[Deathknight] PvP Thread

thevidon · 11/25/08, 11:40 AM

To start this off - a few questions:

How many of our effects can be dispelled? Bone Armor? Icebound Fortitude? Lichborne? Unbreakable Armor?

Any ideas for partners in the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets?

What does Hungering Cold share diminishing returns with?

If Hungering Cold isn't a 'must have' then I like this build: Frost/Unholy - 45/26

It gives you all of the burst and mitigation from frost (as well as frost fever snare), and adds gargoyle, stun/fear reduction and full time ghoul + ghoul stun from Unholy. There is probably some more optimized version of this build that I'm not seeing, but you get the point here. If you don't take hungering cold it leaves a lot of room to play in unholy with the pvp helpful talents.

Faerlun · 11/25/08, 12:58 PM

I would never put gargoyle in a PvP build - it is quite difficult to keep active, even as full unholy, in a raid situation requiring in and out moving. Now in a PvP situation you'll be landing even significantly less attacks, the chances of keeping your gargoyle up is almost nill. In addition, you should be saving runic power for stuff like mind freeze, and gargoyle drains it if it is there - no saving.

thevidon · 11/25/08, 1:03 PM

Originally Posted by Faerlun

I would never put gargoyle in a PvP build - it is quite difficult to keep active, even as full unholy, in a raid situation requiring in and out moving. Now in a PvP situation you'll be landing even significantly less attacks, the chances of keeping your gargoyle up is almost nill. In addition, you should be saving runic power for stuff like mind freeze, and gargoyle drains it if it is there - no saving.

It is not an ability I expect to use with regularity.....but for one point that deep into the tree its worth having situationally for burst. I'm not sure 1 extra point in impurity is worth losing the option to use gargoyle. Just because its not the greatest PvP talent doesn't mean its worthless.

imabearlol · 11/25/08, 1:43 PM

For a Frost PvP build without Hungering Cold, I was actually thinking of something like Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft.

Pros:

Unholy:
The tier two talents are all pretty good for PvP.
-Death Grip should be used a lot especially in arenas to counter pillar humpers
-Epidemic as DKs are prone to being kited, diseases should last as long as possible to get any Obliterates off without having to reapply.
-30% dispel resist would help also.
I don't believe it's worthwhile to go further to get On A Pale Horse, the other talents are pretty trash.

Frost:
-With Icebound Fortitude glyph, you will get 18 seconds of 50% damage reduction for 0 RP which can be huge.
-Frost Aura might also be useful, providing fairly decent (80) resistance vs casters.

Blood:
-I believe more Oblit crits and AP is more useful than Hungering Cold or going further in Unholy, depending on the bracket and setup. Obviously if the CC is required, then points would probably come out of Blood than any other tree.
-The last 4 points should also probably go in this tree, either in Dark Conviction or Two-Hand Weapon Specialisation, whichever provides more dps.

Cons:
-No Mark of Blood, very useful vs non-dispellers and Rogues.
-No Rune Tap.
-No AMZ.

This spec is fairly bursty as with any Frost spec, but also provides good defense through Icebound Fortitude.

Mendit · 11/25/08, 1:53 PM

I like deep unholy for pvp for some reason, something really appeals to me about bone shield. I agree with Faerlun on garg requiring extreme luck and timing to be efficient, and leeching runic power away from other abilities. For that reason I left it out of the spec I am considering. I also chose to couple unholy with blood for it's low/mid tier crit talents. I also considered leaving out scourge strike, as I anticipate replacing that rune usage with death strike for arena. This is the spec I am considering.

Let me know how you feel about it.

Frostx · 11/25/08, 9:30 PM

After some world pvp with my frost-tank specced DK, i've found snares to be extremely important for a DK in pvp. My personal opinion is that Unholy is the only viable pvp spec. Frost with hungering cold can definitely fit into niche roles but overall it doesn't have enough ways for you to catch your target - also your main RP dump is melee.

As unholy you have Desecration which, when used with the Blood Boil glyph, gives you a snare on every rune - Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Blood Boil. Unholy's Reaping is also the only Death Rune talent that converts blood boil into Death Runes. 15% movement speed from Unholy Aura and -20% Fear+Stun duration from On a Pale Horse, together with controllable Ghoul stuns and extremely good anti-burst protection from Icebound Fortitude + Bone Armor really makes the spec shine.

Currently i'm leaning towards this spec: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=020908040506

Amera · 11/26/08, 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by thevidon

How many of our effects can be dispelled? Bone Armor? Icebound Fortitude? Lichborne? Unbreakable Armo

I don't actually think anything is dispellable. I checked tonight and even bloody vengeance isn't. Can someone confirm Lichborne?

Edit: Correction, vengeance is, but it is a stack.

Lazak · 11/26/08, 2:38 AM

I played a Premade BE Deathknight in the European Beta, where i played 2v2 Arena with a Premade Retribution Paladin.
We got to 1870 and got Deadly Gloves. I would say we were very succesfull with a great or descent chance against all setups we faced. Some were even walkovers.

My final spec was: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Arguments:
Desecration is a must have. You need all the slowing effects you can get, and a mini frost trap with a non-dispellable slow fits the bill.
I took 5/5 Bladed Armour over 4/5 Dark Conviction because some of my abilities scale of AP and not Crit (Dots, Gargoyle, Unholy Blight)
Improved Runetap is too good to give up.
Gargoyle, at least in beta, was something like 1600 dps while it was out. Its insane burst. You dont need the full 1 min duration. You pop it, when you know you are going to burst. Like after a divine shield has gone down.

Debatable:
Unholy aura is there, because i wanted to use Blood Presence for pvp. I did not feel like i needed the 1.0 GCD from uholy presence, but i needed the 15% faster movement.

Cronjob · 11/26/08, 8:30 AM

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is the build I'm going with. Its very anti-caster and also very anti melee.

Key Points:

Bladed Armor - Is really good especially combined with Frost Aura and Impurity. Basically you get a huge armor boost in Frost Aura which boosts your AP due to Bladed Armor which means your spells hit harder because of Impurity. There seems to be a lot of syngery there.

Toughness - Again combined with Bladed Armor boosts AP

Lichborne - I think this is a must have for PVP, its essentially a 3min CD WOTF on steroids. Not only does it break and then make you immune to fear effects it also is like a Mini Evasion which is nice against melee.

Gargoyle - Really adds a ton of burst dps and in arenas it can be used to finish someone. I've noticed in world PVP that using this CD can make or break a fight sometimes. More often than not it lets me pull off a win that otherwise wouldnt have been. This also helps when someone happens to get a good kite rotation on you, you pop this guy and their mindset changes a bit.

Impurity - As stated before this really works well when combined with other talents.

AMS - From what I've seen this really helps against mages especially who get us at range and against other DK's. Keeping a frost DK in the AMS for its duration really gives me a the upper hand. In most cases I have found that instead of dps'ing me they focus on getting out of it, while I focus on keeping them in and applying pressure.

Boneshield - Really good damage reduction, even better when the CD is up and you can reapply back to back.

Desecration - Our mini frost trap, I took Icy Reach so that if they do get out of my range I can reach out and touch them with chains 10 yards further

Only ones I'm not sure about yet are Anticipation and maybe Blade Barrier. Again I wanted to be both anti caster and anti melee so I took those but might tweak it a bit.

Cronjob · 11/26/08, 8:43 AM

Originally Posted by Frostx

As unholy you have Desecration which, when used with the Blood Boil glyph, gives you a snare on every rune - Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Blood Boil. Unholy's Reaping is also the only Death Rune talent that converts blood boil into Death Runes. 15% movement speed from Unholy Aura and -20% Fear+Stun duration from On a Pale Horse, together with controllable Ghoul stuns and extremely good anti-burst protection from Icebound Fortitude + Bone Armor really makes the spec shine.

Actually I think for snaring Frost is better because of chillblains which makes your Icy Touch a ranged snare unlike Unholy's Plague Strike which is melee range. With Frost it was easier to keep say a hunter in range because as he frost trap kited or concussion shot kited, I could range Icy Touch spam to keep him close until chains or death grip was up. Same with a Druid trying to run, I could IT spam to keep snareing him.

As for Glyphs I found that the blood boil one wasnt really that useful for me. I found that Glyph of Icebound Fortitude to be much more useful. It makes your IBF cost no runic power which means you can preload it or use it anytime. You can ruin a rogues day by trinketing and popping this right away from the start or by preloading it going into a fight against a Ret Pally. They expect to be able to stun you from the start and when they cant it forces them to be defensive.

Lazak · 11/26/08, 9:36 AM

Originally Posted by Cronjob

..., I could range Icy Touch spam to keep him close until chains or death grip was up. Same with a Druid trying to run, I could IT spam to keep snareing him.
.

Icy Touch and Chains of Ice share the same cost/cooldown: Frost Rune. Or did you mean something else?
Also, When chasing druids, i assume, that by spam, you mean use 2 Icy Touch in a 10 second window?

More relevant to the discussion:
I like Desecration for the undispellable slow. The slow from Frost Fever or the Chains of Ice are both dispellable. Especially against a healing priest, this can lead to long kiting sessions and drawn out fights.

Death Grip -> Plague Strike leads to a priest running at 50% speed that cannot be dispelled.

Skytso · 11/26/08, 10:34 AM

If you're going into Unholy I don't see why you wouldn't get Desecration... Just look at the arms reaching out of the ground! It's sure to inspire fear in any arena team!

Any idea if you can drop multiple Desecrations?

Cronjob · 11/26/08, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Lazak

Icy Touch and Chains of Ice share the same cost/cooldown: Frost Rune. Or did you mean something else?
Also, When chasing druids, i assume, that by spam, you mean use 2 Icy Touch in a 10 second window?

More relevant to the discussion:
I like Desecration for the undispellable slow. The slow from Frost Fever or the Chains of Ice are both dispellable. Especially against a healing priest, this can lead to long kiting sessions and drawn out fights.

Death Grip -> Plague Strike leads to a priest running at 50% speed that cannot be dispelled.

I'll have to go back and test but basically it seemed that IT was up when Chains weren't. Might of had something to do with my DG/Chains macro I was running before. But if I recall I could alternate and slightly stack the timers when I went IT/Chains rotations. Its been awhile since I was frost though so I'd have to go test it again.

imabearlol · 11/26/08, 11:07 AM

With Endless Winter in Frost you can use Chains of Ice to double as both a snare and Frost Fever application. This is extremely helpful as it saves a Frost rune for Obliterate/trinket etc. Icy Touch can still be used against a Melee beating on you. It's arguably more useful than Desecration which any competent PvPer will move out of.

I don't really see a use for Chillblains if you use Chains of Ice in this way. You can always get the glyph if you like the damage aspect. The damage sounds low, but most DK abilities do. I haven't tested it so don't know exactly how much it does with X AP. Would be great to hear some feedback from someone who has.

The main advantages Unholy have over Frost is most attacks bypassing armor. Bone Shield and AMZ are also better defenses than 6 more seconds and UA in Frost. However, I just believe the burst potential is bigger in Frost which in the end is what wins most games.

outlivinglife · 11/26/08, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Skytso

Any idea if you can drop multiple Desecrations?

I'm pretty sure you can cause I was fighting a mob and another mob attacked me while i was finishing the fight up, and the first one died before I could use pestilence so I had to put my diseases up on the second mob and there ended up being two desecrations on the ground. However, it could've just been that the first desecration's graphic was still there while it was fading out, but I don't think so.

Also, the talent in the frost tree, Lichborne, says you become undead. Does this mean you become susceptible to effects such as Shackle Undead (Priest) and Turn Undead (Pally)? I know blizzard made the Druid's Tree of Life susceptible to the Warlock's Banish so it would seem that this would be a factor they might've added in.