Madpandasuburbs west of chicagoRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
Can anyone give me an overview on rune management? I feel like i could almost do without a rune tracker and just rely on gut feeling and cooldown count as to which ability is appropriate to use, and this seems ... sloppy.
I got my DK to 85 recently, it was always my mess around charachter so I haven't spent much time playing him. He is tank specced and I've done a few 85 normals fine but it never feels like I have a solid rotation.
Aoe pulls is basically, thrown down DnD, icy touch/plague strike main kill target, pestilince, spam blood boils and thrown in rune strikes/death strikes (the shield one) whenever.
Single target is the same minus dnd/blood boil pretty much, might use heart strikes as well. My main goal on these is not having over 90 runic power.
Armory in case I am doing something really bad specwise, i will focus on mastery once I have a bit more badge gear and can get dodge up to %15 and keep parry around there. Might respec out of lichborne and into a more aoe threat spec.
Is there a reason that blood is no longer the best spec, other than requiring blood presence for th heal or w/e?
The argument I have been reading is that now Blood is a tree meant for tanking & since leveling doesn't really require threat generation points would be better spent in Unholy or Frost.
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PSN = malickai XBL = gdragonstarPokemon SS = 3095 7347 2659Pokemon White = 5028 4446 2386
The reason blood is still good for tanking is because of all the damage mitigation and self healing. I was wondering if they had changed anything drastically, but with blood leveling there will be no downtime, nor will you need anyone else to help you complete group quests (unless it's that rage flipper guy or the Ring of blood quests).
give it a try if you don't like it switch, but blood being the tanking tree doesn't mean it's not also the leveling tree. They all "work" blood just seems easiest.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
I had a huge post on blood tanking, but the forum ate it so here's the short version:
blood leveling = no downtime
death strike is top priority
heart strike > blood boil for smaller groups
runic empowerment means keep tabs on runes, rune strike often
if you are reaching 90 RP you are not rune striking enough. Basically 80 RP is the highest it should ever be and that's if you are on interrupt duty and need to DRW
I leveled blood from 55-80 and I killed stuff a bit slower than frost, but I pulled anything and everything and really never worried about dying. At 80 someone told me about this glyph, and I switched to frost using that glyph and laughed my way to 85.
edit: and that was before frost had 2 permanent death runes instead of blood.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
I leveled blood from 55-80 and I killed stuff a bit slower than frost, but I pulled anything and everything and really never worried about dying. At 80 someone told me about this glyph, and I switched to frost using that glyph and laughed my way to 85.
edit: and that was before frost had 2 permanent death runes instead of blood.
Any DK spec will work for leveling, but blood or frost are probably the best. Unholy has a little more ramp up time which isn't conducive to "kill a mob in one rune cycle" leveling. Either you burn runes on IT/PS putting diseases on a target that won't be alive for long, thus getting a fairly crappy damage return on those runes, or you just ignore diseases on shorter fights and hit with your main strikes, but your scourge strike is gimped. The ghoul helps, but he's also more set up for extended fights than stop-start leveling combat. It is also the most awkward spec for fitting in death strikes to get health back, since doing that leaves you with extra blood runes that you can only use on shitty, weak attacks.
Meanwhile frost pulls with a reasonably hard hitting howling blast which will put up frost fever if properly glyphed, can ignore plague strike for short fights, and then dumps a bunch of obliterates once the target is in melee range for $rape damage. And then Frost Strike is the hardest hitting RP dump of the three specs. It's not at all uncommon to kill even a Cataclysm leveling mob in 3 GCDs. Frost also has a bunch of random crit boosting procs which really help burst the standard leveling mobs down. With the 2 perma-death runes now, frost is also easy to work in a death strike or two when you need health back and you aren't left with a single type of rune that only does shitty attacks like with unholy. Shit, frost can even AoE kill a bunch of melee mobs if you spec Chillblains and kite.
Blood is of course still good like the others have posted since you're basically unkillable just doing a normal rotation unless you play very recklessly or poorly. You get a bunch of survival cooldowns and in general you can level with just two attack buttons (DS/HS). It's the spec to play if you want to be as lazy and carefree about your leveling as possible. Frost is the spec to play if you just want the best kill speed.
When I started leveling my DK in Cata, I began with Blood but right around I hit the time to jump into Deepholm I realized kill speed was way down. I couldn't really die, but god it was boring. I swapped over to my Frost offspec and started just lighting mobs up with Obliterate and Frost Strikes, using Death Strikes here and there when I actually needed healing. And this was before the awesome 4.1 change to have perma-Death Runes instead of Blood Runes.
I don't recall what level DKs get Obliterate, you'd have to wait until you at least had that I think, but Frost should be pretty amazing. And you could always buy 10G dual-spec and have Blood available for single elite quests.
There's no reason not to have a blood spec waiting in the wings while leveling. It's just a matter of whether you also level in that spec or head over to frost for teh rapin's.
And yeah, I suppose frost probably does not play right at all until you get obliterate at 61(?) You also don't get HB until 69, but that's not a huge deal since you'd just pull with IT until then.
I went over to EJ's and in 4.1, for DW anyway, speccing frost but staying in Unholy presence is the way to go. So I respecced.
Holy shit.
Prior to this when herbing in Uldum it would take me quite a lot of hits to kill a croc or what have you. But now? Forty is right....3 to 4 GCD's and things die. Night and day difference.
And I'm not enhanced properly and I'm not geared so take that as you will...
Both 2h dps specs were (still is I guess?) reliant on procs and rp gain, i.e. hitting faster, so if they got rid of frost presence in dw frost it really doesn't have a use anymore. Unless dw unholy is worth anything these days, wich it weren't prior to 4.1 when I quit playing.
As dw frost I experienced clicking some shitty ability, just as killing machine procced, much more often in unholy
The tempo was much less frantic in frost and more manageable.
Yeah, the main problem with Frost Presence for Frost Spec is that you're GCD locked (as 2H anyway). Unholy Presence alleviates that by reducing the GCD by half a second. Basically, the rest is just gravy.
And why not provide a glyph to make it better in the place of the completely useless Glyph of Death Gate.
I'd rather they just make it not suck without a glyph, since I've actually got useful glyphs in each slot. If they did make 100% a glyph, they'd probably make it a Major anyway where I definitely don't have room for giving shit up.
Edit: What are PvP frost DKs using in melee besides FS if not Obliterate?
It's a little under a 12% drop. I don't know exactly how much since there is a static damage portion that would only be affected by the Annihilation nerf and not the 160%->150% weapon damage nerf.
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I got my DK to 85 recently, it was always my mess around charachter so I haven't spent much time playing him. He is tank specced and I've done a few 85 normals fine but it never feels like I have a solid rotation.
Aoe pulls is basically, thrown down DnD, icy touch/plague strike main kill target, pestilince, spam blood boils and thrown in rune strikes/death strikes (the shield one) whenever.
Single target is the same minus dnd/blood boil pretty much, might use heart strikes as well. My main goal on these is not having over 90 runic power.
Armory in case I am doing something really bad specwise, i will focus on mastery once I have a bit more badge gear and can get dodge up to %15 and keep parry around there. Might respec out of lichborne and into a more aoe threat spec.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarion-circle/lilnipper/simple
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I just resubbed for the first time since BC & decided to roll a DK.
I have looking around the net and it looks like pre 4.1 the best leveling spec was blood, however now that is no longer the case.
Does anyone have a good recommendation for a leveling talent build?
Thanks
PSN = malickai XBL = gdragonstar Pokemon SS = 3095 7347 2659 Pokemon White = 5028 4446 2386
The argument I have been reading is that now Blood is a tree meant for tanking & since leveling doesn't really require threat generation points would be better spent in Unholy or Frost.
PSN = malickai XBL = gdragonstar Pokemon SS = 3095 7347 2659 Pokemon White = 5028 4446 2386
The reason blood is still good for tanking is because of all the damage mitigation and self healing. I was wondering if they had changed anything drastically, but with blood leveling there will be no downtime, nor will you need anyone else to help you complete group quests (unless it's that rage flipper guy or the Ring of blood quests).
give it a try if you don't like it switch, but blood being the tanking tree doesn't mean it's not also the leveling tree. They all "work" blood just seems easiest.
blood leveling = no downtime
death strike is top priority
heart strike > blood boil for smaller groups
runic empowerment means keep tabs on runes, rune strike often
if you are reaching 90 RP you are not rune striking enough. Basically 80 RP is the highest it should ever be and that's if you are on interrupt duty and need to DRW
edit: and that was before frost had 2 permanent death runes instead of blood.
But it was after they put in dark succor
Meanwhile frost pulls with a reasonably hard hitting howling blast which will put up frost fever if properly glyphed, can ignore plague strike for short fights, and then dumps a bunch of obliterates once the target is in melee range for $rape damage. And then Frost Strike is the hardest hitting RP dump of the three specs. It's not at all uncommon to kill even a Cataclysm leveling mob in 3 GCDs. Frost also has a bunch of random crit boosting procs which really help burst the standard leveling mobs down. With the 2 perma-death runes now, frost is also easy to work in a death strike or two when you need health back and you aren't left with a single type of rune that only does shitty attacks like with unholy. Shit, frost can even AoE kill a bunch of melee mobs if you spec Chillblains and kite.
Blood is of course still good like the others have posted since you're basically unkillable just doing a normal rotation unless you play very recklessly or poorly. You get a bunch of survival cooldowns and in general you can level with just two attack buttons (DS/HS). It's the spec to play if you want to be as lazy and carefree about your leveling as possible. Frost is the spec to play if you just want the best kill speed.
When I started leveling my DK in Cata, I began with Blood but right around I hit the time to jump into Deepholm I realized kill speed was way down. I couldn't really die, but god it was boring. I swapped over to my Frost offspec and started just lighting mobs up with Obliterate and Frost Strikes, using Death Strikes here and there when I actually needed healing. And this was before the awesome 4.1 change to have perma-Death Runes instead of Blood Runes.
I don't recall what level DKs get Obliterate, you'd have to wait until you at least had that I think, but Frost should be pretty amazing. And you could always buy 10G dual-spec and have Blood available for single elite quests.
And yeah, I suppose frost probably does not play right at all until you get obliterate at 61(?) You also don't get HB until 69, but that's not a huge deal since you'd just pull with IT until then.
Holy shit.
Prior to this when herbing in Uldum it would take me quite a lot of hits to kill a croc or what have you. But now? Forty is right....3 to 4 GCD's and things die. Night and day difference.
And I'm not enhanced properly and I'm not geared so take that as you will...
2h frost?
Also Unholy.
No.
I meant 2H Frost also uses Unholy Presence, not that Unholy (spec) uses Frost (presence).
Poorly worded on my part. Which is impressive for only two words.
Unless you're saying that 2H Frost doesn't use Unholy Presence in which case I'm pretty sure they do.
No, I read it as you saying unholy spec uses frost presence, which is just ridiculously false.
But thanks for clearing that up.
I'm sure the fix to all this will be to nerf unholy presence.
It is glorious.
Obliterate is love...
The tempo was much less frantic in frost and more manageable.
Why the hell is Raise Ally only a 20% battle rez?
Obliterate nerf, yes. Which is bizarre, because PvP DKs allegedly barely use obliterate and PvE DKs were hardly the top dps spec.
So really, 2 nerfs to Obliterate, and a buff to Unholy.
Edit: What are PvP frost DKs using in melee besides FS if not Obliterate?
So, bad math being bad, we're talking about a 19% drop in damage to Obliterate then?