Post Patch DK Builds + Help with dps

copeyhagen

Hi guys,

need help with post patch builds for dk. currently raiding Voa, Naxx, Os and doin heroics. (doin 25 mans except naxx so far)

ok, so the build i have been using since switching to dps is the unholy 17/0/51.

is this still the best dps build? i have a point in gargoyle which seems like a waste now?

my dps seems to be lacking and i cant figure out why.

on the dummy boss my dps is averaging about 1780, not really getting any higher?

thats unbuffed and using horn of winter and trinks. i should have enough for mirror of truth? trinket from badges tonight.

my rotation is basically "IT-PS-BS-BS-SS-UB-SS-SS-SS-RUNE DUMP"

might be slightly different as im in work atm, but i spam the rune dump (usually dc). i have a mod to tell when to reapply diseases etc.

i have heard people saying that theyre dps when raid buffed against bosses jumps by 500-1000 compared to the dummy boss?

i havent raided since sunday night when i was worried about my dps so only trying these rotations now.

is my rotation flawed? is there a better spec now like speccing blood/frost?

all these people on forums claiming dps of up to 6000 in fights is killing me, and my friend in my guilds dk tops dps in every 25 man man they do (granted hes in full tier 7.5)

all info appreciated, thanks guys

o yeh, my armory is shadowkníght on laughing skull.

nix

Rotations.. **** rotations tbh. Just use a little sense when casting spells..

Heres the specc i was using pre patch for raiding:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=0000000000000000000000000003200535000502012301000000000230130305003115003140003100000

But thanks to the nerf its lost about 1k dps, on dummies i was hitting of 3.5k dps. I may try it again in the future when they fix the howling blast bug.

I got myself a 2hander in naxx last night and have so far only tested on dummies the dps with the following 2 builds:

Blood -
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=2305021533003313201251013513200500030000000000000000000030000000000000000000000000000

Good specc and big numbers from HS and OB, but yet i still wasnt feeling i was doing as much dmg as i could, so i changed to the specc below.

Unholy -
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=2305020500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000230200335103115003140003133151

And i was kickin more ass with this, infact i wasnt far behind the 3.5k mark my ice build was giving me prepatch on the dummies. So ill be dabbling around with unholy for raid dps. The above is the build i will be using, i took corpse explode meerly fo testing to see if its any use.

If you want to keep an eye on my build/items etc you can find me on Laughing skull server by the name of Nihlathak.

And remember mate try not to get stuck on other peoples spell rotations, they could be specced slightly differently and it could effect your rotation. So just always keep in mind to keep disease up and spam BS and PS and always have blight up aswell and use gargoyle whenever you can, and whenever more than one enemy use pest to spread and use blood boil instead of BS, fook BS altogether when dps groups

I play in a skilled 10man guild and ive been topping the dps since i started raiding and got some pve epics

Anyway hope this helps and throw me a /hi if ya seem me in Dal :P

Horde scum !

DarthWraak

theory crafting forums gogo

Gummy Panda

I've moved from a 17/54 unholy build to a 27/44 frost build today. DPS has increased to 3.5 - 4k depending on fight.

I'm doing 10 mans and we have no ench shaman. All our hunters are BM (pre-patch) or survival now. We saw a good jump in dps today takes to the 10%ap buff and windfury like haste buff i give.

At first i didn't think i'd like it but i've really started to love it. Nothing like a chain of massive howling blast crits on trash.

My rotation, while not fixed in stone, is:

HoW, BT, IT, OB, OB, BS FS rp dump -> IT OB, OB, BS, FS rp dump. I HB with rime procs. I try weave some FS in between rotation when KM procs aswell.

copeyhagen

i have gotmy dps up a good bit, have heard some good things about the frost build, might give it a try.

topping dps in every heroic now (usually), 10 man naxx im still 3rd or 4th though my guild is about 90% full tier 7.5 members!

just started leveling my prot warr too, havin great craic doin uk and nexus in my kara gear!

ill report back about my frost findings tomoro

Anti

So whats your dps and gear now ?

Nehaxak

Found that my previous Unholy build had bombed out in dps since the patch, not sure exactly why that is but I've had to go back to a Blood build with points in Unholy (for Necrosis and Blood Caked strike).

I haven't got great gear now at all and the guild is still progressing through Naxx 25 (when we've enough online) but I'm getting 2500 to 2700 typical dps in Naxx 25 man, which is perfectly fine.

Dunno how someone is getting 3.5k+ with a frost build, really I don't know how. I found frost dps well below par and very frustrating to use.

Anti

We have a few Dk's in our guild that do over 3kdps after the patch, none of them are too happy about the changes but they say they just have to come up with a new rotation.

Its absolutley crazy seeing A fury warrior burst to 12-18kdps for 10 seconds though, nuts !

nix

Nehaxak wrote: »

Found that my previous Unholy build had bombed out in dps since the patch, not sure exactly why that is but I've had to go back to a Blood build with points in Unholy (for Necrosis and Blood Caked strike).

I haven't got great gear now at all and the guild is still progressing through Naxx 25 (when we've enough online) but I'm getting 2500 to 2700 typical dps in Naxx 25 man, which is perfectly fine.

Dunno how someone is getting 3.5k+ with a frost build, really I don't know how. I found frost dps well below par and very frustrating to use.

You haven't fully explored the art of howling blast it seems, trick is to get frost fever on all mobs before you HB and if you hit it with a killing machine procc your gonna be hitting every mob for over 6k dmg, ive hit packs of mobs with 10-14k each as a result HB crits, insane dmg.

Think im gonna go back to my DW build, its my fav, just a shame it sucks balls in pvp

slyph

Well I'm still 17/54 unholy spec and I myself haven't noticed much of dps drop( I was this spec pre patch too). Yesterday for example I did 3.7k on patchwerk, I feel this is great for my gear(2 hero's some other epics from heroics, I have no gear from naxx10 or 25). A frost spec Dk did about 3kish on patchwerk so I'm not sure if I will spec frost aswell, only need one person with icy talons. I've never seen anyone say anything great about blood dps specs, I've always meant to try it as some talents sound awesome. Anyone have any experience with blood for raiding? A good website I was told before for dks is: www.skeletonjack.com Has all kinds of info on there including "5k+ talent specs"

Nehaxak

slyph wrote: »

Well I'm still 17/54 unholy spec and I myself haven't noticed much of dps drop( I was this spec pre patch too). Yesterday for example I did 3.7k on patchwerk, I feel this is great for my gear(2 hero's some other epics from heroics, I have no gear from naxx10 or 25). A frost spec Dk did about 3kish on patchwerk so I'm not sure if I will spec frost aswell, only need one person with icy talons. I've never seen anyone say anything great about blood dps specs, I've always meant to try it as some talents sound awesome. Anyone have any experience with blood for raiding? A good website I was told before for dks is: www.skeletonjack.com Has all kinds of info on there including "5k+ talent specs"

Cheers for that site. I'll experiment a bit with their builds and dual weild maybe also. Got a decent offhand drop in Naxx last night and I should have the mats complete for the BS'ing Mace main hand tonight.
Nix -yeah, maybe wasn't timing the rotation right as frost and getting frost fever on all the mobs. I like having high single target dps though more than high dps on trash. Ah I'll mess about with specs again for a while tonight and see how it goes. Got home late from work and missed the raid anyway

Gummy Panda

I like skeleton jack.

Nex, 27/44 is if you bring no enh shaman. It gives u abom might and imp icy touch. If you do bring one its better to go 21/50. You get 1pt in votw instead of 3 but get full tundra which is awesome. You also need a good sigil on you. IT or sigil of awareness.

Rotations on 21/50 can be different as people are expermenting with a 6 x IT rotation.

OB,OB,BS,BS, FS dump > IT,IT,IT,IT,IT,IT (FS weaving between them). This is doing in unholy presence. Also frost requires good gear so thats why people who haven't fully got good drops yet won't see the improvement over unholy.

DW is still king though.

copeyhagen

i thought the dw frost spec was the best tanking spec?

have two good 1h swords in the bank, one from naxx and one from badges that havent seen the light of day.

im still specced unholy, yesterday was the first time i got to play since last weekend. been a busy boy with the gf (my bday today )

anyways, last night done voa 10 and 25, os 10 and 25 and 2 wings in naxx 25.

the naxx run was a pug group and my god did they suck. dont think i will ever bother pugging a naxx run again, 10 or 25.

anyways, voa 10 and 25, overall i was top dmg, but on boss fight my dps dropped down a bit, on the 10 man second for boss, 25 man 4th i think.

same with os 10 and 25, overall i finished top in 10 and 2nd in 25, but for the 3 drakes and sarth i drop to about 3rd.

so my aoe dps is on point it seems to be single taget dps thats killing me.

now for the 3 drakes and sarth my retard ghoul gets himself killed, so that drops my dps by about 400 straight away, and the voa 25 was a pug group so the offtank was a nab and not picking the lava adds up so i was running around tanking them and avoiding the lava walls.

on patch my dps peaks at about 3k. as long as my ghoul stays up.

gear wise, i still have a few blues (shoulder, cloak, rings and one trink) and only one piece tiered.

with the amount of heroics ect im doin there isnt much gear upgrades beside using badge loot.

im still tempted to go for the frost spec for the howling blast.

out of all the raids and few heroics i dont last night, i was top dk in all fights no matter what, so not sure if theres any point in respeccing? is my gear to crap for the frost spec?

Blofeld

Get recount. Keep D&D up. Keep your dots up. After that use rune strike if and when you get the chance.

Einstein

Ok so my DK is only at 70, but am loving the DW option.
By all accounts the below build is pretty decent for DPS according to Wowwiki (its called the Necromancer)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZG0exZfM0Itckt0q0csut

Although the howling blast is a monster and i'm definitly gonna factor it into my final build when i hit 80.

my 0.02

copeyhagen

i have recount ofc.

yeh i have a mod that tells you when you need to reapply diseases which is handy.

Gummy Panda

I tried 27/44 for our raid tonight cause we were physical dps heavy. Great buffs for raid but the rotation of frost seems a bit clunky. Missed my unholy aura on heigan due naxx being laggy as hell.

Going back to unholy. Kitting gluths adds as frost isn't as fun as unholy. Also heroism feels kinda wasted when i can't pop garg. Think my dps is alot better as unholy, was sitting under and around 3k mark on most fights.

Got Torment of the Banished tonight aswell so going to look out for an off-hand to try dw spec.

Nehaxak

Have settled (for a while anyway) on a 10/8/53 Dual Wield build and thankfully now hitting 3k+ on raids. Have tried the frost builds and yeah the dps was grand on trash but dropped back a lot on bosses where it's most important.
Still waiting for decent drops (and wins on /rolls) to improve the gear

sunzz

Blood is sick if you have a FF mage in your raid and a warrior keeping sunders up.

Frost is VERY dependent on KM procing and spamming HB also if you dont have a clue about rotations dont go there. Its also annoying that they changed proccing on dw specs.

Unholy is probs the best you dont have to know much to easily pull 3k+

I'd go for blood if you have a FF mage in your raid tho 100% of the time now that DRW mimics your moves its even better than ever.

Nehaxak

Can I ask if there's different version of that recount addon available ? I have the latest installed and can see myself doing 3k dps or so in raids as an average, as can some others having the same exact readings but then we get some others still who are saying I'm hitting 6k+ dps :eek: I'm presuming their recounts are out of date. Recap addon apparently is showing also much higher dps figures.
Can't be sure which bloody one is giving the right readings now.

Anti

Yeah the older version dosen't work properly anymore. I reocmend wowmatrix for keping all yoru addons up-to-date

Gummy Panda

sunzz wrote: »

Blood is sick if you have a FF mage in your raid and a warrior keeping sunders up.

Frost is VERY dependent on KM procing and spamming HB also if you dont have a clue about rotations dont go there. Its also annoying that they changed proccing on dw specs.

Unholy is probs the best you dont have to know much to easily pull 3k+

I'd go for blood if you have a FF mage in your raid tho 100% of the time now that DRW mimics your moves its even better than ever.

Blood seems very gear dependent and requires a decent 2hander like jawbone, betrayor or death's bite. I have demise

Also 51/20 seems to be the spec people are going for. Dunno the rotation though. Might try blood at 3.1, if kel drops my death's bite and some TG warrior doesn;t need it.

Nehaxak

I tried a disease-less Blood build tonight on Sapph and KT in Naxx 10. Have to say I was very impressed with it. Will be doing better testing over time now to see how it goes but I'm liking the play and rotations of it a lot from just the fights tonight.

Gummy Panda

Nex,

What weapon have you got and do you have the sigil of awareness?

Nehaxak

Me ?

No, no SoA yet (not raided enough 25man for it to drop) and only got the 2h BS Mace as my main weapon. Had some fun dual weilding for a while but I was sick of it plus it's probably being nerf'd next patch (so I'm hearing anyway).

I know you get the most out of Blood (especially by not throwing up diseases) with the best weapon and high amount of attack power but for the moment, what I have will suffice until better drops. The diseaseless spec/rotation is coming out at higher dps for me but it does rely on you timing your DrW correctly, with trinket procs, hysteria, ghoul proc afterwards etc.,
My DRW was doing more DPS and damage than one of the warlocks on last nights raid, he was undergeared though in fairness.
I've 10% hit with my gear (which isn't great) and close enough to expertise cap so I don't miss much at all, in fact I didn't miss once on the raid last night and only had one dodge.
The change in the next patch to Sudden Doom will help rotations also an awful lot and should therefore improve dps.

On Sapph last night I was constantly using Heart Strike, hardly got a chance to use a Death Coil and only really used them when Sudden Doom proc'd.
It just worked out better than having to apply diseases and worry about keeping them up.

One of the glyphs also that I have installed, that works by giving 20% extra damage to blood stikes, also seems to work on Heart Stikes (sorry can't remember the name of it) but it does depend on snares on targets. Bosses can't be snared but the effect on them still persists and makes the glyph work (some tests on elitistjerks all about this).

Gummy Panda

Sorry meant Neh, was posting on the shy in work.

Tried 51/20 diseaseless on dummy in ebon hold. Massive peak in dps then sinks like the titantic. no 4pc t7 or SoA though.

Tbh i think i'm a unholy tard. I just can't stand to be spec'd out of it for too long. I just feel uncomfortable doing the other rotations even though i hated unholy in beta and when i was first leveling up on live.

ps. I got my Death's Bite from kel

Nehaxak

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Sorry meant Neh, was posting on the shy in work.

Tried 51/20 diseaseless on dummy in ebon hold. Massive peak in dps then sinks like the titantic. no 4pc t7 or SoA though.

Tbh i think i'm a unholy tard. I just can't stand to be spec'd out of it for too long. I just feel uncomfortable doing the other rotations even though i hated unholy in beta and when i was first leveling up on live.

ps. I got my Death's Bite from kel

Oooh grats on the Deaths bite

Was trying Malygos 10 man again tonight and topped the dps and damage done meters but I have a long long way to go before I would probably see a real benefit from the diseaseless spec/rotations. I'm reading elsewhere that you should have at least 4.5k AP unbuffed to see the greatest benefits, which I'm about 1k if not more away from
It's an awful lot less button clicking though and a lot less to be aware of, no need to worry about diseases being up and you're not fecked if one of them are resisted/missed and messing up your rotations and overall dps.
We'll probably do VOA 10 and 25 man along with OS 10 and 25 man tomorrow, I'll change my spec around a little as I have a couple (probably wrong) idea's on improving overall dps with blood spec.

Actually I'll post the spec I'm thinking about tomorrow if I get a chance in work and then run with it for the raids tomorrow night and see how it goes.

Gummy Panda

I was reading on US forums and some people were saying diseaseless wasn't actually doing more dps but was a recount issue. It shows more dps then other specs due to not having dots. Either way GC has already said they want diseases to be important for a DK so i expect that spec to be nerf in 3.1 along with finally killing off some DWing specs.

21/50 is okay. Still think its chunky though. I use to like 51/13/7 but it was much lower dps then unholy. Maybe with the ArP and the amount of armour on mobs changes it might be better.

I really wish they would give a better badge sigil. That sigil sucks ass!

Nehaxak

Never got a chance to raid last night, got home just after 8.30 from work and all the raids were finished

Have gone back to an Unholy build as I ended up just missing the benefits from the tree too much. Done a few heroics and called it an early night. Every time I do heroics now tanking gear is dropping, bloody annoying.

I think there are general issues with that recount addon, it doesn't seem to be counting pet damage correctly either.

Are there any other worthwhile DPS monitor type addons around that're stable and working ?

I'd agree on the sigil, pretty much useless and I end up going back to the free one we got (forget it's name) that adds 90 attack to blood strikes.

Gummy Panda

If you're back unholy there is a sigil (Sigil of Arithic or something) from the pvp lighthouse/docks in grizzly hills. It adds 203 dmg to your scourge and is easy to get.

Best unholy sigil until Sigil of Awareness. Roll on patch 3.1 with garg restored to its former power.

copeyhagen

small update, havent played my dk, been leveling my prot warr. will ding 80 when i get home from work.

found this on dslreports.com wow forum, deffo gonna try the 2h frost build

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21786190-Classes-DK-best-DPS-spec~start=40#end

"I just hit world top 20 (Novaus) as 2H Frost on Thaddius. Would I have not had RL issues, maybe I could have been a competitor elsewhere"

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1400964~6bbf8f798cfbe6656f3b02c70986dc1f/Thaddius20.JPG

11k dps as frost. im gonna copy his spec later give it a try in a few heroics

Ivan

In fairness, Thaddius really isnt a viable meter for testing dps as the bonus damage modifier tends to have unforeseen affects on Dot damage and other unique damage types.