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  1. #1

    The Best Place for Unholy is Ranged Str DPS

    Very few people play unholy DKs, they crop up when someone sims them at the top of dps charts for a while and then most of them drop off the face of eternity. I was one of those people, I liked unholy, it was my first DK DPS spec, and I always thought thematically it was the most fun of all the DK specializations. However, I've always ended up playing other specs, since WoTLK there's very little reason to be unholy, when frost does everything it does better and easier.

    Unholy is a very clunky spec, it's been very powerful in PvP, but for very bad reasons. It's an auto-fire option, you macro your stuff together, you pick your moment and you eat heals, while your pets murder someone, you get to concentrate almost entirely on control, because roughly 50-60% of your full burst dps is entirely automated. I don't think that's a good way to setup any class.

    PvE tends to see fewer unholy DKs, because their ramp up time and general inability to do fast, on demand burst always hamstrings them. No raid bosses just let you sit on them and beat on them anymore, so if unholy does 5% more damage than frost, frost will probably in real performance, have roughly 10% higher dps, simply because of ease of target switching and a lot less ability to screw up.

    Why I'm going over this, is that I actually think the current unholy setup, would work fabulously as a ranged dps class, since the clunkiness and annoyance of things like dark transformation, would then be offset by ranged capabilities and an ability to set up fights better, since there'd be so much less running around (it's usually not the melee who burst for 1 million dps at the start of a fight). Some abilities and mechanics would need to be modified to balance PvP, but I think DKs would be made a much more robust class with a ranged option.

    The original DKs were casters, so if unholy is supposed to be the specialization in the vein of the WC2 DKs, with abilities like raise dead, death and decay and death coil at the forefront, why not take it all the way? Branch out the class, add more gameplay options. Plus DKs have felt kind of ignored, since we haven't even gotten a real tanking overhaul (Or well, a real anything overhaul in a very long time), this would be a great way to bring some energy back to the class.

    I'd love to see my DK using ranged scourge strikes and whatnot, not to mention, there's just always too much melee :P

  2. #2
    Legendary! MonsieuRoberts's Avatar
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    I think that would be...pretty cool. DoTs and some direct damage and several ghouls, lots of magical AoE and damage amplification.
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  3. #3
    Stood in the Fire themightysven's Avatar
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    agreed, for a time in Wrath Unholy would even use some of that excess SpellPower plate and sit with the casters. They're already a pet class, they should be ranged. Give them some utility diseases so they can apply a particular debuff while adding another disease to their SS calculations. Have the pet give them additional Rune Power to fund Death Coils as filler
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  4. #4
    The Patient Lockrocker75's Avatar
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    I like the idea. Except don't just make them a Lock/Mage style caster. Use their weapons, like a hunter. If that makes sense? They harness the unholy magic, and send it out through their weapons. Diff animations for 2h,DW. And have an option, or glyph (like the monk) if someone would rather they just used their hands like Locks/Mages.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Lockrocker75 View Post
    I like the idea. Except don't just make them a Lock/Mage style caster. Use their weapons, like a hunter. If that makes sense? They harness the unholy magic, and send it out through their weapons. Diff animations for 2h,DW. And have an option, or glyph (like the monk) if someone would rather they just used their hands like Locks/Mages.
    I'm suggesting that no gear or weaponry would change, but for example, scourge strike could turn into a projectile, or an instantaneous effect, where you see your DK swing their weapon, with a cool spell effect, then an explosion of decay/whatever energy would strike your target. Something like that. Keep almost everything the same, just make it ranged and rebalance abilities appropriately.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by themightysven View Post
    agreed, for a time in Wrath Unholy would even use some of that excess SpellPower plate and sit with the casters.
    Uhm... what?

  7. #7
    I would love to see this, though have them wear Int plate so that more than one spec in the game is excited when it drops.
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Silent Earth View Post
    I would love to see this, though have them wear Int plate so that more than one spec in the game is excited when it drops.
    WoD negates this already. Stats on gear will change depending on spec.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Silent Earth View Post
    I would love to see this, though have them wear Int plate so that more than one spec in the game is excited when it drops.
    My initial thought was to simply keep their gear identical, because changing it would require players radically replace their gear. Now I wouldn't mind that for an actual expansion change, it'd be great even, since it's really weird to have a drop that goes to only one class, as you said. My concern is just making sure not to enrage players, by forcing them to pick up an unholy specific gear set.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
    Uhm... what?
    I believe he's talking about the time he used the blue plate items from HoS normal with SP and Mp5 on it.

    OT: I think it's a cool idea, but I absolutely resent the idea of pets giving resources. Pets should never be made more important for gameplay than they already are.
    Oh and Unholy would definitely lose either DPS, burst or utility in order to become ranged.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Valenthiel View Post
    My initial thought was to simply keep their gear identical, because changing it would require players radically replace their gear. Now I wouldn't mind that for an actual expansion change, it'd be great even, since it's really weird to have a drop that goes to only one class, as you said. My concern is just making sure not to enrage players, by forcing them to pick up an unholy specific gear set.
    I think completely overhauling a spec could potentially enrage players more than any regearing would do. UH is fine as melee.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Valenthiel View Post
    My initial thought was to simply keep their gear identical, because changing it would require players radically replace their gear. Now I wouldn't mind that for an actual expansion change, it'd be great even, since it's really weird to have a drop that goes to only one class, as you said. My concern is just making sure not to enrage players, by forcing them to pick up an unholy specific gear set.
    Not going to happen anymore in WoD as zorkuus says, and I doubt you're suggesting for ranged Unholy DKs to make it into the game in MoP.

  13. #13
    Don't worry guys! I'm sure Celestalon will fix Unholy along with Frost!!!

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Valenthiel View Post
    Very few people play unholy DKs, they crop up when someone sims them at the top of dps charts for a while and then most of them drop off the face of eternity.
    Eh, what?
    I am seeing way more unholy players than frost players nowadays, not sure where you are getting that.


    Unholy as a ranged spec sounds cool conceptually, but i highly doubt it would work in reality, atleast not without pissing off half the unholy players.

  15. #15
    There's way more Unholy players than Frost players currently, people probably don't care about the playstyle, they'll play the one that does the most dps. If they managed to sort of balance them to be semi equal like in ICC then I would probably play Unholy due to it being more smooth, absolutely no reason to change a spec that isn't broken.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Valenthiel View Post
    Very few people play unholy DKs
    And you make this statement based on what evidence? Please don't tell me you are basing this off personal experience in LFR or random BGs.

  17. #17
    There's truth in that, if you look at warcraftlogs you'll see that unholy representation is very low in this tier, at least in raids that people are logging. I'm assuming this vaguely resembles overall representation.

    It's still significantly less popular than frost.

  18. #18
    How does frost do again everything better?

    Unholy bursts higher in the opener although it has more ramp up, unholy provides higher constant AoE dps, just not burst AoE which currently hardly matters, if adds die in under 5 seconds you are better hitting the boss anyway from an efficiency perspective. Unholy has way better execute, so it performs better on those crucial soft enrage phases and burn phases at the end of a boss fight.
    Unholy has more passive damage via DoTs + ghoul. Unholy has higher range dps via DC/IT/DSi/ghoul/DoTs and maybe and the gargoyle is also a ranged cd.

    Unholy has insane selfhealing with DSi which barely is a dps loss and is capable of being a small gain in very specific but occurring situations.

    Frost wins on everything that is shortlived being it a quick switch or brust AoE. Frost has slightly better on demand burst because of a very short cd, ERW being affected by EEoG for frost and KM procs generating spikes unholy doesn not have.
    Otherwise frosts dps is also rather constant and you see higher crits as more damage is in your abilities rather then pets and DoTs.

    Frost and unholy perform similar, both have nichesa and both have weaknesses.

    If you feel unholy plays clunky and is unnecessary I would assume you're doing it wrong or you simply don't like and therefore don't bother. If I would consider one dk spec problematic game play/rotation wise it would be frost. Frost ignores too much and what the secondary stats do is not very appealing either.


    Still would not dislike range dk simply because melees are kinda meh in most cases and especially with being rather slow compared to other melees I would welcome being more flexible with range.
    But its not going to happen and your reasoning is kinda wrong. Representation is also not necessarily an indication for power or rather bad design. Frost is just exaggeratingly easy to play AND better in low gear so that switching isn't something rather casual or lazy players would do, additionally Uh buffs came later into SoO and ofcourse there is the part of the community actually liking frost more. They are close so there is not a reason to change for much more output either.
    Last edited by Raikh; 2014-08-18 at 11:04 PM.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
    Uhm... what?
    There was a 90% ranged spec in Naxx; I think he is pointing to that, basically IT/DC spam. It was fun, and horribly broken.

  20. #20
    The fact remains that we have never been able to do competitive damage without being in melee range, we have never stood with the casters, and we have never geared for spellpower.

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