Hey,
I'm not sure what name Teq goes by on these forums, but I've been browsing a ton of combat logs and noticed Teq's name as one of the highest DPS DK's around. I've looked through the combat log and wanted to get his/her (the toon is female but I know for a fact that there are no females on the Internet) opinions on what a noob DK should do.
I notice that you're currently Blood Spec, but I think you've bounced to Holy here and there. What are your thoughts on specs, rotations, etc? Right now, between the WoW DK forums, and the Elitist Jerks forums, I think there's a lot of noise out there and I'd rather get your take on how a DK should properly DPS. Even if you confirm things that are out there, that'd be good enough for me.
@Teq
Re: @Teq
Howdy. Basically, blood seems to be the best scaling single target dps right now and it provides some nice utility. Frost falls way behind (certainly some of it to do with having to manage multiple procs) and unholy lost its umph when UB became a non-disease. 51/13/7 and 50/0/21 are both decent specs, but in the end DRW is more burst (for when you need it), scales better and is easier to manage.
My typical rotation is PS-IT-HS-HS-OB DCx2 OB-HS-HS-HS-HS DC. Filling in that last death coil even though you are clipping your next rotation by .5 sec is worth a lot of dps and is the only way you can reliably dump your RP. Also, I put my frost/unholy pairs at opposite ends so that if my rotation gets interrupted for a split second (lag, movement, error, etc.) the game won't use up the wrong death runes and create 3 seconds of dead time later when the death runes pop as double frost double unholy instead of one each.
For tanking unholy is amazing right now, but will probably be in line with everything else once the patch hits.
My typical rotation is PS-IT-HS-HS-OB DCx2 OB-HS-HS-HS-HS DC. Filling in that last death coil even though you are clipping your next rotation by .5 sec is worth a lot of dps and is the only way you can reliably dump your RP. Also, I put my frost/unholy pairs at opposite ends so that if my rotation gets interrupted for a split second (lag, movement, error, etc.) the game won't use up the wrong death runes and create 3 seconds of dead time later when the death runes pop as double frost double unholy instead of one each.
For tanking unholy is amazing right now, but will probably be in line with everything else once the patch hits.
--Azurai
Re: @Teq
Check out this relatively new site if you haven't seen it already:
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/dkt/6/0
My first point is that all 3 specs have the potential to do great DPS. You can find blood, frost, and unholy specs in the top 10 parses for nearly every encounter.
You can also see the number of good parses per spec shift from encounter to encounter. Blood dominates sapphiron (where unholy pets die), but unholy dominates patchwerk (tank-n-spank).
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/dkt/6/0
My first point is that all 3 specs have the potential to do great DPS. You can find blood, frost, and unholy specs in the top 10 parses for nearly every encounter.
You can also see the number of good parses per spec shift from encounter to encounter. Blood dominates sapphiron (where unholy pets die), but unholy dominates patchwerk (tank-n-spank).
Re: @Teq
Reedu pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well.
Blood may very well end up being the best scaling spec, but currently there really isn't a 'best' spec. All of the trees perform pretty well (I've even seen some impressive dual wield parses) and will top different fights depending on the circumstances. While the vast majority of my experience at the moment is with unholy tanking I've witnessed first hand how unholy fairs on encounters where the ghoul and gargoyle have a hard time staying up or don't benefit from certain aspects of the fight (Loatheb, Thaddius). Hopefully night of the dead will help remedy these problems, or at least lay the ground work for additional survivability options in the future.
Honestly though I am quite happy with where all of the specs stand and DPS in general. While you will see roughly the same top 10 in nearly every parse, they've done an excellent job (thus far) of shifting those 10 around depending on the encounter.
Unholy for life though, for both tanking and dps. I enjoy frost as well, but can't seem to get into blood for any amount of time ;/
Blood may very well end up being the best scaling spec, but currently there really isn't a 'best' spec. All of the trees perform pretty well (I've even seen some impressive dual wield parses) and will top different fights depending on the circumstances. While the vast majority of my experience at the moment is with unholy tanking I've witnessed first hand how unholy fairs on encounters where the ghoul and gargoyle have a hard time staying up or don't benefit from certain aspects of the fight (Loatheb, Thaddius). Hopefully night of the dead will help remedy these problems, or at least lay the ground work for additional survivability options in the future.
Honestly though I am quite happy with where all of the specs stand and DPS in general. While you will see roughly the same top 10 in nearly every parse, they've done an excellent job (thus far) of shifting those 10 around depending on the encounter.
Unholy for life though, for both tanking and dps. I enjoy frost as well, but can't seem to get into blood for any amount of time ;/
Re: @Teq
You guys are great, thanks for the info. We went into Naxx10 last night while I was spec'd for Blood (51/13/7) and I did extremely well. One of the things I always had an issue with was the "ramp up" period where the second line of the rotation kicks off the damage in regards to trash mobs (or adds on a boss) that had to die quickly, but wouldn't live long to let the dots run their duration and do any kind of competitive damage. (Gothik is an example).
To remedy this, on those types of adds (ones that I'm guessing in my head that will die within 10 seconds of engaging), I'm using a no-disease "lazy blood" approach, which is really just Oblitx2, HSx2, DC spam. With that, apparently, I'm able to come out on top. Then I revert back to the normal blood rotation for anything with a larger HP pool.
My rotation has been fairly similar to yours, except, I've been using Obliterate for a second time in the rotation over 2x HS, so it looks more like:
PS, IT, Oblitx2, HSx2 - DC
Obiltx2, HSx2 - DC
Do you think four HS's win out over two?
I did a heroic Violet Hold run last night and was able to achieve 3k DPS on the final boss.
Here's my armory info:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... n&n=Novaus
I'm thinking about dropping the hit gem in my leggings and picking up another expertise gem until I come across more gear with expertise. Other than that, I think it's just raid drops at this point.
In Naxx10, I'm really only getting beat out by a combat rogue, but I'm beating the mutilate rogue and everyone else in the group.
Also, what Glyphs are you using? Right now I'm using Obliterate (for obvious reasons), Blood Strike (because it works on Heart Strike, and I have this unconfirmed hunch that even though many bosses are immune to snares, they're still sitting on snare-type debuffs that count... like Thunderclap, Slow, etc), and DnD (Because I can't think of anything better and I just think it's awesome).
To remedy this, on those types of adds (ones that I'm guessing in my head that will die within 10 seconds of engaging), I'm using a no-disease "lazy blood" approach, which is really just Oblitx2, HSx2, DC spam. With that, apparently, I'm able to come out on top. Then I revert back to the normal blood rotation for anything with a larger HP pool.
My rotation has been fairly similar to yours, except, I've been using Obliterate for a second time in the rotation over 2x HS, so it looks more like:
PS, IT, Oblitx2, HSx2 - DC
Obiltx2, HSx2 - DC
Do you think four HS's win out over two?
I did a heroic Violet Hold run last night and was able to achieve 3k DPS on the final boss.
Here's my armory info:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... n&n=Novaus
I'm thinking about dropping the hit gem in my leggings and picking up another expertise gem until I come across more gear with expertise. Other than that, I think it's just raid drops at this point.
In Naxx10, I'm really only getting beat out by a combat rogue, but I'm beating the mutilate rogue and everyone else in the group.
Also, what Glyphs are you using? Right now I'm using Obliterate (for obvious reasons), Blood Strike (because it works on Heart Strike, and I have this unconfirmed hunch that even though many bosses are immune to snares, they're still sitting on snare-type debuffs that count... like Thunderclap, Slow, etc), and DnD (Because I can't think of anything better and I just think it's awesome).
