Vierbein

What about presence?

I've been doing some arenas with Unholy build and from my experience i find frost presence most usefull.
Unholy aura gives me 15% run speed already and additional armor(AP form Bladed Armor) and spell resistance (that will be improved in next patch) seems to benefit us more than 15% haste.

What do you think?

 

MissnL1nK

I would be interested in knowing what you many of you do vs resto druids in 2's. I run with a disc priest and druids usually lock me up pretty hard and my priest just gets eaten by either what is normally a rogue or a warrior. Anyone have any suggestions of how to counter that? Or is this combo just bad...

My better smells like french toast.

 

Cronjob

I'm running a similar build to the AJ build, in fact I took it and moved a point or two. It's really meant for a 2v2 team which is why they have 2 in NoLD, one point wont be enough to clear the CD in a 2v2 match as fast they go. Thats also why they dont run unholy Aura, especially if your partner is a rogue or pally. Stuff will be snared almost indefinately.

I ran 2's with a pug ret pally in bad gear yesterday until my pally friend comes back from vacation. Even with no vent and his bad gear level we won 50% of our games and the ones we lost were due to lack of vent/communication and his newness (dont think he ever arena'd before). AMZ changed the game on two occasions against mage teams. I popped the gargoyle while I sit and dance in the AMZ and to force the ice block.

Once my partner gets back it should be good times again.

 

Adrammelech

Assuming you're 21/0/50:

Till 3.0.8 Mark of Blood is a gigantic middle finger to dual wielders, especially something fast like daggers. Put that on the rogue to minimize their DPS output, and you have 7 seconds worth of silence as a Belf you can chain into the druid, plus a 3 second ghoul stun. Try to have enough RP to use a garg when you blow your silence bomb. As long as the druid dies and your priest has at the very least softened up the rogue you should be able to win it.

 

Flangus

Some info first: We are running a 5v5 team with semi-serious prospects. Our lineup is UH DK (me), Arms warrior, Ret pala, Holy paladin and Arcane mage. If we rotate people, we get another arcane mage instead of the arms warrior.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get a "tell me how to get free rating with setup x" post going here, but I'm genuinely wondering - are there any specific duties, for a death knight, to perform in 5s that I may have missed? As it is now, I use glyphed dnd to smoke out people if we need them to get moving, or to get a protective circle around our healer. I focus-strangulate healers at opportune moments and use death grip to play us a kill or to peel, less as a gap-closer unless it results in a kill.

I use chains of ice mostly to peel off our healer or mage, as our warrior should be able to keep the focus target snared. I call a lot of stuff out on vt, it may bug people but constant information on who's a potential kill target seems to be working in our favour.

Am I missing out on any crucial 5v5 tactics or death knight niche that could help me develop as a pvper? I'm thinking of, unlike bc, aiming for higher ratings and serious gameplay, so any info would be beneficial.

Thanks in advance, sorry if this post comes out as a "make me l2p plx"-post.

edit: Now that I have the rating for it, I am currently in progress of farming honor for the new battlemasters trinket. I was thinking of macroing it to another survival ability, most likely rune tap or death pact. Has anyone else had any similar thoughts?

 

MissnL1nK

I personally not fully satisfied with an Unholy build, I have always been partial to Blood, even with it's shortcomings. The build I have come up with is this build. (44/11/16)

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

I may drop Hysteria and Blood Aura for 3 pts in Rune Tap but I am not sure yet. If anyone could give some feedback it to see how this matches up would be appreciated.

My better smells like french toast.

 

nezgul

only one thing, i have seen a lot of people saying frost presence already is good because the increased armor balue increases your ap by blade armor talent. Well, i have blade armor with my dk and INGAME i swap frost presence with another one and my AP doesnt increase//decrease so i think blade armor dont trigger with frost presence. Can someone try this ingame?

 

Gothik

Wait 20-30 secs and it will update and show the current ap value. It does increase your ap with blade armor.

 

nezgul

Right, after 10 seconds ap is increased by frost presence. So nice! :P

 

Krayte

Hey guys, I've tried generating some discussion on the WoW forums a few times but have had little luck. I'd like to get some feedback from some of the more experienced PvP DKs.

Can anyone tell me what the reasoning is behind the DK pvp glove bonus mechanic?

Essentially, the new glove bonus is actually less useful than the last one. The new glove bonus causes a frost rune to be turned into a death rune whenever chains of ice is cast. The main reason why this isn't a boon to the class is that, in unholy and frost pvp, the rune will just be reused as frost. A blood pvp DK (anyone ever seen a successful one of these? Anyone ever SEEN one of these?) might find this useful, but that leaves frost/unholy - the specs played most - with a useless glove bonus.

Death Rune Used as a Blood Rune?

Frost/UH DKs turn blood runes into death runes, so there is no need to create another blood rune. Now, of course you could argue that doing so allows the DK to rune tap if a blood rune is on cooldown, but that presents to assumptions: 1. The DK isn't timing his blood rune usage to rune tap (which is, pardon the negative phrasing, a very stupid thing to do), and 2. The DK has Rune Tap talented in the first place.

The only advantage this presents is for a pvp blood spec via offering another heartstrike (albeit, at the cost of an obliterate).

Death Rune Used as an Unholy Rune?

Frost/UH DKs use unholy runes for obliterate/scourge strike attacks respectively. Frost DKs usually have a glut of unholy runes because they are saving them to use in conjunction with a frost rune. Essentially, unholy runes are only used when frost runes are available. There is no scenario where it is better to use a frost-death rune as an unholy rune.

One might say, "What if you have a frost rune available but no unholy runes available, and you want to Scourge Strike or Obliterate?" - The answer is this: this scenario does not happen. UH runes are used in conjunction with frost runes! If you used an unholy rune earlier, you used it in conjunction with another frost rune, meaning that the two will be available at the same time! If you just used an unholy rune to apply blood boil, you still have one left!

One might say of Unholy PvP, "What if you want to reactivate desecration?" - If you have no unholy runes available, it means that you have just dropped desecration and are still under the effects of it.


Death Runes used as Frost Runes?

Well, this is a wash, right? This is what will happen >99% of the time.

The Solution?

The first idea that jumps to mind is to have the option to acquire gloves that apply the following bonus: "Whenever you cast Plague Strike, the Unholy Rune used becomes a Death Rune when it activates". Note that I said 'have the option', because the bonus can be beneficial to a blood pvp DK.

Frost runes are pretty much the most valuable rune in pvp. It provides a ranged attack and a ranged movement speed debuff. It is also used in conjunction with unholy runes for obliterates and scourge strikes, making it the most-used rune for unholy/frost pvp builds. Most death runes are used as frost runes because DKs use so many frost runes in pvp.

Trolls are not welcome!! >:E
Thoughts, comments, critiques are!!

 

axyl

Krayte,
I agree with you. This was the same argument I was trying to get across on the WOW forums, but you just can't make sense to those people. I was talking to a guildy last night and looking at his build. And he's unholy, and he has death rune mastery from blood. So he can get 6 death runes. All good if you want to spam some blood boil in aoe fights, but really, how useful are those 3 points over something else. So he told me to stop being bad at the class, and making DKs look bad.

So naturally I challenged him to a duel. Now I'm 20/51/0, and he's 17/0/54, and he's in all raid epics, since he raids and I pvp. Of course, I don't have much good pvp gear yet. But I took him on, and I whooped his butt... twice.

I love frost in BGs man.. nothing beats Hungering Cold on a bunch of horde. Then a forced Howling Blast crit on the whole bunch of em.

But yeah, that glove bonus isn't going to benefit me one single bit. I'm always searching for a frost rune.

 

Maldais

I'm used to playing a caster and I'm not as up to date on melee mechanics. I especially find it hard to figure out specifics about what effects my damage on my DK.

In short, how much effect does Impurity have? It says it boosts the attack power benefit of all spells, this includes strikes such as scourge strike and blood strike correct? What kind of damage difference would I notice with / without this talent?

Current Spec - Unholy 21/0/50

 

axyl

Impurity does not effect strikes. It effects spells, like Icy Touch, Death Coil, Gargyole, Unholy Blight, Death and Decay, Blood boil, Pestilence.

So I believe the co-efficient for Death Coil is like .1 damage per ap. So having 5 points in impurity would make it .125. not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless.

I've been running 20/51/0 with a mutilate rogue. We were doing absolutely horrible at first. We lost about 15 games to only winning like 2. We had almost given up, but I we stepped back and rethought our strategy. I mean, we are two of the most powerful pvp classes, we should do well together.

You know, even though I've been playing this DK for a month or more, the arena is new. And learning these strategies is new. Once we realized the stupid things we were doing wrong. We won our next 7 games in a row... then we lost one, then we faced that team again, and won. And we're on a 5 streak now. We're pushing our way back possitive, and not looking back!

So I guess my point is, just stick with it and work it out. Don't give up, because you'll figure it out eventually. We have different strats for different setups, and every time we run into a new setup. We win, good.. we lose, then we learn what we need to do next time.

 

ptRkgo

Looking at easing into PvP, I had a quick browse through this thread and didn't see these specs put forward and I just wanted to get some feedback on them.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Glyphs: IBF, CoI, BS
Thinking of changing to OB, FS, BS come patch

The intent is that CoI generally replaces IT - I wasn't sure if the IT talents go off CoI so I didn't take them.

Mark of blood can be pretty amazing for any melee team and whilst grabbing it I also picked up Bloody Strikes. With Bloody Strikes, the BS glyph and BotN, BS itself should be able to apply some decent pressure when you're making those death runes.

1/3 Chillblains for a little bit of dispel protection CoI is used very frequently so I don't see why dumping two extra talent points in that talent for a minor snare is useful.

I prefer merciless combat to Frost aura since I play rather offensively and one cannot really rely on the minor resistance of frost aura

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is another variation of the above built, talents are invested into getting the haste/damage benefits from IT implying it would be used more frequently - it also helps if partnering with melee.

There is no KM so less critical procs (I haven't tested a PvP build without this talent so I don't know how much burst one would lose out on if I could get a comment on this it would be great)

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is a variation of a build mentioned previously in the thread, gives up BS pressure, mark and a bit of Crit for what I only see is dispel protection, -10 off DG and epidemic. Epidemic& virulence seem counterproductive to me as you take one assuming your diseases are going to be spam removed however the other is taken to leave them on as long as possible meaning you wont reapply them as often - this doesn't really make sense to me however I do acknowledge spam dispels on our diseases can be very painful and we are very kiteable however I don't really know if -10 off DG makes us THAT much less kiteable.

This build takes away a lot of offensive moves and as I've stated before I prefer to play offensively hence I like it the least out of my three proposed builds. But if put it up there so I could get a few comments on how "needed" the talent points are compared to extra burst.

Edited for slight rephrasing

 

Weidekuh

The you-can't-kite-me-build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZGgxzcod0GRAcZfMGhzdkx0o

The focus lies heavely on ranged attacks like IT, HB, DC and gargoyle. Coupled with lots of spellresistance this build is probably the nightmare of every caster. They may get some range on you, but can't escape your spells.
But you also have very good snare (and stun) abilities to get range on melee and kill them with ranged abilities. And if they are in melee with you, you have all the survivability to take them head on. This should be done in frost presence.

Glyphs: IT glyph, Blood Strike Glyph (more damage on snared enemies + chillblains = win) and not sure about the third one.

 

Noahgabriel

Well after this first week of Arena S5 I have to say that 15/0/56 worked best for me in 2n2 together with a holypaladin, I played frost a bit but it didn't work as well as Unholy. I haven't tried blood yet and i don't think i will it's just not that attractive. I'm currently #1 in my realmpool with 1928 rating in 2n2, the problem i noticed is the ability of my ghoul to survive against teams in highrating, they just kill him instant. I hope this will change with the new patch.

 

• Lanky

If you see them target the ghoul, shield wall it. have it healed if you want to keep it, or blow it up with CE if you want to do some damage.

 

Trifle

Er wow, props to you. I found that when I was fighting DK/healer the DK couldn't do enough damage to worry me before his partner was dead. Those were honestly some of the easier fights. Thats as a shaman/rogue team, anyway.

 

Samurro

Any tactics against Retri Palas 1on1 ? Iam unholy (my char) and got about seven times owned by a 77 retripala and just won one time, because he had no LoH and i got lucky with ghoul after death...

Any suggestions or just op? Would frost specc be more viable? (played it till 74 but then wanted to try out unholy, didnt came across a retri pala with that specc)

 

• Darkside

You cannot expect PvP to balanced/fair/whatever while you have < level 80 spells/talents/gear. Level some more and then come back.

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

 

ocbkicks

As a Holy Pal running Holy/DK in 2s, Rogue/Shaman is the hardest comp we've encountered. The rogue opens hard on the Holy Pal, Pal hopefully escapes without burning Bop or Bubble, and then it's a matter of hoping the DK can bring down someone. Disease cleansing and freedom purge make it really tough.

 

Grizzly

In 3s im running with another DK and a Ret Paladin. Rather than use the blood strike glyph we use the rune tap glyph to heal the whole group. We find up to 10k of group healing every 30 seconds can really help for surviving the burst thats so prevalant at the moment.

 

Jaz

Due to wielding the hunter polearm Black Ice, and wearing a few rogue accesories like +ap cloak etc (just drop luck and noone else needing the items in question), I've actually ended up with like 700 strength. Fallen Crusader is still better than any conventional weapon enchants at that strength level but not as good as it could be, so I started testing the others a bit more.

I've had very good results with Cinderglacier as 20/51 Frost. It's not uncommon at all for both Killing Machine and Cinderglacier to be up when I go for a burst, in which case I'll Deathchill the second Frost Strike. I don't know if it won games because honestly two 5k frost strikes isn't that much more survivable than two 6k frost strikes, but it's certainly...satisfying.

 

• Lanky

There is something to be said for the Max Spike approach, especially after patch and with more resilience. Important bonuses for this approach would be the 4 Piece gladiator one: (15 runic power over 5sec after snared), and 2 piece PvE: (5% obliterate Crit). Glyph Frost Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, sit in Blood presence, use Cinderglacier and jack-hammer people every GCD until they drop over from sheer damage output. This is best paired with a Holy Paladin for the Stun / throughput, and an occasional judge-shock assist for the kill.

 

• Darkside

One cannot have both 4piece Glad and 2piece Scourgeborne at the same time, sadly, as they both require the same slots (head, chest, gloves, legs, and shoulders). Also, I'm not convinced that Blood presence would be the best choice for this plan, as you can have larger spikes with a smaller GCD. However, while setting up the spike (generating RP and Death Runes/waiting for CD's from your partner) Blood might work just to be able to put larger strain on the healer.

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