Macro'd Blood Tap or Runic Corruption?

[zulk]

Hello friends!

I've read skullflowers unholy section, this forums unholy section and I've armoried many death knights on wowprogress. Looks like most of the top dk's in the world pick blood tap, but they don't macro it either, so I was curious what you awesome death knights thought about Macro'd Blood Tap vs Runic Corruption. We're progressing mythic right now and I'm trying to bring the most dps I can for my raid. I would love to un-macro blood tap but I'm a new dps dk player and feel like it's too much to manage right now on these mythic bosses. Would love any feedback, thanks. gl hf

Zulk

[nephzor]

macroing BT defeats the purpose of using BT. the purpose of using it, is that it gives you control on when you want these runes, like let's say you know there's a big AoE phase coming soon you could pool some blood charges that way you could quickly blood boil 4times and blood tap to get 2 more blood boil or going even deeper by getting your unholy runes into death runes that way you can have 6 death runes ready + 10-12 blood charge before that AoE phase

[ohpocket]

macroing BT defeats the purpose of using BT. the purpose of using it, is that it gives you control on when you want these runes, like let's say you know there's a big AoE phase coming soon you could pool some blood charges that way you could quickly blood boil 4times and blood tap to get 2 more blood boil or going even deeper by getting your unholy runes into death runes that way you can have 6 death runes ready + 10-12 blood charge before that AoE phase

Pretty much that ^ Only thing is in my opinion you want to determine how long adds will be up for what you're pooling for. Meaning, you don't want to overpool charges of BT, just for adds that will be alive for maybe 2 blood boils. Overcapping on resources and having downtime by autoattacking, just to attempt to pool BT charges can be a dps loss if over done. But yeah, never use the macro if you plan on using BT.

[Schizoide]

macroing BT defeats the purpose of using BT.

This is, of course, wrong.

Manual BT is theoretically better than macroed, but there's a lot of argument about how much better, and whether it's worth doing. I think it isn't, but not getting into that here.

Anyway, macroed BT is in turn somewhat better than RC for Unholy, as it can give extra death runes for sustained AE and mask orphan frost runes when transitioning to AE. Not a big deal, but since macroed BT is completely passive (like RC) you might as well use it.

[nephzor]

Theoritically better... wait what

Manual BT vs macroed BT on any AoE fight manual BT will win that's of course if you can manage it correctly.

Macroed BT vs RC .... RC wins unless you have really shitty procs.

Good luck transitioning from ST to AoE or AoE to ST witj macroed BT. Unless you like to have your runes desynced

[cashballer]

And that's why I chose not to respond yesterday. Macroing BT does defeat part of the justification for using BT, but is still better (on paper) than RC.

RC: Very easy to figure out what ability you will use next. No surprises, have to pay very little attention to your runes.
Macroed BT: Gives about the same amount of increased rune regeneration as RC, and adds some bonus death runes. However, this also causes more rune desync than RC or manual BT, so you still have to pay a good amount of attention to your runes even if you aren't actively pressing the BT button. On fights with sustained, heavy BB and FeS usage this is less of an issue.
Manual BT: Gives about the same amount of increased rune regeneration if you don't mess up too much, allows you to easily time usage of BB, allows you to more easily choose which runes will turn into death runes. There are no drawbacks IF you are able to do it well.

For OP, I would strongly recommend RC until you get a firm grasp on what abilities you should be using when on each boss.

[Khiyone]

You should also note that RC can actually be used with Breath of Sindragosa, unlike macroed BT.

[Maxweii]

All in all if you don't use BT you're not going to be noticeable detrimental to your dps/raid performance. Yes using BT will net you slight gains, but overall between using RC/BT you'll be competitive dps either way.

[Schizoide]

You should also note that RC can actually be used with Breath of Sindragosa, unlike macroed BT.

You can still use macroed BT with BoS, it just needs to be additionally macroed to something other than your RP spender.

@cashballer: The only way for people to learn is to respond every time. I find it very tiresome also.

@Maxweii: The only way your performance can really be hurt is to use manual BT and mess it up.

[Maxweii]

@Maxweii: The only way your performance can really be hurt is to use manual BT and mess it up.

Yup, that's why it's a catch 22. While perfectly played manual BT is a notable increase, manual BT that's messed up is a significant loss. Otherwise, it's very marginal and you won't notice much.
Even then the checks and balances to be able to pull of pure perfect BT is so high, that I don't think many if any would ever truly do a fight of relevance with actually pulling it off perfectly.

[Saybel]

Manual BT >= Macro'd BT > RC

There is DPS to be gained from Manual BT (a fairly decent amount if you're trying to deal with burst AoE), and if you are extremely familiar with the class I would use manual, but if you're switching from RC to BT, macroing it is simpler until you're used to it. I play Chains of Cancer Blood though so I feel like it's mandatory for me to manually use it, and the level of control it offers me is beyond the results I would see with macros so I would also recommend not using macro'd BT if you ever intend to play Blood and/or play with BoS.

It's also really fucking annoying seeing the animation of your character failing to blood tap when you press keys, #1 reason to not macro it imo.

But yeah #biased.

[Schizoide]

While perfectly played manual BT is a notable increase,

It certainly isn't a sustained single-target increase. It is a sustained and burst AE increase, though.

It can technically be a burst single-target increase, but nobody's proven to my satisfaction that's worthwhile as it's a very small amount of burst that you can only "pool" for ~4s before going over cap.

@Saybel: It probably is worth doing for BoS, yeah, as sustained rune generation is less important than keeping BoS active no matter what.

[Saybel]

Well, there's no situation during Unholy BoS where you wouldn't want to activate BT stacks, except maybe if you're near cap of RP then find something to AMS soak. But I wouldn't suggest Manual Blood Tap purely for that scenario. The performance difference is relatively small, it's more about game-play.

If someone wants to chase that last 1-2% then Manual BT is one of the ways to go, if you've got more important things to worry about (wasting runes/RP), then you should focus on that before BT.

People tend to overstate the power of the talent tier, it's more about making gameplay choices rather than a huge impact on your DPS, Macro'd BT and RC perform very similarly (not including Breath), and Macro'd BT and Manual BT also perform very similarly, which one you use should be whichever one feels more fluid to you unless, as I said, you're chasing the last %s of DPS out of your character.

[Schizoide]

Well not exactly, as Blood can also get 3 death strikes per cycle (forever) with Blood Tap. Death Strike is higher damage than 2 blood boils on a single target, and also heals and puts up blood shield. I tend to focus on DPS DKs in my posts.

Regarding BoS, with manual BT you can also pool only 5 Blood Charges, to "bridge" the gap when you need a clutch chains of ice. BoS is all about keeping it active no matter what, and if you go one tick without enough RP to sustain BoS up comes that cooldown again. That will still apply in 6.2, just not chains of ice.

I agree that these are small differences and people should use whatever they prefer. I strongly prefer RC for smooth gameplay and paired runes but use macroed BT anyway, because both are passive. I don't use manual BT because I despise it, basically. If it was proven a non-negligible performance increase I'd get past that.

[Saybel]

Was speaking about Unholy BoS mainly, you're completely correct about Blood, which is why I feel forced to use manual.

They're basically "cosmetic" talents for DPS specs (meaning they all hold relatively the same power and only effect gameplay).

[Schizoide]

They're basically "cosmetic" talents for DPS specs (meaning they all hold relatively the same power and only effect gameplay).

Until recently they were 100% cosmetic-- they all offered the same performance and they all were best used passively. Pre 6.1, manual BT really did mean you were doing it wrong.

With 6.1, Blood Tap offers several minor but not completely insignificant advantages over the other two. And with 6.1, manual BT (as opposed to macroed) does have a place, if a situational one. Before, it really didn't.

[Nisth]

While everyone argues over which is technically 0.001% better, to the OP, since you're new to DPS DK I'd say go with RC. It's purely passive and impossible to mess up like BT. Once you better learn how to play the class, I'd go to manual BT. Not only is it better for burst aoe, it allows you to become a better player by managing multiple things at once. Good luck to you on mythics.

[cashballer]

While perfectly played manual BT is a notable increase,

It certainly isn't a sustained single-target increase.

Yes, it is.

Start with BB FF UU and 5 BT charges.

Macroed BT:
FeS x2, SS x2 -> dd dd uu
DC (+BT) -> dD dd uu
SS -> db dd uu
which refreshes into SS x4 FeS
total: SS x7, FeS x3 (13 runes)

Manual BT:
FeS x2, SS x2 -> dd dd uu
DC -> dd dd uu
N/A -> Dd Dd uu
N/A -> Dd Dd Uu
SS -> Dd Dd uu
BT -> Dd Dd uD
which refreshes into SS x6
total: SS x9, FeS x2 (13 runes)

Point being, if you ever use BT immediately following FeS, you're losing damage (assuming single target, where SS x2 > FeS). The only way to avoid that with macroed BT is by purposefully lining up your DCs with times when a manual BT user would BT, at which point you're just using... manual BT in a macro? So I assume nobody does that.

[Schizoide]

That's a total DPS loss, so no. Otherwise nobody would use necroblight, which does the exact opposite.

[Graives]

RC sure is nice when you get favorable RNG, but when you don't... yikes. I made the switch to BT, and it has literally been a large DPS gain on fights like mythic Kromog where having 6 death runes is undeniably a substantial DPS increase during grasping earth. On other fights it's a sustained medium that makes your DPS much more consistent across many pulls.

That said, as has been said here, you can't just burn your BT charges whenever you feel like it and expect it to be a DPS gain. That's essentially what a macro does, and if you are dead set on not managing your BT charges, just use RC.

If you decide to press on, I'll give you some basic info. When I switched, I found it a little jarring for a few fights but it grows on you quickly. It's like anything else - it takes practice and muscle memory. Once you start to "feel" when you have enough charges to BT, when you've gone too long without using one, and when using them is best, it will start to become natural for you. The big thing is not using BT charges on runes that are already recharging as D runes. Think directly after SSing with a D rune and you won't rune/runic cap with the extra rune.

It's also important to bind it to an easy key. Mine is MWup.