3.2 Dual Wield specs! (Weeee DW is back!)

[doomdood]

Heyho! =)

I just read the latest news on mmo-champion.com and saw they added a 3.2 talent-calculator! I immediately began thinking about how to spec in 3.2. =)

I came up with this Spec, but I don't know if I should go for the Howling Blast glyph.. the spec is a bit fucked up, because I'd really like to know if it maybe even is a DPS increase if you just glyph Howling Blast and don't use Icy Touch and Plague Strike anymore. Just HB and OB and the BS to get Death Runes for more OB spammage. The glyphed HB will keep Frost Fever up at all times so Epidemic wouldn't be needed, but if using PS in your rotation still increases DPS the HB isn't needed anymore.... hmm hmm hmm

Please discuss! I'd really love to get some theorycrafting about if HB glyph is worth more DPS than using PS in your rotation. =)

stay brutal,
the dood

[Nev]

The obvious viable spec choices are something along the lines of:

Blood/Frost 15/53/3

Frost/Unholy 0/53/18

and of course variations of those specs without Imp Icy talons if you have a shaman.

Frost/Unholy 1/52/18

Frost/Blood 15/53/3

But the first thing I plan to try when my ptr is done downloading is something a little more interesting I thought of when I seen the talent trees:

Frost/Unholy 0/38/33

Running something like this in unholy presence could be interesting. Stack some armor pen for White/Necrosis damage as well as OB and BS damage. Lots of DC/UB damage as well since you get RP on OB from Dirge and CotG. It could be absolute garbage but it has piqued my curiosity.

[doomdood]

The specs are kinda clear to me, the only thing I'm wondering about is whether to use glyphed HB over PS and IT in the rotation...

I'd really love to test it. Is there anyone on the PTR who can test this for me?

stay brutal,
the dood

[Darkonte]

With the buff to the diseases, the nerf on Fs ... im pretty sure the usuall double diseases heavy Ob rotation will be the way to go on frost now on ...

Its the testing time now... there are many speccs to test the next 2 weeks or so, guess it depends if u go frost up to howling blast, up to Frost strike or up to ToT.

[THECames]

I have been playing around with a 45/26 to complement the 38/33.  Have to ponder some more as running a machine gun spec with improved unholy might be very cool.

Hey Nev - thought about shifting the points in Impurity to get you a 3/3 Morbidity?  With UB/DC being a big point of this I was surprised you skipped Morbidity.  Course depending on how it all works maybe move the BCB points.  Too early to tell really.

[Nev]

I have been playing around with a 45/26 to complement the 38/33.  Have to ponder some more as running a machine gun spec with improved unholy might be very cool.

Hey Nev - thought about shifting the points in Impurity to get you a 3/3 Morbidity?  With UB/DC being a big point of this I was surprised you skipped Morbidity.  Course depending on how it all works maybe move the BCB points.  Too early to tell really.

I must've pasted the wrong link in my post. Thanks for pointing that out, Check it again I fixed it.

Its not impurity I take the points out of, it's Epidemic. With the new disease buff, and CotG + Dirge, with PS doing OH damage, It's more RP, More damage, and more GCDs to take advantage of IUP to run 15second diseases imo.

I'm still waiting on my character copys to complete, copyed my dk yesterday but probably going to be another day or two before it is playable.

But honestly, the more I think about it the more I think that IUP wont even make up for unholy presence rotation dead time and Blood presence would be better, with a spec like:

0/41/30 or 0/44/27 But shit, if you're going that deep into frost, perhaps just getting FS and going further would be the best choice of action.

Man I really want to get onto ptr.

[THECames]

More pondering.  No, I like your idea of a death coil based spec.  A frost strike based spec doesn't have the buildup of the unholy talents to bolster it.  I have been playing around trying to get some points in Desolation as it should scale better than BoTN unless your really want death runes.

[THECames]

Hey Nev,

Did you ever get your question on ToT answered?  50% of the strike damage + 15% the dual wield talent for 65% of main hand?

Also, just pondering before I can get on the PTR....can you miss with the OH if you hit with the MH and vice versa?

[doomdood]

can you miss with the OH if you hit with the MH and vice versa?

Not sure about that, but for Rogues (Mutilate) and Shamans (Storm Strike) you can hit with the MH and still get a parry/dodge/miss on the OH. But as far as I know if the MH misses the OH will automatically miss, too.. or, to be more specific, won't even appear on combat log.

stay brutal,
the dood

EDIT: And concerning the specs: I think that going full Frost simply is the best choice for DW builds. DC spam builds might be viable and do competitive DPS, but deep Frost just seems to be the best way to go. I was playing around a lot in the talent-calculator and every time I got what I wanted in Unholy I ended up with a huge lack of important Frost talents... I think I will just go for this 0/53/18 cookie-cutter build.

[MaximusDeath]

do you guys think going deep frost will net a bigger gain them perma-ghoul?

[THECames]

Maximus (father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife)!

I really like the idea of the perma-ghoul for these builds with the stacking of buffs around Death Coil.

I tend to wait till later in the PTR cycle (as my experience is this is a very unstable time for talents and stuff), but I will look at:

a 0/45/26 Deep Frost build and a 0/39/32 DC spam build.

[Nev]

OH weapon damage has bearing on the strike damage. Slow/Slow is better.

[THECames]

Nev,

Have you gotten anywhere on the PTR yet?  EJ seems to be all focussed on deep frost.

[Nev]

My toons just copied over to the ptr, plan on doing some testing right now, actually

[Nev]

Pretty much impossible to test anything right now honestly. Ub has the saem effect as necrosis on the test dummy and only ticks for 1 or 2, so I cant test any DC/ToT builds.

Without numbers on UB/DC i cant compare the FS or DC builds on paper.