[EN] Death Knight Unholy PvE Guide

[mayavin]

[4.3.4] Unholy DK DPS Guide






Contents:
Click on one of the titles for the desired information

1. Patch changes
   
2. Stats
   
3. Talents and glyphs
   
4. Gems, enchants and reforge
   
5. Food & Flasks
   
6. Profesii
   
7. Macro's & Add-ons
   

Patch changes

Class changes after patch upgrade:

4.1

Quote:

General: All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities. Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters. Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone. Talents: Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters. Rage of Rivendare again applies 15/30/45% additional damage to Plague, Scourge, and Festering Strike, up from 12/24/36%.

4.2

Quote:

Stats: Death knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%. Death knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength. Glyphs: Glyph of Dark Succor has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight's maximum health (still requires Frost or Unholy Presence). Talents: Unholy Might now increases Strength by 20%, up from 5%

4.3

Quote:

General: Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect. Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master's crit and spell penetration stats. Buffs: Abomination's Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%. Talents: Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%. The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.

Stats


Rase:

- Horde:

Orc, because it is the best option in terms of racials.

Blood Fury : Increase attack/spell power for 15 seconds (2 min cooldown)
Command : 5% pet damage
Axe Specialization : 3 expertise with axes
Hardiness : 15% stun duration reduction

- Goblin

Time is Money : 1% attack speed
Rocket Jump : Jump forward (2 min cooldown, shared with Rocket Barrage)
Rocket Barrage : launches rockets at enemy (2 min cooldown, shared with Rocket Jump)
Best Deals : Anywhere receive the best discount regardless of faction
Pack Hobgoblin : Bank access 1 minute (30 min cooldown)
Better Living Through Chemistry : Alchemy increased by 15 points

- Alliance:

- Worgen

Viciousness : 1% critical strike
Darkflight : Increased movement speed by 40% for 10 seconds (2 min cooldown)
Aberration : 64 shadow and nature resistance at level 85
Running Wild : Increase ground speed by 60%/100%
Flayer : Skinning skill increased by 15 and allows you to skin faster
Two Forms : Turn into your currently inactive form



Priorities:
Strength > Hit to Cap > Haste > Crit > Mastery > Expertise


Spell Priorities:

Single Target:

Diseases
> Dark Transformation
> Death and Decay/Scourge Strike
> Death and Decay/Scourge Strike (UU or Death Runes are up)
> Death Coil (Sudden Doom, full RP)
> Festering Strike
> Festering Strike (BP & FF sunt pe target)
> Horn of Winter

Diseases:

At the beginning of an encounter, start by applying the diseases, the most effective way to do this is with Outbreak. In the situation in which Outbreak has cooldown, you can apply the diseases individually with Icy Touch and Plague Strike. The damage they do individually is not that big, but together they are very helpful. The instance you cast Icy Touch/Plague Strike/Outbreak , Ebon Plague will automatically be applied.Ebon Plague applies a debuff on the target, which increase the magical damage taken by 8% which offers support for the whole raid. In addition to this, for every disease applied to the target, Scourge Strike will have an extra 18% physical damage done as shadow damage.

Dark Transformation:

Death Coils, leaving out the damage done to your target, also applies a buff called Shadow Infusion on the pet which stacks up to 5 times. When you reach 5 stacks you can use it to transform the ghoul in an "undead monstrosity" for 30 seconds. During this time the damage done by the pet is increased by 100% and has 2 new abilities while the transformation is active. It is important to use this spell as often as you can. In the situation in which you have cooldown on runes, you can use Blood Tap to activate Death Runes.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike:

Death and Decay(DnD) is a powerful 'tick' which is very easy to apply. Even if it is an AoE spell, it is a great DPS gain for single target, the most frustrating moment being the one in which you casted DnD and the mobs are moving in circles. Scourge Strike has the highest damage and has high priority. Scourge Strike will replace DnD when it has cooldown.

Festering Strike:

In order to use the runes and the cooldown as efficiently as possible, include Festering Strike in your priority list. With the help of the talent Reaping, the runes consumed from Festering Strike will become Death Runes when it reactivates. Festering Strike also plays an important role in maintaining diseases on your target for an extra 6 seconds. In other words, Festering Strike helps maintain diseases while Outbreak is on cooldown.

Death Coil:

The most efficient way to use Death Coil is when the proc Sudden Doom is activated or when you have full Runic Power. Regarding Runic Power, you don't have to worry that much about the talent Runic Coruption, which has been improved in the last patch upgrades.

Horn of Winter:

Horn of Winter is great when you fail with the rotation. It gives you 10 Runic Power.

AoE Target:

Switch to Frost Presence
Diseases + Pestilence
> Dark Transformation
> Death and Decay/Scourge Strike (UU or Death Runes are up)
> Blood Boil (BP and FF sunt pe target)
> Death Coil (Sudden Doom, full RP)
> Icy Touch







Ingame spec:

Single target spec:

Code:

/run t,p,a={3,11,23,33,63,72,81,103,122,133,141,162,171,182,193,201,1,12,33,42,2,13,}SetPreviewPrimaryTalentTree(t[1],GetActiveTalentGroup())for i=1,#t do a=t[i]if a<9 then p=a else AddPreviewTalentPoints(p,floor(a/10),a%10)end end

Multi target spec:

Code:

/run t,p,a={3,11,23,33,63,72,81,92,103,122,133,141,162,171,182,193,201,1,12,33,42,2,11,}SetPreviewPrimaryTalentTree(t[1],GetActiveTalentGroup())for i=1,#t do a=t[i]if a<9 then p=a else AddPreviewTalentPoints(p,floor(a/10),a%10)end end

AMZ spec:

Code:

/run t,p,a={3,23,33,41,63,72,81,92,103,123,133,141,151,162,171,182,193,201,1,22,33,41,2,}SetPreviewPrimaryTalentTree(t[1],GetActiveTalentGroup())for i=1,#t do a=t[i]if a<9 then p=a else AddPreviewTalentPoints(p,floor(a/10),a%10)end end

Prime glyphs: Glyph of Death Coil, Glyph of Scourge Strike, Glyph of Raise Dead.
Major glyphs: Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, Glyph of Blood Boil, Glyph of Pestilence.
Minor glyphs: Glyph of Blood Tap, Glyph of Horn of Winter, Glyph of Death's Embrace.


Gems, enchants and reforge

Gems:
Meta: Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond

- Blue Sockets: Etched Shadow Spinel / Etched Demonseye
- Yellow Sockets: Fierce Lava Coral / Fierce Ember Topaz
- Red Sockets: Bold Queen's Garnet / Bold Inferno Ruby

At first, materials for epic gems are not available, because they only drop from containers looted from Dragon Soul bosses.


Enchants:
Head - Arcanum of the Wildhammer / Arcanum of the Dragonmaw (60 Strength / 35 Mastery)
Back - Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike
Shoulder - Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone / Enchant Inscription
Chest - Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
Bracers - Enchant Bracer - Major Strength
Gloves - Enchant Gloves - Mighty Strength
Belt - Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs - Dragonscale Leg Armor
Feet - Enchant Boots - Haste
Weapon - Rune of the Fallen Crusader (wowhead link)

Reforge:

Reforge Priorities:

Hit until cap or 961 hit rating or 8%, Haste and Crit.
Don't reforge Haste foolishly
Reforge extra Hit; Mastery, Expertise in Haste or Crit as long as you can, or Haste and Mastery when you have Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps
Expertise has a minor priority and I recommend that you should not take it in consideration.



Food & Flasks

Flask: Flask of Titanic Strength
Potion: Golemblood Potion

Food: Beer-Basted Crocolisk, Fortune Cookie, Seafood Magnifique Feast.

Professions

Quote:

4.3 added epic gems to the game. These lower the value of JC and increase the value of BS. However: Not everybody has a full set of epic gems yet and depending on how many you have, JC' and BS' value stays the same.

Blacksmithing: 2 extra sockets, => 120 Stamina / 80 Mastery Rating/ 80 Avoidance Rating. After the introduction of epic gems, the value of BS has increased, thanks to the fact that epic gems can be socketed anywhere

Leatherworking: Draconic Embossment - Strength (wowhead link)

Engineering: Synapse Springs (wowhead link) (480 strength * 10s/ 60s cooldown = passive 80 strength) and it also stacks with the gloves enchant

Alchemy: Flask of Titanic Strength 380 Strength - 80 extra Strength

I believe that only these professions can be useful in this patch, while the other provide a small bonus and can be dispensable.



Macro's & Add-ons

Macro:

Code:

#showtooltip /cast Scourge Strike /cast [@pettarget,harm][] Claw

Code:

#showtooltip /cast [mod:ctrl, @pet][] Death Coil

Code:

#showtooltip /castsequence Raise Dead, Death Pact

Add-ons:


OmniCC
Weak Auras
IceHUD
Icdbars
BigWigs / DeadlyBossMods
GTFO


Optional Add-ons:

Bartender
Prat
MikScrollingBattleText
Shadowed Unit Frames


BIS items:




Head - Necrotic Boneplate Helmet - (H) Warmaster Blackhorn
Neck - Necklace of Black Dragon's Teeth - Valor Points (1250)
Shoulder - Backbreaker Spaulders - (H) Spine of Deathwing
Back - Dreamcrusher Drape - Valor Points (1250)
Chest - Necrotic Boneplate Breastplate - (H) Ultraxion
Wrist - Rockhide Bracers - (H) Morchok
Hands - Necrotic Boneplate Gauntlets - (H) Warlord Zon'ozz
Waist - Runescriven Demon Collar - (H) Hagara
Legs - Necrotic Boneplate Greaves - (H) Yor'sahj
Boots - Treads of Crushed Flesh - (H) Warlord Zon'ozz
Ring - Breathstealer Band - (H) Toti bosii in afara de Deathwing
Ring - Curled Twilight Claw - (H) Ultraxion
Trinket - Eye of Unmaking - (H) Spine of Deathwing
Trinket - Bone-Link Fetish - (H) Toti bosii in afara de Deathwing
Weapon - Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps - (H) Madness of Deathwing
Relic - Gutripper Shard - Valor Points (700)



Resources: manaflask, mmo-champion, elitistjerks, sonofalich


Source: Thanks to grindelwald - Click!

[zagalaga]

Nice topic