When a death knight knows how to play his class effectively they can do massive amounts of damage or make very effective tanks. Doing maximum amount of damage or keeping good agro comes down to casting the right spell at the right time. Keep in mind, how you spec, gear and use your skills will determine how good you are play your class. Not only do rotations get the most out of your DPS but understanding spell priority will make you a better death knight.

Rotations vary depending on how you are spec'd and how you are geared so this is a rough guide to how rotations should be done for a death knight.

DnD - Death and Decay

DEF - Defile
IT - Icy Touch
PS - Plague Strike
BT - Blood Tap
BB - Blood Boil
DS - Death Strike
SS - Scourge Strike
RS - Runic Strike
BS - Blood Strike
HB - Howling Blast
HoW - Horn of Winter
FS - Frost Strike
RM - Rime
OB - Outbreak
PEST - Pestilence
DRW - Dancing Rune Weapon
Ghoul - Summon Ghoul


Single Target Rotation(Blood Presence):

Start fights if tanking by using Dark Command or Death Grip to get initial agro.

1. Diseases Up - Always have diseases on your target, initially use Outbreak or if it is down use icy touch and plague strike. Use blood boil to spread or refresh diseases.
2. Death Strike - Your Frost, Unholy or Death runes are used to cast this. If the encounter has large damage spikes you may want to time you DS to follow these big damage dealing effects to maximize healing to yourself.
3. Rune tap or Blood Boil - For your blood runes you will want to use them to cast either rune tap to help mitigate incoming damage bursts or use blood boil when rune tap is not available or if damage mitigation is not as important. Blood tap will also increase the amount you will heal from your next death strike.
4. Death Coil - Use your runic power for this, do not let your runic power go over 100%.
5. Death and Decay/Defile - Use for AOE as well as using blood boil.
6. Crimson Scourge Procs- Use on DnD/Defile or blood boil if they are on cooldown.
7. Soul Reaper - Use when target is below 35% health.

Frost Dual Wield, Priority Rotation (done in Frost Presence):

1. Cast and keep diseases up on target. Use outbreak to begin with if it is off of cooldown otherwise apply frost fever with howling blast and plague strike. If using necrotic plague (not recommended at this point) you will only have to use howling blast to apply and reapply diseases or use frost strike if talented for plague bringer.
2. Use frost runes and death runes on howling blast.
3. Use runic power to cast frost strike, make sure you are not letting your runic power cap out as this is a loss of dps.
4. Use plague leech on cooldown, don't forget to reapply diseases right away!
5. Use death and decay/defile on AOE trash it can also be a dps gain at higher gear levels for dps for single targets..
6. Soul reaper - If target is below 35% health, this hits hard!
7. Use obliterate only if there is only unholy runes available.

 

Frost Two-Handed Weapon, Priority Rotation (done in Frost Presence):

1. Cast and keep diseases up on target. Use outbreak to begin with if it is off of cooldown otherwise apply frost fever with howling blast and plague strike. If using necrotic plague (not recommended at this point) you will only have to use howling blast to apply and reapply diseases or use frost strike if talented for plague bringer.
2. Use runes to cast obliterate.
3. Use runic power to cast frost strike, make sure you are not letting your runic power cap out as this is a loss of dps.
4. Use plague leech on cooldown, don't forget to reapply diseases right away!
5. Use death and decay/defile and howling blast for AOE.
6. Soul reaper - If target is below 35% health, this hits hard!
   
   

Unholy Rotation (DPS done in Unholy Presence):

1. Cast and keep diseases on target with plague strike. If multiple targets spread diseases with blood boil.
2. Use dark transformation should be used whenever possible.
3. Soul reaper - When target is below 45% and use as often as possible..
4. Death coil - If above 90 RP or if sudden doom procs.
5. Scourge Strike - If both unholy and/or all death runes are up. Use DnD/defile whenever possible instead of sinister strike as it does more damage.
6. Festering Strike - if both pairs of Blood and Frost runes are up.

 

 

*In boss fights do not forget to use your special talent skills and using your cool downs as they come up to help maximize DPS. An unused cool down is a wasted cool down. Usually you will want to use them at the beginning of a fight after a few things have proc'd. It may also be beneficial to wait for the shaman to put down heroism but depending on when they do it may interfere with your rotation. Also, to maximize your dps don't forget about [potions of speed] and [indestructible potions], you will want to use them at the same time as you use your other cool downs so the effect stacks.

 

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