7.1.5 any chance Unholy will pass Frost?

[weedburst]

play whatever you find the most fun, or if you want to do decent damage, play frost.

[Protean]

7.1.5 any chance Unholy be similar to Frost?

Fixed the title for you. As a DK who equally enjoys both specs, not sure why anyone thinks one spec should automatically be ahead of the other.

That's a shitty fix, you need to see the nuances.

He isn't asking for unholy to beat frost, he's asking if he should fear/prepare to making a switch.



One is a request, the other is discussing the (near) future.

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I'm of the strong belief that it will. I've been on top of theorycrafting and the new UH mastery build looks very very strong. It plays nicer with fights than frost does with the majority of our damage at 30 yard range, it has stronger aoe burst, scales harder than frost on raw stats, and the 2 and 4 piece bonuses are far stronger for uh than frost.

Both will have their place and i honestly feel both will be competitive. UH buffs are no joke, i'm already pulling 320k with the mastery based clawing shadows necrosis build on live servers, and every aspect of it is seeing major buffs. 20% more damage on ebon fever, 20% damage on clawing shadows, 5% damage on necrosis, 20% damage on defile. all these changes are huge when we consider our mastery is a straight up multiplier on these damage sources.

I haven't seen any final definition on what the mastery build actually is.


What kind of stats are we (theoretically) aiming for, and besides clawing shadows, what would be the go-to talents?

[Shadowman 747]

That's a shitty fix, you need to see the nuances.

He isn't asking for unholy to beat frost, he's asking if he should fear/prepare to making a switch.



One is a request, the other is discussing the (near) future.

- - - Updated - - -



I haven't seen any final definition on what the mastery build actually is.


What kind of stats are we (theoretically) aiming for, and besides clawing shadows, what would be the go-to talents?

Ebon Fever, Blighted Rune Weapon, Clawing Shadows, Necrosis, and Defile.

Completely different playstyle than castigator UH, as most of your damage is CS and DC. Festering Strike is never used outside of wound building and at above 3 runes. The core damage is in the CS multipliers, Mastery and Necrosis are nuts together. The spec becomes less about Wounds, and more about weaving death coils and hitting like a fucking truck with Necrosis empowered Claws. Though Wounds are still a core damage aspect, they take the back seat (as without SS+castigator you pop a flat 1 as opposed to 1-3 rng), and you generally hover between 1 and 4, only going higher to Apoc (which now maxes at 6 wounds).

Blighted rune weapon is an interesting one. I did some maths on it before the prt pustulent pustules nerf, and it was slightly more efficient, as you could allocate more runes to CS and not FS. It gives you 10 wounds per minute without spending runes on a shitty physical damage ability, allowing us to do more shadow damage, therefore aming mastery's value. The PP nerf cemented my theory and now BRW blows PP out of the water. TLDR, wounds have value, festering strike doesn't.

70%+ shadow damage contribution makes this build hyperscale on mastery (live values at .91 of str per point, with changes i anticipate it within .05 of live values give or take). Secondary priority is up in the air, and will be mast>crit or mast>haste, both have merits and it will depend. Crit will likely be stronger for ST, while haste will allow more GCDs and runes in your defile and more outbreak ticks, making haste better for aoe. I personally think both will end up simming closely, but Haste will pull ahead leaps and bounds in practice, as the utility a higher rune count and a lower gcd offers is so much better in actual fights than having a chance to hit harder.

Spec does all damage outside of melee hits, pet damage, and festering strike at 30 yard range, and you have crazy strong aoe burst at said range. It's extremely adaptable and does reliable single target damage with strong burst aoe, although it is generally on the weaker side on sustained aoe and cleave. It will wreck face in nighthold, as its toolkit plays nicely with a lot of fights.

[Mercane]

Frost currently scales better than Unholy, in fact much better. And with the status quo we should see frost outpace unholy come 7.2, 7.3. But as always there will be tuning by blizzard; you'll just have to trust in their work. I can't say this enough; both frost and unholy are viable options for all content and any pace of clearing said content.

No it doesn't, not at all. Frost scales like shit (worse than Unholy), and always has. Their tier set is also garbage, It had a moment in the light before they changed the RP consumption rate of Breath (which is still most likely going to perform better than the current RA/Icy Talon build).

The worrying thing is, if Unholy pulls ahead of Frost again, are they going to issue another blanket buff to Frost damage, because we know the opposite won't happen.

Frost is simply tuned higher than Unholy on live, on PTR that isn't the case.

[Coldvibes]

Wasn't the Breath setup for Frost also looking very strong? Might be hard to see if UH will be stronger than Frost but Frost's playstyle is different once 4pc/convergence is acquired?

[Protean]

Ebon Fever, Blighted Rune Weapon, Clawing Shadows, Necrosis, and Defile.

Completely different playstyle than castigator UH, as most of your damage is CS and DC. Festering Strike is never used outside of wound building and at above 3 runes. The core damage is in the CS multipliers, Mastery and Necrosis are nuts together. The spec becomes less about Wounds, and more about weaving death coils and hitting like a fucking truck with Necrosis empowered Claws. Though Wounds are still a core damage aspect, they take the back seat (as without SS+castigator you pop a flat 1 as opposed to 1-3 rng), and you generally hover between 1 and 4, only going higher to Apoc (which now maxes at 6 wounds).

Blighted rune weapon is an interesting one. I did some maths on it before the prt pustulent pustules nerf, and it was slightly more efficient, as you could allocate more runes to CS and not FS. It gives you 10 wounds per minute without spending runes on a shitty physical damage ability, allowing us to do more shadow damage, therefore aming mastery's value. The PP nerf cemented my theory and now BRW blows PP out of the water. TLDR, wounds have value, festering strike doesn't.

70%+ shadow damage contribution makes this build hyperscale on mastery (live values at .91 of str per point, with changes i anticipate it within .05 of live values give or take). Secondary priority is up in the air, and will be mast>crit or mast>haste, both have merits and it will depend. Crit will likely be stronger for ST, while haste will allow more GCDs and runes in your defile and more outbreak ticks, making haste better for aoe. I personally think both will end up simming closely, but Haste will pull ahead leaps and bounds in practice, as the utility a higher rune count and a lower gcd offers is so much better in actual fights than having a chance to hit harder.

Spec does all damage outside of melee hits, pet damage, and festering strike at 30 yard range, and you have crazy strong aoe burst at said range. It's extremely adaptable and does reliable single target damage with strong burst aoe, although it is generally on the weaker side on sustained aoe and cleave. It will wreck face in nighthold, as its toolkit plays nicely with a lot of fights.

Ah, I see. But people keep talking about the shoulders being the new in, would you still use necrosis even with shoulders? I find that with Shadow Infusion I have transformation up for every single apoc and garg.

[Shadowman 747]

Ah, I see. But people keep talking about the shoulders being the new in, would you still use necrosis even with shoulders? I find that with Shadow Infusion I have transformation up for every single apoc and garg.

I really can't say. It's possible that you just use the cs+necro and kinda disregard the shoulders, as odd as it may sound. Shoulders offer really solid secondary stats and a decent throughput passive, even without building towards it. All shadow infusion does in relation to shoulders is per 3 minutes, is allow 1 more apoc to proc them. I personally think Necrosis will always pull ahead over shadow infusion in almost all situations.

[Deleted]

I really can't say. It's possible that you just use the cs+necro and kinda disregard the shoulders, as odd as it may sound. Shoulders offer really solid secondary stats and a decent throughput passive, even without building towards it. All shadow infusion does in relation to shoulders is per 3 minutes, is allow 1 more apoc to proc them. I personally think Necrosis will always pull ahead over shadow infusion in almost all situations.

if its so im so not hoping i have to go Unholy as best spec , necrosis is shit playstyle imo.

[seussiii]

Ebon Fever, Blighted Rune Weapon, Clawing Shadows, Necrosis, and Defile.

Completely different playstyle than castigator UH, as most of your damage is CS and DC. Festering Strike is never used outside of wound building and at above 3 runes. The core damage is in the CS multipliers, Mastery and Necrosis are nuts together. The spec becomes less about Wounds, and more about weaving death coils and hitting like a fucking truck with Necrosis empowered Claws. Though Wounds are still a core damage aspect, they take the back seat (as without SS+castigator you pop a flat 1 as opposed to 1-3 rng), and you generally hover between 1 and 4, only going higher to Apoc (which now maxes at 6 wounds).

Blighted rune weapon is an interesting one. I did some maths on it before the prt pustulent pustules nerf, and it was slightly more efficient, as you could allocate more runes to CS and not FS. It gives you 10 wounds per minute without spending runes on a shitty physical damage ability, allowing us to do more shadow damage, therefore aming mastery's value. The PP nerf cemented my theory and now BRW blows PP out of the water. TLDR, wounds have value, festering strike doesn't.

70%+ shadow damage contribution makes this build hyperscale on mastery (live values at .91 of str per point, with changes i anticipate it within .05 of live values give or take). Secondary priority is up in the air, and will be mast>crit or mast>haste, both have merits and it will depend. Crit will likely be stronger for ST, while haste will allow more GCDs and runes in your defile and more outbreak ticks, making haste better for aoe. I personally think both will end up simming closely, but Haste will pull ahead leaps and bounds in practice, as the utility a higher rune count and a lower gcd offers is so much better in actual fights than having a chance to hit harder.

Spec does all damage outside of melee hits, pet damage, and festering strike at 30 yard range, and you have crazy strong aoe burst at said range. It's extremely adaptable and does reliable single target damage with strong burst aoe, although it is generally on the weaker side on sustained aoe and cleave. It will wreck face in nighthold, as its toolkit plays nicely with a lot of fights.

I actually JUST rerolled DK and should be capped in the next day or so. I am definitely going UH for the PVE challenge and the pvp. I am a big fan of M+ and Pushing aoe builds. Would focusing on a Mastery/haste=crit set (and playing a shadow/mastery build) be a safe bet? Sounds like this build is just recently being toyed with but if its competitive with the normal UH build then I'd like to test it out.

[sunbrother]

Regarding shoulders, isn't it possible that DA+convergence makes it viable for ST fights? DA will be on something like a 1.5 CD. So you would want SI+shoulders to activate it.

[VakeStorm]

Ebon Fever, Blighted Rune Weapon, Clawing Shadows, Necrosis, and Defile.

Completely different playstyle than castigator UH, as most of your damage is CS and DC. Festering Strike is never used outside of wound building and at above 3 runes. The core damage is in the CS multipliers, Mastery and Necrosis are nuts together. The spec becomes less about Wounds, and more about weaving death coils and hitting like a fucking truck with Necrosis empowered Claws. Though Wounds are still a core damage aspect, they take the back seat (as without SS+castigator you pop a flat 1 as opposed to 1-3 rng), and you generally hover between 1 and 4, only going higher to Apoc (which now maxes at 6 wounds).

Blighted rune weapon is an interesting one. I did some maths on it before the prt pustulent pustules nerf, and it was slightly more efficient, as you could allocate more runes to CS and not FS. It gives you 10 wounds per minute without spending runes on a shitty physical damage ability, allowing us to do more shadow damage, therefore aming mastery's value. The PP nerf cemented my theory and now BRW blows PP out of the water. TLDR, wounds have value, festering strike doesn't.

70%+ shadow damage contribution makes this build hyperscale on mastery (live values at .91 of str per point, with changes i anticipate it within .05 of live values give or take). Secondary priority is up in the air, and will be mast>crit or mast>haste, both have merits and it will depend. Crit will likely be stronger for ST, while haste will allow more GCDs and runes in your defile and more outbreak ticks, making haste better for aoe. I personally think both will end up simming closely, but Haste will pull ahead leaps and bounds in practice, as the utility a higher rune count and a lower gcd offers is so much better in actual fights than having a chance to hit harder.

Spec does all damage outside of melee hits, pet damage, and festering strike at 30 yard range, and you have crazy strong aoe burst at said range. It's extremely adaptable and does reliable single target damage with strong burst aoe, although it is generally on the weaker side on sustained aoe and cleave. It will wreck face in nighthold, as its toolkit plays nicely with a lot of fights.

This is interesting to me. I play a ranged UH spec when I do bgs as I like the freedom to bounce in and out of melee when I need. It relies on the VP slow talent to help control fights. Plus, kiting warriors to death is so much fun!

The bold part confuses me because if you're talking about BRW then you need to auto attack and that is melee range. I don't think it will apply wounds any other way. Or do you mean from our tier set bonus from NH? Does that proc enough to help keep the wounds high enough for CS attacks? Also, more melee hits also means higher up time on Unholy Strength does it not?

I assume this proposed build is if you don't have the bracers? I would guess having the bracers, even with this setup and the NH tier bonus, would require you to FS more than you make the rotation sound like it will need. Does that mean with bracers you would go UF considering the duration was buffed too? Or do bracers lose their BiS status with a mastery build? With all the changes do we now have two viable UH specs: our current CAST-crit build if you have bracers, else this mastery build? Sounds like it, which is exciting.

I don't mind the Necrosis talent myself as it gives a nice ability weaving to our rotation. I have always been intrigued by its theoretical mathematical potential. I've just not found it works as well without the proper gear support compared to the CAST-crit build.

I've been maining UH since mid-MoP. With the increase in class fantasy I've wondered if they'd push us to more of a ranged class as we have a lot of the necessary toolkit.

[Shadowman 747]

This is interesting to me. I play a ranged UH spec when I do bgs as I like the freedom to bounce in and out of melee when I need. It relies on the VP slow talent to help control fights. Plus, kiting warriors to death is so much fun!

The bold part confuses me because if you're talking about BRW then you need to auto attack and that is melee range. I don't think it will apply wounds any other way. Or do you mean from our tier set bonus from NH? Does that proc enough to help keep the wounds high enough for CS attacks? Also, more melee hits also means higher up time on Unholy Strength does it not?

I assume this proposed build is if you don't have the bracers? I would guess having the bracers, even with this setup and the NH tier bonus, would require you to FS more than you make the rotation sound like it will need. Does that mean with bracers you would go UF considering the duration was buffed too? Or do bracers lose their BiS status with a mastery build? With all the changes do we now have two viable UH specs: our current CAST-crit build if you have bracers, else this mastery build? Sounds like it, which is exciting.

I don't mind the Necrosis talent myself as it gives a nice ability weaving to our rotation. I have always been intrigued by its theoretical mathematical potential. I've just not found it works as well without the proper gear support compared to the CAST-crit build.

I've been maining UH since mid-MoP. With the increase in class fantasy I've wondered if they'd push us to more of a ranged class as we have a lot of the necessary toolkit.

I'm an almost purely PvE player. All of my theorycrafting is based on raid style encounters.

Bold part implies that you can do most of the build's damage, aside from aas, pet, and fs, at a 30y range. You never WANT to be at 30y, but it is a strength that no other melee spec has. Blighted rune weapon will outright contribute more damage than PP in the majority of situations now. It being melee range is irrelevant, as UH is a melee spec, not a ranged one, despite its ranged abilities and affinity for high add movement combat. You never want to be at range, you want to be smacking the boss to proc fallen crusader, spend excess runes, and build wounds. You can swap to mob spawns at 30 yard range and do solid damage while running at them to melee.

Bracers will likely be hot dogshit with this build. Even pre-nerf i thought that they wouldn't play well with this build. They force festering strikes, which take runes away from CS, lowering shadow damage contribution, and lowering the value of mastery. I believe that bracers will have their own build. Likely haste>mastery with an altered talent setup. I haven't ran numbers, nor have I played with builds for bracers. Bracers frontload a ton of damage and reduce scaling by a lot. I believe that the 7.1.5 death and decay/defile helmet will be BiS for this particular build by far. Defile, its buff specifically, is insane. The spell does rune effecient ST damage, amazing aoe, and gives you up to 2000 bonus mastery, The more and longer that buff can be up, the better. I think proper usage of helmet might give 100% uptime of 10 stacks of defile buff (2k bonus mastery), although i havent ran numbers. Regardless, helmet+defile is nuts. Shoulders are also really solid, and that's been the primary focus of the UH community, you'll find a lot of info on them.

I think UH is supposed to be the kind of melee spellcaster spec, weaving dark magic and brutal melee swings, I dont think they'll turn it into a core ranged spec.

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I actually JUST rerolled DK and should be capped in the next day or so. I am definitely going UH for the PVE challenge and the pvp. I am a big fan of M+ and Pushing aoe builds. Would focusing on a Mastery/haste=crit set (and playing a shadow/mastery build) be a safe bet? Sounds like this build is just recently being toyed with but if its competitive with the normal UH build then I'd like to test it out.

'normal' unholy won't be viable after 7.1.5, defile necro claws build will be the best dk dps spec. I say go for it, get the practice in for when it goes live. I'm currently pulling about 380k ST in frost, and 320k in this new build, but the UH mastery build is getting absolutely massive buffs. It's not viable now, but 7.1.5 is coming out next tuesday or the week after, once that rolls around, this build takes off. Unless there's nerfs, which I doubt.

I think building for mastery>crit=haste is a smart idea, my friend.

[Casterbridge]

No it doesn't, not at all. Frost scales like shit (worse than Unholy), and always has. Their tier set is also garbage, It had a moment in the light before they changed the RP consumption rate of Breath (which is still most likely going to perform better than the current RA/Icy Talon build).

The worrying thing is, if Unholy pulls ahead of Frost again, are they going to issue another blanket buff to Frost damage, because we know the opposite won't happen.

Frost is simply tuned higher than Unholy on live, on PTR that isn't the case.

Out of curiosity why do you think Frost scales poorly still? I've not really seen anything that really seems to showing that, Frost actually seems to scale okay will pretty much all secondaries, and very well with strength?

[seussiii]

'normal' unholy won't be viable after 7.1.5, defile necro claws build will be the best dk dps spec. I say go for it, get the practice in for when it goes live. I'm currently pulling about 380k ST in frost, and 320k in this new build, but the UH mastery build is getting absolutely massive buffs. It's not viable now, but 7.1.5 is coming out next tuesday or the week after, once that rolls around, this build takes off. Unless there's nerfs, which I doubt.

I think building for mastery>crit=haste is a smart idea, my friend.

Ah very nice to hear. I will definitely do this...and its probably best to do so now since im a clean slate. If you ever get bored and decide to do a write up, count me in for the ride.

[VakeStorm]

I'm an almost purely PvE player. All of my theorycrafting is based on raid style encounters.

Bold part implies that you can do most of the build's damage, aside from aas, pet, and fs, at a 30y range. You never WANT to be at 30y, but it is a strength that no other melee spec has. Blighted rune weapon will outright contribute more damage than PP in the majority of situations now. It being melee range is irrelevant, as UH is a melee spec, not a ranged one, despite its ranged abilities and affinity for high add movement combat. You never want to be at range, you want to be smacking the boss to proc fallen crusader, spend excess runes, and build wounds. You can swap to mob spawns at 30 yard range and do solid damage while running at them to melee.

Bracers will likely be hot dogshit with this build. Even pre-nerf i thought that they wouldn't play well with this build. They force festering strikes, which take runes away from CS, lowering shadow damage contribution, and lowering the value of mastery. I believe that bracers will have their own build. Likely haste>mastery with an altered talent setup. I haven't ran numbers, nor have I played with builds for bracers. Bracers frontload a ton of damage and reduce scaling by a lot. I believe that the 7.1.5 death and decay/defile helmet will be BiS for this particular build by far. Defile, its buff specifically, is insane. The spell does rune effecient ST damage, amazing aoe, and gives you up to 2000 bonus mastery, The more and longer that buff can be up, the better. I think proper usage of helmet might give 100% uptime of 10 stacks of defile buff (2k bonus mastery), although i havent ran numbers. Regardless, helmet+defile is nuts. Shoulders are also really solid, and that's been the primary focus of the UH community, you'll find a lot of info on them.

I think UH is supposed to be the kind of melee spellcaster spec, weaving dark magic and brutal melee swings, I dont think they'll turn it into a core ranged spec.

I mostly PVE. I just PVP as it's one of the best ways to AP grind that I find engaging.

I've gotten lucky and received the bracers, the better ring, and the shoulders. I am mostly concerned if all this effort i've put into maximizing the crit-cast-bracers build is going to put me behind, or if as I go through NH I will just focus on gearing a different way.

Based on what blizz has said about all the changes I should be okay in my current state, but it sounds like I should switch to a mastery build like this one asap.

[Shadowman 747]

I mostly PVE. I just PVP as it's one of the best ways to AP grind that I find engaging.

I've gotten lucky and received the bracers, the better ring, and the shoulders. I am mostly concerned if all this effort i've put into maximizing the crit-cast-bracers build is going to put me behind, or if as I go through NH I will just focus on gearing a different way.

Based on what blizz has said about all the changes I should be okay in my current state, but it sounds like I should switch to a mastery build like this one asap.

In your case, I can't say what's best. You can slot in the ring and shoulders into the basic build I'm going for, but it's very possible that an altered bracers based build will be stronger. Play it by ear. When the patch hits, fiddle around and see what's best. The DK discord is god awful, so they wont be running much theorycrafting/ptr sims at all, so you're kinda screwed unless you run your own numbers.

[seussiii]

....Play it by ear. When the patch hits, fiddle around and see what's best. The DK discord is god awful, so they wont be running much theorycrafting/ptr sims at all, so you're kinda screwed unless you run your own numbers.

i was a bit worried about this... out of all the specs i've played this xpac.... UH discord is pretty bad. Needless to say ...was pretty happy to find a discussion like this.

[Shadowman 747]

i was a bit worried about this... out of all the specs i've played this xpac.... UH discord is pretty bad. Needless to say ...was pretty happy to find a discussion like this.

DK's class community is the second worst in the game, only warlock is worse. I'm a moderately high end DK, 75th-95th in mythic parsing with no decent throughput legendary (necrofantasia and prydaz), the discord has helped me exactly 0. All of my rotation, spell usage, stat values, etc have been done by myself. When frost was buffed above UH in 7.1, there weren't any resources on frost, the superior spec, in weeks. Hell, the Frost simcraft profile was outright broken for a full month. A lot of the information you'll find on the discord is incredibly incomplete as well, with no analysis or in depth detail. Run your own numbers or you have 0 chance of being competitive.

I only say warlock is worse because so many of them are unwilling to play their class properly, and then claim it's blizzard's fault. IE, the idiots who exclusively play a single spec, when locks have some 7 niche viable builds across all specs, many of which hold the same stat priorities, which the warlock is able to swap to to adapt to the encounter.

[seussiii]

DK's class community is the second worst in the game, only warlock is worse. I'm a moderately high end DK, 75th-95th in mythic parsing with no decent throughput legendary (necrofantasia and prydaz), the discord has helped me exactly 0. All of my rotation, spell usage, stat values, etc have been done by myself. When frost was buffed above UH in 7.1, there weren't any resources on frost, the superior spec, in weeks. Hell, the Frost simcraft profile was outright broken for a full month. A lot of the information you'll find on the discord is incredibly incomplete as well, with no analysis or in depth detail. Run your own numbers or you have 0 chance of being competitive.

I only say warlock is worse because so many of them are unwilling to play their class properly, and then claim it's blizzard's fault. IE, the idiots who exclusively play a single spec, when locks have some 7 niche viable builds across all specs, many of which hold the same stat priorities, which the warlock is able to swap to to adapt to the encounter.

Sounds good man, appreciate the help. Re-read most of what you explained and had a few questions.

"Completely different playstyle than castigator UH, as most of your damage is CS and DC. Festering Strike is never used outside of wound building and at above 3 runes."

What you said about FS being subpar due to it being physical damage makes sense. I'm curious where you fit it in? It sounds like your goal is to BRW for wounds which fuel your CS.

Is FS just to aid in getting a quick stack for apoc?
Do you generally just use it as an opener to assist a quick stack for the normal DC/CS rotation?

[farza]

DK's class community is the second worst in the game, only warlock is worse. I'm a moderately high end DK, 75th-95th in mythic parsing with no decent throughput legendary (necrofantasia and prydaz), the discord has helped me exactly 0. All of my rotation, spell usage, stat values, etc have been done by myself. When frost was buffed above UH in 7.1, there weren't any resources on frost, the superior spec, in weeks. Hell, the Frost simcraft profile was outright broken for a full month. A lot of the information you'll find on the discord is incredibly incomplete as well, with no analysis or in depth detail. Run your own numbers or you have 0 chance of being competitive.

I only say warlock is worse because so many of them are unwilling to play their class properly, and then claim it's blizzard's fault. IE, the idiots who exclusively play a single spec, when locks have some 7 niche viable builds across all specs, many of which hold the same stat priorities, which the warlock is able to swap to to adapt to the encounter.

U have not played warlock.
Warlock is just not too fun to play and MEDIOCRE DPS.