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We haven’t heard anything new on DK Duel-Wielding in recent days. I was hoping The Blizz would get on that, but there hasn’t been anything new since the last slice of news. I imagine that said changes will require some talent changes. I don’t think this is something that Blizzard will be wanting to do outside of a large patch like 3.2, so I regret that for the moment we’re all stuck.

 

I’ve tried both Unholy and Blood in Ulduar. While I originally duel-specced into both of those so that I could change my spec situationally (Unholy for AoE), I changed my duel-spec to Blood-DPS\Frost-Tanking. After trying Unholy, I just didn’t like the rotation. Always watching my disease timers, and the variable priority rotation killed the fun for me. It’s hard to enjoy Ulduar when you’re monotonously watching your debuff filter trying to preplan your next few attacks.

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Wow, looks like DKT is back up and running. Apologies to those of you who were trying to view the site and had problems this week; I host this site myself and unfortunately I had some issues with one of my hardware firewall appliance boxes that does my firewalling stuff. I’m really trying to make it sarcastically obvious that I know nothing about IT. If you’re reading this, I must have figured it out.

 

We have some news today about 3.1.2. We got some good news, and some “meh” news, and some bad news. For those of you who use cross-role specs in raids, Equipment Manager, the official Blizzard answer to “Outfitter” will be released in this patch. If you remember, it was supposed to be in 3.1, but got delayed because The Blizz ran out of time. I think this will be a good asset to people who both tank and dps in raids. This is another example of Blizzard gobbling up the functionality of a widely used community add-on with an in-house variant. I just hope it’s a little more pro than the blizzard threat meter.

 

The patch will also bring a number of talent and ability changes. The Improved Death Strike talent from deep blood now increases healing done by Death Strike by 25%/50% in addition to the damage increase. I’m a fan of blood and am happy to see it get a little more love. Since 3.1, it’s become a much more dominant raid spec. Following the beta, I had predicted that Blood would be the talent spec of choice because it is melee centric. I was surprised to see Unholy come out in front, and kinda stay that way until now. I criticize Blizzard’s handling of the Duel-Wield situation, but in the case of Blood, they’ve really done a great job of balancing it against Unholy and allowing it to be pretty much just as popular as a raid spec.

 

Secondly, Ghoul Frenzy now has a 10-second cooldown, as opposed to no cooldown. It got nerfed because people were exploiting Ghoul Frenzy by spamming it to generate burst RP. This problems contains two things Blizzard seems to hate, 1. Spamming things, and 2. Burst Damage, so a nerf is expected.

 

vWe’ve saved probably the biggest smack of the nerf bat for last. Buried at the bottom of the list under the items section is this gem of a change: “Scourgeborne Battlegear 4-Piece Set Bonus: The runic power gain has been reduced to 5 runic power from 10 runic power.”. This is the thing that made our T7.5 armor so good, as well as eliminated the need for extra talents or glyphs that help generate extra RP. The set bonus allowed an extra 10 RP when using Obliterate, Scourge Strike, or Death Strike (The basic two-rune attack of each spec).

 

I usually bring up this set bonus a lot in discussion about RP-Starvation. This is a state where you can’t generate enough RP during your rotation for the extra two Death Coil’s at the end of the rotation. I’ve seen this most often with under geared unholy DK’s. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten a lot of email comments on this problem. It’s not cool to see this reduced. Those of us still in our old Naxx gear will probably see some dps loss. The reason for this change, I feel, is that the DK Community (and bloggers) felt that T7.5 w/ the set bonus was superior to the T8.5 gear. Blizzard nerfed our bonus to encourage us to upgrade to Ulduar gear.

 

Thanks for reading my expert commentary. If you have some comments, drop me an email at questions@deathknighttactics.com; Xeeon Out!

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Home >> Guild Management

I’ve been thinking a lot about raiding lately and wanted to share some of my thoughts about the state of raiding in WoW. I’ve been a guild leader or officer for pretty much all of Wow 1.0 – 3.1. I’ve never been the hardest of the hardcore; but I’ve managed to find a good balance between hardcore and casual. I consider myself as neither.

 

Leading a guild has changed drastically between each expansion. In Wow 1.0, guilds were substantially larger and there were less of them to go around. At that time, recruits were plenty. Many people were just making their first steps from a “friend guild” to a real raiding guild.

 

My guild started out as a friend guild, but grew into a raiding guild as we all hit 70 and got bored with the 5-man dungeon content. At that time, Zul’Gurub had first been released. So we worked our way as a 20-Man raiding guild until we had enough for a 40-Man to attempt Molten Core.

 

Back in those days, choosing who got tier items and choosing who gets the fire resist and who’s main tank meant a lot more than it does now. Resistance was key is a lot of places, where today it’s really just a joke. There was tons of resistance gear in the professions for BC, but it was all pretty much worthless filler junk. Did any of you really use the Aldor and Scryer resist gear? If you did, you were stupid; especially if you dropped epics for them. As a tank, I maybe jokingly tried the arcane resist gear when we were stuck on Curator, but I never used it again.

 

I miss the synergy involved in planning a raid and planning groups. You had to plan who goes into what group, and make sure groups had healers (we didn’t’ know about raid frames back then, healing across groups was totally taboo). Organize classes according to buffs, work out your 5 minute pally buffs. Organize your DKP. I wrote a super cool website application to manage our “home-brewed” DKP system. It was a very different experience from WotLK or even BC.

 

The work and game knowledge required to do a lot of that is gone from the game, but managing a guild still has its headaches. The guild is made up of two types of people. Those who are in it for the guild, and those who are in it for the loot. I’d imagine that a given guild would be about 50/50. When the raiding gets tough and the guild wipes, it makes the first type stronger; but it makes the second type start to question their loyalties or question their ties to the guild.

 

Fast forward to WotLK; Naxxramas has often been quoted as the best dungeon Blizzard has ever made. The first version was intense and immensely difficult. For Wrath, they diluted it and repacked it as the first entry-level raid dungeon. Like clipping off a viper’s fangs, Naxxramas was now a much easier instance to complete. I’d say that Heroic Naxxramas really wasn’t all that much more difficult than the Normal version.

 

I really think that this has hurt Wow, since it was such an easy dungeon, even PuG’s can succeed. It’s bred a raiding atmosphere where instead of a few big successful guilds and a large recruiting pool; everyone thinks they can be a competent raid leader. Many guilds that have seen success in Naxx, couldn’t have held their own in the original version or in Ahn’Qiraj. I think this is a worrying trend because the guilds that are actually progressing into Ulduar are stuck with a dwindling recruiting pool because a lot of people are content to be in these guilds that will probably not be able to succeed past Naxxramas.

 

Another situation is that your guild will encounter something that mine did. When we started to wipe in early Ulduar, some of these people who were tied more to the loot than the guild thought that they could do it better. They split off and convinced seven or eight people to join them. None of these split-off guilds have ever really been able to match our former raiding progression, yet they still think they can do it.

 

I question their motives. If their rationalization for leaving the guild and betraying us by pulling members away with them; I can’t believe they’re qualified to run an honorable guild.

 

I’m in it for my guild. I wouldn’t spend so much time organizing events and recruiting if I wasn’t in it for the right reasons. I feel bad that a little wipage causes members to rethink their membership. I kinda think that they either weren’t a part of or don’t remember Molten Core and Black Wing Lair, and that the current raid dungeons like Naxxramas have made people think that the guild can learn entire fights in one sitting. To those people, I say Grow Up! If you want the gear, if you want to raid, you need to pay your dues and learn the content.

 

Have you had similar guild situations like mine? I’d love to hear about them. Send me a comment at questions@deathknighttactics.com.

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Best in Slot is a coined term that represents the best possible item for that slot for your particular class and spec at the present time. A lot of people seem to throw this term around. You’ve probably heard this in relation to Betrayer of Humanity. This weapon was the “Best in Slot” two-hander for most melee classes in Wow 3.0.

 

I wanted to go a little into detail on how we determine what a Best in Slot item is. The first concept to understand is Stat Weight. Each stat is boiled down to what benefit they give to you, a distilled number is assigned to that stat. Many times, attack power is used as a base of reference. A good example is the AP vs. Strength discussion. For us, 1 Strength gives you 2 Attack Power. However Strength does more for you than just provide attack power. So if AP were to equal 1, then your initial thought would be that Strength would equal 2. This is not exactly the case, because there are other conditions and talents that affect the value of Strength. So, for say Unholy, Strength is actually weighted as 2.97, not just 2.

 

Hit and Expertise are exceptions to the weight rule. Both stats only help you up to a certain amount. Once they reach this number, they’re pretty much worthless. This is commonly referred to as a “cap”. You will hear people throwing around terms like “hit capped” and “expertise capped”. In the case of hit, as a melee dps’er, you start with an 8% chance to not hit. Many people refer to having 8% or263 hit rating as being “hit capped”. Once you reach 263 hit rating, hit is pretty much worthless to you as a dps increase (also notice that as of WoTLK, the hit cap is 8% not 9%).

 

Expertise pretty much functions the same way. The expertise number you see on your character sheet is Expertise Skill. If you mouse over it, it will reveal your expertise rating. 8.2 expertise rating is equivalent to 1 expertise skill. To be expertise capped, you need 26 expertise skill (or 214 expertise rating).

 

Once you reach 263 Hit Rating and 214 Expertise Rating, these values are worthless to you for increasing dps. Say, your hit capped, and you get Stormedge, it won’t benefit you as much as someone who is hit capped. It does however allow you to drop hit on other items; for instance maybe you can swap out your Grim Toll for something like Fury of the Five Flights (I’m in pretty much full T7.5, I’m at like 10% hit, I really don’t need any more of it).

 

Now that we’ve talked about hit and expertise, we can present the stats. The awesome dudes over at Elitist Jerks have this stuff all figured out. Here they are (keep in mind, these are difference based on spec, and they’re listed in order of importance):

 

Unholy

Stat	Weight
Melee DPS	6.20
Strength	2.97
Hit Rating	1.97
Expertise Rating	1.51
Haste Rating	1.42
Critical Strike Rating	1.35
Attack Power	1.00
Armor Penetration Rating	0.94
Agility	0.93
Armor	0.03

 

Blood

Stat	Weight
Melee DPS	9.89
Strength	2.89
Armor Penetration Rating	1.75
Hit Rating	2.51
Expertise Rating	2.47
Critical Strike Rating	1.56
Haste Rating	1.5
Agility	1.37
Attack Power	1.00
Armor	0.03

 

Frost

Stat	Weight
Melee DPS	9.49
Hit Rating	2.82
Strength	2.73
Expertise Rating	2.29
Armor Penetration Rating	1.71
Critical Strike Rating	1.26
Attack Power	1.00
Agility	0.93
Haste Rating	0.79
Armor	0.03

 

Now, let’s apply these numbers to some actual items. We’re going to use Blood spec and compare Voldrethar, Black Blade of Oblivion and Earthshaper.

 

Voldrethar, Black Blade of Oblivion
Stat	Weight		On Item	Total
Melee DPS	9.89	*	244.7	2420.16
Strength	2.89	*	112+32(gem)	416.16
Armor Pen	2.75	*	70	192.50
Crit Strike	1.56	*	85	132.60
Total				3161.34

 

Earthshaper
Stat	Weight		On Item	Total
Melee DPS	9.89	*	232.6	2300.41
Strength	2.89	*	129	372.81
Hit	2.51	*	66	165.66
Crit Strike	1.56	*	81	126.36
Total				2965.24

 

As you can see, Voldrethar scores 3161.34, while Earthshaper scores 2965.24. Keep in mind, that if you are hit capped, you lose the dps contributed by hit, so Earthshaper scores closer to 2799.58. Voldrethar is obviously the better weapon for us, in either spec. It is what we would call Best in Slot, and now you are empowered to understand why we call it that. For your enjoyment, here is the stat weight comparisons for all the two-handers in Ulduar:

 

Unholy 25-Man
Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion	2125.37
Wood Carver	1947.79
Earthshaper	1934.6
Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned	1905.75
Rune Edge	1895.93

 

Blood 25-Man
Voldrethar, Dark blade of Oblivion	3161.34
Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned	2979.54
Rune Edge	2951.85
Wood Carver	2800.35
Earthshaper	2799.58

 

Unholy 10-Man
Aesir's Edge	1972.25
Ironsoul	1800.22
Relentless Edge	1778.73
Abaddon	1701.90
Stormedge	1700.64
Hoperender	1673.68

 

Blood 10-Man
Aesir's Edge	2908.08
Ironsoul	2741.73
Hoperender	2643.60
Abaddon	2613.99
Relentless Edge	2611.26
Stormedge	2609.48

 

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I’m still really unhappy with what happened to my guild last week. We ended up having to bench our Ulduar 10 raid for this week due to lack of healers … which is sad, but its my Dad’s birthday this weekend as well as Mother’s Day. My son’s getting to the age where he can actually understand what Mother’s Day means, so it’s going to be a bigger deal this year.

 

Oh, you wanted to know about Ulduar? We’ve made it up to Hodir in the 10-man. We’re stuck right now due to attendance and time constraints. As I said I would, I went through the first four bosses using Unholy instead of Blood. I’m pleased to say that it was a good success. I posted some meters last week for Deconstructor. I managed to hit about 4.2k dps. This week, as Unholy, I was hitting 4.4k dps. Keep in mind that 1. I still had some add duty, which lowered my overall dps because I had to move, and 2. I’m still getting the hang of the Unholy ability rotation.

 

The new unholy “rotation” isn’t so much a rotation as it is a priority system, which is quite different than previous rotations detailed here on my page. The official rotation is this:

 

 

Rotation 1:      Dump ( -> )
Rotation 2:    Dump ()

 

This new system follows these basic rules:

1. If at any time your diseases are about to fall, substitute   for the next
2. Use when it gets close to falling off
3. If your close to topping off your RP, use so as not to waste RP

 

What really makes this system possible is the retooled Glyph of Scourge Strike, which basically gives a chance on each SS to refresh your diseases. This gives you the possibility of not needing to use IT>PS to refresh your diseases pretty much ever when your in the middle of your rotation. Since SS is way more dps than IT PS, this is a big DPS gain for us. For non-crits, your IT>PS is going to be about 3k, while a SS is going to be about 5k damage.

 

As a side note, I’d like to mention that even though I was lusting after Dragonsteel Faceplate, it totally didn’t drop. I did get to rot block a consolation price. I got Razorscale’s Talon. There weren’t any rogues in the raid, so I got first pick. I mention this because it reminds me of that post a while back about Blizzard thinking about making Frost the “Dual-Wield Tree”. I’ve been running as either Unholy or Blood for Uldaur so far, I have to say that I miss me some dual wielding. As some other DK blogs may have pointed out, we play how we like to, even though maybe it’s not the best dps; or perhaps a really good Frost or dual wielding dk may out dps a mediocre Unholy DK.

 

All’s I want to say is that I kinda miss DW. While the thought of essentially Dual-wielding two roman gladius rip-offs isn’t exactly top on my list, I really think that blizzard should seriously consider some modifications for 3.2 (They’ve hinted as always that DK needs more adjustment than most classes due to it being the newest class and all).

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