Unholy is definitely capable DPS, but it wouldn't surprise me if Frost ends up better. Unholy definitely isn't "PvP" in the sense that frost/subtlety have been for the last few expansions.
Unholy is definitely capable DPS, but it wouldn't surprise me if Frost ends up better. Unholy definitely isn't "PvP" in the sense that frost/subtlety have been for the last few expansions.
Elitist Jerks are saying that 2h unholy is the best PvE DPS right now. But, I think forty is right in that Frost will end up better, because it generally isn't preferred right now over Unholy for PvP or DPS.
Unholy is definitely capable DPS, but it wouldn't surprise me if Frost ends up better. Unholy definitely isn't "PvP" in the sense that frost/subtlety have been for the last few expansions.
Elitist Jerks are saying that 2h unholy is the best PvE DPS right now. But, I think forty is right in that Frost will end up better, because it generally isn't preferred right now over Unholy for PvP or DPS.
Bottom line is:
Every spec has a competitive PvE option. Unholy is the proven arena spec. PvP != arena anymore. It is pretty likely that Blood and Frost will have competitive places (read: not being carried) at least in Rated Battlegrounds.
That said, I haven't been in the Gladiator bracket since Season 3 or a High Warlord team since Vanilla and I haven't tried either, so my opinions on PvP mean less than nothing.
Unholy is generally weaker in BGs. Alot of it's power comes from the Transformed Ghoul and without a sustained constant fight, it's a real bitch to get that guy transformed.
So is unholy, like, broken DPS right now? I did a 10-man Baradin Hold with my guild last night, and I was one of the (if not the) worst geared DPS there. My DK is basically pre-heroic gear. His only 346 pieces are jewelry (which are like the lowest stat budget items there are), a few 333 pieces, and I still have like 2-3 312ish greens. I've only got around 4.5% hit rating and pretty low expertise (I think 9?).
Yet I ended up with the highest damage done/DPS at just over 12k against people who outgeared me. And I would think ranged DPS have a pretty definite advantage in the fight since they don't have to deal with being parried for half the fight (when the boss is facing your side) and can still do some damage during the fire phase.
So is unholy, like, broken DPS right now? I did a 10-man Baradin Hold with my guild last night, and I was one of the (if not the) worst geared DPS there. My DK is basically pre-heroic gear. His only 346 pieces are jewelry (which are like the lowest stat budget items there are), a few 333 pieces, and I still have like 2-3 312ish greens. I've only got around 4.5% hit rating and pretty low expertise (I think 9?).
Yet I ended up with the highest damage done/DPS at just over 12k against people who outgeared me. And I would think ranged DPS have a pretty definite advantage in the fight since they don't have to deal with being parried for half the fight (when the boss is facing your side) and can still do some damage during the fire phase.
Unholy has (relatively) low dependency on Hit/Exp compared to other DPS but basically the problem was not that Unholy is great (it is) rather that everyone else in your group was terrible.
That makes me sad since those are the sort of people I will be raiding with.
I know exp is pretty low priority for unholy since a good chunk of its damage comes from non-strikes, and it doesn't translate to anything on the ghoul, but I was under the impression that 8% hit was still a very high priority. All of unholy's damage relies on hit (including getting the ghoul hit capped).
That makes me sad since those are the sort of people I will be raiding with.
I know exp is pretty low priority for unholy since a good chunk of its damage comes from non-strikes, and it doesn't translate to anything on the ghoul, but I was under the impression that 8% hit was still a very high priority. All of unholy's damage relies on hit (including getting the ghoul hit capped).
It is still top priority to cap but it's helped out a little by Virulence.
Goddamn they need to buff Death Strike's Heal. It's so useless right now.
Yeah, like I constantly complained about while leveling, it's complete shit for frost/unholy, while retards chime in with "it's a tank ability, stupid." Ignoring that retardation, just bump it back up to at least 10% heal, and then nerf Imp Death Strike if that makes Blood tanks too good.
I *rely* on death strike as a tank. Nerfing it would wreck my, and every other death knight's, world.
Just spec rune tap :P
Right, which is why any nerf to imp death strike could be offset by a buff to the base ability. The alternative would require more work overall, like figuring out ways to give on-kill healing or something to both unholy and frost, through talents.
Septus on
PSN: Kurahoshi1
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
It seems interesting for high end raiding, but for five mans and even 10-mans, I can think of a lot of other places I'd like to put my points and glyphs than in Lichborne and Death Coil talents.
It seems interesting for high end raiding, but for five mans and even 10-mans, I can think of a lot of other places I'd like to put my points and glyphs than in Lichborne and Death Coil talents.
Lichborne + Death Coil is mandatory. It's an amazing survival cooldown and I use it all the time, even in Normal 5 man dungeons. Not speccing it would be like taking Rune Tap off your bars because you wanted to use your blood runes on Heart Strike instead.
I do love LB/DC in my frost spec now. I'm only 83 and haven't had a chance to try it in blood. I was wondering if desecration might be better for entry 5s and raids blood tank. You could cap virulence to make up for sub-par gear, too. Actually, I'm not sure why you'd want epidemic over virulence either way in pve...
I do love LB/DC in my frost spec now. I'm only 83 and haven't had a chance to try it in blood. I was wondering if desecration might be better for entry 5s and raids blood tank. You could cap virulence to make up for sub-par gear, too. Actually, I'm not sure why you'd want epidemic over virulence either way in pve...
Desecration is not good for Blood since Blood doesn't use diseases outside of Outbreak/Pestilence for threat and keeping up Frost Fever for the debuff (if no one else can provide it). Past that reapplying diseases is a waste of a perfectly good Death Strike. I almost never Plague Strike as Blood and if I use an Unholy rune it's for Death Strike or Necrotic Strike.
Generally Blood doesn't care about spell hit (Virulence) since nearly all of your threat is from Heart Strike, Death Strike, and Rune Strike. The extra disease uptime from Epidemic is more threat and more time for Frost Fever (which slows mobs' auto-attack) which means more runes for Death Strike.
Going Unholy subspec can't compete with Lichborne. Ever.
It seems interesting for high end raiding, but for five mans and even 10-mans, I can think of a lot of other places I'd like to put my points and glyphs than in Lichborne and Death Coil talents.
Not really sure under what circumstances somebody wouldn't take an extra 11k heal ...
I take EJ specs as a baseline for ideal gear/conditions. I'll be taking lich and virulence for my starter 85 tanking spec - likely along with deathstrike prime glyph instead of DC. I'll have to try HoD vs Epidemic vs UnhCommand for myself.
EJ's suggestions often turn out wrong until you're approaching BIS gear levels.
I *rely* on death strike as a tank. Nerfing it would wreck my, and every other death knight's, world.
Just spec rune tap :P
I don't even know what this post is a reference to. DS was nerfed (late in beta), and it's already wrecked for non-blood specs. The point is that it needs to be buffed so that it can become a reasonable button press for DPS as a "trade damage for survival" ability.
Tanked Halfus10 with his 100% haste buff last night (ouch), and Lichborne/DC (+glyphs) is pretty much my new best friend. It's insanely good as a reset-switch in the tug-of-war healing environment.
Now that org/sw are the new game hubs, having to port then hearth back to change talents and runeforge is a giant pain. (oh I just got this nice new weapon - too bad if I go runeforge I'll be stuck for 20 minutes) It'd be nice if a DK trainer snuck into someone's basement with a forge...
I did heroic deadmines last night with some guildmates on my unholy DK, and about 30 minutes into the run I realized I had to make a macro for death coil (DC target normally, DC my pet if I'm holding down Alt). The game basically requires it now, as apparently there is a ton of shit in heroics that will fuck your pet up (even when it's being tanked properly) and you're going to have to be in charge of keeping your pet up, since it's not really reasonable to expect the healer to.
After the run I went and bought the death coil minor glyph (for almost 100g, ugh) and blew a deglyph dust to get it in place. I don't think unholy can function without playing this way (and using this glyph) now.
I still need to figure out a way to make my pet's health more readily apparent to me without getting in the way (no, tucking it away in a tiny bar in the top left is not sufficient).
Now that org/sw are the new game hubs, having to port then hearth back to change talents and runeforge is a giant pain. (oh I just got this nice new weapon - too bad if I go runeforge I'll be stuck for 20 minutes) It'd be nice if a DK trainer snuck into someone's basement with a forge...
Yeah, it's a huge hassle and Acherus isn't anywhere near any useful cities. Does Org have druid trainers now?
I suppose it's the price the class pays for free weapon enchants.
forty on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
It seems interesting for high end raiding, but for five mans and even 10-mans, I can think of a lot of other places I'd like to put my points and glyphs than in Lichborne and Death Coil talents.
Lichborne + Death Coil is mandatory. It's an amazing survival cooldown and I use it all the time, even in Normal 5 man dungeons. Not speccing it would be like taking Rune Tap off your bars because you wanted to use your blood runes on Heart Strike instead.
I've tanked several five mans and haven't found it "mandatory" yet, as I don't have it. Your analogy is also terrible, since removing a base ability from your bar because you want to use another base ability is pants on head retarded. Not wanting to spend six talent points, five of which are marginally useful at best, to get a two minute CD heal when I already have a myriad of other "oh god save me" options doesn't seem quite on the same level.
I see the appeal of it for high end raiding, I don't buy this "it's mandatory" for five mans stuff.
Honestly, the other options aren't exactly awesome.
Wetsun on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
Epidemic, Virulence and Morbidity are quite a bit more useful than Runic Power Mastery and Icy Reach. It's not necessarily Lichborne itself, it's the five points I have to dump in to marginal filler to get it that is the issue.
You can take those talents, at least partially, and have Lichborne. You have 2 extra discretionary talents left over to put into whatever you want on top of a stock 2 points in Epidemic. You're not going to miss the extra threat. You will miss Lichborne.
Walt on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
You can take those talents, at least partially, and have Lichborne. You have 2 extra discretionary talents left over to put into whatever you want on top of a stock 2 points in Epidemic. You're not going to miss the extra threat. You will miss Lichborne.
We'll see. I'll give it a try tonight, and see how I feel about losing Epidemic and Morbidity (mostly Morbidity, as I'll still have 2/3 Epidemic).
I mean, you can even go 3/3 Epidemic and still have an extra floating point available if you want (I wouldn't, since you'll need to BB around ~29 seconds anyway, so seems like a good time to IT as well).
Personally, I'm taking Endless Winter (another bonus of Lichborne's tier) for free interrupts with my 2 floating points. Unlucky rune strikes (or having to pop DRW, even) just before a must-be-interrupted cast have already hurt me a few times, and I'm sure there are more to come.
You can take those talents, at least partially, and have Lichborne. You have 2 extra discretionary talents left over to put into whatever you want on top of a stock 2 points in Epidemic. You're not going to miss the extra threat. You will miss Lichborne.
I can't see any of these specs, but I'm curious what setup has you only putting 31 points in blood with 2 points left over as discretionary.
I mean, you can even go 3/3 Epidemic and still have an extra floating point available if you want (I wouldn't, since you'll need to BB around ~29 seconds anyway, so seems like a good time to IT as well).
Personally, I'm taking Endless Winter (another bonus of Lichborne's tier) for free interrupts with my 2 floating points. Unlucky rune strikes (or having to pop DRW, even) just before a must-be-interrupted cast have already hurt me a few times, and I'm sure there are more to come.
Hopefully you don't have to rely on your own interrupts for any raid boss, as your ~10%ish miss rate would be problematic.
I mean, you can even go 3/3 Epidemic and still have an extra floating point available if you want (I wouldn't, since you'll need to BB around ~29 seconds anyway, so seems like a good time to IT as well).
Personally, I'm taking Endless Winter (another bonus of Lichborne's tier) for free interrupts with my 2 floating points. Unlucky rune strikes (or having to pop DRW, even) just before a must-be-interrupted cast have already hurt me a few times, and I'm sure there are more to come.
Hopefully you don't have to rely on your own interrupts for any raid boss, as your ~10%ish miss rate would be problematic.
Lichborne tank build is in the OP. And yeah, Virulence is a required talent for interrupt duty.
Now that org/sw are the new game hubs, having to port then hearth back to change talents and runeforge is a giant pain. (oh I just got this nice new weapon - too bad if I go runeforge I'll be stuck for 20 minutes) It'd be nice if a DK trainer snuck into someone's basement with a forge...
Yeah, it's a huge hassle and Acherus isn't anywhere near any useful cities. Does Org have druid trainers now?
I suppose it's the price the class pays for free weapon enchants.
How is this any different then it was all of WOTLK?
Going to Acherus to train or runeforge always meant porting back to somewhere useful.
At least now you can fly out of the place, so it's a quick port to Northern Eastern Kingdoms, which can be useful.
It seems fine for starting gear with low hit and ap, make sure and have at least one point in Magic Suppression for the RP absorb and 2/2 Endless Winter if you're going that far up Frost.
Posts
Elitist Jerks are saying that 2h unholy is the best PvE DPS right now. But, I think forty is right in that Frost will end up better, because it generally isn't preferred right now over Unholy for PvP or DPS.
Bottom line is:
Every spec has a competitive PvE option. Unholy is the proven arena spec. PvP != arena anymore. It is pretty likely that Blood and Frost will have competitive places (read: not being carried) at least in Rated Battlegrounds.
That said, I haven't been in the Gladiator bracket since Season 3 or a High Warlord team since Vanilla and I haven't tried either, so my opinions on PvP mean less than nothing.
But I'm still right.
Yet I ended up with the highest damage done/DPS at just over 12k against people who outgeared me. And I would think ranged DPS have a pretty definite advantage in the fight since they don't have to deal with being parried for half the fight (when the boss is facing your side) and can still do some damage during the fire phase.
Unholy has (relatively) low dependency on Hit/Exp compared to other DPS but basically the problem was not that Unholy is great (it is) rather that everyone else in your group was terrible.
I know exp is pretty low priority for unholy since a good chunk of its damage comes from non-strikes, and it doesn't translate to anything on the ghoul, but I was under the impression that 8% hit was still a very high priority. All of unholy's damage relies on hit (including getting the ghoul hit capped).
It is still top priority to cap but it's helped out a little by Virulence.
Just spec rune tap :P
even with tank gear and a few strength gems I'm finishing 2/3 in damage every dungeon run.
Empire - Veela Server
Yup. Not even for the actual heal as much as the damage absorb. Without that I'm not sure we'd be able to tank effectively.
Empire - Veela Server
Right, which is why any nerf to imp death strike could be offset by a buff to the base ability. The alternative would require more work overall, like figuring out ways to give on-kill healing or something to both unholy and frost, through talents.
It seems interesting for high end raiding, but for five mans and even 10-mans, I can think of a lot of other places I'd like to put my points and glyphs than in Lichborne and Death Coil talents.
Lichborne + Death Coil is mandatory. It's an amazing survival cooldown and I use it all the time, even in Normal 5 man dungeons. Not speccing it would be like taking Rune Tap off your bars because you wanted to use your blood runes on Heart Strike instead.
Desecration is not good for Blood since Blood doesn't use diseases outside of Outbreak/Pestilence for threat and keeping up Frost Fever for the debuff (if no one else can provide it). Past that reapplying diseases is a waste of a perfectly good Death Strike. I almost never Plague Strike as Blood and if I use an Unholy rune it's for Death Strike or Necrotic Strike.
Generally Blood doesn't care about spell hit (Virulence) since nearly all of your threat is from Heart Strike, Death Strike, and Rune Strike. The extra disease uptime from Epidemic is more threat and more time for Frost Fever (which slows mobs' auto-attack) which means more runes for Death Strike.
Going Unholy subspec can't compete with Lichborne. Ever.
I guess desecration is silly if it doesn't slow attack speed...not sure why I thought it did.
Not really sure under what circumstances somebody wouldn't take an extra 11k heal ...
Empire - Veela Server
EJ's suggestions often turn out wrong until you're approaching BIS gear levels.
After the run I went and bought the death coil minor glyph (for almost 100g, ugh) and blew a deglyph dust to get it in place. I don't think unholy can function without playing this way (and using this glyph) now.
I still need to figure out a way to make my pet's health more readily apparent to me without getting in the way (no, tucking it away in a tiny bar in the top left is not sufficient).
I suppose it's the price the class pays for free weapon enchants.
I've tanked several five mans and haven't found it "mandatory" yet, as I don't have it. Your analogy is also terrible, since removing a base ability from your bar because you want to use another base ability is pants on head retarded. Not wanting to spend six talent points, five of which are marginally useful at best, to get a two minute CD heal when I already have a myriad of other "oh god save me" options doesn't seem quite on the same level.
I see the appeal of it for high end raiding, I don't buy this "it's mandatory" for five mans stuff.
We'll see. I'll give it a try tonight, and see how I feel about losing Epidemic and Morbidity (mostly Morbidity, as I'll still have 2/3 Epidemic).
Personally, I'm taking Endless Winter (another bonus of Lichborne's tier) for free interrupts with my 2 floating points. Unlucky rune strikes (or having to pop DRW, even) just before a must-be-interrupted cast have already hurt me a few times, and I'm sure there are more to come.
Lichborne tank build is in the OP. And yeah, Virulence is a required talent for interrupt duty.
How is this any different then it was all of WOTLK?
Going to Acherus to train or runeforge always meant porting back to somewhere useful.
At least now you can fly out of the place, so it's a quick port to Northern Eastern Kingdoms, which can be useful.
hows that look for a pee vee pee spec?
It seems fine for starting gear with low hit and ap, make sure and have at least one point in Magic Suppression for the RP absorb and 2/2 Endless Winter if you're going that far up Frost.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/black-dragonflight/nyrruk/simple
Chiblains pretty much solved my biggest complaint about PvE frost which was lack of snare.