Unholy Healing after 3.1

[Kreuz Kontrol]

So, after the announced talent changes and what-not, most Unholy DKs will now be subspeccing Frost for the 10% increased Shadow damage from Black Ice that they added in.

Subspeccing into Frost means one thing, though. No more Rune Tap. Initially, this may have some of you worried. I have come to let you know that you can rest easy because Unholy healing is going to be great (atleast every 3 minutes it will be.)

How, you ask?

Glyph of Death's Embrace + Glyph of Death Coil + Lichborne

Glyph of DE refunds 20 RP when Death Coil is used to heal.
Glyph of DC reduces your DC cost to 32 down from 40.

Effectively, this means your Death Coils will now cost 12 RP if you use them to heal.

Most Unholy DKs will pick up Improved Icy Touch and Runic Power Mastery out of Tier 1 Frost to get to Black Ice. Runic Power Mastery ups your maximum RP to 130.

Let's do some math. Remember, your Death Coil costs 12 RP if you use it to heal. How many times does 12 go into 130? I'll tell you - 10. That means you can Death Coil heal yourself 10 times after popping Lichborne. If that's not enough, you could always pop Horn of Winter, toss out a few attacks, or pop Empower Rune Weapon for more RP and get in some more heals.

This is going to be some really nice healing in those OH **** moments with the loss of Rune Tap.

[TeeZed]

Hmm, never thought of using death coil to heal WITH Glyph of death coil and deaths embrace. Just Curious as to how the 10% damage will effect the healing side of it. But it will be nice to /dance and death coil yourself back to full health.

Only downside will be the loss of bladed armor, not so sure if i wanna lose the large amount of attack power, 2h weapon spec, and 5% crit, might just try 17/0/54, Just have to see a comparison as to how 2h spec stands up to 10% shadow damage, probly not so well.

[Kreuz Kontrol]

Hmm, never thought of using death coil to heal WITH Glyph of death coil and deaths embrace. Just Curious as to how the 10% damage will effect the healing side of it. But it will be nice to /dance and death coil yourself back to full health.

Only downside will be the loss of bladed armor, not so sure if i wanna lose the large amount of attack power, 2h weapon spec, and 5% crit, might just try 17/0/54, Just have to see a comparison as to how 2h spec stands up to 10% shadow damage, probly not so well.

Honestly, I don't know if there'd be much difference in Scourge Strike damage. I mean.. here's the difference between the two.

- With Blood sub-spec, you gain around 400AP from Bladed Armor (assuming you have around 15000 armor) and 4% more damage for melee abilities (which includes Scourge Strike
- With Frost sub-spec you gain 10% extra Shadow damage

Strictly speaking for Scourge Strike alone, it comes down to 10% damage Vs. 4% damage + 400 Attack Power. I don't think the difference in the two would be DRASTIC.

Thing is, though, is that by not picking up Black Ice for Shadow Strike damage, you also lose 10% extra damage on abilities like Death Coil, (and I'm assuming) Blood Plague, and (assuming again) Unholy Blight.

I've worked out a couple of builds, though, that include Two-Handed Weapon Specialization, Bladed Armor, and Black Ice. They're pretty much the same, give or take a point or two.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9626 - For Maximum Scourge Strike damage, as far as I can tell.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9626 - Similar build as before, but with slightly less AP from Bladed Armor so that you can obtain Lichborne and the Gargoyle.

I'm still undecided on what build I will use for Unholy PvP. I can't wait for Dual-Speccing though. While I haven't picked out my Unholy build yet, I'm pretty sure of the Blood PvP build I will be using with my "other spec".

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...6&version=9626

Death Strike oriented build. Also uses the Plague Strike Glyph as well as taking Outbreak since Plague Strike is a really nice ability in 3.1

Modifiers for Death Strike in 3.1:
52% increased damage with 130 RP with the Glyph of Death Strike
30% increased damage from Improved Death Strike talent
30% increased critical damage from Might of Mograine
30% Increased critical damage from Vicious Strikes

That alone will be a ton of healing, but while you're at it go ahead and add in these.
10% increased healing from Improved Blood Presence
15% increased damage from actually being in Blood Presence

Every time you Death Strike from Blood Presence, you will recover MASSIVE amounts of health as well as doing pretty decent damage.