Death Knight Raid DPS Compendium (FR/BL/UH)

[nips]

Yeah the 5 sec cd is hard to fit in a good rotation so you are probbably right. I dont have the set bonus, but i do have the sigil which ups the obl damage alot. Lately i have tried to make a priorety sytem rather then a set rotation. The base of it is to use hb each rime and fs each km proc. It can delive some nice dps, but its also prone to give you situation where you are short on runepower or hb is on cd... Ill try your rotations with obl and see how it works.

[Krenian]

That's the thing:

Prioritize, don't rotate is a good idea that Sunni pushed but it's not elaborated enough. It will never beat a rotation due to the fact that you're solidifying your skills to go off at the precise time and there isn't much that can throw a loop into your skills. Prioritizing your skills however, has this nasty ability of just really leaving you with downtime or bad rune management which in the end lowers your DPS more than you would realize.

I'm not saying it's a totally bad thing: If you know something's going to die fast, a rotation may not be the best thing: Case in point, in Heigan, while the dance, I'm constantly throwing ITs and HBs as well as some DCs when I can. This is a case of priority: May as well do damage while you're running around.

I just don't like Sunni's view of just prioritizing over rotations. It pushes the idea that button mashing is acceptable and it's not.

[nips]

Aye there are times where you get some nasty downtime with a priorety system. If you are hit/exp capped a solid rotation would probbably win hands down. But if you miss an ability it can leave you wanting to use other more hard hitting abilities that have become ready. Bleh I'm still a bit divided tbh hitting it when km procs for instance or even worse hitting 2xbs and maybe miss another km proc is bad for your dps.

The question is realy if one is able to react fast enough in a raid situation to make the most of a priority system. And even then it might not be better because of how death runes etc affects you abiities.

[Gorgrim Warcry]

I guess i was a little quick to say 32/39 is dead, it is the fast/fast that is dead which is what the 32/39 spec was built around but it still performs well with a slow mainhander.The 20/51 IT spam spec is looking strong right now though reports coming in around 7k on patch.. /ducks nerf bat

I finnally got death's bite to drop this week end so I have the second best dk 2 hander :P.

I have decided to stick with some variation of the frost 2 hand spec, I was just checking one out a 27/44 spec that picks up aboms might along with Vot3 War which makes up for the lost of tundra stalker apparently. I will be trying it out this week let you know how it goes. Will be nice to provide more to the raid than simple haste that half the other classes there can provide and we are still are enhanceless.

It is strange and frustrating to not be able to say that Spec X is the best dps spec no questions asked. I have spent a lot of time testing and looking for it but they are all so close, so I decided to go with what I enjoy the most and I do enjoy those 10k crits it makes me grin when I see 5 digits flash on my screen >. Im sure there will always be one that is currently edging out the others a bit but Blizz will bring the OP ones back into line we are the favored son and harbingers of the new WoW so don't get to comfortable with the new hotness spec because it probably won't stay that way.

So don't beat your heads against the wall to hard looking for the best spec, find the play style you enjoy the most and make it the best you can.

[Krenian]

That's pretty much it.

Folks, the spec I have up are for whatever style you feel most comfortable with. Like big numbers? Go frost two hander. Like to be a physical damage dealer that keeps himself alive with heals? Go Blood. Like to play like a warlock and see diseases suck the life out of people? Go Unholy.

Play what you want to play. The suggested builds really are guidelines as to WHAT specs are accepted. All of them are around the same number right now so it's really nice to have.

[kathmaul]

Love this guide.

I am currently using the 0/32/39 build and have seen a significant DPS increase over the trispecc build.

My questions tho are in some of the conflicting info and unclear info within this guide.

With 32/39, should I shoot for Expertise Cap or is there a reasonable number to aim for? I ask this because my AP seems kinda low at 2700 due to the exp gems/enchants to reach 212 Exp.

Also, earlier you said not to worry about getting above hit cap, but then later you said more hit is good......once again, what should I aim for? Melee hit cap or 14% spell hit with Virulence? (I believe 14% spell hit = 11% melee hit)

And what is the common consensus? Fast/fast or Slow/fast?

The World of Warcraft Armory

Thanks in advance.

[Krenian]

Love this guide.

I am currently using the 0/32/39 build and have seen a significant DPS increase over the trispecc build.

My questions tho are in some of the conflicting info and unclear info within this guide.

With 32/39, should I shoot for Expertise Cap or is there a reasonable number to aim for? I ask this because my AP seems kinda low at 2700 due to the exp gems/enchants to reach 212 Exp.

Also, earlier you said not to worry about getting above hit cap, but then later you said more hit is good......once again, what should I aim for? Melee hit cap or 14% spell hit with Virulence? (I believe 14% spell hit = 11% melee hit)

And what is the common consensus? Fast/fast or Slow/fast?

The World of Warcraft Armory

Thanks in advance.

You should always hit the expertise cap to increase your white damage as well as your strike damage. A dodge is 0 dps and is as bad as a miss so if you need to, just get that cap. You'd see a decrease in damage if you decided to neglect the expertise just like you would if you would not keep your hit rating at max. So yes, cap expertise and hit. It's not too hard to do honestly. It's not the biggest priority (Capping your Yellow hit is) but I wouldn't neglect it too much.

See, Expertise is a tricky thing. On one hand, with dual wielding, you do have more white damage as a focus to your dps. However on the other hand, there's still a good 65-70% of your yellow damage being the main source of DPS and most of that comes from spell strikes. Spells can't be dodged which means Expertise does lose some statistical importance.

If you feel you're a bit low in your AP, get rid of some expertise and work on getting gear replacement to add expertise here and there. As we speak, I don't even think I'm expertise capped in my damage gear and I don't see too many problems. (For shame on me..) However I would probably see a decent jump in DPS if I did cap myself.

Bottom line is this: Dodge = 0 DPS and you wanna remove any chance of missing with any of your attacks.

Hit however, is a lot more simple: Don't prioritize your hit after 8%. If it comes with your gear (And it will), be happy with it, but if you can see a bigger upgrade for crit/expertise/ap than the piece you're wearing and still keep you hit capped, those will be bigger upgrades than hit will. The reason is that with Virulence + Misery (Hope to heck you raid with a shadow priest) you should be very close if not over the hit cap for spells which locks you down for that part. However if you don't take Virulence or decide that you're not going to have a shadow priest in your group, hit does take a significant leap. Gear for what you have in your group.

Common concessus is Fast/Fast is losing it's steam due to the changes done to KM. A Slow/Fast will generally outdps the Fast/Fast thanks to stronger BCB/Necrosis hits and stronger strikes. You went Fast/Fast for KM procs, and seeing how they're on a PPM now, having a fast weapon in your MH won't do you any good anymore.

[kathmaul]

Thanks Tony, I have been recommending your guide to all the other DKs in my Guild.

[Merko]

Tony,

Take a look at whats being called the 2Hand ITx6 Build

Sigil - IT
Glyph - IT, FS, OBL
Presence - Unholy
Build - 21/50/0
Runeforge - 0 Frostfire Mages = Crusader, 1+ Frostfire Mages = Razorice

Goal - Frost Strike is your main damage dealer, Use BS to gain death runes, Icy Touch to gain RP, When you proc Killing machine make sure your have enough RP for a Frost Strike to maximize your dps. Use Rime procs when everything else is on CD.

Requires - Good reflexes to make sure KM procs are used for Frost Strike, Fairly low latency, If you are a clicker you do not stand a chance with this build.

Rotation - At no point in the rotation do you use PS

IT, OBL, FS, BS, BS, FS, IT, IT, FS, FS, IT, IT, FS, FS, IT, IT, FS, OBL, FS (not in game at the moment but you get the idea...) FS usage revolves around KM procs and keep RP between 32 and 130 without ever capping it "wasting RP"


Some people like the rotation other don't but for those with gear and skill to support it the DPS charts are showing this build to be putting out good numbers.

[Krenian]

Tony,

Take a look at whats being called the 2Hand ITx6 Build

Sigil - IT
Glyph - IT, FS, OBL
Presence - Unholy
Build - 21/50/0
Runeforge - 0 Frostfire Mages = Crusader, 1+ Frostfire Mages = Razorice

Goal - Frost Strike is your main damage dealer, Use BS to gain death runes, Icy Touch to gain RP, When you proc Killing machine make sure your have enough RP for a Frost Strike to maximize your dps. Use Rime procs when everything else is on CD.

Requires - Good reflexes to make sure KM procs are used for Frost Strike, Fairly low latency, If you are a clicker you do not stand a chance with this build.

Rotation - At no point in the rotation do you use PS

IT, OBL, FS, BS, BS, FS, IT, IT, FS, FS, IT, IT, FS, FS, IT, IT, FS, OBL, FS (not in game at the moment but you get the idea...) FS usage revolves around KM procs and keep RP between 32 and 130 without ever capping it "wasting RP"


Some people like the rotation other don't but for those with gear and skill to support it the DPS charts are showing this build to be putting out good numbers.

I was going to figure a way to find that build as I was curious. I've been hearing tons of things about the 27/44 builds or the 21/50 builds that you're talking about. I'll be testing that out, but the rotation sounds insanely ridiculous. Maybe not the most convenient way to dps for sure..but probably a strong source. I'll have to figure it out.

However, as much as I like the new Sigil, I can potentially see it get nerfed pretty bad. This is putting too much a focus on one skill of the DK repetoire and I could really see them hitting the nerf bat against the Sigil. It's beating epic counterparts hands down and making interestingly ridiculous IT focused strike rotations. Call me Mr Negativity but I don't foresee this being a good thing >.>;

[Merko]

Like you said... i can see the sigil being nerfed pretty hard, however in this build i'd say frost strike still puts out ~33%+ of your damage which could set Blizzard up for designing a T8 or T9 sigil buffing Frost Strike... in which case this build would dominate.

*Definately something to keep our eyes on in the future

[Krenian]

Like you said... i can see the sigil being nerfed pretty hard, however in this build i'd say frost strike still puts out ~33%+ of your damage which could set Blizzard up for designing a T8 or T9 sigil buffing Frost Strike... in which case this build would dominate.

*Definately something to keep our eyes on in the future

I have a question though: Why Unholy? Every DPS spec I've encountered, hell, everything I have heard is that Unholy is not the way to go ever. What is the argument about being in Unholy presence?

[xKhellendrosx]

I have a question though: Why Unholy? Every DPS spec I've encountered, hell, everything I have heard is that Unholy is not the way to go ever. What is the argument about being in Unholy presence?

The only reason I could see for it is the lowered GCD which would let you throw IT faster but I sort of agree that I would find it hard to not use Blood Presence for the increased damage.

[Merko]

With the rotation in unholy you can use more of the GCD's = 18/20 seconds + rime procs

With the rotation in blood you are not able to use all the GCD's and the damage you use with those extra cooldowns outweighs the gain from hitting harder.

*Note 18/20 is assuming 4/5 T7*

[Gorgrim Warcry]

I am going to have to disagree with you on the Expertise a bit Tony. Most of the damage in a 32/39 build is magical damage. Expertise isn't something you should be seeking to cap, if you pick up the gear and it caps wonderful but I would advise agiasnt gemming or enchanting for it or switching out to a lesser piece of gear and losing say AP or crit for it. Take is as it comes otherwise dont worry about it.

As far as the unholy presence is concerned, I have been doing nothing but frost builds the past weeks and I firmly believe that unholy is the best presence to use in nearly every 2 hand frost build I have tried. I haven't tried out the IT spam build yet however so I can't vouch for that one. using the 44/27 GoG 2 handed build I was able to fit all of my rune abilities and FS dumps in before the diseases fell off and I believe this is why I was producing on average 150 more dps in unholy presence. The hits are smaller but you are squeezing all of your strikes in before diseases fall off which seems to make up the difference and then some, and hell if you are swinging a 2 hander faster all the better . in the 21/50 build I was seeing FS being number 1 in dps by a comfortable margin. Have we finnally found a use for the red headed step child of a presence known as unholy?

[Optimoos]

I have yet to make a DW build produce as much dps as 2h, mainly due to lower hit and expertise while dual wielding (at least this is my suspicion). However, I'm always open to trying new specs so I'm looking for a high-dps 2h spec. I see 44/27 tossed around, although there appears to be a 2h and a dual wield version of this - can someone provide a link to this (or the essentials) of this spec? I'm open to blowing gold on however many respecs it takes to figure out what works best for my gear, which I feel is 2h right now but I'll try out whatever with my 1h's as well.

[Krenian]

I am going to have to disagree with you on the Expertise a bit Tony. Most of the damage in a 32/39 build is magical damage. Expertise isn't something you should be seeking to cap, if you pick up the gear and it caps wonderful but I would advise agiasnt gemming or enchanting for it or switching out to a lesser piece of gear and losing say AP or crit for it. Take is as it comes otherwise dont worry about it.

As far as the unholy presence is concerned, I have been doing nothing but frost builds the past weeks and I firmly believe that unholy is the best presence to use in nearly every 2 hand frost build I have tried. I haven't tried out the IT spam build yet however so I can't vouch for that one. using the 44/27 GoG 2 handed build I was able to fit all of my rune abilities and FS dumps in before the diseases fell off and I believe this is why I was producing on average 150 more dps in unholy presence. The hits are smaller but you are squeezing all of your strikes in before diseases fall off which seems to make up the difference and then some, and hell if you are swinging a 2 hander faster all the better . in the 21/50 build I was seeing FS being number 1 in dps by a comfortable margin. Have we finnally found a use for the red headed step child of a presence known as unholy?

I'm going to test out the 21/50 build with a two hander WITHOUT the insanity which is 6xIT. I'll follow up on my thoughts on it in just a second, however let me be clear on this: On any build for a DK, your yellow damage will probably be the highest amount. Even Blood's physical damage heavy reliance, you will see your yellow attacks be supreme. Some of these skills will not rely on expertise due to the dodge/parry ratio not working for them (All the spells of course). ON a 32/39 build, however, you are basically dual wielding to put more emphasis on your white damage, which means if you're putting emphasis on more white damage, you may as well make it so it doesn't miss. I will grant that on a 32/39 build, your magic damage is bigger, and I won't argue that worth my life because I do agree. However, if you don't wanna focus on your white damage, you're better off going with a two handed unholy build for better dps and lower the need of expertise as white damage really doesn't matter as much.

Dual wielding is maximizing the amount of white damage. That's why you dual wield. That's also why you see a higher damage output with two weapons. By not taking a stat that will maximize that potential, you're gimping your own DPS. I'm not saying you're condoning the expertise, I'm just saying I don't think you realize that expertise is a little more important even in a magic heavy build like 32/39 is just solely on the fact you're swinging two weapons instead of 1. Will the DPS be a HUGE jump? Probably not, however it'll be point per point better than most other stats until it's capped. 0 damage is 0 damage, and a dodge is just that.

Now, onto the main point of this reply now:

The 6xIT is very cumbersome. Even in Unholy, I found myself being unable to follow the rotation properly because it mixes everything together + you remove a disease from your bar. This alone makes me skeptical of it's damage, however I could see how you could potentially do decent damage. This guide will not follow that build solely on the fact that it almost feels like a 'special' build that people just made up on the spot and decided to run with it. Removing a disease from your arsenal will lower your strike damage no matter what you do and to maximize your damage, you still want both diseases up. Plague Strike may suck damage wise, however the DoT is just like a rogue's poison or a fury warrior's deep wounds: a nice addition to damage. Removing it in a rotation to maximize your damage of one skill just pigeonholes you in a sitaution that is just, frankly, not fun.

In no way am I saying that the damage cannot come up towards most damage. I was topping around 2k DPS and that's just me trying to get the rotation down, which I could see the benefit..however I must ask myself why you would wanna do this considering the power of a frost build lies in Obliterate and Frost Strike, not Frost Strike alone. That build alone doesn't really focus on Obliterate but moreso on Frost Strikes and Killing Machine's mechanic. Obliterate in a Frost build is as powerful as Frost Strikes and I think, personally, you could pull off more damage with the Sigil of Awareness and focus on Obliterating + Frost Striking than just pulling out the massive amounts of IT to focus on Frost Strike alone. (I'm aware the rotation calls for Obliterates, but two Oblits in a 20 second rotation just seems wrong to me.)

I'm still going to say if you plan on doing a build like 27/44 or 21/50, to follow traditional rotations. The one time I could see this 6xIT spec outrank the traditional rotations is when you only have that Sigil and do not have your set bonus that empower Obliterate. As soon as you got the Sigil, or the two piece T7.5 gear..I could really see it's power fade away for more traditional methods.

So in the end, this guide is not saying that the build doesn't work, but that due to it's complexity and ackward need of rotations, plus being in Unholy Presence needed to capitalize on rotations, that it probably would only work on certain situations where you could unload immediately.

I'd see this be pretty painful in PvP however due to the fact you just damage them from afar and if they come in, you destroy them with FS. Count the Unholy presence speed buff, and this could probably dish out some serious damage before a person could retaliate. Food for thought here for pvpers.

[Gorgrim Warcry]

I have yet to make a DW build produce as much dps as 2h, mainly due to lower hit and expertise while dual wielding (at least this is my suspicion). However, I'm always open to trying new specs so I'm looking for a high-dps 2h spec. I see 44/27 tossed around, although there appears to be a 2h and a dual wield version of this - can someone provide a link to this (or the essentials) of this spec? I'm open to blowing gold on however many respecs it takes to figure out what works best for my gear, which I feel is 2h right now but I'll try out whatever with my 1h's as well.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator

[Krenian]

Alright, so trying to distract my personal problems, I threw myself into this 21/50 build or a 27/44 build and was trying to figure out how to properly put 6xITs in a set.

Merko gave me the build but when I was testing it out, I never fully grasped it while doing the dummy. Here's how it works now that I broke it out.

Having Death Rune Mastery + Blood of the North, you can switch all your runes into death runes, which allows you to spam 6xIT. The big thing is this: this does not fall into a conventional method of dpsing. Most methods have two rotations. one first to start off then one after to finish off the death runes and reset them.

With this build however, you have 4 rotations to pay attention to and I broke them down like this.

OB > IT > PS > BS > BS >(65 RP) FS > FS (1 RP)
OB > IT > IT >(61 RP) FS >(29 RP)
IT > IT >(69 RP) FS > FS >(5 RP)
IT > IT >(65 RP) FS > FS (1 RP)

The first one sets you up to put all your runes to death runes. At the end of your FS dump, you are left with 1 runic power, bar using skills that give you more.

By the first obliterate in the second rotation, you now have a full six death runes ready at your disposal. Seeing the build focus on Frost Strike, I assume that Icy Touch is your best way to go to proc as many Killing Machines as you can for FS. I could potentially see a smart DK use their horn in the second rotation to give yourself an extra FS however this could skew your third rotation. So for simplicity, let's just follow this rotation.

The rest depends on pretty much using IT as a runic power build up to dump it with Frost Strike.

Rime procs are based and used at the end of one of the rotation.

Now you are looking at a HUGE amount of skill usage in a 20 second period. With a GCD, there's no way you can pull this rotation to even work out properly. This is where the suggestion to go Unholy is placed in. It's an interesting idea to say the least as Unholy doesn't give you a lot of damage increase. So one needs to figure between the normal rotation of Frost 2 handers and with this rotation, which one does more damage.

That's my musing about it for now.

Additional Musings:

I've tested the build for a little bit and found two things.

1) You can't fit the obliterate in rotation 2. It just eats your death runes again and wastes them. Obliterate was removed

2) I do much better tightening up in a blood presence than I do unholy. I can see the reason why people would want to go unholy however I'm seeing that Blood may be the stronger presence with proper gear (2 and 4 piece T7)

Here's what I do now for my Death Knight, Krenian. I wrote this down on a notepad so I did some quick math:

Glyph of Icy Touch: 10 RP
Chill of the Grave: 5 RP for IT and Oblit.
Glyph of Frost Strike: 32 RP FS
Sigil: IT Sigil (increase IT damage)
Four piece T 7.5: Oblit = 10 RP extra

Rotation for Krenian:

PS(10) > IT(25) > OB(30) > BS(10) > BS >(85 RP) FS > FS (21 RP)
IT > IT >(71 RP) FS > FS (7 RP)
IT > IT >(57 RP) FS > Horn of Winter(10) > FS (3 RP)
IT > IT >(53 RP) FS > (21 RP)

The (xx) numbers are for my visual aid to allow me to calculate without having to always guess how much RP each skill gives me. This is also without Butchery in play with 2 every 5 seconds. You can get about 8 RP after 20 seconds worth of a rotation which can help you in some tight situations you're missing RP.

[Akilleez]

Sorry to go back to the previous page but I have been busy with college lately and unable to read forums regularly.

I'm sort of confused when you say that HS still needs to be buffed up more as even when my raid group pulls 5 or more trash mobs at a time I simply take one round with Pestilence after putting diseases on the mob with the most health (so it doesn't die before Pest). After which I continue with the blood rotation you have provided except on the first part I skip one HS to help even out rune CDs. Even after that I can use around 6 to 8 HS in a row to finish off mobs since it now hits an additional enemy. Using this modified rotation to AoE I can beat out our mages on occasion by pushing 9k dps in 10 man Naxx(this is assuming the mobs can withstand more than one or two seconds of blizzard or w/e it is). I know this is not a high dps compared to alot of DKs is very good guilds but I don't think it is low either.

Also, 4k on HS with 7.5T just doesn't sound right. I can hit more than double that with my Titansteel Destroyer with no extra damage cds used and only my rune of the fallen crusader procced. 3.1k dps on KT also sounds a little weird. I am assuming you were talking about the heroic raid but since I have only done the 10 man raids besides VoA this may not be an accurate benchmark but I usually hit around 3.4- 3.8 on him for the second phase.

Left out that my white damage is still usually higher than my yellow damage except when I use HS to help aoe.

I would link my gear but I suck at web browser stuff and can't figure it out so if any one wants to tell me how I would greatly appreciate it. Or just look up Akilleez:Antonidas- US. NE death knight.