I've been reading this thread in particular for a while now, and though I've seen a lot of specs, I can't say that too many of them have caught my fancy.

I'm not an avid pet user (The Ghoul seems blah-ish, and the Gargoyle seems extremely gimmicky).

I've been using a more traditional 3/50/18 build with a fast-fast to get the most out of HB... but I'm seeing a lot of builds these days crop up that are more unholy versus Frost.

What's the difference in terms of play-style? I know that most of these builds still use Howling Blast, but neglect GoG or Tundra Stalker, which together has a lot of damage potential. Is there something I'm missing about damage that's based purely off of BCB, Necrosis, Killing Machine, and Howling Blast?

1/31/39 WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator

This is the build I have finally decided on after spending about 1000g respeccing and testing. It is basically a variation of the 32/39 spec. But I get Night of the Dead, which is just too good to pass up especially after this next patch to keep my ghoul up and not lose that chunk of dmg. I also get 8% aggro reduction, which is better than none imo.

I am sure the 32/39 may be able to squeeze out more dps, but if the pet dies and is on CD you just lose too much dmg. I will probably move a point out of Virulence after the patch and put it into the new corpse explosion depending on how usefull it actually is.

I use a IT, PS, HB, BSx2, DC, IT, PS, HB, , DC, DC, IT, IT rotation with Razorice on OH and crusader MH. Putting out 2800 sustained dps on the Ebon Hold Dummy with no gargoyle. I was around 5k single target last night in 25 man Nax, we are doing Patch tomorrow, I will try to get a parse made (Never done that before)

Well Oathof, there are many people who spec 0/32/39. In your build, you are missing things such as the ghoul and the gargoyle that actually can a decent amount to your dps boost. In addition, putting two points in unholy aura is great for your raid group, especially on fights where you have to move around. The last very important thing in 0/32/39 is Cryptfever, because it is another disease and therefore also adds damage to you Bloodstrike and BCB.

For some people who spec 14/31/26, there are the benefits such as bladed armor, which could give you hundreds more attack power at level 80, and also dark conviction which adds more crit chance. These specs also usually include ghouls and gargoyles, which are also a dps boost.

So to answer your question, there are several more talents that could boost your dps.

I have some theory... but some of my statement should be confirmated. So...


Build:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft


Rotation:

HB - PS - IT - BS - BS - FS - 1 sec - HB - IT - IT - FS - HB - FS
20 - 30 - 45 - 55 - 65 - 25 - 25 - 45 - 60 - 75 - 35 - 55 - 15 <--- RP at this row

Sometimes Rime will proc and additional OB will arrive.


Now... why THIS build not any other DW build.

1. Tundra stalker - just static 10% increase... It's bit more than ghoul overall due ghoul die too often w/o NotD.
2. GoG. HB IS main DD spell... and it SHOULD crit alot... I think DPS increase around 5%...
3. Blood of the north - IT in second part of ratation. It will crit alot.. and Rime.... Should be good idea... or we can use OB instead IT - IT. It's unclear for me now.


Unclear points:
1. Threat - no Subversion - more threat.... is it bad?
2. No Ghoul... Ghoul die alot.. BUT.. Is Tundra stalker is better than Ghoul + Impurity.. unclear for me
3. No blade armor - not so many AP.

Conclusion:
Just idea. Should be verify by math. Could anyone do it?

Thats not right, when you use 0/32/39 you have very few weapon styles.

Wow Web Stats <- 4800 dps Patchwerk 0/32/39 without Ghould DMG ( the player claims he had 5300 dps or something on recount in the german official forums, around the same I could pull with 2h 170/54 Unholy if the sigel dropped off Heigan finally.. and Betrayer of Humanity for overkill)

Your rotation is something like IT PS BS BS - Dc.. HB
IT PS IT IT - Dc.. HB

24% is just white Autoattack dmg
14% is Howling Blast
17% is Icy Touch
13% is Gargoyle
7% is Deathcoil
..
..
Plague Strike is 1% and Blood Strike is 3%.

In other words, forget about a slow MH, just get the fastest and highest DPS weapons you can find to maximize on Killing Machine.

I have been wondering about this...if you go down far enough to take cryptfever, would a slow weapon's BCB procs add enough DPS that a slow MH would be worth it? Or is that simply NEVER enough of an increase because BCB is never in the top 5 DPS sources?


EDIT: I have heard that BCB procs only take Mainhand damage, which means OH procs are equivalent to MH procs in damage. Is this true? It would mean that a slow MH could potentially drastically increase BCB damage overall.

Another thought: at a high enough crit level (say, >30% unbuffed), if a slow weapon DOES increase BCB damage and thus damage overall disregarding KM procs, wouldn't it be wiser to grab a slow OH as at high levels of crit (and potentially haste) you will be critting often enough even with a slow weapon to produce desired KM uptime?

I've been reading and trying to understand the ideas behind the DW specs. Why not have Rime? It boosts IT which is one of the most used atacks and a major source of damage and it can give you free HB... I get it that it isn't necessary for the the specc to work but how is it not desirable?

I guess in general it is desireable for minmaxing the Dual Wield (right?). In my case - I guess it is because I am to old - I do not like a Proc that screws my rotation. You have to look out for the proc, and use your fingers fast at the right time, finding back into the best rotation for the given circumstances. I have traded it for a guaranteed Crit and the Lichborne Talent, which helps me survive if my first HB crits a Group for 8K Damage each, and my healers realize that they like me better than the Tank.

When you have Freezing Fog and you use HB it generats only 5 RP and makes a fairly unpredictable hicup in your rotation.

Now, obviously you can have power auras or something tell you when you have freezing fog so you know that when you HB you'll still have runes, but if you are already GCD limited in your rotation Rime is just going to further bork your situation.

Somebody mentioned that you could take Rime for the 15% to crit for IT then macro your IT such that it auto-canceled Freezing Fog if you just don't want to deal with that. I don't know how to do that, but I'm sure some digging could help you out with that.

I'm going to assume you meant 'strikes' instead of 'styles'

I'll grant, that in that spec perhaps fast/fast might actually work. As somebody else pointed out you are gimping BCB damage, especially considering you're going that deep for a 3rd disease.

But if you're going with a spec that includes Frost Strike, then no, fast/fast is not the answer at all.

It is entirely spec dependent, and even then you have to look at the effects it will have on BCB.


Can we get some confirmation on if BCB procs from your OH use MH damage?

Edit: I'm going to retract my statement about gimping BCB damage (in italics). Since BCB is just a percent chance on attack and not PPM or linked to a rune cooldown it doesn't matter if the weapon is faster. Your BCBs won't hit as hard, but you will get more BCB procs. On average it should come out roughly equal.

edit: sorry, double post, delete

You cannot macro your IT to dump Freezing Fog due to timing, but you can do so by macroing your HB.

For example:

The above HB macro will only use Rime proc if you hold down the alt key.

Note that Freezing Fog is currently not on the protected buff list Slouken introduced in patch 2.4.3, so you can use branching logic beyond those available to secure slash commands.

For example:

The above HB macro will only use Rime proc if you have enough RP in reserve.

Yes.

Also, as has already been pointed out earlier in the thread, because BCB procs are normalized, fast-fast generates higher BCB damage than slow-fast.

I just want to point out that if there is already a standard 2H Unholy DK in the raid that spec loses a ton of it's value. Or perhaps the 2H DK's spec does. I'm not really sure how to view that.

I'll be sticking with the deeper frost (FS and Tundra Stalker) with Slow/Fast for now, but I'm quite pleased to see such an interesting spec/idea.

Wouldn't the only thing it loses be unholy aura?

Or are we talking about a different spec?

The funny thing is when you have, with Icy touch up 1.05/0.99 speed, and then comes all the raid buffs and procs etc... I think im going to go grab the meteorite wetstone, ought to be a nice dps increase :P
Also, on a training dummy I did roughly 100 dps more with Hatestrike/Slayer of the lifeless over Torment of the Banished/Hatestrike...
I am thoroughly enjoying this, numbers are just flying everywhere, the only reason I know I crit is because of the special sound that always makes, I cant make out the number at all :P
Good times.

Anyway; would Icy Touch glyph be useful to a 0/32/39 variant. Because right now, after respeccing from 2hd unholy Im wanting to change my scourge strike glyph... I just think that the glyph which makes ghoul ressing require no reagent would be very useful aswell, at least for my wallet.
glyphs atm: scourge strike, bone shield, ghoul (20% extra str or something like that).

Depends on how many 17/0/54 dks are out there eh.
If theres already 2 of those (one will have ebon plague the other crypt fever) then your bcb dmg will drop like no tomorrow. One of them will most likely also have unholy aura.

Anyway, thats what you lose out on ^^ Dont know how big of a difference 1 disease is for bcb but im guessing it is quite a difference.

Ah. So you meant if you have TWO standard unholy spec DKs in the raid, not one (your post made it sound like one). Yes, you'd lose the bonus damage off of BCB's third disease if Crypt Fever, like Ebon Plague, has the same overwriting issue (does it? I don't know. Especially at different ranks?) You'd also gain a big chunk of damage on your ITs and HBs and DCs and whatnot. I think that occurs with most class/specs that provide buffs/debuffs...the more you have, the less effective each individual is, no?

So yes, in a raid with two additional unholy DKs, one spec'd for ebon plague and spec'd for crypt fever, this spec would lose some value. But with one other DK or two that haven't spec'd in sync with each other (it does happen!) you don't lose anything beyond a faster movement speed and if you are in a raid group that maintains similar structure throughout there's absolutely no harm in moving those two points elsewhere, thus gaining a benefit and not having to worry further.

Aye, however, say you cannot have Unholy Aura (and for most bosses desecration is more or less useless) how would ur unholy tree then look?
Would one want epidemic? It does not seem to add much dps, more likely a loss, or just 0, because youll usually end up on a HB cd, with runes to spare (I usually do a ps it combo if there an UF combo or deathrune combo close by). So generally speaking epidemic would not be useful for a DW build, what would you then get? OaPH? CE?
Could get messy tbh ^^

Very true. And apologies to both of you for the mix up.

Regarding Crypt Fever, yes, the damage disease bonus doesn't stack, but you want the BCB bonus, so that's (IMO) the main reason to hope for a separate CF.

I'd probably drop the points in Epidemic....the way I build I tend to have CE anyways, just because I like the ability (I know, I know, Don't yell at me!) and epidemic isn't really wasted in any ways. It's not that useful, but it will help in situations where you're not on target 100% of the time and are pulled away before refreshing diseases, or during AoE situations where you may not maintain diseases with 100% uptime on all targets for some reason. It's a safety net rather than a bump up, but if you've got nothing else to put points in...I do agree that its not ideal, but as I said, I think every class with buffs/debuffs suffers this problem when you hit 3 of the same spec in a raid!

I don't see much wrong with points in epidemic. If you're a 2H spec then the points into Virulence make sense. For DW though a lot of +hit isn't a bad thing, and the points in virulence probably end up redundant and doing you no good.

If that's the case you're left to decide between a shorter Get Over Here! cooldown, some dodge, or epidemic. Unholy command has it's uses (malygos) but on the whole is not going to help your DPS at all. Epidemic might help your DPS for those times, like you say, when you're on-target time is not 100%.

In regards to BCB's 3rd disease, if all you need is the 3rd disease and there's already and unholy going all the way to ebon or deeper then just 1 point in Crypt Fever gets you what you need, and you can put 2 points into NotD, which is getting a sizable buff.

That's what I was actually planning on. None of my thoughts stray towards taking 3/3 CF. I always stick one point in it and 2 in NOTD. Points in virulence do probably get eclipsed eventually, but having them doesn't hurt if you need to take it for one reason or another to push yourself deeper down the tree.

Has anyone tried out a DW spec that goes 50 in Frost? The bonus from Tundra Stalker seems pretty powerful, but it's going to cost you at least the perma-ghoul and Impurity, and should you want the Subversion threat reduction (which I think it a little undervalued; I think come next tier of raiding it will probably be necessary to have some form) you'll wind up coughing up the gargoyle as well (though this is only a factor on some fights).

Maybe something along the lines of this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

So you pick up Frost Strike (which will be a better RP dump across the board even with a 1H @32 RP), Blood of the North, Guile of Gorefiend and Tundra Stalker.

The main reason I'm looking at this is gargoyle inconsistency. He's great on the fights where he's safe and nearly useless on the fights with hard to avoid AoE. My other issue with 0/31/40 variants is that it seems to scale really poorly, particularly with crit rate - the only real gains are increased KM procs and those are already very high as it is in a raid situation. The combination of Guile of Gorefiend, KM, Tundra Stalker (and Merciless Combat under 35%) really give your HB a lot more oomph and make the Blood Strikes a bit less limp.

The idea here is that with a slow 1H in the MH, and the crit & crit multipliers we pick up, Obliterate should hit harder than a IT+PS combo, allowing Rime procs to not kill the rotation by subbing in Obliterate when they proc. By picking up Epidemic in combination you allow yourself *much* improved tick density on both diseases, sidestep the Rime proc issue somewhat while still making good use of the IT/OB crit bonus from it, and give yourself much more powerful scaling in the long term.

Technically you can still pick up Gargoyle here by shifting the points out of Subversion, dropping 2 more in Unholy and snagging it with the 3rd left over. I still don't think dropping our only threat reduction is a good idea even with the content as easy as it is because there are definitely situations where fight mechanics are going to make your tanks TPS not scale in line with DPS TPS (for instance, Malygos P1) and I think it makes you a bit of a liability in those types of fights. That is something you will have to decide for yourself.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

That's my intent. I'm not 80 yet as my DK is an alt. The points into butchery are because when I Excel a rotation there were times when I ended up like 2-5 RP short of adding another Frost Strike (new FS glyph) and Butchery would fix that.

I may find, however, that Subversion is a better home for those points if I'm having threat issues.

I had planned to use Rime procs to throw another IT, then just use that unholy rune whenever I had a down GCD. I'm just not sure that Oblit can hit harder than IT with a one-hander. Especially without a 3rd disease. Obviously we could math it out, and I might do just that as soon as I get some more time here at work. :o