I remember I did some testing a while back (only on a Dummy) that indicated that an Unholy rotation that completely ignored IT and PS was nearly identical in damage to one that regularly used IT and PS (didn't really have any practical application as keeping up EP trumps laziness). After all the changes in 3.1 I don't know if this is still true, but if it is I could see this potentially working. Some actual testing is needed.

One thing I DID notice in a quick test is that this rotation can cause runes to rot for a few seconds rather frequently, which is no good (especially since runes used right away cool down faster than rotted runes).

I think this rotten runes are only a problem, when switching from the first into the Second rotation... following every other rotation... ´cause you have to wait for the Death Rune... but every 20 second-rotation should work, because of the shorter CD of the runes by then. (Talking about this 2 second window), when you´re alternating the rotaion a little bit...

Looking like this: (sorry, i am not able to build a table in this forum right now... )

First PS - SS - SS - BS - RP
Second PS - SS - BS - SS - RP


My problem now is, that i don´t know the real numbers...

Interesting idea, especially since it frees up a rune that we can use for a ghoul frenzy

A better way to do it would probably be this though:

PS>IT>SS>BS>BS
SS>SS>PS>BS

In this example the only thing you'd lose is the fact you use a death rune for another BS in the second cycle.

Then you can roll into:

SS>SS>BS>XX
SS>SS>XX>BS

The good part about this is that XX can be either of:
- Plague Strike
- Icy Touch
- Ghoul Frenzy
- Bone Shield

This good part you mentioned was my idea behind this...

BTW the following rotation could be done from the start:

PS>BS>SS>SS
BS>XX>SS>SS
XX>BS>SS>SS

Would be easier, if you have to change target quite often (Freya or Thorim or Razorscale for example)

Edit:

Hmm... but you don´t really need to alternate this rotation, because of the 2 second window

PS>SS>SS>BS
XX>SS> >SS>BS
XX>SS> >SS>BS

The space above means, that you have to wait for 1,5 sec. But i am not really sure if this is true... is use this rotation in PVP over and over again without delay. I have to test this at home. i´m at work at the moment.

Use the XX for PS or GF or Boneshield... easy rotation, repeatable, good for changing targets... good for fights with movement...

The catch is: 4% weapon damage isn't a 4% damage increase. DC and the dots make up a serious portion of total damage by themselves, and are unaffected by 2H weapon spec. Shadow and Frost damage make up about 55% of all the damage unholy does, so 10% of that is a pretty big increase.

Now, that's not to say 12/0/59 isn't good, except: Necrosis is a horrible talent, and I would not put points in it over EP, even if you're only taking EP for the crit.

Greetings all. Long time reader, first time poster here so go easy on me.

I have played Unholy 2h dps pretty much my whole time as a DK. But now that 3.1 is out and I start to gather some ulduar gear I am unsure on what the best spec is for me at this time.

Here is my armory

The World of Warcraft Armory

I first started out with the 12/59 spec but then moved to 10/61 and have been that for most of my guilds progression into 10m Ulduar.

Mainly I am just wondering if there is reason I should go for one spec over the other (or a different spec entirely) because of the gear I have aquired.

Also I am unsure on exactly how much Armor Pen I need to have to really be effective. Should I drop Grim Toll and throw back on Mirror of Truth and try to make up a little more hit to stay capped? Should I ditch the socket bonus on my ring and add a 16 str gem instead of the orange one I have on it now (socket bonus is only 4 arm pen)?

Also shouldnt Blood Bloil be part of the typical AoE rotation? It seems to add a lot of dps when I add it to IT-PS-Pes-DnD-UB.

Thanks for reading, taking any advice on specs, standard rotation for new specs and the specs I listed and AoE rotations.

hhmm so I guess I should go back to Ring of Invincibilty over Titanium Impact Ring? I guess I missed something b/c I thought after the buff DKs got to Armor Pen with 3.1 that we should be stacking it. Also I can put a 16 str gem on the Impact ring, that would give me more str to proc on Fallen Crusader and 4 more Attack Power than the badge ring... Is that not enough to offset the haste and crit gains from Ring of Invincibility?

thanks

The Ar-P stacking is for Blood spec'd DKs. Just because that ring has Ar-P doesn't necessarily mean it is bad though. According to LootRank, based on unholy stat weights, [Ring of Invincibility] appears to be better than [Titanium Impact Band]. The stat weights can be found in the OP.

Hi everyone, i'm sorry for re-asking this, since i'm quite sure this must have been adressed before, but i can't seem to find it, either here or in the "BiS" thread :

Which of the 2 sigils is better for unholy 2h DPS? Awareness or Vengeful Heart?

Im not sure how they work (is the bonus damage applied before or after all the multipliers such as AP, Morbidity, Impurity, Vicious Strikes, Outbreak...) so i really have trouble figuring it out myself even though i am able to determine how many SS/DC i do in my 20 seconds rotation

This is the (rather poor) math i was able to come up with :

In a 20 seconds rotation, assuming SS glyph is nice to me, i'll cast 5 SS and generate either 170 or 130 RP (whether i wear 4pieces of T7 or not)

Which means i'll cast one unholy blight and then either 130/40 = 3.25 DC or 80/40 = 2 DC (let's ignore gargoyle to not make it too complicated)

2 x 380 < 5 x 189 so if i dont wear 4 T7, i guess Awareness wins
but 3.25 x 380 < 5 x 189 so i would assume Vengeful wins then.

But these calculations are assuming that the bonus dmg (+380 DC or +189 SS) is added on top of everything else, and i doubt that is the case...

Thanks in advance for any answers and forgive my bad english, it's not my mother language !

This is the conclusion that was made earlier. If you keep 4P T7 Awareness wins, if you get T8 Vengeful wins. Before the T7 buff no one was going to take T8 so Awareness was the best to stick with. But since the nerf, if the old math still holds (and I don't see why it wouldn't) Vengeful will be better once you get T8 (I'm assuming Awareness is still the best for T7).

For the sake of sticking with straight dps, I will post this on this thread even tho it deals with both BiS and dps talents...
First i have been tooling around with the gear I believe could possibly be best in slot for unholy dks, i know some of the item lvls r low but i did it to retain the 5 percent crit to scourge strike, and to get the crit for your death coils, i have heard that crit is not the best stat for dks, but i just don't see how it is rated as low as it is i am of course going off of this stat calc from earlier in the post as is posted again


Stat Naxx Gear Unholy(BiS) Unholy(T8+BiS) Unholy(BiS)
1AP 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1STR 2.981 2.964 2.979 2.986
1CRT 1.234 1.341 1.397 1.399
1HIT (precap) ~1.968 ~1.968 ~1.968 ~1.968
1Haste 1.276 1.417 1.523 1.514
1Exp 1.38 1.504 1.596 1.565
1ARP 0.729 0.938 1.026 1.0152
1AGI 0.850 0.926 1.012 1.080
1Armor 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0278
1dps (wpn) 6.337 6.192 6.526 6.3234
Spec 0/10/61 0/10/61 0/10/61 12/0/59

Demosthenes Best In Slot Unholy
[Valorous Scourgeborne Helmet]
[Insurmountable Fervor]
[Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates]
[Drape of the Faceless General]
[Valorous Scourgeborne Battleplate]
[Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress]
[Conqueror's Darkruned Gauntlets]
Belt of the Titans - Spell - World of Warcraft
[Plated Leggings of Ruination]
[Boots of the Underdweller]
[Bladebearer's Signet]
[Sif's Promise]
[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
[Wrathstone]
[Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion]
[Sigil of Awareness]

this of course is my estimate and could be disputed i did this to stay both hit capped and as close to exp cap as i could, u retain the 2 piece of t7 and the 2 piece for t8, from what i have read the 4piece of t8 is not that great. im not sure how the works out or what not so because of this information i have kept a 2 piece bonus that would help.

another issue i m having is talent efficiency, i have been told that certain talents yield more dps per point, but based on the most popular spec of 0/10/61, i don't see it i have been running a more old fashioned as far as a throw back to 17/0/54, but as i stated im not sure of how certain talents break down into dps exactly, i have done better dps 15/0/56, then ppl using the 10/0/61, and i also can not pull down the same numbers on dummies. i find that unholy blight does not yield a huge amount of dps, im either not keeping it up or using it improperly or something, so i would appreicate both some math to argue and play with.

im wondering i i can get some math junkies to look at this build for me and tell me what you think, im finding that desecration is a problem in ulduar for my guild they have a hard time seeing the runes of power and various floor buffs/debuffs throughout the instance so im messing around with some builds to get that out of my build.

heres the build Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

and here is my armory The World of Warcraft Armory

i would welcome any feed back on gear but particularly that build

I'm just wondering why your guild doesn't play around with their Video details and instead wants you to get rid of one of your best DPS Talents? It wasn't such a big deal before 3.1, as it was a bad talent for us, but now after 3.1 it is a strong talent.

And considering your build, I would rather put the two points into Dark Conviction than in RPM. Still, I wouldn't drop Desecration if it isn't needed. I know it was a problem before 3.1, but since 3.1 I don't have any trouble with it covering stuff up anymore. And since I haven't heard any other complains I think it shouldn't be a problem.

I don't think that's correct.

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t53615-u...8/#post1199024

Edit: Extending the point a little.
It wouldn't even make sense. Vengeful Heart increases Deathcoil-Damage. Switching from t7 to t8 decreases the amount of Deathcoils cast. Thus it's logical for Awareness to pull ahead, not VH.

Hmm, I guess you're right. Maybe I got it confused with the earlier discussions about the UB Glyph (vs Dark Death I think??? I don't know, not confident of anything I supposedly remember reading now), my bad.

EDIT: As far as I know, if you DISABLE Projected Textures in the Video Effects tab it will prevent Desecration (and Consecration, etc) from showing its ground texture while still showing most of the vitally important boss ability ground textures (aka Runes of Power, Rocket Strikes, etc). The only exception I know of is on Hodir, you must have Projected Textures enabled to see where the icicles will land (though it's still possible to tell since you can see the snowflakes falling regardless). I pretty much play will Projected Textures off all of the time (Desecration looks cooler that way anyways) except for on Hodir.

So I just got done reading the BiS thread coming over from being blood since 3.1, and I saw where the Worldcarver is our best non-hard mode weapon? It's ahead of the Earthshaper by like 12 AEP, does the 56 more top end damage not push the mace over the top?

This is of course assuming you're an orc, without the extra expertise, the axe doesn't stand up to the mace at all.

The sets in the BiS thread are not purely concerned with finding the best individual item in each slot. Any tard with Lootrank can do that. That thread is all about finding an optimal gear set that takes into account the various ability caps, whereas if you built a set around Lootrank recommendations you'd end up way, way over the hit cap and would actually be a long way off optimal.

So yeah, in a vacuum the mace might beat the axe (purely on stat weights that doesn't seem the case, but w/e). But when the mace is loaded with a large amount of hit, and there's also a large amount of hit on the tier 8 set and other associated pieces, it becomes hard to work it into an optimal set.

If at the time it drops you can use all the hit without going way over the cap, then by all means pick it up.

Yeah when you see a BiS list you need to take into account you're not going to get all those items, at least not soon, all to yourself. You're probably not going to have 4/5 T8.5 and every other BiS item and you'll grab items that would otherwise mix in with you better otherwise. For some raids you probably shouldn't bother going for the BiS, just go for hit and expertise soft caps and go using the stat lists in the beginning of the thread to find out your optimal gear. Just because somethings not on the BiS list also doesn't mean it's not a huge upgrade for you, it just doesn't work into the "Magical" perfect set as well.

ok i was warned by a moderater to post my own build comparison results instead of asking for advice so here goes, please excuse any mistakes in my posting style as im new to posting here.

standard 12/0/59 build with ghoul frenzy came out to 2900 dps over a period of 3 minutes self buffed.


build i posted above 12/2/57 3400 dps over a period of 3 minutes without using my pet at all.

so what am i missing here? exact same rotation with both builds using blood presence same set of gear.

ps-it-ss-bs-bs-ss-ss-ss-ss-ss rp dump as needed.

If I see this correctly you will be over 100 RP by the end of your SS phase, if this is the case you will lose DPS because of wasted RP with the first build. The second build gives you the advantage that you can get past 100 RP without wasting it.
The problem with Ghoul Frenzy is that you have to use it correctly or you lose DPS, because of the Unholy Rune it uses. I myself dropped Ghoul Frenzy, because I could never get the hang of it, but I can see that it will be a DPS increase if you use it correctly.
So overall the only way I can see that you get more DPS with the second build is if you don't manage your RP correctly in the first build. Alternatively you should try to switch Morbidity and Necrosis for Desecration in your second build and see if that will increase your DPS, as it should.

well i am of course dumping my rp before i hit 100% in both builds as needed
so im never wasting that dps at all. same rotation with both builds and always dumping rp to keep it below cap.

Ghoul Frenzy is definitely something to get used to. I made a switch to 0/10/61 Unholy last night out of curiosity. I'm guilty of having a pretty sour taste in my mouth each time I try a new build and I haven't learned how to utilize all of its tools yet; I haven't been Unholy since patch 3.0.

Last night we killed Thorim and Mimiron, and worked on General Vezax. Taking the aspects of each fight into consideration, I still was not largely impressed with my Recount numbers (bottom 7-10 of top 10).

Today I took a trip to Archerus to beat on the 1 health Boss dummy. I still had a flask, MotW and food buff active. After ~10 minutes I checked my recount to see my DPS was ~3700 (sorry, no screen >_<). I don't have the mathematical knowledge to determine the worth of Ghoul Frenzy. Its usage is starting to flow more naturally. I imagine optimal usage is a perma Frenzy on the Ghoul without delaying Scourge Strikes. Recount had my Ghoul doing ~350 DPS with the buffs present. I'll check back in next week with a Recount as well as a WWS with this Unholy build.