Overall DW DPS on the PTR is up from live servers.

The Icy Touch glyph change, new sigil and Howling Blast change are more than accounting for the Killing Machine nerf (which isn't even that significant due how how many prior KM procs were being overwritten and wasted). You can't honestly expect 10 PPM when DW before haste to be a significant nerf; you can only actually use so many KM procs per rotation. DW made the most gains off the Necrosis change as well.

You may have moved Blood and Frost slightly closer, but they were already lagging behind 2H Unholy much less any of the DW builds. All you really accomplished here was that you pushed 2H Unholy down just far enough that all three 2H builds are roughly the same distance behind DW.

There's still probably a 10-13% gap between any 2H build and DW builds. If that's good enough for you guys, just come out and say it please. I'd like to have a better idea how to gear my character in the future.

I have to agree. It's kind of sad to see 2-hand DKs still falling so far behind DW. The PPM needs to be changed to main-hand only to really decrease dual-wielding's advantage.

Give it a 3 second hidden cooldown... /cough

I C WUT U DID THAR Mr. WIND FURY

yes i agree DW needs more balancing in pve

I hate to bother but I'd like to hear GC's opinion on this.

I thought the goal here was to make both DW and 2H viable across the board. We're still very much on course for DW to be totally dominant on the DPS front. It doesn't have to be inevitable just because we have the capacity, you just have to actually do something about the numbers.

Necrosis should offer a higher damage bonus for 2 handers only imo-- same with BCB.

Both talents are overpowered for dual wielding DKs.

Why they BUFFED Necrosis in an attempt to tone down DW damage is beyond me.

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Q u o t e:
Necrosis should offer a higher damage bonus for 2 handers only imo-- same with BCB.

Both talents are overpowered for dual wielding DKs.

Why they BUFFED Necrosis in an attempt to tone down DW damage is beyond me.

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BCB and Necrosis both need to be changed to PPM otherwise they'll still scale to infinity with DW.

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Q u o t e:


BCB and Necrosis both need to be changed to PPM otherwise they'll still scale to infinity with DW.

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BCB should be PPM and have a higher weapon damage component (like 60% and less disease damage).

Necrosis should be 10% for DW specs and 20% for 2h specs. That way, it will be beneficial for both types and might even make up for the Gargoyle nerf in terms of overall sustained dps.

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Q u o t e:
Scaling to infinity isn't an issue per se since we aren't going to hand out weapons of infinite damage (at least in this expansion). It's cool if Necrosis and BCB favor DW. We don't think they will drive all DKs to be DW, at least with gear available in Lich King.

It sounds like something didn't work right with the Killing Machine change, because the intent was to bring down the proc rate and make it more consistent between 2H and DW. We are investigating.

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The KM aura is applying independently to both weapons. AKA what is a 5 PPM system before haste is offering 10 PPM before haste to two one-handed weapons. This is how Maelstrom works so I figured it was intentional. After haste I was seeing around 12 PPM on average with two 1-handed weapons, and a bit higher than 6 PPM with a 2 handed weapon.

Edit: After reading this thread, I apologize for the tone. I shouldn't write threads this early in the morning.

This thread fails pretty bad, first you didn't even give us evidence that DW dps is up in the ptr. Second KM is only a 5 ppm, not 10 ppm. Even if DW damage is still around the same, that doesn't mean that DW is the problem. 2H dps really isn't that great, not compared to Retadins and Fury Warriors, DKs need a way to be comparable and DW makes it that way.

If your disappointed in 2H dps, then that should be your focus point. It seems like a constant witch hunt against DW. I'm not saying that DW didn't need a nerf, which it got. I had 33 KM during a 3 1/2 min fight with Patchwerk with the change I'll see about half those KM procs.

Blood 51 pt talent is the most clunky talent in the Blood tree and GC will never admit it. It should be on a 2 min timer and it should be 40 rp and then it drains rp the rest of the duration. This building a 100 rp in a rotation is terrible, Blood is the most affected by GCD's, if I go through my rotation and I don't have 100 rp, then I can't use DRW to its full potential. I'd much rather like to maintain the damn thing.

Annhilation should be lower in the Frost tree, it's been said a 100x, but it's never addressed. What Blood DK wants to spec into Black Ice? I know the 51/13/7 is suppose to be a good build, but I have trouble wasting five points to get to an ability that should be more acessible.

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Q u o t e:
This thread fails pretty bad, first you didn't even give us evidence that DW dps is up in the ptr. Second KM is only a 5 ppm, not 10 ppm. Even if DW damage is still around the same, that doesn't mean that DW is the problem. 2H dps really isn't that great, not compared to Retadins and Fury Warriors, DKs need a way to be comparable and DW makes it that way.

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KM aura applies to both hands on PTR, it's 10 PPM as DW.

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Q u o t e:
This thread fails pretty bad, first you didn't even give us evidence that DW dps is up in the ptr. Second KM is only a 5 ppm, not 10 ppm. Even if DW damage is still around the same, that doesn't mean that DW is the problem. 2H dps really isn't that great, not compared to Retadins and Fury Warriors, DKs need a way to be comparable and DW makes it that way.

If your disappointed in 2H dps, then that should be your focus point. It seems like a constant witch hunt against DW. I'm not saying that DW didn't need a nerf, which it got. I had 33 KM during a 3 1/2 min fight with Patchwerk with the change I'll see about half those KM procs.

Blood 51 pt talent is the most clunky talent in the Blood tree and GC will never admit it. It should be on a 2 min timer and it should be 40 rp and then it drains rp the rest of the duration. This building a 100 rp in a rotation is terrible, Blood is the most affected by GCD's, if I go through my rotation and I don't have 100 rp, then I can't use DRW to its full potential. I'd much rather like to maintain the damn thing.

Annhilation should be lower in the Frost tree, it's been said a 100x, but it's never addressed. What Blood DK wants to spec into Black Ice? I know the 51/13/7 is suppose to be a good build, but I have trouble wasting five points to get to an ability that should be more acessible.

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agree

I am glad that other classes dont need to QQ about DK nerfs.

DKs are good enough to get themselves nerfed to oblivion.

Way to go people.

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Q u o t e:
This thread fails pretty bad, first you didn't even give us evidence that DW dps is up in the ptr. Second KM is only a 5 ppm, not 10 ppm. Even if DW damage is still around the same, that doesn't mean that DW is the problem. 2H dps really isn't that great, not compared to Retadins and Fury Warriors, DKs need a way to be comparable and DW makes it that way.

If your disappointed in 2H dps, then that should be your focus point. It seems like a constant witch hunt against DW. I'm not saying that DW didn't need a nerf, which it got. I had 33 KM during a 3 1/2 min fight with Patchwerk with the change I'll see about half those KM procs.

Blood 51 pt talent is the most clunky talent in the Blood tree and GC will never admit it. It should be on a 2 min timer and it should be 40 rp and then it drains rp the rest of the duration. This building a 100 rp in a rotation is terrible, Blood is the most affected by GCD's, if I go through my rotation and I don't have 100 rp, then I can't use DRW to its full potential. I'd much rather like to maintain the damn thing.

Annhilation should be lower in the Frost tree, it's been said a 100x, but it's never addressed. What Blood DK wants to spec into Black Ice? I know the 51/13/7 is suppose to be a good build, but I have trouble wasting five points to get to an ability that should be more acessible.

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I agree i hope GC or another poster read back on this because DW is favored because as 2h being equilly geared with eveyone i raid with i cant push past 3-5 depending the fight but with duel wield same gear i can push first generally fall to second or 3rd behind HAT rogues but am within 1% of equilly geared and skilled raiders

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Q u o t e:
This thread fails pretty bad, first you didn't even give us evidence that DW dps is up in the ptr. Second KM is only a 5 ppm, not 10 ppm. Even if DW damage is still around the same, that doesn't mean that DW is the problem. 2H dps really isn't that great, not compared to Retadins and Fury Warriors, DKs need a way to be comparable and DW makes it that way.

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Read what I wrote, please. I'm not guessing, those are the numbers from the PTR.

And DW certainly is the problem. I have no idea what the DPS of your guild looks like, but DW in general is stomping most everything else in the game right now. There isn't much that is actually competitive with it that isn't BM Hunters or bugged Rogues.

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Q u o t e:
Scaling to infinity isn't an issue per se since we aren't going to hand out weapons of infinite damage (at least in this expansion). It's cool if Necrosis and BCB favor DW. We don't think they will drive all DKs to be DW, at least with gear available in Lich King.

It sounds like something didn't work right with the Killing Machine change, because the intent was to bring down the proc rate and make it more consistent between 2H and DW. We are investigating.

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I don't think there's a bug with Killing Machine. The core issue is that Warcraft is designed to scale dual wield better than two-handed for all classes, because of how attack power converts to weapon damage. Here's why.

Option A: Two handed weapon. 14 attack power = 1 DPS to 2h
Option B: Dual Wield. 14 attack power = 1 DPS to main hand and 0.5 DPS to offhand (more with talents)

When you dual wield, your white damage gets a minimum of 50% better scaling. For Death Knights, it's 62.5% better scaling with talents. There is some damage loss from abilities that use weapon damage, and from a higher miss rate, but these abilities do not account for a (1 - 1/1.625) = 38.5% damage loss. They don't even come close. This is why enhancement shaman always dual wield. That's why Fury warriors have always out damaged arms warriors. Fury warriors didn't even consider 2h weapons until Titan Grip let them dual wield. There is not a single melee class in the game that optimizes DPS by choosing two handed weapons over dual wield, and that includes Death Knights.

Since the core problem is how attack power modifies DPS when you wield one weapon, the easiest solution is to change that formula. Historically the data shows that 14 AP = 1 weapon DPS is too weak for a 2h weapons, and 14 AP = 1.5 DPS would be too strong because of lower miss rate when not dual wielding. But there is surely some number in the 1.0 to 1.5 range that makes using a single 2h weapon scale about as well as dual wielding. 1.3? 1.4? (Note that this would not apply to Titan grip. As that's dual wielding, it still gets 14 AP = 1 main hand DPS and 0.5 offhand DPS.)

This is too drastic of a change to make this close to the 3.0.8 patch, as you'd have to reevaluate too much. But in the long term, this is the only change that will make two handed weapons a credible alternative to dual wield.

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Q u o t e:


Read what I wrote, please. I'm not guessing, those are the numbers from the PTR.

And DW certainly is the problem. I have no idea what the DPS of your guild looks like, but DW in general is stomping most everything else in the game right now. There isn't much that is actually competitive with it that isn't BM Hunters or bugged Rogues.

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Yes that is a possiblty but are you looking at aoe dmg part of that cause that seems to be what people forget is a spec that has the ability to aoe but have good single target also on most boss fights adds come in and if you get a lucky KM proc w/ HB when those adds come out thats gunna jump your dps to a new level. 2H doesnt even compair to any classes dps on bosses i have the armaggendon and im more geared to 2hander use and would get beat out by d@mn near every other class of equil gear

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Q u o t e:


I don't think there's a bug with Killing Machine. The core issue is that Warcraft is designed to scale dual wield better than two-handed for all classes, because of how attack power converts to weapon damage. Here's why.

Option A: Two handed weapon. 14 attack power = 1 DPS to 2h
Option B: Dual Wield. 14 attack power = 1 DPS to main hand and 0.5 DPS to offhand (more with talents)

When you dual wield, your white damage gets a minimum of 50% better scaling. For Death Knights, it's 62.5% better scaling with talents. There is some damage loss from abilities that use weapon damage, and from a higher miss rate, but these abilities do not account for a (1 - 1/1.625) = 38.5% damage loss. They don't even come close. This is why enhancement shaman always dual wield. That's why Fury warriors have always out damaged arms warriors. Fury warriors didn't even consider 2h weapons until Titan Grip let them dual wield. There is not a single melee class in the game that optimizes DPS by choosing two handed weapons over dual wield, and that includes Death Knights.

Since the core problem is how attack power modifies DPS when you wield one weapon, the easiest solution is to change that formula. Historically the data shows that 14 AP = 1 weapon DPS is too weak for a 2h weapons, and 14 AP = 1.5 DPS would be too strong because of lower miss rate when not dual wielding. But there is surely some number in the 1.0 to 1.5 range that makes using a single 2h weapon scale about as well as dual wielding. 1.3? 1.4? (Note that this would not apply to Titan grip. As that's dual wielding, it still gets 14 AP = 1 main hand DPS and 0.5 offhand DPS.)

This is too drastic of a change to make this close to the 3.0.8 patch, as you'd have to reevaluate too much. But in the long term, this is the only change that will make two handed weapons a credible alternative to dual wield.

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this would help all classes in an overall persepective yes but it wouldnt address the fact that 2h dps as a dk falls short of every melee and caster class in the game they need to increases either our bonus weapon dmg or give us a talent to lower our hit rating like every other melee has so we can reitemize to help our ap