WoD Death Knight Changes

[RuneDK]

The trend I'm getting from reading a lot of these posts is this propagated hyperbole that DK's are completely useless and don't contribute anything to the raid. I'll admit our utility doesn't apply on every single fight like a general raid CD does but that doesn't mean they aren't useful. At this moment you wont see guilds stacking DK's but they'll still take you. Your damage isn't number one but either are 9 other classes compared to that one class who destroys a certain fight.

It's the end of the expansion and scaling in this this tier was out of control. If you're good at your DK you'll be relevant, you wont be top 5 dps but you'll still be worth taking if you're a good raider. I highly doubt most people in this thread are even in guilds that are stacking warlocks and boomkins for their progression, that's top tier level of effort and 9/10 guilds wont do that, mainly because they don't have the numbers to do that. In WOD, I'm interested to see how DK's end up. They've slowed down the specs quite a lot which makes it benefit from haste a lot more cause you're not GCD capped in the second tier, unfortunately they're not changing KM which I think is a big problem with our crit scaling and scaling in general and they at least have some idea of what they want DKS to look like when WOD is shipped.

I think you should just enjoy the ride honestly, lol. Good players are good players regardless of what class they are, and the best players aren't going to reroll because some completely irrelevant SimC results showed them not number one or their experience in Beta wasn't them topping dps in an untuned environment.

You realize top ranking guilds were very close to benching their DKs in the beginning of SoO yes? Frost got the biggest buffs of any class and still was barely able to stay relevant after the first week of SoO.

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Mages don't like their level 90 tier because mana management is only relevant for arcane and none of the talents add anything interesting to the gameplay of any spec.

Yea I get that much, but it increases damage....a Frost or Fire Mage(at least in T15) would use evocation eventually. While Invocation needs to be used once a minute, it made them use it more than "normal" for that specific spec.

However, they still get a benefit from all of the talents. I mean, I guess I never saw it as a problem because I main a DK and realized our level 90 talents are an absolute fricken joke. The mage ones weren't interesting but at least they made me do more damage in some way shape or form.

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Enjoy the ride? The same ride DKs have been on for 6+ years? I don't want to be on this ride anymore. I want to get off.

I for one don't care at all about utility, because I'm more of a numbers guy....Yeah, that guy. All I want is for myself to be able to beat other classes on any given fight if I play better than them. It is obviously Blizzard's claimed goal to make every spec close in dps, but unless if they completely change the way some specs work mechanically, this will never come close to happening; and it most likely never will. Ranged classes will always outclass melee for the most part because most fights have targets that end up not being in melee range for any given amount of time. DoT classes will always be stronger on fights with more than one target at range. This is how it has always been, and this is how it will always be most likely. DKs have always, and will always get the short end of the stick.

I will not enjoy this ride, and I will not participate in this ride any longer. Those who are new to DK or those who just don't care about being competitive can stay, but I for one, after years of trying to make the best of shitty class, am ready to give up. Up until SoO, I had no other max-level characters other than my DK, because I was so devoted to the class. I prided myself on being one of the best DKs, despite being in an awful guild, but after realizing how terrible DKs would once again be, I decided to level up a mage and gear it out as an alt. Now, I prefer to play my mage any time I can, and plan to main switch come WoD. I hope that most of you who are on the edge of dropping the class will finally do so, you won't regret it.

I would rather just get off the train completely. Rerolling doesn't do much. Yea they will see a class with low representation and then buff it's damage instead of fixing what should be fixed. The only way they will listen is if they lose subscribers. I thought after losing 3.2M subs during MoP would make them get this, but apparently not. It seems they are just banking on people to just return because it's a new expansion. Personally with a lot of the crap they are doing I would be surprised if wow ever got back to 9m subs. I've said it before, WoD is the perfect expansion if you don't like game play. The setting is the best part, however the game play of numerous classes is utter garbage.

[psyquest]

and for people that jump and say "festerblight":

the spec was "invented" by players to my knowledge and caught blizzard completely off guard
festerblight worked because ....of one trinket that end up being nerfed and rogue ToT that got nerfed!

So to sum up.

Between two players of equal skill, a warrior is more useful to a raid than a dk; it brought better dps and a raid cd
DKs have been bottom tiers most of MOP with the exception of the festerblight time.
frost has been played with a rotation that completely ignore procs. Seriously just this is bad enough.

what else to say?

[RuneDK]

and for people that jump and say "festerblight":

the spec was "invented" by players to my knowledge and caught blizzard completely off guard
festerblight worked because ....of one trinket that end up being nerfed and rogue ToT that got nerfed!

So to sum up.

Between two players of equal skill, a warrior is more useful to a raid than a dk; it brought better dps and a raid cd
DKs have been bottom tiers most of MOP with the exception of the festerblight time.
frost has been played with a rotation that completely ignore procs. Seriously just this is bad enough.

what else to say?

As I said, the only times DKs have truly shined is from unexpected play styles a la DW unholy in early cata and festerblight. I am still surprised they get "caught off guard" when their player base finds a unique way to alter the play style of a class completely. I thought by now they would have quality QA employees trying to figure this shit out.

[Crucifix]

Enjoy the ride? The same ride DKs have been on for 6+ years? I don't want to be on this ride anymore. I want to get off.

I for one don't care at all about utility, because I'm more of a numbers guy....Yeah, that guy. All I want is for myself to be able to beat other classes on any given fight if I play better than them. It is obviously Blizzard's claimed goal to make every spec close in dps, but unless if they completely change the way some specs work mechanically, this will never come close to happening; and it most likely never will. Ranged classes will always outclass melee for the most part because most fights have targets that end up not being in melee range for any given amount of time. DoT classes will always be stronger on fights with more than one target at range. This is how it has always been, and this is how it will always be most likely. DKs have always, and will always get the short end of the stick.

Then you should reroll for every fight because every class has certain fights where they'll do better than other classes. It's a stupid philosophy to have, if you want to be competitive, get good ranks and be competitive don't bitch and moan about it. You said yourself you were in an awful guild so how do you even know if you're good? Basically from your post you don't actually understand that some classes have things built into them that make them better on certain fights and this isn't going to change. If you have a victim complex like most posters on this thread/forum then continue to make excuses under the guise of wanting to be competitive. I'm an incredibly competitive player and I'm not going to reroll just so I can "be more competitive" when the entire point of warcraft logs is to compare you to other DK's. You're not competing against every other class you're competing against other people playing your class.

And just to address:

You realize top ranking guilds were very close to benching their DKs in the beginning of SoO yes? Frost got the biggest buffs of any class and still was barely able to stay relevant after the first week of SoO.

I mean other than [Citation needed] I never denied that people don't replace classes for certain progression fights. But if a Guild could and were inclined to they'd literally bench 6 classes to do it, it's not just a DK problem.

To wrap up, you can still beat other classes in DPS, you're not completely useless and you can still get ranks against other DKs if you want to be competitive. To me it sounds like a lot of you just want to reroll so its easy to do well compared to other classes but I doubt you'd even rank against good players playing the classes you're rerolling to.

[RuneDK]

Then you should reroll for every fight because every class has certain fights where they'll do better than other classes. It's a stupid philosophy to have, if you want to be competitive, get good ranks and be competitive don't bitch and moan about it. You said yourself you were in an awful guild so how do you even know if you're good? Basically from your post you don't actually understand that some classes have things built into them that make them better on certain fights and this isn't going to change. If you have a victim complex like most posters on this thread/forum then continue to make excuses under the guise of wanting to be competitive. I'm an incredibly competitive player and I'm not going to reroll just so I can "be more competitive" when the entire point of warcraft logs is to compare you to other DK's. You're not competing against every other class you're competing against other people playing your class.

And just to address:



I mean other than [Citation needed] I never denied that people don't replace classes for certain progression fights. But if a Guild could and were inclined to they'd literally bench 6 classes to do it, it's not just a DK problem.

To wrap up, you can still beat other classes in DPS, you're not completely useless and you can still get ranks against other DKs if you want to be competitive. To me it sounds like a lot of you just want to reroll so its easy to do well compared to other classes but I doubt you'd even rank against good players playing the classes you're rerolling to.

My guild was pretty crappy, I was constantly Top 3. Whenever I complained in raid chat about problems with the class people said DKs are OP anyways look at what you do for damage...and you think you should do more? Given gear I "could possibly" compete with top players. I have always been behind gear wise because I have never finished a tier completely since TBC. My attitude towards raiding has been more about fun than progression. However as I am getting older I am realizing I would rather progress in two days than play with a bunch of people who are my "friends" for three and be miserably wiping for 7/8 of the 9 hours over three days.

However my point is simply agreeing with you in your first response to Iysdexia that he probably doesn't know how good he is. In wotlk before my guild fell apart during ICC(right before I main swapped to my DK) we had a mage applicant talk as if he was the best mage on the server in his application. He came from a much less progressed guild but still had comparable to better gear than me. It was fun putting him in his place making him realize he was a big fish in a small pond when he came over to my guild(top guild on the server at the time). Dude was apologizing to all the mages and I for being an arrogant prick in his app after the first week of raiding. I miss that guild, was so much more fun being in a guild that competed for server firsts(I dont really care about world firsts).

Going into your point directed at me, no they wouldn't bench all six other classes not performing. You must forget the point in SoO(before the January hot fix buffs) that had Unholy AND Frost well behind every class. Aside from GG we were an absolute liability to the raid on DPS checks in early SoO progression. People were very close to being benched or benching themselves for holding their guilds back. Then the classic Blizzard response was DKs don't have any fights to shine on, they are fine. Then about a month or less later we get buffed.

[Iysdexia]

Then you should reroll for every fight because every class has certain fights where they'll do better than other classes. It's a stupid philosophy to have, if you want to be competitive, get good ranks and be competitive don't bitch and moan about it. You said yourself you were in an awful guild so how do you even know if you're good? Basically from your post you don't actually understand that some classes have things built into them that make them better on certain fights and this isn't going to change. If you have a victim complex like most posters on this thread/forum then continue to make excuses under the guise of wanting to be competitive. I'm an incredibly competitive player and I'm not going to reroll just so I can "be more competitive" when the entire point of warcraft logs is to compare you to other DK's. You're not competing against every other class you're competing against other people playing your class.

I understand that some classes have a specialty that makes them excel at a certain fight, but there isn't a different class that dominates each fight. It's always the same classes that are good all-around, and thus excel on most of the fights. The only fights where otherwise bad specs excel are fights like galakras for ele shamans, thok for hunters, and spoils for frost dks. However, you will notice that despite being excellent on those fights, mages and warlocks are also excellent on those fights, if not better while also being the best on every other fight in the tier. This is how it has always been, and this is how it will always be.

I also understand that I can be competitive within my spec as shown on warcraftlogs, but there is also competition between other specs, classes, and players, which is also shown on warcraftlogs. I want to be competitive between everything, and I won't find that with a DK. I pride myself on trying to be the best. I get good ranks as a DK, just look up my name on warcraftlogs. However, I'm more concerned with how I compare to other classes/specs, because it's very disheartening to see a 90th percentile player pull more dps than my 99th percentile attempts simply because of their class.

To wrap up, you can still beat other classes in DPS, you're not completely useless and you can still get ranks against other DKs if you want to be competitive. To me it sounds like a lot of you just want to reroll so its easy to do well compared to other classes but I doubt you'd even rank against good players playing the classes you're rerolling to.

I don't think you know what it is like to be competitive. I can beat other classes in dps, but a player of equal skill playing a mage will ALWAYS beat me in dps on every single fight. Even a mage of slightly lesser skill will always beat me. We're not completely useless, but we are outclasses in almost every single way by other available classes, making us as close to useless as possible. We can be competitive between other DKs, but you don't seem to believe that people can be competitive outside of their own class. I've also already rerolled technically, and as it turns out, I rank on my mage just as consistently as I do on my DK. You are a twat.

[Crucifix]

Going into your point directed at me, no they wouldn't bench all six other classes not performing. You must forget the point in SoO(before the January hot fix buffs) that had Unholy AND Frost well behind every class. Aside from GG we were an absolute liability to the raid on DPS checks in early SoO progression. People were very close to being benched or benching themselves for holding their guilds back. Then the classic Blizzard response was DKs don't have any fights to shine on, they are fine. Then about a month or less later we get buffed.

Yes they would. You can't have it both ways. If this hypothetical guild or guilds is benching classes, in your example DK's, because of under performance than it isn't a stretch for them to bench classes that don't perform as well as other classes in general. In this specific case maybe DK's were so bad they were getting benched but if this guild is in such a tight race and such a high rate of progression that the DPS discrepancies between classes is whats holding them back then you can bet your ass they'll replace other classes for the same benefit. That isn't a normal guild mentality, even decent progression guilds don't do that. This honestly just comes across as another reason to whine, yes we got buffed because we weren't where we needed to be, high end prog guilds still have DK's. The sky isn't falling, good players are still good and will get raid spots.

AND just to clarify, if you're in a guild that is benching entire classes based on number performances, you probably wont be complaining as much about it because you've most likely got an alt they're stacking anyway. It's just a completely different mentality to what most people experience in raiding. It's a next level of raiding which requires you to understand that some classes are better than others on certain fights. It's the lock/boomkin paragon progression or stacking paladins for BoPs during certain fights or having frost mages for Will. You will not get perfect balance in all stages of progression for all types of guilds.

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Let's try and wade through this incessant complaining.

I understand that some classes have a specialty that makes them excel at a certain fight, but there isn't a different class that dominates each fight. It's always the same classes that are good all-around, and thus excel on most of the fights. The only fights where otherwise bad specs excel are fights like galakras for ele shamans, thok for hunters, and spoils for frost dks. However, you will notice that despite being excellent on those fights, mages and warlocks are also excellent on those fights, if not better while also being the best on every other fight in the tier. This is how it has always been, and this is how it will always be.

You're falling in to the trap of your recent experience = always. For this specific situation it's the end of the tier. Scaling has notable gone out of control and so classes with high scaling such as feral druids, warriors, mages and warlocks are in a position where they can dominate a lot of fights. That doesn't mean that DK's are completely trash and not worth taking. At the start of the expansion, DK's absolutely destroyed classes and they were easily one of the best classes during ToT until the end when we hit specific caps on stats and our scaling factors kicked in. It comes in waves and just because you can't remember these times because your life has been so traumatized from your recent SoO experience doesn't make your point anything more than whining because your class isn't number one.

I also understand that I can be competitive within my spec as shown on warcraftlogs, but there is also competition between other specs, classes, and players, which is also shown on warcraftlogs. I want to be competitive between everything, and I won't find that with a DK. I pride myself on trying to be the best. I get good ranks as a DK, just look up my name on warcraftlogs. However, I'm more concerned with how I compare to other classes/specs, because it's very disheartening to see a 90th percentile player pull more dps than my 99th percentile attempts simply because of their class.

What do you actually want? Do you want rank one overall? Then roll a warlock and make your guild build the raid around you and pad on adds. Truly competitive game play. If you're ranking well then that's it, you're doing what you can. DK's will scale up and down depending on how the tiers go and you can't change that, if you're so absolutely infatuated with being the best then you're going to have to reroll every tier to do it. Classes will never be perfectly balanced across all stages of progression and fights. Deal with it or quit.

I don't think you know what it is like to be competitive. I can beat other classes in dps, but a player of equal skill playing a mage will ALWAYS beat me in dps on every single fight. Even a mage of slightly lesser skill will always beat me. We're not completely useless, but we are outclasses in almost every single way by other available classes, making us as close to useless as possible. We can be competitive between other DKs, but you don't seem to believe that people can be competitive outside of their own class. I've also already rerolled technically, and as it turns out, I rank on my mage just as consistently as I do on my DK. You are a twat.

So I guess this tier is the only telltale tier of DK potential according to you. WoD hasn't even dropped, no one has even completed a raid and you're throwing out that DK's are totally outclassed and one step above useless. This tier; Does. Not. Matter. It's over. Blizz fucked up the scaling like they do nearly every expansion now and higher scaling classes benefit the most out of it. Yes it highlights a problem with DK scaling but hopefully blizz is actually looking at it and seeing what they can do. You can rank outside of your own class but its totally useless in doing so after a while. You're playing with different tools and your classes have different strengths. To be honest if you're looking for perfect balance, just quit because clearly you can't enjoy the game anymore when you're so obsessed that other classes are better than yours on certain fights. This will always be the case. I don't know if this is some wake up call but other classes have had just as many problems as DK's over the years and the good players from those classes still truck on because they don't let their class decide whether they're a good player or not. If you're ranking high on your mage then play your mage and will you be complaining next tier in their forums if warlocks do more than you?

[Iysdexia]

This isn't recent experience. This is experience from all past tiers minus ToT where I didn't play. Apparently DKs got lucky that tier because they found an unintended playstyle that revolved around one trinket being broken for them. This was a fluke. Will it happen again? Maybe, but I doubt it. Other than ToT, DKs have been outclassed by other melee every tier, and were still even outclassed probably by mages and warlocks in ToT. This is my problem with the class, but you just don't seem to realize just how much better other classes are/have been. Have other classes been overall worse than DKs? Yes. However, no class has been consistently bad like DKs have been over the last 3 expansions.

I would love for DKs to be the best class numbers-wise, but I know that will never happen. I just want the class to be able to feel useful outside of grips. Most tiers that is all we are brought for. I also won't have to reroll each tier to be the best if I main switch to my mage, because MAGES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE BEST CLASSES NUMBERS-WISE EVERY SINGLE TIER.

There is no potential for DKs. It's been 4 years since Cata released (I won't include WotlK since DKs were relatively new), and many of the problems since the first tier of Cata still exist today in the WoD beta. 2h frost will be slightly above middle of the pack for all specs, still under warriors and rogues, and will be completely outclassed in cleave and utility. DW, unless if changes to HB are made, will not even be a niche spec for cleave/AoE fights, and unholy will be unplayable. This is how it was at the beginning of MoP, and this is how it was at the beginning of Cata.

[Crucifix]

DK's were quite good in MSV and the whole first tier. They were good in ToT even without festerblight, that just overshadowed everything if you got a Feather. If you used Simcraft as a measure DK's were simming higher than every other class in 522 ilvl. I don't believe DK's were outclassed by every other melee class when Ret Paladins have been known to have major problems. On that note I'd say Ret paladins and Shadow priests have both had their fair share of under performance consistency.

I'll be honest I thought about rerolling because I figured mastering a mage would benefit me more in the long run. It probably will if I decide to do it. In saying that I understand that it also comes down to what I enjoy playing and I think DK's are unique in a lot of ways with their resource system and frankly I've put a lot of time in being proficient with the class. I'll say it again though, if you're only caring about being the top then just reroll and stop complaining about DK's because clearly you'll get what you want. While I understand your frustration I don't understand what you hope to achieve out of it.

Warriors have had scaling problems early in expansions since god knows when, in fact, DKs beat them in the first tier nearly every time. Rogues are the same, without sufficient secondary stats they aren't as effective. This is a blessing and a curse for DK's, it makes them good early and fall off late. I also think HB can be incredibly strong AoE, I don't understand how it is bad? Due to the nature of it benefits most from adds that are reasonably durable but don't stay around long enough for DoT ticks to out dps it but it's none the less good.

Look I'm not hating on your opinion that changes can be made to DK's and it feels at times if they're never reaching the potential of the class but a lot of that stems from late tiers and not for the majority of the expansion. I think that can be addressed and changed if the devs were inclined too but they'll never have DKs bottom of the tables for an entire expansion, they'll bandaid fix something if they have to. This seems like a personal issue anyway, you want to have your ego stroked by having high numbers on every fight, through the entire expansion. I doubt that will happen because classes have strengths and weaknesses but if you want to reroll to help yourself achieve that goal then do it. Good luck.

It's a perfectly valid opinion to have.

[RuneDK]

DK's were quite good in MSV and the whole first tier. They were good in ToT even without festerblight, that just overshadowed everything if you got a Feather. If you used Simcraft as a measure DK's were simming higher than every other class in 522 ilvl. I don't believe DK's were outclassed by every other melee class when Ret Paladins have been known to have major problems. On that note I'd say Ret paladins and Shadow priests have both had their fair share of under performance consistency.

I'll be honest I thought about rerolling because I figured mastering a mage would benefit me more in the long run. It probably will if I decide to do it. In saying that I understand that it also comes down to what I enjoy playing and I think DK's are unique in a lot of ways with their resource system and frankly I've put a lot of time in being proficient with the class. I'll say it again though, if you're only caring about being the top then just reroll and stop complaining about DK's because clearly you'll get what you want. While I understand your frustration I don't understand what you hope to achieve out of it.

Warriors have had scaling problems early in expansions since god knows when, in fact, DKs beat them in the first tier nearly every time. Rogues are the same, without sufficient secondary stats they aren't as effective. This is a blessing and a curse for DK's, it makes them good early and fall off late. I also think HB can be incredibly strong AoE, I don't understand how it is bad? Due to the nature of it benefits most from adds that are reasonably durable but don't stay around long enough for DoT ticks to out dps it but it's none the less good.

Look I'm not hating on your opinion that changes can be made to DK's and it feels at times if they're never reaching the potential of the class but a lot of that stems from late tiers and not for the majority of the expansion. I think that can be addressed and changed if the devs were inclined too but they'll never have DKs bottom of the tables for an entire expansion, they'll bandaid fix something if they have to. This seems like a personal issue anyway, you want to have your ego stroked by having high numbers on every fight, through the entire expansion. I doubt that will happen because classes have strengths and weaknesses but if you want to reroll to help yourself achieve that goal then do it. Good luck.

It's a perfectly valid opinion to have.

I didn't read everything, but based on what I bolded you clearly have no idea what the hell you are talking about. While some DKs still played frost through ToT it doesn't mean it was viable. Festerblight was the top dps dk playstyle by a lot. Normal unholy and frost were pretty insignificant in comparison to Festerblight. Dks were not good in the slightest in ToT, especially frost, aside from Festerblight.

[Schizoide]

It was viable. People need to be careful saying things weren't viable. It's almost never true. Viable is not synonymous with competitive.

It was nowhere near competitive with Festerblight, which was the #1 spec in the entire game for most of ToT.

[Crucifix]

Well, I raided in a top guild during ToT, I got very high ranks playing frost and I wasn't dominated by the other classes in my raid so I'm not exactly sure where you're getting your information. Hell, I literally never got a feather during progression at all and while I definitely felt the crunch as we fell off during the end of ToT, so much so that I even became less interested in raiding in general, I would never say we were "unviable". You guys throw that word around but seem to have no idea what it means.

Just while we're making arguments from anecdotal evidence.

[Schizoide]

Yes, that sort of thing comes up often. Fact of the matter is that what looks like a large disparity in WCL stack ranks can often be overcome through superior play, gear, latency, and of course the almighty RNG. Plenty of guilds have non-warlocks as their top performers even today.

That doesn't mean balance is unimportant, far from it. You had to work harder than anyone else knew to be at the top during ToT as frost.

[Deleted]

Hi,

actually i havent a beta entrance and so have 1-2 questions about the dk.

1) Are there major changes in tanking (blood) ?

2) Does Death Strike heal you twice with MS ?

3) Whats our current stat priority ?

4) Are all tanks classes balanced ?

[Stacie]

To be fair, if a guild needs to decide between a warrior who dies a lot or a DK who doesn't die a lot they won't care if the warrior does more DPS, they will pick the person who can live through a fight. After all, dead dps is zero dps.

If you are dieing allot in a high end guild you should not pass the trial if you do somehow pass ofc take the one who does not die. But really how many high end guilds will carry a slacker for long periods of time. If they die allot they are crap and should be kicked out and left to join a more suited guild. Or made social or just as a filler if no one is around.

[Schizoide]

It's important to differentiate between survivability due to player skill and class abilities. Player skill always varies.

PvE DPS spec survivability seems pretty well balanced between warriors and DKs. Warriors can spec into much better healing with less tradeoff, but DKs have baseline AMS and Butcher aside, most AE raid damage is spell damage.

[Saiyendra]

It was viable. People need to be careful saying things weren't viable. It's almost never true. Viable is not synonymous with competitive.

It was nowhere near competitive with Festerblight, which was the #1 spec in the entire game for most of ToT.

Festerblight was most certainly not #1, especially when things like Demonology warlocks equipped with Unerring Vision of Lei Shen were around. Also, a great amount of that perceived DPS came from padding on fights like Tortos and did not translate into effective DPS.

[Grubjuice]

Hi,

actually i havent a beta entrance and so have 1-2 questions about the dk.

1) Are there major changes in tanking (blood) ?

2) Does Death Strike heal you twice with MS ?

3) Whats our current stat priority ?

4) Are all tanks classes balanced ?

1) Rune Tap no longer heals, instead it must be used preemptively to prevent damage. You tend to spam blood boil now that Heart Strike is gone. New lvl 100 talents...

2) Death Strike's attack can multi-strike for more damage, but if that happens it won't heal you twice, and the heal won't multi-strike. But multi-strike still has value because your auto-attack multi-strikes grant Runic Power (which can be converted to healing through conversion, or converted to increased max health by way of Death Coils through the level 90+ perks, and to refresh runes through the lvl 60 talents.)

3) tuning has not finished yet. But any non-armor item with Bonus Armor is for tanks. Bonus Armor is intended to be a preferred but uncommon secondary stat.

4) no, see 3)

[Schizoide]

Festerblight was most certainly not #1, especially when things like Demonology warlocks equipped with Unerring Vision of Lei Shen were around. Also, a great amount of that perceived DPS came from padding on fights like Tortos and did not translate into effective DPS.

It absolutely was #1 by the best measure of the time, raidbots all parses median spec score in both 10H and 25H. You're right that it did include padding, but spec score minimizes the impact of "gimmick" fights, and other specs could pad too.

[RuneDK]

It was viable. People need to be careful saying things weren't viable. It's almost never true. Viable is not synonymous with competitive.

It was nowhere near competitive with Festerblight, which was the #1 spec in the entire game for most of ToT.

It was #2 for about half of ToT. Once they fixed it so tricks didn't effect disease damage unholy even in FB went to about middle of the pack. However that was with a bug with RC and rppm. The unintended rppm bug made unholy "overpowered" and once they fixed it in 5.4 unholy went to the shitter before the january buffs.

However to be grossly overpowered you NEEDED a rogue for tricks.

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Well, I raided in a top guild during ToT, I got very high ranks playing frost and I wasn't dominated by the other classes in my raid so I'm not exactly sure where you're getting your information. Hell, I literally never got a feather during progression at all and while I definitely felt the crunch as we fell off during the end of ToT, so much so that I even became less interested in raiding in general, I would never say we were "unviable". You guys throw that word around but seem to have no idea what it means.

Just while we're making arguments from anecdotal evidence.

I believe you're lying sorry. There was a DK named Nedda on these forums. Got numerous high ranks and even a #1 rank as frost. He was getting destroyed by his guild mates. So I'm sorry but you're full of shit.

Every spec is viable by technical terms. However I guess I should have said we weren't competitive without festerblight.