Death Knight Leveling Builds (68-80)
Posted on 2008 under Death Knight, Dedbitt, Guide | 8 Comments7 Nov
Now we can have some fun with talent builds. After level 68 things really open up for death knights. Blood builds start really pumping up the damage, Unholy builds gain the self healing of Blood builds, and Frost is finally a viable leveling build.
Blood Leveling Concluded – 51/0/20
Rotation: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike x2, Obliterate | Death Coil or Dancing Rune Blade
- Simple rotation
- Good self healing
- Fast mount
- Better for soloing elites
- No special AoE abilities
Bloodworms continue to be optional, again just move those points elsewhere in the Blood tree if you don’t want them.
Unholy Leveling Concluded – 18/0/53
Rotation: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Blood Strike x2 | Death Coil, Summon Gargoyle, or Unholy Blight
- Best DPS for leveling
- Even better DPS in AoE situations
- Permanent ghoul pet
- Early heavy hitting strike (Scourge Strike)
- Fast mount
- Dependent on ghoul for best DPS rating
By this point you may have replaced Signet of the Dark Brotherhood. If so you should change around your Blood talents a bit. Remove points from Blade Barrier and put points into Subversion. With the trinket Blade Barrier works nicely, but once you dump the trinket it becomes a pure tank talent, which you don’t want while leveling up.
Frost Leveling – 2/51/18
Rotation: Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Obliterate or Howling Blast, Blood Strike x2, Frost Strike
- Haste buff
- Reduces target’s attack speed
- Longer range Icy Touch pulls
- Frontal AoE
- Ignores armor
- Increased DPS on low health targets
- Fast mount
- Limited self healing
This build isn’t viable until level 69. Start at 2/41/17.
Personally I really enjoyed Frost for leveling in beta, however near the end of beta it tested the lower for DPS than the other builds. I’m not sure the difference is what those tests showed (around 30-50 less DPS) because they didn’t use the exact same build and rotation that worked for me.
A few tricks with a Frost build. Use Lichborne then immediately hit yourself with a Death Coil for an instant heal. Examine Obliterate and Howling Blast before going with Obliterate for single targets. Obliterate hits harder but is lessened by armor and is dependent on your weapon damage, so Howling Blast may do more damage (and will more likely do more crit damage regardless of weapon).
by vrynthal, on December 5 2008 @ 2:33 am
hey great site for information…. been using it alot… especially now that i’m 80… i used you imp icey touch frost tank spec and succsesfully tanked my first heroic run in UK… was wondering what runes you are putting on your weapons? also was wondering about the tanking ability with DW with the infantry assault blade from the first boss on heroic uk to make up some difference in def to add more str/stam to your armor….
Total Comment by vrynthal: 1
by Dedbitt, on December 8 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Grats on your run. With runeforging and tanking I like Swordshattering for the extra avoidance. I’d switch to Spellshattering if I knew I was to be tanking a caster boss in a raid, but I think Swordshattering works in more situations. Falling Crusader isn’t bad for tanking either, if you are still soloing more than running instances.
Dual wielding and tanking doesn’t look good at the moment. For one thing damage = aggro and our strikes are instance and weapon damage based. So a fast tank weapon (which warriors like) actually hurts us because it has lower damage. The off hand is only good for getting more talented procs, but a tank shouldn’t depend on procs. The bigger problem with dual wielding is being parried. If a boss parries you they typically get an instance and hard return hit on you. If you are swinging two swords often vs one sword slowly you will get parried more and thus get hit back more. Getting parried can kill the tank, it is a big reason melee needs to be behind a boss.
Total Comments by Dedbitt: 8
by George, on February 7 2009 @ 1:05 pm
Greetings! I love your specs, they’re special and very very efficient. I have a question though…Why in your blood spec have you left out Blood Aura? Seems pretty crucial to me. I really wanna know your opinion though.
Keep up the good work!
Total Comments by George: 4
by Dedbitt, on February 9 2009 @ 11:40 am
Blood Aura is a great group utility but these particular builds were designed for leveling, so I focused on soloing more than group. I’m slowly working on a more comprehensive write up on builds, updated for the new patch, for leveling and end game.
Total Comments by Dedbitt: 8
by George, on March 17 2009 @ 10:06 am
Hey Deb what’s up? I’m really forward to reading your updated build write-up! One question though, are your unholy talents (which I find perfectly matched to my playing style) still valid after the last 2 patches? If not feel free to provide me some guidelines
Total Comments by George: 4
by Dedbitt, on March 17 2009 @ 11:40 am
Without going into detail the tank and DPS end game unholy builds I like as of this patch are:
Unholy DPS
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMVZZfMhhhckgcsMcsut
Unholy Tank
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jbxZhg0zZcgGc0b0xe0Rcsut
Patch 3.1, which could be as early as April, contains more big class changes for us so I’m holding off on a detailed write up until after that hits.
Total Comments by Dedbitt: 8
by George, on March 17 2009 @ 11:59 am
I’m sorry m8 I meant the leveling unholy spec, forgot to mention it! Thanks anyway though
Total Comments by George: 4
by Dedbitt, on March 17 2009 @ 12:11 pm
Ah, yeah haven’t revisited those. The principles are the same today as at launch, however, so if you compare the old leveling and the new end game I bet you’ll see something you like. In the end perfectly optimal builds don’t impact leveling all that much.
Total Comments by Dedbitt: 8