Unholy PvE in 5.2

[damescool]

This... Bringing back blood caked blade or buffing scourge strike would be a win, still feel like unholy should be the "patchwerk king" with frost winning on any cleave/target switching type scenario.

agreed, i'd love a change like that.

unholy is far from crappy, but i think a lot of people call it that because overall it's sub-par to frost. which is sad as unholy is my favorite spec, i just never play it anymore, in fact i'm now transitioning over to dw-frost as i have 1 heroic sha and 1-heroic elegon weapons and overall with all the cleave fights dw is best dk spec. so i welcome this fix in 5.2, but i don't think it will be near enough to bring it up to par with other melee classes or with frost.

[valliant13]

This... Bringing back blood caked blade or buffing scourge strike would be a win, still feel like unholy should be the "patchwerk king" with frost winning on any cleave/target switching type scenario.

I think they should be about balanced regardless. Cause then people would be switching back and forth between fights and needing two sets of gear. Which sucks if you use EPGP or any real form of loot distribution. In a 10 man I could see it working out fine, but 25s not even a little bit. The niches should be exactly what they are now...frost is bursty and great are target swapping. Unholy is great overall after the ramp up and during the execute phase. That's all it should be. This buff you want would put unholy into a godly level like it was in 4.0. It already scales fine in pve otherwise people wouldnt play it at all and the only reason people aren't playing it is because they think its so much harder than frost to play or they hate having timmy. Unholy's aoe is fine as is it just takes longer to get the results that frost typically gets what seems instantly. Not to mention a frost dk wont spec rolling blood ever...for the aoe crazy fights im hoping unholys spec that and can basically keep their diseases up permanently during the aoe phase thanks to blizzard basically putting glyph of disease back in the form of a talent. BCB would be good to have back regardless in a good working form.

[liljc711]

Overall, Unholy is fine mechanically. It doesn't feel clunky, unlike Frost; especially during execute phases. The changes are welcomed to help with target swapping. I think the problem lies with the face-rolling rotation (DW-HB spam) of Frost to out dps Unholy's more complex, yet dps-lacking, rotation. And we've yet to uncover Tier 15 bonuses, which may end up bringing us equal to if not more than frost's dps single target. If any spell was to be buffed it would have to be FS. Buffing SS would probably be too much of a buff. But having FS hit harder 20-30 times a fight, X-amount harder, would still be noticeable.

[Nangz]

Overall, Unholy is fine mechanically. It doesn't feel clunky, unlike Frost; especially during execute phases. The changes are welcomed to help with target swapping. I think the problem lies with the face-rolling rotation (DW-HB spam) of Frost to out dps Unholy's more complex, yet dps-lacking, rotation. And we've yet to uncover Tier 15 bonuses, which may end up bringing us equal to if not more than frost's dps single target. If any spell was to be buffed it would have to be FS. Buffing SS would probably be too much of a buff. But having FS hit harder 20-30 times a fight, X-amount harder, would still be noticeable.

Quite the contrary, unholy isn't fine mechanically. Compared to frost, yes, our execute is much easier to manage ( 2h) however target swapping, rampup, and aoe rotation are all very mechanically weak. They're being improved in 5.2.

[liljc711]

I'm okay with the slower rampup, if our sustained is equal, and our execute remains higher. It allows for both play styles; if a certain fight needs more burst at the start or more dps during an execute. You can't have every character in the game bursty. Come execute time all the classes would just be boring and feel like the fight is just dragging.

---------- Post added 2013-01-09 at 05:10 PM ----------

Agreed though that our AOE is lack-luster. Blood Boil just doesn't have a very Unholy-esque feel to it. Maybe if the talent changed to something else when in Unholy Specialization, or let Death Coil have a splash effect.

[Absintheminded]

How is AoE getting buffed in 5.2? Gargoyle cost and Icy Touch added to Reaping are QoL, PS giving Frost Fever is a buff, but I don't see any AoE buffs.

Speaking of Blood boil, they should just make its cost like 2 Blood Runes (Or RP for that matter), and increase the damage significantly. It's too spammy, yet has insignificant damage.

[Schizoide]

IT on reaping is a buff for sustained AE. It won't help much on trash but anywhere you're AEing for over 20 seconds or so it's a nice improvement. PS applying frost fever is an AE buff too, because it allows you to ramp-up faster. Unholy AE still won't be great compared to Frost, particularly since you need to sacrifice your single-target performance to do it, unlike frost.

[SSHA778]

Speaking of Blood boil, they should just make its cost like 2 Blood Runes (Or RP for that matter), and increase the damage significantly. It's too spammy, yet has insignificant damage.

Double rune cost of the same type is, for lack of better words, and as much as I hate to use this cliché word, extremely clunky, bordering on downright unusable. You would not want this at all. Two different types is okay.

If it cost RP, then Frost would have a rune-based AoE and an RP-based AoE, making it even more effective at AoE, and you would run into the question of whether the ability should proc T75 (and by extension / in addition, add SI stacks for Unholy).

[Schizoide]

Best solution was to make BB cost 1B1F for unholy, but they chose to go another way. Its damage is fine once you have 4 death runes queued up.

[Absintheminded]

Double rune cost of the same type is, for lack of better words, and as much as I hate to use this cliché word, extremely clunky, bordering on downright unusable. You would not want this at all. Two different types is okay.

If it cost RP, then Frost would have a rune-based AoE and an RP-based AoE, making it even more effective at AoE, and you would run into the question of whether the ability should proc T75 (and by extension / in addition, add SI stacks for Unholy).

I don't think it would be. Spamming something as mindless as Blood Boil should be a conscious decision, and not without sacrifice. As it stands now, it should do shit damage, because 1 Blood rune is too cheap for it to be good. Sacrificing a rotation or two of solid single target damage for an AoE bomb is a fair trade, in my mind. But these are my opinions, and I've played DK since Wrath so I've seen it all, every iteration of every spell.

[Nangz]

I don't think it would be. Spamming something as mindless as Blood Boil should be a conscious decision, and not without sacrifice. As it stands now, it should do shit damage, because 1 Blood rune is too cheap for it to be good. Sacrificing a rotation or two of solid single target damage for an AoE bomb is a fair trade, in my mind. But these are my opinions, and I've played DK since Wrath so I've seen it all, every iteration of every spell.

Well, dw frost sacrifices nothing switching from aoe to single target, 2h sacrifices a lot but it isn't as horrible. If the aoe damage was higher to compensate for lack of flexibility sure, but it isn't.

[fangless]

The AE buffs are nice, but at least for the current fights, it's not a factor. Maybe it'll be nice in 5.2, we'll have to see.