Two-Handed builds are divided into the three types: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. It makes sense to do the same to the DW builds as frost builds are very different from the unholy ones. This summary is designed with upcoming changes in mind. I recommend you familiarize yourself with the Think Tank article about Death Knight DPS. Though some of the data is out of date, it is a good foundation of knowledge overall.

Just remember you will see different results when testing on a test dummy versus actual raid bosses so don't be too discouraged just because you're doing lower amounts of damage on the dummy.

There are two builds that do good DPS. Each one is slightly different in their execution but their goal is to generate as much runic power as possible to maximize Death Coil.

-----0/17/54-----

A proven contender with the 2H builds, you use Improved Unholy Presence to fire abilities like crazy. Featuring Ghoul Frenzy, it's the classic Death Coil build generating more runic power than any other viable build currently.

Glyphs: Dark Death, Icy Touch, Ghoul

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9806

This build scales better with Expertise and Critical Rating. Haste isn't bad either.

Priority System: Spam Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Blood Strike, Ghoul Frenzy and fire Death Coil every time runic power gets above 40. Use Death Runes for Icy Touch.

This build works well right now but it scales less than other builds. This means that eventually as gear gets better, you'll outgrow this spec. If you like action and spamming buttons, this will make you happy.

-----0/13/58-----

This build is the classic Scourge Strike build of the DW bunch. This one uses Blood Presence to fire hard hitting attacks to go with the usual spells. This build needs Haste so that it's rotations don't get too long. Just avoid Armor Penetration which scales poorly due to so many attacks that ignore armor. As a nice side effect, Plague Strike hits harder in this build than any other DW build. This build has a very high scaling Death Coil as well.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9806

This build scales better with Haste and Expertise. Critical Rating isn't bad either.

Priority System: Diseases(BP>FF)>SS>BS>UB>DC.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) Does Icy Talons stack with Improved Icy Talons or Windfury Totem?

Answer: No. In a raid, you should expect this buff so any points in Icy Talons would be a DPS loss.

2) When is the best time to use Gargoyle?

Answer: Gargoyle actually gets it's haste and other stats from its owner. The best time to use gargoyle is actually during a bloodlust when as many of your procs/cooldowns are available. Just keep in mind that the Gargoyle is fragile and will die quickly to any AoE.

3) Is Glyph of Disease worth using?

Answer: It's useful for AOE but that's it. It comes out to be a dps loss that while it's refreshing your diseases, it deals no damage of it's own. It's especially bad if you screw up and diseases drop as your whole raid will lose the Ebon Plaguebringer buff until you can fix your mistake. It's not recommended.

4) What determines partial resists?

Answer: Originally Posted by Zyrm
As an additional note, what is *actually* responsible for partial resists on bosses is weapon skill. For example, if you tried to scourge strike a level 80 mob with 1 weapon skill, aside from parries/dodges, the strikes you DID land would be mitigated in half (which is actually the most a SS can resist, it will always hit for at least half damage)... until you're weapon skill was at or near max. Since Raid bosses count as your level +3, and there is currently no way to raise weapon skill beside the level max, you will always see partial resists in raids.

Another side note, when you see a strike that says, say "Your SS hits X for 4000 (200 resisted)", you wouldn't have originally done 4200 damage, but actually quite a bit more. The (X resisted) is actually before modifiers/buffs/talents/crits, so in reality, if half a strike was resisted, you might actually see something like "Your SS hits for 2.5k (1.9k resisted)". Just some food for thought. I can't tell you how many time's I've seen 5500(900 resisted) when my SS crits that don't resist always break 8k.

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An alternative build is 1/18/52 which uses Obliterate. This build requires a lot of gearing to make it work. The advantage of this build is being able to use all of the Armor Penetration gear in Ulduar. You ideally want to stack as much Armor Penetration as you can without sacrificing too much in other stats.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9806

Priority System: Diseases(BP>FF) > OB > BS > UB > DC.

Pre-Heroic armor with good weapons

Head: [Conqueror's Darkruned Helmet] -- [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Arcanum of Torment]
Neck: [Might of the Leviathan]
Shoulders: [Conqueror's Darkruned Shoulderplates] -- [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Greater Inscription of the Axe]
Cloak: [Drape of the Faceless General] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + [Fierce Monarch Topaz] + Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed - Spell - World of Warcraft
Chest: [Conqueror's Darkruned Battleplate] -- [Bold Stormjewel] + [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats - Spell - World of Warcraft
Arms: [Bitter Cold Armguards] -- [Fierce Monarch Topaz] + [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault - Spell - World of Warcraft
Hands: [Gauntlets of the Wretched] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + Enchant Gloves - Precision - Spell - World of Warcraft
Waist: [Girdle of Embers] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby]
Legs: [Conqueror's Darkruned Legplates] -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby] + [Bold Dragon's Eye] + [Icescale Leg Armor]
Feet: [Melancholy Sabatons] -- Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality - Spell - World of Warcraft
Ring1: [Bladebearer's Signet]
Ring2: [Strength of the Automaton]
Trinket1: [Blood of the Old God]
Trinket2: [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
Weapon1: [Caress of Insanity] (note: 232 version is better. These are old stats) -- [Bold Scarlet Ruby]
Weapon2: [Remorse]

32/39 and 44/27 play almost identically, though this will change slightly after the patch with the Frost Strike glyph and the untying of KM from weapon speed. 20/51 is a completely different ballgame. Whether you call 32/39 unholy or frost, it goes in the 'traditional' Howling Blast based thread fine, while 20/51 doesn't really get discussed there and probably deserves its own thread.

I'm glad to see that someone's at least trying to discuss this build. My numbers show it passing 2H Unholy by a decent margin (though I doubt my glyphed Scourge Strike rotation modeling is quite accurate). I don't consider it for myself simply because I dislike using D&D for AoE due both to its clunky rune cost and difficulty using the targeting reticule while lagged to hell during raids. 32/39 and 44/27 do edge it out a bit, but the fact is that Ebon Plaguebringer combined with Pestilence provides a massive raid DPS boost for trash and any guild should be running a deep unholy DK for this purpose unless stuck on an encounter for which it is irrelevant.

Sure, there are tons of 17/0/54s out there, but 0/20/51 is, or at least will be with the IT glyph change, equal if not superior.

I've ran 0 20 51 the last raid we did, the DPS is just ludacris, you shouldn't be breaking 6k dps just randomly this early in the game.

From what I've understood, the intended KM mechanic is not working as it should - it actually didn't change at all and GC says it seems to not be working as they actually intended it to.

Wait and see what changes they do, if they do any

What kind of spell rotation should I be looking at on this build?

I want to DW on my DK and just re-specd to this build. will it be viable for lvling also or just raids?

Unfortunately all the different builds actually play differently, and bring separate/distinct buffs/debuffs to the raid.

I am looking forward to DW PVP thread =P

6K DPS on what?

What boss? How many adds? What was the duration of the fight? Did you use army of the dead? etc.

These are the kind of claims that belong in the WoW forums. Misspelling of 'ludicrous' and all (damn rappers). You need to provide specifics. 6k on aoe trash doesn't mean anything.

WWS Loading...
Theres the WWS but its useless since it doesnt count ghouls, on average I sit at 5k and it goes up to 6k+ depending on random elements.

DW just does too much damage too easily, 32/39 is probably better because Ren pulls out some insane numbers, I cant even come close to his. Seeing as my main source of damage is spamming IT while keeping blood plague up and twiddling my thumbs, I'd say its a bit too much yes.

Xyrm, they did mention it yes, but if/when they will actually fix it, I guess that remains to be seen.
Small KM tweak with a Necrosis buff, sigil/glyph changes - it's not a real nerf, more of an adjustment to how the damage will be dealt

They aren't killing DW, the problem theyre having right now is how can they fix the scaling of 2h without inflating DW

Short of splitting talents to do different things when dual wielding versus using a two hander, I can't see a solution to 2h dps (short of buffing the strikes, which is a bad road to go down for pvp for obvious reasons) that doesn't inflate dw dps equally if not substantially more.

KM on a PPM won't kill the spec. It will just put the disparity between DW and 2h to rest. If anything, 2h will proc KM a bit more frequently as a result. Assuming it works like most ppms and occurs off of instant attacks too, deep frost 2h may literally start drowning in KC procs. We're talking 28.333% chance to proc KC on any given strike or auto attack, which emulates a crit chance of greater than 56.666% with current KC (because current doesn't proc on autos). Of course, I haven't done the PTR yet, so my word isn't 100% reliable. Any confirmation if PTR KM procs on specials?

KM is proccing only off white hits. I'm surprised Blizzard didn't set a low PPM and include all strikes (which would favor slower weapons). Right now, KM is bugged and proccing a lot more than it should on the PTR according to GC. As a result, we don't know how much Killing Machine will be nerfed yet.

The new Icy Touch glyph and the new Necrosis will help with the gap. Doubling Necrosis damage is pretty nice for deep unholy. Because deep unholy uses Icy Touch a lot more than other builds, we get a bigger benefit from the new glyph.

eh, my 2c is that you should definitely use the second ps-- if only for desecration, providing your specced it.

But by all means, that second ps is barely enough damage to get worked up over. The only problem would be 2 or more seconds of your rotation would have auto attacks that are proccing BCB with 1 less disease.