Unholy Frequent Downtime?

[Breyers]

I'm just wondering if anybody else is experiencing fairly lengthy/frequent periods of time with no available runes?

I know this is to be slightly expected as Haste is now our least valuable stat, thus Rune Regeneration is at an all-time low; however it just seems I rather often run into periods of 4-6 seconds where I can do nothing except Melee and pray to the Lich King for a Sudden Doom proc.

[Yopsi]

This was happening to me because I was ignoring 2 factors in my rotation :

Blood and Frost runes need to be converted to death runes thru festering strike ASAP. If you mess up your rotation once, you will end up with only one blood rune or one frost rune. Start the fight with 2 Festering strikes and you will get 6 scourage strikes in 6 seconds.

Death Coil spam when pet is transformed already is a BIG NO. Use Deth coil at 90 runic power to get that sweet extra regen rune haste from RC.

There is also a third factor. Using Plague Leech when you see you fucked up your rotation so you can start over fresh.

Also, the thing that helped me the most was configuring the addon WeakAuras

[Deleted]

Death Coil spam when pet is transformed already is a BIG NO. Use Deth coil at 90 runic power to get that sweet extra regen rune haste from RC.

Not so sure banking RP is mandatory, or even recommended. You do realize you're preventing rune regeneration talents from proccing if you sit on your runic power, right? Runic Corruption proc chance is tied to runic power SPENT, not how much you currently have.

[Yopsi]

I Don't bank RP. But it is important to have 90+ RP when your pet leaves his transformation so you can get 3 stacks asap. Plus, if for some reason I'm in movement with my target and I have no range, I death coil either way. While pet is tranformed, I death coil every 4/5 secs and that keeps me around 70/90 RP all the time, plus RC buff stays for 3 seconds. So while I don't death coil those 4/5 seconds I always have unholy or death runes up. ( I am not counting with the sudden doom proc. I always use death coil when sudden doom procs in any stage of the rotation )

[Deleted]

You must have quite a bit of haste if you can both bank RP and maintain a your DPS rotation. Any chance of seeing your armory profile?

[Yopsi]

I didn't say i had zero down time, but I don't have "fairly lengthy/frequent periods of time with no available runes" like OP suggested. I don't even have much haste. Kissmeimugly - Aggra EU horde

[Maxweii]

I Don't bank RP. But it is important to have 90+ RP when your pet leaves his transformation so you can get 3 stacks asap. Plus, if for some reason I'm in movement with my target and I have no range, I death coil either way. While pet is tranformed, I death coil every 4/5 secs and that keeps me around 70/90 RP all the time, plus RC buff stays for 3 seconds. So while I don't death coil those 4/5 seconds I always have unholy or death runes up. ( I am not counting with the sudden doom proc. I always use death coil when sudden doom procs in any stage of the rotation )

It's much less important now to be banking runic for Timmy, yes it's a super slight increase of under 1% so it's still 'worth it' in a sense, but it's not actually that important from how I see it.

To the OP, I get downtime very rarely. I mean pure single target like Butcher there's a slight bit, but even then I don't feel like I'm getting more then 15~% downtime (I think I sim a roughly 17% in a perfect setting, so I'm likely higher then 15 but that's how it feels when you add in fight mechanics). Unless I really mess up my rotation, which honestly it's hard to do as Unholy, I'd never really hit a time of more then ~3 seconds of no attacks being used.
Kinda comes down to ERW/PL use. Both offer on demand runes, but they also add a kick starter into you runes/runic so the actual effect they give can be felt a bit longer then just with he initial runes. Maybe tweaking your use of those will help you a bit ?

[Skarssen]

Unholy feels great with respect to downtime. Just enough to use your "utility" stuff, not so much that you feel too slow.

If you think unholy feels slow, trying 2h frost for a raid or two. Unholy will feel AMAZING in comparison.

[Deleted]

I didn't say i had zero down time, but I don't have "fairly lengthy/frequent periods of time with no available runes" like OP suggested. I don't even have much haste. Kissmeimugly - Aggra EU horde

You have five items with haste, as opposed to the zero unholy DKs strive for. Enough to make some difference.

[Stacie]

Just pickup some extra haste or PL if not already got. Having next to no downtime myself with cleaver use of abilities and stuff. A few seconds maybe a fight i feel truly locked but its like i said a few seconds PL is normally up fairly quick to use.

[Breyers]

I've been running PB over PL, so that's perhaps the issue I'm having.. I'll have to give PL a shot and see if that helps.

[Maxweii]

I've been running PB over PL, so that's perhaps the issue I'm having.. I'll have to give PL a shot and see if that helps.

If that's the case you will definitely see a big difference once you get into the flow of using PL in your rotation! It's really nice especially on aoe

[Breyers]

If that's the case you will definitely see a big difference once you get into the flow of using PL in your rotation! It's really nice especially on aoe

I'll definitely try it tonight... I took a break from WoW after Cata, so I got a bit behind the times lol

[Schizoide]

It's much less important now to be banking runic for Timmy, yes it's a super slight increase of under 1% so it's still 'worth it' in a sense, but it's not actually that important from how I see it.

Was just coming here to post this but you beat me to it.

Unholy downtime is high compared to end of expansion L90s, because nobody has gear yet. It will quickly improve. Frost is another matter entirely.

Everybody should be using Plague Leech. It not only consumes a ton of GCDs but is also ridiculously powerful compared to Unholy Blight and Plaguebearer, both of which have very little value.

[Deleted]

I've been running PB over PL, so that's perhaps the issue I'm having.. I'll have to give PL a shot and see if that helps.

I was under the impression that Plaguebearer is trash for us.