Unholy Frenzy vs Castigator

[Zybes]

Hello

I'm in a position where I have the bracers, and would like to try the Unholy Frenzy playstyle. But I'm sort of wondering what the priority of the abilities are?
I know keeping the UF buff up at all times, which will proc Sudden doom. But since we generally cap RP alot with this playstyle, should I prioritise popping wounds when I'm RP capped and have alot of runes available?
Can anyone give me a priority list of what to do?
Also, I would like to know if this playstyle is better than Castigator, how does it par in AOE situations etc?
Leaving an armory link if anyone can give me what stats I should prioritise
eu.battle. net /wow/en/character/silvermoon/hensley/advanced

[Rallaster]

Hello

I'm in a position where I have the bracers, and would like to try the Unholy Frenzy playstyle. But I'm sort of wondering what the priority of the abilities are?
I know keeping the UF buff up at all times, which will proc Sudden doom. But since we generally cap RP alot with this playstyle, should I prioritise popping wounds when I'm RP capped and have alot of runes available?
Can anyone give me a priority list of what to do?
Also, I would like to know if this playstyle is better than Castigator, how does it par in AOE situations etc?
Leaving an armory link if anyone can give me what stats I should prioritise
eu.battle. net /wow/en/character/silvermoon/hensley/advanced

Castigator will out DPS UF in pretty much every fight at the moment. Even with the orange bracers.

[Rixarius]

Castigator will out DPS UF in pretty much every fight at the moment. Even with the orange bracers.

That's pretty contradictory to what the actual top DKs are using. Most with bracers are using UF, mainly on pure single target. I don't have the bracers and wouldn't consider myself a top DK, but I have talked with several high parsing DKs that swear by UF with bracers.

[Baddok21]

That's pretty contradictory to what the actual top DKs are using. Most with bracers are using UF, mainly on pure single target. I don't have the bracers and wouldn't consider myself a top DK, but I have talked with several high parsing DKs that swear by UF with bracers.

every single top parse on every single fight ALL with bracers are using

Bursting Sores + PP + Castigator

[Nephilheim]

That's pretty contradictory to what the actual top DKs are using. Most with bracers are using UF, mainly on pure single target. I don't have the bracers and wouldn't consider myself a top DK, but I have talked with several high parsing DKs that swear by UF with bracers.

The thing is, there are no purely single target fights in Mythic EN. Closest you get is Nythendra, and even then you have MCs that get AoE'd down.

[raionyx]

That's pretty contradictory to what the actual top DKs are using. Most with bracers are using UF, mainly on pure single target. I don't have the bracers and wouldn't consider myself a top DK, but I have talked with several high parsing DKs that swear by UF with bracers.

I can't speak to anecdotal evidence, but every top parsing DK worldwide is using Castigator on every fight... having tried out both, I can see the merits, but I feel that Castigator provides more benefit than UF.

Pre-Bracer, auto attacks typically make up 7-10% of the average Unholy DK's damage output. Festering Wounds typically make up ~20% of that overall output. Castigator essentially functions as Haste by allowing you to generate more wounds per Rune spent (Even if it is random chance) The problem with UF is that your autoattacks only give you one benefit: Sudden Doom procs.

Now there's a host of other mitigating factors, but what I believe the tipping point is, is a medium/high-item level version of Memento of Angerboda.

Memento only procs on melee attacks, but not abilities. None of the procs from the trinket have an ICD and they can all proc independently. Unholy Frenzy gives you ~1.5s swing timer, meaning you swing almost at GCD, giving you almost 33% more attacks over the course of a boss fight and thus more chances to proc your massive stat bonuses.

Barring the possession of a good version of the Memento or possibly (unlikely, but possibly) Nature's Call, Castigator is likely stronger in most scenarios.

[Rixarius]

I can't speak to anecdotal evidence, but every top parsing DK worldwide is using Castigator on every fight... having tried out both, I can see the merits, but I feel that Castigator provides more benefit than UF.

Pre-Bracer, auto attacks typically make up 7-10% of the average Unholy DK's damage output. Festering Wounds typically make up ~20% of that overall output. Castigator essentially functions as Haste by allowing you to generate more wounds per Rune spent (Even if it is random chance) The problem with UF is that your autoattacks only give you one benefit: Sudden Doom procs.

Now there's a host of other mitigating factors, but what I believe the tipping point is, is a medium/high-item level version of Memento of Angerboda.

Memento only procs on melee attacks, but not abilities. None of the procs from the trinket have an ICD and they can all proc independently. Unholy Frenzy gives you ~1.5s swing timer, meaning you swing almost at GCD, giving you almost 33% more attacks over the course of a boss fight and thus more chances to proc your massive stat bonuses.

Barring the possession of a good version of the Memento or possibly (unlikely, but possibly) Nature's Call, Castigator is likely stronger in most scenarios.

Well I do have a really good memento... but am lacking the bracers.

Having just browsed Warcraftlogs, it does seem like Castigator is the preferred choice for like 75% of the top ranking DKs.

[Keiyra]

Is Claw of Shadows completely nonviable compared to Casitigator? (no legendaries)

[Deleted]

Is Claw of Shadows completely nonviable compared to Casitigator? (no legendaries)

In general people say that, you would need shitton of mastery to make it on pair with castigator/UF.

If you are relly intrigued try to sim your char with Clawing shadows and check your new stat scaling, update your gear accordingly and try again.

[zaino]

Is Claw of Shadows completely nonviable compared to Casitigator? (no legendaries)

i think it was math'd out in the dk discord that you need 95% mastery without going under 16% haste to make it worth it

[Keiyra]

i think it was math'd out in the dk discord that you need 95% mastery without going under 16% haste to make it worth it

yikes! that bad huh...shame. Thanks

[KodoRealTalk]

Also another Trinket UH is using a lot is the Eye of Command out of Return to Kara. So maybe you could justify having UF with the bracers to get the Crit from attacks to hit max stacks quicker while swapping to other targets which we do a lot in EN.

[Olrox]

I think Clawing Shadows is sort of an [in its current state] inverted form of the Demon Hunter talent called Demon Blades. It represents a different playstyle - you focus heavily on mastery and are a bit more mobile since you can strike from 30 yards or whatever it is, but it's difficult to make it work without it overshadowing the other options, so I think that talent would be better served with a re-work of some flavor.

On topic, I think that the original math / theory about UF being superior to Castigator (I read this on the discord, but just in chat, I don't think anyone was confirming it) - was that it would, when coupled with The Instructor's Fourth Lesson, provide a significant boost to Rune of the Fallen Crusader uptime, so you'd essentially have a massive amount of additional strength for a significant portion of the fight, but I guess that's just not something that works - especially given how much movement there is in these instances, there's just no good way to keep UF going at full-bore the whole fight, and thus you're not always on one target landing a significant number of additional auto attacks and thus proc'ing RotFC.

That's how I understand it anyway - it's just a case that Castigator is far too good compared to its counter-parts, especially since it definitely synergizes well with bursting sores and the bracers, and I think the majority of the gear we see has Crit on it (I have ~31% crit, 20% haste, and ~30-35% mastery, so I have a fair amount of crit, it's on most all of my gear, and I'm not sporting BiS in every slot.)

Who knows though, I personally think Castigator is a candidate for the "some talents become base-line" in 7.1.5 that was brought up in the interview on the front page.

[Baddok21]

Castigator Provides a slew of benefits synergistic-ally, gearing wise and encounter wise.

Synergistic-ally

1) Bursting Sores directly synerges with this talent for obvious reasons
2) Soul reaper (and Dark Arbiter) can, and do, directly benefit from the increase RP gen and Wound burst potential this talent provides
3) Castigator is the only true Increase to resource generation talent we can get (outside of IC wound proc bursts)
4) Castigator increased RP gen effects SI (shadow Infusion) and Necrosis while its wound bursting effects cleave with Infected claws

It is the only talent that summarily synergizes with 3 other talent rows (Clawing shadows doesnt add benefit to any other talent row, Unholy Frenzy only synergizes with SI, necrosis and Dark Arbiter by extension of Sudden doom procs, which again Cast does as well by extension oh higher RP gen)

Gearing Wise

1) Haste should really go unmentioned as no DK spec functions at an acceptable lvl without a passable amount of haste ranging from 18%(frost) to 25%+(blood), the other synergies with that stat really need not be mentioned as the answer is always "get to your haste soft cap first, then worry about gear from there"

So this leaves us with Crit vs Vers vs Mastery

now the beautiful thing about castigator requiring high amounts of crit is that all our damage is effected by it (Ghoul, Melee, FS, Apoc, Apoc ghouls) and we have no natural devaluing mechanic like Killing machine for crit (im at 37.2% crit 20.4% haste and 36% mast) and guess what? i still want more crit, now sure there is a crit hard cap thats is likely impossible to hit and there is also a crit soft cap were you transition to versatility (while still maintaining crit/haste lvls)

in either case Unholy is lucky to have crit scaling the way it does, and is also lucky to have it be the main stat require for Castigator builds.

So outside of Versatility which is simply a binary dmg increase that does not really need to be explained we have MASTERY which if you look at any typical single target log (heroic Guarm no cleave) youll see on average 37-42% of the UHDKS damage is actually phsyical (feels weird to say but its true)

which means although mastery gives twice the benefit of crit it actually only affects 61% of the UHDKs damage.

Then you have Encounter design

which lends itself to Castigator more than the other 2 options simply due to target switching, cleave dmg, Burst dmg

[Deleted]

Encounter design of odin hc was seriously pissing me off last night.

Im switching to clawing shadows for it on sunday as it cant possibly be worse.

If that fails im either falling back to my fire mage or just quitting outright.

[Kraeth]

Well, world of meleecraft was fun while it lasted.

On topic, tried UF but getting a lot better results with Castigator. Any downtime just sucks the power out ot UF.

[Deleted]

Castigator should and is better even though I prefer UF as it's less RNG, I've had to swap to Castigator.
UF causing practically 90+% on US was really nice but I can see the more crit you get, the better castigator becomes whereas UF is more 'flat'.
I also noticed that you do need to alter your playstyle for castigator as well, more wounds added, more wounds popped so quite often you are FS > SS > FS > SS with some good luck whereas on UF you were building much more and it was more predictable on the burst dump phases under SoW proc.

That said, even if you get awesome/comfortable with castigator, #sadface at frost who will just beat your numbers facerolling with lower ilvl...

[Deleted]

Indded castigator stacks better with gear so no doubts at all atm

[Baddok21]

Encounter design of odin hc was seriously pissing me off last night.

Im switching to clawing shadows for it on sunday as it cant possibly be worse.

If that fails im either falling back to my fire mage or just quitting outright.

should be taking lingering apparition, and im still using a 855 class neck because the 20% speed blow 50% health is basicly (you gain run speed whenever a raid dmg mechanic goes off) not to mention it has a socket and for me is perfectly stated 3:1 crit to haste ratio (1337crit, 534 haste, lol leet amount of crit w/e)

[Deleted]

Dont have that neck - have a similar statted 840 though.

Dont think ive taken any alternative except lingering apparation all expansion.

Ill give cs a go on odin on sunday and see how crap it is...