I do more damage to the Val'kyrs than our Frost DK (Last week with Shadow's Edge). I do see the benefit of having a Frost DK over a Shaman, because of the higher damage and the much better survivability, but they're not a prerequisite.

Congratz on Shadowmourne man.

I also, did more damage than our Frost Dk as Unholy On Lich King. (Still with Shadow's Edge) Death Strike, Bone Shield, Death Strike, and Death Pact make it pretty hard for a Unh DK to die.

The Frost DK's buff is superior to the Shaman for several reasons. One, DK's are simply better dps. Two. the shaman has to use a totem slot, instead of say...Wrath of Air totem. Bring both. Buff Melee and ranged at the same time. Obviously.

That last argument is a bit limited to 10 mans though. Because it's unlikely that there isn't a resto or elemental shaman in your 25 man at all. And there are pretty much only 2 air totems worth dropping which are windfury and wrath of air.

Macroing your rotation is probably one of the worst things you can do. It makes you a bad player.
Rotation is also on the front page. Isn't that the most logical place to check first ?

A random way to boost DPS by a small amount that I don't recall reading anywhere; ~15 seconds prior to the pull use Death and Decay, summon AotD 6-7 sec before pull, and you'll start the fight with T10 4P active. Worth a tiny bit of DPS overall, but pretty easy (and seems "duh, obvious") to do.

I have tested this out of combat in the Dalaran bank and can confirm it indeed does work.

I disagree. The trick is in knowing the limits of such a macro and using them situationally.

How often does your initial rotation change? Not very.

I have a reapingless 1/2 rotation for starting fights (PS > IT > BS > SS > BS > DC), and a IT > PS macro as well. Note that since they have a short reset, I effectively still have PS and IT on my bars. Pestilence, SS/runestrike, BS/runestrike, Death Coil/runestrike and DnD/Bloodboil all have their own buttons.

That setup works well for me. But I know what it can and can't do.

It depends on what you use to set it off. Shifting presences won't do it, but I could switch Unholy Pres > Frost Pres > Blood Pres and then drop DnD, I'll get the buff.

A rotation macro tends to make people dull. And even in your case. What is the benefit ?
You don't save any bar space since you still need all your other skills.

The only benefit there is that instead of pressing 1>2>3>4>3>5 (for example) you press 1>1>1>1>1>1.
Unless you are somehow unable to do the former. All the macro does for you is clog up bar space and key binds.

I don't know. Maybe it works for you, but I find it to generally dumb down the game. It doesn't free up bar space or make things easier (unlike say the rune strike macro that most DK use).
And it dulls some people down. For example if something happens in their rotation, they don't really know where they were.

I love using macro's. I have a ton of macros for all kinds of abilities. But I never found any merit in using cast-sequences for anything other than changing aspects / presences / tracking abilities / poisons and that sort of things.

I agree with that, but that's also exactly my point.

Windfury and Wrath of Air are the only 2 standard raid totems you use. Other 2 limited options are Grounding and Nature resist, although I'm not sure if those are useful anywhere inside ICC at the moment. Sentry is rubbish.

The point I was making was that in 25 man it's unlikely that you do not have at least 2 shamans. So it's unlikely that "providing a different totem" is needed for anything other than 10 mans.
So the enh shaman wouldn't really be "sacrificing a totem slot" as windfury is the best thing he can probably drop anyway. Unless I'm forgetting about some sort of nature spell or ground able cast in that fight.

I've been doing this but slightly different.

I summon my AotD on the pull, put death and decay on the boss and then use empowered rune weapon, and just start dpsing the boss as per normal.

Its pretty nice as it means you start the fight with the 4pc bonus already up.

I have done some testing with your idea of using macro'd rotations, and if you are killing mobs then you could probably get away with the loss of 200-500 dps, but if you are in an instance or raid, it is a real hinderence to your team mates. Running the standard priority rotation as outlined in the beginning of this thread and keeping everything equal using heroic training dummies, there is a definite decrease in damage output when using a macro'd rotation.

The timing of what comes off cool down when is why you must be able to make the right choice of strike at the right time. As you sit there and wait for your cooldown I can hit 2 sometimes 3 abilities which would put me ahead of you and allow the raid to gain the extra damage output. My advice is never use a macro'd rotation. I will suggest you could macro some abilities together like trinks and pots with even some combination strikes. This could save time and allow for more strikes.

This is what I have done on my DK, Paly and Shaman, generally just for standard opener type stuff. For instance:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/castsequence reset=3/target/combat/dead Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Pestilence


...something like that. This is for my keybound to Plague Strike. I still have both Icy Touch and Pestilence with their own keybinds, in case of any interruption, and for individual use. Likewise, I'll have maybe Pestilence in a shorter castsequence after Icy Touch but that's as far as I go because it was very obvious during experimentation with full-on rotation macros that they weren't useful for anything but target dummies.