DW Unholy DK Discussion (Feat. Whitewolf)

[@justlikeyourfathersaid]

This dude joined a 25hc with my guild and i thought was a joke, he wiped the floor with us

[@chrisk2557]

Thanks for the timely and unique content, Rugs! I don't know if I'm good enough to dual wield competitively, lol, but I always love hearing two titans sharing a huge wealth of knowledge from their experiences. Viva WotLK!

[@NerfBarb69]

Rugs! Thank you and WW so much for this content! I’m a super big fan of your frost DK POV videos, I would LOVE if you could mirror all the phase one boss fights in UH DK and post them!

[@Tems_Aly]

Yo Rugs, Tems here! Great video to enjoy in particular for me as in original Wotlk I was among 2 others that largely pushed for dw UH from t9 onwards on ElitistJerks forums, it was a blast to play, but it the number of followers were not as big as there were on Pservers. Also worth noting that I was raiding in a top20 world guild, so there's a limit to how much you can meme, but it preformed REALLY solid to the point that I had the first 2x Anub HC 1h axes

[@Rugsz]

That's actually really cool! If you have any OLD forums posts about it, I'd be happy to include them in the description of this video as just an additional documentation of the history of the spec.

[@Tems_Aly]

@@Rugsz I'll try to check archived posts and let you know, but I still have most of the info/memory regarding that spec

[@MrPyrhus]

Unholy DK really took off near the end of Wotlk and was the number one dps spec in the game in early Cata (before a nerf). Glad to see it!

[@lachlanrobertson7109]

Would love to see a visual or written demonstration of this rotation so I could then practice and test it

[@bfdright9529]

Sick vids, sooooo looking forward to my one love DK!

[@ns-tech1304]

Rugs MVP greetings Grieflord from Whitemane.

[@lolpaladins]

Even though I played DK to 80 on warmane, it was hard to follow the first 20 minutes or so of the video. For questions at the end, I would have appreciated a slightly slower start to the video, such as "why dual wield" and then "how to" dual wield, such as a basic talent build so we could see how it differs from the basic dual wield unholy

[@Rugsz]

I think those questions will certainly be answered when Whitewolf releases his guide

[@Whositlover]

@@Rugsz do you know where and when he would release it?

[@Rugsz]

@@Whositlover nope, but I'll share the link in the description of this video once it's out.

[@Whositlover]

@@Rugsz you da best thank you!

[@FilmGates]

Blood-Caked Blade so far on the Beta. Offhand procs proc an attack with the Offhand, Mainhand procs proc an attack with the Mainhand. FYI

[@FilmGates]

Yeah, unfortunate for the DW UH dream. But it doesn't kill it completely. Anything else you'd like me to test?

[@Canbilly2]

FINALLY. been waiting for this. LET'S GO!

[@martinwieslander4066]

Where can you find the discord metioned?

[@dovideliezer]

Guide when!?

[@vaels5682]

What a legend. Makes a lot of sense, very cool

[@adamgrabowski938]

Awsome stuff, definitely going to give it a go

[@bbing5574]

Awesome to see Whitewolf explain dual weild unholy. He's super friendly in-game and has helped us with this build in Frostmourne. I’ve never switched to any other DK builds since then. The big challenge is that raid leads and even guilds won’t be happy when they see dw unholy. I always switch to 2h during pug inspects and would share this interview vid to my guild. Not a perfect rotation and neither a guide but just some idea around the build: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKHJpKmuppxpZ68

[@gabes.1882]

Flexibility like this is something I enjoy, I've been watching all your dk videos as I'm thinking of trying my hand at tanking as blood in wotlk as well as OS unholy or frost and I saw your recommended was troll and it does make sense my only thing is I absolutely hate the male troll 2h animations lol so knowing that unholy has a potential at DW makes me feel a lot better about my choice going forward. Side note what does wep progression for blood look like? is it purely 2h or is their some DW options for that as well? (of course I could just pop a deviate delight when I gotta 2h things)

[@Rugsz]

I have an extended video on my channel where I talk about DW wep options for blood (among a LOT of other topics regarding blood DK). I’d recommend checking that out

[@gabes.1882]

@@Rugsz yeah I realized after this comment xD popping open the 2nd half here now haha ty ty

[@redrav4233]

so what are the talents?

[@oOYeTTiOo]

why does scourge strike suck early on ?

[@michaelwest3250]

Hey rugs, really loving the wrath content. I was wondering what your thoughts are on how wrath will effect the world first race for classic? From your p server experience do you think we will see world first guilds progressing on bosses in any tiers or will it continue to be cleared with one shot kills like we’ve seen in classic so far?

[@Rugsz]

Great question Michael. I think it’s inevitable that guilds will 100% progress on a 0% ICC with week 1 gear. It’ll be an amazing sight to see to watch the best guilds race for that. And as for Ulduar we will definitely see some progression. Unfortunately even some of the fights that can be pretty difficult, can be one shot by guilds who are prepared and spend a large amount of time on the PTR. I’m thinking about Freya HM and Firefighter in particular-super hard fights that will likely be one shot by a few elite guilds. Then Algalon could certainly give some people trouble (1-3 wipes for the elite) and Yogg0 will 100% be a progression fight & race

[@michaelwest3250]

@@Rugsz that’s awesome, I was hoping you would say that! Would be really cool to see a video of you discussing this with someone from one of those top guilds :)

[@lukeshort8027]

Maybe I missed this but, if I’m running Orc DW Unholy. Do you have a pre-bis and bis list for weps?

[@Skillzen1337]

Let me know when Whitewolf drops his guide! :D

[@LenweBenwe]

Love the video, a little feedback for Whitewolf - would be great if you could slow down how fast you speak, when you are going this in-depth. A lot of the time it's hard to follow everything you say, because you say it so fast. Take it from someone who is also a speedtalker

[@S4SM4X]

Amazing, where can I get update of DW guide? I almost gave up unholy due to terrible scripting in server I played, but this makes it fun again.

[@Kosme88]

@@ArtemMalian Cool. Is it a video or are you posting it on a forum or something? I'm tired of DW frost but I don't like 2H dps, can't wait.

[@S4SM4X]

@@ArtemMalian Tons of questions, as basic as d&d and disease are not affected by haste afaik, then how is haste so valuable in your build?.. Can't wait to learn your theory.

[@mathiasgerard5948]

Hi mate! Great content! When Will you post the Frost DK vid you talked about?

[@XxLyrokxX98]

HYPED

[@NiceStoryBro1312]

the guide is not here yet ? =p =p (i love the content !)

[@carlmia305]

does it unholy dw do more damage then frost dk ????

[@brandonkruse6412]

I can’t wait to tell my guild that when an ICC one-hand weapon drops, I need this for my Frost off-spec while *actually* wanting it to test for UH DW 😂 Please make a follow-up video with Whitewolf soon going through a build guide!

[@flexwheeler707]

be extra sneaky cuz u want a fast offhand :p

[@bbing5574]

@Brandon Kruse that does work but you do need a Scourgeborn Waraxe which is a BiS offhand for the dw unholy spec on ICC which is not a frost DK item. I got mine from joining with pugs and being lucky 😅

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@bbing5574 i have 284 glorenzelg on my dk and 4/5 t10 conq, i think any combo of 1h weapons at this point would be a dps loss

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@bbing5574 also i would never take an agi weapon from a rogue or hunter that needed it lol

[@bbing5574]

@@brandonkruse6412 maybe not? Unless you have shadowmourne 😄

[@joshdavis4219]

bro where is this guide at son

[@Sid11358]

Basic talent build and tradeoffs would be nice. What % DPS increase is expected and how hard is the rotation? What's the penalty (% DPS loss) for messing up?

[@rmellmore]

It's honestly boring af

[@esuvii]

Wow I had no idea about this! The gearing being very similar to 2H UH, aside from weapons/meta, means I'm definitely going to be giving this a chance come Classic! I love that there's still things out there that are only just being discovered. It will be super exciting to see what other specs and optimisations people will figure out to squeeze more DPS out during Classic Wrath.

[@Tutel0093]

Playing Lordaeron Warmane as DkBlood Tank I'm close to buy something with my frozen emblems Which gear should I go with those top tier emblems?

[@brandonkruse6412]

Save for tier 10 or buy the 264 tank trinket

[@Tutel0093]

@@brandonkruse6412 you mean the key? the pure dmg absortion?

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@Tutel0093 that’s correct

[@achromatic8637]

Do you plan on doing a pre raid bis video for unholy DK? Would love to see what my options are outside of SWP items!

[@akasaylo7330]

Can you Share this Guys Twitch or what ever he has, so we can follow him? Couldnt find anything about him

[@bbing5574]

www.twitch.tv/whitewolf2077

[@shadowspyes]

do you see any possibility of running blood dps in T10 with ArP?

[@FrazierHarcrow]

Let's go Rugs. Unholy DK is daddy!

[@adamb718]

Do you happen to have a link to the build whitewolf is using?

[@ThePsychosense]

This is a great video for people who already know a lot about Dks but feels very hard to follow as someone who is trying to recall wrath DKs

[@Grenzwolf18]

Would love to know whether this is just for raids or also viable during leveling and dungeons =) Lets hope the guide has some information on that^^

[@vaels5682]

Should be great for dungeon and leveling

[@Zikkar]

It isn’t for raids at all. It won’t be a thing at all on retail. Go read an actually guide from retail on Unholy from Consider who was THE Unholy DK back original wraith. Two handed Unholy is the only way to go unless the devs make some huge change

[@foreshadow9194]

I remember playing DW unholy for a period back in Vanilla.

[@FilmGates]

Never played DK before. This makes me want to play it, even if only for testing on Frostmourne season 3

[@max7971]

Great video, big fan of these in-depth discussions about class mechanics and theorycrafting. Any chance to see affli one in the future?

[@nadirehsvm]

whats the stackiest 10 and 25 raids? could you do a 15 dk or 15 lock raid efficiently?

[@НикитаХоштария-й8я]

Actually I’m trying now ,found it’s hard to maintain rotation and all procs up ,but I found this exciting ,want to ask is it good idea to put 3/3 talents in Reaping from Necrotic ?

[@НикитаХоштария-й8я]

@@ArtemMalian I rewatched video and fixed rotation ty

[@jasKSG]

Hello Rugs. i love your channel since i discovered it. I know i want to main a DK in WoTLK but i cannot decide about the spec (Frost v Unholy) - can you tell me when should i start when comparing those both - can both be decent dps (not nec. top every tier but significant raid wide) ? are the rotations much different

[@joshholmes1372]

Informative video but the volume levels might need normalizing

[@Golemagg]

Where can I find a guide ? He has discord?

[@Canbilly2]

When will we see the talent setup for this spec?

[@HzDBordel]

So in OG Wotlk we went DW unholly after reaching ceratin itemlevel in ICC , where it surpassed the 2h..

[@freezax4]

It never does pass 2h. The loss of haste kills the dmg however it does well in pvp. Duelwield does about 5-8% lower dmg. Very fun tho

[@amoslatham2673]

its good but not sure you will be playing this as the meta doesn't stand still and fight but on bosses where they don't move it will be good

[@NurseCD]

WTB talent spread

[@MrDonAndrucha]

is the aggro with 2h weapon with icy touch more than with 2x 1hand ?

[@brandonkruse6412]

Icy Touch isn’t affected by weapon damage in terms of threat if you’re asking about tanking. You’ll want to go 2H Blood for tanking.

[@MrDonAndrucha]

@@brandonkruse6412 but u can use 2x 1hand for the stats too or not

[@FrazierHarcrow]

How do you feel about Reaping as a talent?

[@flexwheeler707]

for dw totally useless

[@FrazierHarcrow]

@@flexwheeler707 well of course. Scourge hits like a wet noodle and you only use one scourge every 3rd cycle w dualweild. But since 2h goes blood sub in t7 taking subversions. Its hard to tell without sims if reaping is even worth, or If blood caked is worth. ~5 min intervals bcb is barely 1% single dps per talent. Reaping gives you an extra scourge extra dc and less globals per rotation block, however less weapon hits to proc bcb and necro due to less blood strikes. I can't sim it myself so I've been trying to ask around. No one can answer this on dk discord any rugs videos etc.

[@flexwheeler707]

@@FrazierHarcrow i honestly doubt reaping build in T7 would be good but i wouldnt take it out of bcb , maybe points from necrosis

[@FrazierHarcrow]

@@flexwheeler707 thinking dirge or unholy blight after some testing. Well see

[@sickwicked6640]

Hey Rugsz loving the content! Would really like to see a video on your thoughts to what off spec or 2nd talent specialization players should run based off their class. IE: Main tank (prot pally) with a Off spec (ret) as opposed to having a (heal) spec. I know alot of this can be subjective or can depend on if the player balances PvP and PvE. However I would like to hear your thoughts on what your opinion for off specs for all classes in your raid ! thanks alot Keep up the great stuff

[@OneYoumark]

Yeah I’ve never played Dk but it would be great if you could do an overview of what he is saying and what spec would replicate this. Thanks 🙏

[@OneYoumark]

@@ArtemMalian awesome thank you can’t wait !

[@esuvii]

@@ArtemMalian looking forward to it!

[@Jvstm]

Pretty sure dual wield DK stopped being played back in the day because the talent reorganization moved Improved Icy Talons farther down in the tree so you lost a flat 5% Haste

[@Tdiehl717]

Does he make YT content ?

[@CoolWzzrd]

so kinda sounds like DW unholy is overly complicated for little gain to the point where focusing on trying to use the right abilities at the right time will lead to mistakes both in your rotation and in performing boss mechanics.

[@personalowlbear5897]

It’s for people that got bored of playing meta DK for 12 years on private servers : )

[@emregocmen9562]

It's really good but it's really bad in another way when you fuck up 1 ability your dps is already down the drain. If you fail the opener it's gg so I'd rather not play this 'complicated' spec

[@PaulSanz63]

lol why he saying rogue is meme?

[@Zikkar]

This may work on private serves with all the bugs and changes they have but unless they change something BIG on retail it will not be a thing. From Considers Unholy guide on Elities Jerks from original and his QA section of the guide. A patch or two ago, Unholy DW was pretty much neck and neck with Unholy 2H, yet I no longer see it listed as a viable build. What happened? Scourge Strike. As Unholy, it all comes down to SS these days, especially as gear progresses. SS simply does not scale with a one hander as well as a two hander, for obvious reasons.

[@Expletive1200]

Working my way through the vid, but so far this makes me think of a very short time at the begining of Cataclysm where dw UH was significantly outperforming all other dk builds and specs (I can't recall if it was due to a bug or whatever, but I think it had something to do with your off hand autos proccing Sudden Doom. You needed really good gear to make it work tho). But regardless, Blizz didn't like it and hotfixed it out. Given that most Wrath servers operate on the final Wrath patch, aka the patch right before Cata, and I don't recall dk's being completely retooled in that time, it makes sense that dw uh would be viable.

[@TheOnlyGBeast]

the thing that made DW unholy good in early cata was the fact that sudden doom procced off of MH and OH autos, which was nerfed to be MH only. Sudden Doom is a blood talent in wotlk, so that logic does not hold here

[@Expletive1200]

Gotcha

[@figuures6098]

While in TBC i enjoyed Kebab Arms warrior, I don't think i would do DW Unholy, just feels dirty haha

[@j4x3r]

Next video 2h Frost ! :D

[@c2thewick]

I'm going to play

[@broken-gy1kw]

interesting, but really hard to follow as some1 that hasent played wotlk since the OG days, would help alot if you included pics of items/talents and shit referenced

[@PrinceofDarknis]

Let's go :D

[@oliverschneider7489]

if Unholy should go Dual wield, do they do more damage than frost dps?

[@bbing5574]

Frost dps still do more damage on long fights with single targets but dual weild unholy can have bigger initial burst damage. With raid buffs, they are very close. Based on experience

[@brandonkruse6412]

I just can’t see DW Unholy being much more than a meme spec and inferior frost. UH doesn’t have enough support for DW like frost does with Threat of Thessarian. If it works, that’s cool but definitely not BiS at any gearing point.

[@vaels5682]

Maybe listen to the video. Scourge strike is unimpressive and you just drop it from the rotation, so what on earth do you need Threat of Thessarian for?

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@vaels5682 I didn’t say you needed the talent, I said that Unholy doesn’t have support talents for a DW spec like Frost does. Rugs made a good point, too. The build is a tad ambitious and you have to do too many things at once to get it to work… that’s because Unholy is naturally suited for a slow 2H. Not tying to rain on anyone’s parade, but the Wrath meta has been solved for years. Gnimo is the local DK expert, if he’s not recommending people play DW Unholy, it’s because it’s not BiS. I’m not saying that you *cannot* play a meme spec in Wrath, because 30-buff ICC allows you to have more flexibility with your raid comps. ICC isn’t as hardcore as Ulduar. I just wouldn’t say things like “DW UH is BiS until Shadowmourne” because he doesn’t have the math to back that up. He has his personal meters playing against other players that may not have been playing their class optimally. If you want more credibility, put your build up against the best UHDKs on the realm and see how it stacks up.

[@Rugsz]

I think Brandon makes a great point & I believe a healthy skepticism is warranted. I'm personally going to mess around with the spec/rotation more on my own before I publicly endorse it as BiS, but I cannot overstate how much fun it was to interview Whitewolf about this. That guy really poured a ton of man hours into the development and optimization of this build and I think his work and current output on dps meters has earned our attention. At the end of the day, the DW Unholy dream is really just an awesome new way to play the class that I love so I'm just pumped to see it not suck. Now the question for all of us is, do we think Whitewolf is correct that it's bis? Maybe! Haha it's not a simple yes/no at the moment. I just love it

[@oliverschneider7489]

@@Rugsz it was unclear to me in the video (i might have missed it) but is Whitewolf out performing traditional frost DKs with this build or just 2H unholy? (i remember he said the only unholy DK to "beat" him had the lego weapon. As an aside, how do i find the DK discord server? Thanks

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@Rugsz I’ve had some time to think about all of this and I’m starting to open up to this a lot more. I often get defensive when people say “this is BiS” and it’s entirely out in left field and hasn’t been endorsed by the class experts. However… I’m starting to get the idea that this build has been something in the works and not spoken about outside of Discord because someone like Gnimo isn’t going to just come out and recommend it until the math is shown and the testing has been done extensively. It’s kind of exciting that we’re still seeing innovation and strange ideas work out in what was thought to be a solved meta. I would love to see a follow-up video in the future where you and Whitewolf make an extensive guide covering talents, glyphs, gems, stats, rotation and gear priorities. I’d love to try this out on my DK main, I’m always looking for something new to try but I want to wait until the info is organized in a guide.

[@TheOnlyGBeast]

really hard sell without actual data being provided. I will of course wait to see your guide, but back then I was often beating people and topping/near topping damage in ICC with a frost mage but I would not have the gall to claim it to be a top spec on any front. simple fact is that relying on diseases, coil, D&D and blood boil to do your damage is just gonna be tough to believe as a viable spec without providing data

[@brandonkruse6412]

I would suggest watching WhiteWolf’s single target fights in Naxx. 12k dps in 3.8k gs is pretty impressive, that’s on buffed Naxx fights too without any execute abilities. The thing about this spec is, you’re still playing Unholy at the end of the day, so it’s not a meme spec, just a different way of building the class. The main benefit for playing DW is that it out performs all other DK variants (both frost and uh) on progression.. it needs less gear than 2H UH. Once you get into ICC, that gap becomes less and eventually 2H will become BiS, but that’s not until Shadowmourne

[@TheOnlyGBeast]

@@brandonkruse6412 which again you have no way of proving that it empirically out performs all other DK specs. damage meters from naxx prove nothing

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@TheOnlyGBeast Watch him play the build for yourself. I’m not sure how you expect someone to do 13k on a buffed patchwork fight in pre Naxx gear and think that any other DK could even come close to that. Your second best specs are Assassination and Frost and they’re nowhere close.

[@TheOnlyGBeast]

@@brandonkruse6412 I mean there's any number of explanations as to why someone's dps could be substantially higher, and you are just not convincing me that you're doing to do top notch dps with the skills that DW UH allegedly relies on. one of many explanations is pserver jank, which is what I am leaning to. mark my words this will *not* be a thing in wotlk classic

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@TheOnlyGBeast I see a couple of things wrong here and this is the last thing I’m going to say, because no offense, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’d watched the video, the build creator goes into great detail in the differences between dual-wield and the benefits. One being, one of Unholy’s main rotation abilities (plague strike) is *very* bad pre-ICC. Once you start stacking crit and a little bit of armor pen with the addition of 4pt10, that’s where your big single target physical hits start to scale. As Whitewolf mentioned, you have access to no armor pen and very little crit chance in T7/T8, both things Unholy needs to scale in both single target and big AoE (with t9 especially) so he changed the build up, changed the itemization, rotation and glyphs. Dropped a couple spells early and changed up the rotation. I think you’re missing the point as to why this build is so good. It’s not that it’s going to be the BiS theoretical damage that Unholy can output, it’s that on fresh, progression servers (which is what Classic will be and on Frostmourne where he’s tested this for over a year) this build fixes everything wrong with Unholy at low tiers where itemization isn’t good. I don’t care if you believe me or not personally, Whitewolf has hours of archived videos on his Twitch showing that the build pumps on buffed Naxx. As for your comment on private servers, you’re clearly misinformed there too. If you knew anything about Warmane, you’d know that while there are a few uncertainties, the scripting is pretty close to perfect and we have world of logs data to prove it. tldr; dw unholy has proven results, it’s not only viable, it’s mathematically the best DK dps until late ICC because it doesn’t rely on the gear as heavily as the traditional 2H Unholy build does. watch the videos for yourself if you don’t believe me, the Wrath meta has been changing for many years because the players like Whitewolf have been doing the math and testing. It’s very much been a thing for a while now on private servers, especially Frostmourne. If it’s not a *thing* in Classic, it’s because most Classic players aren’t spending times in Wrath theorycrafting discords. There’s one person you can trust for all things DK in Wrath, his name is Gnimo. If he gives something DK related a stamp of approval, it’s because he’s confirmed the math behind it. Feel free to Google Gnimo on the Warmane forums, he’s best DK mind in the community.

[@kriscotter8545]

After watching some Of your vidz feel like Me dk going to just be duel wield for frost unholy and blood lol.

[@aksel9518]

Whitewolf is tha best

[@eli64311]

Huge brain

[@lulomg1]

DW will be troll in classic

[@zugzug4127]

if you skip the first 5 mins of self-adulation it starts having some nice info in it

[@IronZheka]

Very interesting information and absolutely awful organisation of the video. We don't see the talent tree and it even takes us 19 min to learn that the main damaging ability is DnD.

[@omertablythex]

This is a discussion, not a guide. If you read the description, it states that Whitewolf's guide will be linked there when it is made.