5 Boxing DK's - hit a wall in UK

[Souca]

So I take it that without the ! in front of Rune Strike, it will be using up RP if Rune Strike procs a 2nd time before I actually swing - becuase of the bug with it where it consumes RP upon activation and not on the actual swing? Woudn't it be better to have it before the castsequence in the macro though? Otherwise you need to go through the whole macro before it will activate?

I was deliberately only using 1 blood rune becuase I wanted to have 1 blood available in case I need to Rune Tap in a hurry - but upon reflection, I'm missing out on the extra 10% parry from Blade Barrier, so this is probably not a good idea...will have another play with the macros tonight...

Hmm, didn't know about the double usage bug. I have the ! in there because the second button mash would end up turning Rune Strike off and if I had a swing before I mashed again I wouldn't use the Rune Strike.

I put it after the castsequence out of habit. It will still execute it even if their is a GCD since Rune Strike doesn't trigger the GCD. I don't know if it will activate Rune Strike if the cast you are doing is the one that gives you the RP, so I put it after just in case that cast gives me enough.

Hmm, I hear you on the Rune Tap, but it's just a lot of dps to be losing. One thing you might want to look at is picking up some of the Death Rune talents. They let you get more multi rune abilities off in a 20 second rotation. I usually get two death strikes and a obliterate before I refresh diseaeses.

If I come up with something I like tonight I'll be sure to post it.

- Souca -

[Stealthy]

Most bosses in Nexus are easier than UK. That 4 pull in front of prince is BRUTAL and will most likely wipe you. Remember to move around a lot as they drop grenades on the ground and try (heh) to take out the Runecasters first as they drop shields on everyone. I havent tried this instance on heroic since a few weeks ago, but that *(&;(*& prince kept tombing my healer and it wiped my group. I didnt even get him to 50% so I figured he was probably more work than hes worth. Also this instance has WAY too much trash. I mean like double some other instances. What I do to alleviate the low RP /castsequence is I split my macro (thanks to Fury I believe... or was it Zerocool?) I do all the RP generating stuff first i.e. IT, PS, Blood strike (?) and then have a second button I mash for RP abilities and then I just watch my RP and switch back and forth. It's not the best solution, but eh it works.

Maybe someday I will start testing what would be best for DKs being MB'd, but for now I can't be axed.

Yeah I definitely take out the Runcecasters first...those sheilds are f**king annoying. The 4 pull is random too - sometimes you get 2 Runecasters which really sucks. I like the idea of splitting RP generating and consuming abilites - I think the setup will be one button for the strikes, another for pestilence / blood boil, and the 3rd for the abilities that cost RP.

Another issue is - at level 70 you're 1 talent point short of Vampiric Blood if you go Unholy to get your permanent ghoul. Worst case scenario, I come back and do it at 71...but Zero managed to pull it off at 70, so it definitely can be done.

Cheers,

S.

[Souca]

Ugg.

So I threw myself against UK last night and the results were disappointing. In all fairness though, I didn't have any where near the proper gear for it. I did learn some things that I will need to factor in to my next attempts at instances or when I hit 80.

• Positioning. I have a pretty dumb macro to handle follow for questing, I simply refollow after every melee ability. This works fine for single or small packs that die in a few GCDs, but fails against 3-4 pulls of elites. I always end up with a mob behind me and end up taking way to much damage. I'll have to play around with a secondary movement and folow for the non lead characters to let me position better.
• Aggro. It was just all over the place. In theory, it shouldn't matter much, but combined with the positioning problem, I would have characters that had aggro on mobs standing behind them. I need a better way to control this so I know where to expect the damage.
• Survivability. This is mostly a gear thing, but I also think having more talent points would help on this front.

All in all I know it's doable; Zero, Fury and Multibocks are doing it. I just don't want to spend too much time figuring it out at this point. I'm going shelve the idea of all DK instancing until I get them higher level, likely 80, and can start building a proper gear set. These are currently my highest alliance characters at 71 and I'd prefer to get them to 80 before I stop to work on professions and crafting gear.

Much like MacArthur, I shall return.

- Souca -

[Zerocool2024]

First off, sorry that I haven�t caught this earlier, I usually just come here and get what I need and leave.

Looking at your spec, (nothing wrong with it, but, I didn�t use that spec to clear it.
As far as I know, Fury (ghoul speced, but did it at a higher level, I think it was 72, but also, he had a harder time with the last boss and never cleared it *Not poking fun or pointing fingers*.)

I had Vampiric Blood. Also, I didn�t use Blood Strike, or if I did, I got rid of it. I used Obliterate. And I might have used Death, but, honestly, I�m not sure. Also, the problem with your spec is that there is no way of doing AOE damage with attacks other than DnD.

I had Heart Strike. Which with 5 toons hitting Heart Strike at the same time, all the little skellies would die pretty easy. I can�t remember when the patch came out that gave Heart Strike AOE damage, but I was using it before they made it better.

You also have better gear than I did at that time. I had half cobalt on main, and the rest of my toons had 1 or 2 pieces of Cobalt.

Not saying my spec is perfect, but specs at certain levels make or break the Dungeon. My Blood/Frost made everything and anything within my grasp.

It might be your CD timing, your maneuvering, something that is stopping you from clearing it� Wait till you get to the 2nd bosse(s), lol, I liked that fight.

I�m not sure if Nexus was easier than UK. The last boss in Nexus was A LOT harder, than the boss in UK, but I also cleared both Nexus and UK at same levels.

I can�t 100% say how to do the bosses. But I can watch my movies again and I will be able to explain it in more detail, but as far as I can remember, that boss was easy, (not boasting), I mean to say, it wasn�t a run around the room and get thrown up in the air or anything like the caster boss in Nexus. It was just a stand there and keep attacking till she is dead. I�m at work and my video card is being stupid and not letting me watch it, so as best as I can tell you is, watch the movie and take notes, or something just to get an idea. 95% of my fights went that way with her. But then again, my spec is different.

[Stealthy]

Thanks for the feedback Zero...I've watched your UK movie a few times - whats the spell that makes the screen shake and go all blue (usually just before you cast D&D) - is that howing blast?

I'm gonna play around with my spec tonight and see how I go...I can see a few areas where I can improve, so hopefully better results from tonight's efforts.

Cheers,

S

[Zerocool2024]

Nope, no Howling blast, because if I had Howling blast, I would have had Improved Icy Talons. And the Screen/blue shake is me editing the video.

[Stealthy]

Ok, did some research about speccing further into blood, mainly to get Heart Strike for the ability to DPS more than one target, and found out some interesting info:

Hysteria (31 point talent) - stacks multiplicatively - i.e. with one Hysteria, you do 20% more damage, with two, you do 44% more damage and so on. With 5, you will do 249% more damage. The 1% life drain per sec also stacks, but you are also getting much more back from Blood Aura - assuming you're running 5 Blood spec DK's.

Dancing Rune Weapong (51 point talent) - If you are out of combat, and pop dancing rune weapon (DRW), and then target yourself and use hysteria you will get the buff twice.

If you pop DRW and then Rune Tap (glyphed) it seems that your DRW also casts Rune Tap, and everyone in the party benefits twice from it (i.e. 20% heal instead of 10%).


*EDIT* - looks like the DRW abilities are being nerfed in 3.1...so this won't be viable for much longer.


Brings up some interesting possibilities...

Cheers,

S.

[Zerocool2024]

[quote='Stealthy',index.php?page=Thread&postID=1809 93#post180993]Ok, did some research about speccing further into blood, mainly to get Heart Strike for the ability to DPS more than one target, and found out some interesting info:

Hysteria (31 point talent) - stacks multiplicatively - i.e. with one Hysteria, you do 20% more damage, with two, you do 44% more damage and so on. With 5, you will do 249% more damage. The 1% life drain per sec also stacks, but you are also getting much more back from Blood Aura - assuming you're running 5 Blood spec DK's.

Dancing Rune Weapong (51 point talent) - If you are out of combat, and pop dancing rune weapon (DRW), and then target yourself and use hysteria you will get the buff twice.

If you pop DRW and then Rune Tap (glyphed) it seems that your DRW also casts Rune Tap, and everyone in the party benefits twice from it (i.e. 20% heal instead of 10%).


*EDIT* - looks like the DRW abilities are being nerfed in 3.1...so this won't be viable for much longer.


Brings up some interesting possibilities...

Cheers,

S.[/quote]Lol, there is a post somewhere in the video section where me and a few others went into much debate/data crunching over this... Lol
It's a good, but the risk it to great, and most of the bosses have a way of making it even more risky do to teleporting, stuns, AOE stuns, transformations, and just random odds and ends that make it very situational (low, that is).

Some more food for thought:

[url='http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=005502153300331323020101300305050 11000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00']46/15/0[/url]

/castsequence reset=target Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Obliterate, Heart Strike, Heart Strike
/cast !runestrike
/cast !Death Coil

Then IT and PS come back, they will be ready for round two, and the one that Obliterate used can be used for 4 heart Strikes. So you can setup a second sequence or just keep the first one going. There is a lot of playing around I did to get the perfect one for my group to do the best damage, I did a very good amount of spec dancing and combo dancing to get what I wanted.

41/20/0

Same deal, only, no Heart Strike, and you are subbing it for Blood strike. Also, now you are going to being death/obliterate and both of those make the Icy/Plague Death Runes, which means it allows you to make up some interesting combos that Castsequence is not really going to work in. So you might have to get more button happy than you want too.

Why did I skip Anticipation?
Because you don't 100% need it. You really don't. But you can drop some in Frost and pick it up. It will depend on your play style. When others watch my videos, they see my HP drop like a brick in water, but I don't seem to die now do I? Does it happen? HELL YES IT DOES. But that's the name of the game. Fly by, by the skin of my teeth. :P

Now, I did spec dance a lot, so at some point, yes, I did have ANTI, and I will have it in the end spec that I am looking at, it's not going to be 5/5 because there are other talents that I would much rather have.

I enjoy my play style. I like the random spastic moments of OHSHITEOHSHITE!...

Once again, there is a good general guide coming along that will help others in so many ways, and also, make it easier for people to have an excuse to not be able to find it and say that they used the search feature and found no such thing... lol, we all do it.

Life and Females are taking control right now, and, well, I like females more than I like you guys, so, lol... 8| I will get to it when I get to it. Till then, I will try and pay more attention to this thread and help in any way I can.

[Stealthy]

Some more food for thought:

46/15/0

/castsequence reset=target Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Obliterate, Heart Strike, Heart Strike
/cast !runestrike
/cast !Death Coil

Then IT and PS come back, they will be ready for round two, and the one that Obliterate used can be used for 4 heart Strikes. So you can setup a second sequence or just keep the first one going. There is a lot of playing around I did to get the perfect one for my group to do the best damage, I did a very good amount of spec dancing and combo dancing to get what I wanted.

41/20/0

Same deal, only, no Heart Strike, and you are subbing it for Blood strike. Also, now you are going to being death/obliterate and both of those make the Icy/Plague Death Runes, which means it allows you to make up some interesting combos that Castsequence is not really going to work in. So you might have to get more button happy than you want too.

Why did I skip Anticipation?
Because you don't 100% need it. You really don't. But you can drop some in Frost and pick it up. It will depend on your play style. When others watch my videos, they see my HP drop like a brick in water, but I don't seem to die now do I? Does it happen? HELL YES IT DOES. But that's the name of the game. Fly by, by the skin of my teeth.

I had a few questions...

In the 2nd build listed in your post, you take Heart Strike, but then are subbing Blood Strike in your castsequence? Why would you take Heart Strike if you're not going to use it?

Also I notice that you don't use death strike in your rotations - do you feel that the healing offered from death strike is too weak compared to the drop in DPS compared to Obliterate?

Cheers,

S.

[Zerocool2024]

Ahhah, I�m sorry, I was thinking of another build when I said no heart strike�

I have a good size spread sheet with me, or somewhere the has all my Talent builds and why. And then Castsequences to go with them.

I just was typing it off the top of my head thinking of the wrong build.

With the second build, yes, you would use Heart Strike subbed over Blood Strike.

Also, yes, I don�t use Death Strike because the loss in DPS. While I do think every little bit of healing helps, I just didn�t like to use it that much. However, with the second setup, you are going to use Obliterate more often than not because of both Death Rune Mastery and Annihilation. Then throw in the 20% Bonus to Obliterate Glyph, you are going to be hitting hard and making things drop quickly. Taking Death Strike over Obliterate would be more of a Preference rather then a Standard. While I in no way define a Standard, I do like to think I added my little notch to this class combo.

People like to Spout off that Unholy is the DPS tree and that the pets add so much more. But have you ever played a Shadow Knight in EQ? That�s what I think of Unholy. It�s a small part that helps, but also another thing you have to worry about. I already have enough things to worry about, so why add another.
Plus, my DPS has always been top notch and I�ve not had a problem of KILLING ANYTHING. The added damage you get from going into Frost is nothing to joke about.
My PVP DPS is so nasty that it does and WILL take the whole BG to kill me. PVE is crazy damage because of Pestilence and then dropping a 3.5K*5 Howling Blast across the board to all mobs is a �Jizz in my pants� moment.

*Also, not a bash to anyone that uses Ghouls, or is deep Unholy, I love the tree, but IMO the best bang for the buck is Blood/Frost.*