I'd love this post to be stickied, but I'm not going to bother asking admins to do so.
After discussing the topic multiple times in-game and now in the forums let me explain things for new DKs here. The general principal of death knight is that you apply as many diseases as you possibly can for your spec, then use Frost and Unholy rune move (hereafter called FU abilities) to turn out large numbers. Then you convert runes into death runes, and use your FU abilities again (or heart strike 4x if blood).
"Well if you're doing that, what's the harm in making a castsequence macro?"
The problem lies in when you miss. Notice I didn't use the word IF, I used the word WHEN. While leveling you will miss, you will not be hit capped. If you miss an initial disease, every FU ability in your macro does half as much damage. If you miss an ability you use to create death runes, your macro will born when trying to do stuff that requires an death rune. In addition, your knowledge of the death knight class will be confined to mashing one macro, instead of truly understanding the abilities of your class. As a former hunter, I know all too well this situation. We even have a description of that, called -tard. Make and rely on a castsequence macro and you become a deathtard and I will rate you down every single time for it.
Learn how to play your class. Learn rotations. Learn what ability to use when. Know your class.
Want another secret that I can pass onto you as a beta tester of the death knight class? In beta there was one particular death knight named Sunny. Sunny picked up the ins and outs of the class FAR faster than any other death knight in ALL OF BETA. He wrote some WONDERFUL articles on various aspects of the game. He wrote a great article called "Don't rotate. Prioritize." That article is one of the most infamous articles written in the beta forums, and it was reposted in the official forums and I will now repost it for you here.
Disclaimer edit: Yes I know you can get hit capped, but this was written when no one was 80 so was geared towards people who weren't likely to be at hit cap. The principal idea remains the same regardless of what level you are. Quit nit picking!
Edited, Nov 26th 2008 10:35am by Dilbrt
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Sunny wrote:
Don't rotate. Prioritize.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I looked at the DK class and started thinking about rotations. A good 5-6 ability rotation would ensure that we'd be spending our runes properly each cycle, and then we'd get our Runic Power, which we'd spend in our downtime between rune refreshes. That's the basic idea behind the class mechanics, and it works... sort of. Except sometimes we don't have that option, because we used a double rune and it refreshes at the same time, and we need to use it. Or sometimes the runes refresh in 8 seconds, when we were expecting 10. Or sometimes our rotation falls off because we were expecting to see our diseases up longer than we thought they would be, and they aren't up now. So now what do we do?
Once upon a time, a little more recently, I sat down with a spreadsheet to try to build my "perfect" DPS rotation. My goal was to maximize the total DoT uptime (including Unholy Blight), minimize the number of "dead" GCDs (GCDs where I do nothing but wait for my runes to come back), and try to use my hardest hitting attacks (Scourge Strike) at the same time. My plan was to build a rotation that would eventually double back on itself and then I could just memorize the perfect rotation, and use it in normal play. Except that didn't quite work itself out too much either.
What ended up happening was that around the 45th or 50th GCD, I realized something. There was no real discernible pattern that was emerging yet. Due to the 2 sec difference from Epidemic, this means that the disease durations would edge 10% closer and closer to the beginning of the rotation every 20 seconds. Because I needed to keep the diseases up for maximum damage, this meant that I would have to clip my Scourge Strikes, and thus my rune refreshes. For example... if you have to use Plague Strike + Icy Touch in one rotation, that means that you will not be able to use the runes for an FU ability until the rune for the later of the two refreshes, which will create a single GCD of 'lag' time that you can potentially fill with a runic power ability. However, if you do that, chances are pretty good that it won't be in the same place on the next rotation, and you might not even have enough runic power to do something at that point.
So at the basic level, yes... we have rotations. But those rotations don't play within the rules we expect them to, and adjusting them is a natural thing. So, instead of using a specific rotation and sticking with it, the best method of being a DK that I've found is to have a *priority* system. You all understand what priorities are. Even at the basic level, there's some priority level going on - you use Icy Touch and Plague Strike before you use Blood/Heart Strike, because the diseases that Icy Touch and Plague Strike put up increase your Blood Strike damage. Even further, if you attempt to keep to a specific rotation, you end up having to memorize a lot of rotations. Here's what I mean:
If you have >60 RP:
Unholy Blight > PS > IT > BS > BS > SS
But if the thing will die fast:
UB > PS > IT > SS > BS > BS
But if you get more than one:
UB > PS > IT > Pest > DnD
But if you don't have Runic Power:
PS > IT > SS > BS > BS > UB
But if you know it will die fast:
PS > IT > SS > BS > DC > BS
As you can see, there are a lot of variations on a normal "rotation" here. And each one is situational. What ends up happening is that you don't need a hard and fast rotation. What you need is a list of questions with which to decide what to do. It should end up being something like this:
0. What is my goal?
Aside from being obvious, this changes based on role. A tank's role isn't to deal as much damage as possible, but to build up as much threat as possible, and on as many targets as possible. A damage dealer's goal is usually to kill things as quickly as possible. Sometimes it's more important to kill a specific target (like the healer) than it is to spread as much damage around as possible. Other times it's all about dealing as much damage as you can to everything around you (AE packs), because it will all die soon enough.
1. What is the best order to get my diseases up on the target?
Every DK needs diseases up. If I am Unholy, this means I usually start with PS > IT, so that Blood Plague is up as quickly as possible, to ensure that +10% damage from Rage of Rivendare is up as long as possible. For Frost, this should start with IT > PS, for the Tundra Stalker bonus. If I am blood, I can either lead with Icy Touch if I am far away, or Plague Strike if I am nearer.
2. How many enemies are there?
Every DK build has to change their rotation based on the number of enemies. It is almost always better to pestilence than anything else. Blood Boil is generally a worthwhile expenditure of the blood rune if there are more than 3 targets if you have Outbreak, and more than 6 as Blood (with no outbreak). Yes, Heart Strike just hits that hard. Death and Decay is still probably the best damage ability you can use in an AE situation.
3. Do I have RP for something to start with? If so, can it wait? Should it wait?
Most RP abilities have some sort of optimal situation to use them. For example, the Gargoyle gains 40% of your AP per strike, and takes a snapshot of your character when you summon it. You are much better served by summoning the gargoyle when you get a Fallen Crusader Proc and clicking your AP trinket than you are when you don't have those temporary buffs up, since your gargoyle will hit significantly harder. Unholy Blight, however, will always put up damage reflective of whatever buffs you have on. If you start it up and the buffs come later, the damage will gain from the buffs as you go. Thus, if you have the choice between UB and Gargoyle, ask yourself "Do I have any temp buffs right now that can make Gargoyle the most useful?"
4. How long is this fight?
If the fight will end quickly, you want to front load your damage as much as possible. This means that damage over time powers like Dancing Rune Weapon should take a back seat to up front damage like Death Coil. By the same token, for fights that will almost certainly last longer than the duration of the power, then you should use the power that provides the most damage in that time frame. For long fights, you also want to consider whether you have enough time to use your cooldowns more than once. Patchwerk, for example, is a fight that lasts up to 5 minutes. If you expect that the fight will be longer than 3 minutes (and it likely will be at the start), you can pop your Gargoyle or DRW early, then use it again before the fight ends.
5. When should I use RP compared to Runes?
As a general rule, you want to find out what abilities deal the most damage, and use those as often as you can. Runic Power cooldowns like DRW and Gargoyle are right up there, and if the fight lasts long enough to use them more than once (as per #4 above), I try to get them out as early as possible (under whatever optimal conditions I can, #3). After that, I personally prefer to prioritize Runes over Runic Power. The runic power will still be there, but the runes will have to take their time to cool down, and my runes generate a larger portion of my damage than my runic power does.
6. What about proc abilities like Sudden Doom?
You're still paying your GCD for those, and procs are generally unreliable. Look at the timing, and figure out when you are going to next be able to use a GCD for a non-rune ability. The worst case scenario is to get a proc and not use it. This includes wasting a proc by getting another proc. However, you have to weigh that extra 1.5 sec on the GCD for when your runes refresh. If you are running a 4-HS or even a 6 HS cycle, you're going to really be hurting for GCDs. Ultimately, this is one I tend to play by ear. I'd be interested in seeing somebody's extended DPS report based on waiting for a proper GCD to use Sudden Doom, vs immediately using it.
Ultimately, I think it is important for folks to realize that sticking to a rotation isn't a good thing, because it's too restrictive. You use different abilities during different situations, but your best bet is to be informed about it and react accordingly. There are so many factors to playing a DK that being stuck in a rotation that you think you should be doing without adjusting for the situation at hand will end up with bad play. I'm hoping that this will help some of the newer DKs understand how it all works out. This may (should!) be old hat to some folks (I hope most of you), but I thought it was worth consolidating.
Cheers.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I looked at the DK class and started thinking about rotations. A good 5-6 ability rotation would ensure that we'd be spending our runes properly each cycle, and then we'd get our Runic Power, which we'd spend in our downtime between rune refreshes. That's the basic idea behind the class mechanics, and it works... sort of. Except sometimes we don't have that option, because we used a double rune and it refreshes at the same time, and we need to use it. Or sometimes the runes refresh in 8 seconds, when we were expecting 10. Or sometimes our rotation falls off because we were expecting to see our diseases up longer than we thought they would be, and they aren't up now. So now what do we do?
Once upon a time, a little more recently, I sat down with a spreadsheet to try to build my "perfect" DPS rotation. My goal was to maximize the total DoT uptime (including Unholy Blight), minimize the number of "dead" GCDs (GCDs where I do nothing but wait for my runes to come back), and try to use my hardest hitting attacks (Scourge Strike) at the same time. My plan was to build a rotation that would eventually double back on itself and then I could just memorize the perfect rotation, and use it in normal play. Except that didn't quite work itself out too much either.
What ended up happening was that around the 45th or 50th GCD, I realized something. There was no real discernible pattern that was emerging yet. Due to the 2 sec difference from Epidemic, this means that the disease durations would edge 10% closer and closer to the beginning of the rotation every 20 seconds. Because I needed to keep the diseases up for maximum damage, this meant that I would have to clip my Scourge Strikes, and thus my rune refreshes. For example... if you have to use Plague Strike + Icy Touch in one rotation, that means that you will not be able to use the runes for an FU ability until the rune for the later of the two refreshes, which will create a single GCD of 'lag' time that you can potentially fill with a runic power ability. However, if you do that, chances are pretty good that it won't be in the same place on the next rotation, and you might not even have enough runic power to do something at that point.
So at the basic level, yes... we have rotations. But those rotations don't play within the rules we expect them to, and adjusting them is a natural thing. So, instead of using a specific rotation and sticking with it, the best method of being a DK that I've found is to have a *priority* system. You all understand what priorities are. Even at the basic level, there's some priority level going on - you use Icy Touch and Plague Strike before you use Blood/Heart Strike, because the diseases that Icy Touch and Plague Strike put up increase your Blood Strike damage. Even further, if you attempt to keep to a specific rotation, you end up having to memorize a lot of rotations. Here's what I mean:
If you have >60 RP:
Unholy Blight > PS > IT > BS > BS > SS
But if the thing will die fast:
UB > PS > IT > SS > BS > BS
But if you get more than one:
UB > PS > IT > Pest > DnD
But if you don't have Runic Power:
PS > IT > SS > BS > BS > UB
But if you know it will die fast:
PS > IT > SS > BS > DC > BS
As you can see, there are a lot of variations on a normal "rotation" here. And each one is situational. What ends up happening is that you don't need a hard and fast rotation. What you need is a list of questions with which to decide what to do. It should end up being something like this:
0. What is my goal?
Aside from being obvious, this changes based on role. A tank's role isn't to deal as much damage as possible, but to build up as much threat as possible, and on as many targets as possible. A damage dealer's goal is usually to kill things as quickly as possible. Sometimes it's more important to kill a specific target (like the healer) than it is to spread as much damage around as possible. Other times it's all about dealing as much damage as you can to everything around you (AE packs), because it will all die soon enough.
1. What is the best order to get my diseases up on the target?
Every DK needs diseases up. If I am Unholy, this means I usually start with PS > IT, so that Blood Plague is up as quickly as possible, to ensure that +10% damage from Rage of Rivendare is up as long as possible. For Frost, this should start with IT > PS, for the Tundra Stalker bonus. If I am blood, I can either lead with Icy Touch if I am far away, or Plague Strike if I am nearer.
2. How many enemies are there?
Every DK build has to change their rotation based on the number of enemies. It is almost always better to pestilence than anything else. Blood Boil is generally a worthwhile expenditure of the blood rune if there are more than 3 targets if you have Outbreak, and more than 6 as Blood (with no outbreak). Yes, Heart Strike just hits that hard. Death and Decay is still probably the best damage ability you can use in an AE situation.
3. Do I have RP for something to start with? If so, can it wait? Should it wait?
Most RP abilities have some sort of optimal situation to use them. For example, the Gargoyle gains 40% of your AP per strike, and takes a snapshot of your character when you summon it. You are much better served by summoning the gargoyle when you get a Fallen Crusader Proc and clicking your AP trinket than you are when you don't have those temporary buffs up, since your gargoyle will hit significantly harder. Unholy Blight, however, will always put up damage reflective of whatever buffs you have on. If you start it up and the buffs come later, the damage will gain from the buffs as you go. Thus, if you have the choice between UB and Gargoyle, ask yourself "Do I have any temp buffs right now that can make Gargoyle the most useful?"
4. How long is this fight?
If the fight will end quickly, you want to front load your damage as much as possible. This means that damage over time powers like Dancing Rune Weapon should take a back seat to up front damage like Death Coil. By the same token, for fights that will almost certainly last longer than the duration of the power, then you should use the power that provides the most damage in that time frame. For long fights, you also want to consider whether you have enough time to use your cooldowns more than once. Patchwerk, for example, is a fight that lasts up to 5 minutes. If you expect that the fight will be longer than 3 minutes (and it likely will be at the start), you can pop your Gargoyle or DRW early, then use it again before the fight ends.
5. When should I use RP compared to Runes?
As a general rule, you want to find out what abilities deal the most damage, and use those as often as you can. Runic Power cooldowns like DRW and Gargoyle are right up there, and if the fight lasts long enough to use them more than once (as per #4 above), I try to get them out as early as possible (under whatever optimal conditions I can, #3). After that, I personally prefer to prioritize Runes over Runic Power. The runic power will still be there, but the runes will have to take their time to cool down, and my runes generate a larger portion of my damage than my runic power does.
6. What about proc abilities like Sudden Doom?
You're still paying your GCD for those, and procs are generally unreliable. Look at the timing, and figure out when you are going to next be able to use a GCD for a non-rune ability. The worst case scenario is to get a proc and not use it. This includes wasting a proc by getting another proc. However, you have to weigh that extra 1.5 sec on the GCD for when your runes refresh. If you are running a 4-HS or even a 6 HS cycle, you're going to really be hurting for GCDs. Ultimately, this is one I tend to play by ear. I'd be interested in seeing somebody's extended DPS report based on waiting for a proper GCD to use Sudden Doom, vs immediately using it.
Ultimately, I think it is important for folks to realize that sticking to a rotation isn't a good thing, because it's too restrictive. You use different abilities during different situations, but your best bet is to be informed about it and react accordingly. There are so many factors to playing a DK that being stuck in a rotation that you think you should be doing without adjusting for the situation at hand will end up with bad play. I'm hoping that this will help some of the newer DKs understand how it all works out. This may (should!) be old hat to some folks (I hope most of you), but I thought it was worth consolidating.
Cheers.
5 posts
ty i use this strategy all the time now, thanks
Edited, Nov 17th 2008 10:33pm by ChromeTroper
Edited, Nov 17th 2008 10:33pm by ChromeTroper
this makes me feel so much better about my DK. ever since i started playing him i had the feeling that i didnt have very much of a "rotation". i had a basic starter rotation, which is to say IT + PS + HSx2, followed by a death strike or an oblit, depending on what i needed at the time. after that, it felt more natural to just keep diseases up, dump RP as needed (or if procced) and continue from there. not having a set rotation made me feel like i was missing out, but i felt like the way i was doing it was working better for me, and a rotation be damned.
this confirms those feelings for me.
this confirms those feelings for me.
Wow. Talk about an eye opener. Thanks.
The one biggest issue I had so far stems from toying around with specs. My first ("for keeps") DK is unholy level 62, and in the space of those 7 levels I grew quite used to the feel of it. I rolled another one as blood in the Ebon Hold quest, then just before the final phase took advantage of the free respecs to try out frost.
What appears quite fascinating is that the class handles very differently in terms of cooldowns and timing for each spec. I was initially taken aback by these differences but if this is by design, this actually makes the whole gameplay a lot more intriguing.
It's probably going to take me a good year to feel comfy with all three specs at this rate, but I definitely like it.
The one biggest issue I had so far stems from toying around with specs. My first ("for keeps") DK is unholy level 62, and in the space of those 7 levels I grew quite used to the feel of it. I rolled another one as blood in the Ebon Hold quest, then just before the final phase took advantage of the free respecs to try out frost.
What appears quite fascinating is that the class handles very differently in terms of cooldowns and timing for each spec. I was initially taken aback by these differences but if this is by design, this actually makes the whole gameplay a lot more intriguing.
It's probably going to take me a good year to feel comfy with all three specs at this rate, but I definitely like it.
Scholar
22 posts
Thanks for posting this, im glad I caught myself before I fell in toa bad rut. I had recently keybinded my entire castsequence to my 1 key. Thanks to this, the only castsequence macro I have is blood strike+blood strike+plague strike and the chains of ice+death grip macro. My diseases and other spells are now all on their seperate keys.
43 posts
Thank you very much for taking the time, effort, your work with calculations, etc. to produce a forum "must read". Now, what dictionary do I use to decode it? :-) :-)
Rate ups from me Dil, thanks for that.
Very nice and informative, though i do use castsequences macros for general questing, its nice to know that there is no real rotation to stick to in instances and such. Ty for the post dilbrt.
It's kind of funny that the OP was saying 'don't be sheep' and all the responses are 'baa'.
The OP was saying learn what all your abilities do and when it's best to use them, and the responses were all, "oh i see, i'll stop using castsequence macros for everything". Lay off the hooch.
Scholar
35 posts
I've just started playing a DK and something I noticed early on while setting my action bars up is I kept changing the order of the abilities over and over. I couldn't settle on a rotation or even an order in which I should place the abilities on the bar.
Now i've got a nice little system of 4 bars, each bar has different types of attacks on it for different stages of battle and each bar has the abilites set out with the highest priority attack closest to the left , lowest to the right.
Now I just hit the left most abilities that are active on each of the 4 bars. This seems to work fine so far although I still have yet to hit 80 so i'm going to have to juggle things around a bit soon.
Now i've got a nice little system of 4 bars, each bar has different types of attacks on it for different stages of battle and each bar has the abilites set out with the highest priority attack closest to the left , lowest to the right.
Now I just hit the left most abilities that are active on each of the 4 bars. This seems to work fine so far although I still have yet to hit 80 so i'm going to have to juggle things around a bit soon.
Placidshadow wrote:
I've just started playing a DK and something I noticed early on while setting my action bars up is I kept changing the order of the abilities over and over. I couldn't settle on a rotation or even an order in which I should place the abilities on the bar.
Now i've got a nice little system of 4 bars, each bar has different types of attacks on it for different stages of battle and each bar has the abilites set out with the highest priority attack closest to the left , lowest to the right.
Now I just hit the left most abilities that are active on each of the 4 bars. This seems to work fine so far although I still have yet to hit 80 so i'm going to have to juggle things around a bit soon.
Now i've got a nice little system of 4 bars, each bar has different types of attacks on it for different stages of battle and each bar has the abilites set out with the highest priority attack closest to the left , lowest to the right.
Now I just hit the left most abilities that are active on each of the 4 bars. This seems to work fine so far although I still have yet to hit 80 so i'm going to have to juggle things around a bit soon.
There actually is really an order, as far as PvE goes. It depends on spec and situation, but there's an optimal ability rotation for pretty much every situation.
I'm about ready for this post to go away, it's so outdated
21 posts
this post maybe out dated but to all the new deathknights out there...this is great for them to learn from. this post will make a dk think of what he is doing. bad dk dont learn.....a great dk learns from his or her mistakes!!!!
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