Any high rated Unholy DKs not use Glyph of Scourge Strike?

[Kreuz Kontrol]

All right. Hear me out first.

I'm not debating Glyph of SS's usefulness in terms of PvE. It's great for PvE. You just keep Scourge Striking your little heart out because there are set rotations in PvE.. which.. as long as the Glyph refreshes the diseases.. pretty much consists of Scourge Striking nonstop.

PvP is a different monster though. There really isn't such a thing as a rotation in PvP. You do what you can to kill something as fast as possible. And sometimes this involves more than attacking constantly. CC, silences, etc..

Most high rated Unholy DKs I have seen spec deep enough in Frost for the talent that makes Chains of Ice cause Frost Fever. It's a bit of a stretch to say that Chains of Ice will only be used once per match followed by non-stop Scourge Striking. The fact of the matter is that there will be Chains of Ice aplenty. Every time you use Chains of Ice you expend a frost rune and thus leave a hanging unholy rune (except for the "free" Chains of Ices from the PvP glove bonus, which is being done away with in the next patch).

There's not much you can do with a single Unholy rune. You can throw down an AMZ if you're spec'd for it. You can refresh Bone Shield if it's available. Other than that you're pretty much left with Plague Strike. Given how much Chains of Ice is used, and the fact that it will disease a target, doesn't this somewhat nullify the point of the Scourge Strike glyph?

There are a few other glyphs out there that I can perhaps see being more suitable. Bone Shield, AMS, Strangulate, or even the Chains of Ice glyph for some free damage.

I'm not above admitting I'm wrong, and I may be on this matter.. but I just wanted to throw the idea out there to see what people think.

(This thread assumes you have the following glyphs: Ghoul, Scourge Strike, Dark Death)

[darc]

i see exactly where your coming from especialy in 2s and 3s relying on your 2 rune burst moves can win the game but if the other team survives the initial hit then your just on cds doing random burst i never use scourge strike.

i use dark death nghoul and plauge strike sit in unholy pressence and spam my one rune abilities its not as much burst but there is no down time its constant maintaned damage toss your ghoul toss your garg and hit them with a deathcoil beat them down nicely

[plagueshard]

(except for the "free" Chains of Ices from the PvP glove bonus, which is being done away with in the next patch).

I must have totally missed whatever blue post announced that. :'(

[Kreuz Kontrol]

I must have totally missed whatever blue post announced that. :'(

Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

Taken from main page.

[Lucky_]

You are nuking target with enemy priest/shaman in the team. Totem/disease dispel skills are ticking. Every time it rips off a disease, you kiss about 1/5 of your SS damage good bye.

Reapplication proc during burst is often a difference between a successful kill and a failure.

[UnholyAshbringer]

Glyph of disease>Glyph of SS.

I use disease,CoI, and dark death.
I don't even have icy touch on my PvP bar anymore.

[Kreuz Kontrol]

You are nuking target with enemy priest/shaman in the team. Totem/disease dispel skills are ticking. Every time it rips off a disease, you kiss about 1/5 of your SS damage good bye.

Reapplication proc during burst is often a difference between a successful kill and a failure.

If your diseases do get cleansed and you're sitting there Scourge Striking hoping for a proc. from the glyph, your damage is horrible unless you get extremely lucky and proc. on the first one. Personally, I'd rather chains of ice the target (thus applying frost fever)

As for glyph of disease, I see that as a Blood DK glyph. Their main strike uses one rune thus they have more leeway. Pestilence doesn't turn Blood runes into Death runes for Unholy DKs, so you just lost a Scourge Strike to only refresh you diseases instead of losing one to apply diseases AND hold your target in place.

[Keile]

If your diseases do get cleansed and you're sitting there Scourge Striking hoping for a proc. from the glyph, your damage is horrible unless you get extremely lucky and proc. on the first one. Personally, I'd rather chains of ice the target (thus applying frost fever)

As for glyph of disease, I see that as a Blood DK glyph. Their main strike uses one rune thus they have more leeway. Pestilence doesn't turn Blood runes into Death runes for Unholy DKs, so you just lost a Scourge Strike to only refresh you diseases instead of losing one to apply diseases AND hold your target in place.

Actually it does now.  When they made Pest no longer do damage, they made it give us a Death Rune, but now Blood Boil does not.


Overall i would say stick with the SS glyph.  During a boss it saved an extra button click to do the same thing.  Rather than using one of your death runes, or blood runes to reapply your diseases you can use that for an extra strike.  More often than not i find myself hardly having to reapply diseases anyway because i can get more than 4 SS's in before my diseases fade.  The glyph has a 25% proc chance, so even though its not really guarantee that with 4 hits it will proc more often than not, it will.

[volunthas]

please don't forget we're talking about the pvp-ers point of view.

personally i left SS-glyph behind but i actually do use SS it in arena, BUT:

chains of ice only if the target blinks, jumps or whatthehells away from me (and for the first application of frost fever, slows in the beginning often cause panic ;P). targets that can't really move can often dispel it in certain ways(priest, paladin, druid with shapeshift, partner of my target being priest or pally).
spamming CoI would mean my damage could be counterhealed by a single corruption tick...

i actually use SS in these situations because of desecration being an undispellable (even for druids because of being an area) slow.

most time i use CoI to cc a melee who wants to get to my healer or to make it easier for one of us to LoS a ranged one. i don't really see the problem of a left-behind unholy rune, surely messing up my damage in serious sitouations, but for this we have Blood Tap and Empower Runeweapon. the unholy rune often goes away with a new bone shield (remember: also migitating dot-damage without loosing charges), a switch into unholy presence when i was forced to go into frost some time before, an AMZ or maybe if i would spec into it a ghoul frenzy.

my glyphs: AMS, Ghoul, Dark Death
personally i think of dropping AMS and maybe picking something else the OP listed above... maybe....

//english is not my mother tongue