Death Knight discussion

[Hemmi]

zYN whats ur typical rotation im finding it extremely tight to keep GoD up.

Thx Hemmi

[Farnion]

Just remember, expertise isn't that important

I did read something like this earlier.

Atm I've got 25 Exp but one of my gear upgrades would probably be the 264 belt which dropps dreamwalker (normal), my belt is atm the pdk25 normal belt

So the base stats would improve about +40 strength (extra socket), some crit and +68 arp, but would lose around 67 exp-rating and would end at about 18-20 exp.

So my question: Can I go with this for a while or should I try to immediately compensate this? For example I could go for the set legs (251) instead of the crafted legs? Other possible upgrades with exp would be gunship ring, queen neck (still working on the firstkill), or putricide10er neck, but would all depend on some drop luck

[Baadshah]

First of all, I would like to thank Synti very much for all his advice and being so active on the forums. I've linked this thread for the Death Knight section of our website so that everyone can see this ongoing discussion. I think the Glyph of Diseases discussion is particularly important.
I have a couple of questions I'd like to put forward:

*How are you finding Unholy with a Frost subspec? Is it a big difference, or is it worth it to still stay Blood for someone who's in mostly ICC gear (except trinkets)?

I've noticed it's easier to prevent diseases from falling off. With Blood, I usually have less than one second left on the timers. With Frost, it can be up to 1.5 seconds. I'm more concerned about the DPS though. It might be better for AoE, but how about fights like Saurfang? It's also worth mentioning that I'm using a stat weapon (Shadow's Edge) as opposed to a proc weapon (Bryntroll).

*Do you see a nerf in DW Frost's future? I loved Two Handed Frost in 3.1 and have hated it since, mostly due to the vast amount of bloat in the Frost tree. The latest parses however, are really making me consider dropping Blood and taking up DW Frost as a secondary spec.

*Is threat an issue for you with the new Unholy and Frost builds? Neither take up Subversion and I am quite nervous about all the threat I seem to be generating.

[zYN]

So my question: Can I go with this for a while or should I try to immediately compensate this?

If you're running with Frost, I pretty firmly believe that when played properly, if you EVER get dodged (or parried) you always lose an extra Frost Strike. With Unholy it's not quite as significant as that, but I'd still try my best to stay above 20+ Expertise.

Depends on your spec. I'd still try to get soft-capped expertise from somewhere if at all possible.

[zYN]

How are you finding Unholy with a Frost subspec? Is it a big difference, or is it worth it to still stay Blood for someone who's in mostly ICC gear (except trinkets)?

I didn't play UH with Frost as sub myself yet. Liha was my disease buffer bitch last night and he pulled around 800 DPS more on Saurfang than on any previous week. He used to have the pretty standard UH/Blood, now using UH/Frost. His performance doesn't vary anywhere close to that much from week to week - maybe a +/- 200 DPS variation from week to week due to procs and such, but nothing anywhere close to as big as this.

If you're in "mostly ICC gear", I suspect you're going to pull off more damage as UH.

Frost [...] might be better for AoE, but how about fights like Saurfang? It's also worth mentioning that I'm using a stat weapon (Shadow's Edge) as opposed to a proc weapon (Bryntroll).

Judging by the parses I've seen and checked myself, yes, Frost is clearly superior as sub. Plus any fight that's not stand-still, getting the extra haste to your pets and getting the meaner disease ticks etc is pretty damn nice as well.

*Do you see a nerf in DW Frost's future? I loved Two Handed Frost in 3.1 and have hated it since, mostly due to the vast amount of bloat in the Frost tree. The latest parses however, are really making me consider dropping Blood and taking up DW Frost as a secondary spec.

I have no idea whether there'll be a nerf or not. If there is, I'm assuming it'll be some kind of hotfix pretty soon. If it's something that comes in the next patch, then I don't care.

The design intent for DKs has been that they use two-handers, while DW was being merely supported. Ghostcrawler has said on more than one occasion that if DW becomes too good, so that it completely overshadows the 2H specs for DKs and they aren't even being considered "viable" for raiding, it'll get nerfed. I'm guessing a valid comparison is how much Arcane has trumped Fire and Frost for some time now until the patch.

Frost is doing very nice damage for the first time, it's a bit too early to call anything in my opinion. Blood is doing excellent at very high gear levels, UH is doing excellent at all levels. No spec is really _that_ much behind the other (especially at the end-game at the moment). Off the top of my head, I'd say we're talking about less than 5% difference. This is by far the most balanced the specs have ever been. This is pretty much the most balanced the whole game has ever even been on the PvE-front between all classes, excluding shamans.

With that being said, I didn't try to make a claim over a 277 1H weapon in front of a rogue last night, even if it would've been a huge upgrade for me. I'll wait and see until a week from now.

Is threat an issue for you with the new Unholy and Frost builds? Neither take up Subversion and I am quite nervous about all the threat I seem to be generating.

Yes. But mostly just on the trash - we're using hunters and rogues on bosses anyway, which makes threat moot. I was lying on the ground taking some sun a lot on Deathwhisper too.

[zYN]

zYN whats ur typical rotation im finding it extremely tight to keep GoD up.

With Frost I assume? It's just a priority. Keep your diseases up, weave in as many FS as you possibly can. Use the rune grace period (RGP) to your advantage as much as possible - this'll make a huge difference. Keep using UA whenever it's available and you're hitting on stuff. Use Rime to push a FS further back on the ability queue if you're running low on RP and you're not sure to get any.

[Farnion]

just tried on a boss puppet but easily pulled around 500dps more with a frost subspecc instead of blood subspecc.

looking forward to test it while actual raiding

[Hemmi]

i've noticed rime not giving RP after patch don't know if this is something everyone is experiencing also if i don't use runes as soon as they off CD i find my disease's dropping off unless i refresh every 10-12seconds depending on which blood rune i consume

[zYN]

Rime hasn't given any RP pretty much since some patch after Naxx? Maybe you've been shooting off Howling Blasts without the proc, as that gives RP. It also consumes runes, while Rime is completely free.

Yes, your diseases will definitely drop off if you actually go over the timelimit allowed by RGP. You can delay the runes up to 2s after each re-charge and it won't mess up your rotation, however, as long as you use one blood rune every other refresh to throw a pestilence.

Go beat on a dummy if you can't do it right, it's just a skill issue - can't help with that.

[laffinAtU]

Just remember, expertise isn't that important

I did read something like this earlier.

Atm I've got 25 Exp but one of my gear upgrades would probably be the 264 belt which dropps dreamwalker (normal), my belt is atm the pdk25 normal belt

So the base stats would improve about +40 strength (extra socket), some crit and +68 arp, but would lose around 67 exp-rating and would end at about 18-20 exp.

So my question: Can I go with this for a while or should I try to immediately compensate this? For example I could go for the set legs (251) instead of the crafted legs? Other possible upgrades with exp would be gunship ring, queen neck (still working on the firstkill), or putricide10er neck, but would all depend on some drop luck

I'll say this, in my case I was using a 10m weapon with +arp +exp becuase my expertise was low, with that weapon it was 27. I subbed it off for Bryntroll (25m Normal) and saw decent results in a DPS gain. It wasn't anything major, but it did boost my DPS. My Expertise is at 18~ - I'm debating to eat the +40 Exp food, but +40 Str is superior.