Comments on: Simulation on Unholy Death Knight tank TPS

By: Gravity

Gravity — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:06:36 +0000

Yah I’m pretty sure I tanked Ulduar for one or two runs in Unholy 3.2, and it was fine. In 3.1, yes definitely. I quite like the AMS doing 100% reduction, and with the 4/4 set bonus it’s brilliant to use all the time.

Also I updated this post to include Unholy-vot3W in case anyone else was wondering about it.

By: Bane

Bane — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:49:43 +0000

Yeah it helps. If they’re roughly equal, I think I’ll take Wandering Plague for the AoE utility.

I’m the primary OT in Ulduar and 10 man ToC. Frost feels clunky without the single disease rotation, and Blood, while nice, is not meant to OT with…at least that is not its primary strength. That and it’s messing with my healers when I squeeze my own heals into a seemingly more squishy tank.

Have you tried Unholy in 3.2? Or even 3.1 for that matter? I’m wondering how mitigation compares to the other 2 trees. my damage is just so spiky these days and it seems alternating Bone Armor one minute and IBF the next could help.

Great site, by the way, I got it bookmarked!

By: Gravity

Gravity — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:07:43 +0000

Hi mate, you’re welcome. I think Unholy can do fine threat. It’s only in extreme hard-modes like Hodir you’ll have trouble, but you would in any DK spec. I am not sure yet how to mathematically assign tps% values per talent point. I wish I knew how Methods on EJ did it. I can get EP values easily but that doesn’t help decisions like Wandering Plague -vs- Bladed Armour per point.

So that said, I took 2 points out of Dodge and stuck them into Wandering Plague. The damage then became this:
Wandering Plague, total 39623552, 3.5%, 991.4 average damage
DPS 3136

So each talent point earned about 1% increase in damage overall.

Then I took those two points from W Plague and put them into Black Ice instead (so it just has 1/3 wandering plague)
DPS 3146
which is as you’d expect, it’s about the same DPS% per point as WPlague.

I hope that helps.

By: Bane

Bane — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:09:15 +0000

Wow, thanks for trying that out! One more question. What about 3/5 in Bladed Armor and 5/5 in Black Ice? It’s possible to do it by leaving only 50 points in Unholy, if one is willing to give up Wandering Plague.

I’ve been dual spec tanking as Frost and Blood and I really want to return to Unholy despite the naysayers. It’s primary weakness was single target threat in 3.1. If that can hold its own, I like the mitigation of Bone Armor (especially as one gets over 40% avoidance) and the freedom in the rotations with Glyph of Scourge Strike.

Thanks again for your theorycrafting!

By: Gravity

Gravity — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:50:08 +0000

I simulated it, by moving 5 bladed armour into 5 black ice as you suggested. Good idea. Result DPS was 3058, again about the same, very slightly less, as the first deep unholy test on this post.

The average damage for abilities changed to:
Scourge Strike 4371.4 (up nearly 5% as you'd expect) Main hand 1976.8 (down 7%) Death coil 3002.9 (about the same) Fevers 993 (about the same).

So this shows why bladed armour is a good tanking talent. For DPS, you would find it a weak talent. The difference is a tank has ~25K armour, a DPSer has ~15K.

By: Bane

Bane — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:49:38 +0000

What about taking Black Ice over Bladed Armor? I have heard of some success with an 8/13/50 build with 3/5 Bladed Armor and 5/5 Black Ice.

Considering how much of Unholy’s damage is magic, it stands to reason Black ice would generate more TPS than a nerfed Bladed Armor.

Thanks and great work!