Unholy DK Alpha Testers, Please Read! (Unholy Legion Discussion)

[OzUnOo]

Hey guys! Big time unholy fan here. Been away from WoW for a year now, partially due to WoD completely screwing unholy gameplay, making it as boring and dull as it could be IMO.

*Looking at all the info already released for Legion got me very excited for the Unholy revamp, and after going through all the changes, i was very eager to get into the alpha and share feedback on the alpha forums, but getting into alpha is very hard.

*Therefore id like to at least share my thoughts and impressions about the spec's new mechanics here with the alpha testers on MMOC, to see if anyone agrees with most of it (or not) and to hopefully persuade someone into bringing some of these thoughts to the official feedback forums, since this is the moment they listen to us the most.

Bear in mind that most of my experience in WoW comes from PvP, but since im writting about the spec's core mechanics, it involves PvE as well. Without further delay, lets get to it (big wall of text incoming!).

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01. THE RNG OVERLOAD

What stands out the most about Legion Unholy so far, when compared to previous expansions, is the huge RNG increase baked into the specs abilities. So much that i had to start talking about it now so as to not get repetitive later on!

While im certain some players hated this change entirely, i personally believe that small doses of RNG can actually benefit the spec a lot, specially when it promotes risk management. Its very clear that Blizz splashed too much RNG on UH though, so most of my suggestions for UH either tone the RNG down or apply it in more active, meaningful ways.

02. FESTERING WOUNDS

This is a great idea. It fits the class fantasy, rewards the player for following a dynamic priority system
instead of a boring fixed rotation, and finally gives Scourge Strike the spotlight it deserves in UH's
army after being a lowly squire for years.

Its execution seems quite off though (which is to be expected, its alpha after all), and i believe the
suggestions below would go a long way to make it better:

A. Make Festering Strike apply 02 FW stacks MINIMUM;

This is a change i think UH absolutely cant go into beta without. Just thinking about the possibility of hitting FS twice and getting only 02 stacks can make a vein pop out, this skill requires the minimum amount of stacks gained to be 02 simply cuz of the rune investment! Apocalypse on a 45 second cd wont be enough to offset this btw.

RNG is only fun when we choose to rely on it, being forced into relying on it all the time can be horrible. It sounds like an obvious change, but theres a world-drop legendary for UH that reduces FS rune cost to 1, and im afraid Blizz will have to take these into account when balancing the specs. Yet another reason to get veins popping!

B. Make the Blackjack minigame "feeling" of the Festering Postules talent BASELINE;

Damage wise, Festering Postules is the most underwhelming choice in the 2nd talent tier, but it seems to be the most FUN choice gameplay wise IMO. Why? Because it turns the FW mechanic into a minigame of Blackjack!

That happens because the maximum amount of FW stacks on a single target is 08 and Festering Postules allows FS to give you over half of that maximum in 01 hit, so when you hit FS once and roll 03 stacks or more, you must ask yourself the exact same questions you would if you were playing Blackjack:

"What are my chances of losing if I hit again? Is it worth it?"

In Blackjack, going over 21 points makes you lose the game; in Legion, going over 08 FW stacks makes you lose damage.

This is it! THIS is a great example of how RNG should be implemented in the game! This minigame promotes active risk management, so instead of having our rotations dictated by pure RNG, it is decided by whether we want to rely on RNG or not! This promotes clever, split-second decisions and ensures that the unholy rotation will never be exactly the same all the time.

Such a cool-looking mechanic shouldnt be available only to those who choose the Festering Postules talent, so heres my suggestion:

B2. Change Festering Wounds maximum baseline stack to 06, and make the Festering Postule Talent increase it to 08;

Dont pay much attention to the numbers, they are there just to make the suggestion easier to understand. The point is: give baseline FS the chance to roll over half of the FW maximum baseline stack, thus emulating the Blackjack minigame, and give Festering Postules the adittional bonus of increasing the maximum number of stacks on the target.

This hits 02 birds with 01 stone, cuz it makes the Blackjack minigame baseline while also giving FP a much needed buff to compete with the other talents in that tier.

03. THE DEATH AND DECAY/SCOURGE STRIKE AOE COMBO

Again, another great idea! Giving UH an AoE mechanic that doesnt rely on disease spreading may sound odd, but it sure looks interesting and refreshing! With that said, the sinergy shows some problems, all tied to the fact that 30 seconds on DnD is too long of a cooldown for an ability that is too easy to avoid.

I've seen many players suggesting that DnD should become mobile and have the DK at its center, but i completely disagree with this. This suggestion turns DnD into a mindless AoE cleave and promotes dumbed-down gameplay, which is what Blizz should always avoid. Instead, i suggest this:

*A. Give Defile the chance of ignoring cooldown and being used for free when Sudden Doom procs;

OR

B. Take away Defile's FW popping effect and instead make it spread FW stacks to all the enemies it damages;

These changes should be mutually exclusive as they would be too strong together. Defile MUST be the go-to talent if you want to focus on this mechanic, so its only natural that the changes should come with it and not baseline.

*The first suggestion has been given in the official forums by other testers and i like it quite a bit. It gives us the option of choosing between ST and AoE in our core rotation, while making Sudden Doom way more interesting. With Double Doom being nerfed to 25% from 50%, this could actually work.

The second one gets rid of Defile awkward FW popping effect, which conflicts with Scourge Strike, and gives UH a cost-efficient, RNG-free way to get FW stacks on multiple targets (the only way unholy can do that right now is with Infected Claws + Sludge Belcher aoe cleave, which has a 50% chance to fail).

In the second suggestion, Defile could either apply 01 FW stack to all targets in the area whenever it ticks, OR snapshot the highest FW stack found on an enemy and apply it onto any other enemy that enters the AoE (the snapshot only happens again if the enemy reenters the AoE, NOT whenever Defile inflicts damage!).

Both ways of FW spreading have their pros and cons, but both work like the old Desecrated Ground talent, since they give a decent instant benefit for using it at the right time and more benefits the longer you manage to stay within it. This is how all stationary AoE should work IMO.

04. VIRULENT PLAGUE/OUTBREAK

This is as lazy as it gets, basically a nerfed Necrotic Plague made baseline with not much thought needed to use it properly. It really bothers me that this mechanic has barely any sinergy with the rest of unholys gameplay, its mostly there just to say UH has more diseases.. so boring!

There are only 04 talents in the normal tree related to it, which is not enough to emphazise the specs focus on this mechanic. 01 more VP focused talent should be enough though, something like Dark Arbiter making VP erupt with every hit instead of the boring ramp damage (they tied pet with FW synergy in Infected Claws, why not give an option to do the same with VP? Just an example).

**Another idea would be to make Epidemic cost 30 RP instead of 02 runes, but only make VP erupt on targets in a 20 yrd radius of the user. That would improve the AoE aspect of our dmg greatly while again making us choose between that and single target dmg.

**Epidemic would deal more dmg than Death Coil, but would have half its range and no synergy with Scourge Strike via artifact traits.

They seem to have buffed Outbreak's infection range to bearable levels, so its an ok ability now. The 6 sec cd is probably meant to prevent abuse of the Pandemic PvP talent in BGs, which is bad cuz it punishes PvE players for something they cant even use! Not sure what could be done to change this though.

05. THE NECROTIC STRIKE "DEATH TRAP"

I did as many backflips as any other uhdk player when i saw NS coming back, after all its removal is 01 of the reasons UH is so bad in WoD PvP. It was only after a more detailed analysis that i realized our horrible mistake when we asked for its return. What have we done??

This has to do with DK's new rune system. First of all, theres no problem with all 06 runes being death runes so as long as the player is punished for not following the priority system. So instead of being prevented from dealing the most damage right away, the player will now do less damage if he/she doesnt use their abilities in the right sequence, which is fine.

The problem lies on the other half of our resource changes: rune management for UH is now 100% RNG! Enpower Rune Weapon, Blood Tap and Plague Leech are all gone and the only way we can get runes faster now is by stacking as much Haste as we can (to buff Runic Corruption) and sacrificing virgins to the RNG gods everytime the Scourge the Unbeliever artifact trait decides to work!

THIS IS ABSURD! Who thought alienating the player from half of his resource management was a good idea? Managing the ability of getting runes on demand to use at the right time was a huge part of UH skill cap, and now its completely gone!

Now you must be asking what the heck does NS have to do with any of this, and the answer is EVERYTHING. Its obvious Blizz would not allow NS to come back in its full glory, but everyone QQed so much about its removal they had to bring it back in any way they could just to appease the community.

In order to balance it with our new rune system, NS is now half as effective as before, with 02 NS stacks applying almost as much pressure as 01 stack back in MoP (given the current numbers on alpha). So not only does it apply less pressure than Scourge Strike, which is more powerful given the several modifiers it receives through talents and traits, NS is now way more boring since it requires no setup to stack.

But what if UH could have runes on demand? Being able to go beyond 06 NS stacks on demand would certainly be too powerful, and THATS why we no longer have any control over our rune regeneration! Not only isnt NS nearly as good as it once was, it is now forcing the devs into making horrible design decisions!

Im sure the community will end up regretting this situation later on, so its better to realize these issues now before its too late. NECROTIC STRIKE HAS TO BE REMOVED FROM THE GAME, for good this time! Id rather have more active ways to interact with our runes and another talent than a braindead spammable debuff any day of the week!

*An interesting idea to replace NS would be a talent that turns every enemy inside DnD AoE into undead, and makes it so Control Undead mesmerizes for 5 secs when used on a undead player, becomes instant cast with a long cd.

*Turning other players into undead and "attempting" to control them feels very thematic for UH imo, its balanced cuz the mesmerize only works inside DnD, so other CCs that break on dmg cant be chained easily, cant be chained with Reanimation cuz theyd be in the same PvP tier, while also giving attention to Control Undead, an ability that havent seen much play since WotLK and hasnt been pruned for some reason.

**Taking away NS alone allows Plague Leech to come back as a talent, hopefully replacing Blighted Rune Weapon, which is horrible. PL would remove all stacks of FW (min. 02) from the target and give you 2 runes on a 25 sec cd.


Thanks for reading and sorry for the long text! Agreeing or not, please share your thoughts!

[Deleted]

First of all, you don't need active account to get access to Alpha/Beta, never have.

I would not worry about the RNG elements of Unholy, it doesn't come even close to lot of the classes in that regard. I do agree however that 1-5 stacks from Festering Strike is awful and the lower end needs to be brought up and that atrocious talent that makes it 1-6 needs to be deleted.

One of the bigger issues with Defile/SS cleave/Unholy AoE mess is that it requires IMMENSE amount of setting up, DC buffs SS dmg by 50% atm (artifact trait) so to get the most out of Defile you need to start stacking Wounds on multiple targets, weave in DC to get SS buff, drop down Defile and then start weaving in SS/DC just to get "medicore" results, it's extremely unrewarding system atm, when most of the classes have 1 button they can press 24/7 and preform better than Unholy. Lets not even talk about the 10s uptime every 30s or the fact that it all relies on everything standing still. We are lacking a strong 100 talent row AoE talent atm.

Plague, i agree it's fairly boring atm. You do have Necrosis but that's pretty much all you get when it comes to interacting with the disease, you just throw it on the mobs and ignore it pretty much atm, same as frost. Disease spreading was "somewhat" fixed? in the latest build they gave us Epidemic which is a little closer to BB than what the old version was but the issue is that it's a talent and not baseline.

Necrotic Strike kreygasm.

[OzUnOo]

First of all, you don't need active account to get access to Alpha/Beta, never have.

I would not worry about the RNG elements of Unholy, it doesn't come even close to lot of the classes in that regard. I do agree however that 1-5 stacks from Festering Strike is awful and the lower end needs to be brought up and that atrocious talent that makes it 1-6 needs to be deleted.

One of the bigger issues with Defile/SS cleave/Unholy AoE mess is that it requires IMMENSE amount of setting up, DC buffs SS dmg by 50% atm (artifact trait) so to get the most out of Defile you need to start stacking Wounds on multiple targets, weave in DC to get SS buff, drop down Defile and then start weaving in SS/DC just to get "medicore" results, it's extremely unrewarding system atm, when most of the classes have 1 button they can press 24/7 and preform better than Unholy. Lets not even talk about the 10s uptime every 30s or the fact that it all relies on everything standing still. We are lacking a strong 100 talent row AoE talent atm.

Plague, i agree it's fairly boring atm. You do have Necrosis but that's pretty much all you get when it comes to interacting with the disease, you just throw it on the mobs and ignore it pretty much atm, same as frost. Disease spreading was "somewhat" fixed? in the latest build they gave us Epidemic which is a little closer to BB than what the old version was but the issue is that it's a talent and not baseline.

Really? I only tried to get in the PTRs when my account was active, so i just assumed it was a requirement. I mean why would they allow someone whose account is not even active to get into alpha? Sounds odd.

Half of the fun for me as UH was to manage my runes properly and get rewarded for it, so watching that being replaced by pure RNG just to fit in Necrotic Strike is just sad.

The last videos i watched showed Outbreak spreading to around 10-15 yards, which makes it playable at least. This just shows how the whole mechanic is just there out of obligation with "class fantasy", theres a lot to improve here.

[Rothulean1]

I appreciate your thread but Im going to have to disagree with a fair amount of it. Right now Unholy is one of the best designed classes on the alpha. The Festering Wounds mechanic is great because it actually makes FeS quite strong, it can be applied by our pet (via a talent) and is pretty rewarding (good damage and extra RP). I do agree that it is too RNG based though. It needs less variation.

When it comes to Virulent Plague/Outbreak though, I absolutely disagree. I dont care if its lazy design or whatever. Both VP and Outbreak are amazing. No more goofy positioning to spread via Blood Boil and no more ramp up for disease application (plague strike -> blood boil or outbreak -> blood boil). A fairly major weakness of Unholy has been burst aoe. VP/Outbreak doesnt solve that issue but it makes it a lot better. When you try it, I absolutely promise youll understand my position. It is quite possibly the best change weve had this alpha so far.

Defile popping Festering Wounds atm is tricky. When youre overloaded on resources, the mechanic is actually really helpful. It allows you to "catch up" so to speak and spend your resources without wasting them (you rotate between using FeS and DC only while Defile is down). However, secondary stat tuning hasnt been implemented on alpha yet atm...its still using level 100 WoD values to determine Mastery/Crit/Haste percentages I believe. So were running around with really high secondary stats atm because gear is in the 750-760 range at level 104. I dont know if this mechanic is good or bad atm...I lean toward bad.

I really excited about Unholy Bladestorm (DnD/Defile + SS). It does have weaknesses, no doubt. But omg it is soooo strong. Im really looking forward to it.

One of the bigger issues with Defile/SS cleave/Unholy AoE mess is that it requires IMMENSE amount of setting up, DC buffs SS dmg by 50% atm (artifact trait) so to get the most out of Defile you need to start stacking Wounds on multiple targets, weave in DC to get SS buff, drop down Defile and then start weaving in SS/DC just to get "medicore" results, it's extremely unrewarding system atm, when most of the classes have 1 button they can press 24/7 and preform better than Unholy. Lets not even talk about the 10s uptime every 30s or the fact that it all relies on everything standing still. We are lacking a strong 100 talent row AoE talent atm.

No offense intended here, truly. But if youre expecting to do all that then youre going to be in for disappointment. Its meant to give us some on demand burst. You save up runes and then blow it all on Defile + SS spam. Expecting to accomplish all of that setup is not and wont be realistic. Just Scourge Strike as many times as possible. Dont worry about wounds, dont worry about DC buffs. When theres 8+ targets out, its all about maximizing SS hits.

Ive been doing it myself and I barely have enough time to do anything but Scourge Strike during those 10 seconds when I save up runes. I can usually get 7 hits in atm, maximum. If I try to DC or do anything else, its definitely not 7 hits.

[Joraxx]

Unholy sounds like it going to be really fun to play in Legion and already was one of favorite spec. I like the sound of the new festering wound.

[Deleted]

No offense intended here, truly. But if youre expecting to do all that then youre going to be in for disappointment. Its meant to give us some on demand burst. You save up runes and then blow it all on Defile + SS spam. Expecting to accomplish all of that setup is not and wont be realistic. Just Scourge Strike as many times as possible. Dont worry about wounds, dont worry about DC buffs. When theres 8+ targets out, its all about maximizing SS hits.

That's like saying "Don't worry about NP stacks when AoE phase happens as long as you have X amount of stacks it's good" Maybe it doesn't matter to you if you lose out big portion of your dmg but it does matter in the end game.

When it comes to Virulent Plague/Outbreak though, I absolutely disagree. I dont care if its lazy design or whatever. Both VP and Outbreak are amazing. No more goofy positioning to spread via Blood Boil and no more ramp up for disease application (plague strike -> blood boil or outbreak -> blood boil). A fairly major weakness of Unholy has been burst aoe. VP/Outbreak doesnt solve that issue but it makes it a lot better. When you try it, I absolutely promise youll understand my position. It is quite possibly the best change weve had this alpha so far.

Don't really know how you can find something "amazing" that you throw up on the target and forget, big part of the whole "unholy" is diseases but they offer nothing more than frost's current one does atm, you literally just apply it and forget it then, zero interaction with it atm.

[Rothulean1]

That's like saying "Don't worry about NP stacks when AoE phase happens as long as you have X amount of stacks it's good" Maybe it doesn't matter to you if you lose out big portion of your dmg but it does matter in the end game.

Because what youre doing is not maximizing damage. You will be losing damage. When Defile is down all you need to do is Scourge Strike. If you hit more than maybe one other button during those 10 seconds, youre losing damage. It is a very limited burst window given our long rune regen times (8.6 seconds for me atm on alpha).

Don't really know how you can find something "amazing" that you throw up on the target and forget, big part of the whole "unholy" is diseases but they offer nothing more than frost's current one does atm, you literally just apply it and forget it then, zero interaction with it atm.

Our diseases have always been that though. Now, we need to use MUCH less effort to maximize results.

[OzUnOo]

I appreciate your thread but Im going to have to disagree with a fair amount of it. Right now Unholy is one of the best designed classes on the alpha. The Festering Wounds mechanic is great because it actually makes FeS quite strong, it can be applied by our pet (via a talent) and is pretty rewarding (good damage and extra RP). I do agree that it is too RNG based though. It needs less variation.

When it comes to Virulent Plague/Outbreak though, I absolutely disagree. I dont care if its lazy design or whatever. Both VP and Outbreak are amazing. No more goofy positioning to spread via Blood Boil and no more ramp up for disease application (plague strike -> blood boil or outbreak -> blood boil). A fairly major weakness of Unholy has been burst aoe. VP/Outbreak doesnt solve that issue but it makes it a lot better. When you try it, I absolutely promise youll understand my position. It is quite possibly the best change weve had this alpha so far.

Defile popping Festering Wounds atm is tricky. When youre overloaded on resources, the mechanic is actually really helpful. It allows you to "catch up" so to speak and spend your resources without wasting them (you rotate between using FeS and DC only while Defile is down). However, secondary stat tuning hasnt been implemented on alpha yet atm...its still using level 100 WoD values to determine Mastery/Crit/Haste percentages I believe. So were running around with really high secondary stats atm because gear is in the 750-760 range at level 104. I dont know if this mechanic is good or bad atm...I lean toward bad.

I really excited about Unholy Bladestorm (DnD/Defile + SS). It does have weaknesses, no doubt. But omg it is soooo strong. Im really looking forward to it.



No offense intended here, truly. But if youre expecting to do all that then youre going to be in for disappointment. Its meant to give us some on demand burst. You save up runes and then blow it all on Defile + SS spam. Expecting to accomplish all of that setup is not and wont be realistic. Just Scourge Strike as many times as possible. Dont worry about wounds, dont worry about DC buffs. When theres 8+ targets out, its all about maximizing SS hits.

By how things look right now, it seems like Virulent Plague will be awesome in PvP, but thats because the PvP talent tree gives us even more options to interact with it, even if its all just passives. Thats what the normal tree is lacking right now, if you dont pick Epidemic, Virulent Plague is something you just care about every 18~ seconds, it shouldnt be like that. A talent that gives it sinergy with Festering Wounds or the pet would suffice imo, but it does need something.

[Deleted]

Don't really know how you can argue that setting up wounds/DC buff is a DPS loss. I'd think it be clear as day that it's what you are going to do because it's clearly a massive DPS gain.

[Rothulean1]

Don't really know how you can argue that setting up wounds/DC buff is a DPS loss. I'd think it be clear as day that it's what you are going to do because it's clearly a massive DPS gain.

Do the math. Assuming you save up all of your runes, you will get about 7 scourge strikes off. 5 runes immediately available and 2 that regen within those 10 seconds.

7 runes x ~1.4 sec GCD = ~9.8 seconds. (I forgot that the GCD lowers with haste)

And that 7th hit is iffy at times. You literally dont have time for anything else if you properly save up runes.

- - - Updated - - -

By how things look right now, it seems like Virulent Plague will be awesome in PvP, but thats because the PvP talent tree gives us even more options to interact with it, even if its all just passives. Thats what the normal tree is lacking right now, if you dont pick Epidemic, Virulent Plague is something you just care about every 18~ seconds, it shouldnt be like that. A talent that gives it sinergy with Festering Wounds or the pet would suffice imo, but it does need something.

I agree, there does need to be more PvE interaction with our disease. But atm, the mechanic itself is truly amazing.

[Deleted]

Do the math. Assuming you save up all of your runes, you will get about 7 scourge strikes off. 5 runes immediately available and 2 that regen within those 10 seconds.

7 runes x 1.5 sec GCD = 10.5 seconds.

And that 7th hit is iffy at times. You literally dont have time for anything else if you properly save up runes.

- - - Updated - - -



I agree, there does need to be more PvE interaction with our disease. But atm, the mechanic itself is truly amazing.

This has nothing to do with setting up Wounds and DC buff lol.

[Rothulean1]

This has nothing to do with setting up Wounds and DC buff lol.

It does. The amount of time required to setup wounds and DC buff AND make sure all runes have regened? Thats a completely unrealistic amount of setup time. Youre talking about 2 full regen cycles for all 6 runes.

[OzUnOo]

This has nothing to do with setting up Wounds and DC buff lol.

You are both discussing like you're disagreeing with each other, when in fact you're both saying the same thing lol.

You're saying that getting the most out of the mechanic is too troublesome to be done constantly, and the other is simply giving you the alternative he thinks is the best to that problem. Hes not saying its fine the way it is, just that this is the best solution given the circumstances.

[Deleted]

just an fyi, festering wounds have a hidden rng protection in. SF himself stated this a few weeks ago when the build that increased the max amount of stacks was added.

there is really not much wrong with unholy on alpha, literally can not comprehend how you can write a wall of text when you don't even have alpha access and have no clue how it plays. the only problem that dks have is mobility, and that's a class wide problem, not spec wide.

Overall, I rate this thread shitpost/10

[Deleted]

Mobility was already fixed.

[Deleted]

Mobility was already fixed.

I believe you forgot to add a to the end of your sentence.

[Rothulean1]

I believe you forgot to add a to the end of your sentence.

Pretty much. I appreciate what we got but damn it is so weak.

[OzUnOo]

just an fyi, festering wounds have a hidden rng protection in. SF himself stated this a few weeks ago when the build that increased the max amount of stacks was added.

there is really not much wrong with unholy on alpha, literally can not comprehend how you can write a wall of text when you don't even have alpha access and have no clue how it plays. the only problem that dks have is mobility, and that's a class wide problem, not spec wide.

Overall, I rate this thread shitpost/10

I dont need to play the alpha to understand the logic behind the changes, you talk as if this game was rocket science. Besides, no one will have a close feeling of how the game will be until beta, so dont talk like you know about it any more than the average person.

Whether you like the thread or not is your opinion, but i must say, i literally can not comprehend why you waste your time writting here if you dont like it either.

[mopkins]

I've played a couple levels of unholy so far in the alpha and didn't enjoy it as much. You put a dot up and forget about it, you stack another dot and pop it before the stacks cap. Filler with death coil. That about sums up the spec.

I do like that you can choose talents that empower your pets more or you more, that could be fun. Unfortunately, for pve, right now you only take the abomination talent because the other two aren't great

I still owe it a few more chances because I really wanted to like it but right now it just doesn't do it for me.

[Rothulean1]

I've played a couple levels of unholy so far in the alpha and didn't enjoy it as much. You put a dot up and forget about it, you stack another dot and pop it before the stacks cap. Filler with death coil. That about sums up the spec.

I do like that you can choose talents that empower your pets more or you more, that could be fun. Unfortunately, for pve, right now you only take the abomination talent because the other two aren't great

I still owe it a few more chances because I really wanted to like it but right now it just doesn't do it for me.

So like live, but better.