17/0/54 help

[Necromantic]

Don't even use the perma pet? Seriously? I think we established already that IT, PS, BS, AM are all fillers for the third slot. They are up to you because they aren't a big deal one way or another. If you're not using your ghoul as a perma pet with this build, you pretty much fail at playing an Unholy DK. And if you are using it, and you're not using the Glyph to make him stronger, again, you fail as an Unholy DK.

Yeah, seriously. I've heard from a lot of DKs state this and many big raiding ones who've said he does nothing but get in the way. As far as failing as an Unholy DK, that's your opinion. That's like saying you fail as a Blood DK for not going 51/13/7 and going 51/0/20.

My personal experience is that the Ghoul is adding around 500 dps when I'm fully raid buffed. Disregarding the 40% strength and 40% stamina he gains from you with the glyph is just idiotic. Since you essentially chose 2 filler glyphs in your second and third spots, please explain to me how the 40% increased strength contribution to a ghoul that when properly glyphed does 500 dps on its own is less valuable than a glyph that adds a teeny bit of damage to a crappy strike that we only use to get diseases up, and even then only when the SS glyph doesn't refresh it, or a glyph that adds two charges to a shield that hardly ever falls off anyways if you're refreshing it properly?

I've used the glyph before and the difference in DPS was negligable. I use Bone Shield because I PVP and PVE. It's a great tool for PVP and for off-tanking if necessary. Again, we come back to the whole "playstyle" conversation. There are guys who still use the DnD glyph because they find themselves in many AoE situations and that type of thing will compliment them a lot more.

And by the way Glyph of Icy Touch doesn't cost the ability damage anymore, all it does is add RP. Maybe that's why you're confused.

Either way, you're talking about 10 extra runic power once in a great while. That will not make/break you what-so-ever.

You tell me not to be a lemming. Well I have two comments on that. First is. I trust the numerous folks EJ and their thousands of tests to "steer" me in the right direction far more than I trust YOU and your personal experience. The second comment is that YOU should consider that you shouldn't discount the collaborative work of other people to help guide you, especially when they are widely regarded as some of the top theorycrafters/testers on the related subject, rather than "going it your own" due to the principle of the thing. Of course you should try your own things out, but don't discount what they have to say.

As I said (you obviously skipped that part), I did not condescend them. To me, saying "top theorycrafter/tester" means nothing. It's no different than the guy on the official forums who tried telling me that he was one of THE best DKs in the game and conveniently, an alt showed up with the same syntax as him saying "yes, he is!" That all means absolutely nothing to me. It's just peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining. Now, assuming you're not just trolling (which I almost thought you were), I prefer to speak from my own experiences. All you're doing is the whole "do this, because THIS guy said so!" I read so many flawed tests and parses all the time that it's funny.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not being rude. I love sharing experiences with others, but i'll never suggest something to someone because of what some random guy(s) on the internet says.

[Bullshifter]

Yeah, seriously. I've heard from a lot of DKs state this and many big raiding ones who've said he does nothing but get in the way. As far as failing as an Unholy DK, that's your opinion. That's like saying you fail as a Blood DK for not going 51/13/7 and going 51/0/20.

I've used the glyph before and the difference in DPS was negligable. I use Bone Shield because I PVP and PVE. It's a great tool for PVP and for off-tanking if necessary. Again, we come back to the whole "playstyle" conversation. There are guys who still use the DnD glyph because they find themselves in many AoE situations and that type of thing will compliment them a lot more.

Either way, you're talking about 10 extra runic power once in a great while. That will not make/break you what-so-ever.

As I said (you obviously skipped that part), I did not condescend them. To me, saying "top theorycrafter/tester" means nothing. It's no different than the guy on the official forums who tried telling me that he was one of THE best DKs in the game and conveniently, an alt showed up with the same syntax as him saying "yes, he is!" That all means absolutely nothing to me. It's just peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining. Now, assuming you're not just trolling (which I almost thought you were), I prefer to speak from my own experiences. All you're doing is the whole "do this, because THIS guy said so!" I read so many flawed tests and parses all the time that it's funny.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not being rude. I love sharing experiences with others, but i'll never suggest something to someone because of what some random guy(s) on the internet says.

If you don't spend 2 points on something that adds 500 dps consistently to your dps, that's just plain silly. Sure you'd still have the use of him sometimes, but the contribution is going to be much stronger if you take him. It's hard to even fathom where those points would be better spend for more pure personal dps than your ghoul.

About Boneshield. I thought the conversation was about 17/0/54 pure dps spec, not some hybrid spec for Offtanking, and that's why I discounted Bone Shield. And even for pure dps spec's BS in the third slot may work better for them, if they don't know how to not pull threat and whatnot, or take damage from other sometimes avoidable sources. Sure, there's times when it's unavoidable, but generally there's no issue being able to keep it up even with 4 charges as a dps'r. But truly my argument isn't against Bone Shield, or IT, or PS, or whatever floats your boat for your third slot. My thoughts were that you seem content to use two third tier glyphs instead of getting Ghoul, and that's pretty odd. But to each their own, if you're happy, it's all good in the World of Warcraft.

I agree, what some guy says on the internet shouldn't be taken as gospel. However, the collective thoughts of an entire forum dedicated to the subject of pure dps, I will take a little more seriously than I will take a guy on mmo-champion. I truly suspect you are the one trolling at this point.

[Hedstone]

Am I missing something about Boneshield? Each charge also adds a flat +2% to all damage - how can something else beat that?

SS
BS
Ghoul

Appear to be the best choices, currently.

[Bullshifter]

Am I missing something about Boneshield? Each charge also adds a flat +2% to all damage - how can something else beat that?

SS
BS
Ghoul

Appear to be the best choices, currently.

Boneshield is a perfectly viable third glyph spot. Kudos to you for realizing you need SS and Ghoul as well. One clarification is that Bone Shield itself adds 2% damage, regardless of how many charges you have, from max down to one. Not each charge itself. Meaning at 4 charges it's not 8% increase, it's still just 2%. The charges themselves are just damage mitigation. So the glyph doesn't actually increase your damage at all, it just increases the amount of time your bone shield stays active if you are taking damage.

From my personal experience with it un-glyphed, I almost never have my Bone Shield fully spent before the cooldown is up. Indeed as a dps'r if your BS is getting used up before the cooldown is up on a regular basis (it will happen sometimes, granted) then generally you might need to re-evaluate what you are doing to be under such heavy fire.

[Reshef]

Am I missing something about Boneshield? Each charge also adds a flat +2% to all damage - how can something else beat that?

SS
BS
Ghoul

Appear to be the best choices, currently.

While its a decent glyph the charges are NOT additive. As long as you have at least one charge still active you get a 2% dmg bonus. You do not get a 12% bonus for having 6 active charges. This is easily confirmed on the character screen. With bone shield up and in blood presence you should have 117% normal damage no matter how many charges are left on boneshield.
The boneshield glyph is good for increasing the uptime of bone shield. As dps this generally is not a problem however, so theres really no need to use it over something like the Glyph of SStrike.

Not having a Ghoul as deep unholy makes you a failure. There is no debate here. Having a ghoul up (on most bosses) hugely increases your dps, and not having one up will seriously brutalize your damage. Some bosses will wtfmurder your ghoul from time to time, which is why most deep unholy builds also grab Night of the Dead so that for all intents and purposes your undead buddy will have 100% uptime. Anyone who tells you a ghoul is not worth the 2 points is misinformed and should absolutely be ignored.

However, glyphing for increased ghoul damage is a personal choice. If you want to top the meters on bosses, go for it, if youd rather top the meters on trash, go with D&D.

Icy touch is a mandatory glyph. It can allow you to keep a gargoyle up while still casting the occasional unholy blight and dc, which was much more difficult without it. Its much harder to justify not having this glyph -- if you can manage to maintain 100% UB uptime, 30 seconds of Gargoyle ever cooldown, and RP dumps every rotation without it, then good for you, grab another glyph. If not, its a vital glyph.

The glyph of SS will allow you to skip parts of your normal rotation in favor of another scourgestrike. This glyph is good for any build with SS in it, but with a 17/0/54 build, its pretty much your best option after Icy Touch.

Necromantic quite clearly does not know what hes talking about. If you want to be top dps, ignore his advice. He is not close to being hit capped, and has gemmed for stamina and stamina bonuses on his gear.
Although its worth noting that he specced into a perma-ghoul after advising against it.

[Necromantic]

If you don't spend 2 points on something that adds 500 dps consistently to your dps, that's just plain silly. Sure you'd still have the use of him sometimes, but the contribution is going to be much stronger if you take him. It's hard to even fathom where those points would be better spend for more pure personal dps than your ghoul.

Not everyone has your play style.

About Boneshield. I thought the conversation was about 17/0/54 pure dps spec, not some hybrid spec for Offtanking, and that's why I discounted Bone Shield. And even for pure dps spec's BS in the third slot may work better for them, if they don't know how to not pull threat and whatnot, or take damage from other sometimes avoidable sources. Sure, there's times when it's unavoidable, but generally there's no issue being able to keep it up even with 4 charges as a dps'r. But truly my argument isn't against Bone Shield, or IT, or PS, or whatever floats your boat for your third slot. My thoughts were that you seem content to use two third tier glyphs instead of getting Ghoul, and that's pretty odd. But to each their own, if you're happy, it's all good in the World of Warcraft.

I have pulled hate on a regular basis, not to mention, i'm frequently asked to take care of adds.

I agree, what some guy says on the internet shouldn't be taken as gospel. However, the collective thoughts of an entire forum dedicated to the subject of pure dps, I will take a little more seriously than I will take a guy on mmo-champion.

At least I know i'm not a lemming.

I truly suspect you are the one trolling at this point.

Cute

Boneshield is a perfectly viable third glyph spot. Kudos to you for realizing you need SS and Ghoul as well. One clarification is that Bone Shield itself adds 2% damage, regardless of how many charges you have, from max down to one. Not each charge itself. Meaning at 4 charges it's not 8% increase, it's still just 2%. The charges themselves are just damage mitigation. So the glyph doesn't actually increase your damage at all, it just increases the amount of time your bone shield stays active if you are taking damage.

From my personal experience with it un-glyphed, I almost never have my Bone Shield fully spent before the cooldown is up. Indeed as a dps'r if your BS is getting used up before the cooldown is up on a regular basis (it will happen sometimes, granted) then generally you might need to re-evaluate what you are doing to be under such heavy fire.

You may not find yourself in a position to where you pull hate or are asked to take care of adds, so you might not need it. Once again (i'm sure we'll come back to it again) we go to the "playstyle" discussion.

While its a decent glyph the charges are NOT additive. As long as you have at least one charge still active you get a 2% dmg bonus. You do not get a 12% bonus for having 6 active charges. This is easily confirmed on the character screen. With bone shield up and in blood presence you should have 117% normal damage no matter how many charges are left on boneshield.
The boneshield glyph is good for increasing the uptime of bone shield. As dps this generally is not a problem however, so theres really no need to use it over something like the Glyph of SStrike.

Not having a Ghoul as deep unholy makes you a failure. There is no debate here. Having a ghoul up (on most bosses) hugely increases your dps, and not having one up will seriously brutalize your damage. Some bosses will wtfmurder your ghoul from time to time, which is why most deep unholy builds also grab Night of the Dead so that for all intents and purposes your undead buddy will have 100% uptime. Anyone who tells you a ghoul is not worth the 2 points is misinformed and should absolutely be ignored.

However, glyphing for increased ghoul damage is a personal choice. If you want to top the meters on bosses, go for it, if youd rather top the meters on trash, go with D&D.

Icy touch is a mandatory glyph. It can allow you to keep a gargoyle up while still casting the occasional unholy blight and dc, which was much more difficult without it. Its much harder to justify not having this glyph -- if you can manage to maintain 100% UB uptime, 30 seconds of Gargoyle ever cooldown, and RP dumps every rotation without it, then good for you, grab another glyph. If not, its a vital glyph.

The glyph of SS will allow you to skip parts of your normal rotation in favor of another scourgestrike. This glyph is good for any build with SS in it, but with a 17/0/54 build, its pretty much your best option after Icy Touch.

Necromantic quite clearly does not know what hes talking about. If you want to be top dps, ignore his advice. He is not close to being hit capped, and has gemmed for stamina and stamina bonuses on his gear.
Although its worth noting that he specced into a perma-ghoul after advising against it.

Post count: 1

I'm sorry, but creating a new account to agree with yourself is so noob.

OP, once again, I truely apologize for these trolls derailing your thread. I hope things work out for the best.

[Reshef]

Sorry, genius, but I'm a separate person and you are such a failure that I was compelled to refute you lest someone take your awful advice.

I have pulled hate on a regular basis, not to mention, i'm frequently asked to take care of adds.

Pulling hate is a bad thing, and isnt hard to do. You can easily pull hate by accidentally being in frost presence, or merely dpsing adds that the tank hasnt built threat on. The fact that you've pulled threat is not a badge of honor, or a signal that your dps is monstrous. Link me to any WWS or similar log of yours and I'll buy your claim of decent dps. I'd even take a recount screenshot, provided you didnt doctor it.

At least I know I'm not a lemming.

This is a ridiculous thing to say for a ton of reasons. Firstly it implies that you are blindly following the pack to your doom, which is not the case -- the advice youre ignoring is good advice. Secondly conformity to the best practices is not a bad thing. I know theres a lot of "be yourself" nonsense out there, but if yourself sucks, you should not be yourself. Be your best self: spec correctly, and gear correctly. Aside from your terrible spec advice, you have 64 hit rating. You are missing ~6% of your special attacks against raid bosses. Once again, I'd love to see a link to an impressive dps chart.

OP, once again, I truely apologize for these trolls derailing your thread. I hope things work out for the best.

Things will work out poorly for OP if he takes any of your advice.
You are going against the advice of many EJ posters who have posted ample evidence of good dps.
If you want to refute their claims, by all means put your money where your mouth is and link a dps chart.
And in advance: make no excuses for your gear, without doing any raids you could considerably improve your gearing decisions; assuming you are actually raiding (presumably with a failpug) you could drastically improve it without any real thought.

[edit: my account of your low hit rating was slightly inaccurate. Its now fixed.]

[Necromantic]

OP, ignore the troll. He obviously had a very bad day at school today.

[Bullshifter]

Post count: 1

I'm sorry, but creating a new account to agree with yourself is so noob.

OP, once again, I truely apologize for these trolls derailing your thread. I hope things work out for the best.

Lol, Rashef and I are not the same person =P We didn't even agree on all of our points. He prioritizes Glyph of Icy Touch way more than I do. I believe it's a filler glyph personally. And there's a number of them. Personally I think the main thing you should be doing is SS and Ghoul as Unholy DPS. For your third throw whatever you want in there. Choose whatever suits your playstyle. Personally, you say playstyle, I say if you don't want to use a Ghoul, choose a different talent tree. Because there really isn't a better damage per talent point investment in Unholy than the ghoul, aside from perhaps Scourge Strike. Clearly Scourge Strike is mandatory, and your 500 dps pet in the ghoul should be mandatory as well if you are serious about doing dps as Unholy.

[Reshef]

OP, ignore the troll. He obviously had a very bad day at school today.

Put up or shut up. You can insult me all you like, I'm not going to go down that pointless tired road.

Unless you can prove your advice is even sound, much less superior to the advice of an entire community of end game raiders; you have no business telling anyone else how to spec.

Post some screenshots.

Edit: Those screenshots will not be coming. You've never participated in a successful raid boss kill aside from Archavon, which you can pretty much 15/25 man. Thanks for misrepresenting yourself and implying you had ever been on add duty in a raid.
Once again: ignore necromantic's advice.

[Gwa]

Bullshifter is right....on every point.
Necro...ur first post proved ur do not know what you are talking about....now all you are doing is confirming it in everyone's mind.

It reminds me of something my granny used to say;
'It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt'.

but then again my granny also used to say that she was Gandhi and that squirrels were made of cheese.

[ozreece]

guys, stop feeding the troll........ ie necromantic