It seems there's a lot of arguing on what the best rotation is.

Is there a set one? I'm going with PS->IT->BS->BS->SS->RPD(UB or DC)->SS->SS->SS - Then if my SS are up I continue with a solid BS->BS->SS->RPD->SS->SS->SS until my glyph doesn't proc and I need to restart from the beginning rotation.

You don't have to restart the whole rotation, you simply replace the next SS with a PS/IT. And no, as unholy you can't have a "set rotation" due to the RNG of the Scourge Strike glyph.

That gearset is what I've been working with on my DK as ideal. It's a little bit short of expertise cap for a human but that could be remedied by 1 expertise gem or take care of the slight hit/expertise gap with an accurate monarch topaz. Can see in my armory that I'm fairly close, pieces that I'm missing either haven't dropped or haven't dropped much. I do however believe that it may be the best all-around gearing to shoot for if you assume method's numbers for ghoul weightings are workable (100% ghoul uptime). Incidentally when you look at my armory I'm aware that I'm currently over the dodge expertise cap because I'm using [The Jawbone], but it pushes itself over [Cryptfiend's Bite] by a tiny bit even with the wasted expertise because of the % strength increase talents giving it a little extra strength advantage. Would be a non-issue with the desired gearset.

Just had a few questions that I'm sorry if are redundant (didn't find in the previous threads), about the rotation and the gargoyle. First off... im guessing it's better to not use UB as the RP dump if it's a single target fight and use DC instead? About the gargoyle.... is it best to use when at 100 RP or use when u have the 50 RP?

gg

It doesn't matter what will be better, Unholy will still be one of the best trees next patch, just not as good as it is now. What matters now is Unholy is by far the best tank spec and they were pretty silly to be anything but Unholy until now. Figure out who will be getting Ebon Plague, you'll do quite a bit more DPS with Crypt Fever up also.

Keep UB ticking, use DC when it's UB is on. Otherwise, keep UB up. (This is on the front page, too.) UB does more damage, even with the higher RP cost, hence it's a good idea to keep it up whenever possible. The difference is gone in the next patch though - with UB costing 40 RP. The Gargoyle is best used at 100 RP because as it starts draining RP you'll want to have loads of it left so that it doesn't end too early.

If you are getting glyph of SS procs, the only attacks you want to be doing are runic power dumps, SS, and BS if you need to get death runes. Keep UB up, death coil off excess runic power, and do a 5x SS, 2x BS rotation for as long as you get lucky.

Been getting alot of new gear lately but my dps has not gone up one bit. Actually, I think it's going down.

I tried hitting a level 80 training dummy and got about 2800 dps (with 17/0/54). That was about the average after 5x 3 minutes dpsing.

Then I tried the exact same thing, but I switched my Inevitable Defeat for my old Claymore of Ancient Power and removed these items: Ruthlessness, Legplates of Double Strikes, Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak and Jorach's Crocolisk skin belt. And after the same amount of testing, I got an average of about 2700 dps. Note that I was always both hit & expertise-capped and did not use the Gargoyle or any other long cd-skill (except for the ghoul ofc)

So I thought Unholy probably scales badly with gear so I tried Blood. After the same amount of testing, I only made an average of 2500 dps with my best gear.

Not quite sure what's going on, but it is frustrating.

I did 3900 dps last time I tried Patchwerk.

My stats are:

Hit: Capped
Expertise: Capped
AP: 3600
Crit: 31% (completely unbuffed)
Armor Penetration: 78
Haste: 70

Should I be doing more damage with this gear?

Edit: I also use the Sigil of Awareness, of course.

right on thanks, it feels like im not doing anything waiting for SS cooldown, but this is my first melee class so its all new to me.

Hey, i found an issue when dpsing and i would like some help
Does anyone ever get their Runes to look like BD UU FF , and the B and D runes just keep switching back and forth, so it looks like this -> BD UU FF , DB UU FF, BD UU FF ..... forever
The "Normal" rune rotation looks like this -> BB UU FF , DD UU FF, BB UU FF..... forever
Yes i use the PS - IT - SS - BS - BS - SS - SS - SS etc. rotation
Ive tried using blood tap when it messes up like this to convert both into D runes. , but it still stays the same for some reason.
For Example. Runes look like -> BD UU FF . I blood tap. Runes go to -> DD UU FF. i hit SS when only DD are up.
Runes end up like -> BD UU FF. WHY dont they end up -> BB UU FF ?????
Does anyone else have this issue happen to them.
If so, how do you fix it so it goes back to the normal rotation?
Thanks~

This is because Blood Tap lasts for 20 seconds, meaning that the rune will stay a death rune for two, possibly three uses.

If you happen to end up in situation where you have DB, the easiest way to revert to a normal situation is simply to use BS for both of the runes, causing them to become death runes.

No, that would be unwise. If the dps unholy take Ebon Plague, and dies, the raid loses the buff. Obviously, if the tank dies, losing a buff isn't an issue because then its a wipe.

It depends, is he the MT or one of the MTs/OTs? The decision should be based on who is in a raid more often.

Alistra, I feel that a more important consideration at this point would be raid DPS. It sounds as if you lost your frost specced DK, and if your group consists of several melee (and no enhancement shaman) you might want to consider speccing into frost.

If you do not have a lot of melee, or a shaman is already present, you could drop Ebon Plague from your own spec (stop at crypt fever) and boost disease damage.

I do however agree with other posters in that the Tank should be responsible for spreading ebon plague. Also while BS was nerfed in the upcoming patch, Frost Presence was boosted. My understanding is that overall mitigation should remain the same, but incoming damage won't be as spiky. As such, there is no real indication that Unholy will be a bad tanking spec post patch.

The raid make up always consists of 2 DK's one tank one DPS - there is also backup for unholy DPS, but no backup for DK tank.

So if the tanks Ebon is more important, then i should respec- where could i make this loss is critical strike chance up. Desecration is generally considered poor so what the better option?

I personally would lean towards Virulence (depending on your current +hit), Outbreak (not as useful after the patch) and Magic Suppression. You could even put the points into On a Pale Horse if you wanted...a lot of these choices are based on personal bias.

On a side...for the reasons listed above it would probably be better for your tank to take unholy aura as well. So you have 5 spare points compared to the standard Unholy Build.

isn't putting points in virulence a wasted talent if you are already hit capped?

i believe he was referring towards the bone shield - "bone armor."

nerf from 40 to 20% dmg reduction

That's what I was guessing...but between the typo and the fact that this is the unholy _dps_ thread I had to wonder if I was just missing something.

Not really since spell hit cap is 17% vs the mele 8%. I highly doubt DKs would cap spell hit and if they did then they could go and regem to some STR instead of the hit gems they used to reach that cap.

No, but there is better spots to place the points if you are hit capped already.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

That is my variation I use for Unholy DPS.

You may ask "Why the point desecration I thought it wasn't that good of talent?" which is true but if you look DK DPS Comp. you can see that Desecration is more of a DPS increase per point than Virulence.

And my reason for taking Corpse Explosion is after reading the 3.0.8 patch notes I am excited to be able to use this ability to maximize my AoE capability since after you use Unholy Blight there isn't much to do except spam DC.

Also, its fun blowing up your raid members corpses

I really hope this post is some kind of twisted joke, because nothing in this post was correct. CE is a waste of points until next patch (and I'd even argue it will still be, as it is so situational). Desecration is NOT good for a 2H build... you really barely every use plague strike. And do not underestimate virulence, if you aren't capped (if you are without it, and use a 2H, what the hell are you thinking?) it's a pretty significant DPS boost.

If I was FORCED to move the 2 points out of virulence, I would likely put them in outbreak, for the AOE assistance.

I always take Corpse Explosion too. I know it's terrible right now, it is my absolute favorite DK ability. I wish there was a glyph to remove the ground effect, I know it's a lot of DPS per point but I feel like such a jerk taking a talent that craps giant splotches of ground effect graphics that makes any fight where people have to pay attention to things on the ground THAT much more difficult.

We did Grobbulus last night with a DK specced in to Desecration with a bunch of new people who were already having a difficult time with poison clouds.

3.0.8 can't come soon enough for ghoul avoidance. I'm really trying to wrap my brain around why we don't have a good out of combat heal for our ghouls that isn't popping a bandage on them. The whole ghoul pet system seems so poorly thought out. Why don't they have cannibalize or something to regenerate health out of combat? Ugh.