Unholy needs a complete overhaul

Classes Death Knight
1

As it stands, unholy must be the most one dimensional, unfun spec. Sure they are strong in pvp, but for all the wrong reasons.

Our core rotation is a dot, 2 limp strikes, and then a meaningless rune dump in death coil. The remaining abilities are all lengthy cooldowns 1min + that summon or enhance ghouls/skeletons, or provide stat stick buffs.

And of course, our ghoul pet. With no customization purposes, talents, or abilities.

What is the point of a 2 handed weapon when we are more casters/summoners than death knights

SOLUTION

Get rid of the ghoul pet or give us Warlock type options, including abomination, gargoyle, scarab beetles, even shades.

Redesign DEATH COIL to be like elemental shaman earth shock. Not only should this ability hit hard and consume all runic power, but its current implementation of spamming it 3-4 times in a row due to SUDDEN DOOM is obnoxiously disruptive to the rotation.

Return Unholy to a melee spec. Bring back PLAGUE STRIKE, and have that cause VIRULENT PLAGUE Keep FESTERING STRIKE as 2 RUNES, that provide 2 charges of a festering wound. Make SCOURGE STRIKE cost 3 RUNES, having it consume up to 3 festering wounds and hit for BIG DAMAGE. Casting SCOURGE STRIKE, causes the wounds to burst, acting as AoE damage and spreading virulent plague.

Combine APOCALYPSE, ARMY OF THE DEAD, and DARK TRANFORMATION. Instead of a mindless zombie summon spells. have SCOURGE STRIKE apply BLIGHTED GROUND.

Upon BLIGHTED GROUND, death knight moves faster and unhindered, and players standing on blighted ground for longer than x seconds will be snared by a ghoul or skeleton. Attempt to run out of blighted ground will in turn yank the zombie up.

Make death and decay do something other than just a ring of aoe dmg. Its current form for unholy is unforgivably bland. There are a million possible ways to spice this spell up.

This is it for now, but i am sure there is more that can be done.

15 Likes
2

that may or may not happen in 9.0. just have to wait

3

I gravitated to the spec because i love it in pvp. And truly, it is a lot of fun in pvp.

But trying even just basic LFR raiding to try and get a hold of the pve rotation i noticed so much of my dps is just hitting a pet button and letting it do itself, without a noticable impact for me. The festering wounds mechanic is fun and a ton of dps in a group of mobs, but single target just doesnt feel fun.

I really disagree with the thought of removing the pet, as that is really a fun aspect of unholy. A plate wearing pet class is awesome.

I really love the class and the spec, and a more sensible rework of the abilities would be awesome.

2 Likes
4

no

no, you don’t always want to dump all your RP

how about no.

are you high?

yep, you are high.

13 Likes
5

Funny enough most of the things you mentioned would make Unholy NOT good for PVP.

8

Ok, you clearly did not read the rest. For being a pet class, our pet is grossly underwhelming, thus,

RP isn’t energy or focus. You don’t pool it the same way hunters or rogues would. You may keep it, if you are expecting a spot of downtime, but FOR THE MOST PART, you are at far greater risk of over capping if you don’t keep it near empty.

Unholy is only effective in pvp right now, because of its heavy reliance on long cooldowns. Kill windows, or heavy pressure revolves around abom/apocalypse/dark transformation all being up.

This creates a nightmare scenario for pve encounters (which makes up the bulwark of the playerbase) where the rotation becomes flat and dull in between cooldowns.

Just because unholy has presence in arena, does not mean the spec is in a healthy state.

1 Like
9

You actually use your pet’s abilities actively in mythic plus. Both controling the energy, using interrupt as well as the stun.

1 Like
10

well of course,
you use them actively outside mythic+ as well
the pet has two abilities.
thats it
they are unimaginative, and not engaging. A 3 second stun and a charge on a pet bar.

1 Like
11

how so? being that he’s our top damage(petauto+claw damage) i don’t think its underwhelming. there is also plenty of playing around with our ghoul and DT, especially in pvp.

meh, overcapping isn’t the drastic mistake it used to be, in pvp especially you need to be careful about spending your RP, often saving enough for an emergency DS. same can be said in certain pve scenarios where you need to keep at least 1DS’s worth of RP just in case.

most of your post is based on a lack of deep understanding of how these abilities are used, and your design would simplify and prune unholy even further, which everyone agrees would be a bad thing.

right now for max DPS we are melee only, our ranged heavy builds are only viable in pvp. the melee ranged hybrid we had in legion was much better, so going to a further melee heavy stance would be even less fun. besides, there are plenty of melee in the game already.

because a caster-summoner is exactly what we are, our 2h is less of a melee weapon and more of our version of a staff. if you want a big hitting 2h spec go play ret.

1 Like
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I still don’t understand then how removing your pet and removing your ranged abilities would improve the PVE aspect.

4 Likes
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Again, the original quote

The fact that out class balance revolves around a lacklustre pet, means other abilities can’t be buffed or pruned because of the dead weight.

Plague and Death Coil? How are those two spells improving the PvE aspect of the game? Like a dot and an instant cast aren’t contributing to gameplay at all, and that’s the problem. They are boring skills that have are of little to no consequence.

Death knights have access to a host of undead minions, and all we get is a ghoul pet. Hunters and Warlocks have pets, we have an AI attack bot with a pet bar by comparison.

Wh

there is no ‘depth of understanding with this pet.’ I can’t help but feel that you are new to the class and ironically suffer

Death knights have existed since wrath. If you’ve only been playing since Legion, that would explain a lot.

Quotes like these only exmplify how out of touch you are with the class, primarily because it is likely your dk only saw action in legion. You don’t realize how the core essences of a death knight has been mutilated over the years.

14

ah, then you can tell me what a petkick is since you glossed over it, or about pooling pet energy before engaging DT for max AoE damage.

i hate to burst your bubble, but i’ve been playing this toon since wrath midnight launch. i probably have more time played on this toon alone then you do on your entire account.

or maybe i preferred the legion model /shrug. the old model just added GCDs, but no real complexity.

3 Likes
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Yet has very little experience in pve, in which this post is mainly focused on, and completely ignorant how other classes/specs may have changed in the past 9 years.

The amount of time dedicated to a class/spec, does not equal an educated view on the subject, of that person is at first ignorant of other aspects of the environment.

1 Like
16

there are two kinds of people, those who can extrapolate from missing data and

modern dks derive their complexity from situation-specific applied damage theory, not simple patchwerk boss rotations. the complexity is in understanding how each of your spell’s damage curve works and how it can be best applied to your current situation.

3 Likes
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Those that are completely ignorant of data having not experienced it…

Grow up and look at yourself…

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18

i did grow up, its why i don’t care about pve progression anymore and just enjoy the game. i literally don’t give a :poop: about your weird flex or your toxic gatekeeping. i understand the ins and outs of playing at higher levels just fine without having to actually play it, i’ve played games that are way harder and way more complex than wow.

6 Likes
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Yet your opinions on how Unholy perform is largely unfounded and out of ignorance…

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that statement is largely founded in ignorance and you know it. you haven’t the slightest clue of what im like in PVE because we have never played together.

hit me up on tuesday and maybe we can get you more progression than one boss of LFR.

1 Like
21

No worries, and we can discuss the carry in your only AotC…

Oh, did you pay for that?
Certainly seems like it.

Yet, you seem to defend Unholy’s gameplay, yet only experience one aspect of it…

1 Like
22

nope, that was legit progression from a very casual guild, pretty vapid of you to stoop that low though.

and im plenty experienced in unholy’s gameplay, you need to understand that OP is missing understanding of certain aspects that change how you view and use certain spells, and simply playing at a higher level of pve content doesn’t change anything. OP wants pressing a button to fill him with glee and excitement, when the reality is that unholy is a setup spec. there are classes that have that press button get dopamine model, try one of those.

we all know that raw ST is boring for unholy, but that doesn’t mean we need abilities that have critical uses elsewhere such as pvp or aoe to be gutted. if you want to suggest changes for unholy, build on it to improve the weak areas instead of tearing the foundation out from the areas that are already solid, and for the love of god, no more pruning.

1 Like