5.2 Unholy viable again?

[Deleted]

Am sure this has been answered before but what was the average gargoyle damage now on the PTR with raid buffs?

[Brolandi]

Unholy is viable as is, and will (mostly) only get easier to play in 5.2... most of the changes are QoL, if not minor increases

if by viable you meant "will more people play it?" Then probably yes, I anticipate some dks might actually give it a try now.

[Orangetai420]

Define viable.

Unholy is far from unplayable on live, it just doesn't see a lot of use because frost is better in most situations.

Viable's definition doesn't change, people just confuse viable with competitive.

[Deleted]

It will be intresting to see how T15 set 4 will affect the DK dps charts(assuming that the current SR at 45% + affected by KM holds), if they don't change it could be the boost that unholy needs to get to the top, will see.

[Shiira]

In its current state the t15 four set is almost exactly equal for all three specs.

[Nangz]

Viable's definition doesn't change, people just confuse viable with competitive.

Neither viable nor competitive's definition changes. People just confuse it with optimal

[rap87]

Any chance we'll see Unholy as top dps for Dks? 5.2? If not for me that means I'm not playing it...but I'd like to.

[Schizoide]

Sure, on fights that contain important/damage-buffed execute phases or sustained AE on high-health targets. If those fights exist, unholy will win. If not, probably not.

Either way, if you enjoy unholy it will be much less annoying to play and more competitive in 5.2.

[rap87]

Well my issue is I enjoyed DW Frost just as much...problem for Unholy is there are way too many fights this tier that had cleave dmg that let it not really be viable for the 1 fight it could really get a great execute and its single target was just good enough to be competitive. Vs DW Frost best Single Target and Cleave...no choice really.

For Unholy to Viable it needs to be the strongest single target and get some cleave...or stay the same single target and get some stronger cleave. However, if it's just going to be acceptable with no real advantages in any direction over the others it just won't be picked regardless.

[Schizoide]

Be careful talking about viable as people will catch you on it and pedantically say "Unholy is viable". Viable is largely meaningless, because you could form a raid of 10 druids and progress through heroic content, it would just be more difficult. Talk about competitive, not viable. Anyway, speaking of pedantry, I digress.

I basically agree with your second paragraph, substituting competitive for viable. Like I said earlier, Unholy does have advantages in execute and sustained AE. They just don't come up often.

[rap87]

Be careful talking about viable as people will catch you on it and pedantically say "Unholy is viable". Viable is largely meaningless, because you could form a raid of 10 druids and progress through heroic content, it would just be more difficult. Talk about competitive, not viable. Anyway, speaking of pedantry, I digress.

I basically agree with your second paragraph, substituting competitive for viable. Like I said earlier, Unholy does have advantages in execute and sustained AE. They just don't come up often.

Well yeah ^ that's what I was getting at really. Any chance they are "trying" to then make Unholy Competitive this patch or not as much? I like DW Frost, but wouldn't mind switching it up for a tier.

[Shiira]

Unholy is getting some pretty nice quality of life changes, but it's going to need some mechanics overhauled to as versatile as dw frost currently is.

In terms of single target damage on patchwerk bosses unholy is absolutely competitive, if you keep in mind that unholy is always better than it sims because we aren't the best unholy frenzy target. Unfortunately most bosses are not patchwerk, and it can be difficult to evaluate the usefulness of frenzy on other players.

[Schizoide]

Now that it's not an enrage, does anyone actually use unholy frenzy on other players? I mean, I guess other specs probably value haste more than unholy, but it's such a small difference.

[Shiira]

It's not just about how much the other specs value haste though, it's a combination of that and whether or not they have good cooldowns of their own that we can stack it with.

Frenzy on a ret paladin is pretty crazy.

And whether or not people are actually using frenzy optimally isn't relevant.

[Schizoide]

Relevant to what? Your chinese delivery order last tuesday? It was a question, I asked it, I'm curious as to the answer.

[Shiira]

My point is that people using frenzy on themselves just because it's probably a relatively small damage loss compared to using it optimally isn't relevant because it's still a damage loss. When I discuss raiding as a death knight I prefer to ignore the possibility of people intentionally reducing the performance of their raid when there is nothing to gain from doing so. How are we supposed to discuss anything if we need to account for people playing however they feel like at the time?

And the answer depends on who you are asking about anyway. From my experiences people are lazy, and those who aren't aiming for high ranked kills will tend to care more about their own performance than the performance of the raid. Are you asking about everyone? The top 10%? The top 1%? I don't really know much about the raiding community overall, but I prefer to do things in what I consider to be the right way. Others may disagree.

[Laroux]

for Unholy is there are way too many fights this tier that had cleave dmg that let it not really be viable for the 1 fight it could really get a great execute and its single target was just good enough to be competitive. Vs DW Frost best Single Target and Cleave...no choice really.

For Unholy to Viable it needs to be the strongest single target and get some cleave...or stay the same single target and get some stronger cleave.

Unholy cleave on 3+ targets is amazing, just requires more management with buffed diseases and ensuring that your ghoul when DT is up is cleaving 3 targets and not just 2 or worse, just 1 (you have to check your position).

Its cleave will be even stronger come mid/endgame 5.2. No 5.1 tier pieces that where pretty bad for unholy this time and the fact that the next tier's huge ilvl difference will allow greater flexibility with all the additional stats. Crit for unholy is not devalued as it is with frost nor is haste and mastery is not that far behind, it's overall scaling on those 3 stats alone is really good.

All unholy needs next patch to put the icing on the cake is another 2 trinkets similar to Le Shins and Relic that give a bunch of strength on a 45 sec ICD; only these trinkets in 5.2 will give out a bunch more strength due to the ilvl gap into the next tier.

[Schizoide]

Oh you're talking about high ranked kills; ie people going for region-firsts, not just progression. I don't much care about that level of play because it's such a vanishingly infinitesimal portion of the population but yeah, obviously those players will go for any performance gain, even if tiny.

[Shiira]

Well yes, I'm not talking about people who aren't even aiming for maximum performance.

I'm not being elitist or anything, I just don't think the data from that level of play is useful to me.

[Schizoide]

Sure, if you're part of that very small elite group going for region firsts. I hope you can see how that level of play doesn't apply to most of us, though.