EDIT*** July 8th 2015 ***EDIT
Hello everyone, as the dancing rune weapon bug is now gone, and death runes correctly proc according to talent, I edited the rotation part and some other elements of this guide, thanks for the feedback I'm receiving in game or in private messages or as replies to this guide.
Greetings,
This is a comprehensive yet simple guide for dealing damage in blood tree for WOTLK 3.3.5a death knights.
Contents :
A-Introduction
B-Talent Build
C-Gameplay
D-Gearing
E-Glyphs
F-Screenshots
G-Known Bugs
H-Conclusion
A-Introduction
Blood is meant to be the highest single target dps for death knights, and that's the way on retail WOTLK, but on Warmane, we have some minor bugs on the tree that gives everyone the false idea that the whole tree is not viable or messed up, I would like to clarify that this is WRONG, I'm 2 weeks into Blood dps and I must admit I'm liking the results . Honestly like the most of you thought blood isn't even worth picking up or trying or swapping all those gems, but now I realize all that is simply false .
So why blood ? while frost dks rip apart any boss with cold hasty strikes ? while unholy control the crowd like no other class in wotlk can ?
The answer is simply a matter of taste, playstyle, and personal preference :) You'll not be the Top DPS on DBS anymore, instead you'll be the top on festergut ;) . You will not have much AOE abilities anymore, but instead you get more self healing and much more single target oriented damage. Instead of playing like a plate rogue (frost dk) you get to play closer to a fury warrior (albeit with only 1 2-hander) , and the answer itself why to go blood, is right there in your mind, you won't read this thread if you're not interested in the blood spec for any reason it was .
While this thread is dedicated to level 80 players, It is worth to mention blood is the best leveling tree for death knights, You'll solo most of those wanted quests mobs and survive most equal-leveled players of the other faction you find.
The last reason why to go blood requires a link, Hysteria is the undebatable best burst of damage in all of death knight trees (if not all classes, but I won't say something I'm not sure of, outside of DKs and Priests...my level 80 experience is limited), you'll go red and crazy chopping down that boss like there's no tomorrow.
While almost every blood death knight on molten wotlk is either a PVPer or a Tank, I hope now at least you (dear reader) have some reasons to consider blood DPS for PvE .
B-Talent Build
One or both of these links should work : My armory talents or talent tree on External website
Going sub-unholy gives us more time on the diseases, enough to release 6 heart strikes on each rotation with diseases applied. Blood caked-blade does less damage than it should, but will be like 5% of your total dps on a specific boss, that's why it's more dps than spending the points on improved icy touch or outbreak . I spent like 1700g on talent tree respecs lol, 700g in the last week xD So this talent build should bring your highest DPS, tested most other options. I leave criticism open though, and happy to give explanations.
One talent point I've put in scent of blood since sometimes it can proc on aoe-dmg boss fights or adds who hit you, gives you extra runic power for next hit and that's more death coils for you.
***Credit goes for Offbeat+Abracadavra for edited talents, thanks :)***
C-Gameplay
Now that we've set up our talents, lets talk rotation.
Death Rune Mastery plays a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge (yes, that huge) role in dpssing as blood, I'll illustrate how, I leave use of hysteria and horn of winter out of these steps because they are a MUST use before fight starts and always check for HOW buff should keep it up, and spam hysteria whenever it's cooldown ends .
If B = blood rune, F = frost rune, U = unholy rune, D=death rune, x=rune on cooldown ... then you have BBFFUU at start of the fight ;
1-open up with icy touch then plague strike , runes become BBxFxU
2-throw 2 heart strikes, runes become xxxFxU
3-apply first Death Strike, runes become xxDxDx (after cooldown)
4-spam death coils.
4-apply another Death strike, runes become xxDDDD (after cooldown)
5-the fun part ... spam 4 heart strikes, runes become xxxxxx .
6-Dancing rune weapon! (explanation below)
THE USE OF DANCING RUNE WEAPON :
this is a huge burst tool for us, as it now copies diseases (and thus deals more HS damage) , it's wise to use it before applying diseases , BUT you can't start the fight with it as it requires a lot of runic power (unless you open up with ERW). So the optimal time to use it is when you just completed your first rotation, and use it just before applying the diseases on the second rotation.
First rotation : Horn of winter>Hysteria>IT>PS>HS>HS>DS>Death Coils>DS>HS>HS>HS>HS>DRW Then start your next rotation as follows : IT>PS>HS>HS>DS>Death Coils>DS>HS>HS>HS>HS
This method is called the (dark death) build, The other build contains a different talent tree and the glyph of disease and the use of pestilence, I tried it but found it a little complicated and I won't discuss it here, It spends more blood runes on keeping the diseases, and negates the use of icy touch and plague strike to once per fight, I suggest not doing it because it yielded less dps, but I leave that up to you, if you want look it up .
The Empower Rune Weapon spell is sometimes forgotten in fights but whenever you feel like messed up a rotation or you are in urgent need of runic power, it's a great tool ... Don't you ever forget about it . You can also start with it along with dancing rune weapon.
I advice binding rune strike to heart strike and death strike, in case you dodged/parried an attack on a given fight. It adds some pretty good damage as it doesn't share the global cooldown .
Macro : (here for heart strike, change that to death strike and copy them as 2 macros)
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Heart Strike;
/cast !Rune Strike;
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
The use of anti magic shell on some boss fights gives you extra death coils to machine gun, BQL and BPC fights come to mind .
You should also summon your Ghoul and Army of the Dead to add some damage, Ghoul is like 15k hp so on AOE damage bosses he dies fast, those 2 spells could come in handy on some fights .
D-Gearing
Blood DPS gearing is pretty simple :
We wear plate gear for a reason, it's this talent, Don't ever wear leather because it has more armor penetration ... agility sucks for death knights as the conversion rate to crit is one of the lowest in all classes .
You should look to cap both HIT (263 or 8% is the cap)+ EXPERTISE (~22-24% on molten is cap), misses and dodged/parried hits hurt our dps so bad, that's why look to cap those 2 modifiers.
Now that you rarely miss and rarely get parried or dodged, priority for stats on gear :
Armor Penetration > critical strike rating > haste rating .
My haste rating is 0 at the moment unbuffed, all the bonuses from gear are either hit/expertise/arpen/crit ... and it should be this way for a blood dps .
now let's talk about gemming : TWO words (thanks for edit xD) , ARMOR PENETRATTION
this stat gives best dps, yes higher than crit or str ... gem +20 red arp everywhere(provided ur hit capped) except 2 blues for the chaotic skyflare meta ... the 2 blues should be puissant dreadstone (10 arp + 15 stam) ... there is no orange version of arp ... so ignore yellow gems and put red instead .
4pt10 bonus works properly on blood...that is whenever your runes on cooldown you'll get +3% increased damage .
As for trinkets, BIS for blood are sure DBW+sharpened twilight scale ... but whispering fanged skull is still a good alternative for any of both since crit rating is good for blood .
Best Sigil for blood is Sigil Of Virulence ... yes that's right ... the emblems of triumph one .
Get Rune of the fallen crusader Runeforge for your 2handed weapon ... It is the best one available for us and better than berserking or that 110 AP .
E-Glyphs
Major :
[Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon]
[Glyph of Death Strike]
[Glyph of Dark Death]
Minor :
[Glyph of Horn of Winter]
[Glyph of Pestilence]
[Glyph of Blood Tap]
F-Screenshots
This is the part I guess every other guide lacked, Tomorrow is my guild ICC10HC raid, I'll post some of it's screenshots, and keep this thread updated . For now, this is my dps on the dummy in Acherus ... I have 86% armor penetration without consumables, so I consumed elixir of arpen and rhino meat before the fight ... I DPSsed with 91% arp (1 over cap) for around 3 minutes ... here are the results .
http://i50.tinypic.com/13zq0kl.jpg
This is only a dummy test, I'll post my results in raid and keep this updated .
UPDATE !!! today's ICC10 HC results are there for you to see :
1-Death Bringer Saurfang fight, I predicted this DPS loss against my frost, as you see I did little DPS(comparing to howling blasts of frost tree)on the blood beasts, didn't use pestilence or blood boil, Heart Strikes are more worthy of blood runes :D
http://i50.tinypic.com/21muck4.jpg]
2-Festergut Fight, Here I took the center stage and outdpssed everyone in guild, something I wasn't capable of when frost on this boss. This boss is perfect for blood dps.
http://i47.tinypic.com/2zgw0ah.jpg]
G-Known Bugs
As for the blood-caked blade bug I mentioned earlier, I hear it's bugged a lot, but while looking at recount I see even if it makes less DPS than it should, I don't think it makes a LOT less . 3.5-5% of total dps is a totally acceptable advantage .
H-Conclusion
I put in a lot of work for this guide and I didn't copy anything from other guides out there, however if you accuse me of doing so I don't care of getting on the sticky or not. I did this for a sole reason : clarify that the blood DPS tree on molten is actually playable with totally viable and decent DPS too, and I welcome any questions you may have :)
Thanks for reading !
