But Really Though . . . .

[Mattphill 0]

What's going to happen? In your honest, professional opinion- what happens next?

• Will UH get a buff? Will Frost get nerfed again? (Lots of people complaining on the forums about PvP)
• Will our tier bonus level things out for us?
• Will they nerf the bracers and balance the spec? (UH)

Simply put, I want opinions. I've invested enough AP to get two golden traits in frost and I've learned it enough that I'm still viable in our Mythic + runs and EN Raid. I just want to have a general idea of what to expect going forward and this is THE BEST place to ask. No rages please. I get we're last in the charts, that's not a revelation but, I'm not rerolling until they implement an AP catch up mechanic. Ok, thanks!

[Zataron 5]

24 minutes ago, Mattphill said:

What's going to happen? In your honest, professional opinion- what happens next?

• Will UH get a buff? Will Frost get nerfed again? (Lots of people complaining on the forums about PvP)
• Will our tier bonus level things out for us?
• Will they nerf the bracers and balance the spec? (UH)

Simply put, I want opinions. I've invested enough AP to get two golden traits in frost and I've learned it enough that I'm still viable in our Mythic + runs and EN Raid. I just want to have a general idea of what to expect going forward and this is THE BEST place to ask. No rages please. I get we're last in the charts, that's not a revelation but, I'm not rerolling until they implement an AP catch up mechanic. Ok, thanks!

1. They balance PvE and PvP seperately now, so I wouldn't expect complaining about PvP to affect PvE. I also don't think that frost needs a nerf, since it still isn't that great compared to other classes

2. Since the 4 part bonus was changed, it's actually looking good. Hard to tell how much it's gonna do exactly though

3. I hope so. Even though I have the bracers myself, I hate that an item that's gated behind RNG has such a large impact. I wouldn't mind them nerfing the bracers but buffing UH as a whole.

4. An AP catch up mechanic already exists in the form of artifact research. With increasing research level, you get so much AP that it's relatively easy to keep your second spec only about 5 levels behind your main.

Overall I wouldn't say that UH is much behind Frost at the moment. If you look at mythic EN logs, you can see that the sample size for frost DKs is still really small, which makes the average less meaningful. Also, on most bosses UH still has the higher max dps. Logs are often unrealistic with guilds creating favorable situations for a spec to push damage that wouldn't happen in a 'normal' try. I'd say that right now you can play the spec you enjoy more and be fine. However, Unholy will fall further behind on higher ilvl due to bad scaling. I hope they will address this in 7.2.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Zataron

[Mattphill 0]

6 minutes ago, Zataron said:

3. I hope so. Even though I have the bracers myself, I hate that an item that's gated behind RNG has such a large impact. I wouldn't min them nerfing the bracers but buffing UH as a whole.

Where'd did the bracers drop for you? Just curious. Thanks for the reply!

[demonardvark 556]

There is always balance tennis going on and plenty of flavor of the month players. People think one spec getting buffed nerfed the others. Unless you are in the top 200 guilds or pushing aggressive mythic raid content it doesn't matter that much, you are playing a game to have fun, play the spec you like. That being said the change to tier certainly will help unholy. Now overtime frost will pull ahead due to unholy not scaling but that doesn't mean you can't play unholy. End game sims and mythic raiders account for such a low percentage of the player base. Play what makes you happy. At the moment unholy isn't horribly far beyond frost you can play either one and do fine. Even then a talented "weaker" spec player can outperform a bad strong spec player. Hell before buffs Zefryk here was pushing out incredible frost numbers. So just because one is getting more attention doesn't devalue the other.

What people's perspective should be is happiness. We now have 2 well performing dk specs and we have options now. This is a good thing :)

Also 10 intranets for zat on his log comments. Parses are unreliable at times with things going on to skew numbers

[Zataron 5]

12 minutes ago, Mattphill said:

Where'd did the bracers drop for you? Just curious. Thanks for the reply!

Eye of Azshara m+ chest. Keystone was level 8 or 9 i think, not quite sure anymore. Farming m+ is the best thing you can do to maximize your chances to get a legendary afaik, since it's the only relatively high ilvl content that doesn't have a weekly lockout.

Coming to think of it, I actually saw someone else get the bracers from EoA mythic. Maybe there's a connection since blizzard said there might be ways to target a specific legendary. That's pretty much pure speculation though, since 2 instances isn't enough to create a pattern. Might be interesting to hear from some other people here where they got their bracers.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Zataron

[Drtain 74]

Long story short I suggest being unholy, while it proves "less dmg" at least that's what everyone likes to think it's def not at all worse and is better as far as Mythic + goes when played properly i.e not being an ape and using infected claws so you can pop 20 wounds in 1 SS and evenly cleave down adds so bolstering doesn't absolute wreck your tank vs a 5 min cd and howling blast spams/Frost scythe spams and such. While providing better burst for single target and aoe which on tyrannical is very good idk if any of you have tried +12 CoS but it's actually not possible to complete the last boss without immense burst because at 2 minutes in the fight his aoe gale strike hits 1.2million per tick and ticks i believe 6 times and we couldn't complete it even with all of us doing over 480k dps at the 2 minute mark, granted this is without the any dps increasing buffs found in the instance.

 

I do see that frost is just as good as unholy though like frankly it comes down to what your guild needs really they will 100% i'm sure of it find a way to balence unholy to be better than frost at some point because idk if you remember like every xpac at the end of it unholy obliterates frost instead of frost being the obliterater. If you guild needs better passive cleave on persay a council fight Unholy>frost if you need to burst adds instantly like within 3 seconds frost with sindragosa's fury, if you need more grips unholy is better because of pet pull, if you need more over time burst unholy wins by a long short on fights such as gorefiend during his feast of souls would be a prime example.

 

All this being said i honestly suggest you just play what you want to at the momment everything as it stands is virtually equal though i personally as a dk main since early cata see unholy eventually pulling ahead if blizzard stays to their standards they've shown in past expacs.

 

(I should also mention that unholy does lack behind without bracers so if you choose unholy i suggest you play which ever you find your self doing more dps as until you get those bracers. Frost does not require any legendary to compete at fairly good levels.)

Edited October 30, 2016 by Drtain

[demonardvark 556]

4 hours ago, Drtain said:

I do see that frost is just as good as unholy though like frankly it comes down to what your guild needs really they will 100% i'm sure of it find a way to balence unholy

All this being said i honestly suggest you just play what you want to at the momment everything as it stands is virtually equal 

This is basically it, its a repeated point, but sometimes you do need to beat a dead horse a couple more times  (just to be sure). Individual skill determines so much more, and with the state of things, I will say I think unholy takes a bit more finesse than frost. It merely comes down to, which one do you like, which one do you have fun with. All it takes is a single hotfix and one spec can suddenly be leagues above the other. Heck, for all we know blood dks will now be top dps XD. So take changes with a grain of salt, you are here to have fun, that's why we play games :D

[Drtain 74]

5 hours ago, demonardvark said:

This is basically it, its a repeated point, but sometimes you do need to beat a dead horse a couple more times  (just to be sure). Individual skill determines so much more, and with the state of things, I will say I think unholy takes a bit more finesse than frost. It merely comes down to, which one do you like, which one do you have fun with. All it takes is a single hotfix and one spec can suddenly be leagues above the other. Heck, for all we know blood dks will now be top dps XD. So take changes with a grain of salt, you are here to have fun, that's why we play games :D

Just me replying, I'm not exactly what you mean by finesse i sure you mean micro-mangement  I actually struggle with frost's icy talon keeping 100% uptime is rather hard for me idk if it's just me or what ever but it's something i cannot do to well been trying it for frost for a little while now. xd I've managed some like 95%s in lfr but really the struggle. The point of this is i guess i'm trying to say there is more micro management to it if you're really trying to be the 100% parser.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Drtain

[demonardvark 556]

3 hours ago, Drtain said:

Just me replying, I'm not exactly what you mean by finesse i sure you mean micro-mangement  I actually struggle with frost's icy talon keeping 100% uptime is rather hard for me idk if it's just me or what ever but it's something i cannot do to well been trying it for frost for a little while now. xd I've managed some like 95%s in lfr but really the struggle. The point of this is i guess i'm trying to say there is more micro management to it if you're really trying to be the 100% parser.

Haha I actually mean I was repeating myself, I feel like I've said the same thing 3 times in this thread. But yea micromanagement is a better word for unholy. Frost does have some trouble keeping up IT, basically any mechanic that involves movement will cause your stacks to drop. So each spec has its own thing to deal with :)