The Scourge Strike's BackFollow

Shortly after my "I love my 9k DC crits, but I might change it" post, I actually changed it around to the spec you see now. It sacrifices Death Coil damage (no Dark Death, no max'd Morbidity) for some more impressive disease damage.

My Death Coils still hit for 7-8k, though, so it's not too bad.

Not totally unexpected though. And it remains unclear if they'll buff it back up, as I hear Unholy is still performing very well. Well, *MY* Unholy tank spec is, but I have low crit to begin with. Personally, I think they should have taken away the chance for a double crit, not have eliminated the second hit's chance (so you could either got both crits, or the second crit, but not three crits like we could originally). Though, my opinion is scewed because, like I said, I have low crit as a tank. No clue if I ever got a double one on the second strike. This is definitely more of a DpS than a threat issue. I didn't notice a drop in TpS after the hotfix, in any case.

Unholy DKs and Mutilate Rogues were dominating the parses for the first week. I'm not sure how much has changed (I know Rogues are still number 1 for most top-end guilds, but I don't know how much the 5% changed the gap).

I THINK Unholy is no longer #2 for single-target fights. But I'm not sure about that. I also have no clue if it is still the top-performing DK spec. Time will tell.

[EDIT]

I'm loving Unholy, btw. Diseases ticking for 500-600 damage? Ummm, yes please. Here is my armory if anyone wants to see what I'm running.

I may have to drop some points for Scent of Blood though. I'm not really happy with my RP generation atm. I want it more often, and I have it less. But I can't decide what to drop for it (It's WAY easier to make a Frost tree than an Unholy one. >.<)

I can either lose Bladed Armor points, Icy Touch points, or 2-hnd Spec points.

I figure I only need two in it, though. :/

[EDIT2]


[edited because I fail at math]

If you get a 4K physical crit, your Shadow portion should hit for 3K. Before it would have been 6K, had it double crit.

Though, I'm not considering ANY damage modifiers to magic/shadow damage, and we get quite a few.

Edited, Dec 13th 2009 8:49am by idiggory

No, I remembered that. I just didn't factor in any damage bonuses.

So, no 13%+10% from EBP/BP. No 2% from Bone Shield. No 5% from Desolation. No Vicious Strikes (though I don't know if that originally functioned on the second SS hit before the hotfix).

But, without those, I think the math is okay. It just depends on what the second hit uses as its base damage before the .75 modifier. Is it damage done? Is it actual damage (what it would do to a mob with no armor)? Does it use the non-crit value, or the crit one?

If we assume it is just damage done, then a SS would do:

Hit 1 crit: 4K
Hit 2 non-crit: 3K (but it is 75% of the 4K), which would be something like 3.9+K after BS/EPB/BP/Desolation (still not counting VS, since I don't know if it double-dipped). That should make it an 8K crit, when double.

I'm not sure how you could get a 10-12K crit from a 4K physcial, unless the base damage is the value that's unmitigated by armor.

A mystery! lol...

[EDIT]

My SS crits:

Physical- 3322 (critical)
Second Strike- 2956

That's 89% of the first one, as it should be.

All I have active on it is the 23% from talents.

.75*1.23 = .92

Second test: 2963 1st, 2638 2nd.

That's still 89%.

So, I don't know what it is. It should be 3% higher. Don't know why it isn't. Small resist, maybe? Idk...

But still, the crit probably won't go much beyond 100% of the original strike, fully buffed and talented.

Edited, Dec 13th 2009 11:23am by idiggory

Hmmm, interesting. I'll try and figure out how to boost this later (I wonder if it has a hidden AP coefficient?)

But, right now, I need to do some school work, lol.

You will have to use Pest to give them the bonus from Fallen Crusader, so I imagine the others will also require it. But, EJ never has you using BS before using the runes. I feel like they once recommended it, though. Perhaps the two-disease bonus of one BS is higher than 5% on the DoT? That seems unlikely though.



For multiple targets Apply Diseases, Spread them and then place DnD. After that, put up Desolation, and use BB whenever it doesn't need refreshing. Make sure your diseases don't fall off (or reapply them--you have GoDisease?) Tab through and SS/DC on your remaining runes. If the fight will be a long one, reapply DnD when it's CD comes up.

Your single target rotation looks good. Don't forget to use HoW when it comes up for the extra DCs. If you have to reapply diseases (lag, stun, movement, etc.) make sure to use a DC midway through your rotation, to keep your UB up.



I think within 300 damage is more than fine. I don't know what you should be putting out in that gear, but considering normal error in that you won't ACTUALLY use an ability ever 1.5 seconds, and that Unholy is more RNG dependent than the other specs, that sounds fine.

3.8K in OS10 is nothing to scoff at, in any case.

I wasn't loving the 10 second rotation, but I'm happy they've fixed it. I don't miss my Frost tanking spec at all. >.<

And, I really loved Frost. Howling Blast and FS kicked ***. Now, melee have to wait 2 seconds before really attacking, but I'm getting 4K TpS easy (and that's JUST with diseases and DnD, not counting strikes or Blood Boil). LOVE IT.

One of these days I'll try Blood (I liked it while leveling). But, at the moment, I'm having a lot of fun with Unholy.

I do miss how "clean" Frost specs were, though. You didn't feel like you were missing any important talents. Unholy and Blood both kinda make you pick and choose.

In my tank gear with this spec, HoW, Frost Presence and no food buffs I'm doing 1.4K. WITH buffs, it goes much higher, up to 1.8-2K. It gets insane on AoE fights, 2.3-3K.

With my DpS Gear, BP and FC on my QD, I was getting 1.8K DpS (I don't have a Perma Ghoul or Garg, and did not use AotD nor any other CDs. Just had HoW and BS up).

Not bad. Still in my tank spec, and my DpS gear is god awful.

Stats with HoW:

AP: 3777
Hit (ROFL) 2.71%
Crit: 25.60%
Expertise -2% Dodge
ArP 8.22%

If my hit was higher, I KNOW I'd be getting much better DpS. I had to repeat strikes way too often doing this, and my DCs missing was just lost DpS.

I really need to start building a DpS set. Because I'm about to run out of things to by with Triumph emblems for my tank.

T9 is actually basically a downgrade from what I have, for the most part. The set is crap. It REALLY isn't worth the emblems.

I am gonna buy the trinket, helm and DpS sigil. Other than that, there isn't anything my tank would want, until frost emblems.

Now, if I was in a raiding guild and could get tokens, it would be worth it. The conquest gear is just crap.

This is what I'd gain if I replaced all of my current gear with T9:



I would lose a decent bit of threat, as the hit and expertise loss puts me way below cap. Doesn't seem worth the time investment for 600 health (if I socket for Stam) to me. Threat is a far bigger issue for me at the moment than Stam and 1% avoidance, because raid-geared people are running heroics for the Frost emblems.

If this was a month from now? Maybe I'd go for it. But at the moment it's a solid downgrade for what's being asked of me. I go over 40K with the buffs I bring to Heroics. My PC can't really handle raids (a 5 man with bad spell effects will bring me down to 10 FpS or lower, with it all on min. But I think I really need to overhaul the system).

I'm kinda at the end of the line for my DK in Wrath.

[EDIT]

Outside of Frost Presence, I am now at 31.6K health unbuffed in my Unholy Build, with 26.x% dodge and 18.66% Parry. My trinket, though, is basically always active, and it brings me up to 29-31% dodge. Buffs tend to bring me to 20% Parry. In my Frost spec, I hit 33-34% dodge, and have a passive 29.x%.

Besides a few odd pieces, all my gear is ilvl 219-251 epic. I'm running ICC5 to upgrade my boots and cloak, and ToC5 for my trinket. I believe there's a neck upgrade in ICC5 as well. After that, I'm literally done with all drop upgrades (half the def plate). Besides Frost emblems, nothing is worth buying for my tank gear.

I have no idea how tanks get much higher than this without T9.5, I really don't. I can't see myself getting higher than 33-34K unbuffed if I took everything only for Stamina, which would be awful (no armor trinkets either). I've pored over WoWhead looking for upgrades, and they're all in raids.

Edited, Dec 14th 2009 12:05pm by idiggory

And where would you go to reduce your physical damage taken? Other than the mandatory Toughness talent from Frost, I only see Frigid Deathplate and Unbreakable Armor as unavailable talents for reduction of physical damage. Unholy Death Knights get a buff which, glyphed, reduces all damage taken by 20% on the next 4 hits taken, usable every minute.

He's got Improved Icy Touch as well in his build.

I know you're a Frost DK tank with Acclimation. May I say what hundreds of more experienced and wiser people told me when I considered that talent...
GTFO, it's not worth it.

Edited, Dec 16th 2009 7:01pm by Mazra