So...Unholy?

[Verzerrung]

What is the best dps spec for a dk now? I always liked unholy but from what little I can find it sounds like frost is preferred now. Is there a real big difference? And what is the rotation/priority for unholy now? I havnt played a dk since they came out and the guides that use to be here are gone for some reason

p.s. I am currently only lvl 60 so im not looking for pure raid output just yet.

[Slotter11]

noxxic.com

[ZombyChan]

Pet management is never fun for me. Frost DW offers the use of the fun 1 second GCD (At lvl 70 unholy presence) so that's what I chose.

[Rickarus]

For leveling, frost is generally thought of as better. ATM frost is better at endgame, but there's a new patch coming, and they likely still have a few changes left to come, but right now it looks like unholy and frost will be fairly even.

[Sobegreen]

Frost is better at bursting down adds really fast and switching targets a lot. It also pulls stronger single target DPS. Unholy is pretty terrible at quick burst damage and pulls fairly decent single target DPS. The bigger issue is most of the fights in FL required melee to burn down adds and switch targets quickly none of which Unholy has an easy time with. We should see some changes to Unholy coming in 4.3 along with finding out what types of fights we are going to see in DS that will all possibly change the Frost vs. Unholy debate.

[Pocketzest]

hehe, I was on my shitty geared dk herb farm alt, go in a bot pug, killed the first 2 bosses, and pulled about 15k, which is pretty good for how bad my gear is. We get to the third boss, and people were talking about derps they do, and I said,"Sometimes I forget to resummon my pet when I die" Then the raid leader said,"You're unholy?" Me:yup. 4 seconds later I got kicked. Just because I wasn't frost.

[Gd888]

DW frost -> unholy -> 2h frost afaik

[Kaosbringer]

DW frost -> unholy -> 2h frost afaik

That's alittle off its DW Frost > 2h Frost >= Unholy

[Zaizo]

That's alittle off its DW Frost > 2h Frost >= Unholy

Gd888 was right 2h Frost got nerfed when 4.2 hit

[Kaosbringer]

Gd888 was right 2h Frost got nerfed when 4.2 hit

Yes I know that but it fell inline with unholy but not below.

[keegzy]

Unholy really isn't that far behind frost. yes, frost has better burst damage, given semi-consta proc rime/km, a large amount of crits are hard to keep up with, but that said, unholy can have a large amount of aoe add damage as well, as long as you outbreak, pestilence, dnd, and then bb. i usually find myself relatively high in the dps charts if i do it right.

and as far as single target dps goes, my dps is a steady 14-16k, given that melee have a lot of moving and switching to do in firelands, that seems to be fairly decent dps wise, but when you look at damage done, which is what you need to look at in firelands given the fight mechanics, imo, and i find myself within the top 3 on every boss fight given no deaths, etc. keep in mind, sometimes you need to alter your priorities, ie, being a dk, needing to get 50 rp for a bres, instead of 50rp worth of dmg done.

[Deleted]

Imo unholy target switching isnt hard. Pestilence, and you're good to go. And to those saying unholy has bad burst damage. Well every time we do ragnaros im able to solo the 2 adds closest to the hammer (if its on either side, not in the middle). Unholy also has a strong raid cooldown (Anti-magic Zone) which can be very useful for fights like Majordomo when your healers can't keep up.

[Kaosbringer]

Imo unholy target switching isnt hard. Pestilence, and you're good to go. And to those saying unholy has bad burst damage. Well every time we do ragnaros im able to solo the 2 adds closest to the hammer (if its on either side, not in the middle). Unholy also has a strong raid cooldown (Anti-magic Zone) which can be very useful for fights like Majordomo when your healers can't keep up.

There are definitely some strengths to Unholy but the issue usually comes to the overall damage of DW Frost beating out Unholy's and that AMZ is only situationally useful skill.

[Sivick]

I prefer unholy just because it's more fun. I didn't make a DK to be a warrior. I made a dk to be master of the dead, and unholy gives that to me.

[Impartial]

Up until rag HM it's really up to personal preferance, but once you need to ranged aoe seeds down there's no choice, imho

[Dossou]

noxxic.com

Noxxic is garbage, they had 50 mastery suggested for a boot enchant till I contacted them and all the other information is pretty much a copy paste of EJ. EJ isn't 100% up to date, but I haven't found any other resources for Frost.

[LolretKJ]

For leveling, frost is generally thought of as better. ATM frost is better at endgame, but there's a new patch coming, and they likely still have a few changes left to come, but right now it looks like unholy and frost will be fairly even.

Unholy is getting 5% strength. It's not going to be able to match the dps output of a full BiS T13 Frost DK espcially considering the new 2 piece as howling blast hits considerably harder than death coil. Although the 4 piece will give unholy a much better chance to proc, the massive crits from obliterate and frost strike will mostly likely be able to out compete unholy. It will probably seem close for a while, but as we are seeing now, frost scales better than unholy with BiS gear.

Just my 2 cents.

[Hockeyy]

Unholy is getting 5% strength. It's not going to be able to match the dps output of a full BiS T13 Frost DK espcially considering the new 2 piece as howling blast hits considerably harder than death coil. Although the 4 piece will give unholy a much better chance to proc, the massive crits from obliterate and frost strike will mostly likely be able to out compete unholy. It will probably seem close for a while, but as we are seeing now, frost scales better than unholy with BiS gear.

Just my 2 cents.

Frost scales better with BIS weapons you mean. Unholy scales better with gear. Its really just the target swapping/pet that kills unholy in pve.

[Dossou]

Frost scales better with BIS weapons you mean. Unholy scales better with gear. Its really just the target swapping/pet that kills unholy in pve.

True, however good DKs maintain excellent control over their pet in any raid situations. Target swapping isn't really a huge issue, compared to other clases such as feral druids.

[Aydinx2]

I prefer unholy just because it's more fun. I didn't make a DK to be a warrior. I made a dk to be master of the dead, and unholy gives that to me.

I made a DK to be a master of frost.
In the end unholy is just arms warrior with unholy guy, just like frost is just fury with ice spells.