This past week was my first true time playing DK for tanking and I dabbled a little in Frost dps. To help me “learn” I used an addon called Hekilli. This addon displayed recommended skills to cast while in combat. It was a very great tool for me while learning I must say. My question is for both speccs what rotation of skills do you personally use when you take a HUGE hit that brings you down in health and you need to bounce back quickly?
I have been saving the shield and then hitting Death Strike supplemented with a healing pot. Is this correct? Or is there a better way? Thank you.
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death strike is always that button, but u also want to have boneshield charges up, and u want to have blood fever with 5 stacks of coagulopathy(it does a lot of dmg and healing)
if u do that and use dancing rune weapon(50% parry) u should be almost unkillable
u are usually at ur weakest during the start of a pull so you really want to get everything rolling quickly. I like to open with DRW to parry a bunch and get boneshield charges up fast.
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Thank you. Yes starting a pull and during the fight when I stood in stupid are my two oh poo moments of always having low health.
yea on the walkup to a pull u always want to dnd, death’s carress for tagging mobs is also really good.
if u are pulling really big and are going to take a lot of dmg before u can situate yourself, then drw is really good for giving u the time u need to be able to weave death strike and blood boil(blood boil increase DS healing by like 40% in big pulls), while also giving u an extra blood plague dot on your target(the drw copies it) which increases the passive healing you get with blood plague and coag stacks(up to 150% more dam and healing very important to keep this up as it falls off easily with only 8 sec duration).
Also spamming death strike isn’t as good at it used to be since dmg you take only counts once towards the healing, this is why you want to weave things like blood boil and heart strike in between. but if you are taking a lot of dmg blood boil and ds is good enough
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To add to what everyone else has said, never neglect the mitigation from icebound fortitude, lichborne, and the shield from tombstone when you’re entering one shot territory. If you see your health spike more than 50%, pop a mitigation cooldown and hit death strike ASAP to top yourself up.
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bonestorm and tombstone also reduce CD on DRW. DRW also adds a lot of your dps, typically you will want to use bonestorm right after using DRW. At the start of a pull is your weakest point so its ok to use mitigation before pulling
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Thank you all SO much! I will employ said techniques. It can be a little intimidating to go tank bigger runs. But I’m on it.
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Try to keep bone shield up at all times, never go into the next pack without runic power banked, death strike when you take a heavy hit. You’ll get the hang of it! Blood is pretty fun right now.
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There are two situations usually where your health is in danger as a DK:
Gathering big pulls in dungeons
Big boss abilities - most can be dodged or kited
I would highly recommend while you’re learning to get the Refracting Module trinket off the first boss in Stonevault. 2.2m shield 60 sec when you taunt + strength.
Blood tanking is often considered squishy by design, so having that extra shield going into a big pack is useful when Vamp Blood is on CD.
Cooldown and trinket timing is the best way to stay alive in mythic dungeons. Death Strike shouldn’t be spammed, but used every 6 seconds or so for the haste buff.
Think of your runic power as a second health bar. You want to always have enough to cast two Death Strikes to react to damage.
Don’t sit on your defensive cooldowns either. Don’t spam them impulsively but get in the habit of pressing them right before you’re about to lose a big chunk.
Keep Dancing Rune Weapon on CD! Actively press it with as little downtime as possible, it’s very strong in every situation.
As others have said, watch your bone shield charges. Especially if you use Bonestorm. It’s your primary passive mitigation and once you get the 4-set, you don’t have to pay attention as much.
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PS, I wouldn’t combine health pots with other defensives unless you absolutely need to. Use a Warlock cookie if you have them but save health pots as the emergency button when other defenses are down or you’re dangerously low.
Hope all of that was helpful.