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Death Knight's DPS FAQ (WoW)
| Parts of this page were originally written by theophany. |
| Contents [hide] |
Runes, Runic Power, and General DK mechanics
Runes are essential to a Death Knight. They're what we're constantly watching as we DPS (or tank), and they're what provide us with the ability to use such a wide variety of skills. We have 6 rune slots, and we start with two of each type of rune. These runes are correlated to each of our three talent trees: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. Runes have a 10 second cooldown after they're used.
Runic Power is generated by using our rune abilities. It fills up a bar that's much like a Warrior's rage bar, which we can then spend on abilities to do damage, interrupt spell casting, or other useful abilities.
Using a 1 rune ability will generate 10 runic power (RP). Using a 2 rune ability will generate 15 RP. Using a 3 rune ability will generate 15 RP.
Abilities generally fall into 4 categories for DKs.
- Blood Abilities: These cost 1 blood rune. They're generally the bread-and-butter DK attacks, modified by how many diseases you have on your target. When we get to the Frost and Unholy build sections, we'll talk more about how these are useful.
- "FU" Abilities: They're called that because they use both a Frost and an Unholy rune. Obliterate and Death Strike are the two most commonly used, though there are others.
- Disease Abilities: These two abilities are unique because they're used in every single DK build, bar none. Icy Touch (Frost) and Plague Strike (Unholy) each apply a disease to your target, though they don't do much damage.
- RP Dump Abilities: Goofy name, I know. But that's what you mainly use these abilities for; getting rid of your RP to make room for more RP and do damage at the same time.
So as a new DK, you may be wondering why the "Disease Abilities" get their own category. That's pretty easy to explain, so let me elucidate.
Abilities like Blood Strike do additional damage (most often quite a bit more) the more diseases that are on your target. You can hopefully now see why they're so important. You do substantially more damage with Icy Touch and Plague Strike up on your target.
DK Abbreviations
I'm mainly going to use the abbreviations I've gotten used to seeing on ElitistJerks, so if this seems like copypaste, it kinda is. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel when it already works well.
IT Icy Touch
SD Sudden Doom
BS Blood Strike
MoM Might of Mograine
PS Plague Strike
BG Blood Gorged
HS Heart Strike
HB Howling Blast
FS Frost Strike
BotN Blood of the North
SS Scourge Strike
GoG Guile of Gorefiend
DS Death Strike
TS Tundra Stalker
OB Obliterate
HC Hungering Cold
DRW Dancing Rune Weapon
CE Corpse Explosion
MoB Mark of Blood
SG Summon Gargoyle
OaPH On a Pale Horse
IBF Icebound Fortitude
CF Crypt Fever
BT Blood Tap
EP Ebon Plaguebringer
AMS Anti-Magic Shell
RoR Rage of Rivendare
AMZ Anti-Magic Zone
UB Unholy Blight
ERW Empower Rune Weapon
DC Death Coil
BB Blood Boil
FF Frost Fever
BCB Blood-Caked Blade
BP Blood Plague
AoD Army of the Dead
DG Death Grip
DnD/D&D Death and Decay
MoG Master of Ghouls
The builds/itemization section will take me most of an entire post, so I'll be reserving the next two posts (just in case) and editing them as I get the builds up and then fleshing them out with info.
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