Death Knight Leveling Specs

[Arcana]

Im not sure if this is a sort of glitch or not, i currently have unholy aura from the unholy tree, but i have blood presence up, im not sure if im getting the bonus damage from the presence or not, but i can see an improvement in health when using frost presence, is it just me or is this a little strange?

[Rivero]

That doesn't have wandering plague, which looks pretty nice. Any reason it's left out?

Well I remember Unholy was so strong that back in the beta mobs wouldn't last long enough for it to be effective really. I always single pulled and in the case of group pulls, Death and Decay is more than enough to wipe the floor with any mobs really. : p

I'd also say Eagle, it's more of a tanking talent since you're really only going to be using it in instances/AoE pulls. It's also bad for a non-tank cause you don't want to pull aggro too early. Points can always be substituted around though since the spec I listed is a DPS one.

If you want an alternative while keeping those nice crit talents from Blood, you can get rid of Gargoyle/Corpse Explosion and take one point out of Reaping. People say 2/3 is enough but I always argue in an instance/raid you're not going to have enough time to say "hang on guys my runes still need to be refreshed". : p

Im not sure if this is a sort of glitch or not, i currently have unholy aura from the unholy tree, but i have blood presence up, im not sure if im getting the bonus damage from the presence or not, but i can see an improvement in health when using frost presence, is it just me or is this a little strange?

No it shouldn't be a bug. It's just kind of hard to notice the bonus damage since it got nerfed a lot since it first came out. : p

So its only good on frost or blood?

Yes, Using Obliterate when you're Unholy is pointless since Scourge Strike is far better so you only use Ob when you are speccing a build that's Frost/Blood or not that far down into Unholy (Hybrid build perhaps?) It's not to say it won't be doing good damage but Scourge Strike will just be doing more damage. : x

[fantasticdan]

So its only good on frost or blood?

Yeah, scourge strike uses the same runes, does more damage, and doesn't drop your diseases. Absolutely no reason to use obliterate if you have scourge strike.

I'd definately go Unholy as well. That ghoul just rapes everything in the beginning.

Try this spec out:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

No offense but that spec is awful. Reaping is pointless while leveling, scent of blood is worthless. And why no desecration or unholy aura? I'm leveling into this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Dual-wielding right now is only for weird tri-spec dps builds that rely on killing machine/howling blast. It's pointless for tanking, you'll only end up taking more damage getting parried by the boss more often, and you'll have to waste a bunch of gems capping out hit rating.

[Ramor]

I don't really like corpse explosion, it's fun just to bring myself back to D2 days and to...explode a corpse, but it doesn't seem to do good damage for taking up 1 unholy.

Also, 3/3 reaping is really nice (even just for leveling), only real 'bosses' I've done have been some elites where it really helps having the 2 death runes constantly available if you need them to be

[Rivero]

No offense but that spec is awful. Reaping is pointless while leveling, scent of blood is worthless. And why no desecration or unholy aura? I'm leveling into this:

You're pretty quick to criticize. Reaping is not pointless as you do not make use of Blood runes and in between mobs its a good idea to open your options more as to how many scourge strikes you can use, especially when the mobs are tougher/elites. As far as instancing/raiding goes it should be great since your entire damage revolves around unholy/frost and having more of those never hurts now does it? Scent of Blood is honestly just the same as "Dirge". It's not worthless because unlike "Dirge" it can generate off being simply struck in combat which ironically enough would be more frequent in leveling and you get 3 strikes of 5 runic power rather than the occasional 5 runic power from one attack. 5 Runic Power isn't that lovely and both of them are sub-par talents but my method makes you spend less in Blood.

Desecration isn't going to be doing much while you level since you're constantly moving and Unholy Aura shouldn't be your issue since On a Pale Horse makes you mount up faster anyways. Both of those talents are not better it's simply a matter of preference.

How you choose it up to you. Dirge vs Scent of Blood/ On a Pale Horse vs Unholy/ Desecration vs Some extra hit/Talents spent else where.

Bladed Armor looks interesting enough. I can agree with an extra 250 AP judging you'll have around 10k-12k armor in DPS gear.

But they're far from being terrible decisions.

I took a look at Bladed Armor and I came up with this more instance/raid based talent build.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMVZZfMhIxfkxco0csut

I'd say take Wandering Plague for early instances and when you start doing more serious raids spend those 3 points from WP into Desecration

[Plow]

No i believe you. Not worth blowing what little money i have on something like that anyways. Still trying to find a replacement for my quest GS. Not going well.

there's a blue axe you can get real early on in borean that's basically gorehowl

[KuaiEQ]

unholy is the leveling spec because movement speed > anything for lvling

[fantasticdan]

You're pretty quick to criticize. Reaping is not pointless as you do not make use of Blood runes and in between mobs its a good idea to open your options more as to how many scourge strikes you can use, especially when the mobs are tougher/elites. As far as instancing/raiding goes it should be great since your entire damage revolves around unholy/frost and having more of those never hurts now does it? Scent of Blood is honestly just the same as "Dirge". It's not worthless because unlike "Dirge" it can generate off being simply struck in combat which ironically enough would be more frequent in leveling and you get 3 strikes of 5 runic power rather than the occasional 5 runic power from one attack. 5 Runic Power isn't that lovely and both of them are sub-par talents but my method makes you spend less in Blood.

Desecration isn't going to be doing much while you level since you're constantly moving and Unholy Aura shouldn't be your issue since On a Pale Horse makes you mount up faster anyways. Both of those talents are not better it's simply a matter of preference.

How you choose it up to you. Dirge vs Scent of Blood/ On a Pale Horse vs Unholy/ Desecration vs Some extra hit/Talents spent else where.

Bladed Armor looks interesting enough. I can agree with an extra 250 AP judging you'll have around 10k-12k armor in DPS gear.

But they're far from being terrible decisions.

I took a look at Bladed Armor and I came up with this more instance/raid based talent build.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I'd say take Wandering Plague for early instances and when you start doing more serious raids spend those 3 points from WP into Desecration

God you're stupid. Reaping IS pointless while leveling, with the minor exception of fighting elites that last long enough to repeat your rotation. For single target, mobs die too fast to get passed a single rotation for those runes to matter. On AoE pulls, which you should mostly be doing as unholy, you're using blood runes for DnD and blood boil anyway. There are better places to put those talents than speccing for elite solos that you could still solo regardless without reaping anyway.

Scent of blood sucks for a bunch of reasons. It's unreliable because it's RNG based. It has a 20 second cooldown. You have to pass on straight dps talents to get it, unlike dirge. And it only works when you're getting hit, making it a complete waste of talents in most group situations.

Not sure why you say desecration is pointless because you're moving, since the proc rate is 100% at 5/5, and you should be using plague strike in every pull. It's also amesome for pvp, which kind of happens sometimes on pvp servers.

I agree pale horse is a decent leveling talent (if you want to drop points out of necrosis for it), but really you will be spending more time on foot. No reason not to grab unholy aura, it's one of the best exp/time talent you can get while questing/grinding.

[Rivero]

God you're stupid. Reaping IS pointless while leveling, with the minor exception of fighting elites that last long enough to repeat your rotation. For single target, mobs die too fast to get passed a single rotation for those runes to matter. On AoE pulls, which you should mostly be doing as unholy, you're using blood runes for DnD and blood boil anyway. There are better places to put those talents than speccing for elite solos that you could still solo regardless without reaping anyway.

Scent of blood sucks for a bunch of reasons. It's unreliable because it's RNG based. It has a 20 second cooldown. You have to pass on straight dps talents to get it, unlike dirge. And it only works when you're getting hit, making it a complete waste of talents in most group situations.

Not sure why you say desecration is pointless because you're moving, since the proc rate is 100% at 5/5, and you should be using plague strike in every pull. It's also amesome for pvp, which kind of happens sometimes on pvp servers.

I agree pale horse is a decent leveling talent (if you want to drop points out of necrosis for it), but really you will be spending more time on foot. No reason not to grab unholy aura, it's one of the best exp/time talent you can get while questing/grinding.

If you did read carefully I did agree with you on some ideas which is why I thought of switching it up to indicate that it would be better off as an instance/raiding spec

Unholy Aura isn't going to change much really. Unless you're keen on hitting the first 80 Death Knight on your server it's not going to do shit for you. It's two points spent on other things that can keep you alive longer/help you kill faster. It takes you 3 seconds to mount up and move at 110 something faster speed if you need to go that far, otherwise I'm pretty sure all you'll be doing is staying in a remote "camp" area and killing mobs that are nearby. Quests that require you to travel more will probably be spent on the mount. What does Unholy do besides add move speed? Absolutely nothing and it wastes potential in groups when you do decide to instance which I'm sure you'll be doing along the way. I honestly prefer Blood aura because it actually saves you time healing or keeps you up longer, it's not a lot but it's nice to keep yourself healed even slightly while you fight.

As for desecration what you're telling me is totally one sided. You can't assume every DK is on a PvP server or enjoys/does PvP. And for the hell of it lets go with the statement that we both agree on that "mobs die too fast anyways" wouldn't that be justifying the same concept you just tried to argue with me on Reaping?

If you looked carefully I had also stated that those last three points could be spent into desecration and with a 60% proc rate that should be more than enough to get you by.

Scent of Blood doesn't "suck". While I do agree those talents are frankly spent in other places, I'm not a huge fan of Dirge which you see to be praising as if it was 100x better. Again I was also stating that while leveling you while be hit almost 100% of the time so I'm pretty sure it won't suck that bad in that scenario.

Oh and if I'm not mistaken Death Runes work as Blood Runes no? But I'd prefer the option of a second scourge strike over a DnD I can already use anyway if I'm doing anything be it leveling or raiding.

You make good points, but you just seem really aggressive when you try to show them.

[Tulun]

Question I have:

Is a haste build worth it in WoW at all? It seems easy for a DK build to get 45% haste before adding gear.

[KuaiEQ]

Question I have:

Is a haste build worth it in WoW at all? It seems easy for a DK build to get 45% haste before adding gear.

haste is really shitty for DKs

[Guitarman]

there's a blue axe you can get real early on in borean that's basically gorehowl

Thanks. I actually picked this up a few days ago:

Item: Ingvar's Monolithic Cleaver :: World of Warcraft :: Allakhazam.com

Sweet greataxe. Havent found anything to really beat it so far. 74 atm, so maybe theres a better quest axe or sword i'll come across as i level? I dunno.

[Dantrag]

De-Raged Waraxe - Item - World of Warcraft

can do it @ 75 it's like ring of blood

[Guitarman]

Damn, have to look for a group for that one next level haha.

[Tulun]

haste is really shitty for DKs

Fair enough I never really needed it for Lock, but due to it's availability to DK, I was curious if it was as good as 11.

[chillin]

haste is good for locks, lol.

unholy is the best, mount speed boost and movement bonus from unholy aura is really nice. what I've been doing with reaping is use blood strikex2 after plague strike with the glyph and desecrated ground and then spam scourge on the next mob with the death runes.

[Ramor]

usually just leave blood aura up and run into a pack of mobs (as unholy), throw down icy touch/scourge strike -> pestilence -> death and decay then unholy blight and it usually works itself out, maybe a scourge strike or two in there and some icebound fortitude but i don't lose much hp and it's real easy leveling, the worst part is just getting 5-6 mobs all together