[3.0] Class Discussion: Death Knight

[Eavangelina]

In this thread we discuss the ins and outs of the Death Knight class in the 3.0 world. This includes skills, talents, builds, gear, itemization, PvE tactics (both solo and in groups), PvP tactics (both in BG and Arena), and everything else.
Here you can ask and give advice on all areas of the class, for all levels.

There's only one rule: be polite and constructive. "Skill/talent/build/item X sucks" will get us nowhere fast.

[Gambar Darkstone]

I've been meaning to put some thoughts here on how to play a decent frostKnight or a dualwielding Tri-spec.

However I have to say I have no clue whatsoever what works for me. I can only tell you some experiences and I found some info on elitist jerks on Deathknights that might help.

I began with Blood for that seemed to be a high dps tree for some fast leveling. I now switched to frost. The major advantage of frost spec in combo with frost presence is 40% armor and a very long life in which one can slow mobs even bring them to a hold (if no aoe is rummaging around) The parry and dodge seem to be much higher. Also the damage output is much more eradic. You can see some big numbers flying by but you can also see miss miss dodge, parry etc for a while not hitting a damn thing. Good thing death coil always hits. Since i get hit all the time, all others with me can focus on high dps rotations which works btw. Last night i was with another deathknight slaying a 62 elite, thanks to some wonderfull tanking (grin) and a runic potion I still stood when the elite fell down. Lichborne and unbreakable armor are two very usefull skills to have for that and should you find yourself surrounded by mobs, a hungering cold freezes them all so you can focus on 1 to kill first

I use the rotations i read on the elitist forums and i got to about 260 dps, which should be about 60-100 dps lower then unholy and blood.

For grinding i found out by accident that voidwalkers in hellfire peninsula (quest) have a high respawn rate at the center of the voidcloud. I could stand there and keep up the tempo and before i knew it i was out of my resting time xp bar

As for dual wielding tri spec. Ill wait a bit with that. I tried i for a day and found out that i had no mace skill whatsoever and you had to keep an eye on your procs all the time. Since i am kind of lazy when solo-ing, i thought that might not be the best idea in the world, so I picked up my Large two hander and still like the "coolness" of it.

Gambar

[Gambar Darkstone]

Boss tanking while in a DK group proves most difficult. You need to minimize damage taking while maximizing threat. Surviving is the most important rule, should aggro switch, there are a few moments to grab that extra pot, bandage yourself or summoning/sacrificing your ghoul and then dark commanding him back if possible. The others can take at least a few blows.
Be aware on the abillities of the mobs and try to get that little extra out of your unbreakable armor, lichborne and fortitude by timing right.

Trash tanking is not that important. Its basically about pulling and positioning. (hopefully the others understand) Do not use aoe damage too much and let your other DK's take on the others. They have plate and they can wail on them as much as you like. In case of trouble I found out that i can easily outaggro them with a howling blast, deathgrip or dark command.

Pulling can be done depending on the mob. Deathgripping is most common, icy touch is doable too, strangulate and chain of ice is less used but more effective.

See to it that you can get out of sight with casters so they really have to come to you. Interrupt them as much as possible.

To bring with you:
High spirits / good mood
High spirits (meaning booze)
FOOOOOOODD, there are a lot of situations where you are left with a curse, disease or poisons you have to out-eat
Bandages, lots of em if possible. for quick use and future use when we will be forced to switch aggro tanking and bandaging cause otherwise we will get slaughtered.

To finalize. Up to level 70 there should be enough survivabillity in the main tank to get through most dungeons.
After that i'm seriously considering Omen 3 and training with a fellow DK to multiple main tank a boss which also mean im gonna save some money for dps gear and tank gear.

[Manori]

last night i overheard/seen a conversation in the trade chat about the talenttrees of DK's. The opinions about what is the best tank or dps specc had quite a variance (do you get it?, couldnt get to the right word for it so i switched to statistics:S).

My DK Mortha is now lvl 80 and had seriously fine dmg doing at lvl 75 but that didnt improve much with the following 5 levels. She is mostly Blood specced and i followed a treebuild that is said to be the best dps/dmg giving tree for 5 man groups in heroics. Now i wonder, is it the gear i suck at or am i doing something weird with rotations? cause im still using the same rotation i used when i was lvl 75 and that sorta worked: putting the diseases on, with multiple mobs i spread them out, giving some blood boil bangbang when thats the case and otherwise use most of my other 'red' buttons after those diseases.

Anyone any ideas?

[Gambar Darkstone]

Funnily enough, when you posted this i went looking and came up with another idea for some Deathnight tanking.

So i made a build which is all about defence and getting health back since there is no healer. You might want to take a peek at it and make some suggestions.

As for your questions. Ill check my references at home and i read up a bit on elitist jerks. Since I have not really played as a blood knight, let alone i have the gear for it, I donot think i can comment intelligently other then there must be something wrong. (which is a pretty obious remark)

Gambar

[Gambar Darkstone]

I made Decus in the exact spec as you have. My gear comparatively sucks, so should i do more than 1600 dps I think im doing good.

Now my dps ranges between 1200 and about 1800 dps using same rotations in different places with different people. From what i have learned sofar is that your dps is based how and when you do what. This is not merely about going through your rotation but rather looking at what the others are doing.

I also found out that runecontrol is quite important, runepower less.

Your hearstrike and your melee is where the most of your damage is comming from. Obliterate is next up.

You might want to try different rotations and really reading up on what the diseases mean for your strikes. The diseases themselves do about a total of 6% of the damage with me.

In a hard hitting group you donot have the time to plant your diseases so go for broke on your strikes and obliterate. Try to use Death and Decay as much as possible and you could also try to have an offmob hit you. Somehow i think that might help you a bit for you have a faster strike after a parry ??

Since i range massively between dps-es I have not found out yet either, but i hope this post will help you in some way.

All in all as long as we have fun, thats all we need right ?

I think ill go try out my weirdy spec and ask the healer to only fill in in case of emergency.

Decus

[Manori]

So far, with getting better gear my dmg is increasing aswell, around 2k-2,5k dmg at the moment.

I've looked up the hit rating cap for deathknights, which according to some sites is about 295, but then there is the discussion of the hit rating with spells that differs for the Deathknight that is unholy, it should be more if that's the case.

Since I'm mostly Blood specced and already over 300 hitrating I am now focussing on strength and AP, got some enchants and gems that should help me out, yesterday.
So i'll see if and how that improved me