Disease-less Blood or other? :: Free Realms

Scholar

893 posts

Question: When would you know if your equipment is sufficient to put out the damage with a "disease-less blood" spec?

I have been told, and have read, that DB is extremely gear dependent. I have decent PvE equipment, but have not begun to raid.

I am looking for a casual/semi-casual raiding guild now, and I have PUG'd a few heroics, etc. And, I have a few non-dungeon equipment upgrades that I could do (saving up the Gold at the moment). I have a good in-game friend that made several of my main equipment pieces for me, and I bought the others. The Sigil sucks, working on that. So does one of the trinkets.

Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Echo+Isles&n=Rkane

Several pieces of my gear are iLevel 200 or better. I have respec'd so many times and I would love to find a spec and stick to it. Re-learning rotations is tedious for me, at my advanced age >.<

Right now I spec'd deep enough into Unholy for the movement speed increase, because I was working on "Classic Dungeonmaster" (amongst other acheivements) that required me to run all over the place inside (no mount). I am ready to re-spec for Heroic (and possibly Naxx) DPS. So, yes, my spec is a tad bit nasty at the moment; I was deep blood before this last re-spec.

So, what would be the best spec in my case? Disease-less Blood? Deep Unholy? (I will not be Dual Wielding.)

(I would really like to try the DB spec, but don't want to waste my time if my equipment is sub-par)

Thanks, in advance Smiley: smile

#2 Mar 31 2009 at 10:59 AM Rating: Excellent

__DEL__1591949121040

Sage

135 posts

I don't think your gear is enough to make Dlb work.
You should be aiming for 2/4 pc t7, and a ~200 dps weapon.

If I were you i'd go 17/0/54 unholy, as that spec is _way_ less gear dependant.

Edited, Mar 31st 2009 3:00pm by NeroSeekerOfSouls

#3 Mar 31 2009 at 11:07 AM Rating: Good

idiggory

Muggle@#%^er

20,024 posts

There isn't really an established set of numbers where DB surpasses Unholy. You just need to try them both to test it.

That said, I don't think you are QUITE there yet, but you're pretty close (especially considering the fact that you haven't done many heroics).

You should do your best to get a better weapon--you want the slowest, hardest hitting thing you can get your hands on. This is one of the most important aspects to Blood, because it uses all physical attacks that are modified by your main weapon, plus your auto attacks enhanced by Necrosis and BCB. I don't think the TSD is good enough, though I may very well be wrong.

Your gearing priorites should focus on capping your hit and your expertise. After that, you want as much AP as possible, then Crit. Haste and Armor Pen are last, with A.Pen being slightly better.

You actually want to keep that sigil. The last I heard it was the best for blood (I do NOT know why though). Though, I would do my best to get my hands on the Oblit/SS sigil for future use, if I was you. That thing can melt faces with other specs.

From what I hear, this is the best (or one of the best) trinkets for a DK. It gives 180 AP, and also boosts your AP by an additional 600 for 15 seconds out of every 45 or so. If you can get Unholy Strength, this and Hysteria (and maybe an on-use trinket) then pop DRW, you should be prepared to be awed by your own massive DpS.

Now, other than that, I highly advise finding a good, stable guild ASAP. This has more than just the obvious reasons. It will allow you to test the DpS of both Unholy and Blood with similar raid make-ups. And make sure, when you test them, you read up on their rotations and such so as to squeeze the maximum out of them. And, you MUST have a swing timer as Blood (I recommend Quartz), because the tighter your rotation, the higher your DpS.

And, one last question. Are you currently running as a disease-based Blood Spec?

____________________________

IDrownFish wrote:

Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:

Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.

#4 Mar 31 2009 at 11:12 AM Rating: Excellent

__DEL__1616977137682

Guru

2,680 posts

You would find a drop in DPS with a disease-less blood build in your gear, which needs a serious going over. Basically the build requires very high-level gear to pull it off for an increase in output.

As to your toon, in short: Drop anything with defensive stats, like now. And no, they don't really help you with soloing (=P). Neck, chest, belt, both rings need to go. The cloak would be next. The darkmoon card should be swapped out for the strength Greatness one as well. For a new sigil look into the PvP rewards from Grizzly Hills (usually Sigil of the Frozen Conscience)

To replace the above, here are some easy to get pieces from badges, crafted or purchase:

Pendant of the Outcast Hero
Chestplate of Conquest or Breastplate of Undeath
Verdungo's Barbarian Cord
Titanium Impact Band and/or Kirin Tor ring

Several great pre-raid blacksmithing pieces are available so level that up! You'll also get additional socket slots. Which, by the way, do not have to be filled with the color gem of the slot. For instance: A blue socket can be filled with a red gem. The only disadvantage is losing the socket bonus which are almost always pretty useless. When trying to get a meta-gem requirement you can use a purple, orange or green gem which all count as both their additive colors (red + blue = purple, etc).

As to your build: The one I see in your link is a deep Blood build, not a deep Unholy one, but: Drop Blade Barrier. As DPS you should have no need to parry anything. Here's my suggested standard blood build (with diseases). CE is there to help with the AoE packs but that point could easily be moved. For Unholy this is what I suggest. Of course, I don't presume to be flawless and I'm sure there are points that could be debated.

Also note that these builds will change when the next patch hits so be ready for that.

Hope that helps and good luck!

#5 Mar 31 2009 at 11:22 AM Rating: Decent

Scholar

893 posts

idiggory wrote:

There isn't really an established set of numbers where DB surpasses Unholy. You just need to try them both to test it.

That said, I don't think you are QUITE there yet, but you're pretty close (especially considering the fact that you haven't done many heroics).

You should do your best to get a better weapon--you want the slowest, hardest hitting thing you can get your hands on. This is one of the most important aspects to Blood, because it uses all physical attacks that are modified by your main weapon, plus your auto attacks enhanced by Necrosis and BCB. I don't think the TSD is good enough, though I may very well be wrong.

Your gearing priorities should focus on capping your hit and your expertise. After that, you want as much AP as possible, then Crit. Haste and Armor Pen are last, with A.Pen being slightly better.

You actually want to keep that sigil. The last I heard it was the best for blood (I do NOT know why though). Though, I would do my best to get my hands on the Oblit/SS sigil for future use, if I was you. That thing can melt faces with other specs.

From what I hear, this is the best (or one of the best) trinkets for a DK. It gives 180 AP, and also boosts your AP by an additional 600 for 15 seconds out of every 45 or so. If you can get Unholy Strength, this and Hysteria (and maybe an on-use trinket) then pop DRW, you should be prepared to be awed by your own massive DpS.

Now, other than that, I highly advise finding a good, stable guild ASAP. This has more than just the obvious reasons. It will allow you to test the DpS of both Unholy and Blood with similar raid make-ups. And make sure, when you test them, you read up on their rotations and such so as to squeeze the maximum out of them. And, you MUST have a swing timer as Blood (I recommend Quartz), because the tighter your rotation, the higher your DpS.

And, one last question. Are you currently running as a disease-based Blood Spec?

This was a slapped together spec for a specific purpose, so kinda "no".

This spec was what I used before: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMVZZfMbhxckgcoMfsut (from Theo's sticky). I liked it, pretty smooth rotations, good DPS. I think this is the one Nero is referring to. I'll hold off on Disease-less Blood spec for now.

Going to work on the trinket. (Take less than a week to gather the gold. Sells pretty weak on my server)

Is Titansteel Destroyer the best crafted weapon at this point in time?

I am going to change back to the original spec this evening.

Finding a guild is nigh impossible on my server. But, I have not given up hope!

Thanks so much for your comments guys. I'll update tonight with your suggestions.

#6 Mar 31 2009 at 11:27 AM Rating: Decent

Scholar

893 posts

TherionSaysWhat, Assassin Reject wrote:

You would find a drop in DPS with a disease-less blood build in your gear, which needs a serious going over. Basically the build requires very high-level gear to pull it off for an increase in output.

As to your toon, in short: Drop anything with defensive stats, like now. And no, they don't really help you with soloing (=P). Neck, chest, belt, both rings need to go. The cloak would be next. The darkmoon card should be swapped out for the strength Greatness one as well. For a new sigil look into the PvP rewards from Grizzly Hills (usually Sigil of the Frozen Conscience)

To replace the above, here are some easy to get pieces from badges, crafted or purchase:

Pendant of the Outcast Hero
Chestplate of Conquest or Breastplate of Undeath
Verdungo's Barbarian Cord
Titanium Impact Band and/or Kirin Tor ring

Several great pre-raid blacksmithing pieces are available so level that up! You'll also get additional socket slots. Which, by the way, do not have to be filled with the color gem of the slot. For instance: A blue socket can be filled with a red gem. The only disadvantage is losing the socket bonus which are almost always pretty useless. When trying to get a meta-gem requirement you can use a purple, orange or green gem which all count as both their additive colors (red + blue = purple, etc).

As to your build: The one I see in your link is a deep Blood build, not a deep Unholy one, but: Drop Blade Barrier. As DPS you should have no need to parry anything. Here's my suggested standard blood build (with diseases). CE is there to help with the AoE packs but that point could easily be moved. For Unholy this is what I suggest. Of course, I don't presume to be flawless and I'm sure there are points that could be debated.

Also note that these builds will change when the next patch hits so be ready for that.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Oh oh yes, it definitely helps!

Specific suggestions for gear, oh yes. (goal-oriented player -- lol)

Can I keep the DM card I have now and add the Greatness one? >.< That was a major chunk for the Ace.

I have looked the links up for that equipment and am shocked that I didn't see some of those. Thank you, very much.

BS is on its way up, tough leveling it with all the "fun" stuff to do with a mini-deity that is a Death Knight. *evil laugh*

All fun aside, these posts have been an immense help! Thank you all.

#7 Mar 31 2009 at 12:31 PM Rating: Good

idiggory

Muggle@#%^er

20,024 posts

Quote:

Is Titansteel Destroyer the best crafted weapon at this point in time?

It is the best craftable right now, as far as I know. All other DK-usable crafted weapons are 1-handed or below level 78.

I imagine you can use two different DM cards, but I am not sure. You'll find out when you get Greatness.

That said, I'm not sure you want to keep Death. Basically, you just get crit from it. Yeah, a chance to inflict higher damage is nice, but most other trinkets can deliver much more than that as an affect from stats or on-use. For example, one that gives an AP buff with an on-use AP Buff will give a nice boost to DpS while active, plus boosting your DpS while DRW is up by quite a bit more. I imagine that damage is > a few procs from that per fight.

I'm sorry you spent money on it, but take heart in the fact that gold is INCREDIBLY easy to get. Have you done all the NR quests? You can knock most of a zone out in an hour if you plan it well. And, they will give 6-15 gold each, usually, because of the exp conversion. When you can do 10 quests in a few minutes, plus mining, plus green drops, plus gold drops, plus quest rewards plus vendor trash, you make a lot of money.

Doing Grizzly Hills at level 80 for the achievement just got me 1-3K on the spot (granted I am also a skinner, so that is an additional 10G for each stack of Borean Leather and 30G for each Arctic Fur.

And, another nice way to make money, is to sell your Titansteel CD. If you want to farm your mats, you can sell the bars for 100+ each. But, many people will use their own mats and buy a cooldown from a miner for 30-50G, if you cannot get around to farming that day.

And crystallized fire from Titanium Veins and Fire Reverents sell well.

____________________________

IDrownFish wrote:

Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:

Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.

#8 Mar 31 2009 at 11:27 PM Rating: Excellent

__DEL__1591949121040

Sage

135 posts

This patch, darkmoon card death is quite horrible.
The crit is kinda nice, but that's really all there is to it, as the proc is only once every 45 seconds (at best) and it does lvl 70 trinket damage.
It's just crappy atm, lvl ~75 blue trinkets (like the vestige of haldor) just do more damage.
My personal recommendation would be to get mirror of truth, and then try to either get the armor pen trinket from hc drak'tharon keep (from dred) or the dragon's blood sphere from hc nexus

Next patch death is supposedly getting buffed (damage on proc seems to be increased to ~2k non-crit) so it might be better then, but atm its just not worth it.

The starting sigil is better then the 15 badges sigil, as the total extra damage you get on your heartstrikes > the low chance (not to mention the long internal cooldown) to increase your crit by a lowly 3%.

EDIT: I can't access wow at school, but if you mean the unholy build from theo's wiki your probably good to go.
You could also use the spec from my armory, this is the build I got from elitistjerks.

Edited, Apr 1st 2009 3:29am by NeroSeekerOfSouls

#9 Apr 01 2009 at 5:51 AM Rating: Decent

Scholar

893 posts

Well, the Unholy build that I switched back to was not disappointing at all. The numbers were there and it was pretty.

I did a few BGs, WG, and a few dailies and now I see why this build is so stable.

A little work on the rotations and I will be set.

The equipment, on the other hand, is going to take some time, gold, and work.

Thanks for all your input Smiley: smile

#10 Apr 01 2009 at 7:54 AM Rating: Good

__DEL__1591949121040

Sage

135 posts

Since you're unholy, I'd recommend getting http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40875.

The blue cape ('of bloodied feathers, iirc, it's a boe.) is better, so get that before you enchant your cape ;).

Even though it's epic, you really should get another chest.
There are tons of blue plate chests that blow your chest out of the water (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43310, or http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37612 for example.)

Get the badge necky

get rid of the tanking belt, and for the love of god, swap out your leggings.
Spellpower does absolutely nothing to our spells (they all scale off AP, so get rid of SP).

you should also get rid of your rings, try to get http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37151 + a random epic ring (be it from naxx, hc gundrak, pvp, crafted)

Keep in mind that all this assumes that you're not getting any drops off naxx.
(e.g. ofcourse naxx rings > band of frosted thorns in most cases, its just that band of frosted thorns is pretty imba for a blue instance item.)

#11 Apr 06 2009 at 10:27 AM Rating: Decent

Scholar

893 posts

Ok, picked up a [http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=42645;source=live] and a [http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=42642;source=live].

Also, picked up PVP legs: [http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=40837;source=live] (I know, but better than the defense legs I had...)

I have now run Heroic and Normal VoA, Drak'Tharon Keep (H), Gundrak (H), and almost had a chance on VH.

Thanks for all of your help!

(Sorry, I need to learn how to do links properly)

Edited, Apr 6th 2009 2:29pm by mythryl