It’s been a learning experience leveling a death knight again. For one thing I first did it in early beta, before all the abilities were even in, let alone balanced. For another I get to watch and chat with guild members doing the same thing.
Unholy is by far the most popular leveling build I’ve seen. In single target combat I’m taking down same level mobs within 4 strikes. In AoE situations I’ve taken on up to 6 same level mobs at once and walked away. A few times I’ve started with 4-6 and ended up chain pulling in 10-12 total (not intentionally, I’m just not that observant of patrols) and come out of it fine. The one thing I don’t like about Unholy is the spawn time on the ghoul when I dismount. I developed a habit while playing a rogue of charging into a group of mobs and wreaking havoc (I never said I was a very good rogue). I can still do this, but not having the ghoul for much of a fight is felt.
Guild members trying out Blood are seeing similar single target damage, but obviously less AoE capability. However they don’t have to Death Strike to regain health, with smart pulls they can focus on Obliterate instead and keep their health up through Blood talents.
I did try Frost at 68-69. When I first tried Frost in beta I was in my upper 70s and it got beaten with a nerf bat afterwards. It was viable, but not nearly as efficient. The efficiency was due to my refusal to give up the mount speed boost in Unholy, so I couldn’t go a full 51 points into Frost. Full Frost should do much better, but I’m going to wait until I have a flying mount.
All in all leveling is not a problem for a death knight and how fast you mow thins down is a matter of getting use to the class.
For unholy I’ve honed my rotations since Outland. I didn’t mess with Unholy outside of some PvP on beta so it was mostly new to me. Depending on the situation I use one of a few rotations for maximum damage.
- Normal Mob: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, then finish it with Blood Strike or Death Coil.
- Bunch of Mobs: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Strike, then I usually have enough runic power for Unholy Blight. I then switch targets and spam Death Strike and Death Coil.
- Whole Lot of Mobs: Death and Decay, Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Unholy Blight, then switch targets and spam Death Strike and Death Coil. I’ll switch targets more to Death Strike those with higher health and throw in some more Blood Strikes for Death Runes if warranted.
- Elites: Bone Shield before hand. Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike x2, Death Strike, Unholy Blight. Then rotate between Death Strike x2 and Death Strike, Blood Strike x2, depending on my Death Runes status. All the while I spam Death Coil as I can. With elites be mindful of your disease timers, you likely will need to go back to your opening rotation to reapply them.
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