Glave
12-19-2008, 03:59 PM
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=230302140300000000000000000305250 11330021003212351313010200000000000000000000000000 00
Unholy seems to be the most popular build with DKs at the moment, but I feel that frost is a very strong PvP spec, especially with the upcoming buff to frost strike and obliterate glyphs. Frost has high burst, a very good CC, good survivability, decent burst AoE(howling blast), mediocre ranged damage(for being kited), six extra seconds on Icebound Fortitude, and good passive magic resistance.
update 12/20: Apparently the cooldown is being taken off of howling blast, which is going to make this build even MORE powerful.
Glyphs: Obliterate, Frost Strike, Death and Decay
Minor Glyphs: Death's Embrace is very solid for the Lichborne/Death Coil self heal spam.
Weapon Enchant: Cinderglacier for it's high burst potential and high proc rate, or Crusader. Your choice.
With this spec your two primary/high damage attacks will be obliterate and frost strike. This spec grants +24% crit to Obliterate, and I don't really think I need to explain how good that is on a specs hardest hitting move. I generally try to save up to full runic power and wait for all glyphs to be up and dump 3 frost strikes and 2-3 obliterates in a row. With the upcoming frost strike glyph change you will be able to dump 4 frost strikes in a row with 128 of your 130 runic power.
Frost also has endless winter, which makes frost fever apply when chains of ice is cast, and when combined with chillblains which makes frost fever slow your target 30%, you get a chains of ice that caps out at 30% movement speed reduction instead of going to zero.
Other strengths of this spec are frost aura/acclimation, which can give you up to 230 passive resist to any spell school, and will stack against multiple schools at a time. I have had 230 fire, frost, and shadow resist at the same time before(now if only there was holy resist).
Also, frost has unbreakable armor, which is a solid defensive AND offensive buff. It grants 25% armor and 10% strength(and 5% parry), and if you have bladed armor, that armor boost is also extra AP. It's essentially a DPS trinket for offense, and a defensive trinket for defense. With my current gear unbreakable armor gives me 244 AP without horn of winter on, and 277 ap with horn. It will scale even better with higher strength and armor, which will come with deadly gear. Not amazing, but not bad for a 1 min trinket type effect.
Deathchill is essentially cold blood for DKs. It's a 2 min cooldown 100% crit on your next frost move. If you stack deathchill with howling blast you can hit an entire team with a 4k damage burst on demand(assuming they all have frost fever).
Lastly, there is D&D. You'll see I have 2 points in morbidity for the 10 second cooldown reduction. With this in combination with the D&D glyph, you can wreak havoc on people with 2 second fears. It's not a great thing to -rely- on but it is great when it procs more than once in 10 seconds. It's good to drop on your healer or squishy teammate, or anyone getting focused to break up the burst, but also good to use offensively to make another healer have to move or risk being feared.
You'll notice that I have one point in icy talons. That point can go anywhere else in the tree that you wish. Once all of the essential points are put into this build, there are 49 points in the tree. Of course ideally I'd like either 6/6 icy talons/imp icy talons, or 5/5 tundra stalker, but with the overall spec and it's strengths I feel I do relatively good without. One thing you can do is take the 2 points out of morbidity and put them in the frost tree if you don't feel like you need D&D every 20 seconds. If I were to do this it would most likely be 2/2 Merciless combat and still 1/5 icy talons.
Another thing I will consider in the future is full 5/5 bladed armor instead of 3/5 bladed armor and 4/5 dark conviction, depending on how well the AP bonus scales and how much armor and crit we get on future pvp gear.
Unholy seems to be the most popular build with DKs at the moment, but I feel that frost is a very strong PvP spec, especially with the upcoming buff to frost strike and obliterate glyphs. Frost has high burst, a very good CC, good survivability, decent burst AoE(howling blast), mediocre ranged damage(for being kited), six extra seconds on Icebound Fortitude, and good passive magic resistance.
update 12/20: Apparently the cooldown is being taken off of howling blast, which is going to make this build even MORE powerful.
Glyphs: Obliterate, Frost Strike, Death and Decay
Minor Glyphs: Death's Embrace is very solid for the Lichborne/Death Coil self heal spam.
Weapon Enchant: Cinderglacier for it's high burst potential and high proc rate, or Crusader. Your choice.
With this spec your two primary/high damage attacks will be obliterate and frost strike. This spec grants +24% crit to Obliterate, and I don't really think I need to explain how good that is on a specs hardest hitting move. I generally try to save up to full runic power and wait for all glyphs to be up and dump 3 frost strikes and 2-3 obliterates in a row. With the upcoming frost strike glyph change you will be able to dump 4 frost strikes in a row with 128 of your 130 runic power.
Frost also has endless winter, which makes frost fever apply when chains of ice is cast, and when combined with chillblains which makes frost fever slow your target 30%, you get a chains of ice that caps out at 30% movement speed reduction instead of going to zero.
Other strengths of this spec are frost aura/acclimation, which can give you up to 230 passive resist to any spell school, and will stack against multiple schools at a time. I have had 230 fire, frost, and shadow resist at the same time before(now if only there was holy resist).
Also, frost has unbreakable armor, which is a solid defensive AND offensive buff. It grants 25% armor and 10% strength(and 5% parry), and if you have bladed armor, that armor boost is also extra AP. It's essentially a DPS trinket for offense, and a defensive trinket for defense. With my current gear unbreakable armor gives me 244 AP without horn of winter on, and 277 ap with horn. It will scale even better with higher strength and armor, which will come with deadly gear. Not amazing, but not bad for a 1 min trinket type effect.
Deathchill is essentially cold blood for DKs. It's a 2 min cooldown 100% crit on your next frost move. If you stack deathchill with howling blast you can hit an entire team with a 4k damage burst on demand(assuming they all have frost fever).
Lastly, there is D&D. You'll see I have 2 points in morbidity for the 10 second cooldown reduction. With this in combination with the D&D glyph, you can wreak havoc on people with 2 second fears. It's not a great thing to -rely- on but it is great when it procs more than once in 10 seconds. It's good to drop on your healer or squishy teammate, or anyone getting focused to break up the burst, but also good to use offensively to make another healer have to move or risk being feared.
You'll notice that I have one point in icy talons. That point can go anywhere else in the tree that you wish. Once all of the essential points are put into this build, there are 49 points in the tree. Of course ideally I'd like either 6/6 icy talons/imp icy talons, or 5/5 tundra stalker, but with the overall spec and it's strengths I feel I do relatively good without. One thing you can do is take the 2 points out of morbidity and put them in the frost tree if you don't feel like you need D&D every 20 seconds. If I were to do this it would most likely be 2/2 Merciless combat and still 1/5 icy talons.
Another thing I will consider in the future is full 5/5 bladed armor instead of 3/5 bladed armor and 4/5 dark conviction, depending on how well the AP bonus scales and how much armor and crit we get on future pvp gear.