DW Builds 3.2 -Revenge of the Offhand

Fargom · 06/24/09, 9:39 PM

Patch 3.2. is live, and with it a brand new option for Deathknights. This thread will be used as a source of consolidated knowledge regarding all DW builds.

CONTENTS

Common Abbreviations
Specs with glyphs, runeforges, rotations and statweights.
Minor Glyph
Consumables & Cooldowns
Hit Rating
Points of Discussion
Edits/Changes

I. COMMON ABBREVIATIONS

AoE = Area of Effect
AMS = Anti-Magic Shell
BB = Blood Boil
BP = Blood Presence
IT = Icy Touch
DCh = Deathchill
DK = Death Knight
DnD = Death and Decay
DPS = Damage per Second
FC = Rune of the Fallen Crusader
FF = Frost Fever
FS = Frost Strike
GCD = Global Cooldown
HoW = Horn of Winter
KM = Killing Machine
OB = Obliterate
PS = Plague Strike
RP = Runic Power
UA = Unbreakable Armor
UP = Unholy Presence
BcB= Blood caked blade
ToT= Threat of Thassarian
DC = Death Coil

II Specs with glyphs, runeforges and rotations.

Frost specs:

- All Frost specs in 3.2. will strive for a Slow/Slow weapon setup. It appears that each .1 weapon speed is worth roughly 5 weapon dps. Please see this post. In a nutshell, your only available slow option would have to be vastly inferior to justify using a fast offhand. Realistically this situation will never occur.

- Builds using a blood subspec have been shown to be inferior to the unholy subspec flavor. This is mostly due to bladed armor's poor scaling, and the already high crit rate on various abilities. Dark conviction is simply not that valuable to a frost build.

-Unbreakable armor is a quality investment for a single point, most of the builds in this section don't have it due to problems with the simulator using it correctly. Feel free to alter the below builds by a point to obtain unbreakable armor.

SPELL HIT is currently a debated topic. You will probably obtain max dps by ignoring the spell hit cap and sticking to other stats, however, a single poorly timed miss can result in a tremendous dps loss for some priority/rotations. A prime example is letting your "buffed" stack of dots roll off due to a missed pestilence. Also, be aware that a howling blast cast with a killing machine proc can miss. Spell hit comes down to theoretical max dps vs ease of rotation. Choose which you want and go from there.

Currently, there are two main types of frost builds, with or without Improved icy talons. Below are the most popular version of each. Please see the note above regarding Unbreakable armor.

0/53/18

The most promising frost DW spec at the moment. Getting all of the strong frost talents, as well as picking up the talents in unholy that scale well with dual wield.
The rotation focuses on the power of obliterate. Killing Machine and Rime procs are to be used together to get the optimal dps. If rime procs hold it until you get a KM proc, if KM procs save it for a Rime, or let it be consumed by the FS dumps at the end of a rotation.
You can use the generic rotation, if you want to keep things easy. The priority rotation pretty much comes down to the same, but includes the various procs that the frost tree processes.
A guideline for the priority rotation is: Burn your runes first, leave the RP for free GCD when your runes are on cooldown. The only exception is when both KM and Rime have procced.

Rotation:
IT PS OB BS BS Dump
OB OB OB Dump

Priority Rotation (most important at the top):
- Frost Fever
- Blood Plague
- Killing Machine + Rime
- Obliterate
- Blood Strike
- Frost Strike

Presence: Blood presence
Runeforges: FC/RI
Sigil: Awareness

Stat weights for 0/53/18 are:

AttackPower	1
Strength	2.68
Agility	1.42
CritRating	1.84
HasteRating	1.26
ArmorPenetrationRating	1.58
ExpertiseRating	2.97
BeforeMeleeHitCap<8%	3.52
SpellHitRating	0.99
WeaponDPS	6.77
WeaponSpeed	258.06
After spell hit cap	0.80
2T8	158.33
4T8	115
2T9	120
4T9	410

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3/51/17
This spec sacrifices IIT in order to improve personal DPS. As such, it can skip the 6 points used for (Improved) Icy Talons, letting it pick up every other DPS talent in the frost tree and leaving 3 points for utility talents. It uses [Glyph of Disease] to maximise the usage of Obliterate and Rime procs. One point could be moved from BCB to UA if preferred.

Glyph of Disease

The main reasons for using [Glyph of Disease] is to maximise the number of Obliterates (which should be our hardest hitting attack), as well as utilizing as many Rime procs as possible. It also provides slightly more disease damage than other rotations due to Pestilence not clipping the disease ticks. The rotation used should look something like this once Diseases are set up:

OB -> OB -> BS -> Pest -> Dump
OB -> OB -> (Dump) -> OB -> Dump

Due to the way Pestilence refreshes diseases, it is important that you reapply FF once using IT in order to get the TS benefit on your FF ticks, and possibly to add any additional proc bonuses to it.
You do not want to stretch the Dump sequences too much, as you only have a 1 second window to refresh your diseases (assuming 200ms, you have 2 GCDs at the end of each of the above lines).
Rime procs should be used with KM whenever possible (it benefits from KM far more than FS due to it's innately lower crit chance), so if you have GCDs to spare before your next Obliterate you're better off using FS until you get a KM proc. If you do not have KM by the last GCD before your next OB you should use up your Rime proc as long as you're below ~95-100 RP.
While the GCD usage will vary some depending on your luck with Rime procs, this rotation should perform better in Blood Presence (as long as you're not soaking large amounts of RP, and even then it's debateable)
Your runeforges should be FC/RI, as once RI is stacked up it outperforms the other options by a quite large degree.
Due to the large amounts of OBs used as well as the mechanics of ToT, Sigil of Awareness is by far the best option.

Simulation data and theorycraft

Stat weights for 3/51/17 are:

AttackPower	1
Strength	2.61
Agility	1.39
CritRating	1.77
HasteRating	1.32
ArmorPenetrationRating	1.61
ExpertiseRating	2.94
BeforeMeleeHitCap<8%	3.55
SpellHitRating	0.99
WeaponDPS	6.77
WeaponSpeed	274.19
After spell hit cap	0.80
2T8	156.67
4T8	126.67
2T9	133.33
4T9	403.33

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Unholy Specs

-Unholy builds have been shown to be on par with the new frost ToT builds. We are maintaining a list here because they are capable raiding builds, and will be very useful to anyone needing to switch to provide Ebon Plaguebringer for any reason.

-Unholy builds use a Slow / Highest DPS Weapon setup. Offhand speed does not matter.

Statweights

For 0/17/54

AP	100
Strength	306
Agility	54
Crit	121
Haste	124
Armor Pen	84
Expertise	118
Hit until 11%	388
Hit post 11%	115
Weapon DPS	636

For 15/0/55+1
To be determined

0/17/54

This spec is commonly referred to as the "death coil spam" build. It uses only single rune attacks, and generates massive runic power in order to fuel death coil. This Spec will take the most advantage from the new Unholy Blight spell. This spec also features a near 100% uptime on ghoul frenzy. Downsides include lower disease damage due to clipping.

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

Rotation: If you strongly prefer a rotation, modify the spec to include 2/2 dirge, which will allow you to run the following rotation. (without dirge, you are 10 RP short for the last DC in line 2) Keep in mind that using dirge & the rotation is a very small dps loss. (about 20 dps)

PS IT BS DC GF IT BS DC
PS IT IT DC DC PS IT IT DC DC

Presence: Unholy - You need a lower GCD to fit all the single rune attacks.
Runeforges: FC/FC
Sigil: Vengeful heart

15/0/55 (+1)

This is a new build in 3.2.2, this build takes full advantage of the 4 piece tier 9 bonus due to using blood presence. The focus here is to fill every GCD with quality attacks, and take advantage of blood boil and the newly added crit chance to SS via subversion. This build will out damage the previous 3/13/55 build under all circumstances, due to how good crit has become with the 4 piece bonus. This spec has one free talent point, I recommend putting it in improved unholy presence. The 8% movement speed you can get matches the speed gained through boot enchants, allowing you to use a dps boot enchant instead.

Rotation: PS, IT, SS, BS, BB, DC, DC, PS, IT, SS, BB, BB, DC, DC
Presence: Blood
Sigil: Virulence
Runeforge: FC, FC

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III Minor Glyphs

Minor Glyphs are more a personal choice than a major decision. The most commonly used minor glyphs are:

Pestilence
Raise dead
Blood tap or Horn of Winter

IV. CONSUMABLES & COOLDOWNS

Flask: [Flask of Endless Rage]
Primary Potion:[Insane Strength Potion] (To be used in conjunction with Unbreakable Armor)
Secondary: Unholy builds gain a large benefit from [Item not found!], used when summoning gargoyle.

All cooldowns should be timed with Bloodlust (which your raidleader should be calling at the start of every fight). If for some reason you are saving Lust (Mimiron P2, for example), use cooldowns (sans potion) immediately at the beginning of the fight and then again during Bloodlust. Heroism / bloodlust must be active prior to casting gargoyle, the same goes with a haste potion.

You should be saving Blood Tap for when you use UA, so as to not affect the flow of your attacks. This can be done after using UA with a Frost Rune, or before if all your runes happen to be on cooldown.

V. HIT RATING

This is a common question for new Deathknights venturing into DW. Here are the basics:

Special attacks require 8% hit to ensure no misses against level 83 opponents. The talent nerves of cold steel effects this chance, reducing the requirement via gear to 5%. This means, contrary to what some might think DW builds actually require less hit to cap their special attacks than our two handed brothers. Special attacks include: Blood Strike, Plague Strike, Frost strike, Obliterate. (and others that we don't care about as DW)

Spell hit cap is 17% against level 83 opponents. The talent Virulence provides 3% hit for spells, the Druid talent Improved Faerie fire, or the Shadow priest talent Misery will further reduce this requirement by 3% (Hit debuffs do not stack.) The final result brings the requirement via gear down to 11%, at which point no spell will miss. Spells include Howling blast, Icy touch and Death coil.

White hits have a hit cap of 27%. The talent Nerves of cold steel reduces this by 3%. At this point, no white hits (or any attack for that matter) will miss. This cap is not reasonable to reach for any DK, and should not be attempted. However, keep in mind that gaining hit over the spell hit cap still has a dps value as it will allow more white damage, more blood caked blade procs, and more Killing machine procs.

VIII. EDITS

[1] Thread Launched - Credit Darkside for thread format.
[2] Removed AMS section, replaced with simulator section.
[3] 3.2. Live - Updated info.
[4] Added Hit rating and statweight sections.
[5] Amended spell hit statweight & added a brief word about it.
[6] 3.2.2 live - Updated info.
[7] 3.3 "soon" final edit.

Aezoc · 06/25/09, 1:07 AM

Edited: Figured out the SotVH calculations

Some information cleaned up and reposted from the frost DPS thread. Credit goes to Amroo for catching my dumb mistake.

Setup and assumptions:

This build
Using 2x [Shortsword]
Target dummy is above 35%
Frost fever is kept up
AP is constantly 3506, no procs
Rank 6 FS is 55% weapon damage + 138
SotVH is listed as 113 damage to FS
Normalized 1h speed is 2.4

The following formulas predict my FS MH damage perfectly, and OH damage without the sigil:
WPN = weapon_base + AP / 14 * 2.4
FS_base = .55 * WPN + 138 + 113**
FS = FS_base * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.2 * 1.15
FS_crit = FS * 2.45

**This 113 is the sigil's bonus, remove it if not using it.

Multiply FS_crit by an additional 1.03 if using a crit meta, and multiply any result by 0.575 if calculating the offhand.

Conclusions

SotVH still gets multiplied by talents
SotVH applies the full 113 damage to the mainhand
OH strike damage is not 65% of normal like the talent might lead you to think, it is 50% base * 1.15 = 57.5% of normal. This also applies to white damage, and is probably not news to long-time DW DKs, but was new to me.
SotVH applies 115% of its bonus to the OH. The full bonus is applied without being affected by the OH penalty, and then the 1.15 Nerves of Cold Steel multiplier is applied to it as well as the the offhand damage. This is unusual, since the sigil bonus damage is not affected by the OH penalty that NoCS lessens. In other words, the OH FS calculation is ((.55 * (weapon_base + AP / 14 * 2.4) + 138) * .5 + 113) * 1.15 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.2 * 1.15. Another way of looking at it is that the sigil effectively adds 242.95 damage to FS before talents (~405 damage after talents).

Odii · 06/25/09, 3:28 AM

Originally Posted by Aezoc

What I am not sure about is how the sigil is applied to the OH. Between assuming that the sigil's bonus is reduced by the OH penalty and assuming the OH gets the full bonus without penalty, the latter gets me numbers closer to my expected values. However, I am inclined to think that there is some additional weirdness going on, since the formula is accurate to within a couple of damage (rounding errors) for MH with and without the sigil, and OH without it. When calculating damage on the OH, using the sigil, it's more like 30 points off given the weapons and AP I tested with. The exact formula to determine the OH contribution from SotVH will require more testing.

Off high? Or off low?

Edit: If its low, are you multiplying the 15% in from Nerves of Cold Steel on the high estimate?

Bonecaller · 06/25/09, 5:23 AM

Good idea.
I did some testing too on PTR, all speccs without merciless combat and debuffs on the target.

For singletarget, the best specc seemed to be (for me) to go deep frost and take perma ghoul.

Specc: 0/45/26
Glyphs: Obliterate, Ghoul, FS
Rotation: frost (normal) with both diseases up
Advantage: Seems to have a high single target DPS potential, probably close to the highest for dw
Disadvantages: Low AOE-potential, no burst talents, ghoul to keep an eye on.
Comments: This specc isnt finalized yet since there are a few talents i would like to specc (eg UB, Rime has only 1/3).

Second specc was simply deep frost for howling blast, rest unholy:

Specc: 0/53/18
Glyphs: OB, FS, (HB)
Rotation: first one was frost with both diseases up, second one was OB-OB-BS-BS OB-OB-OB and HB to keep frost fever up
Advantage: Both speccs have good AOE-potential, no ghoul, they already have some theorycraft in the background for 2H-frost
Disadvantage: Damagepotential seemed to be considerably lower singletarget than with ghoul ( i am talking about 5-7%)

I also testet some other speccs like 31/40/0 or 0/41/30 (DC Spam+ghoul), but they didnt seem to work out that well.

Subspeccing blood generally doesnt seem to work well since the shorter diseases dont seem to allow "good rotations". Subversion seems to be the only talent worth using the 3 points for.

Just to clarify, just test the rotations above zourself, maybe i wasnt optimizing dps or some speccs simply benefit more from raidbuffs and so on. Its not that easy to test since again and again, other players are debuffing the dummy or the dummy is at 1HP, making necrosis damage practically non existing.

Mikah1 · 06/25/09, 9:09 AM

I still have some questions regarding the offhand weapon.

Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.

In particular the "Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike".

I think it would be good to know what the effect means exactly? What is "roughly one half". Is it a hard 50%, or is it actually higher (or lower), or does it actually scale with something?

Is the damage "one-half of the original strike" based on your main weapon damage, or based on the off-hand damage? I know there is now an edit with clarification on this. Has this been actually tested?

Has anyone tested a slow versus a fast offhand to see how much of a difference it makes for the off-hand strikes? If the offhand damage is indeed used, how much of a dps difference does it makes considering that you gain dps on the strike offhand damage but then loose dps on BCB and necrosis by using a slow offhand?

Is the difference in the strike damage enough to warrant going automatically after a slow offhand? Or does slightly better stats on similar dps but fast weapon would tip the balance? Or is the difference significant enough to warrant using a lower dps slow offhand over a higher dps fast offhand?

It certainly has a huge impact on itemization as to whether we will become slow/slow DW or whether there is no difference between slow and fast for the offhand.

Maraxus · 06/25/09, 9:48 AM

Originally Posted by Bonecaller

I also testet some other speccs like 31/40/0 or 0/41/30 (DC Spam+ghoul), but they didnt seem to work out that well.
.

I don´t understand why you decided to go for a 0/41/30 test instead of a 0/44/27 with GoG instead of the 3 points in Impurity. Being your OB the main rune attack and with the buff on BS... a 45% crit dmg bonus seams much more apealing than those 3 points in Impurity.

The spec would look like this 0/44/27

Standard 2 disease rotation.

I will try to get some testing on this but I think it could easily outperform deep frost DW builds on single target fights. Im not that sure how it stands against a ghoul+frost strike build (like the one you posted) but I would say both are really close.

On DW 3x/4x/0 builds Im totally agree with you, they arent looking good, its hard to find synergy and there are to many placeholders. Time and testing will tell.

Edit: wrong link

dr_AllCOM3 · 06/25/09, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Mikah1

I still have some questions regarding the offhand weapon.[...]

Everything is explained in the second post. Why didn't you read it? I did and it was well worth it.
The offhand strikes, so slow it better. I'd say it's speed>stats>dps, but mostly stats and dps go hand in hand. The ilvl239 weapons e.g. aren't good. My sheet was correct about the strikes, so feel free to test it out yourself.

Manveru · 06/25/09, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Maraxus

I don´t understand why you decided to go for a 0/41/30 test instead of a 0/44/27 with GoG instead of the 3 points in Impurity. Being your OB the main rune attack and with the buff on BS... a 45% crit dmg bonus seams much more apealing than those 3 points in Impurity.

The spec would look like this 0/44/27

Standard 2 disease rotation.

I will try to get some testing on this but I think it could easily outperform deep frost DW builds on single target fights. Im not that sure how it stands against a ghoul+frost strike build (like the one you posted) but I would say both are really close.

On DW 3x/4x/0 builds Im totally agree with you, they arent looking good, its hard to find synergy and there are to many placeholders. Time and testing will tell.

UA is WAY too good to not take it. I'd take one point out of Impurity for it.

Also that point on a generally useless HC would look so much better on KM.

Maraxus · 06/25/09, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by Manveru

UA is WAY too good to not take it. I'd take one point out of Impurity for it.

Also that point on a generally useless HC would look so much better on KM.

WOOT!!!, sorry... bad link posted!, my fault.

This is: 0/44/27

Sorry again.

From a pure DPS point of view... yes, that point in HC looks better on KM. I took HC becouse this build is weak on area fights, at least you get some utility. Im one of those who dont feel bad for spending one talent point in utility and loosing a 0,001% DPS increase :-). KM in this build is almost a filler.

Sakuratei · 06/25/09, 10:50 AM

@Aesoc: Wouldn't it be easier to figure out how the sigil applies to the offhand if you tried to remove as many multipliers as possible? At least to start with, and then recount as you add each multiplier.

The most logical way it would apply in my eyes is to the base FS damage just as for the MH, meaning
(OHWPN*0.575)*0.55 + 138+113(Sigil) * various multipliers.

I wish I was on the PTR's so I could test some myself

I'm sorry if this qualifies as "Untested or Unproven speculation".

Aezoc · 06/25/09, 11:57 AM

I think I finally figured it out, and updated my above post to reflect what I found. Nerves of Cold Steel seems to be increasing the sigil's OH contribution by 15%, even though the sigil bonus damage isn't affected by the OH penalty in the first place. This is obviously a good thing for our DPS, but smells like a bug to me. If anyone has the inclination to repeat my tests and double-check my numbers, it would be appreciated. I've rerun the numbers enough times that I am fairly confident, but I'm also quite good at making stupid mistakes.

Odii · 06/25/09, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Aezoc

I think I finally figured it out, and updated my above post to reflect what I found. Nerves of Cold Steel seems to be increasing the sigil's OH contribution by 15%, even though the sigil bonus damage isn't affected by the OH penalty in the first place. This is obviously a good thing for our DPS, but smells like a bug to me. If anyone has the inclination to repeat my tests and double-check my numbers, it would be appreciated. I've rerun the numbers enough times that I am fairly confident, but I'm also quite good at making stupid mistakes.

That doesnt sound like a bug, it sounds like its consistent with other damage multipliers. Mechanically Nerves of Cold Steel is probably not a change to the offhand weapon penalty, but an after the fact damage multiplier like other talents, such as Tundra Stalker, Blood of the North, Black Ice, etc.

Fargom · 06/25/09, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Odii

That doesnt sound like a bug, it sounds like its consistent with other damage multipliers. Mechanically Nerves of Cold Steel is probably not a change to the offhand weapon penalty, but an after the fact damage multiplier like other talents, such as Tundra Stalker, Blood of the North, Black Ice, etc.

It might be a bug, it might not be. Nobody here knows, so we may as well move on. Aezoc's math is solid, I'm going to consider the SotVH mechanic solved for now. There is no sense in debating things we can't control, such as if something is intended or not. If a new build changes a proven mechanic, I will adjust the OP but for now we will stand on math and now worry about things we can't control.

Good work so far, hats off to Aezoc. Lets use his work as an example of how we should tackle each object in the OP. I'll be working on Unholy blight mechanics as soon as it is fixed on the PTR.

Syrellia · 06/25/09, 2:13 PM

Originally Posted by Bonecaller

Subspeccing blood generally doesnt seem to work well since the shorter diseases dont seem to allow "good rotations". Subversion seems to be the only talent worth using the 3 points for.

Shorter diseases can still guarantee you a perfect rotation. You just have to use less Obliterate.

Assuming 100ms ping, with IT GCD being 1.49s due to a little haste. Abbreviation used: Skill(current time - current RP after use) In Blood Presence:

IT(0 - 25)PS(1.5 - 35)BS(3.01 - 45)BS(4.52 - 55)OB(6.03 - 75)FS(7.54 - 43)FS(9.05 - 11)
OB(11.5 - 31)OB(14.52 - 51)IT(16.03 - 76)PS(17.53 - 86)FS(19.04 - 54)FS(20.55 - 22)
OB(21.5 - 42)BS(23.01 - 52)BS(24.52 - 62)OB(26.03 - 82)FS(27.54 - 50)FS(29.05 - 18)
IT(30 - 43)PS(31.5 - 53)OB(34.52 - 73)OB(36.03 - 93)FS(37.54 - 61)FS(39.05 - 29)

Anyway you get the idea. You can see that diseases will almost never drop off and if you shift your IT/PS combo around that much you can squeeze out the maximum amount of OB.
In practice, you just have to watch the diseases timer (Get an addon for it) and your runes in order to decide what to do. I believe this was what the 17/51/3 2H frost used to do when they use 2 diseases rotation (at least the frost 2H DK in my guild does, and his dps is insane). Even if diseases drop off sometimes, just use Icy Touch asap (you can blood tap for it) and continue.

Most of the questions could be answered by using a simulation program.

About the confirmation of offhand procs, someone could always get a proc watch addon, do some napkin maths and make a comparison. I don't see any reason why offhand strikes wouldn't proc Fallen Crusader since it's a separated enchant, and offhand does separated strikes. About Killing Machines, I thought Blizzard once stated that it would only proc on main-hand and it is capped at 5ppm. I don't see any other effects (trinket etc) that does not have internal cooldown, making offhand procs completely useless.

If someone can confirm Fallen Crusader procs on offhand strikes the same manner it does on main hand, then Rune of Razorice is better put on main hand. It has the effect increase the damages by 2% as frost damage so it will be beneficial for all strikes done on main hand. Rune of Fallen Crusader would proc at the same rate on either offhand or main hand if they have the same speed because they deal the same amount of strikes / instant strikes per the amount of time. The question still stands as is it better to have 2xFC or RI/FC combo for various builds, and they could be solved easily by using a simulation program.

(Sorry I know I talked a lot about the simulation program, but feel free to do any maths if you wish. Just my opinion that some of the comparisons would be extremely complicated - like the Unholy vs Frost, or RI/FC vs. FC/FC).

concept84 · 06/25/09, 2:25 PM

Originally Posted by Maraxus

I don´t understand why you decided to go for a 0/41/30 test instead of a 0/44/27 with GoG instead of the 3 points in Impurity. Being your OB the main rune attack and with the buff on BS... a 45% crit dmg bonus seams much more apealing than those 3 points in Impurity.

The spec would look like this 0/44/27

Standard 2 disease rotation.

I will try to get some testing on this but I think it could easily outperform deep frost DW builds on single target fights. Im not that sure how it stands against a ghoul+frost strike build (like the one you posted) but I would say both are really close.

On DW 3x/4x/0 builds Im totally agree with you, they arent looking good, its hard to find synergy and there are to many placeholders. Time and testing will tell.

Edit: wrong link

So far 0/44/27 is floating around quite a bit, but when looking at the builds I'm confused as to why you wouldn't dump the 1 pt in Unholy Blight and just pick up Frost Strike instead. I've been thinking along similar lines and Frost Strike seems like a stronger option. I'm thinking a build like this would work better:

0/45/26