PvP Builds

[Krigare]

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jZxhE0ioIcouhzAofhMzg

Theoretically, I think frost provides the best controllable burst and control. 18 in unholy gets Lichborne and On a Pale Horse which are excellent pvp talents. Necrosis was also crazy buffed and is at 25% additional melee dmg for 5 points atm.

Deeper unholy could be interesting as well to turn into a sort of pet class.

I think deathknight will be best paired with either a warrior or rogue in 3s due to its lack of a healing debuff.

[Zeriel]

A lot of people have Blood pigeonholed as a leveling/grinding spec, but I think the following has some serious survivability potential (massive life leech/regen that is shared with all your partners) for smallscale arena, esp. as 2dps:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jMItxcczioRgzAoZff0zx0o

[Krigare]

A lot of people have Blood pigeonholed as a leveling/grinding spec, but I think the following has some serious survivability potential (massive life leech/regen that is shared with all your partners) for smallscale arena, esp. as 2dps:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jMItxcczioRgzAoZff0zx0o

Yeah you have a point. Blood is also a lot of people's dps build of choice so I don't think the dmg is shabby. It just doesnt have as much control as frost.

edit: i dont like spell deflection btw..unless DKs get retarded parry rates

[Hyrus]

Depends on setup. On a cleave team, Blood. On most switch-based/burst teams, Frost. On outlasting/defensive teams probably Unholy.

I'm scared of the Frost tree synergy with Frost Mages though...

[Zeriel]

I would generally agree. I am hesitant about going deep into the other trees without understanding the way deathknights work better (frost & unholy are more complicated than blood), but I can definitely see going deep into Unholy for teaming up with other casters (passive disease proccing for 15% increased spell damage to target, and 15% reduced stats on target, etc).

The blood build is something I would run in 2v2 with a ret paladin or rogue.

Imagine ret's vindication dropping the target's health by 15%, then your heart strike dropping their health a further 20% to 35%. That's all without even counting a single point of damage. :D

Ret/DK strikes me as the ultimate Druid/War farm team, though probably a bit weak against just about everything else.

I'm having fun imagining scenarios like...

Warrior gets lured into the middle to fight your ret (or rogue), gets worn down a little to say 80%, gets a full 3 lifeblooms, maybe even a rejuv, then you inch out beside a pillar, deathgrip him to you to get him out of range of his heals. As your ret rushes up to start dpsing again, you degenerate once, turning all the hots into dots, heart strike, and blow him up in seconds before his druid can recover. Obviously shadowstep rogues would be better for deathgrip tomfoolery, but I know a pretty good ret.


edit: i dont like spell deflection btw..unless DKs get retarded parry rates

It's honestly just something I picked up because it was there and looked useful. Not a big deal. However, food for thought:

"You have a chance equal to your Parry chance of taking 30% less damage from a direct damage spell."

"Whenever you have no Runes active, your Parry chance increases by 10% for the next 8 sec."

There is also a rune for your 2h blade (basically like a DK only enchant on top of everything else) that increases your parry rate by 3%.

However, I think once people play a bit, the likelihood of being targeted by casters as the burn target will sharply decline because all deathknights get the baseline antimagic shell. So further antimagic talents that only benefit yourself may not be all too useful.

Also, not sure if the damage reduction stacks, but if it does, you could stack icebound fortitude (1m cooldown, immunity to stuns and -50% damage for 15s) with Bone Armor:

The Death Knight is surrounded by 4 whirling bones. While at least 1 bone remains, Ghe:she; takes 40% less damage from all sources and deals 2% more damage with all attacks, spells and abilities. Each spell or attack that lands consumes 1 bone. Lasts 5 min.

... for a total of 90% damage reduction for even more ludicrious survivability in 2dps.

[nord]

pvp build

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jbhteIczqoogzAoZfhMzx0o

5 blood, 1 unholy rune on the sword.
use mostly blood stance.

rape stuff.

[Deccard]

You most likely won't be able to switch runes.

[Mekila]

At the moment you can't switch runes. You only get 2 of each kind.

Ghoul mastery is a must for pvp - it gives you a 4 second stun every 20 seconds, a kick every 10 seconds, and another disease. (the ghoul can also shadowstep! lol minirogue)

Unholy also has unholy aura which makes you move 15% faster and it stacks with other movement increasing effects, 30 second fear/sleep/charm immunity that makes 25% of attacks on you to miss, and has talents that give your diseases 30% chance to resist dispel.

Oh and don't forget that reduced Death grip "GET OVER HERE" cooldown, putting it on 25 seconds. Which is nice because death grip costs no runes/runic power and generates runic power when you use it.

[fuuga]

Blood seems really good for cleave teams. (war/enh sham/blood dk/healers)

Frost seems great for burst teams.

[Deccard]

Here is an official statement about rune configuration:
We like the way the death knight plays with 2 of each rune -- BBFFUU. Letting players avoid certain runes plays against one of the greatest strengths of the class -- that you have to vary your rotations and use different abilities. Although it was our original design, I think it is extremely unlikely you will be able to swap out runes. I know some people will be disappointed with this decision, but we have to do what we think makes the game the most fun.

I think you all can imagine situations in which a BBBBBU or BFUUUU configuration would be frighteningly overpowered or hideously underpowered. Theoretically that balances out in the end, but being at 200% effectiveness in some fights and 0% effectiveness in other fights just risks not being a lot of fun in a game where you control a single character.

I do want to stress that the spells and talents were designed assuming a 2/2/2 configuration. It was never our intent that you keep say Unbreakable Armor up 100% of the time by playing with 6 frost runes. No single talent choice should be the difference between a good or bad death knight tank. (And to be honest, it really isn't for druids.) A death knight needs to be able to tank end-game content with their core set of abilities combined with reasonable player skill and gear. Any bonuses from talents should just be gravy.

You are welcome to argue that their current set of tools isn't yet up to that task. Having those discussions is a great use of a beta. But in the end, we'll make sure they are up to the task. And that goes for whether the task is tanking, Arenas, soloing, end-game dps or justifying a spot in a raid. :)

Short version: You may not be able to customize your runeweapon -- aside from runeforging enchants, which isn't a bad perk -- but you should be able to customize your talents to a degree that other classes might find startling.

[Hevlaska]

Just played around and came up with this build. It probly will be quite crap but the thought was to be coupled with another melee and be able to support with the anti magic shield seeing you don't really have a healer. Also buff others with 10 % more speed and 10 % more str.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jVhtxI0zi0oZZcbgzrhotVkoM

Aint got a clue what I'm doing really, too much talents and clearly too little knowledge about the DK system to work out a build ^^''

[Steamboat]

looks like the frost tree is going to sync really well with frost mages.

so here is my initial pvp build

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jZehLoAoIsozhzhZcIMuocop0k

master of gouls looks necessary

[Shaeden]

Does Mark of Blood look a bit overpowered vs. classes that hit a lot (like rogues)? If you had 20k hp, each hit from a rogue would heal you for 400, negating quite a bit of it's damage.

Oh man, each dot tick from warlocks/spriests would heal the DK for 400? Assuming they have 20k+ hp .

[Slappywag]

looks like the frost tree is going to sync really well with frost mages.

so here is my initial pvp build

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000050305 51005103313100130013000332023120031051000100000000 0

master of gouls looks necessaryThat looks pretty solid. Thinking about playing that. Might drop 1 random point for bone armor though.

[Deccard]

Does Mark of Blood look a bit overpowered vs. classes that hit a lot (like rogues)? If you had 20k hp, each hit from a rogue would heal you for 400, negating quite a bit of it's damage.

Oh man, each dot tick from warlocks/spriests would heal the DK for 400? Assuming they have 20k+ hp .Afaik only direct damage procs the effect. :rogue:s will have to save CloS for Mark of Blood when fighting a :deathknight: without a dispeler on their side.

[Ranghala]

This is what I came up with while toying around:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jbhteIzzioogzZZfhgzg0oz0k

Double-DPS DK/Ret is gonna be nasty with this build (Vindication + Heart Strike = GG 40% HP), especially with all the buffs Ret is getting in the xpac.

I can't wait to reroll DK. Just thinking about the burst potential and survivability of a Blood DK (Rune Tap basically looks like a Healthstone for you and your party on a 1 min. CD) is making me all giddy.

[Exiledshmoo]

It seems like 27 in unholy is going to be required for pvp. Talents like these selected here http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jZZfhgzg0oo0k
just seem too good not to have.
Lichborne and Necrosis are amazing.
On a pale horse is impressive.
Unholy command a staple.
Bone armor seems very impressive.
Master of ghouls is amazing if the ghoul isnt too easy to kill. Being able to control his interrupt and stun on short cds is just so powerful. If the ghouls have 3k health like mage's water elemental, it may be droppable though.

The blood tree certainly has a lot of damage behind it, and is looking to be the best solo or pve dps tree, but it lacks utility and control which the frost and unholy trees do provide.

I think at this point its too difficult to put together solid pvp builds, not because its beta, but because we do not know what the environment is going to be like at 80. We can go through the trees and find all kinds of little gems and potential combos with other classes though.

Both frost and unholy seem to have a lot more dmg from their spells as well.

All I know is that you can get some serious burst with unholy via Obliterate and blood boil with all the diseases unholy has access to.

A question that we may be able to more seriously address atm is what build to use to level. Blood has a lot of physical damage as well as a lot of self healing, so you will have no down time and be able to take several mobs at once no problem. There are some you tube videos out there that show a blood DK taking on elites his level with no issue.

Frost seems like a weak choice for leveling. It has a lot of utility, but does not have the health regen like blood does. Frost's damage also seems to be proc based, getting that burst when they are frozen.

Unholy has some utility, and a lot of spell damage. Every time I think of leveling, I think of unholy. There are some videos out there of an unholy DK aoe grinding in hellfire and in Zangrmarsh against bog lords.
Round them up and death and decay which is amazing, the talent wandering plague starts causing all kinds of nasty damage on top of death and decay. Kill one with attacks, corpse explosion it, which does a solid amount of damage, put up another disease dot, then when they hit about 20% blood boil to finish them off. Takes about 10 seconds to kill a group of 5-7 mobs with minimal damage done to you.

[Ranghala]

It seems like 27 in unholy is going to be required for pvp. Talents like these selected here http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jZZfhgzg0oo0k
just seem too good not to have.
Lichborne and Necrosis are amazing.
On a pale horse is impressive.
Unholy command a staple.
Bone armor seems very impressive.
Master of ghouls is amazing if the ghoul isnt too easy to kill. Being able to control his interrupt and stun on short cds is just so powerful. If the ghouls have 3k health like mage's water elemental, it may be droppable though.

The blood tree certainly has a lot of damage behind it, and is looking to be the best solo or pve dps tree, but it lacks utility and control which the frost and unholy trees do provide.

I think at this point its too difficult to put together solid pvp builds, not because its beta, but because we do not know what the environment is going to be like at 80. We can go through the trees and find all kinds of little gems and potential combos with other classes though.

Both frost and unholy seem to have a lot more dmg from their spells as well.

All I know is that you can get some serious burst with unholy via Obliterate and blood boil with all the diseases unholy has access to.

A question that we may be able to more seriously address atm is what build to use to level. Blood has a lot of physical damage as well as a lot of self healing, so you will have no down time and be able to take several mobs at once no problem. There are some you tube videos out there that show a blood DK taking on elites his level with no issue.

Frost seems like a weak choice for leveling. It has a lot of utility, but does not have the health regen like blood does. Frost's damage also seems to be proc based, getting that burst when they are frozen.

Unholy has some utility, and a lot of spell damage. Every time I think of leveling, I think of unholy. There are some videos out there of an unholy DK aoe grinding in hellfire and in Zangrmarsh against bog lords.
Round them up and death and decay which is amazing, the talent wandering plague starts causing all kinds of nasty damage on top of death and decay. Kill one with attacks, corpse explosion it, which does a solid amount of damage, put up another disease dot, then when they hit about 20% blood boil to finish them off. Takes about 10 seconds to kill a group of 5-7 mobs with minimal damage done to you.

I've seen those videos, Unholy makes Prot. Pally AOE grinding look like a joke.

What do you think about this Lv. 55 build?:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jbZZfhgzgckzbkVMho

Butchery + Dirge will keep your Runic Power flowing and your AOE damage steady with Corpse Explosions.

I picked up OaPH and Unholy Aura for the speed effects, you'll be moving around and tapping mobs quicker than anyone else in the zone with the exception of Ret. Paladins and other Unholy DKs. ;)

[Exiledshmoo]

I really like that build. I would certainly spec that at 55. I suppose the next question would be where to go from there as you level up. There are several more talents in unholy that will enhance your aoe.

Impurity
Crypt fever -> ebon plaguebringer
Rage of Rivendere
Unholy blight

All of those are going to increase your spell dmg in some way, or supply an additional aoe dot.

There is also black ice in t2 frost for 10% more shadow and frost damage.

There are also some talents in blood that would be useful like Vendetta and rune tap to reduce down time.

[Ranghala]

I really like that build. I would certainly spec that at 55. I suppose the next question would be where to go from there as you level up. There are several more talents in unholy that will enhance your aoe.

Impurity
Crypt fever -> ebon plaguebringer
Rage of Rivendere
Unholy blight

All of those are going to increase your spell dmg in some way, or supply an additional aoe dot.

There is also black ice in t2 frost for 10% more shadow and frost damage.

There are also some talents in blood that would be useful like Vendetta and rune tap to reduce down time.

EDIT:

My original idea was kind of retarded. I'd go with something like this until hitting 80:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jbZchxZfhgugcktbkVMhqo

You could move the 3 points in Imp. Plague Strike into Ferocious Dead for the added survivability from the HOT effect, but I'd rather just kill shit faster.

[Mekila]

I'll post my pvp builds for heavy frost and unholy soon. Just waiting on the patch to go live so I can see what changed and adjust accordingly :)

[Exiledshmoo]

You are now my go to guy for DK stuff lol.

[Mekila]

You are now my go to guy for DK stuff lol.

I'm just trying to see if they are viable for arena pvp, other than for 'GET OVER HERE' every 25s. :)

At the moment I feel really vulnerable to snares and roots with no way to break them. (PVP trinket that they give out is bugged for horde, its alliance-only so we can't use it -_-)

[Exiledshmoo]

I'm just trying to see if they are viable for arena pvp, other than for 'GET OVER HERE' every 25s. :)

At the moment I feel really vulnerable to snares and roots with no way to break them. (PVP trinket that they give out is bugged for horde, its alliance-only so we can't use it -_-)

Welcome to beta, land of more evades, bugs, and abilities that do not do anything than you can shake a stick at.

Thats what I am keeping an eye on as well. I have seen several videos featuring DK pvp and they either show them destroying people in raiding gear or getting spanked by warlocks in s3.
One thing I noticed is that you still get the frost burst with chains of ice + howling blast as any spec. True it will not hit as hard as heavy frost, but with the nerf to frost strike and icy touch, you do not have the double burst anymore.

You mentioned going heavy unholy and then dipping into frost, that has been the specs of the people in the videos I have seen so far, and I do have to say I have been impressed with improved anti magic shell and bone armor making it very hard for casters to focus you effectively.

You also mentioned an issue with roots and snares. Has it been any particular class that has kited you badly, or can any class with a ranged snare played well give you issues?

[Krigare]

Yeah deep unholy is looking better and better.

Quick question, does one need Master of Ghouls to utilize the stun and interrupt the ghouls have?

[Mekila]

Welcome to beta, land of more evades, bugs, and abilities that do not do anything than you can shake a stick at.

Thats what I am keeping an eye on as well. I have seen several videos featuring DK pvp and they either show them destroying people in raiding gear or getting spanked by warlocks in s3.
One thing I noticed is that you still get the frost burst with chains of ice + howling blast as any spec. True it will not hit as hard as heavy frost, but with the nerf to frost strike and icy touch, you do not have the double burst anymore.

You mentioned going heavy unholy and then dipping into frost, that has been the specs of the people in the videos I have seen so far, and I do have to say I have been impressed with improved anti magic shell and bone armor making it very hard for casters to focus you effectively.

You also mentioned an issue with roots and snares. Has it been any particular class that has kited you badly, or can any class with a ranged snare played well give you issues?

If you get Howling Blast you will have to put 31 points into frost, 35-36 to get the extra 60% dmg when below 20% and the ability to snare. Yeah I guess at 80 you can get 34-40 points in another tree for pvp.

Bone armor is pretty amazing, not sure if the anti-magic bubble is worth it when you already have anti-magic shell trainable at 75. Useful against casters, useless against everyone else for 6 talent points.

This patch is bugged with armor ratings, it seems like everyone (including plate wearers) are considered to have 0 armor. I'm getting 2k obliterate hits with 0 diseases up, 1k degenerates, and 1800 white crits. This is about double what I was hitting for pre-patch.

With a bunch of diseases w/ full unholy spec, (plague strike, degenerate, 3 stacks of crypt fever, 3 stacks of unholy blight, 3 stacks of d&d, blood-caked blade) I was able to hit an obliterate for 3k. Unfortunately you would never be able to get that many diseases up in pvp. Full blood spec is dominant atm as you can hit for ridiculous amounts with everyone having 0 armor.

In fixing the death coil bug they seemed to have broken all the 'x% increased dmg when diseased/icy touched' 45 pt talents.

Runic power is broken atm, sometimes you get randomly 33 runic power from an ability, sometimes you don't get anything, and death coil seems to cost random amounts of runic power to cast.

[Mekila]

Yeah deep unholy is looking better and better.

Quick question, does one need Master of Ghouls to utilize the stun and interrupt the ghouls have?

Yes. Otherwise they just claw and disease randomly. (They do this too w/ master of ghoul but you can turn off autocast)

Super ghouls are like rogues and use energy, so if you don't turn off autocast claw (costs 40 energy!) you won't have enough energy to Gnaw (40 energy, 4sec stun, 20s cd)