I'm not sure about that. 1 minute cooldowns on their AoEs are pretty harsh.

Sure, one could supplement that with Death and Decay, but that'd only leave 3 frost runes.

If you have a chain-casting boss, I'd be far more excited about passively parrying spells than a long-cooldown bubble like AM or SR (even though I think SR got taken down to 15 rage?). And yeah, if AM works against AoEs the DK has even further advantages.

Bone Armor does look nice, but at this moment the Blood tree seems way to valuable to pass up with all the +parry it provides. Blade Barrier looks to be a phenomenal talent assuming you can dump your runes fast enough, and I can't imagine a tank passing up on it unless there is some gimmick where a boss becomes unparryable.

They will most likely be on the same cooldown in the same way that Dragon's Breath/Cone of Cold are on the same cooldown.

An internal cooldown on Blade Barrier would, in my mind, severely gimp the talent. It is my understanding that tanks need to rely on passive (or at least quasi-passive) talents and abilities in order reduce the randomness and volatility of an encounter and a talent that provides +30% parry for 8 sec. every 30 seconds or so is not going to do that. Especially if you don't have absolute direct control over its activation.

It would gimp the talent compared to it's current form, but that's probably because it's just not that well designed a talent. 30% permanent parry is far too strong for 3 talent points (just look at Deflection) so it's safe to assume it won't be permanent come release. If it has a cooldown you may find yourself keeping one Rune up at all times and dropping it as a mini-evasion, or during parts of a boss fight that have extreme damage (during a Stomp, for example).
I don't like that idea really, but 30% passive parry is far, far too much for 3 talent points.


A lot of DK tanking abilities seem a little volatile right now, it's the main issue I have personally, but it remains to be seen how it will work.

Also when it comes to spell damage tanking all of the DK damage reducing abilities are untyped, so it allows for bosses that have lots of spell damage from different schools.

If they tone it done to 5/10/15% then I think the talent has a chance of lasting all the way until the live release. But we'll have to see, they may choose to scrap the entire ability and replace it with something that accomplishes the same thing, but in a different style.

Think because its Alpha, so these things keep changing. I heard that now there is a new obliterate that is similar to the old heartstrike in effect, but heart strike still exists. So, some more info about the rune costs, and cooldown of this new obliterate would be good. Because it apparently does 150% melee damage plus 300 which is really good.

WotLK Information Wiki: WotLK Alpha Official Wiki

DeathKnight.info

Runes are 10s cooldowns.

Thought I'd post some questions/thoughts about some of the talents. If anyone knows answers please let me know.

Butchery: How will this work in regards to the 1 "runic power per 3 seconds". Does this mean you will lose runic power out of combat at 1 runic power less per 3 seconds and gain 1 runic power more per three seconds in combat? Or will you gain 1 runic power per three seconds out of combat also, effectively meaning you don't lose runic power out of combat?

Blood Rune Mastery: Does this apply to all hits, abilities only, or blood abilities only?

Are Blood Gorged and Bloody Vengeance applicable to melee hits and abilities or only one or the other?

Merciless Combat: Does this apply to Frost abilities or abilities that deal frost damage?

Is Frost Strike considered a spell or not? Will it crit for 300% with Chill of the Grave?

Wandering Plague: Does this cause threat?

What do the diseases of Blood-Caked Blade and Unholy Blight do? Are they unique from other disease and do they also have a DoT effect? Does Unholy Blight cause 120 damage per second, or does it just damage on first hitting a target and simply stack diseases afterwards?

Why would anyone bother getting the following talents:

Will of the Necropolis
Death Rune Mastery
Shadow of Death

Also, I made a Disease talent spec:

War Pirate :: Talent tree Deathknight

The point is dual wielding with fast weapons, Unholy Presence and Icy Talons (30% faster!) to take advantage of blood-caked blade, lots of diseases and boosts to spell damage. It might be better to drop Unholy Blight and Wandering Plague for Imp. Blood Strike. Lots of good AoE fun with Unholy Blight, Corpse Explosion and Wandering Plague, though.

It's a guess, but seeing as Butchery has a very similar description to Anger Management it'll probably work in the same manner.
Frost Strike is considered a spell and crits for 150% untalented, 200 talented.
Shadow of Death is a PvP talent. It lasts 45 seconds and Ghouls have decent abilites (a stun, a shadowstep, a spell interupt).

Your build needs Dirge, and you'd do more damage in Blood Presence with 15% haste because Blood Presence adds 15% to all abilities, rather than just increasing white damage.
I read somewhere the Blood Caked Blade would stack up to 3 times, but can't find it anywhere now, so haste isn't that important unless you're Obliterating a lot.

Would probably be inclined to go something more like this for a DW Unholy/Frost build. One of the points in Imp. Corpse Explosion or the point from Lichborne may end up in Frozen Rune weapon for off hand use if there's a Frost mage about.

Corpse Explosion looks like fun, but it remains to be seen just how useful it will be.

Degeneration stacks three times.