Hi everyone,

Sorry to interrupt any discussion, but I've gotten a bit mixed up re good glyphs. Currently, I'm using Plague Strike, Bone Armor, and Ghoul.

Is the common wisdom currently that Scourge Strike, Ghoul, and Icy Touch are a better combination?

Do you really think that Plague Strike and Bone Shield glyphs are at all useful for DPS?

Thus far I've kept Bone Armor with the thought that the extra charge would allow it to stay up longer in boss fights.

Also, I kept plague touch up with the thought that a tight rotation can help my dps. I know that plague isn't used much, but as between it and icy my gut feeling was plague would help my dps more than icy.

I've heard mixed reviews on Scourge Strike, even in this thread, so I wasn't sure if it was worth getting - which is why I posted the question to begin with.

Please check Zurm's first post in this thread for recommended Unholy DPS glyphs. Yes, currently those three are the most recommended and considered very effective for maximizing dps, assuming survivability is not an issue.

The only 'mixed review' about Scourge Strike glyph is from a bunch of idiots that don't have common sense and don't think its any good.

Given the Scourge Strike glyph, is there any reduced need for epidemic? I'm just brainstorming here, but if the SS glyph procs enough, is there a chance to free up a point in epidemic, possibly for 3/3 Virulence?

Was hoping you guys could offer a hand in finding WWS's, etc outside of EJ. There are 2 hardcore raiding DK's in my guild currently. I'm a purist, Unholy all the way. While our other swaps around, even recently pulling 5k+ dps with a DW spec. My current best is 5700 DPS on Patchwerk as Unholy, but I've been trying to find reports out there with 6k+ dps on DK's and what specs they were using. Anyone have any links, any info, etc...on current 6k+ dps Death Knights at Patchwerk? I've not yet completed my "ideal" dps set yet, nor have I been in a raid with both 3/3 CF and 3/3 EP as well. So it seems more than reasonable that 6k+ is achievable for a DK. But how close people are getting to 7k is what I really wanna know.

Also, I've heard several references around forums to some epic dps post showing the comparisons of the best dps out there for all classes. Anyone know where this is as well? My internet searching skills have failed.

Did WWS ever fix not reading ghouls as part of your damage? Any info on that?

First of all, I'm very impressed with all those unholies doing 5k DPS, think my record so far is 4.3k but then again I don't have the best weapon (Death's bite), best trinket (still using some green trinket from a quest but I got mirror of truth.) and sigil (starting one.).
Can I really expect a 700 DPS boost from those 3 upgrades alone?

Secondly, I have a question regarding the new rotation with the SS-glyph at the first page, I've a hard understanding it so help me out please.
Is the rotation the way I think it is:
IT-PS-BS-BS-SS->Runedump
SS-SS-SS->Runedump
SS-BS-BS->SS-Runedump

So far I got it, but what I wonder is, what if you get unlucky and diseases run out in the middle of the 3rd rotation? Should I replace the first SS in the third rotation with a IT-PS to be sure (refresh) or should I just keep going on and BSx2 and THEN it+ps? Really confusing so if anybody could explain to me what you do when diseases run out in the middle of the rotation since as far as I understood there is no set rotation and all about luck?

I want to try this glyph when I get home since it seems to be a pretty nice DPS boost if you get it to work good.

Stick to the golden rules of the priority system listed in the TTT - disease uptime is the highest priority, so I would apply the PS, IT (I would use this order where you are reapplying diseases mid fight, as you will typically be in melee range, so you may as well get the rage of rivindare bonus on your IT) then BS, BS, SS, and carry on from there.

Also, I dislike seeing runic power dumps shown at the end of lines for rotations, as you should be dumping in between strikes if the strike would cause you to go over 100RP - this was the biggest realisation for me, apart from proper use of the gargoyle.

I am currently 17/0/54 and loving it. I use the standard rotation all the time but one thing I am trying to figure out is starting off applying D&D then going into your rotation worth it. Granted you burn DFU runes right off but I came up with a rotation taking this into consideration. it is affective but was wondering if anyone else has looked at this as being a viable DPS option to start off with.

For single target mobs, no. For multi-target mobs I wouldn't open with the D&D for aggro reasons. I currently use the following for 2+ mob groups:

PS --> IT --> Pest --> D&D --> UB --> (wait 2 seconds) --> SS --> BB --> BB --> RP Dump. I have found this sequence to result in the highest AoE DPS.

If you are specced Unholy, then SS > Obliterate. Also, you get a damage bonus from having Blood Plague up on your target, so removing that disease is counter-intuitive.


As to AoE groups, unless the mobs die before you get 1-2 ticks of diseases, the rotation listed (IT-PS-Pest-DnD) is much better than any single target DPS that you could do. As unholy, your disease ticks are non-trivial, ticking for 400+ depending on AP. People get in this mindset of BIG NUMBERS AAAAAHHHH, when actually your DoT effects make up a large portion of your damage (20% in my parses, about 10% for each disease). And interestingly, the total % of my damage made up by diseases goes UP by a lot when I am doing AoE groups.

Because SS deals similar (or more) damage and gives you the chance to re-apply your diseases for free. That's the reason you specc it.

And please, do not waste one of your glyph slots on Obliterate. You're better off with speccing Frost or Blood if you like it so much.

This makes sense because you are using Pestilence and spreading the disease around.

I also use SS which I love.

I only use Obliterate when then timers are almost to zero then I begin my rotation again.

Maybe my logic is off and it very well could be. I am just trying to make DPS as much as possible was was playing around with some different ideas.


A chance of only 25% but if you spam it enough it will proc. DOH!!!! Sometimes the most obvious logic can be the hardest to comprehend at times.

I have no plans on using my glyph spot for Obliterate.

/facepalm

If diseases make up such a large portion of you damage, why the hell would you want to REMOVE them? It is related to Warlock DPS, if you clip your DoT timers, you lose a good portion of your DPS (and DPM, and DPCT). I have not yet read though whether refreshing your diseases early actually counts as a refresh, or as a reapplication, which would reset the dot timer and perhaps lose ticks.

And again, I already stated this, but you gain 10% more damage from abilities cast on targets with blood plague. You do not want to drop your diseases.

The idea itself is not bad. Given the tooltip numbers, Obliterate looks superior to Scourge Strike. In fact, however, due to the fact that SS deals magical instead of physical damage, it emerges as the better spell.

When AEing I also prefer opening with DnD. I'm not certain about this but when approaching a mob group and following a PS->IT->Pest rotation, you should lose DPS time by using DnD in melee range instead of benefiting from its range advantage to cast it earlier. In most cases your tank will run ahead and pull trash mob groups before any DPS is in range, so running up to the group should be seen as possible DPS time as well.

I'm new to the forums, but have been following the "Unholy DPS thread."

The input and advice that has been presented, discussed and argued so far within this thread has been very interesting. I appreciate the effort from everyone.

On to my question:

I've noticed that when I am going through my rotation that I'll get a "locked" death rune with a blood rune. In other words, the refreshes on my runes looks like this: 1 blood, 1 death, 2 frost and 2 unholy. For some reason my death rune gets locked and won't refresh, but I somehow manage to get a blood rune back. I am not sure what I am doing wrong or what can be fixed.

If anyone needs clarification of my problem, I'll be more then willing to try to explain my situation better.

This is completely wrong, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you're removing diseases. Narcoma's comment that SS deals "similar (or more) damage" is also not strong enough. SS does more damage than Obliterate. Period. You're not getting a big punch by using an Oblit instead of an SS, you're using a weaker ability with absolutely no benefit. The only reason you should even bother having Obliterate on your bar is if you need something to remove your diseases for a particular fight so you don't finish off an add too early - say, Faerlina adds if you're OTing them, or the Abom for the Incredible Hulk achievement in heroic UP.

If you still think you're right, just write down some numbers for SS and Obliterate on mobs, in 5-mans, and in raids, and compare. Or look at some top unholy DK WWSes and you will see they do not use Obliterate, ever.

It depends on the mob you're striking. Caster mobs have less armor and thus make Obliterate deal more damage than normal. As far as I know bosses and trash mobs also have different armor values, so Obliterate's damage can, in contrast to SSes, vary. That said, SS can, in certain situations, make less damage than Obliterate. SS just seems less vulnerable to mob kinds and more constant.

PS.: On the Raid Dummy, Obliterate tends to hit/crit higher than SS, don't ask me why though. As Unholy, I don't use Oblit in raids either.

Edit: Ok, just noticed that I still had Oblit glyph in when I made that testing. Without it, you're much likely right.

The damage isn't even what matters. As has already been said, the SS Glyph makes whatever marginal damage difference a non-issue. Chance that all diseases will be refreshed > maybe some marginally better damage on only certain types of mobs.

I agree. Doing single RP dumps between strikes interacts with our rune refresh timers in a very interesting way. I've been trying to formulate a working theory on this.

As we have observed, runes do not strictly have a 10 second refresh timer. You have up to 2 seconds after a rune is refreshed to use it and have it still count as having been used immediately. This can result in runes refreshing in 8 seconds, and appears to have been implemented to compensate for lag and latency.

Reference: Death Knight: PvE DPS

Once you have completed your first rotation and begin using runes as they refresh, spending a single 1.5 second global cooldown on Death Coil in the middle of your rotation invokes the faster cooldown on your next rune ability. Lets assume the rest of your abilities in that rotation were used 1.5 seconds "late" because of your inserted death coil. In theory all runes used 2 or less seconds late will be considered used immediately and you will have no rune refresh delay.

The point being that saving all your runic power for one dump that would cause your runes to sit unused for more then 2 seconds is less effective then using RP abilities mid rotation and invoking the faster cooldown. I'm unsure how to work this into the priority system from Zurm's post but I think you could get the feeling for when RP should be used mid rotation to avoid delaying runes, especially with 4 piece T7, glyph of IT, butchery, and other abilities that significantly increase your runic power generation.

I found this in the Frost thread here on EJ. So if anyone was also wondering what the answer was to my previous unanswered question go click here: Top 10 DK's

Intererstingly enough, 8 out of the top 10 for Patchwerk were DW spec. And the other 2 were Unholy.