Death knight builds
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| Class races: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Quests: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Abilities: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Trainers: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Talents: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Talent builds: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Tactics: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Armor sets: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Starting a: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| PvE guide: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| PvP guide: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Useful macros: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
Reminder, all talents are subject to change at any time up to the final release. Wowhead and other fansites have posted official talent builds based on the WotLK playable version at WWI. All Death knight builds are based on testing builds and may not be final builds for the final release.
All the builds were submitted by individual players. Their accuracy and validity is not guaranteed, so read them with caution.
Contents |
Blood
Talents in this tree focus on physical damage-dealing abilities, such as Blood Presence.
Blood Leveling Spec (53/18/0) This is a 2h leveling build for a Death Knight. Hit Plague Strike first and Icy Touch second, getting the damage bonus to Icy Touch, to get your diseases on the Target, which increases your attack speed by 20% with this spec. Then hit obliterate with your remaining Frost and Unholy rune. This spec allows you to hit obliterate without consuming your diseases on the target. Use your unused blood runes on heart strikes. The mob should be dead by this point. You should heal through a lot of the damage you take with this spec, between Blood Worms, Blood Aura, and Vendetta. If you need to you can use Rune Tap but you should never need to use Death Strike for healing over Obliterate.
DRW, shadow, and ghouls (53/0/18) Built with my need to be a party buffer while still putting out good threat. DRW should be used for longer boss fights, when you rotations have become solid. (Submitted by Ericnox)
Blood Gorged Necrotic Corpse Detonator (51/0/20) Let the link speak for itself. As stated before, you should use a 2H weapon with this spec. Your main stat should be crit rating, followed by strength, resilience, attack power, stamina, and intellect in that order. This spec may also be viable for DPSing in instances where the enemy needs to be finished off quickly, yet hits hard. The spec will heal you and your group while dealing high amounts of burst melee damage. Resilience is not needed for instances.
Ghoul Knight (45/0/26) A strong mix of Blood's soloing power and Unholy's Ghoul-strengthening and Shadow magic talents. The name of the build comes from the essential nature of the character type it creates- a standard hybrid fighter/caster plus strong companion/pet. Not a blood Knight, Frost Knight, nor Necromancer, but a Ghoul Knight.
Bloody-Snowman (45/26/0) It's a Frost/Blood 2 Handed hybrid picking up talents like Improved Icy Talons, Deathchill, Lichborne, and Annihilation in Frost and Blood Strike, Hysteria, Vampiric Blood, Sudden Doom, Mark of Blood, Vendetta, and other talents I felt were good in Blood. You can switch some around if you like, like putting some in Rune Tap. This build is more PvE focused as a DPS/Support/Offtank but can also be good in PvP.
Unbreakable pvp build, for the best dps + defence in pvp, use Frost Presence most times, and try to get +40% crit rating, by victorio-the mealstrom
A PVP dual weilding blood death knight spec (56/15/0)
Blood 2H PvP (56/5/10) Build for BGs/World PvP and possibly arena (will test soon with 2v2, 3v3, 5v5). by Casap → Tested (except arena)
Blood 2H PvE (53/15/3) Good for leveling. That's how the build looks at level 59. Also, Dancing Rune Weapon is not suggested for leveling. by Casap → Tested
Blood 2H Tanking (51/14/5) Build for off-tank. by Casap → Tested
Frost
Talents in this tree focus on spells and control, such as Frost Presence. Frost is a tree built for critical burst damage. This can be seen in the tree's talents.
Rcon's Death Rune Extreme (14/52/5) With current beta itemization and leveling, 2h weapons are your best be for effective tanking due to the lower hit rating cap and on higher %dmg dealing spells. Focuses on causing Death Runes which allow you to change your approach at any given time, even allowing up to 4 Death Strikes for burst healing. Life Tap for soloing and last minute saves. Lichborne and Unbreakable armor provide additional DPS and survival. Blade barrier offers a secondary (almost passive) avoidance stat, while Bladed Armor gives you more STR from the Armor you will be stacking naturally. Last but not least, Hungering Cold followed by a Death Chill / Howling Blast for burst AoE threat when needed most.
Chillrend's Glacial Resolve (14/50/7) This build is meant for single target tanking, and should be considered by the Death Knight with MT aspirations. 'Glacial Resolve' is indeed similar to 'Death Rune Extreme' (as seen above), but with a few key differences. Both are versatile builds that use Death Rune Mastery and Blood of the North for easy rotation changes on the fly. Both builds rely on increasing avoidance stats through talents in all three trees. Both builds incorporate Rune Tap as a means of self-healing and tricky saves. One key difference between the two builds is that 'Glacial Resolve' sacrifices some of the *oomph offered by Black Ice in favor of better RP generation via Chill of the Grave, which, if nothing else, allows for more frequent use of abilities like Frost Strike. The extra couple of points go towards a guaranteed activation from Blood of the North, which should thereby improve the secondary avoidance provided by Blade Barrier, while at the same time improving the overall versatility of the build. One final difference between these builds is that 'Glacial Resolve' does not take Hungering Cold from the top of the Frost tree, seeing as how this ability eats up a good chunk of RP, is more likely useful for AoE tanking, and will probably be useless when fighting bosses that are immune to freezing effects (almost all of them). Instead, the last two points of this build are put into Unholy Command for the improved taunt, which is oh-so-crucial for effective MTs...
Animation's frost tanking 2h tanking while doing a fair amoung of dmg
Frost/Unholy DW Hybrid (0/44/27) Only for use in instances in an attempt to maximize the usefulness of the attack speed of DW. The use of going into the unholy tree can be seen in Impurity, Blood-Caked Blade and Necrosis. Impurity is added to assist in maximizing the damage of Howling Wind, Icy touch and Frost Strike. Improved Icy Talons maximizes your attack speed and also maximizes your chance to proc Killing Machine. Of note is that two points are left after you are done getting all the required talents. I used them to get two new abilities, Master of Ghouls and Summon Gargoyle. Master of Ghouls is useful for the added pet dps since all other pet talents were speced into, and Gargoyle is a nice option to dump your runic power. Rotation would be Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Howling Wind, spamming Frost Strike after Unholy and Frost runes are on cool down while using Blood Strike as needed when Runic Power is not available. Also because this spec is for use in instances Blood Tap is extremely useful. NOTE: THIS SPEC NOT TESTED. If someone would be so kind as to test this spec and provide feedback it would be appreciated.
PVP-Frost-DPS-DK Dual-wield (0/60/10)
Frost 2H PvP (18/53/0) Build for BGs/World PvP and possibly arena (will test soon with 2v2, 3v3, 5v5). by Casap → Tested (except arena)
Frost DW PvP (0/52/19) Build for BGs/World PvP, big white damage. by Casap → Tested in beta only
Frost 2H Tanking (14/50/7) Build for off-tank or main tank. by Casap → Tested
Unholy
Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases, and PvP-focused abilities, such as Unholy Presence.
SOLO Questing + Quick Leveling PvE DPS (13/18/40) This spec provides you with the key abilities from each tree that will make solo leveling a breeze. NOTE: This is not the best spec to use when running an instance/raid/group questing. Deep enough into unholy to get Master of Ghouls so your ghoul is helping you always, and Crypt Fever for another disease. Deep enough into blood to get Death Rune Mastery to go along with Reaping in the unholy tree, maximizing death runes for flexibility. Deep enough into frost to get Icy Talons and Annihilation, giving you 20% attack speed while Frost Fever is up, and keeping your diseases up while using Obliterate. Your combat rotation should be Plague Strike>Icy Touch>Blood Strike>Obliterate>Blood Strike>Obliterate If the mob isn't dead after that, it should be within 10% of death, so either Death Coil or let your pet smack it around. Spec provides for maximum movement and mounted speed for quick transportation between quests. For elites substitute Death Strike for Obliterate. Keep Blood Presence up until you're high enough to get unholy presence. Since this is a leveling spec, start off putting your talents into the unholy tree far enough to get Master of Ghouls, then slowly dump points into blood, and then frost.
Huogo's Unholy Rampage (25/5/41) Blood provides survivability in both tanking and pvp and unholy adds to the overall damaging ability with 5 points for inc armor, to my knowledge tanking as this would require some presence swapping between frost for aggro and blood to heal self; feedback on this spec from beta players would be much appreciated.
Jaime's No Escape (2h Weapon UnholyTank) (7/0/64)
(5/5/61) (2H Unholy Tank) Very similar to Jaime's No Escape but with Toughness included to enhance survivability. Some players may wish to take points from Ravenous Dead and move them to Blood-Caked Blade to help further with single target aggro or Reaping to help with flexibility in rotations.
(0/20/51) DW unholy build
The unholy tree is great for dw with its shadow damage from auto attacks and the oblit-like blood caked blade,adding in some upper tier frost makes this a great spec.
Mortician's Unholy Critter (17/13/41) This build is based heavily in the unholy tree, far enough down to get Scourge Strike, but it goes into the blood and frost trees to get their critical strike bonuses and damage bonus. The idea of this build was to be as well rounded as possible, and to be able to tank, dps, or pvp all as effectively as each other.
Zephire's Deep Unholy DPS build (16/0/55) Utilizes DoT mechanics to maximize Scourge and Death Strike output. Gets the most out of your Ghoul and also snags Rune Tap for the free heal.
Golgofa's dw dps build (10/8/53) Another version of Unholy PvE dps build,as it was said before dw is usefull because of Necrosis and Blood-caked Blade;Corpse Explosion,Wandering plague and Unholy blight give high AoE dps.Frost till Nerves of cold steel (dw);I go in Blood tree to decrease threat and for Bladed Armor in order to increase Attack power.
Hellriser's Rising Unholy Tanker Build (10/5/56) This build helps you transit gradually from Unholy Leveling to Unholy Tanking. Start off getting your Unholy Blight in the Unholy tree without Unholy Aura. Next form up the Blood tree to get the strength and parry bonuses followed by Toughness for armor bonuses. Unholy Aura will be last because you won't be needing it till you are running in parties as a Unholy tank. (Submitted by Hellriser of The Exiles in Khaz'goroth)
(0/0/51) @ level 60 (18/0/51) @ level 78 zonk's (Zhellia on Shadowsong-US) level 60/78 builds for AoE/Single target damage. Basic idea is to get Frost Fever and Blood Plague on the target, use Pestilence to spread the diseases to the other mobs, and Blood Boil/Unholy Blight for more multi-target damage, then use Death Strike to gain health back in the process. Obviously I would hope that you would spec in to Death and Decay (top of Unholy) if it was your preference, although I don't use it, but I did spec into it to try it out. Also, Necrosis and Ravenous Dead help for single target DPS while questing. Any critiques? Feel free to give me a reason to edit this info.
Onyxcabal's Unholy DPS Summoner (15/0/56)
Concentrates on unholy talents that contribute to increasing damage while also supplementing summoning abilities.
Summoning is enhanced through talents like Ravenous Dead, Shadow Of Death, Master of Ghouls, and Night Of The Dead.
Damage is enhanced through various talents in the Unholy and Blood tree. Uniquely this build augments diseases as much as possible through talents such as Wandering Plague, Crypt Fever, and Ebon Plaguebringer.
Worth noting is this build does not pick up additional avoidance or damage reduction talents and minimizes runic power talents.
Death Tanking
See Death Knights as Tanks for more info.
Jaime's No Escape (2h Weapon Unholy Tank) (7/0/64) - "This build is my obvious AoE tanking build. End game stat building will focus more around being able to dodge and parry incoming attacks, rather than absorbing damage (Be aware of the lack of Toughness). Talents like Desecration will assist the tank in keeping crowd control over his victims as he mercilessly forces them to spread diseases between each other; they are your rats and you are the cage. There shouldn't be an excuse when it comes to Runic Power; spend your bar on Unholy Blight. The Morbidity talent early on is specifically for the Death and Decay cool down reduction since you won't be using Death Coil. Go, Death Knight, and show them what it means to suffer!"
Healing Frost Tank (13/53/5) - A frost death knight build that provides tanking capabilities and can heal self with rune tap.
Blood Hybrid Tank (39/14/18) - based on fear resistance and being as self sufficient in heals as possible
Unholy Summoning Tank (7/11/53)
Hybrid Blood/Frost/Unholy Tank (20/14/37) - who in my opinion can take more of a punch than the others but needs a good healer
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