Previous posters have commented far more on the (varying) utility of Desecration, so I'll just point to their posts and say "It has some issues".
Regarding Unholy Aura in a DPS build, I would absolutely take it, with little thought. A Paladin swapping auras to give movement speed is burning a GCD to do so, and loses out on the benefit provided by the aura being lost, which will either be DPS, mitigation, resist, or some other similarly valuable buff.
As for your point about reaching hit cap quickly, spellhit cap at 80 will be 442 hit rating for 17%. You may indeed be able to get that amount on a DPS set, but I'm not sure you won't be sacrificing more other stats than they're worth. (Not too much plate has large amounts of hit that I have seen.) I don't consider it as vital for a primarily melee class with 2 spells as for a caster, however, so I agree that points there could be sacrificed for better choices.
Agreed on some points. Unholy Aura is rather meh in practical circumstances, just like Crusader Aura is in existing raids. It was never needed for a group buff in any beta raid that was opened to us for testing.
Here's a screenie of my Paper Doll. Note this isn't with every piece of PvP gear replaced (Belt, cloak, sigil) nor the best gear in every slot for +hit. This is basically three weeks of relatively casual beta raiding. The pants alone have 80 hit on them and are easy to get (Staggering Legplates from heroic Violet Hold). I'm not spell hit capped, but with minimal effort you could be given the gear available through the beginning raids.
I don't remember a paladin aura granting movement speed, unless its a set bonus, possibly with Ret in that case, which would always be in 1 aura anyway. Most paladins are except for resist cases.
Agreed on some points. Unholy Aura is rather meh in practical circumstances, just like Crusader Aura is in existing raids. It was never needed for a group buff in any beta raid that was opened to us for testing.
Here's a screenie of my Paper Doll. Note this isn't with every piece of PvP gear replaced (Belt, cloak, sigil) nor the best gear in every slot for +hit. This is basically three weeks of relatively casual beta raiding. The pants alone have 80 hit on them and are easy to get (Staggering Legplates from heroic Violet Hold). I'm not spell hit capped, but with minimal effort you could be given the gear available through the beginning raids.
Is that 296 or 396? I'm afraid it's a bit small for some reason. In any case, it's less about "the numbers aren't there" than it is "okay, by wearing these pieces am I losing out on something else?" Considering we have ~3 "spells", unless you're DWing it may indeed not be worth going so much beyond the 2h hitcap and losing out on the stats traded for hit rating in the item. Perhaps I should have said "you won't easily hitcap without focussing on +hit with a resultant loss of other DPS stats". I'm sure it's even possible to hitcap for DW, but I'm NOT sure of how useful doing such will be.
The aura... I favor movement speed enchants on boots, and always have. I consider this to be akin to that, in that anything to reduce time off-target is an effective DPS increase, in this case raid-wide. It's a good investment for 2 points where there's not a lot that's unarguably "better".
Originally Posted by Caggy
I don't remember a paladin aura granting movement speed, unless its a set bonus, possibly with Ret in that case, which would always be in 1 aura anyway. Most paladins are except for resist cases.
Upon reflection, you are indeed correct. Crusader aura does apply +speed, but only to mounted players. That may have been the one thought of. In that case, Unholy Aura is an even better choice, in my opinion.
It's 296, which is over 9% melee hit and 11% spell hit. I'm not currently gemmed for +hit in any way (darn Murmur JCs). I can't see a DW unholy build being something many would go for, most if not all of the single handed DPS swords have agi/stam as opposed to str/stam, which would be a large enough disease hit to make me waffle even without considering the extra +hit needed to pull it off. You'd actually have to gem +hit with the gear we've been exposed to, in reality.
Out of curiosity, where would you take those two points from, at the gear level of Naxx/OS? (Decent blues/PvP gear expected at a minimum).
Is that 296 or 396? I'm afraid it's a bit small for some reason. In any case, it's less about "the numbers aren't there" than it is "okay, by wearing these pieces am I losing out on something else?" Considering we have ~3 "spells", unless you're DWing it may indeed not be worth going so much beyond the 2h hitcap and losing out on the stats traded for hit rating in the item. Perhaps I should have said "you won't easily hitcap without focussing on +hit with a resultant loss of other DPS stats". I'm sure it's even possible to hitcap for DW, but I'm NOT sure of how useful doing such will be.
While I agree that gemming +hit only for getting the spellhit cap might be worthless, the actual difference between melee hitcap and spell hitcap isn't that large in WotLK. Assuming you bring at least a Shadowpriest for Misery or a Moonkin with Imp FF and spec into Vigilance (which however might be hard to do without losing DPS talents), the percentage needed to cap out is only 11%, 2% higher than your normal hitcap. Additionally you need much less hitrating for spellhit, your average spellhitchance with 9% meleehit should be around 11%. So you are getting very close even without overgemming Hitrating.
Without 3 points in Vigilance you are indeed 3% short, and this talent might be not worth it to spec into for pretty much any current DPS Spec (51/13/7 Blood, 17/0/54 Unholy and 15/50/7 Frost). As Unholy you might use 3 Points from Outbreak to test it, and as Frost some Points from Dark Conviction.
Concerning tanking, considering the mandatory base talent points 5/5/7 (BB, Thoughness, Dodge, Epidemic), I'm wondering how blood tanking can be as effective than Frost/Unholy.
Both Frost and Unholy have really potent mitigation/aviodance tools (only speaking of physical defence):
Lichborn (that is not a Frost only ability because it's a 11 point talent but let's consider it as Frost)
Frigid Dreadplate
Unbreakable Armor
GoG improving Icebound Fortitude's duration by 50%
Bone Shield
On the other hand while I can discern what should be Blood talents for mitigation/avoidance, I have difficulties to evaluate them.
Mark of Blood a 3 min CD for a 30s duration that "lowers" each attack by 4% of max health. It is not totally true because a lethal strike won't let you gain the life back. Is it working for all kind of damages ? Is an AoE damage ability affected once per target damaged ? When do you use it ? (a 3min CD is not a no brainer as Bone Shield or Icebound Fortitude)
Vampiric Blood 1min CD for a 20s duration. Here is the counterpart of Bone Shield. Where Bone Shield is flat damage reduction, we have here a more Blood tasty mechanism. No avoidance/mitigation improvement but increase of healing. Considering the Blood Tank as Blood Aura, does it means that the 2% of damage into heal becomes a 3% damage into heal for 20s ? Or is this ability existing only for getting huge Death Strike healing amounts ?
Bloodworms is not a PvE ability, is it ?
Finally the only true mitigation talent, Will of Necropolis. 30% armor increase (before Frost/Toughness calculation ?) when at 35% life or less. I've already tanked and offtanked several bosses in Naxx10 and I have the feeling that going below 35% percent is something you really want to not happen, because most of the time it means that next strike can be lethal except if you use an additionnal CD. Is this ability a big improvement in the mitigation/avoidance of the Blood tank ?
Finally is it worth going Blood Tanking instead of Frost or Unholy (I enjoy both other branches of tanking) ?
While for dps all the specs are reasonably balanced between eachother for tanking this is not the case for sure.
As you mention yourself blood is lacking in actual tanking talents with both there talents being very meh.
Will of the Necropolis is a nice increase but if a boss hits you while your below 35% health your in trouble anyway. Healing should boost you back above that % in between hits making it pretty useless.
For me Vampiric Blood is also pretty useless. Yes healers can in theory slow down a little but unlike Frost and Unholy it still relies on getting heals. It has no effect on fatal damage inbetween heals while the other 2 actualy try and prevent that damage from being lethal making you live long enough to get that saving heal.
All in all i dont consider blood to be a viable tanking tree without some serious reworking and will stick with Frost or Unholy.
Earlier in this thread there were reports that the target aquisition for the Blood Worms was indiscriminate and long-ranged, so they'd run into new packs of mobs and get you into trouble.
A guildie in beta told me today that he's only ever had that happen once, so it might not be quite so bad. Still, I would think that it's definitely not an instance/dungeon ability.
Btw for those RAFing, I just did the DK questline, and it's definitely easy to level out of the thing before hitting 58. The best tip was to not do the trainer quest, and not train skills until the end. It's worthless, you don't need to train anything for the prequest, and those 12k xp pretty much guarantee you can't level to 58. I leveled to 58 only after seeing the King in SW, which means you can even go to orgrimmar/SW before gifting your char. I tried not to overkill mobs, but since it's been some time since I actually leveled a DK, I forgot how the quests meshed together, and ended up killing about 25mobs I didn't need. Just skip the trainer quest and you'll be fine.
Does anyone know what this would do:
I have 2 RAF accounts. What if I create 2 DKS, and play one UNGROUPED, and before turning in a quest, group my second one, turn in quest and ungroup again.
Would this give triple xp per turnin? And how would it affect the above post?
Unholy Aura should be worth it for raids, it might not seem like it but 15% movement is huge on movement fights like Felmyst and Kiljaeden for example.
And just the amount of time you save on corpse runs or running to mobs will save you a bunch in the long run. Although a hunter should address this as well, I still have a huge dislike for 4 Horseman since making a ton of corpse runs back in the day when World First and Second for 4 Horseman where still to be had.
Runspeed Enchants on Boots only give 8% that's what I thought anyway so they are no alternative really, also you would lose a possible DPS increasing Enchant.
Unholy Aura should be worth it for raids, it might not seem like it but 15% movement is huge on movement fights like Felmyst and Kiljaeden for example.
And just the amount of time you save on corpse runs or running to mobs will save you a bunch in the long run. Although a hunter should address this as well, I still have a huge dislike for 4 Horseman since making a ton of corpse runs back in the day when World First and Second for 4 Horseman where still to be had.
Runspeed Enchants on Boots only give 8% that's what I thought anyway so they are no alternative really, also you would lose a possible DPS increasing Enchant.
The 45 yard range limit makes really lowers the value of all three auras. Sure there are fights where everyone can clump up but there's a lot where you can't (I guess there's a bit of irony that the two fights you mention here are examples where the aura would likely only apply to 1-2 groups at best).
Some (like AP reduction) are unique to warrior tanks but are by no means unique to the warrior class; they can be provided by several raid members if needed.
Feral druid tanks and warrior tanks both have an AP reduction (Demo shout / Demo roar). At 60 the feral version was better. At 70 the warrior version was better. At 80 they're supposed to be equivalent.
The main difference is that if a feral druid isn't tanking they can't apply demo roar (cat form doesn't have the option) but a non-tanking warrior can apply demo shout, as well as sunder armor (one of the two major armor reduction options). It hurts their DPS since they're spending rage to debuff rather than to attack, but it's possible to have a sundered AP-debuffed mob without a warrior or druid tank.
The 45 yard range limit makes really lowers the value of all three auras. Sure there are fights where everyone can clump up but there's a lot where you can't (I guess there's a bit of irony that the two fights you mention here are examples where the aura would likely only apply to 1-2 groups at best).
True, but in virtually all fights the MELEE are within those 45 yds. Let's do some napkin math, shall we? In a 25-man, let's assume we have 7 melee DPS. Now lets assume we are on a fight like KT, with approximately 10% running time with no run speed enchant, and let's also assume a personal sunstained dps of all melee to be 4k. These are all fair numbers from what we have seen on beta, shifted slightly to make the math easier to follow.
Now, without any runspeed enchant, we could expect each individual member to do:
4000 * (1-.1) = 3600 dps, and combined:
3600 * 7 = 25200
Now, if we increase running speed by 15%, we increase the (1-.1) = .9 multiplier to 1-.087 = .913. Re-doing this:
Or a net raid dps increase on this fight of 364. This is also just purely the DPS benefit from a running fight. This doesn't factor in the ability to hit your WHOLE raid with a 15% boost on fights like Heigan to make it easier (while it's not needed to have this speed boost on heigen, it certainly helps, especially with the achievement where no one can die t his bursts). Also, you will most likely be near to the tanks at all times, and allowing the tanks to grab targets more easily is extremely helpful.
If you are going to skimp points from unholy aura, you are hurting the raid more than if you were to take those points from impurity or necrosis, for example.
Originally Posted by Neddie
The main difference is that if a feral druid isn't tanking they can't apply demo roar (cat form doesn't have the option) but a non-tanking warrior can apply demo shout, as well as sunder armor (one of the two major armor reduction options). It hurts their DPS since they're spending rage to debuff rather than to attack, but it's possible to have a sundered AP-debuffed mob without a warrior or druid tank.
Actually, from my discussions with a few fury warriors they could easily apply demo should without interrupting the dps of their rotations. Sunder is a different story, of course. They also could all be wrong, but I tend to trust them as they are avid readers of EJ.
Last edited by Zurm : 11/03/08 at 11:21 AM.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
I'm making a rune addon at the moment. There are no good ones, only copies of the original runeframe with some ugly textures.
Mine doesn't look better right now, but I just started : Deposit Files
(It's the addon in the middle)
What do you think about it?
Edit: Damn, forgot a lame soundtrack..
I like it. I currently use Runehero with a little of my own code. Yours looks a little more subtle.
If I could turn off the background on yours and get a flash option instead of just full opacity when the rune recharges I'd download it. Are you considering anything like a runic power bar or activated ability tracking like sudden doom?
Just watched the video again. What's up with the funny bar order? Looks like F-U-F-U-B-B ? Is that to group your blood and Death runes together? If so I hope you have some configuration options for non-blood DKs.
I like it. I currently use Runehero with a little of my own code. Yours looks a little more subtle.
If I could turn off the background on yours and get a flash option instead of just full opacity when the rune recharges I'd download it. Are you considering anything like a runic power bar or activated ability tracking like sudden doom?
Just watched the video again. What's up with the funny bar order? Looks like F-U-F-U-B-B ? Is that to group your blood and Death runes together? If so I hope you have some configuration options for non-blood DKs.
There is no configuration, it's just a concept test. I like having my runes in pairs, that's how you use them anyway. It may differ for tanks, but ordering them really is a minor issue.
I'm not considering rune power or procs. There are plenty addons that can do that already. I'll have to include diseases, since no addon can tell which disease belongs to you. Also a warning when your runes miss is a must.
There is no configuration, it's just a concept test. I like having my runes in pairs, that's how you use them anyway. It may differ for tanks, but ordering them really is a minor issue.
I'm not considering rune power or procs. There are plenty addons that can do that already. I'll have to include diseases, since no addon can tell which disease belongs to you. Also a warning when your runes miss is a must.
Missing my runes is why I switched to Runehero from Runemaster. I love the little didn't quite make it bounce that Runehero uses when you miss.
I don't blame you on the procs thing I prefer that information appear somewhere else anyway.
For Disease tracking I've been very happy with Classtimer I keep a little stack of timer bars right above my Runehero sword. As long as its 3 icons high I'm good to go.
The thing I like the best about your design vs Runehero has got to be the opacity changes. Runehero is a little overwhelming and I've been looking at reducing the opacity lately, especially when OOC.
As frost view, what you guys think about drop Obliterate and use Death strike instead ?
Heal will make threat and if you had runic power mastery ( Max RP +30 ) and death strike glyph ( +2% damage and +2% heal by 5 RP store ), you will make 52% more damage and also 52% more heal from this strike.
Damage out from Death Strike will be still less than Obliterate but in term of threat i really think Death Strike will be higher, the synergie is really interesting.
On a non-ui related note; as deep unholy why am I taking Scourge Strike again? I'm looking at Thott and Wowhead today and can't figure out why I should be using Scourge Strike over Obliterate. Is it purely for the shadow damage? With 13 points in Frost and 3 diseases Obliterate should be badly out damaging Scourge Strike. Yet when I occasionally lace an Oblit into my rotation out of boredom it doesn't seem to hit as hard. Even with recount and target dummies I can't get Obliterate to reliably do more damage than Scourge Strike. When is my Math going out the window?
It doesn't even seem close. Is there really just 40% mitigation on the dummies?
Keep in mind as unholy that SS crits do 30% more damage, where oblit crits do the flat double damage. Also, they are upping level 80 raid boss armor, so using elemental strikes would likely be advantageous.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
SS gets +13% from ebon plaguebringer, and has +6% crit & 30% crit damage. Additionally obliterate removes your diseases unless you spec 13+ frost, and the frost subspec isn't anywhere near as good as the blood subspec.
I've been using DoTimer for disease tracking (among other things) which works well. It can become spammy since it will track your DoTs on multiple mobs (after spreading diseases for example) but that can be configured to take up less screen real estate or multi-mob tracking can be disabled completely.
It's 296, which is over 9% melee hit and 11% spell hit. I'm not currently gemmed for +hit in any way (darn Murmur JCs). I can't see a DW unholy build being something many would go for, most if not all of the single handed DPS swords have agi/stam as opposed to str/stam, which would be a large enough disease hit to make me waffle even without considering the extra +hit needed to pull it off. You'd actually have to gem +hit with the gear we've been exposed to, in reality.
Out of curiosity, where would you take those two points from, at the gear level of Naxx/OS? (Decent blues/PvP gear expected at a minimum).
I'd pull from either Desecration or Impurity. Desecration because of hitbox/radius issues, as mentioned previously in-thread, and Impurity because unless I'm drastically missing something, 5 points for harder hitting DCs/ITs is NOT exactly awesomesauce, as they say. Can also look at Virulence, Ghoul talents--I lean ghoul-centric Unholy--and so on.
However, there's a good point in the raid +hitbuffs. I'd forgotten about them from the melee standpoint, which is unfortunate as I was just the other day making a case for their usefulness in hitcapping on my mage...
I have 2 RAF accounts. What if I create 2 DKS, and play one UNGROUPED, and before turning in a quest, group my second one, turn in quest and ungroup again.
Would this give triple xp per turnin? And how would it affect the above post?
Your questions, while not very clear, made me think about the idea of having 2 RAFed DKs to do the DK storyline quests with. So I checked wowhead to find out how much xp the whole thing is in terms of quests, and also how much xp you need to level. The result is rather simple.
Total xp gained from the tutorial by quests is 420k. Add to that about 40k worth of mob killing. That means you'll get triple that on the quests, and 150% on the mobs(because mob xp is halved between the 2 chars). However once you hit 60, you don't gain the bonus anymore. I only did an approximative result, but it takes you 75% into 60. If you take into account turning in cloth stuff, you can hit 61 without doing any actual quest, and skip directly to zangarmarsh too. The results might be off by a couple of quests though, depending on when you get the most mob kills and such things.
The biggest issue with this way is, it's actually expensive(real dollars/euros). You need to buy a new account to RAF it with your main, and you need to transfer one of your chars that's 55+ to that new account to be able to create a DK. If you have an account that will still be RAFed to your main, you don't have to buy a new one either, and it's even better if there's a random 55+ on it, even though in this case, you most likely have levels to gift anyway and shouldn't bother with this strat.
Felt it might be interesting for people who want to powerlevel DKs though. I do assume DKs will count as normal chars with RAF however, which I haven't confirmed(and can't).
As frost view, what you guys think about drop Obliterate and use Death strike instead ?
Heal will make threat and if you had runic power mastery ( Max RP +30 ) and death strike glyph ( +2% damage and +2% heal by 5 RP store ), you will make 52% more damage and also 52% more heal from this strike.
Damage out from Death Strike will be still less than Obliterate but in term of threat i really think Death Strike will be higher, the synergie is really interesting.
Stop, please stop.
The spreadsheets, in their preliminary forms, have been made. At this point we are generally waiting on live server testing which is months down the road. The Death Strike note is interesting, but nothing more than that, because using DS in that way would force you to have maxed Runic power for far more time than you really want to in terms of raw DPS and threat output, so it is really suboptimal. Shelve it.
Your questions, while not very clear, made me think about the idea of having 2 RAFed DKs to do the DK storyline quests with. So I checked wowhead to find out how much xp the whole thing is in terms of quests, and also how much xp you need to level. The result is rather simple.
Total xp gained from the tutorial by quests is 420k. Add to that about 40k worth of mob killing. That means you'll get triple that on the quests, and 150% on the mobs(because mob xp is halved between the 2 chars). However once you hit 60, you don't gain the bonus anymore. I only did an approximative result, but it takes you 75% into 60. If you take into account turning in cloth stuff, you can hit 61 without doing any actual quest, and skip directly to zangarmarsh too. The results might be off by a couple of quests though, depending on when you get the most mob kills and such things.
The biggest issue with this way is, it's actually expensive(real dollars/euros). You need to buy a new account to RAF it with your main, and you need to transfer one of your chars that's 55+ to that new account to be able to create a DK. If you have an account that will still be RAFed to your main, you don't have to buy a new one either, and it's even better if there's a random 55+ on it, even though in this case, you most likely have levels to gift anyway and shouldn't bother with this strat.
Felt it might be interesting for people who want to powerlevel DKs though. I do assume DKs will count as normal chars with RAF however, which I haven't confirmed(and can't).
I multibox 5 shamans, so the accounts with chars 55+ are no issue to me I wouldn't multibox 2 DKs however, just put them in a group when they turn in a quest. I think I'll try it out and try to end up somewhere halfway in lvl 59 when I reach Orgrimar and then gift 1 level to 60.5-ish and proceed to do all my turn ins. (Cloth, Badlands, TB, and later in Zangarmarsh some stuff too, and Scryers tokens I got left) Hopefully it'll give me enough of a boost to stay ahead of the zerg of DKs that's going to flood Outlands
I'll calculate which quest I have to turn in grouped to end up as close to 60 as possible.
11/03/08, 3:19 AM
I wouldn't multibox 2 DKs however, just put them in a group when they turn in a quest. I think I'll try it out and try to end up somewhere halfway in lvl 59 when I reach Orgrimar and then gift 1 level to 60.5-ish and proceed to do all my turn ins. (Cloth, Badlands, TB, and later in Zangarmarsh some stuff too, and Scryers tokens I got left) Hopefully it'll give me enough of a boost to stay ahead of the zerg of DKs that's going to flood Outlands 
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