DK's 5v5: How it's done.

[Negativ1337]

Hey guys,

I'm just thinking about my DPS macro's in ISBoxer, and how to improve them.

DPS Macro #1:
KEY PRESS - DOWN
Step 1: I would say we start off by picking a target (healer preffered) and cast Outbreak on it so our Obliterate does much more damage.
Step 2: This step is optional. You can add in Pestillence to spread both diseases to all the enemies around your picked opponent.
Step 3: Obliterate
Step 4: Obliterate
Step 5: Add a Frost Strike in your DPS macro to dump Runic Power.
Step 6: Blood Strike
Step 7: Blood Strike

KEY PRESS UP:
Step 1: Obliterate (so it gets used asap when it's off cooldown)
Step 2: Horn of Winter
Step 3: Macro that uses your DPS trinket (+strength trinket preffered), Pillar of Frost (to increase your strength by 20%) and for Orcs Blood Fury.

DPS Macro #2:
KEY PRESS - DOWN
Step 1: Your runes are now on cooldown. I would say we cast Empower Rune Weapon to reset our runes.
Step 2: Howling Blast
Step 3: Howling Blast
Step 4: Dark Simulacrum to copy the next casted spell that costs mana. I recommend picking a healer as first target.
Step 5: Add a Necrotic Strike in your DPS macro to use your Unholy Runes. The target should be below 50% hp, and you will absorb the last healing because of the debuff to peel more.
Step 6: Add a round-robin Mind Freeze so you hopefully interrupt any heals casted.
Step 7: Add a Frost Strike in your DPS macro to dump Runic Power.
Step 8: Add a Heart Strike in your DPS macro to use your Blood Runes.
Step 9: Use Blood Tap to convert a blood rune into a death rune.

KEY PRESS UP:
Step 1: Howling Blast (so it gets used asap when it's off cooldown)
Step 2: Horn of Winter. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown to refresh the buff and get some extra runic power.
Step 3: Macro that uses your DPS trinket (+strength trinket preffered), Pillar of Frost (to increase your strength by 20%) and for Orcs Blood Fury. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.
Step 4: Dark Simulacrum to copy the next casted spell that costs mana. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.

DPS Macro #3:
KEY PRESS - DOWN
Step 1: Your runes are now on cooldown. I would say we cast Empower Rune Weapon to reset our runes.
Step 2: Oblterate
Step 3: Obliterate
Step 4: Strangulate Macro: Be sure to change arena 1 into arena 2, 3 and 4 or 5 on your alts.
#showtooltip
/cast [@arena1] Strangulate
Step 5: Round-Robin Hungering Cold.
Step 6: Necrotic Strike
Step 7: Blood Strike

KEY PRESS UP:
Step 1: Horn of Winter. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown to refresh the buff and get some extra runic power.
Step 2: Macro that uses your DPS trinket (+strength trinket preffered), Pillar of Frost (to increase your strength by 20%) and for Orcs Blood Fury. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.
Step 3: Dark Simulcrum to copy the next casted spell that costs mana. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.

I also have a simple macro that uses Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic Shield for extra survivability when you get focussed. I also have the round-robin Mind Freeze on a hotkey so i can press it when the healer casts a spell so i can get the interrupt, and don't have to hope on my DPS macro #2.

Notice: I added some steps double to explain the priority of abilities that should go off first. I only have Howling Blast and Obliterate once in my DPS macro on ISBoxer Suite. I do recommend to have Howling Blast and Obliterate on your key-release step so it gets casted more often.

Glyphs: I recommend to use:
Prime: Frost Strike, Howling Blast and Obliterate.
Major: Anti-Magic Shield, Strangulate and Hungering Cold.
Lesser: Blood Tap and Horn of Winter.

Thank you for your time reading this topic. If you have any suggestions or tips i would love to hear them to improve the DK teams these days.


Kind regards,

Negativ1337
Quad-Box Orc DK's on Bladefist EU.

[xtobbenx]

Why not Dark Succor instead of Strangulate maybe ? The exstra healing is really nice

[Ualaa]

Are you running, 4x Frost DK's + 1x Healer?
Or 5x Frost DK's?

[Negativ1337]

4x frost deathknights

[RestrainT]

Hello, I just started 3 DKs, im lvl 75 atm and i am wondering if you know ant good macros to regain health, as frost dk. Like 1 OHSHIT macro.

[Toned]

Sac your pet

[ghonosyph]

Hello, I just started 3 DKs, im lvl 75 atm and i am wondering if you know ant good macros to regain health, as frost dk. Like 1 OHSHIT macro.

There are plenty of macros we could give you but if you read your dks abilities you'd see what gives you health back and easily make a macro from that :)

People that play dks without knowing how to play dks REALLY need to learn how to play their dks solo first so they can understand how dks work! <3 lol

with that said, it all depends on what spec and talent options are available to you at lvl 75, i really dont know offhand since its been so long since i've leveled mine, but death strike spam works wonders if you've got glyph of dark succor

[ghonosyph]

Going to edit in my comments to your quote here negativ... for clarity


Hey guys,

I'm just thinking about my DPS macro's in ISBoxer, and how to improve them.

DPS Macro #1:
KEY PRESS - DOWN
Step 1: I would say we start off by picking a target (healer preffered) and cast Outbreak on it so our Obliterate does much more damage.
Step 2: This step is optional. You can add in Pestillence to spread both diseases to all the enemies around your picked opponent. Pestilence is a great choice to spread diseases, if you're talking pvp you want to control this manually, and NOT part of a dps "sequence" Sure 1 button spam is mindless and easy... but lets face it, you need to make some choices sometimes!
Step 3: Obliterate
Step 4: Obliterate
Step 5: Add a Frost Strike in your DPS macro to dump Runic Power.
Step 6: Blood Strike
Step 7: Blood Strike

KEY PRESS UP:
Step 1: Obliterate (so it gets used asap when it's off cooldown)
Step 2: Horn of Winter
Step 3: Macro that uses your DPS trinket (+strength trinket preffered), Pillar of Frost (to increase your strength by 20%) and for Orcs Blood Fury. Of note here, pillar of frost, as well as pestilence above, both cost one rune to activate. combining them in a macro that does /cast blood tap /cast Pestilence or /cast pillar of frost, will ensure that you're not using up odd runes to do some utility while losing out on dps cuz you used up that rune ... blood tap will give you a rune to use but only if its already on cooldown... use pillar after initial burst with your blood tap or after two blood strikes have gone off.
Basic way to do this in steps 6 and 7 is to make a cast sequence and put it in both steps, /castsequence reset=combat blood strike, blood strike, blood tap, pillar of frost(or pestilence)

DPS Macro #2:
KEY PRESS - DOWN
Step 1: Your runes are now on cooldown. I would say we cast Empower Rune Weapon to reset our runes. Again here is one of those things that should not be used mindlessly every chance its up. Its a VERY powerful tool for burst in pvp, and you dont just want to fire it off willy nilly. The way i use mine is a big OH SHIT type macro, i use all my trinkets horn of winter, dark Simulacrum, then go to town with my single target or aoe dps macro... It should have its own key, not part of any sequence. For pve this wont matter, but you're going to find in pvp it WILL mean more kills vs 2 healer teams and pesky priests/druids
Step 2: Howling Blast
Step 3: Howling Blast
Step 4: Dark Simulacrum to copy the next casted spell that costs mana. I recommend picking a healer as first target. Good advice here, i like to choose shadow priests or pallys as my first target to use dark sim on. Aoe the whole group to put pressure on then start spamming single target on the pally/priest. This USUALLY nets me their dispersion OR the pallys bubble. Just be aware that if you pop it too soon when you're just starting to DPS a target, you're wasting it... as they just wont cast until its off. The smart ones do anyway lol
Step 5: Add a Necrotic Strike in your DPS macro to use your Unholy Runes. The target should be below 50% hp, and you will absorb the last healing because of the debuff to peel more.
Step 6: Add a round-robin Mind Freeze so you hopefully interrupt any heals casted.
Step 7: Add a Frost Strike in your DPS macro to dump Runic Power.
Step 8: Add a Heart Strike in your DPS macro to use your Blood Runes. <-- Heart strike is Blood spec only... you mean blood strike here :) <3
Step 9: Use Blood Tap to convert a blood rune into a death rune.<-- covered this above in my comments earlier. This should not be used just whenever... instant rune regen is a POWERFUL tool if used right :)

KEY PRESS UP:
Step 1: Howling Blast (so it gets used asap when it's off cooldown)
Step 2: Horn of Winter. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown to refresh the buff and get some extra runic power. I've read up some on horn of winter spam, it actually goes off too much if i put it in dps spam... need to find a way to make it only fire off every time its off cooldown, and NOT before otherwise you're eating a GCD that could be used for something else. overspam = dps loss from what i've seen personally
Step 3: Macro that uses your DPS trinket (+strength trinket preffered), Pillar of Frost (to increase your strength by 20%) and for Orcs Blood Fury. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.
Step 4: Dark Simulacrum to copy the next casted spell that costs mana. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.
^^^steps 3 and 4 have been covered above as well :)
DPS Macro #3:
KEY PRESS - DOWN
Step 1: Your runes are now on cooldown. I would say we cast Empower Rune Weapon to reset our runes.
Step 2: Oblterate
Step 3: Obliterate
Step 4: Strangulate Macro: Be sure to change arena 1 into arena 2, 3 and 4 or 5 on your alts.
#showtooltip this is a good macro idea, i use it in arenas with death grip added to it, so that it silences everyone and deathgrips them all into me if there's facing /line of sight. Then i fire off a hungering cold, which gets trinketed usually, then my priest rushes in with an aoe fear that lasts full length. This, however, is an on use keybind that is NOT part of a dps spam key :) You dont want to waste your strangulates like this...

i also have a focus key and focus a healer, and then just like my interrupt key(mind freeze keymap round robin) i implement a few steps that cast strangulate at my focus if it exsists and is not dead on round robin. This lets me focus down one healer whilest my dks pound away and chain silence the other healer. This however is NOT part of my dps spam in any form, it simply just a key that i hit all the time every 20 seconds or so(my G key, horn of winter, random silence at focus, dps trinkets)
/cast [@arena1] Strangulate
Step 5: Round-Robin Hungering Cold.
Step 6: Necrotic Strike Gotta be careful working in necrotic strike into a macro /dps sequence like this, as you're going to lose obliterates like mad if you're not careful. I have a little trick i like to use

/castsequence reset=combat obliterate, obliterate, blood strike, blood strike, chains of ice, icy touch, necrotic strike, necrotic strike
i put this macro in place of everywhere you have obliterate and blood strike in this dps key. what happens is then, that it will auto use all your runes but starts with obliterates first for big burst. Its surprisingly sneaky and gets lots of use for finishing off a target thats close to dead
chains of ice goes off on round robin,so to speak... each dk does it at a different time thru clever use of macro placement. This prevents diminishing returns... just put icy touch in place of it for different dks and move it around the macro for the other dks... :) or just skip the chains of ice all together
Step 7: Blood Strike

KEY PRESS UP:
Step 1: Horn of Winter. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown to refresh the buff and get some extra runic power.
Step 2: Macro that uses your DPS trinket (+strength trinket preffered), Pillar of Frost (to increase your strength by 20%) and for Orcs Blood Fury. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.
Step 3: Dark Simulcrum to copy the next casted spell that costs mana. Your character can use it when it's off cooldown.

I also have a simple macro that uses Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic Shield for extra survivability when you get focussed. I also have the round-robin Mind Freeze on a hotkey so i can press it when the healer casts a spell so i can get the interrupt, and don't have to hope on my DPS macro #2. I too use something similar... however i like to space out those defensive cooldowns usually. Dont forget that pillar of frost prevents knockbacks, lichborne prevents fears/polymorphs. I have every defensive cooldown on this key, as well as each dk targeting arena1-5 and casting chains of ice. what THIS does is to blow all defensive cooldowns if im in serious heat, rooting everyone and their mother, and letting me run away...

while you may say, "we dont want to run away" you're going to find that sometimes if you just run away for a while your healer can top you up and off, and ALL of your runes will be up by the time you go back after their team. lol it makes for a fun time too watching them all chase after you one by one.... if you split them up some by retreating, you're going to get them to chase more likely one at a time... where you're going to nuke the snot out of them and catch em off guard


You've got a decent setup, but some of the things i've posted here for you above will increase your game dramastically :) lol good luck with it!

[ghonosyph]

**** of note about defensive cooldowns. I DO NOT always pop them all at once... thats bad practice as you're killing yourself by blowing all your tricks too soon. I start off with a anti magic shell usage, when it wears off i use icebound fort and pillar of frost, when those are done i use lichborne(sometimes sooner if CCd), and then save my trinket for if i get mega cc'd after that, or to get out of roots or snares to finish off a target usually. If you space out those defensive cooldowns(which is the HARDEST thing to do with this team imo) then you're going to live that much longer and frustrate the opponent. However, with that being said, sometimes you just have to blow it all and go for broke.

A note on that... look at the team you're facing, if you have the addon gladius you can see their party frame... if their healers have like 90k+ mana then they're probably overgearing you... space out cooldowns. if they look lesser geared (ie lower health totals and such) then go for broke and destroy them.... this is all matters of experience here, as you've gotta figure out what pvp geared opponents look like and judge from there... but its helped me a little bit :) good luck!

[Ualaa]

How many of the cooldowns can be used at once.
And how many trigger a GCD?

Pillar lasts 20 seconds.
Icebound Fortitude lasts 12 seconds, but requires runic power I believe.
Lichborne lasts 10 seconds.
AMS lasts 7 seconds (5, base) with the glyph.

[ghonosyph]

not sure on that one, but i dont really pay attention to that while im spamming deepz and try to pop them lol

[RestrainT]

There are plenty of macros we could give you but if you read your dks abilities you'd see what gives you health back and easily make a macro from that :)

People that play dks without knowing how to play dks REALLY need to learn how to play their dks solo first so they can understand how dks work! <3 lol

with that said, it all depends on what spec and talent options are available to you at lvl 75, i really dont know offhand since its been so long since i've leveled mine, but death strike spam works wonders if you've got glyph of dark succor

I know my Dk abilities i can use to heal, Like Death Pact and use Lichborne and spam Death Coil. also Ani-Magic Shell is nice to have in there. But i cant get it to work out in 1 macro.

#showtooltip
/cast Anti-Magic Shell
/cast Raise Dead
/cast Death Pact
/cast Lichborne
/cast Death Coil

Cud you please help me out?
i wud really Appreciate it.

[Ualaa]

Pretty sure Raise Dead, Lichborne and Death Coil are all on the GCD.
You could do a castsequence.

Unfortunately, they're not going to work well with a bunch of /cast macros.
You could make several macros and use them in sequence.

[Dorffo]

....

[Toned]

I dinged 85 like last Sunday, so I was able to get points in before the reset, get points last week, and last night finished my points for my 2handers.

DK's currently have 2300ish resil and the priest is around 1700 resil.
First 2 weeks were meh I got my 5 wins. I remade my team last night and went 5-6 to get points for the 2handers, and then tried them out and won the next game.

Later that night my g/f and I were grinding BGs and decided to try some arenas for the lols. With her playing her under geared priest we went 7-1, and the team that beat us was full viscious 1800+ rated. Other than that we crushed most of the competition.
She runs holy right now until she gets gear. The ability to heal after dieing is key, because 90% of games they try to zerg her.
From my point of view I rush quick and get pressure going early. I open with pillar of frost if im going after an ele/boomkin. Otherwise It's 2 HBs, 2 BS, 2 NS + any frost strikes that occur along the way.

I focus on death gripping melee off her priest, and I will use a hungering cold if 2 other people or so are near my kill target. I have mind freeze on round robin every 2.5sec on my current target like the manifesto, and also included round robin arcane torrent every 4s in reverse order.
After the first hungering cold goes off I pop AMS + IBF reset my runes and move to my obliterate rotation. Which has hungering cold on a 4sec round robin. When my target is 30% or so I do bloodtap + strangulate on arena1-4 and go for the kill. After the first kill I go for anything on the priest and death strike spam to relieve pressure on my DKs (Death strike rotation also has the round robin arcane torrent, hungering colds, and mind freezes).

She fear bombs and uses OH shit buttons like desperate prayer / guardian spirit to live as long as possible. Most games she'd survive, but some double or tripple melee teams would wipe her out before the match was done.
All and all I was impressed at 1 how much difference just the 2handers made, 2 how much easier it is when not healing and Dking, and 3 how lolzie it was beating some fairly geared teams in my crap gear.


Ugh sorry for formatting posting from cellphone FTL.

[Negativ1337]

Don't read this. Stuff is out of date.

[pwnstarz]

Feel free to update us then please Negativ.. Would love to hear how dk's are run now. I ran shammies at 1850 2 seasons back and leveling DK's now. :-)