[Bloodwraith]

Working on update for 3.2.2!

Left to Update:

Spells and Cooldowns
Common Arena Set-ups
Gear to Aim For
Stats
Enchants
Gems
Races
Professions
Macros
Interface
Keybinds
Links
Death Coil PvP
________________________________________

News:

3.2.2 DK Notes Frost Presence: The damage reduction granted by this ability has been increased from 5% to 8%. Pets Gnaw: This death knight ghoul ability now has a 1-minute cooldown. Talents Blood Heart Strike: Secondary targets of Heart Strike now take half as much damage. Subversion: Now also increases the critical strike chance of Scourge Strike by 3/6/9%. Vampiric Blood: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and duration reduced to 10 seconds. Frost Threat of Thassarian now also causes Rune Strike to use both weapons when dual-wielding. Unbreakable Armor: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and changed back to granting 25% additional armor while active instead of flat damage reduction based on armor. The amount of strength granted has been reduced to 10%. Unholy Bone Shield: This ability now has 3 charges instead of 4. Cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Dirge: This talent no longer grants additional runic power from using Obliterate.

Updated for:

Date: 10/29/09
Patch: 3.2.2
Season: 7

Contents of This Guide:

• General Advice
• Specs
• Spells and Cooldowns
• Common Arena Set-ups
• Gear To Aim For
• Stats
• Enchants
• Gems
• Major Glyphs
• Minor Glyphs
• Races
• Professions
• Macros
• Interface
• Keybinds
• Links

If you see any missing info, let me know and I'll look into it. If you have anything that you think will improve the guide ( links etc.) please let me know. Feedback is always welcome. This guide is aimed toward new DK's or players that are just switching to PvP. It was created using multiple sources that I have found useful along with personal experience. This is not meant to be a guide for gladiators. It is merely meant to help maximize your potential. What you do with it is up to you.

General Advice

How To: Improve Your Arena Ratings

How To Be Effective:

I) Don't Die- As a DK you have a lot of defensive cooldowns. If you are getting burned you have: Frost Presence, Chains of Ice, Death Pact, Death Strike, Anti-Magic Shell ,Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Zone, Bone Shield, Lichborne+Death Coils, and your partner's abilities to help you stay alive.

II) Don't Let Your Partners Die- Learn to be good at peeling. Death Grip+Chains of Ice basically shuts a melee class down and allows your healer to cast a few heals. Mind Freeze/ Strangulate can also keep a caster from getting a killing blow on your healer. Chains of Ice spam can basically shut down melee. Anti-Magic Zone can keep casters from burning your healer down. And just your general damage can force enemies to play defensively and temporarily reduce pressure.

III) Don't Let Your Enemy Get Away- Chains of Ice/Death Grip can basically keep any class that you want near you. Plus you have Imp unholy presence so you run faster than most classes by default.

IV) Burst When Your Target Can't Get Healed- This is pretty self explanatory. Don't waste cooldowns on targets that you know won't die. When they are vulnerable pop everything and force some real pressure.

V) Sustain Damage When You Know You Can't Burst Them To Death- Like I said above continue attacking but don't waste cooldowns on someone that won't die. This stage in a fight can be when you gather runic power, wait on runes to refresh, create death runes, refresh diseases.

Dreasus wrote this. You can find his guide here: Dreasus' Guide for PvP Warriors

Every single thing is limited to you, to the way you think about things - just as in the real life, you might find a piece of paper useless, but there are some people who could use that to kill someone. As a fact, there are some features in World of Warcraft that I call "game mechanics" what create limits to things, involving classes and their relationship to each other, but I pretend that there isn't any of these mechanics that ruins the PvP for any class. Everything depends on you, there for if you are not satisfied with any kind of performance you provide ingame, search the reasons in yourself. Practice, Think, Learn. It's true of anything; if you pay attention to something, if you try to use your mind, if you try to understand it you'll have far better results than if you would do it brainless, without considering the circumstances. If you are about to maximize your performance-possibilities, it's not even close to enough if you play twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, because it will only pay itself if you think about the thing you do. Simple as that, you must know the reasons of every thing happens to you while you do PvP, if you invest the time and energy in summarizing, you have the chance to learn from it, and be better, find a way you can solve the problems you meet. Some people are not capable of it, they are playing the game since beta, they are managed to get PvP Rank14 and they still lose to most opponents, and without the right attitude and self-criticism, they start to look for the excuses and problems in the other classes and the game. What I'm pointing out: you must force yourself (if it doesn't go by itself) to think over everything. Pay attention to all the fights you play in, to what your enemies do, when, why. That's the key, and If you get that, the next step is the time. The more you invest, the better results you get. Be objective. People use this word (balance) many times on forums, most of these times they claim that something is not matching that word. Also, a lot of players like to talk around about the World of Warcraft's "Rock-Paper-Scissor" mechanism, like "Mage beats Warrior, Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage". I hardly pretend that both of these are false. It's not even possible to ask for some kind of a perfect harmony between the classes, hopefully I don't have to point the reasons. It been a very long time since something crossed the line so much that it made some aspects of the game unenjoyable. Today we have more matterful factors that classify the balance (like we have more abilities, new stat system, the Resilience, and so on) of the game, and in my view there's nothing that would need a radical change, otherwise it will continue ruining the game. Naturally there are some things that would require little changes. I've seen many good ideas that would bring some new colors to the gameplay (or into the Warrior class), some that would fix the current issues, and probably a few of them will have a place in the game in the future. The whole thing is truly subjective, because even if I say that I do have a chance against any kind of enemies, you might say that I haven't faced opponents that were good enough - and to continue the line, I could ask something similar from you when you say you can't win against anyone. But just because there's someone who is satisfied with something, but the other 99.99% of the people not, it's not wise to make the decisions according to the first one. And that's what makes World Of Warcraft a great game in my eye, like all the time, with minor problematics, Blizzard could manage to keep things at the right side of the edge, everyone has their own chance to find the levels they enjoy the game on. What causing the problems then? Many countless people don't have any idea about what level they play on. You can name these levels by any details of the game and the players; how well they can play ; how good their gear is ; talent specializations; dedication ; and the list goes on. Now, if you are playing PvP casually, you have only average gear for it, why would you want to win against someone that has the full gear, and far more experience than you in PvP? There are numberless opponents that would match your criteria better, therefor if you don't put the maximal effort in the thing you do, don't expect sucess without problems. Why all of these things are important? Because apart from subjectivity, we do stand a chance against any kind of opponents. Other opinions are based on skill-difference, gear-difference, and other things that builds PvP on the surface. Also, don't forget there are many differences between an average and average player, between good and good, also between the insane and insane. And that's the reason why the "Rock-Paper-Scissor" fails in my mind, there are some classes that have minor (or not only minor) advantages against another, but the way these two players play the game is far more important in most cases. Basically we can stand proudly in every Arena team-bracket, though we have some limitations to what our partner has to be. So what do we have to do to be viable in solo situations? What do we have to do to be useful in team fights? It's very simple, and insanely complicated at the same time - just as with other classes. The fact is, you can learn to play quite fast, but that's only enough to have some fun for the same level you play on. But if you provide some dedication, and start to work on getting better, you'll see that we do have abilities that can be used in wrong and good ways, even if the difference is hardly noticable, it's there, and it's important.

Specs

Unholy seems to be the most dominant again this season.

0/17/54

This is the standard spec. Some people take Corpse Explosion, Improved Unholy Presence, or more points in Toughness. It comes down to playstyle. To get those you'll have to move some other talents around.

3/17/51

Spells and Cooldowns

• Death Grip- This is a great peeling ability. Combine it with chains of ice and you can shut down other melee classes.
  
• Strangulate- This is a very useful silence. It can be used to shut out your enemies heals or to silence an enemy caster to prevent them from finishing you off.
  
• Lichborne- When you use this is breaks fears When you use it you become undead and you can be shackled by priests so be wary of that. While this is active you can also cast death coils on yourself because you are considered undead.
  
• Presences- I tend to start of each arena in frost presence. If I find that the other team is not focusing me I will switch to DPS. There has been a debate on which presence is most effective. Players have had success using Unholy or Blood Presence.
  
• Blood Boil- This is pretty much only useful for popping out stealthed players. It now uses a rune even if you don't pop someone out.
  
• Chains of Ice- This is a great peel ability. If basically freezes any melee where they stand. If there is a cleave team you can apply this to every melee on the team to help your partners escape them. This is also how you apply your frost disease if you have 2/2 in Endless Winter.
  
• Gargoyle- This is a very nice offensive cooldown. It's speed benefits from Unholy presence so keep that in mind.
  
• Diseases- Make sure to keep your 3 diseases up at all times. Pretty much all of your abilities scale according to how many diseases you have up.
  
• Mind Freeze- This is our 10 second interrupt. With 2/2 in endless winter this requires no runic power. There is a known bug where this has a delay on it's actual use which can cause problems with important interrupts.
  
• Death Pact- This is a very strong defensive cooldown. 40% health can be gamebreaking so if you are getting burst you can pop this to help your healer counterbalance some of it.
  
• Scourge Strike- This is your main ability. It deals shadow damage and ignores armor.
  
• Death Strike- This is what you replace scourge strike with if you're getting burst. With your 3 diseases up it will heal you for 15% health each time.
  
• Icy Touch- This applies your frost disease but is rarely used because you have to keep using chains of ice so much and that already applies this. The only time I ever use this is to attack through a bubble or being out of range when a target is really low.
  
• Blood Strike- Use this to create death runes. It doesn't hit for much but that's not really it's function.
  
• Pestilence- This also creates death runes. Glyphed this is used to refresh all of your diseases on a target and spread them to other opponents.
  
• Empower Rune Weapon- This can be used as an offensive of defensive ability. Whenever you need your runes refreshed (for a kill or to refresh for a couple more death strike spams) you can pop this. It is very effective.
  
• Anti-Magic Shell- This can be used to prevent a caster's burst or avoid a classes CC such as cyclone.
  
• Icebound Fortitude- Pop this when you are getting burst. It is very effective in toning damage down to a manageable amount for your healer.
  
• Anti-Magic Zone- This is a safe area for your teammates who are getting attacked by magic.
  
• Dark Command- This is useful to taunt a pet off of your healer. If the other player doesn't notice the pet will stay on you and allow for your healer to drink.
  
• Death Coil- This is your offensive runic power dump. It hits for a decent amount (and even better with ulduar sigil). Combined with lichborne this can heal you. It can also be used to help keep your pet alive.
  
• Horn of Winter- Keep this buff up at all times.
  
• Bone Shield- I try to use this before an arena starts and then again whenever I'm being focused. If you apply it when you aren't being focused, it will be eaten up by AoE and wasted.
  
• Death and Decay- I try to use this right when an arena starts if I know there are stealthed enemies. I usually just run in and place it where a stealthy would have to run through to get to my team. This is especially useful to place it in your starting zone right before the fight in org arena starts.
  
• Pet- This should be up at all times. If it is killed resummon it once the 30 seconds is up. It is useful to have up to keep enemies from drinking, the stun it has, and to be killed by death pact if you're in a burst situation. You should have your pet's stun turned on manual (right click) so it can be used with better timing. I Find that the best uses are for getting a kill through CC chains and using to stun a DPS to peel off of your partner. If you place a point in corpse explosion it can be cast on your pet and hits for a hefty amount (6k+ usually).

Common Arena Set-ups

2v2-

• Death Knight/ Resto Druid
• Death Knight/ Holy (or Prot Healing) Paladin
• Death Knight/ Disc Priest

3v3-

• Death Knight/ Holy (Or Prot Healing) Paladin/ Arms Warrior
• Death Knight/ Disc Priest/ MutiPrep Rogue

5v5-

• Death Knight/ Resto Druid/ Ret Paladin/ Disc Priest/ Arms Warrior

Gear To Aim For

• (Best) Sigil of Awareness (Valor)- Sigil of Awareness - Item - World of Warcraft
  
• Some DK's use vengeful heart sigil to buff Death coil damage.
  
• Make sure you have the PvP gloves because extra runic power is nice for Chains of Ice.
  
• If you have access to good PvE gear you can sub that in for extra damage and hit cap.
  
• The rest should be the best pvp gear that you have at your disposal.

Stats

• Hit Rating- You will need to get 164(5%) hit rating to be capped for PvP. To achieve this you will probably have to get the "Victory" items instead of the "Triumph" items. You can also substitute PvE gear or hit gems to reach the cap if you have to.
  
• Spell Penetration- You should have around 75 Spell pen which can be achieved through using 2 Stormy Sky Sapphires along with your cloak enchant. This shouldn't be hard, a lot of the DK PvP gear has blue sockets. This also helps you get the meta. Some people like to have their spell pen a bit higher so don't be afraid to add another Stormy Sky Sapphire.
  
• Resilience- Some DK's try to run with low resilience numbers for PvE gear and higher damage. Try to find a number you're comfortable with. If you use your defensive cooldowns effectively, you shouldn't have a lot of trouble surviving through burst.
  
• And as always: Str>AP

Enchants

Helm: Arcanum of Torment/ Arcanum of Triumph
Shoudlers: Greater Inscription of the Axe/ Inscription of Triumph
Cloak: Spell Piercing
Chest: Super or Powerful Stats/ Exceptional Resilience
Wrist: Greater Assault
Hands: Crusher
Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
Feet: Icewalker (or Tuskarr's Vitality if you don't pick up Improved Unholy Presence, Greater Assault if you are already hit capped.)
2 Hander: Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Gems

Meta:

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

Normal:

Stormy Sky Sapphire x 2(or 3)
Hit gem if you're below cap
Then stack strength gems

Major Glyphs

Ghoul/Dark Death/ Disease or Chains of Ice

Minor Glyphs

Pestilence/Raise Dead/ Horn of Winter

Races

Alliance:

• Dwarf: Stoneform "While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armor increases by 10%. Lasts 8 sec."
  
• Gnome: Escape Artist "Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect."
  
• Human: Passive Increased stealth detection. Sword/Mace Expertise. Every Man For Himself "Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects."

Horde:

• Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent "Silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec and restores 15 Runic Power."
  
• Tauren: War Stomp "Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yds for 2 sec." Endurance "Base Health increased by 5%"
  
• Undead: Will of the Forsaken "Removes any Charm, Fear and Sleep effect."
  
• Troll: Berserking "Increases your attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec." Da Voodoo Shuffle (Passive) "Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%. "
  
• Orc: Blood Fury "Increases attack power by 322 at 80. Lasts 15 sec." Hardiness "Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 15%." Command "Damage dealt by pets increased by 5%." Axe Expertise.

Professions

I'm going to list the direct benefits from using each profession:

• Blacksmithing: 2 free sockets.
  
• Jewel Crafting: 3 BoP epic gems.
  
• Mining: +50 stam, not affected by percent based buffs.
  
• Leatherworking: Gives the option for 102 stamina or 130 AP to wrist.
  
• Enchanting: Gives ring enchants for 30 stamina each or 40 AP each (total 60 stam or 80 AP, or one of each).
  
• Inscription: Shoulder enchant for 120 AP and 15 crit.
  
• Skinning: Gives 25 crit.
  
• Herbalism: Gives a heal for 2k/5 sec on a 3 min CD.
  
• Tailoring: Powerful cloak enchant (swordguard embroidery) which procs for 300 AP for 15 seconds.
  
• Engineering: Add use onto gloves for 340 haste, Or you could add a rocket onto gloves. You can add a dish to your helmet that adds 45 stamina. Nitro Boosts to boots.

Macros

CoI/Focus

#showtooltip chains of ice /cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] chains of ice /cast [nomodifier:shift] chains of ice

This will cast chains of ice on your target. If you hold shift it will cast it on your focus target.

DG/Focus

#showtooltip death grip /cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] death grip /cast [nomodifier:shift] death grip

This will cast Death grip on your target. If you hold shift it will cast it on your focus target.

Heal self

#showtooltip Lichborne /cast Lichborne /cast [target=player] Death Coil

This will use lichborne and cast death coils on yourself.

Pet attacks/Focus

#showtooltip Gnaw /cast [nomodifier] leap /cast [nomodifier] gnaw /cast [modifier:shift,target=focus] leap /cast [modifier:shift,target=focus] gnaw

This casts your pet's cooldowns. If you hold shift they will be cast on your focus target.

Save Pet

/cast [target=trajik] leap /cast [target=pet] death coil

This will cause your pet to leap to your healer and will cast death coils to keep it up. Obviously replace "trajik" with your healer's name.

Strangulate/Focus

#showtooltip strangulate /cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] strangulate /cast [nomodifier:shift] strangulate

This will cast Strangulate on your target. If you hold shift it will cast it on your focus target.

Presence Swap

/cast [modifier:shift] Unholy presence /cast Frost Presence /cast blood presence

Casting this will put you in Frost presence if you're not in it. If you are in frost presence you will switch to blood. If you combine with shift you will switch to unholy presence.

Corpse Explode on Pet

#showtooltip Corpse Explosion /target pet /cast Corpse Explosion /targetlasttarget

This will target your pet, cast corpse explosion, and then retarget who you were targeting.

Interface

Everyone's is different. This is what mine looks like:



I've uploaded my UI to Wowinterface for anyone who is interested:

UW UI : WoWInterface Downloads : Generic Compilations

Home | WoW UI Tutorial - pvptutorial.com - This guide explains how to create a PvP UI through video tutorials.

When you download addons, make sure they are up to date(with the current patch), because if they aren't you will run into too many errors.

To quote Pharaunmizz:

Never underestimate the power of having more space and less clutter. PvP is pretty dynamic, so being able to see clearly can seriously help you out. Don't bother using Addons if they aren't doing anything for you. Periodically evaluate each of your addons and see if they're actually worth their screen space.

You should design your UI using a minimalist design. Basically just show what you need to see. A good way to save space in your UI is to go into your video options and click use UI scale. Tune it up and down until you think everything is just the right size.

If you have a large screen, try not to put anything important along the right/left edges. It is important to be able to see everything you need to without taking your eyes off of the main action. Also don't be afraid to scale things up. On a larger screen it is easier to forget to look at soemthing if it isn't scaled up.

I would suggest picking up a rune addon. The best one in my opinion is Acherus Runes. It tracks your Runes, Runic Power, Diseases, and Procs. The display is very customizable. You can download it here:

Acherus Runes - Addons - Curse

Some alternate Rune addons include:

RuneWatch : WoWInterface Downloads : Death Knight
DeathKnight.Info Runes - Addons - Curse
Runevolution : WoWInterface Downloads : Death Knight

Another addon is Gladius. Gladius is an enemy arena frame mod. You can download it here:

Gladius : WoWInterface Downloads : PvP/Arena/BattleGrounds

Afflicted is also useful to track enemy spells:

Afflicted3 : WoWInterface Downloads : PvP/Arena/BattleGrounds

SpellAlerter is customizable to show any spells that you want:

SpellAlerter : WoWInterface Downloads : Combat Mods

Here is a list of wrath updated popular mods:

Wrath Mod List (Read Before Asking For A Mod!)

Keybinds

I wrote a guide on keybinding effectively on tankspot here:

Keybinds and You

TL;DR= WASD Movement with A and D a strafe. Turn with your right mouse button. Keybinds= `12345QERTF combined with Shift/Ctrl/Alt.

I cannot stress how much using keybinds will improve your play. Even if you think you're a great clicker, you should make the switch.

These are my keybinds:



Article on keybinding: How you can become a Gladiator: Keybindings Part I - Elitist Jerks

Links

• Arena Junkies - World of Warcraft PvP Strategy and Discussion
  
• [Deathknight] PvP Thread - Elitist Jerks
  
• Beardly's Death Knight Arena/PVP guide

Death Coil Unholy PvP

<work in progress>

Spec

Spells and Cooldowns

Gear to Aim for

Major Glyphs

[czokalapik]

Macro for totem stomping won't work, if /petattack will be last this will be most important for macro, thus pet won't attack totems.

About Rune mods, and other addons - there are too many mods (good ones) to point out only one. PvP mods like spell alerter, afflicted etc etc are also worth mentioning.

Spec: no, unholy isn't BEST, it's good due to flexibility, few additional defensive cooldowns, offensive cooldown like gargoyle, imp unholy presence (no, not every DK runs around in blood, most in unholy, or at least half), but other specs also have tools that can be equal to unholy's or even better. Generally any tree is vialabe and really good if you can use it well, only thing that can raise Unholy above 2 other trees is Gnaw on 30sec cd (comparing to Hungering Cold on 1min cd in frost or no CC in blood).
But there are other factors that DK and his partner benefir from in blood or frost, other ways of snares, better burst dmg, better cooldowns when plaing with healer etc etc. you should say something more about specs, there are some viable specs in every tree.


Oh, and:

(Best) Sigil of the Vengeful Heart (Ulduar) Sigil of Awareness (Valor)

You're speaking about unholy DK here, right? So how can VH sigil can be "best"? Ofcourse Awarness will be best choice for blood and unholy DKs, only frost will prefer VH for bursts and 8k Frost strikes.
VH is Frost-ONLY sigil, not blood, nor unholy will benefit from VH more than from awarness. Expecially Unholy, most of DKs use Scourge Strike glyph as a semi-reliable counter to dispeller teams, so most of outgoing dmg/skills are SS (like 50-60%), often CoI, and BS sometimes, DC is used often, yes, but it have much lower dmg and isn't worth buffing with sigil if you can use awarness 'cause you'll gain much more from awarness than VH.

To be honest: few paragraphs are interesting, rest is just about everything, and if something says little bit about everything it's about nothing overall, sorry.

edit:Work some more about this guide, delete this "skill list", just write more, and not only from your point of view. Say something about resilence, how much DK should have, 300, 500, depending on partner etc etc, how DK works in pvp, how resi can be lowered if cooldowns/presences are used well, don't say that mind freeze or other spells are cooldowns that prevent you from dying, those are used offensively, to prevent cc, or to burst someone. write something on some comps, how to play with healer, how to play with caster, melee dps.

[Bloodwraith]

Source: czokalapik Macro for totem stomping won't work, if /petattack will be last this will be most important for macro, thus pet won't attack totems. About Rune mods, and other addons - there are too many mods (good ones) to point out only one. PvP mods like spell alerter, afflicted etc etc are also worth mentioning. Spec: no, unholy isn't BEST, it's good due to flexibility, few additional defensive cooldowns, offensive cooldown like gargoyle, imp unholy presence (no, not every DK runs around in blood, most in unholy, or at least half), but other specs also have tools that can be equal to unholy's or even better. Generally any tree is vialabe and really good if you can use it well, only thing that can raise Unholy above 2 other trees is Gnaw on 30sec cd (comparing to Hungering Cold on 1min cd in frost or no CC in blood). But there are other factors that DK and his partner benefir from in blood or frost, other ways of snares, better burst dmg, better cooldowns when plaing with healer etc etc. you should say something more about specs, there are some viable specs in every tree. Oh, and:You're speaking about unholy DK here, right? So how can VH sigil can be "best"? Ofcourse Awarness will be best choice for blood and unholy DKs, only frost will prefer VH for bursts and 8k Frost strikes. VH is Frost-ONLY sigil, not blood, nor unholy will benefit from VH more than from awarness. Expecially Unholy, most of DKs use Scourge Strike glyph as a semi-reliable counter to dispeller teams, so most of outgoing dmg/skills are SS (like 50-60%), often CoI, and BS sometimes, DC is used often, yes, but it have much lower dmg and isn't worth buffing with sigil if you can use awarness 'cause you'll gain much more from awarness than VH. To be honest: few paragraphs are interesting, rest is just about everything, and if something says little bit about everything it's about nothing overall, sorry. edit:Work some more about this guide, delete this "skill list", just write more, and not only from your point of view. Say something about resilence, how much DK should have, 300, 500, depending on partner etc etc, how DK works in pvp, how resi can be lowered if cooldowns/presences are used well, don't say that mind freeze or other spells are cooldowns that prevent you from dying, those are used offensively, to prevent cc, or to burst someone. write something on some comps, how to play with healer, how to play with caster, melee dps.

Fixed the totem stomp macro.

Added 2 more rune addons.

I wouldn't say blood is viable at all. Frost is a viable choice but I haven't included that in this guide. I will add an addendum to include frost but right now around 70% of 2k+ DKs in each bracket are Unholy spec (the rest being frost). Unholy is more popular and is more forgiving in gear.

I did some more searching trough AJ forums and found that more DK's do sit in unholy. Edited my presence swap macro and Presence Info. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

Changed Sigil info to show that awareness is better.

Listed Scourge Strike as an alternative to Disease.

Edited a few spells out of the staying alive section.

Added Afflicted/Spell Alerter.

Along with a frost section I'll try to include some info about resil.

[czokalapik]

About gear-forgiving part of unholy you have totally right.
I have low rating, haven't played much arenas (~300 2s?), but in my opinion blood is great choice. Not only it have DRW (combined with hysteria gives great burst dmg on low cd), but also it have more tools to protect yourself.

Sometimes i just can't protect my healer with CoI and Grip ocassionally from dispell classer or warriors, so with rune tap or VB i can give some time to my healer and don't waste his cooldowns.

Additionally i'm running with speed increasing enchant on boots, so i can swap presences to boost healing or me or increase pressure on opposing team to get them OOM faster,
and to be honest blood in blood presence is just amazing for that, i can't pull such pressure on healer in unholy (blood presence or unholy).

Still ofcourse i have lichborne in my build.

But anyway, fact that 70% dks are running arenas in unholy, and rest in frost doesn't mean, that unholy is best and blood isn't viable in arenas. Fist of all it depends on arena team comp, and second - it greatly depends on playstyle, and i can assure you, that with maybe low rating, and not such great arena experience as DK i'm convinced that blood (and frost) can be powerfull (for sure blood gives best burst dmg). In my opinion you should point it out - every tree can be viable, maybe unholy is popular (now) easy to play, or forgiving in gear, that doesn't matter, every spec is viable, some are great in pve dps or tanking (but also depending on gear and classes in raid), but in pvp it's mostly playstyle and team comp.

Ah, and one more - totem stomping can be shortened, i'm using this macro:

/petattack [target=Mana] /petattack [target=Searing] /petattack [target=Cleansin] /petattack [target=Stoneclaw] /petattack [target=Water Ele] /petattack [target=Fire N] /petattack [target=Earthbind] /petattack [target=Grounding]

(i prefer to have more control over my pet, so there's no /petattack or nothling like that)


And few other macros:

/targetlastenemy [target=target,noexists] /cast !Rune Strike /cast <skill name>

With this macro i'm retargetting hunters with FD, this is my 2-rune ability + rs

for DC and lichborne i have something like this:

#showtooltip Death Coil /cast [button:1, nomod] Death Coil /cast [button:2, target=pet, nomod] Death Coil /cast [mod:ctrl, target=player] Death Coil /cast [mod:ctrl] Lichborne

normally - dc
rmb - dc on pet
ctrl - lichborne, and in next uses with ctrl DC on me (this was important for me, so i won't waste DC after lichborning if i just want to break CC, and not heal myself).

btw: i prefer over all rune mods Runevolution - it's animation gives better view on runes cooldowns in my opinion.

This article is good work, but you should read it as visitor, such things should be written without any point of view, for example: SS glyph is sometimes chosen over Disease - but why? disease refreshes diseases, SS can apply them. and again: build.

keep up the good work, cheers

[Bloodwraith]

Source: czokalapik I have low rating, haven't played much arenas (~300 2s?), but in my opinion blood is great choice. Not only it have DRW (combined with hysteria gives great burst dmg on low cd), but also it have more tools to protect yourself. Additionally i'm running with speed increasing enchant on boots, so i can swap presences to boost healing or me or increase pressure on opposing team to get them OOM faster, and to be honest blood in blood presence is just amazing for that, i can't pull such pressure on healer in unholy (blood presence or unholy). But anyway, fact that 70% dks are running arenas in unholy, and rest in frost doesn't mean, that unholy is best and blood isn't viable in arenas. Fist of all it depends on arena team comp, and second - it greatly depends on playstyle, and i can assure you, that with maybe low rating, and not such great arena experience as DK i'm convinced that blood (and frost) can be powerfull (for sure blood gives best burst dmg). In my opinion you should point it out - every tree can be viable, maybe unholy is popular (now) easy to play, or forgiving in gear, that doesn't matter, every spec is viable, some are great in pve dps or tanking (but also depending on gear and classes in raid), but in pvp it's mostly playstyle and team comp. Ah, and one more - totem stomping can be shortened, i'm using this macro: (i prefer to have more control over my pet, so there's no /petattack or nothling like that) And few other macros: With this macro i'm retargetting hunters with FD, this is my 2-rune ability + rs for DC and lichborne i have something like this: normally - dc rmb - dc on pet ctrl - lichborne, and in next uses with ctrl DC on me (this was important for me, so i won't waste DC after lichborning if i just want to break CC, and not heal myself). btw: i prefer over all rune mods Runevolution - it's animation gives better view on runes cooldowns in my opinion. This article is good work, but you should read it as visitor, such things should be written without any point of view, for example: SS glyph is sometimes chosen over Disease - but why? disease refreshes diseases, SS can apply them. and again: build. keep up the good work, cheers

Added Runevolution

I haven't tried blood but does it have burst to compare to 7k+ scourge strikes or 6k+ Oblit/ 5k+ Frost Strikes that the other specs offer?

I'll add into the frost addition that any tree can be viable with the right comp and play style. I'll also try to add some info on blood to the addendum if I can find some. And again I'll try to add some info on resil.

I'll try to go back and add reasoning behind some things.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

[czokalapik]

Maybe it's not 7k SS or 8k FS, can't really remember what numbers i can pull, but with DRW launched i can bring opponent faster to the ground than with unholy and (slow) gargoyle.

And ofcourse if you play with spamming Heart Strikes you can sustain burst much longer, because HS uses only 1 rune.
Normally before bursting enemy down i try to generate at least 2 death runes, so after i launch DRW (and hysteria in some cases) my spike looks like: hs x4, ds, erw, hs x6, dc x3, add DRW dmg to it. Usually HS crit resied target for about 4k ? (unholy presence) - need to check it tho.

Basically i prefer blood recently because i'm encountering many teams with resto druid, and to OOM them i'm just switching into blood presence and swich targets as much as i can (while my teammate is trying to purge some hots). Dmg in blood presence from blood tree is really heavy and require lots of healing, so OOMing druid or other healers (maybe not disci priests or Holy palas) is really fast and easy.
This works great also for other situations like focusing on healer while dps sits on my healer with diseases and dots, silencing healer, gripping dps, and finishing him in 2-3 gcds.
Also disci priest is really weak against blood DK imo, he can protect himself for a while, but while i'm keeping pressure he have heavy times, with cooldowns launched in good moment its matter of 3-4 GCD to kill him.

Anyway, blood is pretty much like any other tree, depends on playstyle, i think you should just try it, i can't tell you how well it works (or maybe it will suck for you), you need to check it by yourself imo.

But on a side note: in blood i find myself changing presences much more often than while i'm in unholy or frost, i don't know, maybe blood gives more pressure used in blood presence.

[Bloodwraith]

I'm also doing to research to see what most DK's are doing as a reaction to the CoI change for PvP gloves. Some people are choosing a higher runic power build.

[czokalapik]

One thing i know is that my friends are picking Endless Winter 2/2 if they haven't already.
In blood i can't afford to reach it, but in Unholy this + CoI glyph can compensate the change i think. No free frost runes, so make CoI to do something more (dmg+apply ff).
I don't really know how to react on this change tbh, in unholy build i have (and had before) Endless Winter, and i'm rarely using IT, because I need to snare everything that threatens my healer basically all the time, but for blood, well, it's nerf for snares, but buff for spikes.

[Bloodwraith]

As always, feedback is welcome. Tomorrow I will add:

[X]19/52 as an alternate spec

[X]On a pale horse/Dirge alternate choices

[X]CoI glyph some choose but doesn't help burst

[X]Presence blood or unholy for burst

[X]Resil Info

[X]Add some reasoning behind a few things.

[X]Add Frost Section

Try to find some info for a blood section.

[Bloodwraith]

Added a frost section at the bottom of the guide. Let me know what you think

[Smohkin]

Source: Bloodwraith Added a frost section at the bottom of the guide. Let me know what you think

Thanks for the work you put into this guide. I really apreciated the information and comments. I currently run a 0/17/54 spec as my primary spec. And trialing a Frost/Blood secondary spec Dual Wield. I know "DW what are you thinking?" It's a fun spec I'm playing with, trying to get some decent damage out of it. However I run BG's not Arena so it's not as critical.
Keep up the good work.

Cheers.
Smohkin.

[Bloodwraith]

Glad you liked the guide

[Bloodwraith]

I've been playing as frost all day. I like the burst (would be better if I had sigil). Tried a few arenas. The games we lost probably wouldn't have won regardless of spec. It's great to see a bunch of crits pop outa nowhere. Definitely my new BG spec to kill low resil players

[darc]

first ill toss a link to my armory

The World of Warcraft Armory

youll notice i use the glyph or plague strike and spec into imp damage for it. I tired the frost with oblits and strikes tried the plauge burst but i never did well with it id get them low and be like oh so close maybe when my runes come back even after usin my empower. so i started experimenting and i found that if i sit in unholy pressence using only plauge strike blood strike and icytouch i can out dps a healers spam then when im full runic power boom three deathcoils for the win while i dont do as much damage against plate with plague strike my icy touch goes straight through and between the bonus damage from the glyph and the unholy pressence giving me faster moves its about the same damage. but like i said i am probably wrong i see no other dks doing it and nothing about the single rune spam on here. and most of the time its those three half second gcd death coils in row that rips them down even if they run.

would like to see you try it and get back to me on if you think i can get anywhere with it once my teams actualy get into the 1600s

[darc]

should also add that the unholy spec 17/54 is my pvp spec

[Gnomiska]

I tried normal Unholy spec but later i was kinda tired of that

So now Iam trying blood/frost/unholy 50/14/7
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...1&version=9733

IT+PS+HS+HS+DS it is really good if you use Heart Strike glyph for slow healer

[Bloodwraith]

Source: darc first ill toss a link to my armory The World of Warcraft Armory youll notice i use the glyph or plague strike and spec into imp damage for it. I tired the frost with oblits and strikes tried the plauge burst but i never did well with it id get them low and be like oh so close maybe when my runes come back even after usin my empower. so i started experimenting and i found that if i sit in unholy pressence using only plauge strike blood strike and icytouch i can out dps a healers spam then when im full runic power boom three deathcoils for the win while i dont do as much damage against plate with plague strike my icy touch goes straight through and between the bonus damage from the glyph and the unholy pressence giving me faster moves its about the same damage. but like i said i am probably wrong i see no other dks doing it and nothing about the single rune spam on here. and most of the time its those three half second gcd death coils in row that rips them down even if they run. would like to see you try it and get back to me on if you think i can get anywhere with it once my teams actualy get into the 1600s

I don't see how this could work. The conventional spec has Chains of ice apply frost fever so you will rarely use Icy touch.

You will do much better if you apply diseases, then use F/U runes for scourge strike. You can still use blood strike and death coil, but you're using your F/U runes much more effectively.

[Bloodwraith]

I'll try to update this next week some time to let the 3.2 changes take some effect.

[Bloodwraith]

Updated now. Only the Frost/Blood sections left to update.

[beaker]

Hi awesome read btw,

Currently getting my feet wet leveling a DK as Frost Dual Wield and enjoying it loads. Recently dinged 70 and now trying out some BGs and studying up on DK pvp for when i hit 80. Just wanted to ask a quick question. Is Dual wielding viable in BGs and what spec is best or should I be looking at a 2hander weapon build?