Unholy Death Knight 7.3

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Unholy Death Knight guide for Legion.

[Tegu 1]

Hello guys, keep in mind that this guide is for pre-patch only and everything can change at any time. Also the gear list right now isn't accurate, i'd try to put a *BiS* these days. Special thanks once again to TheQ and Mini who plays in Midwinter.
 

[BigKingAlexxx 0]

Are the trinkets in the bis list really in the right order?

[Damien 1,514]

  On 7/19/2016 at 10:43 AM, BigKingAlexxx said:

Are the trinkets in the bis list really in the right order?

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Not really. I'm running sims every day and will be updating as SimC continues to improve, but right now, it's a bit meh. I'll put disclaimers everywhere.

[Tegu 1]

  On 7/19/2016 at 10:43 AM, BigKingAlexxx said:

Are the trinkets in the bis list really in the right order?

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Trinkets most likely would be Skull of War + the BoA trinket for demonds, vs non demon Skull of War and the Alchemy trinket. Anzu's Cursed Plume could be used too, like i said i'd put a list these days, the gear & trinkets require some testing.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Tegu

[hDszzT 103]

What do you guys think about Death Strike vs Death Coil as a Runic Power spender?

Also you forgot to include runic power spenders entirely in the rotation. Or is it actually a DPS increase to omit them and only use them when you use Dark Arbiter?

It seemed to me like spending Runic Power to activate Runic Corruption would be beneficial but oh well. Would we want to only use it to prevent capping Runic Power? I'd assume we want to pool RP for Dark Arbiter, but when it's on cooldown and/or not about to come off CD, would it be beneficial to just burn RP or to keep it high, spending it only to prevent capping?

Edited July 19, 2016 by Ammako

[Tegu 1]

  On 7/19/2016 at 2:35 PM, Ammako said:

What do you guys think about Death Strike vs Death Coil as a Runic Power spender?

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Not worth it, Death Coil scales with Mastery while Death Strike doesn't. Death Coil costs 10 less runic power and on top of that restoring energy to your pet. Death Strike doesn't work with neither of the Shadow Infusion / Necrosis / Infected Claws talents.

[hDszzT 103]

That's what I thought too, but some people are dead set in thinking that Death Strike is better than using Death Coil just because it dealt more damage per runic power when they tried it on target dummies.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Ammako

[Tegu 1]

Well there were rumours that Death Strike is better to be used during Dark Arbiter duration but that wasn't the case.

[Guest Ebonblade]

Hey Tegu,

First and foremost: I'm no Genius nor great theorycrafter so everything i write here is personal experience.

May i ask you, how Ebon Fever is better than Bursting Sores in ST?

The wounds are more or less our strongest source of dps and should therefore be pushed further, right?

In Addition to that i have to mention that, Castigator is much stronger than Clawing Shadows with the Skull of War Trinket. If (!) a certain amount of Base Crit is given. The synergy with Pestilent Pustules is also better.

That synergy also applies for Infected Claws as festering wounds are applied quite reliably with the t18 4-set.

The dps difference between the recommended choices and the crit style play was always ~ 5-7k for me with crit in favor.

In hope of a quick response,

Ebon

[Tegu 1]

Hello Ebon, i just discussed the exact same topic with perhaps your friend ? Anyway in theory Bursting Sores should be the talent picked for SIngle Target if tuned right but on beta it wasn't the case and  even if additional target was appearing  Ebon Fever was getting out of hand. The wounds were not even close  to our strongest source of dmg for single target, Clawing Shadows was around 30 % followed by 20 % Virulent Plague, pets and then Festering Wound. The only boss worth testing that theory you've got is Zakuun which is  1 boss out of 13 but i wouldn't change my gear just for that one even if somehow turns to be better than Ebon Fever. Not to mention the fact that if you get seeds you can dps with Clawing Shadows. Keep in mind that most work is been done without sims and based on beta testing so everything is tuned around level 110 and having Artifact Weapon. The logs that i would get tonight and tomorrow are gonna help with clearing things out and i would keep the guide updated for you guys on daily basis. Your feedback is very much appreciated

[Guest playerunknown]

i plan to reroll a dk for legion (currently ret...). so I have no experience with the dk whatsoever and I was wondering what racial [H] ability would be the best (in combination with frost and uh).  all I could find was an old sim on the mmochampion forums... blood elf > orc. is blood elf still the way to go ?

(I know the differnce is small but hey, if it's for free why not take it ^^)

[Tegu 1]

Unless they change something with the racials i would be playing Blood Elf, helps a lot especially with Dark Arbiter.

[Tegu 1]

Update: The Stat Weights  for Unholy were updated and should be fine for pre-patch. Enchants & Gems also changed to Haste > Mastery.

[BigKingAlexxx 0]

what will my multistrike gems convert to?

[Tegu 1]

  On 7/19/2016 at 10:18 PM, BigKingAlexxx said:

what will my multistrike gems convert to?

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I think they did convert to Haste on Beta so it's probably Haste ;)

[Guest playerunknown]

wouldn't blood fury be better since it increases the attack power and it's duration is also 15 sec. 

also do I ge it right, dark arbiter casts Val'kyr Strike witch deals 7*AP Shadow damage and the Val'kyr's AP is 33% of my AP ?

[Guest A curious DK]

  On 7/19/2016 at 10:16 PM, Tegu said:

Update: The Stat Weights  for Unholy were updated and should be fine for pre-patch. Enchants & Gems also changed to Haste > Mastery.

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Why is Haste more important than Mastery now ?

[Guest CrusRuss]

Hi Tegu - great work on the guide.

I have 2 questions:

Firstly, how did you decide that haste is better than mastery? I am not questioning it, just wondering how you guys came to that conclusion.

 

Secondly, I was testing on PTR last week and I did a lot of single target DPS tests (on the raidboss dummy in ebon hold). I came to the conclusion that infected claws was the best ST DPS talent in that row instead of reducing the CD on dark transformation. What I noticed was that in a typical 3 minute run I was getting out ~15-20 more clawing shadows/scourge. It wasnt a massive DPS gain but it was noticeable. Probably a moot point until Blizz finishes tuning anyway, but I found it interesting.

[Tegu 1]

  On 7/19/2016 at 11:05 PM, Guest playerunknown said:

wouldn't blood fury be better since it increases the attack power and it's duration is also 15 sec. 

also do I ge it right, dark arbiter casts Val'kyr Strike witch deals 7*AP Shadow damage and the Val'kyr's AP is 33% of my AP ?

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About the racials, Blood elf is just too strong not just because of the 20 rp evey 1.5min but also the silence you are going to be using in Mythic+ and Raids on top of that +1% critical strike chance.

Regarding Dark Arbiter yes, it should be 7*AP Shadow damage, 33% AP and increasing damage 1 % per runic power you spend also stacking additively, not multiplicatively. 

Edited July 20, 2016 by Tegu

[Tegu 1]

  On 7/19/2016 at 11:30 PM, Guest A curious DK said:

Why is Haste more important than Mastery now ?

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Because with Haste you do significantly more single target damage, mastery boosts your AoE damage.

 

[Guest The other Dk]

Why is haste better then  mastery ?

[Tegu 1]

  On 7/19/2016 at 11:54 PM, Guest CrusRuss said:

Hi Tegu - great work on the guide.

I have 2 questions:

Firstly, how did you decide that haste is better than mastery? I am not questioning it, just wondering how you guys came to that conclusion.

 

Secondly, I was testing on PTR last week and I did a lot of single target DPS tests (on the raidboss dummy in ebon hold). I came to the conclusion that infected claws was the best ST DPS talent in that row instead of reducing the CD on dark transformation. What I noticed was that in a typical 3 minute run I was getting out ~15-20 more clawing shadows/scourge. It wasnt a massive DPS gain but it was noticeable. Probably a moot point until Blizz finishes tuning anyway, but I found it interesting.

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Because the stat weights were simmed multiple times and the results were clear that Haste  > Mastery for single target Mastery excels at AoE.

Before the 10 % nerf to our pet's Sweeping Strike/Gas Cloud - Shadow Infusion was around 4,5k above Infected Claws and now even with the 10 % nerf Shadow Infusion simming higher, on top of that t18 2P gives 20 % dmg boost to your pets which is huge and  makes Shadow Infusion even more attractive.

 

 

 

[Guest CrusRuss]

  On 7/20/2016 at 12:31 AM, Tegu said:

 

Because the stat weights were simmed multiple times and the results were clear that Haste  > Mastery for single target Mastery excels at AoE.

Before the 10 % nerf to our pet's Sweeping Strike/Gas Cloud - Shadow Infusion was around 4,5k above Infected Claws and now even with the 10 % nerf Shadow Infusion simming higher, on top of that t18 2P gives 20 % dmg boost to your pets which is huge and  makes Shadow Infusion even more attractive.

 

 

 

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Thanks.

Talking about set bonuses, what do you think about T19? I havent had a chance to try it but in theory I think the 4p might not be very helpful and in some cases detrimental. for e.g. you are setting up for (4-5 seconds away) soul reaper so you get 3 stacks of wound on target, then you get sudden doom or capped RP so you need to fire off death coil but it pops your wounds (50% chance lol?) now you need to spend another festering strike to add more wounds but this means you wont have enough runes to cast 3 scourge strike back to back (which you need to do on consecutive GCD's to make the 5 second window) and you cant afford to wait for runes to recharge in that short window.

I wish the 4p was a chance to ADD a wound not pop one... am I overlooking something about the 4p that makes it good or am i right that it will be a pain in the a$$.

[Tegu 1]

@CrusRuss i haven't really thought about t19 yet but looking at it right now  i find it really disappointing imo. They need to buff Festering Wounds  but even then  the tier doesn't really look all that attractive,  they can also change it so we are gonna have to wait and see how things turn out to be.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Tegu