Are the Frost and Unholy rotations smooth?

[Deleted]

Hello!

I want to reroll because I'm tired of my priest, and I'm currently looking into other classes. Death Knight seem to be quite fun, but the last time I tried them their rotation was... Clunky. There was a lot of down time and I'm not really too much of a fan of their talents.

How much down time do you get on a Frost and Unholy death knight? Are there often times when you stand around only auto attacking the boss because all your abilities are on cooldown?

And a final question, that might be a bit more tricky to answer. Is it worth rolling a death knight? Primarily for PvE.

Thanks in advance.

[Pouponu]

I absolutely LOVE the Death Knight resource system... I have tried all of the others but runes always keep me coming back for more.
Frost and Unholy both depend on haste to smooth out their rotations. If you are standing, hitting a target dummy for minutes on end you will notice some amount of downtime with any currently reachable amount of haste. It is inevitable. However, in an actual raiding situation, where there is movement and especially where there is AMS soaking, the downtime becomes very close to 0. During Heroism you will be completely GCD capped.
I play mainly 2H Frost. I am iLvl 513 (mostly LFR+Normals) and have about 9k haste, which I am very comfortable with. Against a target dummy, I would approximate that I have about 10% downtime, but against raid bosses as I said before my downtime is much more acceptable, and very rarely gets the point where I will cap on Runic Power and Runes at the same time.
Hope this helps! I love my DK!!!

[ThyLilGent]

While leveling up they seem very clunky but it smooths out as you get to your Level75 Talent tier. It really helps smooth out the rotation. Frost 2h seems to me to have the most downtime but smooths out with the more haste you get and with movement it doesn't seem like such a big deal. 2h Unholy I think is probably the smoothest, at least Festerblight it. 1h Frost I have not tried in awhile but if I remember it had a lot of uptime.

Also, I only did PvE on my DK until this expansion. I love playing him in both, its quite fun.

And if you get bored, Blood is always fun. It feels like DPSing to me because of the larger numbers and 2h weapon swinging around.

I hope you enjoy your DK!

[Soisoisoi]

According to SimC (T14H) there's about a 7% waiting time for Frost - compared to 45% for Assassination Rogues. 3% and 35% respectively for T15H. Personally I hardly ever feel like I'm waiting, and I love it. It's the fastest, smoothest and most fluid rotation of any class (besides casters with no mana issues); it's also the reason I play the class.

It will be clunky until you hit level 75, though - as ThyLilGent said.

[Tybudd33]

While leveling up they seem very clunky but it smooths out as you get to your Level75 Talent tier. It really helps smooth out the rotation. Frost 2h seems to me to have the most downtime but smooths out with the more haste you get and with movement it doesn't seem like such a big deal. 2h Unholy I think is probably the smoothest, at least Festerblight it. 1h Frost I have not tried in awhile but if I remember it had a lot of uptime.

Also, I only did PvE on my DK until this expansion. I love playing him in both, its quite fun.

And if you get bored, Blood is always fun. It feels like DPSing to me because of the larger numbers and 2h weapon swinging around.

I hope you enjoy your DK!

I as well have a question dealing with this subject as far as leveling up, right now I'm still in the early Unholy 60's, and I have down time when the only thing i have resources to use are both Plague Strike and Icy Touch. My question is, if my diseases don't need refreshing, should I be using those abilities as a GCD filler, or better off waiting for a Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, or a Blood boil be ready to use?

[Varyk]

Unholy is one of, if not the strongest melee in game atm. You need to know how to play and have a decent amount of haste and you shouldn't have too many open GCD's.

[Pouponu]

I as well have a question dealing with this subject as far as leveling up, right now I'm still in the early Unholy 60's, and I have down time when the only thing i have resources to use are both Plague Strike and Icy Touch. My question is, if my diseases don't need refreshing, should I be using those abilities as a GCD filler, or better off waiting for a Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, or a Blood boil be ready to use?

First, I would have to recommend leveling as blood! Blood Boil is ridiculous at those levels and blood does ridiculous amounts of damage while still being survivable. Additionally, they grab their 20% faster Rune Regen much faster than Unholy does (I think it's something like 10 levels, not sure though)
If you are leveling as Unholy, though, I would say wait for the Blood Boil. As I mentioned before, it's damage is just absurd, nearly one-shotting any mob through Outlands and most of Northrend. Best of luck!

[snaxattax]

It will be clunky until you hit level 75, though - as ThyLilGent said.

one thing i really liked leveling up my last DK alt from 55-75 was blood spec in frost/unholy pres with the glyph of dark succor. the glyph procs give you free death strikes (which for blood hit quite hard) but also due to your passives convert 2 runes into death runes (even if those runes are on cooldown).

you basically never run out of death runes while aoeing, and it's extremely fun. especially if you're used to playing a class with limited aoe capabilities.

[Deleted]

Thank you!

I have a level 84 death knight; maybe I just have to learn how to use the level 75 talents properly.

While it may be a bit off topic, I may aswell ask here. Are frost death knights viable in raids? According to parses (raidbots), frost is almost at the very bottom of the DPS list. Are those parses reliable? How is the spec working for you?

The primary reason I'm thinking about frost is because of the dual wield, by the way.

[Soisoisoi]

Thank you!

I have a level 84 death knight; maybe I just have to learn how to use the level 75 talents properly.

While it may be a bit off topic, I may aswell ask here. Are frost death knights viable in raids? According to parses (raidbots), frost is almost at the very bottom of the DPS list. Are those parses reliable? How is the spec working for you?

The primary reason I'm thinking about frost is because of the dual wield, by the way.

Frost most definitely is, yes; both 2H and DW. You might not be top, but you won't be bottom either.

Personally, due to fight mechanics and the role I play in our 25man raids, I tend to come at least top 5 (most of the time top 2) as 2H Frost. I'm usually left out the first few farm bosses due to not needing anything and having trials, and I'm usually also given the weird role, such as having to interrupt Sul (using a GCD every 30sec for Asphyxiate), having to chase Turtles on Tortos or having to stand in front of the boss on Iron Qon and move to one side (around fire and crap, I might as well add) to soak Unleashed Flame as we have a heavy melee setup. I could probably do more, but the need of the raid > the need of my personal DPS... and all that other 'good-guy-raider' stuff.

Can find my logs here: http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/.../Pathogenesis/

Edit: Hah, not a clue how I ranked on Iron Qon whilst having to stand in front of the boss or run around fire most of the time!

[zer0xfr]

DW frost is very fun to play because as always a Dw spec has a nice "flow" and theres always an ability to use. It might not compete too well at high gear levels, but generally the better dk spec is hugely defined by weapons and trinkets that you have. For example if you have shit weapon but good trinkets unholy will most likely pull ahead (espially as festerblight playstyle), while better weapons help frost more, and if you just so happen to get 2 good 1 hands dw is definitely viable. Good luck

[Itisamuh]

They're smooth enough, but they aren't as smooth as they were in Wrath. The resource system was better before the change. I still don't understand why they changed it. It was both faster paced and more consistent before. They shouldn't fix what isn't broken.

[fangless]

Well in Wrath, you had to press a button every GCD or else you were failing hard D: Like in Frost, I can remember the entire cycle of runes including when you would RP dump. It was 100% static for the most part.

Now, it is as smooth as you make it, for the most part. If you manage your abilities and use them at the right times, you'll avoid wasting resources, which add up over the course of a fight. Do you end the fight (going through the 35% phase) with buttons to push, or are you swearing at your rune regen mechanic for not saving you. That is mostly up to you, with a pinch of RNG.

[soulzek]

DKs have a lower GCD time because it was built into the class since everybody used Unholy Presence back in the day. This is why I love them, and they continue to feel fast-paced but with a mixture of giant 2-hander blows with Oblierate and a little spell/magic thrown in. This is what seperates DKs from warriors and rogues.

[Maxweii]

I play Unholy a bit different (having much less haste then normal) and I still love the feel of it. I rarely have an open gcd, festerblight is satisfying when it can be done, and in general I really love the fluidity of the spec. I do think it kind of takes some getting used to, and the 75 talents can change how it all feels, but overall I know at least Unholy is pretty smooth once you get used to the spec. (I rarely play Frost)
I do pretty well with it, and I wouldn't play it if I didn't like the spec (I am 100% about playing to what fits you the best compared to what is "best"), if you wana take a look at my dk here: http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...usher/maxweii/

[qwertywerty]

Can someone help me with my rotation? I'm just leveling and doing dungeons right now (lvl87) as 2H Frost, but there are moments in boss fights (usually 2-3 times) where I'm just standing there auto-attacking cause I have no runes and no runic power! Is this normal? It is incredibly frustrating cause it feels like I'm not doing any "damage"/losing dps. I'm following EJ's priority rotation by the way.

I'm used my playing paladin or hunters, and in those classes I'm constantly casting/mashing spells and buttons. Any tips or is this unavoidable, and is part of DK mechanics?

[fangless]

Depends on the gear, a lot of people have a fairly ok amount of Haste, which keeps everything moving along.

[Tojara]

Blood and unholy feel relatively smooth.

Two handed frost at times feels incredibly clunky. Smooth in regards to usually having something to do, but clunky in regards to actually playing it.

As far as waiting time goes as frost it rarely happens. Most times you'll be overwhelmed with resources. Sometimes you will a get 2-3 second waiting period, which is great to pop ERW or AMS (considering the absurd amount of random magic damage floating around).