Last week I got my first tier piece from LFR and then another from a PvP reward in vault today and tested it on a single target PvP dummy. Both pieces were hast / mastery and lost 3% versatiity. After testing it seems like it’s a dps loss after losing versatility. Soul Reaper hits like a wet noodle as well. It did a 2.5k non crit…
Yeah and it doesn’t stack with soul reaper
It really pisses me off they did not listen to the feed back and make it proc off of wounds popped instead of scourge strike / clawing shadows casts.
These devs are cooked.
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It was just scourge strike / clawing shadows casts but someone said it was degenerative gameplay and that it should be based off of wounds popped by scourge strike / clawing shadows so thats what they did. They listened to the “community” and people hate it.
I just want the proc’d soul reaper from the set to work outside of 35% 
It’s really bad to be honest it messes out my rotation when soul reaper is already applied
I actually did a full breakdown and discussion around this. However, I also highlighted some additional core design flaws that compounded the problem even further. Additionally I also explained why the design methodology for the Frost DK Set Bonuses is vastly superior in all aspects.
Those that are interested or curious here is the link:
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Would love to know the math or at least see some sims to figure out if the set bonus soul reaper could function differently and just act as if the target was in execute range. Coupled with the fact that wounds popped procced the set and not scourge/clawing.
It seems unholy is struggling at the moment so adding even one of those changes might be the boost it needs without breaking it.
It has been but, I don’t have the link at hand to provide it. One thing to note is that it changes nothing in terms of essentially making Soul Reaper a mandatory talent. Which in itself goes against the supposed design philosophy of developers to not have mandatory talents. That alone points to the obvious conclusion that Soul Reaper should not be a Talent but a core baseline ability for Unholy. That one thing is clearly being overlooked or ignored by the class design teams even though it’s an outright obvious outlier.
I do remember in terms of numbers with the full 4 piece set bonus with the DK also using the ability themselves during the execute phase it only added something like one additional PPM for example it went from 5PPM to 6PPM.
Ironically the increase that is provided during the execute phase through the set bonus doesn’t provide a big enough increase during the small execute phase to balance overall with the 65% of the fight that it provides zero value.
Honestly even if they changed it so the set effectively applied a version of Soul Reaper which acted like it was in an execute phase all the time the overall damage increase still wouldn’t be that great when compared to other classes.
There is also the fundamental issue that has been around now for several expansions and has never been directly addressed. Deathknights don’t scale like other classes do when they increase their gear ilvls. This equates to what has become the end of expansion DK band-aid resolution system. This is the application of a flat percentage damage increase that is applied to all aspects of the specific spec. So Unholy just received its first band-aid in the last patch in the form of the Flat 5% overall Damage increase. As we progress through the final phase of the expansion this flat percentage modifier is increased as a way to resolve the core design scaling flaw.
Following the precedence of the last 4 expansions this will inevitably be between 20% to 30% increase in the final stages of the expansion. This in turn has lead to the vast majority of various ability changes and nerfs at the end of expansions that in essence was never an issue with the ability itself but was actually a direct impact of the flat percentage increase. When the scaling buff is removed with a new expansion the modifications, changes and nerfs that were made to various DK Talents, Abilities and in game Mechanisms are not rectified or restored to the previous version.
This all stems from the one fundamental issue with DK scaling based on the design flaws which make it unable to scale in the same way that other classes do as they progress through an expansion.
I’ve never liked the idea of mandatory talents, it’s very poor design. My main question now is, will 5% be enough? If I’m reading correctly are you saying that even with those ideal circumstances (wound pop reaper, 50% pet damage proc etc) unholy still falls behind?
I’m a frost main and I’m happy with our 4p but I hate seeing dead talents/set pieces and that’s across all classes not just DK. I don’t have the knowledge to name them all but I’m 100% sure they are out there.
Are you suggesting that in its current state the unholy set is just broken on a fundamental level? I’m not a theory crafter I leave that to smarter people but what changes could they make without totally revamping it?
Firstly from my perspective I don’t believe the 5% increase is going to be enough as it stands right now.
Secondly in terms of the Set bonus design as it stands is incapable of providing anywhere near the overall net gains that other classes are receiving based on their set bonus designs. Additionally Unholy set design wont scale anywhere near as well as other classes with increased gear levels so will continue to fall further behind unless it has some considerable redesign.
Do I think that will actually happen? No
So what is more likely to happen is the likely percentage increase to that flat overall damage increase. In addition as mentioned it is very unlikely that the set will be redesigned however, it is plausible that one aspect of the set might be modified to provide another band-aid passive increase. This would be a change that actually increases the passive minion damage that is on the 4 piece for example they might increase the 10% progressively until it passively provides enough of an overall change that it compensates for the flawed design.
So if they combined those two band-aid fixes it potentially could be something like a 10% flat damage increase for Unholy in addition the passive minion damage might be around 15%.
While it clearly doesn’t resolve the underlying design and class synergy and scaling issues directly. It is a band-aid that doesn’t require any significant overhaul to the class or the set design at this late stage of the expansion and they will instead take the stance use the band-aid until the release of the next expansion.
That’s just my bias opinion that is prejudiced by the fact this is a recurring event that has happened towards the end of each subsequent expansion that came after Mist of Pandaria
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I agree that the 2-set is relatively weak compared to other classes. The 4-set is very strong though and makes up for it in many situations. I was blasting yesterday on our tier-set reclear, getting top DPS on multiple bosses!
I am not saying that there isn’t the potential on some specific encounters that actually are good fights for Unholy and have the potential when all the stars align to see good parses.
While the passive buff to minion damage is consistent factor throughout, the real question is how much of the damage can be directly attributed to the aspect of the Soul Reaper mechanic? I’ll be optimistic and say that it is more than likely under 6% overall.
As you know it will likely stagnate and not scale well with gear while the other classes with scale far better…
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Why would it do this?
Yes there are a few contradictions here. It doesn’t scale well enough yet you are topping dps. Out of curiosity here is this all fights or do you fall behind in any? I’ll assume your guild mates know how to play very well and you are competing on a negligible skill level difference.
I was saying that the 2p wasn’t a big upgrade, it’s 5% max or so. That’s unrelated to scaling tho. I see scaling as the increase in dps as we get better gear and conduits etc. We now have double legendary and 4-set so that’s already covered.
I’d say my guildies are good. We are a rank 500 guild or so. I generally rank highest for my spec tho…
The scaling contradiction part of my post was meant to compare the previous poster with you doing well on dps. Which would suggest to me that there is nothing wrong with unholy’s full 4 set and indeed scales fine with the full kit.
Off topic but do you find 2h oblit to be fine for mythic raids, including 4p ofc?
One other thing, do you get a lot of PI?
Haven’t tried 2H oblit in raids yet, couldn’t really give up the opportunity to run Ubholy with 5% yesterday. Been having lots of fun in M+, beating everyone I’ve run again with at least 2k overall so far (+20 key range).
I got PI last raid yes, think I’ll be able to convince RL to keep it coming given how much DMG I do. Yesterday was good fun, got 5 rank 1s across 8 bosses on HC/Mythic…
That’s fair, 5% is gotta be worth a try! I ran with an unholy guildie last tier and he was unstoppable with PI. I guess the last point would be then it’s still good without it? I know PI is a contentious issue and I personally don’t feel it should return in its current form but that’s purely my balance feelcraft in play.
Good to see unholy can perform all the same. Looking forward to some updated logs across the DK board.
To clarify. It should be off popping wounds alone so it has interaction with Apocalypse.