gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight

I’ve updated my previous Death Knight DPS Builds – Patch 3.1 and Death Knight Tank Builds – Patch 3.1 posts. There is no new information or talent changes, I’ve just switched to Wowhead talent links (I like them better) and changed the posts’ format to be (I hope) easier to both read and skim for key info.

The Death Knight Guides page has also been updated with links to all of the new patch 3.1 talent build posts I’ve done.

I’m glad the DPS post especially has been so popular and started so many conversations. Thanks for your support.

Death knights get to open up even more at level 68. Blood starts really pumping up the damage, Unholy gets even more AoE and some damage help from the blood tree, and Frost is finally a viable leveling build. Read more… »

Leveling talent builds continue on through Outland pretty much like they were in Ebon Hold. Frost doesn?t become viable until level 67-68 and On a Pale Horse is a huge talent to lose for trying something different, given all of the riding around you?ll be doing on a ground mount.

You may also notice I?m skipping reactionary and cooldown based talents a lot. This is partly because of my own play style, but it also reduces the number of things to keep track of. As a starting out death knight you?ll find you have plenty of things to watch by default as it is. Read more… »

Back before Wrath launched I had posted guides on leveling a new death knight, including leveling talent build suggestions. The patches since then have changed the talent trees so much I figured some updated versions were called for. So I’ll be putting up new posts this week based on those original posts, with suggested talent builds for 55-58, 58-68, and 68-80.

These builds are based on both my own experience leveling up (back in beta and again when Wrath launched) and the very in depth death knight forums on Elitist Jerks.

These talent builds are meant to be suggestions for those looking for a place to start. You may want to rearrange some talent points for abilities you like (or to avoid those you dislike). You can of course do something completely different. Please keep in mind these builds were designed to be efficient in terms of solo level play, so they do not take grouping heavily or tanking into account. They also should not be used for end game play, unless you do nothing but questing.

From level 55 through 58, as you quest around Ebon Hold, you?ll earn talent points as part of your quest rewards. By the time you finish you?ll be level 58 with the appropriate number of talent points. Read more… »

As with the tank builds I posted this information is based heavily on the Elitist Jerks Death Knight forum and are considered to be the top DPS builds in patch 3.1 for all three talent trees. As with any published talent build there are things to keep in mind. These were designed based on providing the best raid DPS and nothing else. They are cookie cutter builds and not everyone likes that. There is nothing wrong with adjusting these builds to suit your own play style or needs, however you should expect your tweaked build to lose DPS as, again, these builds are already tweaked specifically for raid DPS.

Based on both PTR testing and DPS simulators the following builds, all things being equal, are thought to perform best for raid DPS. They are ranked here from top to bottom as best to “worst.”

#1: Unholy Two-Hand: 0/10/61 (best in Ulduar gear)

#2: Unholy Two-Hand: 12/0/59 (best in Tier 7 raid gear)

#3: Blood Two-Hand: 51/2/18

#4: Frost Two-Hand: 13/51/7

Yes, there are no dual wield builds listed. That is because dual wield is once again not a serious competitor with two-handed builds. There are viable dual wield builds, but you will be hurting your raid DPS significantly just for the play style. For more information on dual wield in patch 3.1 check out the Elitist Jerks thread on the topic.

Now let’s go over the details of the four top raid DPS builds listed above. Read more… »

Based heavily on the Elitist Jerks Death Knight forum here are what are considered to be the standard tanking builds for patch 3.1. Tank builds differ from DPS builds in that since a tank isn’t trying to do a single thing very well (i.e. lots of damage) more flexibility in builds is called for. Some tanks may want more damage mitigation, others may need more damage talents for better threat generation. These are solid builds worked out by the top theorycrafters, however you are free to adjust them to suit your own play style or needs so long as you understand deviating from the standard makes you, not others, liable for the consequences.

As before there are two popular tanking builds, one for frost and one for unholy. Frost provides better initial threat and constant damage reduction while maintaing AoE threat generation ability. Unholy provides better AoE threat, more damage mitigator buttons, and raid buffs. Blood tank builds may appear later, the new Will of Necropolis is certainly nice in some settings, but the jury is still out on blood being as viable overall as frost and unholy. I know, nothing new there.

So let’s go over our two standard tanking builds so you can setup your own build from there. Read more… »

Patch 3.1 is due out soon (Blizzard Trademark 2009) so I’ve been working on my patch to do list, based on the current PTR patch notes and other reports from the beta testers. For a major content patch I don’t have a lot of items to do on patch day at the moment, but that may change once the final notes are released (or I realized I missed a big update). Read more… »