Heya guys!!  Today it’s time to talk about not only Summon Gargoyle, but minions as well.

What are minions?

Minions are any kind of temporary pet cast by yourself that do not, by definition, have a permanent duration:

• Summon Gargoyle
• Raise Dead (without Master of Ghouls)
• Army of the Dead
• Dancing Rune Weapon

Buffing Minions

You can’t do it.  End of story.

So why are buffs important you ask?  Good question!

Minions base stats are determined at the time when you summon them.  These stats are modified by your current stats at the time of cast.

So that means that if you cast a minion spell when you have no buffs up the minion will do less damage.  Whereas if you have buffs up, the minion will do significantly more damage.

Which Buffs Matter?

Just ones that affect your Attack Power and Haste.  That’s it.

Ideally you wait until you have Heroism and several proc’d buffs up from your gear before casting any minion.  Doing this will make a significant increase in your total dps.

So that’s it?

Yeah.  Pretty basic when you get down to it.

1. Minions stats are set in stone the moment they are cast.
2. Your current AP and Haste modify their stats.
3. Try to time Minion CD’s to coincide with maximum buffs always.

You should have a reliable method for tracking your buffs at all times.  See my addon category for mods relating to that.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Things you didn't know about WoW

Heya guys!!  So some people are not so hot at online research or finding WoW related information on the internet.  So here’s a quick and dirty list of some good sites to check out.

MMO Champion

• General WoW site with tons of useful information, including up to date news on WoW.

World of Raids

• General WoW site with tons of useful information, including up to date news on WoW.

Tank Spot

• Weekly video blog and raid boss guides with videos set this site above the bar.  The forums are not shabby either.

Elitist Jerks Forums

• The largest compilation of top end players in one spot posting about WoW.

WoW Head

• Invaluable resource for in game information.  The player comments can be amazingly helpful sometimes.

Guild Ox

• Has an amazing aspect called Loot Rank where you can plug in APE weights for loot ranking.
• Has imo the best ranking system for WoW Raid Progression as well.

Curse

• My personal favorite for downloading mods.
• I do however download the following from their direct sites:  DBM, Auctioneer, and CT

WoW Interface

• My 2nd choice for downloading mods.  Still a damn good site.

WoW Matcher

• Heard about this site from Tank Spot.  It’s not popular enough yet to be amazingly useful, but it’s actually a *damn* good website if you ask me.

Battle Net

• Sadly most people do not know the URL for BNet.  And they should.
• It is http://us.battle.net

WoW.com

• Uhm…mixed bag here…  I’ve never once been impressed by the DK posts there, or a lot of the ones there for that matter.
• However there are gems mixed in with the bad.  I’ve read some damn good stuff on this site before.

Arena Junkies

• If you are in to PvP at all, this is your one stop shop.

WoW Wiki

• As with all wikis, sometimes the info is outdated or just plain wrong.  However they sometimes have information I’ve been unable to find anywhere else.

WTF is my GS?

• Need to know a GS quick?  See below if your server uses the different GS ranking.

WoW Heroes

• Need to know a GS quick?  See above if your server uses the different GS ranking.

World of Logs

• The best combat log site on the net if you ask me.

WoW Cataclysm Beta Forums

• CATA Beta Forums pre-release.

Skeleton Jack

• BEST WEBSITE EVAR!!!!! 

So I think that is everything.  I’m sure there are other good sites out there.  But these are pretty much your “go to” sites for day to day operations.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Questions, Things you didn't know about WoW, Website

Heya guys!!  Yes.  You know you love “The Hass”!!  o.O

Now that I’ve made you suffer through that, *sadistic grin* lets get down to something you guys probably will love to have.  APE (Attack Power Equivalency) weights and Pawn scales for Frost and Unholy DPS!!

Please note that these scales do not include the 2 piece or 4 set bonuses.

Also these scales assume that you are looking for “ideal gear” in the 260-270+ ilvl range.  This is basically a “Best in Slot” APE weighting.

Frost

Loot Rank Frost without Melee Hit Cap

Loot Rank Frost with Melee Hit Cap

Enchants, Trinkets, and Weapons

It is important to note that this site (and APE scales in general) will not always properly reflect the best choices for enchants, trinkets, and weapons.  Please do not rely upon these scales for those three categories.  While some results are accurate, others can be wildly off.

Pawn Mod Frost Scale

( Pawn: v1: "Frost": ArmorPenetration=3.08, CritRating=2.12, Dps=7.12, Strength=2.83, HitRating=2.23, Agility=1.67, HasteRating=2.15, ExpertiseRating=2.08, Speed=394.23, Ap=1, GemQualityLevel=81 )

Please note that due to weird HTML hatred, some symbols do not copy properly.  I placed this into a <code> format and that should fix the issue.

You can download Pawn at Curse.  Pawn will auto load some weight scales at the start.  Just turn them off.  I did.

Frost T10 Set Bonuses

T10 2 piece:  400 APE

T10 4 piece:  380 APE

Frost Spec

Cookie Cutter Frost:  1/52/18

• The currently held “best” spec by popular opinion.

SJ’s Frost:  0/53/18

• More dps than the cookie cutter version, but also generates more TPS.

SJ’s Frost Slow Spec (H LK):  0/55/16

• Loses 500-2000 dps in P1 of H LK, but once the first transition begins it only loses about 300 dps tops.

Unholy

Loot Rank Unholy without Melee Hit Cap

Loot Rank Unholy with Melee Hit Cap

Enchants, Trinkets, and Weapons

It is important to note that this site (and APE scales in general) will not always properly reflect the best choices for enchants, trinkets, and weapons.  Please do not rely upon these scales for those three categories.  While some results are accurate, others can be wildly off.

Pawn Mod Unholy Scale

( Pawn: v1: "Unholy": ArmorPenetration=2.58, CritRating=2, Dps=7.04, Strength=3.1, Agility=1.35, ExpertiseRating=1.52, Speed=32.39, HasteRating=2.87, HitRating=0.58, Ap=1, GemQualityLevel=81 )

Please note that due to weird HTML hatred, some symbols do not copy properly.  I placed this into a <code> format and that should fix the issue.

You can download Pawn at Curse.  Pawn will auto load some weight scales at the start.  Just turn them off.  I did.

Unholy T10 Set Bonuses

T10 2 piece:  230 APE

T10 4 piece:  410 APE

Unholy Spec

Cookie Cutter Unholy:  0/17/54

• The currently held “best” spec by popular opinion.

SJ’s Unholy:  0/17/54

• Loses 200 dps tops (maybe less) to gain Death Runes.

SJ’s Unholy Slow Spec (H LK):  0/17/54

• Loses 400 dps and gains 15% movement.

Questions?

Post a comment or e-mail me:

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Questions, Specs

Heya guys!!

I sat down and I regemmed to Strength for red/blue sockets and Strength/Hit for yellow sockets with good bonuses.  The hit is mostly due to Frost still being my “primary” raid spec, but I’m tired of being nerfed when I need to respec Unholy.

I also have 3 pieces of gear I swap in/out now when changing specs due to weird hit/expertise changes/needs.

Why?  Our Unholy DK sits sometimes, or misses sometimes…  So my dps is nerfed without him there and I don’t see a need to stay Frost when we have an Enhancement Shaman in raid, but no Unholy DK…

Also, with H LK being our primary focus now (we can clear 11/12 in one evening), I plan on bringing Desecration to the table when we need it.  Possibly full time for that encounter.  I’m not happy with Frost for H LK.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with the change.  Yes it does hurt my Frost DPS some.  But I’m willing to take that hit for the versatility of being able to swap to Unholy any time I need to without suffering a much harder hit.

Should you do this?  No idea.  I swapped gems twice now (like 20+ gems down the drain) and this is what I’ve found to suit me the best.  YMMV.

With the 25% buff in place, and full raid buffs/debuffs, I pulled 14.9 k effective dps on DBS (15.1 k dps).  So while it’s not “top ranked”, it’s still solid.  Plus I keep getting passed over on loot, so my gear is still not on par with a lot of the top ranked DK’s.

In time we will see if this has a larger impact that I don’t foresee.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Raids

Heya guys!!  If you didn’t read both of the posts below, then uhm…you suck!!!  Scroll down damnit!!  For the super lazy, click these links:

• Heroic Lich King for Death Knights
• Heroic Lich King Part II

Due to the reaction from the reader base and the relevancy of this encounter I’ve made Heroic Lich King a multi-post topic.  This means you actually have to read all of the threads to follow the entire conversation.  *smirk*

Frost Slow Spec at H LK

I’m a big fan of the mantra “Don’t knock it till you try it.”  So, I tried a Frost Slow spec last night at H LK.

First Slow Frost Spec Trial: 0/55/16

You get 4 free points to move around as you see fit as Frost.  I dropped 3 into Chilblains and then 1 into Blood-Caked Blade.  In addition to that I also dropped the Glyph of Disease and replaced it with the Glyph of Howling Blast.

If you use Pestilence as part of your rotation with Chilblains then the ghouls will be slowed, which can become a huge problem.

When the tanks taunts the ghouls from LK to Shambling Horrors, slow effects can cause their transit time to be too long resulting in them running back to LK (typically due to warriors or death knights from splash damage).

Due to that I dropped the Glyph of Disease and tried out the Glyph of Howling Blast for Valks instead.  Hated it.

I use Howling Blast for not only Rime procs, but also whenever I have to move and I’m not in melee range.  Whether it’s Shadow Traps, Necrotic Plague, Defile, etc…  You can end up out of melee range a lot of times, and HB is perfect for those situations.  However you can’t use it in P1 due to slowing the ghouls…

So then I tried the same spec, but back to Glyph of Disease again.  Happy Days!!

SJ’s Frost Slow Spec: 0/55/16

It’s the same as above, just with fixed glyphs.  Not only do you no longer suffer the dps loss from not having GoD in the rest of the phases after P1, but it’s pretty much just as viable for applying Chilblains through Pestilence as using HB and the GoHB.

You have to hold two Blood Runes (or Death Runes if up) for when the Valks are about to spawn, but outside of that you don’t have to do a lot of preparation to make this work.  It’s pretty solid.

Issues with Frost Slow Spec

So there are still a few problems that need to be addressed…

Over Writing Chilblains

Chilblains was being over written a lot last night in the raid.  I was able to determine that it was by either a short debuff or a static debuff.  The slow was not lasting long, so either they were moving out of the static debuff or the debuff applied had a short duration.

After doing some online research I found a post that noted hunter Frost Traps were over writing Chilblains.  There might be other abilities that will over write as well, but that is all I’ve found so far.

If you use this spec, make sure you get your hunters to not drop Frost Traps unless you get picked up by Valks, and you have to be able to communicate that fact quickly if it does happen (such as a Vent call).

DPS Losses

Unlike Unholy, Frost loses a larger amount of DPS from using this spec.  During P1 you are looking at a loss of 500-1000 dps on LK at a minimum due to talent changes and not being able to use Pestilence in rotation.

It’s more likely in a range of a 1-2k dps loss.

However the steep dps hit is only for P1.  So if your raid has no issues with P1, then this is not a concern.  From the moment you hit the transition out of P1, you can add Pestilence back into your rotation.

Outside of P1, this spec is approximately a 300 dps loss.

Reliability and Duration

The reliability factor comes down to whether anyone is over writing your debuff.  If you have that under lock, and your debuff is up at all times, then reliability is almost covered.

If you know of any effect that over writes Chilblains besides Frost Trap please leave a comment, or a link to the referenced data.  Do not post “ideas” please.  Just facts.

As to the duration, Chilblains lasts for 10 seconds.  Runes have a 10 second cd.  This means that there is potentially a 1 second window where the debuff can fall off.  Which touches the reliability factor again.

If your raid dps is strong enough and you use everything properly, then you can keep the debuff up.  But it’ll offset your Blood Rune cd’s slightly and always has the risk of no debuff for 1 second.  So it’s a mixed bag.

SJ’s Recommended H LK Specs

It should be noted that I still feel that Unholy is the best spec for H LK for your raid.  While Frost is viable, it is not the best spec possible.  And in this case, the “best case” really makes a huge difference.

Frost

Cookie Cutter Frost:  1/52/18

SJ’s Frost:  0/53/18

SJ’s Frost Slow Spec (H LK):  0/55/16

Unholy

Cookie Cutter Unholy:  0/17/54

SJ’s Unholy:  0/17/54

SJ’s Unholy Slow Spec (H LK):  0/17/54

If you have questions regarding these specs, please refer to the two previous posts (linked at the top of the post) which have more in depth discussion on talent choices, etc…

Questions and Answers

Rikukun wrote:

What is your opinion on using reaping now with the t10 2 set bonus? I know that you have used it in specs in the past, but i noticed it missing now. Switching to 2 blood strikes instead of SS will drive me nuts in rotations now if i dont use reaping, lol.

Also, i tried out specing into frost as you did (but without desecration since im not at even normal lich king quite yet, and i pulled about the same on 25 man festergut as i did with points in blood and reaping the week before, 10.4kdps, but i pulled about 500 dps less on deathbringer saurfang. So are you sure that specing into frost is superior to specing into blood? if so, id say its either with better gear than what i have or its really close.

Reaping is still one of my favorite talents out there.  You could put together an Unholy Slow spec like this:  0/17/54.  It loses out on the 15% movement buff and is about a 300-500 dps loss (at most) over talenting out pure dps talents.

The Frost sub spec for Unholy becomes superior when you are in ICC+ gear.  If you’re still toting gear around with less than an ilvl of 250, then you may want to research older specs more conducive to your gear level.

ODK wrote:

HEHEH you crack me up, my spelling/punctuation/ect will allways be bad — but thank you Very mcuh for goin into detail on my suggestions..

Another question i had tho, will desecration do much good if/when you allready have hunters dropping hunter traps? wondering if desecration still has an effect above and beyond or if the hunters are basically allready doing the job? (other than DK can reapply desecration in its path as it moves out of the icetrap….)

ive noticed every encounter ive done in many guilds, they have a nice lil patch of ice the valks tend to land and start movin across. wanted to check on that before i put the points into desecration to just try to help on my end best i could…figured if the trap covers it enough then the dps would be better to drop them faster?  thx..

or even just chillblains with pestilence? isnt that in itself enough?

damnit, wish i could edit those posts? reason i suggest that is simply to keep your frost spec, wouldnt it compare to desecration enough that you would be able to keep your DW frost spec and get NEARLY similar results?

Frost Traps are sub par to Desecration for the reason you mention.  Unholy will constantly apply the effect under the Valks when hitting them, while the Valks will move out of the Frost Traps.  FT just isn’t enough.

For Chilblains please see above post.  While it is comparable, it just is not on the same level as Desecration in regards to reliability (cannot be over written) or how often it is applied consistently without as much of a dps loss that Frost suffers.

Dammanus wrote:

Well my previous comment was adressed to guilds not having 11/12 on “farm status”, which is MY case.

So in my case, it is a DPS loss for the other bosses, so when we get 11/12 on farm, then ill switch to your H LK spec, but for the meantime i want 100% DPS tyvm.

As I said previously, the specs listed here are intended as specs specific to H LK.  They are not intended to be used through out all of ICC.  You are expected to go drop the gold and respec your character for just this encounter.

So your comment says to me that you did not read the entire post in detail.

Skeleton Jack wrote:

And while this may not have been obvious (as I did not state it), but my recommendation is to swap specs just for H LK.  I’m not recommending using those specs on a day to day basis in all encounters.  I’m talking about using it specifically for H LK.

Summation

Unholy is still the best spec for H LK due to P2 Valks.

Frost is viable, but has some issues that you will have to deal with such as no Pest in P1, debuff over writing issues, and 1 sec windows of no slow debuff.

Please, again, read the previous posts.  This post is one in a series of posts, and all of their content is relevant to each other.  They are linked at the top of the post.

If you have questions, I might have answers!  As always, leave comments on site or e-mail me:

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Raids, Specs

Heya guys!!  If you didn’t read the post below, then uhm…why?  Scroll down!!  For the super lazy, click this link:  Heroic Lich King for Death Knights

Due to this information being very relevant to my readers (imo), I’ve decided to make a post out of comment responses to the previous thread.

ODK wrote:

Well what about Chillblains & Howling Blast? isnt that nearly the same crowd control you are looking for? but last longer and isnt locked to a location?

also you can throw in Deathchill for the extra huge AOE damage along with Icy Reach for Vile Spirits – this way you can spread disease, throw down a D&D under them then line yourself up to throw a Deathchill Howling Blast and have them quite slowed (howling blast is to get the ones pestilence possibly doesnt, and great damage) but together you should be doin quite a bit of the Vile Spirit damage on your own, include a few others helpin and job is easier no?

or is there something im still missing in all of that?
this was an idea i just thoguht of when we were doin normal LK attempts and havin trouble iwth vile spirits, hadnt actually done it yet cause we solved that problem before i had to….but if this isnt a good solve please explain…

Betcha wished you had taken the time for spelling and caps and junk now huh? 

Chilblains is great, but it doesn’t do what Desecration does.  If your guild is positioning properly, then Desecration will already be on the ground from hitting the LK.  If you’ve ever noticed, all 3 of the Valks do not drop down at the same time.  Which means applying Chilblains to all 3 of the Valks the moment they land is nearly impossible.

With Desecration on the other hand, they should be landing in it.  Which means out of every slow in the game available, Desecration is the only one that should be active and in place when they land without fail (short of hunter trap popped by LK).  Note, without fail directly refers to a guild failing at positioning.

As to Icy Reach and Deathchill, how many total talent points do you want to start pulling?  As a melee DK the Vile Spirits should not ever be our concern.  If they are, then the raid is seriously doing something wrong to begin with.  A Shadow Priest preferably, or a Paladin if not, should be popping them for your guild.

You could work in Deathchill if you wanted to, but I just don’t see the need.  And as to Howling Blast slowing them, that would require the Glyph of Howling Blast and Chilblains as well.  So at this point you’re talking about investing 6 talent points and a glyph.  While my Frost spec had 4 points “free”, I think you’ve gone into overkill mode.

If your guild is having issues with Vile Spirits you should do some research on having Shadow Priests pop them (paladin can as well), and the kite path/positioning necessary to make that happen.

As always please remember, if your guild does not have issues with keeping Valks stunned/slowed, then Desecration is not going to be as “uber” or needed for the encounter.  That said, I find my guild has been having issues with keeping them properly controlled perfectly 100% of the time.

Damannus wrote:

I dont really see a need to alter a spec so much just for 1 fight, or switch from DW frost back to 2hand unholy. Remember there are 11 bosses before LK, so you want your DPS to be @ 100%, what i would so is keep my DW frost spec and just swap to unholy pressence on LK.

Desecration is a waste, a good DK should be able to apply chains of ice on all valkyrs and still be high on the DPS meters. Try chain of icing the ads on saurfang before they move down the steps, either reg or H, its good practice.

Alter a spec so much for just 1 fight?  Remember there are 11 other bosses before LK?  Seriously?

If you’ve got everything on farm status, then I’m sorry, those other bosses just don’t matter.  By definition, “farm status” means that those encounters are no longer an issue.  Sure you may have an off week and have a few wipes here and there, but generally speaking you’re one shotting everything and going to H LK with only 1-3 attempts lost tops.

And while this may not have been obvious (as I did not state it), but my recommendation is to swap specs just for H LK.  I’m not recommending using those specs on a day to day basis in all encounters.  I’m talking about using it specifically for H LK.

If you don’t think 100g is worth the extra raid utility (respec to and from), then I’d question your dedication to killing the boss if you were in my guild.

As I have said a few times now however, if your guild is not having issues with Valk debuffing and cc, then this may not apply to you.

As to Chains of Ice, you are not only hurting your dps more by doing this than a talent point shift, but it has other issues as well.  CoI will only debuff their movement by 50%, but it will prevent other slow effects from being applied until the CoI move debuff degrades to an equivalent or lesser slow.  So you’re now stopping guild members from applying slows some of the time.

In addition to all of that, you’re now talking about 3.0 seconds to apply three debuffs, swapping targets, and not getting in full dps.  So not only are you’re slows taking longer to be applied (and yes 3 seconds matters there a lot), but you’re also doing less dps to the targets.

And that does not even discuss the fact that you said you’d be in Unholy Presence.  Not only is that a DPS loss, but you also have wasted runes getting into that presence, and back out of it for this Chains of Ice strat.

CoI should be a “last resort” option when other methods have failed.  It should not be what is relied upon for slowing.

Consider wrote:

No, Outbreak doesn’t outweigh 3/5 Necrosis for Frost DW. Most certainly not!

Using Desecration isn’t just easier (not that CoIing is difficult), but it’s more dps. With CoI you sacrifice 3 GCDs and 3 Frost Runes (or, rather, 2 Frost and 1 Death). That’s a huge loss in damage – perhaps not over the entire course of the fight, but certainly for the short duration the Valkyrs are up and burst dps matters most. And what happens when you need to refresh CoI? More GCDs and runes down the drawn.

You can argue that changing your spec isn’t worth the hassle (although I would heavily disagree – progression matters more than farm, no matter how few of the first and how many of the latter exist), but you can’t try and say that Desecration is worse than CoIng. It’s superior to such a degree that it’s rather silly to try and argue it.

IUP I would personally disagree with – engineering boot enchant is sufficient for Defile, and when running the rest of the time you can usually stick to a boss/mob for minimal dps loss. Not a huge difference either which way, though.

Outbreak – what he said.

Desecration – I agree.  See previous comment response as well.

As to Improved Unholy Presence, if you were and Engineer and have the Nitro Boots enchant then I would agree with Consider.  That is more than sufficient for the times when you mess up, or are in trouble.

However most of the Death Knights out there are probably not Engineers.  I feel that is safe to assume considering the quantity of trade skills available.

If you don’t have that TS, then I still recommend using IUP.  It should not be more than a 200 dps loss tops.  If you have the legendary and almost full BIS gear, then the dps loss should be no more than 260 dps worst case scenario.

Regular boot enchants are fine for most movement requirements here, but usually a few situations can arise (especially someone dropping a bad Defile) where every second counts when running.  For those situations, a minor dps loss for the extra movement is more than worth it imo.

Deoxis wrote:

Very nice post! However, I think there needs to be more discussion on your reasoning for IUP. I don?t think anyone disagrees that the movement bonus is necessary. It?s pretty obvious to anyone that cares. I think you should discuss the pros and cons of IUP vs cat?s swiftness. Is the rune refresh speed important? Is it more of a dps loss from old boot enchant to cat?s swiftness than necrosis to IUP. That sort of thing.

Hm…  Improved Unholy Presence is 15% movement.  Cat’s Swiftness is 8% movement.  So we’re talking about giving up roughly 200 dps in order to gain 7% more movement speed.  Any dps gain from a new enchant on your boots (if any) would be negligible in comparison.

Again, I’ll also readdress Consider’s point above as I had not thought about it.  If you are an Engineer and have the Nitro Boots enchant, then I don’t think that IUP is as big of a deal.  If you play smart, skill can cover you most of the way while Nitro Boots covers you the rest.

That said, I don’t find anything wrong with using both Nitro Boots and IUP, but YMMV.  That’s a personal decision with no “correct” answer I think.  Chalk it up to personal preference.

Now for the rest of the DK’s out there (w/o Eng), that rune refresh aspect doesn’t exist to you.  Got it?  You should not be in Unholy Presence.  You should be in Blood Presence.  The entire purpose of IUP is to get the movement buff…

As to the pros and cons…  I think I’m gonna have to say that this entire post, and the previous post and comments should speak for itself by this point.  I listed a cookie cutter build with Desecration for those who do not think IUP is worth it, and an alternate for those who do think it’s worth it.

Some people will agree that utility is more valuable than dps, while others will never see utility being greater than dps, no matter how small the dps gain is.  That’s just the way it is.  So on that point, whichever spec you choose is personal preference, and YMMV.  That’s why I listed two specs to use.

My preference is to use IUP at H LK.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Raids, Specs

Heya guys!!  So I’m going to be sharing a suggested spec, specific to H LK, for all Death Knights focusing on Heroic LK in ICC.  And I’m going to do my best to give suggestions for this encounter as well…

Keep in mind however that most guilds have their own little quirks to their strategies, so I’m having to keep some of this “open ended” to be applied to alternative deviations.

Disclaimer aside, it’s fricking H LK!!  Time to buckle down and set your sights on the end game!

Unholy H LK Spec

I’ve actually got 2 different permutations depending on your personal wants, needs, and preferences.  However Desecration is a “mandatory” talent for any H LK encounter.

Whenever you start attacking a Valkyr you will apply an automatic movement debuff that should affect all three of the Valks if your guild did everything right.

“Cookie Cutter” 0/17/54

This spec drops 1 point from Necrosis and 1 point from Unholy Blight in order to purchase Desecration.  Otherwise, this is cookie cutter to a T.

I’ve personally found Unholy Blight does less dps than 1 point in Necrosis.  However if you have different results feel free to keep UB and take 2 points out of Necrosis instead.

“SJ’s Spec”  0/17/54

This spec drops 3 points from Necrosis and 1 point from Unholy Blight in order to purchase Desecration and Improved Unholy Presence.

Desecration is mandatory.  So don’t even question that one.  So why IUP?  Movement is a defining factor in the H LK encounter.

• Shadow Traps (run away from them)
• Necrotic Plague (run to the shambling horror in time)
• Defile (run the hell away from the center and the defile itself)
• Harvest Souls (run away from the bombs)
• Noticing a trend yet?

Movement is a key and defining aspect of this encounter.  As I discussed previously in my post: Unholy Specs, a revist on dps and %’s… talents such as Necrosis and Unholy Blight only represent approximately 100 dps per talent point.

So the question is, what’s more important?  200 dps or being able to move quickly enough to stay alive and do your job?  If you even considered answering 200 dps then you failed.

Thoughts on H LK

You need to do the basics of course.  Go watch some videos, read the strats, check your mods, do your homework, etc…

2 Second Policy

That said I think you should implement a 2 second policy on all movement defining abilities.  If something could require you to move, move 2 seconds before you would have normally.

You should be where you need to be before the last possible second.  There is no need to cut it down to the wire when learning the encounter.

Ghouls and AoE

Also, stop padding meters in P1.  Yes I understand the desire to hit Pestilence and do all of that yummy AoE dps to the ghouls, but stop doing it.

If even one ghoul agros on to you, then that is healing wasted on you and that much more effort on the tank’s part trying to get them on to themselves.  The ghouls will be killed.

P1 is about dps’ing the LK down as quikly as possible.  Using any ability that does no damage to LK to do damage to adds is only a failure on your part.  Pestilence, Blood Boil, or Death and Decay should not exist to you during P1 before the first transition.

Stop and Think

It sounds basic, but so many people just do not do this.  Quit looking at everything else and pay attention to boss ability cool downs and upcoming required movement.  This is paramount.

Frost vs Unholy

My guild kills 11/12 H LK every week.  So everything is on “farm” status.  So the question I keep asking myself is why I am playing as Frost for H LK when Unholy is the superior spec there for raid utility?

If you have movement debuffs totally covered every single time, then you could stay as Frost with no issue.  But if the movement debuffs are an issue at all, then you need to consider swapping to Unholy for this encounter.

What’s more important?  The 11 bosses you have on farm status or the 1 boss you can’t kill yet?  I’m probably going to be talking to my guild officers about swapping to Unholy for this encounter myself.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Raids, Specs

Heya guys!!  I’ve been really busy lately, but it’s time for some SJ centric observations regarding WoW.  Whether it’s real life or Heroic Lich King, it’s important to always take a step back and examine what it is you’re doing and why.

Time…  What’s Enough?

Right now I am raiding 4 nights a week and spending 4-5 hours on average per raid after you calculate the prep time before raid start, etc…  Which isn’t much, especially compared to some top end raiding guilds.

However I currently have to break up my sleep schedule for raid nights.  The way the raid times fall, and my work schedule, it’s impossible to get a full 8 hours of sleep before or after raid times.  So what to do?

I usually take a 1-2 hour nap before the raid and then sleep for about 5 hours after the raid before I go into work (that’s 4 nights a week).  It works pretty well and I have 3 nights a week where I sleep whenever I want.  No complaints.

But when I was recently asked to work on 10man H LK 2 nights a week (and agreed before I thought about it) I started stressing out and wanted to /wrists!  Six nights of interrupted sleep?  !@#$ that!!

It’s important for people to remember that WoW is still just a game.

I’ve since decided that I’m not going to be doing 10mans unless someone happens to run one when it’s convenient for me on my off nights, because I sure as hell plan on sleeping when I want and for as long as I want on those nights!!

So what’s the point? Don’t lose yourself in WoW.  Sure, it’s a great escape and I won’t be one to tell someone to log off most likely.  But if you’re noticing any stress levels resultant from WoW play time, stop and reexamine what it is that you’re doing.

Frost vs Unholy

So I spent some more time recently going through WoL and just thinking about Frost vs Unholy.  The following is an observation based off of about an hour of research at WoL, so it cannot be considered 100% accurate of conclusive.  The rest is just my opinion.

Weapons

Pretty much most Unholy ranked DK’s seem to have the legendary Shadowmourne.  And pretty much most Frost ranked DK’s seem to have Bloodvenom Blade.

Gemming

Unholy is pretty much Strength gems with Strength/Haste gems.  Frost is pretty much Armor Penetration gems, but there are some top 200 ranked with Strength gems.  One was even ranked 25 on DBS using Str gems as Frost, but they did have the 1H from H LK 25.

DPS Discrepancy

Unholy pretty much beats Frost for DPS (I use the bottom of the top 200 for the basis of my decision) by a range of 1000 DPS on average (very rough estimate).  This is mostly a ballpark estimate, feel free to research for more accurate data.

That said, as above, most Unholy top 200 ranked DK’s have Shadowmourne, while most Frost DK’s have Bloodvenom Blade.  So it’s not really equal footing.

SJ Thoughts

Equally geared and skilled I think the 2 specs are as close to being equal as is physically possible.  Grats to Blizzard, you finally got it right!!

Unlike pretty much every other class available, Death Knights have two dps specs available which are amazingly close in maximum potential.

Without a legendary, Frost will likely pull ahead of Unholy for fights that are more tank and spank centric.  However in movement fights such as Prof Put, expect to see Unholy take the lead.  This of course is a theoretical dps comparison in which gear, skill, encounter, etc… are all 100% equal.

As to gemming ARP for Frost.  I honestly believe that ARP is a dps gain over Str for Frost.  That said, I don’t think the gain is as much as some people would like to think.  Feel free to gem how you like imo.  There is a strong argument to gem for Str as Frost for respec potential.

IMO (no factual basis of research) I think gemming ARP over strength is only a dps gain of a few hundred points.  1000 DPS tops, and I’m not convinced of that either.

What’s next?

This is basically a “Coming Soon” list.  And it helps me to post it so I can go back and be like, “Oh yeah!!  That was what I wanted to write about!”

Questions and Answers by SJ

I let a lot of comments and e-mails build up this last week in the hopes of it generating 1-2 Q&A posts.  No I’m not ignoring you guys, I’m setting up posts!

Trinkets

Had a request recently to have a post about trinkets.  This is on the list.

H LK Theory Crafting

I’m having to work on this in raids, so why not share the love?  Some is targeted to all, but a lot is DK centric.

Recent Cataclysm Information

Everyone else is talking about it, why not me to?!!? 

Special Post

Coming soon!!  A surprise.

Have something you want Skeleton Jack to write about?

TELL ME!! Leave a comment or write me some e-mails!!

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: /rl, Coming Soon, DPS, Specs

Heya guys!!  So people have asked a few times about the N52 and how I use it.  And that’s a fairly detailed deal.  As it turns out I once helped out some guildies a while back with my settings and I found that post.

The following is literally a copy/past job with minimal editing.  So it’s not going to be up to my usual post standards.  But, it gets the job done and allows me to have some /laziness with regard to a detailed post for once, so I’m taking it!!

This was written…before ICC came out.  I think?  Maybe right when it came out, I see a Nighttime in my bags on the SS.

N52 Guild Forum Post Guide (old or something…)

OK, here is a pic of my UI. It’s really not a solid one as I was doing a screen shot for my Blog showing the DPS with an Aesir’s, but it shows the action bars which is all that is important. Look at the bars.

Now you’ll see that there are 5 action bars in place. You could use whatever mod or interface to create them. I personally use CT Mod since I’ve been using it since day 1 of playing WoW.

Now the bottom two action bars are filler. I put things on there I would never really need to click in combat, but click often enough I want them handy. So you can ignore those two.

So the 3 bars that matter. Top action bar, and then the 2 secondary action bars under it which are side by side.

Defining the Bars

The first button of the primary action bar is a purple sword with numeric 1 in the upper right hand corner. The last button of the primary action bar is a greyed out red fist.

The first button of the second action bar is a downturned sword adjacent to a skull saying Leap… The last button of the second action bar is a stack of 15 Frostweave bandages.

The first button of the third action bar is bubbling blood (Blood Boil icon) which is adjacent to a Rose (DnD). The last button of the third action bar is a upreaching claw coming out of the ground greyed out (Raid Dead) adjacent the blue skull (Frost Presence).

Buttons for the Bars

You go into the key bindings of WoW and remap the action bars. The key thing to remember here is that you will never be pressing your keyboard again. Whatever you are used to DOES NOT MATTER anymore. Not Shift + this or that, or any other combination of buttons. FORGET THEM.

• First action bar is keyed from 1 through = sign on the keyboard.
• Second action bar is keyed from Q through \ on the keyboard (I omit “O” however because I’m too used to using to open the social window).
• Third action bar is keyed from F1 through F12.

Now if you notice I simply chose to designate three lines of keys on the keyboard to these actions bars. I didn’t want to designate random keys because it’d be harder to understand and remap if needed.

Experience/Exception: I recently played Borderlands which is a FPS with RPG background. And it made me realize the potential for in game movement. I’m a MUCH better player now because of it. Due to this I removed 5 and 8 from the primary action bar and remapped 5/8 to “Strafe Left/Right”.

Mouse: So now you know how the keys are mapped except for the mouse. I use a mouse that has two thumb buttons on the left side. I use one of them to activate auto run and the other to run backwards. By holding down both mouse left/right buttons I can also simply run without autorunning. To turn I mouse move. So excepting Strafe, I do all movement though the mouse.

N52TE

Look at this picture first.

Ignoring the keypad buttons themselves you have a few in front of you.
1) Wheel (like a mouse wheel) – I currently have no use for it. It’s difficult to reach.
2) Button directly above the directional keypad – I currently have no use for it. It’s difficult to reach.
3) Directional keypad – I use this, more in a second.
4) Thumb button directly over the LED light (blue in pic) – I use this as my Spacebar button. It’s how I jump.

OK, so basically we now have the 14 keypad buttons, the thumb button (jump/spacebar), and the directional keypad.

When you set up your N52 there are three color selections to choose to map buttons to. Blue, Red, and Green. Next to the Thumb Button you can see a small blue LED light on. So were you to press a button, it’d activate whatever you mapped into the N52 settings for the blue buttons. If you swap to another color (say Red for now) then if you pushed a button you could have it do something totally different.

For example: If you have the N52 “1″ button set to press 1 for you on Blue it will do so. But under the Red mapping you could have it set to press F1. So by swapping the color setting you could have the “1″ button on the N52 activate either 1 or F1 in game.

How do you swap colors? You can do it however you like, but I personally chose to use the directional keypad to do it. Ignoring the N52 settings for what I’m about to say, when I “pull back” on the directional keypad it swaps everything to the Green settings. When I push up on the directional keypad it swaps everything to the Red settings. At any time where the directional keypad is released it is set to the Blue settings.

So when I press “1″ on the N52 it pushes 1 in game on my primary action bar. When I hold the directional keypad up and press “1″ on the N52 it pushes the Q button on my second action bar. When I hold the direction keypad back and press “1″ on the N52 it pushes the F1 button on my third action bar. Understand?

Exception/Experience: You need an easily accesible key to quickly talk in Vent. I personally set my push to talk button to L-Cntl. On the N52 I have the “5″ button set to L-Cntl, it is my push to talk button. I just skip “5″ on the N52 for all action bars.

So what does that do for you?

Well the fact of the matter is that I never have to move my two hands crazily across a keyboard. I have all forms of movement in game EASILY accessible at all times (run, autorun, move backwards, turn, and strafe) and can easily talk in vent.

In addition to that I have 3 total action bars easily tied into my N52 to where I can press any of those buttons without ever having to mouse click (which is retardedly slow). Also without having to reach my hand/move my hand to key a certain button.

It took me 2 weeks just to get used to it. It took me about 2 months to actually get really really good with it, let alone master it. It has 100% made me a better player. I can do things now I could NEVER do before in game and I can react far faster than the vast majority of players in game.

Oddball buttons: I also have a few weird ones as well in odd places. I’ve got an auto focus button (no macro or anything). I’ve also got a N52 macro that can auto repeat any button press. So by pressing it it can repeat press something for you, whether that’s Lightning Bolt spam *OR* more importantly Prospect/Milling spam. I have an in game macro combined with an N52 macro that will litterally auto prosect ore for me. I can put 100 stacks of ore in my bags, press a button, and go walk into another room. When I come back it’s all done. Yes, the N52 does love me!!

So that’s it. For my setup anyways. All of my performance in game isn’t just skill/talent/studying. A good bit of it is this N52/Mouse setup. I highly recommend it.

Caveat: Melee will get more out of this setup than a Caster ever will due to the complexity of being a melee toon. I played Elemental Shaman for 2 years guys, I know what I’m talking about here. It is still amazingly useful for casters, but melee toons get far more benefit.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Tags: DPS, Improve Your Game by SJ, Things you didn't know about WoW