Gemming an unholy DK for PvP

[TeeZed]

This is just a quick one for anyone who knows what's what in the unholy pvp world.

I recall having to get 130 spell pen as an unholy DK and i'm not sure if that mechanic is still in place (I assume it'd be 200 spell pen now due to shadow resistance being 197)

Do we still need to get spell pen? I've not seen any of my death coils or shadow strikes partially resisted so far, that's either luck, but i have had death grips "Resisted" I didn't even know that was possible, another mechanic i've clearly missed.

Other than that, i assume we just gem for STR as always. I'm sure that might change with the mastery change coming up, mastery might be our greatest stat which would be nice

Thanks in advance for any advice, and sorry if this has already been answered i've checked the entire internet for an answer to this and wasn't very lucky, other than some very odd looking site :P

[Pallydra]

You want to get the Spell Pene cap, and after that you want to put Strength and Haste in everything.

Strength in all red sockets, Strength/Haste in yellow depending on sockets, and Spell Penetration in blue sockets, luckily theres 3 blue sockets in PvP gear now, so it fits perfectly.

And yeah, getting the Spell Penetration cap is really mainly about now getting resists on Death Grip, Strangulate, and Mind Freeze seeing as thats pretty game breaking.

I highly doubt Mastery will be a great stat for Unholy PvP, if they follow the idea they were talking about, but it'll hopefully be a fair bit better than the current one.

[Nyanmaru]

You need as much spell penetration as the enemy has resistance so your damage does not get diminished and you binary spells don't get resisted.

On 85 vs. 85 there is no innate resistance, so all resistance comes from enchants or buffs.
'soft spell penetration' would be ~130 for MotW and racial treats.
'optimal spell penetration' would be ~460 to get at Resistance Aura or Shadow Protection Buff (might up that with 80 points for racials if you see resists against UD/Dra/Wor)
'hard spell penetration' would be ~1000 to counter Resistance Aura with Aura Mastery and Worgen/Undead/Draenai Shadow Resistance Racial.

[Deleted]

cloak 70 and 3 X 50 spell pene blue gems if not JC (or 2x 8X spell pene JC gems if you have this profession).
Cap is actually 195 but you will over-cap it a little bit which isn't too bad knowing some racials and other stuff will allow going a little over 195.

@Nye > self racials resist buff don't add up with auras/BoK/MotW.

Having 220 myself i never get anything partially resisted or totally. (Not considering UB getting 7 outta 50 dmg resisted an issue...)

[plaguehowl]

GIT LYKE ME

us.battle .net/wow/en/character/spirestone/plaguehowl/advanced

wtb links

[Nyanmaru]

WTS rechts

(don't mind the stupid german joke, links = left, rechts = right)

@Infuriate: Yeah I had something like that buried deep down inside my brain and was hoping it was just a fluke and didn't make the racial resistances utterly useless, at least for mages with mage armor you need those 130ish penetration because the racial does stack with mage armor...

[Deleted]

im rocking resilience in yellow, str + resil in reds, and spell pen in blues. it's working out pretty well right now, and i have no complaints...

[TeeZed]

Cheers guys, looks like I gotta stick some Spell pen in. Thanks for the info all

[Deleted]

@Infuriate: Yeah I had something like that buried deep down inside my brain and was hoping it was just a fluke and didn't make the racial resistances utterly useless, at least for mages with mage armor you need those 130ish penetration because the racial does stack with mage armor...

You are right but surprisingly i never get silence or grip resisted on mages having mage armor on them but my dmg is lower for sure. Something like 500/600 less DC dmg.

As for gems yes doing the same as Crazypearce since we get trained hard at high rating in arenas so RESI stacking seems the best choice while maintaining some decent STR and sockets bonuses (if STR or RESI ofc from my pov) !

[Frostburn]

I run with str/resil in reds/yellows and 40 resil yellows in blues and prismatics. Enjoy close to 40-50% damage reduction on me .

[herpdaderpherp]

gem spellpen then strength. proceed to roll face.

[Sal]

You are right but surprisingly i never get silence or grip resisted on mages having mage armor on them but my dmg is lower for sure. Something like 500/600 less DC dmg.

As for gems yes doing the same as Crazypearce since we get trained hard at high rating in arenas so RESI stacking seems the best choice while maintaining some decent STR and sockets bonuses (if STR or RESI ofc from my pov) !

I'm fairly certain Death Grip is physical, but oh boy trust me Strangulate is not.

[Nyanmaru]

I'm fairly certain Death Grip is physical, but oh boy trust me Strangulate is not.

Death Grip is a bastard child...
Physical hit, but shadow school. So you can reflect it as a warrior and resist it with shadow resistance but it hit's right through cloak of shadows.

[Sal]

Death Grip is a bastard child...
Physical hit, but shadow school. So you can reflect it as a warrior and resist it with shadow resistance but it hit's right through cloak of shadows.

Sounds about right.. really strange ability for sure. I'm not sure if this really needs a fix, but it's down right weird.

[Aphie]

im rocking resilience in yellow, str + resil in reds, and spell pen in blues. it's working out pretty well right now, and i have no complaints...

This. The more resil you have, you're going to be unkillable. In 3's you're really there to stack necrotic strike up. Other than that, Gem like the quote above and reforge / enchant haste after you've got spell pen cap and hit cap

[Needonboots]

3 Spell Pen gems + Spell Pen on cloak is enough for spell pen (think the gear only has 3 blue sockets anyway). Resilience in yellow, or Str/Haste if you like being all paper. Strength or Str/Resi in red. The only reason I'm not Str/Resi in red is nobody on my server seems to be cutting them.

[TeeZed]

I've gone with:

40 Resilience in Yellow
50 Spell pen in Blue
20str/haste in Red

Seems to be working pretty well, just gotta get my cloak and belt now, but already stitting on about 30% damage reduction, looking good so far

[Deleted]

Death Grip is a bastard child...
Physical hit, but shadow school. So you can reflect it as a warrior and resist it with shadow resistance but it hit's right through cloak of shadows.

In fact DG was changed into a spell with 4.0.1 so you'll miss it every time you try to DG a CloS'ed rogue.
Before you could bypass grounded totem, rogue CloS but couldn't go through BoP for example. Now it's the other way round.

[Deleted]

A mage, buffed with kings and mage armor has around 240 resistance.
Im sitting on 3.5k resil, 250 spell pen (its a matter of taste, I hate mages)
All yellow/non coloured slots = resil.
Red str, blue spell pen.

Im doing fine, zergin any healer down (inb4 nerf) and descent survivability

[Gerian]

I've gone with:

40 Resilience in Yellow
50 Spell pen in Blue
20str/haste in Red

Seems to be working pretty well, just gotta get my cloak and belt now, but already stitting on about 30% damage reduction, looking good so far

With how little you actually get out of a few dual-color haste gems I've switched to 20Str/20Resil just to be more of a brick shithouse. 3518 resilience at the moment.