Understanding the Rune System

[Spitball 0]

Hi All,

 

I want to start a DPS DK and have been reading about Talent trees etc etc..... however I cannot get my head around the Runic system. This has been vexing me for a year now.

I understand that abilities use runes and once used it takes 10 seconds to regenerate to a useable state again. A lot of people say well you just use what becomes available - that just does not sound right to me?

 

How dependant is your rotation on the monitoring of these Runes? Should I arrange my abilities by Rune type?

 

I read that a lot of people use Spellflash etc to mash their keys ...... I dont want to be a key masher!

I apologise if I seem stupid but until I can understand how the runic system works I will not start a DPS DK.

 

Thanks for your help in advance

 

Spitball

Edited January 7, 2015 by Spitball

[Axis 2]

Each spec generally only uses a few rune combinations. For example Blood (simplest in my experience) either uses a single blood rune to power a blood boil or a rune tap... or it uses a frost/unholy pair to power a death strike. (It also has two abilities that give you a pair of death runes... that you immediately spend on another death strike, or two more blood boils).

Your "rotation" (it's a priority system) is absolutely dependent on monitoring runes... but no spec ever really has more than three different "types" of rune-usage... with, to an extent, the exception of PvP, where you're sometimes going to be using some weird combinations for utility, at higher levels of play.

As for spellflash or the like, your priority might read "cast Defile if it's available, or Obliterate if you have a proc, or Frost Strike if your runic power is above 70, or..." - you won't be able to do that well my mashing keys, but some people find spellflash or a weakaura helps them to identify the correct next item in the rotation while they are distracted by other things like boss mechanics. I don't think DK is different in this regard from any other DPS class/spec, all of whom work on a conditional rotation guided by procs, some sort of ephemeral resource, and some sort of regen mechanic. (Well, not the last for casters, really).

[Storm 426]

You can get by just spamming abilities whenever they're ready and paying no attention to runes, but in order to maximize your dps each spec has specific reasons why you would want to save runes/rp for a certain situation. This means also paying attention to not completely capping your runes/rp. It's a balancing act of making sure you spend runes/rp before they completely cap, but trying not to completely burn through them all the time either.

[Shine 144]

The only ting I would like to add to this:

 

Dont use a rune whenever it becomes available, but wait until the other one of the same type is nearly regenrated. this way you will always have runes up.

 

note that this is a pretty basic rule for rune usage

 

e.g. 

I have two blood runes

I could use blood boil twice.

I use it once

I wait until the rune spent on it is nearly regenrated

I use blood boil again.

 

By using this you can always react to certain situations quicker. because there will always be a rune available.

I have to admit this can become quite confusing and if you cannot react fast enough you could end up having both runes of the same type off cooldown, which you should try to avoid.