WotLK PvE Unholy DPS. King of Anything.

**washy** · August 29, 2016

16k and 17k Rot and Fest pug raid single target ARP Unholy DK: 5.9 gs by: Grive
http://imgur.com/a/oHtgK

**Drakantas** · August 29, 2016

16k and 17k Rot and Fest pug raid single target ARP Unholy DK: 5.9 gs by: Grive
http://imgur.com/a/oHtgK

Thanks for providing some valuable pictures, but I think it should've specified that it's burst dps, I would suggest being specific on whether it's burst or sustained dps as it might give people a wrong impression about the class.

As for expectations on a BiS Unholy DK's burst I'd put it on 20-22k DPS and 14-15k sustained depending on raid composition and components that the player might use (I mean components that increase a DK's dps being it Potions of Speed, Flasks, Scrolls, food). This comes from my personal experience, sadly I'm not able to provide any picture atm.

Originally Posted by Gnimo92ud

Well i think u are missing the point of unholy dps, it was never ment be top single target dps...
U wont top festergut or any single target based bosses ever, no matter what u do, but u will top on fights like 25m HC Halion and Lich King (un;ess u get grabbed by valks every time), and many other 3+ target fights. Going Morbidity is good for couple reasons but i prefer it mainly cos of this: 15sec cd on death and decay. Most of ppl that play unholy wont ever use this spell on a single target, but it actualy does more dmg than SS + BS sometimes, its good when ur SS gets dodged or if u have too much runic power that u can dump with or without using offencive AMS and so on...
Unholy is also unique cos u can dps even if u are not even in melee range, its a half caster spec tbh. For example PP, place a DnD infront of the green ooze before it reaches the target and ul have full 10sec on it, while it explodes and recasts the ability again, and spam Death Coils while after u go in the air(that also gets buffed by morbidity). Other melee classes cant do anything close to that since they are stuck on doing dmg from melee range only...
I never used rawr and i think that u cant compare something like that with a in game boss fight. All tests i did wer mainly based on DPSing the dummy first, for hours, maybe even days, and after that going in raids.
From my point of view u should play unholy as master of aoe dmg dealing and do everything u can to maximise that. Thats why i go for WFS instead of DBW cos the more crit u have the higher the dmg of both Wandering Plague and Death and Decay will be (both trinket procs also line up perfectly with 1st and 2nd garg aswell, with the ashen ring proc, but thats just a bonus). Ur abilities also do 230% of normal dmg when they crit unlike any other class so thats also a bonus.
Reaping is quite onesided talent that is focusing on more Scourge Strikes, and if u wanted to do that, best way would be to go blood tree as stated from the guide, which results in better dps on a dummy but less dps in raids overall. But i wouldnt suggest that.

That whole discussion about Morbidity vs BCB comes down to a point that you've mentioned which is that cooldown reduction for DnD (It's also great to have an increased damage on Death coils but I would put that second on list compared to the cooldown reduction of DnD). BCB is great for encouters where you won't constantly use DnD, which is almost every endgame encounter with exceptions on LK and Halion (These 2 encounters are encounters where I personally love to have Morbidity as it's a huge damage increase).
It's also right that Unholy isn't a top dps at all, there are exceptions that will bring the best out of your spec. So yeah, I agree on lowering people's expectations on whether you're going to be a top dps in any encounter, of course that's assuming your raid mates are playing their classes at their best too.
Reaping is on a rather flucky situation, you have to look on what you lose too rather than looking just on what you win. But as long as scourge strike does more damage than intended, then it's a good talent but once it gets fixed I wouldn't take it.
Well, when it comes to AoE I prefer to use Death's Verdict (Death's Choice being the horde version) rather than WFS. But if I would be able to have 2 Unholy DPS specs then I would probably have an spec that focuses solely on AoE and it would require me to use an Unholy-Blood spec. I would also like to point out that it's a rather bad idea to attempt to test WFS on single target, if you were to see that trinket shine then you should talk about an AoE heavy encounter, or just while clearing adds. Now that you bring that topic, I wonder how good it could be to use WFS + DV(DC) while clearing adds, could this be a great trinket choice? If someone can do tests please post them, I don't have WFS atm.

About using Glyph of Disease, I think it's a better fit than using Glyph of the Ghoul for the sole reason that ghoul pets are still bugged and hit as said by Lynea like wet noodles. They don't hit not even close to what they should, therefore it becomes a bigger of a lose than a win to use Glyph of Disease. Remember, wandering plague won't tick twice if you don't use glyph of disease.

Lastly, an announcement to everybody:
Please don't go offtopic or make this thread a place to argue on whether you're better than the other or not for whatever reasons, I respect everybody's stance on how to play their class but please if you want to get into that kind of arguments then this isn't the place to do it. I'm writing this after taking a look at what has been said a few pages ago. I won't ask any moderator to get those posts deleted, but just don't do it anymore.

**Gnimo** · August 29, 2016

I think you should be focusing ur itemization and gearing based on fights like, PP, Sindragosa, Halion and Lich King, cos those are the ones that matter the most if u ask me. Rotface and Festergut will be killed anyway, but valks on LK wont be dead if u dont do proper dps as Unholy DK. :D
About talents, i really dont see any point in going Unholy Blight (i consider this to be purely PvP talent) and going Dirge, since u have enough runic power anyway for 3 Death Coils and u can fill one empty gcd spot to constantly refresh Horn Of Winter. So that is why id put those 3 talents in Morbidity, or BCB.
Glyphs, as soon as Ghoul gets fixed, u would want to go for Glyph of the Ghoul instantly. I just dont see a pestilence + SS doin more dmg than IT + PS + BS + more Wandering Plague procs...
I like the idea of DV + WFS, never tought of that, it might work tbh, but again i think u would lose some single target dps at cost of 300 passive atk power when proc isnt active (which is only 30sec) on aoe dmg, cos the armor penetration is just huge on STS. I guess i could test it out but i dont think its going to work in the end... Altho i still think more crit from WFS is more valuable cos once u breach that 50% chance on Wandering Plague to proc, it does wonders.
Also it might be better to go 4/5 T9 for unholy dps, since its not only ur blood plague that gets boosted, wandering plague can tick up to 6k on a dummy with that set bonus, but i dont have it atm and it will be a long time untill i can test it properly... :(

"Remember, wandering plague won't tick twice if you don't use glyph of disease."
I dont know if u misstiped something but Wandering Plague WONT tick twice if u DO use glyph of disease.

**angrylol** · August 30, 2016

What exactly is ICD of wandering plague? Is it worth to sacrifice main damage strike with glyph of disease for increased damage of wandering plague(which is very low increase overall). Not to mention clunky feel of it.
As for t9, while it is good if you don't have that t10, sanctified/hc is way better. Think about that disease damage, its what.. 8%? wandering plague 5%, half of it is boosted by t9 4 part bonus.. it is way lower increase than 3% damage with ALL attacks. Also increased damage with SS, boosts value of Disease glyph and Reaping.

**Bensten** · August 30, 2016

Originally Posted by Drakantas

As for expectations on a BiS Unholy DK's burst I'd put it on 20-22k DPS and 14-15k sustained depending on raid composition and components that the player might use (I mean components that increase a DK's dps being it Potions of Speed, Flasks, Scrolls, food). This comes from my personal experience, sadly I'm not able to provide any picture atm.

The damage potential of UH is ~17k-18k single target on Festergut without Bloodlust.

^This is on the lower end of the damage I did in my latest raids with this talent build. You can further expect to be 1st melee in boss damage on PP and LK as Diseases will just make up for the downtime..

Even on Halion if you are in the phys. realm in P3 - picture shows dmg done to Halion alone. Ofc. Wandering Plague is helping here, but even in the shadow realm you can keep up.

The sustained damage of UH is actually pretty high, you just lack any real burst capability. The longer the fight lasts the better your position on the recount will be.

**Gnimo** · August 30, 2016

I dont know if im reading or understanding it wrong from the previous comments (if i do, i apologise) but, if u use Glyph of Disease ur Wandering Plague overall dmg will suffer, cos in order for it to proc from EACH tick, Icy Fever and Blood Plague have to be aplied with atleast 1sec split from each other. Which is done by simply doing Plague Strike, Icy Touch, or other way arround... If u use Glyph of Disease and u refresh them, making them tick in the same time, u can only have 1 Wandering Plague proc every 3sec.
Again, if u buff Scourge Strike ur aoe dmg will suffer. Especialy if u go full armor penetration. U wont ever top single target dps, there will always be atleast one Warrior, Mage, Hunter, infront of u (considering u all have BiS gear and top skill for playing ur class). DK was never ment to top single target dps...

http://imgur.com/a/nquGi

That is Halion 25m hc from last week. Fight was long so i managed to reach that far up, but i never drop below 20-22k (i ended up there this week) at the end on that fight as unholy.
And as u can see my Halion dmg i wasnt focusing that much on the adds, all i did was spread the diseases and place a DnD when tank gathers them, after that while DnD is on cooldwon keep spamming SS (Sigil uptime) and BS (for 5% dmg increase buff, aka Desolation).

Overall thats it from me, i consider the talent build and the itemization on my character to be the best way how to unholy on curent state of warmane. And i think its easyest to master and most fun to play cos u are not strick to the melee range in order to do dmg.
When it comes to Random Dungeons (for new players mainly), just go Unholy Presence (go Blood Presence for single target bosses), spread diseases asap and place DnD on each pile of trash for most amount of dmg and fun. :D
Il keep testing stuff and hopefully get T9 soon (higely unlikely) and post how that goes. If u have any questions il gladly answer them. Best of Luck.

**Drakantas** · August 30, 2016

Originally Posted by Bensten

The damage potential of UH is ~17k-18k single target on Festergut without Bloodlust.

^This is on the lower end of the damage I did in my latest raids with this talent build. You can further expect to be 1st melee in boss damage on PP and LK as Diseases will just make up for the downtime..

Even on Halion if you are in the phys. realm in P3 - picture shows dmg done to Halion alone. Ofc. Wandering Plague is helping here, but even in the shadow realm you can keep up.

The sustained damage of UH is actually pretty high, you just lack any real burst capability. The longer the fight lasts the better your position on the recount will be.

Thank you for providing some input about the sustained DPS, the reason of why I was providing a lower damage outcome was because of a mistake of mine which I will explain further on in my reply. But yes, as your provided image says it's factually right but I will try to give it a test myself and see how is everything going on but you've pretty much left it clear.

Originally Posted by Gnimo92ud

I dont know if im reading or understanding it wrong from the previous comments (if i do, i apologise) but, if u use Glyph of Disease ur Wandering Plague overall dmg will suffer, cos in order for it to proc from EACH tick, Icy Fever and Blood Plague have to be aplied with atleast 1sec split from each other. Which is done by simply doing Plague Strike, Icy Touch, or other way arround... If u use Glyph of Disease and u refresh them, making them tick in the same time, u can only have 1 Wandering Plague proc every 3sec.
Again, if u buff Scourge Strike ur aoe dmg will suffer. Especialy if u go full armor penetration. U wont ever top single target dps, there will always be atleast one Warrior, Mage, Hunter, infront of u (considering u all have BiS gear and top skill for playing ur class). DK was never ment to top single target dps...

http://imgur.com/a/nquGi

That is Halion 25m hc from last week. Fight was long so i managed to reach that far up, but i never drop below 20-22k (i ended up there this week) at the end on that fight as unholy.
And as u can see my Halion dmg i wasnt focusing that much on the adds, all i did was spread the diseases and place a DnD when tank gathers them, after that while DnD is on cooldwon keep spamming SS (Sigil uptime) and BS (for 5% dmg increase buff, aka Desolation).

Overall thats it from me, i consider the talent build and the itemization on my character to be the best way how to unholy on curent state of warmane. And i think its easyest to master and most fun to play cos u are not strick to the melee range in order to do dmg.
When it comes to Random Dungeons (for new players mainly), just go Unholy Presence (go Blood Presence for single target bosses), spread diseases asap and place DnD on each pile of trash for most amount of dmg and fun. :D
Il keep testing stuff and hopefully get T9 soon (higely unlikely) and post how that goes. If u have any questions il gladly answer them. Best of Luck.

That was a mistake from mine, I decided to just do an empirical test and switch glyph of disease for Glyph of the Ghoul and I came to the conclussion that indeed your wandering plague suffers a lot from using glyph of disease, therefore it's a huge damage decrease if you bring that simple test I did on a single target dummy to a larger scale which would be a 25Heroic composition. I find it hilarious how I fail to understand a mechanic of a guide that I myself spent hours researching and "adapting" to this community.

As for giving a deeper explanation about Wandering Plague I will show you these combat log entries. But before showing those combat logs and giving a brief explanation, I want to point out that Wandering Plague has an ICD and it's 1second.

First combat log entry, I haven't used pestilence to refresh my diseases:

Spoiler: Show

Wandering plague is ticking randomly after each disease does it's damage and it could be in a timelapse of 1second or maybe more if you're unlucky.

Second combat log entry, diseases were refreshed:

Spoiler: Show

So, here we see that Wandering plague is only ticking each 3 seconds, why? Because our dots that have been refreshed are ticking every 3 seconds, also as they're ticking at the same time and Wandering Plague has an ICD of 1 second it isn't possible for Wandering Plague to tick twice, therefore we are losing Wandering Plague ticks. But not only that, as when we apply pestilence it resets our diseases it also resets our Wandering Plague ticks (As it resets your diseases' ticks too) which is another lose that comes from using Glyph of Disease.

As to how to play an Unholy DK, everybody is open to choosing whatever they want and as for me I have a similar perspective to the one provided by Consider and I won't go into speccing into arp because I just think the loses could be bigger than the wins, but I'm certain it does work on certain encounters but when it comes down to heavy-aoe encounters like Halion or Lich King, it's pretty important to be strength stacked to increase your aoe damage. Maybe arp does indeed work in the current state of Warmane as Scourge Strike seems to be doing more damage than it should, but it would come down to a "Squeeze everything you can out of your class" mentality, I just think it would be too much of a fuss having to go to respec for certain encounters, it could also be one of those moments when having another T10 DPS comes in handy.

**Sky** · August 30, 2016

Originally Posted by Bensten

The damage potential of UH is ~17k-18k single target on Festergut without Bloodlust.

What about pre-2pt10 / before 4pt10 / after 4pt10 stages of gear?

There's usually quite a difference between full-bis and the gearing stage of any character, so I'm curious if you could shed any light on that.

**DarkenedHue** · August 30, 2016

Originally Posted by angrylol

What exactly is ICD of wandering plague?

I assumed it was something like 3 seconds too, which would've prevented gaming your diseases for more Wandering Plague procs by keeping Frost Fever and Blood Plague on separate tick timers, but this discussion made me look up some retail logs to confirm whether it really is less than 3 seconds.

These snippets from this log (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...ring+Plague%22) seem to confirm it is.

[22:08:10.202] Nalrah Wandering Plague Festergut 1476
[22:08:11.801] Nalrah Wandering Plague Festergut 1644
[22:08:13.399] Nalrah Wandering Plague Festergut 1328

[22:09:44.123] Nalrah Wandering Plague Festergut 2381
[22:09:45.325] Nalrah Wandering Plague Festergut 1804
[22:09:46.974] Nalrah Wandering Plague Festergut 2381

**Bensten** · August 30, 2016

Originally Posted by Hiddenbladek

What about pre-2pt10 / before 4pt10 / after 4pt10 stages of gear?

There's usually quite a difference between full-bis and the gearing stage of any character, so I'm curious if you could shed any light on that.

Sadly I'm not. At least nothing that goes beyond personal feeling. Most of our raids is filled with high end geared people and even if they are "low geared" they usually yield SM. Can't really give a worthy opinion on the gear levels you are asking for.
I've been raiding with an UH DK with BIS except SM. He ended with 13.6k on Festergut, but I'm pretty sure he just messed up or simply ignored goo.
A friend of mine - 6.6k with SM - finishes 15k-16k on Festergut.
11k+ with a decent weapon (Gloren, Cryptmaker,Warmace, etc.) and T10 seems realistic.

Originally Posted by Drakantas

As to how to play an Unholy DK, everybody is open to choosing whatever they want and as for me I have a similar perspective to the one provided by Consider and I won't go into speccing into arp because I just think the loses could be bigger than the wins, but I'm certain it does work on certain encounters but when it comes down to heavy-aoe encounters like Halion or Lich King, it's pretty important to be strength stacked to increase your aoe damage. Maybe arp does indeed work in the current state of Warmane as Scourge Strike seems to be doing more damage than it should, but it would come down to a "Squeeze everything you can out of your class" mentality, I just think it would be too much of a fuss having to go to respec for certain encounters, it could also be one of those moments when having another T10 DPS comes in handy.

One thing first: My screenshots are with the posted spec and str gems. No ArP involved. Festergut with the expertise BiS list, Halion with the overall BiS list.
I'll be posting my screens if I had the chance to actually test my arp setup.

**Bensten** · September 1, 2016

So, I had the chance to test my ArP set with this spec. Tho, I had to re-spec on LK as our UH Dks have to have Desecration on LK.

The whole raid can be found here.

Skada Damage on Festergut: ArP | Str
^The Str dmg is on the lower/mid of my damage, I'd say 17.5k is "easily" possible. On the other hand no ERW (not at the beginning, used it during the fight) and Army on the ArP dmg as we were just too fast.

As you guys already wrote and suspected: ArP is a huge loss in dmg on LK and Halion (we also cleared RS after the ICC). I didn't notice any difference for PP and not a big one on SIndy, tho. And even single target you don't gain a lot. And I really dislike the reaping playstyle. It becomes really unflexible if you want to keep Desolation up and you have to escape your standard rotation. Reaping becomes absolutely useless if you don't use the Death Runes for SS - that's why I can just recommend it for pure Patchwerk encounters.

Well, in the end nothing new. Just proved the already existing theories. At least I've gathered some numbers for the current warmane state...

**Gnimo** · September 2, 2016

@Bensten

Can u try using armor penetration with this spec:
http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent/#jfV...0Ixcbx0ux0uIqo

I still think that going armor penetration on unholy dk is a huge waste, but i think ul find more dps for it with this spec, since the main point of going frost tree is to buff ur magic dmg done, while blood is for phisical dmg increase.

**Tosscoble** · September 6, 2016

How does unholy dk do with lower gear?

I just got my dk to 80 on Lordaeron and wanna know if unholy can do good dps on lower than 4k gs. Can it compete with frost and the tons of free crit it gets from killing machine?

Thanks and sorry for the bad english.

**Gnimo** · October 16, 2016

Something for new or old players to try out and to put this guide up on the forums again since i got asked about good guide in game a lot.

Start the fight in Unholy Presence:
IT > PS > BS > SS > BS > BT > Garg > HoW > Blood Presence > ERW > SS > BS > SS > BS > DC > DC > and so on...
This will result in Garg casting 15% faster cos of the Unholy Presence Haste buff.

**trm90** · October 29, 2016

Originally Posted by Gnimo92ud

@Bensten

Can u try using armor penetration with this spec:
http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent/#jfV...0Ixcbx0ux0uIqo

I still think that going armor penetration on unholy dk is a huge waste, but i think ul find more dps for it with this spec, since the main point of going frost tree is to buff ur magic dmg done, while blood is for phisical dmg increase.

just did an RS25 pug run with the exact same talents, with 100% ARP ofc course. it's actually pretty competitive lol! ended top dps(shadow realm) with 11.7k dps at the end fully buffed just without potions/elixirs nor any tot or hysteria of course....

with 100% ARP DC,wandering plague,frost fever and blood plague ended up doing 25.4% of damage making physical damage 74ish% +-

EDIT: I do agree with you btw str/haste>arp/crit

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