this spec...Optly named Tech Support

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=141216040506

[Crevice]

I'm curious if you've tried a 0/32/39 build (Fallen Crusader/Razorice)

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=041421060504

I've been using this for a little while now and its by far the highest DPS build I have personally tried, though I've not done much raiding yet, and my gear is pretty much full heroic epic/blues/emblem gear. It's excellent for 5-mans, and the few raids I've done I've been around 3100 dps if the gargoyle + ghoul don't die in 2 seconds.


Seems like a very interesting spec. I tried the 44/27 spec and was told it was sub par because I wanted too many KM procs on frost strike. my question is what rotation do you use with a spec like this? I REALLY wanna make DW work but I for the life of me cant get a good rotation down. Please help =(

[Zhalseran]

My rotation generally looks something like this:

IT > PS > BS > BS > HB > DC
IT > PS > IT > IT > HB > DC

If Gargoyle is off cooldown on a boss or other high-health mob, use it and omit DC so you can keep your RP high enough to maintain the Gargoyle.

As for the spec itself I'm looking at moving 2 points from Crypt Fever to Night of the Dead. Come 3.0.8 the boost to pet survivability will be real helpful. In the short term I should at least be able to re-summon a ghoul faster mine dies T_T. Keeping 1 point in Crypt fever also means blood strike and BCB get the multiplier for the extra disease.

I might also try a variant on Shazbawt's Howler build. Basically the same as the 0/44/27 except without FS, simply to see how much of a difference the crit bonus makes. I'm curious now. In my current spec HB generally only makes up about 10-15% of my overall DPS, sometimes more, so I'm curious to see if boosting HB will actually be better than +7% damage over all. I've never really liked the looks of 0/44/27 but its worth trying I spose.

The bigger thing on my mind these days (though not really related to specs) that I can't really seem to find an answer to is weapon speed. I'm using a slow/fast combo for bigger weapon damage and maximum KM procs, but I have to wonder (and can't really test) if fast/fast is viable or maybe even better. Without FS or SS the only weapon-based are BS, PS and BCB. BS and PS are both fairly small damage wise, and its possible BCB is normalized and speed is moot (as far as I am aware nobody knows if its normalized or not yet). It would be really neat if the extra KB procs made up for the difference but I doubt it, especially as you gear up. I have seen/heard of people doing pretty well with fast/fast at any rate.

[Crevice]

Hey zhal...Do you see a dw spec scaling well with gear? That is one of my biggest concerns as I told earlier by someone claiming to know everything that it is the worst scaling spec with each upgrade. He said Blood 2h is best scaling, then UH, then Frost 2h, then dw specs. Any math to debunk this rumor or is he right?

[Masptak]

Yesterday night i did series of respec's to test DW.

I checked both: Unholy and Frost based DW spec with 2 combos: Broken Promise + Hailstorm and Broken Promise + Silent Crusader - just to check it how its gonna be with slow / slow combo. And i must say... i was nowhere near in dps compared to my standard 2h Unholy bulid with Betrayer of Humanity...

Ofc i used proper glyphs for frost / unholy, swaped couple items to reach more haste & hit all stuff like that. My opinion is - if you are already dps'ing as 2h - stay with it. If you are DW - test 2h - you will not regret it.