[Guide] Cata DK changes (Updated 10/12/10)

Publication par apocalypsa

I still dont get whats wrong with hybrid ideas. You all seam to hate them. Also, on the RP point im kinda conservative: blizzard shouldnt have changed it in the first place. If its not broken, really, dont try to fix it.

Publication par razzem

I personally like the idea of frost using a RP attack as it's bread and butter attack. But to not have any free GCDs? Something needs to change.

Publication par 495174

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Publication par Rankkor

well after this recent patch I gotta say I love the new Death Strike.

it now heals for a minimum of 10% of your HP. What this means is that if during the last 5 secs you took Zero damage (because for example you dodged everything) then DS will heal exactly as it heals today (10% of your HP untalented) and if you take damage during those 5 secs, it heals more than just 10% untalented.

since I'm an avid fan of soloing stuff, and since DS now heals just as much as before (and sometimes MORE than before, depending on how much damage you took) but now doesn't depend on diseases, I'm quite happy for this change.

I've been thinking about the current dillema of DK tanks though with runes being so scarse, it's gonna be tough tanking stuff, since if an extra mob is accidentally pulled then 90% of the time we will be without a rune to pull aggro on it.

a posible fix for this is Runic Empowerment, make it so when you runestrike, it has a 100% chance (rather than 45%) to refresh a depleted rune.

this way tanks will allways have a quick way to gain runes "on the fly" for those snap aggro moments.

Unlike DPS, mobs don't wait 10 secs for runes to refresh, when a mob is hitting the healer, I need to grab it NAW.

Publication par DraconisAerius

when a mob is hitting the healer, I need to grab it NAW.

I don't think Blizz want it to keep working that way. The mindless idea from the healers and dps that "Oh if I screw up someone else will fix it". I think they want things to happen in such a way that people actually have to be smart about what they are doing in game, especially in groups and raids.

Publication par DraconisAerius

Blood

* Blood Presence - assuming a new Presence will consume any stored Runic Power. No longer has a cooldown.
* Death Strike now heals for a minimum of at least 10% of your maximum health, up from 5%.

Frost

* Mastery: Frozen Heart now increases frost damage done by 20% (down from 25%). Each point of Mastery increases frost damage by an additional 2%. (Down from 2.5%)
* Frost Presence - assuming a new Presence will consume any stored Runic Power. No longer has a cooldown.
* Icy Touch ranged and melee attack speed duration changed to 21 sec, down from 30 sec.
* Killing Machine no longer affects Howling Blast, now affecs Obliterate.
* Annihilation now increases damage dealt by Obliterate by 15/30/45%. (Up from 10/20/30%)
* Frost Fever now lasts 21 sec, down from 30 sec.

Unholy

* Unholy Presence - assuming a new Presence will consume any stored Runic Power. No longer has a cooldown.
* Necrotic Strike now deals 100% weapon damage (up from 80%) and absorbs the next healing received by the target (Up from 40%). Additional Effect - For 15 sec, or until the full amount of healing is absorbed, the target's casting time is increased by 30%.
* Blood Plague now lasts 21 sec, down from 30 sec.
* Necrosis gone and replaced with Runic Corruption - Reduces the cost of your Death Coil by 3/6, and causes your Runic Empowerment ability to no longer refresh a depleted rune, but instead to increase your rune regeneration rate by 50/100% for 3 sec.
* Unholy Frenzy now causes the target to lose health equal to 2% of their maximum health every 3 sec. (Down from 3% every 2 sec)
* Epidemic now increases the duration of Blood Plague and Frost Fever by 4/8/12 sec. (Down from 6/12/18 sec)

Publication par woohaa

I like the new DS change too. It's not gonna be so penalizing on DPS trying to heal themselves and if you don't manage to get the heal off in the next 5 seconds because runes are all down atleast you'll still get a decent heal in.

The reduction to diseases is a rather big change imo. instead of 48sec with epidemic it's now only 33sec. This is probably a good change in regards to epidemic...it actually makes the talent more valuable in the long run. With a 30sec untalented disease you really didn't need epidemic.

the new ~~Rime~~ Killing machine is huge imo...it will reduce aoe damage quite a bit. But guaranteed OB crits? holy *!@#. hah Frost spec here i come. The only issue that i see is that this will reduce the EP value of crit in frost specs. I think str/haste/mastery will probably be the best stats after hit/exp of course. But this change also paints a different picture in terms of EP values for str and mastery. I was thinking at the higher tiers Mastery would start to win out. KM/FS would start to hit extremely hard, but with OB adding to KM...Str is probably gonna still be our goto stat.

And the change to necrosis was a smart move IMO. I'm wondering if they're going to make similar talents to the other 2 trees or leave it. First, the change nerfs DW unholy and buffs 2hand. Second, it also creates an alternative for players who don't like the new Runic Empowerment ability. Unholy was always supposed to be the Disease, pet, and simple rotation tree. With this change it reverts back to it's easy rotation. The only thing you need to watch for is Sudden Doom procs and 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion. Which will be easier to handle without RE procs. The only complaint i'll probably see is that people who hate having the perma ghoul will still complain >_>

Unfortunately none of the changes address the GCD cap of Frost and Unholy. The new necrosis actually causes Unholy to be more GCD capped, but I'm assuming that won't be addressed till they finish mechanics and do a numbers pass to balance the damage. Very nice changes all around i'm extremely happy. Now i know why GC was so quiet about DKs...

Edited: I'm retarded

Publication par 495174

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Publication par woohaa

hah why the hell did i write rime...i meant KM >_> nice catch i'll go edit my post really quick lol.

btw changes are made to the guide. Adding links to new abilities as they come available. Will have to rewrite Frost and Unholy gameplay sections as they are no longer viable. I'm going to just delete them for the time being till i'm finished writing the new ones...don't want bad info to be available.

Publication par DraconisAerius

Publication par razzem

Question:

Unholy used to have a talent that effectively converted AP to buff spell attacks. Is this still in-game as some sort of passive bonus?

Basically, I want to know if Unholy is still a spell-ish class, or if they have changed the design to be more melee like the other trees. Does DC still hit as hard as it did in Wrath, or is it being nerfed in Beta/PTR?

Publication par 495174

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Publication par woohaa

Just reading your section on glyphs, are you sure you have them under the right headings? For example you have said Glyph of Vampiric Blood is a Major Glyph, but cata.wowhead.com talent calculator places it on the Prime Glyphs list.

My glyph section came from info datamined by consider. I double checked to make sure i have them in the right sections. I can't say who has it wrong...wowhead or consider.

Judging by the new Prime, Major, Minor designs i'd have to say Glyph of Vamp Blood does fit as a Major Glyph. Major Glyphs are supposed to change your ability in an interesting way to the point your not sure if it's a dps/healing/tanking increase. So with the new glyph your gaining more healing received but losing the increased max health portion. Whereas Prime Glyphs are just blatant increases to your abilities. For now when you make talent specs i'd leave glyphs out because they're still not done with the glyph overhaul.

Publication par woohaa

For those of you that care. Here's my proposed writeup for Unholy 2hand DPS, which will be put into the gameplay section.

Unholy DPS - So this is my proposed spec with the current beta build. For the most part it's pretty easy to understand why i put the points where i did. There are 3 exceptions.

Desecration - This point is required to get to Tier 3. The other choices having not a whole lot of PvE benefits i chose a slow.
RP mastery - With Runic Corruptions reduced DC cost. 3xDC's cost 102 RP. So 1pt will be sufficient for what i have in mind and i'll get to that in a bit.
Magic Suppression - Unfortunately i can't test this currently, but if you read the tooltips for Magic Suppression. Rank 2 and 3 only increase the amount of damage absorbed and don't increase the extra RP generated. You generate extra RP based on the extra damage absorbed which i'm going to assume is rather minimal and not worth the extra talent points. Also, since we're GCD capped the extra RP may not be so beneficial.

Since my last write up there's been some really nice changes that completely changed the gameplay for unholy so i felt a new writeup was due. These of course are in the form of new Talents which i'm going to go over.

Runic Corruption (RC) - Reduces the cost of your Death Coil by 6, and causes your Runic Empowerment ability to no longer refresh a depleted rune, but instead to increase your rune regeneration rate by 100% for 3 sec.
Shadow Infusion (SI) - When you cast Death Coil, you have a 100% chance to empower your active Ghoul, increasing its damage dealt by 10% for 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
Dark Transformation (DT) - Consume 5 charges of Shadow Infusion on your Ghoul to transform it into a powerful undead monstrosity for 30 sec. The Ghoul's abilities are empowered and take on new functions while the transformation is active.

So thanks to RC Unholy goes back to a more predictable priority system. RC still needs some testing as far as whether the talent has an ICD which will prevent multiple RC procs in a short span or if you do get a double proc will it just extend the duration of the buff so you don't lose out on any rune regeneration. If there is an ICD or the buff doesn't extend then we will be forced to stagger DC's instead of dumping them. I can't imagine either working very well in a GCD capped environment, so for the time being i'm going to assume that there is no ICD and that the buff just extends. Also, i've most recently learned that when you get 5 stacks of SI and use DT. You will not be able to get more stacks of SI until DT drops off. Which leads me to think it'd be a good idea to hold onto your RP until DT drops. Only using DC's for SD procs or if your RP is about to cap out. This will enable you to build up the 5stacks quickly and use DT. So even though Unholy has RC and you won't be getting random rune procs. You'll still be on a priority system just not one so random. From what i gather for single target it'll look something like this:

Single Target Priority System

No Diseases = Apply Diseases (PS/IT/OutB)
5 stacks of SI = DT
RP capped or SD proc = DC
DT drops off and RP available = DC
U or DR rune available = SS
FB rune available = FeS
NOTA = DC
NOTA = HoW

When you use DT i'd highly suggest using a Unholy rune if possible. Reason being is using a DR may throw off your rune syncs for FeS. Also, just remember this priority system is theoretical since numbers are still being tweaked. I'm going off mechanics mostly and not basing it on which will be the biggest DPS increase since we won't have that info till Cata releases. This is my assumptions on how we'll be DPSing in unholy for Cata. Using a standard OutB/SS/SS/FeS/FeS/rpdump rotation may not work as well. Remember that you'll have SD procs to watch and you don't want to cap out and waste your RP. Since your ghoul is now a bigger part of your overall DPS getting those 5stacks and using DT is also a priority. Also, if you are GCD capped and using FeS instead of 2xSS may be worth your time to reduce the amount of GCDs you need. I guess that's about it for the time being. As always if anything changes or my info is incorrect i'll do a new write up when necessary. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Publication par Achloryn

RP mastery - With Runic Corruptions reduced DC cost. 3xDC's cost 102 RP. So 1pt will be sufficient for what i have in mind and i'll get to that in a bit.

Your talent tree didn't include a point in RP mastery though. You did the 2nd point in Magic supression like I did. (Extra RP generation for machine-gunned DC's.. woo!)

Publication par woohaa

doh that was the wrong link. i was in a rush when i did the post and i must have copied the wrong one. >_> bleh i'll go change it. thx

I put 1 pt into magic suppression and 1 pt into RP mastery because without the rp mastery you technically can't really machine gun DC's. You may get 3 in a row with a SD proc and a full bar. but with that extra point you can get off 4 in a row if you get a lucky SD proc and have your SI almost up to 5.

Publication par razzem

Question:

What exactly is the role of Festering Strike in an Unholy Rotation? Or maybe I should ask, what is the point of Scourge Strike now?

It used to be that SS was the 2 rune heavy hitter for unholy, and now it looks like FesS (150% weapon dmg) is the 2 run hitter. Which makes me wonder what the point of SS is now?

Or is FesS is just to extend the disease timer?

Not getting it...

Publication par apocalypsa

Unholy uses ss and fes, with ss hitting harder. Same as blood, but with unholy+bloodfrost here.

[Guide] Cata DK changes (Updated 10/12/10)

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