4.3 Death Knight PVP 101

[Kukkaroinen]

What I've seen said is if the opponent is close to death, and already has a Necrotic stack on them, you can do more damage and ensure the kill more effectively, and in a shorter time (1 GCD), with Obliterate. Sure, you can do more total and use resources more wisely over the time it takes with Necrotic Strike and Howling Blast and Frost Strike, but when you need that one big hit to kill the clothie who is near death, Obliterate might serve you better just in that one narrow instance and short time frame - that if you can kill them in one more hit, Obliterate might be a smarter choice. That's how I've heard it, anyway. Whether it's a good idea to be spamming Obliterates into someone... damn, I'm lucky when I can get that many hits off in a row. People have so many escapes nowadays.

Your first post sounded like you're only spamming obliterate. Ofc you'll use it as an execute if you're using a 2h. For DW just don't.

Skygoneblue:

Prime glyphs for UH without RoR should be Raise dead, Death coil and Icy touch. Icy touch is kinda bad but there's nothing rly better tbh.
If you play without RoR you should take SS off your bars.

I'll write some tips when I have more time.

DW hit cap is 2% from gear because talents give you 3%
and for 2H 5% ofc. If I remember right, 610 hit rating is 5%.

Spell pen cap is just 195. No need to go deeper in that

[Karazee]

Your first post sounded like you're only spamming obliterate.

I believe you're confusing me with someone else, good sir.

[Kukkaroinen]

I believe you're confusing me with someone else, good sir.

Ah yes, forgive me. You talked sense, the other guy didn't that's what i meant.

[enchanted]

Hey guys mind if I ask a question? Is it possible to spec into dw and 2h same time for pvp/pve since many told me 2H frost for pvp is great and dw is best spec for pve and ive been pve for a while, and also I just got cataclysmic weapon from conquest last week so I'm thinking of switching 2H since I mainly pvp as blood and im sick of blood as its not really viable in 2's atm so is it possible? cba to make a thread about such a stupid question

[Mammoth]

Hey guys mind if I ask a question? Is it possible to spec into dw and 2h same time for pvp/pve since many told me 2H frost for pvp is great and dw is best spec for pve and ive been pve for a while, and also I just got cataclysmic weapon from conquest last week so I'm thinking of switching 2H since I mainly pvp as blood and im sick of blood as its not really viable in 2's atm so is it possible? cba to make a thread about such a stupid question

It's possible to pick up the talents, but you'll be losing some rather useful talents at the same time.

Frankly, it doesn't cost too much to respec and specs are easy to remember these days. Remember, your action bars don't change when you respec, so it is a lot faster than it used to be.

[Skygoneblue]

For the main post, we're still waiting on some useful input from experienced Unholy PVPers. If you have some significant experience, and would like to chime in with some tips, playstyles, etc, please do so!

[Senteras]

Great post! I'd like to contribute just a bit to gem section. Rather than use three or four +50 spell pen gemsand an enchant or something, I prefer using two +50 spell pen gems, and a "Vivid Dream Emerald", which is 25 Spell Pen and 20 Resilience, and the cloak enchant with it. This way, I get the exact cap for spell penetration! Its just more efficient!

Also, I saw that some people were discussing obliterate vs. HB and NC! Well, I happen to have video that explains that a little bit. Let me know if this helps!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KWCzSEPRKg

[kartmanlol]

For Unholy
A big part of your damage/burst and control will come from your pets, therefore it's very important that you know how to micromanage them.

One of the best trick for unholy against disc priests and Hpalies is when they pop their inner focus, aura mastery and become immune to interrupts, you can deathgrip them off the initial cast which gives your ghoul a second to regen some energy so you can use your ghoul stun on them asap so they can't cast again while they have their buffs up. With my ghoul, I turn off his auto claw cast and I bind pet attack and pet cast claw to my necrotic and scourge strikes. This way I can have some control over my pet's claw attacks so I can control when I want to pool some energy for a ghoul stun. Also with petattack, if another enemy gets agro from your pet, it'll send the pet back to your current target.

Also, remember, when your ghoul is empowered, his charge becomes a 2 second range interrupt and root, do not underestimate that spell and make sure you have a focus macro for focus charge and focus stun. Make another macro with pet attack mouseover target and make sure you got name plates turned including the health for totems. This is very good against shaman healers that try to kite you with earth bind totem, just mouse over the totem when they drop it and order your pet to destroy it as there is a tiny delay between the totem dropping and you becoming affected by the debuff.


I generally chain my on use trinket and orc racial together just before I pop my gargoyle. If I'm not under much pressure, I would pop unholy frenzy as well before I pop gargoyle as it is a huge boost to the pet's damage output. When your in arena or bgs, make sure you have your target in a desirable position before you summon gargoyle such as on blade's edge arena, summon the pet when your target is on the bottom and not on the bridge as they can simply jump off and your pets will have to go the long way. Its always best to pop it when the enemy is out in the open so they cant pillar kite your pets.

And lastly... always watch your ghoul's health, make a macro to deathcoil heal it, a dead ghoul means a huge chunk of your damage and control is gone.

[Kukkaroinen]

To skygoneblue:
Hungering cold is still an amazing skill. It just has become a bit harder to use but when you manage to get it out, you're on top of the fight. I just had this kind of situation in a 3s setting against a PHD as ret/rogue/dk. In dalaran arena i was at the stairs with the hpala when my rogue and ret were on the dk on the platform and the hunter had just jumped down and was near the stairs.

Gripping the hunter and rooting him, followed by a HC which caught both the hunter and the pally cost them the match. The pally was too busy healing the dk to interrupt in time and hunters can't interrupt from melee range (only silencing shot from range) which made the use of this spell amazing.

If you're not focused and you can get a cast off it's awesome. When there's 2 ppl on you who can interrupt, don't bother.

[Asher13]

K, so just with some quick napkin math, this is quite simple. Using this log (yes I realize it's pve, but it's irrelevant to illustrate this point)
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1291&e=1519
We can see that the avg crit of frost strike (this is dw so combine both mh and oh) you have 57,211. avg crit of OB is 65,873. An 8k Difference. Even IF you add in the actual absorption amount of necrotic strike (this is with 2h, so dw would be even lower) it is about 9k, plus a howling blast that (according to this log) crits for 54k.

SO in order for necro plus hb to be better than OB, you would have to be 2H, plus you would have to get a HB crit to even come close. I know you are going to say *lol armor mitigation nub blah blah* BUT why are you even using hb w/o a rime proc in the first place? (unless of course they are kiting you) With Rime, you get FREE HB and are then able to use the needed runes on OB instead. Not to mention that thanks to Killing machine, you can GUARANTEE those OB crits, rather than the incredibly low crit chance of HB due to reforging everything out of crit.

It actually isn't hard to get this string pulled off at all. Whats the worst class to pull it off on? A mage? AMS prevents any sort of snare, poly, or whatever else they want t throw out at you, plus death grip if they try and get away, and a ranged, 5 second silence preventing them from trying to blink AND your own snare via chillblains. Not to mention the fun you get to have if you catch a Ring of frost, or mirror image with dark sim on them. So go ahead and waste runes on your necro strike and weak HB. I'm going to be killing clothies within 10-15 seconds, who have 4.5k resilience, while my partner CC's the clothies support.

Edit: forgot to mention merciless combat, which increases OB damage EVEN FURTHER when the target is 35% hp or less.

---------- Post added 2012-03-11 at 01:31 PM ----------

There is a great link here for arena junkies that has a complete list of Dark sim spells if you want to take a look.
http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/17...mulacrum-list/

Personal preference though is any good cc you can get (poly, hex, howl of terror, HoJ, cyclone) If you can manage to catch one of these, it can make or break a game.
Divine shield from pallys is hilarious. As is avenging wrath. Haunt is pretty nice for Unholy because it increases the damage of your own dots. Getting a blink is fairly easy, as it's pretty predictable, although sometimes you will get an iceblock instead (which has saved me once or twice). It's best to avoid damaging or healing abilities, as they are really weak, but until you get the timing right, you will most likely end up catching many of these. Keep in mind that dark sim has to be on the target BEFORE it casts so you either have to try and predict it, or catch it mid cast.

[Kukkaroinen]

K, so just with some quick napkin math, this is quite simple. Using this log (yes I realize it's pve, but it's irrelevant to illustrate this point)
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1291&e=1519
We can see that the avg crit of frost strike (this is dw so combine both mh and oh) you have 57,211. avg crit of OB is 65,873. An 8k Difference. Even IF you add in the actual absorption amount of necrotic strike (this is with 2h, so dw would be even lower) it is about 9k, plus a howling blast that (according to this log) crits for 54k.

SO in order for necro plus hb to be better than OB, you would have to be 2H, plus you would have to get a HB crit to even come close. I know you are going to say *lol armor mitigation nub blah blah* BUT why are you even using hb w/o a rime proc in the first place? (unless of course they are kiting you) With Rime, you get FREE HB and are then able to use the needed runes on OB instead. Not to mention that thanks to Killing machine, you can GUARANTEE those OB crits, rather than the incredibly low crit chance of HB due to reforging everything out of crit.

It actually isn't hard to get this string pulled off at all. Whats the worst class to pull it off on? A mage? AMS prevents any sort of snare, poly, or whatever else they want t throw out at you, plus death grip if they try and get away, and a ranged, 5 second silence preventing them from trying to blink AND your own snare via chillblains. Not to mention the fun you get to have if you catch a Ring of frost, or mirror image with dark sim on them. So go ahead and waste runes on your necro strike and weak HB. I'm going to be killing clothies within 10-15 seconds, who have 4.5k resilience, while my partner CC's the clothies support.

Edit: forgot to mention merciless combat, which increases OB damage EVEN FURTHER when the target is 35% hp or less

You're using 2h and dw to compare the dmg of different skills. I couldn't tell, did you use 2h or dw numbers for that HB? If 2h rune of razorice would like to say hi. Another thing is if you counted in that we have a limited amount of talents so as dw you just can't afford speccing into Annihilation.

OB sure does nice dmg to low armor targets no denying that. But you didn't count in that you will have to use CoI a lot which uses your runes to OB. Which leaves you with an NS. Also mobs have a lot lower armor than a plate or even mail class has which makes the use of OB a joke. You can't really bring pve numbers here and say that makes the game.

So a 65k OB crit okay. Now that log also said that HB critted for 54k. NS hits for like 2-3k as dw and absorbs about 9k healing as you said. Now lets use that simple maths. 54k+2k+9k=65k

So what is your point actually? Pvp isn't always about who can do the most dmg. The healing absorb is an awesome mechanic which is usually more pressure than just pure dmg.

Also it seems that the log was done by a haste stacking frost dk. What happens when you go to pvp and stack mastery? Correct, your frost dmg goes up and the effectiveness of OB diminishes even more.

And btw if you by saying that 2h NS stacks are higher mean the fact that 2h has more str you're silly. The difference is about 100 per NS which is nothing when you use only 2 runes for NS as dw anyway. That can also be calculated by simple maths.

[Asher13]

This was a dw dk so yes razorice was in play. So if you are DW you get much stronger HB, but your necro strike hits like a wet noodle, and vice versa for 2H. And again, OB crits can be controlled, and especially as DW, you get a metric crap ton of them, whereas with HB you are lucky if you have 1 in 5 crit. So with these figures, and the ones you threw in as well, using necro and hb exclusively, even with the added heal absorb, is equal to OB, BUT for that to work, they have to be....you know....healing. No heals? Spam that OB. Healer? sure throw in a few necro for good measure, but you will be able to apply more pressure with OB crits all day than MAYBE that lucky hb crit.

You don't have to use Coi a lot at all. That thing called diminishing returns doesn't allow it. You ony get one, possibly two in at the beginning. HB puts the same exact slow on them, and since you are (or should be for the most part) using it on rime procs, you will have plenty of runes for OB. BTW, why not 3/3 in annihilation exactly? Personally, i don't roll desecration so maybe that's it. Don't see much of a reason to with a slow on them due to hb all the time and a feral druid partner.

[fyske]

Great post! I'd like to contribute just a bit to gem section. Rather than use three or four +50 spell pen gemsand an enchant or something, I prefer using two +50 spell pen gems, and a "Vivid Dream Emerald", which is 25 Spell Pen and 20 Resilience, and the cloak enchant with it. This way, I get the exact cap for spell penetration! Its just more efficient!

Also, I saw that some people were discussing obliterate vs. HB and NC! Well, I happen to have video that explains that a little bit. Let me know if this helps!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KWCzSEPRKg

And what about covering Rime? Rime provide a lot of extra damage.

[Kukkaroinen]

And what about covering Rime? Rime provide a lot of extra damage.

Rime is shit. 3 talent points for a 45% chance to get a free HB? Trust me it's a lot better to just ignore OB and Rime and spam that HB

---------- Post added 2012-03-12 at 09:03 AM ----------

This was a dw dk so yes razorice was in play. So if you are DW you get much stronger HB, but your necro strike hits like a wet noodle, and vice versa for 2H. And again, OB crits can be controlled, and especially as DW, you get a metric crap ton of them, whereas with HB you are lucky if you have 1 in 5 crit. So with these figures, and the ones you threw in as well, using necro and hb exclusively, even with the added heal absorb, is equal to OB, BUT for that to work, they have to be....you know....healing. No heals? Spam that OB. Healer? sure throw in a few necro for good measure, but you will be able to apply more pressure with OB crits all day than MAYBE that lucky hb crit.

You don't have to use Coi a lot at all. That thing called diminishing returns doesn't allow it. You ony get one, possibly two in at the beginning. HB puts the same exact slow on them, and since you are (or should be for the most part) using it on rime procs, you will have plenty of runes for OB. BTW, why not 3/3 in annihilation exactly? Personally, i don't roll desecration so maybe that's it. Don't see much of a reason to with a slow on them due to hb all the time and a feral druid partner.

Oh yes it does. And as 2h you can reach 5k hits. 2-3k and 4-5k are both considered wet noodles in a world where ppl have 160k hp. So that point is completely irrelevant.

Tell me one class that has ZERO healing? Every single class has some form of selfhealing and therefore NS stacks are essential. MM hunters are the worst self healers in the pvp world and I wouldn't rly care to use NS against those but every1 else has decent self heals.

OB crits can be controlled yes, but if you use Killing Machine procs for FS it usually ends up better. Especially against highly armored targets.

If you sit w8ing for KM proc without using your runes you're wasting time and dmg ALL THE TIME. You can't w8 for KM to proc. And therefore OB devalues even more.

[fyske]

Rime is shit. 3 talent points for a 45% chance to get a free HB? Trust me it's a lot better to just ignore OB and Rime and spam that HB[COLOR="red"]

I disagree heartily, Rime provide a lot of extra damage, it is random at times yes, but getting both result in a much higher damage than just using two Howling Blast.

[Kukkaroinen]

I disagree heartily, Rime provide a lot of extra damage, it is random at times yes, but getting both result in a much higher damage than just using two Howling Blast.

A lot of extra damage? One extra HB every now and then isn't a lot of extra dmg. Especially when you're supposed not to use OB at all. Unless stars align perfectly (which means you're specced 2h, KM is up, target is a cloth/leather and is <35% hp).

Other than that OB is worse than HB+NS that's about it. If you use OB all the time you fail.

EDIT: How many frost DKs can you see above 2.2k with Rime? I bet 0-1.

[Skygoneblue]

I've thrown in the Unholy input I've gotten, as well as advice on Hungering Cold and Spell Pen gemming. Keep the input coming!

Also guys, please be respectful. We all know Obliterate vs Howling Blast and Necrotic Strike is a topic of much debate, and it's been beaten to death in other threads. Let's keep this thread constructive, and about the guide itself.*

[Stede]

Vengeance no longer works in pvp, i believe.

This. Been that way since the end of January.

[Kukkaroinen]

I've thrown in the Unholy input I've gotten, as well as advice on Hungering Cold and Spell Pen gemming. Keep the input coming!

Also guys, please be respectful. We all know Obliterate vs Howling Blast and Necrotic Strike is a topic of much debate, and it's been beaten to death in other threads. Let's keep this thread constructive, and about the guide itself.*

Ppl should watch some high rated DKs about that OB thing. There shouldn't be a debate at all...

Btw a better way to cap spell pen is to get 2x epic spell pen gems and a cloak enchant (63+63+70=196)
That way you'll have one more gem slot open for a str gem.

[Skygoneblue]

Ppl should watch some high rated DKs about that OB thing. There shouldn't be a debate at all...

And that's why I left the guide saying that most people opt to not use Obliterate. Some people refuse to look at the numbers, and want to keep doing what they're doing. It's their choice. I'm not here to judge - just to relay information.*