shed

I did not imply EP should be able to stack. My proposed fix is to make EP only go up once but to not make it a disease anymore. Instead make Crypt Fever able to go up instead and make it only affect the DK that put it up so he can get a third disease.

 

Derivel

Either way GC replied to a post saying that the proper way to fix it would be to simply change the coding so that as long as EP is on the boss it counts as a 3rd disease for any DK with the talent. He just said it isn't their priority to fix that right now.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Ebon Plague Fix please read GC

 

Sekke

Is there any chance that getting [Nexus War Champion Beads] over [Favor of the Dragon Queen] would be a good idea? My reasoning is that Arp is worthless for Unholy and Crit is only mildly useful. The War Champion beads can get 79 Str, the highest of any neck (since there are currently no Str DPS necks in game), for a total of 158 AP, higher than the Favor.

Thoughts? Or am I just stupid?

 

• Tehax

I think you undervalue crit, theorycrafting pegs 1 crit rating at worth slightly more than 1 ap. 1.6% crit and whatever small benefit you get from the armor penetration is worth more that the extra 20 or so ap you would get. Strength is good, but not that good.

 

Sekke

Yeah, nevermind, I don't know why I didn't just plug in the numbers to begin with. Favor is clearly vastly superior.

 

zagor

Latest stat value math for Unholy 17/54 I read here gave:
1 STR = 3 AP
1 CRIT = 1,1 AP
1 AGI = 0,85 AP
1 ArP = 0,7 AP

That makes [Favor of the Dragon Queen] only 23 AP better than [Nexus War Champion Beads].

 

Bullshifter

It seems to me that some of the things that are currently on the first post aren't really up to date with the latter information found in the thread, any chance that they could be updated with new stat weights and whatnot if they are indeed revised from what's currently listed? Unless of course the weights are still what's currently accepted for the Unholy DPS model.

 

Sinsan

quoted from an earlier post, are these the numbers to go by or the ones on the first page?

 

AmeroGER

Sorry for picking this up again but I strongly disagree with you.
You are correct in stating that this doesn't make a difference if you are dpsing a dummie, however in raidsituations dealing damage sooner rather than later is often beneficial.
Say you are hitting a mob that is low on life and have to choose wether to BS BS or to SS. If the mob survives long enough it won't make a difference, true. However if it dies after your next GC you'd rather have cast SS.
Now a mob on low life might seem like a silly place to be concerned about dps, but my argument is also true if you have to distance yourself from the mob or become incapacitated or die. So there are plenty of situations where SSing first is beneficial.
The only situation I can think of that rewards saving dps for later is if you are afraid of aggroing the mob a few seconds after entering combat. However this isn't really a problem DK's skilled into subversion are dealing with right now.

 

Foxx2405

You're taking things out of context now though.
My post was aimed at someone who said that using SS before BS would yield less GCD waiting times. Which is wrong and stated in my post.

It had little to do with DPS. In which case i agree with you, but the same can be said of the opposite, to be honest.
If you do your blood strikes first you have death runes to use on the next mob.
I agree that putting BS's at the end is probably better, but really the only situation where it would matter is when you kill the boss right at the 3th GCD of your first cycle. In that case you gain 1 SS over 1 BS.

 

Glac

So I just landed a bandit's Insignia last night, and this thing is great! On my WWS it totaled 1.7% of my Kel'thuzad dmg and actually out dmg'd my Plague Strike which I thought was interesting. just some stats if anyone cares, It went off 7 times and 2 of which crits for 3200, totaled 23k dmg on its own. Imo 2nd best trinket easily. Also the fix to Army of Dead, Amazing! on my Patch fight they did almost 60k. Anyone else have similar findings? Oh and has anyone food buffed there pets to squeze out just that little extra dps?

 

Sekke

This would be good to know, as it alters a few gear choices significantly.

 

Stugotz

Would agree with Bullshifter above and second the assertion and request the first/original post be kept up-to-date with current info/talents/gear.

There is a LOT of info to scroll through from the beginning.

Other than that love the spec and thread

 

Gahiji

These changes were posted on MMO-champion.com. The first line is of course great news.


* Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
* Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack, and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
* Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.
* The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.
* Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans’ Lightning Overload.
* Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.
* Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

 

Mulgero

So what's with the 2 schools regarding expertise? Some swear that capping hit/exp > str, some hit > str > rest. Last stat spreadsheet figures showed expertise pre-cap being almost as good as hit rating and now with new figures exp is way down along hit.

Since every missed or dodged scourge strike increase chance that you have to re-apply ps+it not to mention those stats affecting other skills too so does the str/ap increase really off-set those misses and messed rune rotations?

With all the specs I've played I've tried to cap hit and exp (with reasonable limits) before purely getting str and I have had very high dps increase curve every week by following that rule. Unfortunately I don't have much alternative pieces for neck & rings at least to swap out exp pieces for "proper" non-exp, not too high hit rating items to verify whether there would be significant change to either direction. Don't think that I'd see big change by swapping out 32 exp rating from gems to 32str.

 

Foxx2405

Im pretty sure you could say that strength > everything. Even hit pre-cap and expertise.

However, I think its also a matter of preference. People usually don't like their attacks missing, because it throws them off. Thats why most people aim for the 8% melee hit cap. Not only is it a great dps booster, it also removes those annoyances from both spells and melee attacks.

After that you get expertise for a 2H unholy build (more physical attacks than spells), this is a tricky point, because strength relatively is more powerful and because this doesn't affect spells anymore the gap is bigger as well, so you're having trade-offs between dps+comfortability vs more dps. What you chose is for most people preference. Because ive seen very high dps numbers with both.
Spell hit cap is a bit in the same boat. Only missing spells comes down to 3 abilities in general: Deathcoil / UB ticks and Icy Touch. Of which the latter is the only one that can be an inconvenience (missing DC or UB ticks wont offset your rotation).

Also a missed or dodged SS doesnt have a huge impact, because the runes refresh instantly, and rune cushioning allows them to refresh faster so your next rotation wont be offset.
So for unholy 2H rotations in particular I'm pretty sure that is why strength has such a high value over hit and expertise, because it is simply stronger. However people go with hit and expertise because both best gear provides it and because it lifts a burden so to say.

 

zagor

This is how it works now. But before the last patch, dodged SS would refresh runes as BB and not as death runes, that was much bigger dps loss than now. I actually socketed for expertise cap back then.
Stat values were quoted around str=2.8ap and exp=2.5ap for unholy. Even if expertise was lower than that, I felt more comfortable with every SS landing.

Since 3.0.8 I've switched to pure STR gems. I wouldn't say that a dodged SS is even pushing my rotation back, since unholy has a lot of leeway and free gcds to play with.

edit: correction

 

• Zurm

I am greatly interested by this change. Based on the other changes as well, this looks like we are going to see 2H unholy take a step up on DPS, and see the downfall of most (if not all) DW specs, depending on how they shift the frost tree around.

Also to add my two cents to the strength versus hit/exp discussion... on paper, strength is king. There is no arguement or question there. In practice, some opt for the hit/expertise cap because frankly, knowing your abilities will land can be a huge boost in some encounters. Since we aren't fighting only patchwerk clones all day, there may be times where you just NEED attacks to land. That being said, I agree with the above two posters... it's mainly up to personal preference. I, for one, am a fan of capping hit and expertise.

 

Gahiji

One change I would love to see is desecration becoming a 2 point talent, granted that in theory it's a powerful talent but in practice it falls very short of it's intended benefit.

It makes me glad to see that Blizzard is committed to keeping 2H specs viable without simply breaking DW specs.

 

• frmorrison

Desecration is a decent talent, however its spell animation is annoying, especially with Fire around that it can make it harder to see. Unless they fix the animation, I wouldn't want to see more DKs spec into it.

Exp/hit cap is a user preference really. To me it sounds nice to cap it as a DK because it is nice to have diseases to land, however as a Paladin it isn't as that great because Judgement cannot be dodged/parried, similar effect for DK spells.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Foxx2405

I don't think desecration is a bad talent in general, however for 2H unholy it is pretty much worthless due to the SS glyph.

Therefor it's pretty limited to PvP and dual wield. I'm not sure if I really mind that though, since the unholy tree would become rather bloated.

 

superkdogg

This will really be an interesting set of changes for the deep unholy among us.

I'm very interested to see the new frost tree, because since the 17/54 cookie cutter has become so popular I'm interested in a change. One of the main things holding me back on that was the AoE damage and threat you get out of UB. When you're dpsing, you still will want/need the garg, and it sounds like his nerf will be short lived. When you're tanking/OT and adding DPS, this opens up all kinds of new options (maybe a blood-based or even tri-spec) depending on the new frost tree. At least it opens the door for me not to be fighting for EP and for RL's to stop having to say "Only one unholy!"

As always, the details of this really matter in the overall implementation, but as far as an idea, I'm behind it.

 

Shadowseve

I agree. I think the Gargoyle nerf was a little harsh. So with it getting buffed Unholy is def going to be getting some dps love. I
still think that dw will be viable come next patch, though depending on the shift 32/39 might not be so hot. Unless they mess with black ice and Killing machine 20/51 will still be strong. So I think time will tell the tale.

 

Kisho

This may be a bit off topic, and may sound a little foolish. However, I am noticing a fairly large amount of partial resists, not so much on Death Coil, but rather on Scourge Strike. I'm not entirely sure how partial resists are calculated, if it is taken from being slightly under spell hit cap, or if it has something to do with spell penetration. If it is affected by the later, would replacing a socket with spell penetration be worth it? Or should I simply deal with the partial resist? Any information on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

 

Clandestine

In PvE there is a certain amount of partial resists on any boss which cannot be mitigated, similar to how glancing blows cannot be mitigated for melee swings. Some bosses have additional resists which can be mitigated through either spell penetration equipment or Curse of Elements - offhand, Sapphiron has some Frost resist, and I believe Kel'Thuzad does as well. In PvP however partial resists can be mitigated via spell penetration equipment.