DK For Dummies - Resources

In the first post of DK For Dummies series, we’ll take a look at resources that the DK class use. It’s definitely different and unique.

Like all class in the game, the death knight have their resources to fuel their ability. This is like mana for the caster classes, rage for warriors/bear, energy for rogues/cat, etc. Unlike the other class with the exception of rogues and cat druid, death knights have 2 types of resources that fuel their abilities.

One of them is called runes and the other one is called runic power.

RUNES:

All death knights starts with:
(2) frost runes
(2) unholy runes
(2) blood runes

Most guides called them FFUUBB
These are the little balls that are hanging under your character plate on the top left corner.

Some if not most of our abilities spend these runes. Once they are used for an ability, they go through a 10 second cooldown before they can be used again. So here’s an example of how the runes resource is used on a fight:

Start (fresh set of runes)
FFUUBB

Icy Touch
xFUUBB

Plague Strike
xFxUBB

Blood Strike
xFxUxB

10 second later
FFxUxB

11.5 second later
FFUUxB

13 second later
FFUUBB



RUNIC POWER

Runic power works exactly like rage. We gain runic power through the use of runes.

The rest of our abilities that does not use runes as resource will use runic power.


See how that works there?

Think of a backwards rogue or cat druid mechanics.

In short:
-Runes creates runic power that’s used for more abilities while we wait for the runes to finish up their cooldown.
-Our resources have a set of exact timers. It does not matter whether you are in heroic blues or in ICC heroic gear, your runes will refresh in exactly 10 seconds after it is used. This makes the Death Knight mechanics gravitate to a heavy resource management mechanics.

Next up we’ll look at what do we spend these runes and runic power on to maximize our output within the exact 10 seconds of each runes cooldowns.