A quick review on DW scaling

[Taninsam]

Hey there guys!

At the beginning of 5.4, I felt uncertain about an unholy -> dw switch. Not only I had two weak weapons (2 x 530), I also had to swap some crit+haste H gear with ToT N mastery gear, losing a couple of ilvls in the process.

The lack of concrete DW info from other raiders, a disappointing initial impression of its DPS (extremely sensitive to downtime and parry/dodge) and absolute lack of mastery plate drops in our raids (horrible luck with warforged seals too), led me to almost go back to unholy. However, I decided to stay DW and wait until we were further into the patch.

Here's an "enhanced" raidbots graph of my Malkorok 25N logs. Aside from having void-zone soaking downtime/front stacking (parry)/displaced energy downtime, it's practically a patchwerk-type encounter, and I feel confident enough of my performance to draw conclusions from this information.

Frost DW Malkorok 25N parses:


I know what you are thinking - yes, the gear curve is that huge. You may even think that this could be related to human error, but I can assure you that all these results are well within 5% of simmed DPS, even ignoring downtime and other mechanics (i.e.: last kill dps: 280k/simmed patchwerk dps: 285k/simmed light movement dps: 277k).

So, what conclusions can we draw?
Clearly, lower than avg ilvl weapons are a no-go for DW. If you've had bad luck with your drops, stay unholy. I wouldn't go for 2H frost with a bad weapon either.

2pc is a must. Period. 4pc offers almost the same benefit, and I'm sure that the CD-reduction trinket makes it scale beautifully.
About older tier sets, I didn't make the math, but I think you should keep T15 bonuses if you aren't upgrading with something that's like +20 ilvls higher (compare 2nd and 3rd kill - +4ilvls, horrible scaling).

Can't comment on trinkets. That's my weakest point right now, since I've had really, really bad luck with drops so far. I'm expecting a huge dps increase with the amp trinket, comparable to the weapon upgrades.

I hope this serves as a reference for those who just made the switch and/or are still wondering about DW, like I was a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to show you how the build keeps scaling with trinkets and further updates, since we are going for H Malkorok this week. Maybe I'll try to keep it updated with H Iron Juggernaut, but we'll see.

[Drugshock]

Thanks for this, gonna show my Dk friend, who's still Frost 2H cos: 1) he hates unholy, 2) 1h WONT drop, ever.
=D

[Schizoide]

Pleasantly surprised by this thread, not at all what I was expecting.

Yeah, the gear curve is CRAZY in this expansion.

[Deleted]

i didnt really understood much of this
for DW frost weapons wil be always main problem, because well... our main dps ability scales with it increased by mastery .
tier16 set bonuses are way more powerful than last tier, most people stating that only t15 2p is useful and 4p is utter crap
this expansion ever tier for almost every spec and class the trinkets were gamebreaking in a diffrent ways

However the "crazy curve" is caused by the following things -
1. 5.4 frost buffs (witch were massive in my opinion) that made mastery even more powerfull;
2. The so overpowered Amp and CD reduction trinket - these 2 alone are MASSIVE dps increase
3. Tier bonuses - Combined with 2. the dps increase is even more MASSIVE.

I personaly switched to frost dw dk in the beeging of 5.4 and was doing so little dps with my 530 ilvl tot normal gears barely getting 10th dps spot on 25 man :}, but god...oh god... when i got my hands on a pair SoO 1h weapons, CD reduction and 4 set... my dps litteraly skyrocket (and i dont wanna think what will happen when i get my hands and on Amp trink :X) - from my 200k dps now im around 270k-ish mark with no sweat(simc showing 300k light movement)... just... just :X n/c 100k dps increase from t15 to t16 and im not even starting hc modes

[Schizoide]

Nah, nothing to do with DKs specifically. Item level inflation is crazy in MoP overall due to all the additional difficulty modes and thunderforging. An ilvl 496 equipped char (timeless gear, essentially) does 128k DPS, while a character in T16H gear at ilvl 580 does 382k-- 3 times as much. Three times!

Forgetting casuals and alts for a moment, the gap between even T15N (170k) and T16N (272k) is a full 60%. In one tier! Gear scaling never looked like that before.

I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing; it certainly makes initial progression more challenging, but players are noticeably rewarded for gearing up in each tier. It's just different.

[Taninsam]

The thing about ilvl inflation is that it impacts each class in a different way. I.e. judging for the rogues in our group, they have a much more consistent ilvl->dps correlation, not nearly as steep as what I'm seeing here. Then again, I had suboptimal gear and was far, far from T15 bis when we started SoO, so that may be skewing my results too.

[Skarssen]

1-h weapons are a myth

So is Thoks Tail Tip.

So are Vanquisher tokens.

That is all.

[Taninsam]

We didn't have any 1H drops for like 4 weeks. Then, suddenly, ALL of them (except from H Norushen... that bastard) did.

[Minoan]

Cannot understand the purpose of that topic. To sum up everything that being said several hundred times for the last 6 weeks?
*Hey guys, I don't have any T16 weapon, I got nothing, unholy is better or me, which is obvious,everyone roll UH*. Period.

[Deleted]

Soo unholy is good now?

[Taninsam]

Cannot understand the purpose of that topic. To sum up everything that being said several hundred times for the last 6 weeks?
*Hey guys, I don't have any T16 weapon, I got nothing, unholy is better or me, which is obvious,everyone roll UH*. Period.

Either I wasn't clear enough, or you didn't read what I wrote, nor seen the information in the graph for that matter (maybe the image didn't show up in your browser?).

If it's not clear enough: This thread is not about unholy. I stayed DW. Currently using 2 T16 weapons, as seen on the last kill (again, look at the graph).

The purpose of the thread was to show practical, concrete results of ilvl/gear/bonuses/etc->dps correlation. I know people have been saying lots of things, but most of the time there's no backup for that information. Like I said, I'm showing this information for the interest of fellow dks that just made the switch, and/or are still wondering about the viability of the spec at lower ilvls.

[Gendori]

Either I wasn't clear enough, or you didn't read what I wrote, nor seen the information in the graph for that matter (maybe the image didn't show up in your browser?).

If it's not clear enough: This thread is not about unholy. I stayed DW. Currently using 2 T16 weapons, as seen on the last kill (again, look at the graph).

The purpose of the thread was to show practical, concrete results of ilvl/gear/bonuses/etc->dps correlation. I know people have been saying lots of things, but most of the time there's no backup for that information. Like I said, I'm showing this information for the interest of fellow dks that just made the switch, and/or are still wondering about the viability of the spec at lower ilvls.

Hey man, Not to rain on your parade, but this is the problem. Your data doesn't prove concrete anything when it comes to showing results of of ilvl/gear/bonuses/etc->dps correlation. There are many reasons for this

1)Length of fight. You'll see that your last kill was 37 seconds quicker than your first. Abilities like Army of the dead and raise Ghoul have a higher overall uptime%. Heroism has a higher overall uptime %. Double pots have a higher overall uptime %. Even if your gear had stayed the same for 5 weeks, you would probably notice your DPS going up each week as kills got shorter and shorter for this reason

2)RNG of mechanics-How much did you have to move, were you lucky and didnt have to move for any cones? did you have to soak zones? So did you move for those? Were you punted at all? All these things matter

3)RNG of combat abilities-Do you have RPPM trinks? Some might proc more on one fight or others not at all or once. did you get lucky or unlucky with crits?

I'm not trying to say that gear doesnt matter, of course it does. And I can tell you that as a whole frost is more dependant on weapons for scaling as opposed to gear than other classes. Other classes are also to a degree. DW has severe problems with haste scaling and to a lesser degree crit scaling, and as a result, since we dont scale well from our secondary stats as other classes, blizz beefed up our weapon scaling to make up the difference

[Taninsam]

Hey man, Not to rain on your parade, but this is the problem. Your data doesn't prove concrete anything when it comes to showing results of of ilvl/gear/bonuses/etc->dps correlation. There are many reasons for this

1)Length of fight. You'll see that your last kill was 37 seconds quicker than your first. Abilities like Army of the dead and raise Ghoul have a higher overall uptime%. Heroism has a higher overall uptime %. Double pots have a higher overall uptime %. Even if your gear had stayed the same for 5 weeks, you would probably notice your DPS going up each week as kills got shorter and shorter for this reason

2)RNG of mechanics-How much did you have to move, were you lucky and didnt have to move for any cones? did you have to soak zones? So did you move for those? Were you punted at all? All these things matter

3)RNG of combat abilities-Do you have RPPM trinks? Some might proc more on one fight or others not at all or once. did you get lucky or unlucky with crits?

I'm not trying to say that gear doesnt matter, of course it does. And I can tell you that as a whole frost is more dependant on weapons for scaling as opposed to gear than other classes. Other classes are also to a degree. DW has severe problems with haste scaling and to a lesser degree crit scaling, and as a result, since we dont scale well from our secondary stats as other classes, blizz beefed up our weapon scaling to make up the difference

Of course, I know these results aren't absolute! I'm not a robot either. There's a lot of random elements that alter damage output, but I think that it does show a more or less clear tendency. I did think about those inconsistencies you just said when I was looking at my logs, and that's how I came up with this idea (i.e.: almost identical dot uptime, buffs uptime, etc.).

It is true that the latest kills were shorter (around -12%), but I don't think that had a huge overall impact on dps. Judging from sims, that kind of difference on combat duration would account for between 2-7% of total dps. The heroism uptime difference (3%) is negligible, specially considering that haste offers us minimal benefit since we are GCD capped anyway.

Speaking of mechanics, I took that in mind too: we are always using the same people for soaking, and I'm most certain that I was quickly dispelled when affected with displaced energy. But of course, this is the most RNG element of this encounter. Crits, Trinket procs, etc. add another quota of RNG, but I don't think that renders these results useless.

[Deleted]

I did 309k on normal malkorok last week. 2H frost, was about 559ilvl - that's about 9k higher than I sim atm, likely down to more AMS soaking than the sim plus a lucky cruelty proc or two.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3325&e=3521

What does that prove? Not a lot unfortunately. Malkorok normal is an almost perfect fight for 2H (yes, I know we're talking about DW here) being virtually Patchwerk with awesome opportunities to AMS soak.

I think I understand what you're saying in terms of how we scale with gear or whatever... But then, even as DW you're fairly limited by the weapons you can acquire, gain a few percent from the 4set and then a massive chunk from Thoks tail tip (1H weapons and that trinket don't exist btw, they're a myth).

My current problem is that:

a.) I'll be lucky to see 2x normal weapons and that damn trinket before the next expansion and
b.) Even if I can get my hands on the above items and /cheer at my passive cleave I still won't be doing 400k dps on encounters like I've seen other 560ilvl warlocks doing :-P

As a side note you're recommending people go unholy. My observations have been:

a.) Have you gained quite a lot of gear but your two handed weapon is lacking to the point where your relative ilvl is far higher than that of your weapon? Go unholy.
b.) Have you managed to pick up a 2H (maybe even a warforged one) early on in the tier which has a far higher ilvl than the average of the rest of your gear? Go 2H frost.
c.) Are you lucky enough to have a couple of 1H weapons (that are better than whatever 2hander you have), Thok's tail tip and the 2set bonus from tier16? Go DW.

Or just stay playing whatever you enjoy/are best at.

[aggixx]

Of course, I know these results aren't absolute! I'm not a robot either. There's a lot of random elements that alter damage output, but I think that it does show a more or less clear tendency. I did think about those inconsistencies you just said when I was looking at my logs, and that's how I came up with this idea (i.e.: almost identical dot uptime, buffs uptime, etc.).

It is true that the latest kills were shorter (around -12%), but I don't think that had a huge overall impact on dps. Judging from sims, that kind of difference on combat duration would account for between 2-7% of total dps. The heroism uptime difference (3%) is negligible, specially considering that haste offers us minimal benefit since we are GCD capped anyway.

Speaking of mechanics, I took that in mind too: we are always using the same people for soaking, and I'm most certain that I was quickly dispelled when affected with displaced energy. But of course, this is the most RNG element of this encounter. Crits, Trinket procs, etc. add another quota of RNG, but I don't think that renders these results useless.

You vastly underestimate the amount of RNG in your DPS that is completely out of your own control. It is almost merely a coincidence that your DPS was consistently better each week when you were only gaining ~3 item levels (hence why your DPS change between the 2nd and 3rd weeks is completely nonexistant despite gaining the same amount of gear as all the other lockouts).

All the chart in the first post tells me is that you played better, got much better trinket RNG, crit RNG, proc lineup, cooldown uptimes, boss uptime, etc. than the prior weeks to have such a ridiculous rate change in rate of change in your damage.

Is there useful info in your data? Maybe. Does it tell you anything about the gear scaling of the spec? No.