Audience

Unholy DK’s trying to maximize their DPS(3.2.2) while progressing or farming Trial of the Grand Crusader. The guide will contain key elements to every fight in the instance, except for Faction champions. For basic gemming, rotation and gearing you are better off reading the WoW stickies or heading over to Elitist Jerks. This guide starts off with basic discussion on improving your rotation and priorities, down below you will find the "Tricks of the Trade" for getting high parses on boss fights, I will update the guide accordingly with new findings.

Guide

Article is now OUT OF DATE!

Scourge Strike changed.

It was fun while it lasted.

Introduction

This is Potlol from CUTIES ONLY (Recruiting 1 DK!), my armory can be found here -> Potlol

For the validity of this guide I currently hold top spots for ToTGC(at the time of writing), which can be found here http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/dkt/8/0/3

#1 Northrends Beasts @ 9017 dps
#1 Lord Jaraxus @ 12318 dps
#1 Twin Valkyrs @ 16527 dps
#18 Anub’arak @ 11953 dps (Knocked off)

For reference to this guide I will be using numbers from our latest ToTGC clear which can be found below.

WMO
WOL

The Class

DK’s are a strong class that completely ignore the hybrid rule and are capable of competing and even topping pure classes, this of course is based on strategy used and raid comp. ICC will see DK’s single target capabilities increase with Scourge strike making a comeback and will allow us to be one of the strongest single target DPS classes. DK AoE is also considered among being the best, although the 4pc t9 is to blame, which was a rather surprising set bonus after they nerfed unholy blight to no longer be an AoE effect.

Strengths

“Fire and forget” AoE capability.
Crypt Fever debuff, and the ability to apply it to multiple targets.
Comparable single target to pure classes.

Weaknesses

The main weakness with the DK class is movement, other melee classes have Intercept, Kitty leap (and +30% run speed), Sprint.

DK’s have unholy presence(imp UH if you spec it), although useful on certain fights in 3.2.2 due to runes being of less importance, in 3.3 with Scourge Strike being our highest source of damage it can be problematic, I personally rolled engineering for rocket boots to overcome this problem. As every second counts.

Rotation and Priority

The current set rotation for unholy is

-> -> -> x2 ->x2

Although simple, a rotation like above will force you to cap RP when taking into consideration revitalize procs and AMS soaking. This is where a priority system trumps a rotation. Although slightly more complex and requires you to think on your feet rather then have a rotation set, it will provide higher DPS.

After you have initiated the fight with the rotation above always make sure the following buffs are active and adjust your priority to keep them up.

Desolation – Applied via Blood Strike

Sigil of Virulence – Applied via Scourge Strike

These 2 buffs should be your highest priority. This is also why I prefer running without Bone Shield in 3.2.2 to allow for a “backup” Blood Strike.

If both those buffs are active your priority becomes from Left (High) to Right (Low)

- - - -

To explain the priority order a good example is getting revitalize procs during your average 10 second rotation, if RP is close to being capped from a revitalize proc or ability you need to launch the death coil to get rid of it, capped RP = potential dps lost. This will extend your rotation somewhat from the standard 10 seconds, see the next subject for more details on how to handle disease clipping when being loaded with RP.

Disease clipping and application

With the rotation being around 10 seconds you will always clip diseases. When reapplying diseases be smart about it, generally you will complete your rotation with your disease timer being as follow

Note: The mod I use displays 5.99s as 5s, as soon as the timer hits 5s that means the 6s mark disease has already ticked.

When using a Priority system you will be using more globals per disease refresh. Its important if you use 2 extra globals per “10s rotation” that you wait for your disease ticks, as they do a substantial amount of damage and allows for a wandering plague proc, a example posted below if you get 2 extra globals, wait for your timer to show the 3s tick then reapply diseases.

Take into consideration that refreshing Frost fever at the ticking mark will automatically refresh Blood plague since they’re GCD’s apart.

To extend on this subject here's a breakdown, imagine applying a disease this disease goes as follows:

0s Applied
3s 1st tick
6s 2nd tick
9s 3rd tick
12s 4th tick
15s 5th tick

• If you follow the basic rotation of ps / it ss bsx2 dcx2 you will refresh your diseases right after the 3rd tick at the 9s mark.

• If you follow the priority system you will use extra global cooldowns, due to launching more death coils and extending your rotation. This means you want to wait for a disease to tick at the 4th tick (enough GCD's for 5th tick is rare) before reapplying them, if you gained more rp for death coils, so basically you're not clipping disease ticks, but you will always clip diseases.

Smart use of basic abilities

More detail will be provided in the boss fights section but for now, instead of seeing these abilities for what they are, they can be situational dps increases by slightly altering their definition. For instance

AMS

Provides a large amount of RP when standing in fire to machine gun death coils.

Death and Decay

A 30yrd DoT that ticks for 1281dmg (Avg hit / crit taken from Jaraxxus parse) every second, lasts 10 seconds.

Maximizing DPS in ToTGC

Northrend Beasts

Phase 1 Gormok

• Apply diseases to Snobolds, pestilence onto Gormok from the snobold (doesn’t work the other way around) you need to Scourge Strike for 1 / 4 FU to keep your buff up, this means if there’s two snobolds in melee range disease both of them and focus on single target damage on gormok, this is productive meter padding as the snobolds need to die.

• Use Icebound Fortitude when applying diseases onto kobolds, you will be on their agro table, the snobold stuns a player on its agro table if its in melee range, so use IBF to avoid the stun when applying diseases, then get away from it.

• Gargoyle on paragon / crusader proc.

Phase 2 Worms

• At the start they’re in pestilence range, spread dots on both targets, they’re also within DnD range of each other for a long time due to the size of their hitbox, in our guild melee’s always on the mobile worm due to sweep, I keep my pet on the stationary worm with leap, due to the large hit box on the worms they will almost always be in a slime pool unless you manually adjust them, which provides less concentration on your own dps.

• After the submerge the stationary worm emerges first followed by mobile worm a few seconds later, start on the stationary worm, dot it up, as soon as mobile worm is targetable and in position refresh your diseases on the stationary worm and drop a death and decay on It while running over to the other worm. Runes will be up by the time you get there. If you have pestilence range use it.

• Gargoyle comes off cooldown with 1 worm remaining, depending on your guilds dps you can either use it here and have another one for Icehowl, or save it for icehowl.

Phase 3 Icehowl

• Reapply diseases before massive crash, drop a DnD after the crash while he’s stunned (30yrd range DoT), goes well with empower rune weapon to get Sigil buff up, can also be used to drop in the center before the crash, I used it this way for 1 trample due to having rocket boots / empower rune weapon saved for a big burn.

• Make sure you have RP Saved after a crash to gargoyle on your way over to him when he’s stunned

• You can AMS the frost breath (IBF Works too! Thx Kailee), he immediately uses it after his stun expires on a trample, use ams then to prevent getting frozen, he casts it before AMS is off cooldown, but you can get each one after the trample, which is also easy to time and prevent.

This weeks testing provided some amazing results, using Glyph of Disease and Glyph of Death and Decay, and basic Anub'arak Spec with Epidemic (see Armory specs) Its possible to break the 12k barrier, previous best being 10.7k, quite a large difference.

Looking over the logs, not only did the AoE Spec shatter any previous records, its also the highest "Damage to boss" unholy parse, meaning you're doing productive meter padding while also outperforming other unholy specs on Boss DPS.

Breakdown on the parses

Standard Unholy Parse

• Damage to boss = 8280, Average Disease ticks = 2.3k, Total DPS 10728

Glyph of Disease and DnD Glyph

• Damage to boss = 9256, Average Disease ticks = 3050, Total DPS 12318

The GoD Parse was a 30 second shorter kill, but wait, in the normal parse, which lasted longer, I had 2 gargoyles, and as you can see in the parse the gargoyle damage was nearly double, yet the GoD Parse still absolutely destroyed the normal parse, if you want to impress the ladies, pick up 2 glyphs or have a secondary spec.

The general rotation for this fight is, PS IT, BS BS SS, refresh dots, everything should have procced and just keep them rolling with Pestilence. As soon as portals spawn Pestilence onto them, blow your runes on them / RP for coils, and make sure you switch back within 20 seconds to refresh your super stack. This is the best way to maximize DPS without jeopardizing your raid, continue to follow the pointers below.

• Use pestilence if there’s an extra target, if desolation is up use Blood Boil over Blood Strike.

• Use DnD for the infernals, if you can hit 2 or more targets its worth using, same goes for mistress. The average DnD tick from the logs show 1281dmg per tick, thats 12810 damage to 1 target, simply put with 1 extra add you should use DnD while making sure SoV and desolation is active.

• Standing next to a infernal channeling Fel Inferno with AMS up allows you to machine gun Death Coils into Jaraxxus, this also applies to Legion Flame.

• Remember that DnD is a 30 yard range, if infernals are grouped up far away from the boss you can still cast it on them, keep your eyes open for opportunities for a good DnD.

• The key to high damage is getting empower twice, our strat is very melee friendly and we get to stand in the same spot other then vortexes, with ranged soaking opposite orbs for us. This doesn’t mean you should just tunnel vision the boss. You need to run around the large circle in the middle (bosses are tanked inside the circle) to get your stack up, the idea is to get the empower buff from the Vortex damage, as after the special you have a large window to “go to town” on the boss with the damage buff.

• Why is the buff so important for DK’s? Necrosis and wandering plague double dips from the buffs, if you look at the WMO linked at the top of the guide the maximum Necrosis hit is 13k while the maximum white hit is only 22k. Similarly the highest Wandering Plague tick is 27k while the highest disease tick is 12k.

Below you will find 2 parses one from a standard Unholy build, and one that uses glyph of disease, first lets evaluate the standard build

Standard Anub Parse

• Average disease ticks are around 2.4k, total DPS = 11847, damage done to the boss is 6359dps, kill time = 8:41

Glyph of Disease Parse

• Average disease ticks are around 2.8k, total DPS = 11935, damage done to boss is 6373dps, kill time = 7:20

Comparing the 2 fights its pretty clear that Glyph of Disease is king, not only did it top the damage from the other parse, but it did that with a 1:20 faster kill, the fight pushes your dps higher the longer the fight lasts, you head into the 3rd normal phase (after 2nd burrow) with around 9k dps and this jumps up dramatically the longer p3 lasts due to the aoe, I would have loved to have a longer kill time just to see the real impact when you have comparable fight lengths.

So your best option and highest DPS for this fight is Ghoul / Disease / DnD glyphs, you basically want to apply dots with Sigil buff, paragons / greatness, Rune and if possible 2pc bonus, you will have insanely strong DoT's and would be your best option no matter the raid comp.

Talents

A variety of 16 0 55, my personal choice is 17 0 54, with no point in bone shield so I can use Bloodtap for Desolation, pestilence or bloodstrike / blood boils.

The difference between Bone Shield / non Bone Shield builds (that utilize the bloodtap) is simmed around 30dps difference, I don't encourage skipping Bone Shield, for reasoning behind me not picking it up, from experience I have found ways to utilize the available blood rune to more then make up for the dps lost from not having Bone Shield.

Ways to improve your DPS

Learn to use Kahorie’s DK Simulator, link can be found here

You get to choose fight length, test different glyphs / gear choices, it requires effort but allows for customization.

A good example of improving is knowing what you should be doing, only enabling raid buffs you will have on a target dummy for instance and comparing the result to your own on a target dummy (remember the simulator is perfect, it will always beat you) but being within 100-300dps of the sim means you have nailed your rotation and priorities.

Keep up to date with glyph choices / talent specs on various sites.

Race change to Orc.

UI

Have a disease tracker, buff tracker (Fallen crusader / paragon) and a clean UI, remember you’re DPS, you don’t need to see other players frames, your goal in the raid is to provide maximum damage output, having a clean UI that improves situational awareness will pay off.

Example of my UI.

If you have any questions, comments or would like to bring something to my attention in this guide the best way to reach me would be to PM me on the CUTIES ONLY forums at www.qtsonlyguild.com, msg Potential, or to find me in game on Kil’Jaeden on Potlol.

Updates

17/11

Jaraxxus updated accordingly.
Parses updated.
Talent updated.

11/11

Anub'Arak updated accordingly.
Updated parses with latest ones from this week.
More detail on clipping
Spacing

Testing for next week

None - I consider the guide complete till 3.3, look forward to that!