Bone Shield during fights - yes or no?

[sinewave]

I haven't run any of my own math on it and hadn't found any discussion anywhere. I tank and offspec unholy dps. I was wondering if it's common practice for Unholy DPS to reapply bone shield for it's damage buff during combat or if it's generally considered a waste of runes. Any thoughts or data on it?

Thanks
S~newave

[Glitiné]

I'm always trying to find some spot in the fight to renew the shield to get my max dmg. There is a lot of good places to renew it in ulduar... at least when you dps imo so i dont think it's a waste of runes.

[sinewave]

I'm always trying to find some spot in the fight to renew the shield to get my max dmg. There is a lot of good places to renew it in ulduar... at least when you dps imo so i dont think it's a waste of runes.

Sure. Especially when there's a couple seconds downtime. I guess I was referring more towards your typical stand there and hit stuff fights. Should I blow the runes on an attack or two or refresh BS?

[Darkonte]

I used to renew it everytime it went off or was used (because of been hit).

Its a big dps increase so dont think its a waste of runes at all. u could use it right after an ErW or things like that, when moving out of some AOE damage ... there are a lot of moments when u can, and more in ulduar than anywhere else.

[Hymn]

so basically what this comes down to is how long does it take 2% DPS increase to do more damage than using the unholy rune on a SS. Assuming you hit BS and then IT with the odd-man-out frost rune, you are then looking at how long does it take 2% dps to out damage SS-IT. Looking at a WWS of a recent evening as unholy, my avg SS on a boss that doesnt boost my damage was 5343 (found by using the avg noncrit multiplied by number of noncrits plus the avg crit multiplied by the number of crits divided by the whole). and my avg IT did 1715 (this is an incredibly small sample range as SS refreshed my diseases nearly the entire fight, but we'll go with it).

I'm going to assume that I did not have boneshield. I had it for the first 4:45ish seconds and then did not refresh it and I'm not going to take the time to reduce half the fights damage by 2% to figure out exactly what it was. So we'll pretend I didnt use it and calculate the 2% off the numbers I already have. Someone else may feel free to be more accurate.

So what we're at is 5343-1715 = 3628.

Assuming diseases do not fall off my rotation is SS-SS-BS-BS-UB-DC-SS-SS-DC-SS-DC-DC

plugging in my numbers so far we have 5343+5343+BS+BS+UB+DC+5343+5343+DC+5343+DC+DC

Adding in deathcoil avgs brings this to: 5343+5343+BS+BS+UB+5680+5343+5343+5680+5343+5680+5680

avg BS damage: 5343+5343+2065+2065+UB+5680+5343+5343+5680+5343+5680+5680

and finally unholy blight does an avg of 6560 over its duration making the final numbers

5343+5343+2065+2065+6560+5680+5343+5343+5680+5343+5680+5680 =

SS: 26715
BS: 4130
UB: 6560
DC: 22710
total: 60115

If we add in 2% to that we get 1202 additional damage. Meaning you would break even at three full rotations. or about a minute. So lets say, yes to refresh BS if there is more than a minute to go in the fight and there are no better opportunities and no to refresh bone shield if it is less than 1 minute to go and you also still have no better opportunities.

The math is probably flawed somewhere. read through it as ugly and unorganized as it is and help me fix it up some

[Nev]

Assuming bone shield+it is probably not the best way to go about it.

90% of the time you will be using  blood tap to refresh it, if you don't have blood tap up the best way to refresh it is not with bone shield and it, but using death runes, do bone shield + ghoul frenzy or plague strike if you do not have ghoul frenzy.

you should always refresh bone shield anyway, the little bit of damage you may lose if the fight is <1m in duration and you don't have BT up is a good trade off for the survivability you get.

[Hymn]

pretty valid points. i also forgot to factor in disease damage. however im usually already using my BT's for GF, so i'd be going with the death rune idea. since GF is a slight dps increase and helps make sure he wont die to something stupid in the mean time

[Nev]

pretty valid points. i also forgot to factor in disease damage. however im usually already using my BT's for GF, so i'd be going with the death rune idea. since GF is a slight dps increase and helps make sure he wont die to something stupid in the mean time

You are basically doing what I do then.

If BS need refreshed and GF isn't up I use 2D on BS+GF. If GF IS up then I used 2D on PS+GF. I use blood tap on GF every cooldown.

don't quote me on this or anything but i'm pretty sure that this is the best way to go about refreshng bs and minimizing dps loss.

[Hymn]

correcto!