Unholy - Twiddling my thumbs - Am I just bad?

[Swizzington]

So I just came back to the game after a year or two, figured I'd try the new expac. Boosted a DK to 100 and specced unholy because I heard it was fun. And actually it's pretty good, the animations are satisfying.

I did a raid finder last night but occasionally I would unload my shit and then get stuck for like 2-3 seconds with runes locked and no RP. Now the way I see it there's 3 options here, ranking from most likely to least likely: 1. I'm bad, 2. It's my shitty green boost gear lacking haste or whatever (if that's even a thing anymore), or 3. It has been designed like that.

If it's number 1, I would appreciate some information on how I can avoid this issue. Atm I feel like I'm just spamming Festering Strike, Scourge Strike and Death Coil, with the occasional Outbreak refresh (think that's what it's called...). Is there a button I'm missing in the basic rotation? Is there some intricacies to this I'm missing? While I'm enjoying it, it does seem a bit mindless.

[globezorz]

Firstly haste is so incredibly important for unholy right now, so low amounts of haste could contribute. Secondly, DKs have never been a spam class like some believe, it's always a balance. When things like DA are down, try using DC to proc Runic Corruption without overlapping, and not "spamming" abilities so much. Let the spec roll if that makes sense, with the exception of DA and burst AoE where yeah you just mash buttons. It's much simpler than its previous incarnations but it's only mindless when played that way.

[Deleted]

My dk is 740 ish ilevel and i decided to swap my gems enchants and some gear from haste to crit - for teh lulz.

My god was it slow - both increased gcd and rune regen.

[Acidbaron]

Watch the frostelion youtube videos, after you learned from those come back with more specific questions since what you write is all very vague and i doubt people can really be bothered to write out our priority system with the plethora of information easily accessible.

[Coldvibes]

There is your problem: unloading everything.

Most likely you are making an error that a lot of newer UH DKs make, if you already have RC rolling from a DC DO NOT DC IMMEDIATELY AGAIN.

Granted, a big resource generator in 2 traits (3/3 Runic Tats, 3/3 Scourge the Unbeliever) in addition to Apocalypse/Soul Reaper, we're actually finding UH to be swimming in resources at 110. We're missing ALL that at 100, so yeah, without sufficient Haste, we're going to feel slow as hell.

[Christonya]

It's worth noting in cata they made it so corruption never overlaps, the new duration just gets added onto the old

@OP I think all three are probably the case here, you probably arn't playing super well due to your hiatus, which is fine. Your crappy gear lacks haste, which does mean you'll generate less runes over a fight leading to more downtime AND the spec is suppose to run out of resources as the fight goes on, assuming no BL any ways.

As for the mindlessness of the spec, most specs have been dumbed down on the surface, blizzard tried, and IMO succeeded finally at creating an 'easy to learn, difficult to master' play style for the vast majority of specs. As unholy, you're basically playing zit sweeper. You're managing your wounds on the target, setting up soul reapers, playing with your necrosis / infected claws talents (or w/e the third is I cant remember the name). The play style changes depending on talents, ect. I would argue that unholy is one of the more challenging and easily the most fun melee spec in game right now.

[Fastlane_hellscream]

@Swizzington Here is a link for the guide suggested by someone above. Should find it very useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJbqlYfkEXY

Also, this website is a great resource for learning basics (or in your case, refreshing your memory):

http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/unholy-...-pve-dps-guide

[Deleted]

kinda offtopic but does anyone know where or how to get the frames and wa/tmw frostellion uses?

[Sinzaram]

Most likely you are making an error that a lot of newer UH DKs make, if you already have RC rolling from a DC DO NOT DC IMMEDIATELY AGAIN.

I've seen this popup on these forums twice now and its completely wrong information.

They fixed this issue with a patch back in 2011 when Runic Corruption was originally introduced.
Let me quote http://wow.gamepedia.com/Runic_Corruption.

Patch 4.0.6 (2011-02-08): Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.

Now Runic Corruption isn't a fixed 3 second duration anymore because of how the rune system has changed over time.
But the effect is still the same.
Extra Runic Corruption procs add extra duration to the buff. So you do get the full benefit regardless of how many Deathcoils and Deathstrikes(higher proc chance but less efficient if you want more procs) you spam.


Now there is a situation where you do wantto avoid procing Runic Corruption.
That is when your runes are full or approaching full so the extra regen speed has no effect.

Heres an example:
You just used Festering Strike, so you have 2 runes regenerating and 4 runes ready to use, Sudden Doom procs.
Deathcoil would be the wrong thing to do in this situation.
This is because the potential Runic Corruption proc would only hasten the regeneration of 2 runes, instead of the max 3 runes regenerating at once the Legion rune system allows.

[0verdose]

How much haste do you have? Unholy dk needs a good amount of haste inorder to function properly and have a smoother playstyle. If you are a crappy geared unholy dk with low haste then I wouldn't even bother playing the spec. Unholy is very fun and has shifted more towards a bursty damage dealer than a sustained dmg dealer that it has been in previous xpacs. We have a ton of st burst in prepatch and probably the best aoe burst in the game through epidemic. Expect this to get toned down in legion since we lose the active effect on the ring and inevitable epidemic nerfs

[yerika]

I've seen this popup on these forums twice now and its completely wrong information.

They fixed this issue with a patch back in 2011 when Runic Corruption was originally introduced.
Let me quote http://wow.gamepedia.com/Runic_Corruption.


Now Runic Corruption isn't a fixed 3 second duration anymore because of how the rune system has changed over time.
But the effect is still the same.
Extra Runic Corruption procs add extra duration to the buff. So you do get the full benefit regardless of how many Deathcoils and Deathstrikes(higher proc chance but less efficient if you want more procs) you spam.


Now there is a situation where you do wantto avoid procing Runic Corruption.
That is when your runes are full or approaching full so the extra regen speed has no effect.

Heres an example:
You just used Festering Strike, so you have 2 runes regenerating and 4 runes ready to use, Sudden Doom procs.
Deathcoil would be the wrong thing to do in this situation.
This is because the potential Runic Corruption proc would only hasten the regeneration of 2 runes, instead of the max 3 runes regenerating at once the Legion rune system allows.

Warcraft Log Link

I saw that note about the Cata hotfix also, but I'm not seeing that in my logs? When Runic Corruption procs while it is already active, I'm getting a shorter duration vs two separate procs. Am I missing something?

[Khrux]

Weird, that looks like runic corruption was using the pandemic effect.

[Coldvibes]

I've seen this popup on these forums twice now and its completely wrong information.

They fixed this issue with a patch back in 2011 when Runic Corruption was originally introduced.
Let me quote http://wow.gamepedia.com/Runic_Corruption.


Now Runic Corruption isn't a fixed 3 second duration anymore because of how the rune system has changed over time.
But the effect is still the same.
Extra Runic Corruption procs add extra duration to the buff. So you do get the full benefit regardless of how many Deathcoils and Deathstrikes(higher proc chance but less efficient if you want more procs) you spam.


Now there is a situation where you do wantto avoid procing Runic Corruption.
That is when your runes are full or approaching full so the extra regen speed has no effect.

Heres an example:
You just used Festering Strike, so you have 2 runes regenerating and 4 runes ready to use, Sudden Doom procs.
Deathcoil would be the wrong thing to do in this situation.
This is because the potential Runic Corruption proc would only hasten the regeneration of 2 runes, instead of the max 3 runes regenerating at once the Legion rune system allows.

Welp, TIL. Thanks man.

I still don't like doing DCs back to back mostly because of what you just said and that with SoW you always want to make sure you have enough wounds to pop when SoW is up so you maximize the damage from your SS damage. DC is no longer just about a regeneration source, but also the way you can fish for more damage and getting the most out of wounds/rune setup.

[Sinzaram]

Warcraft Log Link

I saw that note about the Cata hotfix also, but I'm not seeing that in my logs? When Runic Corruption procs while it is already active, I'm getting a shorter duration vs two separate procs. Am I missing something?

The only thing is its hard to precisely judge Runic Corruption duration. When they made the talent options in MoP Blood Tap vs Runic Empowerment vs Runic Corruption they realised Corruption was strictly better in terms of numbers of runes regenerated. This is because as you geared more haste, each proc of 3 seconds of 100% regeneration speed was worth more and more because the base speed was higher.
So one of the MoP changes was so that more haste results in a shorter duration of Runic Corruption, so each proc would always give the same mathematical number of runes returned so the talent row would be balanced.

This negative scaling with haste for the duration of Runic Corruption makes judging this sorta log hard because the duration of RC changes with gear and Soul Reaper and Bloodlust.

I currently have two gear sets in addons ingame since Castigator and quick kills became a thing.
My haste gear set with 33.5% haste (3350 rating) has 2.2 seconds of RC per proc.
My crit gear set with 18.02% haste (1802 rating) has 2.5 seconds of RC per proc.
The same haste gear set with 3 Soul Reaper buffs active, at 61.54% haste has 1.9 seconds of RC per proc.

Just to quell my own fears and make sure I am telling truth, I just did some tests in game.

I used the crit gear set above to give the longest RC duration possible. I pooled to 100 and then Death Striked twice. Runic Corruption proc chance is based on RP spent so just did Deathstrike for higher proc chance to force double procs. In real gameplay its never worth using Death Strike in this manner.

Each time my Weak Aura timer for Runic Corruption would display 2.5 and then update to 3.8 on the second proc. This didn't make sence to me initially as two 2.5 procs should give 5 seconds right? But then I realised its ticking down during the GCD between deathstrikes.
So quick math 2.5+2.5-1.2 gave 3.8 which told me GCD with my gear was 1.2.

Conclusion double procs totally stack the duration correctly, but more haste shortens the duration per proc.

I still don't like doing DCs back to back mostly because of what you just said and that with SoW you always want to make sure you have enough wounds to pop when SoW is up so you maximize the damage from your SS damage.

Yeah I totally agree with you here. When I was playing with Scourge of Worlds on beta I very often would try to pool RP to spam Coils until it proced and only use the GCDs in the SoW window for Scourge Strikes, then Wound and Coil until the next proc. Think there is some management to be had here.

[InDecisive]

Does unholy still have its 1 second GCD? That's very important to me.

[Deleted]

Does unholy still have its 1 second GCD? That's very important to me.

with enough haste yes else not the base for all specs is 1,5sec gcd.

[Deleted]

I had the same issue as topicstarter when I first tried Unholy. Hated it, didnt understand what was up. I installed a TWM profile that somebody posted in this forum. It helped me understand you sometimes need a bit more patience than some of the button bash classes and not press something that is available just for the sake of having pressed something.

[InDecisive]

with enough haste yes else not the base for all specs is 1,5sec gcd.

What the fuck? They go on about their fucking class fantasy shite and they gut unholy's speed? Unholy was always about speed and lots of smaller hits: high passive haste, high passive run speed, 1 second GCD, damage spread between not just rapid autoattacks and abilities but also disease ticks and pet damage.

Some arrogant fuck at blizzard thought in the expansion about "muh class fantasy" it'd be a good idea to completely gut and uproot the design and class fantasy that's been firmly in place and doing its job well for the last half decade, and replace it with something that bears barely any resemblance to what was there before.

[Deleted]

What the fuck? They go on about their fucking class fantasy shite and they gut unholy's speed? Unholy was always about speed and lots of smaller hits: high passive haste, high passive run speed, 1 second GCD, damage spread between not just rapid autoattacks and abilities but also disease ticks and pet damage.

Some arrogant fuck at blizzard thought in the expansion about "muh class fantasy" it'd be a good idea to completely gut and uproot the design and class fantasy that's been firmly in place and doing its job well for the last half decade, and replace it with something that bears barely any resemblance to what was there before.

Don´t play it then. DK is much better with a scaling GCD. And since haste is the goto stat, you will mostly have a GCD close to 1s anyways.

[Raugnaut]

What the fuck? They go on about their fucking class fantasy shite and they gut unholy's speed? Unholy was always about speed and lots of smaller hits: high passive haste, high passive run speed, 1 second GCD, damage spread between not just rapid autoattacks and abilities but also disease ticks and pet damage.

Some arrogant fuck at blizzard thought in the expansion about "muh class fantasy" it'd be a good idea to completely gut and uproot the design and class fantasy that's been firmly in place and doing its job well for the last half decade, and replace it with something that bears barely any resemblance to what was there before.

They also just got done gutting unholy's movement speed - Death's Advance (15% passive for Unholy) just got removed when blizz reduced the CD on Wraith Walk to 45 seconds, from a minute.

Even if Legion turns out to be a decent expansion, it'll likely be known as the expansion with the most retarded class development team.

- - - Updated - - -

a bit OT, there was something I was wondering, with DS vs DC.

My DK currently has low mastery (None on gear), so my DC hits for giggles (Like 5k), whereas my DS hits for 20k on boss. Now, I know that DC gives 1/4th of a Claw from your pet, but does that make up for the HUGE DPRP loss from DS?