unholy dk? are they still here and worth someting?

[Shiira]

Now, this is probably because im not really min-maxxing and im a bit lazy, however im consistantly in the top 2-3 dps spots in the raids i do without it.
Maybe im just incredibly lucky and my playstyle is close to what is optimal?

It's much more likely that you're raiding with people who just aren't playing their specs very well.

If you're consistently doing more damage than mages and warlocks they need to step up their game.

[Deleted]

Now, this is probably because im not really min-maxxing and im a bit lazy, however im consistantly in the top 2-3 dps spots in the raids i do without it.

Compare yourself to the best dps around the world, not just the others 5/18 you are running with. I'm usually top 1-2 dps on my raid comp and top 1-2 dps on LFR but that makes me good? Nope, I'm just good for the group I run with.

All the three spec have their own micromanaging (pet - unholy / bt - DW / KM - 2h) and their own complexity but you have to agree that UH is the "harder" and less forgiving one while DW is the "easier" and the most forgiving one. Then we can discuss if player A feel stroger with Unholy, player B plays better with DW and player C loves big OB crits, but that's a neverending discussion.

[Vacuous0]

Been saying it for months now. They could add some burst to Unholy AND bring back some of the pet-hating crowd by giving UH a glyph to sac your ghoul for most likely extra shadow dmg or something else. That would simplify parts of the rotation, add burst, and give people the option not to use pets, while still leaving the current unholy as is for people that prefer pets and micromanagement.

Perfectly simple solution, if you ask me. And certain to diversify the DK demographics rather than the current 99% Frost we're seeing.

[Equalizer]

As much as I'd like to go DW, problem is 1H weapons seem to be non existant for my raid group and we've only had 1 drop off H: Elegon, which went to an SMF warr. Getting a 2H was much easier and I've just stuck with it up until heroic sha.

That being said I'll try UH once the tier is cleared. It was fun using it on elegon though ;]

[Derah]

There's a lot of reasons why unholy is so rarely used despite the fact that it DOES the same DPS as Frost.

First off is the fact that you depend on your pet, and said pet has the average intelligence of a rock. There's plenty of fights where the pet will not attack, plenty of encounters where if you have to jump platforms the pet will not jump with you, ect ect. Its just a nightmare, and sadly 30% of Unholy's DPS depends on that pet, so it refusing to attack at any moment leaves you quite starved of much needed damage.

Second one, is that Frost has a bigger burst. With a decent 2hander, one Killer Machine Obliterate crit with 2 diseases up can hit for up to 160k damage on self-buffs. This makes dailies faster, leveling easier, and trash-killing simpler. Anyone thinking that unholy as the same burst as frost is just dead wrong. Unholy requires quite the ramp-up time to deal its damage, and its waaay too dependent on diseases to be worth anything. Frost on the other hand, while still needing diseases to do its top damage, can still deal quite a decent damage diseaseless.

Third one is that frost's rotation is a lot less clunkier and cumbersome. Unholy has you juggling scourge strikes, D&D, Dark Transformation, Death Coil, Blood Boil, and Fester strike when you don't have purple runes (which tend to glitch out A LOT messing up your rotation even more). Frost on the other hand, does all its damage with Obliterate, and Frost strike, with the occasional Howling Blast when you get a Rime Proc (Which does happens often)

So yeah, theoretically speaking, on a patchwerk-type encounter, Unholy is every bit as good as Frost is. But on practice, it falls behind on sooooooo many different ways its not even funny.

[Schizoide]

So yeah, theoretically speaking, on a patchwerk-type encounter, Unholy is every bit as good as Frost is. But on practice, it falls behind on sooooooo many different ways its not even funny.

Yep, exactly.

[Thorios]

There appears to be a lot of hate toward Frost's current state. (due to its simplicity?) Am I really the only one that's completely ecstatic about 2H Frost's return? It's always been my favorite spec for DKs.

The feeling i'm having about it is that it feels like the beginning of the WotLK. It's about the most fun i ever had as a DPS DK.

On a side note, it is not that easy in PvP - mainly because knowing how to survive with a glass cannon is tough. It reminds me a bit of Elemental Shammies in WotLK as well.

[Rothulean1]

I recently specced frost due to the sha dropping the 1h sword instead of the axe...and I must say, frost surprised me. Frost certainly has a burst damage and rampup advantage. But it has a multitude of other problems.

2h frost:
Using anything but obliterate is painful. Which makes AoE for 2h rather blah.
Execute phase is a dps increase for 2h but not much, since soul reaper is half an obliterate

DW frost:
Absolutely horrid play style. Spamming hb and FS is fun. Spamming DnD and ps is not.

Frost also suffers a bit in extended AoE phases. I had multiple ppl in my raid group comment that my AoE dps was down after switching to frost. Another misconception is that frost is 3-5% ahead and that's just false. With proper monitoring of cooldown procs and outbreak/unholy blight usage, unholy disease damage can get as high as 19-21% of overall damage dealt. Simulationcraft numbers for unholy diseases are flat out wrong. Frost is maybe 1% ahead.

[Schizoide]

If you found anything wrong in simcraft, please post a ticket so they can fix it. Very easy to do, just click "new issue" here:

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/issues/list

[Skarssen]

Unholy is nothing more than a slightly less-womanly warlock. Most of its damage is from diseases, spells, and it's pet. Melee attacks hit like a 12 year old girl.

Sorry, not interested in playing a weak spell caster in plate. Unholy DK's might as well go stand in the back with the healers and the wizards and let the men do the fighting.

[Lovestar]

DW frost:
Absolutely horrid play style. Spamming hb and FS is fun. Spamming DnD and ps is not.

Why are you spamming Plague Strike as DW Frost, and how do you 'spam' an ability with a 30 second cooldown?

Frost also suffers a bit in extended AoE phases.

This makes sense to me, though, since Unholy has very strong diseases, reasonable Blood Boil spam once it ramps up its Death runes, and a nice cleave once Timmy gets rolling. I would expect it to have great long-term AoE output. But in my experience AoE is usually quick, brutal, and bursty, where Frost delivers.

Unholy is nothing more than a slightly less-womanly warlock.

I wish! Warlocks are way fun, but I get too bored being stuck outside melee slowly casting spells. Plus, Warlocks can get rid of the stupid pet.

I went into Unholy imagining the Unholy trainer in Acherus (who demonstrates lots of necromantic spells without spending any lessons on "How to Breastfeed Timmy") or the original Orc Death Knights. Instead it plays more like an RPG Beastmaster archetype — heavily pet-focused while throwing in some extra melee damage next to the pet.

[drazzil]

It's much more likely that you're raiding with people who just aren't playing their specs very well.

If you're consistently doing more damage than mages and warlocks they need to step up their game.

Compare yourself to the best dps around the world, not just the others 5/18 you are running with. I'm usually top 1-2 dps on my raid comp and top 1-2 dps on LFR but that makes me good? Nope, I'm just good for the group I run with.

Oh, dont get me wrong, im not saying i play like the top dks, but that isnt really the point. - Arent you mostly always playing with people about your same level? Wouldnt you (generally) leave for a better guild if you played or wanted to play far ahead of your guilds/groups level?
Im pretty sure if i played in a top progress guild i would be competitive at that level, maybe i would (have to)pay more attention to micromanaging UH, i dont know.

My point was you surely dont have to do that and still be competitive unless you are at the min/max level.

[Shiira]

Well if you're consistently outdamaging specs that should be performing better than you you're either playing better than them or geared better than them, that's all there is to it.

Unholy is okay right now and it has a couple of strong encounters, but overall it's just not great.

[Deleted]

Oh, dont get me wrong, im not saying i play like the top dks, but that isnt really the point. - Arent you mostly always playing with people about your same level? Wouldnt you (generally) leave for a better guild if you played or wanted to play far ahead of your guilds/groups level?
Im pretty sure if i played in a top progress guild i would be competitive at that level, maybe i would (have to)pay more attention to micromanaging UH, i dont know.

My point was you surely dont have to do that and still be competitive unless you are at the min/max level.

So are you saying that you don't care to improve yourself because you are doing good for the raid group you play with?

[drazzil]

So are you saying that you don't care to improve yourself because you are doing good for the raid group you play with?

yes - No not really, im pretty casual atm tho, and enjoying that. - I will just reinforce my point and the meaning of my post; Unholy is not imo more complex than frost -quite the opposite (imo), - maybe its easier to maxx out frost dps at the top levels, and its harder (i.e. require more skill, but not necessarily more complex) to get that ekstra few dps from UH - but that doesnt mean you can play it comfortably without beeing far behind other specs.

[Deleted]

but that doesnt mean you can play it comfortably without beeing far behind other specs.

If everyone in your raid perform bad it's easy to compensate your lack of dps when playing UH

What I mean is, you can't really say that a spec perform as good as other classes if none in your raid group is pushing hard to gain 1 more dps. That's why I told you to compare yourself to ranked dks, but since you are a casual slacker you won't listen to me

[Imbalanced]

my beloved Blood DPS

Only in my dreams.

I could be happy with 2h frost (Hard hitting Physical Dps) but I miss hysteria and DRW so much. I know drw wasn't very intelligent but I loved the concept(for dps) and people say unholy frenzy is basically the same as hysteria but fuck that shit man, I loved seeing the huge numbers with that 20% damage. And I fucking hate working in the single frost rune for soul reaper/pillar as a spec that spams a 2 rune ability. That and I loved being GCD locked back in wrath with runes on their own CD there is nothing i hate more than downtime in my rotation.

[Shiira]

When you get more gear you pretty much stop having downtime.

I was briefly 2h frost with 11k haste.

It felt like far too much, I was close to gcd locked even without any rp from ams.

[Imbalanced]

When you get more gear you pretty much stop having downtime.

I was briefly 2h frost with 11k haste.

It felt like far too much, I was close to gcd locked even without any rp from ams.

Well currently I'm DW so I don't think I'll be hitting those haste values anytime soon :P I was pretty much stating why I miss WotLK

[tehpwner]

I've been playing Unholy for years (ever since DKs came out, with a short break in Wrath when Dual Wield frost was atrociously broken for a patch). Unholy def. is the harder to master of the set, but personally I find it incredibly more rewarding and the utility timmy brings if you do micromanage is incredibly helpful (i.e. see an add smacking someone they shouldn't be on Elegon? Send timmy to grab aggro or stun and bring it to the tank. Do it all the time as second nature now). I can consistently out dps the rest of my raid with similar gear levels. Frost always felt (to me to play) like a simpler, boring ret paladin.