Hey guys and gals, got some ideas about using HoW differently from this thread. I have been testing different macro set up on my 2h Frost DK and found a marginal increase (approx 2k) with Plague Leech compared to Unholy Blight. So did some tweaking around and came up with following for the 2 setups.
If you have Unholy Blight talented, I found that it makes no difference if you have UB in your macro when you are doing a boss fight. UB really shines when you are doing AOE trash or multiple adds in a boss fight. So to make full use of it I personally prefer to leave it out of the macro and have it available when several adds show up.
Outbreak makes no difference if it is there or not in the priority list and it is better to have it available when/if disease drop and you can apply it immediately.
I also removed Howling Blast from the priority because its a waste of rune and DPS loss to use it without Rime. My testing concluded that it is better to wait for 2 runes for OB.
I removed Horn of Winter from the priority list and added it to the castsequence which is used to refresh the diseases. The reason for this is I found that the macro was refreshing diseases way too early which is a DPS loss. By adding HoW at the beginning of the castsequence, I was able to force a refresh at 20+second (After HoW cool down)
You all have basic understanding of how the priority goes so no need to explain that. The changes from original macro posted in the DK sticky:
- Removed UB. Explanation above
- Removed Outbreak. Explanation above
- Removed HB. Explanation above
- Added HoW in the castsequence which is used to refresh diseases.
Standard macro (100%-35%):
/castsequence reset=target Howling Blast,Plague Strike,null
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,Raise Dead
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,Frost Strike
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,Obliterate
/castsequence reset=5/target Horn of Winter,Howling Blast,Plague Strike
/cast [combat] Pillar of Frost
/use [combat] 10
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack
Execute phase (<35%):
/castsequence reset=target Howling Blast,Plague Strike,null
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,0,Raise Dead
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,Frost Strike
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,Obliterate
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,Soul Reaper
/castsequence reset=5/target Horn of Winter,Howling Blast,Plague Strike
/cast [combat] Pillar of Frost
/use [combat] 10
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack
As far as execution goes you spam this macro till you get Rime at that point hit HB. Use UB and Outbreak at your discretion to apply disease immediately to an add pack or if diseases drop from boss. This never happened on my testing.
Use Empower Rune Weapon during initial stages of the fight when all runes are on cool down. This way it is available again towards the end of the fight and you can line it up with Heroism AND when all runes are on cool down to be most effective
Moving on to Plague Leech talent.
Plague leech gets tricky. since we have to maintain close to 100% disease uptime, PL is only useful if we can line it up with Outbreak. Otherwise you gain 2 runes with PL and you end up using those 2 runes to reapply diseases. I haven’t been able to find a viable way to macro it with Outbreak since PL is 25 sec CD and Outbreak is 60 Sec.
One idea I have is to have it in the cast sequence that refreshes the diseases. But on testing I concluded that due to 10 seconds of CD difference between 2x PL and 1x Outbreak, eventually as the fight goes on, the disease ended up falling off and then the whole thing breaks. To get back on track you have to manually apply BP using PS. Again this can work but you have to be on top of your game and that defeats the purpose of these macros 
On further tweaking, following is my idea of the PL macro. It is for the execute phase so remove the Soul Reaper line and additional 0s from the lines above for 100-35%. Again HB is out to be only used with Rime. If anyone has figured out another way to smoothly integrate PL in the macro with a smaller footprint while maintaining close to 100% disease uptime, please post as I am definitely interested. I will be testing this later on today but for now if anyone wants to give it a go.
I set it up as HoW,HB,PS,HoW,HB,PS,HoW,PL,Outbreak. 3xHoW ensures that outbreak CD lines up with Outbreak.
/castsequence reset=target Howling Blast,Plague Strike,null
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,0,Raise Dead
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,0,Frost Strike
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,0,Obliterate
/castsequence reset=0.3 0,Soul Reaper
/castsequence reset=5/target Horn of Winter,Howling Blast,Plague Strike,Horn of Winter,Howling Blast,Plague Strike,Horn of Winter,Plague Leech,Outbreak
/cast [combat] Pillar of Frost
/use [combat] 10
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack
Cheers