Death Knight AOE Spec, MT Spec and Rotations

[Antagonism]

I don't understand the Blood spec rotation nor the tanking builds for blood you have posted. I know that Pest. has a higher over all damage value than Blood boil does. I also know by selecting a new target after the initial spread and casting it again it ensures that every target in area has a fresh disease on them. So if damage comes from threat why use blood boil at all? I also looked at the idea of trying to make as may Death runes as possible so you have more options and are not limited as much with my current spec. So far it seems to be working fine. I don't use blood boil or blood strike because I can get more damage with another application of pest. or using heart strike and I also get an extra target using heart strike. So am I missing something here because I am just trying to piece together the mechanics as of right now? I also know that the talents are getting redone so this may change some. Thanks for your help and great videos.

[Satorri]

In 3.1 Pestilence does zero damage. That said, even now Pestilence is not competitive damage except MAYBE as Blood where it may compare to BB, but will not be worth more damage than HS unless you have 5-6+ targets to hit, and still it is small damage spread as opposed to high damage focused, which is a judgment call for the situation.

As unholy my Pest currently hits for about 400, and my BB for about 900-1000. For Frost neither is particularly potent.

Also, LOVING the new Glyph of Disease. It refreshes your diseases on the main target when you cast Pest, thus allowing one cast to refresh everything's diseases at once, no need for two casts any more.

[sohcahtoa]

Satorri:

In 3.1, what would be a better rotation for blood? HS spam or BB spam? I am guessing it depends on the pull and the amount of mobs. How many mobs should i be tanking for BB spam to be effective?

Another question about BB: would it be more effective for snap aggro to spam 2 BB before i go in and apply disease? I am talking about the initial pull.

[Daggerrat]

Hello, I would like to get other player's thoughts on my gear and spec choices.

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Ive been trying to find a tanking spec that has good aoe tanking ability, but can also do decently against raid bosses and the like. I've been thinking about switching to frost, but still unsure how my TPS would be, in both aoe, and single target situations.

So currently I'm trying to readjust my spec a bit to improve slightly against single targets.

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Any advice would be appreciated.

[Tovya]

Well, I've been reading this topic (and so very informative too), and thought I'd add my 2 bits in... since my last post a page ago, I've respec'd to frost from blood, and found my multi-target threat holds up much better. Thank you again Satorri for the quick replies there ^^

What I've noticed as frost spec over my previous blood spec, is that I hold multi-target (in some cases, upwards to 5-6 mobs at level 70 so far) 10000% better using HB at the end of my rotation, tacked on after Pest (if its doing 0 dmg in 3.1, what will it be doing? sorry I know I need to read PTR notes) to get initial threat on multi, howling blast just crits them for 2k-2.5k.

My dps has gone up about 100 pts (staying a steady 550-600 dps now in small groups, nothing to compare with raids I know ^^) with the frost spec. I'm still taking some pretty big damage hits, but mainly because the only gear I have is quest gear, and I'm still working on getting "tank" gear at that level Not quite sure yet how to link my armory here, but character name is Aledris (for those using wow-heroes.com US > Gnomeregan > Aledris). If anyone does manage to look my dk up, would appreciate any feedback ^^

[Satorri]

Sohcah, yeah, the HS vs BB is, as always, a matter of pull size. With 3-4 mobs I think you're in the middle. If you have focused dps I'd stick with HS, if you have more aoe damage I'd lay down BB for the first rounds. 3 or fewer mobs I'd stick with HS. With more than 4 I'd stick with BB. The damage is more with HS, always, so really it's just a matter of concern of holding lots of things vs focused threat.

As for burst threat, I wouldn't recommend it unless it's direly important. The smartest overall threat is to spread diseases and burst BBs after. We are always subject to a slow ramp up, but we can certainly burst threat up from there.

[tessaixx]

New comer to tankspot.com Trying to get down the glyphs needed for the blood tank spec ive found off this post. Also please critique me in any shape or form on Gems/gear The World of Warcraft Armory

[Tovya]

Pest - Instead now of doing damage (not that it ever did much anyway for me as blood or frost) will refresh the diseases on main target... do we know though if it still hits multi-targets and if its usable as a multi-target threat ability? (probably not..)

[Satorri]

Pestilence does the same thing it always did, but without damage.

With the new "Glyph of Disease" however, it will also refresh the disease durations on the main target.

It does zero threat, so far as I can tell or expect, but I'm sure that will be tested.

[thebutcher0]

question about blade barrier. do we want to take any talents that turn our blood runes into death runes or will that keep blade barrier from working properly until both our blood and death runes are on cooldown.

question about wandering plague. the talent says "when your diseases damage an enemy, there is a chance". now does that mean there is a chance on each tick ( 2 dots per target ) that it will proc wandering plague on any of the mobs. or is it referring to the initial application of each disease. because if it's per tick. that could become alot of chances to make it proc.

[Tovya]

Pestilence does the same thing it always did, but without damage.

With the new "Glyph of Disease" however, it will also refresh the disease durations on the main target.

It does zero threat, so far as I can tell or expect, but I'm sure that will be tested.

Ok, so Pest will "spreads any diseases on the target to the additional targets." without the current damage, and then with Glyph of Disease it'll refresh the diseases on your current main target. In that case, I would want to throw up a Pest followed up by BB, which should then generate multi-target threat. Think I've got it, ty Satorri ^^ Now I just need to figure the gear I need to tank >.>

[Satorri]

Right on Tovya. That mechanic is part of why I'm loving what I can do with Blood now. Frost/Unholy the focus is largely on FU pairs for heavy threat, but Blood actually works best on lots of single rune spending. With Glyph of Disease you can keep diseases rolling (with Epidemic for 21 sec!) with a single rune, and with DRM you can roll 6 blood runes frequently, mixing a couple DS's every other time around.

thebutcher0:
Blade Barrier works fine with BotN and Reaping from Frost and Unholy respectfully. Spending Blood runes triggers the effect, they'll roll over Death runes and get spent again to refresh. Actually in some ways those talents make it easier. Often they'll be used as an FU pair, meaning you can do two at a time which you never do otherwise as a Blood rune.

Wandering Plague is as you say, chance on every tick of each disease. The talent is a round about way of saying, "Your disease ticks can crit, and when they do they do that damage to everything in an 8 yrd splash around the target as well."

[Celchu]

Been looking at switching to unholy tanking, for a bit more DPS to help fill pick up slack from the DPS class if they are not on there game.

Based on my armory (ignore mirror it should be seal of pantheon)

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What would the ideal spec be? ( i know there is no such thing as "Ideal" )

Last night after a couple wings in Naxx I was 12th in damage and dps(~3k)

I want to try something new with the unholy build, the frost one seems to simple, and I find myself getting bored as I don't feel like I am "Playing" the game, just along for the ride

Thanks,

Chris

[Malkieri]

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

the spec i UH tank with. just toss on dps gear if you need to dps. also, take out the points in blood caked blade if you don't have a good amount of expertise to support it or if you want to you can pick up garg/ghoul to provide extra dps for your raid. that's a personal choice. same thing with unholy aura.

if you don't already know the rotation just look at the opening of this thread, it has a list of them, it's the same rotation for dps as tanking really

[Celchu]

What is a good amount of expertise?

[Celchu]

I do carry two complete sets of gear with me in raids, as I may not be tanking a certain boss, will the unholy build grant higher damage? Also is the unholy raid wide presence worth it, or should I dump those points else where?

In regards to this build

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9551

[Malkieri]

that can work, altho not having the 3% for your spells to hit from virulence will hurt you, also CE in my experience is only useful a small amount of the time (and is trash only). i'd rather take the ghoul for that one point. Unholy aura is an aesthetic choice IMO, some people swear by it, others don't take it so it's really your call. it is definitely a raid buff, just depends on if you need it or not.

as to the expertise question, i would say stack as much as you can afford to in gear. if you have to gem for it because you're under at least 26 expertise, and can afford to lose whatever gem slots you had before, go right ahead. i would get at least 26 expertise before you worry about a lot of other threat stats tho

[Satorri]

Corpse Explosion is fantastic. It is serious snap threat on AoE and having it has boosted my overall dps in Naxx by about 200-400 depending on the night and how fast things die (hottest groups will kill pulls before the CD is done).

If you aren't dual wielding I wouldn't worry about taking Blood-Caked Blade, it's not that big an increase in damage taken, though it is an increase in swing count, and one of the last talents I'd pick up, and only if I'm looking to buff single target threat, which I'm not usually as Unholy.

26 Expertise will remove your chance to be dodge by a boss, though 20 is enough to remove dodge and parry on anything lvl 82 and under. Beyond 26 I generally figure is giving it too much weight. Expertise is about a 2.5 stat value normally, until 26 it removes your chance to be dodged AND parried with melee moves which affects everything -"strike" and Oblit, as well as your auto-attacks, only excepting RS and FS. The reduction in parry chance is also a reduction in your chance to parry haste mobs. While this has becomed a pretty small problem with the bosses who don't parry haste, and the lack of crushing blows, it is still a slight damage reduction that is worth being happy about having. Hit rating applies to all of your moves, including your spells. So, depending on your spec you'll do a varying amount of damage from sources both spell and melee based, so the numbers vary for values.

As an actual breakdown, for Unholy tanking Naxx, my top damage sources are usually auto-attacks, RS, DnD, ScS, UB, and my diseases. So in that breakdown, auto-attacks, ScS, and Blood Plague (a la PS) are the only things that have improved hit chances from Expertise, but they combine for 36% (with a few of the small ones like BS) of the total damage done. For hit rating, DnD and UB use the melee hit chance, as do (obviously) auto-attacks, RS, and the strikes. That means you only need to hit the 8% cap to not miss (<3 my Heroic Presence). The only abilities that actually needed more hit% were Icy Touch and Death Coil, and that will only be on bosses (since the spell miss chance only jumps well above the melee chance on bosses). These are my numbers for my deep unholy build. I'd imagine with Blood the melee, dodge/parry-able, will be significantly higher relying on HS/OB/DS. With Frost I'd imagine the non-dodge/parriable would be higher, and IT/HB having spell hit chances would be a little more demanding on bosses for good hit rating. FS and RS don't require Expertise, nor do IT/HB, or DnD if you use it. Exp would only be buffing BS/PS and auto-attacks, which I'd put at a total of 20-30% of the tank's total damage.

[Celchu]

Ok, here is the build I decided to go with

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Glyphs are SS, DnD and Bone Shield
Minors are HoW, Pest and Raise Dead

I will see how it fairs in Naxx tonight, then make changes as I see fit, I didn't take Corpse Ex because one of the OTs is a DK and he uses it, and he can use the extra threat generation, mine is already through the roof compared to his.

[Satorri]

Yeah, looks like a nice power-threat spec. If you're not hurting on threat though, you may consider shifting some points to Magic Suppression, it does more than you may think, especially if you're smart about using AMS frequently and tactfully.