They are increasing the cost of death coil???

[garonne]

but the change we're getting in 7.2.5 isn't some new ability that costs 2runes and 60 RP. just changing DC cost and damage may even end up being a nerf to overall DPS.

If it's a nerf then they can buff damage. Question is if mechanically does it work better (without 4pc).

[Shazdk]

I think it's good. DC'S DPRP goes up, the aids Necrosis playstyle goes away, resource capping is slightly diminished as well. Everybody wins. Cost of Death Coil is being increased by 28.5%, damage increased by the same amount. All this means is that you have to invest fewer GCDs into getting the same benefit (ie damage) from DC. It also makes fishing for RC procs more efficient per GCD. Literally the only bad thing about this is that it makes Necrosis dogshit, if you like that playstyle for some reason. SoW might also be an issue, but I'm almost certain that they will raise the proc chance on that to mesh with how much DC costs now. And if they don't, well, I don't care either.

[garonne]

I think buffing the damage of festering strike, army and making wounds hit everyone in the area for a percentage of the damage would go a long way.

They clearly like the the rng so not even gonna argue it anymore.

[spanishninja]

If it's a nerf then they can buff damage. Question is if mechanically does it work better (without 4pc).

I argue that DC would have to be buffed significantly more than just 29% for it to overcome mechanical issues it will place on our rotation.

[Protean]

but the change we're getting in 7.2.5 isn't some new ability that costs 2runes and 60 RP. just changing DC cost and damage may even end up being a nerf to overall DPS.

Don't bother replying if you don't understand what a hypothetical situation is.

And really don't bother trying to damage control and saying what I wrote isn't hypothetical or whatever.

I think it's good. DC'S DPRP goes up, the aids Necrosis playstyle goes away, resource capping is slightly diminished as well. Everybody wins. Cost of Death Coil is being increased by 28.5%, damage increased by the same amount. All this means is that you have to invest fewer GCDs into getting the same benefit (ie damage) from DC. It also makes fishing for RC procs more efficient per GCD. Literally the only bad thing about this is that it makes Necrosis dogshit, if you like that playstyle for some reason. SoW might also be an issue, but I'm almost certain that they will raise the proc chance on that to mesh with how much DC costs now. And if they don't, well, I don't care either.

Don't forget that sudden doom procs will become more valuable. Now they just need to fix double doom to be less stupid.

[spanishninja]

Don't bother replying if you don't understand what a hypothetical situation is.

And really don't bother trying to damage control and saying what I wrote isn't hypothetical or whatever.



Don't forget that sudden doom procs will become more valuable. Now they just need to fix double doom to be less stupid.

it's fine that your situation is hypothetical, but it is not relevant to the actual changes that are coming for the patch. You might as well say "it would be great if they give unholy DK missile launchers as an ability".

[Shazdk]

So speaking of hypothetical situations-- how would this change put mechanical issues in our rotation, again? Specifically wrt Necrosis and SoW, sure, but it does pretty objectively free up GCDs in addition to making SD/DD better. Seems like it would make an IC playstyle significantly less clogged up.

[spanishninja]

So speaking of hypothetical situations-- how would this change put mechanical issues in our rotation, again? Specifically wrt Necrosis and SoW, sure, but it does pretty objectively free up GCDs in addition to making SD/DD better. Seems like it would make an IC playstyle significantly less clogged up.

I barely have enough RP to sustain necrosis, given that I have to also use runes to keep wounds since I have bracers. I do not feel overflowing with resources at all currently.

[Acidbaron]

So speaking of hypothetical situations-- how would this change put mechanical issues in our rotation, again? Specifically wrt Necrosis and SoW, sure, but it does pretty objectively free up GCDs in addition to making SD/DD better. Seems like it would make an IC playstyle significantly less clogged up.

You won't be able to sustain necrosis, trying to weave in as many DC's as we do now would result into "rune starvation" more often As you'll end up using a DC when you have 3+ runes up and recharging, that overlap will be problematic. Once T19 is gone we'll need more runes again rotationally where as 35 runic now has a chance to function as 2 runes due to 4 set. Also the removal of 2 set will be hit to our spec speed, where spamming abilities will make you lose damage in upcoming cycles.

Black Claw might make IC or even ST more valuable. leaning more towards the first since i fear we'll have less resources in T20.

[Deleted]

The biggest issue with black claws is down to our festering wound management. Without tracking the swing timer of our ghoul, once empowered, it's a given that you need 7 wounds to guarantee a max powered Apocalypse, due to black claws eating wounds. This changes our opener significantly, because if you do choose to cast DT at the 2 second pull timer, you have to pray for good wound procs from the two sources of damage we apply to our target.

[NatePsy]

I just tried, army alone deals, for me: 5.3m damage.
Transformed ghoul: 2m
DA (WITHOUT BUFFED BY DEATHCOILS): 2m
Draught of Souls: 3.85m


That is not proportional with cooldown length, activation time or time for actual application.

Wanna know something even more disgusting? I've seen Fury Warrs get 7-8mil damage with their Draught. And yet Unholy's mastery scaling had to be nerfed with Draught.

I am holding out hope that these changes are still early and they're still making reiterations to other abilities and talents because that DC cost and bandaid fix through damage increase to death coil is not enough to compensate for the fact it messes with two talents that are used situational.

Use Convergence? Well guess what? DA is now useless because Death Coil won't buff her nearly as much due to the increase in cost, making the trinket and talent useless. Necrosis? Nooooope, that ain't happening anymore. Blizzard honestly need to give us more flat damage increases to some of our abilities. It is pretty sad that I just barely sustain 700k while Aff warlocks sail ahead with 850-900k sustained at the same ilvl as me. If that's not bullshit, then I don't know what is honestly, there's too big a gap for some specs.

[Acidbaron]

The biggest issue with black claws is down to our festering wound management. Without tracking the swing timer of our ghoul, once empowered, it's a given that you need 7 wounds to guarantee a max powered Apocalypse, due to black claws eating wounds. This changes our opener significantly, because if you do choose to cast DT at the 2 second pull timer, you have to pray for good wound procs from the two sources of damage we apply to our target.

It's only during dark transformation as you say and you can make it so you control the cleave ability if you really want to. As i think it's off GCD. (Will have to test to be certain later.

Ideally a good solution to this would be to remove DT off the GCD. Since we use it before the fight to free up a global the current change could also make our spec slower and making it more important to press abilities wisely rather than to spam to get as much stuff in as possible and to be fair we have a shit load of things to do to build up our entire 'burst', what in my opinion is the spec achilles heel.

[Kronik85]

The biggest issue with black claws is down to our festering wound management. Without tracking the swing timer of our ghoul, once empowered, it's a given that you need 7 wounds to guarantee a max powered Apocalypse, due to black claws eating wounds. This changes our opener significantly, because if you do choose to cast DT at the 2 second pull timer, you have to pray for good wound procs from the two sources of damage we apply to our target.

The new Elite and Golden Trait suck donkey balls. Nothing else to be said about that.

[Somewhatconcerned]

Anyone test it on the PTR yet? Does it at least "feel" better?

[Deleted]

It's only during dark transformation as you say and you can make it so you control the cleave ability if you really want to. As i think it's off GCD. (Will have to test to be certain later.

I did a fair bit of testing today in NH normal, EN Heroic/Normal and ToV Heroic/Normal, so I have some anecdotal experience with using DT with the new black claws. Overall it should be a dps increase. Being able to exhaust my wounds in a small window and apply even more of them, thanks to the insane rune regen Uvanimor gives feels great.

However the main issues I've encountered so far still apply

At the pull - even with BRW up on some occasions I've found that I've had to Fester Strike once more if I cast DT 2 seconds into the pull. Instead I cast DT after apocalypse. Wasting that many seconds on a CD doesn't feel nice at all. On a side note the opener is part of the issue why we're resourced capped, in our rotation it is not ideal to cast death coil within the first 3 to 4 GCDs unless you've take Dark Arbiter.

Even if we did spend our runic power near the start of our opener, we'll be rune capped thanks to the way Apocalypse works after you've gotten the new trait that gives you 3 runes on cast. A rotation that causes us to cast festering strike after Apocalypse is fine. We need to spend those runes and we won't be runed capped. Having to cast an extra Festering near the start of our rotation may cause an issue if you're late casting AOTD and you're runes have not regen in time.

Mid-fight This is where the main issues lies. I really tried to avoid casting DT when SR and Apoc have come off CD. There have been a few times when I've absently minded done so. A shame, because some times they line up so nicely! When DT is up before SR and Apoc have come off CD and your pet is eating wounds, you're playing catch up to stack the wounds past 6 (you want it past 6 to guarantee a max powered Apoc). If you're rune starved or if Fester strike has only given you 2 extra wounds and you need more, you're wasting precious CD time on SR and Apoc. Holding these powerful CD's off for too long can mess with other synergies you may have lined up.

What blizzard can do are the following

Pet off CD - which the DK community has long advocated. It then does become a mindless "bind" to macro button.

Get rid of black claws - and replace it with something that either empowers us for x% of damage while it's up in the form of a straight strength buff, a buff to wound damage (lash of shadows part 2 effectively) or a haste effect.

Keep it the same - but the wounds stay as they are. The pet can burst them, but in doing so causes existing wounds to festering even more increasing their stack. A -1 +1 situation.

[KodoRealTalk]

I think those are fair changes. As it stands now the risk out-weighs the reward imo. I wonder if its too much to ask, but have Black Claws apply the Death debuff during our pet DT (via his toxic gas or cleave ability). Maybe 15% is too much though. So cap it at 10% or two stacks. Just something that is consistent damage for once. It may sound a bit dumb at first, but it also gives a small CD between SR/Apoc combos for sustained damage when we're just relying on RNG.

[Sulika]

If we were getting a wishlist of changes I'd like to see summon gargoyle, army of the dead, dark transformation etc. actually do some damage when cast.

Make Dark Transformation more like "Your ghoul explodes for XXX% damage to those around him and transforms into an Abomination for XX seconds. While transformed your ghouls abilities are replaced with empowered versions".

Similarly for Gargoyle, have the Gargoyle do an initial empowered dive bomb before working as it does now.

In many ways I think thats the core problem with all of Unholys long cooldowns, they don't really do anything when used making the act of using them slightly unsatisfying and its why unholy doesn't have any up front burst, none of the abilities do anything when cast other than proc some extra sustained damage for a while. Even if the numbers were tweaked to be basically dps neutral overall it would feel a lot better to play not to mention giving extra knobs to tune.

Army of the Dead in particular could be used to kill two birds with one stone, give it a high runic power cost but make it worth casting in combat (80 runic power and about 2 death coils worth of damage in an AoE or something like that). You now have an in fight RP dump, you are no longer losing dps if the tank doesn't do a pull timer and everything just feels a bit more satisfying.

[spanishninja]

If we were getting a wishlist of changes I'd like to see summon gargoyle, army of the dead, dark transformation etc. actually do some damage when cast.

Make Dark Transformation more like "Your ghoul explodes for XXX% damage to those around him and transforms into an Abomination for XX seconds. While transformed your ghouls abilities are replaced with empowered versions".

Similarly for Gargoyle, have the Gargoyle do an initial empowered dive bomb before working as it does now.

In many ways I think thats the core problem with all of Unholys long cooldowns, they don't really do anything when used making the act of using them slightly unsatisfying and its why unholy doesn't have any up front burst, none of the abilities do anything when cast other than proc some extra sustained damage for a while. Even if the numbers were tweaked to be basically dps neutral overall it would feel a lot better to play not to mention giving extra knobs to tune.

Army of the Dead in particular could be used to kill two birds with one stone, give it a high runic power cost but make it worth casting in combat (80 runic power and about 2 death coils worth of damage in an AoE or something like that). You now have an in fight RP dump, you are no longer losing dps if the tank doesn't do a pull timer and everything just feels a bit more satisfying.

i'd rather be able to army pre-pull like always...

[raionyx]

Short treatise on a potential direction for Unholy in light of this change. Feel free to tell me what you guys think in the comments, or here.

[Shazdk]

I have bracers as well and with 4 set I feel pretty much constantly RP capped or wound capped, and I feel like I'm executing pretty efficiently. Efficiently spending resources is by far the hardest thing about the spec at the moment from my perspective. Could be wrong though, Unholy is much more of a side project for me than anything else.

And yeah if you're in the Necrosis mindset I can see how this would mess you up, but if you read what I wrote I think I mentioned that the change would be beneficial to an IC playstyle, setting aside Necrosis.