Pyr0

Does Blood Aura stack with Blood Presence?

 

Prinsesa

No, Blood Aura does not stack with Blood Presence.

To be precise, if Blood Presence is turned on, you will heal yourself for 2% of the damage you deal.

If you spec into Blood Aura, you will see no change in the amount of healing you give yourself. Instead, you will also heal your other raid members for the same 2% of damage dealt.

Finally, Blood Aura's effect is independent of your Presence, so you will be able to heal yourself and your raid even if you are in Frost or Unholy Presence.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Renalia

In terms of leveling, if the stats are somewhat comparable (which in this case, they are) then the advantage goes to the item with the higher DPS. Add in the fact that Helboar Carving Blade ends up with a higher average damage, and it ends up being the better weapon.

If you have the chance though, try to run through Ramps and pick up a Hellreaver, it's a great weapon to replace the Gsword with.


Now for my question... as a blood spec, is DRW worth it as a Runic Power dump? My current rotation is IT->PS->HS->HS->Death Strike->Death Coil. After I get a few mobs down I seem to be overrun with RP and I can't Death Coil fast enough to get rid of it. I had heard that DRW isn't worth it. I suppose for solo/questing it's not the best but I can definitly see the advantage for instances and soloing elites.

How about Bloodworms? They seem to proc fairly often, and give a somewhat respectable amount of damage and healing to me.



Also for fights that last more than 10 seconds (bosses) how does this look for a rotation, considering my spec won't have 3/3 Annihilation until at least 73 or Epidemic until even later.

0.0 BBFFUU
0.0 IT BBFUU
1.5 PS BBFU
3.0 HS BFU
4.5 HS FU
6.0 DS
7.5 DC
9.0 DC
10.0 F
10.5 IT
11.5 U
12.0 PS
13.0 B
13.5 HS
14.5 B
15 HS
16 DD
16.5 HS D
18 HS
19.5 DC
20.0 F

 

Noraj

Should the added armor from being in Frost Presence add Attack Power if specced for Bladed Armor, or is Bladed Armor strictly based on your gear's advertised armor amount?

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

Renalia

Tested this yesterday, and yes, FP will add AP if you have Bladed Armor.

 

Nemantopia

Or, I could be realizing that while most people who post here want to eke out every last 0.01 DPS at all times, many folks that only read here or post to ask one specific question aren't concerned with minor differences that only have an effect during leveling if you're plowing through mobs non-stop without doing human things like grabbing a snack or drink, using the restroom, taking a phone call, etc.

As a Mage, I came to realize a long time ago that, for example, while spellpower and haste are both prime stats. But there comes a point where swapping an item for one extra point of either is only capable of making an actual difference in my speed or efficiency of mob-killing in raid boss situations, if at all. Example: I'm faced with a choice of items that are identical, except one offers +45 haste and the other offers +40 spellpower. But I don't choose the haste, because the loss of spellpower equates to needing an extra spell to down a trash mob or leveling white/yellow...so by swapping to the theoretically higher stat, I am using the same, if not more time to kill something for more mana than I started with: a net loss.

As a Death Knight, the same thing applies to rotations and equipment: if on average I see no difference, or require something like an extra 40 RP or a rune cooldown to kill something because I chose the theoretically higher RAID DPS, I've actually lost out and am having less fun grinding like a machine.

Hence, the advice: theoretical DPS is purely theory, and in a leveling situation becomes largely subjective since it's possible to have less actual damage on your meter but be using less resources/time to plow through the same 'trash' content. So, the simple version:

For leveling, do what's fun for YOU since there's little or no appreciable difference between the competent specs except in dungeon situations, at least through Outland and early Northrend. Just do your homework here and be ready to change out for the good of high end dungeons and raiding.

 

Groglox

Is heart strike a strict upgrade to blood strike?

 

Sylari

I've been looking through the DPS compendium and I couldn't find an answer in the main post. Do our strikes use normalized AP calculations?

Second, I might go try and round up a few blood knights later to check this out, but they were claiming earlier that multiple blood auras stack with each other, as in their strike would heal them of 2%, then 2% again if there was a second blood aura up etc and I was just wondering if someone could confirm this.

Also I'd go test this myself but bladed armor kind of mucks up the results sometimes.. does blood presence apply to everything or just white strikes? I'd assume the first based on the tooltip but I've heard several people saying that it only applies to white damage.



edit: And yes, Heart strike straight up replaces blood strikes.

 

Nostrum

Basically if you need something (s) to die fast or you notice you have 100+ rp, hit DRW. Your excess RP will be fixed somewhat when you get rune strike, you won't miss the rp when this hits
I've noticed some strange behaviour with DRW though where it will randomly attack adds such as a hunters pet while I'm attacking the hunter. Dunno if it 'defends' you on the first hit it sees or what.

 

Septus

When I get unholy presence I'm considering a switch to blood spec.

My question is, to what degree are diseases less important for blood than unholy? Enough that you can and should start off with icy touch(when running to the mob) and then hitting HS, HS, OB etc to kill solo mobs? Or is the presence of diseases still important enough for things like HS/OB extra damage?

 

shinger

Thanks for the clarification; coupled with some more research it enabled me to come to this conclusion:

Death Strike - A deadly attack that deals 60% weapon damage plus X and heals the Death Knight for a percent of damage done for each of <his/her> diseases on the target.

"A percentage of damage done for each of my diseases" is in fact referring to the mechanic of counting the active diseases (ex: 2) and then using that as a multiple of the "percentage of damage done" not of the actual diseases but of the Death Strike itself.

My current understanding of Death Strike is that, in layman's terms, you hit for a certain amount of white dmg when you Death Strike, and that amount is determined like any other AP-based attack (not sure if it's normalized), and the amount of healing done to yourself simultaneously is simple a product of the following 2 factors: how many active diseases you have on the target, and how much your Death Strike hit them for.

If you crit, your heal amount is increased accordingly. If you have 0 diseases active, they still take white dmg but you get no self-healing.

Now I can finally stop wasting my time trying to maximize Death Strike the wrong way

edit: cheers Pyros

 

Prinsesa

Groglox: Yes, Heart Strike is a strict upgrade to Blood Strike. At their last ranks, assuming both diseases are up, Heart Strike will deal (60% weapon damage + 441.6), whereas Blood Strike will deal (50% weapon damage + 382), for the same 1 Blood rune cost, while all talents that affect Blood Strike also affect Heart Strike.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Dev93L

I am severely confused by the wording of the Dual Wield Tri Spec rotation section of the DPS Compendium post. I'll need to quote it to explain what I mean.


I'm sure it's just a misreading on my part, but here goes nothing. X=HB, unless Rime. If Rime, then OB. That makes sense. However, just up above that it says "HBs usage must be primarily restricted to Rime procs."

How is HB restricted to only rime procs if X=HB unless Rime?

I'm sure I'm just misreading something, but someone please set me straight.

Is it meant to be PS, IT, BS, BS, (Rime) OB, DC, HB

Or

PS, IT, BS, BS, (no Rime) HB, DC?

 

Leaflock

I think you've pretty much got it, though Death Strike is in no way white damage. It's clearer when you know how it originally worked.

The original Death Strike worked like a basic weapon strike-- % of weapon damage, normalized, plus a flat bonus. Then, you got healed for whatever total damage it did, times the number of your diseases on the target. For example, if Death Strike hits for 500, and you have 3 diseases up as Unholy, you got healed for 1500. If DS crits for 1000, you got healed for 3000. If you had no diseases up, you received no heal.

As you can see, this gets pretty powerful, so DS got nerfed to heal for a % of the total damage done, instead of the total damage done. Otherwise, it works the same way. A portion of DS's damage is multiplied by the number of diseases you have up to determine how much you're healed for.

For solo grinding/leveling, your rotation or RP usage doesn't particularly matter. I usually kill things before I have any opportunity to use RP, so I just refresh Unholy Blight or burn Gargoyle if I want to chain pull mobs.

For Blood leveling, DRW is a nice dump for burning down elites or group. Otherwise, I wouldn't be too concerned about RP usage. Most of the comments in various threads about the importance of RP are referring to boss fight dps, not questing.

Bloodworms are really nice for leveling. In raids, they can prove a detriment, and many have argued there are better uses of your points, which I agree with.

 

Prinsesa

Dev93L: That section was just worded quite poorly.

If you are in the DC/runic dump portion of your rotation, and Rime procs, use Howling Blast, since Rime makes your HB cost nothing.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Pyr0

So the amount of +hit I lose by using the green is not a concern? I had been under the impression that when levelling +hit was of utmost importance.

 

Calamar

It's a nice stat to have, but you're typically using a 2H as a death knight, so you won't need a lot of it.

"Gordon, the planet has been conquered by malevolent aliens. Humanity is depending on you. Here's a goddamned crowbar."

 

Dev93L

Ok that makes more sense. Thank you very much.

 

Lujaar

Based on DPS tests from beta, if I remember right:

Blood - Fallen Crusader
Frost - Cinderglacier (possibly Razorice in a raid with multiple people doing frost damage; more testing needed)
Unholy - Cinderglacier

 

Kaniption

So from what I've gathered, the typical 80 blood rotation is PS>IT>HS>HS>OB>DC>OB>HS>HS>HS>HS>DC

What about for the leveling DK, assuming I don't have epidemic and haven't gotten far enough down the frost tree to get Annihilation yet.

What I've been using is PS>IT>HS>HS>OB>DC then after that I have 3ish seconds before the unholy/frost runes are off cd for another Obliterate. Thoughts?

 

Glaedr

i have a question about the talent auras. i planned on doing a 35/36/0 build and was gonna put points into both frost aura and blood aura, does anyone know if both of those auras will be up at the same time or would it be wasted points?

 

Prinsesa

Without questioning the validity of such a build, yes, both auras will apply at the same time, regardless of your currently selected Presence.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Deviantsoul

I was wondering if the talent in the blood tree bladed armor would stack with the talent Toughness in the frost tree?


Would you gain the 5 AP from the extra 15% armor?

I know it seems stupid but im not sure if the AP will be applied before or after the 15% bonus.

**Question already answered**

 

Phayne

First my proposed spec:
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator

!
Thanks for the help guys, I was basically on track with the 50/21 build in the compendium so I think I will go with that for now. My apologies for making a needless post I will leave the original spec up in case any care to make comparisons between it and the one in the compendium. My apologies for posting before reading

 

Aram

1) Corpse Explosion isn't very good and isn't worth the rune or a talent point imo.
2) Gargoyle is better than DRW. There are posts in the DPS thread about it.
3) I would drop Blood Aura and Blood Worms if this is a PvP spec. They are very underwhelming for PvP.