Blood DK DPS rotation

[Windblade]

ive been playin around with some builds and possible rotations for a while, im aiming for blood for some solid raid dps. wanted to know other suggestions, mainly on the attack rotation but some other builds would be good to c

[Geckomayhem]

For PvE DPS, give this a shot: 51/13/7

The rotation I used for Blood varied depending on Death Runes. What is most important is making sure that you get up Frost Fever and Blood Plague before you do any Death or Heart Strikes. Always use Death Coil when you get a free cast; and even use it when all of your runes are on cooldown, because you will not have an RP problem at all.

The points that are put into Unholy can be juggled around a little bit, but I chose Epidemic because the longer your diseases stay up, the less you have to use a rune cooldown.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

[Jalynfein]

I'm still leveling my dk in the beginning to get teh talent points back aso so can't check all of this fully but would it be bad to remove the points in unholy and take them in improved icy touch? I know wf and imp icy doesn't stack but always having haste no matter what does seem nice to me and imp icy is 5% better isn't it? Last i saw was that windfury is 15% attack and cast speed and improved icy is 20% attack speed.

[Geckomayhem]

I've seen builds that go both ways. I would lean more towards Icy Talons if you were dual wielding. Spec however you want, so long as you get Heartstrike, as that is the core of Blood DPS.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

[Morg]

I play a death knight on beta and went with this spec for PvE
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

I put points into unholy as BCB and Necrosis are on hit procs, and blizzard is trying make blood the physical dps tree so black ice is pretty bland, it also gives you the 45 seconds as a ghoul if you do die.

The rotation it uses is
Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate
Icy Touch, Plauge strike, Heart Strike x4

between the first and 2nd rune rotations there is time to pop 1-2 cooldows or throw in deathcoils to use up your Runic Power.

I havent fully tested whether its worth using deathcoil whenever sudden doom procs or just keep to the rotation

[Geckomayhem]

I think that using Death Coil when you proc a free one is worth it, otherwise, what is the point in having the talent?

I have tossed up between Frost, Unholy and a mix between the two for ages. I will probably go with the build I posted, but might go 51/0/20 when the game goes live, and when I roll my DK a few months down the track.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

[Morg]

I think that using Death Coil when you proc a free one is worth it, otherwise, what is the point in having the talent?

I have tossed up between Frost, Unholy and a mix between the two for ages. I will probably go with the build I posted, but might go 51/0/20 when the game goes live, and when I roll my DK a few months down the track.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Back before the DC buff, it wasnt worth the loss of rune dps, so you would throw it on the end of the rotation if you had a spare GCD as you can burn all runes before the 15 second buff fades.
Since DC being buffed its most probably changed and worth throwing in between rune abilities hoping for another proc

[Windblade]

the one thing i question is getting bloodworms...are they really worth it if your raiding end-game content? i would think that the imp. blood aura would be a better pick

[Drake]

the one thing i question is getting bloodworms...are they really worth it if your raiding end-game content? i would think that the imp. blood aura would be a better pick

bloodworms are self buff while aura is a raid buff. You decide.
also for end game raiding, there will be a lot of aoe damages. bloodworms wont survive for long during a lot of encounters.

[Windblade]

bloodworms are self buff while aura is a raid buff. You decide.
also for end game raiding, there will be a lot of aoe damages. bloodworms wont survive for long during a lot of encounters.

exactly what i was thinking, maybe when leveling blood worms is probably the best bet, but end-game seems to be more useful to have the aura

[Attica]

For PvE DPS, give this a shot: 51/13/7

The rotation I used for Blood varied depending on Death Runes. What is most important is making sure that you get up Frost Fever and Blood Plague before you do any Death or Heart Strikes. Always use Death Coil when you get a free cast; and even use it when all of your runes are on cooldown, because you will not have an RP problem at all.

The points that are put into Unholy can be juggled around a little bit, but I chose Epidemic because the longer your diseases stay up, the less you have to use a rune cooldown.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

I think the 2 points spent in Glacier Rot are wasted. It affects 2 abilities that you only get by going further into the Frost tree, and the one you would have - Icy Touch - only gets 10% more when the target is diseased? I'd just as soon put those points in Toughness. Sudden Doom is now better with the Death Coil buff, but those points would be useful on some other valuable stuff like Improved Rune Tap, Vendetta, and Mark of Blood (although it does have good synergy with Morbidity). I've been using something like this on the pre-made realm (not for raiding, mind you) and it's pretty fun http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

[Loki]

I was actually thinking about doing this spec. Its a 51/13/7 spec just the other ones posted but i find this to be really good. I find Toughness to be really nice especially high end raiding where the more Armor you get the more AP you get from Bladed Armor. So I figured doing Toughness + Bladed Armor make for much better synergy. These again are just my two cents. I will also be playing a Orc Dk, so with bloodlust up and hysteria Vampiric blood will compensate for that.

My spec
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

[Lone Crow]

I've seen builds that go both ways. I would lean more towards Icy Talons if you were dual wielding. Spec however you want, so long as you get Heartstrike, as that is the core of Blood DPS.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Agreed. Heart Strike is great and it's the whole reason one would go Blood spec imo. Blood Strike is always in a melee rotation and everyone knows that Heart Strike is Blood Strike on crack.

Personally I'm going with 59/0/12 and then respeccing accordingly for raid DPS.

[Windblade]

I play a death knight on beta and went with this spec for PvE
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

I put points into unholy as BCB and Necrosis are on hit procs, and blizzard is trying make blood the physical dps tree so black ice is pretty bland, it also gives you the 45 seconds as a ghoul if you do die.

The rotation it uses is
Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate
Icy Touch, Plauge strike, Heart Strike x4

between the first and 2nd rune rotations there is time to pop 1-2 cooldows or throw in deathcoils to use up your Runic Power.

I havent fully tested whether its worth using deathcoil whenever sudden doom procs or just keep to the rotation

so i assume that this is the best rotation after all?

[Raktor]

Rofl no. I lol at every deathknight that has a 6 rune rotation. You should be on a 12 rune rotation. (Hint: Epidemic) Think abit and ponder why a 12 rune rotation would put out more dps than a 6 rune rotation. (hint: disease applying moves dont do alot of damage)

Edit: I noticed that spec has epidemic but no annihilation. :S:S:S Why take epidemic if you're gunna use up your diseases after the first set of runes? The normal disease duration is sufficient for the 6 rune rotation.

[Windblade]

would be nice to give an imagineable example for those of us who arent in the beta, and dont really know all the spells

[Drake]

Here you go, a pve blood dk talent:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000
Rotations:
It - Ps - Hs - Hs - Ob - Ob - 4xHs or 2xOb yur call. Repeat
Dont forget to use your runic power kk.

[InfernalKatana]

IMO now that I've learned what I have recently, the entire frost tree isn't worth putting secondary points (by secondary I mean not your main tree, for clarification) into. From what I've seen a spec like this is much better for blood DPS:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

Now BCB is currently broken so you could move those 3 points to wherever you want.

[Shmeez]

IMO now that I've learned what I have recently, the entire frost tree isn't worth putting secondary points (by secondary I mean not your main tree, for clarification) into. From what I've seen a spec like this is much better for blood DPS:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

Now BCB is currently broken so you could move those 3 points to wherever you want.

I noticed that spec has epidemic but no annihilation. :S:S:S Why take epidemic if you're gunna use up your diseases after the first set of runes?

[Emcee]

Epidemic helps a lot for blood, annihilation or not, mainly because Blood does not have a set rotation.

Sudden death + DRM together completely mess up any chance of getting a set 12 rune rotation for maxing out dps. I really don't want to describe all the scenarios...but there are often times where on my 3rd set i obliterate (diseases off) IT, PS (diseases on for 18 secs go!) HSx4 but respecting deathcoil procs and keeping runic power from hitting 100 (aka using it at before i hit 80-90 runic power) have my first blood or 2 already refreshed and so i can use those again and have the diseases run out before i can obliterate.

In short, there are many times i can't use 7 rune abilities in 16.5 secs ( time left on frost fever after my blood plague gets applied by PS) because of all the deathcoils i'm throwing out.

Also, the timing of your sudden death procs further screws rotation...like sometimes i get a ton after my first HS of the 4x HS rotation...such that my first blood rune is up before i use the deathrune for my 4th one, so when i heartstrike, i use the original one, then heartstrike with the deathrune, then HS one more time with a blood rune, then obliterate, thinking i'll have a frost and unholy rune up but i'll only have one of them up because i just used the death rune. Which leads to only being able to reapply one disease before bloods are up = loss of dps.

Bottomline, sudden death procs are a dps boosts, but screw up your rotation sometimes. If you are constantly aware of the cd's left on every particular frost and unholy rune, you can work you way around it and be able to decide whether to obliterate and reapply diseases or just reapply diseases and continue heartstriking. But that requires more focus on runes that i could be applying to whats going on around me. With my other trees, it's more definate, so barring parries/dodge i can have a set rotation. which frees up more of my focus to whats going on around me.

Random Aside: I really wish they would up obliterate dmg a lot more in blood tree and take out drm. I find it weird to be using your FU to give you more runes for your 1 rune abilities. Though i can see why some players like the playstyle...i'm just going to stick to the other specs because i feel i have more control over the rotations *shrug*