Ok, so for Emblems Of Heroism, as a DK Tank, what should I be going for first?
The Neck? The Trinket? Save up for the Chest-piece? etc
Depends on your current stats. The neck and belt are both fantastic investments. Consider though if you are not def. capped that the belt has one yellow slot for 16 def plus you can buy the item that grants you another slot of any color on your belt for another 16 def. The trinket isn't bad by any means, I would say it's what you should get last though. Belt, Neck, trinket. Personally I wouldn't waste badges on the Tier Chest considering you can run Vault and pick it up. Also remember that come next patch DK's are getting a Def. Sigil that cost (I believe) 15 badges.
Ok, so for Emblems Of Heroism, as a DK Tank, what should I be going for first?
The Neck? The Trinket? Save up for the Chest-piece? etc
Depends on your current stats. The neck and belt are both fantastic investments. Consider though if you are not def. capped that the belt has one yellow slot for 16 def plus you can buy the item that grants you another slot of any color on your belt for another 16 def. The trinket isn't bad by any means, I would say it's what you should get last though. Belt, Neck, trinket. Personally I wouldn't waste badges on the Tier Chest considering you can run Vault and pick it up. Also remember that come next patch DK's are getting a Def. Sigil that cost (I believe) 15 badges.
Oh yeah the belt is cool as well, forgot that was on the hero vendor.
If you're doing 10-mans, definitely get the belt, as it's best in slot for non-heroic raids. Other slots have things that are better or very very close.
The tanking neck and belt from badges are pretty good. They were the first 2 items I bought. After that it's either set pieces or buy the dps trinket or something. I have the trinkets from normal halls of lightning and heroic azjol right now.
Yea a lot of the times, when perception doesnt reflect reality, perception wins out.
For example, people say "Oh, DK tanks take more damage then non DK tanks." This may or may not be true depending on spec, gear and cooldown management. People group with even just one DK who is specced 0/0/dumb with 400 defense and 18k life and assume, hey DKs cant tank.
That is kinda why I am excited about next patch, it should address that perception. "Oh its the tank patch for DKs, ill let this guy MT."
Or one who insists he's the best tank ever because he's got his points vomited randomly into Frost.
I tried out frost for a bit using a fairly cookie cutter build and I dunno if it's frost or me or what but it was rather meh. There's a number of frost talents I love but it seemed rather lackluster and I wasn't having nearly as much fun. I'm going to miss those massive howling blast crits but I'm much happier with the modified blood/unholy spec I'm running now. Back to being an overpowered engine of destruction and loving every minute of it.
What is that spec for? Parts of it say PVE raid DPS, parts of it say PVP. I honestly can't tell. In either case, it looks interesting but there are some points I would move (Hysteria as a 30 second CC immunity is one of them for PVP, for example).
What are folks doing for rune management? For looks I think it's hard to beat Rune Pack, which is also very satisfying in a Guitar-Hero sort of way if you can really stare at it, but I'm finding that SimpleRune is just more efficient. The way it always keeps the lowest-cooldown rune in a pair on top is a huge help.
I also like MagicRunes configured to show short thick vertical bars, such that an available rune is full and opaque and a rune on cooldown is growing and transparent. The ultimate goal here is to reduce the amount of time spent squinting at runes (or, worse, at hotkeys), and I think it's nearly a toss-up between the last two. RuneWatch didn't help at all in this respect, and took up a lot of space to boot. I liked the disease counter though.
I've been using runewatch but it is fucking huge and blocks me from seeing void zones and stuff easily. I really should change to one of the simpler ones.
I haven't really been having trouble with rune cooldowns in normal UI. It might be different for tanking, which can sometimes require a more random element to rotations, but with blood DPS at least it's all pretty straightforward. The rotation of ability cooldowns takes care of all you need to know about the runes.
I tried out frost for a bit using a fairly cookie cutter build and I dunno if it's frost or me or what but it was rather meh. There's a number of frost talents I love but it seemed rather lackluster and I wasn't having nearly as much fun. I'm going to miss those massive howling blast crits but I'm much happier with the modified blood/unholy spec I'm running now. Back to being an overpowered engine of destruction and loving every minute of it.
What is that spec for? Parts of it say PVE raid DPS, parts of it say PVP. I honestly can't tell. In either case, it looks interesting but there are some points I would move (Hysteria as a 30 second CC immunity is one of them for PVP, for example).
It's mostly for pve. I pvp now and then but just for funsies. If I were trying to maximize for pvp I'd probably move a couple points around(probably drop Impurity for On a pale horse and Unholy command and move points from Death rune mastery to pick up Bloodworms and Hysteria).
It's very similar to 50/0/21 build over on elitist jerks...I just modified it a bit to suit me and went a little deeper into the unholy tree. I basically gave up Blood gorged so I could pick up the ghoul pet. It seemed like a decent trade off to me(but then I don't really care for the Blood gorged talent...don't like that health stipulation on it at all). Impurity gives my spells a little more oomph(making death coil hit harder) and it scales with attack power so it seemed like a good deal to me. Necrosis and blood caked blade boost my melee weapon hits.....death rune mastery so I can heart strike/death coil more. The pets make for some nice extra firepower.
I know it's not the 'recommended' spec but I'm pretty happy with it so far and I think I gained a lot more than I gave up overall.
So, I hit like a Truck as Frost. And proccing Killing Machine and then critting for 1600+ damage on my Frost Strikes is insane.
Should I be switching Death Strike and Obliterate (making Obliterate the last part of my rotation).
Current rotation:
Icy Touch - Plague Strike - Blood Strike - Blood Strike - Obliterate - Frost Strike until a Howling Blast is ready. Replace Howling Blast anytime after IT/PS if Freezing Fog procs.
I find myself with a LOT of Runic Power and then just blowing it spamming Frost Strike (Deathchill Frost Strike! Killing Machine Frost Strike! Frozen Fog Howling Blast! God so much fucking damage).
My spec: Here it be.
Thinking maybe putting Cinderglacier on it instead of Razorice. A constant guaranteed increase with a chance to deal extra damage is nice, but apparently it's only 5% which pales in comparison to 20% extra damage on my next Frost Strike frenzy.
Speaking of specs, need some feedback on my leveling build:
Here it is. I was originally going to cap out Annihilation after finishing Icy Talons at 68, but then it occured to me that doing so would be almost pointless. The current rotation I use is quite effective, and it essentially ends with Obliterate at the end of the chain. (I go Icy > Plague > Heart > Heart > Obliterate > Death Coil (optional) > Rinse/Repeat) Well, the end of the chain has my diseases almost gone anyway, so why would I need to keep the ability from taking them off when they're just going to wear off half a second later anyway and be refreshed the next second?
So instead I'm going to cap Vicious Strikes as it's an extremely cheap talent with the potential for amazing solo value. Getting a higher crit rate and crit value on Death Strike, combined with the glyph, is going to make that ability potentially give me loads of hit points back every use. After that, I thought I'd work on Blood Gored. Not sure what to do with the last few points after that.
Speaking of specs, need some feedback on my leveling build:
Here it is. I was originally going to cap out Annihilation after finishing Icy Talons at 68, but then it occured to me that doing so would be almost pointless. The current rotation I use is quite effective, and it essentially ends with Obliterate at the end of the chain. (I go Icy > Plague > Heart > Heart > Obliterate > Death Coil (optional) > Rinse/Repeat) Well, the end of the chain has my diseases almost gone anyway, so why would I need to keep the ability from taking them off when they're just going to wear off half a second later anyway and be refreshed the next second?
I think this is right -- my impression is that people usually take Annihilation in conjunction with Epidemic.
I'm writing a forum post on my cell phone on a boring car ride. How cool is that? Anyway, I'm having a lot of difficulty picking a spec. I want to rape at arena, do well in battlegrounds, and still be able to throw tanking gear on and tank decently, at least better than my fury warrior room-mate. 20% self heal looks great, same with mark of blood, but i never tried them and the other trees look as good if not better. no howling wind cooldown means i could freeze everyone and hit them with HB 3 times-- epic win? At 76 it already hits for 5k per target. And hungering cold looks epic on its own. I like unholy pets, DnD and death grip talents, and the general emphasis on diseases, theoretically our specialty. To complicate things, i hear dual wield is now the highest dps spec after being regarded as not being competitive? In short, I can narrow nothing down but that I want to kick ass, primarily in PvP. What does current theorycrafting and experienced PvP perspectives dictate?
Frost strike replaces Death Coil (for melee range mobs) - Yes.
Heart Strike Replaces Blood - Yes.
What does Howling blast replace in Frost? - Nothing, Howling Blast is its own unique brand of awesome.
And when do you add in DRW in blood? Just like Unholy's garg? - Roughly. But last I knew the DRW would do everything you did, including summoning a ghoul. So make sure you use it before you use any fancy cooldowns.
Speaking of specs, need some feedback on my leveling build:
Here it is. I was originally going to cap out Annihilation after finishing Icy Talons at 68, but then it occured to me that doing so would be almost pointless. The current rotation I use is quite effective, and it essentially ends with Obliterate at the end of the chain. (I go Icy > Plague > Heart > Heart > Obliterate > Death Coil (optional) > Rinse/Repeat) Well, the end of the chain has my diseases almost gone anyway, so why would I need to keep the ability from taking them off when they're just going to wear off half a second later anyway and be refreshed the next second?
So instead I'm going to cap Vicious Strikes as it's an extremely cheap talent with the potential for amazing solo value. Getting a higher crit rate and crit value on Death Strike, combined with the glyph, is going to make that ability potentially give me loads of hit points back every use. After that, I thought I'd work on Blood Gored. Not sure what to do with the last few points after that.
No Sudden Doom? That is one of the best and most unique talents in the entire tree, and sets the entire playstyle. In fairness, it isn't nearly as good till 70 with Unholy Presence, but still.
Scent of blood is pretty much trash, btw. Swap those out for Death Rune mastery.
Ditch the Frost tree entirely and go for "On a Pale Horse" as soon as possible. 20% increased mounted speed helps leveling more than any other two talent points.
Unholy is the best leveling spec, btw, so depending on how attached to Blood you are, I'd suggest this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfzMZZfMzhxfkgcoMsout
All move speed buffs (mounted and walking), excellent AOE, good defense. "Down time" consists of pulling one mob and using death strike, instead of pulling six and using AOE.
And when do you add in DRW in blood? Just like Unholy's garg?
Others have been answered, so I'll cover this in a little detail based on what I've been told. The appropriate way to use DRW is to do the following:
DRW -> Hysteria -> Raise Ghoul -> PS -> IT -> rest of DPS stuff. The DRW does not use your diseases, it uses its own for modifiers on Oblit and the like. It also casts in own buffs / summons too.
I'm writing a forum post on my cell phone on a boring car ride. How cool is that? Anyway, I'm having a lot of difficulty picking a spec. I want to rape at arena, do well in battlegrounds, and still be able to throw tanking gear on and tank decently, at least better than my fury warrior room-mate. 20% self heal looks great, same with mark of blood, but i never tried them and the other trees look as good if not better. no howling wind cooldown means i could freeze everyone and hit them with HB 3 times-- epic win? At 76 it already hits for 5k per target. And hungering cold looks epic on its own. I like unholy pets, DnD and death grip talents, and the general emphasis on diseases, theoretically our specialty. To complicate things, i hear dual wield is now the highest dps spec after being regarded as not being competitive? In short, I can narrow nothing down but that I want to kick ass, primarily in PvP. What does current theorycrafting and experienced PvP perspectives dictate?
It works really well with a frost mage (Hungering Cold allows shatter combos!). Hungering Cold does break on non-disease damage, so you can't exactly hit people with more than one attack. It's use is to shut down a whole arena team at once to give you breathing room, and so you can burst one guy down while his partner is frozen. It's lack of diminishing returns and high runic cost means it pretty much always lasts its full duration.
This spec has a couple weaknesses:
1. Most DKs suck against very well geared healers in general, due to a lack of mortal strike and Strangulate being on the longest cooldown ever.
2. To make the above worse, no dispel protection on diseases means you do 20-60% less damage at all times against cleanse spamming fucktards. It's fucking retarded how overpowered every anti-disease ability in the entire game is against DKs right now. Even with 3/3 Virulence it is still too easy.
My top 2v2 arena rating with this spec was 1690 as Frost DK / Frost Mage, though my partner was undergeared. I consider myself a good but not excellent PVPer since this is my first season as a DK. This composition is good against many teams, but suffers against teams running a full epic geared healer (exception: priests).
For PVP, all unholy builds build off something a little like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZZfMGh0fkgcoMsou
because Scourge Strike, Ebon Plaguebringer, Virulence, and Master of Ghouls are all completely and totally mandatory.
I've off-tanked 10 man Sarth in my PVP spec, but any good PVP spec doesn't include many of the good tanking abilities, so you are shit out of luck if you want both, unless you want a spec that is half-assed in both. Still, hopefully 3.1 for dual specs, so we shall see.
Also, for PVP Glyphs, right now you want Glyph of Icebound Fortitude, Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, and one other based on your spec.
That said, HB and pestilence with no cooldown is a GIGANTIC buff to frost PVP and PVE AOE.
So I'm currently 64 with 55 points in Unholy. What's the proper rotation to be using, at least for mob grinding? I've generally been going Icy Touch - Plague Strike - Scourge Strike (or Death Strike if I need HP) - Blood Strike - Blood Strike. The mob is usually dead by the first Blood Strike, definitely by the second. I DC when I get near the RP limit.
I've only been using Death and Decay if I have two mobs or more, in which case it's it's DnD - IT - PS - Pestilence - Wait. Is it worth using DnD on single targets?
Its 20 Runic Power, which helps in casting blight.
Why are you only pulling one mob? At 64 I was in nagrand pulling herds and aoe'ing em down and was doing a level in 1.5 hours.
Because I'm questing and doing mobs that are far apart/are casters? When I have the option, I'm pulling 5-6 mobs. I'm doing levels in 2 hours, so I'm not that concerned about my speed.
So I'm currently 64 with 55 points in Unholy. What's the proper rotation to be using, at least for mob grinding? I've generally been going Icy Touch - Plague Strike - Scourge Strike (or Death Strike if I need HP) - Blood Strike - Blood Strike. The mob is usually dead by the first Blood Strike, definitely by the second. I DC when I get near the RP limit.
I've only been using Death and Decay if I have two mobs or more, in which case it's it's DnD - IT - PS - Pestilence - Wait. Is it worth using DnD on single targets?
I'm not sure DnD is worth it for single targets. I only ever use it on a group of mobs because otherwise it's not worth it to me to spend the runes to cast it. I could be using those for heart strikes and obliterate which will kill the mob faster and not waste runes on something that's not going to get the chance to do full damage to the mob.
Rotations...I assume you have the plague strike glyph? If so then IT > PS seems fine. Most rotations I've seen suggest using BS next and then a bunch of SS's(DC or Unholy blight to dump rune power). You've got the basic idea already though.
So I'm currently 64 with 55 points in Unholy. What's the proper rotation to be using, at least for mob grinding? I've generally been going Icy Touch - Plague Strike - Scourge Strike (or Death Strike if I need HP) - Blood Strike - Blood Strike. The mob is usually dead by the first Blood Strike, definitely by the second. I DC when I get near the RP limit.
I've only been using Death and Decay if I have two mobs or more, in which case it's it's DnD - IT - PS - Pestilence - Wait. Is it worth using DnD on single targets?
You should try to always AOE pull, except when using a single pull to heal up with death strike to get ready for the next AOE pull.
But no, DND is not appropriate against any single target mob. You're always better off with the extra Scourge Strike + Blood Strike.
Speaking of specs, need some feedback on my leveling build:
Here it is. I was originally going to cap out Annihilation after finishing Icy Talons at 68, but then it occured to me that doing so would be almost pointless. The current rotation I use is quite effective, and it essentially ends with Obliterate at the end of the chain. (I go Icy > Plague > Heart > Heart > Obliterate > Death Coil (optional) > Rinse/Repeat) Well, the end of the chain has my diseases almost gone anyway, so why would I need to keep the ability from taking them off when they're just going to wear off half a second later anyway and be refreshed the next second?
So instead I'm going to cap Vicious Strikes as it's an extremely cheap talent with the potential for amazing solo value. Getting a higher crit rate and crit value on Death Strike, combined with the glyph, is going to make that ability potentially give me loads of hit points back every use. After that, I thought I'd work on Blood Gored. Not sure what to do with the last few points after that.
No Sudden Doom? That is one of the best and most unique talents in the entire tree, and sets the entire playstyle. In fairness, it isn't nearly as good till 70 with Unholy Presence, but still.
Scent of blood is pretty much trash, btw. Swap those out for Death Rune mastery.
Ditch the Frost tree entirely and go for "On a Pale Horse" as soon as possible. 20% increased mounted speed helps leveling more than any other two talent points.
Unholy is the best leveling spec, btw, so depending on how attached to Blood you are, I'd suggest this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfzMZZfMzhxfkgcoMsout
All move speed buffs (mounted and walking), excellent AOE, good defense. "Down time" consists of pulling one mob and using death strike, instead of pulling six and using AOE.
I've give it a shot for sure. I've definitely got enough time to do so with the time it takes to get to 70 to 80, but I messed around with Unholy a bit before. Granted it wasn't very long, but nothing just amazed me about it. I don't really care for the pet, and AoE grinding would have been nice for Outland, but Northrend doesn't have nearly the amount of "kill x mobs for y item." It seems to focus way more on single encounters, which is where blood shines.
As far as scent of blood goes, yeah, I haven't been impressed with it. I haven't really done anything with Death Runes though and can't really see how they'd be useful when you're repeating the same rotation over and over, but perhaps if you're using Unholy Presence you'd need the rune flexibility to go with the low GCD?
I really don't care about movement speed. I used it when leveling mining, but haven't felt the need for it. I like playing my dk and don't really want to rush through everything.
Sudden Doom is pretty awesome. I was kinda iffy on it at first but now I'm sold. Couple that with Morbidity over in Unholy so the death coils hit harder.....and then death rune mastery to convert those frost/unholy so you can heartstrike more...which means more chances to proc sudden doom and just go nuts with all the damage you're putting out.
come patch, no cd on howling blast pretty much puts dual wielding near the top in pve. I haven't seen many dks walking around with setups close to those.
Yeah, there's a lot of random optional shit in those calculators, but the important stuff is there.
also apparently if you take crypt fever without taking ebon plague, it'll stack with another dk's ebon. Don't know if/when that'll be fixed.
come patch, no cd on howling blast pretty much puts dual wielding near the top in pve.
I hope they realize this and adjustment away from it. If I wanted to dual wield I'd play a shaman.
DK's should have a big beefy blade cutting things in half. Already I see most DK's in the Outlands running around with two swords, the trend has begun and hopefully it gets stopped.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited December 2008
I don't mind if everyone runs around DWing, it just makes me more badass with my 2her
Although I would prefer that my 2her still be the most badass option
come patch, no cd on howling blast pretty much puts dual wielding near the top in pve.
I hope they realize this and adjustment away from it. If I wanted to dual wield I'd play a shaman.
DK's should have a big beefy blade cutting things in half. Already I see most DK's in the Outlands running around with two swords, the trend has begun and hopefully it gets stopped.
You keep saying that. "If I wanted to x, I'd play a y." Well, that's all fine and good, but some of us like being able to x while still playing a dk. You somehow think death knight aren't supposed to dual wield? Then why the hell do they have a talent that improves it? The class was designed from the ground up to be versatile.
I most definitely hope they take even more steps to getting dual wielding in line with 2hers as far as dps goes. Having options makes the game more enjoyable, you know.
Posts
Depends on your current stats. The neck and belt are both fantastic investments. Consider though if you are not def. capped that the belt has one yellow slot for 16 def plus you can buy the item that grants you another slot of any color on your belt for another 16 def. The trinket isn't bad by any means, I would say it's what you should get last though. Belt, Neck, trinket. Personally I wouldn't waste badges on the Tier Chest considering you can run Vault and pick it up. Also remember that come next patch DK's are getting a Def. Sigil that cost (I believe) 15 badges.
Oh yeah the belt is cool as well, forgot that was on the hero vendor.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
What is that spec for? Parts of it say PVE raid DPS, parts of it say PVP. I honestly can't tell. In either case, it looks interesting but there are some points I would move (Hysteria as a 30 second CC immunity is one of them for PVP, for example).
I also like MagicRunes configured to show short thick vertical bars, such that an available rune is full and opaque and a rune on cooldown is growing and transparent. The ultimate goal here is to reduce the amount of time spent squinting at runes (or, worse, at hotkeys), and I think it's nearly a toss-up between the last two. RuneWatch didn't help at all in this respect, and took up a lot of space to boot. I liked the disease counter though.
edit: I guess this could also go in the UI thread
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
It's mostly for pve. I pvp now and then but just for funsies. If I were trying to maximize for pvp I'd probably move a couple points around(probably drop Impurity for On a pale horse and Unholy command and move points from Death rune mastery to pick up Bloodworms and Hysteria).
It's very similar to 50/0/21 build over on elitist jerks...I just modified it a bit to suit me and went a little deeper into the unholy tree. I basically gave up Blood gorged so I could pick up the ghoul pet. It seemed like a decent trade off to me(but then I don't really care for the Blood gorged talent...don't like that health stipulation on it at all). Impurity gives my spells a little more oomph(making death coil hit harder) and it scales with attack power so it seemed like a good deal to me. Necrosis and blood caked blade boost my melee weapon hits.....death rune mastery so I can heart strike/death coil more. The pets make for some nice extra firepower.
I know it's not the 'recommended' spec but I'm pretty happy with it so far and I think I gained a lot more than I gave up overall.
Should I be switching Death Strike and Obliterate (making Obliterate the last part of my rotation).
Current rotation:
Icy Touch - Plague Strike - Blood Strike - Blood Strike - Obliterate - Frost Strike until a Howling Blast is ready. Replace Howling Blast anytime after IT/PS if Freezing Fog procs.
I find myself with a LOT of Runic Power and then just blowing it spamming Frost Strike (Deathchill Frost Strike! Killing Machine Frost Strike! Frozen Fog Howling Blast! God so much fucking damage).
My spec: Here it be.
Thinking maybe putting Cinderglacier on it instead of Razorice. A constant guaranteed increase with a chance to deal extra damage is nice, but apparently it's only 5% which pales in comparison to 20% extra damage on my next Frost Strike frenzy.
Here it is. I was originally going to cap out Annihilation after finishing Icy Talons at 68, but then it occured to me that doing so would be almost pointless. The current rotation I use is quite effective, and it essentially ends with Obliterate at the end of the chain. (I go Icy > Plague > Heart > Heart > Obliterate > Death Coil (optional) > Rinse/Repeat) Well, the end of the chain has my diseases almost gone anyway, so why would I need to keep the ability from taking them off when they're just going to wear off half a second later anyway and be refreshed the next second?
So instead I'm going to cap Vicious Strikes as it's an extremely cheap talent with the potential for amazing solo value. Getting a higher crit rate and crit value on Death Strike, combined with the glyph, is going to make that ability potentially give me loads of hit points back every use. After that, I thought I'd work on Blood Gored. Not sure what to do with the last few points after that.
I think this is right -- my impression is that people usually take Annihilation in conjunction with Epidemic.
Ok here goes my question- What replaces what in each spec?
AKA- Scourge Strike replacing Obliterate in Unholy tree
Does it break down like this:
Frost strike replaces Death Coil (for melee range mobs)
Heart Strike Replaces Blood
What does Howling blast replace in Frost?
And when do you add in DRW in blood? Just like Unholy's garg?
No Sudden Doom? That is one of the best and most unique talents in the entire tree, and sets the entire playstyle. In fairness, it isn't nearly as good till 70 with Unholy Presence, but still.
Scent of blood is pretty much trash, btw. Swap those out for Death Rune mastery.
Ditch the Frost tree entirely and go for "On a Pale Horse" as soon as possible. 20% increased mounted speed helps leveling more than any other two talent points.
Unholy is the best leveling spec, btw, so depending on how attached to Blood you are, I'd suggest this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfzMZZfMzhxfkgcoMsout
All move speed buffs (mounted and walking), excellent AOE, good defense. "Down time" consists of pulling one mob and using death strike, instead of pulling six and using AOE.
Others have been answered, so I'll cover this in a little detail based on what I've been told. The appropriate way to use DRW is to do the following:
DRW -> Hysteria -> Raise Ghoul -> PS -> IT -> rest of DPS stuff. The DRW does not use your diseases, it uses its own for modifiers on Oblit and the like. It also casts in own buffs / summons too.
It depends.
My PVP spec is this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfV0acZGgxzu0dMGRA0st
It works really well with a frost mage (Hungering Cold allows shatter combos!). Hungering Cold does break on non-disease damage, so you can't exactly hit people with more than one attack. It's use is to shut down a whole arena team at once to give you breathing room, and so you can burst one guy down while his partner is frozen. It's lack of diminishing returns and high runic cost means it pretty much always lasts its full duration.
This spec has a couple weaknesses:
1. Most DKs suck against very well geared healers in general, due to a lack of mortal strike and Strangulate being on the longest cooldown ever.
2. To make the above worse, no dispel protection on diseases means you do 20-60% less damage at all times against cleanse spamming fucktards. It's fucking retarded how overpowered every anti-disease ability in the entire game is against DKs right now. Even with 3/3 Virulence it is still too easy.
My top 2v2 arena rating with this spec was 1690 as Frost DK / Frost Mage, though my partner was undergeared. I consider myself a good but not excellent PVPer since this is my first season as a DK. This composition is good against many teams, but suffers against teams running a full epic geared healer (exception: priests).
If I was running with a healer and still kept frost, I would use this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZGgxth0dRGRAostfMG
(note: experimental build only).
This would help avoid cleanse issues.
For PVP, all unholy builds build off something a little like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZZfMGh0fkgcoMsou
because Scourge Strike, Ebon Plaguebringer, Virulence, and Master of Ghouls are all completely and totally mandatory.
I've off-tanked 10 man Sarth in my PVP spec, but any good PVP spec doesn't include many of the good tanking abilities, so you are shit out of luck if you want both, unless you want a spec that is half-assed in both. Still, hopefully 3.1 for dual specs, so we shall see.
Also, for PVP Glyphs, right now you want Glyph of Icebound Fortitude, Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, and one other based on your spec.
That said, HB and pestilence with no cooldown is a GIGANTIC buff to frost PVP and PVE AOE.
I've only been using Death and Decay if I have two mobs or more, in which case it's it's DnD - IT - PS - Pestilence - Wait. Is it worth using DnD on single targets?
Its 20 Runic Power, which helps in casting blight.
Why are you only pulling one mob? At 64 I was in nagrand pulling herds and aoe'ing em down and was doing a level in 1.5 hours.
Because I'm questing and doing mobs that are far apart/are casters? When I have the option, I'm pulling 5-6 mobs. I'm doing levels in 2 hours, so I'm not that concerned about my speed.
I'm not sure DnD is worth it for single targets. I only ever use it on a group of mobs because otherwise it's not worth it to me to spend the runes to cast it. I could be using those for heart strikes and obliterate which will kill the mob faster and not waste runes on something that's not going to get the chance to do full damage to the mob.
Rotations...I assume you have the plague strike glyph? If so then IT > PS seems fine. Most rotations I've seen suggest using BS next and then a bunch of SS's(DC or Unholy blight to dump rune power). You've got the basic idea already though.
You should try to always AOE pull, except when using a single pull to heal up with death strike to get ready for the next AOE pull.
But no, DND is not appropriate against any single target mob. You're always better off with the extra Scourge Strike + Blood Strike.
Just remember that casters = 3 pull: body pull, death grip pull, strangulate pull. :P
An unholy DK puts an affliction warlock to shame in terms of leveling speed. It's amazing.
As far as scent of blood goes, yeah, I haven't been impressed with it. I haven't really done anything with Death Runes though and can't really see how they'd be useful when you're repeating the same rotation over and over, but perhaps if you're using Unholy Presence you'd need the rune flexibility to go with the low GCD?
I really don't care about movement speed. I used it when leveling mining, but haven't felt the need for it. I like playing my dk and don't really want to rush through everything.
For minor I'd go pestilence.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
What am I to do
Play the talent spec that you want and don't worry about what other Death Knights are doing.
I am worried about always being grouped with four other Unholy death knights
Also I don't really like Unholy, I just really like a permaghoul.
man I wish the thunderclap glyph gave it an extra 5 yards instead of 2. and started out at 10 yards.
I despise the unholy tree, I hate how DK AE works. If I wanted to AE I'd play a mage.
But I love the pale horse talent. All three trees should have mount speed increases.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZG0etzxdRhoV0sZfM0htckx0o for pet friendly fights
something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZG0ex0xbRhoZfM0ItckxcoMdo for pet unfriendly fights post-patch
come patch, no cd on howling blast pretty much puts dual wielding near the top in pve. I haven't seen many dks walking around with setups close to those.
Yeah, there's a lot of random optional shit in those calculators, but the important stuff is there.
also apparently if you take crypt fever without taking ebon plague, it'll stack with another dk's ebon. Don't know if/when that'll be fixed.
I hope they realize this and adjustment away from it. If I wanted to dual wield I'd play a shaman.
DK's should have a big beefy blade cutting things in half. Already I see most DK's in the Outlands running around with two swords, the trend has begun and hopefully it gets stopped.
Although I would prefer that my 2her still be the most badass option
I most definitely hope they take even more steps to getting dual wielding in line with 2hers as far as dps goes. Having options makes the game more enjoyable, you know.