Frost vs Unholy 7.2.5

[VakeStorm]

Yeah but it's completely and utterly bullshit to do that in this expansion. I'd go from my BiS Frost gear to being in shit unholy gear. With how much grinding you have to do for good titanforged trinkets (Lol Draught is a myth for sure) there's no fucking reason why I'd have that kind of gear. Draught going to a frost DK means I coined it and was pissed it wasn't tier pants lol

It's especially bullshit when I can literally pull up a video of (I think) Ion even saying they would make sure not to make players feel like they need to swap. I understand that Blizzard hasn't kept their promises but I think class balance and scrapping capital cities in WoD are two completely different things.

The middle of EN was okay. I had one legendary and it was the unholy ring. Wasn't super pissed about starting over. I have literally every single DPS Frost legendary. I have the unholy ring and shoulders. I can still get Aggramar's and the shit cloak. Like... I'm kinda screwed lol

Well, the shoulders are buffed on the ptr to I think 40% for their damage buff. This is good, because it means you can take DA and using a CD on DT isn't a lose of damage anymore and is in fact encouraged. The boots are number 3 or 2 over all depending on your gear. So that's not bad. I think bracers and the KJ are still top dawg though.

Bracers are getting nerfed to one or two additional wounds, down from 1 - 3.

Many are guessing shoulders will be the new go to leggo depending on how much AotD lines up with DT once you have t20 4pc as UH.

The biggest issue you'll likely have switching is getting to high mastery. This can be painful, but honestly get to 65% mastery and you're be in a decent spot to start to get a feel for the spec. UH has a lot more going on at all times. In fact, UH is its most simple if you take DA as that's all about pumping out DCs.

Just start ToS as frost and aim to get high mastery gear and then swap once you have it. The key is your weapon, not the legendaries.

[Acidbaron]

Get both frost and unholy to 52 traits, very much doable and after that bank any ap and wait for the release. Everything on PTR has not even been finalised and knowing blizzard even when changes go live, more are yet to follow.

Also, don't be too fooled by the 'buffs' T20 brings. At the same ilevel (T20 normal vs T19 mythic), we're about as good as current T19 mythic frost DKs in terms of ST, but our T20 output is still far outclassed by current T19 top specs, such as locks, warriors, hunters and mages. We're in a very similar situation when back in 7.1.5 where we had VP, Garg and DA buff (net gain of 6%) and top parsing DKs saw a nice boost and thought we were 'ok'. Fast forward to now and we're certainly not in a competitive spot. Viable but not competitive. The same thing may happen again, we'll have to see how the new leggos and trinkets play out, most ToS trinkets look like trash however.

Beyond tuning i don't see us getting actual changes, things might get a higher or lower ap scaling but beyond that doubt it, since it has to be out and faced some testing before ToS is out, which is somewhere in June.

Honestly i don't give two flying fucks about frost, i just want unholy to not be simming several 100k's behind top specs.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, the shoulders are buffed on the ptr to I think 40% for their damage buff. This is good, because it means you can take DA and using a CD on DT isn't a lose of damage anymore and is in fact encouraged. The boots are number 3 or 2 over all depending on your gear. So that's not bad. I think bracers and the KJ are still top dawg though.

Bracers are getting nerfed to one or two additional wounds, down from 1 - 3.

Many are guessing shoulders will be the new go to leggo depending on how much AotD lines up with DT once you have t20 4pc as UH.

The biggest issue you'll likely have switching is getting to high mastery. This can be painful, but honestly get to 65% mastery and you're be in a decent spot to start to get a feel for the spec. UH has a lot more going on at all times. In fact, UH is its most simple if you take DA as that's all about pumping out DCs.

Just start ToS as frost and aim to get high mastery gear and then swap once you have it. The key is your weapon, not the legendaries.

I honestly don't see us taking DA, i know it's some developer fetish to keep buffing everything around it except the damn baseline spell to force us into a talent that is needed to more our dps cd actually do noticeable damage.

I know this is a debated point but losing soul reaper means less runes, losing soul reaper in addition to the old two set will hurt even more, not having either means we'll have less runes when it matters and that is right after we used apoc, what translates in to less damage during the time our T20 4 set is active.
What also means less runes used per minute overall what results into T20 2 set having a lower value.

[Deleted]

Firstly, there are no problems getting to decent mastery levels, on the PTR I was able to maintan over 80% mastery with normal T20 4 piece @ overall ilevel 913, an ilevel achievable by raiders who can clear normal ToS. My trinkets were Foci and Urn.

Secondly the main legendary to go for will be a resource one, belt or ring, with Uvanimor being the superior one given the small amount of Festering strikes being cast when taking the talent setup that involves IC, CS and SR. The choice of the second legendary will be very much dependent on the fight and when the new legendary will be available. For ST fights the bracers should still do well, if RNG is on your side. For a simple damage increase, which is more reliant your AOTD crit damage, the shoulders should be the go to legendary for ST fights. The shoulders do not provide a 40% increase in army damage however, despite the tooltip making you think otherwise. After 5 separate parses over 6 minutes @ilevel 913, AOTD does 14% increased damage. In terms of raw numbers with shoulders equipped, we're talking about 3 army casts in a 5-6 minute fight doing 35 million damage without shoulders and just over 39 mil with. To make sense of these results, all we have to understand is that the extra damage done by army and Gargoyle with shoulders have to outweigh the damage done by bracers with wound popping.

Lastly, there is no evidence to suggest that t19 mythic Unholy players in patch 7.2.5 will see sizeable buffs with normal t20 gear, which is important.

[Acidbaron]

Firstly, there are no problems getting to decent mastery levels, on the PTR I was able to maintan over 80% mastery with normal T20 4 piece @ overall ilevel 913, an ilevel achievable by raiders who can clear normal ToS. My trinkets were Foci and Urn.

Secondly the main legendary to go for will be a resource one, belt or ring, with Uvanimor being the superior one given the small amount of Festering strikes being cast when taking the talent setup that involves IC, CS and SR. The choice of the second legendary will be very much dependent on the fight and when the new legendary will be available. For ST fights the bracers should still do well, if RNG is on your side. For a simple damage increase, which is more reliant your AOTD crit damage, the shoulders should be the go to legendary. The shoulders do not provide a 40% increase in army damage however, despite the tooltip making you think otherwise. After 5 separate parses over 6 minutes @ilevel 913, AOTD does 14% increased damage. In terms of raw numbers with shoulders equipped, we're talking about 3 army casts in a 5-6 minute fight doing 35 million damage without shoulders and just over 39 mil with. To make sense of these results, all we have to understand is that the extra damage done by army and Gargoyle with shoulders have to outweigh the damage done by bracers with wound popping.

Lastly, there is no evidence to suggest that mythic t19 mythic Unholy players in patch 7.2.5 will see sizeable buffs with normal t20 gear, which is important.

QFT, i don't get people buying into all the hype currently.

Also dark arbiter is such a terrible talent and i wished they would just stop trying to force it on us.

[Deleted]

QFT, i don't get people buying into all the hype currently.

Also dark arbiter is such a terrible talent and i wished they would just stop trying to force it on us.

Well DA had it's quirks and is still a viable talent currently. Whether it becomes the top talent in patch 7.2.5 remains to be seen. I seriously doubt it though, since haste is so important to us when it comes to spending our resources and how T20 operates, which is what SR effectively helps us with. If DA's damage was based on the resources we spent (including runes) then it could be a top talent.

Beyond tuning i don't see us getting actual changes, things might get a higher or lower ap scaling but beyond that doubt it, since it has to be out and faced some testing before ToS is out, which is somewhere in June.

Honestly i don't give two flying fucks about frost, i just want unholy to not be simming several 100k's behind top specs.

Buffing us to the point where we're about middle of the pack against T19 Mythic raiders is a slightly worrying sign. The parses I've recorded are sparse but there are some important things to note with the new tier and how runic power works now.

- Necrosis is dead, less DC casts overall despite a significant buff to DC damage. Also despite the overall buff to SS and CS, were seeing less overall CS damage on the PTR compared to live with the classic necrosis talent set up. The damage loss may not be so noticeable on shorter fights when heroism is up and running and a significant portion of a kill time on a boss.

- We're back to IC again, which means BRW is out of the window, you don't need it since bracers have been nerfed and may not be the go to single target legendary. We're back to Pestilent Pustules.

- The debate around T20 frost means that those of us who will have ALL frost and unholy legendary items and concordance on both specs come 7.2.5 will most likely have zero good choices. I personally had not moved over to frost in patch 7.1.5 and 7.2 due to a lack of legendary items for frost and unholy always pulling ahead on sims with my character.

Now that I have SoN (Frosts BiS) and the helm (which is not good anymore, I know) I now sim 74k more as frost (Unholy 803k vs Frost 877k)...and it only has 47 traits. It's depressing!

[VakeStorm]

I honestly don't see us taking DA

I don't like DA personally, but mathematically, casting a DC buffs it more than casting DT with the leggo shoulders. 35% from a DC. 30% from leggo shoulder on live. On PTR that damage buff to DA would be up to 40% for DA casting a DT, making DT more valuable than a DC when DA is up. That's all I was pointing out.

Losing T19 4pc will make SR almost mandatory again unless there is a fight with several adds every 30 seconds pretty reliably.

DA has always been the PVP talent in my eyes since WoD rings wents away as UH wants to pool RP for healing, not DCs. I'll use DA in PVP for when I know I'm gonna need to heal the hell out of myself and need to down a target at the same time.

The DC changes likely won't change this. I find SD is enough for UH pvp.

Buffing us to the point where we're about middle of the pack against T19 Mythic raiders is a slightly worrying sign!

I'm not sure where it was said but someone brought up the point that outside of the pull UH doesn't have the best mechanics like other classes to build to a burst window without losing a lot of DPS. For the most part on most fights, UH needs to cast abilities the second they are ready to keep up with other dps. That's the problem. It's more difficult to effectively take advantage of burst windows without things lining up with CDs naturally and not lose a lot of DPS overall.

You could argue that personal dps doesn't matter if things die when they should, but the concern is still valid. Especially when comparing us to Frost which can hold CDs for burst windows and not lose too much dps wise. This isn't a frost versus unholy debate so I'll stop there.

The point I'm trying to make is we either need our overall damage increase so our dps is just higher in general or our CD timers need to be tuned so not using them right away is less punishing. Maybe even both.

We have so much going on that our damage should just be higher outright for doing it well, imo. The niche we fill is our rotation never changes. We use things when they happen we don't really hold abilities unless things are only a few seconds from happening. Holding one of our major CDs for like 10+ seconds just wrecks overall dps output as unholy I've found. The skill of UH is keeping track of all our resources at all times regardless of what mechanics are having us do. Other classes do better becasue mechanics of a fight encourage them to hold and use abilities at a particular time.

I could be crazy, but I did frost for a couple of months in NH after getting luck with the helm(pre-nerf) and ring and I found I was more easily able to pull higher numbers because my dps was built up around me timing BoS correctly. UH doesn't have this same luxury. If you don't use, you lose... :_(

[Deleted]

You could argue that personal dps doesn't matter if things die when they should, but the concern is still valid. Especially when comparing us to Frost which can hold CDs for burst windows and not lose too much dps wise. This isn't a frost versus unholy debate so I'll stop there.

The point I'm trying to make is we either need our overall damage increase so our dps is just higher in general or our CD timers need to be tuned so not using them right away is less punishing. Maybe even both.

We have so much going on that our damage should just be higher outright for doing it well, imo. The niche we fill is our rotation never changes. We use things when they happen we don't really hold abilities unless things are only a few seconds from happening. Holding one of our major CDs for like 10+ seconds just wrecks overall dps output as unholy I've found. The skill of UH is keeping track of all our resources at all times regardless of what mechanics are having us do. Other classes do better becasue mechanics of a fight encourage them to hold and use abilities at a particular time.

I could be crazy, but I did frost for a couple of months in NH after getting luck with the helm(pre-nerf) and ring and I found I was more easily able to pull higher numbers because my dps was built up around me timing BoS correctly. UH doesn't have this same luxury. If you don't use, you lose... :_(

This is true to a certain extent.

Let's look at army of the dead and the effect it has with costing 3 runes. To be fair, it is the only ability that costs 3 runes and it's on a global. This means it's not a flat out damage increase when we cast it midway through a fight, say Star Augur on Mythic and during Fel Phase when your raid decides to cast heroism. Not only does this take pre-planning, as in sitting on runes, but it causes a disruption to your single target rotation, the potential dps we lose from this is overtaken by the damage we do with Army.

This wouldn't be an issue if Army was both off GCD and free of cost - expecting both to happen with the way T20 works is impossible. It's never going to happen.

Our total damage is maximised when Army is cast pre-pull with heroism.

There is probably more leeway with our second cast of Gargoyle, but it would certainly have more uses if the damage was kept the same but it's CD was reduced to say 1.5 minutes.

[Elerubard]

I started Legion playing unholy and i changed when BoS was clearly the way to go. Since then i have managed to get the Seal of Necrofantasia Ring and Toravons Whiteout Bindings, which are, most likely, the best legendaries for frost.

The multiple buffs that unholy is getting and especially the heavy nerf to the new tier set for Frost, made me think what is the best way to deal with the situation and be prepared for when tos opens.

So i decided
- to change my specialization to unholy and try to get myself unholy legendaries
- keep spending my ap tokens to reach concordance of legionfall on frost, which will happen in just a couple of days
- then go all out on the unholy weapon

I have no legendaries for unholy but my frost ones are good. Do you think im approaching this in a correct way, or was i too quick to make up my mind about switching to Unholy?

I honestly am not sure as what to do. I need the frost belt, but dunno if this is good reason enough to keep my specialization to frost, when, at least for now, unholy seems the new top dps spec for our class.

This was my plan too.

[Hctaz]

Well, the shoulders are buffed on the ptr to I think 40% for their damage buff. This is good, because it means you can take DA and using a CD on DT isn't a lose of damage anymore and is in fact encouraged. The boots are number 3 or 2 over all depending on your gear. So that's not bad. I think bracers and the KJ are still top dawg though.

Bracers are getting nerfed to one or two additional wounds, down from 1 - 3.

Many are guessing shoulders will be the new go to leggo depending on how much AotD lines up with DT once you have t20 4pc as UH.

The biggest issue you'll likely have switching is getting to high mastery. This can be painful, but honestly get to 65% mastery and you're be in a decent spot to start to get a feel for the spec. UH has a lot more going on at all times. In fact, UH is its most simple if you take DA as that's all about pumping out DCs.

Just start ToS as frost and aim to get high mastery gear and then swap once you have it. The key is your weapon, not the legendaries.

Actually, apparently the values for Dark Arbiter were not accurate on sims and it might end up actually being really good. So... Shoulders might be insane next patch.

But that's not the complaint. The complaint is that they basically promised us that we could invest into one spec and that spec wouldn't be any worse or better compared to the rest of our specs. "If fire is the best mage spec by 15% we might reduce it to, say, 5%, but it will still be the best mage spec"

[Deleted]

Actually, apparently the values for Dark Arbiter were not accurate on sims and it might end up actually being really good. So... Shoulders might be insane next patch.

But that's not the complaint. The complaint is that they basically promised us that we could invest into one spec and that spec wouldn't be any worse or better compared to the rest of our specs. "If fire is the best mage spec by 15% we might reduce it to, say, 5%, but it will still be the best mage spec"

They've already scrapped that idea a long ago. They made Frost stronger than Unholy, Frost mages stronger than Fire and Assassination stronger than Outlaw for example.

[Deleted]

I dont know what to do or think about it.

I got 11 Legendaries, got all the BiS frost, but for Unholy i only got cloak(shit?), feet(shit?), sephuz ring(shit?), necklace(shit?), and then Helmet + Trinket - which i think is, well atleast "ok'ish".

The rotation and the general "theme?" for Unholy is starting to be more interesting for me. So i really have my doubts what to do.

Should i level my frost weapon from rank 48 to 52, or keep levelling my UH weapon from rank 42-52 ?

UH seems more fun and my kinda style, but i would have if the spec itself is performing bad - as i actually do like to compete on the dps meter - and right now its possible with Frost atleast.

[Deleted]

Get both to 52, there's no strict time limit and it's very doable in a reasonable time frame as AK continues to grow. With the case with fishing with UH legendary items, they will roll in eventually. Keep playing the game and legendary items will be the last thing on your mind. I have 2 more legendary items to go for frost, the belt, bracers and prydaz still in the pool.

[Deleted]

Unholy had an expansion, Frost should get the same

I'm not sure if you're serious or joking (due the smiley), but could we please stop this bullshit reasoning? It keeps popping up from time to time when the "UH vs Frost" topic comes up. As someone who started playing DK (Unholy) in this expansion, wanting to ruin "my spec" because it was stronger for a whole expansion X years ago, and people holding a grudge about, I feel kinda... Well, if I would honestly say how do I feel about that I might get banned, so I'm not gonna, but you can guess.

[Hctaz]

They've already scrapped that idea a long ago. They made Frost stronger than Unholy, Frost mages stronger than Fire and Assassination stronger than Outlaw for example.

Well fuck keep it now hot diggity damn lol

[Deleted]

Great thread, thank you for your inputs guys. Will keep an eye with great interest.

[Raiz]

I got 11 Legendaries, got all the BiS frost, but for Unholy i only got cloak(shit?), feet(shit?), sephuz ring(shit?), necklace(shit?), and then Helmet + Trinket - which i think is, well atleast "ok'ish".

Sephuz is actually great if you can make it proc. Meaning almost all the time really. I'm thinking more and more about ditching bracers for sephuz because I get more use of it than getting a random proc every now and then. I know, the DPS is probably lower, but Sephuz is a huge QoL.
If you run sephuz + KJBW, it can does a lot of damage especially in m+.

[RuneDK]

I'm not sure if you're serious or joking (due the smiley), but could we please stop this bullshit reasoning? It keeps popping up from time to time when the "UH vs Frost" topic comes up. As someone who started playing DK (Unholy) in this expansion, wanting to ruin "my spec" because it was stronger for a whole expansion X years ago, and people holding a grudge about, I feel kinda... Well, if I would honestly say how do I feel about that I might get banned, so I'm not gonna, but you can guess.

Being slightly sarcastic. However I won't forget the unholy players who told frost players to get wrecked when the opposite was happening during the beginning of Legion. I don't want unholy at the bottom, but I don't want it ahead of frost either.

[VakeStorm]

Sephuz is actually great if you can make it proc. Meaning almost all the time really. I'm thinking more and more about ditching bracers for sephuz because I get more use of it than getting a random proc every now and then. I know, the DPS is probably lower, but Sephuz is a huge QoL.
If you run sephuz + KJBW, it can does a lot of damage especially in m+.

This is only really true with M+, which you mention. It's no longer that great for raids due to them fixing the bug where our pet stunned proc'd it on demand. Pre-nerf, CoF + DA + Sephuz was the go to on ST, if not other fights depending. While an add heavy fight might see you proc'ing it more I don't know if you should rely on it. Sephuz is great for WQing though.

I dont know what to do or think about it.

I got 11 Legendaries, got all the BiS frost, but for Unholy i only got cloak(shit?), feet(shit?), sephuz ring(shit?), necklace(shit?), and then Helmet + Trinket - which i think is, well atleast "ok'ish".

The rotation and the general "theme?" for Unholy is starting to be more interesting for me. So i really have my doubts what to do.

Should i level my frost weapon from rank 48 to 52, or keep levelling my UH weapon from rank 42-52 ?

UH seems more fun and my kinda style, but i would have if the spec itself is performing bad - as i actually do like to compete on the dps meter - and right now its possible with Frost atleast.

Use the trinket because of its stats and the lol@haduken damage on adds. Trinket I think is still our second best dps leggo.

Feet are the 3rd best leggo for UH. Big QoL movement improvement plus they are a nice stat stick.

The neck is also a nice stat stick if you don't have a good mastery necklace already.

The helm is alright but it's value will change in the next patch. I can't remember if they are changing the helm in addition to the DC changes. If they aren't changing it then I think it goes down as we'll be casting DC less often. If they are changing the helm then I have no idea as I don't know what they are changing it to.

If you like UH more, then you will likely perform better at it than frost. Half of doing well is enjoying what you are doing. The bracers are no longer mandatory and with the nerf they are getting in the next patch I wouldn't be surprised if they drop from their top dawg spot. Especially given the new ring we're getting, if it remains unchanged.

What's more important with UH right now is getting as much mastery as you can while having a healthy about of haste and crit. Do that and you'll be fine. Just practice the rotation.

[Nangz]

Changes today:

Dark Arbiter Summon a Val'kyr to attack the target for 15 20 sec. The Val'kyr will gain 1% increased damage for every 1 Runic Power you spend. Unholy Death Knight - Level 100 Talent. 30 yd range. Instant. 2 min cooldown.

Defile Defile the targeted ground, dealing [ 0.6% [ 0.8% of AP ] Shadowfrost damage to all enemies over 10 sec. Every 1 sec, if any enemies are standing in the Defile, it grows in size and increases your Mastery by 1, stacking up to 10 times. While you remain within your Defile, your Scourge Strike will hit all enemies near the target. Unholy Death Knight - Level 100 Talent. 1 Runes. 30 yd range. Instant. 30 sec cooldown.

Defile change is a flat 33% buff but the Dark Arbiter one is a minimum of a 33% buff, likely much more because it lets us stack the buff higher. Seems a very significant shake up to the last talent options.. Frost had changes too so it'll take some sims to figure out where we stand now.

Edit: I'm not sure why I didn't post the frost changes.

New Set Bonuses

Item - Death Knight T20 Frost 2P Bonus Every 25 Runic Power spent while Pillar of Frost is active increases the duration of Pillar of Frost by 1.0 sec.
Item - Death Knight T20 Frost 4P Bonus Every 3 Runes spent increases the Strength bonus of your next Pillar of Frost by 1%.

[Rixarius]

I'm glad they're buffing DA again. I really want a reason to use it more often.