Current state of DPS Deathknights

[Deleted]

Wewlad, you're tilted into another plane of existence. Looking at parses and drawing a conclusion that your class is underpowered because of 2-3 other classes being retardedly strong is a poor way to backlash at someone who made a solid point. You are one of the stronger melee on single target, along with having some really good cleave. Dks aren't in a bad spot just shadow and fire make everyone look like shit.

Dks are only doing well if they had insane luck and got the bracers, period. If you do not own the bracers, you are fucked with medicore dps.

[TeeZed]

Wewlad, you're tilted into another plane of existence. Looking at parses and drawing a conclusion that your class is underpowered because of 2-3 other classes being retardedly strong is a poor way to backlash at someone who made a solid point. You are one of the stronger melee on single target, along with having some really good cleave. Dks aren't in a bad spot just shadow and fire make everyone look like shit.

I guess you haven't played DK or have an idea about them when you say things like "One of the stronger single target" The only Melee lower than unholy is survival.

Frost AoE is fantastic for M+ and an AoE stun on a pretty low cooldown is great, they're up there in M+ Dungeons. However in raids, not so great.
Unholy also has good spread aoe with epidemic, but has mediocre target switch, and terrible single target DPS compared to every other melee.

I will continue to play unholy because I enjoy the spec and I'm not in a hardcore raiding guild so I can at least be competitive, however with my gear (872 and 2 legendaries) I could be doing at least 15-20% more DPS as say a ret, or an arms warrior. THIS is the issue.

[Kerathyl]

Frost seems good enough, in past expansions I would've just switched. But after getting the bracers and putting my best relics in my UH weapon I'm really reluctant to make the switch.
I'm really disappointed in Blizzard for making all my investments in Unholy a waste. They should've just made it clear from the start that frost would be the top spec.

[Deleted]

All the whining in this thread makes me wonder if I play a different class

[Acidbaron]

If you have bracers you're doing fine, if you are a good player you are doing fine. No guild will bench you at this point for your maximum damage output capabilities.
If they do they are terrible guilds, inexperienced raid leaders and incompetent raid groups in total looking at fixing their raid issues while looking at the whole wrong direction. this is assuming you can parse to at least 80 percentile what does exclude a lot of people.

I want to know what realm people are playing on that every player they team up with randomly is also a 90% and up parser. Since i don't feel that weak.

Now yes i want to do more, yes it is somewhat annoying that other classes can do more easily but i'm not near the bottom yet and it feels better then i used to main an enhancer in wrath most of the people i generally team up with all put out decent parses also.

Since this mini-tier is as good as over, i'm looking forward to how tier set bonuses will change the balance up.

[Hctaz]

Wewlad, you're tilted into another plane of existence. Looking at parses and drawing a conclusion that your class is underpowered because of 2-3 other classes being retardedly strong is a poor way to backlash at someone who made a solid point. You are one of the stronger melee on single target, along with having some really good cleave. Dks aren't in a bad spot just shadow and fire make everyone look like shit.

What do you mean two or three? It's literally EVERYBODY lol. There isn't a class that is weaker than Death Knights. Every single class has at least one spec that outdpsed both of ours.

[Acidbaron]

Frost seems good enough, in past expansions I would've just switched. But after getting the bracers and putting my best relics in my UH weapon I'm really reluctant to make the switch.
I'm really disappointed in Blizzard for making all my investments in Unholy a waste. They should've just made it clear from the start that frost would be the top spec.

There is no reason to go frost if you have the bracers unless you don't know how to play unholy and are beating it with frost but that's an issue you can correct yourself.

[munkeyinorbit]

Thank you Vycaus, for your higly educated opinion. Yes, this has to be the problem! All these whiny dks that where able to read and interpred simple data are just plain bad at this game. Its guys like you, that have no clue about anything they are talking about, that dominate all logs.

Let me help you with this brilliant theory:

Highest parsing Ranks DPS DK by boss vs all classes:

Nythendra: Rank 163
Il'gynoth, Heart of Corruption: Rank 290
Elerethe Renferal: Rank 489
Ursoc: Rank 848
Dragons of Nightmare: Rank 54
Cenarius: Rank 434
Xavius: Rank 745

Wow, top tier dks are totally whipping the floor with all other classes! There should be an hall of idiocy for statements like yours....

You would top that hall. Who gives a shit about the top tier stuff. That's 1000 players max. For everyone else? L2P.

[Adlian]

DPS wise: Frost is near the middle, Unholy is around the bottom. Don't expect to see yourself in the top unless you are frost and AOE bursting 10+ mobs.
Mobility wise: Bad, one of the least mobile classes in the game right now.
Survivability: Average. AMS should have lower CD and we badly need a self heal spell other than Death strike.

Overall i'm fascinated how blind Blizzard are when it comes to class balance. DKs are in this state since the Alpha but they did nothing to fix it.

[cathysullivan91]

i rate it a 6

[stevejohnson922]

im better sleeping on my own

[Deleted]

The only real issue i can see as frost is, that i can be easily beaten by people scoring 10-15% worse percentile than me. Room for player improvement, new theorycraft and set bonuses is always there but the fact that some classes have it easier leaves me bit salty

[Deleted]

Currently 875 unholy with rune ring sitting at 330k ish dps 5min fight. And in fights that has hell lot of mobility(hello spider) i am dropping below 300k, so it depends on the fight. Yes saw some ursoc parses where ppl were doing 400k dps with no bracers, but it is so rare cuz you need:
1) execute your rotation perfectly
2) get the proper position
3) get lucky with wounds procs and so on... compare to something like emm ench shamy that can easily do 430k+ without BiS legendaries(from my guild exp). So yes, unless you have bracers welcome to the bottom. If you have bracers welcome to the mid-tier.

[Fjaxx]

I don't know about anyone else but I currently hold the #1 DPS spot in my guild as frost, by a considerable margin. Nornally pulling 17+% on most bosses with other guildies at least 2-3% behind. Granted we're only up to heroics but I feel like frost is in a good way currently

[chase_the_mofo]

I played frost when it was shit single target on start of legion, it's still meh single target but the aoe in mythics+ makes this class shine.
Really shine.

Frost for life bro

[Kerathyl]

There is no reason to go frost if you have the bracers unless you don't know how to play unholy and are beating it with frost but that's an issue you can correct yourself.

Frost with legendaries is the top spec. So in my current situation I've only got 2 bad options.
1. Stay unholy, frost lootspec, pray for Frost legendaries so I can swap over. This gimps my unholy dps because I won't find iron and blood relics, and may take over half a year depending on legendary rng.
2. Stay unholy, unholy lootspec, find unholy relics, but never reach the max potential of my class because I'm not frost with frost legendaries.

[Deleted]

Frost with legendaries is the top spec. So in my current situation I've only got 2 bad options.
1. Stay unholy, frost lootspec, pray for Frost legendaries so I can swap over. This gimps my unholy dps because I won't find iron and blood relics, and may take over half a year depending on legendary rng.
2. Stay unholy, unholy lootspec, find unholy relics, but never reach the max potential of my class because I'm not frost with frost legendaries.

Pretty sure that Unholy with bracers still beats out Frost in everything except M+. I'm playing Frost with Unholy as lootspec for this reason. Frost requires no legendaries to do well enough (comparing to other Frost DKs), since all Frost legendaries are very small increments to the DPS. The bracer legendary which is supposed to be the best one, is a 5% Frost damage increase, a bit more if you're using Icecap. It's really not that wowamazing. While on the other hand, Unholy bracers are a straight up 20-30% DPS increase because of how ridiculous they are.

And in the end, Unholy has to get some more buffs soon enough. They can't leave the spec in the dirt for this long, it's one of the most changed specs in Legion, so hoping for the bis legendary of the to-be buffed spec can only pay out in the end... right?

[Acidbaron]

Frost with legendaries is the top spec. So in my current situation I've only got 2 bad options.
1. Stay unholy, frost lootspec, pray for Frost legendaries so I can swap over. This gimps my unholy dps because I won't find iron and blood relics, and may take over half a year depending on legendary rng.
2. Stay unholy, unholy lootspec, find unholy relics, but never reach the max potential of my class because I'm not frost with frost legendaries.

If you raid you can pick up whatever loot you require relic or not, if you aren't in a guild that pursues and clears mythic in a timely fashion you are creating issues yourself to be honest. Also unholy does not use iron.

Frost is only marginally above unholy in certain situations this fairytale that people are spreading here that unholy is so much worse then frost is nothing more than a fantasy propelled forward by either people in love with frost or people bad at unholy and swapping to frost being more of an increase due to having less ways to screw up your priorities.

if you can't be competitive with unholy and the bracers you won't be with frost. What's your average parse percentile?

[ScreddyLoix]

You cannot make a worse choice than rolling DK at the moment. It will only get worse for us in Trial of Valor.

[Casterbridge]

Frost is only marginally above unholy in certain situations this fairytale that people are spreading here that unholy is so much worse then frost is nothing more than a fantasy propelled forward by either people in love with frost or people bad at unholy and swapping to frost being more of an increase due to having less ways to screw up your priorities.

I'm not sure about this, I mean just looking at the various stats showing up on warcraft logs, I'm not seeing any fight, on any difficulty, on any item level average, on any percentile when unholy is matching frost. Not on a single target fight like Nythendra, and certainly not in any fight that involves any kind off adds or cleaves.

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a newbie at using the log site, but I just don't see anything it the last 2 weeks suggesting the two are equal anywhere, I would have thought Nythendra for sure would be strong for unholy, but even there Frost seems to win.

I do wish the log site had some way to filter legendaries, at least the ones that actually matter as that may give a clearer picture.