Yes, I'm still here. I've been taking it easy for the past few months, as nothing has really been changing for DKs. However, we have some new balance changes, and some interesting news. I look forward to making a lot more posts when WoD news starts coming in full swing, but in the mean time:
Hotfixes:
- Icy Talons now increases melee attack speed by 45% (up from 30%).
- Unholy Might now increases Strength by 35% (up from 25%).
Overall, these buffs work out to be about 2% for DW, 3.5% for 2H, and 7% for unholy, on ST. Both frost specs gain pretty much no more AE damage, as icy talons doesn't effect AE, other than more KM procs meaning more stacks of the T16 2-set. Roughly 1% increase on 8 targets. Unholy, on the other hand, gets a pretty damn large increase on AE damage, about 8%. Magdalena got pretty much the same results before I even started. That's what I get for spending a day in NYC.
Here are the new 580 BiS balance numbers:
DW still leading the pack, but 2H and unholy are amazingly close now. 2H is still an easier spec to play, and offers greater burst and less reliance on pets, but unholy wins in AE damage, both for 3 targets and 8 targets. The specs are now very, very close.
A very basic look at the new stat weights, to prove that little has changed.
DW still stacks mastery above all else, and haste remains the weakest stat, thought not by much, even though the profile has a measly 4k rating. Str remains crap, at least for gemming purposes.
2H still wants some haste, but plenty more crit. This profile has 17k crit and 6k haste, and yet the values are basically equal, with the small amount of AMS soaking in by default. Not much has changed here.
Unholy got a higher strength multiplier, which made str worth more. However, the str multiplier means you have more strength, which increases the value of crit, haste, and mastery. So, not much has changed here either. You still want a "balance" of stats.
These changes have been implemented in simC, and should be released with version 541-3.
In other news, we got this wonderful little tidbit from twitter:
So it's within the realm of possibility that we'll be seeing some form of festerblight risen from the grave, come back to serve us as a loyal minion. If there is a way for festerblight to continue in 6.0, I'll find it. Until the next round of DK changes, or the next interesting thing I find to share,
Happy New Years!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by "You still want a "balance" of stats"
You want more of the highest stat weight, until that stat weight is equal to other stats weights. http://www.destinysoftworks.com/2013/09/unholy-stat-priority-in-54.html explains it in full.
DeleteHI,
ReplyDeleteDo you have any infos when version 541-3 will be released? Or can you tell me how i can change the fix by my self?
Soon™
DeleteWe generally release new updates whenever new hotfixes go out, so I'd imagine it will be out in a few days. Alternativley, you can check out https://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/wiki/HowToBuild for written instrctions on how to grab the latest code of the SVN database, and compile your own version.
With this changes in Icy Talons, 2H Frost have new stats priorities haste > crit > mastery or i did understand wrong?
ReplyDeleteI never used simC before, it's works only per character stats? I'm thinking use it right now.
With 5.4, 2H Frost starting using crit over haste with the new PL, as well as a few other changes. The stat weights listed above are only for one profile, a 580 profile that I've tailored to be as perfect as possible, but you'll get better results for YOU by simming your own gear. However, I expect it will follow the general trend of Crit > Haste > Mastery, where you want to gem crit.
DeleteSimC creates a set of stat weights for your character, with your gear and talents and glyphs, and a tweakable rotation/settings (like number of targets, player skill, and AMS soaking level). You can find a guide on how to get started with it at http://www.destinysoftworks.com/2013/06/getting-most-out-of-simulationcraft.html
Do you use ReforgeLite or any reforge tool? If yes, do you only put stats weights from simC results on that?
DeleteI like reforgelite, but it's been giving me buggy results for the past few months, so I stopped using it. Right now, I use simC to generate stat weights, and plug them into ask mr. robot, which is the reforge tool I've had the best success with.
DeleteI saw these lines:
Deleteactions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats
actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead
actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion
actions.precombat+=/pillar_of_frost
actions.precombat+=/raise_dead
This uses army of the dead before pre pot and pillar of frost or i did wrong understand?
Yea, it uses army first, like you should in-game.
DeleteI simulated using army before and after raise dead, then results were very close (334563.7 and 334641.3, respectively), but with little advantage using after.
DeleteI didnt like Ask MR because it changed my gems, but now i can disable this feature, using it only for reforge.
Edit: i simulated two configs:
Delete1. army before pre pot and PoF
2. army after prepot and PoF
Then results were these above. Today, i do these precombat actions 5s before pull, maybe im doing wrong, but i thought that would be better start with army buffed. How do you do today? Did you test this way, army after prepot? If yes, what were results?
Army should be dynamic, eg when you pop buffs after army it should still give them to army.
DeleteI have tested that they are dynamic, and that popping popping buffs after army still has them up armies benefit, and gives you more time to benefit from them.
DeleteI didnt know that army was dynamic, thx for info.
DeleteHello Mendenbarr.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, let me thank you for the great job you are doing for us
So let me ask you two questions:
- With this changes, macroed BT is still a better option than the other talents in tier 5 .
- If i understood right, now we have a soft haste cap for 2H, am i right? More or less 6k according to what you have posted...
- The last one is, our BiS gear for DW and 2H has changed?
Sry if i wrote something wrong. I'm Brazilian :)
Thank you.
Macroed BT still wins for frost DW, but I would not say it wins for unholy or 2H frost. No haste "soft cap" persay, but around 6k it does drop off in value a bit. It seems to pretty much always be better than mastery for 2H. And this is using the new PL, without it, 2H still stacks a lot of haste.
DeleteBiS gear should be pretty much the same. They did a very good job of buffing us without screwing anything up (statwise or rotation-wise)
I got it.
DeleteSo it's better choose Runic Empowerment or RC?
And, in my case, where i have 1x 2H Heroic Warforged Weapon (Nazgrim drop) and 2x 1H Heroic Weapons (Norushen drop both) it's better continue with 2H or change to DW ?
Thanks again Mendenbarr.
I'd stick with RE for 2H, or microd BT, and RC for unholy. With those weapons you'll get very similar DPS either way, but I'd personally go DW for the bonus free cleave. However, if you're more skilled at 2H, 2H will perform better.
Deleteif its now haste>mastery, at least the 2h bis weapon should change from xalatoh to greatsword right?
DeleteTo clarify, haste > mastery most of the time. All stats get comparatively worse the more you get of them, but haste moreso than the others. On top of that, greatsword has a blue socket, which is a little worse than a red socket, and is not an axe, which from my biased orc perspective is a bad thing. Orc is also the race for the simC profiles. I'm pretty sure that the axe is still BiS, with the greatsword being a very close second. Overall, you want to follow your own stat weights, and stop getting haste when it's the same in value to mastery, and when that happens depends on your own gear level.
Delete"So it's within the realm of possibility that we'll be seeing some form of festerblight risen from the grave, come back to serve us as a loyal minion"
ReplyDeleteMake me think of having a talent similar to those hunt and demo have,
Raise Festerblight : Your Raise Dead ability is rename "Raise Festerblight" and is a passive effect that allow your melee and shadow damage to do X% more damage, your shadow infusion is replace by the passive effect "Magdalena's Tea Time" that grants you Y% chance to gain a usable buff that increase the basic AP scaling of your disease by 1% (stackable 100 time) and your Dark Transformation ability is replace by the ability "Dark Mendenborrmation" that consume all Madgalena's Tea that its effects will be grant to next disease application.
That sounds pretty awesome.
DeleteMendenbormation is always consuming Magdelana's tea
Deletethat grants you Y% chance to gain a usable buff that increase the basic AP scaling of your disease by 1% (stackable 100 time) ...
ReplyDelete... each time your disease tics :p (my bad)
I cannot see any update of simulationcraft, it still says version 5.4.1. Do you know if this is going to get updated.
ReplyDeleteGoogle code is removing it's download system, and we're in the process of moving over to a new system to handle downloads, via google drive. New version should be out soon™!
DeleteAnd it's out! You can find it at https://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/downloads/list
DeleteIs it normal if i can't see any changes on spells?
ReplyDeleteMaybe after server reset?
Tooltip updates require a patch, while spell updates can be hotifxed in at any time, IIRC. There have been times where they would hotfix in a buff/nerf, and then not update the tooltips for 6 months.
DeleteTo clarify, by tooltip updates I mean the text on the tooltip, and by spell updates I mean changes to what the spell actually does, e.g. saying it gives 30% when it actually gives 45%.
DeleteIs that normal even after i change for Crit > Haste > Mastery my Mastery continue to proc at my 2 pieces bonus?
ReplyDeleteI believe the 3000 raid buff for mastery effects the mastery proc, but the haste buff doesn't effect the haste proc.
DeleteIt's so nice that the 3 spec's are this close. Any idea what is better in a raid setting (SoO) I am guessing Unholy pulls ahead now on some fights?
ReplyDeleteI'm still partial to DW, but the specs are close enough that skill in one over the others will really let it shine.
DeleteThank you for your time and effort with our class guides and theory-crafting.
ReplyDeleteMy question is: Based on the recent changes in the latest Hot-fix, have you done any testing to determine if the BiS weapon still remains HWF Xal'atoh; or if H Hellscream's Decapitator pulls ahead?
Considering that Hellscream's Decapitator provides two red sockets versus Xal'atoh single socket; I am very curious about the possible results and was wondering if you've already had the chance to test this out. Thanks!
Sockets are still included in the budget (bonus isn't), and Xal'atoh is still 2 ilevels higher when WF, so I'd imagine that it's still BiS, but I haven't actually done any explicit testing on the matter.
DeleteWith Orange gems(and Bonus):
DeleteHWF Xal'atoh (ilevel 580) has 85 strength more while H Decapitator(ilevel 574) only has 59 crit more. Win for Xal’atoh.
With yellow gems(and No Bonus):
HWF Xal'atoh (ilevel 580) has 225 strength more while Decapitator(ilevel 574) only has 219 crit more. Win for Xal’atoh.
Also Xal’atoh has 531.4 weapon dps and 1849 mastery while Decapitator only has 1681 haste. So there is pretty much no way Xal’atoh isnt BiS.
531.4 weapon dps more of course.
DeleteAfter simming my dk with the hotfix added, I found that inv hit was higher than haste and crit, with mastery still over inv hit. Stat weights all very similar to yours above with the exception of inv hit being very high. I use the same method as you, simming then plugging into mrrobot.
ReplyDeleteI compared inv hit>crit>haste with crit>haste>inv hit and found that putting inv hit last was around a 4k dps increase to prioritising it higher. (316k compared to 320k) at 564 ilev. I also optimised without using mrrobot at all and just a couple of self decided decisions and came out with similar results soI don't think its mrrobot bugging out with a stupid reforge.
Where is the error here? Is it with the stat weights generated or the sim for numbers comparing optimisations?
invhit and haste/crit are close together, and stats that are close together fall under unholy's whole balance thing. When you get more of stat X, it makes stat Y, Z, and A more valuable, but doesn't change the value of stat X. So, if you see a good stat, and get ton of it, you'll find that other stats start to look better, while that good stat still looks the same. If you trade away some stats other than X, stat X will actually go down in value, because those other stats were bumping it's value up.
DeleteIt's for this reason that when you get as much invhit as possible, haste/crit have higher stat values, and when you get as much haste/crit as possible, invhit has a higher stat value. I'd suggest rerunning the scale factor sim with both the inv hit>crit>haste and crit>haste>inv hit gear settings to see what it does to stat weights.
Or it could be some odd (false) interaction with inv hit and "breakpoints" for 2-set uptime.
Thanks, will try this. So I guess there is an equilibrium point where I want to balance my stats?
DeleteAlso you said Unholy but I'm dw frost, was that a typo on your behalf and if not does this still apply to dw frost? (been along time since i even looked at UH but I thought they prioritised haste first, sorry for the confusion)
Unholy stats are, atm, based on trying to get the stat weights equal. DW is pretty much "GET MOAR MASTERY", but to a lesser degree, wants to get haste/hit (and sometimes crit) around equal, at a much lower priority. I was just comparing to the unholy state, and everything I said applies to DW.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteSry 4 my bad english...i'm from Germany. :-)
So 2Hand Stats are Crit > ~6k Haste > Mastery? Or Crit > Haste > Mastery? At my Char the first with 6k haste was very nice because there were lower break's....or it was just a feeling ^^
You'll get the best results from simming your own toon (you can find a guide for that at http://www.destinysoftworks.com/2013/06/getting-most-out-of-simulationcraft.html), but the frost stats posted here have a decently high crit amount, and a very, very low haste amount(2k). Haste would drop quite fast the more you get of it.
DeleteCrit > Mastery > Haste is your best bet, if you don't want to sim yourself, but part of why haste is so weak is that you're GCD capped. If you're not personally GCD capped, feel free to pick up some more haste.
Thanks for all - but i have one more question: i play with the T5 Talent BT because every guide i have seen says so. I have made a Makro at my spells to use it instand - but i don't know how usefull it is on this way. Would id be better to use another T5 talent? Or doesn't i t metter to use it as makro on my spells?
DeleteAll of the talents are on par for 2H frost. BT is suggested by guides because it gives you control over when to activate it, which normally ends up being the strongest option. If you don't use the control, as 2H frost, you're better of taking RE. (which does basically the same thing with 45% chance to proc instead of 40%)
DeleteOh okay, i will take RE since now :) but RE benefit from haste or not? If it do i have to look for haste after crit?
DeleteSorry that i ask you one more thing - but i play dk only since a few months on lv 90. You have advise me to use SimC an there was written that i have to use army of death, then mogu power portion and then Pillar of Frost with Rise Undead pre-combat. I have taken PoF and Rise Undead after the Pull when both Trinkets have procced (Thok's Tail Tip and Evil Eye of Galakras). Which waye makes more DPS or is the better choice?
Ty very much
RE has a chance to proc whenever you hit FS, more haste means more FS, so yes it benefits from haste. Doesn't change the stat priority. You want to use raise dead before the pull, because it takes a few seconds from him to pull himself out of the ground. You're fine using pillar after trinkets are up.
DeleteOkay, RE benefits from haste because FS but mastery is higher then haste - i understand. The meaning of BT is to use it for 2 Runes for one Oblitarate.
DeleteSo the ghule from rise undead is snapshotting too? I thought only army is snapshotting :) i have used a makro for PoF, Synaps Springs and Raise Undead because i have Evil Eye of Galakras hc warforged....the CD of this 3 is real close to each orher an i can stack it again when Rise Undead is ready again. But when it is better to use Rise Undead alone i will change that.
I try to use PoF every time when both trinkets are up....but sometimes i have bad luck and one of it proccs after the other procc is down. :( i this moments i think: i had should take PoF pre-combat for the pull-burst.....
If everything go optimal i have both proccs 5-8sek after the pull and mogu power portion stacks too.
No pets snapshot, they all update dynamically. Raise dead takes a few seconds to get up and running, so you want to cast it a few seconds before the CDs you want to line it up with. On the pull, this means during the prepull, normally right after army. It's not worth waiting to try and line up trinkets with pillar. Use pillar on CD.
DeleteThen i will use army, raise undead, mogu power potion, run to the boss and cast outbreak, use PoF and Synaps Springs....thats the perfect pull? It doesn't metter that iuse PoF before the trinkets proccs because army and ghule snapshotting - that's nice to know...thank you a lot for teaching me ;)
DeleteYea, that sounds about right.
DeleteDear Mendenbarr,
ReplyDeleteCan you give advice on what 2H spec to excel at if you NEVER saw a H 1H or thok's trinket of any kind to this day? il577 http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/zuljin/Percocetz/advanced
I been UH since the buff but feel I cannot compete anymore with out a trinket... Thanks in advance
Thoks is slightly stronger for unholy than frost, but pretty important for both. If it were me, I'd stick with unholy, and keep praying for a thok's to drop. Maybe even try experimenting with a festerblight skeers (Applying diseases with +50% crit and keeping them rolling the whole fight).
DeleteAwesome, thanks for your input. I also use H Fusion Core and play festerblight with both STR proc's rolling most of the time. I even suffered LFR since I came back to the game in hope of a trinket.... sigh.
Delete