Unholy Clawing Shadows damage has been changed to 130% weapon damage

[Julian5]

We are taking that downtime into account. I think it's still better for AoE even when not transformed a bit over half the time. At worst it's about the same. Another thing to note, is that adds 1. even if they live a while, they almost never live longer than like 15-20 seconds and 2. almost no bosses spit out adds every few seconds, making the downtime when your pet isn't transformed matter less.

As for DnD, considering it has a 30 second cd, it'll always be up when you transform, so that isn't an issue. As for how many wound spreads you can get in the 20 (or 26) seconds the ghoul is up, it's definitely not 1-2. It's more like 3-5, which adds up a LOT.

Plus, if your ghoul does ~15k on gas, the wound resulting from that will do >20k to the target + >10k to all nearby enemies. Considering wound cleave gets better the more targets are there, it quickly outdpses your ghoul even with downtime.

[Rooskie1993]

To get the full benefit out of Infected Claws AoE that you think is so much greater you're going to basically have to not DT on cd and hold it which will probably result in a DPS loss compared to SI seeing as you're banking on it cleaving wounds to extra targets. I just don't see it happening honestly because if your ghoul isnt transformed when said AoE is going to happen it's pretty useless, and I don't think you're going to want to waste 2 runes getting festering wounds up seeing as you should be using 1 rune on virulent plague, 1 rune on DnD, 3 runes on epidemic, then you're going to want to spam SS while DnD is down, so not only are you going to need runes for this to be that great but pretty sure ebon fever is a better choice when not a patchwerk fight.

[Rothulean1]

Holding DT for an AoE phase is probably the preferred way. Do you really want to be casting Death Coil during an AoE phase because DT just came off CD with Shadow Infusion? Because if you think that DT will always be available the moment an AoE phases happens with Shadow Infusion, youre very wrong. Holding it a few seconds with Infected Claws becomes MASSIVELY beneficial.

Death Coiling during AoE phases is an enormous dps loss.

[Maxweii]

You are still not taking into account that you NEED to be transformed for Infected Claws to spread to more than the 1 target your ghoul is attacking then you also NEED DnD down to pop said wounds, having your DT be down for 40 seconds is actually pretty fucking huge not only will your Infected Wounds not spread for 40 seconds but your pet won't be doing gas cloud AoE. Just because of Eternal Agony making the DT down for 34 seconds doesn't make Infected Claws any more better, you still have 34 seconds downtime of no spreading wounds. You also have to save your DnD then for when and IF your ghoul spreads the wounds, you're likely to only get 1-2 spreads off in that time.

Testing on my alt DK who is fresh 100 my ghoul's cleaver hits for 2k, when transformed though he hits multiple targets with vile gas for 10-20k each. So to me it sounds like Shadow Infusion is indeed way better.

You're pretty much just ignoring the fact that you hold off on DT instead of hitting it on CD if there's a predictable aoe phase coming up where you will be attacking multiple targets.

[Maxweii]

So there's been a bit of discussion that went on in Acherus, and from testing I found that Clawing Shadows is equal to Castigor on everything except single target.
To list things very simply

-In pure patchwork single target Castigor beats Clawing Shadows by ~17k dps.
-The test for aoe was done as 4 target patchwork, which comes out to the same result as Beastlord/Hectic Add Cleave sims. It shows that CS (with SI) vs Castigor (also with SI) are both roughly the same dps.

Now what this overall means, that unless you're on a pure patchwork fight taking either Castigor, or Clawing Shadows is roughly the same outcome.
If you get more Haste/Crit gear, go for Castigor. If you get more Haste/Mastery gear, go for Clawing Shadows. Even from just 2 targets up, Clawing Shadows will match Castigor's dps.

These below are clickable links showing results.

Castigor - Single Target
Clawing Shadows - Single Target

Castigor vs Clawing Shadows - 2 target Patchwork

Castigor vs Clawing Shadows - Castigor was optimized for aoe by Alaiz and I ran all three lvl 90 talents with CS to see the highest.


So all in all, this means that both are very much viable. if you prefer one over the other, go for it and try to get that type of gear.

Personally I will be going with CS, as the range on it generally fits raiding better and eliminates more problems/potential for lost dps than Castigor (obv, imo).

[sunbrother]

I'm missing some important interaction here, there's been tons of posts in this thread talking about how CS is superior for AOE.

Where is the gain coming from? Is it just changing the gearing from crit to mastery?

[Deleted]

I'm missing some important interaction here, there's been tons of posts in this thread talking about how CS is superior for AOE.

Where is the gain coming from? Is it just changing the gearing from crit to mastery?

for aoe cs is better then normal ss due full shadow dmg while the physcial part of SS gets reduced.

[Deleted]

So what's stat prio order when speccing into CS?

[RuneDK]

So there's been a bit of discussion that went on in Acherus, and from testing I found that Clawing Shadows is equal to Castigor on everything except single target.
To list things very simply

-In pure patchwork single target Castigor beats Clawing Shadows by ~17k dps.
-The test for aoe was done as 4 target patchwork, which comes out to the same result as Beastlord/Hectic Add Cleave sims. It shows that CS (with SI) vs Castigor (also with SI) are both roughly the same dps.

Now what this overall means, that unless you're on a pure patchwork fight taking either Castigor, or Clawing Shadows is roughly the same outcome.
If you get more Haste/Crit gear, go for Castigor. If you get more Haste/Mastery gear, go for Clawing Shadows. Even from just 2 targets up, Clawing Shadows will match Castigor's dps.

These below are clickable links showing results.

Castigor - Single Target
Clawing Shadows - Single Target

Castigor vs Clawing Shadows - 2 target Patchwork

Castigor vs Clawing Shadows - Castigor was optimized for aoe by Alaiz and I ran all three lvl 90 talents with CS to see the highest.


So all in all, this means that both are very much viable. if you prefer one over the other, go for it and try to get that type of gear.

Personally I will be going with CS, as the range on it generally fits raiding better and eliminates more problems/potential for lost dps than Castigor (obv, imo).

Would love to see Unholy Frenzy buffed more to compete with those two talents. While it's fantastic that row has choice for unholy between either Castigator or CS, I personally looked at that tier of a stat priority shift. UF = Haste, Castigator = Crit, CS = Mastery. Would love to see that become a reality, and otherwise good info here Maxweii, when I inevitably switch back to unholy I will enjoy the fact that I can take my frost gear and just run Castigator.

[Wolfman31]

While I'd love to see Unholy Frenzy returned to some semblance of its former glory, I feel like we have several viable ways of building our characters based on our gear and playstyle preferences and I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth right now when other specs in the game don't have that flexibility at the moment. Unholy is in a good place right now and I don't see them giving it any attention while Frost DKs are singing the blues. At this point, I'm more worried about nerfs than potential buffs. I'd be perfectly okay with them forgetting Unholy exists for awhile. I'm still reeling from the loss of Death's Advance.

[Deleted]

Stupid question but I can't find a clear answer but...

Does scourge of worlds also work with cs or only ss?

[Apollinaire]

Stupid question but I can't find a clear answer but...

Does scourge of worlds also work with cs or only ss?

Yes, it does.

[Rothulean1]

I'm missing some important interaction here, there's been tons of posts in this thread talking about how CS is superior for AOE.

Where is the gain coming from? Is it just changing the gearing from crit to mastery?

CS is full shadow.
CS isnt reduced by armor like SS.

It simply does more damage than SS baseline.

[0verdose]

From just running mythic dungs I can conclude that cs is a must have for all movement fights where we need to move within 1 sec from a mechanic 1 shotting us. A good example of that would be the dark thicket dragon fight ( pre emerald nightmare dung). I absolutely need cs so I can move around and do dmg from ranged if I need to. We are just too damn slow to dash in and out of rights while dodging quick mechanics. It feels like Ass moving at 100% ms while we have these warriors, dhs, mages etc leaping and blinking every where. After I upgraded my cape I found out that the cape enchants don't have the 10% ms bonus anymore. Going from 110% to 100% was super brutal imo. I slowly got used to it eventually

[Deleted]

Not as good as Cast as far as damage on a dummy...but lets be real here. Many times the boss is out of reach. And crawling shadows has let me put damage when I am away from the boss. Do you guys forget you get a whole 30 yd range?!!! I don't care if I do a little less damage on a target dummy having the ability to pop 30 yards away is so helpful.

[Deleted]

Also the interaction with dnd gives pretty big aoe area.

Fuck me are we slow moving though.

Good job we hit the hardest when on target though. Except for rogues warriors demin hunters etc etc...

[Rothulean1]

Not as good as Cast as far as damage on a dummy...but lets be real here. Many times the boss is out of reach. And crawling shadows has let me put damage when I am away from the boss. Do you guys forget you get a whole 30 yd range?!!! I don't care if I do a little less damage on a target dummy having the ability to pop 30 yards away is so helpful.

My damage with CS and Cast is basically the same.

Cast has higher highs and lower lows. CS is more consistent for me.

[Habiby]

What talent out of these two will be better for mythics+? I guess it depends on gear.
Also kinda offtopic, is orc better than belf for unholy?

[Maxweii]

So what's stat prio order when speccing into CS?

In general since it's a more cleave/AoE based spec, Haste>Mastery>Crit>Vers. Try to have haste at around at least 21% or so before worrying about getting more Mastery over it. In pure single target Crit is slightly better for CS, but that happens so rarely.

What talent out of these two will be better for mythics+? I guess it depends on gear.
Also kinda offtopic, is orc better than belf for unholy?

Depends on your group likely. However considering there's plenty of boss mechanics that force you out of range, I mean 3/5 of the Halls of Valor ones pretty much you need to be at ranged for part, CS looks more mechanically appealing.

Also I believe it's Troll>BE>rest but in general they are all exceptionally close that race doesn't matter besides a small couple hundred worth of rng dps.

[Saracens]

So there's been a bit of discussion that went on in Acherus, and from testing I found that Clawing Shadows is equal to Castigor on everything except single target.
To list things very simply

-In pure patchwork single target Castigor beats Clawing Shadows by ~17k dps.
-The test for aoe was done as 4 target patchwork, which comes out to the same result as Beastlord/Hectic Add Cleave sims. It shows that CS (with SI) vs Castigor (also with SI) are both roughly the same dps.

Now what this overall means, that unless you're on a pure patchwork fight taking either Castigor, or Clawing Shadows is roughly the same outcome.
If you get more Haste/Crit gear, go for Castigor. If you get more Haste/Mastery gear, go for Clawing Shadows. Even from just 2 targets up, Clawing Shadows will match Castigor's dps.

These below are clickable links showing results.

Castigor - Single Target
Clawing Shadows - Single Target

Castigor vs Clawing Shadows - 2 target Patchwork

Castigor vs Clawing Shadows - Castigor was optimized for aoe by Alaiz and I ran all three lvl 90 talents with CS to see the highest.


So all in all, this means that both are very much viable. if you prefer one over the other, go for it and try to get that type of gear.

Personally I will be going with CS, as the range on it generally fits raiding better and eliminates more problems/potential for lost dps than Castigor (obv, imo).

I'm not doing so hot on the setup right now, since I've been just throwing on ilvl right now (840 almost there!) to prep for raid, but I'm going with BS, PP, Castigator, for the top three, with SR. I've got a decent amount of Crit and mastery, but I'm only at about 12% haste and it doesn't feel sluggish, but I feel like I need more. What would you say the ideal % is for haste to be at?