Unholy vs blood

[ebs530]

I'll be hitting 80 soon, and I was just wondering what is currently the best dps spec? Blood or Unholy?

[Kinderwurst]

Depends on your gear. With lower iLevel gear, it's probably going to be Blood until you can get some tier gear. With better gear, Unholy will topple Blood (although Unholy's rotation is a pain)

[Iceforge]

In BiS, blood pulls ahead of Unholy. For the most part, they are both very close, so it shouldn't be too big of an issue which of the two you choose. Try them both out, and whichever you are more comfortable will likely yield better DPS for you because of how close they are to each other.

However, at much lower gear levels, I believe blood is better, so they tend to flip-flop.

[Shelly]

I'll be hitting 80 soon, and I was just wondering what is currently the best dps spec? Blood or Unholy?

Frost starts out best in that it has a huge AoE attack that scales off attack power over weapon damage.

Unholy is generally the best all-arounder and shines at the current T-9 levels (this may change with the next patch since frost is getting some very nice buffs.)

Blood probably scales the best of all with weapon damage, however since it's pretty heavy physical it benefits the most out of all specs with ArP. A stat that's pretty heavy on most ICC gear. (Again, this may change a bit come next patch when SS is changed to scale up a bit better with physical damage.)

[Iceforge]

(Again, this may change a bit come next patch when SS is changed to scale up a bit better with physical damage.)

Would people please stop saying that the altering of SS in 3.3.3 changes the value of ArP? As of right now, SS is effected 100% by ArP, and as of 3.3.3 will still be 100% effected.

[Nangz]

Depends on your gear. With lower iLevel gear, it's probably going to be Blood until you can get some tier gear. With better gear, Unholy will topple Blood (although Unholy's rotation is a pain)

I disagree. Unholy is a very lenient spec regarding caps.

A fresh 80 should get to hit cap fast but unholy requires very little expertise whereas blood should be capped due to number of strikes per set of runes.

Would people please stop saying that the altering of SS in 3.3.3 changes the value of ArP? As of right now, SS is effected 100% by ArP, and as of 3.3.3 will still be 100% effected.

Except the value of arp WILL go up.

If more of the strike becomes physical damage then the total damage will increase with a static amount of arp from 3.3-3.3.3


It goes from 60-70% which means that a greater percentage of the strike is physical.

It will go up. Just not a HUGE amount.

[kumduh]

Short Answer: Both
Long Answer: They're both equally competitive.

[Iceforge]

Except the value of arp WILL go up.
If more of the strike becomes physical damage then the total damage will increase with a static amount of arp from 3.3-3.3.3
It goes from 60-70% which means that a greater percentage of the strike is physical.
It will go up. Just not a HUGE amount.

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t72364-u...ld_you_lately/

Taken from the notes at the top of the page about 3.3.3 changes:

"* Scourge Strike: Now deals 70% weapon damage, plus 12% of physical damage done as shadow damage for each of the death knight's diseases on the target. The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.

At first glance, the SS change may seem like the most important of them all. With the physical strike going from 50% to 70% of weapon damage and the magical strike being reduced from 75% to 36% of the physical damage, surely that means something, right? No, not really. Blizzard actually managed to change our core ability to increase PvP potency without really any adverse effect to our PvE performance. Who knew such a thing could be managed! It does actually increase the damage of SS ever so slightly (about ~3%), but it's hardly worth noting, and doesn't actually change our spec, stat weights, or gearing."

Edit: Sorry for just quoting, but I am off to a movie, and don't have time to explain that it won't change anything.

[Sonkzor]

Try them both out, see which one suits you best, and keep it. There are alot of helpful threads on this forums, that will help you spec for Unholy, and Blood, to try out.

[DAST]

Way too many bad people walking around these forums spreading reaaaaally bad info...


And why do people keep saying unholy's rotation is annoying/painful/hard?

At all? Just stop it

[Sonkzor]

Way too many bad people walking around these forums spreading reaaaaally bad info...


And why do people keep saying unholy's rotation is annoying/painful/hard?

At all? Just stop it

No rotation is hard, you just have to get used to it. Want a hard(difficult to get used to) try being a feral druid.

[Nangz]

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t72364-u...ld_you_lately/

Taken from the notes at the top of the page about 3.3.3 changes:

"* Scourge Strike: Now deals 70% weapon damage, plus 12% of physical damage done as shadow damage for each of the death knight's diseases on the target. The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.

At first glance, the SS change may seem like the most important of them all. With the physical strike going from 50% to 70% of weapon damage and the magical strike being reduced from 75% to 36% of the physical damage, surely that means something, right? No, not really. Blizzard actually managed to change our core ability to increase PvP potency without really any adverse effect to our PvE performance. Who knew such a thing could be managed! It does actually increase the damage of SS ever so slightly (about ~3%), but it's hardly worth noting, and doesn't actually change our spec, stat weights, or gearing."

Edit: Sorry for just quoting, but I am off to a movie, and don't have time to explain that it won't change anything.

I am aware that it will not change anything but the value of arp goes up and the value of strenght should go down. Unless my paper math is incorrect which i'd doubt.

Aka- the value of arp goes up. str goes down. Damage remans the same.

[Eats Compost]

I am aware that it will not change anything but the value of arp goes up and the value of strenght should go down. Unless my paper math is incorrect which i'd doubt.

Aka- the value of arp goes up. str goes down. Damage remans the same.

I'm afraid you're wrong there. The critical thing to remember is that the shadow portion can be treated as though it's 100% affected by ArP, due to being based on physical damage. Ergo, it doesn't matter how much of the total damage is physical or how much of the total damage is shadow. Both portions are affected by ArP, and thus, it doesn't matter which one there is more of in terms of ArP statweights.

Now, if the Shadow Damage wasn't based on how hard the physical hit was (say, an entirely seperate hit based on your weapon damage and not a percentage of what the physical hit was) it'd be a different story, as then the shadow portion wouldn't get any benefit from ArP. But, that's not the case.

[Horn]

although Unholy's rotation is a pain

I have mine set to a castsequence macro ???

[Nangz]

Ok, well lets assume your correct.

SS is still getting a minor buff. EJ expressed ~3%. Wouldn't more of our damage coming from scourge strike make ARP marginally better? Not better than strenght but better than it is currently.

[Bigmattn]

I have mine set to a castsequence macro ???

That post made me so sad.

Start out with Blood, easiest of the specs and it works well in lower gear. Once you start gobbling up a few pieces of t9 go ahead and go unholy.

[kerwyn]

Ok, well lets assume your correct.

SS is still getting a minor buff. EJ expressed ~3%. Wouldn't more of our damage coming from scourge strike make ARP marginally better? Not better than strenght but better than it is currently.

No, the strike scales 100% with ArPen pre 3.3.3 and will continue to scale the same amount post 3.3.3. And from what I read the actual increase was something like .3% more, the whole goal of the change was to leave it relatively unchanged in PvE but make it a harder hitting PvP strike.

[Eats Compost]

Ok, well lets assume your correct.

SS is still getting a minor buff. EJ expressed ~3%. Wouldn't more of our damage coming from scourge strike make ARP marginally better? Not better than strenght but better than it is currently.

Well, it's a very different angle of looking at it, but that's true. Though, in that case, the difference would be extremely marginal. If I'm not mistaken, the value of ArP would go up by ~1% or less, assuming EJ's ~3% is correct.

No, the strike scales 100% with ArPen pre 3.3.3 and will continue to scale the same amount post 3.3.3. And from what I read the actual increase was something like .3% more, the whole goal of the change was to leave it relatively unchanged in PvE but make it a harder hitting PvP strike.

What Nan is saying this time is that if SS hits harder, which it will (slightly), then it increases the value of ArP, completely disregarding scaling. That's entirely true, but as I said above, the difference will be extremely marginal.

[Arthas]

for 80 its blood for pvp and tanking and unholy is for tanking. but for me my talent tree for dps/pvp/soloing are 100% different.

[Nangz]

for 80 its blood for pvp and tanking and unholy is for tanking. but for me my talent tree for dps/pvp/soloing are 100% different.

Because of the lack of punctuation I have no idea what you said.

Here is what it comes down to. (if things are listed on the same line they are equal or the same)

Tanking- Frost or Blood
Unholy

DPS- Unholy Blood
Frost

PVP- Unholy
Frost
Blood