Tundra Stalker is amazing. Get that.
Dual Wield? Eh, I've heard it's fairly unimpressive, plus it'll free up points for Runic Power which is pretty nice.
Endless Winter and Chillblains don't seem worth it. Maybe drop those and grab Shadow of Death for an extra 2% strength and stamina.
I guess... I don't believe you. Are you never using any 2-rune abilities? What spec are you?
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.0 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
2.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
3.0 - BS - 45(55) runic power
4.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
5.0 - DC - 21(31) runic power
6.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Am I missing something here?
EDIT:
You're not getting the same effect in 2/3 the time. Each of those abilities does 15% less damage than it would have in blood. And why would you want to wait around when you could make things die faster by hitting them with your giant sword?
I might be wrong, but are DK strikes similar to Prot and Ret Paladin instants that have a 1.5 Second global cooldown?
This the rotation may look more like:
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.5 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
3.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
4.5 - BS - 45(55) runic power
6.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
7.5 - DC - 21(31) runic power
9.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Which isn't so bad really...
EDIT: Or did you mean that Unholy presence is reducing the GCD by 0.5 sec?
I guess... I don't believe you. Are you never using any 2-rune abilities? What spec are you?
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.0 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
2.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
3.0 - BS - 45(55) runic power
4.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
5.0 - DC - 21(31) runic power
6.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Am I missing something here?
EDIT:
You're not getting the same effect in 2/3 the time. Each of those abilities does 15% less damage than it would have in blood. And why would you want to wait around when you could make things die faster by hitting them with your giant sword?
I might be wrong, but are DK strikes similar to Prot and Ret Paladin instants that have a 1.5 Second global cooldown?
This the rotation may look more like:
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.5 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
3.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
4.5 - BS - 45(55) runic power
6.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
7.5 - DC - 21(31) runic power
9.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Which isn't so bad really...
unholy presence reduces the gcd to 1.0s, which is a big part of the discussion between which presence is better for dps.
I'm not quite ready for it, but I was wondering what would go into a good hybrid tanking/pvp build, if one exists. I haven't really pvped much with a DK so I'm not sure which talents I would need for that.
I'd feel uncomfortable making something for both pvp and tanking. I threw this up quick just for pvp. Most people don't take endless winter and chillblians but I figure for pvp it would be handy to slow fuckers down.
JJ on
0
AngryThe glory I had witnessedwas just a sleight of handRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
so word is that they removed the parry haste buff from bosses.
I find myself playing my Unholy DK like I played my Frost AoE mage. I'm rounding up as many mobs as possible, sometimes upwards of 10, and typically having no issues dropping them all... some dropping before I get to them personally. It's fun, and for some reason I sense a damage nerf in the future
I find myself playing my Unholy DK like I played my Frost AoE mage. I'm rounding up as many mobs as possible, sometimes upwards of 10, and typically having no issues dropping them all... some dropping before I get to them personally. It's fun, and for some reason I sense a damage nerf in the future
If wandering plague, gargoyle, and bone shield don't see nerfs by 3.1 I will be completely shocked. Maybe not gargoyle, but the other 2 definitely.
I only started recently, I'm about 64 but I never find a good time to use Dancing Rune Weapon. Am I missing something? I guess it's not a leveling talent, because I never see a good opportunity for it.
I was running a bunch of my friends' alts through Stratholme and Ramparts a bit last night on my 71 dk. My friend had me try and gather more and more enemies to make things go faster, so I did.
Between 30+ enemies at a time, death and decay, and two mages spamming aoe spells my computer (with fairly decent specs) just grinds to a halt for a couple seconds. Then everything is dead.
Deathchill and Howling Blast are an awesome combination
fairweather on
0
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
So, let's talk quest soloability.
First up: Cruel's Intentions. I'm a 61 Unholy DK. Feasible or 'ahahaha no'?
I guess... I don't believe you. Are you never using any 2-rune abilities? What spec are you?
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.0 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
2.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
3.0 - BS - 45(55) runic power
4.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
5.0 - DC - 21(31) runic power
6.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Am I missing something here?
EDIT:
You're not getting the same effect in 2/3 the time. Each of those abilities does 15% less damage than it would have in blood. And why would you want to wait around when you could make things die faster by hitting them with your giant sword?
I might be wrong, but are DK strikes similar to Prot and Ret Paladin instants that have a 1.5 Second global cooldown?
This the rotation may look more like:
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.5 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
3.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
4.5 - BS - 45(55) runic power
6.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
7.5 - DC - 21(31) runic power
9.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Which isn't so bad really...
unholy presence reduces the gcd to 1.0s, which is a big part of the discussion between which presence is better for dps.
I don't even know why there's discussion at all about it.
Against non-elites single or multi, shit dies too fast in unholy to ever have wait time if your gear isn't pure garbage. You'll always have a cooldown up, especially with butchery so even if your cooldowns are down when the first mob dies (and the rest are 1/2 dead because of your AoEs) you just made a quick 20 RP which is usually enough to put me over the top to do something nasty to the remaining guys (if there are any). Unholy also speeds your swing time by 15% which means more runic strikes and more blood caked blade procs. If you're fighting multiple opponents you're not doing the IT, PS, SS, BS, BS rotation, you're spreading diseases around with pestilence, and the faster that goes up, the faster it's ticking on your enemies. If you're fighting solo enemies, IT, PS, SS, BS, BS (or a 2nd SS if they're death runes from your last kill), is typically more than enough to kill anything (and if it's not you've got at least the RP for 1 DC if not 2).
Really against non-elites the difference is negligible and the only difference is self heal vs faster run speed.
In prolonged fights against elites out in the wilds, I almost always go frost for the survivability. I also don't think anyone's arguing that in dps situations against single target elites in instances unholy > blood. Blood is probably going to be the higher dps in longer single target high hp fights (like bosses), where you will end up waiting on rune cooldowns. I originally brought up the fact that I'm in unholy stance when not tanking because I've only once not tanked an instance (And I was 73 and the rest of my group were between 77 and 80 so even then stuff didn't stay alive long enough).
Ok, someone asked again, so I figured we should clear this up:
Unholy Blight is Awesome. If your going Unholy GET IT.
Unholy Blight (UB) is higher damage per runic power (DPRP) then Death Coil (DC). Hell, UB is higher DPRP then DC even if it only ticks for 3/4 of it's length. It's also fire and forget meaning you can use DC while UB is ticking. And it's AoE, so if your fighting more then one mob, UB REALLY kicks DCs ass.
So, there's 2 situations where this applies:
1) Fights longer then 15 seconds
2) Fights against more then 1 opponent
1 happens frequently enough. 2 should be happening all the time. If not, your doing it wrong.
This is true, unholy blight is awesome.
Another thing to consider is that the only real reason to skip a 1 point tier talent is
1) if it's not useful and;
2) if you need that single point to get a tier talent in a different tree.
Unholy blight is clearly a good, useful talent, so it doesn't meet the first criteria for skipping it. The unholy tree is also set up in a way that you don't really want to stop at 50 points. On the 7th tier there's 7 talent points, and you probably want all 7 of them. That means on the 8th tier there's another 5 points you want to spend, so that by the time you're at the 9th tier and unholy blight you've already spent 52 points in unholy, and you can't reach the 21 point talents in any other tree (not that you'd want to). So there's really no point in skipping unholy blight. It's a great talent by itself, but it's also only one talent point that's not better off anywhere else.
First up: Cruel's Intentions. I'm a 61 Unholy DK. Feasible or 'ahahaha no'?
Not soloable, but you and one other DK could do it easily. At least my friend and I did and we were 59 and 61 respectively.
Hm. Guess I'll do the old "wait next to his platform for someone to happen by". There's definitely no shortage of other DKs running around.
I just skipped it. The trinket's nice but you'll be getting that type of trinket hand over fist in northrend. I'm glad I just skipped difficult quests in outland because next thing I knew I was 68 and northrend just blew away everything I did in outland (exp and item wise).
First up: Cruel's Intentions. I'm a 61 Unholy DK. Feasible or 'ahahaha no'?
Not soloable, but you and one other DK could do it easily. At least my friend and I did and we were 59 and 61 respectively.
Hm. Guess I'll do the old "wait next to his platform for someone to happen by". There's definitely no shortage of other DKs running around.
I just skipped it. The trinket's nice but you'll be getting that type of trinket hand over fist in northrend. I'm glad I just skipped difficult quests in outland because next thing I knew I was 68 and northrend just blew away everything I did in outland (exp and item wise).
Yeah, leveling is too quick in Outlands now to be concerned with loot, if you can't find a group quickly it's not worth waiting for the exp.
It's ridiculous, Hellfire took 3 hours, I'm 5 quests away from 64 and out of Zang [as long as I want to stay ]
Northrend will take 5 days to get to from a new DK.
First up: Cruel's Intentions. I'm a 61 Unholy DK. Feasible or 'ahahaha no'?
Not soloable, but you and one other DK could do it easily. At least my friend and I did and we were 59 and 61 respectively.
Hm. Guess I'll do the old "wait next to his platform for someone to happen by". There's definitely no shortage of other DKs running around.
I just skipped it. The trinket's nice but you'll be getting that type of trinket hand over fist in northrend. I'm glad I just skipped difficult quests in outland because next thing I knew I was 68 and northrend just blew away everything I did in outland (exp and item wise).
Yeah, leveling is too quick in Outlands now to be concerned with loot, if you can't find a group quickly it's not worth waiting for the exp.
It's ridiculous, Hellfire took 3 hours, I'm 5 quests away from 64 and out of Zang [as long as I want to stay ]
Northrend will take 5 days to get to from a new DK.
Yeah it's pretty great. I never did step foot in blade's edge, shadowmoon or netherstorm. But I might go back at 80 in a month or two to finish up those quests and make money.
Back to spec discussion. I respeced into this last night (edit, updated).
It's more of a tanking spec that's still capable of doing good dps. I actually haven't noticed any dps drop from my old build to be honest, but that's just because stuff dies too fast. But it's made instance tanking a heckuva lot easier. My dodge/parry went from 8.5/14% respectively, to around 14% dodge (got some gear upgrades last night too), and 24% parry with blade barrier up. My armor and hp are both around 17000 at level 77. I figure that's not too shabby.
When I'm not tanking my attack power's over 2800 with horn of winter and when fallen crusader procs (usually once a fight).
This is the first time I've used anti-magic zone. It's awesome and fun to use, even though it's kind of unnecessary at this level. It's still a blast.
I did Cruel's, because I thought it'd be fun and I wanted the trinket. I also soloed the giant colossi in HFP(not the boss one), and I'm now soloing the Felguards and Engineers in the Nagrand forgecamps which I could only do on my warlock before, and that was with lots of effort. So awesome.
I did Cruel's, because I thought it'd be fun and I wanted the trinket. I also soloed the giant colossi in HFP(not the boss one), and I'm now soloing the Felguards and Engineers in the Nagrand forgecamps which I could only do on my warlock before, and that was with lots of effort. So awesome.
That reminds me, I want to go back to nagrand and finish that whole hellscream/thrall quest line stuff once I hit 80 too.
Will quests in BEM-SMV still provide good gold rewards when you're at 80?
I would think it would give the 8-10 gold that it always did + item reward. But I don't know for certain.
I'm not so sure at all. I think quests reward something of the tune of xp/2000 in gold (So 10g for a 20k xp quest). But at 80, Netherstorm q's aren't worth any gold.
All of the group quests in outland, through Nagrand (and most of BEM until you hit 68) are soloable as a leveling DK except ring of blood and Durn.
Re: the debate - I was under the impression that we were talking about all kinds of dps, including instances (where blood is so far ahead it's not really an argument). While soloing:
a) 1 on 1- stuff dies really fast no matter what presence you're in.
b) Unholy spreads diseases to AoE pulls 1 second faster than Blood, but Blood makes those diseases and everything else do 15% more damage. So I guess if your AoE packs die in 7 seconds, then Unholy is better.
c) You will have dead time in Unholy Aura in any fight longer than 7 seconds.
d) You're totally right that you should make the choice based on movement speed vs. healing, because stuff is going to die fast no matter what. (but if you have the Unholy Aura talent, which you should, Unholy presence provides nothing on top of that)
All of this goes out the window if you have a crappy connection or something like that which makes you need the reduced global to fit things in. I also am not sure if the rotations of blood and frost would lend themselves more or less to either presence since I haven't tried them yet.
All of the group quests in outland, through Nagrand (and most of BEM until you hit 68) are soloable as a leveling DK except ring of blood and Durn.
Depending on how much/if you outlevel it, or your spec. I'm confident that there was just no way I could have killed those colossi(without dying and finishing them in ghoul) without icebound fortitude. I just took way too much damage, as unholy.
Arazzius seems like he would have been too hard, but I'm not sure, the elite colossus probably would not have been. Certainly, I had no problems with Teribus, Hai'Shulud, Terrokkantula, and Torgos at lvl 66, nor any of the elite Nagas in Zangarmarsh. I think that's all I've done, and tonight or tomorrow I'll give the two boss demons in the Nagrand forge camps a shot.
All of the group quests in outland, through Nagrand (and most of BEM until you hit 68) are soloable as a leveling DK except ring of blood and Durn.
Depending on how much/if you outlevel it, or your spec. I'm confident that there was just no way I could have killed those colossi(without dying and finishing them in ghoul) without icebound fortitude. I just took way too much damage, as unholy.
Arazzius seems like he would have been too hard, but I'm not sure, the elite colossus probably would not have been. Certainly, I had no problems with Teribus, Hai'Shulud, Terrokkantula, and Torgos at lvl 66, nor any of the elite Nagas in Zangarmarsh. I think that's all I've done, and tonight or tomorrow I'll give the two boss demons in the Nagrand forge camps a shot.
The colossi aren't TOO bad if you make sure to stop damaging the main collossus when he breaks apart and kill his buddy quickly, because they hit hard. I don't remember exactly how I killed them each time, but I remember the first time I died and had to come back as a ghoul to kill it, but the 3 other times I made sure to switch to his buddy each time and kill him and I did it without dying.
Hmm, I might have had icebound fortitude for those guys, do you get it at 62?
Also, the demon elites in nagrand are totally killable and give something like 4k xp rested, but take forever to kill. I think I actually abandoned the quest in favor of just finishing other easier quests (killing 5 talbuk for 4k xp took far less time).
Oh, I kind of want to avoid doing the Nesingwary quests solo, but I think I should be able to find enough quests otherwise in Terrokar and Nagrand to do so.
I pretty much solo'd every group quest in the Outlands as Blood. I even kited around the overseer's for the Altruis questline. With frost presence, death strike glyph, ghoul and dancing rune weapon they go down pretty easily.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
So I tanked The Nexus last night, as Unholy spec, in mostly DPS gear. It was rough on the healer, but I got three really nice tanking upgrades from the quests, so it should be okay when I tank Utgarde tonight. My first impression is that holy shit, we hold agro well. Between D&D and Unholy Blight, it's pretty ridiculous what our AE agro capabilities are.
Other things I've discovered:
Icebound Fortitude is an amazing ability. 50% damage reduction for 12s on a 60s cooldown? Yah. Reading the tooltip should tell you how awesome it is, but I didn't really appreciate it until I was tanking an instance.
Bone Shield is a good spell, but with mediocre avoidance I still think Unbreakable Armor is better. I'll see when I get to level 80, as I won't be re-speccing Frost until then. With high avoidance, I would agree with the prevailing consensus that Bone Shield will be better.
DK's are really built for group tanking. Between our crazy AE agro abilities, and our myriad 60s cooldown damage reducers, I really get the impression that DK's are going to be the defacto 5-man and raid trash tanks, maybe not so much the singular boss tanks (where Warriors and Druids will probably still rule). Not to say that DK's (and Paladins) can't tank single bosses, just that our capabilities really steer us toward tanking large groups.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited November 2008
The special thing about bone shield is this:
You put up bone shield before going to fight a tough boss.
You use up all the charges on bone shield, you pop Icebound Fortitude.
You reapply bone shield as soon as icebound drops off.
That gives you ~30 seconds of ridiculous mitigation on a boss fight, and puts you about 10 seconds closer getting another application of icebound fortitude off in the meantime.
Bone shield is just awesome like that, allowing you to start a fight with insane mitigation so you can position yourself while your healer stops playing grabass with the DPS and realizes that you've pulled.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Oh, I kind of want to avoid doing the Nesingwary quests solo, but I think I should be able to find enough quests otherwise in Terrokar and Nagrand to do so.
I was able to get a full level worth of xp just doing the first round of quests in Nagrand. They conveniently set up the zone so you can start at Garadar and do a large clockwise circle to finish all the quests. I had 17 quests "completed" before I turned them all in, which netted ~170k of xp.
Then factor in all the killing you have to do, and the various quest stages around the zone.. it's easy street. Probably the best zone for experience in the game, except maybe Netherstorm.
Posts
ok, how does this look?
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=0000000000000000000000000003200535130500112321035101301230002305023000000000000000000
Dual Wield? Eh, I've heard it's fairly unimpressive, plus it'll free up points for Runic Power which is pretty nice.
Endless Winter and Chillblains don't seem worth it. Maybe drop those and grab Shadow of Death for an extra 2% strength and stamina.
This the rotation may look more like:
Standard rotation for unholy:
0.0 - PS - 15 runic power
1.5 - IT - 25(35) runic power (with glyph)
3.0 - BS - 35(45) runic power
4.5 - BS - 45(55) runic power
6.0 - SS - 60(70) runic power
7.5 - DC - 21(31) runic power
9.0 to 10.0 no runes, not enough RP to DC again.
Which isn't so bad really...
EDIT: Or did you mean that Unholy presence is reducing the GCD by 0.5 sec?
Origin: Viycktor
unholy presence reduces the gcd to 1.0s, which is a big part of the discussion between which presence is better for dps.
Because you should have more than enough runic power after using UB to cast a death coil or two, or less, depending on any possible rune strikes.
I was thinking maybe something like [URL="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=0055000000000000000000000003252500130032102301205101351005230000000000000000000000000
"]Frost 10/51/10[/URL] for it.
I have a buddy in my guild that says that you can DW while tanking at 80. I find it hard to believe.
If wandering plague, gargoyle, and bone shield don't see nerfs by 3.1 I will be completely shocked. Maybe not gargoyle, but the other 2 definitely.
LoL: failboattootoot
Between 30+ enemies at a time, death and decay, and two mages spamming aoe spells my computer (with fairly decent specs) just grinds to a halt for a couple seconds. Then everything is dead.
Deathchill and Howling Blast are an awesome combination
First up: Cruel's Intentions. I'm a 61 Unholy DK. Feasible or 'ahahaha no'?
I don't even know why there's discussion at all about it.
Against non-elites single or multi, shit dies too fast in unholy to ever have wait time if your gear isn't pure garbage. You'll always have a cooldown up, especially with butchery so even if your cooldowns are down when the first mob dies (and the rest are 1/2 dead because of your AoEs) you just made a quick 20 RP which is usually enough to put me over the top to do something nasty to the remaining guys (if there are any). Unholy also speeds your swing time by 15% which means more runic strikes and more blood caked blade procs. If you're fighting multiple opponents you're not doing the IT, PS, SS, BS, BS rotation, you're spreading diseases around with pestilence, and the faster that goes up, the faster it's ticking on your enemies. If you're fighting solo enemies, IT, PS, SS, BS, BS (or a 2nd SS if they're death runes from your last kill), is typically more than enough to kill anything (and if it's not you've got at least the RP for 1 DC if not 2).
Really against non-elites the difference is negligible and the only difference is self heal vs faster run speed.
In prolonged fights against elites out in the wilds, I almost always go frost for the survivability. I also don't think anyone's arguing that in dps situations against single target elites in instances unholy > blood. Blood is probably going to be the higher dps in longer single target high hp fights (like bosses), where you will end up waiting on rune cooldowns. I originally brought up the fact that I'm in unholy stance when not tanking because I've only once not tanked an instance (And I was 73 and the rest of my group were between 77 and 80 so even then stuff didn't stay alive long enough).
Not soloable, but you and one other DK could do it easily. At least my friend and I did and we were 59 and 61 respectively.
This is true, unholy blight is awesome.
Another thing to consider is that the only real reason to skip a 1 point tier talent is
1) if it's not useful and;
2) if you need that single point to get a tier talent in a different tree.
Unholy blight is clearly a good, useful talent, so it doesn't meet the first criteria for skipping it. The unholy tree is also set up in a way that you don't really want to stop at 50 points. On the 7th tier there's 7 talent points, and you probably want all 7 of them. That means on the 8th tier there's another 5 points you want to spend, so that by the time you're at the 9th tier and unholy blight you've already spent 52 points in unholy, and you can't reach the 21 point talents in any other tree (not that you'd want to). So there's really no point in skipping unholy blight. It's a great talent by itself, but it's also only one talent point that's not better off anywhere else.
Thank you Blizzard, I now have a reason to enjoy your new content. Yay.
I just skipped it. The trinket's nice but you'll be getting that type of trinket hand over fist in northrend. I'm glad I just skipped difficult quests in outland because next thing I knew I was 68 and northrend just blew away everything I did in outland (exp and item wise).
Yeah, leveling is too quick in Outlands now to be concerned with loot, if you can't find a group quickly it's not worth waiting for the exp.
It's ridiculous, Hellfire took 3 hours, I'm 5 quests away from 64 and out of Zang [as long as I want to stay
Northrend will take 5 days to get to from a new DK.
Yeah it's pretty great. I never did step foot in blade's edge, shadowmoon or netherstorm. But I might go back at 80 in a month or two to finish up those quests and make money.
Back to spec discussion. I respeced into this last night (edit, updated).
It's more of a tanking spec that's still capable of doing good dps. I actually haven't noticed any dps drop from my old build to be honest, but that's just because stuff dies too fast. But it's made instance tanking a heckuva lot easier. My dodge/parry went from 8.5/14% respectively, to around 14% dodge (got some gear upgrades last night too), and 24% parry with blade barrier up. My armor and hp are both around 17000 at level 77. I figure that's not too shabby.
When I'm not tanking my attack power's over 2800 with horn of winter and when fallen crusader procs (usually once a fight).
This is the first time I've used anti-magic zone. It's awesome and fun to use, even though it's kind of unnecessary at this level. It's still a blast.
I would think it would give the 8-10 gold that it always did + item reward. But I don't know for certain.
That reminds me, I want to go back to nagrand and finish that whole hellscream/thrall quest line stuff once I hit 80 too.
I'm not so sure at all. I think quests reward something of the tune of xp/2000 in gold (So 10g for a 20k xp quest). But at 80, Netherstorm q's aren't worth any gold.
Re: the debate - I was under the impression that we were talking about all kinds of dps, including instances (where blood is so far ahead it's not really an argument). While soloing:
a) 1 on 1- stuff dies really fast no matter what presence you're in.
b) Unholy spreads diseases to AoE pulls 1 second faster than Blood, but Blood makes those diseases and everything else do 15% more damage. So I guess if your AoE packs die in 7 seconds, then Unholy is better.
c) You will have dead time in Unholy Aura in any fight longer than 7 seconds.
d) You're totally right that you should make the choice based on movement speed vs. healing, because stuff is going to die fast no matter what. (but if you have the Unholy Aura talent, which you should, Unholy presence provides nothing on top of that)
All of this goes out the window if you have a crappy connection or something like that which makes you need the reduced global to fit things in. I also am not sure if the rotations of blood and frost would lend themselves more or less to either presence since I haven't tried them yet.
Depending on how much/if you outlevel it, or your spec. I'm confident that there was just no way I could have killed those colossi(without dying and finishing them in ghoul) without icebound fortitude. I just took way too much damage, as unholy.
Arazzius seems like he would have been too hard, but I'm not sure, the elite colossus probably would not have been. Certainly, I had no problems with Teribus, Hai'Shulud, Terrokkantula, and Torgos at lvl 66, nor any of the elite Nagas in Zangarmarsh. I think that's all I've done, and tonight or tomorrow I'll give the two boss demons in the Nagrand forge camps a shot.
The colossi aren't TOO bad if you make sure to stop damaging the main collossus when he breaks apart and kill his buddy quickly, because they hit hard. I don't remember exactly how I killed them each time, but I remember the first time I died and had to come back as a ghoul to kill it, but the 3 other times I made sure to switch to his buddy each time and kill him and I did it without dying.
Also, the demon elites in nagrand are totally killable and give something like 4k xp rested, but take forever to kill. I think I actually abandoned the quest in favor of just finishing other easier quests (killing 5 talbuk for 4k xp took far less time).
I haven't been following WoW stuff for about 4-5 months.
Other things I've discovered:
Icebound Fortitude is an amazing ability. 50% damage reduction for 12s on a 60s cooldown? Yah. Reading the tooltip should tell you how awesome it is, but I didn't really appreciate it until I was tanking an instance.
Bone Shield is a good spell, but with mediocre avoidance I still think Unbreakable Armor is better. I'll see when I get to level 80, as I won't be re-speccing Frost until then. With high avoidance, I would agree with the prevailing consensus that Bone Shield will be better.
DK's are really built for group tanking. Between our crazy AE agro abilities, and our myriad 60s cooldown damage reducers, I really get the impression that DK's are going to be the defacto 5-man and raid trash tanks, maybe not so much the singular boss tanks (where Warriors and Druids will probably still rule). Not to say that DK's (and Paladins) can't tank single bosses, just that our capabilities really steer us toward tanking large groups.
You put up bone shield before going to fight a tough boss.
You use up all the charges on bone shield, you pop Icebound Fortitude.
You reapply bone shield as soon as icebound drops off.
That gives you ~30 seconds of ridiculous mitigation on a boss fight, and puts you about 10 seconds closer getting another application of icebound fortitude off in the meantime.
Bone shield is just awesome like that, allowing you to start a fight with insane mitigation so you can position yourself while your healer stops playing grabass with the DPS and realizes that you've pulled.
I was able to get a full level worth of xp just doing the first round of quests in Nagrand. They conveniently set up the zone so you can start at Garadar and do a large clockwise circle to finish all the quests. I had 17 quests "completed" before I turned them all in, which netted ~170k of xp.
Then factor in all the killing you have to do, and the various quest stages around the zone.. it's easy street. Probably the best zone for experience in the game, except maybe Netherstorm.