I don't think it's fair to dismiss all the input given in this thread as a "blablabla robot crap". Yes, it's overwhelming for a beginner, it's hard to achieve, that's understandable. However it is what separates average DKs from the better ones. So therefore it's completely within reason for the optimal rotation to be presented and emphasized, even more so considering the Frost rotation is (one of) the most unforgiving.
After all the intention of the thread isn't to breed mediocre Frost Death Knights.
You do make a good point though, play and practice. It all comes down to time invested in it, as per everything in life ^_^
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@Sky
Now that really helps me out a lot, didn't even know something like that excists. Was just about to delete all the addons I downloaded. Made my UI become a crazy mess of windows shaking and blinking all over the place causing more confusion than making things simple as advertised (can't get how people manage to play like this, lol).
Big thanks to you, this will help me understanding how to play my DK better.
@angrylol
Alright, so if I got you right then these perfect rotation advices are more individual for everyone and not some general rule, that has to be followed when playing in a raid. That sounds good to me.
And thank you for explaining how the blood/death rune system works. I didn't really get why sometimes they changed ingame when I thought that it shouldn't have happened (english is not my native. I can read, listen and speak it but sometimes things confuse me still, like applying logics while thinking in another language. Stuff like that, you know).
Btw. what does this nomod and modshift in your macros mean?
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@RemembrHonesty
There's only a priority you need to remember which I think I have mentioned previously in this guide or in some other fdk threads (you can use the forum search option). You just need to follow it and with some amount of practice you'll get so used to it that you'll find that BS into BT + UA into Pestilence trick very easy to do both in and outside of raids.
Note: The priority of fdks only changes in p2 of the Lich King encounter or if the dk is extremely low on gear. Outside of that it does not matter, you MUST follow the priority.
Edit: I couldn't find what I listed myself, so
Spoiler:Show Edited: November 2, 2017
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Forum Veteran
It is important to understand WHY to became more than average DK. And for that there are first steps.
Abra, thats what I said, refresh diseases+blood strike to convert, next time obliterate, 2x blood strike to convert, next obliterate, repeat.
Sky, if player understands how it works, he does not need any "robot crap". It comes naturally.
About those modifier macros, you can put both diseases on one button:
For example,
press 3 - Icy Touch
press Shift+3 - Plague Strike
You can put any other button instead of Shift, whichever is comfortable. Or even multiple modifiers in one:
/cast [nomod] Howling blast
/use [mod:shift] Your Boots name for Nitro Boosts
/use [mod:alt] Runic healing potion
/use [mod:alt] Fel healthstone
So you put this macro on butto "E", just press it - Howling blast, press it while holding shift - Nitro boosts, and tap it while holding Alt - panic heals. Alt is "self cast" button, so its intuitive.
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If you do this, you'd lose your diseases. The pestilence sets your diseases at 20, the 3rd OB from both Death runes would come at an interval of 8-11 seconds remaining on your diseases. If you decide to convert your now Blood runes to death ones via 2xBS, you will lose diseases 100% of the time.
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Forum Veteran
Pestilence sets diseases to 21 second.
Rifokelt you are right, wth I'm saying? 40sec diseases? :DEdited: November 2, 2017
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@Rifokelt
Ah, so basically it means skill usage priority > whatever rotation, since rotation can change at certain sitatuions or encounters but the priority stays the same? Yeah some of the first things I noticed was the frost fever and blood plagues diseases are important for pretty much everything. Confusion started for me when I had to keep tracking my runes, converting and all following skill usage etc. plus some misunderstandings I had. This CLC DK addon helps me getting rid of headaches switching my eye focus from upper left corner to bottom left corner to threat meter to disease rinse repeat, until it becomes a reflex so I don't need to do this all the time. And I don't know if I am right in my assumption, but yesterday I played couple of dungeon runs and noticed BT pestilence and Horn of Winter are skills to keep me busy - so I don't sit there and wait for rune CD's (as in giving RP and runes for more skills to keep up DPS) - and UA is mainly for raising DPS offensive CD instead of emergency defensive CD.
@angrylol
Holy code this is great. So its a macro for different skills on same button, very nice. I know castfrequence and few other code commands for1-2 button setup I used in the past but it doesn't help me to improve. Thank you, spares me some painful finger acrobatics.
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@RememberHonesty
The priority is there to let you know what would be optimal in case something "fails". Like when a dodge/series of dodges occurs or when pestilence misses happen. If you follow only the rotations listed and never think on what's more advantageous when it counts, you're likely to lose a considerable amount of damage. I can imagine that this might all seem confusing to you rn, but with time it gets significantly easier (no spec in wotlk is truly that challenging to comprehend, you just need to read up and play it).
As for UA it is only used offensively in PvE. Not that it does not have a defensive component, but it is so small that one does not need to think about it at all. The bad thing about UA is that it uses a Frost rune. Basically the class is designed in a way that "forces" it to use Blood Tap together with UA so that you don't lose damage (not that you can't use UA regularly, but you will actually lose damage). Horn is mostly a GCD filler, but there are instances where you'll want to keep it up every 3 minutes (even if you have an Obliterate ready for example) because no other class is present to provide it. This mostly happens in 10 mans and it is still a very rare occurance if you haven't naturally refreshed it during fights.
Make sure to make use of Empowered Rune Weapon in your burst, or in your execution phase (target health 35% <=).
@angrylol
Edit: I stand corrected, disease + epidemic really are 21, my bad.Edited: November 2, 2017
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Wind of Northrend
This "Robot Crap" rotation is what u will eventualy end up with, if u want to be the best version of a Frost DK out there...
As for the topic and subject:
-80%+ FDKs out there are eather avarage or they suck, so it doesnt matter what u decide to follow.
-If u pug ur raids u dont need this guide since noone will pat u on the shoulders if ur performance was awesome. All u need is GS and Achivement and ul get in raids.
-If u raid with a guild, u might want to perform better than other FDKs, so u get inved in raids rather than them beeing inved over u cos they pull better numbers...
-Ofc this "robot crap" rotation wont be like that ALWAYS. Whenever u have to switch targets, stop DPSing, die, whatever, u will have to reajust what u are doing and start over... Point of it (rotation) beeing in the guide like that is simply, as said in the guide, as something u should strive to do as much as posible. No other rotation, prio list, what not, will give u more DPS than those linked in the guide.
Everything in the guide is a guide for u to become the best version of a Frost Death Knight. U can chose to follow it, u can chose not to, its all up to u.
There is a magical uniqorn world in which u can do IT and PS only once, on start of the encounter, and get a full use of Unholy and Frost runes on Obliterate.
U just need to know what to do and when, not randomly doing Death and Decay, 2x Blood Strikes in a row, Blood Boil, and all kind of other dumb **** people do...
It is posible.
It is done by a lot of DKs there.
All u need is practice and not to be unlucky with Pestilence miss/resist (as said in the guide).
Feel free to try the things i wrote in the guide.
Feel free to do ur own thing and experiment.
Again, its all up to u.
U can start with Prio List, or some kind of ur own rotation. Once u get into tracking Boss Mechanics, ur Target movement, Runes, Runic Power, ... u will be able to do some stuff without thinking/watching since it will get into ur fingers and blood. After that retry to understand and copy paste the guide rotation on a dummy for start. After a lot, and i repeat A LOT, of dummy practice start trying to execute it in raids.
I guarante that u wont do more DPS with something else thats not covered with the guide (something like refreshing diseases manualy with IT and PS, doing DnD, and so on...). So just give it a lot of practice and expirience and ul get into it...
Dont simply quit something cos its hard at first.
Best of Luck.
P.S. both Unholy and Frost DK guides should be a bit updated on this weekend. Looking forward to it, and hoping something doesnt come up irl so i have to postpone it again...
Edit:
As Rifo said, DO NOT BLINDLY follow the rotation.
If a miss, parry, resist, dodge happens, or (again) u have to stop DPSing, switch targets, ul have do to some decision making in order to try and go back to "the rotation" without losing too much DPS in the process.
1st and formost:
Diseases on the target
2nd: Rune usage over Runic Power usage.
Always use all of ur runes before u dump Runic Power on FSs (there are special ocesions where u can dump Runic Power, even tho ur runes are not on CD, in order to align all Runes perfectly, but that is something ul have to learn urself since it requiers a lot of expirience).
3rd: use Frost and Unholy runes on Obliterate (use it for Howling Blast if u have KM up and u have to hit 3+ targets).
4th: always use 2 Blood Runes one after another so u can use Death Runes u will get for Obliterate.
5th: dump RP on FS while u wait for Rune CD to end.
All of this will come and become natural for u once u get the expirience and practice needed to master this class/spec.Edited: November 2, 2017
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+10000, guide is foolproof and is there to be read/interpreted to suit each player. If it doesn't work for you don't assume that the guide is wrong and needs improvement. Hold a mirror in front of yourself and that should tell you what to improve.
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Forum Veteran
What I meant, for me this seems "learning from other end". You will end up with these rotations and stuff, which is great thing from Gnimo, to make all this, find and experiment to find best things.
Obviously it's not for first timer DK's who just want to smash stuff. All I wanted to do is try to convey some understanding without all that scary rocket science stuff. Maybe somewhat offtopic and what seems obvious to more seasoned DKs.
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@Rifokelt
Yes it was very confusing for me at first, but you guys did such a great job at explaining things to me that now I can say I think the basics and certain advanced things are already saved in my head and fingers. Feels good not to play around anymore without understanding what I'm doing or what to do next. Thanks to you!
@Gnimo
It is good to know that most DK's are average or less skilled with the class. My first impression was since WoW itself collected some dust because of its age noob players must be the exception nowadays, especially after reading all the raid guild join requirements containing "experienced players only - raid veterans only - must have cleared this and that at least" etc. . I thought it was too late to get back into the game after all the years and learning to play a new class + setting the goal to join a raid guild. You prove me wrong and I am glad to see people like you don't shut yourselves off from general playerbase to stay in tight knit groups, instead you are open and put in the effort writing detailed guides and explaining details to those who are willing to learn. It is very kind and I appreciate it a lot. I use one of your builds, allround Frost DK one for raids and dungeons, slowly getting used to first opener rotation with step1 added, which really is not as hard as I thought it to be to use but that might also be because dodges and parries etc. happen more because I am level 78 and thus I'm not well geared at all, and mobs HP don't get me to step2 and often not even step1. But its important to me to know most nessessary things early on.
Also thank you, all of you, for having the patience and putting in the effort to explain. You are very good and kind people, and I am happy that we met. :)
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welllllll to someone new to dks this instantly puts me off... no way am I making dk with all that nonsence you have to follow damnn
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Wind of Northrend
All of the guides have been updated a bit.
Also, this is the way of bumping them back on Page 1 of DK section.
Again, if u find any mistakes ive made in them, feel free to comment and warn me so i can fix it asap.
Best of luck.
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All this "nonsense" made me deal some dps people didn't even believe could be possible for a frost dk. And this is the most rewarding thing ever. Gnimo really knows the ****
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