OK, so then since the shadow portion is based upon actual physical damage done, the whole thing will scale with ArP. It remains to be seen if the shadow portion will "double-dip" from buffs like blood presence, etc, (which is a big deal), and this design could have some fairly major PvP issues when attacking targets with damage absorb shields, but that does answer a few questions. Thanks for the clarification, looking forward to getting to test the actual numbers on the PTR.

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Q u o t e:


The Shadow damage will be less if the physical part strikes for less. We took that into consideration when coming up with the numbers. On the other hand, the Shadow damage will strike for more if you have all of the talents that prop up Shadow damage, and that part can crit separately.

From many reports it appears that the Scourge Strike on the PTR isn't working correctly, so most of what we are getting back right now are theorycrafted numbers, and some of those are wildly off. Let's get the ability working correctly and then the community can have another go at it. We're totally open to shifting some more damage from Shadow to physical. We're not open to titanic Scourge strike crits again, given that Unholy DKs already do so much damage from diseases and magic.

The goal is for it to beat out two Blood Strikes or Obliterate.

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Thank you - that's the post we were looking for.

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Q u o t e:


The Shadow damage will be less if the physical part strikes for less. We took that into consideration when coming up with the numbers. On the other hand, the Shadow damage will strike for more if you have all of the talents that prop up Shadow damage, and that part can crit separately.

From many reports it appears that the Scourge Strike on the PTR isn't working correctly, so most of what we are getting back right now are theorycrafted numbers, and some of those are wildly off. Let's get the ability working correctly and then the community can have another go at it. We're totally open to shifting some more damage from Shadow to physical. We're not open to titanic Scourge strike crits again, given that Unholy DKs already do so much damage from diseases and magic.

The goal is for it to beat out two Blood Strikes or Obliterate.

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The answer is a little disappointing but thank you for taking the time to do so. I understand the reasoning of wanting to get black ice and CoE to benefit the strike but I'm at a loss because now the strike suffers from resists and armor--its the worst of both worlds.

Anyway though, thank you for the explanation.

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Q u o t e:
that part can crit separately

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Hold the phone here, I missed this.

So, if the base strike crits, it can inflate the shadow portion---which in itself can crit, to? Is the shadow portion based on melee crit? :P

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Q u o t e:
We're not open to titanic Scourge strike crits again, given that Unholy DKs already do so much damage from diseases and magic.

The goal is for it to beat out two Blood Strikes or Obliterate.

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Is there any planat all to make DKs not so vulnerable to disease cleansing, for the very reason you stated above?

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Q u o t e:


The Shadow damage will be less if the physical part strikes for less. We took that into consideration when coming up with the numbers. On the other hand, the Shadow damage will strike for more if you have all of the talents that prop up Shadow damage, and that part can crit separately.

From many reports it appears that the Scourge Strike on the PTR isn't working correctly, so most of what we are getting back right now are theorycrafted numbers, and some of those are wildly off. Let's get the ability working correctly and then the community can have another go at it. We're totally open to shifting some more damage from Shadow to physical. We're not open to titanic Scourge strike crits again, given that Unholy DKs already do so much damage from diseases and magic.

The goal is for it to beat out two Blood Strikes or Obliterate.

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Thank you for the explanation.

I agree whole heartedly with your goal of being > 2 BS. I look forward to seeing other people test it on the PTR soon(tm). As an aside, do you guys consider the damage w/ and w/o 3 diseases as it relates to pvp? It makes a bigger difference in pvp now since now a even larger portion of our damage will be mitigated by dispell (totem and cure disease, it's ok if it takes a gcd like paladins because then they actually have an opportunity cost. With cure disease and totem, we have an extra cost to destroy the totem, but it just gets recast without a cooldown.)

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Q u o t e:


.... and that part can crit separately.

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Nooooooooooo

or do you mean that the shadow part can crit on top of the physical (kind of like a double crit) in which case

Yeeeeeeeeeessss

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Q u o t e:
We're always going to pay more attention to intelligent discussion than caterwauling. We're always going to make the changes we think are right for the game, even if the community doesn't give us the stamp of approval. Sorry. That doesn't mean we don't want feedback."

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History disagrees with you. No matter the level of intelligent discussion, changes will go through anyways. The feral nerf just after BC is the best example, as always. Numbers got put on the PTR, players responded saying it would make the spec useless, showed the numbers proving it, nothing happened, nerf went into place, druids became useless and got hotfixed hours later. There is plenty of intelligent discussion and theorycrafting that shows Shadow DPS and Elemental DPS is too low. It accomplishes nothing. Bus shock at least got some responses.

.

Edit: Changed for clarity so I don't come off as a troll. Not trying to.

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Q u o t e:


I understand the reasoning of wanting to get black ice and CoE to benefit the strike but I'm at a loss because now the strike suffers from resists and armor--its the worst of both worlds.

Anyway though, thank you for the explanation.



Hold the phone here, I missed this.

So, if the base strike crits, it can inflate the shadow portion---which in itself can crit, to? Is the shadow portion based on melee crit? :P

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This is what bothers me. Are we expected to have to gear for ArP in addition to everything else. I see this as a potential problem, since out diseases gear 0 benefit out of ArP and they are supposed be a major portion of our damage. But in pvp especially, we most likely cannot make proper use of SS without ArP now.

This is of course all speculation though. I hope it is less of a problem than i think. It probably will be much better than i expect.

Yes, with this change ArP should be valued roughly as highly as when we used obliterate. Maybe a little bit more, with the UB nerf, once we drop 4t9.

Hopefully it stays that way, because gearing my character differently every single patch and even point release is seriously getting old.

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Q u o t e:


Nooooooooooo

or do you mean that the shadow part can crit on top of the physical (kind of like a double crit) in which case

Yeeeeeeeeeessss

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That is what I got from it. Since the shadow strike is based off the damage done, it should work like this.

Physical hits for 1k, Shadow hits for 750 (Black ice/CoE not included)

Physical criticals for 2.3k, Shadow hits for 1725 (75% of physical, Black ice/CoE not included)

Physical criticals for 2.3k, Shadow criticals for 3967 (Black ice/CoE not included, 2.3 mod used.)

Hmm, might be interesting, its going to depend on how the numbers play out in the working version. We would need to know if the shadow portion is based off of melee crit, does it get SS's crit mod ect.

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Q u o t e:


The Shadow damage will be less if the physical part strikes for less. We took that into consideration when coming up with the numbers. On the other hand, the Shadow damage will strike for more if you have all of the talents that prop up Shadow damage, and that part can crit separately.

From many reports it appears that the Scourge Strike on the PTR isn't working correctly, so most of what we are getting back right now are theorycrafted numbers, and some of those are wildly off. Let's get the ability working correctly and then the community can have another go at it. We're totally open to shifting some more damage from Shadow to physical. We're not open to titanic Scourge strike crits again, given that Unholy DKs already do so much damage from diseases and magic.

The goal is for it to beat out two Blood Strikes or Obliterate.

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Thank you for the response GC.

Just a few more questions:

Is the Shadow Portion of SS still affected by Shadow Resistance, (the racial and the stat)?

Also, can the Shadow Portion of SS be reduced by spell reducing effects (such as Anti-magic Shell)?

Because if the above do, were looking at twice the mitigating on the shadow portion of SS.

If a target has an ability that reduces all damage taken, is the shadow portion affected twice? For example, Warrior presses Shield Wall, Scourge Strike hits for 60% less damage physical initially, and then is the shadow damage (that is based of the already reduced physical damage done) is then reduced by another 60%?

If the physical damage of SS is entirely blocked, with the shadow portion deal 0 damage?

Since SS is becoming physical will we not be able to attack through hand of protection anymore?

lol, if the shadow dmg portion is a separate strike that is based off the dmg the melee portion did, SS is going to be powerhouse.

melee portion 4k crit.

SS portion 3000

add blood presence 3300

add black ice 3630

and ebon plague 4101

and if that crits..... at a 2.3X modifier from talents

9434 shadow dmg?
+4k melee = 13k?

Yea....if it works like that get your popcorn ready. I didn't even consider cinderglacier. Of course it would also equally get double jacked by resil.

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Q u o t e:


That is what I got from it. Since the shadow strike is based off the damage done, it should work like this.

Physical hits for 1k, Shadow hits for 750 (Black ice/CoE not included)

Physical criticals for 2.3k, Shadow hits for 1725 (75% of physical, Black ice/CoE not included)

Physical criticals for 2.3k, Shadow criticals for 3967 (Black ice/CoE not included, 2.3 mod used.)

Hmm, might be interesting, its going to depend on how the numbers play out in the working version. We would need to know if the shadow portion is based off of melee crit, does it get SS's crit mod ect.

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Yeah if it works like that then it's a good change. The problem is we become even more vulnerable to dispels making our life even more painful.

I really hope some dispel issues are going to addressed in this patch.

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Q u o t e:


Doesn't that mean the spell would "double dip" on crits if both portions of the spell crit? Probably not going to happen too often, especially in PvP, but that would lead to the shadow portion of the spell critting as hard as 198% weapon damage by itself before resilience and talents/damage buffs.

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Yeah, it appears there are going to be a lot of balancing issues with the new SS, if it "double dips."

Don't forget this also means that it'll probably also "double dip" on damage reducing effects, so if the first part is reduced by 60% (via Shield Wall) then the shadow part reduced by 60%, the shadow part will be effectively reduced twice.

It its getting interesting.

GC, and word on combining Armor Penetration and Spell Penetration for us PvP DKs?

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Q u o t e:
lol, if the shadow dmg portion is a separate strike that is based off the dmg the melee portion did, SS is going to be powerhouse.

melee portion 4k crit.

SS portion 3000

add blood presence 3300

add black ice 3630

and ebon plague 4101

and if that crits..... at a 2.3X modifier from talents

9434 shadow dmg?
+4k melee = 13k?

Yea....if it works like that get your popcorn ready. I didn't even consider cinderglacier. Of course it would also equally get double jacked by resil.

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It won't work like that I don't think. You are not going to be critting for 4k on the melee portion. The numbers will look more like Nasgrim's numbers.

With no Armor Pen in pvp you gonna be getting maybe 2k-2300 crits on the physical portion max. Actually looking at the math you are going to be gettting more like 1800-2k crits max on the physical portion the way that GC is describing it.

You will probably see 1k more damage on crits overall in pvp and 2k more if you win the RNG lotto and both parts of the ability crits.

Also remember both portions that crit will be affected by resilience. Stop flaming the Devs it really looks like they thought this one through pretty well.

It will be a damage boost, and give us a tad more burst but won't be OP.

In pve with sunder i think a 4k crit is pretty tame.

to get a grip on the dmg, i decided to see what oblit hits for as unholy with no modifiers. Yea its 80%, but remember scourge strike atm is 50% boosted by outbreak to 60% (outbreak may also double dip to shadow dmg portion?), then rage of rivendare to 66% and will have a .3X higher crit modfier, so id say a oblit crit now and a SS crit then will be really close. I was critting 4k with oblit on the boss dummy, no sunder no raid buffs. Assuming raid buffed we get to 5kish melee portion crits....most likely higher, what kind of SS numbers are we going to see in raids? With the new tier of weapons? WITH THE LEGENDARY?