Death Knight discussion

[devolutions]

To Devo,

Generally speaking having Cinderglacier is more profitable but it's more convienient to get TotT. If the rogues are having threat issues or are worries as such as that you may over aggro at the beginning then perhaps let the tanks receive the initial TotT and the your self receive the second, this way you should be able to avoid over aggro.
If the rogues are doubtful and decide not to provide you with TotT then going with Ciderglacier is more of a personal choice. It is a DPS gain but you will have to deal with the fact that you will most likely lose out on some 15% STR uptime.
It's worth experimenting around to see how comfortable you feel with switching weapons watching proccs etc. Best to wait for a reply from Synti as I assume he playtested this alot more but you perhaps try

Weapon A ( FC rune) + Weapon B (cinderglacier rune)
Start the encounter with Weapon A and carry on until you get the rune procc and such switch to Weapon B while you still have FC procc up and hope you get the procc early. May be worth a try but like I said Synti will have more experience with this so it's best to wait for his reply.

To you other question about other proccs off diseases there is RoR off PS and there is the haste buff off IT if you area sub specc'ing Frost.

Generally you go - PS (RoR procc + Blood Plague) > IT (Haste + Frost Fever) > BS (Desolation) > BS > SS (Procc you Sigil) > (at this point 4pc T10 will kick in) Dc > HoW >>>>>> From here on its a prio system more than a rotation, which some people seem to forget. Depening on the encounter and when you receive bloodlust you could pop your Garg early with a Haste pot or save the Haste pot of you get the BL early or you could use the 2 together.
Try to use PS before IT so that the IT gets the 10% buff from RoR, although it seems better to use IT as you running in from range and then using PS when you get into melee range, the DPS increase is higher with PS first.

Sorry for the wall of text ! D:

thats okay so achieving a fc proc and then a cinderglacier proc would be ideal? also you have to reapply your diseases once u get ur cinderglacier proc correct?

[zYN]

Such a huge amount of stuff to reply to. I'll get around to it later today and edit this post.

[MoopZ]

Yea when you get TotT or Ciderglacier you re-apply your diseases.

Just a note but PS doesn't consume a Ciderglacier stack so if you don't realise you get the procc perhaps due to a lapse in concentration etc its not the end of the world just make sure you use PS first and then IT so the the last stack is consumed by IT and both your diseases get buff'd.

[anger]

Such a huge amount of stuff to reply to. I'll get around to it later today and edit this post.

Oh man, I admire your patience with all these pretty annoying questions (since they are asked all over again without actually reading answers in previous posts...).

Anyway, gratz for tha kill! It was very interesting to see three DKs in your setup :) Awesomeness!

[Dumbledizzle]

Hey Synti,

Most sims seem to be showing bryntroll ahead of cryptmaker (for alliance at least). Could this be because bryntroll's overperforming on sims due to the proc per minute not being reflected accurately on the sims? I know you stand by cryptmaker as being far superior so just wanted to get your input. They also greatly favor sothm over soa. Is a certain amount of arp necessary before SoA start becoming superior?

I appreciate your time and help

[zYN]

Most sims seem to be showing bryntroll ahead of cryptmaker (for alliance at least). Could this be because bryntroll's overperforming on sims due to the proc per minute not being reflected accurately on the sims? I know you stand by cryptmaker as being far superior so just wanted to get your input.

I honestly haven't checked since the patch - haven't been needed as UH even in 10s. If there's some earlier posts about Bryntroll/Cryptmaker comparison, those are outdated. I'm fairly sure the sims are showing the right values for those weapons in standstill fights.

Are you still dnding the valks even as frost? I'm finding if I do i might get a slight delay in my next hb if i dont hit a rime proc. Do you think it's still worth it?

Yes, yes I am. I drop down a DnD just as the Val'kyrs are grabbing people, hit Pestilence on LK and use HB. I do think it's very much worth it - can't really get people out of Valks fast enough.

They also greatly favor sothm over soa. Is a certain amount of arp necessary before SoA start becoming superior?

I assume this was about Frost? Because I don't see SoA ever being superior as UH.

I've tried using SotHM and SoA both quite a bit - I tried gemming for _full_ ArP with SoA and I wasn't impressed. This was on LK, mind you, just trying to do some more single target damage on the boss itself but the trade-off was way too huge. Far from worth it. Even if it's a marginal DPS upgrade on single target (of which I'm not convinced, unless it's complete standstill), it's still an upgrade only on bosses that don't actually matter one bit.

I'm most of the time running with SotHM, I never also understood the massive Virulence hype on movement fights/whatever. I can't really think of an encounter where the buff will drop off except for Funship. If it does, most likely you're just playing wrong.


Also, on somewhat of a sidenote, I've had a third equal one-handed weapon for a while now. I was thinking prior to the patch that keeping up a Razorice stack (as it's got a rather long duration) then swapping a Cinderglacier weapon in for additional damage procs could be profitable. I skipped this week's raids (first +10% week), but I'm planning on making some kind of easy-to-use setup for next week and test it out. I'll link the results from a WMO report if it works out at all.

Swapping Razorice to Cinderglacier is definitely worth it on LK Val'kyr phase, though. I'm not good enough of a player to build up a full stack on every Val'kyr and then Rime/HB them down - CG gives +20% right away on 4 targets.


And then on just somewhat "off-topic:" Surprisingly many people also asked why I have RI in mainhand and FC in the off-hand. Reason is pretty simple: I had no clue if RI gets some kind of penalty in the off-hand. FC doesn't. That's about it. No exploits or sick tricks here, sorry. 8]

[zYN]

Yeah i know all of this but my question is, there is any point that i can know where it's worth to change builds?

I have no idea of the breakpoint when UH/Blood will be doing less than UH/Frost. If you're not at 264'ish gear yet though, you're probably going to have to factor in some other stuff as well - are you going to be pulling aggro from the tanks for example? Frost subspec doesn't have threat reduction in it. If you are in 264s, it's probably safe to say that Frost will come out ahead.

I'm currently trying out the dw frost specc ... I got like 10 expertise. Should i gem expertise or just wait for gear with expertise and let it be?

I'd definitely gem for it instantly.

...as you are saying that by getting GoD I would get an extra SS ... but by doing an extra SS I lose PS IT and one BS as I do PT, is one SS really better then those 3 together?

No, one SS isn't better. What you ARE gaining though is 15% increase to Frost Fever, Blood Plague and Wandering Plague through ToTT. What you ARE gaining are 3 extra GCDs for coiling per minute. What you most likely are gaining is a "free" pestilence on adds in fights with more than one target.

Chances are, you're going to be better off just blowing PS+IT unless you want to fine-tune your playing.

Blood tap macro after using death runes withh OB ? (/cast blood tap /cast Unbreakable armor /cancelaura blood tap) Anything else?

That's what I do personally too. I just have /cancelaura Blood Tap in a different key, so that I can smash it enough without canceling BT by accident.

[zYN]

So when rune just refreshed i still got time to press DC and not delay rotation?
DC takes ~1,5sec + (human reaction + lag) 0,5sec = 2sec

Yes, but you can ignore the human reaction and lag from that scenario. You aren't reacting to anything, and I hope you're using the server-side castqueue while on a GCD.

I got question conserning LK p3 - how to dps best Vile spirits as uh dk? I try to pesti but only few gets diseases , BB or D&D are usefull at any moment?

Just Pestilence a few times to make sure almost all of them have Ebon Plague. BB and DnD I've found to be pretty amazingly useless against them.

As dw frost spec DK is wothy to use glyph of Howling blast and respec 3/3 into Chilblains ? Its look interesting to use HB on Vile Spirit to slow them and make burst dmg.

No. HB glyph is just crap. Chillblains is quite good for slows, but we didn't bother. What we used every week was just 2x UH DK with desecration. Then post 3.3.3. we used 1 DK and 1 mutilate rogue. Worked very well for us, no issues.

Has You tested glyph of IT in 0/17/54? Looks interesting.

I've used IT in every UH spec ever since the glyph got changed to bonus FF damage.

[zYN]

just wondering how much increase utility does the frost dk give over an unholy thinking overall dps isnt realy what im looking most at. like [situational] burst dmg on ooze on purtricide/sindregosa HC ect.. whats your personal point of view on this topic.

Utility? There's good on-demand burst from Frost with Unbreakable Armor if you save it. That's about it. Also Frost gets a very nice extra damage buff on targets below 35% HP - this is extremely nice on Putricide coupled with UA and Bloodlust.

First of all, I read that Engineering would be the best profession for a Melee dps Class (or has it changed with 3.3.3?). My DK has BS and JC atm, so which one should i drop for Eng? JC (42 Str.), BS (2 Sockets = 40 Str), but is there another advantage in BS that I forgot?

Just drop BS if you want the absolute maximum possible benefit. Also fix up a Gnomish Battle Chicken and summon it before a fight. This is +5% melee haste for the whole party, it's a sick amount of DPS. I figure it doesn't hurt to share it at this point anymore.

is with the frost sub-specc ArP more important than with the old 14/0/57?

No. STR is your bread and butter, have it in every slot/socket/whatever as much as possible. It boosts your AoE damage by a significant amount too.

Have you now opted for Subversion in the frost spec or have you not found threat problems yourselves?

No threat issues whatsoever, as long as we have hunters or rogues in the raid. If it looks bad, I'll try to ask for Salvation.

[zYN]

Black Ice - How important is this talent compared to Chill of the Grave?

I'm playing with 2/2 CotG permanently. There's a few fights where it's probably sub-optimal (Festergut, Rotface come to mind) but those are also fights I couldn't care less about. The difference is very minor in those few fights. CotG 2/2 however beats BI/Subversion hands-down if you EVER run into a free GCD that you couldn't fill up with a FS.

I cant figure out whether i should prio a Rime proc (without KM) over a Frost Strike?

I'm pretty sure I answered to this one already. If you're capping RP, don't bother. If you're gonna run into an empty GCD sometime in the next 10s, hell yes.

s Frost DW the hit cap is only 164 but i see you DKs going for the 8% cap, is this to have less HB. IT and Pest misses or simply bcos you keep your gear viable for Unholy aswell? :)

Bit of both, tbh. I couldn't get rid of hit personally unless I wanted to get rid of plenty of ilvls too. I'd very much dislike seeing Pestilence miss too. Luckily, I'm not at that spot yet myself. I suppose you could try simming for it, I haven't bothered yet.