Really enjoying unholy, actually

Classes Death Knight
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I’ve been 99% of the time a tank/healer player since…ever, partially for the faster queues and partially just personal preference. I’ve never really dedicated any sort of significant time to DPS.

Anyway, I figured it’s the end of an xpac, there’s spare time, why not. I’ve been leveling/playing an unholy DK and I gotta say, it’s been a blast. I love having more pets up and different kinds of pets/minions floating around, I like that I can make Scourge Strike ranged (even though I probably shouldn’t cause the other option is a DPS gain and trying to fight at range means no AAs, which means no procs, but eh…>_>). I like the rotation of summoning, applying wounds, bursting the wounds, and death coil procs.

That all said, the ramp up is…unpleasant. Death and Decay on a 30 second cooldown, even with two charges, feels really bad - but only in comparison to other DPS specs I’ve tried playing (WW monk, outlaw rogue, arcane mage…arc mage actually has a similar issue, but still). It just feels bad when I have this lengthy setup while everyone else just starts blasting. I don’t feel particularly rewarded for the long setup, either - it seems like Blizzard is intent on making everyone do the same DPS, always and forever, regardless of how much ramp up time they do or don’t have and how much utility they do or don’t have. Which is, IMO, not great design. I wish they felt more free to give classes and specs actual benefits and drawbacks, instead of having meta classes and then everyone else a second class citizen.

But, overall, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying unholy DK. The state of Blood Draw on the class talent tree is atrocious, as is the overall organization of said talent tree, but it’s been fun whacking things with a large sword and turning my ghoul into a power lifter. And I genuinely enjoy the damage rotation even if the design of the rest of the game doesn’t really reward or support it properly. Here’s hoping DKs get some love in the war within o/

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Thematically unholy is great, but it might be the single worst spec to recommend to new players right now.

The feeling of doing outdoor content is gross, and the spec is mechanically way too complex to perform well in dungeons without a TON of effort and learning from youtube/guides.

I hope when unholy gets a rework in 2027 (or later at this rate) the devs sit down and try to figure out how to make the spec fun.

I want it to actually feel good, y’know?

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The whole ‘okay, I’ve pressed my cooldowns and set up death and decay, times to do some DAMAGE, WOO BOI’ and everything is already dead is not a great feeling q-q

Also, I spent way too long pondering my decision for where to put a point, only to read a guide later and find that the choice was like. 0 to 0.3% damage contribution. Meh.

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Very much agree, unholy FEELS awful to play. Its clunky at best with the zit popping mechanics. The amount of globals that is required in the opener is insane. I don’t think I’m happy with either frost or unholy. They both need a ret level rework.

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I mean, some spec needs to be the most complex in its role. I’m okay with UH being the hardest mDPS spec, and it feels about right for what the actual upper limit for mDPS skill expression should be.

It feels better than Frost. UH is about CD layering, and if you’re rotating your 45s, open world feels fine. Frost only has one 45 and does tank dam outside of it.

I don’t. It’s one of the few specs in the game that has enough depth to warrant one-tricking in the mid and long term.

When I’m blowing up 12 mobs with Slappy Hands, have a Defile rolling with Dark Transformation applying wounds in AoE, and spamming Epidemics with max Festermight stacks, I feel the best that I ever do playing this game. There is no other class that gives me the same high. It’s kinda fun doing over a million DPS.

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I’ve been playing UH a bit recently on keys. The wound system feels super awkward. It might be better if the wound stacks were stored on the DK rather than the target so swapping targets is easier.
But the disease system with super strain and pressing epidemic feels great. I really like the exponential scaling on that ability too, big pulls feel really great.

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Unfortunately UHdk isnt the hardest mDPS at all. Its rotation isnt complex or hard to do right, its bloated and clunky and stale. Not even close to the same thing. Rogues in general are much harder to play correctly and do better raid damage anyway. OP is also right, all your build up isnt paying off much either, you say it’s fun doing a million dps, and it is, but my MM hunter goes over 1mil with MUCH less effort, and pallies burst for the same while youre still building your way up there. Warlocks too. There just isnt any payoff for the amount of effort, not skill, just pure gcd-stacked effort, an uhdk puts into doing the same top end as most other meta classes. They need a rework bad.

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I’d second this, though with the context that I likely will never play DPS in super high-up-there-content. I don’t want more mobility, even (like it seems we’re getting with hero talents), though insofar as I can tell the unholy spec tree is entirely damage, so a few options to sacrifice damage for durability would make for a better mix (and the class tree is a mess, I’m not even gonna start on that).

I don’t think unholy needs a rework so much as Blizzard just needs to consistently apply design ideas across the board and fix a few pain points. There’s been a ton of threads on Death and Decay already, so…yeah. Personally, I think the pimple-popping mechanic could also use some love - it feels like a limitation that I’m not actually rewarded for playing with. I’ve also started noticing some resource issues - not negatively, actually, but that I have to much during my opener I can’t even spend it all fast enough (which I suppose might become a little better as I get more haste, but still). Resources never really felt like a limitation, and in some ways that can be fine, but much like energy these days if a resource can be completely ignored because I can basically press whatever I want, then there’s really no point.

For example, this! Pleeaaaase please please please do not turn wounds into another reincarnation of combo points D: I need limits! What my character can’t do is just as, if not sometimes more so, interesting than what they can do. WoW already has way too many things that are basically just rogue’s combo points reskinned. I like that wounds is limited in this way, even if technically they could also be dubbed ‘combo points but just limited to one target, like CPs were in the past’ it’s the limits that make things interesting.

Overall, I wouldn’t say they need a rework so much as Blizzard just needs to evenly apply whatever their design rules are, cause it feels like unholy plays by certain limitations most everyone else doesn’t. I’d rather get actually rewarded for stuff instead of being super simplified but godly much like I hear ret is these days.

Mind, that isn’t to say I think unholy’s rotation couldn’t use some cleanup - it probably could, be it in the form of streamlining buttons or making buttons have different and distinct purposes, ex: we have two 45 second damage cooldown buttons that insofar as I know should p much always be synced up, why are they two buttons instead of one? If they’re gonna be two buttons, there should be a reason for it.