We had a super-smooth ToC-10/Ony-10 run tonight for our 2nd group, earning a few people Salt and Pepper (10) as well as She Deep Breaths More (10) and More Dots! (10). I didn’t have More Dots! so that was pretty exciting.
I was actually pretty lucky in the ToC-10 run since I had won Sunreaver Disciple’s Blade AND Lightbane Focus to replace Perdition. A definite increase in spellpower but a loss of about 1% crit. Definitely worth the trade, IMO.
Some guildies were nice and ran Tômservô through Ramps, Blood Furnace and Shattered Halls to get me from 58-60. I dropped some emblems on the BoA axe and was quite dissapointed when I found out that you couldn’t Rune it. Nowhere does it say that a weapon needs a certain item level to be runed and I couldn’t even return it to the vendor. I filed a ticket so I guess we’ll see how it goes. I’d at least like my emblems back.
I settled on this Unholy leveling build as well. It focuses on doing as much sustained damage as possible and boosting solo potential with Summon Gargoyle, a perma-Ghoul and Bone shield while taking both movement increasing talents (On a Pale Horse and Improved Unholy Presence). The goal is to get from 60 to 80 as fast as possible, right?
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November 12, 2009 at 5:22 AM
Leigh
Keep the axe and enchant crusader on it. With the max end damage on that weapon your 2/3 shotting mobs especially if you stock up on as many 12/14 strength gems (very cheap on most servers AH) and load your gear with them. I used that axe right up to level 80, taking quest reward axe’s for tanking.
I have levelled as all 3 specs along the way, unholy is fun but since the change to Unholy Blight it wasn’t the same for me. For the spec you linked i would be inclined to drop the 2 points in Unholy Presence (you will DPS in blood and the movement increase is meh). Put one point in Corpse Explosion if the AOE route is what your looking at and put one point in Unholy Blight which adds an extra DoT to your target when you death coil them.
They say that Blood is the best to level as with the self healing and lack of downtime, it is good and you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve but I found it boring. As I wanted to tank end game I leveled as a frost tank. I know that frost specced tanks aren’t the proper end game spec but from a leveling point of view they rock. They have the most damage reduction and avoidance stats and their damage is solid, both single point and AoE (Howling blast <3). Basically you can run into a group, tear them a new one and come out with minimal damage, particularly if you stack defense gear along the way. Speed wise it's slightly slower then Unholy but not by much.
Added benefit then of course is your ability to instance as a tank.
/2 cents
November 12, 2009 at 7:33 AM
Abi
Definitely appreciate the 2 cents since this is my first try at leveling a DK beyond the starting zone quests. I took Imp Unholy Presence over Unholy Blight at 60 because UB’s damage was garbage ticking for a whopping 7 or so. I like moving faster between mob kills more than I like dealing 7 damage every few seconds, so it just came down to personal preference. Since Imp Unholy Presence gives me the movement speed buff in Blood and Frost presence, it just seemed a little more practical. Same with Corpse Explosion. I’ll take it eventually but for questing I’m not always in an AoE environment so most of the time it goes unused, but I’m always running around and I want to get from mob A to mob B as fast as possible.
November 13, 2009 at 5:42 AM
Leigh
Yeah speed is of course of the essence when leveling but that’s what Death Grip is for
From 58-60 I went for Blood as it was the leveling spec everyone said to go with. From 61-67 I went for Unholy and the rate of killing things was certainly faster as Unholy Blight at that time was a mobile consecration so pulling 2-3 mobs at a time was the quickest way forward. By the time I got back to Unholy the UB changes happened but I was high enough a level that the DoT aspect was a nice benefit (pestilence diseases, tab to the 2nd target DC him and nuke the first….2nd guy should be on 50% from those DoT’s alone with decent gear). The difference between Unholy and Blood is the downtime, it is noticeable enough especially at lower levels. From 68-80 I went for frost tank spec and never looked back
I did dual spec mid 70’s and took Unholy back but that was more for instance reasons when a group had a higher level tank then me so I could get a spot.
When you hit another few levels and have more talent points to spare take a look into a Frost tank spec, guarantee you won’t look back. High survivability, damage on a par with blood, AoE on a par with Unholy, the best oh **** button in the game (hungering cold!) and practically no down time if you level in tanking gear (cobalt set at 70 ftw)….oh and you can tank any instance without a new rotation to learn!
Sample level 70 spec http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xZhgx0A0I0fzbuzAo0x With that you can tank anything, just keep adding points to the tanking style talents in Unholy (epidemic, morbidity) or the nice Blood DPS/tank ones (2 handed weapon specialization, bladed armor)
November 13, 2009 at 9:23 AM
Abi
That definitely sounds like a lot of fun. I really enjoyed leveling my Warrior as prot, even while questing in Northrend, so maybe I’ll give this spec a shot once I get high enough to pick up the Cobalt set. 1000g is nothing so I’m not against picking up dual spec for a tank and dps build if it’ll make the leveling go faster.