Necroblight

[Gazooten 6]

So I don't know if this has been mentioned here or not. About this "nercroblight" playstyle, I get and LOVE the NP + UB thing...it's SO fucking awsome. My question is do we stop FS after the dot duration is as long or longer than when UB is off CD, start SS let fall off , rinse and repeat. Or do we simply use FS to never let the dot fall off. The reason for my question is it made more sense to me to switch to SS since it does higher damage than FS, also since we can go insta 15 stack with UB.

[demonardvark 556]

It warms my heart to see someone use necroblight and see my playstyle spreading (you see what I did there). The answer to your question depends sort of where your runes are at, you basically have the two phases 1 with 2 blood frost and unholy runes and part 2 with 4 death runes and 2 unholy. 

 

If you are going to fall off in phase 1, I would use FS since you need to burn the runes anyways. if you are falling off in phase 2 it is a dps gain to just burn your 4 scourge strikes then pop UB to refresh your stacks :D

[Gazooten 6]

So I want to personally thank you Demonardvark for the playstyle, I'm one of the lowest geared players in my group before the raid started tonight ( got alot of gear with mastery and multistrike on it) and I still more than held my own.....LOVE that necrotic plague here's a link to my guilds log :  https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/83GYh1TLRQFbAcCp/

 

my armory link : http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/korialstrasz/Kaknsac/simple

[demonardvark 556]

So I want to personally thank you Demonardvark for the playstyle, I'm one of the lowest geared players in my group before the raid started tonight ( got alot of gear with mastery and multistrike on it) and I still more than held my own.....LOVE that necrotic plague here's a link to my guilds log :  https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/83GYh1TLRQFbAcCp/

 

my armory link : http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/korialstrasz/Kaknsac/simple

 

:D

 

a lot of people seem to like it. I may have been revitalized. I may write up a necroblight guide one of these days.

[Storm 426]

I'm still a little bit skeptical of necroblight vs defile leech for most pve fights, although I've been playing frost most of the time recently anyways so I haven't put too much testing into unholy play styles lately. but I will say I love necroblight in pvp, for any spec. nearly instant aoe 15 stack necrotic plague in pvp hits the other team HARD, and if the healers try to cleanse it they're just wasting their mana because theres no way you can stop it from spreading at that point.

[demonardvark 556]

I'm still a little bit skeptical of necroblight vs defile leech for most pve fights, although I've been playing frost most of the time recently anyways so I haven't put too much testing into unholy play styles lately. but I will say I love necroblight in pvp, for any spec. nearly instant aoe 15 stack necrotic plague in pvp hits the other team HARD, and if the healers try to cleanse it they're just wasting their mana because theres no way you can stop it from spreading at that point.

 

It's useful only and ONLY for unholy. Im sort of the same way about defile. I just don't get the numbers on defile. I drop it and sure as hell boss moves out of the way. Necrotic sticks to boss like glue. Single target like butcher im sitting on 22k at 640 ilvl as unholy. 

 

Playing frost 2h, the loss of leech does feel jarring. However, with unholy the rune regeneration just seems more fluent and I find myself never short on runes. Using leech on unholy feels weird, almost like I'm getting an extra resource I can't spend (honor among theives esque). 

 

So, I am a huge fan of necroblight, I'd say its the best style for unholy DKS, but then defile leech for all others.... or maybe sindragosas XD Im just not a big fan of defile even for 2h frost. 1h frost it is needed desperately. 

[mostdeadlygeist 1]

I'm interested in Necroblight. Is it basically just taking Plaguebearer and Necrotic Plague and playing as normal? Just need to find a good 2H first...

[Gazooten 6]

I'm interested in Necroblight. Is it basically just taking Plaguebearer and Necrotic Plague and playing as normal? Just need to find a good 2H first...

No plaguebearer is wrong, if your going to play necroblight you MUST use unholy blight and NOT plaguebearer. The idea is to apply necrotic plague with outbreak, then pop unholy blight to get to 15 stacks ASAP. Then what you wanna do is use festering strike ( do this while unholy blight is still active for FAST 15 stacks) to get necrotic plague to last as long as the cool-down for unholy blight, then you can start spamming scourge strike until necrotic plague wears off. By then unholy blight (and outbreak ) will be off cooldown. Then you simply repeat the process.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Gazooten

[mostdeadlygeist 1]

Interesting. Is this any good for single target or is it mostly an aoe build? I understand the whole plague leech/defile dps loss aspect but am interested if this is remotely competitive and the fact that it's different.

[Gazooten 6]

Interesting. Is this any good for single target or is it mostly an aoe build? I understand the whole plague leech/defile dps loss aspect but am interested if this is remotely competitive and the fact that it's different.

I use it for everything, single target and aoe. I have no issues being competitive in my raid (usually somewhere in the top three), and from what I've seen when I run on my lock with other UH DK's who don't use this playstyle I would DEF compete with them too

[Lewie4 2]

No plaguebearer is wrong, if your going to play necroblight you MUST use unholy blight and NOT plaguebearer. The idea is to apply necrotic plague with outbreak, then pop unholy blight to get to 15 stacks ASAP. Then what you wanna do is use festering strike ( do this while unholy blight is still active for FAST 15 stacks) to get necrotic plague to last as long as the cool-down for unholy blight, then you can start spamming scourge strike until necrotic plague wears off. By then unholy blight (and outbreak ) will be off cooldown. Then you simply repeat the process.

I would assume that stat priority would be Mastery > Crit = Multistrike ??

[demonardvark 556]

I would assume that stat priority would be Mastery > Crit = Multistrike ??

 

Actually you still want to stack the crap out of your multistrike. Multi lets your diseases have an chance to tick a 2nd time. so necrotic ticks 30 times in a min. if you have 50% multistrike then in perfect world you would end up with 45 ticks of necrotic in that minute. this is followed by mastery and then crit. crit doesn't matter that much for necroblight because of the death of snap shotting.

[Gazooten 6]

Actually you still want to stack the crap out of your multistrike. Multi lets your diseases have an chance to tick a 2nd time. so necrotic ticks 30 times in a min. if you have 50% multistrike then in perfect world you would end up with 45 ticks of necrotic in that minute. this is followed by mastery and then crit. crit doesn't matter that much for necroblight because of the death of snap shotting.

So then by that logic wouldn't haste take over crit? Faster rune regeneration and faster minion attacks.

[demonardvark 556]

So then by that logic wouldn't haste take over crit? Faster rune regeneration and faster minion attacks.

 

Probably..... I'll admit after the first 2 main sub stats I start losing interest. I would see the value of rune regeneration over crit however, because there is no interaction between crit and necrotic plague (lord if we could still snap shot, we would be invincible). So I would say

 

Multistrike>Mastery>Haste>Crit>other stuff  for unholy necroblight dks

[Lewie4 2]

Probably..... I'll admit after the first 2 main sub stats I start losing interest. I would see the value of rune regeneration over crit however, because there is no interaction between crit and necrotic plague (lord if we could still snap shot, we would be invincible). So I would say

 

Multistrike>Mastery>Haste>Crit>other stuff  for unholy necroblight dks

 

I really like the idea of necroblight but imo standard spec still beats it. Maybe if Unholy Blight had a shorter cooldown so we could get back to spamming scourge strike faster or maybe when we get more multistrike it might work but how I see it working is that if it drops off then you lose too much damage :(

[demonardvark 556]

I really like the idea of necroblight but imo standard spec still beats it. Maybe if Unholy Blight had a shorter cooldown so we could get back to spamming scourge strike faster or maybe when we get more multistrike it might work but how I see it working is that if it drops off then you lose too much damage

 

if the boss moves out of defile you lose too much damage. As unholy dk you aren't supposed to let it fall off. That's the main reason for unholy blight incorporation, its there in case you derp. 

 

edit: short post seemed a bit terse, wanted to expand :D

 

The reason for necrotic plauge usage over defile is the exact reason you mentioned, dropping off. If the boss moves out of defile its a big dps loss for almost 20 seconds plus it cost you a rune. As unholy dk your diseases almost shouldn't fall off just by following the basic rotation. One of the biggest reasons for taking unholy blight as your tier 1 talent is a fail safe. If your runes aren't right and necrotic will fall off you pop unholy instead when it does. So there will be a time when you have to sacrifice 2 death runes to keep necrotic up vs popping unholy. 

Edited January 13, 2015 by demonardvark

[Gazooten 6]

Agreed. A unholy DK in my raid group was wondering why I was out DPSing him when was a much higher ilvl ( I let him sweat for a couple of weeks). So I clued him in and now he plays necroblight as well. His up time on necrotic plague is usually 99%, saw him with a 99.5% uptime on one fight. Not to mention the fact that NP is around 48% of his damage, so when you have such a strong ability with that much damage and that much uptime the choice is pretty easy for me to see. Especially when you look at the fights in highmaul. There is only one fight I would even think about using defile on and that's butcher. but what if you have to delay using defile to make sure the boss doesn't move out of it? Then you risk having less defile than you normally would, but with necrotic plague that is a non issue. Not to mention necroblight is more fun to play in my opinon.

[Nax 0]

I too want Necroblight to be more viable, but I don't think the DPS question is Necrotic Plague vs Defile.  NP is clearly a DPS increase in most realistic scenarios strictly vs Defile.  The real DPS tradeoff is in Festering Strikes vs Scourge Strike or Blood Boil.

 

In my experience, that's where NP's DPS is suffering.  Festering Strike just doesn't do enough damage to warrant the loss of 2x SS/BB with Death Runes.  I spent a bunch of time trying to balance the duration of NP to match up exactly with the cooldown for UB, using as few death runes as possible.  I just haven't been able to get it reliable enough to out-dps Plague Leech and Defile.

 

BoS's cooldown is just too long for me to even consider using it.

[Lewie4 2]

if the boss moves out of defile you lose too much damage. As unholy dk you aren't supposed to let it fall off. That's the main reason for unholy blight incorporation, its there in case you derp. 

 

edit: short post seemed a bit terse, wanted to expand

 

The reason for necrotic plauge usage over defile is the exact reason you mentioned, dropping off. If the boss moves out of defile its a big dps loss for almost 20 seconds plus it cost you a rune. As unholy dk your diseases almost shouldn't fall off just by following the basic rotation. One of the biggest reasons for taking unholy blight as your tier 1 talent is a fail safe. If your runes aren't right and necrotic will fall off you pop unholy instead when it does. So there will be a time when you have to sacrifice 2 death runes to keep necrotic up vs popping unholy. 

What do you mean by keep Unholy Blight as a fail safe?  I thought we popped outbreak then popped Unholy Blight to get max stacks asap?

 

I've been testing a bit and its a fun play style.  What I've found to give the best results is do almost the ordinary rotation but when plague drops below 15 sec prioritize Festering strike if Unholy blight is still on CD.  If blight is off CD or his going to come off before plague drops I go back to prioritizing SS.

 

What about taking Plaguebearer and just doing the ordinary rotation? Is the loss of "insta" 15 stacks too big of a loss? If we are able to do this and just continue the normal rotation does the damage of Plague compare to the damage from using Plague leech?

[TeamC 6]

In this build, with the absence of Defile do you still mix in Death and Decay on fights with a smaller number of enemies with large health pools like Kargath, Butcher or Brackenspore? Or does that rune serve better as a Scourge Strike?

[demonardvark 556]

In this build, with the absence of Defile do you still mix in Death and Decay on fights with a smaller number of enemies with large health pools like Kargath, Butcher or Brackenspore? Or does that rune serve better as a Scourge Strike?

 

In general I don't use D%D anymore at all. The problem is comparatively it hits like a wet noodle. 15 stack necrotic is like an enemy blender. For aoe your priority is keeping necrotic up on ONE add. The way it works is if necrotic falls off any of the other adds in range, it will spread from the add you are focusing. So honestly, aoe almost plays out completely like single target. What I will use however on weaker adds (audience of kargath for example) is use blood boil to burn death runes (if you use it on blood runes it makes rotation messy).

 

However, for long term adds (tectus shards, brackenspore) Simply keeping up necrotic enough will do you good. On my one dk who is only 640 i'm pulling 25-30k on add fights and im not really changing up from my single target rotation at all.

[Locker 2]

With the buffs i'm thinking in change back to unholy. Do you think that necroblight is better than the usual spec for ST?

[demonardvark 556]

With the buffs i'm thinking in change back to unholy. Do you think that necroblight is better than the usual spec for ST?

 

Yes, the buff to scourge strike further devalues defile to me, especially if you have high multistrike. Beyond that I already felt necroblight was the superior choice for Unholy single target and aoe fights. The recent nerf of blood boil REALLY HURT conventional unholy aoe dps however for necroblight users we just giggled and didn't really care.

 

So scourge strike stronger

Blood boil weaker

= necroblight being all the more valuable

[Deathdoc 0]

Yes, the buff to scourge strike further devalues defile to me, especially if you have high multistrike. Beyond that I already felt necroblight was the superior choice for Unholy single target and aoe fights. The recent nerf of blood boil REALLY HURT conventional unholy aoe dps however for necroblight users we just giggled and didn't really care.

 

So scourge strike stronger

Blood boil weaker

= necroblight being all the more valuable

 

I disagree, If your Necroblight, your not using Plaque leach, and even if are using Plaque Leach with Necrotic, You'll will not be able to sustain a 15 stack if using PL on cooldown. Defile hits like a truck and really there is no boss fight where you can't make a boss sit in it full full dura.

 

With that being said though i would like to try Necroblight on several new fights. We'll be running normal on Friday for guilds Alts, since I don't have alts I'll just run my Dk. I'm thinking i'm gonna try Necro play on Brackenspore, Twins, and IMP. Fights like butcher, Kargath, tectus I'll still be using Defile on CD. Ko'garh I've been using Necroblight for but this time I might try a Defile build, since thats what all the top Unholy DPS are running on that fight.

 

In the Brackenspore fight, I'm going to try to BB anytime they're 3 targets within BB range. Otherwise, I'll just Scourge Strike to Victory.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Deathdoc

[demonardvark 556]

I disagree, If your Necroblight, your not using Plaque leach, and even if are using Plaque Leach with Necrotic, You'll will not be able to sustain a 15 stack if using PL on cooldown. Defile hits like a truck and really there is no boss fight where you can't make a boss sit in it full full dura.

 

With that being said though i would like to try Necroblight on several new fights. We'll be running normal on Friday for guilds Alts, since I don't have alts I'll just run my Dk. I'm thinking i'm gonna try Necro play on Brackenspore, Twins, and IMP. Fights like butcher, Kargath, tectus I'll still be using Defile on CD. Ko'garh I've been using Necroblight for but this time I might try a Defile build, since thats what all the top Unholy DPS are running on that fight.

 

In the Brackenspore fight, I'm going to try to BB anytime they're 3 targets within BB range. Otherwise, I'll just Scourge Strike to Victory.

 

1. If rollin necroblight you wouldn't ever take plague leech. It is completely counter-intuitive to the play style.

 

2. Honestly defile properly marinating is very much tank dependent. In my group the tanks like to move around a lot and there isn't much room for defile to properly sit. Even then every 20 seconds (because defile lasts 10) you need the boss to sit completely still in your goop. Butcher is really the only true fight and even then he does zoop around the stage a bit. So, any time the boss doesn't get the full 10 sec marinade that is a dps loss and substantial depending on what duration of the defile it moves. 

 

3. Why play with blood boil? it got a 33% nerf across the board. At best for additional aoe now for necroblight a D&D dump would be best. However, if you have your full 15 stacks roaring on 1 add you don't need blood boil it spreads on its own. Burning  your blood or death runes on blood boil vs festering strike could have major dps loss implications for necroblight. If unholy blight is off CD then maybe its acceptable to use blood boil but i've found its best to keep 100% uptime and use unholy mostly for initial application and as a fail safe (or also mass infect adds like kargath audience fight)