With more than 3-4 targets, the only class/spec in the game that is close to unholy is arcane mage.
This is because you have three diseases that are fully buffed by talents that are spread almost instantly to all mobs in the area with pestilence.
You can aoe with unholy with a rolling disease spec, or the 'traditional' 3.2.2 spec discussed in the Elitist Jerks forums; it shouldn't make a dramatic difference.
For large trash packs like Onyxia's whelps, here's the plan.
1. Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Pestilence. Now all mobs will have frost fever, blood plague, and ebon plague including the magic damage debuff. This is important to do first rather than D&D, because now when you do D&D, your damage receives the ebon plague boost.
2. Death and Decay. All mobs are now receiving maximum aoe damage, all runes are on cooldown.
3. Death Coil.
Tab target, repeat.
That's it. DON'T blood boil. Why? Because you have to use blood runes, and you need one blood rune for pestilence, and the other Death & Decay.
But there's a cooldown on D&D you say? Yes, so if you time it right, you might get one blood boil in. And if you do, more power to you. But don't mess up the very basic IT > PS > Pest > D&D rotation. This simple little sequence is the reason unholy is so powerful, particularly with 4piece T9 bonus. If you get this down, your guild will have a hand of sac/bubble rotation ready, because it will be almost impossible for the add tank to keep all the whelps off you.
For mobs that have trash around them like Lord Jaraxxus when infernals are out or Anub'Arak, then rolling diseases have an additional benefit from allowing you to maintain a normal rotation on the boss with scourge strike and pestilence. With 2 or more adds and the boss, however, I'd give up a scourge strike and blood strike to Death and Decay - theorycrafting has shown it's a dps gain.
So that's it. For 3.2.2, we're hard to beat.
Consider and others are posting on 3.3, and I may discuss that here at some point, but for now, this is the way to go.
Thanks for the post :) I put out some decent AoE with my blood spec on ony's whelps the other day, but I'll have to try unholy next time just for fun.
ReplyDeleteThe WoL report is a lot of fun to look at afterwards lol (link below) My DK is Kenelm on Silvermoon.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/zi718oek2ki8cl1q/sum/damageDone/?s=8647&e=9089
I first started reading your blog a bit ago when I saw a link from another DK site (can't remember which). I'm very thankful for your post about BleedingHearts, I have no idea how I survived without it before, especially when I was frost DW and rolling diseases. I use it in conjunction with power auras to see when all my procs are up and it's good to pop CD's/DRW/reapply diseases. I can send a screenie or vid sometime if you'd like :)
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI agree, when I'm doing 5-mans now I get annoyed because bleeding hearts only works in raids. :)
I use tiny melee stats too but it's a poor substitute. ;)
My top sustained dps for Ony is 14k for a full kill, where second dps was at 8k. Dps numbers are hard to compare apples to apples, but the highest I've done as blood on Ony is under 10k.
Wol is ok certainly, and I'm always interested in looking those over. My guild uses wowmeteronline. Both are excellent at looking over the details of your performance well beyond what recount provides. (for those who haven't seen them, it will give drill-down detail even of very spell/attack used).
Pretty sure there is an option in BH to turn it on in raids/groups/all the time. I have mine showing all the time so I know you can at least do that.
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks Kev.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to figure that out! I definitely want it on for 5-mans as well.