Death Knight Rotations/priorities Guide
Before I start this section, I want to post a very informative link to Sunny's post on prioritizing as opposed to rotations. Her insights and knowledge are extremely well-founded, and will give you a great chunk of information to work with when working on the actual utilization of skills.
http://deathknight.wikispaces.com/Don%27t+rotate.+Prioritize.
With that said, here is my two cents on this particular issue.
DK DPS is all about adaptability. You CANNOT expect to output your best possible if you rigidly adhere to a set rotation(s) all the timet. However, there are certain fundamentals that should be met, as far as frost or unholy DK DPS'ers go.
- If you do not have your diseases up, apply/re-apply them immediately (Plague strike - icy touch or just icy touch if frost, plague strike - icy touch if unholy). But do not refresh early if you can help it; this is a waste of damage ticks from the DoT's and DPS time. Note that frost is the exception to this; refreshing early is fine if you're using the IT - BS - OB - OB sequence, as most frost DPS builds don't run epidemic and utilize a more strict time-frame to fit all their moves.
- If you have a F/U rune combo available and your diseases are still ticking, use your primary F/U move of choice (Obliterate if frost, scourge strike if unholy).
- If you have blood runes, use blood strike (Or bloodboil if in a multi-target situation and you've already set up prior with pestilence) to convert those two runes into death runes (You did spec into Blood of the North/Reaping, right?).
- Never let your RP cap if you can help it. This is probably one of the trickiest ones to observe, and even I have capped my RP once or twice in the course of a boss fight. The trick is to find opportunities to sneak in your primary RP dump of choice (Frost strike if frost, death coil if unholy) when all of your runes are on cooldown (Ideally) or the majority of them are (Realistically). But avoid capping your RP if you can help it; you want to efficiently utilize your two resource systems. Please note that this rule usually does not apply for blood DPS, due to death trance procs and a heavier GCD usage on rune moves. Also note that some considerations may have to be taken when looking at the following: having glyph of icy touch, glyph of frost strike (If frost), and/or having the 4 piece T7 bonus. In some cases, such as with post 3.08 unholy, fulfilling many of the bonus RP generating conditions may make following this rule almost impossible, which is fine in that case.
Generally speaking, I observe these rules and output a very good amount of DPS. The trick is mostly in the execution, and this is where the largest variety in DK DPS'ers usage of moves happens. For example:
- How well can you calculate your RP to make sure you never cap, and that you dump your RP at the best times possible?
- How much time do you spend re-applying your diseases after you've let them run their course?
- Are you sneaking in frost strikes/death coils when most of your runes are on cooldown?
- Did you save up enough RP to refresh unholy blight after it has worn off so you can maximize its up-time as if it was another DoT
- Are you monitoring your RP carefully to maximize the uptime of your gargoyle? Not too difficult as much with the 30 second duration, but it's still important to keep it up for its full time.
