Death coil Vs Death strike

[Wolfdy 1]

1 - I've been thinking about something a friend of mine theorized about Death strike and Dark arbiter, he thought it was batter to dump runic power with Death strike because it buffs the dark arbiter faster (45 runic) then Death coil (30 Runic + Sudden doom procs getting in the way of spending), why ins't this actualy a thing? i makes a LOT of sense, it's 1,5+ the runic power spending buff to the arbiter

 

2 - This made me look to Death coil and Death strike and i notice something, Death coil hits for barely nothing in pre-patch, while death strike hits for OK dmg, i cant do rly much testing besides theorycrafting about this, but i gathered  some numbers and i think that unholy rotation should be using death strike instead of Death coil (besides dudden doom procs)

My 685 equiped weapon only lvl 100 DK (22% mastery) hits for 
- 1801 (Shadow) Death coil + 10 energy for ghoul (1/4 of his 589 cleaver attack = ~147)
- 7845 - 9654 (Physical) Death strike

Full gear 699 ilvl (41%mastery)
- 6506  (Shadow) Death coil + 10 energy for ghoul (1/4 of his 1834 cleaver attack = ~458)
- 16945 - 18841  (Physical) Death strike

Edited July 31, 2016 by Wolfdy

[Pandacho 286]

Moved to the appropriate class forum.

[Gammelvarg 0]

You have to add the weapon ability Scourge of Worlds to the death coil side of that argument to. (post-patch)
But a doom proc is still dmg for both you and your pet, if you want to set that aside then yeah, DS is probably a faster way to boost DA.

Remember to adjust the numbers to dmg per runepower (dmg/45) and (dmg/35) and add some dmg to one da-strike in benefit for DS, i dont think the benefit is more then that because you have to wait longer to get the third DS on target then you do with DC and in that moment DC is past DS if DA gets a shot of.

I probably missed alot here.

[demonardvark 556]

8 hours ago, Gammelvarg said:

You have to add the weapon ability Scourge of Worlds to the death coil side of that argument to. (post-patch)
But a doom proc is still dmg for both you and your pet, if you want to set that aside then yeah, DS is probably a faster way to boost DA.

Remember to adjust the numbers to dmg per runepower (dmg/45) and (dmg/35) and add some dmg to one da-strike in benefit for DS, i dont think the benefit is more then that because you have to wait longer to get the third DS on target then you do with DC and in that moment DC is past DS if DA gets a shot of.

I probably missed alot here.

this is basically it. the damage between death coil and death strike is negligible to your overall dps. with death coil you are praying for the sudden doom procs so you can squeeze in extra death coils, vs only getting a guaranteed 2-3 death strikes. also once we have artifact weapon one trait gives us more sudden doom procs and another increases death coils damage. so once legion hits death coil is the preferred spender by a long margin. pre patch, death strike might guarantee a little bit more rp if rngesus isn't good to you, but death coil will still eek out a little more rp overall. in addition there is a fair chance you will have at least one sudden doom proc before you even summon DA. so its very easy to get 5-6 death coils in the window. so 3 - 45 rp death strike = 135 rp vs 5-30 rp death coil = 150. the 150 can be higher with sudden doom procs and potentially a little help from haste scaling.  

so an intriguing idea for certain. if pvp still shared talents with pve i imagine death strike would likely have been the spender. but given everything death coil is a larger rp gain. 

[Wolfdy 1]

Icy veins it's currently covering only pre-patch theorycrafting, sorry if i didn't said so, but i'm not considering The artifact nor the shadow infusion talent

I'm also implying that during this time DS should replace DC entirely from the unholy rotation (Besides sudden doom procs), not only during DA

[demonardvark 556]

3 hours ago, Wolfdy said:

Icy veins it's currently covering only pre-patch theorycrafting, sorry if i didn't said so, but i'm not considering The artifact nor the shadow infusion talent

I'm also implying that during this time DS should replace DC entirely from the unholy rotation (Besides sudden doom procs), not only during DA

yes, the math (can i call it that? lol) I did was for prepatch. Going into DA window with a sudden doom proc guarantees (for the most part) more rune power generated than Death Strike. In addition Death coil scales with mastery so at higher gear levels Death coil should be hitting a lot harder than Death strike. You also have to consider shadow damage vs physical damage. In addition death coil is giving juice to your pet who is a lot bigger contribution to your damage then ever before, especially with HFC 4 piece bonus. Even then, when looking at your total dps contribution, your runic spenders are a low part of your dps, so optimization there, especially with HFC nerf has no huge impact on your total dps. 

I could go into all the theorycrafting numbers and that but thats no fun. Just another place to check whats viable is to see what the top players are doing. so if you check warcraft logs you can see the top DKS in the world https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/8#class=DeathKnight&spec=Unholy  . The basics of it is, that with the higher gear DC is what is utilized due to more damage, but even then at best, its contributing 3% of the total dps. Even then, you will notice with most, that the sludge belcher pet is usually around the 3rd highest contributor to their dps. Typically around 10-12 percent. So, it behooves you to help increase your pets power, over a (if applicable) slightly more damaging death strike. 

So, its possible at certain gear levels and stats that Death strike could do more damage, however, the other effects of death coil are too valuable to dps. Inside DA window you get more RP with DC and outside of it DC keeps your pets dps high.