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Welcome to Dawts Death Knight Dominion!
I will try to develop this guide whenever I find time to spare.
Index
* 1. Common Abbrevations Used
* 2. Why bring a Death Knight to your raid?
* 3. How to DPS as a Death Knight
* 4. Talents
4.1. FROST
1. Common Abbreviations used
IT Icy Touch
BS Blood Strike
PS Plague Strike
HS Heart Strike
FS Frost Strike
SS Scourge Strike
DS Death Strike
OB Obliterate
MoB Mark of Blood
CF Crypt Fever
EP Ebon Plaguebringer
UB Unholy Blight
DC Death Coil
FF Frost Fever
BP Blood Plague
DG Death Grip
MoG Master of Ghouls
BCB Blood-Caked Blade
SG Summon Gargoyle
HB Howling Blast
Pes Pestilence
2. Why bring a Death Knight to your raid?
There are several upsides of bringing one or more Death Knights to your raid;
*Powerful raid buffs and debuffs, such as Horn of Winter to Talent Specialisation specific buffs. (f.ex Improved Icy Talons)
*A viable offtank for fights even when DPS specced. All it requires is a gear and presence swap.
*A viable tank for when shit hits the fan. Death Knights can swap to Frost Presence midcombat and tank if necessary, albeit not as good as they would in Tank gear (obviously).
*On-par DPS with any other class
*A "Combat Ressurection" (Raise Dead). Obviously not as useful as a Druid's Rebirth, but useful nevertheless.
Death Knights are very potent in keeping themselves alive, not to mention they are wearing Plate. With the help of Death Strike and in Blood's case Rune Tap (which can be turned into an AoE group heal with a Major Glyph!) Death Knights will require very little healing if played right.
3. How to DPS as a Death Knight.
You will find specific cookiecutter rotations for each talent build later on in this guide, although keep in mind that those rotations are all Theorycraft, they work perfect under ideal conditions, you will obviously have to change your DPS style on some encounters.
Here's a small suggested priority list for Single Target DPS;
* Keep your diseases (Blood Plague, Frost Fever) on your target 100% of the time, they will boost your DPS significantly by increasing the damage of most of your special attacks, aswell as a small amount of damage by themselves.
* Use your highest damage-per-rune attack whenever its ready; Blood - Heart Strike, Frost - Obliterate, Unholy - Scourge Strike / Obliterate (more on this later).
* Spend your Runic Power before it hits maximum! Core dump abilities; Frost Strike, Death Coil, Summon Gargoyle.
* Use your dps cooldowns appropriately to maximize their uptime. Know your rotations and how long the fight is, and judge accordingly.
* Do whatever you can to benefit the raid as much as possible. Sure, massive numbers are fun, but perhaps there's someone else in your raid who will benefit even more from a buff such as Hysteria. Afterall the goal is to down the boss, not to top the damage charts by any means necessary.
Always use Blood Presence while DPSing, it's highly superior to both Frost and Unholy Presence for PVE DPS regardless of talent build.
4. Talents.
What talents should I use? Is blood the best spec? Which spec is the tank spec?
These are all incredibly common questions, and all too often I see DKs with 71 points in the Blood Tree, becouse they think Blood is THE best dps spec.
Unlike other classes there is no such thing as "THE tank spec" or "THE dps spec" as a DK, there are key talents in all of the trees which will determine whether you're a DPSer or a Tank, and all trees have their specific upsides and downsides when it comes to both tanking and dpsing.
4.1 FROST:
Dual Wielding; Frost Dual Wield DPS is highly based on Obliterate damage, hence what you should go for is a SLOW/SLOW weapon combination (Any weapon speed above 2.5 is fine).
Keep in mind, that while dual wielding you will need ALOT of Hit Rating becouse of the hit penalty. Yellow hits are capped at 9% increased chance to hit (296 Hit Rating), and whites at 25% increased chance to hit (Nerves of Cold Steel already included, you will need 819 Hit Rating to reach the cap).
A big part of your total damage is based on white hits due to Blood-Caked Blade procs and Necrosis, so basically get as high hit chance as possible without totally gimping your other stats.
Prefered Talent Build:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZG0exAbczf0chzAofM0hxc:akpMmc
Prefered stats for this build: Hit Rating > Strength / Armor Penetration > Haste Rating
Try to keep Hit Rating high but balanced, Don't overkill one stat.
Enchants and Gems:
Enchants:
*Boots:
Greater Assault
*Wrists:
Greater Assault
Expertise
*Chest:
Powerful Stats
*Cloak:
Greater Speed
*Gloves:
Crusher
Precision
*Legs:
Icescale Leg Armor
Gems:
*Red Gems:
Bold Cardinal Ruby
Fractured Cardinal Ruby
*Orange Gems:
Etched Amentrine
Accurate Amentrine
Fierce Amentrine
Inscribed Amentrine
*Yellow Gems:
Quick King's Amber
Rigid King's Amber
*Purple Gems:
Puissant Dreadstone
Sovereign Dreadstone
*Green Gems:
Forceful Eye of Zul
Vivid Eye of Zul
Runeforging:
Mainhand: Rune of the Fallen Crusader
Offhand: Rune of Razorice
Abbreviations used:
Icy Touch = IT
Plague Strike = PS
Obliterate = OB
Blood Strike = BS
Frost Strike = FS
Pestilence = Pes
Prefered Rotation: IT - PS - OB - BS - BS - FS - OB - OB - Pes - BS - FS - FS REPEAT
(Basically Dump your runic power using FS before it reaches maximum at all times!)
NOTE that this rotation is based completely on a theoretical TANK'n'SPANK fight, in reality you'll have to adapt to specific encounters. So essentially there is no specific cookiecutter rotation to use.
Upsides:
1: High sustainable DPS
2: Brings a 20% Melee Haste buff to your raid
3: Not depending on Cooldowns
Downsides:
1: Requires alot of Hit Rating
2: People don't recognize Dual Wielding DKs like "normal" DKs,
expect stupid questions and suggestions in PUGs
I will try to develop this guide whenever I find time to spare.
Index
* 1. Common Abbrevations Used
* 2. Why bring a Death Knight to your raid?
* 3. How to DPS as a Death Knight
* 4. Talents
4.1. FROST
1. Common Abbreviations used
IT Icy Touch
BS Blood Strike
PS Plague Strike
HS Heart Strike
FS Frost Strike
SS Scourge Strike
DS Death Strike
OB Obliterate
MoB Mark of Blood
CF Crypt Fever
EP Ebon Plaguebringer
UB Unholy Blight
DC Death Coil
FF Frost Fever
BP Blood Plague
DG Death Grip
MoG Master of Ghouls
BCB Blood-Caked Blade
SG Summon Gargoyle
HB Howling Blast
Pes Pestilence
2. Why bring a Death Knight to your raid?
There are several upsides of bringing one or more Death Knights to your raid;
*Powerful raid buffs and debuffs, such as Horn of Winter to Talent Specialisation specific buffs. (f.ex Improved Icy Talons)
*A viable offtank for fights even when DPS specced. All it requires is a gear and presence swap.
*A viable tank for when shit hits the fan. Death Knights can swap to Frost Presence midcombat and tank if necessary, albeit not as good as they would in Tank gear (obviously).
*On-par DPS with any other class
*A "Combat Ressurection" (Raise Dead). Obviously not as useful as a Druid's Rebirth, but useful nevertheless.
Death Knights are very potent in keeping themselves alive, not to mention they are wearing Plate. With the help of Death Strike and in Blood's case Rune Tap (which can be turned into an AoE group heal with a Major Glyph!) Death Knights will require very little healing if played right.
3. How to DPS as a Death Knight.
You will find specific cookiecutter rotations for each talent build later on in this guide, although keep in mind that those rotations are all Theorycraft, they work perfect under ideal conditions, you will obviously have to change your DPS style on some encounters.
Here's a small suggested priority list for Single Target DPS;
* Keep your diseases (Blood Plague, Frost Fever) on your target 100% of the time, they will boost your DPS significantly by increasing the damage of most of your special attacks, aswell as a small amount of damage by themselves.
* Use your highest damage-per-rune attack whenever its ready; Blood - Heart Strike, Frost - Obliterate, Unholy - Scourge Strike / Obliterate (more on this later).
* Spend your Runic Power before it hits maximum! Core dump abilities; Frost Strike, Death Coil, Summon Gargoyle.
* Use your dps cooldowns appropriately to maximize their uptime. Know your rotations and how long the fight is, and judge accordingly.
* Do whatever you can to benefit the raid as much as possible. Sure, massive numbers are fun, but perhaps there's someone else in your raid who will benefit even more from a buff such as Hysteria. Afterall the goal is to down the boss, not to top the damage charts by any means necessary.
Always use Blood Presence while DPSing, it's highly superior to both Frost and Unholy Presence for PVE DPS regardless of talent build.
4. Talents.
What talents should I use? Is blood the best spec? Which spec is the tank spec?
These are all incredibly common questions, and all too often I see DKs with 71 points in the Blood Tree, becouse they think Blood is THE best dps spec.
Unlike other classes there is no such thing as "THE tank spec" or "THE dps spec" as a DK, there are key talents in all of the trees which will determine whether you're a DPSer or a Tank, and all trees have their specific upsides and downsides when it comes to both tanking and dpsing.
4.1 FROST:
Dual Wielding; Frost Dual Wield DPS is highly based on Obliterate damage, hence what you should go for is a SLOW/SLOW weapon combination (Any weapon speed above 2.5 is fine).
Keep in mind, that while dual wielding you will need ALOT of Hit Rating becouse of the hit penalty. Yellow hits are capped at 9% increased chance to hit (296 Hit Rating), and whites at 25% increased chance to hit (Nerves of Cold Steel already included, you will need 819 Hit Rating to reach the cap).
A big part of your total damage is based on white hits due to Blood-Caked Blade procs and Necrosis, so basically get as high hit chance as possible without totally gimping your other stats.
Prefered Talent Build:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZG0exAbczf0chzAofM0hxc:akpMmc
Prefered stats for this build: Hit Rating > Strength / Armor Penetration > Haste Rating
Try to keep Hit Rating high but balanced, Don't overkill one stat.
Enchants and Gems:
Enchants:
*Boots:
Greater Assault
*Wrists:
Greater Assault
Expertise
*Chest:
Powerful Stats
*Cloak:
Greater Speed
*Gloves:
Crusher
Precision
*Legs:
Icescale Leg Armor
Gems:
*Red Gems:
Bold Cardinal Ruby
Fractured Cardinal Ruby
*Orange Gems:
Etched Amentrine
Accurate Amentrine
Fierce Amentrine
Inscribed Amentrine
*Yellow Gems:
Quick King's Amber
Rigid King's Amber
*Purple Gems:
Puissant Dreadstone
Sovereign Dreadstone
*Green Gems:
Forceful Eye of Zul
Vivid Eye of Zul
Runeforging:
Mainhand: Rune of the Fallen Crusader
Offhand: Rune of Razorice
Abbreviations used:
Icy Touch = IT
Plague Strike = PS
Obliterate = OB
Blood Strike = BS
Frost Strike = FS
Pestilence = Pes
Prefered Rotation: IT - PS - OB - BS - BS - FS - OB - OB - Pes - BS - FS - FS REPEAT
(Basically Dump your runic power using FS before it reaches maximum at all times!)
NOTE that this rotation is based completely on a theoretical TANK'n'SPANK fight, in reality you'll have to adapt to specific encounters. So essentially there is no specific cookiecutter rotation to use.
Upsides:
1: High sustainable DPS
2: Brings a 20% Melee Haste buff to your raid
3: Not depending on Cooldowns
Downsides:
1: Requires alot of Hit Rating
2: People don't recognize Dual Wielding DKs like "normal" DKs,
expect stupid questions and suggestions in PUGs
