Hi guys! Really, I won't be going to the basics and make a full guide, but rather cover some stuff that most dks neglect or mostly do incorrectly.
Now just to understand me, SS - Scourge Strike, DS - Death Strike, BS - Blood Strike, BB - Blood Boil, DC - Death Coil, Strang - Silence, MF - Mind Freeze;
Gearwise:
Dk's dont really benefit from PvE gear as much as a warrior, so dont expect to start globalling people after you get some HC pieces. In fact whenever I change the offspecs to PvE, I feel the reduction in survival more then the damage gained itself! So this is why using any Tier 10 pieces instead of wrath is rather useless. The only solid exceptions are Neck/Rings/Trinket/Weapon/Cloak, because ether the pvp one give attack power or ether there arent any PvP equivalents (trinket etc.)
The most well itemized items for these slots are:
- Ahn Kahar Onyx Neckguard HC or normal - Lady Deathwhisper 25 man ICC drop;
Penumbra gives armor pen, but that stat is not useful for dk's. Unholy does more spell damage than melee, so thats why Onyx neck is better with the crit and hit. The normal version is the same item level as wrath neck, so youre not losing anything if you use it too. Actually, you can get it for 28 vote points!
- There aren't many good cloaks, but Winding Sheet from ICC and Garrosh's Rage/Varian's Furor from ToC 25 are the best you can get. Obv the ToC 25 one is better itemized, since haste isnt that great of a stat. Also 60 haste wont give your garg another cast, nor your pet that much damage increase.
- Ring of Rotting Sinew - ICC mobs drop, you can buy it in AH. Really if you notice, Lady neck normal and this ring are very simularly itemized. Great PvE ring.
If you don't PvE or donate, just get RoRS and use wrathful in neck and cloak. Even still, full wrath offset will work!
Weapons are easy - Shadowmourne > Glorenzelg HC > Tier 2 weap
If bryntroll get fixed, its second best after SM. Reason is, the proc is burst and it heals, chance 2 proc from any dk strike, if working that is. Currently on warmane you see it proc far less.
Talents:
- Reaping - Skipped by some for Pale Horse or whatever, but this talent makes your blood runes useful. Think about it, blood runes can be used by BB, BS, Strangulate and Pest. Theyre very limited, but using Pestilence + BS (and the synergy with Glyph of Disease is great) makes you able to use deff cds, chains, death strike, scourge for more burst, and really gives you a real boost in damage and survival! (I heal more due to more DS etc.)
- Impurity - The best place to remove pts from, cause the ap benefit for a few points wont change your damage much, only by a really small amount. If you really want Pale Hose and Corpse Explo, remove points from here, not Reaping!
- Corpse Explosion - It's really situational, easy to fail with, but great damage (unfortunately reduced by resilience here). If you find it useful in arena, then spec for it. The glyph only increases the corpse blowing part, not the pet explode, so don't use it!
- Wandering Plague - It's great for AoE, but really in my recounts increases the damage by 5%. Resi also reduces it and its chance to proc, so thats another reason for it to suck in pvp. The only use of WP is if you put 1 pt in it for the spell pushback and drinking/stealth removal, worth it if you ask me. But keep in mind that WP is pressure damage, not burst. And burst is what really kills people.
- Ghoul Frenzy - No one uses it cause of the unh rune, but you have death runes. Those nasty rets that want to kill your pet in duels make it kinda worthwile, very situational but cool to have. I mean, who doesnt wanna make their pet more op?
- Epidemic - Allows you to use 3xSS etc, because runes will finish before dots end.
- Pale Horse - Good for bg specs and for orcs.
- Tougness - They say snares are spammed, but from 10 sec chains of ice is reduced to 6 secs. Id say it's worth it a lot more than a haste buff.
- Icy Talons - If you want to stack haste, fine. But if you want it for the weapon damage, dont really bother, get the talent that actually helps you reach your target. The only use of this is if you have lots of haste gems, Winding, troll race and shadowmourne, garg casts will be insane.
- Subversion - Idk if you guys noticed, but SS damage is way stronger if it's a crit. You can use this talent for 9% extra crit chance and stronger burst. I've tested it, its a great talent. Better than WP for all its worth.
Presence:
Lots of people say Unholy is better then Blood, but reality is that both are good. UP should get 2pts in IUP though, while Blood can be used with boot speed enchant. Try for yourself.
Frost is for melees in duels, or when youre the target in arena. There is an advanced technique called presence dancing, sorta like warrior stance dancing, but it requires adittional rune management and Reaping specced. Basically, you go offensive press when youre going for the kill.
- Get 1% spell reflect meta, because even though the chance is small, the reflect could be gamebeaking. The only reason not to take this is if you stack snare reduction as a troll or stun reduction as an orc (10% snare/stun reduce metas).
- Use Blood Tap often, cause sometimes you need that rune for a DS or BS or whatever. It adds another layer of flexibilty, and now it works along with Reaping.
- Get high resi because it will let you use skills offnsively instead of deff.
- Mind Freeze spell reflects.
- Use Death Coil as your main source of damage. Ether stack to 130 runic and burst down, or do it between strikes to deal pressure. 1st tactic is when going for the kill, while the other is for making the target blow his Cds.
- Pestilence rogues for death runes because you can't hit em with BS, or rather its hard to hit them.
- Use Chains to control the position of the enemy + Death Grip em. For example, you grip and chain a heal behind a pillar, so the dps can die without getting healed. Its very fun and situational skill.
So yeah, I dont rly need to cover evey gem/talent stuff, but anyway. Share me your point of view guys, what works for you? Do you disagree with all of this? Why?
-
Member
DK PvP: Stuff you'd like to know.
Edited: May 14, 2016
-
Member
Honestly this is like trying to reinvent the wheel. If you're going to try to spread information, make sure it's right at least. This stuff seems for duelling, if it's just duelling and bgs, do mention it.- Tougness - They say snares are spammed, but from 10 sec chains of ice is reduced to 6 secs. Id say it's worth it a lot more than a haste buff.
- Icy Talons - If you want to stack haste, fine. But if you want it for the weapon damage, dont really bother, get the talent that actually helps you reach your target. The only use of this is if you have lots of haste gems, Winding, troll race and shadowmourne, garg casts will be insane.
- Subversion - Idk if you guys noticed, but SS damage is way stronger if it's a crit. You can use this talent for 9% extra crit chance and stronger burst. I've tested it, its a great talent. Better than WP for all its worth.
Presence:
Lots of people say Unholy is better then Blood, but reality is that both are good. UP should get 2pts in IUP though, while Blood can be used with boot speed enchant. Try for yourself.
Some things I disagree about, especially for arenas (I don't really care what you guys do outside of it):
-"Blood presence is useful"
No, it's garbage, end of story. We're talking about 33% faster gcd vs +15% damage. Faster gcd allows faster runic power generation for more overall damage, higher burst, faster reaction time to events, better kiting. Faster runspeed allows you to kite more effectively while still alllowing you to hit stuff when you want to.
About Scourge Strike:
- Sometimes useful vs cloth, vs high armor, you can just icy touch and Death and Decay.
About Death & Decay:
- Amazing ability. You guys should check the amount of damage it does in just few seconds to even single target, almost always better than scourge strike. Setting up kill with D&D, gargoyle and Corpse Explosion lets me delete most of healers.
Icy talons vs Toughness in arena:
- Icy Talons is almost always best option. It makes two of our most important abilities much better (Gargoyle and Corpse Explosion)
- Snare reduction from Toughness is borderline useless. Sure it reduces Chains of Ice nicely, but almost every bloody snare in game is either semi or auto applied. It does give small damage reduction vs warriors due forcing additional gcd to refresh it. I used to spec it for Shadow Priest + DK but I'd consider that only exception really.
Speccing Epidemic for PvP:
- Works outside arenas. In arena it's better to utilize snaring via Plague strike and Chains of Ice instead of tanking damage and hoping to outheal it (avoid damage completely vs doing 2k death strike vs bis 284 warrior gg).
- For arena you can consider 1/2 epidemic if you do not need OAPH at all, AND you play with caster who can utilize your +13% dmg debuff.
Removing points from Impurity:
- You can take them from Dirge instead.
Incidentally I don't see much of DKs having success in arena despite having Shadowmourne. T2 weapon is minimum requirement to compete for top ranks.Weapons are easy - Shadowmourne > Glorenzelg HC > Tier 2 weap
Once again, just kind remind, I consider things, only from arena pov, there is no measure of success out of it, so "anything" works in duels / bgs and you can only take word for word. Things I'm writing here is based on playing regularly top ranks in arena.
-
Banned
^ I was on wrong forum account herpderp.
-
Member
Overall bad guide if is a guide,but good try.
-
Member
So youre saying that Death and Decay, which is aoe pressure based and takes 3 runes, is better than ss, which takes 2 runes and does the damage insta and procs 50% aoe slow? DnD is only good at the start of the duel for runic, vs rogues and invis mages. Or when getting kited with classes you cant reach. Thats all.
Tier 2 is good because of the resi, its really about stat balance. Bryntroll will be op when fixed, but weapon doesnt rly determine your skill unless you got the op shadowmourne, which seems like most ppl in warmane has. It doesnt drop from mobs, does it? Having tier 2 wrath = being able to use pve pieces.
Really you dont dps with SS or DnD and IT, you heal with death strike mainly and you "burst" with Death Coil. SS is kinda the dps alt of DS, but its nothing strong to be hones. The shadow part is there just for the lolz, since its purely based on the physical part.
-
Banned
Very often yes. Takes 1 blood rune extra, ****ing boohoo.
Good point, although majority of DKs on this forum are completely incapable of utilizing it to begin with. Especially with you telling people to use Blood Presence, curious how do you suppose you benefit from desecrate in blood presence?and procs 50% aoe slow?
"Damage insta", let me guess, next you're going to say you kill others instantly.and does the damage insta
Let me tell secret, you can use D&D from any distance, behind los, "instantly", without having to bother with melee range. I don't suppose you've actually even checked how much damage D&D does.
Neither Gargoyle and Corpse Explosion do damage instantly, yet they are primary tools for killing stuff (in arena at least).
We should end the discussion right here, if duels are your pov.DnD is only good at the start of the duel for runic, vs rogues and invis mages. Or when getting kited with classes you cant reach. Thats all.
Oh , the irony.SS is kinda the dps alt of DS, but its nothing strong to be hones.
-
Forum Veteran
So while closing distance to target, chain it, drop DND, and it does more pressure than actually running up to it to SS
Noted, will check it out @ arenas
Thanks Zedar
-
Banned
Talking about pressure, another very simple way to add more pressure is to pestilence diseases from nearby unit (pet, mirror image, enemy player of no focus) to your real target.
It is and sounds simple, yet I don't see many utilizing this to keep their Blood Plague up on ranged targets. Just running to target every time is not viable with mobility this class has (almost none).
Pillars also get get a lot less credit than they should. If nothing else, I'm glued to one if I feel disadvantageous.
Pillar is the ultimate equalizer in arena. You can avoid dying at pillar. You can kill stuff easier at pillar.
When playing at pillar you can utilize desecration and chains of ice to max.
Should note, if you want to burst something with gargoyle it should be preferably in quite open area, while I do grip fear healers at pillar into gargoyle strangulate gnaw out of fear, fear taking them away from pillar is quite crucial, otherwise they'd LoS my garg during strangulate already.
Try to always pop gargoyle with trinket procs. It doesn't actually matter is it last 0.3 sec of trinket procs (sure if you can utilize full effect of trinket procs and immediately pop garg and start bursting, that would be a-mah-zing).
Try to look for oppurtunity to garg on healer who's in open, giving you chance to grip them back to open once they run to los.
Even if you have reaping spec, Blood Boil for burst when you're just trying to finish people off, ones with high armor at least.
Lastly, I'm not pressure/damage player. I just take away pressure from enemy team with control to point only pressure left is mine. I find bursting more optimal than just trying to tunnel mindless damage.
Random rambling, over.
-
Member
Ofc u do, because bursting kills, not pressure. Anyways, garg is bugged. It doesnt snapshot your stats, it changes when the trink procs stop (DW)
-
Member
@OP: A lot of stupid **** written there. Also thank you for the keks "pres swapping advanced technique".
@Zedarus: I agree with some of what you are saying ( regarding arenas ). I would also like to point out that using Blood Pres in arenas is not borderline useless but situational. You can have your opinion of course but it would be a wrong opinion. Oh and never remove points from Dirge, unless you are... well, dumb quite frankly. Runic Power is the single most important DK resource.
-
Banned
^ I dungoofed, wrong account
-
Banned
From my experience unholy presence is better in terms of burst dmg while blood presence is better in terms of overall dmg.
Since u land kills in arena during burst and hardly with sustain dmg I dont really see the reason to use blood presence.
BGs are a different story because the main dmg source there are spreaded disease and these do more dmg in blood presence.
-
Forum Veteran
>Blood Presence
>Deathchill
>Frost Strike
That's burst.
Unholy-wise... no no no blood presence. Get rid of it.
"Runic Power is the single most important DK resource" - Seleniele
This.
-
Banned
Switching to blood presence just for a single frost strike crit is a bad deal.
As Frost dk u need unholy presence even more than a UH dk. Ur whole burst dmg is based on frost strike spam and the reduced GCD from unholy presence is essential for that.
-
Member
this debate: Blood Precence vs Uh Presence is viable, only cuz of rune grace period working like ****, gimping usage of imp uh presence
Quote
