Oct 9th: patch 3.3 will change unholy again, back to a spec with reaping, epidemic and a traditional deep unholy build. For Unholy in patch 3.3: read my full analysis.
The below is accurate for patch 3.22
If you’ve been reading Elitist Jerks unholy dps thread, you’ll know this, but many people can’t bear reading those threads so this will be important news. In either case, what I’m bringing is a tank build based on the changes in unholy.
What’s changed is that a few talents which used to be sacrosanct in all unholy builds are no longer:
- epidemic (longer diseases) and reaping (death runes) are not used
- for tanks, epidemic is optional, but reaping is definitely out
- the new rotation is only 10 seconds long.
I have found that a tank build based on this new model generates higher threat than the best I could get out of a traditional unholy build. The analysis of a no-epidemic build has been done by those clever chaps at EJ, and I do not take credit for it, I just offer my adaption for tanking. Probably, for tanks it’ll be no-reaping and deeps will also drop epidemic, but both will do this new short rotation.
Another factor is that in the current endgame, many DK tanks do not value AMS or AMZ. Personally I like to have them for flexibility in all situations, but if you drop them that gives another 4 points you can put into threat talents. The guys at EJ have mixed opinions on it but the weight tends toward dropping them for endgame tanking in return for more threat.
So what is the highest threat 3.22 unholy tank build?
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For Unholy in patch 3.3: read my full analysis.
Sept 28: In 3.22 the below spec is no longer the highest threat unholy build, it’s now with no-epidemic.
October 1st: the below analysis has a major error in the character sheet I used, overweighting attack power. Look at the no-epidemic page for the latest on unholy.
Original post continues:
I did a few simulations of a Death Knight deep Unholy tank build to see how useful the new Subversion and Scourge Strike glyph are. This is using patch 3.22 changes. I also wanted to check the relative values of wandering plague, blood-caked blade, ravenous dead, and epidemic.
Read my conclusion for the highest tps DK unholy spec I could find.
These tests are using Kahorie’s simulator v1.1.1 which knows about the PTR changes. My usual caveats apply and baseline stats used (they’re at the bottom of this post).
Results:
- 2 points in wandering plague are worth the same DPS as 2 in blood-cake blade
- wandering plague is better, however, since it scales with raid buffs, hits AOE, and doesn’t increase boss-parry risk. I didn’t expect it to have been as good as BCB though, that’s good news
- 2 points in subversion is a tiny bit slightly less DPS (~0.9%) than two in wandering plague or BCB, so basically you can consider them equal for tanking purposes
- 2 points in epidemic, when you also have the new SS glyph, is worth less than two in those other talents mentioned; ie. 2.2% less dps when spec’d into epidemic instead of subversion
- I double-checked, plague strike glyph is pathetic. You can’t use it instead of SS glyph and think epidemic is enough.
Can you just use the new SS glyph and have zero in epidemic? They both work to extend disease duration, so do you need both? Here’s what I found:
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Jan 2010: I changed my mind, I like SoB a lot. Ignore the below. - Gravity
Scent of Blood
After some careful thought and a bit of chat with TankSpot on blood tanking, I’m moving my builds away from including the Scent of Blood talent into other talents instead, and putting a bias for Rune Tap (self-heal) into all my blood specs.
Scent of Blood gives you runic power, and it stacks if it procs more than once. I like it because blood otherwise does not generate any additional runic power. You always need RP for our big tank cooldown IBF and for threat on Rune Strike.
SoB talent lets you play a more relaxed style, because the RP is nearly always there for those tanking purposes or DPS with a death coil.
However, by carefully watching your runic power you can save those points and move them into Subversion (for crits), or in fact anywhere else.
I will keep just 1/3 in Scent of Blood in some builds. A tank shouldn’t need more than that. » continue reading
(For Unholy in patch 3.3: read my full analysis.)
Updated to patch 3.22.
Sept 28: note that no-epidemic is now the highest threat tank build. This below post relates to traditional unholy spec.
October 1st: the below analysis had a error in the character sheet I used, overweighting attack power. Look at the no-epidemic or 3.3 posts for the latest on unholy. I have deleted the data that was below and take the below recommendations with caution.
In this simulation I wanted to work out:
- does the Unholy Obliterate tank build beat deep Unholy for tanks? Answer no, but it doesn’t suck as much as I’d expected
- how does an Unholy build compare on single-target to Frost build?
- is Desolation or Bladed Armour better for an Unholy tank?
- how does Unholy-Vot3W stack up now?
Also for 3.22, the highest threat Unholy tanks spec is in this simulation.
» continue reading
Nov 17th 09: Please see my 3.3 Frost DK tank post for latest answers.
There is a DK simulator which I’ve been using to test the various DK tank specs. But it’s a DPS tool, so it has some limitations for my purposes.
Nevertheless it helps answer questions like, “how much does your rotation TPS drop if you use a single-disease with howling blast rather than two-disease with obliterate?” The answer is below.
Other tank classes’ simulation tools
My
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August 12: GC was being sarcastic. Source and Infineon (below) reported it first to me.
Original post, below, is now known to be false.
31 is a lot of bosses to learn. Ghostcrawler said:
“I don’t know that I would say we want tanking niches. I ultimately am agreeing with what you’re saying, but once we say “tanking niches” players have visions of the DK who parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is
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Overview of blood, unholy and frost recommended tank specs.
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