why do people put talent into corpse explosion? You can't come back as a ghoul in arena? o.O

Using Serennia's own example CC/Burst rotation the difference between 4PC T7 and PVP set is the difference of a single Frost Strike.

Meaning: 7FS + 3OB (T7 4PC) versus 6FS + 3OB (No T7 4PC)

No doubt a single Frost Strike crit to finish off someone who managed to barely stay alive can be match deciding, but by no means is it a requirement.

Also despite the fact that his 4PC will put him in the 300s in resilience, Serennia insists that Unbreakable Armor is not worth the 1 talent point. If you do decide to wear 4PC... don't skip UA. It's arguably one of the best survivability skills DKs get. I'm guessing his reasoning is because he figures every team is going to tunnelvision his priest but who knows.

Also incredible when paired with GLG.

Currently I'm messing around with this frost build for pvp, what I'm curious about is glyph choice, if HB is actually worth it (I got it purely for the rime proc to use as a finisher or just some ranged dmg). Also my last question is morbidity vs necrosis since I wont be using as many DCs as I will Frost strike.

And impurity vs Tundra Stalker. Is impurity a better choice since it will always be up vs Tundra stalker which can be dispelled? I'm open to critcisim, this is my first shot as a frost DK, I'll probably end up swapping points from merciless combat to Chill of the grave.

Thanks for any input, appreciate it.

http://http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=000000000000000000000000000032025001350203002331051013512300023050230000 00000000000000&glyph=151418000000&version=9767

what about a spec like this using DS to generate death runes PS for unholy IT for frost and death and DC as RP dump.

you have your pet and most of the spell +dmg skills making your ranged attacks the main focus of this build.

Hi all,

I found something disappointing.

In patch 3.1 most all the "player pets" have now a 70% AoE avoidance. And I found that Heart Strike is considered as a AoE spell, as I hit pets at very low damages.

Class like Rogues have some AoE damage reduction. I don't know if it's intended or not, but 30% reduction for rogues, and 70% for pets of my primary attack is crap. HS is intended to replace BS, but now, Dks have to switch strike if they have a pet or a rogue in target to avoid make crap damage.

From doing some 2v2 arenas during the week in between Season 5 and Season 6, the build I'm favouring is this Frost build (I hope that the link works, I'm at work at the moment on my lunch and the web security can be tight)

Most talents are obvious, although some are interchangable. As far as I have experienced and from other DK's advice, Scent of Blood has good potential if you're feeling starved of RP. From my point of view I haven't needed it (yet) as I'm playing around a style which allows 1 minute to build full RP.

Gone is the "easy" 0/21/50 (or 0/20/51) Shadowfrost spec, where we used to chase down healers and burst them from afar, burst them from close range. I've found that matches in 2v2 have become a lot more tactical from a DK/Healer point of view. Now we need to co-ordinate stuns and use offensive cooldowns wisely. From the last week's experience I've found that the following tactic gives the best results:

1. Build 130RP by any means possible, while converting 2 Blood Runes into Death Runes. You should be concentrating on the opposing DPS while having the healer set as your focus.
2. Death Grip the healer so that both opponents are in range of a Hungering Cold, then use HC.
3. Immediately go for the DPS while the healer is frozen by HC (disclaimer, when facing a Ret Paladin, it may be better to go for the healer, as they can cleanse their healer of the HC and you're back to a 2v2 situation)
4. Utilise 4 x FS, 3 x OB, Deathchill a FS, FS again and if Rime procs then Howling Blast.
5. If needed, Stragulate the healer when HC fades, or have your healer stun / fear the opposing healer to give you more time to get the killing blow.

All the while, your healer should also be DPSing the target to aid getting the kill. If and when a healer trinkets the HC, play defensively and repeat the sequence again 1 minute later.

A lot of discussion has centred around the Glyph choice and I believe, after a bit of testing, that FS-OB-HC are the way to go. The build is focused around a 10-15 second burst period every minute, and having a lower RP cost on FS, extra damage on OB and a free HC has given me the most kills during this burst sequence. I really feel that starting a burst on 130RP is a great bonus instead of having that RP depleted when using HC.

While testing I have used 2 different armor choices, one giving ~350 and the other sitting at 700+ resilience and I have had the same amount of success in each for kills, yet feel that the lower resilience hampers my survivability by quite a long way. FP and UA when focused helps a lot, but I just feel "safer" to go about my business with the added resilience. Weapon used was Ironsoul from Ulduar-10 with FC runeforged.

We'll see how arenas play out in the coming weeks, but I was impressed by the above spec. I lost quite a few matches due to simple mistakes coming from a lack of experience at the spec, but won quite a few outside of the CC-burst sequence due to some big FS and OB crits at crucial times.

Hmmm, im using a Frost spec too, and I see something that dont understand on your tactic. HC is 40 rp -130 = 90. You've got 90 rp left, and 4xFS is 38x4=154rp.. how can u do it? Anyway i think its the way to play a frost spec. On the other hand i've seen a lot of DK healer being Unholy, and they do a lot of damage to me or my healer (pala healer). Maybe a priest Dk now its a good combo, since priest now survives a lot, and they keep fine their mana.

As the above post states, the HC Glyph means that HC will have a zero RP cost, thus you will start your damage burst sequence with full RP if you've built it up.

I've tried some arenas as my Unholy second spec and I've had a lot of problems with finishing a fight. Yes there is a greater amount of sustained damage, but I find myself being kited more due to a lack of undispelable snare, therefore having a lot less burst potential. Unholy (read Shadowfrost) builds did so well pre-3.1 due to a Glyphed BB ranged snare and a ranged burst damage ability in IT. I'm much more familiar with an Unholy build, yet feel it's become a lot more clunky in 3.1

That being said, I have only managed to play skirmishes in 2v2 as my Holy Paladin partner is busy in real life. The majority of these were with another Holy Paladin who got ~2200 last season. We were unbeaten as Frost against Ret/Resto Shaman, Hunter/Resto Druid (or Resto Shaman) and Rogue/Priest teams, all of which seemed to be "real" teams. Double DPS teams weren't a problem (although these could have been random singles paired together) As Unholy we struggled to get a decent killing position, even with Gargoyle up and full RP / Death runes.

I guess we'll have to see how the season plays out, but if anyone has any positive or not-so-positive experiences, share them here so we can discuss.

Edit: spelling

Here's two builds I've been toying around with....I generally run with a Holy paly or a Disc priest.

Frost Strike

Death Coil

The first build gets the benefit of Hungering Cold, Chilblains slow, Unbreakable Armor (nice for +damage and survivability) and Frost Strike. I've found this build literally destroys rogues with FS spam (no evasion fo you!). I've tried it out and done well thus far but I ironically hardly ever use Howling Blast so I dropped it (and Rime) for Rune Tap. It's a whole lot easier to kill dps with this build because unavoidable Frost Strike but it seems a lot harder to kill healers. And I didn't get Endless Winter because I hardly seem to use Chains either over Icy Touch, considering they both slow and icy deals damage.

The second build gets a real nasty Death Coil (dark death, black ice, sudden doom, morbidity, runeforge proc), Heart Strike snare, more survivability (MoB, rune tap, imp blood presence, death strike, etc) and the DRW/Hysteria spike. I haven't given it a run yet with my partner but I'm tempted to think this will do better in killing the healer but worse in killing the dps. The armor penetration plus JC armor pen gems makes a whole lot of pain for healers.

What do ya guys think?

I searched through the thread to try and find something, but all i found was "dont do it"


Would blood presence be viable with a healer with the new imp. blood presence vs Unholy Presence?

I will be mainly using this spec for 2v2 and 3v3 with a Holy Paladin for a healer.

I'm loving the survivability while keeping decent burst damage and a perma-ghoul, but I just don't know if the faster GCD is worth not having 15% more damage and 10% more healing from my healer/my skills (which could change a battle) With the new snare glyph i really don't have a problem getting all my skills off on my target before they get away/try to CC me.


My only issue is i feel that going anything but Unholy Presence is "against the accepted way to PvP" and was hoping to find some math/experience in higher end arena that could support this.

thank you.
~X


heres my spec:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

whats up guys. I mostly PVE on my DK and used to PvP alot on my warrior and now i'm gonna start pvping for a bit. I raid as blood 51/0/20 and i'm just used to blood play style. Was messing around with different specs for 2s and wondered how you guys think this would add up as a blood pvp spec.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Also what is the best amount of resil for a DK now. I have really good PvE gear so im wondering how I can mix my gear and not gimp myself in resil.