Hello, I'm Kemii of Frostwolf. Cata Glad, Retail MOP tryhard and Warmane MOP AFKer.
You can find my armories below.
Warmane Cata: Gresan - Neltharion
Warmane MOP: Jyx - Frostwolf
Retail MOP: Kemii - Ravencrest EU
Retail Shadowlands: Kemii - Tarren Mill EU
Unholy DKs are not in the best spot atm, there is countless bugs in regards to pet health, gargoyle not working as intended, reaping issues, rune issues, scourge strike damage issues… Just to name a few. You can check them out on the bugtracker.
Spec:
Can be found here
Individual Talents:
Bolded Choices are the most optimal DPS increase per tier.
Tier 1: Disease Control - Mandatory.
Rolling Blood - Blood Boil now doubles as pestilence.
Plague Leech - Removes diseases from a target and refunds the runes (F/U)
Unholy Blight - AoE DOT + Mass Outbreak.
Tier 2: Survivability/Utility - Mandatory.
Lichborne - Huge healing CD along with the ability to break Fear/Seduce/Sleep effects and to prevent Saps. With the new Cast time/CD on Turn Evil you shouldn't worry about Paladins so much.
AMZ - such a nefted ability in MOP, however it is now positionable.
Purgatory - Makes you unkillable upon taking a killing blow, its strong in BGs however arenas not so much.
Tier 3: Crowd Control - Mandatory.
Deaths Advance - Hand of Freedom, not strong really unless your playing against teams witch heavy slows (Frost Mage, Warrior, Windwalker Monk, Ferals)
Chilblains - Brilliant for peeling off your partner, however it goes on DR too quickly to be of use.
Asphyxiate - Replaces Strangulate, but this stuns the target at range. A must against casters, heals and to peel or to get the killshot on a target.
Tier 4: Rune Management - Personal Choice.
Blood Tap - Converts spent 75 Runic Power into a Death Rune. Controllable rune management.
Runic Empowerment - RNG proc to convert a random rune.
Runic Corruption - RNG proc to increase rune regen by 100%.
Tier 5: Healing - Personal Choice/Situational.
Death Pact - Strong heal, 2min CD. Sacrifices only 50% of your Pet’s HP.
Conversion - Strong if you play with a healer, as this keeps you topped up in times of need.
Tier 6: Crowd Control - Mandatory.
Gorefiend's Grasp - Very anticlimatic in PvP, its ok for Rated BGs where it allows you to group up targets for AOE cleave.
Remorseless Winter - AOE CC Stun, too avoidable in PvP, Also too easy to Mass Dispell.
Desecrated Ground - PvP Trinket. Makes you immune to CC while inside it’s radius.
Glyphs:
Major:
Shifting Presence - Allows you to Presence Dance without wasting too much Runic Power.
Anti-Magic Shell - Absorbs ALL damage up to the damage limit.
Icy Touch - Turns your Icy Touch into a Purge, very helpful against a lot of classes like Mage, Priest, Druids.
Minor:
Death’s Embrace - Refunds 50% of the Runic Power spent when you heal one of your Pets.
Resilient Grip - Resets the CD on Death Grip should the target be immune.
Long Winter - Changes your Horn of Winter to a 60 Min Buff, meaning you do not need to keep reapplying it.
Stat Priority:
Hit 3% > Expertise 3% > Strength > Crit = Mastery > Haste
Whether you go crit or mastery is personal perference depending on your playstyle and what you like. Through retail we had large discussions between the high ranking arena players as to what was actually best. With both Crit and Mastery being viable options. If you prefer the sustain then go Mastery, if however you like to play more RNG based go for Crit.
Gems:
When gemming ignore socket bonus unless they are strength, just gem pure strength.
Red: [Bold Primordial Ruby]
Yellow: [Fierce Vermilion Onyx] / [Inscribed Vermilion Onyx]
Blue: [Bold Primordial Ruby]
Enchants:
Shoulder: Greater Tiger Fang Inscription
Chest: 80 Stats
Cloak: 180 Crit Strike
Bracers: 180 Strength
Gloves: 170 Strength
Legs: Strength + Crit
Boots: Pandaren Step
Weapon: Rune of Fallen Crusader
Presences
All DKs have 1 second GCD, regardless of spec and presence.
You will need to Presence “Dance”, DKs are pretty squishy in MOP, and you will find youself a lot of the time taking far too much damage. Blood Presence is your friend.
Unholy Presence must be used when bursting down a target, as it gives you the passive Sudden Doom, allowing your auto attacks a chance at giving you a free Death Coil.
Skills:
The SKills you use in PvP are highly situational. It’s up to you to decide on what you are going to do. However there is the general opener, which sets up your rune usage.
If they can kite you:
Outbreak > Festering > Blood Strike > Chains of Ice
If they are melee:
Outbreak > Festering > Festering
From then you have DDUUDD runes. Allowing you to do with as you wish.
Personally I find that using Necro on Healers such as Paladins, Holy Priests and Resto Druids best, to nullify at least their HOTS. This can also be very helpful against DPS classes such as Ret Paladins, Rogues, Feral Druids. Since these classes can heal a lot on their own.
For MWMonks who do a lot of movement or Rshamans who do large casted heals you would be better off DPSing with Scourge Strike, if you can keep your Necrotic debuff on for the 30% casting speed reduction that is great but with it being such a small absorb it can be consumed by something as small as an Earth Shield proc or a Healing Orb.
Soul Reaper is an incredible execute, however it's not instant. It's ticks for 3 seconds before it finally explodes and deals huge chunks of damage. You should always apply it slightly before 35% is reached. It will not deal damage if the target is healed over 35%, so make sure when you use it that there is some form of CC on the enemy healer.
Gargoyle no longer costs Runic Power as of MOP, This gives you much more freedom of when you can use it.
Using Icy Touch to purge is one of your strongest abilities within PvP, especially against a class that relies on procs (Boomkin, Elemental/Enhance, Fire, Feral) or those with Healing buffs (Disc/Holy, Rdruid, Rshaman)..
Important things to purge
Shooting Stars - Boomkin
Lava Surge - Elemental
Searing Flames - Enhancement
Hot Streak! - Fire
Alter Time - Mage
Predatory Swiftness - Feral
Power Word: Shield - Disc/Holy
Earth Shield - RShaman
Nature’s Swiftness - Rdruid/Rshaman
As of MOP there were changes to the way Reaping works, Icy Touch and Chains of Ice turn your Frost into Death, and Blood Boil and Pestilence turn your Blood into Unholy. Giving you much more fluidity and higher uptime of Death Runes especially if you have something that can kite you, or has too many buffs you want to purge.
Pet Management is also something you will have to deal with at this point, due to how squishy they are because of a bug.
Make sure you position your pet out of the way as soon as a Warrior Bladestorms. Or you will lose your pet.
Bind PetFollow, MoveTo and Claw to your bars, so you can change target. Changing target to either Cleave down a team. i.e Keeping your Pet on the healer while killing the DPS allows more damage output to the Healer himself, as well as your ability to instant gnawe stun him should you wish. Or you can switch your pet onto a target your team is killing while you take care of another target, say you are on the healer keeping them controlled with Necrotics, interrupts and CC you pet is going HAM on their DPS along with your party.
Survivability:
DKs in MOP are squishier than Mages. We have turned into glass cannons.
Clever use of your defensive CDs will be needed. You will have to learn to Presence Dance, say you're against a rogue/feral/warr start the fight in Blood Presence. Their opening damage hurts, we can mitigate it a little. Switch back to UH when it's over. When they pop CDs again back into Blood. Yes its a GCD but it's gonna save your *** when you take 8% less damage. Using Icebound when they burst (Melee classes) and AMS to avoid terrifying damage from casters.
While sat under Blood Presence you should try and keep Conversion up on yourself. This will make you far more tankier.
You might wanna macro this and replace your normal Lichborne on your bars.
Code:
#showtooltip Lichborne
/cast Lichborne
/cast [@player] Death Coil
/cancelaura [mod:shift] Lichborne
This will use Lichborne and then spam Death Coil until you run out of runic. This is where you gotta get the skill of knowing when to use it and when not to.
Don't just pop it off the bat when you're feared, unless the kill target is low health or your needing to peel from your partner. Save it for healing yourself later on.
Crowd Control:
They finally gave us another CC…. But it’s in place of another CC. [dafaq.jpg]
Asphyxiate is a god send in PvP. It’s a ranged stun. But not only that should the target be immune to stuns (i.e Diminish Returns) they will be Silenced for the duration instead.
This also makes it strong against Silence Immunities, since your silence now stuns and is unavoidable. So a Paladin's Devotion Aura or Priest’s Inner Focus you can stun them instead, and with the priest you can then Icy Touch off his Inner Focus buff.
Viable Arena Comps
2s:
DK/Rdruid - Very Strong comp, druid provides amazing sustain as well as amazing CC to keep the enemy controlled.
3s:
Shadowcleave = Affliction (or Spriest)/Unholy/Healer - Perferable a Rdruid or Rshaman. Works on pure DOT cleave while the pressure from the DK to keep the healing on the kill target with Necrotic.
TreeSG/TSChi = Arms/Unholy/Healer - Tree (Druid) or Chi (Monk). Tunnel a target till it dies, generally a healer or high damage target.
TreeHD/ChiHD = Marksman/Unholy/Healer - Again Druid/Monk.
Macros:
There are quite a few macros that you will learn to love, I already gave you the Lichborne heal one.
Double tick Conversion Macro, this will stay active until you run out of Runic Power.
Code:
#showtooltip Conversion
/cast !Conversion
/cast !Conversion
Burst Macro - w/ Unholy Frenzy Modifier (used to break soft CC on partner).
Code:
#showtooltip Unholy Frenzy
/cast Outbreak
/cast Blood Tap
/cast [nomod] Unholy Frenzy
/cast [mod:shift,target=party1] Unholy Frenzy
/use 14
Pet Button - Will summon your Ghoul, if you already have Ghoul it will use Dark Transformation at 5 stacks.
Code:
#showtooltip
#show
/cast [nopet] Raise Dead
/cast [pet] Dark Transformation
Strangulate/Asphyxiate - with Focus Modifier.
This macro will automatically change to Asphyxiate should you take the talent. You do not need to make two.
Code:
/cast [mod:alt][target=focus,exists] Strangulate; Strangulate
/cast [nomod][target=target,harm] Strangulate
/cast Blood Tap
Focus Macro - Change to either; Mind Freeze, Chains of Ice, Icy Touch, Death Grip, Gnaw, Leap
Code:
#showtooltip SpellName
/cast [target=focus,harm] SpellName
I will be updating this as things go along, so keep an eye out.