Thread: Unholy Opener

Page 1 of 2
1
2
LastLast
  1. #1
    Deleted

    Unholy Opener

    So after getting abit bored with spamming 2 buttons as frost i've decided to go to unholy.

    My armoury: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...r/Gazdk/simple

    Gears abit miss matched, pvp and some heroic tank bits in there but it all gives me the best bonus' compared to what i have as an alternative. I've only recently started playing my death knight properly aswell.

    Anyway, done abit of research into the unholy spec, rotations, talents, glyphs etc but no where can i find the optimal / best opening rotation? So as a last resort i thought id ask the DK community as to what you guys and girls do? Obviously this is probably going to differ from person to person but hopefully i'll see some kind of pattern.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    on my totally impressive 536 DK, bosses who don't require a delay on burst, my opening looks like:
    Pre-cast Army > Outbreak running in > Gargoyle > UF > DnD. By now I'm at the boss spamming Scourge Strike and Death Coil.
    Plague Leech when both trinkets are procced (also got 2-4 Death Shrouds now), Plague Strike to get strong DoTs rolling and then DC till Dark Transformation, then DnD > SS > FeS, only prioritizing FeS to maintain the strong DoT from the opener. Maintaining that strong DoT till I need runes again from Plague Leech.

    I notice I don't get RP and BT-capped in the opener this way, that's why I use Plague Leech so early. Check for yourself though, goes without saying 30 ilvls makes a lot difference.

    Anyway, my DK being just another alt and figuring out this opener on my own, I'm curious to other answers aswell.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    plague leech as unholy is a no no

  4. #4
    Could you post why plague leech is bad? Not a lot of info there...

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Zodiar View Post
    Could you post why plague leech is bad? Not a lot of info there...
    You don't want to take your diseases down (which plague leech does) since your damage scales with diseases

    Intel Core i5 4690K 3.50Ghz, OC'd to 4.0Ghz | 8GB Corsair DDR3-1066 RAM | Gigabyte Z97-HD3
    NVIDIA GeForce 680GTX 2048MB VRAM | Corsair 750TX 750W PSU | Phantecks Dual fan PH-TC14PE

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by rerecros View Post
    plague leech as unholy is a no no
    If you only use it if you can reapply trinket empowered DoTs it is not a no go, but I kinda doubt it being of much use, especially as you have UF and trinkets up at the same time, atleast for BiS trinkets.
    Also losing a gcd on trinkets.
    Using it killing empowered DoTs without replacing them with powerful DoTs is aside from AoE for sure a loss.

    UB is most likely better, might be worth some tests though with extra low haste or something along that, but I doubt it.

  7. #7
    Mechagnome Kraeth's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Northern Finland
    Posts
    725
    PL is just pointless for UH in general, as your dots are a very significant part of your damage. I usually just roll with RB since I'm lazy, but for ST opener UB is the best. You'll have pre-pot and more or less every proc available when it ends, so the diseases will be really strong.

  8. #8
    Depends on the fight. Single target you want to run with Unholy Blight, we'll go with an 8 second pull timer as standard here.

    Pull timer begins, cast army.
    At 3 seconds, cast Unholy Blight.
    At 2 seconds, drink a Potion of Mogu Strength.
    As the pull is happening, do the following for each GCD >

    Have a macro containing /cast Unholy Frenzy, Stoneskin Gargoyle, Engineering Gloves, Blood Fury, (For Orcs) - Pop this as the boss is pulled.

    Scourge, Festering, Festering, Scourge.

    While those abilities hit, your Unholy blight will have fell off. But it will have left you with diseases containing, racial buff, strength potion buff, trinket str proc buffs + engineering glove buff / tailoring cloak buff if you have em.

    Then ramp as many deathcoils into the target as possible, buffing Timmy...get his ass transformed ASAP.

    Then it is your standard Unholy rotation focusing on maintaining those supercharged dots using Festering strike.
    They will generally do 50% more damage than any diseases you would end up re-apply every 30 seconds if you chose Plague Leech.

    Just aim to time them falling off at the same time the boss dies, because x2 Scourge Strikes > x1 Festering so you want to start watching how long those diseases have left on them sub < 35%. But before that go ham on the festering strikes to keep those diseases up.

    --------------

    If AoE is involved in the encounter grab Roiling Blood and swap out a scourge strike for a DnD every 30 seconds, it's the same deal except you need to grab DK Diseases to show you when your peak attack power has hit during the opener.

    Instead of your first attack being a festering, use a plague strike, Fes, Fes, scourge strike combo. During those 4 attacks your trinkets will have procced so keep an eye out and use Outbreak the second the stars align (using DK Diseases, or your eyes if you're a savant).

    Eh, that should do it. Just be quick on buffing up timmy and don't hesitate to use those Sudden Doom procs for free deathcoils during the middle of the opener...each one buffs Timmy's damage by 10% even before you transform him.

    Enjoy unholy, I switched after my first HC Garrosh kill as Frost and after 30 more farm kills as Unholy, I just find it so much more fun.

    Signature thing for profile stuff, blah blah 589 DK been around forever. Don't take my shit as gospel, this is just how I do my openers (I may have been doing it wrong for years).
    Last edited by Smeghead; 2014-07-26 at 12:46 AM.
    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/kazzak/Smegdead/advanced
    http://www.wowprogress.com/character/eu/kazzak/Smegdead
    https://raider.io/characters/eu/kazzak/Smegdead

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Glad I posted about Plague Leech then, I had no clue it was a bad choice!

    Gonna go with UB, see how it works out. Keeping strong DoTs is in my system as a Lock, that's why I tried to delay PL when I got a lot of procs again. As far as anecdotal "evidence" counts, 200k+ dps on Malkorok LFR in that gear looked reasonable.

    Thanks for the thread and all the replies, makes a lot of sense.

  10. #10
    most of the time for me i open with army on pull, plague strike then SS, by that time my trinkets and fallen crusader proc, then i pop blood rage,unholy frenzy, garg then spam ss till i see i need to start refreshing my DoTs then its weaving fetering and SS while trying to use D&D up as much as i can. great amount of burst, better if you get a lust at the start. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...dazar/advanced my Dk, i go more for mastery than crit works well for me so far

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Smeghead View Post
    Depends on the fight. Single target you want to run with Unholy Blight, we'll go with an 8 second pull timer as standard here.
    Just aim to time them falling off at the same time the boss dies, because x2 Scourge Strikes > x1 Festering so you want to start watching how long those diseases have left on them sub < 35%. But before that go ham on the festering strikes to keep those diseases up.
    .
    So one of the bits that was confusing me was when to use SS over FS. Festering is purely to get some time added to the diseases and SS is the main strike if you dont need to add time to diseases right?

  12. #12
    Mechagnome Kraeth's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Northern Finland
    Posts
    725
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaz View Post
    So one of the bits that was confusing me was when to use SS over FS. Festering is purely to get some time added to the diseases and SS is the main strike if you dont need to add time to diseases right?
    Correct. Also, if you get trinket procs and your diseases are long enough aleady you can use that time to spam SS and resume FS after the buffs fall off.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Kraeth View Post
    Correct. Also, if you get trinket procs and your diseases are long enough aleady you can use that time to spam SS and resume FS after the buffs fall off.
    Ok nice one, thanks for the help.

  14. #14
    The Lightbringer Darkfriend's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Wisconsin
    Posts
    3,285
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaz View Post
    So one of the bits that was confusing me was when to use SS over FS. Festering is purely to get some time added to the diseases and SS is the main strike if you dont need to add time to diseases right?
    In general, you DO NOT want to use Death runes on FS. The exception is if 1.) You are about to have downtime and the boss can still take damage, if you won't be able to apply high AP diseases before (E.G Thok) or if 2.) For some reason you want to keep high AP diseases rolling when you can't do damage. But I can't think of a fight like that this tier where you simply wouldn't be better off reapplying.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Darkfriend View Post
    In general, you DO NOT want to use Death runes on FS. The exception is if 1.) You are about to have downtime and the boss can still take damage, if you won't be able to apply high AP diseases before (E.G Thok) or if 2.) For some reason you want to keep high AP diseases rolling when you can't do damage. But I can't think of a fight like that this tier where you simply wouldn't be better off reapplying.
    I'm not 100% certain I get what you're saying, but if you're saying that you do not wish to prolong your trinketproc diseases for 2minutes you need to take a serious look at the top dk logs and you'll come to the conclusion that festerblight 2.0 is the way to play now, which means you spam festering so your diseases are up for 2min~ which is untill you can reapply trinketdots again.

  16. #16
    Deleted
    You don't really need to "spam FeS" to get that kind of DoT duration though. On any fight with a reasonable amount of AMS soaking you barely need to spend death runes on FeS at all (or none if you get good SD procs) unless you're using a lot of BBs during that time.

  17. #17
    The Lightbringer Darkfriend's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Wisconsin
    Posts
    3,285
    Quote Originally Posted by Zenxion78 View Post
    You don't really need to "spam FeS" to get that kind of DoT duration though. On any fight with a reasonable amount of AMS soaking you barely need to spend death runes on FeS at all (or none if you get good SD procs) unless you're using a lot of BBs during that time.
    Ya, although some fights like Thok it's somewhat RNG if you'll get hit by magic damage during AMS before 1st kite phase.

  18. #18
    Is there an addon that will tell you exactly what you have procced so you know when you have the max number of buffs at the ~2 min mark? And if so, do you know if you could set it up so once you have the max number of buffs possible, it'll alert you? Or is that too much?

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrogol View Post
    Is there an addon that will tell you exactly what you have procced so you know when you have the max number of buffs at the ~2 min mark? And if so, do you know if you could set it up so once you have the max number of buffs possible, it'll alert you? Or is that too much?
    Need to Know or Tell Me When. They don't auto track for you as you have to put the effect name in manually however. Also DKDiseases is an addon that will show you relative strength of your dots, green they'll do more damage if you apply them, yellow the same, or red will be weaker. However there is no single addon to my knowledge that does exactly what you want by itself without any manual input.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Smeghead View Post
    Depends on the fight. Single target you want to run with Unholy Blight, we'll go with an 8 second pull timer as standard here.

    Pull timer begins, cast army.
    At 3 seconds, cast Unholy Blight.
    At 2 seconds, drink a Potion of Mogu Strength.
    As the pull is happening, do the following for each GCD >

    Have a macro containing /cast Unholy Frenzy, Stoneskin Gargoyle, Engineering Gloves, Blood Fury, (For Orcs) - Pop this as the boss is pulled.

    Scourge, Festering, Festering, Scourge.

    While those abilities hit, your Unholy blight will have fell off. But it will have left you with diseases containing, racial buff, strength potion buff, trinket str proc buffs + engineering glove buff / tailoring cloak buff if you have em.

    Then ramp as many deathcoils into the target as possible, buffing Timmy...get his ass transformed ASAP.

    Then it is your standard Unholy rotation focusing on maintaining those supercharged dots using Festering strike.
    They will generally do 50% more damage than any diseases you would end up re-apply every 30 seconds if you chose Plague Leech.

    Just aim to time them falling off at the same time the boss dies, because x2 Scourge Strikes > x1 Festering so you want to start watching how long those diseases have left on them sub < 35%. But before that go ham on the festering strikes to keep those diseases up.

    --------------

    If AoE is involved in the encounter grab Roiling Blood and swap out a scourge strike for a DnD every 30 seconds, it's the same deal except you need to grab DK Diseases to show you when your peak attack power has hit during the opener.

    Instead of your first attack being a festering, use a plague strike, Fes, Fes, scourge strike combo. During those 4 attacks your trinkets will have procced so keep an eye out and use Outbreak the second the stars align (using DK Diseases, or your eyes if you're a savant).

    Eh, that should do it. Just be quick on buffing up timmy and don't hesitate to use those Sudden Doom procs for free deathcoils during the middle of the opener...each one buffs Timmy's damage by 10% even before you transform him.

    Enjoy unholy, I switched after my first HC Garrosh kill as Frost and after 30 more farm kills as Unholy, I just find it so much more fun.

    Signature thing for profile stuff, blah blah 589 DK been around forever. Don't take my shit as gospel, this is just how I do my openers (I may have been doing it wrong for years).
    I tried your opener and this was my results

    http://i.imgur.com/9048Jmp.jpg

    Could probably be a tad more if I was Orc.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •