While it sucks the build I want got nerfed, and also confused (I was going unholy/sub frost for the haste as DW. This choice is much more difficult without black ice - I still need DW mastery but now its not worth it for JUST frost damage and the haste over bladed armor...) I am kinda glad unholy wont be OP anymore. This way it will be a less common build so I will feel more unique

I plan on playing a rogue-warlock and god dammit no changes will change that. If anything, my build was buffed because of BCB, and since the 5 talent point haste is completely useless with a shaman technically I didnt lose much.

However Icy Talons is pretty much a useless talent. In effect, you pay 6 talent points for a raid wide haste and 5% personal haste. Icy Talons itself is a complete waste of talent points in a riad enviornment unless you dont plan on having a shaman -_-

I don't think it's a bug. As Vank mentioned, he noticed the 8 second rune behavior quite a few builds back (I did remember someone noticed it before, which is why I figured I wasn't crazy to investigate further-- sorry for not going back and replying to you), and I've been trying to figure out pretty much since I made my DK why I could do rotations that didn't work on paper. Abilities seemed to pop earlier than they should when I planned them out, but I thought I was coming up different because of latency on the beta realms or something. I wonder if, actually, the first rotation of 10 seconds is a bug. 8 seconds is what enables simpler rotations-- we shouldn't have to worry about getting thrown off by using double-rune abilities and single-rune abilities on the same runes. From a design standpoint, that's a pretty counter-intuitive, or at least uninteresting function for a player to monitor as part of regular play.

I'll ask on the beta forums, but I'm guessing it's intended behavior. There's probably a balance reason I can't imagine at the moment for why the first-use cooldown is 10 seconds. Edit: Zurai already posted a thread here.

Now if they're gonna mess with the rune cooldowns, maybe a 9 second cd would be the best? It synergises with both BP and UP GCDs and also with the 18 second diseases. Or is it 9 seconds already? I noticed this aswell, but thought that the addon was buggy or smt, and it shows the number 8 for about a second, so it can be 9 seconds already.

Anyway, another thing: do you get the 5% dmg buff if you stand inside a desecration which was put down by anoher DK?

Just checking: Do you know they reduced base threat in UP and BP? I'm not sure if it was reduced to .8 or .7, but it was reduced.

Note Shaman only have 1 air totem, so Enhance will drop 20% melee haste but other Shaman likely will drop Wrath of Air for 5% spell haste (their WF is only 16% melee haste).


Hopefully the two spec idea will go in a future patch, so a DK can get raid-Icy Touch is there is an Enhance or 2 Shaman around (this is referring to a 10-man) or skip it when WF is out.

Oh, both have .8 threat (similar to Battle/Zerker Stance). That is nice to know.

I noticed this yesterday when I was hitting a lot of dummys for DPS testing. I use the Runewatch mod so I get a little countdown on my runes, which i saw counting down from 8 quite a lot. I wasn't entirely sure if it was the mod being buggy or not.

It does explain my problems with Blood though, namely I didn't seem able to spend all my runes fast enough, and certainly I couldn't fit in any RP dumps withough delaying spending a rune in BP. In UP I could use all my runes, but I was still missing out on the free DC procs fairly often. It seems kind of odd that Blood specced DKs really have to be in UP. Perhaps Sudden Doom procced DCs should be off the GCD? It does seem like Blood best use of RP is DRW/Gargole though.

I've seen a few more posts saying Haste lowers our GCD since my post saying it doesn't. Has anyone actually tested it and found it does? It sure didn't seem to when I tested it.

Hi all,

I have not been lucky enough to take part in the beta tests, but i am seriously concidering roling a DK and putting my fury warrior back on the shelf for a while, as it seems the DK definately offers more to a raid.

Reading through this whole thread there are not many actual talent examples (forgive me if they are posted elsewhere) I have been wondering as coming from a mele class as the fury warrior will the DK offer the same kind of DPS as BLood or is the talent spec for dps more down to the unholy tree. Also i read a lot here people stating DK = Tank not dps. is this true? or can the DK still DPS and offer as much to the raid?

I apologise now if this seems very vague but i just cant seem to get my head around a few of the topics being talked about here, probably be a lot easier once i start playing 1.

Also i have started crafting and collecting gear now for the DK.
Are the predominant requisits Strength and agil?
is it definately better to go 2h?
If i want to go DPS is it unholy all the way?
If it is unholy do i need spell hit and spell damage over the usual mele stats.

Your help[ on this would be greatly appreciated.

You should probably read the first post in this thread:

Recently Unholy's DPS has been nerfed a bit while Frost and Blood have been buffed. Unholys is probably still the best to level with due to the faster movement speed.

2h Still seems best, although some people like DW Frost now.

Best stats to stack are Hit/Expertise. After that Srt and Crit.

Might want to repost it in the Bug Report Forum, lest it be overlooked.

This doesn't sound like intended behavior as far as I'm concerned. There hasn't been any mention of it anywhere, and this is the first I've heard about it too. Plus, it would make for weird gameplay, don't you think?

DW Frost? That sounds interesting. Can you show me the best, or the most popular, talent build for this spec?

Given recent changes to unholy, I've dropped getting frost completely. I want to mention this spec isn't actually my original idea, I saw a DK on the beta realm with this and decided to try it out... and was very happy with the result:

Unholy>Blood

The main arguement I was reading however, stated how for 5 points you essentially get the equivalent of a Flurry type talent, then the extra point allows it to affect the raid. So, its really not fair the 5 point talent can be negated by a buff while other classes versions cannot. True DKs are probobly balanced around this, but unlike Imp Icy Talons, Icy Talons gives 0 benefit period if you have a WF totem, not to mention it ONLY benefits you. I cant think of many talents completely negated like that. However I could be wrong.

At the moment, http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

If they fix icy talons to stack with windfury, http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

With DW, Icy Touch and HB are both extra good, as they don't depend on weapon damage. In general, it's a PS, two IT, a BS, and an HB each rotation. Frost strike still beats DC.

Man if this 8 sec deal stays, rotations become SO much easier. That frost SW rotation would never work before.

However, the rime issue remains, as when rime procs HB doesnt use runes so you need to use them right after to get them on CD and not mess up your rotation.

Then again, maybe frost should be played as entirely reactive instead of a set rotation

Well you would get the same with sudden doom procs as well. Except I believe HB still generates RP.

Unholy is best for levelling, but would one go all the way down the unholy tree before picking up blood/frost talents, or are there some blood talents that are immediate must haves right away?

More than that, it totally makes the decision between blood and unholy presence require thought! 8 second runes would make which one does better damage depend on your spec/rotation, rather than it always being blood.

Alrighty, so i've been on the beta for about 2 weeks now messing around with DK's and the talk of DW vs 2h got me thinking about which is better... so i tested it.

Things worth noting

I'm in the regular beta gear. Full savage glad with just a couple gem changes to get socket bonuses. no pve gear whatsoever (however i do have the 'hit' pvp neck and cloak equipped). I'm orc so i'm using axes also, just fyi. I was also using Blood Presence for the increased damage. There may be better numbers with Unholy Presence, i'll give that a try a little later but i have work soon.

I've been toying around with unholy because from what i've experienced, that's the better dps. 2 extra diseases, a whole bunch of extra spell damage and of course the permanent ghoul is a big dps increase. If you're curious about why i didnt pick up dirge, i specced wrong the first time (lol i know) and as long as i dont have it in either the results wont be skewed as far as what i'm looking to get out of it.

Runeweapon enchants -- all 3 of my axes are enchanted with Cinderglacier. 2 charges of 20% increased damage to Scourge Strike or Unholy Blight at 1-3ppm? Yes, please.

My thoughts for DW was that it would be an increase in Blood-caked Blade damage, Necrosis damage and it would help to proc Cinderglacier more often (which it does of course, the question really is if Cinder2x is enough to make up for the loss in strike damage). I'm also using two slow weapons and since they've removed savage weapons from the arena vendors i cant exactly go and buy a fast OH axe (1.50 i believe) to see if that would improve BCB or Cinderglacier proccing, seeing how strikes appear to benefit only from main hand weapon damage. Oh well.

The tests were done based on a 5 minute timer on a level 75 training dummy in Ebon Hold, with my ram-shackle rotation i've been working on (which i admit still needs tweaking, but at least the rotation is consistent throughout both specs lol). Bone Shield active the whole time and Horn of Winter gets thrown back up when it's low. My ghoul was also put away so he didnt clutter my recount window. These took a little while because of the stpuid frost fever-refresh-bug involving the Sigil that gives AP when you use scourge strike... I'm sure it was mentioned in this thread a couple pages ago.

Spec 1 (DW) -- http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...03150003133151

Damage total = 518.3k
Scourge Strike Damage = 84,637 (16.3% total, min=1631, avg=2351, max=5241)
Plague Strike Damage = 15,247 (2.9% total, min=347, avg=525, max=995)
Blood Strike Damage = 27,372 (5.3% total, min=795, avg=1140, max=1828)
Blood-Caked Blade Damage = 5,061 (1% total, min=293, avg=389, max=450)
White Damage** = 125,978 (24.3% total, min=312, min crit=686, avg=523, avg crit=1075, max=751, max crit=1519)


Spec 2 (2h) -- http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...03150003133151

Damage total = 543k
Scourge Strike damage = 112,753 (20.8% total, min=2085, avg=3047, max=6736)
Plague Strike damage = 25,939 (4.8% total, min=497, avg=682, max=1474)
Blood Strike damage = 26,890 (5% total, min=1003, avg=1169, max=2256)
Blood-Caked Blade damage = 4949 (0.9% total, min=575, avg=618, max=659)
White damage** = 101,759 (18.7% total, min=889, min crit=1964, avg=1048, avg crit=2193, max=1168, max crit=2384)

**Recount appears to be separating White damage crits from White damage hits... so it's an added figure that may be a little off, especially the percentage. Sorry guys.

So, while cinderglacier did proc more often while dual wielding (duh), rune caked blade procced more times (13-DW vs 8-2h) and White damage was significantly higher (by about 4%) i'm gonna say that unless you're deep frost i wouldnt bother dual weilding (unless a quick offhand makes BCB/Cinder proc a whole hell of a lot more often). The white damage loss is more than made for in the massive increase in Strike abilities damage, although Plague Strike is still really low damage.

Also, given the numbers i picked up from this i may not even spec into BCB as < 1% really isnt much to brag about. It needs to be more weapon damage or something, that's just not enough for me.

Disclaimer -- This is only for the Unholy tree, so numbers may prove differently for deep frost where only Frost strike uses weapon damage really and extra cinderglacier procs will be very nice. I'll leave that test to other people who want to go frost however lol.

P.S. Wandering plague and Unholy Blight numbers look great as well. And the perma-ghoul will only increase the dps done. I'm excited for unholy, i really am

Well, the reason we haven't heard of it before is nobody actually checked it. To my knowledge, there's no official mention of runes intended to be 10-sec cooldowns, other than here where it's been the operating assumption.

It needs to stay this way, imo. If all your rune cooldowns were actually 10 seconds, you'd notice pretty quickly and get kind of grumpy. You'd have a lot of downtime in some specs while out of RP just waiting to use an ability again.

The one interesting consequence of the 8 second rune, combined with the change to "Black" Ice, means the best blood spec and rotation might need to be reconsidered. Frost doesn't really play nice with the other trees anymore. For Blood, Annihilation is now a 13 point talent for minimal benefit. The unholy tree as a subspec has significantly tastier treats in the lower tiers. Without Annihilation, Blood dps rotations look like:

PS - IT - HS - HS - OB then PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - HS

but that doesn't leave any free GCDs. So the question's going to be, is DC good enough for Blood that it's worth using DC (or Sudden Doom for that matter) over spending your runes again immediately?

As for Unholy dps, I'm using exactly the spec that Zurm posted above. Black Ice becoming Blue-only and Icy Talons not stacking (allegedly) means there's not much there for either of those dps specs. Frost only really helps frost now.

Why gargolye in both specs? Aren't you spending all yoru RP on FS as Frost? Or has the garg DPS been boosted enough to use it over FS?

One note about the DW vs. 2h test-- Besides BCB still being pretty lackluster, Necrosis is hitting for 1 damage again. When it works correctly, it's a bit more beneficial for the dual-wielder, though still not quite enough by your numbers to make up the gap. Still, I think with the right gear, we could reach a point where either one of them could be viable-- i.e., getting gear optimized for each build. There's a lot of haste gear out there which would benefit the DWer more, for one.

Necrosis doesn't overkill, so if you're hitting dummies it'll always hit for 1, or is it doing it to mobs too?