How much runic power do you sit on?

Classes Death Knight
1

This is more for the blood dks out there than anything but frost and UH feel free to chime in (although I assume with dps you mostly just spend when you can so neither caps).

Trouble I am running into is that I wont take much damage at the start of pulls because I will use a CD to cover up for needing to stack boneshield. But then once my health really starts moving I have blown through my runes and only have 1 or two death strikes worth saved up which just doesnt cut it once im yoyoing around. I am only 425 and have only really started running my own keys this week (aside from friendly carries when my ilvl was like 270 from leveling). I timed pretty convincingly a 10 shrine and a 9 WM this week already and am hoping to push into the 15s range soon on this toon like i have on my monk and druid.

Should I hold my CDs for further into the pulls and spend everything like mad at the start? Or should I be trading off more with my healers allowing myself to really dip into that sub 50% range and get rid of anima so I am getting bigger heals when I do DS? I really havent been on the dk long but am hoping to break the 1.5+k io range in the next week or two. This is a pretty forgiving week to push I feel (with grip especially) but I have legit been working 13s the last 4 days in a row :frowning:.

2

In M+ I usually focus on getting as much runic power as I can on pull and start bone storm as soon as possible. Once you have bone storm running you can fill up your runic power relatively safely.

If I am up against a boss I will only cap runic power if I know a big hit is coming reasonably soon, otherwise I DS at max or close to max runic power.

It comes down to how effective the runic power spent can be, and it does require a bit of experiences. Pushing 13s with 425 ilvl is pretty good though.

3

Keep enough to DS as needed. Most importantly, don’t over DS. Tanking is more of a “get a feel for it” role. Intuition and experience > what any guide says. Play around with it and see.