Heya guys!!  So you keep asking me DK questions, and I keep answering them!!  Without further ado…

What should I be gemming?

If your Expertise is below 10 skill (not rating) gem for Expertise.  Otherwise go full out Strength over all other stats.

Some people tend to think that Blood should go with APen once past 6200 AP, but I’m not personally convinced of the math supporting that theory.

Why do you take utility talents in your DW build 3/51/17 instead of Icy Talons?

It’s simple really.  If you would need to take Imp Icy Talons to buff the raid, then you would be spec’ing 0/53/18.  If someone else is already providing the haste buff, then you gain nothing from spec’ing into Icy Talons.  So, either take some utility you can get use out of.  Or, respec into talents that will buff you and the raid.  It’s pretty basic.

What is HoW?

Seriously?  /facepalm

Horn of Winter

Which spec is doing the most DPS?

I have no idea.  It’s not simple to quantify guys, honestly.  But, it is safe to say that all three specs are doing well atm.  If you want to check out the top specs per tree please see my post:  3.2 DK Spec Updates for PvE DPS 

I’d recommend simply going with whatever spec either is the most fun, or you have the best gear for.  But those 3 specs are *THE* specs you should be playing no matter your itemization if you are raiding.

I swapped specs and lost DPS!!

I’ve answered this question before in 3.2 Questions and Answers by SJ, Part 1.  Please go read there.  And yes, if you swapped one point from UB to DRW, that qualifies as swapping specs.

So OB Unholy only beats SS Unholy after a certain % of APen?

No, I was wrong on that one.  OB Unholy is the clear winner.

I found a better rotation!!

I saw someone post a rotation that used 8 GCD’s (12 seconds) for their first part of the rotation.  While it is easier for RP generation, it screws with you in other ways.  You always want to leave a lil bit of room on any 10 second rotation to use the 2SR to your advantage if you have to.  In a 12 second rotation, you’re *ALWAYS* using the 2SR no matter what.

That’s a big mistake.  Because if anything goes wrong or you get lag/latency issues, then you’re borked.  Always try to keep any 10 second rotation down to 7 GCD’s (10.5 seconds) tops.  Between lag, latency, things going wrong, etc…that’s the most you should work in honestly.

Why is X Sigil better than Y Sigil?

That’s a massive explanation for even one comparison.  You have to break out the “maths” and do multiple point comparisons vary talents, glyphs, etc.  It’s tedious.  I’m just gonna tell you guys what the best one is.  And you can believe me or not.  I won’t be mad.  But I’m just not gonna break that down.  Lots of other posts I want to get into.

I swapped a spec because I found it to be useful in z circumstances!

Of course.  These are optimized 25man specs.  If you enter in any other variables your results will vary.  Always, always, ALWAYS remember guys.  The specs I list are designed for 25man content, unless I specifically state otherwise. 

Once you get into 10mans, heroics, pvp, etc…YMMV.  But, an optimized 25man spec will give you a “skeletal” framework (heh, see what I did there?) to work with.

I tried the Glyph of Disease on a different spec than the DW Frost one!!

Bad idea.  While it may seem cool to you, it’s most likely a DPS loss.  One of the reasons it’s a dps gain for Frost is because it allows an extra GCD to use a Rime proc that would normally be wasted due to a lack of GCD’s.

Blood Presence vs Unholy Presence

I recently had a rather long comment about using UP, and getting better performance from it than from BP.  But then the person said that they used the same rotation in UP that I’d use in BP… 

The benefit from using UP over BP is that you can fire off 10 GCD’s in 10 seconds versus 7 GCD’s in 10.5 seconds for Blood.  So if you’re doing the same rotations, then you can’t be doing more DPS with UP.  Overall UP is a PvP presence.  If for some reason you find that you can do more dps in UP than in BP you should check your lag/latency, etc first.

Why Morbidity over Ravenous Dead in a Blood spec?

There is a lot of AoE damage in boss fights now, plus you do a lot of DC damage now as Blood.  It’s the way to go.

Sigil of Virulence

I have not looked into it yet.  Will get into it later.

I am having threat issues now that I no longer have Subversion

This is a tricky situation.  Some people have issues, some don’t.  I’ve learned how to deal without it, but some people have a ton of problems with it.  This is a playstyle issue.

I have other questions!!

Why don’t you first read these 3.2 Q&A posts:

3.2 Questions and Answers by SJ, Part 1

3.2 Questions and Answers by SJ, Part 2

And if you’ve got more, you can go read the Questions category pages.  Hop to the bottom and go to previous entries and read tons of questions answered before.  Many times readers just keep asking me the same questions over and over again.  I’ve got a lot of them in there.

 -Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  Here we are with the second installment of Questions and Answers by SJ for the 3.2 release.  Hopefully this picture will encourage intelligent questions, but you never know about some people do you?  o.O

As always if you wish to reach me by e-mail I’m at:

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

That said, it’s not usually the best place to contact me.  Leaving comments on site usually garners responses from either myself or the community far faster than e-mails do.  But if you need to e-mail me, there is my address!! 

So lets jump right in shall we?

I keep using all of my Rune CD’s and RP, but I always have left over time where I’m doing nothing?

Are you using a proper spec and rotation?  Are you in Unholy Presence when you shouldn’t be?  Are you using HoW when possible for extra RP generation?  Answer those questions first and you can go from there.

Got a good DK simulator for DPS?

Ever heard of a guy named Kathorie over at the EJ Forums?  That’s the sim I use personally.  I also go off of gut instinct (sometimes no matter what the numbers tell me I go with something else), other sims and researchers, in game testing, etc. 

No one thing will give you the big picture.  But collecting data from multiple sources will.

What nerfs can we be expecting?

Outside of a nerf to the Unholy 2H OB build, I wouldn’t expect anything coming our way soon.

What is Threat of Thassarian?

See the picture above please.  Note that I originally provided a link and a hover over tooltip for said talent.  If you can’t figure it out from there, then go away.  I can’t help you.

Is Armor Penetration that important for Blood specs?

Yes.  Actually make that a resounding YES!!!  Basically once you get into the 6000 AP+ (static, not with procs like Unholy Strength) you want APen over Str for Blood.  It’s really that good.  For Frost and Unholy it’s nice, but nowhere near that level.

Is DW viable while leveling?

As Frost, hell yeah!!  ToT makes DW totally viable in all fields of PvE dps.  I would not recommend leveling as DW Unholy however.

What’s the deal with Hit and Expertise?

I have not updated my post since 3.1, but I didn’t see anything go live that should have altered anything.  Please see my post:  Hit and Expertise Revisited

Glyph of Disease and Glyph of Pestilence

These are not the same thing.  GoD is a Major Glyph, refreshing timers on the diseases on your current target when you fire off Pestilence.  GoP is a Minor Glyph, increasing the range of your Pestilence.

How does Unholy Blight work?

It is a passive talent now that goes off any time you fire off a Death Coil.  You never lose damage from UB unless the mob dies before the duration of UB ends.  Each tick just stacks (or rolls over) as it is applied.  Meaning if you had 3 UB’s active on a mob doing 200 damage each, then until one of them ended UB would tick for 600 damage every tick (3 UB’s at 200 each = 600).

It does 20% of your Death Coil exactly.  Nothing modifies it except for the Glyph of Unholy Blight, which is complete and total crap.  Don’t get it.  No modifiers increase the UB damage because they were already applied to the Death Coil.  If they applied again to UB, that would be called double dipping (getting a bonus more than once).  And that goes against the game mechanics.

Should I break x Set Bonus from my Tier # armor?

Please see my BISI page.  It has in the T8 content the effective AP bonuses for each Tier 2/4 set bonus, as well as the AP values for armor.  You can best determine if a Set Bonus will make keeping lower ilvl items by using my BISI posts.

I spec’d Blood 50/0/21 and with UB it’s way better!!

No, it’s not.  You just think it is.  If you have more fun using UB than DRW then sure, stick with it.  But if you want top end dps, then go spec into DRW.  It isn’t maybe better than UB.  It just is.

DW Tanking vs 2H Tanking

Look, DW Tanking just is not a viable tool.  You *will* take more damage than a 2H tank.  I don’t care what drivel you have to say on the matter, or what tankspot link you find.  DW causes more parries, which causes Boss Parry Haste, which means you take more damage.  End of Story.  Sorry.

On top of that, your Rune Strikes will do less damage (coming from a 1H and not a 2H) which means you will be doing less TPS as well.  I know it sounds cool, but DW tanking on a boss that gets parry haste is not viable.  Could you do it and make it work?  Probably.  But the 2H tank will do more TPS and take less damage in an equal setting.

But there are no Crushing Blows, etc…

/SIGH  Really?  I mean you’re like a fricking pit bull snagged on a friggin’ bone!

The way parry haste mechanics work, boss white attacks get pro rated haste to speed up attacks to make up for the animations used to parry an attack.  This means that additonal hits after that pro rated attack are still firing off normally.  The end result is that you can have a boss fire off 2 normal attacks and a special attack all in under 1 second due to parry haste mechanics.

This is further accentuated by DW’ers because there are so many more parries that the oddball occurance of multiple attacks within a short span of time increases significantly.  I’ve seen logs where 2H tanks took 3-4 hits in under 2 seconds.  With DW the chance of it happening only gets worse.

Sure you won’t take successive crushing blows anymore.  But if you get hit for 8k damage 4 times when you already under 100% health in under 2 seconds, you jut might die.  Go figure…

Why did you not take Imp Icy Touch in tanking builds?

Available in a raid you have Infected Wounds, Thunder Clap (w/Improved Thunder Clap), and Judgements of the Just in addition to Frost Fever (w/Improved Icy Touch).  In my personal experience one of those 3 is always provided in a 25 man raid by someone else. 

If you have a different raid makeup, or different needs in say a 10man, then feel free to spec into Imp IT.  However for the most part it is a waste of points as a tank unless you *have* to provide it.  Also, if you paid attention I specifically said in the tank specs: 

 ”As with all tanking specs, your raid environment will usually force you into changing your spec no matter what a cookie cutter spec says.”

And then there were examples as well…

Bladed Armor versus Desolation for tanks?

I could be wrong there.  I’m not a massive tank guru.  I’ll have to look into that one.

Why no DnD in rotations, or AoE rotations?

If you don’t know how to do an AoE rotation by this point then I’m not sure that I can help you.  That’s like asking me to tell you how to put diseases on a target.  However, later on I will be putting them into specialized spec posts for completeness sake, but they should be relatively obvious.

As to DnD being used in a ST rotation for tanks, that’s ludicrous.  No shot.

What does TPS mean?

Threat Per Second

I asked a question, but you never answered it?!!?

Ask several questions first.  If the answer is yes, then that is specifically why I did not answer the question.

• Was the comment non-stop run on sentences with poor grammer and punctuation, in one solid paragraph?
• Was it asking me to critique a build/spec from a link?
• Was it asking me to check your armory and compare gear?  See BISI.
• Was is asking for some kind of a gear guide?  See BISI.
• Was the question already answered in the post itself?
• Was the question already answered in a comment?

If your question falls into one of those categories, I don’t answer them.  The first few simply because I don’t have the time to critique individual player’s gear and specs.  The last few because that’s just stupidity or laziness on your part.  Dem’s da factz!!

Could you explain better how to “RP”?

RP stanks for Runic Power.  In a rotation you can’t always say when a RP dump should happen.  In Blood it’s specific because you have zero time to work anything in.  In Frost it’s complicated due to Rime procs, FS’s, etc.  And in Unholy sometimes it’s a struggle to just never hit max RP and use it all before hand.

Later when I do full posts on each spec I will cover this more in depth.  But always keep two things in mind.  The 2SR, and always always always fire off RP abilities whenever you have Runes on CD.

How much Hit do I want for DW Frost?

It’s really more of a question of APE values, but I’ll try to give a rough estimate.  You want 288.53 Hit Rating for sure.  That means that you’re covered for melee and spell hit if you’re getting Heroic Presence, spec’d into Virulence, and getting either Virulence or Misery.  As to past that point, sure you’re getting some benefit.  But Hit isn’t all that great anymore.

However in a 10man environment where you might not have all of that, or your raid is missing some of those raid buffs/debuffs, then you will get a significant upgrade on dps from Hit until you make up for that missing amount.

Please see my post:  Hit and Expertise Revisited

So that’s it actually!!

I looked through all of the comments for the past week, and this pretty much answers everything.  Feel free to post more comments questions and I’ll try to answer them.  But for now the Q&A posts will be taking a step back while I gear up for new specs posts.

I will be doing a specific post for each spec with detailed talent point summaries/swaps, explanations, full rotation breakdowns, etc…

Need some Specs?  Go check out:  Live 3.2 Death Knight Specs: DK DPS, Tank, and PvP

Looking for other DK questions and answers?  See my Questions Category Page with tons of posts with detailed questions (by the readers) answered by me.

Posts you should read

Best in Slot Items – This page has listings for all T7 and T8 itemization currently.  It breaks the gear down into 6 different categories depending on your current hit and expertise ratings.  Highly useful for picking your gear out from instances..

The Two Second Rule, 2SR – This page explains the mechanics behind the 2SR.  As a DK it is paramount that you understand how this mechanic works to take advantage of all of the tools you have available.

Hit and Expertise Revisted – Most people don’t actually understand how Hit and Expertise come into play for a DK.  Or even what the caps are, or what they mean to you.  Here is your post.  Caps, ratings, etc.  It’s all here.

Blood Tap – Most DK’s never use this ability, but it’s actually key to many specs.  If you have any 1 Rune special abilties in your spec such as Vampiric Blood, Ghoul Frenzy, Bone Shield, and Unbreakable Armor then you need to read this post to see how you can use BT once a minute to fire these off without messing your rotations up ever.

Death Knight Macros – I need to go back and revamp this page.  Make better headings, better names, categories, etc…  But if you don’t mind pilfering through it, it’s still got some decent macros in there to use.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  It’s been long overdue, but here we are with the newest installment of Questions & Answers by yours truly!  Hopefully you guys are not as confused as this man to the left, but if you are I’m here to allay your frustrations!! 

For some old school answers to questions that have been asked, feel free at any point to go to my Questions category.  It’s nothing but questions posed to me by readers, and the answers.  Keep in mind while reading them however that some specific questions might no longer hold true with new patch releases.

For those who wish to contact me/ask questions by E-mail you can reach me at:

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

As a note however, reaching me by comments on this site tends to elicit responses much more quickly.  Either by me or the community.  I can’t respond to every E-mail always in a timely fashion sadly.

Where are the specs!?!?

If you want some specs feel free to check out my post with the 3.2 specs:

3.2 Death Knight Specs:  PvE DPS and Tanking

SJ, why is this new (enter generic spec) spec better than a previous one?  Why should I be switching, and is the old one still viable?

Well viable is a questionable term to begin with.  Will an older spec be viable in an end game raiding environment?  Probably not.  Now, will it be viable in casual raiding?  Sure, why not!!  Any time you see a talent tree’s spec evolve into a different spec you have to realize that as talents are changed, and itemization increases in ilvl (item level), specs will change as well. 

But then again sometimes not.  Blood for example has stayed very static, with only minor changes with the development of DK’s.  Unholy on the other hand has had a progression through 3 different specs as your gear/patches progressed, while even offering a viable DW spec as well. 

If I do a “summary post” about multiple specs I’m not going to be going into details as to why these new specs are “it on a stick”.  Those kind of details are best reserved for spec specific posts.  Sometimes you just have to trust me until I can get around to a detailed analysis for each spec. 

What speed weapons should I be using when DW’ing Frost or Unholy?

Technically speaking you always want to be wielding Slow weapons in both hands, preferably with speeds of 2.5 or 2.6 respectively.  Now as Unholy you can use a Slow MH weapon and a Fast OH weapon without a noticeable DPS decrease, but as Frost that is not an option.  Due to the mechanics of Strikes being based off of weapon damage, Slow always beats Fast for instant cast strikes.

Threat of Thassarian allows you to use both MH and OH weapons for Strikes (for Frost) so Frost has to use Slow/Slow for optimal DPS.  Unholy however lacks this talent, meaning it’s Strikes are all based off of the MH only.  While BCB will do slighly more damage with weapons of speed 2.5 and 2.6. the increase is so marginal that it doesn’t really matter.  So Slow/Fast is acceptable for Unholy DW.

But what if I have a better DPS weapon that’s Fast, and not Slow?

The dps jump would have to be massive in order to replace a “Strike” weapon.  Meaning MH or OH for Frost, or just the MH for Unholy.  If the dps jump is 20 DPS or less, then stick with the Slow weapon with lower DPS.  Yes, the weapon speed makes that much of a difference. 

If you’re getting into a 25+ DPS boost, then swapping is probably the way to go.  Honestly though, you should ignore fast weapons on principle and focus on Slow.

What spec is doing the most DPS now?

That question is not easily answered.  It might seem easy, but due to several factors it’s not.  WMO (my fav site for checking dps) doesn’t have a setting (that I can find anyways) to only show the top 20 from the last week.  They do it by “all time”.  On top of that, they have not added in top 20 lists for the Coliseum.

So what I did was pull up the top10 guilds (total raid wide dps) for the Beasts of Northrend.  9 of the 10 guilds had DK’s.  Here were the results:

1. 2H Blood: 5653 DPS
2. 2H Blood: 5622 DPS
3. DW Frost: 5372 DPS
4. 2H Unholy OB:  5359 DPS
5. 2H Blood: 5249 DPS
6. 2H Unholy OB:  5077 DPS
7. 2H Blood: 5035 DPS
8. 2H Blood: 4917 DPS
9. 2H Unholy SS: 4773 DPS

Now this is not indicative of the true potential of DK DPS for 3.2 due to several factors.  DK’s in guilds who did crappier raid dps might very well have done a lot more personal DK DPS.  Also this was the first fight for some people, meaning they were not at 110% due to learning curve. 

On the flip side it at least indicates that 2H Blood, 2H OB Unholy, and DW Frost are all close to par at first glance.  Whether this stands the test of time has yet to be determined.

I swapped to this new spec, and now my DPS has totally tanked.  What gives?!?

First off, anytime you swap specs to something new expect your dps to drop dramatically.  No questions asked.  Be prepared to suck it.  Long and hard.  Just sayin’. 

Why does this happen?  Itemization, familiarity, learning curve, muscle memory, etc…  One of the biggest mistakes made is not regearing for a new spec.  If you had BISI for say Unholy, some of those BISI wouldn’t even rank in the top5 list for Blood spec. 

Each spec values different stats at varying levels.  If you have a lot of the stats that are good for one spec, that same gear just might do as well with another spec.  And lets not forget the learning curve. 

I don’t care how awesome you think you are, if you swap specs you won’t be as good with the “new shiny toy” as you were with the spec you’ve been playing for at least a month or two.

DPS is made by a contribution of multiple events:

• Spec
• Proper Gear
• Experience/Practice
• Proper Raid Buffs/Debuffs
• Player Skill

If you don’t bring everything to the table, then you won’t get the DPS you could be doing.  Always remember to take in the big picture, or something will get left behind.

Is Frost DW a viable spec now?

If you’re still asking this then you didn’t read everything I’ve written so far.  GG.  A DK did 5372 DPS in the Coliseum already.  So yeah, it looks viable with an expected cap breaching 7k DPS fully buffed/debuffed with T9 BISI.

If I Heart Strike one target with diseases on it, and it hits an adjacent target with 0 diseases on it, will it do full damage to both targets?

No.  All Strikes get dmg multipliers based off of how many diseases you have on your target.  This damage is calculated when it hits the target.  So if you HS a target with 2 diseases, and then the “cleave” effect hits another target with 0 diseases, then you will do reduced dmg to that second target.

If I’m in lower ilvl gear (T7 and under), are these specs viable for me?

In a nutshell yes.  There might be more optimal specs for lower itemization (like Unholy), but basically any top end spec will work for you no problem.  The only time you need to consider making a wonky off-shoot spec is when raiding is not your primary time sink.

If you spend more time doing 5mans or PvP it might be time to consider swapping the specs around a little bit.  But outside of PvP, any raid viable spec will work for you in any PvE environment.

Where is your DC button in your UI?

If you go back to my 2H OB post, you’ll see I have 5 bars.  On the top right bar towards the far right end (4th from the right) is my DC button.  For those who don’t know I play WoW with a Belkin Nostromo 52TE, or a N52 TE. 

You can go read my post about the N52 TE and I HIGHLY recommend these things.  IT IS THE BOMB!!  And because of it, I don’t keep all of my “regular fire” buttons on my main action bar.  It works for me! 

Insert *dumb* random question involving a target dummy.  Yeah, I said dumb.  If you said “target dummy” then I’m saying DUMB!!  *grumble*

What is a Target Dummy good for?  Practicing your rotation, new mods, and checking procs.

What is a Target Dummy not good for?  EVERYTHING ELSE!!!  I mean it damnit.

People always want to talk about their dps on a target dummy.  Target dummies ruined WoW.  Well…not really.  But I’m tired of hearing about them.  Without all raid debuffs and raid buffs, no test results from a TD will ever be viable, correct, reliable, or worth mentioning.  It’s just a fact of life.  The quicker you accept that fact and move on, the better.

Now if you somehow get all raid buffs, get on a dummy with full health, and get enough people there to fully debuff it…  Well my hat will be off to you sir for suckering enough people to be your !@#$# boys.  Otherwise, ignore the TD excepting for testing mods, procs, and rotations.

Hey I tried Disease-less again, and it was viable!!

No, it wasn’t.  You just think it was.  The previous 3.1 buffs to the dmg multipliers from diseases was enough to kill disease-less specs.  But it still left 1 disease specs being viable.  So they then increased BS dmg from diseases, and they increased the dmg on the diseases themselves.

If you play a DK now, and don’t use two diseases, then you’re nerfing your DPS.

Hey I found/tried this spec that I found on EJ (or other random site) and got x/y/z results!!

There are a ton of possible specs out there guys.  And I’m sure that for some playstyles that they work.  And I fully encourage everyone to always play what is fun for them.  But when I list specs I tend to stick to the 2 best specs possible.  And no more.

Generally speaking I find that some of the posts on other sites tend to cave in to public demand and list a ton of variant builds.  While that may be “complete”, generally the message gets lost in translation.  I prefer to hand over the best, or two best specs possible, and then let you have at it. 

How are you doing so much damage with Death Coil in a 2H Unholy OB build?

• Are you using a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart?
• Are you using top end Unholy gear?  See BISI.
• Did you spec correctly?
• Are you in a 25 man will full raid buffs and debuffs?
• Are you using the 2SR to your advantage, and working in HoW every 20 seconds?

Now in some fights DC dropped down to number 2 or 3 for dmg sources, but generally speaking it was high as hell (excepting the AoE fights like Thorim/Freya).

How did you do so much DPS on Hodir as Frost?

That is just a Frost fight due to all of the spell caster buffs.  In general, it’s a caster fight and Frost has a lot of stuff that benefits there.  Kind of like how Unholy decimates at Freya, Frost decimates at Hodir.

What about leveling builds?

I actually plan on getting back to these one I’m done with the 3.2 stuff.  That said, it’ll still probably be several weeks before that happens simply because I need to do detailed posts on specs still, and get BISI underway soon.

New BISI posts?!?!

Yes, new BISI posts!!  It’ll be another week minimum before this gets started (if not 2 weeks), but it will be coming much sooner this time.  Just nailing down some numbers and waiting to see how sims are playing out in practice before doing the final prep work.

MOAR QUESTIONS!!!!

I don’t want this post to get too long, but basically I plan on answering more questions.  I’ll have a second questions post up sometime late this evening, or tomorrow.

Feel free to post more questions on this post if you have any in general, or questions about things discussed here!!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  General Vezax down, yeah!!    While we did not complete any hard modes, we did manage to kill every boss except for Yogg-Saron himself.  This week though, he’s ours!! 

But we’ve got a lot to talk about today.  So throw you’re ghoul some left over brains.  Get out that comfy chair.  You know, the one made from the bones of your enemies.  And sit for a spell…

Personal Observations

So I spent the majority of this last week in Ulduar dps’ing or tanking as needed, with a little bit of BG PvP thrown into the mix as well.  And honestly, I’m just f’ing beat by this point lol.  WTB sleep!!!  ZOMG!!!  Between work and raiding I probably put in close to 80+ hours.  Not counting personal time or sleep.  Sleep.  I remember what that was…

PvE Unholy DPS

Pretty rocking I must say.  AoE ownage combined with Boss killing awesomeness = Pure Win in my book!  I hit number one dps on one or two bosses and stayed in the top 5 the majority of the time.  Now, comparatively speaking from before the 3.1 this is a major jump.  My gear and skill are the same, yet my dps compared to my guild shot up.  So as expected and foretold, Unholy is pretty hot now.

PvE Unholy Tanking

Pretty craptastic actually…  I know.  I *love* Unholy.  But I don’t think I’d ever do an Unholy spec for tanking again willingly.  It suffers way way way too much when dealing with single target TPS (threat per second).  And the AoE threat is not all that much better than Frost considering the new Howling Blast.  Blood has it’s place, but I think I’m going to have to go with Frost for tanking in the future.  It’s just a much more solid build, and Unholy sucks for when you *have* to lay down serious threat.

PvP Unholy

Sadly I did not have time to respec and try a true Unholy build, so I’ve not got a lot to report here.  I do feel significantly weaker than my old Shadowfrost PvP spec, but I’ll reserve judgement until I get some real PvP time in.

Talent Comments

Uhm…it looks like you want to pick up Ghoul Frenzy for Unholy PvE DPS.  Basically the consensus is to use Blood Tap to get this up for free in the same manner you would refresh Bone Shield without messing up your rotations.  So, something to consider.  Also the haste from IIT in Frost might be worth more than Necrosis for dps.  The Unholy end spec might possibly look something like this:  0/14/57 (rough draft only to emphasize point movement)

Ulduar

I spent about 50 hours on Ulduar this week.  Now don’t get me wrong, that includes the associated downtime (which there was a ton of…sigh).  Swapping people in and out due to them having to leave.  Bugged bosses and the instance borking out.  Raid formation (which ain’t fast with us, heh).  Strat discussion and movie watching.  And other crap too.  So if you cut out all of the flak it’d probably be closer to about 30 hours.  But 50 is what I spent on WoW.

The content is fairly challenging though.  Considering that we full cleared Naxx25 in one day (maybe 2…been too long…I forget) and that we could not manage to take down the end boss of Ulduar in the first week speaks volumes on the difficulty increase.  And that is all on Easy Mode.  I’m really looking forward to getting some gear and starting to work on the Hard Modes.  Unlike Naxx, this place is not a cake walk.

The trash is fairly odd however.  It’s basically designed as a massive time sink.  They specifically made the trash to be more likely to cause deaths just to slow down raiders.  So instead of putting in a ton of trash to slow you down (like in Black Temple), they instead threw in incredibly aggravating and annoying trash that can just wtfpwn you if you’re sloppy.  /fail

As to the story…I missed a lot of it.  Blizzard really needs to learn a thing or two about making the story more easily accesible for players than it currently is.  It’s too easy to miss what NPC’s are doing/saying after a triumphant exultation releases from a guild.

But as to the artwork, this place is just gorgeous.  Hands down one of the best looking instances I’ve ever seen.  Perhaps the best in my eyes.  The design is very fluid and appealing.  And this place is so much easier to get around compared to any previous instances.

Overall, Ulduar is full of win.

Questions

So SJ, I’ve got a question for you…

Well.  I’ve got an answer!!  Welcome to another installment of Q&A here at SJ where I answer your questions.  Today we’re focusing on the 150+ comments from my Death Knight Specs for 3.1 Rlease post.

What is this Q&A you speak of?

Every once in a while I sit down and answer a bunch of questions from E-mails and Comments here on the site.  It’s pretty much impossible for me to answer every question or respond to every comment.  So instead I try to keep a few posts answering the most prevalent, or relevant, questions.

I asked you a question in an E-mail and I never got a response!!

One of two things happened.  Either I did a post where your question was answered, or I still have the e-mail sitting in the Inbox to be addressed later.  I’ve got a *lot* still sitting around to be answered.  I just don’t always have the time to answer everyone.  I do my best though.  If I do answer your question in a post I do not send you an E-mail reply.  Just an FYI.

What Glyphs are you using for these specs?

The MMO Champion Talent Calculator that I use has the glyphs selected on them.  Go to the talent calculator and see them there on the right side.

Are disease-less specs really dead?

Yes they are.  Basically the new disease modifiers increase your Strike damage by a % for each disease you have on the target.  This means that it hurts much more to lose said diseases.  While a disease-less spec is possible, and will work, it won’t do as much damage (or even comprable damage) as these new specs will.

Why are your tanking Glyphs so damn weird?

You have to realize that tanks have different needs.  Some tanks are off tanks.  Some tanks are main tanks.  Some tanks only tank for specific encounters.  You never know.  If your tanking requirements suggest that you should use a different glyph then do it.  If you tank tons of trash, but no bosses, then the DnD glyph is up your alley.  If you are a boss MT, then maybe the Unbreakable Armor glyph is more your style.  See what I mean?

Why bother taking Improved Unholy Presence?

OK, this question is so beaten to death.  Just about every single fight in game now requires movement of some kind.  Lets say that in a 5 minute fight that you are required to run out of melee range 2 times per minute.  And then lets say that if you had this talent that you could shave off just one second every single time you had to run.  So you’d be getting 1 extra second per run.  At twice per minute, for 5 minutes, that’s 10 seconds of extra dps.  Now let’s say that you’re doing 5000 DPS in Ulduar.  That means that you just did 50,000 extra damage from those 2 points in the talent tree.  And that is seriously lowballing this talent.

Now let’s look at survival.  If you’re dead, you ain’t doing DPS.  Nuff said.  This talent allows you to make it out of void zones, etc much more easily.  Not only will you get more DPS uptime on bosses, but you will more easily evade attacks that are proximity relative.  Hands down, this is one of the best talents available.

Why is Night of the Dead so good for Blood/Frost specs?

Most people think that ghouls have been severely nerfed for 3.1 release, when the opposite is actually true.  Even Frost/Blood specs that spec’d into perma ghoul lost their pet the majority of the time due to AoE damage.  Now with NotD, you will almost never lose your pet.  It loses so few hit points from AoE splash damage that you will now do more damage with your ghoul (Risen Ghoul) (on average) than you ever did before with a perma ghoul.

What is a “Priority” rotation, and why does your Unholy rotation not make sense?

OK, a priority rotation is where you fire off your attacks based upon a priority system.  You have a set of rules that determine when something is used instead of following a predetermined order.  Here is how it works for Unholy:

1. Upkeep diseases – Reapply them through IT/PS if they are down or going to be within the next 3 seconds or less.  Do not try to reapply them with SS unless you have 4+ seconds on your disease rotation.
2. Do not RP cap – If firing off an attack will push you over 100 RP (and make you lose that RP) then immediately fire off a DC.
3. Fire off SS’s whenever possible.
4. Maintain UB every 20 seconds.

Does Ebon Plaguebringer finally work properly with multiple DK’s who possess the talent?

Yes.  You can now have EP up while someone else has EP up.

Hey, I think moving these points will increase my DPS!!

Most of the time, you’re wrong.  Sorry.  But sometimes, you’re right.  Remember guys all of my info comes from testing on PTR and theorycrafting.  It’s not 100% fact until it’s been pushed to the limit on Live.  Feel free to experiment, but most of the time I will be right.  So you know. 

Why open with Death Strike for the Blood rotation?

Abomination’s Might only has a 100% proc chance if you use a DS.  This buff is a “mandatory” raid buff for hardcore dps’ing.  I will not support E-peen methodologies, I’m sorry.  DS first, and your overall raid’s dps will be higher.

Why not use the Glyph of Disease?

Using this means you spend 1 Rune to do zero damage and that you spend 1 Glyph slot to do zero damage.  2+2=4, or 0+0=0.  Get the analogy yet?

Does Necrosis really no longer double dip?

Correct.  That is why it is down on damage.

Why use Dirge?

Uhm…are you serious?  RP = damage.  Nuff said.

How often do you update this site, Skeletonjack.com?

Usually 4-5 times minimum a week, up to as much as 10-12 tops.

Can I move this point in a spec to somewhere else?

Sure.  It’s your toon.  Do what you want!  Always!!  Especially if it’s something utilitarian like choosing Rune Tap over Mark of Blood.

What about a Blood/Frost perma ghoul spec?

They’re not viable.  You need to drop a full 50 points in any given tree because the top end talents are too useful.

Why didn’t you buy x talents in y tanking build?

Tanking builds have as much as 10 talent points to move for specific needs.  Like before, your role determines your needs.  Depending on what you tank, moving some points may be a really good idea.

So yeah, more questions and answers later!!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions, Raids

Heya guys!!  So what does that picture have to do with anything DK related?  No idea!!  BUT IT SHOULD!!!  How awesome is that thing?!  I’m looking to replace Ratkiller with one of these babies.  PURE WIN!!

So, it’s time for Questions and Answers again.  So SJ is here to answer YOUR questions!!

I’m wondering how viable the deep unholy spec you mentioned is compared to the frost/blood dps specs you’ve been posting about more recently, or is it simply going to stay tit for tat the almost exact same?

So nice to get questions covering the broad range of the class itself.  In the end, anything said about any spec for 3.1 must be taken with a grain of salt.  PTR is limited and does not allow for a greater player base to test everything in ideal circumstances.  That said however, the outlook is that Unholy > Blood > Frost.  Unholy and Blood should actually be very close to each other.

Now the odd part though is that the latest version of Frost gains more from gear than any other spec.  Potentially in full T8.5 Frost will outperform both Blood and Unholy, but that remains to be seen. 

Anyways, to my questions: in 25 man NAX, with my current gear set (xxxxxxxx) I still only do about xxxx dps. I can’t figure out if this is good, given my gear, or whether I am missing something.

The most important question any DK should always ask before anything else is whether or not they are getting all potential buffs?  Are you using a flask, buff food, and fully utilizing your Trade Skills (TS) for dps buffs?  Also, are you getting all raid buffs?  Might, Kings, GoW, Unleashed Rage, Windfury, Rampage, Leader of the Pack, Misery, etc…  That stuff matters.  A lot.  Did you melee hit cap and get at least 15 Expertise minimum? 

DPS is more than the right spec and rotation.  It’s having the right gear, the right buffs, knowing the fight (read strats), and being able to quickly react and move.  You have to be on top of a target hitting it right away without stealing threat.  Keeping on top of a boss as much as possible even when movement is required.  Etc…  You have to evaluate all of the factots involved.  Not just spec and gear.

My main concern is that I see other DK’s without being hit capd or expertise capd some not even as geared as I am pulling out higher DPS on patchwerk.

A lot of these types of questions directly relate to the one asked just a second ago.  But you get to add in one other factor.  Player skill.  As much as it may bruise your ego to hear this, but some people are just better than you.  I’ve met a few people who were better than me (which is rare) and it was a crushing blow to my ego.  Heh.    But I got better!  And here we are now.  Comparing yourself to other players is never good unless you wish to be competitive and push yourself to be better than they are (you as well for that matter).

Hey I know you are busy and all but if you could take alook at my toon it would be greatly appreciated. If you got any gear advice or just any advice at all about what you see it would be awesome.

These are the worst questions ever guys.  I’m not gonna answer it.  If you have a specific question I can answer I will, but the majority of questions that ask someone to look at your gear are irrelevant.  I can’t know what gear you can get, or will get.  What’s possible, or impossible for you.  I have the BISI page for specific gear rankings to help you guys gear out properly just for those kind of questions. 

As to specs, I have a multitude of specs listed on this site for raiding.  If you want a non-raiding spec, then telling me specifically what the spec should accomplish is the best way to go.  A WoW Head or MMO Champion talent link is solid.  Just make sure you say what the spec is supposed to do.

However, I was wondering if you had a few minutes to take a look at my DK and see where I may be coming up short and maybe some advice on where I may need to spend time balancing items.

Balancing itemization is actually very important.  First off, reading my post about Hit and Expertise is the best place to start.  Realistically the goal of a starting DK should be to get 8% hit (melee hit cap) and roughly 15 Expertise (with talents).  After that focus on gaining Strength.  Haste, Crit, and Armor Pen will come with the gear.  It’s really that easy.

Hello my name is xxxxxx and I’m in danger of losing my raid spot if I can’t up my dps.

Well, sometimes people actually have all the right answers to dps.  They have the gear, the spec, the rotation, and the buffs.  So then this is where we get into the questions revolving around player skill and tactics/strategy.  A lot of the time you have to really sit there and ask yourself if you are doing everything possible to maximize your dps.  Luckily you have training dummies.

Now a dummy is not there for a dps comparison.  You will have random debuffs on them from time to time, and other factors that will result in skewed dps results.  But, for the purposes of practicing, that dummy is the perfect little bubble to live in.  Use your rotations, change them up, experiment, etc…  And run a damage meter like Recount (linked on the right side of my page under addons) so you can compare fight to fight.  Also make sure you look at your dps before you run away.  DoT’s will continue to tick and lower the “dps” number while you wait to go out of combat.

Lastly there are the strategies.  A lot of times people don’t really understand what the strats are, but go into the fights anyways.  Sometimes that means you will not be able to truly perform.  If you don’t know exactly when or how a boss will move, or when is the most optimal time to have pets out for Heroism, then your dps will suffer.  Learn the strats.

But atm this is what I have for single targets I can get a stable 9k TPS. But my problem is. Next patch it get nerfed horrible ( 3.1.0 ) so I quite need a new spec for tanking.

Well, the bad news is that we’re getting screwed for TPS.  Since our avoidance has been cut down by 10%+, we will not proc as many Rune Strikes.  Which means that our TPS is going down.  Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, thinks we’ll be fine since some DK’s say they’re fine.  And will address the issue later if needed…  Basically this means we need to follow the rules that most tanks do.  You need to grab gear with Hit and Expertise as well as mitigation and avoidance.

 I was reading your site looking for info on stuff I can help him with.  Any suggestions?  I started with bags and some gold which I would expect to help any character starting on a new server, but is there anything DK specific?

Well, you can go buy any of these items to start, whether it be for gear or quest exp.  Also you can give lowbie DK’s enchants/kits (leg, wrist, chest, helm, gloves), gold, and 18/20 slot bags.  Keep searching the AH every day for LK release green 2H weapons as well.  They are light years ahead of anything you can get your hands on, and start at level 67 I believe.

I’m still a noob when it comes to DK’s and what their favored leveling specs are, so I have a question. What’s the best leveling spec for a DK at my level?  P.S. What do you mean by DW?

DW means Dual Wield, or using two 1H (one handed) weapons instead of a 2H (two handed) weapon.  As to good leveling specs, go check out Geistig’s posts on the matter!!

I would like your help and suggestions on breaking the 3K barrier and maintaining a good DPS rate.

Something that a lot of people forget is that there are basically 7 attacks possible per 10 second rotation in Blood Presence.  Basically 1 attack is 1 GCD (Global Cool Down), which is 1.5 seconds.  7 of these done in successive order takes up 10.5 seconds.  When you add in the 2SR (2 second rule) and latency/lag, this pretty much caps you out at potential dps.  Many people often will push other attacks back however instead of just moving on to the new rotation.

Always fire off attacks as soon as possible while trying to never hit your RP cap.  Spend it before you loose it, when possible.  Make sure your rotation, with RP dump included, doesn’t exceed 7 attacks per 10 second rotation as well.

Moar Questions!?!?

Yes there are more, but that’s where we’re calling it for today!!  As always, good luck out there guys!!  Always remember my Questions category already has a butt ton of questions already answered.  You can direct other questions to me here:

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  Welcome to another installment of Questions and Answers!!  Overdue much SJ!?!?!  Why, yes it is!!  So, what do we have here to look forward to?  No idea yet, lol!!  I’ve just cleared off most of the junk out of my E-mail account, so I’ll be going through one at a time.  Which is actually a daunting task because I’ve let these suckers pile up all the way back from late Jan.  >.<  Yeah…I’ve been kind of bad about keeping up with E-mails, so sue me!!  :P  I am answering them now!!

Normalized Damage

One of my readers recently read my post about Deathtards and asked me two questions.

You have 2 points when listing Deathtards that I don´t understand:

Don?t use a fast 2H.

Don?t wear spell damage gear.  Ever.  I mean it. 

Spell damage gear? What is it and why not use a fast 2H?

So…yeah.  /facepalm  OK.  The fast 2H question is solid actually.  But you don’t know wtf spell damage gear is?  I just…  How could you not have seen some before if you leveled one toon up, and then leveled up a DK?!?  Right…  Spell Damage gear is any item that has the “Spell Power” stat on it, or has a specific spell damage type listed, such as “Arcane”.  In other words, if a paladin item drops with spell power on it, don’t use it.  As to weapon speeds…

Way back in the day, before Burning Crusade came about, there was a massive problem with weapon damage ranges for any class that used “Instant Cast Attacks”, such as DK Strikes like Obliterate or Blood Strike.  Because of this Blizzard created “normalized damage”.  Basically faster weapons were always inferior to slower weapons because the end damage result was being multiplied by the weapon speed.  So the slower the weapon used, the higher the damage multiplier.  To fix this issue, they normalized the damage by creating set figures for each “weapon type” as follows:

• Daggers: 1.7
• All 1H weapons: 2.4
• All 2H weapons: 3.3

Now you may be wondering at this point why weapon speed matters if they normalized everything.  The base weapon damage still comes in to play.  And a faster weapon will still have a lower base damage number than a slower weapon.  While the margin of difference is far less than it would be without “normalized damage”, you still gain more from a slow 2H over a fast 2H.

New DW Spec Ideas

28/43/0 and 27/44/0  are two suggestions/ideas I was asked about for viable 3.1 release DW specs.  Now there were several questions, but we have to stop before even looking at anything else because of the blatant and glaring problem staring you in the face if you clicked on these specs.  I’ll give you a second.  Do you see it?

These specs have talents focusing on Strikes such as Obliterate, Frost Strike, and Blood Strike.  The entire premise of all successful DW builds has been on the emphasis of “spells” and enhancing white damage.  Hence why DW is in so much trouble atm on PTR.  Any Strike heavy build will always outperform with a 2H simply because the 2H will cause the strikes to do significantly more damage.  Remember always that the strength in DW specs is about heightening the white damage potential and increasing spell damage.

Hey SJ!!  I’m from Gretna, have we met?!?!

Heh, I doubt it!!    I am a New Orleans boy, having spent the vast majority of my life here in the Big Easy.  I was born up north and moved down here around the age 2-4.  Grew up on the west bank until 4th grade, and then moved to the east bank in the middle of 4th grade.  I moved to Atlanta on 3 occasions and lived there for about a year each time.  I graduated from Jesuit HS 1994.  (Yes you can roughly guess how old I am now.  )  If that sounds familiar, then E-mail me personal info.  But otherwise I’d be shocked if any reader who stumbled across my site actually knew who the hell I was, rofl.

SJ, can you lookit my gear/spec and yadda yaddaa?!?

No.  Probably not.  If you send me an exact link with your Armory, and then also a link to a WoW Head or MMO Champion Talent Calculator if your talents are not correct, then maybe.  I’ll probably go look actually.  But if you send me your name and server, not a chance in hell.  It’s not personal, but I’ve only got so much time in the day.  So if you can’t take the time to send me the relevant information in an easy to acquire format, then I’ve got other things I could be doing.

What weapon should I be using SJ?!

Betrayer of Humanity  Nuff said.

Hehe.  For those who cannot get to said awesomeness atm, moar dps = good.  Really guys, it’s not *that* hard.  I love helping people.  Hell, I am more than happy to.  But some things you need to venture out there on your own.  If you are deciding between two weapons that are both 186 dps, in all honesty they’re not going to make that much of a difference chosing one over the other.  But if one is 10+ dps more, then hell yeahs upgrade that mofo’!!

What’s the best spec, and what are the rotations/glyphs etc?

Blood Disease-less Spec and DW are the 2 best specs hands down for 3.0.9, followed probably by Unholy after that (though there are probably a few DW variants near the DW spec).  But as far as what is going to happen after 3.1 release, the bag is up in the air guys.  You can click on any of those three links and get some solid info for rotations, glyphs, and specs.  But I am not willing to delve yet into the potential of 3.1 specs simply because I know that the DK changes need to change some more, or everything is gonna be borked when it goes live.  So you’re gonna have to wait for 3.1 to go live before we can really say what the best specs are then.  Please note that the glyphs are on the “talent calculator” themselves.

Why do you say to use the Blood Strike Glyph for PvE dps?!

OK, so lets look at the Blood Strike Glyph for one moment.  Any time any boss is affected by a snare of some kind you get the bonus damage.  In addition to that, this glyph affects Heart Strike as well.  I don’t remember every single effect that can cause a snare effect on a boss, but the most prevalent one is the Frostfire Bolt.  The slow effect is applied to bosses even though it is not actually slowed.  So you get the damage bonus.  Realistically not ever raid make up will allow for you to take advantage of a boss being under this effect, so if you will not have a FF Mage (or alternative snaring source), then of course you should select another glyph.

SJ can you please help me?!?!

Uhm, sure!!  How did you need some help?

SJ can you please help me?!?!  My dps is low!!!

/sigh  If you need help guys you gotta send me the whole picture.  Raid makeup, what types of buffs you get, a direct link to your armory and correct spec, what glyphs you use, etc.  You have to give me the 411 yo!!  Feel me bro’?!!?   If you’re looking to maximize your dps however, right above me are 3 links to some of the best specs possible in game atm.  I’d strongly suggest starting there.

And more importantly for those questions that are not about upping dps, but about playstyle or spec swapping, etc.  Again, give me the ENITRE PICTURE!!!  If you ask me for suggestions or opinions about stuff guys, I need something to work with.  One guy asked me about whether he should use a DW or Disease-less spec while the only things he told me is what 2H weapon he had and that he wants it to be feasible in PvP as well as PvE.  If you don’t understand why that isn’t enough info, go talk to a buddy of yours or something.  Or your mom or dad.  For the love of God…

SJ, there is no better DK than you!!

Uhm, I’m flattered but that is decidedly not true.  There are quite a few DK’s out there who can put out more dps numbers than me.  They’re a bit more dedicated than I am, play more often, or perhaps just have more natural talent.  *shrug*  I run into lava walls from time to time at Sarth.  I sometimes mess up the Heigan dance.  I’m one of the better players out there, but there are people better.  I’m damn good mind you.  I’m just not the best there ever was.  You’d be surprised how many people actually tell me this one.

Runic Power Dumps

This isn’t a set question, but enough questions related to this that it deserved comment.  Killing Machine is a great talent, but a lot of people try to do “Runic Power Dumps” at the end of a rotation which wastes the potential of KM.  Ideally for Frost Specs specifically with KM, you want to spread out the Frost Strikes as much as possible so that you have a greater chance of getting a KM proc on FS, rather than being wasted on say Icy Touch which does less damage.  So basically you’d use Runes until you have about 40 RP, then fire off a FS.  Then you’d go back to using Runes until you had enough RP for another FS.  Once you got really good at this then you could potentially delay the FS’s one or two runes on the chance of getting a later KM proc.  But you need to be really comfortable and solid at your rotation first.

Outside of KM and FS, there is also Death Coil.  Again, people are often mistaken and think they have to keep a solid perfect rotation up, and then blow all of the RP at the end.  It just doesn’t always work out that way.  The vast majority of the time you will take a DPS loss by activating a Rune if it would push you over the RP cap instead of firing off a DC to bring yourself to a lower RP.  Now this isn’t always the case, as with some Blood specs, but it generally is.  Always remember the 2 second leeway Runes have on their recharge if activated within 2 seconds of coming off of GCD.  You have some breathing room to work with.  A rotation that works in RP attacks before Runes is not always a bad thing.  But always saving your RP and spending it all at the end generally is a bad thing for several specs.

What gear should I be using?!

Well…it just so happens we have BISI!!!  It’s not finished…I know.  /sigh  It will be!!  Soon!!  And now I’m GLAD I never worked out the DW BISI stuff!!  I knew Blizz was gonna F with it.  Hell and tarnation!!  That would have given me fits had I worked out the DW stuff and then they just ditched DW as it is like they are.

What is the best leveling spec?!?

Erm…  Let’s take this a different route before anything else.  There are 3 things that make a spec a potentially “best spec” for leveling purposes.

1. Movement Enhancing:  Unholy Aura and On a Pale Horse are unequalled in all of the trees.
2. Downtime Reduction:  Self Healing
3. AoE Capacity:  Mulching, farming, whatever you want to call it.  Being able to kill tons of mobs at once.

Now On a Pale Horse is not even negotiable as far as I am concerned.  This talent alone will shave hours off of your leveling.  Now at this point you can either race off to Blood or you and go deeper into Unholy.  While you can level up as Frost, it is not competitive with Blood or Unholy for leveling purposes.  Unholy tops you off with UA, meaning you are always moving at +15% speed, and then fills you out with the best Death Strike healing (Unholy has 3 diseases for the healing multiplier) and the most amazing AoE capacity possible.  Geneally speaking, as Unholy, you go round up 4-8 mobs and AoE them all down.  And if you happen to be low health after, you go pull one mob and then Death Strike your health back up.  Rinse and repeat.

And then if you go Blood, while you run slower you have far more self healing available and pretty much never stop to even pull one mob for some healing.  The down side to Blood is that it has weaker AoE capacity compared to Unholy, but when dealing with 2-4 mobs only it does kill faster with the cleave effect on Heart Strike.  Overall Blood falls slighly behind Unholy, but is more than close enough to go either path.  Frost is solid, and will still level quickly.  But it just doesn’t hold a candle up to Blood and Unholy for leveling purposes.

PvP Builds?!?  /sadface

Yeah, I’ve been kind of lax on this as of late.  Sorry guys.  I came to a strange realization in PvP about a month or two back.  I’m nowhere near as good at PvP on my DK as I was on my Shaman.  Which is understandable really when you consider how much more time I spent actually playing my Shaman.  I spent a *ton* of time on my Shaman.  But then, I don’t play all that often anymore outside of raiding.  So my mastery and skillset with this brand new class isn’t all that stellar really.  At least, imo.  And I’m a much harsher judge than the average joe. 

When it came down to it, I realized that at this moment in time I did not feel like dedicating the necessary time to master all of the abilities available to DK’s.  So PvP got pushed to the back burner.  But to make it up to you, I will be doing a post on the “Shadowfrost” PvP spec realtively soon.  And the upside is that it is only being marginally affected by 3.1, so it will still be viable down the road with some tweaks.

Should I be facerolling my keyboard?!?

No.  NEVER.  No matter what anyone tells you.  Lots of people want to sit there and say, “LOL DK’s just spam buttons, rofllolerskatesdairyqueenbbq!!!”  It’s not true.  Rotation, rotation, rotation, rotation.  Learn ‘em, use ‘em, master ‘em.  That is part and parcel with being a DK.  End of story.

MOAR QUESTIONS!!!!!

Hehe, there are more E-mails waiting to be answered by me.  But now is no longer the time.  I need to get some eats, and get some other things done for now.  I will be getting back to this very very soon however!!

If you sent me an E-mail and you did not get a response it is because of one of the following reasons:

1. You wrote one of the E-mails asking questions without telling me any relevant or pertinent information that would be necessary for me to help you in the first place.
2. I answered the question in this post or a previous post already.
3. It’s still sitting in my mail box and is on the list of the next ones to be answered within the next few days.
4. You sent it to the wrong place, or I accidentally F’ed up and deleted it or something. 

While I’ve been lax in answering as of late, I’d like to correct that and have been answering all questions as is possible.  Please let me know if you have any questions!! 

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  So…yeah.  I didn’t work today on the site…  >.<  I stayed up late, got no sleep, and dilly dallied.  Yeah, dilly dallied.  I also ended up spending like 4 hours talking to someone.  I got caught up in the conversation, which I enjoyed thouroughly.

So to at least wet your taste buds I’ll reveal some of what I have in store.

Blood Disease-less Spec/Rotation pumping out nearly 7k dps on Patchwerk.  Dancing Rune Weapon even yielding as high as 7k dps on one boss encounter, though I forget the one.  Thanks to Batmack for that.

I tried Frost spec out…  I’m not liking it.  Primarily due to HB being on a CD, but also because Frost has no need for PS.  So without the proper implementation of Death Runes, the rotations are very off.  And AoE rotations from back to back trash fights can get out of synch very quickly.  My dps results were near Unholy, but I totally F’ed up my results…  More on that later.  Long story short though is Frost feels “clunky” compared to Unholy without offering the same level of raid utility with only comparable DPS.

Read between the lines, you get to laugh at me.  A LOT.  But that’s for later. 

I picked up Last Laugh last night and finally have a decent pair of 1H’s.  I also raised my skills up tonight to 395, so one instance run should see me capped and I can finally do some DW testing for you guys.

There are some announced “in the works” changes for 3.1 DK’s btw, but honestly…  I wouldn’t expect them to go 100% live as you’d expect.  Let’s take these 3 for example:

• Sudden Doom ? this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans? Lightning Overload.
• Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle?s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
• The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.

OK, so first off Sudden Doom sure isn’t going to go live as it is now at the same % damage and proc rate.  Blood is scaling very nicely as is, and now you’re talking about freebie DC crits without activation?  Expect to see the % proc rate lower, or the SD DC’s to see a damage nerf.

Gargoyle is going to way of Dancing Rune Weapon.  51 point talent with sick damage.  I think they will still F it up, not making it scale like DRW does.  But for the short term that will be fine.  When you move into T9 content it could propose an issue.

My personal guess is that KM or HB is going to be moved out of range of the typical DW build access.  It would make sense.  Don’t expect this “shuffle” to be positive for all.

And with all that said, I’m out.  That’s plenty to think on.    I’ll get some juicer stuff out to you guys soon!!

Oh, what am I off to go do?  SLEEP!!! 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  So I’ve been reading, and reading, and reading, and reading, and reading…  And I’ve been testing, and testing, and testing, and testing, and testing, and testing…

/scream

/sigh

Right, so I’ve been finding there’s not always a clear winner with every spec and rotation I try out.  Combined with the fact that Target Dummy testing is inherently flawed due to no buffs/debuffs, and the frustration ensues even more.

I decided to try lots of “alternative” testing since with 3.0.8 a lot of what was taken for granted may no longer hold true.  This lead to more frustration.  o.O

Unholy Presence vs Blood Presence

Well the jury isn’t quite a hung jury yet, but it’ll take its time deliberating for now on before a clear victor is decided each time around.  I did some testing with some specs and rotations and did find that Unholy Presence would win by 100-200 DPS at times.  Now this doesn’t make it a winner imo due to the lack of buffs and debuffs, but it means that it has more potential than it did before the patch release.

I’ve seen two Spec/Rotations where it’s possible that UP could win out.  This was for Blood and Frost.  However as this was only on a Test Dummy, I’m not convinced of the results.  Realistically there will not be a definitive answer for some time as it will take multiple players using both presences with the same gear and spec variations in order to determine a factual basis for making a final decision.

That being said however I still stand by my steadfast rule of BP before UP.  Scaling in raids and typical raid spec/rotations will almost always place this as the clear winner for DPS.  Further testing by the community at large will later tell us however if the Blood and Frost specs plying the use of UP can actually hold their own against the standard BP specs and rotations.

Best Specs for DK’s

All in all I break up specs for PvE DPS into 4 categories.  Blood, Frost, Unholy, and DW.  I find it’s simpler this way.  Now as I’ve been finding it is sometimes possible to generate nearly the same DPS results with two different specs in the same category due to RNG.  This makes it nearly impossible to determine the best possible specs available to each tree.

I’ve come around to the thinking that it may be best to simply determine the top 2-3 specs per category and list them with their caveats and benefits.  In the long run I think this will best aid you, the reader, as well.  It will give you a much more well rounded education on your spec choices as well as your class.

SJ getting Overwhelmed

Sometimes you find yourself “in the weeds”.  This is a restaurant term for when you are so behind and have to do so many things, it’s like being in a field of weeds so tall you can’t even see over the top of the weeds.  You’re running around with no idea where you are going, and you can’t see an end in front of you.  That’s how I feel atm.

Currently I spend sometimes about 2-4 hours a day working on this site (I consider research and testing to be working on the site).  And quite frankly that has become overwhelming on its own.  But then there’s more.

I’ve tried to take on too many topics without enough in depth research and testing for 3.0.8 all at once.  Hell, I’ve not even finished my Best in Slot Items posts yet.  So it’s time to take a step back and re-examine my priorities.  And quite honestly, it’ll only help me get you guys better information this way as well.  I was looking into tackling tank/pvp specs, while trying to top out DW and Blood, to only find some Frost info that I missed.  Then I didn’t even start Skeletonjill yet, and I remembered BISI too…

See what I mean?  My target will be to get a “preliminary DW” post up by Tuesday of next week for maintenance.  It looks like I will be doing a 25man Naxx on Monday, so I will hopefully be able to give you some DPS results as well.  I’m probably going to be Unholy like normal as I want to see what the changes will hold for us.  As to Sunday, I’ll be incognito as always.  Shocker, I know. 

Meanwhile I will try to be working on BISI posts as well and keeping you guys updated with whatever the current info on DK’s happens to be!!

Blog Burnout

It had to happen eventually.  I’ve been cranking out 15-24 posts a week now for nearly 3 months.  Meanwhile spending roughly 15-25 hours a week on the website as well.  Heh.  I don’t regret it.  It’s been fun as hell.  But the fact of the matter is I need to step away from the plate from time to time, or one day I may just walk away forever.

I will not be posting incessantly like I’ve always done before guys.  Just a heads up now.  That isn’t to say I’m going away, or not writing anymore.  I just need to spend some more time playing WoW, working out, playing with my new kitten, hanging with friends, etc…  As things stand, I’ve still got big plans for Uludar.  Something you guys may hate or love…I’m not sure.  But it’s big either way.  You can FAIL BIG.  Hehehe! 

The quality of the posts will stay there, BISI will be completed, and I’ll still be around.  Just not around in an obssessive/compulsive way like I was before!!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Coming Soon, Questions

Heya guys!!  So with spending some time with my new kitten, I’ve managed to get quite back logged here on the site with comments and E-mails.  Heh.  So time to get to work eh? 

Slave drivers…  I tell you… 

WTF does that picture have to do with DK’s, and do you have her phone number?

If I had her number I wouldn’t be sitting here writing for you guys.  I’d be in heaven and you guys could be damned for all I care, lol.    As to why it’s here?  It made me laugh, she’s hot, and it skirts the NSFW line enough for me to post it without someone going, “Oh crap!!”  While they look over their shoulder to see if anyone is looking.  Heh… 

What about Best Blood/DW Specs and Rotations for 3.0.8?

This is coming, I promise.  I did not expect 3.0.8 to release for at least for one more week.  I had intended to have the Blood, Frost, and Unholy posts prewritten.  But Blizzard jumped the gun, so I was left with my pants down.  >.<

What do you mean Blizz jumped the gun with 3.0.8 release?

Blizzard was not prepared to release 3.0.8, and anyone who follows their posts consistently could have seen the signs.  They released a lot of new things to the PTR with relatively little testing, a lot of undocumented changes went on (more than usual), and then when it released they bugged things out so poorly to have to disable WG and Arenas.  Not to mention their goof up on DK creations on servers you did not have a 55+ toon on. 

My guess is someone pushed for them to release it early, thinking it’d be fine so they could move on to 3.1 testing and Uludar.  And they also were probably hoping to stabilize the server with all of the instance lag, especially in Naxx.  Goes to show they should take their time like they usually do.

What is the highest 2H DPS spec possible?

ATM it appears to still be 17/0/54, but it seems like it’s not so much in the lead like it once was.  It is going to take at least a week or two of raid results to get a handle on which spec for 2H is taking the new lead, and by how much.

What about DW Specs?

I’m going to have to get back to you on that one.  I need to find more research.  Since I don’t have 2 solid 1H weapons, I cannot do any testing myself on this one and have to rely upon others.

Why not use HB over OB for 2H Frost specs?

At a casual glance a lot of the time it appears that HB might yield more damage than OB, so why do I tell you to prioritize OB before HB?  First off I’m talking about for ST (single target) encounters.  Also, did you bother to look at your crit rate in a raid?  Your spell crit is crap, and most top end Frost DK’s have their OB at least 30-40% more crit rate over HB making it the clear winner.  It is possible if you have a really crappy weapon HB might win until you get something decent.

Which Presence should you be in?

PVE = BLOOD ALWAYS.  END OF STORY.  For the love of God, how many times do I have to say this?

The new DW…SLOW/FAST or FAST/FAST still for weapon speeds?

Again, not sure yet guys.  This is going to take a little bit of research and testing to find out.

A good mod for tracking diseases you ask?

Did you bother looking at any of the sidebars on my site?  It just so happens I have a few links up there of mods that I /Approved.  That means I use them myself.    Go check out Rune Watch.  It’s a modular mod that allows you to turn off everything but the disease tracker if you prefer.  Though I personally use the entire thing.  I likes it!! 

SO…the new Killing Machine means haste owns right?!!?

No.  KM works off of the PPM, or Proc Per Minute, mechanic.  This means that it procs it’s effect (buff) so many times a minute.  The way in which you increase this is by using instant cast attacks (which means Rune Strike would have no impact since it is on “next swing”).  Haste makes your effective weapon speed faster, therefor reducing your potential procs.  SLOW = good for PPM, while FAST = bad.

Yes that doesn’t make sense since Frost is the heaviest haste build.  Yes it is couterproductive.  Yes Blizzard was not thinking clearly when they redesigned KM.  It was a knee jerk reaction to the 7k DPS being put out by DW specs, so we’ll have to live with it for now until Blizz addresses things more fully.

DW Sigil

Now this one is easy.  Go get that new one from the Venture Company.  Sigil of the Frozen Conscience.

SJ’s personal Expertise/Hit

So someone finally checked my armory and called me out on having crappy Expertise…  >.<  Heh.  No I have not bothered capping out my personal Expertise yet, though I did Melee Hit Cap and I’m basically Spell Hit Capped in a 25man.  So why?

At first it was because I was lazy and didn’t want to regem after I realized how off I was.  Part of that was also due to me thinking my talent for Expertise didn’t show on the character screen (which it does).  So I was further off than I expected.  And also part of it was I was just going to upgrade gear and then swap out gems later.  End of story?  Basically procrastination, lol. 

AoE Rotation for Unholy

1. IT -> PS -> Pest -> DnD -> UB
2. SS -> BB -> BB -> SS

If your tanks are solid on snap agro then you can fire off DnD at the start of the encounter for more dps.  Also for some snap burst DPS you can Blood Tap for an extra Death Rune and fire off an additional BB.

BCB vs Necrosis

Which one is better?  Uhm…dunno?!?!  It should be Necrosis now, but without testing I cannot give you a definitive answer.

Was Jill smart and went Horde?

Yes.  Yes she is.  For those who don’t know, I’ve always been interested in the Horde.  In fact the character I thought would be my main was an Undead Rogue named Demorte.  So I made myself a female Blood Elf Death Knight.  I considered naming her Sally (Jack Skellington’s girl), but decided against it.  When I start actively playing her more, I’ll update you guys! ;)

So what about BISI for Tank gear?

Well I don’t know when that will be coming out.  However I have two amazing in game tools to aid you in selecting gear.  Tank Points and Atlas Loot Enhanced.  TP will tell you how much of an upgrade an item is, and has an in game calculator to tell you how much certain stats will help you with tanking.  Atlas is there so you can look up any item that you need to find.

What is your E-mail?

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

What is your new kitten doing right now?!?!

She’s crashed out in my lap, making me find a new, weird position to sit in while working at the computer so I can ”accomodate” her needs.    LOL, she’s awesome though.  When I watch TV on the sofa she climbs up on my shoulder and falls asleep there, it’s so amazingly cute!! 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions