Why are people still advertising macros that cancel Freezing Fog?
If you use the proc on an additional IT, you'll get the IT damage, delay your rotation by a GCD and gain 5 RP (5+20 instead of 20). Usually IT does more DPS than your total rotation, so in the end it's most certainly a DPS increase. Why are people cancelling it?

Because people aren't perfect players. There is no way for most players to take advantage of every dps-increasing trick the theorycrafters can turn out. Some of the logic is too complicated to perform so rapidly, some of the timing is too difficult, and some things just take too much attention - If they ignore the freezing fog proc, it makes their priority system or rotation simpler, and leaves them with more attention to spare for the important parts of a fight.

I was one of those arguing in favor of using the freezing fog proc, and I'm still certain it does more damage.. but the people hitting 6-7k dps in a patchwerk fight are hitting their rotation absolutely perfectly, and messing with their cues to scrape an extra 20 dps out of the rime procs for a week seems silly (it's all going to change in 3.0.8)

This is subject to question and down to preference; most don't spell hit cap. If you look up most of the DKs around here who are posting big numbers you'll notice their hit rating somewhere between 260-280. 8% (or 7% if you can guarantee a Draenei in your group) is enough, after that, take hit if it comes with the gear, otherwise you should be shooting for strength all the way.

It's also worth noting that if you're around 260-280 hit, you are about <1% off spell hit cap anyways, assuming a boomkin or spriest.

Don't gear for expertise. Again, if it's on the gear, coolsies, otherwise, don't worry about it.

It's easier to maintain your rotation that way, and even though in theory using Freezing Fog in the situations where it would be profitable would indeed be a DPS increase, it's not worth the trouble. You may have to be moving out of fire and not cancel one where you should have and then your rotation will be screwed for a while. And the loss in DPS for that screwed rotation will be far bigger than what you gain from manually cancelling. The DPS increase (even when cancelling perfectly) is not big anyways. But hey, if you're looking for big values on Recount on Patchwerk, feel free to not use the macros and manually cancel away. For general use, I still recommend the macros.

to ensure that I've been keeping my rotation going without dodges, I've been using blood boil a lot. It seems to keep my overall dps higher. Anyone else been doing this?

I don't cancel rime, either. My last 10 man patchwerk run, I hit 4600+ dps and we finished 10 seconds ahead of the achievement speed. (5 mins?) Not bad considering my unbuffed AP is sub 3k.

We'll see how it goes tuesday.

Awesome parse, thats some pretty crazy crit/garg damage. I had troubles with taking hatefuls at around 6800 dps this week, and we both had the same problem it seems-- Tricks of the Trade 3.

Is the 3% from Nerves not applied to yellow damage? I would think the yellow melee cap would be 5% (without draenaei).

Also, check back a week after 3.0.8 comes out, I suspect the weights on stats like expertise will change a bit when KM goes to a ppm system.

No offense, but this thread is really for theorycraft. Your question will be better answered in the Simple Questions thread. And it's already written out for you in the DK Thinktank article.

If that proves insufficient, pm me and I'll answer a few questions for you without cluttering up the thread.

I use Power Auras. It's much like the other addons that were also suggested but you can also resize the graphics, move them anywhere, give them a custom color and opacity. What I REALLY love about it though is the new version can track your runic power. I have mine setup so if my runic power reaches 80 it will show a graphic indicating an impending dump is needed. This specifically addresses my own personal weakness of letting runic power get to 100.

Hello fellow DK's

I've been thinking of try out an DW DPS build.
Read abit on the latest pages and havn't really got an understanding of how everything works.(Talents, Rotations etc)

I've seen good results of the DPS linked in latest parses(on Patchwerk), but. Does the "playstyle" work on other bosses aswell and in heroics?
Dinged 80 recently and are curious how this works.

Any helpful information about gear/talents and rotations are greatful.

Oh, one last thing. It rumours that the next patch is releasing soon. Does DW still do good DPS in that patch?(If tested)
I don't feel like spending money/badges on weapons if it's gimped next patch

Thanks for your time /Ladon

If you "feel like" reading, I suggest starting around page 20 and do that. all of your questions will be answered.

I think that questions like these could be avoided if there was a summary of all of the information gathered and confirmed to this point. Maybe it could be added to the PvE DPS Thread in the Think Tank? I know a lot of information is still being analyzed and discussed, but there are several things that have been set in stone (BP > UP, 8% hit, etc.).

I've been thinking of switching from 2H unholy to DW.

I know these forums are generally about min-maxing highest content, so I'm sorry if I don't quite fit that mold yet. My gear is mostly blues/epics from 5man content, and my 2H is [Titansteel Destroyer]. I don't have any epic 1hander right now except [Red Sword of Courage].

So my question/worry is: would I gain dps from switching to DW with rep/heroic blue weapons over my 2H epic ?

I've been assuming that speed and stats are more relevant than weapon damage for DW due to its heavy spell usage, so I'm wondering if switching to f/f blues would actually be an improvement over the 2H weapon I just trashed 2k gold on, or if would be roughly equal until I get an epic DW set (say, [Titansteel Bonecrusher]/[Grasscutter]) after 3.0.8 KM normalization.

I agree, this thread is missing a nice summary post similiar to the first posts on the other DK threads. Maybe someone can take the effort to make a summary post and have it inserted to the front of this thread or start a new one.

Dual spec is soooo much superior... Ive tested on dummy's in org (which necrosis doesnt work on) raid encounters (10 and 25 man) and 5 mans as well, i find that WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator is by far the best DW talent spec out there... I DW Hatestrikes (MH with Crusader, OH with Cinderglacier) Razorice can be beneficial if your raid is heavy on the mages, but cinderglacier provides a lot more personal dps...

With this spec, you miss epidemic which some people believe to be a must have, at first i agreed, but with the 3 points spent in Rime, reapplying IT gives you more chances to proc a free HB. This spec has a few unnecesary points spent, depending on your raid comp... i like Bone shield and took it as a last point filler, also Crypt fevers do not stack and therefor those 3 points might be better spent elsewhere...

Dual Wielding as a Death Knight
1) Why to Dual Wield.
2) Gearing for Dual Wield.
3) Presences, Gargy, Ghouly and You
4) The Specs and Their Rotations
5) New Ground (Patch 3.08)

1) Why to Dual Wield
Hai, I'm Darklordxenu from (US)Misha. I'm here to give a quick reference guide to all those DK's looking to pump out as much damage as possible, as easily as possible. A quick reference Guide to show you how to DW DPS. DW'ing for Dummies if you will . Focused on pre 3.08 specs and handling.

Dual wielding as a Death Knight is currently producing more dps than any 2hd build. Note: This is extremely likely to change as nerfs have been introduced in 3.08 (albeit ineffective as of 10-12-09). It's an extremely simple spec to gear for, and rather fun and easy to play. DW'ing with your Dk will produce tremendous single target dps, as well as extremely competitive AOE dps.

I'm going to cover gear and overall ideas before divulging into the 3 major DW specs; as the gear and overall playstyle for both specs is *very* similar.

2) Gearing for Dual Wield.
To properly gear your DK for DW'ing, you need to hit about 8% hit. Ren was one of the first DK's to show going past 8% hit from gear is pretty much a waste in raw damage. After you get 8%, go for Strength. We have talents to boost it, our fallen crusader, our ghoul, and our gargoyle are all effected by it moreso than AP, and lolkingslol.

After strength, Crit rating is important for Killing Machine Uptime (pre 3.08.) Take expertise, more hit, and haste as they come on gear but *always* gem for strength, excluding the 2 blues you need for the Chaotic Skyflare Meta gem (If you aren't a JC.) As our DW spec is based around critting, 3% more crit damage is the best meta we can get. Armor pen is utter garbage for DK's considering about 30% of our dps is effected by it. Armor Pen is pure garbage for us. Haste will be much more valuable in 3.08 with the way the current implementation of Killing Machine is on the ptr (PPM system.)

As for Weapons and sigils. Currently, Fast/Fast is the way to go for either of the dual wield specs, but 44/27 will benefit from a slow/fast combination. Come next patch, DPS > Speed > Stats with the changes to bloodcaked blade offhand procs no longer triggering mainhand procs. Sigil wise, [Sigil of the Dark Rider] will hold you for now. [Sigil of Haunted Dreams] is DECENT, but next patch, the Icy Touch sigil from Grizzly Hills Daily Tokens (cant remember the name for the life of me) will be the best sigil a DW DK can use.

The best tradeskills to be for a deathknight are JC / BS. Prismatic gems, with 2 extra gem slots. This is rather expensive, so make sure you have some sort of major income to level both up to Northrend levels.

TLDR Version:
Get 8% hit.
Gem nothing but STR.
Starter Sigil is fine.
Chaotic Skyflare Meta.
Weps should be fast / fast or Slow / Fast *only* if 44/27 or DPS discrepancy or 10 or more.
Great Starter DW weps : [Fang of Truth] [Reaper of Dark Souls]

3) Presences, Gargy, Ghouly and You
Numerous tests and parses have shown that Blood Presence outpreforms Unholy Presence by a significant margin in almost every situation. So, use it!

Our DPS as DW comes in a large part from Gargoyle and our Ghoul pet. Thus, a large portion of our threat is not attributed to us. However, the draw back is you have to monitor and baby your pets constantly in order to stay top (or competitive) on the Charts.

Your Ghouly will do anywhere from 300 to 700 of your damage, so take care of him! Randomized Name Here Ghoul, will have about 11 to 14k hp fully raid buffed. That's a decent amount right? Not really. He has No AoE avoidance or mitigation at all. (Changes in 3.08 buff Night of the Dead talent to give ghouly 35% aoe avoidance per point invested.) Thus, you have to watch him like a hawk. If he's taking too much damage, pull him out of the fray and let the AOE heals pick him up back again before commanding him to rip faces once more. Also, on extremely AoE intensive fights like Sapphiron, he'll be pummeled into submission and be near worthless. Get used to it. You're going to get annoyed by it, but at the same time, who can't love a little guy named Ratdrinker?

Summon Gargoyle is the other powerhouse of this spec. Gargy can bump overall dps by 1000 while he's up. He's a monster, that sadly is getting nerfed. (Much needed however.) The way to use your Gargoyle is very similar to the way you use your ghoul. Gargy is fragile as hell, if you pop him out just before a major AoE , he'll get fried faster than chicken at KFC. So be careful with him. However, if there is no aoe to worry about (lolpatches) the best way to launch him is when you have every single trinket / weapon buff up simultaneously. Get an addon that shows when trinket procs are up (Procs off of [Mirror of Truth] and the like). The one I use is needtoknow. The reason to do this, is when Gargy is launched, he takes a screenshot of your stats, and uses those stats for his damage for the entire minute he's out. So if you have 1000ap proc from mirror of truth, 300str proc from Greatness card, and Fallen Crusader proced all at once, thats an extra 3k ap worth of damage he'll be doing for an entire minute, that lasts at most Seconds stacked on you. Learn to proc watch, love it, and watch that dps go HIGH.

TLDR Version:
Use blood presence!
Pet Owns, But be careful with him. He's fragile.
Launch Gargoyle when All your +ap trinket / weapon rune buffs are up.
Get Proc Watch addon like needtoknow to help with better Gargoyle launches.

4) The Specs and Their Rotations
FINALLY! How to spec / what skills to use! There's 3 major specs, I'm going to cover 0/32/39 and 0/44/27 as i have personally Raided as both. I'll give a brief glimpse into 0/20/51 but I'm not entirely sure how the spec rolls out on that one.

4a) 0/20/51
Your rotation is going to be:
IT>PS>BSx2>IT>RP Dump
ITx4>PS>RP Dump
Fast / Fast weapons will be the weapons of choice. As you can see, the spec is built around Icy touch spam, with Ebon Plague Bringer and Unholy Aura for your raid. If there is no other death knight raiding with you, you should be a spec with Ebon Plague bringer in order to help the raid. Sure boomkins and locks can do +13% magic damage, but for us, its a matter of Icy touch or PS, then pestilence and boom, its up on any mob in range; much, much easier for us to do on AoE packs then Boomkins or Locks.

If my rotation or Spec is off for this build, PLEASE let me know. I know very little about this build and am very willing to edit this section ASAP.

For glyphs, Boneshield, Ghoul, and Plague Strike. Getting Icy Touch glyph will hurt this build way too much as nice as it is.

4b) 0/31/40 The standard 0/32/39 is to remove my 1 point in Night of the Dead to fill 2/2 Merciless combat. I prefer at least ONE point in NOTD to keep ghouly up, and it was a dps loss of < 3% overall in raids for 1 point in MC from my parses. However, spec as you like there, its more preference than anything.
Your rotation is:
IT>PS>HB>BSx2>RP Dump
IT>PS>HB>ITx2>RP Dump
Yer RP dump is Death Coil (duh,) and if at all possible, save killing machine procs for howlingblast. Try to avoid using them on an icy touch, unless it pushes back your rotation too far (2 to 3 seconds or more.) Instead of using a touch, dump RP on death coil so you can save KM procs for HB. Simple, easy build.

There are people who use macros to cancel Rime procs so they can maintain a "perfect" rotation. If you're that interested about being top DPS, go through the thread and read it all to understand why. Otherwise, I'd use those rimes for free howling blasts just to make things easier and a little more fun. (WOW that 8k aoe crit was FREEEEEE! Free is always better imo . )

This build strongly benefits from fast/fast. However if you have a 140dps slow weap, and a 120dps fast wep, dont be fooled, go for the higher dps wep. Just try to "upgrade" to a faster equal dps wep .

Glyphs: Icy Touch, Bone Shield, Ghoul.

4c) 0/44/27
Basically the same thing, but lower ghoul survivability, and a different RP dump.
Your Rotation is:
IT>PS>HB>BSx2>RP Dump
IT>PS>HB>ITx2>RP Dump
Yer RP dump is Frost Strike in this case and DO NOT save killing machine procs. Your RP dump will consume KM procs, so saving them for howling blast will just be a drop in DPS.

Again with the Rime cancel mention...meh. Do as you like .

This build slightly, slightly favors Slow/fast due to RP dump relying on % wep dmg. The difference you see from Frost Strike dmg going up, will drop your KM / BCB procs however. So either setup will work fine for this build.

Glyphs: Icy Touch, Frost Strike, Ghoul.

5) New Ground (Patch 3.08)

Currently we don't have a huge amount of people PTR testing everything. We have the helpful few however. It's very hard to call what spec will pull the highest dps in the next patch. Once its clearly established and we have some live realms data, I'll update this ASAP to reflect our knowledge.

As far as we know AS OF TODAY (Jan15/09) 44/27 is SLIGHTLY ahead with fast/fast setup from the data I've seen. This is only a few people's parsings however...so I'll change it as soon as It's needed.

And there ya have it. Quicky How to guide for DW dps. If you have suggestions or need to point out inaccuracies, please please please, PM me so I know to check over here and update / fix anything ASAP. I'll be updating / cleaning this up as much as possible between raids / class.

Got on the PTR finally, did some testing, and as 32/39 I found that my highest dps was using a PS IT BS BS HB opener, then following with either:

HB IT IT HB
or
HB HB HB.

My question is, which do you think would do better dps of the two?

With KM being even more... volatile... to calculate than ever, it is coming down to whether I want to have a higher damage done albeit munching more KMs, or a more focused damage that will put the KM to maximum usage.

Note I don't have necessarily optimal weapons nor gear, and I didn't get the icy touch sigil.

I'm gonna lay odds that it will hinge on how frequent KM procs after adjusted. If the proc rate is considerably lower, I assume that 3x HB will overtake 2x IT (and in my tests even, it did by a rather small margin (~30 dps)).

There is a third option that I didnt test for I assume it was a rotation designed for desecration usage (which is the above opener with PS IT HB HB tacked on at the end) and my build does not include desec because I can't tolerate being tied to one spot, on top of that fact that you can't stay out of the fire you can't see.

Well, doing a few bosses in 10 man naxx last night, I decided to try out 0/20/51 spec instead of my previous 0/31/40. Now, I know I do not have great gear, but i have been averaging at least 2.3kdps in most 10mans with 31/40, but using 20/51, I only did about 1.8k dps. Now, does this seem right to you? Because I have seen many people say 20/51 is almost equal to 31/40 (32/39), but from the looks of it, its not even that close.

I've been trying out both 0/31/40 and 0/20/51 and found that I'm definitely out-dpsing our other DW DK on single target fights as 20/51 at about the same gear level.

While I'm still learning a lot about the spec overall, here are a couple WWS reports from this last week.

Wow Web Stats - Sarth + 1 drake / Maly attempts (people just cannot stay out of the breath attack!)

Wow Web Stats - First day of Naxx. Note: I was 0/31/40 through Military wing as I didn't have time to respec before we pulled. This was my first attempt at the spec so it was definitely a bit sloppy. Also - Anumb looks very low because our tanks are pussies and can't kite anything and wanted me standing near them for Unholy Aura.


Overall I feel like the 20/51 spec has a ton more going on all at once. I do favor it for single target DPS though as I've been able to put out some far better numbers on some tank & spank fights, and considerable more than our other DW DKs (both of them) on fights that require some movement. Grob is definitely a fight that I see a fairly large DPS gain on in comparison.

So, I've significantly improved my gear, my DPS has increased quite substantially, (well into the 3k territory, up from 1.8-2k) but now I'm having some issues with speccing my DW DK. I initially tried 0/32/39, which was great fun and good DPS. But we have an unholy DK who raids with us and he's got Ebon plaguebringer and unholy aura, so I thought it would be ideal for me to go 0/44/27 (with Frost Strike), capitalize on his disease debuffs but go deep frost for GoG, etc.

We also had another DK specced 0/32/39. His DPS was comparable to mine, slightly lower, but I also have slightly better gear (hard to believe).

I've tried the IT PS HB BS BS DUMP IT PS HB IT IT DUMP rotation in unholy presence. Did quite well with that and really enjoyed the faster cooldowns, it just feels more like you are a blender carving stuff up whatever comes across your path. The only problem I have with it is that using Plague Strike with this build seems like such a waste of a GCD (and a major glyph too), so I tried Rune Tap HB IT BS HB DUMP rotation in blood presence, and I quite often found that I wasn't able to use the 6 second cooldown optimally - either waiting for HB to cooldown, so I would use Frost Strike, and then go back to the rotation, and be stuck at the end of the rotation with less RP, and a second or two left on HB. Problem is amplified with summoning the ghoul. I also found that on any boss where movement was required, it became tougher to monitor the HB cooldown and time it exactly right to maintain a good rotation. Maybe I just don't have enough experience with that rotation, but it just doesn't seem to be as effective, and subject to bigger DPS losses if you can' execute and maintain the rotation just right. DPS was still comparable, but it just felt clunky and it was much harder to re-establish the rotation if I missed something or had to move. Maybe lack of skill, or lack of experience, but wanted to check and see if there were similar experiences out there.

Maybe it's a moot point with the upcoming changes to HB, FS, and KM.

On top of that, I see Ren's new post cracking 7k DPS with 0/32/39. I'm wondering if 0/44/27 is still comparable in terms of DPS output? Any suggestions on how I can mitigate the 'clunkiness' of the HB IT BS HB dump rotation? Any comments generally on the differences between the two rotations and specs? I like the idea of 0/44/27, I'm just having a hard time executing properly.

Finally...weapon enchants. I ran with the standard Fallen Crusader MH, Cinderglacier OH, but I'm wondering if Razorice would be the better OH choice since with the replacement of DC with FS, there is one more frost based attack which gets repeated 2-3 times in one rotation. Has anyone tested the effectiveness of those two enchants, and if so, could you please point me in the right direction?

Zolak: The HB [IT BS] HB rotation is for post-patch. You won't be able to get 4xHB pre-patch. There's a 3xHB rotation floating around somewhere if you're dead set on minimizing Plague Strike use.

In regards to the cancelling of Freezing Fog, if it is truly a DPS increase, it would be rather simple to create a small addon that auto-cancels it as soon as it pops. This is because the CancelUnitBuff API call is not protected and therefore requires no hardware input. It could be called when the UnitBuff event is fired...if there's enough interest in this, I can throw it together over the next day or two.

EDIT: It could even get more complex with more time...for example: Don't cancel the buff if the player's runes are all on CD and he/she has less than a certain amount of RP.

Macros work fine.

I find that macroing the cancel to PS instead of IT/HB is more effective since in the most commonly-used rotations, you'll always PS before the HB, and this leaves you the option of using a HB during the RP dump section if you can fit one in.