Diseaseless Blood - What Non Blood Talents?

[Lord Darkstone]

Weniis, people have been posting rotations...

about the spec, I don't know where to go after 50 into blood.  Frost give some AP and crit, but you have to waste 5 points to get the 3% crit.  Unholy isn't as bad, as you wasted 2 points to get 3% spell hit, but to get another 2% str you have to waste 4 points.  Now if you waste 5/5 in Anticipation, or 4/5 then you could pick up Unholy Command, and I wouldn't consider those 2 a waste.  So by hitting Unholy you can pick up a bit of dodge (never a bad thing) and a reduction in your Death Grip CD.   I'd give a 50/5/16 build a shot, unless you want DRW, which you'd have to decide if giving up 1 in toughness or the Shadow of Death talent.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMqh0IcfoxzAZ0xZcLGh00o

[Weniis]

haha thanks.
yea i saw they were posting rotations guess it'd just be weird not to use IT or PS. i was kinda thinking outloud and ended up writing it down. you have to be nearly best in slot to pull off high numbers with this specc i'm assuming though right?

edit: anticipation is stupid unless you're tanking.
i mean hell 2 of those points would make more sense in viscous strikes.
why would u get virulence if its a diseaseless specc? OB and HS are physical aren't they?
why get toughness? isn't necrosis like 100x better?
and why wouldn't u get dancing rune weapon?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMqh0IsfRxzAoZf0Mht0o

i'd probably try something like this. have a few extra points to put wherever so why not more healing talents since blood does more dmg with 75%+ health.

[necropoli]

Weniis, people have been posting rotations...

about the spec, I don't know where to go after 50 into blood.  Frost give some AP and crit, but you have to waste 5 points to get the 3% crit.  Unholy isn't as bad, as you wasted 2 points to get 3% spell hit, but to get another 2% str you have to waste 4 points.  Now if you waste 5/5 in Anticipation, or 4/5 then you could pick up Unholy Command, and I wouldn't consider those 2 a waste.  So by hitting Unholy you can pick up a bit of dodge (never a bad thing) and a reduction in your Death Grip CD.   I'd give a 50/5/16 build a shot, unless you want DRW, which you'd have to decide if giving up 1 in toughness or the Shadow of Death talent.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMqh0IcfoxzAZ0xZcLGh00o

I would think that if you want to try a diseaseless rotation, you would wan to try 51/0/20, the idea being to scale as high as possible with your gear and maximizing Ob and HS strikes with + Str talents.51/0/20 gives you a grand total of +13% Str talents which means it scales extremely well, especially if you already have decent- good gear

DRW is important in my opinion, especially if you run a diseaseless rotation - properly timed you can squeeze up to 4 Ob, 4 HS, 3 Dcs at least in a DRW duration. Bear in mind to macro your buffs to be up just before DRW ( hysteria , blood fury, horn , etc) Burst dps of up to 4k on dummies self buffed is achievable for sure.

My spec is likely not the only diseaseless spec around, but it works for me. Armourary me if you like, just bear in mind i may tank on Wednesdays-Fridays if there arnt enough tanks.I run a 9/11/51 tanking spec when i tank.

Two last points - in a diseaseless rotation it may seem dumb to put points in spell hit talents, but its simply filler points to get to the higher Str talents. Theres simply nothing noteworthy to fill in. Also you REALLY need decent stats to make diseaseless work, though with the Str boosting talents it shouldn't be too hard.

[Weniis]

oh i has one more quick question, what presence would u use?

[Mog]

Blood of course... the whole point is being able to use all of your runes and Death Coils in 10 seconds or less.

And Death Coil is a spell, so the 3% spell hit is basically for that.


Vicious strikes is pointless... you never use anything that it affects.  Anticipation is pretty much just the only remotely useful place to put two points.

I have specced back and forth on Toughness.  It's basically 5 points for nearly zero dps increase... 50-60 AP for nearly all of us.  However, it is the only way I ever get to boast about "over 5k AP" with my raid dropless gear.



Okie... Pale Horse and 1/3 BCB, or 3/3 BCB?  Pale Horse is 20% reduction in stun / fear (as well as being just plain nice to have).  2 points in BCB is 20% chance to strike a 13% WD hit.  Does it even matter?

[Weniis]

Blood of course... the whole point is being able to use all of your runes and Death Coils in 10 seconds or less.
....
Okie... Pale Horse and 1/3 BCB, or 3/3 BCB?  Pale Horse is 20% reduction in stun / fear (as well as being just plain nice to have).  2 points in BCB is 20% chance to strike a 13% WD hit.  Does it even matter?

i figured blood, i always use that presence. someone tried to tell me that unholy was better ... i was kinda like, ahhh okay sure.

imo:
as for BCB or Pale Horse, i don't think either really matter. I figure BCB is next to useless since you lose 24% dmg (2/3) because you're going diseaseless however its more "dps" than pale horse (unless the boss stuns you ... idk any that do). i'd probably do BCB cuz its at least a bit more dps.

[necropoli]

Blood of course... the whole point is being able to use all of your runes and Death Coils in 10 seconds or less.

And Death Coil is a spell, so the 3% spell hit is basically for that.


Vicious strikes is pointless... you never use anything that it affects.  Anticipation is pretty much just the only remotely useful place to put two points.

I have specced back and forth on Toughness.  It's basically 5 points for nearly zero dps increase... 50-60 AP for nearly all of us.  However, it is the only way I ever get to boast about "over 5k AP" with my raid dropless gear.



Okie... Pale Horse and 1/3 BCB, or 3/3 BCB?  Pale Horse is 20% reduction in stun / fear (as well as being just plain nice to have).  2 points in BCB is 20% chance to strike a 13% WD hit.  Does it even matter?

Deathcoil being a spell.. good point.I cant believe i missed that myself 

oh i has one more quick question, what presence would u use?

As to presence i think on both EJ and here its generally accepted that blood is superior - however, i'm seeing an increasing amount of people who claim that unholy gives better results for them.I have yet to test it out myself due to sheer laziness ( got nothing much to do in wow anymore except 2-3 days of raid ) , just keep an open mind and test both out for yourself and you will know \

[Mog]

Nec... they do better in Unholy because their rune rotations are so long, with a 1.5 second GCD, they run out of time to get the runes off, much less use SD procs or RP.  They do get some benefit on run away, run back fights with the unholy speed boost.  However, a good portion of that is getting back faster to lay strikes before the diseases fade.


Diseaseless gets rid of all of that... we have plenty of time for runes and all the Death Coils we can get, and our DPS does not count down or have to ramp back up on movement or target change.

[necropoli]

Nec... they do better in Unholy because their rune rotations are so long, with a 1.5 second GCD, they run out of time to get the runes off, much less use SD procs or RP.  They do get some benefit on run away, run back fights with the unholy speed boost.  However, a good portion of that is getting back faster to lay strikes before the diseases fade.


Diseaseless gets rid of all of that... we have plenty of time for runes and all the Death Coils we can get, and our DPS does not count down or have to ramp back up on movement or target change.

Sorry am a bit lost.. is your first paragraph in regards to the 51/13/7 blood spec? got a bit confused because our second paragraph seems to imply that your first paragraph isnt commenting on 51/0/20.

-edit-
Oh... i reread for the third time and finally understood. I just woke up
-edit over -

And yes, i love that our dps does not ramp up and down - straight to the main course, so as to speak. I'm starting to get issues with aggro though, and this spec is starting to remind me of the old warlock 0/21/40 shadowbolt spam spec...

[Novaus]

(My apologies for the wall of text.  I try not to do it often, but when I do, I sincerely try to make it worth everyone's time)

Hello,

My name is Novaus, DK on Feathermoon.  Long time reader, since this site has opened, actually, shortly after Blizzcon announced the class.  I have continued to read this site since then.  I've also been keeping up on all the EJ threads for DK's and as many of the WoW forum DK threads as possible and occasionally glancing at other sites like wotlkwiki and ebon hold.

I have tried numerous specs, numerous rotations and invested a significant amount of resources and time trying out my setups not only on target dummies, but in raid environments as well.  I consider myself to be a good player, not because I have a superiority complex (well, not all the time), but because I objectively look at all of the information.  I know this is going to be TLDR, but I promise if you take the time to read it, you'll see information here that I have yet to see on EJ, or on any other forum, and I want to share my results.

First thing first.  When looking at parses like WWS and WMO, you have to take into consideration that the DPS of the DK's that you analyze not only scale with their gear, but with the gear of their raid.  Patchwerk, the lifelong community benchmark, is good for comparison, but look at the kill times for many of these 6k DPS DK's.  They're killing him in nearly 90 seconds.  Their DPS recorded is high because they're able to put out amazing burst DPS for 30-45 seconds and thus, they're not able to have the rest of their "normal DPS" time average out.  I've seen myself start on Patch at 7-7.5k DPS for the first 30 seconds and by the time it ends, it averages out to normal levels.  If nothing else changed in my rotation or my gear and my raid was able to kill Patch in 90 seconds, I could probably average out just over 6K and people would lavish praise upon me and swallow up every word I say and you'd have every DK on the planet trying to mimic what I do.

Secondly, I've played with everything from 2H to DW, on every spec listed.  Some I liked, some I didn't like.  Some did better than others.  Some were more difficult to execute than others.  Some had "gimmicks" that inflated my numbers on certain fights, but made me do horrible on others.  One thing I wanted personally, more than anything else, was consistancy.  I want to be able to do great damage on every single fight I participate in... not just do well on Patchwerk.  I want to be #1 on every fight, not #1 on one fight and #8 on another because the mechanics didn't conform to my specs and rotation.  Consistancy comes from simplicity.

Disease rotations can mess you up on fights where movement, add swapping, or anything else causes you to mess up your rotation.  Many of your strikes rely on your diseases to be up in order to get their damage bonuses.  If you have to stop fighting, or lose a precious second during movement and miss out an opportunity to blow through the next GCD on your rotation, your diseases don't wait for you.  For some builds, this is forgiving (Like frost, where you're hitting IT frequently), but in a blood build, this is absolutely not forgiving.  In Unholy, it was fine, because of the Glyph of SS, you were setup as a priority based attacks instead of a rotation.  But when switching targets, like when asked to burn down a slime on Grobbulus, or having to DPS on Gothik, or any of the countless fights where you need to move, swap targets, lose out on DPS time and your diseases tick away while you do nothing, you lose out.  Not to say that it's not possible to still be #1 with certain builds and gear levels, but I found myself continually hitting a wall in regards to my own raid.

Diseaseless was an idea I explored pre 3.0.8.  My numbers were more consistant, but my gear level at the time and the scaling gave me overall less damage than before.  My damage was consistant from fight to fight, able to swap targets and just hit away as if I had never did anything at all.  Post 3.0.8, however, my gear had improved significantly.  Changes to the Glyph of Obliterate made it do 20% damage overall, rather than just 20% additional weapon damage.  The Blood Strike Glyph (that works on Heart Strike as well) was reported to also work on bosses, even if immune to the slow, if it could remain applied, it was good enough for the glyph.

Pre 3.0.8, I fought for the #1 spot on many fights in my 25-man raid.  Some fights I did better than others on.  Upon hitting 3.0.8, I spec'd into 2H blood and gave up 2H Unholy.  I went with a 51/0/20 build.  The emphasis was on picking up STR talent multipliers and the additional white damage bonuses of Necrosis and BCB.  My build was setup to be able to try out the new Corpse Explosion, try a 51/0/20 Disease Rotation and to try a 51/0/20 Diseaseless rotation, all without sacrificing any critical damage talents in order to do so.

I tried the disease rotation versus diseaseless and immediately found out that no-diseases performed better on test dummies.  I came to all of these boards and saw how people were using 6, 8+ Heart Strikes and Capitalizing upon their Sudden Doom procs.  I tried in BP and UP.  It all felt very sloppy.  Runes were becoming active faster than I could spend, due to random SD procs.  In a raid environment, I felt like I was neglecting them, and even when focusing on them, I was neglecting my surroundings as much.  I was doing better, especially on AoE fights, but nothing much for improvement.  I was sitting at RP cap frequently, even in Unholy Presence.  When chewing through 4-6 Heart Strikes on "line 2 of the rotation", I saw that runes were sitting available faster than I could spend them, and I felt like I was dumping my RP just because that's what a good little DK should do, despite having runes active.  When I used OB to convert runes to Death Runes,  I sat there twiddling my thumbs because they were 2-rune abilities that I used.  I tried scattering the OB's.  To put one OB on line 1 and 1 OB on line 2, but it was difficult to manage, random and in the heat of fights, just didn't cut it for me.  I tried and the results weren't what I wanted.  I was better off staying 2H Unholy than to mess with this.

So, I decided to try something else.  I tried an approach I saw nowhere else.  I noticed that my damage went up when my Obliterates hit.  My obliterates hit so hard.  I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's a way to get more obliterates in and still compete".  So I invented a very simple rotation.  OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump.  There is no second line.  It's so simple to remember, so obvious and simple, yet capitalizes on more obliterates than any other spec out there.  In a 2-line rotation, most people would only get 2-3 Obliterates in.  This gets 4.  In other 2-line rotations, they are theoretically at 20 seconds, but due to latency, movement, RNG Sudden Doom procs, presences, etc., they ended up being 23 or 25 second rotations, meaning that your obliterates:time ratio was cut even shorter.

I've seen my obliterates crit on non-gimmick fights well into the 5-digits.  I've crit bosses for 12k.  Trash mobs for 13k.  The numbers are ridiculous.  Why not do that more often?  My heart strikes crit for 5k.  Even on a cleave, and even if both hits crit, it still doesn't compare to an Obliterate.  Not at my gear level.

So, I tried this out in 25-man Naxx.  OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump (Death Coil, if not saving it for DRW), repeat.

I fell in love with it immediately.  I had a minor quirk about quickly swapping targets while my abilities were on cooldown, but that was remedied by adding in the following to my HS and OB macros:

/startattack

Hooray or simplicity, right?  Swap targets immediately and get to work.  The STR multipliers from the Blood and Unholy builds, plus raid buffs put me over the top.  I was even starting to get threat issues when I'd hit something for 11k, and then white crit it for an additional 5k and then have BCB/Necrosis proc at the same time.  Sudden Doom procs were a bonus to me.  RP Dump was finally attainable and nothing felt sloppy anymore.

I went into 10-man Naxx.  I normally had one person on my tail, and another swapping #1 with me back and forth previously.  Now?  Nothing gets near me.  I have anywhere from 1-2k DPS advantages over my raid partners in 10-man Naxx.  The only exception being Gluth (I Kite) and Malygos (I manage the sparks).  Noth? nobody touched me.  Gothik?  lol.  But Patch?  How was I going to do on Patchwerk without diseases?  5250 DPS.  Second place was 4k DPS.  I was astounded.  I put a giant buffer over my teammates over previous weeks who used to be competitive.  Remember back to what I said about parses?  Remember what I said about quick kills not averaging out the damage?  Check my armory.  You'll see that we've never killed Patch in under 3 minutes.  Our average kill is 3:30-3:50.  I was certainly averaging out my damage.

So, I figure, 25-man buffs, 25-man Naxx, better results, right?  You're damn right.  I hit things like a mother f*%#ing truck.  Unfortunately, we had a mispull on Patchwerk... the one guy I wanted to test this on, one of our tanks dies, and I get one-shot.  I get another shot this Friday.  I'm hoping maybe I can provide you all with some numbers after that.

I've since then, gone into heroics.  Bosses were dying in under 1 minute, and using DRW + Hysteria + Empower Rune Weapon allowed me to pump out so much damage, that on boss fights, I was doing over 5K DPS (Example taken from last boss in Heroic Violet Hold).

In order to get appropriate results, I recommend the following gear levels:

200+ DPS Weapon
4pc T7 bonus (You have time to spend RP now)
Sigil of Awareness (obvious)
Hit(8%)/Expertise(26) capped (or as close as possible)
Proper gearing for STR, including gemming appropriate for STR (standard operating procedure for DK's, but some of them like those AP & Crit gems for some stupid reason)
Glyph of Obliterate/Blood Strike

Rotation again: OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump, repeat (normally DC.  If done appropriately, you should see 2-3 DC's each rotation depending upon SD procs).

If you get stuck in a situation where you've lost time on your rotation, sacrifice the death coils.  Even when critting they don't compete with Obliterates.

Use DRW/Hysteria at the same time.  Try to use them during bloodlust (if available).  After activating DRW, go with the OBx2, HSx2, then use Empower Rune Weapon and start OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump (Yes, you'll sit at RP cap, but death coils don't compare to your actual damage, get your DRW to get out more OB's... you'll thank me for it).

I'm a long time lurker of all of these message boards.  I have not contributed anything, but have tested feverishly and obsessively, trying to maximize my damage in real world environments (not just target dummies).  If you've taken the time to read this wall of text, I thank you.  I've converted a few DK's on my server from Unholy and Frost and DW variations to this, just to try it out (because they respect the numbers I put out).  They're all sold on it.  They've all seen remarkable boosts to their numbers and many of them report, even without appropriate gear levels, that they're doing much better, even with 186 DPS weapons or a lack of Sigil of Awareness, or a lack of the 4pcT7, they've noticed that their numbers have gone up significantly.  The other DK in our raid, who was misguided his entire time as a DK, went from nearly dead last in Naxx, to 2nd/3rd in our raid.  Anyone else who takes that leap and tries it, also fell in love with it.  The simplicity and the consistancy makes this setup work amazingly well in a "real world" environment.

I will try and get WWS/WMO of my attempt this Friday on Patch.  Assuming all goes well, I will report back here with my results.  Since then, I've gotten my Darkmoon trinket as well as a new piece of T7.25.

[necropoli]

(My apologies for the wall of text.  I try not to do it often, but when I do, I sincerely try to make it worth everyone's time)

Hello,

My name is Novaus, DK on Feathermoon.  Long time reader, since this site has opened, actually, shortly after Blizzcon announced the class.  I have continued to read this site since then.  I've also been keeping up on all the EJ threads for DK's and as many of the WoW forum DK threads as possible and occasionally glancing at other sites like wotlkwiki and ebon hold.

I have tried numerous specs, numerous rotations and invested a significant amount of resources and time trying out my setups not only on target dummies, but in raid environments as well.  I consider myself to be a good player, not because I have a superiority complex (well, not all the time), but because I objectively look at all of the information.  I know this is going to be TLDR, but I promise if you take the time to read it, you'll see information here that I have yet to see on EJ, or on any other forum, and I want to share my results.

First thing first.  When looking at parses like WWS and WMO, you have to take into consideration that the DPS of the DK's that you analyze not only scale with their gear, but with the gear of their raid.  Patchwerk, the lifelong community benchmark, is good for comparison, but look at the kill times for many of these 6k DPS DK's.  They're killing him in nearly 90 seconds.  Their DPS recorded is high because they're able to put out amazing burst DPS for 30-45 seconds and thus, they're not able to have the rest of their "normal DPS" time average out.  I've seen myself start on Patch at 7-7.5k DPS for the first 30 seconds and by the time it ends, it averages out to normal levels.  If nothing else changed in my rotation or my gear and my raid was able to kill Patch in 90 seconds, I could probably average out just over 6K and people would lavish praise upon me and swallow up every word I say and you'd have every DK on the planet trying to mimic what I do.

Secondly, I've played with everything from 2H to DW, on every spec listed.  Some I liked, some I didn't like.  Some did better than others.  Some were more difficult to execute than others.  Some had "gimmicks" that inflated my numbers on certain fights, but made me do horrible on others.  One thing I wanted personally, more than anything else, was consistancy.  I want to be able to do great damage on every single fight I participate in... not just do well on Patchwerk.  I want to be #1 on every fight, not #1 on one fight and #8 on another because the mechanics didn't conform to my specs and rotation.  Consistancy comes from simplicity.

Disease rotations can mess you up on fights where movement, add swapping, or anything else causes you to mess up your rotation.  Many of your strikes rely on your diseases to be up in order to get their damage bonuses.  If you have to stop fighting, or lose a precious second during movement and miss out an opportunity to blow through the next GCD on your rotation, your diseases don't wait for you.  For some builds, this is forgiving (Like frost, where you're hitting IT frequently), but in a blood build, this is absolutely not forgiving.  In Unholy, it was fine, because of the Glyph of SS, you were setup as a priority based attacks instead of a rotation.  But when switching targets, like when asked to burn down a slime on Grobbulus, or having to DPS on Gothik, or any of the countless fights where you need to move, swap targets, lose out on DPS time and your diseases tick away while you do nothing, you lose out.  Not to say that it's not possible to still be #1 with certain builds and gear levels, but I found myself continually hitting a wall in regards to my own raid.

Diseaseless was an idea I explored pre 3.0.8.  My numbers were more consistant, but my gear level at the time and the scaling gave me overall less damage than before.  My damage was consistant from fight to fight, able to swap targets and just hit away as if I had never did anything at all.  Post 3.0.8, however, my gear had improved significantly.  Changes to the Glyph of Obliterate made it do 20% damage overall, rather than just 20% additional weapon damage.  The Blood Strike Glyph (that works on Heart Strike as well) was reported to also work on bosses, even if immune to the slow, if it could remain applied, it was good enough for the glyph.

Pre 3.0.8, I fought for the #1 spot on many fights in my 25-man raid.  Some fights I did better than others on.  Upon hitting 3.0.8, I spec'd into 2H blood and gave up 2H Unholy.  I went with a 51/0/20 build.  The emphasis was on picking up STR talent multipliers and the additional white damage bonuses of Necrosis and BCB.  My build was setup to be able to try out the new Corpse Explosion, try a 51/0/20 Disease Rotation and to try a 51/0/20 Diseaseless rotation, all without sacrificing any critical damage talents in order to do so.

I tried the disease rotation versus diseaseless and immediately found out that no-diseases performed better on test dummies.  I came to all of these boards and saw how people were using 6, 8+ Heart Strikes and Capitalizing upon their Sudden Doom procs.  I tried in BP and UP.  It all felt very sloppy.  Runes were becoming active faster than I could spend, due to random SD procs.  In a raid environment, I felt like I was neglecting them, and even when focusing on them, I was neglecting my surroundings as much.  I was doing better, especially on AoE fights, but nothing much for improvement.  I was sitting at RP cap frequently, even in Unholy Presence.  When chewing through 4-6 Heart Strikes on "line 2 of the rotation", I saw that runes were sitting available faster than I could spend them, and I felt like I was dumping my RP just because that's what a good little DK should do, despite having runes active.  When I used OB to convert runes to Death Runes,  I sat there twiddling my thumbs because they were 2-rune abilities that I used.  I tried scattering the OB's.  To put one OB on line 1 and 1 OB on line 2, but it was difficult to manage, random and in the heat of fights, just didn't cut it for me.  I tried and the results weren't what I wanted.  I was better off staying 2H Unholy than to mess with this.

So, I decided to try something else.  I tried an approach I saw nowhere else.  I noticed that my damage went up when my Obliterates hit.  My obliterates hit so hard.  I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's a way to get more obliterates in and still compete".  So I invented a very simple rotation.  OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump.  There is no second line.  It's so simple to remember, so obvious and simple, yet capitalizes on more obliterates than any other spec out there.  In a 2-line rotation, most people would only get 2-3 Obliterates in.  This gets 4.  In other 2-line rotations, they are theoretically at 20 seconds, but due to latency, movement, RNG Sudden Doom procs, presences, etc., they ended up being 23 or 25 second rotations, meaning that your obliterates:time ratio was cut even shorter.

I've seen my obliterates crit on non-gimmick fights well into the 5-digits.  I've crit bosses for 12k.  Trash mobs for 13k.  The numbers are ridiculous.  Why not do that more often?  My heart strikes crit for 5k.  Even on a cleave, and even if both hits crit, it still doesn't compare to an Obliterate.  Not at my gear level.

So, I tried this out in 25-man Naxx.  OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump (Death Coil, if not saving it for DRW), repeat.

I fell in love with it immediately.  I had a minor quirk about quickly swapping targets while my abilities were on cooldown, but that was remedied by adding in the following to my HS and OB macros:

/startattack

Hooray or simplicity, right?  Swap targets immediately and get to work.  The STR multipliers from the Blood and Unholy builds, plus raid buffs put me over the top.  I was even starting to get threat issues when I'd hit something for 11k, and then white crit it for an additional 5k and then have BCB/Necrosis proc at the same time.  Sudden Doom procs were a bonus to me.  RP Dump was finally attainable and nothing felt sloppy anymore.

I went into 10-man Naxx.  I normally had one person on my tail, and another swapping #1 with me back and forth previously.  Now?  Nothing gets near me.  I have anywhere from 1-2k DPS advantages over my raid partners in 10-man Naxx.  The only exception being Gluth (I Kite) and Malygos (I manage the sparks).  Noth? nobody touched me.  Gothik?  lol.  But Patch?  How was I going to do on Patchwerk without diseases?  5250 DPS.  Second place was 4k DPS.  I was astounded.  I put a giant buffer over my teammates over previous weeks who used to be competitive.  Remember back to what I said about parses?  Remember what I said about quick kills not averaging out the damage?  Check my armory.  You'll see that we've never killed Patch in under 3 minutes.  Our average kill is 3:30-3:50.  I was certainly averaging out my damage.

So, I figure, 25-man buffs, 25-man Naxx, better results, right?  You're damn right.  I hit things like a mother f*%#ing truck.  Unfortunately, we had a mispull on Patchwerk... the one guy I wanted to test this on, one of our tanks dies, and I get one-shot.  I get another shot this Friday.  I'm hoping maybe I can provide you all with some numbers after that.

I've since then, gone into heroics.  Bosses were dying in under 1 minute, and using DRW + Hysteria + Empower Rune Weapon allowed me to pump out so much damage, that on boss fights, I was doing over 5K DPS (Example taken from last boss in Heroic Violet Hold).

In order to get appropriate results, I recommend the following gear levels:

200+ DPS Weapon
4pc T7 bonus (You have time to spend RP now)
Sigil of Awareness (obvious)
Hit(8%)/Expertise(26) capped (or as close as possible)
Proper gearing for STR, including gemming appropriate for STR (standard operating procedure for DK's, but some of them like those AP & Crit gems for some stupid reason)
Glyph of Obliterate/Blood Strike

Rotation again: OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump, repeat (normally DC.  If done appropriately, you should see 2-3 DC's each rotation depending upon SD procs).

If you get stuck in a situation where you've lost time on your rotation, sacrifice the death coils.  Even when critting they don't compete with Obliterates.

Use DRW/Hysteria at the same time.  Try to use them during bloodlust (if available).  After activating DRW, go with the OBx2, HSx2, then use Empower Rune Weapon and start OBx2, HSx2, RP Dump (Yes, you'll sit at RP cap, but death coils don't compare to your actual damage, get your DRW to get out more OB's... you'll thank me for it).

I'm a long time lurker of all of these message boards.  I have not contributed anything, but have tested feverishly and obsessively, trying to maximize my damage in real world environments (not just target dummies).  If you've taken the time to read this wall of text, I thank you.  I've converted a few DK's on my server from Unholy and Frost and DW variations to this, just to try it out (because they respect the numbers I put out).  They're all sold on it.  They've all seen remarkable boosts to their numbers and many of them report, even without appropriate gear levels, that they're doing much better, even with 186 DPS weapons or a lack of Sigil of Awareness, or a lack of the 4pcT7, they've noticed that their numbers have gone up significantly.  The other DK in our raid, who was misguided his entire time as a DK, went from nearly dead last in Naxx, to 2nd/3rd in our raid.  Anyone else who takes that leap and tries it, also fell in love with it.  The simplicity and the consistancy makes this setup work amazingly well in a "real world" environment.

I will try and get WWS/WMO of my attempt this Friday on Patch.  Assuming all goes well, I will report back here with my results.  Since then, I've gotten my Darkmoon trinket as well as a new piece of T7.25.

Am looking forward to your WWS - as a matter of fact my dk career path has been the same as yours.( DPS wise)

However, i'm also mostly tanking and only get to DPS mainly on fights where a 3rd OT is not needed, like thadd, sapph, or when there is enough tanks and so arnt really able to get a good test in on patchwork.

However, as also noted by you earlier, with proper use of DRW and hysteria and ghoul and all that, DPS tends to be really bursty early on at about 7000+ dps but steadily drops after DRW ends. In other words, its not sustainable. Do you feel that the degree which this behavior occurs is to a lesser degree in a disease-less rotation or one with disease?

Good post overall, though really long

[Mog]

/jealous

I could totally do crazy damage if I could get some gear.

[Novaus]

I can only compare my damage vs. my raid's damage.  You're right in that I cap out at 7k+ DPS at the start, but I taper off and at the end of the fight, I sit at 5200 (on 10-man, with less buffs).  Our parses are longer, so I imagine I could probably taper out at 6k or so in some of these top world guilds.

In comparison to other classes and even some of the same classes in my own raid, a few get close, but none pass me.  I figure, my gear, being relative to the gear levels of other players in my raid, I'm doing better off than they are.

I'll make sure to record a combat log.

[Weniis]

I can only compare my damage vs. my raid's damage.  You're right in that I cap out at 7k+ DPS at the start, but I taper off and at the end of the fight, I sit at 5200 (on 10-man, with less buffs).  Our parses are longer, so I imagine I could probably taper out at 6k or so in some of these top world guilds.

In comparison to other classes and even some of the same classes in my own raid, a few get close, but none pass me.  I figure, my gear, being relative to the gear levels of other players in my raid, I'm doing better off than they are.

I'll make sure to record a combat log.

i loved your post and i thank you for it.
i look forward to testing this out along with the "dieseaseless" and "disease" specc's of blood.
high numbers is something i crave, hence why i started researching blood. maybe i'll get to compete now instead of be 8th on dps ... *mumbles stupid moving fights*

[Macuill]

Ok, first of all. Thank you all for contributing here. I'm just trying out 51/0/20 and it looks very promising.
But overall I am actually not very sure about the equip for this spec.

For example:
Assuming you're hitcapped and expertise capped and SDK buffed.

Wouldn't be http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37397
nearly be equal to http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40065.

I mean the only benefit you have from Fools Trial is a bit less AP and a bit more crit or?

And what about
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42645

How does Armorpen fits into the picture when using a build thats highly physical dmg oriented.

I think the usual "DK Best in Slot Gear" isn't fully working out here.


Thoughts about that are appreciated

Cheers
Mac