DW Rotation Question

[daemon9 1]

Hello,

I was looking at the DW rotation priority on numerous sites including Icy Veins and I don't see anywhere that we should always keep an unholy rune on cooldown to game Blood Tap into making only Frost/Blood runes into Death Runes.

Is this not necessary now? I remember old Masterfrost in Cata was like that...tho, for the life of me, I can't remember why we needed to do that...

[Storm 426]

Yes, you should game an unholy rune. Your rotation should basically be: Spam Howling Blast > Spam Frost Strike > keep 1 unholy rune regenerating by using Obliterate, Plague Strike, or Death and Decay.

Although you could say that using blood tap you don't need to game the unholy rune most of the time, since you can just look to see if one of them is regenerated before hitting blood tap.

It's more important to game the unholy runes if you're using Runic Empowerment (which you should use for dps, it regenerates more runes)

Edited February 28, 2013 by Storm

[Reniat 23]

Actually you only want to game runes like that with RE, since death/frost runes are your strongest runes (can't HB with unholy runes). BT returns whatever rune it gives as a death rune, so you actually want BT to hit unholy runes so you can turn them into death runes for HB. this means only using BT when you have both unholy runes on CD. Luckily they made it so that BT will always hit unholy first as frost, so if you use BT when your runes look like xxxxxx, you will always get xxxxDx. (assuming DDFFUU)

[daemon9 1]

Yes, you should game an unholy rune. Your rotation should basically be: Spam Howling Blast > Spam Frost Strike > keep 1 unholy rune regenerating by using Obliterate, Plague Strike, or Death and Decay.

Although you could say that using blood tap you don't need to game the unholy rune most of the time, since you can just look to see if one of them is regenerated before hitting blood tap.

It's more important to game the unholy runes if you're using Runic Empowerment (which you should use for dps, it regenerates more runes)

This leads me to another question: If Runic Empowerment only refreshes a fully-depleted rune (rather than refreshing a fully-depleted rune into a Death Rune like Blood Tap), why would you want to keep an Unholy rune on cool down risking the chance RE refreshing said runes when Unholy runes are useless in the dual wield rotation? Howling Blast being your main use of runes doesn't use Unholy runes at all...

[Storm 426]

If a rune is refreshing then it is not fully depleted. The only way to have a fully depleted rune is to use both runes so that one is refreshing, and one is waiting to start refreshing (aka fully depleted).

You keep 1 unholy rune refreshing so that you can use it to generate 10 runic power every 8-9 seconds. and 1 unholy rune basically sits active at all times to make sure RE never procs the other unholy rune.

Edited March 11, 2013 by Storm

[daemon9 1]

If a rune is refreshing then it is not fully depleted. The only way to have a fully depleted rune is to use both runes so that one is refreshing, and one is waiting to start refreshing (aka fully depleted).

You keep 1 unholy rune refreshing so that you can use it to generate 10 runic power every 8-9 seconds. and 1 unholy rune basically sits active at all times to make sure RE never procs the other unholy rune.

And just to clarify...for Blood Tap, you want to burn your Unholy Runes up with DnD or Obliterate so BT turns the inactive Unholy Rune into a Death Rune for more Howling Blast uses, correct?

[Storm 426]

Obliterate and Howling blast are hitting for about the same amount now (when you take into account Howling blast is 1 rune, but Obliterate is getting the OH hit), so the new rotation most people are using is to just spam obliterate, but use your killing machine procs on frost strike. and you do want to keep both unholy runes on CD, so blood tap will turn an unholy rune into a death rune.

Howling blast any time you get a rime proc, or any time you only have 1 rune to use. If you're ever stuck with 1 unholy rune DnD.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Storm

[Mendenbarr 7]

If you are using RE as DW, you want ONE unholy rune active and ready to go at all times, and the second one recharging. This forces RE to proc either a frost or a death rune, giving you a free HB. Spending the unholy runes right before the second one recharges is how to do this.

If you are using BT as DW, you can ignore rune gaming altogether.

Let's say you use BT, when you have 0 runes up, and it refreshes a death rune as a death rune. What do you do? Use the death rune on HB, and you are back where you started.

Let's say you use BT, when you have 0 runes up, and it refreshes a frost rune as a death rune. What do you do? Use the death rune on HB, and you are back where you started, as the rune goes back to frost after 1 use.

Let's say you use BT, when you have 0 runes up, and it refreshes an unholy rune as a death rune. What do you do? Use the death rune on HB, and you are back where you started, as the rune goes back to unholy after 1 use.

In all 3 cases, BT gives you 1 free HB. And that's it. Doesn't matter which rune it refreshes.