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Immer
Gentleman
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join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

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Immer

Premium Member

[Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

There is little point to making a huge guide for the new classes, given the new talent system. All of the complicated cookie-cuttering has been baked into the class specialty. What we can discuss are the glyphs and talents, their synergies, and how we employ them given encounter design. After a quick DS10 normal run, I thought I'd start this Death Knight Discussion.

Blood:
General thoughts: Game play hasn't changed all that much... and we shouldn't have expected a big change since GC's comments about tanking changes were basically, "we got it right with Death Knights... now we just need to make it that way for the other tanks". Having said that, I am not happy with the new rune regeneration paradigm. I loved having blood tap AND runic empowerment at my disposal... I never had to worry about micro-managing my runes so that I'd have an available death strike. The problem with the old paradigm, was that our threat was just gross. If we were the OT, we really needed to throttle back to avoid taking threat back... and it gave other tanks heartburn at times. So now, we have to micro-manage our runes, otherwise we can get caught without a death strike for 5~6 seconds. The simple change of how our runes regenerate fixed the threat issue.

Talents
Tier 1: Roiling Blood is my primary talent choice for dungeons and add duty in raids (Blood duty on Spine/Madness). Unholy Blight is better for trash packs in a raid (because of the 1.5min CD, it's better to have some time between pulls. If there is no downtime, then Roiling Blood tends to work better. For Main tanking, I recommend taking Plague Leech and using it when outbreak is off CD so that you will have death runes up for death strikes. This talent will augment the Tier 5 Rune Regen talents, to keep your healers from freakin' out on ya.
Tier 2: Lichborne is what it always has been. A great survival CD (self heals via death coil) and a performance CD (immunity to stun). Anti-Magic Zone is an awesome raid utility... better than it was before when it was an UH only talent. The zone can now be placed where you need it. We used it in our Madness fight just like we use Barrier. Worked like a charm. I haven't used Purgatory. It will probably reign supreme for progression tanks... buying their healers an extra 3 seconds to heal them from a fatal blow, once very 3 minutes. For now, I think it's too passive for my taste, and would rather have a tank that uses Lichbourne pro-actively.
Tier 3: This is a utility tier. I usually run with Death's Advance and just use it like the human racial ability. Chilblains is useful for kite-tanking, and Asphyxiate is just cool... but nothing we are doing now really needs it.
Tier 4: I run with Death Pact. It doesn't kill your ghoul, just gives you 50% of his health. I haven't tested the other 2 talents. I don't like Death Siphon heals for enough and I'm not comfortable enough yet with rune management to play with Conversion.
Tier 5: The Rune Regeneration Tier. Initially, I was all about Runic Empowerment... until I started raiding. Sure, it maths out to more runes per fight... but they rarely happened when I needed them, which left me eating a few stomps without a Death Strike available. Blood Tap is the better choice, because you decide when to fire it off. With this talent, your Rune Strikes and Death Coils (as dmg not heals) build blood stacks. You need 5 stacks to activate a death rune, 10 stacks to activate 2, and they need to be depleted. Blood stacks cap at 12, so when you hit 12 burn your available death strikes and then use it.

Glyphs
I love Anti-Magic Shell and Vampiric Blood. IBF lets you use it twice as often, but it also turns a 12 sec buff into a 4 sec buff. Buyer beware.

Mr Fel
INTJ - The Architect
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Mr Fel

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Kept thinking Roiling Blood caused my diseases to refresh in addition to triggering Pestilence, realized I was off when I read this. Did a little digging and found out Scarlet Fever does that. I had selected Roiling Blood thinking I'd be able to keep my diseases up without the need to use the Glyph of Outbreak, turns out that would have happened anyway without using that talent. I am going to definitely respec from that to Plague Leech. As far as Roiling Blood doing its thing with adds and dungeon work, it works great.

I'm in the same boat about Runic Empowerment, was waiting to see if anyone else felt the same way about. Going to respec that out for Blood Tap as well.

Immer
Gentleman
Premium Member
join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

Immer

Premium Member

Tanked some heroic DS last night (only 2 bosses)... and I decided I do not care for Plague Leech. I absolutely LOVE Blood tap. Once you get in a rhythm of building blood stacks and popping BT at 11 or 12 stacks, what happens is anytime you think to use Plague Leech, it won't fire because you don't have a rune fully depleted. So, I'd rather only have to worry about gaming my runes for Deathstrike, not for a side ability that is used for Deathstrike, you know what I mean? Anyway, I'll be switching back to Roiling Blood for as long as I have BT (which... I mean... isn't going to change anytime soon).
Immer

Immer

Premium Member

Click for full size
don't parse my stuff, yo! ;)
Okay, I got some excellent, fantabulous, WeakAura Strings from Theck's post at SacredDuty.Net for my Pally, Warrior, and DK. Love them. So, I thought I'd share a screenshot.

s1deout
Geek4Life
Premium Member
join:2003-12-10
Troy, OH

s1deout

Premium Member

I got those too. It is some good stuff.

Get Shadowed Unit Frames . I love that addon.

Immer
Gentleman
Premium Member
join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

Immer

Premium Member

I had it and really liked how it looked, but don't need it. I use the blizzard raid frame and a 25M fits between my character & target, and my action bars. The only raid frame modifier I use is "raidframesImproved" which makes the heal bar fill up the name bar also.
Immer

Immer

Premium Member

Frost is gross. once again, unholy takes a back seat to frost.

Maxxh
join:2011-05-17
Boston, MA

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At first I didn't understand the tool tip for Purgatory, but after using it a little bit in BG's I got a good idea of how it worked. Now in raid situations I've come to really find its really useful, and even though its passive its something you can be proactive about using. Say if a healer is dropping the ball and letting me go down past 25 % I pop my ghoul and hit Vampiric Blood and death pact. Now if I died and I'm in my 3'second Purgatory this will be more than enough to get me back on my feet. ghoul VB and DP is pretty much a lay on hands nowadays. Purgatory just gives you that extra 3 seconds. Its also really good for farming mass mobs in Dread Wastes for Motes.

Endbringer
join:2012-10-07
Fishers, IN

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as a Blood Tank i picked the following talents:
Blood Boil (absolutely a must to quickly spread and keep your diseases up
Purgatory (its saved my a$$ a few times now)
Asphyxiate (not the best for raid bosses but the whole tier is kinda trash imo)
Death Pact (didnt like this one at first but it goes well with Purgatory if i use with a DS all so)
Runic Corruption (more runic power = more attacks while your waiting on a rune)
Gorefiends Grasp (kind of an extra Death Grip and very good when you have more then one caster staying back or if you lose control of a mob and death grip is on cool down)

as for my rotation and why - i normally pull with death grip (have the glyph for an extra 5 feet) smack them with a IT and PS and by this time the other mobs have found their way to us...then i pop 2 blood boils to grab the agroo and slap out a death strike for i have taken some damage by this time...then i move into slapping my runic strikes (2-3) and by that time i have 1 unholy and 1 frost rune up and 2 blood...i will use another DS and pop 4 Blood Boils in a row and then another couple runic strikes and then 2 more death runes are up and i start popping them...usually this time i can get 6- blood boils off and by the time im done i have a DS ready to go and then i repeat the DS - Blood Boils with Runic Strikes in between and do this over and over again...i know its a long rotation but i do the same thing each pull and havent had trouble

when ever a free D&D pops i use it and BB of course and just to make up the time on the rotation with an extra RS

i have noticed alot of people talk about Heart Strike and use Blood Boil just to refresh but i NEVER use Heart Strike (why would i want to hit just 3 people when i could hit them all, especially since im normally the OT and the damage is very close)

IT,PS,BB,BB,DS,RS,RS,DS (first round)(BB,BB,BB,BB,RS,RS,BB,BB,DS,DS,RS,RS,RS)(repeating round)

some times for extra epicness i will pop a Empower Rune Weapon after my 2 DS for 8 BB in a row (the 2 blood runes are back up again by the time you use the 6 BB's and a few RS's) most the time i hold it back for the oh sh!t moment

DK's are AOE GODS but in single target i have found it very difficult to hold agroo so still working/looking on a good rotation (any out there?)

if your soloing something then you may want to spread your DS apart to get more benefit from them

Immer
Gentleman
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Evans, GA

Immer

Premium Member

That's great that you get so much utility out of Runic Corruption. I'm still firmly in the Blood Tap camp. I'll have to re-evaluate my position on Purgatory when I start raiding. For now it looks like I'll be swapping out this tier the most often based on what I'm tanking.

Endbringer
join:2012-10-07
Fishers, IN

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to be honest Runic Corruption is the only one i tried in the tier but its working for me so i never tried the others...
Endbringer

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is there a single target rotation for blood that someone is successful with?

thought about going frost on single targets but stay in blood presence, not sure if that would be a good idea lol

Immer
Gentleman
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join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

Immer

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said by Endbringer:

is there a single target rotation for blood that someone is successful with?

Is threat your main concern here? Single target (I read "boss") rotation should be to always keep a DS available and actually wait for a hit to land before firing DS. BS, Horn, AMS (if you know that one of the boss's first couple of strikes will be spell) then run in, Outbreak, RS/HS for threat and get ready to build up a blood shield (DS).
said by Endbringer:

thought about going frost on single targets but stay in blood presence, not sure if that would be a good idea lol

Would not recommend it. You lose Vengeance if you are not in a tanking spec, DS won't do anything for you... just... bad.

Endbringer
join:2012-10-07
Fishers, IN

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im not having threat issues on a single target but as a DK tank i have 2 goals for myself...hold threat and out dps everyone which in a AOE scenario is not a problem for me but my single target damage output is weak...I will try in tonight's raid to switch out BB for HS on the single target bosses and see if there is a difference but it was my understanding that the damage from HS is very close to the damage of BB and they where interchangeable
Cptbeatstix
join:2011-12-21
Carrollton, TX

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I don't see enough keybinds on those bars sir.

Immer
Gentleman
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join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

Immer

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said by Cptbeatstix:

I don't see enough keybinds on those bars sir.

21keybinds plus Clique binds. I suppose I could do more... but I won't... not on a DK.
Cptbeatstix
join:2011-12-21
Carrollton, TX

Cptbeatstix

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I wish I could have my keybinds on my warrior like I had in wrath. my UI for tank literally only showed stances. people freaked when they saw it lol.

Endbringer
join:2012-10-07
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i stand corrected...Heart Strike is alot stronger then i had thought and for single target and upto 3 mobs im using it now

mettachain
Goblineer
join:2011-09-27
Azeroth

mettachain

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said by Endbringer:

i stand corrected...Heart Strike is alot stronger then i had thought and for single target and upto 3 mobs im using it now

you didn't know that before? isn't a DK your main? you can't look at icons decide if it doesn't look cool you won't use it. that's your cleave man! DK tanks that only use D&D and BB for AoE are noobs. glad you wised up. now L2use AMS

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
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join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

Krisnatharok

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said by mettachain:

said by Endbringer:

i stand corrected...Heart Strike is alot stronger then i had thought and for single target and upto 3 mobs im using it now

you didn't know that before? isn't a DK your main? you can't look at icons decide if it doesn't look cool you won't use it.

you can if you are movie-moding.

mettachain
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mettachain

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i like turtles

Immer
Gentleman
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said by Endbringer:

i stand corrected...Heart Strike is alot stronger then i had thought and for single target and upto 3 mobs im using it now

cool. Yeah, it's a great ability.

Endbringer
join:2012-10-07
Fishers, IN

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i tested it during my leveling and at that point there wasnt a big diffrence between BB and HS as far as damamge, and in my deffence i quit back in 2009 and have been back about 2 months
clawfury
join:2012-02-14
Rochester, MI

clawfury

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At my last look (unless Blizz patched this) BB scales with gear better, so at some point it becomes the better option - they may have fixed this.

Krisnatharok
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said by Endbringer:

i tested it during my leveling and at that point there wasnt a big diffrence between BB and HS as far as damamge, and in my deffence i quit back in 2009 and have been back about 2 months

It's been a while, but back in 09 I only remember using BB for AOE pulls. HS hit a whole lot harder and generated more threat.

Either way, everything has been completely reworked twice now. Icy Veins is your friend.

Tirael
BOHICA
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join:2009-03-18
Sacramento, CA

Tirael

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1) Providing external links to a site such as the ones used in the OP will get this forum websensed so fast, most people's head will spin.

2) The reason why Runic Empowerment is better than Blood Tap is because RE can be gamed.

Immer
Gentleman
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join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

Immer

Premium Member

said by Tirael:

1) Providing external links to a site such as the ones used in the OP will get this forum websensed so fast, most people's head will spin.

2) The reason why Runic Empowerment is better than Blood Tap is because RE can be gamed.

My bad. Was just trying to get some guides going.

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
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Earth Orbit

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said by Tirael:

1) Providing external links to a site such as the ones used in the OP will get this forum websensed so fast, most people's head will spin.

2) The reason why Runic Empowerment is better than Blood Tap is because RE can be gamed.

Didn't your daddy ever teach you how to quick-reply to the right person? I got all excited when I saw that system icon pop up.

Tirael
BOHICA
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join:2009-03-18
Sacramento, CA

Tirael

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Didn't someone ever teach you to...shut up

Mike
Mod
join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA

Mike

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girls you're both pretty