[Death Knight] How to AoE

Your directions and specsI have configured my Death Knight the way you have suggested and set the tabs as close to yours as possible. I am sure that good players may be more efficient with their adjustments. I am 67 years old and have been playing this game for several years, I finally quit playing my 70 druid because it was just to much trouble to kill anything. Needless to say, I am not very good since this is my first ever game. I have been using your method and for the first time feel what the good players must experience. I can kill something higher than my level. At level 64 I was able to kill a level 63 Elite, I did use 1 pot and I am a Dranenei and have the magic button for additional health. I died but I also killed it. When I get this to level 80 I will look back at your guides for Druids. Thanks for you detailed explanations. My 38 year old son found your site and is using it as well. Again, thanks. Klaatu (1951 film version) 😉

I can press ‘V’ for enemieI can press ‘V’ for enemie nameplates and ‘Ctrl+V’ for friendly nameplates, this is however standard in WoW.

TL;DR: Press ‘v’

Just go to your options>keyJust go to your options>key bindings

Look for “show enemy name plates” and bind a key to it.

nameplatesHow do you turn the nameplates on? I’ve tried Ctrl+v but it only shows plates for friendly NPCs and not mobs.

Yep, I tried that rotationYep, I tried that rotation as well. It works.

However, I still prefer my old rotation, I tend to finish fights with more HP when I do it my way (more death strikes available) and it just feels safer.

Death and DecayI personally use a little different rota. Im not sure about the english names now because im german, but ill try to get them right.

Im level 72 momentarily and i skilled 2.5.56.

In the blood tree I have 2 points in Butchery because i felt that at the beginning of the fight I generate too little Runepower.
In the frost tree I spent 5 points on Toughness, simply because It increases my armor.
The remaining points i spent in the Unholy tree. Talents that you definetely need to include are Unholy Blight and Crypt fever.

My rota is as follows:
Icy Touch->Plague Strike->Pestilence->Death and Decay->Boiling Blood

Depending on the amount of mobs you pulled you will have enough rune power to use

->Unholy blight Now the first mob should be dead by far and the you use
->Corpse explosion.

Death Strike when you feel that you need to.

Greetings

um what about….What about death and decay? You didn’t mention anything about it.

It’s at the end of the video.It’s at the end of the video.

what song?what is the name of the two songs that were played in this video

and btw :jawdrop: nice vid

Desecration.[url=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55670]Desecration[/url].

What’s that big ring ofWhat’s that big ring of green and gray on the ground ?

Thank you, fixed it!

ps:Thank you, fixed it!

ps: Please no “u” 😛

mistake * Use Icy Touch and/or Death coil to pull melee types to you
* Use Death Grip and/or Strangulate to pull caster types to you
* Once everything is nicely bunched up, use Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Pestilence > Blood Boil

look u have death coil and death grip with the same link to wowhead 🙂
death grip with death coil link

Gathering up Neutral MobsI figured out a nice way of gathering up neutral mobs such as animals that don’t proximity aggro.

Note: You must have the Unholy Talent “Unholy Blight!”

1. Fight a mob (or mobs) and build up at least 60 RP.
2. Cast Unholy Blight.
3. Mount up as soon as the global cooldown allows.
4. Ride around and gather those neutral mobs! Unholy Blight will damage them all, causing them to aggro!

This works particularly well in the first steps of the Nagrand Mastery quests.

Enjoy!

KeybindsYeah, I am also waiting for keybinds.. I have the theory of your aoe down, but my fingers get tied together when trying to access the keys 🙂

Oh, hell now. Spell power isOh, hell now. Spell power is completely useless for DKs. Their spells get enhanced by attack power.

Just go for DPS gear with a lot of STR, Armor and sta and you’re gtg for some crazy AoE sessions.

The keybinding guide will come as soon as I’m done with the Northrend guides. So it’s gonna take a while 😛

GearI was wondering what sort of gear i should use when the Starting gear starts getting replaced?

Spellpower Plate gear? ie Palaish gear and ignore the int?
or should i go for full Tanking gear and try and avoid getting hit?

Also, still waiting for those keybinds 😛

While AoE’ing, I’dWhile AoE’ing, I’d definitely skip Death Coil, besides for ghoul healing.

I also don’t bother using Scourge Strike when AoE’ing, simply because you’ll almost always need some healing, so might as well use Death Strike only and no need to look at your health anymore 😉

Glyphed Death Strike…Outstanding guide, as usual. I’ve been leveling my Death Knight while my main characters (a mage and paladin) are accumulating some rested experience before the big push.

With the Glyph of Death Strike, you’re gaining an additional 2% Damage *and* Healing for every 5 runic power you have. If you have 100 Runic Power (and aren’t fighting elites, etc), this’ll end up being 40% more damage and healing per strike.

Would you recommend then skipping Death Coil in your rotation (except to heal your Ghoul) in order to keep your damage up for Death Strike?

and,

Would you recommend, at 100 runic power, to stop casting Scourge Strike in order to use Death Strike?

I’ll play around with Theorycraft a bit, was wondering if you have any hands-on experience.

By the way, your videos are great! Would it be possible for you to throw a few videos in at 80 so we can keep our eye on the prize?

Thanks!

Will add them when I get theWill add them when I get the time!

KeybindingsI would like to know the keybindings to the first video as well.

Key BindingsAye, I would like to know this as well, it is always a consistent challenge.

Key bindingsI was wondering what your key bindings are?

death knightman i cant wait for the x-pac i have been farming the materials on the death knight shopping list and i have nothing else to do but watch this video 500 times on how cool the death knights are, cant wait =D

Thank you.:) I already had 3 of those runes ready.
Lovely for your fast answer, only 2 days left now.
(if you dont count today)
Im not shure what the best profession for a death-knight is, but I have gathered all the mats for engineering 1-375, going miner as second.
😀 Its going to be lovely with all the new items for engineers.

Cheers! <3

Quote:you have pretty mutch[quote]you have pretty mutch made made my spirit burn for wow again.[/quote]

That’d the kind of things I love to hear.

About glyphs for DKs, there aren’t many really. For Unholy the best I have found is:

[b]Level 55[/b]

[list]
[*]Major Glyph – [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43827]Glyph of Death Strike[/url]
[*]Major Glyph – [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43549]Glyph of the Ghoul[/url]
[*]Minor Glyph – [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43539]Glyph of Death’s Embrace[/url]
[*]Minor Glyph – [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43672]Glyph of Pestilence[/url]
[/list]

[b]Level 70[/b]

[list]
[*]Minor Glyph – [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43544]Glyph of Horn of Winter[/url]
[/list]

It’s from my DK Shopping list, you should check it:

[url=https://www.wow-pro.com/class_guides/death_knight_shopping_list_55-70]Death Knight Shopping List (55-70)[/url]

About GlyphsTo start with, thank you for all the usefull info.
I have checked your site and some others to get a hint on what kind of gear/skills/specs I would use when leveling one.

I have played an UD priest since wow came out, and now Im throwing away all my chars for a death-knight.
Blood-spec was something I was going to go blindly in, but today you made me change my mind.

Oh, sorry for all that, to the question.

AOE-grinding/leveling like you show here, its made without any enchants or glyphs.
Since I am wasting all my money on stuff to my coming death-knight (only 4 days left! WOHO) its going to be a easy cakewalk for me, even if they decide to nerf it a bit.
—
What glyphs should I go with to make this easier?
And how many Glyphs can I have on me around level 60? 2 major 3 minor?
Since the price on death-knights glyphs is fucked up and not everyone is accesable I will try my best to get em.
Keep in mind, I only want the best runes for this sort of thing 😉
Thank you even if you dont answer you have pretty mutch made my spirit burn for wow again.

It is the desecrationIt is the desecration animation 🙂

I don’t use Death and Decay for AoE Grinding. With the same amount of runes you can do Blood Boil + Death Strike, which brings you more.

D&D doesn’t do enough damage, it’s mostly a high threat ability for AoE tanking.

Hehe, DKs are amazing at AoEHehe, DKs are amazing at AoE tanking at that lvl. Once I got it, I would also use Death and Decay in my AoE rotation, would you do the same Jame? I think the biggest challenge in DK AoEing is getting enough mobs together to make it challenging because they so often love to leash back to where they were.

I don’t really know how the AoEing is at higher levels because I went full Blood after leaving HFP. Also, what were the green clouds under the 8-9 vultures in the second vid? I want to say it’s part of the Desecration animation, but for some reason I can’t recall ever seeing that particular effect.

You can still AoE as blood,You can still AoE as blood, just not as fast.

Thanks for reply,

for meThanks for reply,

for me that kind of means this:
First of all, healing if speced unholy is more than enough, so y use blood for leveling then? As far as I know (could not play yet, had no beta key) blood lacks aoe-possibilites. Is this wrong? Could I aoe kind of the same with blood-spec? (If 1-2 mobs less like “you can only saftly handle 5-6 instead of 8 still means aoe-able to me)

This still works, it wasThis still works, it was done very late into beta, not much has changed since then.

The equipment was still the start set, and at level 62 it’s nothing special anymore. Plus, I had zero glyph / enchants 🙂

Just one Question: is thisJust one Question: is this REALLY still working?!
I saw a lot of crazy vids, but that was before some major nerfs…

(I’m playing a hunter an started loving aoe-grinding with my new “goriladin” ;), so I’d really like this to still be working…)

Do you think, this only works because of very good equip & “unbalanced” classes pre 80 now with 3.x.x or do you think this is kind of intended? :jawdrop:

Against elites.Against elites.

GargoyleI noticed you had summon gargoyle, when is the proper time to use this ability?

If you try corpse explosion againTry out the glyph: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43671

Pretty much doubles the skill if you kill something with it.

Edit: Well I guess testing it a bit more is out, with beta ended. Least I got enough time in to really get the hang of AOE pulling. Thanks for the guide.

There are already a few modsThere are already a few mods which do that. I’ve tried this one and liked it:

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/dkirunes.aspx

So while yer looking at my postsI was just wondering how you keep track of your runs and power. I am constantly focused on the center of my screen and I rely on mods like Archud and Icehud to give me my info and with the 2 pools of power that DKs use I find it hard to keep track other than simply memorizing an order of skills that uses runes and power efficiently.

Good point. Last time IGood point. Last time I tried it though, I just wasn’t impressed, it did about the same damage as blood boil. Also it uses a unholy rune, which most of the time I need for an extra death strike for healing.

I’ll try that again though 🙂

Corpse ExplosionWouldn’t putting a point into corpse explosion be a good investment? Typically you are going to kill your targeted one a lot sooner than the pack, and the corpse explosion is a good way to get some extra damage in.

Should be working now.Should be working now.

Hey Jame,
What was theHey Jame,
What was the talent spec used?

I know you meantioned it was 0/0/53 however that link not working for me and wanted to see the breakdown you had.

Thanks

Icy Touch –> Plague StrikeIcy Touch –> Plague Strike –> Blood Strike –> Blood Strike –> Death Coil –> Icy Touch –> Plague Strike –> Restart the cycle

That’s at the start of my guide at level 55, before you get any other strike like Death Strike, etc. That’s why the rotation is like that.

Icy Touch –> Plague Strike –> Scourge Strike –> Blood Strike –> Blood Strike –> Death Coil –> Scourge Strike –> Death Coil –> Scourge Strike –> Scourge Strike –> Death Coil –> Restart Cycle

That’s the standard rotation for [b]single target[/b] dps.

The rotation in on my video is for [b]AoE[/b].

James,

Love your work, I’veJames,

Love your work, I’ve been following you since I “found” you back in ’05, I think it was.

Question on the DK DPS rotation. In your level guide you post as the DPS rotation as:

Icy Touch –> Plague Strike –> Blood Strike –> Blood Strike –> Death Coil –> Icy Touch –> Plague Strike –> Restart the cycle

while your blog states:

Icy Touch –> Plague Strike –> Scourge Strike –> Blood Strike –> Blood Strike –> Death Coil –> Scourge Strike –> Death Coil –> Scourge Strike –> Scourge Strike –> Death Coil –> Restart Cycle

and a different one for the video above. Either one best over the other? Especially for solo? All 3 examples appear to be for level 61 or so…

That’s what Death Grip does,That’s what Death Grip does, it pulls your enemy to you 😛

CastersVery nice video btw 😛

But how did you pull the caster? Did Death Grip pulled it to you through the air, like, FORCE it to melee range? If so, DKs are gonna be major caster killers.

[color=#4169e1][i]Admin’s note: Fixed spelling. Please do an effort with your spelling next time. Use “you” instead of “u”, “are” instead of “r”. Thanks in advance.[/i][/color]

Not nearly hehe, 100%Not nearly hehe, 100% 😛

HPEnding up with nearly 100% HP :O

How unbalanced can this game be, hehe.

Anyway, nice video.

Yes, it’s the Wrath of theYes, it’s the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

BetaIS this the Beta? Or has it come out yet? I don’t keep up with expansions, I don’t even have BC

Illidan – Level 70 Hunter, OJman