Potential 80 PVP builds

[Slappywag]

Wrote an in depth article on what I think the main DK PVP builds will be. Thought you dudes might be interested =) (http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Big-Boys-make-Big-Boy-noise/Potential-level-80-Death-Knight-PVP-builds-giveaway-update/)

[KennyEU]

Could always post it here aswell. Not clicking that.

[Vander]

Kinda early in beta to start making DK builds imo

I mean, just last build almost completely overhauled a large portion of talents / mechanics...

[Duckers]

Not clicking that.
Why?

[Slappywag]

Could always post it here aswell. Not clicking that.Calm yourself nerd. I've posted all of my GR articles on AJ without ever linking to them, however, if I decide I want to get GR traffic for information I write that people are interested to -- I'm going to do it despite your hissy fit.

The information is apparently outdated anyway. I didn't realize since, you know, I was playing my DK while writing it.

[Deccard]

It's pretty funny how fast the talents changed during last week.

[Exiledshmoo]

Yeah and they are going to continue to change rapidly for quite some time since they are note even testing pvp balance with the DK atm. All we can really do is test specific talents and how those talents work in conjunction with others. So at this point, its really more about talents than builds, but to get a decent idea about how those talents work, we need builds to play with so we can discuss which talents to take, and what those talents work well with.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000003252 50010351033211100500135123000230052001000000000000 00000

Note: toughness is actually Icy Talons since the calc is broken.

On a Pale Horse, 20% reduction in stun and fear duration is good.

As for Shade of Death, I have no idea if its worthwhile, might be in a double dps situation.

Howling blast has been changed. It now does double damage to targets with frost fever instead of triple to frozen targets.
This obviously is a nerf to its burst damage. On the flip side, since the target no longer has to be frozen, we are not forced to use this on conjunction with chains of ice or wait for a frost bite proc.
It also makes it easier to use on multiple targets through icy touch to apply frost fever, then use pestilence to spread it then drop your aoe.
The spell is still going to be consistent burst, infact with the changes to rune costs, more consistent and less burst.
The ability is still going to scale, so we are still looking at consistent 3k+ crits.

[fuuga]

I'm liking 0/14/57. Put a bunch of diseases up and obliterate for burst with a 90% chance your diseases stay.

[Xasz]

I like unholy as well, but i would prefer 0/18/53 cuz Runic Power Mastery is to valuable to ignore.

[Nyn]

doesn't deathchill work with obliterate?

I would go 0/21/50

unholy for the extra disease and utility

[Mekila]

doesn't deathchill work with obliterate?

sure does. too bad its being changed to unholy+frost so we can't do d&d + deathchill + 2x oblit anymore :(

[Exiledshmoo]

"There are no stacking diseases. Icy Touch causes Frost Fever and Plague Strike causes Blood Plague. You can talent to get a few more spells that cause those diseases, and Unholy can add two more diseases (Ebon Plague and Unholy Blight). This makes Unholy Blight quite useful because it's the only way to get 4 diseases up for Blood Strike or Obliterate."

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8557029764&postId=85562818159&sid=1#31

Going unholy is still a good spec, just saying they seem to have reduced the amount of diseases we can get up on a target now so smaller obliterates.

I do like the new frost strike, especially with frost strike being effected by killing machine and death chill. We are talking about some good burst, against all targets since its not physical here. One question I have is if death chill affects obliterate. It is a frost ability so it should.

Scenario 1: Plague strike and frost fever are both still up on the target with 4 seconds to go. You have at least 2 frost, 2 unholy, and 1 blood up.
You pop death chill.
Auto attack
Blood strike will do about weapon damage. -1 blood + runic power
Howling wind crit. -1 unholy -1 frost + runic power
Obliterate crit. -1 unholy -1 frost + runic power
Frost strike crit -50 runic power.
Auto attack.

Guile of Gorefiend gives a 45% crit bonus to obliterate and frost strike.
Now obviously it takes a little set up and some cool downs, but that is a lot of burst damage that mostly goes through armor.
With killing machine, you are going to be getting a lot of crit frost strikes as well.

[Mekila]

"There are no stacking diseases. Icy Touch causes Frost Fever and Plague Strike causes Blood Plague. You can talent to get a few more spells that cause those diseases, and Unholy can add two more diseases (Ebon Plague and Unholy Blight). This makes Unholy Blight quite useful because it's the only way to get 4 diseases up for Blood Strike or Obliterate."

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8557029764&postId=85562818159&sid=1#31

Going unholy is still a good spec, just saying they seem to have reduced the amount of diseases we can get up on a target now so smaller obliterates.

I do like the new frost strike, especially with frost strike being effected by killing machine and death chill. We are talking about some good burst, against all targets since its not physical here. One question I have is if death chill affects obliterate. It is a frost ability so it should.

Scenario 1: Plague strike and frost fever are both still up on the target with 4 seconds to go. You have at least 2 frost, 2 unholy, and 1 blood up.
You pop death chill.
Auto attack
Blood strike will do about weapon damage. -1 blood + runic power
Howling wind crit. -1 unholy -1 frost + runic power
Obliterate crit. -1 unholy -1 frost + runic power
Frost strike crit -50 runic power.
Auto attack.

Guile of Gorefiend gives a 45% crit bonus to obliterate and frost strike.
Now obviously it takes a little set up and some cool downs, but that is a lot of burst damage that mostly goes through armor.
With killing machine, you are going to be getting a lot of crit frost strikes as well.

Deathchill only lasts 6 seconds so this only works in unholy presence. GCD in other presences are 1.5s, GCD in unholy is 1s.

[Exiledshmoo]

I was assuming unholy presence, since its the standard pvp one.

Also since death chill is off the GCD, you dont have to pop it until after the blood strike so does not really matter.

[Mekila]

I was assuming unholy presence, since its the standard pvp one.

Also since death chill is off the GCD, you dont have to pop it until after the blood strike so does not really matter.

I dunno, I've been finding I just sit around twiddling my thumbs after using all my runes if I'm fighting in unholy presence. In blood presence I hit a lot harder and I can make use of every GCD rather than sit there waiting for runes to come back. Heck, even in frost presence I am a lot more durable with the extra armor and resist and sitting there doing nothing doesn't hurt as bad when you are in tank mode.

They need to make runes reactivate 15% faster in unholy presence, it currently feels like I'm a rage starved warrior beating on a pw:shielded target whenever I'm in unholy stance.

If my ghoul actually stunned when I wanted it to and I could use the 4 seconds of stun to land 4 moves it would be a different story. Unfortunately, the ghoul is not very smart and likes to use up all its energy clawing. (autocast is conveniently always turned on when you summon it)

The pet ghoul also likes to leap to the target as I'm Death Gripping, making him have to run back for 5 seconds before it can do anything, totally screwing up any sort of combo you have in mind.

[Exiledshmoo]

Well blood aura certainly increases the damage, frost aura certainly reduces it, and unholy certainly increases the rate of it. I think for unholy to be really good you have to spec imp unholy presence.
Unholy certainly will make it easier to land interrupts and will allow the burst to come off quicker.

Too hard to really say if it will be worth it, it may be worth it in just specific matches like rmp as an example.

[Nyn]

Well lets hope that they fix the ghoul AI and allow it to remember what you had on auto cast and what wasn't.

Whats the big deal about getting d&d off right before your obliterates anyway?

[Exiledshmoo]

D&D = disease

[Nyn]

ahh ok, and i just went to the updated talent build and now deathchill only says next ability, not all abilities in the 6 sec :mad:

[Exiledshmoo]

Where did you find that?

According to the WoW one which is more up to date than the current beta push, it still says 6 seconds.

[Nyn]

http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Deathknight#tab=Talent_Calculator

it just loads the one from the WoW site

Still think 0/24/47 is the best build atm

[Exiledshmoo]

http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Deathknight#tab=Talent_Calculator

it just loads the one from the WoW site

Still think 0/24/47 is the best build atm

That site lists Death chill as 6 seconds still... for spellS and abilitieS for the next 6 seconds.

Frost provides ranged snares as well as haste buffs.
Frost provides the best burst.
Frost provides the best cc (aoe freeze trap.)

In unholy, we certainly have the best aoe abilities with corpse explosion and a greatly improved D&D.
Unholy brings a lot of utility to the table with extra diseases, better ghoul control, anti magic zone and anti magic shell buffs, and bone armor.
Unholy also has Scourge strike atm, which of course is very powerful in certain situations.

[Kriven]

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jf0GqI0hotuboZZfMMIzfkMxoo

Utility spec - could be used in a 3v3 with a shaman healer and Bladestorm warrior.

[Taerek]

Hysteria/Anti-Magic-Zone Build. Buff party members with lust, hysteria + trinkets = easy burst. Anti-Magic Zone = utility to counter heavy magic teams that gib melee.

Other option is ditching Anti-Magic Zone and getting heart strike, which I would probably favor since anti-magic zone doesn't do anything about CC.

[Exiledshmoo]

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0000000000000000000000000003250505102 502112231020101351230002305020100000000000000000

0/53/18

Brings all the utility and burst of Frost together with the low tier utility and damage of Unholy.

[Steamboat]

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0320321533003015021000000000000000000 000000000000000000230032033023110250151000000000

desecration/anti magic zone and bloodworms

this build is great for activating death runes and using a ton of plague strikes while having an incredible amount of utility and bloodworms :)

[Nyn]

Finally got a beta key and I found that this spec is very good for pvp, and will probably be this spec at 80 on live if not to much changes.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jbZhgxzZfMGhxfkM0qMfout

[Steamboat]

Finally got a beta key and I found that this spec is very good for pvp, and will probably be this spec at 80 on live if not to much changes.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jbZhgxzZfMGhxfkM0qMfout

why no outbreak if you have desecration? how good is night of the dead?

[Nyn]

Because outbreak doesn't effect scourge strike anymore, and night of the dead is pretty useful for keeping your ghoul out.