Button Mashing 201: What Do I Do With All This Runic Power?
Now, if you’ve been doing your rotations correctly, you should be building runic power at a fairly steady rate, maybe even maxing out your bar. Now, you’ve got a few choices at this point, and they’re all situational. I’ll cover the ol’ standbys first:
This is, if I recall correctly, the one runic power ability you start with: Death Coil. Death Coil is different from the warlock version; for one thing, it’s just straight damage. That’s all it does. 30 yard range, 40 runic power, shoots stuff real good.
If you’re a Blood-spec DK, this is going to be your bread and butter most of the time, because Sudden Doom procs will make this completely free and a guaranteed crit. Let me repeat myself: if you are a Blood-spec Death Knight with Sudden Doom, your Death Coils will be free, and a guaranteed crit, when it procs. And since you’re following my recommended spell rotation, you’re using 2 Heart Strikes a rotation, which means you have two chances per rotation (20% each chance) to get a free, guaranteed-to-crit Death Coil.
This is Mind Freeze (not to be confused with brain freeze… okay, it is). Use it on spellcasters. It’s only 20 runic power, but it’s got a cooldown, so you may take a shot or two. If it gets bad, you can use Strangulate in place of one of your Heart/Blood Strikes, as it’s our other silence. Mind Freeze silences and prevent spellcasting from a certain school for a couple seconds, but beware, because this caught me by surprise a few times: it’s melee range.
This is Rune Strike. It’s cheap and it’s powerful, it’s available starting at level 67, and it’s only usable after you dodge or parry an attack (thanks to Skoll for correcting me on that) – but it can’t be dodged or parried. Pretty sweet, no? And it’s only 20 runic power, so it’ll be available when you need it. 200% weapon damage (soon to go down to 150%) plus a significant amount is nothing to sneeze at, and yes, it can crit. It’s also a “fire and forget” move – Rune Strike is on next melee, so you can hit the button and continue onwards with your spell rotation, and your Rune Strike will automatically fire off on your next auto-attack.
And this is Anti-Magic Shell. Yes, just like the one those annoying banshees in Stratholme use. It’d make a good alternative to Mind Freeze if Mind Freeze is on cooldown, if you feel like glowing green for a while, or you’ve got multiple casters on you and not enough silences for all of them. Hey, it could happen! In that case, Anti-Magic Shell can really save your bacon.
Now, let’s move on to class-specific runic power moves. We’ve already covered one of the Blood-spec standbys, Death Coil. What else does everyone else have to offer?
Stop used to be a warlock, then he was a death knight; first he was Horde, then he was Alliance again, and now he's Horde again. For good this time. Lok'tar ogar! 
You, my good sir, are awesome. I have been looking for a beginners guide to play my Death Knight. Now I can finally stop mashing buttons.
OMG, you just posted what I’ve been screaming in my head to noobie death knights everywhere!
Too many players never graduate from “mashing buttons” to “mashing buttons with a purpose”.
This is a must read for every new DK.
Aurdons last blog post..Death Knight Outland Gear Guide: 64-65
Thank you!
Something to consider for Frost is that many times, (though not always), Howling blast is for all intents and purposes interchangable with Obliterate in their rotation. As well, in solo play, Death Strike is often used significantly more then obliterate for the self heal. Otherwise, good stuff.
Awesome post! I’m excited to try out your rotations. Thanks for adding mine!
AltoholicsAreUss last blog post..Style Changes
@Atros: I considered including that rotation, but IMO it tends to lower damage. At least, I never found Howling Blast to be doing more than a two-disease Obliterate would. It’s definitely an option to keep in mind for Frost-speccers, I’d say.
Very awesome guide. I’ve been looking for something like this because, just like your article stated, I just felt like I was mashing whatever wasn’t on a cooldown.
I’ve opted for Unholy but I’ll most likely be soloing my way to 70 so I think i’ll respec and give Blood a shot instead. Thanks again for the awesome article.
Fear.Wins last blog post..L2P – Gundrak
Great post, and what’s even more awesome is your DK is a female troll! (as is my Horde DK)
Mama Druids last blog post..The Best Spec for a Tank, Solo, or PvP Death Knight
Very nice guide. I will be making a death knight soon, just to experience the lore and history. More importantly, this helps me understand the mechanics of death knights to better counter them in PVP or perhaps even help them in groups.
Ayebas last blog post..Quick delivery, elemental buffed.
Great post! Totally consistent with my own observations overall.
Quick correction, because I was confused on this very point- Rune Strike activates when YOU dodge or parry an attack (like Revenge for Warriors), not when your attacks are dodged or parried (like Overpower). The niftiest thing about it (aside from the insane damage it does) is that it is off the GCD, and is used on your next melee auto attack (like Heroic Strike).
A personal preference thing, but I don’t see Death and Decay as all that good in AoE situations for DPSing in groups/soloing. Its costly to use, the damage is pretty unimpressive, and if you are a DPS in a group, it adds a lot of threat for relatively little return as well.
Use Pestilence and Blood Boil in place of Blood/Heart Strike, instead, otherwise keeping to the ability rotation you layed out above, and I’m willing to bet your DPS will be much better overall.
A quiet disagreement on your frost rotation:
If you’re going down the frost tree, Obliterate is /bad/, mmkay? (There /is/ a frost talent that makes it good again (you don’t consume diseases!) .. but I am assuming you’re not taking that one in favor of Other Stuff.)
If you’ve talented frost, then losing your diseases on the enemy absolutely cripples your Icy Touch… one of the very early frost talents gives you extra damage as long as your target has frost fever. Obliterating and then reapplying means you actually /miss/ this extra damage in every rotation, on top of having ticks where the diseases don’t apply damage.
Instead – with a deep frost build including Killing Machine and Blood of the North (two necessities, in my opinion) .. try the much more involved:
Icy Touch->Plague Strike->Blood Strike->Blood Strike->Icy Touch->Icy Touch->Icy Touch->Icy Touch->(repeat).
Toss in runic abilities if your runes are ever all on cooldown (filling in with Death Coil and Frost strike to wait on a rune keeps your damage high) and watch for the Rime procs to get in free howling blasts along with Killing Machine procs to get in guaranteed Icy Touch crits. In group fights, try the rotation:
Icy Touch->Plague Strike->Pestilence->Blood Boil->Howling BLast->Howling Blast (repeat).
Howling blast benefits dramatically from Frost Fever (doubling damage + your frost boosts /on top of that/) as well as from Killing Machine.
But obliterates just completely break the cycle and cripple your damage from Icy Touch in the rotation.
Grimm
@Grimm: Every frost leveling build I’ve ever seen, and even some that were NOT frost, took 3/3 Annihilation. I tend to operate under the assumption that everyone who bothers to take Frost as their primary tree takes Annihilation.
Thank you sir! You are a veritable senseii of button mashing, and i no longer have bruises from rolling my face on the keyboard.
Your second rotation is messed up. If you use PS, IT, IT, IT, IT then you are left with an extra Unholy rune. A better rotation would be:
PS, IT, BS, BS, HB
PS, IT, IT, IT, HB
I seem to go the other way in that I’ve spent most of my time as Frost spec, and although it seems counter-intuitive for anyone starting off as a Death Knight, once you have Obliterate and Frost Strike, you actually get more damage ignoring Plague Strike entirely. Using an IT-Ob-Ob-BS-DUmp runic power into Frost Strike, repeat until target is dead. You start the cycle by hitting Blood Tap, which gives you the Death Rune you need to run the first cycle.
Awesome guide, but your earlier statement about rolling a warlock if you want to roll your face over a keyboard… well it just pisses me off. Locks ftw
Well, y’know what? Welcome to my world. I play a class where the general impression of it is “lol so OP, just faceroll to victory,” and yet every day people bitch, moan, and complain about DKs that do 800 DPS in Naxx epics in a heroic.