DK teams!

[Souca]

Now in 20 seconds, I could have gotten off in my rotation 2 Heart Strikes which Average for 1K per mob, but can still crit for 2+K easily.

You should be able to get at least 4 heart strikes off per 20 second rotation. What else are you using blood runes for? Are converting blood runes to death runes for Oblit, Death Strike or Howling Blast?

When specced blood to solo old world raid bosses on my 80 DK I have the following rotation per 20 seconds:

Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike

With Epidemic in the live servers the last Death Strike still has two diseases up to provide healing. The final two HS don't get any bonus damage as the diseases generally fall off by then. If HS is your strongest attack, you would want to maximize it. The only thing I can see replacing it with is a Pestilence to spread your plague, but depending on your spec you might not get the death rune conversion from it. Apologies for not looking at your specs right now, but I wanted to answer before I sleep. I'll try and look closer at the spec and play around with rotations tomorrow from work. Maybe I'll finally get off my ass and write that rotation simulator I've been meaning to code up.

Oh, and the DKs just hit 74 tonight. I plan to start working on instances sometime after 75 since I can start getting rep from tabards then and the more time I can avoid having to fly without an epic flier the better.

- Souca -

[Hachoo]

Now in 20 seconds, I could have gotten off in my rotation 2 Heart Strikes which Average for 1K per mob, but can still crit for 2+K easily.

You should be able to get at least 4 heart strikes off per 20 second rotation. What else are you using blood runes for? Are converting blood runes to death runes for Oblit, Death Strike or Howling Blast?

When specced blood to solo old world raid bosses on my 80 DK I have the following rotation per 20 seconds:

Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike

With Epidemic in the live servers the last Death Strike still has two diseases up to provide healing. The final two HS don't get any bonus damage as the diseases generally fall off by then. If HS is your strongest attack, you would want to maximize it. The only thing I can see replacing it with is a Pestilence to spread your plague, but depending on your spec you might not get the death rune conversion from it. Apologies for not looking at your specs right now, but I wanted to answer before I sleep. I'll try and look closer at the spec and play around with rotations tomorrow from work. Maybe I'll finally get off my ass and write that rotation simulator I've been meaning to code up.

Oh, and the DKs just hit 74 tonight. I plan to start working on instances sometime after 75 since I can start getting rep from tabards then and the more time I can avoid having to fly without an epic flier the better.

- Souca -

I don't think you get any rep from tabards until you enter a level 80 instance (utgarde pinnacle, halls of lightning, the oculus, etc). I ran instances all the way up to 80 with a tabard on and never got any rep until I hit UP for the first time.

[Varmon]

Interesting that blood aura is still obtainable from the improved blood presence talent, can you still get frost and unholy aura as well with those improved presences?

[Zerocool2024]

What Ptr are you on mate?

Erm... the PVP one, Anasterian.

Toons names are Zerøein, Zerøzwei, Zerødrei, Zerøvier, Zerøfünf.

Now in 20 seconds, I could have gotten off in my rotation 2 Heart Strikes which Average for 1K per mob, but can still crit for 2+K easily.

You should be able to get at least 4 heart strikes off per 20 second rotation. What else are you using blood runes for? Are converting blood runes to death runes for Oblit, Death Strike or Howling Blast?

When specced blood to solo old world raid bosses on my 80 DK I have the following rotation per 20 seconds:

Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike

With Epidemic in the live servers the last Death Strike still has two diseases up to provide healing. The final two HS don't get any bonus damage as the diseases generally fall off by then. If HS is your strongest attack, you would want to maximize it. The only thing I can see replacing it with is a Pestilence to spread your plague, but depending on your spec you might not get the death rune conversion from it. Apologies for not looking at your specs right now, but I wanted to answer before I sleep. I'll try and look closer at the spec and play around with rotations tomorrow from work. Maybe I'll finally get off my ass and write that rotation simulator I've been meaning to code up.

Oh, and the DKs just hit 74 tonight. I plan to start working on instances sometime after 75 since I can start getting rep from tabards then and the more time I can avoid having to fly without an epic flier the better.

- Souca -

Yes, you can get 4 off in 20, sorry, I should have said in place of those 20 seconds and that "One" Unholy Blight being 20 seconds, I could get 2 Heart Strikes in place of it "Unholy Blight".

Interesting that blood aura is still obtainable from the improved blood presence talent, can you still get frost and unholy aura as well with those improved presences?

Yes, they all stack. Just like before, only you won't see it. But there really is no reason to go that far into it (being frost) without HB...

[Souca]

Now in 20 seconds, I could have gotten off in my rotation 2 Heart Strikes which Average for 1K per mob, but can still crit for 2+K easily.

You should be able to get at least 4 heart strikes off per 20 second rotation. What else are you using blood runes for? Are converting blood runes to death runes for Oblit, Death Strike or Howling Blast?

When specced blood to solo old world raid bosses on my 80 DK I have the following rotation per 20 seconds:

Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike

With Epidemic in the live servers the last Death Strike still has two diseases up to provide healing. The final two HS don't get any bonus damage as the diseases generally fall off by then. If HS is your strongest attack, you would want to maximize it. The only thing I can see replacing it with is a Pestilence to spread your plague, but depending on your spec you might not get the death rune conversion from it. Apologies for not looking at your specs right now, but I wanted to answer before I sleep. I'll try and look closer at the spec and play around with rotations tomorrow from work. Maybe I'll finally get off my ass and write that rotation simulator I've been meaning to code up.

Oh, and the DKs just hit 74 tonight. I plan to start working on instances sometime after 75 since I can start getting rep from tabards then and the more time I can avoid having to fly without an epic flier the better.

- Souca -

I don't think you get any rep from tabards until you enter a level 80 instance (utgarde pinnacle, halls of lightning, the oculus, etc). I ran instances all the way up to 80 with a tabard on and never got any rep until I hit UP for the first time.

Nope, you don't get any rep till the 80 instances. You need to be 75 to enter the 80 instances Likely I was too sleepy to realize I won't be clearing anything at 75, so I might have to scratch that plan and do some lower instances just for XP. I shouldn't post when I'm that tired ;(

- Souca -

[Zerocool2024]

Well... You can Dungeon Grind, I did. I hated doing quests. I had no problem Dungeon grinding.

[Souca]

Well... You can Dungeon Grind, I did. I hated doing quests. I had no problem Dungeon grinding.

Gear is the main thing. I have pretty good gear for surviving world PvP and quests, 14k health in frost at 74. I don't have any defense gear though, so I eat crits in instances. I'm going to have to level a blacksmith and miner no matter what, the question is whether I'm better off doing it now, or at 80? Level 77 will be the make or break point. I don't want to do Storm Peaks or Ice Crown without epic flying. I did it on my first DK and hated it. My druid was my second 80 and had epic flight form and I didn't have any issues with those zones. If I grind out the last few levels to 80 in isntances, then I end up with some gear and a bunch of quests to do for epic flight money. Just not sure I can do that without getting bored.

- Souca -

[Hachoo]

Why do you have to level a BS or miner? Nothing your DKs will need is BoP crafted - mining can be helpful but honestly its faster to just do dailies/quests and then buy bars off the AH then it is to farm the mats yourself.

[Souca]

Why do you have to level a BS or miner? Nothing your DKs will need is BoP crafted - mining can be helpful but honestly its faster to just do dailies/quests and then buy bars off the AH then it is to farm the mats yourself.

True. It's not a necessity in the normal sense. I have a thing for self sufficiency. I like being able to do things on my own, it's the main reason I box. I don't' want to have to rely on mats or BoEs being on the auction house. another reason is that I'm planning on RaFing up a large number of characters. It will get prohibitive to buy everything even with access to endless dailies. I also enjoy end game proffesions to some extent. Mining can be relaxing when I just want to wander around looking for World PvP, same with herbing. If I don't feel like farming, I can always buy. But if I don't have the professions I can't farm when I don't feel like buying I also like the BS sockets for my tanks.

As for buying things, right now my toons are pretty poor. I think I've got just over 10k in the guild bank and I've yet to buy flying and cold weather flying. My two 80s are on another server and are horde, so I can't easily get money from 80s quests from them. In the long run I'm not worried about money, I'm just trying to be careful about where I spend it until I have a team at 80. Gearing out 5 DKs to blood tank instances will require crafted gear. I'm not sure I want to buy it all and push epic flying out further into the future. Doing dailies without epic flying is possible, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it more than I had too.

Anyone know if there is a good list of gold rewards per zone for quests at 80? Something like Zul'Drak is worth 5k at 80, Grizzly Hills is worth 4.2k? something like this might be useful in deciding if its worth skipping a zone to quest for cash at 80. If there isn't I might have to create one. Would anyone use something like that?

- Souca -

[Multibocks]

Well my DKs are now pulling 1400dps, but so is my tank, lol. I cant figure out what I am doing wrong... /shrug. They are close to hit capped with highest having +12% hit, so good to go for raid bosses. Im pretty sure that means none of their spells miss in a heroic instance, but Im not positive. With that in mind I can use /castsequence, because I know nothing will miss. Anyways I've definitely noticed the improvement, most bosses I tend to hide my druid until I need a group heal =)

edit: of course there are those damn bosses that throw out massive AE damage and I just have to sit my druid in it =(