Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to Gadeon
Re: [ Classes] ATTN Death Knights - Post your spec for critique!
Armor Pen does next to nothing for Armor Pen. Crit is valued at a higher rate, especially once you hit 4pc T9, but as always, STR is your DK stat of choice, regardless of spec.
Armor pen is worthless as unholy. You can't help it on some gear, but if you've got better stuff to use, use it instead.
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'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.' -Thomas Jefferson - |
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Tehuno
join:2005-01-18
Bartlesville, OK
| people are reporting upwards of 15k scourge strike crits on the ptr. it would be nice if blizz could figure out how to balance DK's correctly, over a year now and they have yet to really be balanced to where they should be, always way over or way under. looks like UH will be the spec of choice again come 3.3, i assume anyways. |
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Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth | What are they changing in Unholy on the PTR? |
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Gadeon
join:2009-08-14
Herndon, VA
| reply to Krisnatharok
Well, luckily I have never gemmed for Armor Pen. Thing is I am wondering now if I should use a different trinket than the Runestone I have which procs Armor Pen. I will keep my Greatness Card, but then what? I think now I may actually use either the Fordragon Blades or Reckoning for DPS now instead of tanking, since I am still using Ironsoul and the Stormedge from Uld. Maybe this week I can get lucky and get either Aesir's Edge or my Axe from Faction. We shall see. Thanks Arch. I am still with you though on Blood being the best. I would still stay blood knowing Unholy will get a typical DK nerf punch next patch. |
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Tehuno
join:2005-01-18
Bartlesville, OK | reply to Archivis
trying to find the exact wording, but the new scourge strike is some weird combo of partial physical, partial magical dmg. its apparently insanely powerful. |
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Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth | Please let me know. I can't view most of that stuff from work. |
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dose
Premium
join:2000-10-09
A-town
1 edit | reply to Krisnatharok
Scourge Strike: Redesigned. The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.
Recent blue:
To reiterate one more time....
We're not going to let an attack that ignores armor do the same damage as an attack that is reduced by armor. The problem is that when armor gets reduced, a physical attack hits for more while a magical attack does not. The answer I keep reading is "Just buff Scourge Strike." No. It can't do more base damage as long as it bypasses armor.
Armor pen as a stat on gear is going away. The concept of reducing armor (through say Battle Stance or Sunder Armor) is not going away. It's entirely possible a spec or two might improve their armor pen through the Mastery feature. Even if it was going away, magical attacks still can't hit as hard as physical attacks. There would be no reason to have physical attacks.
At a very high level there are two options: Scourge Strike hits at X damage but respects armor, or Scourge Strike hits at X*0.5 and ignores armor. Talents etc. can modify this, but they all have their individual budgets too. -GC |
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Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth
·Verizon FIOS
| So basically, for PVE, scourge strike will benefit almost wholely from armor pen as much as blood strikes do, because its magic damage is based upon the physical damage done.
Interesting.
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'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.' -Thomas Jefferson - |
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Gadeon
join:2009-08-14
Herndon, VA
| reply to Krisnatharok
You see what I mean Arch, they are making this all to confusing. I guess that is simply because unlike casters who do Magic damage, and Melee who normally deal Physical damage, we as DKs are hard to judge because we do both simultaneously. I may just respec to an Unholy build tonight, and with what gear I have see where it goes. |
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Tehuno
join:2005-01-18
Bartlesville, OK
| yeah there it is, thx for posting it, couldnt find it anywhere.
another thing to note, apparently the physical portion, and the magical portion, do independent checks for crit. when both portions crit, thats when people are seeing insane #'s. |
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footballdude
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO
| reply to Gadeon
said by Gadeon  :You see what I mean Arch, they are making this all to confusing. I guess that is simply because unlike casters who do Magic damage, and Melee who normally deal Physical damage, we as DKs are hard to judge because we do both simultaneously. Ret pallies do a fair amount of magic damage in addition to physical. They don't get pulled onto the buff/nerf train near as much as DKs.
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The goggles! They do nothing! - McBain |
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NYlock78
Premium
join:2009-04-01
Paterson, NJ
| reply to Krisnatharok
So they supposedly fix DW Frost yet Blood DPS is still as good or IMO better and now there going to fix Unholy? WTF why cant they fix Frost also and let us have an option? Why do we have to change every time theres a new Patch out? I have some nice DW weapons but I keep using my crappy i219 2h cause I just do better as blood and I always have an ability I can use to DPS while in frost there are times that there is nothing to click on.
Make mine Mavel! |
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Krisnatharok
0311 Scout
Premium
join:2009-02-11
Sterling, VA | reply to Gadeon
I believe it's STR, crit, haste, arpen, agi.
For Blood, I run Greatness + Grim Toll. For Unholy (which I am now), I run Greatness + Pyrite Infuser. |
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Sprakk
join:2009-10-01
| This is pretty much what the stat values are according to EJ:
Stat BP Builds IUP Builds
Attack Power 1.0 1.0
Weapon Speed 238.10 112.9
Weapon DPS 6.03 6.13
Hit Rating (until cap) 3.05 1.97
Strength 3.05 3.10
Haste Rating 2.19 1.29
Crit Rating w/ 4pt9 2.19 2.00
Expertise Rating 1.65 0.45
Crit rating w/o 4pt9 1.60 1.50
Hit Rating (to spell hit cap) 1.40 0.93
Armor Penetration 1.30 1.29
Agility 1.05 1.00
Anyway, looks like there are a few things that will be affecting DK's and Unholy come 3.3...
Frost Fever no longer crits.
Glyph of Icy Touch no longer gives additional rune power, instead gives more damage done.
Scourge Strike will do less damage when not in a raid situation (ie. no Sunders on target, Faerie Fire, etc), but will do more damage when in a raid situation, with debuffs on target.
Looks like we'll be using Glyph of Disease soon as well, becoming more like blood spec, applying strongest diseases and refreshing.
This also taken from EJ forum:
Upcoming Changes section is back, this time for Patch 3.3.0, which is now live on the PTR! The new Scourge Strike is fully functional, at long last, leading to us finally being able to figure some things out:
* 17/0/54 is the new spec of choice, as Epidemic and Reaping are back in!
* Due to the large increase in SS damage, Glyph of Disease is now a must have, even if you ignore disease rolling.
* Your rotation after your initial two rune refreshes (which are used to apply diseases with procs, more details below) becomes:
SS > Pest > BS > SS > DC > HoW // SS > DC > SS > SS > DC.
* Precise stat weights are still unknown, but essentially: Hit until cap > Strength > Expertise until cap > Crit Rating > Armor Pen > Agility > Haste. |
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Ghastlyone
join:2009-01-07
North Las Vegas, NV
| said by Sprakk : SS > Pest > BS > SS > DC > HoW // SS > DC > SS > SS > DC. Why this rotation specifically?
I don't know Unholy for raiding inside and out, I've always been Blood. I'm just curious.
Why open with a SS and then a Pestilence? A Pestilence does nothing if there are no diseases on the target.
Am I missing something? |
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Sprakk
join:2009-10-01 | Your missing the direct line before that statement.
"Your rotation after your initial two rune refreshes (which are used to apply diseases with procs, more details below) becomes:" |
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Tehuno
join:2005-01-18
Bartlesville, OK
| reply to footballdude
said by footballdude :said by Gadeon :You see what I mean Arch, they are making this all to confusing. I guess that is simply because unlike casters who do Magic damage, and Melee who normally deal Physical damage, we as DKs are hard to judge because we do both simultaneously. Ret pallies do a fair amount of magic damage in addition to physical. They don't get pulled onto the buff/nerf train near as much as DKs. ret's primary abilities( cs/judgement/ds) arent actually considered "magical" attacks, they still follow the physical attack rules. thats easy to tell by the fact you dont need 17% hit, and they arent affected by the 13% magic debuff. i think the only spell that follows the magical attack rules is holy wrath, and possibly consecrate.
enhance, on the other hand is about 50/50 magic/physical. they also need a buff =) |
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JoelC707
join:2002-07-09
Tucson, AZ
clubs:
| reply to Krisnatharok
22 pages, ugh. Sorry if some of my questions have been answered already. I've read page 1 and so far that's it. I do plan to read the others out of curiosity though. Sorry this is so long, I didn't expect it to end up this long actually. Also, I've never used any macros. I've played around with them but most of them didn't seem to work right for some reason (copy paste from someone else, which could be why, they had abilities spec'd I don't).
I'm a fairly fresh 80 (hit it about 3 weeks ago) that needs some critiquing of my talent specs and skills. I'm currently acting as MT while we get our 75 prot pally up to 80. After that I'll move to OT/Melee DPS. As a guild we do want to run heroics and most of the basic 10 man runs (Naxx, ToC, etc). So far all we've done are various Northrend 5-man instances (AN, UK, Nexus, VH, etc) and we can generally run them with only a 3-man team but they are mid 70's instances and were all 80's cept for the prot pally.
Here's my armory page: »www.wowarmory.com/character-shee···behaving. Pretty much all of my gear was created by the BS in the guild and was done with the intent of hitting the defense cap (I'm getting there). Most of my gems target stam or str but I've got a few def gems too.
Our guild is pretty small, we've got a handful of 80's but some of them are alts, we've really only got 4 people in our main crew right now. Our primary DPS is an 80 hunter and I'm outdoing her in tank spec on overall damage and DPS (but just barely because she is doing autoshoot most of the time lol). She could easily walk away from me right now in damage if she wanted to but so far we haven't had any trouble downing anything.
I'm doing 1204.3 DPS, hunter is doing 1158.6 DPS overall after tonight's Violet Hold run. My rotation is IT > PS > BS > BS > OB then rinse and repeat till dead. I do the same rotation in Blood or Frost. For groups I'll do Death and Decay to get the threat up there and cause some AoE damage and pop Blood Boil and Howling Blast whenever I can. Howling Blast in particular hits every time for 2K damage minimum, often 3K or a little more. That's probably what makes my DPS higher than the hunter. Non-elite adds, I can usually down with about two hits of Howling Blast, especially if they are in the Death and Decay AoE.
I played around with wowhead's talent calculator to come up with my current talent specs. So far it's working great for me but I can't help but wonder if there is something better I could be doing. I've read countless talent builds and their associated descriptions but don't know what would be right for me. My current talent specs are built based around attacks I use or stuff that adds hit/crit or armor depending on which spec. Of course that can change as well.
The other 80 DK in the guild that is helping me is spec'd entirely unholy (no points in any other area) and he says it is just unreal the damage he can do. Unfortunately I've never gotten to see him fight as he is always on his pally doing heals when we run an instance. I'm not sure I want to commit to one tree specifically, usually I can't find enough spots I like to use all the points. That's why my main spec is mostly blood with some unholy. Actually what I did there was go into unholy just enough (with talents I wanted) to get the ghoul then put the rest in blood (again with talents I wanted). |
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Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth
·Verizon FIOS
| We're talking strictly tanking here, right? I think you're very off-base with the way you've been approaching tanking. You've got a mix of DPS gear and tanking gear and your focus is on how much DPS you do.
So, we're talking about a complete makeover with your class. Your talents are not setup appropriately, nor is your gear. The rotation you're talking about is bogus as well.
#1. Your Gear
Your gear is a mix of DPS and tank gear. Your job as a tank is not to worry about your DPS. Your job as a tank is to make sure you can take the hits and to make sure you hold aggro, not to be up there on the DPS meters. All of your gems should be +30stam gems unless you're trying to activate a meta, in which case, you should pick up a stam/dodge gem or a gem that has some avoidance/mitigation. +20 STR does nothing to help you tank.
Despite what people want to say, dualwield tanking is bad. It's only decent if you've got a high amount of expertise. Your armory says you have... 5. Get a two-hander and put RUNE OF THE STONESKIN GARGOYLE on it. That's your tanking enchant, not fallen crusader. You're nowhere near defense cap. Armory says you're at 489. You need to be 540 before raid bosses no longer crit you.
By the way, your two-hander should be the only thing resembling DPS on your character at all. They don't make tanking 2-handers. Go to ToC5 heroic, get yourself the 2-hander out of there, put Stoneskin Gargoyle on it and now you're good.
#2. Your Spec
Well, it's horrible. You only went 2/5 Blade Barrier. Why? Was 3 points into subversion, to make your Obliterates hit harder, worth taking 3% more damage? No. Here's a link to the tanking build I use:
»www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xm···00000000
According to Armory, you're not even using any Glyphs. You know about these things, right? Here's what you should be using:
Majors:
Howling Blast
Frost Strike
Obliterate
Minors: (Doesn't really matter)
Horn
Raise Dead
Whatever
#3. Your Rotation
Diseases, Blood Strike, then an Obliterate. You only use D&D for AoE? You have to adapt. Here's the rotation I use and I've had some great success at it and I've had pretty high Threat-Per-Second when compared to other tanks that have higher parry, expertise and hit rating than myself.
Single Target: I open up with a Howling Blast. It's my closer. It's what I use when I'm not quite in melee range just yet. From there, I continue with an Obliterate, followed by 2 Blood Strikes. After that, I dump Frost Strikes into the guy. From there, I'm using Obliterate every time I can, using Howling Blast only to re-apply Frost Fever (That's what the glyph does) and only using Blood Strike to convert Blood Runes into Death Runes. If I get a Rime proc, I'll cast Howling Blast again immediately.
Multi Targets: Open up with a D&D on the area where you believe you can contain the mobs. After that, use a Howling Blast, followed by a Blood Boil. From there on, you're using Howling Blast every time it's up, using Blood Boil every time it's up, and tabbing around using Frost Strike and Obliterate (with the extra set of Frost/Unholy runes you have while Howling Blast is on cooldown) on everything you can. As your gear gets better, you can probably just skip the tab targetting completely, as your AoE threat is good enough (That's what I do, mostly because I'm lazy and nobody dies, so why not?).
Some folks might disagree with me on the rotation, but I've had great success with it, tanking everything from heroics to T9 content without an issue. The simplicity of this rotation means that I don't even have to put diseases on my bar. It's a waste of time and resources to do so. It's not diseaseless, because Howling Blast puts up frost fever already, it's just that I don't have to follow a rigid rotation, which means I can adapt very well in a raid environment. I still put out great TPS in raids.
#4. Macros
You need to replace every one of your damage dealing abilities with the following:
#showtooltip Obliterate
/startattack
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Obliterate
The italicized gets replaced with each of your other abilities like Howling Blast, Frost Strike, etc., for each of your other abilities that you use.
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You follow my advice and your tanking should improve significantly.
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'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.' -Thomas Jefferson - |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Kris has a post where he put a few of these macro's together already for you cutting and pasting pleasure:
»Re: [ Classes] ATTN Death Knights - Post your spec for critique!
As Arch said, you'll want to make these macro's for all of your regular rotation damage dealers, so that whenever Rune Strike is available, no matter what you're attempting to cast, Rune Strike will get cast as well, thus making sure you're taking advantage of it, and not messing up your rotation.
Arch explained it, but just to clarify a little more, when he says its his closer, he means that its what he uses to "close the gap" between his next target, as IT has a decent range on it and can pull the target to him.
Don't forget that you also have the option of dual speccing if you haven't done so. I only bring this up as (and I haven't checked your gear or anything) you don't necessarily have to chunk your gear, just make sure you're using the right stuff for the rigth spec. Tank = defense, not DPS.
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