17/0/54 or 0/17/54

[Jal]

Hi all,

I think I posted my first post in the wrong thread so I'll repost it here.

First I want to say congratulations on your WF kill of Heroic LK. It's well-deserved and I'm sure you all worked very hard to attain this.

Now to my question at hand. I recently reactivated my account after having taken a break for a few months. I've been going over various threads from different sites and I've always used EJ as kind of a resource to point me in the right direction.

My question is this: In my current gear set-up, am I better off sticking with the 17/0/54 spec for people without 4pc T9 or switching to the 0/17/54 spec for people with 4pc T9 and beyond? The reason I'm asking is because they suggest the 0/17/54 spec pulls ahead once you have a proc weapon (which I do not). I'm just a bit curious if it would make that much of a difference at my current gear level.

Here's a link to my armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... n=Paradigm

I also have a question concerning my glove enchant. EJ states that 15str is BiS if you cannot make use of the 20hit rating enchant. Now I'm fairly certain that I took the 15str enchant to begin with because I believe my ghoul benefits from it and not how much AP I have. Mind you it probably wouldn't make much of a difference either way, but why not go the superior route? Any thoughts or opinions on this? Should I get the 44AP to gloves?

I'm also a bit concerned about my hit rating and spell hit rating. From what I can remember DC and IT rely on spell hit and my SS would rely on my melee hit right? Does the disease portion of SS rely on spell hit? Many people say I'm over hit-capped...but in order to reach spell hit cap isn't that going to happen anyways? Should I forget about spell hit cap?

Just to give you an idea of my dps atm with the 0/17/54 spec. I went to VoA 25 2 days ago and I was averaging about 6.5k for overall damage done. Yesterday I went to OS for the first time and was doing between 7k and 10k on Sartharion on our various attempts.

Any thoughts, comments, opinions on my gear set-up/talents selection is most welcomed.

Thank you in advance

[theeyo]

Hi all,

I think I posted my first post in the wrong thread so I'll repost it here.

First I want to say congratulations on your WF kill of Heroic LK. It's well-deserved and I'm sure you all worked very hard to attain this.

Now to my question at hand. I recently reactivated my account after having taken a break for a few months. I've been going over various threads from different sites and I've always used EJ as kind of a resource to point me in the right direction.

My question is this: In my current gear set-up, am I better off sticking with the 17/0/54 spec for people without 4pc T9 or switching to the 0/17/54 spec for people with 4pc T9 and beyond? The reason I'm asking is because they suggest the 0/17/54 spec pulls ahead once you have a proc weapon (which I do not). I'm just a bit curious if it would make that much of a difference at my current gear level.

Here's a link to my armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... n=Paradigm

I also have a question concerning my glove enchant. EJ states that 15str is BiS if you cannot make use of the 20hit rating enchant. Now I'm fairly certain that I took the 15str enchant to begin with because I believe my ghoul benefits from it and not how much AP I have. Mind you it probably wouldn't make much of a difference either way, but why not go the superior route? Any thoughts or opinions on this? Should I get the 44AP to gloves?

I'm also a bit concerned about my hit rating and spell hit rating. From what I can remember DC and IT rely on spell hit and my SS would rely on my melee hit right? Does the disease portion of SS rely on spell hit? Many people say I'm over hit-capped...but in order to reach spell hit cap isn't that going to happen anyways? Should I forget about spell hit cap?

Just to give you an idea of my dps atm with the 0/17/54 spec. I went to VoA 25 2 days ago and I was averaging about 6.5k for overall damage done. Yesterday I went to OS for the first time and was doing between 7k and 10k on Sartharion on our various attempts.

Any thoughts, comments, opinions on my gear set-up/talents selection is most welcomed.

Thank you in advance

I think you should parse over your recount some more because the difference between those particular specs should not be that great unless you drastically changed your gear sets (inc. hit, exp., ArP, etc.). The thing about the Sarth fight that may be misleading is that there is typically quite a bit of incidental AoE damage, most notably from Wandering Plague hitting the flame adds or the drakes (if you are doing +drake attempts). The best way to gauge your own success with each spec and gearset is to just hit up the combat dummies in your home city.

In specific regards to your other questions.... the +15 strength to gloves is BiS enchant at a certain gear level in which strength has higher value in a fully-buffed raid setting. EJ should give you the exact AP number, I can't remember off the top of my head.

In terms of hit rating... in the 0/17/54 spec, hit tends to be more important because of the added shadow and frost damage afforded by the Black Ice talent that gives more value to Death Coil and Icy Touch. In regards to SS, it relies only on melee hit (263 rtg in raid setting). The value of hit does increase with the "Shadowfrost" spec, but I wouldn't advise gemming/gearing for copious amounts of hit at the expense of STR, crit, or ArP once you have covered the 263 rating.

About your gear selecting and spec, the 0/17/54 spec scales best with higher end gear. The 17/0/54 spec is pretty much dead in DPS unless you have an extremely low amount of ArP, in which case taken the extra 3 points in Dark Conviction would be of higher value than adding a 3rd SS in your rotation (i.e. Reaping). I can't see your armory now, but depending on your levels of ArP, the 14/0/57 spec might be best for your DPS.

[Jal]

Hi Theeyo,

Thank you very much for the in depth response.

The difference in the 2 fights wasn't the spec but the consequential AoE in the Sarth fight. I was spreading my diseases and dropping DnD so that in fact raised my overall average by quite a bit. When I was in VoA 25 the other day I was in my newer 0/17/54 spec as well. I don't recall ever doing 6.5k dps in there with the previous 17/0/54 build but I may be mistaken.

Since dummies can be misleading I generally don't use them to gauge dps but more or less to test out new rotations. Granted I agree you can get a ballpark feel for which is doing more damage.

I also forgot to mention that I haven't had a chance to test out the Herkumi War Token yet. The last 2 raids I attended I was using the Darkmoon Card: Greatness trinket. So I'm left wondering if the Herkumi will be much of an increase over the Greatness because of the ramp up time needed on it.

Anyways I'm going to try this spec out for a week or 2 and then go back and test out the other so I have something to compare it with. I don't expect my gear to be changing much (if at all) within the next month or so.

[theeyo]

There definitely are certain specs that lend themselves better to particular fights, same with different gear sets. 4pc. T-9 would still outweigh 4pc. T-10 in a heavy AoE fight such as Heroic Anub'arak. That being said though, dummy testing is still a good indicator on which spec overall suits your particular gear set better. Some DKs run 2 DPS specs to be able to seamlessly transition and adapt to particular fights better, but for the more casual player, having a PvP spec or tanking spec is typically more appropriate and common.

In regards to the War Totem, it's very good for DW frost. For unholy, it's arguably very similar to DMC in terms of APE values. It runs better if you have a proc weapon such as Bryn'Trol or the Tiny Abom. trinket in which melee haste grants better proc values. However, there are other options I would look into as well. The Whispering Fanged off 10m Lady Deathwhisper is actually one of the best available for unholy DKs. The heroic version is 3rd BiS behind Heroic DBW and Heroic Death's Choice, but very similar in value to each. It's relatively easy to acquire, not needing a very skilled group to get that far in ICC10. Death's Choice is also one of the best, but is probably less accessible because of the huge demand for it in any ToC25 pug.

However, unless your second trinket slot is absolutely terrible, I would aim to get the 4pc. T10 as fast as you can, and potentially the expertise cape (unless capped) before picking up the War Totem. It's good, but is it warranted to grab it before T10 4pc.? Not at all.

[Jal]

I am online sporadically at best right now and hence don't raid all too often. I am not even close to acquiring 2pc T10 so I had already went ahead and got the war token before I posted in here.

I was running with Mark of Supremacy and DMC: Greatness before. Now I've replaced DMC with War Token. I figured it would be a bigger upgrade for me than SotHM would've been over SoV.

I had thought about getting the belt with frost emblems but decided against it since my current belt provides me with expertise. I'm wondering now if I made the right choice but oh well.... too late now.

[theeyo]

Not quite sure why you didn't replace the Mark of Supremacy with the War Totem, instead of DMC. DMC is infinitely better than the Mark UNLESS you are absolutely hurting for hit. That being said, the best option may have been to pick up the belt, which is itemized towards hit/crit and then gotten the War Totem to replace the Mark of Supremacy. I would do my best to get the DMC in your trinket slot over the Mark thought at any rate, if you are serious about your dps. You can always resocket gems and get the precision enchant to get the % hit you need.

[Jal]

I went ahead and swapped my Mark of Supremacy for DMC Greatness and re-enchanted my gloves/boots and regemmed my belt to reach melee hitcap. I also respec'd to my previous 17/0/54 build as well as kept my 0/17/54 pve spec. Only thing I forgot to do is switch out one of my glyphs for the HoW glyph.

Ran ICC 10 last night with my guild and I was averaging about 7k - 8k on bosses and doing closer to 10k on trash. I think the 17/0/54 spec is a dps gain but I'm going to have to do some more testing.

I actually got an upgrade last night (Blade-Scored Carapace). I didn't have time to gem it or enchant it yet. I will do that next time I'm online. I'm thinking I'm going to have to put a Nightmare Tear, an Inscribed Ametrine, and an Etched Ametrine. (To activate socket).