Cabal

Like I said before, why would I want to use IT when in melee range?

 

• Darkside

Who said you're using it in melee range? It's amazing when you want to do a quick target swap; wait for a KM proc, swap then pop deathchill and land two 5k+ hits on your target.

<XI|> if your dog barks do you debate the philosophical reason behind him barking
<XI|> no
<XI|> you say shut up idiot

 

Stoical

In arenas, even when you're being kited, it's not like you're full-time out of melee range. You're in with grip, out again, in from chains, out again, etc. Because of this, KM is great both where you're being kited and where you want to do a quick target swap; you get the proc from your time in melee, then use the proc on someone out of melee range or when you lose contact.

 

Lurne

Can someone post a link to the 44/27 frost build? I tried searching, I looked through the thread and while it is mentioned, I can't find a link.

 

Whatev

If Blizzard really decides to go ahead with their decision to make Chilblains a tier 1 talent, even this sacrifice won't be necessary.

 

Kalitse

There are 4 options for how to spend U and F runes: SS, Ob, HB and DS. Which is the most DPS?

My logic:
Against Low armor: Ob
Against high armor: SS
Against multiples: HB
When low on health: DS

Obviously you can't have access to HB and SS. With all the modifiers you can get through talents it's hard to see which one would give the highest consistent DPS in a PvP environment.

My DK is 69 and I'm going to be playing some BGs to stock up on points while I'm pretty OP while waiting to fill up my rest XP. This is the build I was thinking of going with:

Shadowfrost

Based on what I read here I thought that going with Ob as my big hit would be better than SS, but I have no math to back it up. Any suggestions?

Also, from an Arena point of view, is Frost Strike's "Cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried" as good as it seems?

 

• Lanky

Yes. It also hits ferociously hard for a 32 RP attack, and will only hit harder in 3.1. However, In arenas it does require you to use about 75 Spell Penetration to get past Paladin / Druid and Mage resistances, because the 130 SR from frost aura takes a huge chunk of its damage away.

FS is also fastastic versus Rgoues (obviously), guarenteed damage, and it pulls a lot of your killing machine procs, upping its crit rate.

 

Xephos

I know that Unholy is still the king of PvP specs, but I wonder if that's gonna change next patch. I know Obliterate is getting punched in the guts but the Blood tree is getting decidedly healthier with the DRW duration glyph, 10% armor penetration and insta-death coils on HS.

I've been playing about with Blood for a long time and have recently been having enormous fun with this Blood/Frost arena spec in 2v2: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

We hit 2100 rating last week (we've dropped down a little since, but np) and I made a video about it: YouTube - How To: Melt faces as a Blood DK in arena

I'm sure DRW+hysteria is going to get crushed in the same way as the paladin and mage cooldowns like AP+PoM were blocked, but until then it is insanely enjoyable if you can find a good healer and use cc breakers intelligently.

The YOGSCAST: www.yogscast.com

 

• frmorrison

Lots of DK changes, just showing the PvP related ones:

Fallen Crusader is 15% instead of 30% of strength

Death Knight (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Frost

* Howling Blast damage has been doubled (from 259-281 to 518-562 for max rank), cooldown changed from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
* Frost Presence now reduces spell damage taken by 10%. (Down from 15%)
* Guile of Gorefiend now increases damage done by your Blood Strike, Frost Strike, Howling Blast and Obliterate abilities by 5/10/15%. (Old - Critical damage only, 15/30/45%)
* Lichborne doesn't increase the chance of your enemies to miss you anymore.

Blood

* Dancing Rune Weapon now lasts 20 sec (up from 10sec) and last 2 (up from 1 sec) sec per 5 additional runic power but attacks for ?% reduced damage.
* Will of the Necropolis now cannot occur more often than once every 15 sec.
* Might of Mograine now increase all damage done by your Blood Boil, Blood Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, and Obliterate abilities by 3/7/10%. (Old - Critical damage only, 10/20/30%)
* Vampiric Blood cooldown has been increased from 1 min to 2 min.
* Blade Barrier now decrease damage taken by 1/2/3/4/5% for 10 sec.

Unholy

* Bone Shield cooldown has been increased from 1min to 2min.
* Blood-Caked Blade proc limitation has been removed. (Old - This effect cannot occur more often than once every 3 sec.)
* Outbreak now Increases the damage of Plague Strike by 10/20/30% (Down from 15/30/45%) and Scourge Strike by 7/13/20%. (Down from 10/20/30%)

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

doror

I am a great fan of Frost strike and have a variation of the 44/27 build. I see no use for the Gargoyle which is higly situational especially because of Frost strike which you use the rp for.

Here is the build Talent build

Plz tell me what you think. I am not sure about the unholy talents, I think epidemic is not needed because of the IT spam. Outbreak is also unnecceassary since plague strike and blood boil would seldom be used.

Some points can also be moved in frost, probably more in runic power mastery and less in Merciless combat.

 

Joink

I really hope that if the only spec's worth playing rely on diseases, that dispel protection is buffed. 30% chance with diseases that can't be spammed along with good damage output vs spammable dispel is not enough. Reason why blood(drw) and icy touch builds in pvp do so well is because of this. Both of which are completely not viable come 3.1. I really don't want to spend my arena matches constantly throwing out diseases then hoping virulence kicks in long enough that I can then use my damaging abilities and not worry about reapplying IT/PS.

 

Aezoc

Agreed. Or alternately, something like an aff lock's UA to make people think twice about just spamming dispels. Considering that we're losing a significant % of weapon damage when using our strikes without diseases in 3.1, I would say that we're going to be much more reliant on our diseases sticking than most other classes are on similar effects. So 30% dispel resistance across the board seems a little lop-sided to me. Giving each of the diseases a short-duration debuff on dispel (maybe casting speed reduction for FF and a MS effect for BP or something) would at least mean dispelling isn't the no-brainer strategy against DKs that it is today.

 

Sadiera

It seems that people are missing the point of Shadowfrost a little. It is pretty good for PvE dps but you can produce better by using another spec. Shadowfrost was "invented" for PvP to neglect the biggest weakness of the Death Knight which is being kited by buffing the hell out of Icy Touch by investing in pretty much every single talent that boosts it's damage.

My current Shadowfrost build looks can be found here.

Glyphs are Icy Touch, Blood Boil and Ghoul. Sigil is [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience]. By doing this I can apply constant pressure to any ranged and keep them snared through Chains of Ice or Blood Boil.

If you want to use Shadowfrost for PvE you should spend one point in Scourge Strike and shift some other stuff. The idea remains though but now you will be using Scourge Strike whenever you don't have a Killing Machine buff ready.

 

Varlak

I am a DK my brother is a holy paladin (but want to spec ret for PvP) and his GF have both a warlock and a rogue.

Wich one would do a bether job with a ret paly and a DK. Her rogue or her Warlock ?

 

ZenDeath

I really like this build and have pretty much the same build (seen here). I use Obliterate as my main nuke so I have three points in Annihilation to keep my dots up. I took a point out of night of the dead to make up for that point. I also don't have Gargoyle since I don't ever seem to use it, or when I want to I don't have enough RP. I put that point into Epidemic to keep my dots up longer. I do mostly world pvp and BGs, not sure how this would work in arenas since I don't play arenas.

 

mangofreshh

what's the basic DPS rotation for DK 21frost/50unholy with deathchill) in arena (2's specifically) IT -> PS -> Obliterate? does BS go in anywhere between?

 

• Lanky

There is no rotation.. Get 4 Death Runes and fatfinger Icy touch and Deathcoils for your burst.

Good lord.



On another note: 53 / 18 Blood Frost gained us about 70 points or so (to 2070), before losing some to hunter / shaman. (Purge on BoF plus frost trap is... well... basically impossible to beat).

The spec is pure idiot overpowered faceroll and as long as you can count to 130 and press the strike buttons you should be able to use it to get to at least 2k, which I detest. That said, I'm using it while it lasts, and I would absolutely recommend it over Shadowfrost any day of the week, the opponents I hit with DRW up fall right the fuck over, it is truly unfair and needs (is getting) a huge nerf.

 

gorulk69

im leveling a dk atm and im pretty experienced in arenas. in s2 i i got a 2.4k rating with lock/hunter/druid (i know ez mode). but I wanted to try my hand at a dk for a sec see how i like it. I'm currently 73 450 engineering and 450 mining which I am going to switch out with either jc or bs. but i've seen alot of high rated dk's mainly in 2.4-2.5k bracket using 0/20/51 i think. Since i see more of that over the mark of blood unholy spec i was wondering if any exceptional dk's would comment on priority just strikes not including scourge strike because they didnt grab it. and what would be the best glyphs for that build and they also have the idol which makes their icy touch hit hard. if i could get some feed back i would really appreciate it.

 

Illundai

The problem Blood has and something that will just plain out loose you matches is that if the opposite team play it well they can comepletely negate your damage when you're popping all your cooldowns. It's pretty fucking obvious when you're going to burst - everyone can see you build up RP and after that people can just look at their Afflicted. Getting disarmed and stunned (in case your trinket is on cd and you can't get freedom) will just make you want to claw your eyes out. Entrapment proccing just when your freedom runs out, same deal. That's why I switched from blood to SFrost a week ago at 2070.
I'm not saying it's a bad spec, but what I am saying is that Shadowfrost will win matches more often because the damage is a lot more sustained and it might be less bursty then Blood, it's still enough to kill someone in a few globals. The real power that comes from Unholy against good healers is what comes in the form of pet stun. Being able to lock a healer for 12+ seconds if you get help from your teammate is just amazing. The sad thing is, with Blood's retarded burst you can win matches by facerolling obliterate. I've won a match once by just abusing the fuck out of DRW copying everything. It was against a Priest Rogue team - I popped DRW + Hysteria at full RP. I started wailing on the Rogue so the Priest had to heal meaning he got healing aggro on DRW. I just pressed Death Grip although the Rogue was right next to me because DRW copies DG too. Result? He was in melee with me and I just completed annihilated them with HS HS OB OB -> ERW -> Strangulate (without even switching target... DRW copies Strangulate so the Priest was silenced... yeah lol) -> HS OB OB. It was absolutely ludicrous... I think it was about 45k damage in those few globals.

That said, I do think with the removal of Blood Boil glyph Shadowfrost took another hit. Having to sacrifice a both Scourge Strikes in your rotation because you have to Chains of Ice twice to catch up with someone is just not going to fly. I think the best course of action is to make the Heart Strike Glyph (which is absolutely fucking ludicrous) work with Blood Strike is the best suggestion.

If not I'll be going to swap to either Blood or Frost. Very inclined to Frost because of this spec. I'm totally baffled that Blizzard doesn't think this spec will be a problem.

Mind Freeze -> Strangulate -> Gnaw -> Mind Freeze -> Hungering Cold -> Mind Freeze. Yeah...

The biggest thing is Chillblains though - a 50% snare on your main disease (esp since CoI will apply it too) is huge. Frost Strike is more broken than Icy Touch spam on the PTR. I'm seeing ~8k crits on target dummies. Want to know the best thing? It plays EXACTLY as Shadowfrost. Icy Touch spam until max RP and then unleash the stupidness that's Frost Strike. It's going to be more burst than Shadowfrost... by far. And Hungering Cold just tops that off with even more stupid. You can allocate some points differently, I haven't really thought into it much... Might want to swap some points around near Hungering Cold perhaps.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

• Lanky

I have looked into that Spec as well, and I had a slightly different build, but not by much: Build

I put the last points in Pale Horse and the 5th point in Tundra Stalker for maximum +modifers for IT and FS. Glyphs allow your HB to snare for you, other options include dropping to RP cost on HC to 30.

You can drop 2 from Pale Horse and one from Tundra stalker to get 3/3 acclimation if casters / warlocks come back in a huge way. Acclimiation is pretty insane against dots over time, it stacks with Shadow prot aura too.


you need Improved Frost Presence, 10% free health is nothing to sneeze at, and you will be in UP most likely so you get the best overall combination of benefits there, Merciless combat is also another thing I would never drop, you want your single finishing attack on the swap target to hit as hard as humanly possible, and it gives you another 12%. Necrosis is a wash, I figure plague strike may see some use and so it gets three points. If it remains as strong as it is so far, swap a major glyph for the PS glyph.

 

Illundai

I'm very reluctant to drop OAPH just for Warlock/Paladin or Warlock/Priest teams. -20% on every fear is huge. Even if you interrupt most of them, you can't get them all.

Acclimation is a tough one I agree... amazing against Warlocks, very decent against mages... pretty much useless against everything else (or maybe except DKs for pure irony) but oh so difficult to fit in.

I'd be more inclined to remove a point out of Death Chill (I know the burst on demand is pretty awesome especially if KM procs you get two crits in a row, but where else to remove points seriously?) and 2 from TS to get Acclimation. Guess we'll have to play around with it a little.

Perhaps HB is too situational though, sure if people are right next to eachother it's great to snare both of them at once but as a ranged snare I don't think it's that useful since Icy Touch/Chains of Ice do the same. Chains of Ice applying the Chillblains is amazing against dispellers so yeah.

In other news, Ghostcrawler just posted in the Blood Boil thread:

Could be interesting.

Edit: Went to the PTR to try it out, Desecration now instantly spawns a circle (like the D&D one) that slows everyone instantly (the debuff pops up the minute you Scourge Strike). Very nice. It also no longer rapes my FPS.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Flangus

Does anyone else feel like the reliance on chains of ice is getting worked around and maybe eventually it'll be shifted out of the picture, maybe almost completely? Each tree has been given a somewhat reliable, 50% snare, each with their own way to target multiple targets and having their own perks. Blood gets a cleave-hamstring, frost gets the old bb-glyph without bloodboil, unholy basically drops a frost trap where they walk.

It seems to me that blizzard is not happy with how chains of ice worked out, might be wrong though.

edit: to clarify, this though was provoked by

 

diospadre

Yeah, I really expect all these snare changes are the leadup to either the removal or complete reworking of Chains.

 

Illundai

Chillblains being undispellable is... wow. What are they thinking?

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Aeronx

Well, I've been thinking A LOT about new builds for 3.1, and i found some issues.

First of all on this build. Frost/Unholy

I realised that you will have CC from HC, good snares that wont be dispeleable, but there's a problem, a 10 sec CD on HB. I used to spam a lot HB, at least since im at 2200+ rating and a lot of hunters seems to appear. So, it's still HB worth it?

Because when i look to this build Unholy/blood, i think, with the buff on SS, and desecration, you'll have more burst, also the gargyle got buffed, and i dont know if HB will hit harder or fewer than now, and will worth it for a 10 sec CD.

I mean, i like frost for FS and HB, you can do a lot of huge damage with on ranged, not just spaming IT. So what do you think about it? less damage and more survival with frost, or better burst and less survival with unholy? I think both builds got good and bad things, but I cant get into it yet.