There was a request made to go over Ulduar weapons for tanking death knights. Since there still are no two-handed tanking specific weapons I figured no one would mind if I went over Ulduar weapons for tanking and DPS.

Ulduar Weapons: 10-Man

[Relentless Edge]

It has agility and haste, not our best stats, and a lower base damage than the other two Ulduar 10-man weapons. It is also a polearm, which some death knights may not have skilled up (you should skill up all weapons, just find a decent green and use it to do dailies). If you already have Kel’Thuzad’s weapon from either 10-man or 25-man then just skip this one.

[Ironsoul]

Now this is more like it, a base damage increase (unless you have [Betrayer of Humanity]) and strength. Armor penetration isn’t my favorite stat, but this weapon is a definite upgrade for many. The only downside is it is a mace, which we start with no skill in. So again skill up your weapons ahead of time. Also keep in mind this is a great feral druid weapon and they can’t use the polearm and axe that also drop in the instance.

[Stormedge]

Virtually the same stats as Ironsoul, but with hit instead of crit. If you don’t need the hit then there isn’t much point in waiting for this over Ironsoul, unless you are being nice to your feral druids.

Ulduar Weapons: 25-Man

[Rune Edge]

An upgrade for everyone, though not the best Ulduar has to offer. Agility and armor penetration are more meh stats, but the stamina makes it a great tanking weapon. Besides, it has been a while since we’ve seen a decent end game two-handed sword.

[Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned]

Great weapon name for a death knight. The stats are similar to Rune Edge, this has less stamina and more armor penetration so less tanking and more DPSing, though either would be a good upgrade for both approaches.

[Worldcarver]

This is the must have weapon in Ulduar. It has the same base damage as the other two drops, but the stats are so much better for us: strength, more stamina, haste, and expertise. The best part is it drops off of one of the early bosses, Ignis the Furnace Master.

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.

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.

Unholy Two-Hand DPS: 0/10/61

This build is best after you’ve geared up from Ulduar. Black Ice really shines at that point in boosting your frost and shadow based abilities. For patch day if you want an unholy DPS build you’ll want to start with 12/0/59, list below.

With the glyphs Dark Death (new to patch 3.1) and Ghoul are staples for unholy DPS. Scourge Strike could be swapped out, but a lot of members of the death knight community like it. The new [Glyph of Disease] looks appealing, use Pestilence twice over Blood Strike and save on Icy Touch and Plague Strike, but truth is you lose DPS doing that. Scourge Strike has four chances to proc in a full rotation so it can make your rotation more flexible and even fun, however the rotation isn’t dependent on it so if it doesn’t proc it isn’t a big deal. Still, in the end, personal choice dictates that particular glyph slot more than anything else.

Rotation: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Blood Strike x2, Runic Dump, Scourge Strike x3, Runic Dump

Apply Frost Fever, apply Blood Plague, big hit, blood rune to death rune, blood rune to death rune again, use up runic power. Then big hit, big hit, another big hit, and again use up runic power and start over. If Glyph of Scourge Strike went off feel free to use a SS over the opening IT and PS, but as always 100% disease uptime rules all.

Sigils: [Sigil of Awareness] or [Sigil of Arthritic Binding]

You just can’t beat increased Scourge Strikes with an unholy build. There has been mention of the epic sigils from Naxxrama becoming available via venders in patch 3.1 and the blue quality sigils are all available for an hour of solo PvP play in Grizzly Hills.

Runeforging: Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Yes it got nerfed, but not too badly and blood and unholy just don’t work well with any of the other offensive runes.

Unholy Two-Hand DPS: 12/0/59

This is the unholy DPS build you want to go with on patch day. It gives you better single target damage and aggro management while your tanks are learning the new content. Once you’ve geared up from Ulduar you can then switch over to the 0/10/61 build without any change to your glyphs or rotation.

Rotation, Sigils, and Runeforging are all the same as Unholy 0/10/61 build listed above.

Blood Two-Hand DPS: 51/2/18

This blood build competes very well with the unholy builds for raid DPS. In most testing it is just under the unholy builds, so in practice it is very possible a blood death knight could out perform an unholy death knight. As before blood provides some nice survivability features, certainly nothing to ignore in the early days of the patch and learning new raid content.

The Death Strike glyph along with talents and class changes makes Death Strike a hard hitter worthy of replacing Obliterate, especially if the extra survivability matters to you.

Rotation: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike x2, Death Strike, Runic Dump, Death Strike, Heart Strike x4, Runic Dump

Apply Frost Fever, apply Blood Plague, good hit, good hit, big hit, then use up runic power (but the more you keep the bigger your upcoming DS is going to be, just use up enough to not waste what you are about to generate). Next a big hit, good hit, good hit, good hit, still spamming the good hit, and again use up your runic power.

Sigils: [Sigil of Haunted Dreams], [Sigil of Awareness], or [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience]

Up your primary attack, Heart Strike if you have the epic. Sigil of Awareness is being changed to include Death Strike, so it is also viable. Otherwise boosting Icy Touch is your next best option. There has been mention of the epic sigils from Naxxrama becoming available via venders in patch 3.1 and the blue quality sigils are all available for an hour of solo PvP play in Grizzly Hills.

Runeforging: Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Yes it got nerfed, but not too badly and blood and unholy just don’t work well with any of the other offensive runes.

Frost Two-Hand DPS: 13/51/7

Frost DPS comes in last of the trees, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to the loyal fans. On the bright side the patch changes should have increased your DPS output with frost by about 10%. As before Obliterate beats Howling Blast except in AoE situations.

Rotation: Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Obliterate, Blood Strike x2, Frost Strike, Obliterate, Frost Strike, Obliterate x2, Frost Strike

Apply Frost Fever, apply Blood Plague, big hit, blood rune to death rune, blood rune to death rune again, Frost Strike specifically to use up runic power. Next comes a big hit, another runic power dump, then big hit, big hit, and once again a runic power dump.

Sigils: [Sigil of Awareness] or [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience]

Assuming you aren’t going crazy with Howling Blast then upping Obliterate is your best bet. Otherwise boost your Icy Touch. There has been mention of the epic sigils from Naxxrama becoming available via venders in patch 3.1 and the blue quality sigils are all available for an hour of solo PvP play in Grizzly Hills.

Runeforging: Rune of Razorice

Frost took too big of a hit from the Fallen Crusader nerf so Razorice is now coming out on top.

A while ago I started to work toward getting an [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]. It is by far the best trinket available for death knight DPS and, if you can spare some defensive stats, is pretty good for tanking as well (threat and parry). There are actually four types of this card and they are earned by completing Darkmoon Nobles Deck, which itself requires you to collect the nobles cards 2 through 8 and the ace. The cards themselves are created by inscriptors via Darkmoon Card of the North, but the created card is random so it can be any of the numbers and of any of the four new decks introduced in Wrath. Oh yeah, fun with expensive mats and the random number generator to come.

The Darkmoon Faire cards needed to get the trinket are very expensive on the auction house. A full deck will easily cost you 8,000 gold or more, depending on the market on your realm. Because of the various trinkets offered as rewards it is a best in slot item for most classes. To make things worst the other deck cards, which can be randomly created, are of very little value to PvE raiders which only increases the value of the noble cards.

I decided to take a longer but cheaper approach to getting my trinket. Instead of buying the cards I had them made. This still required a significant investment for the raw materials and finding an inscriptor or two who didn’t mind spamming their buttons.

The details may vary based on your realm’s market, but I ended up buying just [Adder's Tongue] to get the ink made. That ends up making way more [Ink of the Sea] than you need and not nearly enough [Snowfall Ink]. Luckily in patch 3.0.8 Blizzard added the ability to trade in ten Ink of the Sea for one Snowfall Ink. So I would buy up 42 stacks (840) of Adder’s Tongue and that would give me enough ink for 8-10 cards total. I did that twice, got lucky with the cards created, and got most of my cards.

I ended up with six of the eight cards needed, bought the seventh at a really low price and then bought the last card at normal price. Including the cost of all the mats and the cards I had to buy I spent over 5,200 gold. Now the trick to making this cheaper than buying just the cards is selling off the left over cards you don’t want. As I said most of the other decks aren’t popular so the cards range anything from 10 to 300 gold in value. If you get a duplicate nobles card, however, that’s a big bonus. I’m not quite done selling my cards but so far I’ve made up half of the gold I spent. That number won’t increase by any large amounts at this point, so the trinket still cost me 2,600 gold easily, but that is a far cry from the 12,000 gold the full deck usually goes for on my realm.

If gold is a problem for you then the trinket isn’t worth it, but if you have some coin to invest in gear and you are willing to wait the month or two it takes to get everything together and visit the Darkmoon Faire then it is possible for a reasonable amount. I wouldn’t recommend card making for profit, there is just too much random chance and a big up front investment.

Blue socket gems are a bane for DPS classes. At best a blue gem provides you with half the DPS value of our favorite gem, [Bold Scarlet Ruby]. Socket bonuses aren’t worth going beyond an all strength gem strategy, given they are usually small amounts of secondary DPS stats or even worse, stamina. However we have to use blue socket gems
for one thing that makes it worth the trouble: meta gems.

The three favorite death knight meta gems are [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond], [Relentless Earthsiege Diamond], and [Swift Skyflare Diamond].

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond gives us 0.46% chance to crit, Relentless Earthsiege Diamond gives us 0.34% chance to crit (remember crit rating > agility), and Swift Skyflare Diamond gives us a lot of attack power. These are all measurable, as you’ll see in a minute. Their secondary stats are not, but we can judge them. The crit-based gems both give 3% bonus to crit damage, which is really nice and what makes meta gems worth while. The AP gem gives us 8% run speed, which is useless if you run with an unholy death knight (which you should have) who provides a superior run speed buff for everyone (which they should). Ah, but how do these all stack up when we take their gem requirements into account? Let’s run the numbers, shall we.

Here are the gems we’re dealing with and their stat weight values:

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond – 987
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond – 651
Swift Skyflare Diamond – 1722

Smooth Autumn’s Glow – 752
Sovereign Twilight Opal – 800
We’re going to assume hit cap without gemming and that there are several Bold Scarlet Ruby already socketed for red gem requirements

Now let’s try the various combinations, ignoring gemming bonuses for the moment:

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond + Sovereign Twilight Opal x2 = 2587
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond + Smooth Autumn’s Glow + Sovereign Twilight Opal = 2203
Swift Skyflare Diamond + Smooth Autumn’s Glow x2 = 3226

So at first glance Swift Skyflare Diamond looks to be the winner. But let’s remember it gives a run speed bonus that may be useless to you, compared to the 3% bonus to crit damage (which isn’t scored here) of the other meta gems. The min/max theorycrafters put the 3% bonus to crit way ahead of speed bonus because (as min/max players) they assume Unholy Aura is up.

If we go with the theorycrafters then Chaotic Skyflare Diamond pulls out as the clear winner. It is a significantly better meta gem and its support gems also score higher. To add to this, before patch 3.0.8 our best blue gem was actually [Balanced Twilight Opal] which scores lower than Sovereign Twilight Opal, however even then Chaotic Skyflare Diamond comes out as a clear winner. At best gem bonuses which favor Relentless Earthsiege Diamond increases the score by up to 800, so bonuses could make it the winner but those will be unusual cases and something you’ll need to determine on your own.

You’ll note there are also weapon links here. For whatever reason this method allows for weapon DPS to be scored. It it worth noting that in many cases you should be more concerned with a weapon’s base damage than its DPS or stats, but a quick guide to look at doesn’t hurt.

Among the many features of Wowhead is their gear compare feature. It is a nice way to compare the stats between two or more pieces of gear and is a principle way I go over my gear wish list. A less used aspect of the compare page is the stat weight score.

Stat weighting allows you to assign a fixed numeric score to a piece of gear, based on its stats. Each stat is giving a fixed amount of points, usually ranging from 1 to 100 on Wowhead but any fixed range works, and Wowhead then calculates a final score based on how much each stat is worth and how many of that stat the item has. For example strength is usually worth 100 (being our best DPS stat) so 10 strength on an item gives the item a score of 1,000. If the item also has 5 crit rating, which is worth 47 in the stat weight presets I’ll go over, then the item is worth 1,235 (1,000 from the strength, 235 from the crit).

The system isn’t perfect, but it is a great tool to use for quick comparison of gear. Wowhead has built-in presets for Blood, Frost, and Unholy DPS specs and Frost tank specs. The presets are pretty good, but they can be improved upon and Wowhead allows one to create custom stat weight values. It is important to keep in mind that death knight theorycrafting, which is how we come by the numbers used, is still in its infancy compared to the other classes. Values can change as the class is balanced and new talent builds are found. For now, however, I like to think the stat weights I use for my own gear are pretty accurate for what we know today.

Below are the stat weight setups I use on Wowhead. You should note there is no way to save these as presets, even if you have a Wowhead account, however you can reuse the links to set the values and Wowhead will remember your compare page changes if you come back on the same computer and browser. You can use the Wowhead default presets if you like, but a big gap with them is that they don’t value gem slots or agility and they don’t take hit cap into account. There are also little things people may want to change, such as giving armor value in a DPS stat weight because of Bladed Armor talent.

The two DPS stat weights are generic. I took the values usually assigned for blood, frost, and unholy builds and averaged them out. You can tweak the generic DPS stat weights for your build if you wish, but I only consider that if I have two items I just can’t decide between otherwise, and even then I can usually do the final decision on my own. The tank stat weight is good for frost and unholy tank builds. All death knight tanks want the same defensive stats and both rely on both melee and spells for threat.

Finally, here is the combined stat weights in one link. DPS hit capped is top, DPS + hit is middle, and tank is bottom. Enter this into your usual Wowhead browser, click the Save button on the page, and any new items you add to compare will come up with all three scores.

Minor Glyphs

These are easy. There are only three good minor glyphs, and they are good for any build of DPS or tanking death knight.

[Glyph of Horn of Winter]
[Glyph of Pestilence]
[Glyph of Raise Dead]

[Glyph of Blood Tap] might be useful, but what’s 6% of your base health in a raid environment? [Glyph of Corpse Explosion] would be really neat when it happened, if only Corpse Explosion wasn’t lame. And again, in a raid environment, you should be healing yourself or your ghoul so [Glyph of Death?s Embrace] is useless.

Major Glyphs

Now we get some glyph distinction between DPS builds and tanking, but you may be surprised at the amount of overlap there is.

[Glyph of Bone Shield] – If you get Bone Shield this is a must, whether DPS or tank.

[Glyph of Death and Decay] – This is really a generic “meh, there’s nothing better” glyph.

[Glyph of Frost Strike] – A strong filler glyph for deep frost specs.

[Glyph of the Ghoul] – If you spec for a permanent ghoul this is a must.

[Glyph of Icebound Fortitude] – A must have for any tank builds.

[Glyph of Icy Touch] – The standard raid glyph for all DPS specs.

[Glyph of Obliterate] – Good for blood builds and frost builds not focused on Howling Blast.

[Glyph of Plague Strike] – Another generic “I got nothing better” glyph. Not you’ll want to start using Icy Touch before Plague Strike with this in your rotation if you aren’t already.

Examples of build and glyph combinations:

Blood DPS – Icy Touch, Obliterate, Plague Strike

Frost DPS – Frost Strike, Icy Touch, Obliterate

Unholy DPS – Bone Shield, Ghoul, and Icy Touch

Dual Wield – Bone Shield or Frost Strike (depending on exact spec), Ghoul, Icy Touch

Unholy Tank – Bone Shield, Death and Decay, Icebound Fortitude

In the end choose your glyphs based on your talents, your rotation, and what abilities you actually use on a regular basis, the most powerful of which take precedent. Glyphs can add a lot to your performance so treat them like you do enchanting and gemming your gear.

As you’ve no doubt heard patch 3.0.8 is being rolled out. You can all thank me for the roll out, I respected and got some gear enchanted on Monday so now I get to respec again Tuesday and pine over the wasted enchanting mats.

If you’ve kept up with the various changes in this patch you know death knight changes are significant. The changes from the launch of the public test realms to today have also been significant. We’ve been teased with changes only for them to be taken away. Check out Blizzard for the official patch notes (as of this posting they aren’t up, but will be at the link provided). I also love MMO Champion’s coverage of patches, as they cover the notes and the stuff left out of them. I don’t want to do a point by point reposting of death knight changes this patch, but there are certainly plenty of items worth highlighting.

Class Changes

Lots of buffs and nerfs. This patch is a big part of our class balance. Keep in mind that we’re a few years behind the balancing curve so expect us to get what may feel like more than our fair share of changes for a while. You definitely want to go over them all and consider making changes to your talents, skills you use, and maybe even your glyphs. The more notable ones include:

• Horn of Winter, which now gives us runic power instead of using it.
• Killing Machine, which isn’t as drool worthy for dual wielders as it once was.
• Night of the Dead, which gives unholy death knight ghouls a chance to actually survive a boss fight.
• Raise Dead, which is now two spells on two cooldowns, ones for your ghoul and one for raising another player as a ghoul.

Item Changes

• [Ring of the Kirin Tor] is now available if you have the gold. It is better than any agility based DPS ring but it is weaker than the few strength based DPS epic rings available.
• [Spiked Titansteel Helm] is losing some strength but will gain crit and a blue gem slot.
• [Sigil of Arthritic Binding], [Sigil of the Wild Buck], and [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience] have been added and are easy to get. All three are an upgrade over the start area sigil.
• Enchanting mats for recipes have changed, a lot. Most of our favorite enchants are included in the changes. Be sure to look up the new mats before your next enchant. Overall it should make your enchants cheaper.

Tanking Changes

A lot of the larger changes are specific for tanking. Overall Blizzard is making it easier for the new death knight tank to get geared up for heroics and raids and making our ability to handle damage less spiky (which isn’t as big of a deal for you, but it is for your healer).

• Frost Presence has been buffed for better full time damage mitigation. In exchange Icebound Fortitude and Bone Shield have been nerfed for lesser short term mitigation.
• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle, a new rune for our two-handed weapons, grants 25 defense (or 123 defense rating) and 2% increase to our stamina. Some people are thinking the 4% parry rune will still compete as a tank rune, but I doubt it. Stoneskin Gargoyle opens up a lot of gem and enchant options for those heavy in defense with those, and even if you are past that with your gear the defense is still bonus dodge, parry, and miss.
• Rune Strike’s damage is getting nerfed but its threat increased. This puts it more in line with its original intent as a backup aggro strike, not a ZOMGWTFBBQ PvP strike.
• [Glyph of Death and Decay] is losing its cower feature, which is sad, but it is getting 20% more damage in exchange, which is good for aggro.
• [Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight] is good for the new death knight tank desperate for more defense. Personally I’m thinking of getting [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience] for the extra initial aggro.
• [Tempered Titansteel Helm] is gaining a meta gem slot and a blue gem slot. To be honest, though, I’m still not sure it would be an upgrade over my [Arcane-Shielded Helm]. I’d be trading a lot of dodge for stamina, some armor, and some defense.
• Bonus armor on any item (armor in green text) now no longer get multiplied by any talent or Frost Presence.

PvP Changes

PvP is something I’ve gotten more into as an in game hobby, so look for some postings about it later on.

• Vehicles can now be affected by any spell that doesn’t affect speed, so now we can disease up those siege engines before we start smacking them. I bet they make for great Death Strike targets when low on health.
• [Titan-forged Plate Helm of Triumph], [Titan-forged Greaves of Triumph], and [Anvil of Titans] are now available as epic PvP gear for [Wintergrasp Mark of Honor]. Unless you are competitive in arenas these are excellent, and fairly easy to get, PvP items. The hit rating really makes the helm and greaves especially a must have pre-arena gear.
• Our PvP glove bonus has been changed from a cooldown reduction on Strangulate to chance that your Frost Rune will refresh when you cast Chains of Ice.
• Overall a lot of our skill changes were based on PvP balance. This is certainly not the first Blizzard has affected PvE in the name of balancing PvP.

The Taketh Away

Not everything we were once told will be coming to pass.

• The new two-handed tanking sword and axe crafted by blacksmiths have been removed and will not come back. In short Blizzard was worried about death knight tanks keeping them through multiple raid tiers and they feel the new tanking rune and sigil will take care of our early defense needs.
• Howling Blast still has a cool down. However it has been changed to 5 seconds (from 6 seconds) to better match the 10 second rune refresh cycle.
• Howling Blast and Killing Machine changes have really put down the idea of every death knight going dual wield with two fast weapons for max DPS. Further testing after the patch will give more info, but for now it looks like two-handers are still just as viable as dual wielding and frost isn’t necessarily the top DPS tree.