Is unholy viable for serious raiding?

[baezer89]

Hey everyone. I've always been intrigued by unholy but never was serious about leveling/gearing him because there are so few unholy dk's (in my experience) in raids. I've only ever seen a blood or frost but hardly ever unholy. With this past buff to unholy might is unholy dks a competitive class for BOTh single target and aoe fights?

[Ghazan Julio]

Supposedly, Unholy is only slighty under dps rank of frost. So you shouldn't have too much trouble being decent dps as it. Death Knights certainly aren't shining as a dps class now though.

[Kraeth]

With the recent buffs Unholy is not only viable but more or less the best dk dps spec right now. Prebuffs UH was actually ahead of frost in many of encounters I believe.

[Acelius]

With the recent buffs Unholy is not only viable but more or less the best dk dps spec right now. Prebuffs UH was actually ahead of frost in many of encounters I believe.

I have to disagree. Unholy might be good on single-target fights, but with fights that demand target-switching and instant burst, frost is by far better. Unholy is viable, sure. But i'm convinced that Frost, DW admittedly, will outshine it at higher gear levels.

[Shiira]

You can raid as unholy if you want, but it shares weapons with warriors.

Who do you think most serious guilds would rather give weapons to?

[Deleted]

You can clear 14/14 heroic with any spec. Maybe not any comp, but certainly any spec.

"Serious heroic raiding" would mean playing the optimal spec or even rerolling to a better suited class for your guild though, so it depends on how you define your question.

[Vereesa]

Yes, Unholy is highly competitive after the recent hotfix buffs, sometimes far surpassing both DW and 2H Frost.

[FluFF]

You can raid as unholy if you want, but it shares weapons with warriors.

Who do you think most serious guilds would rather give weapons to?

By that logic you shouldn't play a mage / ele shaman / shadow priest cause they share weapons with Warlocks.

Anyway most ''serious'' raiding guilds won't have a dps dk anyway in the current form ( unless you had him for years now and you know him well )

[ripponesan]

Even if the majority says "it is viable", and even if they are right, You still may have a raidleader that thinks otherwise and therefor will give you a hard time.

[Shiira]

By that logic you shouldn't play a mage / ele shaman / shadow priest cause they share weapons with Warlocks.

Death knights have the option of respeccing frost and using strength one handers, a weapon type that no other dps in the game wants right now.

Apart from the casters that can use maces the rest are stuck with the same weapons that warlocks want.

Weapon upgrades mean a hell of a lot less for casters than they do for melee anyway.

[Kraeth]

By that logic you shouldn't play a mage / ele shaman / shadow priest cause they share weapons with Warlocks.

Anyway most ''serious'' raiding guilds won't have a dps dk anyway in the current form ( unless you had him for years now and you know him well )

Comparing casters (aka stat sticks) to melee who get a lot more from weapons is kinda pointless. Add to that the fact that dw is pretty solid and there's no competition for onehanders? He's got a pretty good point.

[Aerdil]

Yep, Unholy is even more than just viable for serious raiding
On single target dps is just really great
For example:
Unholy, Juggernaut
Frost, Juggernaut
So, unholy's dps on jugg is on par with BM hunters, Fury warrs, boomkins,a little below than fire mages. Thats why unholy's dps is just fine I pressume

[Darkfriend]

By that logic you shouldn't play a mage / ele shaman / shadow priest cause they share weapons with Warlocks.

Anyway most ''serious'' raiding guilds won't have a dps dk anyway in the current form ( unless you had him for years now and you know him well )

Most srs raiding guilds have cleared the content 4 months ago.

[Raikh]

Comparing casters (aka stat sticks) to melee who get a lot more from weapons is kinda pointless. Add to that the fact that dw is pretty solid and there's no competition for onehanders? He's got a pretty good point.

weapon spell power = weapon dps in terms of dps gain, were not in wotlk anymore.

Unholy is fine atm, sure there are some fights where frost wins, but there also fights unholy wins.

Unholy wins ST burst, execute dmg, but has less sustained than frost for that case.
Unholy wins in sustained AoE, Frost wins burst AoE
Unholy has more passive dmg, Frost more on demand burst

They're both about equal and can both be used in progressive environment

For item distribution: You can turn that around as much as you want,its a reason, but not a sufficient to deny the spec, there are really enough weapon dropps, especially in 25 man and in 10 man you rarely have dk + warri. Also unholy is not really weapon reliant, scales only barely better than sec stats in BiS.

[Shiira]

weapon spell power = weapon dps in terms of dps gain, were not in wotlk anymore.

Compare the amount of spellpower casters get from their weapons to their total spellpower, now compare the amount of weapon damage melee get from their weapons to their total weapon damage.

Weapons are still more important for melee, the difference is just smaller now.

[Raikh]

Compare the amount of spellpower casters get from their weapons to their total spellpower, now compare the amount of weapon damage melee get from their weapons to their total weapon damage.

Weapons are still more important for melee, the difference is just smaller now.

Take spell power scaling for casters and weapon dps scaling for melees. You'll get around the same dps numbers. The buff is additional on both sides and attack power takes in way more dmg than the actual weapon does or atleast similar, including the avg of stat procs, theres little difference, except for some cases of incredibly high/low weapon/spell power dependence.

[Sliippy]

As far as I'm concerned it's the better spec.

[Danii]

I'm curious to see the updated versions of the dps chart to come.
I myself like UH a lot too, but have only ever seen Frost on the PvE stage that is. This is sad, cause I've seen Frost, Fire and Arcane mages as well as Demo, Affli and Destru locks around.

I think UH should have a fair chance now with the recent buffs.

[FluFF]

Most srs raiding guilds have cleared the content 4 months ago.

I highly doubt ''serious'' raiding guilds cleared HC SoO 1 month after release, maybe on realms that have a 2.000 people queue on new releases ( note that when we talk ''serious'' guilds we're talking about more than world top 10, which is another league all together from your average '' we do hc raids serious'' guild on your local realm )

Anyway I couldn't care less , I got trolled once by ICC which lasted a year and then I got trolled with DS lasting 10 months so I dropped out after doing SoO on Flex and Normal when Blizzcon made it clear that SoO would be the 3th ''non year long last expansion raid''

[Equalizer]

Yes, Unholy is highly competitive after the recent hotfix buffs, sometimes far surpassing both DW and 2H Frost.

Would you mind expanding on the bolded part? I tried Unholy for the first time last week on our first night farm bosses (10m heroic up to spoils) and the only fight I did more dps was on Iron Juggernaut and Malkorok. I didn't get to do Shamans or Nazgrim, but I am usually on bitch duty for those anyways.

I was finding that for UH to actually pull ahead you need to have your raid strat tailored to it, otherwise frost seems better.

My guild is almost done H: paragons and while I do see Unholy doing quite well on H: Garrosh 25m, I'm hesitant to switch to it for 10m.