Deathknight guide from start to finish

[Drarkan]

Well I more am just wanting to know how to setup the DPS sequence for DK's since I'm running out of runes. I am going to revise my DPS macros as I level up, so perhaps I'll post it as I come up with a good sequence. Just that I am in a fight and then my DK's do nothing for a while till they have a rune up. Going to play with this and find out what to do. Less on the actual tallents since Ualaa covered that based on Mosg2's guide.

[Ualaa]

DK's have three viable specs.

Blood is tanking, but people do PvP in Blood.
Frost and Unholy are both DPS, and both are popular for PvP.



The Blood Mastery, is a damage absorb shield but it now requires the player to be in Blood Presence.
Both Frost and Unholy will use Unholy Presence for DPS, as 1.0 second GCD's blow away Frost Presence with 1.5 second GCD's.

If you are tanking raids in Blood, you'll probably want a big two-hander.
As that will trigger a lot fewer ripostes from the nasty bosses that hit like trucks.

If you're doing heroics with Blood, dual-wielding is probably a better option.
Because of all the Blood Worms you'll get.



Frost at the moment is a lot more DPS than Unholy.
But it seems to be a little more fragile.

This is a true priority system, where a fixed rotation will not work well.

Frost Strike (Runic Power) hits harder than any ability other than Obliterate (1x Frost + 1x Unholy runes), and has a chance to instantly refresh one rune.

Howling Blast (1x Frost) hits a target at 30 yards, and does 10 yards AoE centered on the main target... you can glyph it to apply Frost Fever, and that can be talented to snare.
This is the premier DPS move for Frost... ideally you Howling Blast with every Frost + Death rune and Frost Strike when all four runes are on cooldown.

Necrotic Strike (1x Unholy rune) or prior to level 83... Plague Strike (1x Unholy rune) is your Unholy Rune.

Since 4.1, Frost DK's don't need to spend Blood Runes as those are permanently Death Runes.


Your second Frost rotation is Obliterate (1x Frost rune + 1x Unholy rune), and since Blood runes are Death Runes, you don't need any other Rune consuming ability.
Obliterate > Frost Strike, a pretty simple rotation.

This frequently combines with Outbreak, as that applies both diseases to your target... and Obliterate hits harder with diseases on the target.
Also strongly consider Empower Rune Weapon in conjunction with the Obliterate sequence, as that refreshes all runes instantly.

Obliterate is single target, so it is frequently combined with Hungering Cold... which is a point-blank AoE crowd-control, very similar to a Hunter's Freezing Trap.



I'm relatively unfamiliar with the Unholy rotation.
I played Unholy, a little in WotLK... but DK's were using all three talent trees to DPS and Tank at that point.



Each spec has their preferred Runic Power dump.
- Blood uses Rune Strike
- Frost uses Frost Strike
- Unholy uses Death Coil

Rune Strike is good for threat.
Frost Strike is only available to Frost DK's, but it hits very hard and has a chance to instantly refresh a Rune.
Death Coil is ranged, and is the best runic power dump for an Unholy DK.

[Drarkan]

Hmm might have to do single cast macros so it will do whatever spell is ready first instead of a castsequence with a reset.

[Ualaa]

I'm mashing a single key, that essentially presses keys in sequence.

The equivalent of, I spam "1".
And warcraft receives: 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3.
Because I am spamming, if the ability on "1" is on cooldown, the "2" keybind is sent rather quickly after the "1".

If you were to use:
1 = Howling Blast
2 = Frost Strike
3 = Necrotic Strike

And were to push 1 roughly three times, 2 roughly two times and 3 roughly one time, out of every six pushes... you'd have something similar to what I get by spamming my "1" key.