Can't grasp Unholy rotation like other melee characters of mine

[Raisei]

Unholy is probably one of my favourite specs in the game. The theme of a dark knight controlling diseases and having necromantic spells is brilliant and the Outbreak/Epidemic combo is a very unique cleaving style. It is not easy to play compared to say a BM Hunter with it's 3-4 buttons rotation but that is one of the things that makes me want to play it even more.

Frost atm falls a bit short for me even though the dps is supposedly great. Playing with Sindragosa may be fun for some people but I feel the downtime is too long between breathes and I also find the ST damage a bit lacking compared to Unholy that can burst ST and groups just as well. Not to mention that a DK with two little swords is just not fitting the class fantasy, especially since you are doing heavy swings and cleaves... anyway...

I learned after some trying out that one thing that really gets a DK going, both in Blood and Unholy is Haste. A base 32 to 34% upwards makes things A Lot smoother and rune regeneration is much better. I take great pains not to fall below 30%, even if that means using lower ilvl rings.
Below a certain Haste threshold Blood felt nearly impossible to play since you ran out of runes, then runic power, then health, after crossing the threshold the palystyle becomes so much smoother. The same goes for Unholy pretty much, just that you won't be murdered by a group of trash and instead have longer and unfun downtimes in your rotation.

And as has been said, make liberal use of runic power, Death Coil for ST and Epidemic for Aoe, the added benefit besides Runic Corruption is that you reduce the CD of your Dark Transformation (which is already pretty short to begin with).

Since most of our CDs are pretty short, don't hold them back. I made that mistake quite a bit in the past. I generally just throw the DT on whatever is pulled and then usually spend my first 4 wounds on a juicy Apocalypse. Then you could go into Unholy Frenzy to get new wounds quicker and for free and just Scrouge Strike a bit until you have enough Runic Power to cast Death Coil/Epidemic for Runic Corruption (also using up Sudden Doom procs). Once you are low on Runes AND Runic Power (for example if you did not get a Runic Corruption proc) you go for Soul Reaper to pass the time before you can hit another CD.

We have alot of CDs that want to be pressed, which is why I am glad that Vision of Perfection is doing so well for us atm, not having another CD to watch allows you to focus more on the class abilities.

Finally Army of the Dead is our biggest baddest move. Unless you are fighting an overpowered plotshielded Banshee it is just a joy to press that button (one of the reasons the spec is so fun to play), you become a one-person army for 40 seconds, with 3x Magus of the Dead making it even better.
It goes without saying that you want to line it up with Bloodlust/Hero in M+ and Raids. If the Raid uses Hero at the start of the fight you can cheat a bit by using it 4-5 seconds before the pull, getting a few seconds of rune recovery to start the fight with (nearly) full runes and an army of skelletons at your side for the next halve minute.

[Zorachus]

Ran a couple M+ last night, first run was a +5, and I was #1 the whole run, which is a first for me. First boss I was 38%, doing 2.2m overall damage on the boss, other fight I was 39% doing 3.9m overall damage for the boss fight, and recorded final boss fight I was 34% doing 2.91m overall damage.

But then after that, I did a +7 run, and didn't do so hot in that group, no one recorded each fight, but my one Guild mate that went with me, afterwards said I did like 18k dps on average. Said melee was my highest spell or hits.

[Greengrim]

Ran a couple M+ last night, first run was a +5, and I was #1 the whole run, which is a first for me. First boss I was 38%, doing 2.2m overall damage on the boss, other fight I was 39% doing 3.9m overall damage for the boss fight, and recorded final boss fight I was 34% doing 2.91m overall damage.

But then after that, I did a +7 run, and didn't do so hot in that group, no one recorded each fight, but my one Guild mate that went with me, afterwards said I did like 18k dps on average. Said melee was my highest spell or hits.

18k average is low for 445 ilvl UHDK.

I can see you're playing on US, so we can't run a few dungeons together. But I could stream a few runs for you still (if you're interested). I don't have good gear, I'm probably rusty as UH, and my topDK ranking days are long in the past (Cata maybe?) so I'm definitely not among the top DKs currently, but you should be able to pick up some of the movement and management essentials from me still. You could ask some stuff in the chat too, I will reply, though my English is quite broken.

Let me know if you want to do that. I can stream everyday from 22:00 EEST.

[Zorachus]

How do I get my Haste to over 30% + ? It's not even at 20% yet. Just farm specific dungeons or something? Does enchants really help increase your % a lot?

[ymn]

How do I get my Haste to over 30% + ? It's not even at 20% yet. Just farm specific dungeons or something? Does enchants really help increase your % a lot?

Most of the "awesome levels" of Haste is almost unattainable nowadays (especially with Corruption effects, since having a Crit/Versa ring with any of the awesome Corruption powers trumps pure Haste). But having roughly 25-30% Haste without any procs/effects is the best.

Essence gives you 5ish? percent haste on boss fights (if you rarely change targets, example: on N'zoth fight, I had to convince the raid leader that me constantly switching on tentacles instead of tunneling Psychus is making me lose crapton of DPS, since Unholy's target-switching is among the worst in the game), and all other procs that you might have, you're actually usually at 30+% Haste on all boss fights, if you have Ra-Den trinkets, you're golden.

Of course, it all comes down to simming, but there should be rarely a moment where you're just waiting for those runes to come back up (it's either huge mismanagement of Runes/Runic Power on your end, missing free Death Coil procs, as they can be chained one after another, not casting Death Coil enough to maintain the Rune proc rate etc).

However, anything below 20% Haste is way too low and you WILL see the difference by having all your buttons disabled.

[Draken4o1]

Ive read a lot of silly comments that can confuse a new player when it comes to this spec.

MarcelianOnline has a guide in youtube for unholy seach it (cant link it yet)

A decent guide on the spec in 8.3. Only note is that echoing void is nowhere near as good now. (i guess he recorded that part pre nerf) Haste% on gear/ haste proc, void ritual are not bad corruptions. Twilight devastation for aoe.. and infinite stars for single target are the no brainer bis atm. Also check Acherus DK discord.

[Alanar]

Really? With GCD I just press what's available then press what procs/shines. Rotations have never been easier! I can DPS a dungeon while watching TV.

Just happen to notice that all faces on your signature have some kind of `I came' faces going on..
Thats weird lol

[Zorachus]

So I thought I was doing ok in Unholy the past week, with all your help here, and reading Method's guide and the Romanian YouTube channel. I ran some +5' and +7's and was like 1st and 2nd place DPS, and then helped someone run a couple M0's and was easily first place.

But then yesterday, my Guild asked me to run a +12 Waycrest Manor, which I haven't even run even a +10 yet, and I got my butt kicked left and right in there. It was a brutal run, and my Guild mates are really good, all i460+, and they regularly run +15's. The leader was saying my dps was really poor and much lower than it should be for my iLvl, by half. I was doing approx. 20k-25k dps, he said I should, be easily doing 40k with my i445 gear. At the end of the run, damage meter though had me in second place dps.

It's weird, my Havoc Demon Hunter is only i425, and I do 35k on M+ bosses, but my Unholy is i445 and can't come close to that.

I dusted off the Blood Tank guides yesterday, and switched my gear to Blood, will try some Tanking. I used to always Tank in MoP and Legion mostly. Ran an easy +2 as Blood, zero wipes, and still had like 12 minutes left on timer.

[Kyphael]

Just happen to notice that all faces on your signature have some kind of `I came' faces going on..
Thats weird lol

Unintentional but totally glad it looks that way!

[Beefkow]

The UH dk rotation is easy, just auto attack.

Perfectly flawless.

[Alanar]

Unintentional but totally glad it looks that way!

hahah nice
+1

[DemonDays]

Unholy has greater downtime than other melee specs when you've used up all your cooldowns.

Unholy Frenzy+Soul Reaper are your greatest moment of business, especially if you get multiple sudden doom procs that make you risk overflowing RP or overcapping runes, but you can use apocalypse+army of the dead for this, and try to activate unholy frenzy at 2-3 festering wounds with soul reaper up so you can go to town spamming scourge strike while never having to cast festering strike during unholy frenzy's duration since autos are applying festering wounds for you.

Honestly, I don't mind it, it's one of the specs that doesn't give me Carpal Tunnel Syndrome when playing for more than 2 hours.

The one thing I really dislike about unholy is the aoe interaction with scourge strike. Seems counterproductive that you don't want to combine festering wound bursts and instead just spam scourge strike in defile/dnd regardless of how many wounds you have because it's more damage. I would prefer if dnd/defile simply boosted our plague damage.

They should also make epidemic baseline and make it work with sudden doom as well so we get an option of RP spender. In the case of frost, fros scythe should be baselined as well and made an RP spender.

This is the main reason I switched to Unholy.

It feels like a more involved and interesting spec to play. More things to manage. It can get frustrating sometimes whilst also trying to dodge mechanics in raids but I enjoy it more.

The real kicker is no more carpal tunnel. Coming from a Havoc DH in Legion and then a Fury Warrior for early BfA it is SO much better. Those other two specs made my fucking wrist ache with the spamming. Fury is such a mindless spec. Never changes. Never interesting.

I agree - Epidemic should be baseline and work on Sudden Doom procs. Why does a spec that is about spreading disease have such shit AoE without a talent? Doesn't make any sense.

- - - Updated - - -

So I thought I was doing ok in Unholy the past week, with all your help here, and reading Method's guide and the Romanian YouTube channel. I ran some +5' and +7's and was like 1st and 2nd place DPS, and then helped someone run a couple M0's and was easily first place.

But then yesterday, my Guild asked me to run a +12 Waycrest Manor, which I haven't even run even a +10 yet, and I got my butt kicked left and right in there. It was a brutal run, and my Guild mates are really good, all i460+, and they regularly run +15's. The leader was saying my dps was really poor and much lower than it should be for my iLvl, by half. I was doing approx. 20k-25k dps, he said I should, be easily doing 40k with my i445 gear. At the end of the run, damage meter though had me in second place dps.

It's weird, my Havoc Demon Hunter is only i425, and I do 35k on M+ bosses, but my Unholy is i445 and can't come close to that.

I dusted off the Blood Tank guides yesterday, and switched my gear to Blood, will try some Tanking. I used to always Tank in MoP and Legion mostly. Ran an easy +2 as Blood, zero wipes, and still had like 12 minutes left on timer.

Havoc is insanely easy to play and to maximize DPS. They also benefit really well from Corruption - where Unholy doesn't.

[pinglong]

Unholy's Rotation is somewhat too much for it's lower middle of the pack (& that's being nice) DPS.
Shadowlands really needs to look at why Demon Hunter can press 2 buttons & do S+ tier DPS in every scenario but the other "Hero" Class is just complete garbage in comparison.

[Zorachus]

So I went back to blood tanking which I haven't done since Legion and ransom +7 and +10 which I normally don't run keys much harder than +5 and never once said I tanked very well.

I also got a little higher gear and went back to to unholy and seem to be doing better DPS.

But both unholy and blood have the same beefs and issues with. There's no smooth rotation. I got my hate stuff to 27% unbuffed, but sometimes I still might have to wait half a second before I click another spell.

For example when I'm just doing world quests and unholy I'll hit plague then festering strike once then scorge strike couple times and then death coil. And I want to just rinse and repeat that but I can't sometimes I'm waiting for rooms to regenerate again.

Same with blood I'll start off with DRW then Morrow to get up to six stacks and then I'll hit one blood boil and then I'll hit heart strike until it runs out which is usually two or three or four strikes. And then I'm waiting maybe one second or half a second for stuff to regenerate again.

I miss the old days pre-cataclism when there was a solid strict rotation you go 1 2 3 4 5 rinse and repeat 1 2 3 4 5 again. or at least frost death night which I hate and don't play anymore but I kind of like that you got lots of procs and then you hit that one and then you know there's only a couple of spells you need to really stay on top of and that rotation seems more fluid or always something to hit.

- - - Updated - - -

My issue in BfA is the slow rune regeneration, and cool down and wait times for spells to be ready. I want it to feel almost like Lust is on 24/7, super fluid fast spell casting.

Would like a nonstop smooth rotation of Outbreak X1, Festering Strike X1, Scourge Strike X2 or 3, Epidemic X1, and let me rinse and repeat that nonstop with zero waiting and keep it gong smooth at wrap speed. ye sit's easy to start off with that rotation I just gave, but ocne you starst doing a seocnd round of it, some slow downs come up, and then a third round of it forget it, there's major slow downs.

Or I can just Scourge Strike x 3 or 4 and Death Coil X 1, rinse and repeat, that works, but doesn't do much. That's my mini rotation for fast WQ stuff, it's quick and simple and kills

[Shao]

@Zocharus one thing that's been understated in this thread (and I briefly mentioned earlier), manage your pet.
I'm willing to bet in that dungeon you avg 18k your pet may have been dead or passive at times.
Make sure to pay attention and raise a new one when he dies (he will die).
Also macro /petattack to Outbreak and Festering Strike so he's never passive.
Your pet will also infect wounds at a 30% chance if you take Infected Claws talent.
I almost always have a wound to pop using this talent, rotation feels better when you have wounds to pop.

Also, looking at your toon you need more Festermight and Magus of the Dead azerite traits.
3x Festermight is ideal, you only have 1
I would run at least 2x Magus, you only have 1

I hope this helps.

[Zorachus]

@Zocharus one thing that's been understated in this thread (and I briefly mentioned earlier), manage your pet.
I'm willing to bet in that dungeon you avg 18k your pet may have been dead or passive at times.
Make sure to pay attention and raise a new one when he dies (he will die).
Also macro /petattack to Outbreak and Festering Strike so he's never passive.
Your pet will also infect wounds at a 30% chance if you take Infected Claws talent.
I almost always have a wound to pop using this talent, rotation feels better when you have wounds to pop.

Also, looking at your toon you need more Festermight and Magus of the Dead azerite traits.
3x Festermight is ideal, you only have 1
I would run at least 2x Magus, you only have 1

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the tips, will test tonight.

Total noob question, but in my 15 years never did a macro. How exactly do i set that up?

[Shao]

Thanks for the tips, will test tonight.

Total noob question, but in my 15 years never did a macro. How exactly do i set that up?

Go to the ? icon in-game > Macros.
Make a new macro (name it as you wish) with this code:

#showtooltip Outbreak
/petattack
/cast Outbreak

and drag it to your bar (replace your regular Outbreak button).

For Festering Strike:

#showtooltip Festering Strike
/petattack
/cast Festering Strike

[cparle87]

Thanks for the tips, will test tonight.

Total noob question, but in my 15 years never did a macro. How exactly do i set that up?

Type /m to open up the window. To cast a spell you'll want to type /cast <spell name>. In this case /cast Outbreak and /cast Festering Strike. The other part /petattack, is self explanatory. Adding the #showtooltip command will make it show the icon and tooltip of the spell in question. So you're making two macros.

First one reads:
#showtooltip
/cast Festering Strike
/petattack

Second one reads:
#showtooltip
/cast Outbreak
/petattack

Make these two macros and replace your Outbreak and Festering Strikes spells with them.

[Zorachus]

Thank you both, will try this later tonight, may come back with a question or three LOL

[Sinte]

There is no reason to ever use Clawing Shadows. It's literally obsolete compared to the other 2 talents.

Everyone who says otherwise simply doesnt care about dps. So if dps is actually the goal, don't ever use Clawing Shadows, there is literally no upside to it compared to the other two.

Well,there is one upside to it. Its ranged. Si in like 1 percent of encounters,it can be good. I found myself usingbbnitbon xanesh with tanks that move her unpredictably.

Unholy's Rotation is somewhat too much for it's lower middle of the pack (& that's being nice) DPS.
Shadowlands really needs to look at why Demon Hunter can press 2 buttons & do S+ tier DPS in every scenario but the other "Hero" Class is just complete garbage in comparison.

Lol,middle of the pack in what, +2s? Because nobody can hang with us on high keys,especially consistently pull after pull. DHs are only better in scrub content where things die fast. Festermight and helchains literally make us a busted class in m+