[Compilation] DK Questions and Answers

[Shenanigasm]

I am not sure if this has been asked and answered elsewhere, and honestly, I'm too lazy to check, but does AotD scale with bloodlust? I noticed that it and my pets scale with my boss damage on Heroic Primordius (they did almost no damage until I got transformed).

[Mendenbarr]

Yes. Ghouls attack speed scale with your own, which scales with BL.

[Nizhoni]

I think I am simming something wrong... I've been running DW Frost for the entire expansion. I've been holding out for a decent 2 hander to play around in UH with and compare, or even to compare in 2H frost, but I haven't had much luck. However, I've picked up a few strong DW upgrades over the past few weeks. It had been a while, so I downloaded the latest release version of Simulation Craft and imported my character in. I set it to 10000 iterations and left the rest default...

On a light movement fight, it had Haste at 3.01 vs Mastery at 1.98 on the Scale Factors. When I went Patchwerk, the variable went a bit further... And actually, the "closest" they simmed together was in a Helter Skelter set up where I get Haste at 2.47 and Mastery at 1.89. And even trying to skew it towards Mastery, I did a full sim with 2 targets and achieved Haste at 2.74 and Mastery at 2.30.

Now, I know as more targets are available Mastery continues to get better... But these numbers suggest gemming/reforging haste. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm doing anything incredibly wrong with it, or if Haste would be stronger right now (and then prioritize Haste -> Mastery -> Crit).

Here is a link to my armory, just wanted to get some thoughts before going off and testing it in LFR this weekend =/
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Nizdan/simple

[Deleted]

I think I am simming something wrong... I've been running DW Frost for the entire expansion. I've been holding out for a decent 2 hander to play around in UH with and compare, or even to compare in 2H frost, but I haven't had much luck. However, I've picked up a few strong DW upgrades over the past few weeks. It had been a while, so I downloaded the latest release version of Simulation Craft and imported my character in. I set it to 10000 iterations and left the rest default...

On a light movement fight, it had Haste at 3.01 vs Mastery at 1.98 on the Scale Factors. When I went Patchwerk, the variable went a bit further... And actually, the "closest" they simmed together was in a Helter Skelter set up where I get Haste at 2.47 and Mastery at 1.89. And even trying to skew it towards Mastery, I did a full sim with 2 targets and achieved Haste at 2.74 and Mastery at 2.30.

Now, I know as more targets are available Mastery continues to get better... But these numbers suggest gemming/reforging haste. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm doing anything incredibly wrong with it, or if Haste would be stronger right now (and then prioritize Haste -> Mastery -> Crit).

Here is a link to my armory, just wanted to get some thoughts before going off and testing it in LFR this weekend =/
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Nizdan/simple

You're not doing anything wrong. Haste and Mastery are both important stats for DW but the amount of one stat impacts how important the other one is. I.e reforging completely into haste would likely see a massive increase in mastery value if you simmed yourself again (the same goes for mastery).

adding lines to your sim like:

actions.aoe+=/antimagic_shell,damage=100000
actions.single_target+=/antimagic_shell,damage=100000

Will also simulate some AMS use (even though it's not a guarantee on every fight) and drop the value of haste somewhat. Additionally - periods of AOE, swapping targets, bosses becoming unattackable and even using plague leech over UB etc will also drop that haste value during real encounters. Personally I stick to "light movement" sims with a single target.

As you reach larger haste values DW also becomes pretty much GCD locked, especially during heroism/bloodlust. All in all it's just about finding the balance between haste and mastery which works for you and, from a sim PoV you're generally looking for the weights of haste and mastery to be pretty similar.

[ymirsson]

DW is probably good if you can get those arch ilvl 463 1handers, from mantid archeology, assuming you have a main with arch, of course. otherwise, theres a few 450s around in dread wastes that could also be used, though there lvl86. refer to the "Is another mans treasure" achievement, for "The Relic Hunter" title, on wowhead for information on where they appear. If you plan on raiding on the DK, a rune add-on might help, even if its just to reposition the runes to a place where you can pay attention to them better. best to play around with a few before you hit max, to see if you need one/which works best for you.

This a few thousand times.

Nothing has helped me more then the 463 One hand sword from Mantid Archeology. Theres also a Spear if you want to go 2h or tank, and until 88/89 anything will die in seconds.

[Darkfriend]

Ok since I've been messing around with WA and I had trouble finding info about all this myself, I decided to go ahead and make a fairly complete WA string for UH DKs and strength based procs, as well as a bar for RP and shadow infusion+DT, and a SR warning mid screen when target hits 36%. Hopefully this helps someone. Currently does not track synapse springs.

http://pastebin.com/RSAv7BWp

Feather, Spark/Spark proc (same spot), SPA trinket, Rage (stacks+time), Feather stacks, ROFC, Mogu Potion, Shadow infusion stacks/DT time (same spot).

Spark, Rage, SPA trinket overlap each other so that the only one visible will be the one your are using. Feather is assumed, and if not using feather you'll need to move around the two trinkets you are using so they are both visible.

I'm not a WA expert, but I thought this was a fairly comprehensive tracker for UH focused on DT uptime, ensuring SR starts being used at 36% on target, and tracking what strength procs you currently have and their time for applying diseases at the highest AP.

Hope this helps.

[Deleted]

... With the "haste double-dip" occurring for RC users until 5.4 has anyone tried gemming pure haste as unholy? Wondering if the possibly rune overflow and lesser amount of haste would be outweighed by the amount of RPPM procs.

[Mendenbarr]

My most recent sims confirm that pure haste gemming is worth it for my particular toon. It does vary based on the number of rppm items you have though, so I suggest simming yourself.
http://destinysoftworks.blogspot.com...as-unholy.html for the full writeup.

[Deleted]

My most recent sims confirm that pure haste gemming is worth it for my particular toon. It does vary based on the number of rppm items you have though, so I suggest simming yourself.
http://destinysoftworks.blogspot.com...as-unholy.html for the full writeup.

Didn't even know simc had been updated with the rc bug... Can confirm that, with ams absorbing on a light movement fight it Sims as a 2k increase, didn't have a chance to sim patchwerk but can imagine that's even more. Insane really, considering that's 16k-ish haste

Thanks!

[Mang]

At around 10s remaining on my dark transformation I start to pool RP so I can have it up again asap. Assuming I'm not capping, is this a good or bad idea?

[Mendenbarr]

Right now, DT isn't that important. Not using it at all is only a 2.5% dps loss, and banking resources for it generally is NOT worth it. This becomes even more true with the T16 4-set, but is true without it. On that note, if you have the choice between DC or SS or FeS or HoW, and neither your runes nor runic are in danger of reaching a cap, there is no harm in putting DC as the last choice. Just don't leave open GCDs.

[Deleted]

Hey Mendenbarr,
did you ever end up looking into why adding actions.single_target+=/plague_strike right below death and decay
in the single target rotation results in a dps increase?
For my character, 25k iterations, 600sec LightMovement fight i get 186773 without it, 188014 with it
This is for DW frost, and current talent is RC, i can't find where to switch it, even switching it on my char won't
change it in simC, wanted to try it with all 3. I originally wanted to try it because RE leaves you with those pesky orphan unholy runes,
i find it weird that it's also an increase for RC.
Does this mean that the timer on blood plague is irrelevant as DW frost, you get more dps from just reapplying regardless and using up that rune?

[Mendenbarr]

That is quite odd, not quite sure what is causing it. I'll look into as I rewrite all my guides for 5.4, but it might take a little while.


As far as talents, after you import you should have a line like this:
talents=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#db!010020

You can either actually go to that link, update the talents, and copy and paste it in, or just edit the numbers. The last 6 numbers in the links are the talents, 0 is the first talent, 1 is the second talent, and 2 is the third talent. So, in this example I'm using RC, which is the 2 near the end. If I changed it to a 1;
talents=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#db!010010
I'd be using RE instead, and if I changed it to a 0;
talents=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#db!010000
I'd be using BT instead.

[TomGreen]

Would an average played frost dk or unholy dk do more dps?

Also, is unholy dps reliant on them supercharged dots? (like reapplication when feather is at max power)

[ploob]

Would an average played frost dk or unholy dk do more dps?

Also, is unholy dps reliant on them supercharged dots? (like reapplication when feather is at max power)

Its tough to say which one would do better. I would lean towards frost, though.

Yes unholy is reliant on strong dots.

[Mendenbarr]

Yes, unholy relies on supercharged dots for a portion of it's diseases, and right this second, frost is about .1% ahead of unholy, both using optimal setups. That changes in 5.4 though, and the verdict is still out on what spec will be best then.

[Deleted]

Guys I just thought about something that might be a DPS increase for blood on single target. Blood Boil refreshes diseases with your current AP value, so what if you only use crimson scourge for blood boil when you have high procs up so you get stronger diseases? Then you can keep strong diseases rolling as blood for a good portion of the fight. Would this be a DPS increase over the missed blood boils?

[Mendenbarr]

Yep, it's very possible to avoid reapplying with weaker diseases, and worth doing so if you are interested in maxing dps, but unlike unholy, blood cannot keep the diseases going indefinitely, so it's worth reapplying them right before they fall off.

[Shiira]

It has been a while since the ptr changes were announced, people have had time to do the number crunching and we have some hopefully accurate numbers for where we stand in 5.4.

Unholy offers a contribution to raid dps that is often overlooked and makes the spec seem worse than it actually is, and this is unholy frenzy on someone else.

Who do we give it to and what is it worth to them? I'm assuming that the correct answer is rogue and a lot, but how much?

Any insight into this problem would be greatly appreciated.

[Mendenbarr]

That is a very good question. After we finish making the 5.4 sim up to date, I'll run UF on the whole raid and see who it benefits the most, and post the numbers here.


Edit: The top damage is a good starting point, but classes benefit in varying amounts from haste, so that isn't the whole story.