Death Knight Raid DPS Compendium (FR/BL/UH)

[Krenian]

Unless the sword is drastically an upgrade, you're most likely losing damage if you go with a fast one hander.

The reason is simple: You're losing damage on your ToT hits as well as any BCB procs. Yes, you're swinging faster, but your BCB procs are hitting rather low.

And by drastic upgrade, I'm talking around 2+ ILVLs. If you gave use a look at the axes, and the sword, I could be better off to show you the example. Well..maybe I can.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=46031

Let us pretend that this is the axe you have. It's a 2.6 speed so it'll do.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=47971

Let's also pretend that this is the sword you got. From a 219, a 245 seems to be a pretty logical upgrade right? Let's analyze.

Say BCB procs 8% of the time on your attacks. This is including your both swings so we'll say 16% of the damage you do is actually BCB (Truthfully it's much lower however I haven't played my DK in ages so I can't give you an accurate number. We're just stipulating anyway.) Let's split it in two and say 8% one weapon, 8% the other weapon.

Alright, let's also take average weapon damage for simplicity.

Average weapon damage is normally the middle ground of what both weapon damages are (High and low). So, in the case of the Touch of Madness, it has an average of 424.5. That's not including strength etc etc etc.

Average weapon damage for the Sword is much lower due to it's quicker speed, which would be 295. Now we must take note that you will be hitting BCB more often with the quicker speed, however due to the damage differential, you'll still amount to around 8% of damage done with BCB. Or will you? Let's take a look at how much BCB would do when it proc'ed.

So, BCB works like this: 30% chance of hitting for 25% weapon damage, plus 12.5% if diseases are up. Assuming a perfect rotation, you will not drop your diseases and your BCBs should have the bonus, so 50% of weapon damage. We're not going to look at resistance to magic damage as this is negated in both scenarios: they take a flat percentage off of your total which means your numbers don't change.

So, 50% of the axe's average weapon damage would be 212.25

50% of the sword's average weapon damge would be 147.5

The difference is cutting down slightly now isn't it. But still, that 219 axe is still slightly head in the BCB fight.

At this point, let's say you do a 3 minute fight. For simplicity sakes, that's 180 seconds (3x60). 30% of your attacks will average a BCB proc. Let us say that the stars align and you get every proc: 54. (30% of 180 is 54).

54 times 212.25 = 11461.5 damage
54 times 147.5 = 7965 damage.

So you're losing out on around 4k damage in the spam of 3 minutes just for BCB. The calculations can easily be brought over to ToT as you compare the amount of damage your OH would add with the fast average weapon damage versus the slow average weapon damage. Simply use Obliterate and do the same calculations and you will see a huge lack of damage. Furthermore, weapon speed does absolutely nothing here anymore with ToT which means you're drastically cutting the damage of your ToT attacks. Why? Because it directly is affected by weapon damage, and nothing more, and is bound by your Rune Cooldowns due to ToT being activated by using your skills. So weapon speed matters little.

Some stats may look much better when you first see it. However with Frost's mechanics, you can see that Fast Weapons for DPS is actually worse. You lose out on damage and that alone is a drop in DPS.

[jettzypher]

well, thanks for the explanation. but i tossed it on and went to town with it; did about the same as with the slower axes. however, i got one of two nighttimes the other day so i ditched it already.

i do have another question though (and no, this isnt something i plan on doing, just curious of its outcome). i was looking at some horde dk and noticed he had alot of spell penetration gems lodged in his gear. i assume one would do this because of many attacks dealing frost dmg as opposed to physical dmg. could one have significant returns going this route? again, im just curious as to why someone would do that.

[PatrikL]

i do have another question though (and no, this isnt something i plan on doing, just curious of its outcome). i was looking at some horde dk and noticed he had alot of spell penetration gems lodged in his gear. i assume one would do this because of many attacks dealing frost dmg as opposed to physical dmg. could one have significant returns going this route? again, im just curious as to why someone would do that.

Spell penetration is for PvP, not PvE. It is used to counter resistances (for example Mark of the Wild)

[Krenian]

well, thanks for the explanation. but i tossed it on and went to town with it; did about the same as with the slower axes. however, i got one of two nighttimes the other day so i ditched it already.

i do have another question though (and no, this isnt something i plan on doing, just curious of its outcome). i was looking at some horde dk and noticed he had alot of spell penetration gems lodged in his gear. i assume one would do this because of many attacks dealing frost dmg as opposed to physical dmg. could one have significant returns going this route? again, im just curious as to why someone would do that.

What PatrikL said is right: It's a PvP thing, nothing more. It's to go through defenses that people go up with when it comes to dealing damage. Helps in that retrospect.

[jettzypher]

ohhh... ok, makes sense. i stay as far away from pvp as i can so easy for me to miss that. thanks.

[LP10]

I read MOST of that that thread + the reply's yet i saw nothing to do with Runeforging Enchants; my main is a warrior and i've recently leveled my DK for a bit of fun, now i am at level 80, scouting through some forums for some Dps tips, yet i have found nothing out about Runeforging when it comes to any of the 3 specs.

Help me out here guys? lol

[Krenian]

Runeforging? Oh, that's normally not something that really needs to be delved with as most of the people commonly accept that with two handers, it's Fallen Crusader all the way.

With Frost, it's Fallen Crusader and Razor Ice to up your Frost damage.

[Carterhova]

hey all 2 questions really quick.

1. for mostly a 251/264 geared 0-17-54 DK. what numbers would you normally see on recount wise? Melee DMG, SS, Diseases, DC etc. and their percentages.

2. Has anyone tested a Blood Arm Pen hard capped spec vs the unholy dps numbers?

[Krenian]

Couldn't answer you unfortunately. My knowledge when it comes to raiding with a DK is strictly derived from research and theorycrafting and I haven't actually played my DK since the release of the Colosseum. Hopefully someone will get an answer to ya.

For 1 however I would figure that your Melee and SS damage should be close, then DC and diseases. Both would be close too. As for 2...well...both do very well honestly. They're close, nothing too bad. There's not a significant difference; I think Blood would do better on single targets but not by much, but Unholy will still beat Blood for AoE damage. Don't quote me on that as I'm taking the information that I have about the specs to give this opinion.

[Carterhova]

Yeah that reason for my question is that I thought I read that when you start to get upwards in gear level. your SS should be your highest % dmg followed by melee, DC and diseases.. but im still pulling good numbers always top 3 in dps in 10 and 25m content but its usually melee, dc, ss, bs, disease dmg

[Krenian]

I'll be doing tests to be honest. I decided to replay a DK but not Krenian; I'm now on another server on the Horde Side building some gear from there. Krenian will be kept for Nostalgia purposes but from now on my main DK is going to be Earthshatter from Llane. I think I'm going to have to do a breakdown of my damage at one point if I ever raid with him; I don't think I have much of a chance to raid with the main group due to them having a solid core group and not wanting to break that balance. But I will do some tests and figure some stuff out

[Voley]

Is it worth getting expertise cap? I have like 18 ATM and see some dodges, pretty annoying. Like, would you trade blight ring for expertise one, or those valithria legs with haste and crit for haste and expertise legs from icc10 heroic? Should I really shoot for that?

[Krenian]

Depends on your spec. Unholy's damage is more magical which doesn't necessarily deal with Expertise. Blood is all physical damage and as such is dedicated to not missing and being as tight of a rotation of any of our skills, doesn't give enough space to really retake a dodge; in the end, it's better to cap expertise as blood, get close to it as Frost and get at least a good half of your needed cap expertise for Unholy.

[Dr@gon]

Hello,

I have thought should I change my spec from Unholy to Unholy-Obliterate..
Here http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...03150003133051 is what I've thought.

What you like, could it work?
Rotation would be: IT-PS-BS-BS-OB-DC-OB-OB-OB-DC-(DC)-BS-BS-OB-DC-OB-OB-OB-DC-IT-PS
Mmmm... little bit long, but as you can see same rotation twice and after it I do IT and PS again. Whole rotation takes 21 seconds and it's very good time .

And sorry about that link...

Edit: those three talents next to Epidemic, I will change them to Ravenous Dead

[Krenian]

Although Obliterate could very well hit harder than Scourge Strike, nothing in your Unholy tree implements Obliterate to the tree. You take Outbreak but it only really helps one attack and that's Plague Strike, which means three points is being absolutely wasted. Furthermore, you will find that there is a sore lack of RP in your rotations to throw off Death Coils, which is one of your major damage dealing abilities as Unholy.

You also don't take IIT, which Haste is rather good for Unholy specs. You're trading off a lot of damage for an Obliterate Spec which will in the end be inferior if you simply stuck with an Unholy build with Scourge Strike.

I know ScS is not the greatest of attacks in the world but you have to understand that some attacks stay in their trees now. Obliterate is Frost, Scourge Strike in Unholy and Death Strike in Blood. Mixing them up may wield some results but you will moreso hurt your DPS than not sticking with traditional methods.

If it works for you, by all means, kudos. But you're losing out on RP and a lot of magic power and substituting it with an Obliterate that has absolutely no power to it other than your brute stats. If you go down the Frost Tree, you'll see talents that increase Obliterate damage. Just like in Unholy, you see them increase Scourge Strike damage. This is why it is never a good thing to switch your FU attacks.

[Krenian]

Alright, here's the gist of what's going to happen with the Beta finally open:

Seeing how for some reason I'm hated by Blizzard, I've yet to get a beta invite. Chances of me getting said invite are relatively low as well as for some reason Battle.Net really does not like me and likes to say that my Authenticator is poop.

So this is how I'm going to have to do it: I'm going to scourge around the forums all over the place and compile as much information as humanly possible and give you ideas of what we are going to look at. The problem with this is pretty straightforward: It's extrapolation, and that's about it.

I know I know, I hate it too folks. I really feel inadequate when it comes to that but thems the facts when you deal with a beta. Furthermore, due to the nature of Beta testing, changes will happen often and I don't expect people to expect me to keep up with every change. I will go with major changes and explain them along the way and as such, we'll hope to go with that.

I'm going to make a new thread at some point with the DK Cataclysm changes. Stay tuned!

[Kromus]

I'm new to Deathknights so I can't judge fully, all I can say is thanks for taking the effort to write this up, particularly the Frost section was of interest to me.

[Hawkx1]

This was a great dps guide for my dk however i am now dual-specing into tanking is there anyway you could make a tank dk post for the three talents or a post where I can find that information

[Krenian]

You'll wanna go find Satorri's guide in the Theory and Mechanics Discussion which you will fine here:

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...Knight-Tanking

I don't tank on my DK ever which means my knowledge of it is limited. I prefer to let the ever so knowledgeable Satorri handle that one.

[Galtidor]

Sorry to be a chackin' noob, but could you include a small section on what abbreviations are what? Some of them I can figure out, but others not so much.

i agree but i just cant figure out what ScS is....... i cant think of whatit means to save my life