Are you happy with unholy in shadowlands?

[kingarthas]

Yo, unholy looks good to me so far. What do you think?

[Saltysquidoon]

I think unholy is in a relatively privileged position of having a functioning core that doesn't require mandatory talents to feel complete or relying heavily on traits and essences.

Pros
I'm excited that unholy blight actually does something beyond damage now and might actually be viable.

Getting garg back is nice

Cons
Turning outbreak into green howling blast for balance instead of a spreading disease because it was op in m+ with mega pulls feels like a massive loss of flavour.

Soul Reaper in its current form is a bit boring. You just press it on CD pretty much no matter what, the haste is just a bonus instead of like in the past when it was a 'real' execute.

Helchains (the garg replacement talent) is a boring low effort replacement to the boring low effort decision to make gart a talent. Maybe it should be replace with the ability to summon a nerubian or something.

Defile is just bad, I'm worried it and the night fae ability will cannibalise each other's fun (assuming either are viable). The night fae being a dnd modifier feels bad as well because it doesn't 'feel' new

Pestilence being a single target dps gain in an aoe row is 'clunky' (the forbidden criticism), its basically extra gcds to get to a boring throughput increase.

Harbinger of doom needs to be reworked into something that matters. Unholy has never been the RP focused spec and forcing people to care about DC is like a square peg in a round hole.

Observations
Unholy is on the verge of having too much set up on the opener, which I can understand for a summon class but it's not to everyone's taste.

This could 100% be a monkey's paw because we spent so long in the wilderness because of it but, I kinda wish that dots mattered again or they interact with our gameplay in anyway. I get it necromancer is a better fantasy and I'm glad we have it, but unholy using one set and forget dot feels wrong.

I'm worried trying skellie magus to AotD talent is going to mean we can't use it because UF is jsut the best choice in all situations again.

[Absintheminded]

With pet damage being added to mastery, at least it makes separate builds more unique and possibly viable. I'm excited to try out an all the pets build with supporting talents and the new Rune.

[SunspotAnims]

It's not a Shadowlands-specific gripe, but part of me want to see more options for summoning. With mastery and Unholy Blight affecting pet damage, it'd be interesting if the Pestilence/Epidemic/Defile row were replaced with a row dedicated to summons, giving more options for the amount, type, and behavior of the minions that an Unholy DK can use.

Whether I get my wish or not, I think that row in particular is going to need to be looked at regardless partially because I feel Epidemic should be baseline and partially because Defile conflicts with the Night Fae covenant ability.

[Rothulean1]

Unholy is actually in a really good place compared to most specs. Id venture to say in terms of kit "completeness" its arguably top 5 amongst all specs. Top 10 certainly. But even Unholy has a number of areas of weakness. That should give you an idea of just how bad classes were in BfA.

Unholy still has 2-4 kinda major issues. And the fact that its only 2-4 makes it probably a top 5 spec.

[Chat]

can't say. They might change it.

[Kendros]

Too many offensive cds. They need to cut a cd or two form the main rotation, or take one off the gcd which i doubt it since they said they arent doing that to any spec.

[Razion]

I liked Outbreak continuing to spread plague as the tank dragged the target around. If it goes live as it is, I'll miss the old Outbreak.

[ClassicPeon]

I cant speak for shadowlands but i think in terms of bfa we have one of the most boring single target rotations(sadly there is quite a few one this level).

The aoe takes some setup and is more flavourfull. Not personally to my liking but its certainly a niche thats worth having.

[Sharby]

I wish they would just make Epidemic baseline personally, I really don't like that talent row in general. And if they're giving a minion vs wounds build type choice why is Pestilence not baseline?

I also feel like if they want a minion build to be competitive with sores gameplay, DT should make all your pet attacks cleave or talents like Blight probably aren't gonna' see play.



My opinion though, naturally.

It's not a Shadowlands-specific gripe, but part of me want to see more options for summoning. With mastery and Unholy Blight affecting pet damage, it'd be interesting if the Pestilence/Epidemic/Defile row were replaced with a row dedicated to summons, giving more options for the amount, type, and behavior of the minions that an Unholy DK can use.

Whether I get my wish or not, I think that row in particular is going to need to be looked at regardless partially because I feel Epidemic should be baseline and partially because Defile conflicts with the Night Fae covenant ability.

Tbh just make Apocalypse CDR scale with the amount of targets hit similar to this hunter azerite trait:




It'd be awesome during big pulls if you're just constantly getting apocalypse casts off.


I'd also like it if you could choose what minion to have, with the double pet talent letting you choose two. Having a permanent magus would be great.

[Saltysquidoon]

I also feel like if they want a minion build to be competitive with sores gameplay, DT should make all your pet attacks cleave or talents like Blight probably aren't gonna' see play.

You're right about that, with no aoe summons the new blight's in this weird place where's it's a burst aoe spell with this single target dps increase passive.

[Friggsterino]

It looks amazing in my opinion, biggest upgrade for me is SD proccing on epidemic, which will make AoE in general feel much smoother. AMZ being back is huge aswell. Hopefully the new Army of the Damned talent will be worth taking aswell.

[Wildpantz]

As it is now it will reward better players which is awesome they way you can setup windows is awesome.

[Angeredsoul]

Observations
Unholy is on the verge of having too much set up on the opener, which I can understand for a summon class but it's not to everyone's taste.

On the verge? We're over the GCD cliff for an opener. As user Kalrell on the official forums has said below.

Pull timer:
-2: Army of the Dead
0: OUTBREAK NUMBER 1
1.5: Dark Transformation
3: Unholy Blight (if talented)
4.5: Festering Strike
6: Soul Reaper (if talented)
7.5: Festering Strike
9: OUTBREAK NUMBER 2
10.5: Apocalypse
12: Unholy Frenzy (if talented)
13.5: Summon Gargoyle

13.5 seconds of gcds just to get the ball rolling when most classes just hit their singular iwin button and go to town. In addition with gargoyle lasting 30secs the target is either dead before it's duration is finished, or is CC'D in PvP and there is nothing we can do about it to counter that CC.

[Tojara]

Unholy frenzy and dark transformation probably shouldn't be on the GCD.

[Razion]

Unholy frenzy and dark transformation probably shouldn't be on the GCD.

Dark Transformation could do with not having to wait for the effect to missile to the Ghoul for it to transform, perhaps more importantly.

[Pinkteacup]

I will miss the current outbreak as well, but not sure how else to offset it being op in mythic dungeons.

[Th3Scourge]

Dark Transformation could do with not having to wait for the effect to missile to the Ghoul for it to transform, perhaps more importantly.

Considering your ghoul is in melee range of you 99.9999% of the time, how is this an issue?

[Nathreim]

Are wounds still a terrible version of combo points? If so no.

[Razion]

Considering your ghoul is in melee range of you 99.9999% of the time, how is this an issue?

Ghouls can always be within targets with proper control, that much is accurate, but the DK themselves can and will be forced out of melee range to deal with various mechanics including but not limited to goop on the floor or whirlwinds and whatever else. You can't always just tunnel while sitting on top of your ghoul. And when you need to press DT to get the damage, having to wait for the missile to get there can be the difference between getting the damage you need out when you need it and not. There's functionally no reason why the missile needs to work this way, the travel time of the missile isn't helping anything.