Kahorie's DK Simulator

I was chatting with some people on Vent the other night when it came up with one guy was having a problem: both SimulationCraft and Rawr (fine tools in their own right, don’t get me wrong!) seemed to be low-balling his death knight’s DPS – by at least 1000 dps in some cases! So when I mentioned Kahorie’s DK Simulator, I was a little surprised when I was met with first dead air, then "huh? What’s that?"

Well, I smell a post. Let’s get started with a quick tour of Kahorie’s fine, fine tool!

Caveat: I use Windows. I am not a Mac person anymore, though not by choice. Anyway – these instructions should work fine on a Mac if you use BootCamp or some sort of tool that lets you use Windows apps on OS X – Parallels and VMware Fusion both being popular choices. It’s not a terribly complex app, and if you can run .NET apps, you can run this sim.

First things first, you need to download the simulator. On the downloads tab, you’ll see a big list of downloads – but the only one you need to worry about is the very first one, Kahorie’s DK Simulator.zip, because it always points to the newest version. Unzip it, and place the folder inside somewhere convenient – your desktop, a downloads folder. There’s no installer to run – open up this folder, and look for this icon, then double-click it. Kahorie’s DK Simulator runs right out of the box. (Yours probably won’t have a little green checkmark on it – mine does, because I keep my simulator stored in my Dropbox, which is a whole ‘nother story altogether.)

Upon opening Kahorie’s DK Simulator (which I’m just going to call "the DK Simulator" from now on because I’m already tired of typing out the whole thing), you’ll be greeted with this slightly intimidating window full of dropdowns and options (as always, click to embiggen):

None of this is too difficult once you’ve done it a time or two, but I’ll walk you through the basic steps.

Character

This is the first dropdown; a few pre-built characters come with the DK Simulator, usually representing ‘ideal’ DKs at a given point in raiding progress. Usually I like to create one of these as a sandbox representing my current stats, then a second to test potential gear changes. Since my character is somewhere between T9 10-man and T10 10-man at the moment, I’ve chosen "2h ToC Blood.xml" from the dropdown list, and clicked Edit to get to the character editor. Here’s what that screen looks like:

This is pretty straightforward: essentially it’s your statistics, trinkets, procs (the DK Simulator models several trinkets, procs, and profession enchant procs), and set bonuses, as well as racial bonuses. Obviously I can see that some of these differ from the ’stock’ character to my own death knight. For instance, Rajaat would gain a small main hand expertise bonus for being human, and his stats are definitely different from the ones shown. Unfortunately, the DK simulator doesn’t have a way to directly import toons from the Armory yet, so you’ll have to do the copying by hand.

A couple things might be confusing for first-timers.

• Attack Power (the green part): If you mouse over your AP in the Armory (or, I believe, in-game), you’ll see your attack power written as something like: Melee Attack Power 4333 (3738 + 595). The only part you put in this blank is the portion in green (here, 595), not the total (here, 4333). This will lead to wildly inflated max possible DPS, if you do, and it’ll leave you wondering exactly why you’re underperforming.
• Haste Rating: On the armory, this can be found by mousing over your melee speed.
• Armor Penetration Rating: Similarly, this can be found by mousing over your melee hit rating.
• Expertise: This is really confusing on the Armory. For instance, on Rajaat, I see Expertise: 24. If I mouse over it, I see Expertise 124, but expertise rating 24. I’ll be 100% honest with you: I usually add this up by hand. 124 is what’s on my gear, so 124 is what I put here.
• Racial: If you’re an orc, turn on the "Blood Fury + Pet damage" checkbox, and put in 5 for your expertise on the appropriate hand if you’re using an axe in that hand. (For two-handed weapon wielders, just use the main hand expertise box.) Dwarves put a 5 into the expertise box if they’re wielding a mace; humans put a 3 if they’re using a sword or a mace. Trolls and blood elves check the appropriate box for Berserking or Arcane Torrent, respectively. Everyone else, sorry, your racial talents aren’t relevant to your DPS.
• Misc: 3% crit damage is from, I believe, meta gems – either old and busted or the new hotness. Tailor Enchant is referring to Swordguard Embroidery. The rest are fairly explanatory.

The rest should be fairly self-explanatory – choose your trinkets, choose your weapon proc if you’re wielding one of the Onyxia one-handers or the new weapons from Icecrown with a proc (right now that’s Bryntroll and the two one-handers from Onyxia; you can bet on Shadowmourne being added once it’s available), and pick any set bonuses you happen to have. One note, if you happen to not have any set bonuses – which could happen as you’re mixing and matching gear – there’s no blank option. Just delete the entry in those dropdowns with the Backspace or Delete key.

Once you’ve gotten all these finished, click Save As (or Save if you’re saving an already-modified character), type in a filename, and hit enter. Choose your new file from the dropdown next to character, then it’s on to the next step. This is important – saving the new file will not pick it from the dropdown for you. I’ve gotten incorrect tests many times because I was looking at the wrong character.

Template

This is just a fancy way of saying "talents and glyphs." The most common builds for the current patch are included, and I can probably go with the stock "Blood 51-00-20-01-GoD.xml," but let’s see what the edit screen looks like, in case you’ve got a non-standard build or glyph setup. If you need to edit a template, or want to make sure the stock ones are the same as what you’ve got, pick a template from the dropdown and click Edit.

That’s pretty much it. If you’ve ever used a talent calculator before – whether on the Armory, on Wowhead or MMO-Champion, or even in-game – you’ve seen this. It only gets a little weird when PTRs are out and the functioning of a glyph is changing – for instance, prior to 3.3, the DK Simulator included IcyTouch and IcyTouchII – the former representing how it used to work (extra runic power), as opposed to how it works now.

Oh, and the StartTalentDpsValue button will figure out how much DPS a given talent point is worth – so for instance, if you got down to having enough talent points to maximize Blood-Caked Blade or Necrosis, but not both, this button would help you figure out which one you wanted to max out to eke out that last itty bitty pesky point of DPS.

A caveat, this will let you put in illegal talent builds like 71/71/71, so, uh, double-check before you save, yeah? Save. Now back to the main screen. Pick your template from the dropdown, and it’s on to the next step.

Intro

This just lets you model an introductory round to your rotation. Some builds, such as the blood/Glyph of Disease spec, use this – the first round of a DPS rotation will be radically different from the others. You can also choose NoIntro.xml, which models no special introductory round. If you do choose to make and edit an intro, you’ll be using the rotation editor, which I’ll cover below. Skip down to rotation editing if you want to edit your priority.

Priority and Rotation

A lot of noise is made about the different between priority and rotation. Most builds can be defined as either, and honestly it’s up to your individual playstyle to decide how you define your priority or rotation. Some builds even switch – for example, in my build, my introduction is a flat rotation (PS > IT > DS > HS > Pest > RP dump), while after that it becomes a priority system (Keep diseases up > Heart Strike > Death Strike > Death Coil). You may find that a straight-up rotation works fine for you – a lot of Unholy players use one, for instance. It’s really a matter of preference – so, pick the one you prefer.

Now, one of the two boxes – priority or rotation – will be greyed out, and the one you chose can be selected from. Choose, then edit, because I guarantee most of the time it’s not going to match what you’re actually doing in play. (You want to, if at all possible, not save over these base rotations – they’re usually examples of cookie cutter rotations, and it’s possible they’re better than what you’re doing, but I digress).

Both priority and rotation editing (and intro editing) use the Rotation Editor tab. Here’s what that looks like.

Oh, hey, this looks familiar. What this says is that Frost Fever is a higher priority than Blood Plague (only because it won’t let you set them equal…), then Heart Strikes, then Death Strikes, then lastly Death Coil. Essentially the list on the right represents both abilities and combinations of abilities to work into your priority or rotation. Use the arrows on the items on the left column to move them up, down, or out of your rotation/priority; use the arrows on the items in the right column to move them into your rotation/priority. A few of them might be unfamiliar, because a lot of them apply to Frost:

• KMFrostStrike, KMHowlingBlast, KMRime: These Frost-specific abilities represent waiting until you have a Killing Machine proc, then using Frost Strike or Howling Blast. KMRime actually represents having both Killing Machine and Rime procs up simultaneously.
• FrostStrikeMaxRp, DeathCoilMaxRp: These represent dumping RP abilities because you are close to, or at, maximum RP, and generating any more would be a waste.
• SaveRpForRuneStrike: Self-explanatory, I figure.
• CinderDisease: For those of you still using Rune of Cinderglacier, Cinderglacier increases your disease damage but does not consume the proc.
• DRMObliterate, DRMDeathStrike: Being honest, I’m a little shaky on the meaning of these. I presume it means waiting until you have two Death Runes from Death Rune Mastery to fire off one of these abilities. None of the current rotations uses them, so I suspect they might represent things that have fallen out of favor in the current DK DPS landscape.
• FadeRime: This represents casting Howling Blast when your Rime buff is just about to fade, whether you got a Killing Machine proc or not. No sense wasting it!

Cooldowns are not represented here (like the gargoyle, dancing rune weapon, etc.) because they are not part of a standard rotation or priority system. Now, if you are editing a rotation instead of a priority (or if you’re editing an intro – intro segments are, by definition, rotations), you’ll notice an additional checkbox:

All the retry/wait checkbox does is ask you if you want to try something, or wait for it to be available again, if you missed it. As you can see, in this intro, I’ll retry anything out of PS > IT > DS > BS > Pest if it misses or I have to move, because that’s the only way I can get my priority system running – but I won’t wait on Death Coils, mostly because if you miss, you don’t get that runic power back, so I could be waiting a long time…

As usual, once finished, Save or Save As, return to the main screen, and choose your new saved intro/rotation/priority from the dropdown.

Presence, Sigil, Main Hand, and Off Hand

Fairly self-explanatory: the presence you’re running in for DPS (almost universally Blood these days), the Sigil you’re using, your main hand weapon’s runeforge, and your off-hand weapon’s runeforge (if any). Two-hand wielders, leave your off-hand runeforge blank.

Other Settings

Some of these settings you’ll need to touch; some you won’t. Here’s the most important ones to look at, in my opinion, and you can investigate the rest if you wish:

• Latency in ms: VERY IMPORTANT! Latency plays a huge part in your DPS (just ask any Australian playing on US servers), and setting this to your average latency will generate much more reliable results.
• Number of enemies: Choosing 1 enemy gets you something like a Patchwerk fight; choosing multiples can represent any kind of fight where your DK is fighting multiple enemies at once, and whether or not you want to keep diseases up on all of them at once.
• Use Bone Shield/UA: This just chooses when you want to re-apply Bone Shield or Unbreakable Armor when they fall off. Your choices are kind of limited: apply them after a Blood Strike/Blood Boil, or apply them instead of a Blood Strike/Blood Boil.
• Wait for FC proc for GG/DRW: This will stop Gargoyle/Dancing rune weapon from being used until your Fallen Crusader runeforge procs. I’m not entirely sure, but if you’re not using Fallen Crusader at all (I’m not sure why… but maybe you’re running some crazy Unholy build with Cinderglacier on a two-hander or something), you may want to uncheck this or it may never use the GG or DRW.
• Generate Combat Log: If your DPS seems very low in the report – or very high – you should check this on and see what is going on in the generated combat log. Sometimes priorities (especially priorities) can be very difficult to model correctly. I once accidentally somehow made a build that prioritized blood taps and keeping Bone Shield and Horn of Winter up higher than everything else.
• Show Procs/Non-Damaging Spells: Useful, but probably not necessary. Useful for seeing how often your procs were up during a given fight.
• Report Name: Good if you’re doing multiple reports in a row.

Buffs

There’s a buffs tab along the top that we haven’t, as of yet, touched. It’s very important to edit this. By default, every single buff is on, and let me tell you, this is how you get some vastly inflated numbers. You’ll probably want to pare down the selection to get the buffs that you’re more likely to have in your raid. To get your "test dummy" DPS, get rid of everything except Str/Agi.

Let’s Go!

Now, there’s two big buttons at the bottom: Start Simulator, and Start EP. Start Simulator is pretty straightforward: a progress bar pops up, and it will run a raid boss simulation with the parameters you’ve put in, generating an output that looks something like this (try not to laugh too hard):

A very precise breakdown of what you used, when you used it, what hit, what missed, what critted, so on and so forth. Those numbers are actually fairly consistent with what I’ve seen recently, too – and higher than what I’ve seen in 5-mans, which I suppose can be accounted for by raid buffs.

The other button, Start EP, is more useful to help you figure out what you want to look for on new loot to get an upgrade…at least, this is how it was explained to me. EP is, if I remember correctly, "equivalency points," or something along those lines – essentially, a guide to what stats are more valuable to you on new gear, and what ones are less valuable. There are options on the EP Options and Stat Scaling tabs that you can fiddle with; honestly, the defaults have always seemed reasonable to me (though I do add trinkets and stats I know I need more of, like armor penetration). This will take much longer to run (and will also put a crapton of progress bars on your screen that you can’t minimize and that are always on top of everything… annoying), but once it’s finished, you’ll get something that looks like this (I turned on a bunch of additional options):

The nice part is, you can plug these directly into Wowhead’s loot filters, or LootRank, or really anything of that kind – and get customized lists of loot for you. Neat, eh? (Looks like I could do with a little less Expertise and a little more Armor Pen and Strength… oh, and a Greatness card… and should stick with 4P T9 until I can get at least 2P T10, since those two are nearly equivalent.)

Any questions? Ask in the comments and I’ll answer them as best as I can.