Blood/Unholy DK Team Macro Review Post 6.0.2

[Zzyzxx71]

The followinng are the macro's I'm currently using leveling a set of DKs. I give Khatovar complete credit for the initial set of macros from which these have been bastardized. I've updated these for 6.0.2 to the best of my ability. These are my production macros as of last night.

Khatovar your insight into this would be especially welcome.

I chose not to change the original behaviour of these macros (only conditionals to fit my focus based system), as I'd prefer to learn how they were intended to work together and not corrupt the intended rotation.

The problem I'm having is that due to the "bogus null" at the end of the majority of the castsequences, they don't reset, and I'd prefer not to use a reset key (currently ALT). Is reset=combat/target an option?

Could I safely remove the ALT reset and the bogus null and allow they to roll on through? Maybe move Death Strike to a higher priority in the rotation?

An additional question - Recommendations for replacement of Heart Strike? (see Blood DK macro 6).

Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Thanks again.

Priority - Blood DK PVE

1

#showtooltip
/assist focus
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null
/cast Death Coil


2

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat Horn of Winter, Blood Boil


3

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, GFDSG
/cast Bone Shield


4

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null
/cast Anti-Magic Zone


** Change Anti Magic Zone to Anti Magic Shell at 68 **


5

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null
/cast Death Strike


6

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, KSRGF
/cast *Insert Replacement for Heart Strike Here*


Priority - Unholy DK PVE

1

#showtooltip
/assist Focus
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null


2

#showtooltip
/cast [nochanneling] Dark Transformation

** Will be usable at 70 **


3

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, LKGH
/cast [nochanneling]Festering Strike()


4

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, BOB
/cast [nochanneling]Scourge Strike()


5

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling]reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, FRGT
/cast [nochanneling]Soul Reaper


6

#showtooltip
/cast [nopet, nomounted, nochanneling] Raise Dead
/castsequence [nochanneling] Horn of Winter, Blood Boil


7

#showtooltip
/cast [nochanneling]Death Coil

[Khatovar]

I tried to resub, but it's Tuesday, so I can't. Therefore, I've got nothing to test with atm. That said :


The problem I'm having is that due to the "bogus null" at the end of the majority of the castsequences, they don't reset, and I'd prefer not to use a reset key (currently ALT). Is reset=combat/target an option?

It's an option but UH DKs spread their diseases to adjoining targets with Blood Boil. Resetting it on target change would be wasteful and probably kill your DPS. Restricting it to reset=combat means you can't reapply if they run off or your spell doesn't land.


Could I safely remove the ALT reset and the bogus null and allow they to roll on through? Maybe move Death Strike to a higher priority in the rotation?

If the sequence doesn't lock up, it's just going to keep blowing your runes and GCDs on reapplying the dots and will never drop down to the strike in the /cast section. If you put the strikes over the castsequence, the strikes will eat your runes before you can put up diseases.


An additional question - Recommendations for replacement of Heart Strike? (see Blood DK macro 6).

A quick googling seems to show that Heart Strike should be replaced with Blood Boil.

http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/7228-dk-60-transition-guide/
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1605177-Blood-DK-Patch-6-0-Pre-WoD-Mini-Guide

[Zzyzxx71]

Yeah I found the references to Blood Boil replacing Heart Strike, but they accomplish such different things, I thought perhaps another action was preferable.

Thanks for your reply, all that being said - my DK's are only 65, and several abilities and talents aren't available yet.

I'm also not sure if I'm duplicating your process (referring to the 5:1 ration), I don't completely understand what's happening there. In my case I'm just smashing keys 1-6 (or 7 in the unholy DK's case) all at once.

[Khatovar]

My 5:1 is set for HotKeyNet, I couldn't begin to tell you how to recreate it in ISBoxer.

This is what I have in my HotKeyNet script-

I press my spam key.
The spam key sends a priority of 1, 2, 3, 4, which are these macros -

1


/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null


2


/cast [nochanneling] Dark Transformation


3


/cast [nopet, nomounted, nochanneling] Raise Dead
/castsequence [nochanneling] Horn of Winter, Blood Boil


4


/cast [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] Death Coil


It also includes in that priority my DoRandomToggle (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/47966-Priority-and-Random-Casting-in-HotKeyNet), which picks 1 of the below macros and sends it with the above macros, placing it at the bottom of the priority.

Strike 1


/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null
/cast [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] Festering Strike()


Strike 2


/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null
/cast [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] Scourge Strike()


Strike 3


/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target, exists][] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil, null
/cast [nochanneling][@party1target, exists][] Soul Reaper



The DoRandomToggle is a combination of Priority and Steps. My Death Knight on has {currently} 5 steps and looks like this


//* DK STRIKES - S4 = FESTER dot time / S5 = SCOURGE / S6 = SOULREAP
<Hotkey Oemax 4>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w4>
<Key Shift 4>
<Key Shift 6>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w4>
<Key Shift 4>
<Key Shift 5>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w4>
<Key Shift 5>
<Key Shift 6>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w4>
<Key Shift 6>
<Key Shift 5>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w4>
<Key Shift 4>

Shift 4-6 contain the strike macros. Right now they're all listed 3 times, sometimes the top priority, sometimes the bottom.

Originally the DoRandomToggle had 7 toggles/steps to pick from; the ratio was 5 of those steps containing the Festering Strike macro, 2 contained the Scourge Strike macro and there was no additional priority included in the step {they all looked like the last toggle - just 1 key sent instead of two}. This way I had a much better chance of getting Festering to go off. Festering is the spell that refreshes my DoTs from my diseases, so that's why there's so much emphasis on it. This works out to about half my strikes as Festering and the other half Scourge Strike or Soul Reaping.

After I got Soul Reaper and some decent gear, I readjusted it to 5 steps that included a priority. Festering is still the most likely to go off, as it's at the top of two priorities {toggle 1 and 2} and has another step all to itself {toggle 4}.

It's not an exact or stationary setup - it really couldn't be when relying so heavily on randomly picked macros. You'll have to do some fiddling to make sure things are landing as you expect. Like I said, I removed a couple of steps and redid the ratios once I got all my spells and some decent gear to make it more reliable and I'm sure I'll have to do it again once I get in game and several more times as she levels and gets better gear again. You also have to keep in mind, I'm not a jackhammer boxer - that is to say I don't try to hit my spam key as fast as possible as a lot of people do. My "spam rate" is maybe 1-2 keypresses a second vs 5+, which I feel makes things more responsive. We could both play the same exact toon with the same macros and setup, but if your spam rate differs from mine, you may not get the same reliability and need to adjust either your spam rate or the number of toggles to see the same behavior.

Anyway, to sum up, what's happening every time I press my spam key is HotKeyNet sends the 4 listed macros and then randomly picks a 5th from the "strikes pool" of macros to send as the bottom of the priority. The end result is I press 2 and it sends 1, 2, 3, 4 AND Shift+4 OR Shift+5 OR Shift+6 as a priority to the game.

You could probably do it with just a whole slew of steps in ISBoxer, but since I hand code my script, it's much, much easier for me to keep track of things and make changes in smaller chunks of code than it is to try and add directly to the main key, especially since a lot of my keys are fundamentally the same with only minor changes - IE my AOE vs Single Target key, or my DPS while moving vs my normal spam key.

[Zzyzxx71]

Holy verbose explanations batman. Fantastic information, thanks for clearing that up. I'm definitely going to have to perform some slight reorganization, shouldn't be to bad though.

I'll have to do some digging to see if there's any options for accomplishing this with ISBoxer.