They explained why Heart Strike is not instant though, so you can apply it first thing on a mob by queuing it before getting into melee range, and not wasting damage that will then be "deleted" by the -20%hps. Makes sense to me, and if you have a spare blood rune, Blood Strike does more damage than Heart Strike with like one disease up. If there's no disease up, you should probably not waste a blood rune on heart strike anyway and wait for diseases. As for refreshing it for raid bosses, I doubt it'll work, or be capped enough that the effect will become useless before the duration is done considering the raid damage.

So yeah not a big issue. Now frost runes and Frost Strike, another story, in the current state the only thing you can do is icy chill(and howling blast if it's off cd). I know it's getting boosted, but it's still a low boost. Instant Frost Strike though, that's a lot of damage, should make frost a very viable DPS option.

I hope they patch soon, lots of good changes and probably lots of stuff not yet known.

It depends on HoT/DoT in question actually. Some of them will never tick, others will keep on ticking at the same rate regardless of when you refreshed them. The typical difference lies in between stacking versus non-stacking HoTs/DoTs. Lifebloom and Deadly Poison both continue ticking at the timer as determined by their first application. Non-stacking HoTs/DoTs like Renew or Corruption never tick if you constantly refresh them.

It should probably be extended so any proc-based over time effects keep ticking at the same rate when refreshed, as it's a bit silly to get less effect from a HoT/DoT simply because you're proccing it too often.

Hmmmm. I never noticed that with Serpent Sting.

Of course, I don't exactly spam Serpent Sting, either.

Sorry, my mistake. I'll check and see if BCB works that way the next time I spec deep unholy.

There's another blue post later in that thread too:
Also in that thread, someone mentioned Frost strike is still affected by armour. Can anyone confirm that? I thought the point of FS was all the damage was Frost thereby bypassing armour. Still, even if armour affects it I suppose CoE will help it and whatever debuffs frost mages put up.

I'm still not seeing how a deep Frost build could ever compete with a 52/19/0 or 52/0/19 build. Just take my Runic Power suggestions for the Frost tree from the beta boards and leave it be as a Tanking/PvP tree.

I can confirm Obliterate is getting the bonus from improved blood strike talent, thats what´s making it ridiculously good atm then .

Still, even without it, my preferred rotation for soloing remains degeneration - obliterate - repeat. Full use of all runes, minimal clicking, great damage.

Edit: makes me wonder, blood strike feels so weak, maybe its not getting any bonus from imp blood strike talent? I´ll test that after raiding.

I havn't been able to determine this, yet. I plan to go to blackfathom and beat on gamoo-rah a bit with dual wielded weapons and see if I can get it to multi-proc consistently.

I did confirm that all the shadow-damage bonuses increase damage on BCB and Necrosis, though. With a non-optimized build, my Necrosis damage was 34-37% of my white damage and my BCB ticks were going to over 350 damage (200 base).

Also, Wandering Plague double-dips damage bonuses. It takes the initial damage of the disease (modified by bonuses), then deals that damage modified by bonuses to everything within 8 yards. I had a BCB wandering plague tick for 500+ damage.

EDIT: Just noticed that BCB is 250 damage at level 70, so that explains a little of the "Wow, where did all that extra damage come from". It's absolutely double-dipping bonuses, though.

Already did these tests: WoW Forums -> [BUG] Obliterate is ridiculous

Obliterate does more damage because it's normalized, counts stacks as individual diseases and gains bonus from Imp Blood Strike.

Hey there guys. I'm Didymus on the beta (Northrend) one of the few level capped Death Knights right now. Figured I'd show my face in a productive forum and see if I can answer any questions/help with any testing etc. that people are interested in having done. So... if you have anything I can do or answer to help things along, don't hesitate!

Alright, here's one. Can Army of the Dead (a channeled spell afaik) be interrupted by something like Counterspell? And what abilities get locked out in the process? As well, what abilities get locked out due to silence effects?

Basically, what DK abilities are counted as "normal" abilities (like a Rogue's or Warrior's) and which are counted as spells? This might've been answered already, but a lot of the initial pages are alpha stuff that might've been changed by now.

He's right. level 80 spell. As for what can be silenced, CS'd etc. It's not too many effects. I'd go and check if the beta wasn't down to be sure before spouting off with information I'm only "pretty sure" about.

Icy Touch (20 yard range slow for casting/melee/ranged) can be silenced. Death Coil can be silenced. I don't think any of the strikes can be silenced, I don't recall explicitly any time where I was trying to strike and couldn't because of a silencing mechanic. Death and Decay obviously, the frost talented AE's and all that can be silenced.

The level 80 ability seems a little special, I wouldn't bet on it too much either way, but my bet is you won't be able to silence it. You also gain some survivability from your dodge/parry that I don't quite understand yet. The tool tip for the skill is very nondescript at the moment. It's also channeled... which is not similar to anything else a DK is doing before that point, so there's not a lot to compare it to.