Topic '[Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight' in forum 'World of Warcraft' - dslreports.com

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:32:48 EDT

anon posted : I made the Masterwork Phantasmal Hammer +Strength +Stam +Crit +Mastery Item Level 463 one hander and put it up for sale but then began to worry that I should have made a 2h wepon instead.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:17:03 EDT

Immer posted : That depends on the weapons themselves. At full BiS DW is outperforming 2H. I don't live in the "BiS gear" neighborhood so I can't say if it's more a measure of their itemization (the 2 best 1H vs the best 2H) or just that DW is a clearly better approach to Frost.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:06:39 EDT

anon posted : Does frost spec do better now with a 2h or dw? Have not dabbled with my DK lately.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:18:38 EDT

Tirael posted : *shrug. More than likely, Frost will be nerfed slightly to compensate. It is possible that SS damage will be buffed.
--
�Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.� - Anthony J. D'Angelo

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:04:07 EDT

Immer posted :

said by Tirael:

Might of the Frozen Waste + shittons of AP + weapons with Top End damage of 14k-16k = 2h Frost is overpowered. (hint: use KM procs on OB instead of FS if you are 2h)

So, if the argument is that frost is OP, I guess you foresee a frost nerf over an Unholy buff?

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:59:51 EDT

Tirael posted : Might of the Frozen Waste + shittons of AP + weapons with Top End damage of 14k-16k = 2h Frost is overpowered. (hint: use KM procs on OB instead of FS if you are 2h)
--
�Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.� - Anthony J. D'Angelo

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:58:08 EDT

Tirael posted : To make this simple to understand:

Blood Tap is great for on demand rune regeneration. However, Runic Empowerment can be gamed relatively easily. In order to understand this, you have to understand the Rune system and how runes are refreshed and used.

You start out with a set of runes like this (as blood):

BBFFUU

Runes are refreshed from left to right, depending on when they were last used, for example (small letters indicated expended runes);

Death Strike Used:

BBfFuU

Now you have one F and one U rune on CD. If you were to use Blood Tap right now, you'd get one of those 2 back. For sake of argument, let's say you do this:

Blood Tap used:

BBFFuU

Now you can still DS a second time, HOWEVER, you couldn't not DS a third time because the first U will not start it's CD until the second U rune is used. Plus, Blood Tap can only do FULLY DEPLETED runes (same as RE, but I will explain how RE is superior in after the break). In order to start the first U to refresh, you have to expend the second, like this (underlined runes are correctly refreshing):

DS used:

BBfFuu

Now, let's say at this time you use Blood Tap again:

BBFFuu

WTF? This is why Blood Tap is inferior. It doesn't refresh the second u rune because the SET is not FULLY DEPLETED. Since runes refresh from left to right and even though Blood Tap does random runes, it still has to follow the Rune system mechanic of left to right refreshing. At this point, you can't really do anything except HS, which really affects survivability. You could put up Bone Shield, but that would just be bad, since you would expend a F rune. You can't use the 2 F to use DS, as you cannot expend two runes from the same set. Basically, because of the way Blood Tap refreshes runes, it is inferior.

Now, let's look at how Runic Empowerment is gamed (as if has been since it came out):

Similar situations to before:

DS used:

BBfFuU

You now have 20 runic power. You would have 0 charges of Blood Tap at this time.

DS used:

BBffuu

You know have 40 RP and still 0 charges of Blood Tap.

This is where Blood Tap fails and Runic Empowerment shines. Your next expenditure under Blood Tap could be Rune Strike. This would only grant you 1 charge of Blood Tap, which is not enough to refresh a rune. So your next expenditure could be Rune Strike OR Heart Strike. It is better to generate more RP, so let's do that:

HSx2

bbFfUu

Now, here comes the fun part. You now have 60 RP. This is enough to generate 2 blood charges (still not enough to regen a rune) or have a 45% chance to refresh a rune. Since the only set of runes right now on CD is your B runes, it is better to expend your FU runes so that the entire SET is on CD. Like this:

DS used:

Bbffuu

You now have 80 RP. With HoW, this is enough to generate 3 Blood Charges or a 45% chance on 3 strikes to refresh your one of your F or U runes. This is roughly 1.35 runes that COULD be refreshed under RE (by gaming the system so that you are ONLY trying to refresh RUNE SETS that are ALL ON CD, such is the case currently with your F and U runes.)

So, in this scenario that plays out through most encounters, you could either a) generate blood charges that can do you nothing unless you are at the 4/9 blood charge mark or b) have a decent chance (roughly 50%) to regenerate a rune from 1 RP spending ability.
--
“Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.” - Anthony J. D'Angelo

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:49:16 EDT

Snakeoil posted : Thank you.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:47:44 EDT

Immer posted :

said by Snakeoil:

Any info on Unholy DKs?

aside from not being in a strong place, I've got nothin'. If Tirael puts his mind (if he has time) to it, he'd be able to explain exactly why UH is under-performing.

edit: I'll do some reading, but after feeling like I was doing alright as UH, and swapping to 2H Frost (without even reforging) and completely leaving my old dmg in the dust... yeah... go frost for now.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:45:13 EDT

Snakeoil posted : Any info on Unholy DKs?

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:27:07 EDT

Mike posted : girls you're both pretty

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:04:44 EDT

Tirael posted : Didn't someone ever teach you to...shut up

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:40:24 EDT

Krisnatharok posted :

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.
--
If we lose this freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment, those who had the most to lose, did the least to prevent its happening.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:36:07 EDT

Immer posted :

said by Tirael:

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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:32:00 EDT

Tirael posted : 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.
--
�Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.� - Anthony J. D'Angelo

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:12:13 EDT

Krisnatharok posted :

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.
--
If we lose this freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment, those who had the most to lose, did the least to prevent its happening.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:05:14 EDT

clawfury posted : 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.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:02:32 EDT

Endbringer posted : 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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:23:02 EDT

Immer posted :

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.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:19:47 EDT

mettachain posted : i like turtles

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:17:59 EDT

Krisnatharok posted :

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.
--
If we lose this freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment, those who had the most to lose, did the least to prevent its happening.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:15:11 EDT

mettachain posted :

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
--
If you find the information in my post helpful or interesting, please throw me a Kudos. Thanks!

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:32:46 EDT

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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:22:29 EDT

Cptbeatstix posted : 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.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:37:44 EDT

Immer posted :

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. ;)

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:32:29 EDT

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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:35:26 EDT

Endbringer posted : 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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:29:18 EDT

Immer posted :

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.
--
Guild leader of Pride and Ego
Good times with Great people in the Best way to spend $15/mo.

Intelligence is no substitute for Character.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:02:35 EDT

Endbringer posted : 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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:09:16 EDT

Endbringer posted : 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...

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:57:34 EDT

Immer posted : 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.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:24:58 EDT

Endbringer posted : 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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 01:54:25 EDT

Maxxh posted : 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.
--
pretty cool guy that doesn't afraid of anything.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:45:41 EDT

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

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:39:14 EDT

Immer posted : 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.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:30:16 EDT

s1deout posted : I got those too. It is some good stuff.

Get Shadowed Unit Frames . I love that addon.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:18:09 EDT

Immer posted : 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.

don't parse my stuff, yo! ;)

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:13:53 EDT

Immer posted : 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).
--
Immergruen (resto/boomie) on Nathrezim Server (US)
Guild leader for Pride and Ego

Intelligence is no substitute for Character.

Re: [Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:19:42 EDT

Mr Fel posted : 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.
--
Change the scheme, alter the mood! Electrify the boys and girls if you'd be so kind.

[Classes] 5.0.4 Death Knight

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:34:59 EDT

Immer posted : 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). 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.
--
Immergruen (resto/boomie) on Nathrezim Server (US)
Guild leader for Pride and Ego

Intelligence is no substitute for Character.