Playing DK's in Cataclysm is SLOW !

[Lugolol]

Let me be honest when I say this:

Thank god.

I'm absolutely sick of being GCD locked, my arm hurting after every DPS heavy boss fight and there being absolutely no room for decision making in my rotation because a split second means everything.

You bring up a good point . But this is the reason I love dks. I play frost dps and the fact that its is about sorting procs and quick thinking is what makes it a very fun spec for me . They should have left frost the way it is and slow unholy down, So we can get the best of both worlds .

[Eöl]

i don't hate the changes, the rune system needed something like this BUT i'm worried.... about tanking as a DK.

let me explain here: i'm less worried about threat cause with the increased damage on strikes, we'll have about the same, but currently dps enjoys pulling packs before the tank "cause we overgear it anyway" and QQ when the tank doesnt pick the mobs up right away (but since they're overgeared, they should be able to handle it right? why else pull?).

this is the current state of heroics. now in cata, mainly at the start i see several dps still doing this cause they still think they're good enough for it. but try pulling a pack of mobs for a DK now while his runes are on CD, the DK will just sit there and wait for his runes before he can rly do anything.

in cata this waiting period will become even longer as runes will regenerate slower overall. dps will QQ that we dont pull fast enough, they'll pull packs for us and most likely die while we wait for our runes to recharge and of course they'll complain even more then. i just see this as a possible problem as i have seen a lot of impatient dpsers lately and the number keeps rising (even had a few healers pull for me while i was waiting for my runes and they thought i was too slow)

Thats exactly what i meant. Yesterday i tried my first dunguon... I just couldnt holt the agro, since my attacks where all on Cd. I really need to find new rotations etc or to know wich attack i need to use where, since all have changed so much.

Hope they going to increase the speed again...It dosnt have to be fast as it is now, but a bid more speed isnt runnning the class. Cause this slow one is

[Ashareth]

Thats exactly what i meant. Yesterday i tried my first dunguon... I just couldnt holt the agro, since my attacks where all on Cd. I really need to find new rotations etc or to know wich attack i need to use where, since all have changed so much.

Hope they going to increase the speed again...It dosnt have to be fast as it is now, but a bid more speed isnt runnning the class. Cause this slow one is

Be it for tanking or dps, i think the most important part will be to maximize the procs from Runic Empowerement or Crimson Scourge to get a little rune use hence generating more RP in return (since rune use = RP).
But really i think if they don't tweak it quite to get far faster refreshing runes it'll be a pain to play a dk, pretty much the same as a Fury war (and God knows how boring that is :/).

[Vanch]

Very helpfull post.

Let me tell you something: nobody cares.

I care. :<

[treston323]

The current rune system had to change otherwise there would be no way to add new spells into the mix. Also yes, I was developing carpel tunnel and I can't say that I was enjoying it. Any fight like 25man heroic Saurfang where I'm doing nonstop dps, my hand was killing me.

I can't comment if I like the new system or not, because I'm not in the beta.

[CarnatiaSpiritfield]

I doubt I will touch a DK in Cata as serious play time. I have had mine sitting at level 65 for months... And I am surprised I even got her to that level.

[XemnasXD]

The tight rotation isn't what's getting me, it's the complete lack of decision making and the fact that this class is giving me carpel tunnel and I'm fucking 22.

lolwhat? the only spec that requires reflexes is frost and the killing machine proc mechanic is NOT that hard to get a handle on...if you're getting carpel tunnel from that i'd hate to see you play Enh or Feral...your arm might just fall off

[Ashareth]

And once again, if you get "carpal syndrome" while playing a DK even on a static fight like Saurfang you've made a terrible mess of your hotkeys and having more "time to make decisions" (understand : hit a key every two gcd without thinking about it either since it's always the same in the same order) won't make it go away, while rethinking your keybind map will do that quite easyly.

If really the class isn't suited for your playstyle, stop advocating having it ruined for people who love it that way when there is tons of class/specs out there suited to your "one button press every two gcd" taste....

And now, the current system didn't really need change, it worked quite well, even if tweaking a few abilities to have them as RP dump out gcd would have been nice (but probably a balance problem though).

[seam]

A fine example of someone who does not play a DK well, there is plenty of decision making done, maybe not up to the standards of say a feral druid, but certainly more than say a rogue or Arcane mage.

AoE pack, Dnd is down and your diseases are spread, you think you can get 1 full cycle of your rotation off but if you fuck up by a second or more Dnd is going to drop and/or your diseases will drop off. You have a unholy and frost rune up but both your bloods are still off, what do you do?

Keeping track of Dnd internal timers, Disease timers on multiple mobs, 6 seperate resource cooldowns (for your runes) and your runic power(this one not so much) takes some focus - You are just hating on Death knights simply for the beggining of the expansion (Back when I didn't play one, by the way)

nobody is claiming that they are the hardest class to play, but claiming that they have zero desicion making to do is ridicules and unbelievably short sighted - they are very easy to play to a mediocre standard, but some of us love the play style on thats why we excel with them.

I havn't played my DK in a long time, but as from my decision making(Not adding AoEing in here, it's never a decision to AoE, if you add it for DKs you have to add it for every class too...) it was basically "When this buff pops up, do I hit FS or HB?" and choosing the right time to use the Str/Armor buff thing. Yes, there were things like "Well, do I use this attack and maybe let the diseases fall, or refresh them?" But honestly, DKs have it good in that area in comparison to say, a Shadow Priest.


That said, in terms of classes that I feel would give me Carple tunnel, I think DK is low on the list, with Arms and Prot warriors being the top. (HS spamming as Prot...and a GCD based rotation with arms MIXED with the HS spamming.)

[Ashareth]

You mean the Spriest (or Affli lock btw it's the same) who have only one decision to make, it's : when i look at my addon (mostly ForteXorcist or similar) am i under a gcd + cast time for my dots to end or not ? If yes i cast the dot, otherwise i cast the other most important spell and then the dot.

Yeah, far harder than the dks....

Stop pretending there is some classes/specs out there with a hard management decision system that require time to do so, there isn't.
The one that was quite harder than others was made far easier with the 1min duration mangle, and the others (be it dot specs like Spriest/Affli lock or Feral Cat/Frost DK) are on par, and i don't see how dumbing it down to "push a button every two gcd" (which is nearly what the new system is right now ) will make them more interesting.

Once again, if it's what you like Arcane Mage and Fury warrior are awaiting you with wide open arms....

[AetherMcLoud]

See I'm completely the opposite.

I think having a really tight rotation, one that relys on split second decision making and lightning fast reflexes is a good thing - You can easily distinguish a good DK from a bad DK by more than his gear, they are really easy to play badly.

I mourn the destruction of the rune system, it served me well.
Time to roll a rogue again.

LOL, yeah right. Rogues (in pve) are all about skill. LOL.

Mutilate
Mutilate
Envenom
Mutilate
Mutilate
Envenom
...

[seam]

You mean the Spriest (or Affli lock btw it's the same) who have only one decision to make, it's : when i look at my addon (mostly ForteXorcist or similar) am i under a gcd + cast time for my dots to end or not ? If yes i cast the dot, otherwise i cast the other most important spell and then the dot.

"I have 2 dots that are about to go down, can I fit in an extra 1.7 second mind flay and/or GCD blast in and still get 100% uptime? Is my MF faster with these raid buffs?" and then doing the math in your head instantly

Is, infact harder than

"My disease is about to go down, do I have the runes to do a strike and still keep 100% uptime?"

Yes, both aren't the easiest thing to do in less than a half a second, but I personally think Math > thinking about runes.

Don't get me wrong, I've screwed up in both these situations from being too greedy, but I've screwed up far more as a priest. (I swear that MF cast gets longer every single time I want to use it.)

[Deleted]

That said, in terms of classes that I feel would give me Carple tunnel, I think DK is low on the list, with Arms and Prot warriors being the top. (HS spamming as Prot...and a GCD based rotation with arms MIXED with the HS spamming.)

#showtooltip Mortal Strike
/cast Mortal Strike
/cast !Heroic Strike

?????
That macro will mace sure heroic Strike is toggled on when you press Mortal Strike. Just bind "/cast !Heroic Strike" into EVERY ability you use and you will always have heroic Strike toggled on.

[seam]

#showtooltip Mortal Strike
/cast Mortal Strike
/cast !Heroic Strike

?????
That macro will mace sure heroic Strike is toggled on when you press Mortal Strike. Just bind "/cast !Heroic Strike" into EVERY ability you use and you will always have heroic Strike toggled on.

Unless things have changed in the last few months, you never want to bind HS to everything.

I hear people talking about this macro for Prot too, it's never a good idea to take out the choice of using HS, since there are plenty of times you DON'T want to use it.

[Deleted]

Unless things have changed in the last few months, you never want to bind HS to everything.

I hear people talking about this macro for Prot too, it's never a good idea to take out the choice of using HS, since there are plenty of times you DON'T want to use it.

It shouldn't matter for prot really. With the huge dmg you take from bosses you should never be below 50 Rage as prot, Unless you get terribly lucky and dodge 4-5 attacks in a row. And if you're playing arms then... Well I can only hope its beacause your raid needs the 4¤ physical dmg buff and the 30% bleed dmg buff. For fury in ICC gear there shouldn't ever be a problem constantly smashing HS since your off-hand still generates rage.

[Ashareth]

Yeah because there is absolutly no one having made pages long posts out there with those maths and you need to do them everytime it happens because it's changing and not always the same.
Right now you are making up (terribad) excuses to justify your taste, that have no bearing whatsoever. And having 1 gcd free every three gcd or something won't make the Dk more reliant on "on the fly" (lol) maths to make it works.

So stop with it, what you basically ask for is to have the gameplay tuned down to the point where the margin for errors/mistakes is gigantic so you can perform decently, which will kill the fun to quite some people out there, and mostly the ones that do good with their class just because you can work it correctly.

And the decision between hitting or refreshing diseases is as much maths based than the one for dots. It's not magically mats on one side and not on the other side, in both case it's an assessement of the damage output by doing one choice or the other, and which one comes on top (and it's something that has been discussed and proved/backed up tons of time on these forums and on EJ's ones too... and quite some other websites/forums out there depending on classes/specs so stop trying to pretend it's something you have to do on your own and on the fly, it's not).

Edit>> While i don't like the macroing of "on next strike" to abilities, honestly right now (and roughly since ToC) you can do it without much problem as Fury/Arms in Raids and for prot too, problem being out of them (can be solved with bars addon with multiple profiles) specially when the macro is in that order, ie queuing and HS after the use of the ability if you have enough rage.
And Arms seems to fare far better than people think at high level of gear now, with quite some Arms war competing with top Fury on single target fights (fights with adds have them trampled by Fury), due to them scaling better at really high level of gear while Fury stagnate once the caps are reached, specially the Arp Hard cap if i read it correctly from the discussions i stumbled upon).

[Daez]

maybe SPriest/Affli Lock.
All the rest use rotations,

Yes, shadow priests and affliction warlocks don't have a set rotation at all. In fact, they lack that rotation so badly that they aren't dominated (much like DKs) by people that understand how to write cast sequence macros. Seriously, when you have a set rotation with absolutely nothing else to manage all you do is write a /castsequence macro and hit the 1 key over and over.

[MortalWombat]

due to them scaling better at really high level of gear while Fury stagnate once the caps are reached, specially the Arp Hard cap if i read it correctly from the discussions i stumbled upon).

Are we playing the same game?

[Shiira]

I hope you aren't suggesting that you can play a death knight, or any other class for that matter, with a cast sequence macro and do it well.

[Daez]

in cata this waiting period will become even longer as runes will regenerate slower overall. dps will QQ that we dont pull fast enough, they'll pull packs for us and most likely die while we wait for our runes to recharge and of course they'll complain even more then. i just see this as a possible problem as i have seen a lot of impatient dpsers lately and the number keeps rising (even had a few healers pull for me while i was waiting for my runes and they thought i was too slow)

Let them die enough and they will get the hint. They might kick you as tank and get another DK, Warrior, Druid that have the same basic problems (warriors and druids without rage can't exactly pick up mobs either and our only rage generating ability that doesn't involve hitting or getting hit is a 1 minute timer) and that DK, Warrior, Druid will let them die as well further enforcing the point. The only problem is Paladins are basically limitless resource freakazoids that spoil the groups, but then again, let them pull when consecration and hammer of the righteous and avenger's shield all aren't up and they will feel the same pain. Of course, the likelyhood of none of those abilities being up isn't exactly great.