DK DPS At 80

[Dreager_ex]

Rogues are whooping our ass and he is going on about DK competition :P

[Tabu34]

Alright, I'm going to try to put this all together. DW Frost, 2H Blood, and 2H Unholy are all viable to some degree, with the first two being preferable for endgame raiding. DW Frost is doable early at 80 but requires two slow 1Handers which are either from rep (which may or may not be high enough right at 80) or heroics.

I might just go Unholy until I get the one-handers for DW Frost, since Unholy should do well in LoLAoE (Normal Instances/Heroics/Naxx).

Did I miss anything?

[Melonberry]

Alright, I'm going to try to put this all together. DW Frost, 2H Blood, and 2H Unholy are all viable to some degree, with the first two being preferable for endgame raiding. DW Frost is doable early at 80 but requires two slow 1Handers which are either from rep (which may or may not be high enough right at 80) or heroics.

I might just go Unholy until I get the one-handers for DW Frost, since Unholy should do well in LoLAoE (Normal Instances/Heroics/Naxx).

Did I miss anything?

2 Tankards of terror or maces from htoc will do.

Actually, any 2 1 handed weapons will do. Do you think just because you went 2h over dual wield you'll magically have a better weapon?

Any spec is viable at lower gear. The better your gear, the bigger the difference. If you want to play dw, grab 2 weapons and go for it. Slow, fast, whatever...You'll get better ones eventually.

If you aren't horrible, you'll be able to level and do heroics or early raids in junk you get from instances while you level, playing whatever spec you enjoy as opposed to whatever spec elitist jerks tells you is the top dps in BiS gear. Even assuming one spec dealt 20% less damage than the others, pulling 2k as opposed to 2.4k probably wont get you kicked from a heroic or even naxx. People will be glad you aren't doing 600.

[Dreager_ex]

Any spec is viable at lower gear. The better your gear, the bigger the difference. If you want to play dw, grab 2 weapons and go for it. Slow, fast, whatever...You'll get better ones eventually.

Nah, he is definetly going to wanna get two slow weapons, no matter what, hell even two slow weapons on the AH will out DPS a lot of the fast weapons... at that stage. Besides slow weapons are easy enough to get, you don't need to sacrifice DPS for no reason IMO.

Actually, any 2 1 handed weapons will do. Do you think just because you went 2h over dual wield you'll magically have a better weapon?

I don't think anyone here is saying they are just going to hand him a 2 handed weapon when he dings 80 but the general consensus is that you get better 2 handed weapons when leveling up than 1 handed slow weapons, so he'd already have the tools to spec 2h specs. (Just from my experience, haven't bothered to check 100%).

[Nakko]

I assume you mean 5-man right? lol, i looked at that and was like, "What fail pug is gonna bring a fresh DK in questing blues to 25-man (or even 10-man)?"

Anyway, assuming you find a group willing to drag your fail DPS through ToC (because YES it will be fail if you JUST dinged 80) I'd go with the above suggestion. Also have that grop drag you through heroic ToC for the Axe.

I hit 80 on my warrior yesterday and did 6 normal ToC runs and 1 heroic, + a couple of other heroics and nobody complained, in fact, the other dps in the grp was also sitting at roughly 1.5k dps although they had epics and stuff, pugs are awesome

[Tabu34]

...the general consensus is that you get better 2 handed weapons when leveling up than 1 handed slow weapons, so he'd already have the tools to spec 2h specs. (Just from my experience, haven't bothered to check 100%).

This is what I've been thinking. If I could find some slow 1h weapons I would probably go DW right away, but as it is I'll probably have to wait until after I hit 80 and start doing heroics/grinding rep.

[Dreager_ex]

I hit 80 on my warrior yesterday and did 6 normal ToC runs and 1 heroic, + a couple of other heroics and nobody complained, in fact, the other dps in the grp was also sitting at roughly 1.5k dps although they had epics and stuff, pugs are awesome

/shrug idk, Im mostly basing it off when ToC first came out, when no one knew the fights. I haven't really done regular ToC since then. But I believe you when you say that, PuGs are pretty fail sometimes.

[Tabu34]

From what I've seen on my other 80s, normal ToC and H ToC are just as faceroll as everything else these days.

[Dreager_ex]

From what I've seen on my other 80s, normal ToC and H ToC are just as faceroll as everything else these days.

Well I haven't done regular in a while but from my experience in pugs. (Me doing 60% of the damage.) If they didn't have me they'd be f'd in the A--.

[highwind01]

Imo i think blood is the best dps spec and it has benifit to the raid too. but then again you can dps in any spec that feel like.

every dk dps spec has a raid benefit but the ones frost and blood offer are easily gained by a single enhancement shaman.
unholy on the other hand has a real unique raid benefit, no other class can provide more disease dmg (which helps all dks and shadowpriests) an no other class can provide an easy multi-target +13% magicdamage without gimping own dps to the ground.

go for unholy, it offers the best/most unique support and is also least gear dependant/most starter-gear friendly - u do decent damage even if u are not hit and/or expertise capped.
when u got gear together u can change anyways.

do heroic 5men coliseum on a daily basis, it offers decent 1h as well as 2h weapons

[Tabu34]

I didn't want to outright call him a moron and insult his grammar and spelling. Thanks for the vote of confidence in my reading skills though!

...unholy, it offers the best/most unique support and is also least gear dependant/most starter-gear friendly - u do decent damage even if u are not hit and/or expertise capped.
when u got gear together u can change anyways.

This what what I was thinking about doing, does anyone else think that this is an effective strategy?

[scathos]

It is if you want it to be, if you're comfortable doing it then go right ahead. Main thing is to ensure that you have fun...if you start doing end-game raiding it may not pull as much dps as blood or frost but you'll definitely be pulling enough to be useful and if there's a blood and frost in the group it'll be awesome amounts of utility .

[BoxofRox]

Okay, there are 3 "main" specs for DKs. (Like a bazillion different kinds of unholy)

Blood: If you're a clicker or very lazy
DW Frost: If you're a keyer or very skizzled
Unholy: If you're doing ToC or the only melee DPS

[Tabu34]

Okay, there are 3 "main" specs for DKs. (Like a bazillion different kinds of unholy)

Blood: If you're a clicker or very lazy
DW Frost: If you're a keyer or very skizzled
Unholy: If you're doing ToC or the only melee DPS

That isn't useful to this thread...at all really.
Thanks so much.

For everyone else that was actually contributing, I went Unholy while leveling to get a feel for it, and I somewhat like it. I went with the 2h Improved Unholy Presence build that I found on EJ. Thanks for all the help, and any tips would still be appreciated. I do still plan on going DW Frost or Unholy once I get the weapons for it, as long as those specs remain viable.