IMPORTANT: Please do not post the New patch notes for 3.2 in this thread. There shouldn't be any theorycrafting on 3.2 until some talent trees are released because without any Talent trees, it's just all speculation. If you want to see the patch notes, You can see them here.

Two-Handed builds are divided into the three types: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. It makes sense to do the same to the DW builds as frost builds are very different from the unholy ones. I recommend you familiarize yourself with the Think Tank article about Death Knight DPS. Though some of the data is out of date, it is a good foundation of knowledge overall.

Do not Post Dummy Damage here.

-----0/17/54-----

A proven contender with the 2H builds, you use Improved Unholy Presence to fire abilities like crazy, Quantity over Quality. Featuring Ghoul Frenzy, it's the classic Death Coil Spam build generating more runic power than any other viable build currently.

Runeforges: FC/FC

Glyphs: Dark Death, Icy Touch, Ghoul

0/17/54

IMPORTANT: Depending on what your preference is and what your guild needs, you can take a point out of Desecration and put it into UB.

Here are the Stat Weights for 0/17/54 with the Spell Hit Cap already reached.

Priority System: Diseases(BP>FF)>DC>IT>BS>GF>PS


-----0/13/58-----

This build is the classic Scourge Strike build of the DW bunch. This one uses Blood Presence to fire hard hitting attacks to go with the usual spells. Plague Strike hits harder in this build than any other DW build. This build has a very high scaling Death Coil as well.

Runeforges: FC/FC

Glyphs: Unholy Blight, Dark Death, Ghoul

0/13/58

Here are the Stat Weights for 0/13/58 with the Spell Hit Cap already reached.

Priority System: Diseases(BP>FF)>SS>BS>UB>DC.

If you are stuck on seeing a Theoretical Rotation, then you are stubborn, but here:

PS>IT>SS>BS>BS>UB
SS>SS>SS>DC>DC


Gear for 0/13/58 and 0/17/54

Slot	BiS with Heroic Hardmode - 0/13/58	Pre-Heroic Hardmode - 0/13/58	BiS with Heroic Hardmode - 0/17/54	Pre-Heroic Hardmode - 0/17/54
Helm	[Warhelm of the Champion]	[Iron Riveted War Helm]	[Warhelm of the Champion]	[Iron Riveted War Helm]
Amulet	[Frigid Strength of Hodir]	[Insurmountable Fervor]	[Frigid Strength of Hodir]	[Insurmountable Fervor]
Pauldrons	[Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates]	Same	[Shoulderplates of the Celestial Watch]	[Shoulderplates of the Eternal]
Cloak	[Drape of the Skyborn]	[Drape of the Faceless General]	[Drape of the Skyborn]	[Drape of the Drakerider]
Breastplate	[Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate]	Same	Same	Same
Bracers	[Armbands of Bedlam]	[Bitter Cold Armguards]	[Armbands of Bedlam]	[Bitter Cold Armguards]
Gloves	[Conqueror's Darkruned Gauntlets]	Same	Same	Same
Belt	[Belt of Colossal Rage]	[Belt of the Titans]	[Belt of Colossal Rage]	[Belt of the Titans]
Legplates	[Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates]	Same	[Plated Leggings of Ruination]	[Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates]
Boots	[Sabatons of Lifeless Night]	[Battlelord's Plate Boots]	[Sabatons of Lifeless Night]	[Battlelord's Plate Boots]
Ring	[Sif's Promise]	Same	Same	Same
Ring	[Seal of the Betrayed King]	[Bladebearer's Signet]	[Seal of the Betrayed King]	[Crazed Construct Ring]
Trinket	[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]	Same	Same	Same
Trinket	Comet's Trail	[Bandit's Insignia]	Comet's Trail	[Blood of the Old God]
Main Hand	[Caress of Insanity]	Same	[Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers]	[Caress of Insanity]
Off Hand	[Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers]	[Void Sabre]	[Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers]	[Void Sabre]
Sigil	[Sigil of Awareness]	Same	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	Same

Notes

• Both of these BiS item sets are not at the Exp Cap and are both ~300+ Hit Rating. This is Fine with a DW Build and actually is still optimal/BiS.
• [Blood of the Old God] is pretty much a side-grade to [Bandit's Insignia]
• [Crazed Construct Ring] is BiS for Humans with Swords/Mace in Pre-Heroic Hardmode for 0/13/58 in lieu of [Bladebearer's Signet].
• [Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers] is actually the BiS MH for 0/17/54 but only barely edging out [Caress of Insanity] by a tiny bit.
• I am grouping Algalon 10/25 under Hardmode25 Gear since it is about as hard to attain as Hardmode25 Gear. If you have any objections, send me a PM and don't clutter up the thread.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) Does Icy Talons stack with Improved Icy Talons or Windfury Totem?

Answer: No. In a raid, you should expect this buff so any points in Icy Talons would be a DPS loss.

2) How What are the best tier bonuses?

Answer:
0/13/58: 4pT8>4pT7>2pT7 2pT8>2pT8>2pT7
0/17/54: 2pT8>Rest (No real bonus from the others)
1/18/52: 4pT8>4pT7>2pT7 2pT8> 2pT8>2pT7

3) When is the best time to use Gargoyle?

Answer: Gargoyle actually gets it's haste and other stats from its owner. The best time to use gargoyle is actually during a Bloodlust/Heroism when as many of your procs/cooldowns are available. Just keep in mind that the Gargoyle is fragile and will die quickly to any AoE.

4) Is Glyph of Disease worth using?

Short Answer: No
Long Answer: It's useful for AOE but that's it. It comes out to be a dps loss that while it's refreshing your diseases, it deals no damage of it's own. It's especially bad if you screw up and diseases drop as your whole raid will lose the Ebon Plaguebringer buff until you can fix your mistake. It's not recommended.

5) What determines partial resists?

Answer: Originally Posted by Zyrm
As an additional note, what is *actually* responsible for partial resists on bosses is weapon skill. For example, if you tried to scourge strike a level 80 mob with 1 weapon skill, aside from parries/dodges, the strikes you DID land would be mitigated in half (which is actually the most a SS can resist, it will always hit for at least half damage)... until you're weapon skill was at or near max. Since Raid bosses count as your level +3, and there is currently no way to raise weapon skill beside the level max, you will always see partial resists in raids.

Another side note, when you see a strike that says, say "Your SS hits X for 4000 (200 resisted)", you wouldn't have originally done 4200 damage, but actually quite a bit more. The (X resisted) is actually before modifiers/buffs/talents/crits, so in reality, if half a strike was resisted, you might actually see something like "Your SS hits for 2.5k (1.9k resisted)". Just some food for thought. I can't tell you how many time's I've seen 5500(900 resisted) when my SS crits that don't resist always break 8k.

-----

An alternative build is 1/18/52 which uses Obliterate. This build requires a lot of gearing to make it work. The advantage of this build is being able to use all of the Armor Penetration gear in Ulduar. You ideally want to stack as much Armor Penetration as you can without sacrificing too much in other stats.

Runeforges: RI/FC

1/18/52

Priority System: Diseases(BP>FF) > OB > BS > UB > DC.

Pre-Heroic armor with good weapons

Head: [Conqueror's Darkruned Helmet] -- [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Arcanum of Torment]
Neck: [Might of the Leviathan]
Shoulders: [Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates] -- [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Greater Inscription of the Axe]
Cloak: [Drape of the Faceless General] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + [Fierce Monarch Topaz] + Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed - Spell - World of Warcraft
Chest: [Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate] -- [Bold Stormjewel] + [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats - Spell - World of Warcraft
Arms: [Bitter Cold Armguards] -- [Fierce Monarch Topaz] + [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault - Spell - World of Warcraft
Hands: [Gauntlets of the Wretched] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Gloves - Precision - Spell - World of Warcraft
Waist: [Girdle of Embers] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby]
Legs: [Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Icescale Leg Armor]
Feet: [Melancholy Sabatons] -- Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality - Spell - World of Warcraft
Ring1: [Bladebearer's Signet]
Ring2: [Strength of the Automaton]
Trinket1: [Blood of the Old God]
Trinket2: [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
Weapon1: [Caress of Insanity] (note: 232 version is better. These are old stats) -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby]
Weapon2: [Remorse]
Sigil: [Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]

In-Thread DPS Charts

Here we will have some DW Unholy DPS Specific DPS Charts. I will do these for Ignis, XT-002, and Freya. For XT-002, I will subtract your Gravity Bomb and Light Bomb damage from your total Damage to get an ideal DPS. Do not shit the thread up with why we shouldn't use one of these fights, I do not care. I'm using these fights for instances of where you can get buffed/Single Target/AoE since that is somewhat the mix of Ulduar. If you have a complaint about a fight and it's legitimate, please send me a DETAILED reason why and I might consider it. Also, try not to use WoW Web Stats if you don't have an account where the parse will expire in two weeks. WoL and WMO are both free. Do not post your WWS/WoL/WMO Parses in the thread. We don't need a bunch of "Hurr, I did this much DPS" in the thread. Instead, send my a PM with the following (Only give me links to the Kill):


Ignis Data

DPS	Character	Spec	Rotation	Weapon	Sigil	Runeforges	Consumables	Notes	Parse
5961	Fargrom	0/17/54	Rotation R:1*	MH: [Malice], OH: [Stonerender]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	No AoE, No AotD, 1 Slag Pot, 2pT8	WoW Meter Online
5868	Pandas	0/13/58	Priority (BP>FF)SS>BS>UB>DC	[Stonerender]x2	[Sigil of Awareness]	FC/FC	Food+Flask+Haste Pot	No Slag Pots, No AotD, Burn in Water Strat, No Intentional AoE, 4pT7	World of Logs
5003	Sapphyx	0/13/58	Priority (BP>FF)SS>BS>UB>DC	MH: [Malice], OH: [Remorse]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	1 Slag Pot, No Intentional AoE, 2pT7 2pT8	WoW Web Stats

XT-002 Data

DPS	Character	Spec	Priority/Rotation	Weapon	Sigil	Runeforges	Consumables	Notes	Parse
7779	Fargrom	0/17/54	Rotation R:1*	MH: [Malice], OH: [Stonerender]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	No AoE, No Bombs, AotD, 2pT8	WoW Meter Online
7536	Sapphyx	0/17/54 (1/1 UB, 2/5 Desecration)	Rotation R:1*	MH: [Malice], OH: [Remorse]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Flask	No AoE, No Bombs, AotD, 2pT8	WoW Web Stats + Ghoul (Didn't get included in his damage. Linked via GF)
7139	Talix	0/17/54	Priority (BP>FF)>DC>IT>BS>GF>PS	MH: [Malice], OH: [Rune-Etched Nightblade]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	1 Gravity Bomb (Didn't hit anyone), AotD, No AoE, 2pT8	WoW Meter Online
6967	Tahira	0/17/54	Priority (BP>FF)DC>IT>BS>GF>PS	MH: [Malice], OH: [Stonerender]	[Sigil of the Frozen Conscience]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	No Bombs, No AotD, No AoE, 2pT8	World of Logs
6944	Pandas	0/13/58	Priority (BP>FF)SS>BS>UB>DC	[Stonerender]x2	[Sigil of Awareness]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	No Bombs, No AotD, No AoE, 4pT7	World of Logs
6861	Tigga	0/17/54 (1/1 UB, 2/5 Desecration)	Priority (BP>FF)IT>DC>GF>UB>PS>BS	MH: [Angry Dread], OH: [Stonerender]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Food+Flask+Pet Food	No Bombs, No AotD, No AoE, 2pT8	WoW Meter Online
6612	Sapphyx	0/13/58	Priority (BP>FF)SS>BS>UB>DC	MH: [Malice], OH: [Remorse]	[Sigil of Awareness]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	No Bombs, No AoE, 2pT7 2pT8	WoW Web Stats

Freya Data

DPS	Character	Spec	Rotation	Weapon	Sigil	Runeforges	Consumables	Notes	Parse
5622	Sapphyx	0/17/54 (1/1 UB, 2/5 Desecration)	Rotation R:1*	MH: [Malice], OH: [Remorse]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Flask	2pT8	WoW Web Stats
4938	Pandas	0/13/58	Priority (BP>FF)SS>BS>UB>DC	[Stonerender]x2	[Sigil of Awareness]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	Freya+1 (Ironbark), CoI on Snaplasher, 4pT7	World of Logs
4593	Tigga	0/17/54 (1/1 UB, 2/5 Desecration)	Priority (BP>FF)IT>DC>GF>UB>PS>BS	MH: [Angry Dread], OH: [Stonerender]	[Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]	FC/FC	Food+Flask+Pet Food	No AotD, 2pT8	WoW Meter Online
4425	Sapphyx	0/13/58	Priority (BP>FF)SS>BS>UB>DC	MH: [Malice], OH: [Remorse]	[Sigil of Awareness]	FC/FC	Food+Flask	2pT7 2pT8	WoW Web Stats

NOTES:

• R:1* means the following rotation:
  PS>IT>BS>DC>PS>IT>BS>DC
  PS>IT>IT>DC>DC>PS>IT>IT>DC>DC
  Replace PS with GF if down

Out of curiosity Kyrusku, why are you using 2x Stonerenders? Wouldn't a slow MH be higher dps with the SS build?

Is it even possible to accurately model stat weights for weapon speed? For a SS/OB heavy build would a 1.5/1.6 232 MH be better than a 219 2.6 speed MH?
Case in point: I have Razorscale Talon (i219 2.6speed) vs 2x Remorse and Stonerender available.

I'd think that Void Sabre would be a better offhand: [Void Sabre]

And obviously a slower mainhand is going to be better for OB/SS heavy builds because of the weapon damage.

Your opinion of what is "obvious" is irrelevant unless you have numbers to back your claim up.
The reason it is most definitely not obvious is because there is a difference in ilvl. With a fast, but higher ilevel MH, SS goes down in dps contribution while overall stats and white dps and, by extension, necrosis and BCB damage goes up.
Also considering the whole reason why SSing with a 1h is viable in the first place: SS gets relatively low contribution from weapon damage and a big portion from talent/sigil buffs

The reason why I use [Stonerender]x2 is because my highest DPS Slow weapon is [Angry Dread] and even though it is a fast weapon speed, Stonerender produces more dps. in the case of a iLvl219 slow weapon, that will outperform the iLvl232 fast weapons. As for [Void Sabre] I need to check that, I remember it pretty close to the others, but I didn't have the buffs when I made that list. I'll look into it.

With determining Weapon speed, it is somewhat hard to put EP Values for speed. Currently iLvl219 slow weapons will be about even/surpass an iLvl232 weapon by a little bit.

And just as a Note, I wasn't too big into the Theorycrafting of 1/18/52. That was mainly Orlgin and a few others. If any of them come over to this thread and continue, that's fien with me. Otherwise I might try to pick up some of the theorycrafting for it or I might focus on 0/17/54 and 0/13/58 since it is a definite gear check and even at End-Ulduar, it is still about 100-200dps behind from when I was simming it.

Alright, I edited the OP with some new Stat weights for 0/13/58. The old ones were ones I calculated with 1.6 And I just noticed that last night. Ran an EP sim for a slow main hand and got those results. There was one change with gear because of this, [Bandit's Insignia] is like SLIGHTLY better than [Blood of the Old God], but [Blood of the Old God] could be considered a side-grade. The [Obsidian Greathelm] is also good Pre-Hardmodes, but It would put you over the expertise cap but a bit.

Interesting, i really thought DW was no longer the flavor of the month.

0/17/54 seems interesting, is it me or is this looking a lot like a ret pally style? FCFS system with priority?

How much dps you should expect with that build? I've seen Unholy 2H go up to 7k on XT-002.

Though in my case, my 2H is rune edge, I'd have to go back to Spirit Greathammer/Hailstorm, but maybe it's worth give a shot with dual spec now.

I appologize for being slightly off topic, but this is definately of interest to DW DK fans. Ghostcrawler had indicated that they will be working on DW DKs again in the next major patch:

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Please dont write off DW DKs

Soil. Thanks for that update that is great news.

This is a little off topic but how would a DW blood be. I switch to it last night but have not had a chance to try it out.

Hi Macdee, could you possibly post the spec you used for dw blood spec? I'm interested because it seems that the blood tree at least from what I've seen isn't very friendly when it comes to non strike damage. In that alot of the dps comes via strike damage there for being less effective to wielding a 2 hander.

Sorry, This was a repost from the old DW Unholy DPS Thread since the OP could no longer update it consistently, I must have skipped that part when editing and adding to this new OP. I'll change that.

The only thing I've heard mentioned is making Frost Strike or another ability similar to mutilate or whirlwind (where it hits with both weapons). Perhaps all the strikes will work that way? I doubt HS would be made that way since it cleaves but still possible. SS could function that way and still be balanced. That would make DW viability strictly relegated to certain trees.

I understand that a lot of people who started DW still have questions as to which specs are still viable for DW, but please stop posting those questions here. There is another thread that is for DW in general. As stated in the title this thread is for UNHOLY DW. Please lets try to keep this discussion going in a positive direction and stop with the questions about frost or blood DW.

Not to be an ass but this is an example of what would be considered a shit post. It matches the one earlier in this thread and at least one more in another DW thread by the same poster. I'm really not trying to be a jerk ..but this ain't the wow official forums ..please bother to read at least a few threads (and the rules post) before posting ridiculous questions like "what is hit cap?" or "would blood be good for DW?". I have been reading these forums for a long time and i've posted maybe 4 or 5 times ever ..because this isn't the forum for that stuff. All the answers to simple stuff are outlined ad nauseum in several posts on this exact forum. This thread was made specifically because the other one was cluttered with tons of shit posts. Lets not make the same mistake again.


-----

Now, before i get a warning for back-seat moderating (sorry ) i will shut the heck up and thank the OP and others working on this stuff for all their work. I am currently using the 13/58 SS/DC spam build and have been having extremely positive results. I am regularly #1 dps competing against some pretty solid DPSers with this build(mostly in 10 man, but in some 25mans as well). The only classes keeping up with me are rogues, and occasionally a mage. Has there been any simming/theorycraft/actual live testing done to specifically show what the DPS with this exact spec is with a 2h and not changing anything else? I love this spec and this playstyle but i worry if this is simply a matter of forcing my(our) preference for DW over 2h into a working spec which would be outdone by simply swapping out to a 2H weapon of the same ilvl. I realize this has been brought up before, but i have read all the threads and this issue seems to have been dropped along the time 3.1 actually came out, and i have not seen any solid numbers one way or the other and would like to have a definite answer to this question.

I've read over this thread, and there's some great info here. I've been considering changing from the basic 2H Unholy to DW Unholy, and have started working on gear more focused on that. After combing the raid loot lists, Str 1H are a mythical thing O_o Now I don't feel bad about rolling on Hatestrike for offspec on my ten man run. You'd think the devs would put more Str 1H in game...

Ok, now that I have that out of the way, here's the real question: MaxDPS and similar sites have (very wonderful) formatted lists for stat-weighted values of items. ...for the 2H DPS specs. I can't find a similar list for DW. I was wondering if there was a way I could manually re-assign values to an existing spreadsheet or list, or just create a new one, for the Unholy DW builds for easy reference, at least for weapons. If someone can point me to an up-to-date, functioning spreadsheet of 1Hs, or a listing of weapons I can just remove the 2H/dagger/fist from, I'd be more than happy to generate this myself. If this is a case where it's not about my search-fu but about what has actually been compiled, I suppose I could create a whole-new dern spreadsheet for it, but I'd rather not do that if there's one I can reformat or assign new values to. That way, instead of having my search-fu continue to embarass itself looking for something that may-or-may-not-but-should exist, it can just be posted here for easy reference.

I'll start with some comparison & maths here to start. This is for builds 0/13/58 DW and 0/10/61 2H because they have almost the exact play style and rotation, plus their spells, diseases, gargoyle, ghoul and AoE capabilities are almost the same (we'll look at those in details later on). The idea is to use 2 of those as representative builds, then compare those builds with other builds using same weapons respectively, to see where we are compared to 2 handers.

Note: The results are calculated based on average. Because of assumptions, the results shown are only approximation.

Comparison between 2H and DW first step: Scourge Strike:

Assumption:

• Hit capped & Expertise capped.
• 7000 AP. Quite achievable raid buffed.
• DW use 2.6spd 178.8 DPS on main hand, 2H use 3.6spd 232.6 DPS (Both iLevel 232).
• Sigil of Awareness.
• Crit chance assumed to be 50%. In real life you can attain close to that rate raid buffed.
• Rotation used: (20s cycle) PS - IT - SS - BS - BS - RP - SS - SS - SS - RP - repeat: 4 SS per 20s.
• Boss resistance 5%

Formulae used:

This formula is used in courtesy of Orlgin, who did the math in the other thread. I simply recycle this formula seeing as there is no problem with it.

1. Average_Damage (including crit modifier) = (Weapon_DPS * Speed + Normalized_Speed * AP / 14 + SS_Bonus + Sigil_Bonus) * 0.45 (SS modifier) * 1.2 (Outbreak) * 1.15 (Blood Presence) * 1.396 (Diseases) * 1.1 (Rage of Rivendare) * 1.1 (Black Ice) * 1.05 (Desecration) * 1.02 (Bone Shield) * 1.15 (Crit chance 50%, Vicious Strike) * 1.13 (Ebon Plaguebringer) * 1.5 (50% critical chance) * 1.06 (metagem) *0.95% (resist)

Where: Weapon_DPS = 178.8 for DW, 232.6 for 2H; Normalized_Speed = 2.4 for 1h, 3.3 for 2h; SS_Bonus = 357.188; Sigil Bonus = 189

Results

DW SS Average Damage = 4876
2H SS Average Damage = 6690
Difference = 1814 damages per SS

Because there are 4 SS per 20s rotation therefore:

DPS difference = 1814 * 4 / 20 = 363 dps

Conclusions

2H SS pulls ahead by about 363 DPS.

If DW wants to stay competitive, they have to make up this DPS loss by using their strength in:

• White damages, Necrosis & BCB
• Superior scaling with certain stats (any stats which boost white damages like haste)
• Slightly higher Rune of FC uptime - but not by much due to overwriting effects.

However DW still suffers from other weaknesses:

• High base miss chance with white damages.
• Due to spec, DC lose 10% damages (2 points in Morbidity).
• Loss in PS and BS damages, although they only make up for a small amount of % dps.

I will be looking at those numbers and post more analysis on DW vs. 2H. I think it's fair to analyze white damages next, since it is a large portion of DW dps, which makes DW unique.

If anyone has time please look at these maths closely to see if anything's wrong. I don't expect my math to be 100% correct. I used Excel to plug in the values to ensure the accurate results (better than using a calculator).

Doesn't look too bad Syrellia, although I do believe that raid buffs need to be looked at as well. Do not forget that dual wield benefits more from haste, not just personal gear haste, but from WF totem. This is a key component of white damage scaling, as well as the fact that the high amount of white damage is also buffed by sunder armor and imp faerie fire debuffs.

How are people finding threat with this build? I took 0/13/58 for a test raid last night on Uld10, and found I was catching/passing the tank for aggro a little too easily, and ended up swapping back to 2H frost. Admittedly, we had no hunters/rogues for Misdirect/Tricks of the Trade, but this spec doesn't have the 25% threat reduction from Subversion. Should I be telling my tanks to pick up the pace on threat gen, get used to holding back every now and then to drop some threat, or should I find a way to move 3 points into Blood?

Is the new Desecration too good to give up, or could I possibly drop that to pick up IUP and Subversion?

If anything, drop 2 pts from desecration for IUP for the speed boost, but continue to DPS in blood presence, as the 15% total dmg bonus outweighs the 15% melee haste, lower GCD, and faster rune CD's from what I've seen (although I'm still not sure how). Tell the tank to pick up the TPS. I've never even been remotely close to the tank other than the start of the fight.

You can take a look at my armory to get an idea of where I'm coming from...

Threat is a HUGE problem for me. My guild has tried switching between 3 different tanks just for me. Hodir is my main problem for whatever reason. I find myself constantly having to slow down which bodes badly on my DPS or any WWS I could post. Like the guy 2 posts above me said - do you find any points worth dropping into subversion? My DK friend and I (both who do tons of research) can't figure out which points could possibly be dropped.

^^^^^^ This being the case, do you believe it's another reason a 2H build would be more desirable? Using 2 of the best possible weapons I'm still struggling to keep the top spot on the meters and I can't help but feel it has more to do with DW just not truly being viable just yet than rotation/spec/competency problems.

Thanks in advance (First post on here)

EDIT: To OP (Pandas I assume) Your #'s are very similar to mine - are you having any threat problems?

(first post aswell)

To the guy above: You tanks are the problem. Not you. If (in WotlK current's state) tanks lose aggro, they're to blame.


Anyway. my question:

I am still leveling (78) as we speak, and I am running around woth a 0/13/58 build. I did a lot of testing and respeccing and respeccing again.....I also read the original thread by Origin fully, but most of his test are based on BiS gear:

So here is the thing:

Is DW Unholy viable for a fresh blue geared DK with 130/MH and a 120/OH wep? Or am I gimping myself enormously by not going cookiecutter 2H like 14/0/57?