Festerblight UH DK

[abdulalhazr 0]

After reading some of the posts on these forums about festerblight, I decided to try it out. I really like the play style, and tried it out. I did significantly more damage then I did with the defile/PL build, however I have some questions about it.

 

Here is my profile.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/korgath/Abdulalhazr/simple

 

Here is a sample log.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/kYm4FvqrGhgaxc1J#type=damage-done&fight=13&source=9

 

A couple of notes before you look at the log.

 

My usage of soul reaper has always been aweful, however now that I can no longer use plague leach to help me get more soul reapers out I feel it even more. Not only this, but so many times both my unholy runes are on CD and I "have" to use my death runes to maintain NP uptime, thus further reducing the amount of runes available for actually using SR.

Is it actually a dps gain to maximize my SR uses or is it better to make sure NP is always at 15? I am guessing since NP makes up to 30% of my total damage done on certain fights that it is more important then SR, but I am honestly not sure, nor would I have any clue how to test this.

 

Other then SR which is the first thing I looked for, any other weaknesses you see?  Any help will be greatly appreciated. 

[Zilthy 36]

Demonardvark mentions some of this in the Necroblight thread, and I have been having good results going that way:

 

Boss Health > 45% = keep up 100% of time and not use UB

Boss Health <45%  = let fall off and refresh with UB. the reason is that soul reaper is more powerful and has such a short cooldown now you want to prioritize that above all else and you get 2 soul reapers for your 1 festering strike. Since UB restores your stacks you lose maybe 0.5% uptime doing this. Again though this is when all your runes are transformed to death, with blood and frost you want to use festering.

 

In addition to having UB available during this phase, I'll usually try to have empowered rune weapon available also.

[demonardvark 556]

Demonardvark mentions some of this in the Necroblight thread, and I have been having good results going that way:

 

Boss Health > 45% = keep up 100% of time and not use UB

Boss Health <45%  = let fall off and refresh with UB. the reason is that soul reaper is more powerful and has such a short cooldown now you want to prioritize that above all else and you get 2 soul reapers for your 1 festering strike. Since UB restores your stacks you lose maybe 0.5% uptime doing this. Again though this is when all your runes are transformed to death, with blood and frost you want to use festering.

 

In addition to having UB available during this phase, I'll usually try to have empowered rune weapon available also.

 

 

^ This

 

When the boss is below 45% you want as much soul reaper usage as possible. However as you noticed you may have issues where you need to refresh necrotic or use soul reaper. There are a few details here.

 

First: Necrotic and festering strike. Festering doesn't "refresh' necrotic in the way we think. It adds about 8-9 seconds to the duration. So, early on you want to pop empowered and spam as much festering as possible. This builds alot of duration remaining on necrotic. This helps you go through the death rune phases without having to spend them on festering.

 

The ideal situation when you enter soul reaper range is to have high enough duration left on necrotic to be able to spam soul reaper. With high early festering strike usage this is possible. In addition though we have unholy blight as our tier 1 talent to refresh necrotic. When necrotic drops below 10 seconds left its not worth refreshing as you will have to refresh again almost immediately. At that point its better to let it drop off, re apply with unholy blight, and maybe invest in a couple festerings to ensure it will stay up while you focus on soul reaper.

 

Having empowered ready for your execute phase helps this. You can pop to emergency refresh necrotic or you can pop to reapply and build a longer duration necrotic or pop to allow yourself more soul reaper time.

 

In the end your top attacks will end up being necrotic, soul reaper, and scourge strke.

 

So necroblight is really about:

Rune management

Necrotic duration management

Soul Reaper phase priority management

and being sexy as hell

Edited January 25, 2015 by demonardvark

[Udyret 1]

Howdy. Just registered. Nice to meet you all.

 

So, seeing as the NP buff is probably coming, maybe we could get a proper guide on Necroblight going? Anyone?

 

Also, I'm curious to see whether or not this makes NP viable for those of us with the tanking persuasion of the DK spec.

[demonardvark 556]

Howdy. Just registered. Nice to meet you all.

 

So, seeing as the NP buff is probably coming, maybe we could get a proper guide on Necroblight going? Anyone?

 

Also, I'm curious to see whether or not this makes NP viable for those of us with the tanking persuasion of the DK spec.

 

I'm writing one, just been overwhelmed at work (yay 14 hour days).

 

As far as the usefulness for tanks this is one of the few times I actually say go for defile. The advantage of np for blood is that you gain rune power when attacked by infected enemy. However, defile is a on call 10% decrease in damage, and considering you are the tank you can control (mostly) where the enemy is standing so you don't have to worry about it missing (in this case YOU want to be marinating in your defile)

 

the only other really interesting thing I saw was a 2h frost dk rocking necroblight. he (she) couldn't keep up 100% up time of 15 stacks, but between unholy blight and their free howling blasts, they still had about 28% of their damage coming from necrotic followed by obliterate. So, i was surprised to see it being somewhat useful for frost as well. Im still a bit in the camp of plague leech for frost but i've seen frosts do really good jobs with necrotic.

[Udyret 1]

I'm writing one, just been overwhelmed at work (yay 14 hour days).

 

As far as the usefulness for tanks this is one of the few times I actually say go for defile. The advantage of np for blood is that you gain rune power when attacked by infected enemy. However, defile is a on call 10% decrease in damage, and considering you are the tank you can control (mostly) where the enemy is standing so you don't have to worry about it missing (in this case YOU want to be marinating in your defile)

 

the only other really interesting thing I saw was a 2h frost dk rocking necroblight. he (she) couldn't keep up 100% up time of 15 stacks, but between unholy blight and their free howling blasts, they still had about 28% of their damage coming from necrotic followed by obliterate. So, i was surprised to see it being somewhat useful for frost as well. Im still a bit in the camp of plague leech for frost but i've seen frosts do really good jobs with necrotic.

 

 

I agree, I struggle with the value of it as well. However, I was curious as with the increase in damage, it might be valuable for tanking after all to help in general DPS. I was just considering, because I've noticed lately that my DPS is oddly lacking, but that might also be a bit because of the rotation/priority I'm going by atm. Butcher HC for instance is a fight where any semblance of a prioritylist or rotation goes out the window, because I need to prepared for damage constantly and thus be steady no the RT as well as all the other cooldowns at my disposal.

 

After this patch hits though, I might try. Defile is the one thing I'm NOT using for the damagedecrease, but rather for the extra DPS. Which is odd, but still.

[demonardvark 556]

I agree, I struggle with the value of it as well. However, I was curious as with the increase in damage, it might be valuable for tanking after all to help in general DPS. I was just considering, because I've noticed lately that my DPS is oddly lacking, but that might also be a bit because of the rotation/priority I'm going by atm. Butcher HC for instance is a fight where any semblance of a prioritylist or rotation goes out the window, because I need to prepared for damage constantly and thus be steady no the RT as well as all the other cooldowns at my disposal.

 

After this patch hits though, I might try. Defile is the one thing I'm NOT using for the damagedecrease, but rather for the extra DPS. Which is odd, but still.

 

Honestly baring the 6.1 ptr notes I have to say I am now overall uncertain for blood. It will come down how the popular trends go in blackrock. In SoO the focus more or less came down to burning bosses to bypass mechanics. Here monks and warrior tanks were highly desired for their dps bonus. With the boost to necrotic bloods dps goes up a lot however, at a decrease in defensive CDs. So we have to see if the value of tanks comes down to doing their job "keep aggro, stay alive" vs HURR TANK WHY YOU NO PULL 50K DPS

 

time will tell on that one

[Udyret 1]

Honestly baring the 6.1 ptr notes I have to say I am now overall uncertain for blood. It will come down how the popular trends go in blackrock. In SoO the focus more or less came down to burning bosses to bypass mechanics. Here monks and warrior tanks were highly desired for their dps bonus. With the boost to necrotic bloods dps goes up a lot however, at a decrease in defensive CDs. So we have to see if the value of tanks comes down to doing their job "keep aggro, stay alive" vs HURR TANK WHY YOU NO PULL 50K DPS

 

time will tell on that one

 

I really do hope we can go back the "keep aggro, don't die" part of tanking. It feels weird for me as a tank to feel I'm not accomplishing my role properly because my DPS is low, while at the same time I'm much less spikey in my damageintake because of how I apply my DS' and CD's. I just feel so extremely split in my attention when I need to consider my rotation as well, while my bread'n'butter survivability is also my DPS bread'n'butter.

 

But this is all very OT so I'll stop pondering on about it. I look forward to a Necroblight guide nonetheless, I'm still seriously considering it for tanking once 6.1 drops :)

[demonardvark 556]

I really do hope we can go back the "keep aggro, don't die" part of tanking. It feels weird for me as a tank to feel I'm not accomplishing my role properly because my DPS is low, while at the same time I'm much less spikey in my damageintake because of how I apply my DS' and CD's. I just feel so extremely split in my attention when I need to consider my rotation as well, while my bread'n'butter survivability is also my DPS bread'n'butter.

 

But this is all very OT so I'll stop pondering on about it. I look forward to a Necroblight guide nonetheless, I'm still seriously considering it for tanking once 6.1 drops

 

Been awhile :D So, after playing around a bit with blood I found the talent combination I like. I like taking blood tap and necrotic plague. Here's why. Necrotic even without refreshing is very strong and with the upcoming patch its going to hit like a freight train. The big benefit however is the runic power you generate. It provides a rather steady additional pool of rp to play with. I macro blood tap to death coil and spam away. Death coil increases your max hp by 3% which is great and blood tap lets you spam more death strike and build a better blood shield.

 

So necrotic benefits:

Good damage

Good resource generator

More or less passive

Let's you (depending on build) build really big blood shields.

 

So, it looks in 6.1 necrotic will be ideal for blood both survivability and dps wise :D

[ChaiNspliT 5]

So, it looks in 6.1 necrotic will be ideal for blood both survivability and dps wise

 

 

Defile will remain the best option for Blood DK's, if you care about survivability/progression. Not only because 10% damage reduction you get, but as tank you choose where the adds and boss are going to stand, which will increase your Defile uptime and damage by a margin. There's absolutely no reason to take NP, other than more damage and RP on very add heavy fights.

[demonardvark 556]

Defile will remain the best option for Blood DK's, if you care about survivability/progression. Not only because 10% damage reduction you get, but as tank you choose where the adds and boss are going to stand, which will increase your Defile uptime and damage by a margin. There's absolutely no reason to take NP, other than more damage and RP on very add heavy fights.

 

Correct. So we have to see what the raid culture turns into (and this can differentiate across servers). If tanks are expected to bring high dps in order to burn through phases we have one option, if we are just focusing on surviving "like tanks are supposed to" then we have the other.