I definately would suggest using a different trinket.

If that's true, that would seem to be a relatively small upgrade (19 or 20 str) over the current sigil, especially given that on a fight with significant movement you would likely hit a point where you risk losing the buff stack or having to spending death runes on Death Strike to refresh it.

The 15 second duration is a pretty serious liability for blood, actually, since the standard rotation with no latency puts the second DS exactly 14.5 seconds before the third. You can shuffle the DS around to make them come in closer to 10s intervals, but it makes it easier to get into sticky situations with death rune usage. Maybe it just needs to last 20 seconds, or have some alternative stacking mechanism for blood, but the 15 second DS-based stack is not viable. Especially if bonecaller is correct, and it's only supposed to be 219-220 str at a full stack, then there would be little reason to replace virulence.

The benefit you gain from expertise above and beyond 26 is minimal, especially for blood DK. I would recommend switching around gear until you are much closer to 26 if that is possible. After 26 expertise, you are mostly affecting parry chance and that shouldn't be an issue because 99% of the time you should be attacking your targets from behind. I'd suggest trying to swap some gear around to bring that number down a lot closer to 26 and increase other more important stats like str, arp, crit or haste.

I would wait for at least ilvl 245 since you would be downgrading to 232 to pick up the tier pieces. t9 4pc is a fairly nice DPS bump but it would probably be mostly neutered by losing 39 ilvls in the process.


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I am 51/0/20

My guild has recently ToGC 10, this is our second week on it. We got Northrend Beasts down on the first week and have already done them this week. Something that I first noticed on Gormok was that I am horrendous at DPSing the Snobolds, it takes me too long to ramp up my DPS.

Generally what we do is have ranged DPS on Snobolds that are on casters/healers and when the boss gets to ~30% all of the DPS kills the rest of the Snobolds.

I usually start fights with DS, HS, HS, PS, IT but that seems a bit clunky on the Snobolds, especially since I am not going to keep the diseases very long. So, I have tried using IT, PS, HS, HS, DS which helps a little, but it still feels like I am doing something wrong. Its not a huge problem on Gormok because we usually have a little extra time. However it is a problem on Lord Jaraxxus with the Nether Portals and Volcanos; we are having problems (I'm guessing not all are my fault) getting the Portals down consistently before 2 Mistresses spawn and for no apparent reason we are even worse on the Volcanos and 3-4 Infernals spawn and then we wipe.

Does anyone have any recommendations on modifying my rotation to increase my burst on short duration targets? Should I just forget diseases and spam HS and DS? Should I save DRW and ERW for the Portals and Volcanos? Maybe use some speed pots?

Another issue that I sometimes have is when a Mistress spawns, my HS cleaves her before the OT can get (enough) threat and she turns around and kills me very quickly. I didn't check if it is a one-shot or I am not a full or she hits me twice, but either way sometimes end up very dead very quickly.

Should I use BS on the portals so I don't cleave her? Maybe pop IBF while I am running to the portal so that she hopefully doesn't kill me so quickly. Is this something that I am doing wrong or does this just sound like a case of the OT not doing his job well enough?

I know this was mostly about a specific encounter which should probably be posted elsewhere, but I think that the question it poses, "Is there an effective way to front-load damage on short-lived targets?" is sufficiently specific to the spec and generalizable that it warranted posing here.

I use GoD, so I only apply my diseases on Gormok and keep them rolling on him, then DPS snobolds without applying diseases to them (switching back over to Gormok for a quick Pest if I need to).

On Jaraxxus: You can use Pestilence to spread your diseases to both the Volcano and Nether Portals. Personally, I save my cooldowns for Nether Portals because a second mistress is always bad news. We always Bloodlust on the second Nether Portal, and by the third cooldowns are back up.

As for Mistress spawns, I've had the same problems with cleave aggro getting me gibbed. The best I've been able to do is try to predict when she'll spawn and make sure I don't HS until she does. Fill up the gap with DS or DC if you can so you don't waste time and get a second Mistress.

Basically what Nijeak said. Time your strikes so that you aren't using HS when the Mistress spawns. Also, it's anecdotal at best, but in my experience the mistress has a short but significant pause time after spawning which allows a tank to pick her up before she gibs a DPS. The only problem we've ever had is with a rogue's blade flurry being too quick and too strong, but that's elegantly solved by tricks of the trade. Apart from that I've never had a problem getting hit as a DPS or not getting hit as a tank.

As for the volcanos, 3 infernals spawning is almost certainly inevitable, especially since you have to use cooldowns to break the nether portals. A 4th infernal is dangerous and should be avoided, but by no means as deadly as 2 mistresses. The infernals don't do too much damage as long as your raid is able to move around intelligently, that's the most important part. When they fly to someone and start channeling their aoe, you can't stun/banish them now so you just have to stay spread out and move away from them. Never DPS the adds that are hellfiring unless it's about to die and you can use AMS to eat the aoe - just hang out with the tank and attack whatever is with him.

I'm not sure why your guild has affected ranged and melee meet halfway. You're losing cleave damage on Gormok, and the Snobold will be stunning the ranged so much getting out of stomp range isn't really much difference. Better to either have them stand under Gormok or else let ranged DPS take out ranged snobolds. That loss on HS cleaves, not to mention other classes cleave-like abilities, is just unnecessary.

By the way I'm not sure if it's just a lack of maintenance, but I'm sure the 51/0/20 should instead carry 2/2 Epidemic and 2/3 Morbidity since it is listed as using GoD. Full Epidemic results in less blood runes spent on disease refreshing and thus more HS's. Less refreshing also means less chance of something going wrong and diseases falling off.

I was under the impression that 1/2 Epidemic was used because it lined up with rune cooldowns better. I use 2/2 Epidemic and 2/3 Morbidity because I am horrendous at getting runes lined up for pest. I usually pest when there are < 8seconds left on my diseases and consider anything < 5 to be a win. I really should practice my rotations more so that < 5 is the norm. Going much under 5 scares me a bit because I am really good at hitting buttons right before the GCD finishes and it takes me a second to realize that I didn't actually do anything; then throw in the odd pest miss since I'm not at 17% hit and I am at risk of dropping my diseases which tends to hurt my DPS quite a bit.

Whats a good addon for tracking my diseases on mobs that I'm not targeting (Like Gormok when I am on a Snobold or Jaraxxus when I am on a mistress)? I guess I could use like NECB but I am a bit worried about it getting spammed in AoE fights. Should I just focus the boss and track it that way?

A bit off topic here, but is there any way to target something based on its raid icon? We are having some issue in more hectic fights keeping everyone focused, especially later in the fights if someone has gone down. I know it should be easy enough for people to use /assist, but targeting by raid icon could provide a more elegant solution.

The top dps rotation requires 2/2 epidemic. It allows you to have diseases last just over that 20 second rotation in order to re-pest. In a perfect situation in the repeating part of the rotation refreshes should be occurring in the last second of the diseases since you should refresh every 20 seconds with them lasting 21 seconds.