Is there any way to incorporate something in these macro's to disable those 'You cant do that yet' or 'not enough runic power' error messages you get when Rune Strike isn't up?
I am still confused about the silence macro found in the DPS Compendium thread:
#showtooltip Mind Freeze
/cast Mind Freeze
/cast Strangulate
I did some tests and it does cast both spells when both are available. I was not in the beta, so I do not know if this worked in it but now, it seems that Mind Freeze does not trigger the GCD and thus will not prevent Strangulate from beeing casted when ready.
Regarding Mind Freeze/Strangulate, why not just do this?
/castsequence reset=10 Mind Freeze, Strangulate
One button to push, casts the appropriate spell. Only downside is not being able to use Strangulate on its own, but if your really needed to use Strangulate to pull seems like you could just put in on a secondary bar and click it.
Does anyone know why the DPS Compendium suggests to use UB as a regular part of your damage rotation? According to the coefficients in that post and my napkin math, below, DC should outperform UB in terms of damage per RP assuming single-target once you pass ~1400 AP.
I'm pretty sure that UB counts as a disease and increases the damage of our abilities, unless they changed it.
UB is no longer a disease as of a couple patches back (In beta). However it seems as though my DS's hit harder when it's up. Can anyone confirm/deny this? If it is I assume that is a bug but I could be imagining things.
If I am doing my regular DPS rotation, let's say IT-PS-HSx2-Oblit, and my PS misses, would I be better off just continuing the rotation as normal and not mess with my rune cool downs, or go back and reapply PS?
I am looking for some base values to build on for unholy tanking. I need to pick up tank duties for the guild while leveling but when I compare my days with a warrior the values don't add up in my head.
I am going to swap to this build as Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft as a baseline from 70 to aid in my tanking ability. I just am stuck when it comes to what I should be aiming for parry, dodge, and defense, while I level.
If I am doing my regular DPS rotation, let's say IT-PS-HSx2-Oblit, and my PS misses, would I be better off just continuing the rotation as normal and not mess with my rune cool downs, or go back and reapply PS?
IMHO: Re-apply, if you miss the rune won't go on CD anyway, you'll just have to wait for a GCD.
UB is no longer a disease as of a couple patches back (In beta). However it seems as though my DS's hit harder when it's up. Can anyone confirm/deny this? If it is I assume that is a bug but I could be imagining things.
Death Strike does not have a damage benefit from Diseases, only the healing benefit. Easiest way to test is to UB -> DS, and see if you get any health restore.
Small question regarding gemming.
I was reading the DPS compendium thread and it listed the three colours of gem choice.
My question is: it doesn't say what you should prioritize, while on the hit-section it basically says "GOGO get hitcapped", should I just, like a rogue, gem for full hit until I get the cap and then gradually put in more stre/crit-gems the better gear I get?
And regarding enchants, same there, always expertise/hit-enchants until you're capped?
And do gem prioritizing change depending on what you plan to spec? I plan to be frost at least until we've killed all bosses in the tier 6 content and then see how blood works out.
Anyone got an answer or tip for this? Been wondering about this for a while myself, planning on raiding frost, 2h (mostly nontank).
Rune Strike worth using as Unholy (levelling & tanking)?
So, I completely get that Rune Strike is a huge dps ability, but my question is: Is it worth putting it in your macro's in an unholy build for levelling and/or tanking? I'm not much of a theory crafter (I leave that to you guys and just mooch/leach off of you), but am interested to know...
In my experience - after taking down a mob or two I have a obscene amount of runic power, so it's probably worth it while level or mat grinding, but I'm worried about dumping too much RP when I'm tanking.
There we go. My question of the day (and I think it's my first post here too after being a lurker for so long)
Unholy Presence seems better than advertised. Looking at the runic power talents, how best to generate runic power (single rune abilities), and taking advantage of the 1.0 sec GCD, it's possible to do a lot of abilities.
Keys to this: Icy Touch Glyph, Dirge, Chill to the Grave. Blood of the North. Frost Strike.
With this setup, Plague Strike gives 15 runic power, Icy Touch gives a whopping 25 runic power, and Blood Strike just 10.
PS -> IT -> FS -> BS -> BS -> PS -> IT -> FS -> FS (if available)
PS -> IT -> FS -> IT -> IT -> PS -> IT -> FS -> FS
Note that you can use Rime powered Howling Blast in a Frost Strike spot. The "if available" Frost Strike becomes available after you've done your first 20 sec rotation. At some points, you'll have an extra second to fire another Frost Strike to siphon off some of the excess runic power. Note with 6 Icy Touchs in each 20 sec rotation, you will likely get one Rime proc every rotation which is why you'll have excess runic power. The free Howling blast will give you 20 runic power. Note that having a couple points in rune power mastery is very helpful when this happens. If you are lucky, Rime will proc on the first or second Icy Touch and you'll get a perfect rotation from the start (30% chance).
This uses 9 abilities per 10 seconds. This is due to latency. You can fire a 19th ability in 20 sec if you have good latency and good reflexes.
Since it uses a lot of Frost abilities, this type of build benefits greatly from a duel wield Slow/Fast setup. I recommend 0/49/22. If your tank can handle the threat, this produces a ton of damage. Killing Machine is just amazing in this kind of setup. Look at the number of abilities that can auto-crit in that rotation and you understand how damage goes through the roof with this setup. Every Frost Strike, Icy Touch, and Howling Blast can auto-crit with Killing Machine. With 20% haste base (Improved Icy Talons and Unholy presence) and 20% Icy Talons bonus haste, you generate a lot of hits to proc Killing Machine.
If anyone knows a good simulator, this needs to be tested. I can't do this in the game as my death knight is not level 80. My napkin math shows this has some amazing potential.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.
While this is definitely more of a general heads up, as opposed to a question of any sort, I'm certain it'll come up at some point, so:
Mark of Blood goes off on *any* damage done by the target it gets placed on--including disease/dot ticks that are already up. I can't say for certain whether a damage shield would also set it off but I would have to think so.
While the tooltip pretty much states as much, I'm sure that I wasn't the only one standing around slack-jawed after getting thrashed by a blood knight (especially while seeing their HP skyrocket every few seconds because my diseases had been turned into HoTs :-/).
So, I completely get that Rune Strike is a huge dps ability, but my question is: Is it worth putting it in your macro's in an unholy build for levelling and/or tanking? I'm not much of a theory crafter (I leave that to you guys and just mooch/leach off of you), but am interested to know...
In my experience - after taking down a mob or two I have a obscene amount of runic power, so it's probably worth it while level or mat grinding, but I'm worried about dumping too much RP when I'm tanking.
I would (and do) macro it to all strikes for leveling, the damage per RP is much better than everything else. I tanked Nexus the other day with my usual macros, but experienced exactly what you're worried about - sometimes it was fine, but several times I found I was unable to pop UB when I wanted to get AoE aggro, and even worse, unable to pop IF when there was an "oh shit" moment (one of the boss's frenzies, I don't remember which does it).
What I'm going to do is just add an "alt" modifier to the macros so it will trigger freely when I have plenty of RP and/or am on a boss with IF still on cooldown, but use the alt-macros when there's a need to save RP.
Trying to stir up some discussion here. Reading through these threads and looking at the talents from the standpoint of an unholy PvE offtank/DPS role, it seems that there are several unholy talents that are best avoided. Once you understand this, it's much easier to develop an optimized spec as many false choices are eliminated. They are:
- Corpse explosion: The unholy rune is better used in a scourge/death strike or D&D when AEing. Leaves the DK with an orphan frost rune. Corpse explosion is cool, but useless in its current incarnation.
- Unholy command: This is a PvP-only talent.
- Virulence: Affects only IT, DC, and howling blast (if frost). May be worthwhile for frost specs doing AE. But probably not.
- Outbreak and Necrosis: Way too little benefit from outbreak. Necrosis is debatable, and I would love to see someone defend the talent.
- Morbidity: Moderately useful for AE tanking, otherwise weak as unholy will be using unholy blight rather than DC and doesn't use D&D when DPSing. I usually find myself taking morbidity anyway, as it's the best choice available to reach the next tier.
- On a pale horse: This is a leveling/PvP talent with very minor tanking utility. It's not worth taking after 79, maybe even 77 with a swift flier, for PvE.
- Night of the dead: An obsolete talent from beta, before unholy DKs had real ghoul pets. It has moderate utility for use in boss battles with death pact, but I don't see any DKs taking these points now.
- Desecration: Another debatable one. This talent locks the DK into using plague strike, eliminating the choice of the scourge strike glyph, and offers a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of 5% overall damage in a small static area. I disregard the snare effect. If desecration was a 100% chance of a 1/2/3/4/5% damage increase and the effect moved with my character, this would be a much more attractive talent. Based purely on numbers it's worthwhile; in the actual game I try to skip it.
Comments? Anyone have similar lists for blood or frost?
- Morbidity: Moderately useful for AE tanking, otherwise weak as unholy will be using unholy blight rather than DC and doesn't use D&D when DPSing. I usually find myself taking morbidity anyway, as it's the best choice available to reach the next tier.
You seriously, dramatically underestimate RP generation. Within the 20 seconds of an UB, you'll generate 135 RP with a typical build and glyph set up. That's very nearly enough for two DCs in addition to the UB.
Of that 135RP, 60 goes to the next UB at the 20s mark, leaving only 75, which is one DC. This assumes no latency, a perfectly executed rotation, and no gargoyle (trash pull). Even with 2 DCs, is 15% DC damage >=3% overall damage? I actually do take morbidity as the lesser evil, and it would be nice to hear it's better than I thought.
UB is no longer a disease as of a couple patches back (In beta). However it seems as though my DS's hit harder when it's up. Can anyone confirm/deny this? If it is I assume that is a bug but I could be imagining things.
I tested it out and yes, UB is not a disease it's simply a generic harmful effect. My abilities didn't hit any harder with it up, it didn't cause Ebon Plague, and Death Strike didn't heal me for anything.
Does anyone know where there's a decent dps spreadsheet? I couldn't find anything but Deathgraf (which looks nice, but doesn't give me details, or appear to allow dual-wielding), and Hex (which doesn't work under linux). Hate to build one from the ground up again, it took forever last time..
Has anyone else seen an anomaly in the amount of Sudden Death procs while leveling up? It is supposed to have a 20% chance on a BS or a HS but the amount of procs has gone down. According to ProcWatch 1.1 during the whole level 71 I had a total of 790 procs, 72 I had 517 procs, level 73 I had of 117 procs and during level 74 I had 11 procs total. I haven't changed my rotation since level 68 or 69 as I haven't gotten any new skills between this time.
Anyone else seeing this kind of behaviour? And no, ProcWatch was not on pause/suspend mode.
I have also noticed this but I do not have ProcWatch data to support it. It is one of the reasons I switched from blood to other specs as I continue to level.
- Morbidity: Moderately useful for AE tanking, otherwise weak as unholy will be using unholy blight rather than DC and doesn't use D&D when DPSing. I usually find myself taking morbidity anyway, as it's the best choice available to reach the next tier.
I can't seem to find consensus here, but I thought DnD was a clear dps increase when dpsing 3 or more targets?
11/19/08, 10:03 AM
Similar Threads
