Frost DPS is... wow.

[uglybbtoo]

That makes absolutely no sense why just because its free is the HB worth worth 45% more ... you are working on GCD to GCD anyhow you almost never out of runes if you setup the way we suggested. Sorry the free HB is worth exactly the same with or without rime.

Plz note I am not at all arguing against obliterate when the numbers show it would give more damage .. infact my numbers are trending to end up in sync with EJ's. The problem I see is the range on EJ's details are very narrow like you must be in alot of heroic gear and they really don't discuss or publish the range of there results.

The fact is my advice is correct for probably 80% of dps dk's because they aren't in hard core raiding guilds and I make that very explicit. I fully suggest that hard core raiders seek advice EJ's because I really do not have any data.

It's the same story with the whole rune power changing which attack to use in low level gear it's all crap it moves dps like 100 DPS. I looked at it and it soon became apparent it isn't worth even looking at and you just ignore now that is not true in BiS gear given what they have shown in detail.

[Krenian]

Been too long since I've really analyzed Frost honestly so I couldn't tell you where it's coming from. I'll leave it to the other experts on this one. If it comes to a point that it simply cannot be resolved, I'll look into it when I'm bored.

Sad to say but DKs are not even close to the top of my priority lists anymore.

[Sterbefall]

At your level of gear, I don't know how you're GCD capping and I'm close, but not capped (even less so lately because I need Chillblains in my spec for H LK). As long as you keep a GCD free, Rime is bonus damage. The math on this is not hard. We're constrained by the GCD and resources. In the case that you're GCD constrained, the most you're wasting is RP because rune attacks take priority. As for where I'm getting my numbers, feel free to browse my guild's WoL. I'm Sterbefall in it.

http://worldoflogs.com/guilds/35232/

Dummy logs are a notoriously bad way to measure things.

It's curious that your HB is hitting harder than Obliterate. The best explanation is small sample size and the way the procs lined up. You should also note the relative crit percentages of your attacks. Both FS and Obliterate have 66% crit rates (thanks to KM) while HB crits a quarter of the time. Taking crits into account, Obliterate is still the right choice.

[killabee]

uglybbtoo, you may want to read my post again, you clearly don't understand it.

That makes absolutely no sense why just because its free is the HB worth worth 45% more ... you are working on GCD to GCD anyhow you almost never out of runes if you setup the way we suggested. Sorry the free HB is worth exactly the same with or without rime.

HB isn't worth 45% more (more than what btw?). Obliterate has a 45% to proc Rime, allowing a rune free HB, thus the effective cost of pressing your Obliterate button is Obliterate damage + 45% of HB damage. Get it? If you "almost never run out of runes" then your gear level is close to BiS. however, I know that your gear is far from BiS, thus your degree of "almost" is very different from mine. In addition, there is no such thing as free HB without Rime.

Plz note I am not at all arguing against obliterate when the numbers show it would give more damage .. infact my numbers are trending to end up in sync with EJ's. The problem I see is the range on EJ's details are very narrow like you must be in alot of heroic gear and they really don't discuss or publish the range of there results.

You're right, EJ target audience is the people who want to squeeze the extra 0.5% DPS, because it matters for the hardest fights they do, thus the target level of gear assumed high. It doesn't make any difference what you prioritize/gem/gear in Heroic 5 men dungeons. You will beat it anyway, making the extra 0.5% DPS discussion irrelevant.

The fact is my advice is correct for probably 80% of dps dk's because they aren't in hard core raiding guilds and I make that very explicit. I fully suggest that hard core raiders seek advice EJ's because I really do not have any data.

It's the same story with the whole rune power changing which attack to use in low level gear it's all crap it moves dps like 100 DPS. I looked at it and it soon became apparent it isn't worth even looking at and you just ignore now that is not true in BiS gear given what they have shown in detail.

See above.

[uglybbtoo]

Thank you for the log will be interesting to get an analysis.

If you read up I am not just using hours of dummy results I have 160 ish heroics, 31 VOA's and 11 ICC runs now I am using data off would like more but am limited to 2 test toons.

If you re-read I didn't talk about GCD capped I discussed GCD locked. That is that when my GCD comes up I am free to use the attack I wish too and I discussed rune flow making sure you had runes to use the higher level attacks. This may be one source of why EJ's data doesn't hold across lower gear levels is we have no ability to reach anywhere near the haste cap it's also why the advice is to simply reach the first soft cap at 600 haste where the curve starts to flatten to the next inflexion point at 828 haste.

The reason HB hits harder than obliterate is easy look at how they scale obliterate off normalized weapon damage and howling blast off AP. We are also stacking mastery on gear and I for example have 34% increasee in frost damage from mastery and only have an ilevel 264 weapon. It's sort of discussed and you will find if you pick up a low level weapon go over to dummy and run some hits. If you look your howling blast numbers will almost entirely be unaffected but your obliterate damage will be thru floor. Look at your new numbers you have changed only 1 piece of gear and tell me would you really still use obliterate based on those damage levels. I would be interested if you could confirm this effect even in high level gear.

Essentially everything changes the moment you get access to a heroic 271+ weapon.
At level 264 weapon everything is almost equal as per the results I gave you ... I do use obliterate but only because it gives me better rune flow.
At lower weapon levels howling blast is alot stronger than obliterate.

The problem for this spec-class EJ's recomendations are based around 271+ weapons yet there are alot of players who won't have access to that and at 264 level gearing and lower there recommendations simply don't work.

[uglybbtoo]

uglybbtoo, you may want to read my post again, you clearly don't understand it.

HB isn't worth 45% more (more than what btw?). Obliterate has a 45% to proc Rime, allowing a rune free HB, thus the effective cost of pressing your Obliterate button is Obliterate damage + 45% of HB damage. Get it? If you "almost never run out of runes" then your gear level is close to BiS. however, I know that your gear is far from BiS, thus your degree of "almost" is very different from mine. In addition, there is no such thing as free HB without Rime.
.

I did read it and you are talking about GCD capping not GCD locked which is the big difference.

Ok think about it we have some haste level which gives us a GCD time it actually doesn't matter what it is because we are talking about rotation here and it's the same for both rotations.

So long as we can use the attack we want to via our priority list we are therefore not GCD locked (IE prevented from using the attack we want to).

Now go back to what I said if I am not GCD locked how is obliterate worth anymore than Howling blast if it does less damage. Your free howling blast would be worth something if I was GCD locked but at this gear level you don't have enough haste to get GCD locked using the normal priority rotation.

I understand what you are saying it's just wrong I have data and analysis on my side what are you basing your view on?

EDIT: Originally I was querying where you got 45% from but really re-reading your answer I can say you proved you are wrong yourself. If you don't get an extra attack in then as we said the rime proc is worth nothing and actually by doing what you are suggesting you take your dps down by the difference between HB and Obliterate. When I get a chance tonight will beat up a dummy and show you what happens when I do what you want and my dps will drop, actually you won't believe me anyhow perhaps I will leave it for you to prove that I am not right.

[killabee]

You're mixing things up again. Rime HB is more DPS because you don't have the resources to utilize every free GCD. Rime gives you the extra resource to use. This is my last post on the subject.

[uglybbtoo]

But I do have the resources I am afraid :-)

I have given you data and results to show you I do ... how much more proof do you want!

I have run data across almost every gear I can lay my hands on below 264.

Now time to prove or even explain what data you are extracting from to make this statement ... otherwise this is rather pointless.

[uglybbtoo]

Sterbefall I took one of your 8m H-LK runs and was looking at the details .. I isolated the damage against LK himself so single target

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/xy8in...=13061&e=13577

Can I ask what weapon you are currently using?
EDIT: Don't worry found you on armory you are dual weilding which is part of the variation in data I was seeing .. it's ok I have adjustments for dual weilding so let me resume.

It will take me a while to do the XML extraction of the log data but it is interesting what I am seeing so far ^_^

EDIT: Okay extracted good data from the festergut fight http://worldoflogs.com/reports/kc5ns...?s=8378&e=8584 which is basically a stand and whack. Could I get you to do me one favour whack a heroic dummy and put the log up I just need to normalize out the raid buffs to your gear .. if you could would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: BTW because your 1H is about the same level of damage as an ilvl 251 2H look at the size of howling blast to obliterate :-) You are dual weilding so you get two of every other attack except howling blast but it does show neatly how howling blast scales with gear rather than weapon. This is what is going to happen if you used a low level 2H in the test I suggested your Howling balst will be largely unaffected but your obliterate damage will drop down to about the level of your single main hand or lower.

[uglybbtoo]

I thought I would as a final way of showing effect I would take things to extremes

I went and bought a http://www.wowhead.com/item=1198 and headed down to the heroic dummy and changing only it leaving all my gear exactly as it was.

Here is my log again paired back to single target on heroic target itself

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6...vtu/details/6/


remember these were my original values with a 264 weapon
Frost Strikeaverage hit5983.8 average crit 12176.2
Howling Blastaverage hit 6354.9 average crit 13160.0
Obliterateaverage hit6139.6 average crit 12905.9

so what are they now with this ridiculously low weapon:
Frost Strike average hit 3261.4 average crit 6727.6
Howling Blast average hit 5533.5 average crit 12556.5
Obliterate average hit 3499.5 average crit 7926.8

Exactly as predicted Howling blast is almost completely unaffected the difference will be weapon stats and the chant on the weapon.
Frost strike and obliterate values have been halved.

So I put it to you would you ever use obliterate rather than howling blast based on these numbers?

In essence it is showing you in extreme how unrelated the damages are and why the anomoly exists at lower gear level because it is alot easier to get high end armor than it is to get a high end weapon.

EDIT: It also worth noting have a low weapon actually brings down almost every damage except howling blast hence why the weapon you have access to is so crucial.

[killabee]

But I do have the resources I am afraid :-)

I have given you data and results to show you I do ... how much more proof do you want!

I have run data across almost every gear I can lay my hands on below 264.

Now time to prove or even explain what data you are extracting from to make this statement ... otherwise this is rather pointless.

Sure,

Lets look at the two WoL parses you provided,

1) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/h...7do/details/7/
2) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6...vtu/details/6/

In parse 1) you have done 130 yellow hits over 190 seconds, which gives us ~0.68 attacks per seconds (ApS) which is 32% less than the possible maximum rate of 1 attack per seconds.

In parse 2) you have done 77 yellow hits over 105 seconds for ~0.73 ApS, 27% less than optimal.

There are only two explanations - you didn't have enough resources to utilize every GCD or you're bad/slow at decision making+button pressing. Now, I'd like to give you the benefit of a doubt that your decision making is fine and you utilize the built in action queuing feature to the fullest, which leaves us with the assumption that you are indeed resource bound.

As a (unfair) comparison, our good friend Sterbefall in his recent Festergut 25 heroic, did 299 attacks over 204 seconds for an amazing 1.46 ApS. Notice that he is dual wielding, so he is in Frost Presence, thus 1.5 GCD. Then, as I said, the comparison is bad since it's a raid with full buffs and BL, while your parses are target dummy testing, but you get the point...

Now, just to put us on the same page here:

- You were arguing the priorities posted on EJ are not for everyone because you saw different results in your testing. You also established that the difference in results were due to the level of weapon that you used. No disagreement here.
- Then your argument changed to be that for low level gear (I don't know exactly what you mean by low, but you did say weapon below 271 ilvl) you can always prioritize HB over Obliterate based just on the difference in the damage (HB being harder hitting), completely ignoring the Rime proc, since you're not resource capped . You based your conclusion on dummy testing, VoA and 5 men Heroics (although, you only provided target dummy parses). This is where I disagree with you. As I showed above taking your target dummy parses as an example, you are indeed resource capped, thus the decision of whether to prioritize HB or Oblit is not trivial. At the same time, the math is pretty easy and was provided by the poster of post #53 in this thread, which you ignored, because you didn't understand it. This is where my first post in this thread came from.

[uglybbtoo]

Sure,

Lets look at the two WoL parses you provided,

1) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/h...7do/details/7/
2) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6...vtu/details/6/

In parse 1) you have done 130 yellow hits over 190 seconds, which gives us ~0.68 attacks per seconds (ApS) which is 32% less than the possible maximum rate of 1 attack per seconds.

In parse 2) you have done 77 yellow hits over 105 seconds for ~0.73 ApS, 27% less than optimal.

There are only two explanations - you didn't have enough resources to utilize every GCD or you're bad/slow at decision making+button pressing. Now, I'd like to give you the benefit of a doubt that your decision making is fine and you utilize the built in action queuing feature to the fullest, which leaves us with the assumption that you are indeed resource bound.

0.68-0.73 Attacks per is my haste factor (I have a proc haste trinket btw which is the reason for slight variation and keypressing) so let average it at 0.7 attack per second or 1.42 seconds per attack. The only way I can get more attacks is to stack haste but we are talking rotation not changing gear because my gear is fixed.

I am sure we have crossed wires here because you talk about the HARD GCD cap of 1 second which I can't for the life of me work out how you are dragging into discussion of rotation.

So we are discussing rotation and whether obliterate should or shouldn't be in correct?
Post #53 then provided some fancy maths telling me that you couldn't ever get howling blast to be better than obliterate.

Now lets get back to me so long as I have the runes to pull off the attack I want to use every 1.42 sec (which is my haste factor) then nothing in a rotation can add extra attacks in do you agree????

If I am able to attack at my GCD of 1.42 seconds (NOT the global GCD limit) I am not resource limited and therefore rime procs do nothing for me!!!!

And thats the rub in the same way as I have shown you weapon level makes massive differences to obliterate damage in lower gear our haste levels are so bad that rime actually does nothing because you are never out of runes.

Again this does not hold in better gear when your haste gets to a point you can actually use the resources provided by rime proc's.

I am not sure I can simplify it anymore ...

Can I say you are absolutely correct in high end gear in what you say ... with higher haste you would be able to get extra attacks based of rime ... it again is one of those things that is incorrect over the range of gear 264 and below.

[killabee]

uglybbtoo,

Are you not a 2H Frost DK? 2H Frost DKs DPS in http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48265 to maximize our DPS, thus the 1 seconds GCD (please notice the "and reducing the global cooldown on your abilities by 0.5 sec" part). I wasn't talking about your Haste level at all. Are you disagreeing that 2H Frost should be using Unholy Presence too?

Post #53 then provided some fancy maths telling me that you couldn't ever get howling blast to be better than obliterate.

At the same time, the math is pretty easy and was provided by the poster of post #53 in this thread, which you ignored, because you didn't understand it.

Let X = Obliterate damage.
Let Y = HB damage

In order for HB to be better than Obliterate, Obliterate (and associated Rime) needs to be less than HB. In math:
X + 0.45Y < Y
Let's simplify!
100X + 45Y < 100Y
100X < 55Y
X < 0.55Y

In other words, Obliterate needs to be nearly half as weak as a single HB in order for HB to be higher priority. I've never seen such a situation. Weaker weapon damage is not enough to cause this as Obliterate is normalized.

Here, I highlighted the important parts for you. You're wrong again. This shows exactly the ration between the attacks at which it is worth start prioritizing HB over Oblit. No fancy math involved. "telling me that you couldn't ever get howling blast to be better than obliterate" part is the plot of your imagination.



Also,

I am not sure I can simplify it anymore ...

Q.F.T!

[uglybbtoo]

What does rime have to do with changing the GCD that is my only question? Rime simply makes your next attack rune free it doesn't release you from your current GCD lock that just triggered it. I keep asking what do you think rime is doing other than giving free runes?

EDIT:
Originally Posted by killabee
At the same time, the math is pretty easy and was provided by the poster of post #53 in this thread, which you ignored, because you didn't understand it.

This is completely true I simply do not undertsand how this is derived and no-one has given me an easy explanation. I am not ignoring but I simply can not fathom what this is trying to show.

I was going to do some fancy footwork and respec without rime etc and show you timing and dps but you are never going to accept anything I show you in a log from your comments above. I don't know how else to show you at low gear levels that rime does nothing I have a weight value of 0.0 associated to it but there is simply nowhere any better to put the points in a spec. Unless you can tell me what tests you would like me to do that you would accept this is going nowhere.


I think at this point I will just agree to disagree the original advice sticky I gave said to test both ways if you are right obliterate will always come up trumphs my tests and data disagrees. Lets leave it at that this is getting beyond worth the effort.

[killabee]

I'll try to explain it again and it is going to be a long post, so please open your mind and try following. I want you to understand this.

First, lets go back to basics and redefine the terms:

a) Global Cooldown (GCD) - A time period during which it is impossible to use any ability. GCD is triggered by most of damaging abilities in WoW.
b) GCD lock - A condition when the available resources exceed the ability to spend those resources. This condition occurs due to existence of GCD.
c) Resource starvation - A condition when there are not enough resources to utilize every GCD.

Since we're specifically looking at a corner case where gear level is "below average", there are two basic assumptions we have to work with:

* You are not GCD locked.
* You are experiencing resource starvation.

Lets look at Rime. You're right, all Rime does is give you a 45% chance to have a rune-free HB after using Obliterate. Since we are under assumption that we are not GCD locked, Rime effectively gives us an attack in place where we didn't have resources to use any attack. This is correct, since you have a 15 second window to use it (even though, under our conditions you would, since potentially it does more DPS than either FS or Oblit with gear level "below average", this unless you are going to waste RP, refer to EJ priority). The "Obliterate damage + 45% HB damage" formula from post 53 is correct due to the above. The proc chance of 3/3 Rime is 45%, thus over time you will get a benefit of exactly 45% of HB damage. Knowing this, you can calculate exactly at what damage range HB should be prioritized over Obliterate.

Now, to answer you questions about tests you could do. As you noticed, as with any theory, there are assumptions we have to work with. If you could prove that either of the 2 assumptions used don't apply, then there will be a place for questioning the theory and adjusting the variables. To do that, you will have to do the following:

1) Define the gear threshold. Since your point was all the way about the EJ priority not being correct for low level gear, define what level of gear you test with.
2) Perform a test at least with the gear below the threshold defined above and show that either of the two assumptions is not correct. If you want your results to be credible, the sample size should be at least in thousands of attacks. All the tests you have done so far were not nearly long enough for statistical analysis.
3) The tests:
-In Frost Presence, Prioritize Obliterate
-In Frost Presence, Prioritize HB
-In Unholy Presence, Prioritize Obliterate
-In Unholy Presence, Prioritize HB

Good luck.

[Felycitas]

1 frost rune: HOWLING BLAST!
1 unholy rune: ..plague strike..
1 frost rune and 1 unholy rune: Obliterate

A quick and dirty possible rotation that utilizes howling blast over obliterate: plague strike, howling blast, howling blast, plague strike -- 4 attacks

Obliterate over howling blast: obliterate, obliterate -- 2 attacks

By what I skimmed through in this thread.. the howling blast rotation will do slightly more damage because howling blast does slightly more than obliterate.. + 2 plague strike hits.

However...

If the obliterate rotation procs rime.. you just destroyed the howling blast rotation.

As it's been mentioned.. unless you're able to go without ANY wait on runes.. use obliterate. The only other situation the howling blast rotation might be more DPS is if rime never procs for a really long time.

Using howling blast more just leaves you with lingering unholy runes.

[uglybbtoo]

Correct fely and correct killabee ... I will have a go at proving it to your statisfaction.

EDIT: Fely what you did leave out however is that if you end up blood striking because you are locked out of frost runes you may also create death runes via blood of the north (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=54637). Given the choice between blood and having to use plague you use blood everytime. It is also why you frost strike with Killing machine up when you run this mode because of runic empowerment (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81229) and the damage difference between it and obliterate is not alot. The whole crux revolves around getting back your frost runes every 9 sec based upon our rune regen rate in unholy presence. Our attacks per second is so slow it's not hard but I will do some proofs for killa.

And under those situations rime has no actual effect which is why I get a stat weight of 0.0.

BTW soon as you get your haste up high enough killabee you are spot on in your original assessment this is sort of the weapon issue all over again.

What I thought you were angling at was that rime released the GCD (IE FREE and instant) which I actually thought initially it would when I first looked at rime and couldn't work out why I got no stat weight for it . On analysis of logs I can see that there will be no instant release spells in WOW anymore and its all to do with the key queue they put in.

what you get is

0:01'46.517 Ubbdk gains Freezing Fog. #1577 < you gain rime >
0:01'50.183 Ubbdk Freezing Fog was removed from Ubbdk. #1601 < it queues the key and removes the effect >
0:01'50.932 Ubbdk Howling Blast hits Heroic Training Dummy for 5511 Frost. #1605 < the hit goes out >

Every spell I have looked at does the same thing with the queue in effect there is no real way to get an instant attack off a proc which is a big change to how things work an I began to understand how significant some of the changes are.

[Felycitas]

Given the choice between blood and having to use plague you use blood everytime.

Yeah. What I'm saying is that there's not that many options for using those unholy runes so you're not losing out by feeding them into an obliterate. Otherwise.. they really just sit there unused in the howling blast rotation.

ROTATION 1: Howling blast (10k), howling blast, howling blast, howling blast = 40k damage

ROTATION 2: Obliterate (8k), obliterate, obliterate = 24k damage (+10, +10, +10)

Adding death runes.. yeah.. howling blast looks more attractive. Unless you get exceptionally lucky and proc rime twice.

[uglybbtoo]

Yep you got the nail on the head and thanks for help ..

I went to prove that you never run out of runes but it's self evident because we only attack at 1.5s in the 9 sec before you get the rune back you only have 6 attacks in that 9 sec window. So assume our disease are running so we are looking mid rotations stuff we have 6 runes and if nothing proc'ed and we had no death runes those attacks would be in priority

Howling blast, Howling blast, Blood strike, blood strike, plague strike, plague strike

Any proc or death rune drops each attack from the end slotting an extra howling blast or frost strike if killing machine is up at the top.
And this confirms what I said you never run out of rune resources using this setup (I actually had never got down to using horn of winter and it wasn't even in my first go at advisory)

I do however see how the other rotation works and have been playing with it now my obliterate is actually higher than my howling blast :-)

I would say rotation 1 as you called it works better at low gear levels but rotation 2 wins out in high level gear.

[raedin]

yea, unholy is a bit more ocmplicated but when u get good at it, u do good. i actualy ahvent tested it in a raid yet tho lol.. found out how good frost got after the patch