• Lanky

You can fix the resists with some spell pen and hit to 5%, SPen doubles as a good way of increasing SS or FS damage too, and is useful for not getting your Mind freeze and COIs resisted.

No matter how much gear you have, you will probably never kill a hotted up resto druid on your own. Swap to the partner and play the mana game. Make him hot up two people as much as possible.

As for Disc Priests, begin with strangulate, into AMS, nuke, nuke, ghoul stun or lichborne, nuke nuke. Point being is to dump as much damage as possible to force a partner peel, burn up lots of mana, or allow your healer to go offensive.

 

Aezoc

It's just your gear and spec. With 326 resilience, you're going to get torn up pretty badly by DPS classes, and unholy is a lot more forgiving of bad gear than frost is. With decent gear, you should be able to take down a rogue or warlock easily. IBF, frost presence, and swordshattering make a rogue's life very difficult, and lichborne/AMS counter warlocks nicely. A good frost mage is a pain, but I still don't think we're disadvantaged.

 

Faer

I have that problem as well, running the same comp of unholy/resto sham. Warrior/x teams are a huge pain for us since the warrior sticks to my shammy like glue, and eventually runs him oom. COI spamming has little to no effect since he can constantly charge/intercept. The only times where I can successfully peel the warrior is to DG him right as my healer goes around a pillar to drink, but then he'll just turns around and start dumping rage on me, forcing my healer to come back out so he can get juggernaut'd again.

 

Drayk

Hi everyone,

I play dual dps with a ret paladin and we played something like 80 games yesterday. We are stuck at a miserable 1350-1400 rating. No matter what, we keep yoyoing. We usually play quite well against double dps but we lose too often against dps+heal. We won more often than we lose, but we can't climb the ladder.

I am 0/17/54 with the T7 25 2pieces bonus. 5% hit and 75 spell penetration. Usually in UH presence, sometimes frost against warrior or rogue. Both our weapons are a bit weak. (inevitable defeat)

I know that I have some interrupt problems against resto shamans, but our main problem is druids. We encountered lots of them and they kite us easily. They keep morphing out of IC, and my pal can't repentance them, so it's a bit difficult to burst the dps.

Any tips ? My Paladin friend can't respec heal due to a lack of stuff and he's always been ret for years.

 

Azaguth

Sounds very similar to my situation. My partner is a prot pally with a hodgepodge of dps gear (2pc t7 bonus) and holy/ret pvp gear (700ish resil). Once he's out of mana, we're done, so we have to burn the other team down fast.

Double DPS is usually pretty easy. A single caster causes little to no problems (thank you Strangulate and Mind Freeze), and we focus/burn the clothies first if possible.

The issue we run into is healer/dps. We played 80 games this week, and managed to go up a whopping 150 points (from 1145 to 1295), but it took 80 games to do so. We hit as high as 1348, but lost a few games in a row.

Generally if we manage to play the same team two or three times, we can figure out a strategy to beat them, but that's not often the case.

We'd probably be able to do better, but I'm still in my 17/0/54 dps spec...I'm thinking after I respec/reglyph that'll help some, but the innate problem will still be the same.

We usually do well against holy pally/dk combo, but just about every other healer/dps combo gives us hell. Based on the combo we decide who we're targeting as soon as we know the team make up...but certain combinations we can never seem to beat. Shammy/lock and shammy/spriest seem to be our biggest trouble spots (matter of fact, any double caster dps/heal group). The biggest problem with Shammys specifically is bunkering. Do we wait them out, or run in willy-nilly where they're set up defensively with totems and all?

 

Nightseye

Does anyone else think 5/5 Desecration is a waste of talent points? Standing in it is not really an option if the target is kiting away and there seems to be too much lag associated w/ Desecration for it to be of any use. Most of the times my target is already out of the circle before it even procs, making it absolutely useless for peeling.

 

Stoical

No, you would be insane to skip Desecration and will never be able to stay on a competent target. If you drop it, your only slow as Unholy is Chains, meaning if they're trying to kite you have to spend every single frost rune on Chains to keep your target at hamstring-level or slower. If they can dispel, you're even worse off.

Desecration's uptime is solid now. It procs pretty much immediately, and it lasts for several seconds even after they clear the area, so if you're steadily dpsing someone, PS and SS should reapply it in time without a problem. I only see it drop when the target does something to drop snares and gets out of the area quickly, e.g. Earthen Power, druid shifts, etc., and then you use Chains to close again.

Use Chains for peels.

 

Severity

This talent was changed in 3.1 Now it's an immediate application of a snare that comes off your main attack, Scourge Strike, and your Plague Strike, your initial attack.

5% extra damage is a nice bonus, too. Not everyone is able to immediately escape the desecrated zone, especially if their cooldowns are burned. But, think of this as a bonus to an already great talent.

I'd like to bring this post back up, too. This is something I've been looking for myself.

 

qinetiq

Sure, it is a waste but not completely. 3/5 in Desecration are enough. Differense between full and partial improvement isn't so seen as ignorance.

Seems like you never run around some pillar to get someone's healer head. For example: 2x2 DK+RDruid vs War + RDruid. Tactic is very simple:

1. Keep pressure on healer. Don't allow him to drink or assist his party.
2. Break Warrior attempts to hammer your Drood into the ground. He can do it and much faster than you.
3. Allow your healer to drink.
4. Loop(1-3) until their healer will be out of mana, then simply kill him.

All of these things can be done only by slowing an opponents. Sometimes one of them, sometimes both of them in the same time. How will you do it if you can just spam Chains? Maybe you can do it, but it will cost you nerves Desecration 3/5 is required and no another way.

 

Aezoc

The desecration snare isn't instant, despite what I think the patch 3.1 notes indicated. My experience is it still takes a half second or so, so that if you're chasing someone at max melee range, there's a good chance that they'll clear the desecration area before the snare actually gets applied. It's still a solid talent though, and worth taking.

As far as the glove bonus, my hunch is that it would be difficult to track properly. IIRC there's no combat log entry to watch for that indicates when it procs, so you'd have to have logic that watches for CoI casts, and after some interval (half second or so), if a frost rune hasn't gone on cooldown, then it procced. That seems like a big hack job though, unless I'm missing an easier way.

 

Lyssa

Was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what to do to beat resto druid/warlock as resto druid/frost dk. We've only met the combo twice but they completely destroy us. I can't get close to any target for any amount of time due to chain fears, roots and cyclone, and I can just watch while my druid gets gradually worn down by dots and the felhunter. One game I managed to burst down the pet and prevent the warlock from summoning a new one four times in a row, then came the vicious cc cycle and he had a new pet up and a minute later my druid was dead. My spec isn't optimal for arena (I switch from tank/dps a lot in Ulduar and need to keep my specs pretty much as is) but would Lichborne do that much of a difference that we would win? I'll spec for it next time and see if it makes any difference, but any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Also met disc priest/warlock once and it was the same story, at least the fears share DR there.. but the added mana burn didn't help a bit.

To OP's: I've found warrior/druid to be one of the easier combos to beat this season, which is nice because there's a lot of them. Since they can't dispell diseases just keep them all up and constantly switch to targets without hots. Most games end up with the resto druid trying to kite me away and root, I use AMS and manage to nuke him down within one strangulate + warstomp.

 

Stoical

I'll just pick this part out of what you said. This is completely wrong. Do you honestly think that it's worth lowering your main snare from 50% to 30% just to gain a couple of points in some mediocre damage ability? If you go that route, your main snare is now worse than every other snare in the game. You get hit by Wing Clip, Infected Wounds, Hamstring, Earthbind, and you'll have to waste Grip or Chains even if your target is already snared and you're in melee range.

If you click through the specs of the top 20 or so rated Unholy DKs, I guarantee you will see 5/5 Desecration on pretty much everyone. There is a good reason for that.

 

qinetiq

Yep, i honestly think that lowering my secondary(!) snare from 50% to 30% just to gain more rune power from Dirge works much better than rather. 2450 personal and 2x2 team raiting, Шквал battlegroup, Ru.

 

Aezoc

Dirge is pretty important, but Dirge vs. 5/5 Desecration is a false dichotomy. If we're talking about 2s, then I don't think AMZ is worth the four points it takes, and getting rid of that gives you plenty of room to fill out desecration, as well as IUP. Now, I can't really speak to the cost:benefit in 3s and 5s, but I think for 2s both Dirge and Desecration (and IUP for that matter) are worth maxing out.

 

qinetiq

Seems like our DK armed by Desecration only No lowered duration of slowing effects, no improved running speed, no unholy presense, nothing.

 

Stoical

Lowered duration of slowing effects doesn't make you faster, and improved running speed/unholy presence don't stack. You're still 50% slowed with 15% running speed bonus, and your target is 30% slowed (already faster than you), almost certainly with his own 8% running speed bonus. Meaning, as I said, even if you're already in melee range, your target is immediately faster than you when you get hit by Wing Clip, Hamstring, or Earthbind. You're going to have to waste a frost rune to get back into melee range within seconds of your being slowed, without them even needing to peel with stuns, snare drops, or anything else.

Desecration is your constant snare, a la hamstring or crippling poison. That makes it your "main" snare in my book - you may start with chains at the beginning of the match to close, but you're not constantly chaining your target unless they keep managing to get out of range, so it's still your secondary snare (just like the spell someone casts most often is their "main" nuke, even if they lead with something else or have a big hit of something else sometimes).

Also, as Aezoc pointed out, Dirge is a false comparison. You drop the points from something else that has less value in a PvP build, like Impurity.

I'm curious what your comp is. I may just fail at dealing with special characters, but I'm unable to find your character as the link in your profile doesn't work. I only see 2 DKs on your server above 2k in 2s, and they're both running 5/5 Desecration, so I'm guessing neither one is you.

 

Luar

Yes Desecration should help a lot. Right now I am running a basic Blood spec for Arena's... and to be honest chasing people down is not fun. I might actually go to Unholy just because of what I have read here. All this information is valuable and so worth it every word.

Yes, but when going Unholy for a Arena spec what are the basics in points I should get... I keep seeing Dirge and other names but in reality it kind of means nothing unless I see a tree.

I was thinking of something like this:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9901

That or switch my Blood spec glyphs to add Glyph of Blood Boil which makes it so my Heart Strike decreases movement speed by 50% for 10 sec. Either way Paladin's will be a big problem for me and my Disc. Priest partner.

 

Jiggs

There is no such thing as a basic blood spec for arena because if you want to do well in arena you shouldn't be blood spec'd!!! I can't believe you were trying a blood spec in arena without the 10second slow glyph.

Figure a spec out on your own. Every spec is very similar and most of the points you should take are just common sense. Go armory high rated people and then decide where you want to put the few preference points. Don't take 3/3 annihilation. Go 2/3 and put that 1 point somewhere else.

Here is what i use... Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I like ghoul explode because it still hits for over 5k and I took 1/3 wandering plague because it interrupts drinking. There are a few debatable points in the unholy tree, but they don't make a huge difference and most of them are fine alternatives.

I can't believe someone posted this as a way to handle disc priests LOL. "As for Disc Priests, begin with strangulate, into AMS, nuke, nuke, ghoul stun or lichborne, nuke nuke. Point being is to dump as much damage as possible to force a partner peel, burn up lots of mana, or allow your healer to go offensive."

 

Celadruid

Would you care to modify his statement, since it seems you are the first to call it out? Offer a different rotation on how to handle the priest?

Seems kinda redundant on your part to laugh at what he says, yet not offer a remedy in return.

 

Illundai

No competent Priest will die if you begin with a Strangulate, there's no way. What I do on the other hand is force the Priest to blow all his cooldowns by going crazy on him, without Strangulate.

Gargoyle > COI > PS > SS > BS > BS > ERW > Gnaw > SS >> SS >> SS. It might be my gear but I've not encountered a Priest that doesn't have to blow Pain Suppression when I do that to him, after that he's pretty much a free kill, because next time Gnaw comes off cooldown, you do something similar, except you don't use ERW, but you use Strangulate when your Gnaw runs out. Works fine for me.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Naivedo

I have used gargoyle from my Unholy PvE DPS spec and I found it to be great for burst damage since I was speced 10/10/51 and had 130 total runic power which I filled before using. Keeping gargoyle and runic power so it doesn't go away isn't hard plus you can blast the rest of your runic power if needed to finish off the enemy.

Oh and to reply to the first post, Lichborne isn't dispellable but you are an Undead that can be shackled and Turn Dead in PvP which is kind of worse the being dispelled.

 

Fellow.Canadian

Going to agree with what Illundai said. I do not recommend blowing strangulate at the start. It's better to bring the priest's health down with a lot of pressure and finish them with a well timed gnaw and strangulate. Depending on the priest, good timing of ERW plays a big factor as well.

 

Jiggs

Honestly, I didn't think I needed to offer a better remedy after laughing at his suggestion because opening with strangulate is probably the stupidest thing you could possibly do in that situation and I thought that my laugh was pretty self explanatory. You will fail every single time (if you are the only dps) if you open on a disc priest with strangulate. Just think about it logically... So you open with a strangulate, then you take 2 more globals to put diseases on, and finally you are able to do some high damage attacks. Any average priest will be able to live through your damage at that point.

In 2s I never start on the priest. I will be on their dps and pest some diseases over to priest (if I plan to switch to priest otherwise I will try to keep dots on only 1 target so PoM doesn't rape us). Once priest is set up with disease and in a good spot I can then find a time to switch when gnaw is back up. It's funny how people ask for the winning "rotation" to get a kill. Everytime it's different. You use any combination of pet stun/strangulate/mind freeze to lock the priest down when the right opportunity presents itself. In 2s I will pest diseases over to priest while on the dps. Pop gargoyle, then switch to priest when he's taken some damage catching him without hots/bubbles on himself. Then use gnaw/strang back to back and ERW if needed.

It's totally different in 3s though. If you are playing with another melee you can absolutely no skill faceroll open with a strangulate and still lawl your way to a kill, but you can pretty much do any retarded thing and still get a kill running cleave in 3s.

 

Jiggs

Um... i don't think the idea of using gargoyle to help put out damage is new to anyone. Saving up 130 RP before using gargoyle is completely unnecessary.

Licheborne being dispellable would be much worse than having to watch out for incoming shackles or turn dead.

 

Aezoc

Given that there's been a blue post indicating that the inability to /cancelaura out of Lichborne is unintended, I'd hope it will be fixed soon (it may have even been fixed this past Tuesday, I've not done any PvP since). That makes it much more useful against pally comps particularly, since [Glyph of Turn Evil] is so common.