Current state of DPS Deathknights

[Noxina]

No matter how "fine" DKs are now, the problem will be later. Both specs scale like shit with gear. They will have to either remake how Killing Machine works for frost, or buff us trough the roof in the next raids, so we can keep up.

But if you're not pushing for realm first etc, who cares? Play what you enjoy, both specs are fine as of now. In a shitty guild you will most likely top dps if you are more skilled that the average joe.

[Kerathyl]

Also unholy does not use iron.

Oops, meant fire.

if you can't be competitive with unholy and the bracers you won't be with frost. What's your average parse percentile?

I'm not doing bad as unholy (char is up on WCL), but I still feel ripped off by Blizzard suddenly swapping the spec balance in an expansion where swapping to another spec is horrible because of legendaries and artifact power.

[Acidbaron]

I'm not sure about this, I mean just looking at the various stats showing up on warcraft logs, I'm not seeing any fight, on any difficulty, on any item level average, on any percentile when unholy is matching frost. Not on a single target fight like Nythendra, and certainly not in any fight that involves any kind off adds or cleaves.

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a newbie at using the log site, but I just don't see anything it the last 2 weeks suggesting the two are equal anywhere, I would have thought Nythendra for sure would be strong for unholy, but even there Frost seems to win.

I do wish the log site had some way to filter legendaries, at least the ones that actually matter as that may give a clearer picture.

Said marginally above unholy, This is a damage difference that you can often neglect due to adding any margin of error even more so when you factor in legendary items.

Now if frost suddenly became vastly better this would be a different discussion and this is what i'm calling out, this utter and complete nonsense that frost is suddenly oh so much better then unholy, it isn't and if people are suddenly experiencing such a vast difference on a personal level, don't want to be rude here but those people simply were bad at unholy as frost is a more forgiving spec to play.

So i'll say again if you have the bracers on unholy and are considering swapping to frost, might as wel reroll to another class.

[Elerubard]

Said marginally above unholy, This is a damage difference that you can often neglect due to adding any margin of error even more so when you factor in legendary items.

Now if frost suddenly became vastly better this would be a different discussion and this is what i'm calling out, this utter and complete nonsense that frost is suddenly oh so much better then unholy, it isn't and if people are suddenly experiencing such a vast difference on a personal level, don't want to be rude here but those people simply were bad at unholy as frost is a more forgiving spec to play.

So i'll say again if you have the bracers on unholy and are considering swapping to frost, might as wel reroll to another class.

Or luck left you with phenominally bad gear for unholy.

[Deleted]

Said marginally above unholy, This is a damage difference that you can often neglect due to adding any margin of error even more so when you factor in legendary items.

Now if frost suddenly became vastly better this would be a different discussion and this is what i'm calling out, this utter and complete nonsense that frost is suddenly oh so much better then unholy, it isn't and if people are suddenly experiencing such a vast difference on a personal level, don't want to be rude here but those people simply were bad at unholy as frost is a more forgiving spec to play.

So i'll say again if you have the bracers on unholy and are considering swapping to frost, might as wel reroll to another class.

No, Frost is marginally better than UH right now, unless you have the UH bracers. I switched from UH to Frost, and within a week of artifact levels (standing at 26 now), I'm pulled the same percentiles I used to pull with Unholy (>95, if nothing went wrong in the fight), and I outdps'd my UH spec by a 10-15% margin.

Frost is simply better than UH right now. The only thing Frost lacks over UH right now, is movement speed, since UH at least has a talent to make Wraith Walk a bit less shit, which Frost doesn't have. Other than that, Frost beats it every single time. Single target, 2-target cleave, AOE, target switching, ramp up time, utility, Frost wins every single time, in any circumstance.

I agree with your last part though. If someone has the bracers for UH and feels the need to swap to Frost, they're probably doing it very wrong. It's the only way to redeem Unholy right now. If you don't have those, just save yourself and go Frost until the end of Trials of Valor, or pray that 7.1.5 brings any form of buffs.

[Deleted]

No, Frost is marginally better than UH right now, unless you have the UH bracers. I switched from UH to Blood, and within a week of artifact levels (standing at 26 now), I'm pulled the same percentiles I used to pull with Unholy (>95, if nothing went wrong in the fight), and I outdps'd my UH spec by a 10-15% margin.

Frost is simply better than UH right now. The only thing Frost lacks over UH right now, is movement speed, since UH at least has a talent to make Wraith Walk a bit less shit, which Frost doesn't have. Other than that, Frost beats it every single time. Single target, 2-target cleave, AOE, target switching, ramp up time, utility, Frost wins every single time, in any circumstance.

I agree with your last part though. If someone has the bracers for UH and feels the need to swap to Frost, they're probably doing it very wrong. It's the only way to redeem Unholy right now. If you don't have those, just save yourself and go Frost until the end of Trials of Valor, or pray that 7.1.5 brings any form of buffs.

Seems to be a trend with Unholy tbh.

HFC we were decent because of BoS + Vial + Ring.

Now we need Bracers.

[Acidbaron]

No, Frost is marginally better than UH right now, unless you have the UH bracers. I switched from UH to Frost, and within a week of artifact levels (standing at 26 now), I'm pulled the same percentiles I used to pull with Unholy (>95, if nothing went wrong in the fight), and I outdps'd my UH spec by a 10-15% margin.

Frost is simply better than UH right now. The only thing Frost lacks over UH right now, is movement speed, since UH at least has a talent to make Wraith Walk a bit less shit, which Frost doesn't have. Other than that, Frost beats it every single time. Single target, 2-target cleave, AOE, target switching, ramp up time, utility, Frost wins every single time, in any circumstance.

I agree with your last part though. If someone has the bracers for UH and feels the need to swap to Frost, they're probably doing it very wrong. It's the only way to redeem Unholy right now. If you don't have those, just save yourself and go Frost until the end of Trials of Valor, or pray that 7.1.5 brings any form of buffs.

Not sure if you misread something wrong but that's essentially what i stated i also wrote from the personal perspective to another person that has the bracers.

In any case i have a demon hunter alt that seems to be doing well and that one is also almost at the third gold trait without putting that much effort in so i got a back up plan come nighthold.

Although if past experiences tell us anything blizzard tends to come back and buff the first top spec of a class. The other point however is we aren't doing badly everything is close together and time will tell with the new wave of traits from artifacts who will be on top. I still fully hope that double doom becomes either better or gets changed out for something else, however we also are not aware yet of how well it will function with the synergy from the tier sets what seems to be heavily based around death coil and wounds.

I do speak from a luxury position as i'm a good enough player (80th parses and upwards) in my guild paired with tons of experiences in raids that i'll rarely to never be swapped unless we really hit some sort of damage check we can't reach but that's something that often gets hotfixed, as we noticed with frost now for ursoc M for example.

- - - Updated - - -

Seems to be a trend with Unholy tbh.

HFC we were decent because of BoS + Vial + Ring.

Now we need Bracers.

We scaled well due to the legendary ring which made our burst very high if not one of the highest. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt to not fully base us around legendary items.

[Farabee]

Frost is only marginally above unholy in certain situations this fairytale that people are spreading here that unholy is so much worse then frost is nothing more than a fantasy propelled forward by either people in love with frost or people bad at unholy and swapping to frost being more of an increase due to having less ways to screw up your priorities.

That's because frost is a better design currently. It's consistent damage, pull after pull, and every global you hit does good damage. Death Coil is filler, Frost Strike is killer.

Defending Unholy right now is like defending Outlaw. Any spec that goes by random chance is never going to perform well overall.

[Schizoide]

Defending Unholy right now is like defending Outlaw. Any spec that goes by random chance is never going to perform well overall.

Not true. Greater swings due to heavy RNG doesn't change the overall at all. You may not enjoy that gameplay, but the average is the average. If Outlaw got a 15% overall buff, the RNG wouldn't stop it from being the best rogue spec.

[Acidbaron]

That's because frost is a better design currently. It's consistent damage, pull after pull, and every global you hit does good damage. Death Coil is filler, Frost Strike is killer.

Defending Unholy right now is like defending Outlaw. Any spec that goes by random chance is never going to perform well overall.

As above more RNG heavy specs are based and balanced around this i don't remember how it's called but in mathematics there's a proof based around this been too long ago for me someone else will probably remember this. Frost is not better by design and purely looking at frost strike vs death coil is a too small scope to compare both specs.

[Deleted]

Not sure if you misread something wrong but that's essentially what i stated i also wrote from the personal perspective to another person that has the bracers.

In any case i have a demon hunter alt that seems to be doing well and that one is also almost at the third gold trait without putting that much effort in so i got a back up plan come nighthold.

Although if past experiences tell us anything blizzard tends to come back and buff the first top spec of a class. The other point however is we aren't doing badly everything is close together and time will tell with the new wave of traits from artifacts who will be on top. I still fully hope that double doom becomes either better or gets changed out for something else, however we also are not aware yet of how well it will function with the synergy from the tier sets what seems to be heavily based around death coil and wounds.

I do speak from a luxury position as i'm a good enough player (80th parses and upwards) in my guild paired with tons of experiences in raids that i'll rarely to never be swapped unless we really hit some sort of damage check we can't reach but that's something that often gets hotfixed, as we noticed with frost now for ursoc M for example.

I don't think I misread you, I simply don't agree when you say that Frost is marginally better than Unholy, because Frost is quite clearly much better than Unholy right now, not just marginally, because of multiple factors such as:

a) Frost doesn't need any legendary to do well in itself. Legendaries for Frost are nice to have, but absolutely not necessary, they're even rather underwhelming. UH, on the other hand, needs the bracers to do mediocre damage (comparable to Frost/slightly better, mediocre compared to other classes), and the ring/belt to not be as dependent on RNG. And let's be honest, the % of people that have the bracers and another good legendary is very very small.

b) Frost doesn't suffer from the same problems as Unholy in terms of rotation. Frost doesn't have a dead skill in Death Coil (which is still pretty bad, even after the buff), Frost doesn't have a huge ramp up timer on rotation either, which means a much smoother transition of targets for AOE. Frost AOE and cleave numbers are also better than Unholy, though the difference is smaller than it is on ST.

c) Frost artifact, even though the main ability is bad (passive swords) has 3 golden traits that are actually useful and can actively be used/controlled, and has good damage boosting traits up until you finish filling it up. UH artifact is extremely front loaded, with RNG-heavy golden traits that are annoying to rely on.

d) Frost brings slightly more utility to the table than UH does. It's has multiple skills able to actively slow targets on aoe and an aoe stun on a rather short CD. The only thing it misses out comparing to Unholy right now, is the 2nd grip from the pet.

The only thing I'd say Frost is worse right now, is mobility (which both are bad at anyway) and a bit less tanky (Unholy artifact is better here). But again, I'm pretty sure you're aware of all this, and I'm not saying I disagree with you entirely, I merely mean that Frost isn't just marginally better than Unholy right now, Frost absolutely crushes Unholy. If any DPS DK is interested in minmaxing his damage, and doesn't have the Unholy Bracers, there's absolutely no reason to be playing Unholy as it stands. It simply cannot compete, not even close.

[Acidbaron]

I don't think I misread you, I simply don't agree when you say that Frost is marginally better than Unholy, because Frost is quite clearly much better than Unholy right now, not just marginally, because of multiple factors such as:

a) Frost doesn't need any legendary to do well in itself. Legendaries for Frost are nice to have, but absolutely not necessary, they're even rather underwhelming. UH, on the other hand, needs the bracers to do mediocre damage (comparable to Frost/slightly better, mediocre compared to other classes), and the ring/belt to not be as dependent on RNG. And let's be honest, the % of people that have the bracers and another good legendary is very very small.

b) Frost doesn't suffer from the same problems as Unholy in terms of rotation. Frost doesn't have a dead skill in Death Coil (which is still pretty bad, even after the buff), Frost doesn't have a huge ramp up timer on rotation either, which means a much smoother transition of targets for AOE. Frost AOE and cleave numbers are also better than Unholy, though the difference is smaller than it is on ST.

c) Frost artifact, even though the main ability is bad (passive swords) has 3 golden traits that are actually useful and can actively be used/controlled, and has good damage boosting traits up until you finish filling it up. UH artifact is extremely front loaded, with RNG-heavy golden traits that are annoying to rely on.

d) Frost brings slightly more utility to the table than UH does. It's has multiple skills able to actively slow targets on aoe and an aoe stun on a rather short CD. The only thing it misses out comparing to Unholy right now, is the 2nd grip from the pet.

The only thing I'd say Frost is worse right now, is mobility (which both are bad at anyway) and a bit less tanky (Unholy artifact is better here). But again, I'm pretty sure you're aware of all this, and I'm not saying I disagree with you entirely, I merely mean that Frost isn't just marginally better than Unholy right now, Frost absolutely crushes Unholy. If any DPS DK is interested in minmaxing his damage, and doesn't have the Unholy Bracers, there's absolutely no reason to be playing Unholy as it stands. It simply cannot compete, not even close.

Death coil is not a dead skill. While it's damage is low it does serve a purpose ergo not a pointless or dead skill, that i have to explain this raises questions about your knowledge surrounding the unholy playstyle. Huge ramp up time, there's a larger ramp up time it's by no means huge again this feels like a learn to play issue if i have to explain your opener in unholy or how to best swap between packs, yes unholy requires more planning ahead, this is not a handicap if you can work around it. I also do not have an issue with AoE and i never run epidemic to pad the meters, i don't need it if you rotate between building wounds and dnd.

Frost is significantly easier with having as good as no such thing to keep track of that is correct.

Frost gold traits are better, i won't argue here. Still don't see frost crushing unholy sure if you got no legendary but this comparison can be made to every other spec not having a decent legendary and seeing most people's argument here is competitive we are speaking top percentiles and not the mid to lows, to be fair the bracers are also overrated a decent DK will still do well without bracers.

[Deleted]

Death coil is not a dead skill. While it's damage is low it does serve a purpose ergo not a pointless or dead skill, that i have to explain this raises questions about your knowledge surrounding the unholy playstyle. Huge ramp up time, there's a larger ramp up time it's by no means huge again this feels like a learn to play issue if i have to explain your opener in unholy or how to best swap between packs, yes unholy requires more planning ahead, this is not a handicap if you can work around it. I also do not have an issue with AoE and i never run epidemic to pad the meters, i don't need it if you rotate between building wounds and dnd.

Frost is significantly easier with having as good as no such thing to keep track of that is correct.

Frost gold traits are better, i won't argue here. Still don't see frost crushing unholy sure if you got no legendary but this comparison can be made to every other spec not having a decent legendary and seeing most people's argument here is competitive we are speaking top percentiles and not the mid to lows, to be fair the bracers are also overrated a decent DK will still do well without bracers.

Feel free to question my Unholy skill and knowledge all you want. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...69740/latest/#
It's not a l2p issue.

Death Coil is a bad skill. It feels bad to press. The damage is low, the RNG to get something out of it is annoying. No one ever says "oh boy, I get to press Death Coil now!", because it's a bad skill. I know it serves a purpose, I'm not retarded, but it is a bad skill, that you only press because there's really not much else you could be doing besides pushing it.

I didn't mean ramp up time on bosses, that means very little, and thought that much was obvious. But when you switch to secondary adds, the ramp up time is significantly higher than other melee classes, who are simply capable of dishing out all their damage much more quickly than Unholy. When you switch to adds that spawn as Unholy, you have to use Outbreak on them, stack a bit of Wounds, drop DnD, and then you can finally start DPSing them properly. That's at least 3 GCDs you have to use until you can finally do proper damage, which will only start at the next GCD, the fourth one. Other melees can get their proper AOE damage out in 2 GCDs, at most, including Frost. There's no "planning ahead", you have to hit them with these GCDs after they spawn, there's simply no way around it. At most, you can drop DnD beforehand, but then you sacrifice some DPS by having a lower duration on it.

Frost is crushing Unholy. Look at any logs. The top Unholy players all have the bracers and are neck-to-neck with Frost players, players without the bracers simply can't compete with either bracer Unholy or Frost. Log averages show Unholy behind Frost by considerable margins, from 5% up to 15% difference, and said averages weigh in Unholy players WITH the bracers. I wish Warcraftlogs had a statistic to show how numbers would look if you filtered out all the players with a specific legendary, because the Unholy numbers would plummet down even further.
You could argue that Frost numbers are pulled up by Frost legendaries, but no Frost legendary provides the 20-30% DPS buff that the Unholy bracers provide.

But ye, just call it a "l2p" issue. Frost is simply better than UH in every situation, and it's not a small margin anymore. At least until next tier rolls around and stat scaling makes Frost trash again.

[Nemesquish]

No matter how "fine" DKs are now, the problem will be later. Both specs scale like shit with gear. They will have to either remake how Killing Machine works for frost, or buff us trough the roof in the next raids, so we can keep up.

But if you're not pushing for realm first etc, who cares? Play what you enjoy, both specs are fine as of now. In a shitty guild you will most likely top dps if you are more skilled that the average joe.

Specs previously scaled poorly, but the straight % damage increases from traits will solve most of that problem. Im not saying there wont be issues, but there is definitely be less of an issue.

[Deleted]

Skazord hit on something that i really dislike for unholy aoe.

In mythic dungeon long pulls you have time to get wounds on multiple adds before dropping dnd and really nuking crap out them. This is fun.

In mythic raids i get wounds on one mob look up and most adds are dead. This not fun.

[hellhamster]

Frost is doing ok, not too great but not that bad either. If you wanna compare it with how the spec performed in the past, it's in a relatively good place.

Unholy is below average right now, without the correct legendary you are most probably end up last in the dps meters unless you play against meme specs like surv hunter.

Nemesquish is correct, artifact traits kinda helped with scaling, but the main problem is obliterate base damage without extra bonuses being completely and utter shit. Frost Strike doing much more damage than obliterate so early in the expansion is kinda a bad omen.

[wooootles]

In mythic dungeon long pulls you have time to get wounds on multiple adds before dropping dnd and really nuking crap out them. This is fun.

Heh, by the time you get that set up, which is what: Outbreak, a FS or two, DT with IC?, you're down 3-5 runes, now you have to mash DC 2 or 3 times to refresh some runes, THEN you drop DnD and start scourge spam for maximum DPS.

I'm pretty sure the frost DK applied HB, popped RW and has already started going to crazy town with Frostscythe by the 3rd rune/GCD.

[Nemesquish]

Frost is doing ok, not too great but not that bad either. If you wanna compare it with how the spec performed in the past, it's in a relatively good place.

Unholy is below average right now, without the correct legendary you are most probably end up last in the dps meters unless you play against meme specs like surv hunter.

Nemesquish is correct, artifact traits kinda helped with scaling, but the main problem is obliterate base damage without extra bonuses being completely and utter shit. Frost Strike doing much more damage than obliterate so early in the expansion is kinda a bad omen.

Honestly, aslong as they stay close, its possible it wont be an issue. Frost Strike hitting for 20% or so more, isnt a huge thing, when its 40% or so, thats where the problem starts. But with the way Artifact Relics are now, your weapon should stay 20-30 ilvls higher than your gear in BiS stuff. (As of right now, most gear is 885 average. Weapons are closer to 910. so 25 lvls right now)

[Marx]

While I pretty much agree with Skazord you can mitigate some ramp up by (like he said) dropping dnd early, you can also outbreak boss early if adds will be moved in range, same goes for adding wounds to boss so that you can splash to adds. It is also better to dnd and ss spam if at >=3 targets; no point adding the wounds.

[hellhamster]

Obviously you don't wound when you aoe mobs for like 10 seconds, a dnd and ss is all you need. If mobs give you leeway for some rune regen, then you wound and pop.