2008/08/31

Unholy DW in Nexus

So with the new unholy DW specc I went Nexus to try it out. It was awesome, with a good tank there is no prob bringing diseases up an all nearby mobs and then Unholy Blight and SS. Just brutal damage... and it is just fun.

See for yourself - recount after finishing Nexus:


1st is me
2nd is DK with Blood 2Hand
3rd is Elemental Shaman in decent badgegear

For now it seems that Frost and Unholy are farewell balanced out, a bit to much burst possible with Unholy at the moment, and I think Blood-Caked Blade needs some working... proccing way to less, maybe just every few mobs.

Blood is surely underpowered at the moment, there is no way to keep up with Frost or Unholy at the moment - and also I was thinking about my Trybrid specc, which may be usable in Raids at lvl 80, but for questing / leveling it's better to go Frost or Unholy at the moment. You lack the selfhealing, but you bash the mobs fast.

And for the critics out there... there are other classes who also do 7000 or 8000 crits, so we are not the only ones. And it seems to me, that balancing is focused on lvl 80 raids and not the questing before.

Third movie !!

Finally, I managed to finish the scenes for my third movie on this beautifully Lag-Server... and here you go, a few fights in Northrend showing my Trybrid specc and the new Unholy DW specc at level 72:




Filefront Download Link

Music is listed at the end of the movie, if you have questions don't hesitate and post a comment.

Unholy DW surprise

So yesterday I was able to get an impression of Unholy when DWing. And boy was I surprised, the new Scourge Strike is awesome, hitting for nearly 7000 dmg critical - with a one hand weapon!

Also I finally saw my first Blood-Caked Blades procc in the combat log.

Here you have some screenshots of my combat log, sorry for the german, I'll explain everything below the Image:

Scourge Strike hits critcal for 6558 dmg.


Scourge Strike hits critical for 6804 dmg.

Scourge Strike hits for 2860 dmg
Necrosis proccs for 119 dmg
Blood-Caked Blade proccs for 413 dmg

Here you can see the recount after a few mobs, showing that Scourge Strike is first, followed by White Hits and Unholy Blight.

My third movie is in progress, showing the Trybrid build and some farming with Unholy build. As for now, the Unholy specc is in advantage... doing way more damage, and giving a nice combination through the synergies for shadow damage.

The build I used for those screenshots was:

2/9/52

At lvl 80 this could look like:

2/17/52

Hopefully I can release the third movie tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned.

2008/08/30

Build 8885

The new build 8885 has arrived and brought some changes to the DK. I will take a closer look at the next posting, what I have seen for now is the new Scourge Strike, now looking much better than Obliterate and maybe a worthy additon for DW... but that would mean I would have to skip my Trybrid Specc.

Maybe I'll give it a try...

Blood Caked Blades still seems to be buggy, my combat log isn't showing a single procc.
Hopefully this gets fixed soon.

2008/08/28

Trybrid...

I was just thinking about my trispecc, which I now call "DW Trybrid". Most people suggest to go one tree deep until the ultimate... something like deep Frost for DW, or even deep Unholy.

I don't think that this is a good idea. Sure, your Dmg won't be calculated from your weapondmg at all, but what I ask myself... will this scale better than a Trybrid?

When doing a "Trybrid" specc, nearly all your skills that you are going to use are pushed in Crit and Dmg, and also your overall white damage will get an extreme boost... it seems that like everything starts to scale from everything.

Thinking of being lvl 80, this could look something like this:

33/19/19

To sum up the synergies:

5% more Crit
9% more Crit on Oblit and BS (sumed up 14% additional Crit)
6% Crit on Plague Strike (sumed up 11% additional Crit on this attack)
6 % more Shadowdamage (pushing Necrosis,Death Pact, Diseases)
15 % more Physical and Shadowdamage w Bloody Vengeance
11 % more Strength (Pushing everything)
15% more Haste w Icy Talons (Pushing swings and Necrosis)
3% Hit and 15% Offhand damage
10% AP proccing w Obliterate
25 AP per 1000 Armour
Necrosis and Blood Caked Blades for Auto Attacks

Of course this is all just theory for now. But I am doing very well with it while questing, and I can really feel every point I gain with equip. Sure we now need to see how this will be at 80 in decent equip... and when raiding in high end equip. But for that we will have to wait quite a while. Depends on how fast I will go when WotLK goes live.

;-)

2008/08/27

Dwarf DK pictures

To share some of my recent experiments I will show you some pics, where I tried on some items I could find in the auction house as well as the first lvl 70 blacksmith tank set, that really looks decent on a dwarf... also I give you some pics when you start a flight from dalaran... so here you go:





2008/08/26

Further DPS testing...

Huanz from the official EU Beta Forum did some further tests regarding DW Frost and 2 Hand Frost as well as blood to compare the DPS and the Damage at Level 73... and here you have the suprise:

DW can keep up with 2 Hand!!!

And here you have the stats with pictures, short explanation afterwards...

Deep Blood 2 Hand



DPS: ~1170
Build: 51/0/13

Deep Frost 2 Hand



DPS: ~1290
Build: 15/49/0


Deep Frost Dual Wield



DPS: ~1320
Build: 5/44/15

Rotation (after a few Cycles):

IT -> PS -> BS -> IT (BotN DeathRune) -> HB -> Frost Strike -> Frost Strike

Comparison and conclusion:

So here you have the surprise ... just being at lvl 73 shows, what potential lies beneath DW.
To sum it up:

Frost DW does about 1320 DPS, infight there can be peaks to nearly 1400 DPS
3-spec DW does about 1220 DPS, infight there can be peaks to nearly 1300 DPS

Frost 2H does about 1290 DPS, infight there can be peaks to nearly 1400 DPS
Blood 2H does about 1170 DP S, infight there can be peaks to nearly 1200 DPS

Frost shows much potential for good burst, resulting in higher peaks during fight. It seems realistic that at lvl 80 you can easily reach peaks over 2000 DPS. Followed by that is my trispec, showing more consistent DPS and also some potential... maybe I can get a few pieces of better gear than my green quest stuff and some new weapons.

New DPS Test

I reached lvl 72 and wanted to try my developed Trispec again, last time at 70 I was able to get over 1000 dps... this time I managed to break that again:

My Trispec for that level is a mixture of deeper blood combined with the best synergies from Frost and Unholy - click for the link:

29/18/16

For the ones who are not familiar with german recount:

1. White Damage
2. Obliterate
3. Necrosis
4. Blood Strike
5. Death Pact

Really interesting to see the DMG of Necrosis reaching 12%. I did not skill BCB because it still seems to be buggy, but those 3 points are reserved when BCB is working.

And it is good to see how the pure DMG is scaling with Hit, Crit and AP... 2 levels, a bit of better gear and a fixed rotation brought me nearly 200 dps from the last time. This also is because of the pushed up synergies you get when speccing a "Trybrid", nearly all your skills that you are going to use are pushed in Crit and Dmg, and also your overall white damage will get an extreme boost.

At lvl 80 this could look something like this:

33/19/19

To sum up the synergies:

5% Crit
9% Crit on Oblit and BS
6% Crit on Plague Strike
6 % more Shadowdamage (necrosis ftw)
15 % more Physical and Shadowdamage (yay more necrosis)
11 % more Strength
15% more haste via icy talons
3% Hit and 15% Offhand damage
10% AP proccing on Obliterate
25 AP per 1000 Armour
Necrosis and Blood Caked Bake for Auto Attacks

Dear Jayde...

Everyone seems to know you in US Beta Forums:

http://jadefury.blogspot.com/

Don't get me wrong now, dear Jayde - I like how you put effort in the DK and try to make him better than he is now.

But you always forget 1 thing:

Dual Wield

The DK has the choice to do DW, but you really ignore that. It seems that you try to push everything in the direction you want it to be:

2 Handed Damage

That is not fair, nor correct. As a Beta Tester, you should test both sides and post suggestions to improve both sides. Your own opinion does not matter, as a Beta Tester you should be as neutral as possible and leave the choice to the players out there if they want to DW or 2Hand.

But please stop pushing everything in the "wrong" direction and try to keep thinking if your suggested changes would also be viable for DW or would it even make more worse.

Feel free to contact me, maybe we can find a way and work together.

Regards,

Edurol
Got the Chance to test Nexus with a new Trispecc... I'll post the thoughts on this one later:

29/18/15

Here you can see my recount after finishing:



Second place behind elemental Shaman... which is no prob for me because I know how awesome they DPS.

As you can see, most of my damage is white hits, followed by Obliterate and Necrosis. I wish BCB would work so I could skill that and see what it does...

But this trispecc has potential, and I think at 80 with nearly 3000 AP, 40% Crit, Hitcap and Haste, this build will do a tremendous amount of dmg.

I for now think that Frost is not satisfying for me as DW... when you skill Frost while DWing, the only strong spell not linked to your weapon damage is HB... the rest is not changing. It is like 2hand specc, and that is why I don't like it.

I really believe in the Trispecc with as many synergies as possible to be the ultimate style for DW DK. Surely 2h will scale better with all strikes, but a DK with 2h will never do a balanced trispecc to get every synergy for STR + CRIT that is there... he will focus on a tree to do good damage using a good rotation.

When DWing, most of the dmg comes from white hits, necrosis and something like Blood Strike or Obliterate. So it is clear for me that boosting ap, hit and crit, you will boost your white dmg and overall dps way up.

So I developed this Trispecc:

35/18/18

You get all important synergies for boosting damage of your white hits and crits... with the rotation:

IT - PS - OB - BS - BS - OB

or when "death rune mastery" finally is working:

IT - PS - DS - BS - BS - OB - OB - OB

The fact here is, that you push the dmg or your swings with necrosis and bcb, overall with bloody vengance... and you could put the 1 point from hysteria into shadow of death for even more str.

It just seems logical to me... My recount always shows that White Hits, Obliterate and Necrosis are leading - so I push that as far as possible.

Frost may be nice now for leveling with some sweet burst, but imho it is a 2h build (frost strike scaling way better with 2h) which has no real difference to DW, also for now this is the overpowered build like blood was before...

Testing DPS in Blasted Lands...

Being lvl 71 I wanted to test a few speccs after the newest build had arrived:

1st Fight with Unholy Aura
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/6092/dpstest01qv6.jpg

2nd Fight with Blood A ura
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3830/dpstest02fc8.jpg

Specc was a Trispecc in both fights and lasting for about 3 minutes:

26/18/18

Then I specced deep Frost with Unholy, fight lasting about 4 mins with active blood aura:
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4299/dpstest03ph5.jpg

Specc was:

0/44/18

Without "Merciless Combat", so you have the "real" numbers.

My conclusion:

Blood Aura seems to scale the damage better up, than the haste effect of the Unholy Aura does. This results in nearly more then 100 dps of damage on my level in this test.

Frost seems to be capable of doing more dps for a DW DK ... I just don't have the perfect rotation for it now, need a little practice. But the frost damage and the many guaranted crits are really boosting the DPS way up.

The first mobs in Northend with Frost where also no problem, I killed them really fast and was doing around 800 dps after a few mobs. That is an increase of over 200 dps for me.

Only prob for now is the missing selfheal... lvl 71 mobs really hit harder.

DW Death Knight - First thoughts...

Hi there - this was posted on 17th of august by me in EU Beta Forums:

Since I am in the beta I started my DK and leveled him as a DW. I love DW, it is a lot of fun and really fits the Deathknight very well... even if some players think the opposite and are trying to defame DW.

So, to give everyone an impression what the DK is like when you play him as DW, I made a first video in the build 8770:

http://files.filefront.com/WotLK+Beta+DW+Death+Knight/;11429308;/fileinfo.html

Starting gear and 2 swords from the honor hold, it was really fun but I noticed, that the lack of +hit takes quite some damage away.
Also build 8770 hade a few bugs, necrosis was not proccing with correct damage, blood-caked blades not proccing, Ghul somehow going amok...

So with the new build 8781 from august 12th I did some newer scenes, mostly with level 66 or 67 and a different specc, to show you how it is to play DW in this build and what it will be like when you are nearly finished in outlands:

http://files.filefront.com/WotLK+Beta+DW+Death+Knight+II/;11521570;/fileinfo.html

But unfortunately, there are still Bugs in this build. Blood-caked blades still not proccing, so I did not skill it this time... Icy Thalons is giving no haste buff, that is kinda disturbing when you DW. But you can see, that it is still fun and that DW has a nice killspeed with no down times.

Going Northend...

Now I am 70 and did quite some quests in Northend. The gear from the quests there is simply amazing for a fresh DK, finally you can get rid of the (still awesome looking) starting gear and get some new, really good looking and refreshing stuff which also fits together in color and style.

I took most items with +hit and +crit (there is stuff with like +53 crit rating... awesome!!) and I could see an increase in DPS and a decrease in miss... finally, it was getting more fun!

Doing around 300 to a maximum of 400 dps in Outland, I can now reach 700 dps, and with some critluck also 800 dps. And this with just some green questitems and buggy talents / skills...

Possibilities...

Aiming for a good Specc for raiding or 5-man groups, some points in blood are fine and push the DPS - but not all points in blood. So you have to find the right balance... and I think, the best specc to go for Raids at Level 80 is to put most of the points into Frost until Howling Blast or even until Frost Strike, and take the important stuff from Unholy like Necrosis und Blood-Caked Blades (when they are finally working...). and just the rest into blood.

That could look like:

0/53/18

Or you can try to do more Unholy:

0/40/31

But that would cost you 5% crit from blood and a synergy from Unholy... but may be worth it, if Blizzard gets the balance of RP costs and RP Generation for frost. At the moment, it is nearly unplayable because you cannot really do everything you need to do in a fight - you run out of runes and RP very fast.

Problems and concerns...

One of the best things of a DK is the self-healing. But not for a DW. Most helpfull talents are imho in Frost and Unholy. Some say deep Blood would be better with spamming blood strike and heart strike etc... but I don't think that it is reasonable to put the points in the same tree a 2h DK would use.

So, when leveling with DW you may lack selfhealing, which is why I specced a bit more into blood now. Helps a lot in Northrend.

The biggest concern at the moment are our talents which mostly are based on weapon damage. Seeing 2h going up to 700 or even 800 max damage, our main hand weapon barely will have half of the damage.

As DW we may can have mor AP or will stack more +hit and +crit ... but I think this won't balance it out. A solution I would have for that would be, that every skill or talent that "strikes" the enemy with the weapon, strikes as DW with both weapons and is calculating the damage on the sumed up weapon damage of both weapons.

For example Blood Strike:
[i]Instantly strike the enemy, causing 60% weapon damage plus 164 for each of the Death Knight's diseases on the target[/i]

This could look like that for DW:
[i]Instantly strike the enemy with both weapons, causing 60% of the overall weapon damage of both of his weapons, plus 164 for each of the Death Knight's diseases on the target[/i]

Weapon example:

Main hand 430
Off hand 300
Summing up 730 - 60% of that for the damage calculation

The talent could have 2 tooltips, or there could be 2 talents - one for 2h and one only to be used for DW.

This would equal 2h and 2 1h weapons in the damage calculation. I don't really know how far 1 hand weapons will go up on level 80... so this should be closely watched that this calculation won't exceed 2h weapons.

Because this seems to be the current fear of the 2h DK fans... that DW will overcome 2h like it is with warriors or shamans.

But summing up that in some cases, a very fast offhand with lower weapon damage might be better for proccing rune-enchantments, there wont be such a huge overall weapon damage then with 2 slow 1h weapons... I think, it would be worth a try!

Another current problem for now, is that many of the important talents are buggy, so there is no way to 100% calculate what it will be like in raids, but one thing I saw in my last Utgarde run:

Unholy Presence plus a working Icy talons will give you an insane attack speed, counting Killing Machine in with Howling Blast, and Necrosis and also a working Blood-Caked Blades ... we will be able to get some nice damage output.

Thread Link:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023695394&sid=2003