Unholy Death Knight 7.1

[Threonin 2]

u take runic corruption becose it makes it very easy to have both a blood and a frost rune, for a FS up after u used your deathrunes.

Alos since we are in UH-Presence we have a greater base haste than other specs and a greater runicgeneration.

Since Runic corruption scales off of Haste its better than Bloodtap.

 

Haste isnt that great of an stat since we already have high base haste and it scales very poorly, so other stats as Multi and mastery pull ahead over haste

[Vlad 411]

Necrotic Plague cannot be refreshed    wromg

How exactly do you refresh it?

[Guest Azni]

cant exactly refresh it just extend it right like festerblight in ToT?

[Guest Vynny]

So with many abilities' damage getting changed in the hot-fixes that occurred on Nov 25th, will we see any changes in this guide, or were the changes not enough to actually change anything. I only ask because one of the changes listed is a 20% damage buff to necrotic plague which might put it ahead of defile.

[Vlad 411]

So with many abilities' damage getting changed in the hot-fixes that occurred on Nov 25th, will we see any changes in this guide, or were the changes not enough to actually change anything. I only ask because one of the changes listed is a 20% damage buff to necrotic plague which might put it ahead of defile.

It might affect the priority, but we'll need to see once raids open up how it really looks.

[Guest Sanguinar]

You can refresh the entire duration of a 15 stacked necrotic plague using a single Festerblight currently. I highly doubt it's intentional but for now atleast it's pretty handy.

[Guest Unholy]

So how much difference is now beetwen frost and unholy? im just hitting 100 lvl and i saw maintly frosts around, same on streams etc.

[Rasecfel 0]

are there any stats weights in the guide? i didnt see that

[Guest Strathaczar]

I see you guys on IcyVeins call Multistrike the Unholy DK's main secondary stat, and that we should use Ask Mr. Robot for any priorities. I use Mr. Robot pretty regularly, but he has me gemming/chanting for pure Mastery and not Multistrike. Whenever this happens, it always confuses me as to what is the right way to prioritize my stats, so I'm curious which I should do.

[Vlad 411]

You can refresh the entire duration of a 15 stacked necrotic plague using a single Festerblight currently. I highly doubt it's intentional but for now atleast it's pretty handy.

I doubt this is intentional too. I can't find anything on it, so I'll give it another day or two before I update the guide.

 

So how much difference is now beetwen frost and unholy? im just hitting 100 lvl and i saw maintly frosts around, same on streams etc.

Unholy is currently performing better, at least on the Highmaul bosses. The difference seems to be quite big, but there are also very few Frost DKs for some reason, so the sample size is small.

 

are there any stats weights in the guide? i didnt see that

No, there are no stat weights. Stat weights usually vary a lot depending on each character's particular circumstances, so it's not possible to give accurate ones that are generally applicable to all readers. For exact stat weights, it's highly recommended that you sim your character.

 

I see you guys on IcyVeins call Multistrike the Unholy DK's main secondary stat, and that we should use Ask Mr. Robot for any priorities. I use Mr. Robot pretty regularly, but he has me gemming/chanting for pure Mastery and not Multistrike. Whenever this happens, it always confuses me as to what is the right way to prioritize my stats, so I'm curious which I should do.

We recommend using Ask Mr. Robot, particularly for the part of their software that optimizes your character. We derive our own stat weights, as we say, from a mix of simulations, opinions of top raiders/theorycrafters (in this case, Mendenbarr), and common sense. We don't coordinate stats with Ask Mr. Robot. So, go with ours or with theirs (I think you should mostly go with ours). The best way is probably to sim your character, though :)

[demonardvark 556]

I'm wondering if you will consider a second playstyle for unholy with necrotic plague being the focus. Many of us have found that on add heavy fights it shines. It's easy enough to maintain your stacks, you literally only need to manage one add, refresh their 15 and spread it. 

 

Your dot ticks every 2 seconds and with multistrike your dots have a second chance to tick again. In highmaul its been found so far that on kargath, tectus, and brackenspore necrotic plague can shine. I feel its been overlooked as a viable talent. Defile is great but if boss or adds are moved your dps takes a big hit. 

 

If desired, I could write up a general necroticblight playstyle guide. I think people who play around with it may find it to be an underestimated talent. 

[jupie 0]

Hello, I have a question. Everywhere I look on the internet and every guide I go to says that the stat prio for UH dps in PVE is Multistrike>mastery>crit>vers>haste... But on every "highend" character on armory from well progressed guilds have the following prio "mastery>mutlistrike>haste.. that is the only thing I see.. only a few have stacked multistrike over mastery.. very few.. Why is that? Is the guide outdated or is allmost every UH DK going for the wrong stats?

[Guest Taefedon]

Hello, I have a question. Everywhere I look on the internet and every guide I go to says that the stat prio for UH dps in PVE is Multistrike>mastery>crit>vers>haste... But on every "highend" character on armory from well progressed guilds have the following prio "mastery>mutlistrike>haste.. that is the only thing I see.. only a few have stacked multistrike over mastery.. very few.. Why is that? Is the guide outdated or is allmost every UH DK going for the wrong stats?

 

The reason is that for any fight with AOE, mastery starts to outperform multistrike since you will be relying on dot/bb/defile damage.  Most fights have some sort of aoe, so instead of redoing everything every fight, you stick with mastery.  Based on my sims, the mastery and multistrike are within 10% of each other from a stat weight perspective even on single target fights.

 

Also, you forgot Glyph of Blood Boil in your glyphs section.  Possibly the only reliable dps increasing glyph since adds are often scattered.

[Guest Rakx]

Hello, I have a question. Everywhere I look on the internet and every guide I go to says that the stat prio for UH dps in PVE is Multistrike>mastery>crit>vers>haste... But on every "highend" character on armory from well progressed guilds have the following prio "mastery>mutlistrike>haste.. that is the only thing I see.. only a few have stacked multistrike over mastery.. very few.. Why is that? Is the guide outdated or is allmost every UH DK going for the wrong stats?

additionaly on icy veins its multi>mastery but on askmrrobot the default pve unholy setting values mastery>multi...im confused

[Guest Zopi]

Hey

Do i use Blood Boil on 2 Targets or using Source Strike?

[Guest roarfacelol]

Just a suggestion for the healing tier: Death Siphon is probably a stronger choice opposed to Death Pact even though it does cost a death rune. It's a small damage cost in exchange for consistent healing whenever you need it and  you can use it at a range. There are many scenarios in raid where you will be out of range of the boss. In terms of increasing your damage, Death Siphon is most definitely the strongest choice.

[Threonin 2]

Mastery and Mulit are very close to eachother, wich ever is better depends on ure individual gear.

If u wanna know the exact value of Mastery and Multi u need to run simcraft with ure current gear

[Guest Ralroth]

The Macro isn't working for me

 

• #showtooltip Death Coil
• /cast [mod:ctrl,@pet][]Death Coil

Any help?

[Guest Guest]

Hi there,

thanks for this guide. :) I have a question about the BiS-gear though:

Can I actually wear that 660 PvP-gear outside of PvP? Does it increase my stats? Cause in-game it says that this armor can only be worn in the tournaments. I bought most of it for 50 gold per item and am now fearing that I wasted my gold, because I saw that sentence about the tournament too late. It's also quite weird that you're able to just buy such good armor. I should have known it can't be that easy. xD

Thanks in advance. ^^

 

- Nayelí

[Guest GeNexis]

Hi there,

thanks for this guide. I have a question about the BiS-gear though:

Can I actually wear that 660 PvP-gear outside of PvP? Does it increase my stats? Cause in-game it says that this armor can only be worn in the tournaments. I bought most of it for 50 gold per item and am now fearing that I wasted my gold, because I saw that sentence about the tournament too late. It's also quite weird that you're able to just buy such good armor. I should have known it can't be that easy. xD

Thanks in advance. ^^

 

- Nayelí

 

The 660 PvP gear that you can buy for 50 gold can not be used outside of the tournament area.

 

The 660 PvP gear you can buy with Conquest points CAN be used outside of PvP. This is purchased in Ashran.

[Guest Zejety]

For those fights where Defile is not worth it because the boss moves to much, the guide recommends Necrotic Plague.

How does this affect the priority list? Do we still cast Death & Decay and does Festering Strike rise in priority?

[Guest Bwags]

Anyone know of a good key binding guide for dks?

[Amos 0]

For those fights where Defile is not worth it because the boss moves to much, the guide recommends Necrotic Plague.

How does this affect the priority list? Do we still cast Death & Decay and does Festering Strike rise in priority?

 

Yes to both, though FS's priority is based in part on how many seconds of Necrotic you have left on the enemy.  Most of the time, you still want to use it for your blood/frost rune pairs.  In a pinch, you will want to use 1-2 death runes on it, but there are ways to avoid that. Other thoughts:

 

1) This is probably obvious, but don't use Plague Leech with Necrotic. 

In most cases, you'll want Unholy Blight instead as an opener, as it nearly always jumps an enemy to 15 stacks quickly.  If you're in the sort of situation where you constantly find UB on cooldown when you need it (like soloing), switch to Plague Bearer and let your Death Coils help get the stacks to 15 quickly instead.

You may have seen the term "Necroblight" to describe this pair of talents.  It's become a sort of sub-spec for Death Knights, particularly Unholy DK's.

 

2) If Blight is off of cooldown, use your death runes on SS even if Necrotic is about to drop.

As soon as Necrotic is gone, ping Blight and watch it show up again.  If Blight is on cooldown, you probably do not want this to happen, as getting back to 15 is a pain and a DPS loss.

 

3) If you can't get the hang of using Plague Leech (like me), go for Necroblight or Necrobearer anyway.

I am admittedly /not/ a Mythic-level WoW player, but I'm a halfway decent minor-leaguer.  I've tried, but getting Plague Leech to work properly has not been easy for me.  I tend to either use it at the wrong time or not at all, thus rendering the DPS gain moot.

I found that for various reasons, I'm much better at maintaining Necrotic stacks and timers than I am at the Leech-reapply method.  Thus, I saw about a 12 % DPS gain.

 

4) If bosses die with tons of seconds on the Necrotic timer, you might be using FS too often.

The math is basically that every 6 seconds remaining equals (2*SS - FS).

 

5) If you need to apply Necrotic and both Outbreak and Blight are on cooldown, and you have a free Frost rune, use Icy Touch.

Save that unholy rune for a SS or D&D.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Amos

[Guest Nyqwill]

Do the recent hotfix nerfs/buffs change our priority systems?

[Guest RandomDK]

Is now frost much better then unholy after nrfs to blood boil and haste buff for frost?