Death Knight Talent Guide & Talent Build Ideas

Most builds (also referred to as specs, or specializations) are identified by the names of the talent trees, with the tree with the most points named first. A “disc/holy” priest has 31 points in the discipline tree and 20 in the holy tree. Usually no more than 41 points are put in a single tree, because that’s the required number for reaching the highest talent. There are, or course, exceptions. The act of choosing such a path is referred to as speccing. Changing a character’s spec is called respeccing, or is referred to as a respec.

Starting at level 10, Players receive one talent point for each level they attain. Players can spend these to enhance their character, making it better than a default, cookie-cutter example of their class. Often players will spend Talent Points in such a way to increase their enjoyment of playing their character’s class, especially by enhancing abilities that they find themselves using often or to give new abilities that are useful in the style of play they enjoy most.

Often a spec defines the role a character will play in a group. For example, a Protection-spec Warrior or Paladin makes an ideal tank. A character’s spec can radically shift this role. A Holy or Discipline Priest will generally heal in an instance, while a Shadow-specced Priest will DPS and crowd control. Certain talent trees excel in PvE content, while others are especially useful for PvP content.

It should be clear at all times that there is no “best” solution for anything in this game. The greatness of WoW is that there are many approaches to any goal. Just as there is no “best” race for each class, there is never a “best” build for each class. Everything is a tradeoff - an increase in efficiency in PvP usually means a decrease in PvE or endgame instances, and vice versa.

Of course there are certain basic truths, such as “a mage is a DPS class”, “Hunters are good pullers”, etc., which are widely accepted while some talents are considered “bread and butter skills”. There are also simple and natural ways to achieve things - if you want to play your priest solo, it’s much easier if you skill him as Shadowpriest. By no means should this be taken as “Disc/Holy Priest cannot play solo” - of course he can, it’s just more difficult.

Death Knight

• Blood
• Frost
• Unholy

Blood
 Talents in this tree focus on physical damage-dealing abilities, such as Blood Presence.

Blood Leveling Spec (53/18/0) This is a 2h leveling build for a Death Knight. Hit Plague Strike first and Icy Touch second, getting the damage bonus to Icy Touch, to get your diseases on the Target, which increases your attack speed by 20% with this spec. Then hit obliterate with your remaining Frost and Unholy rune. This spec allows you to hit obliterate without consuming your diseases on the target. Use your unused blood runes on heart strikes. The mob should be dead by this point. You should heal through a lot of the damage you take with this spec, between Blood Worms, Blood Aura, and Vendetta. If you need to you can use Rune Tap but you should never need to use Death Strike for healing over Obliterate.

DRW, shadow, and ghouls (53/0/18) Built with my need to be a party buffer while still putting out good threat. DRW should be used for longer boss fights, when you rotations have become solid. (Submitted by Ericnox)

Blood Gorged Necrotic Corpse Detonator (51/0/20) Let the link speak for itself. As stated before, you should use a 2H weapon with this spec. Your main stat should be crit rating, followed by strength, resilience, attack power, stamina, and intellect in that order. This spec may also be viable for DPSing in instances where the enemy needs to be finished off quickly, yet hits hard. The spec will heal you and your group while dealing high amounts of burst melee damage. Resilience is not needed for instances.

Ghoul Knight (45/0/26) A strong mix of Blood’s soloing power and Unholy’s Ghoul-strengthening and Shadow magic talents. The name of the build comes from the essential nature of the character type it creates- a standard hybrid fighter/caster plus strong companion/pet. Not a blood Knight, Frost Knight, nor Necromancer, but a Ghoul Knight.

Bloody-Snowman (45/26/0) It’s a Frost/Blood 2 Handed hybrid picking up talents like Improved Icy Talons, Deathchill, Lichborne, and Annihilation in Frost and Blood Strike, Hysteria, Vampiric Blood, Sudden Doom, Mark of Blood, Vendetta, and other talents I felt were good in Blood. You can switch some around if you like, like putting some in Rune Tap. This build is more PvE focused as a DPS/Support/Offtank but can also be good in PvP.

Unbreakable pvp build, for the best dps + defence in pvp, use Frost Presence most times, and try to get +40% crit rating, by victorio-the mealstrom

A PVP dual weilding blood death knight spec (56/15/0)

Blood 2H PvP (56/5/10) Build for BGs/World PvP and possibly arena (will test soon with 2v2, 3v3, 5v5). by Casap → Tested (except arena)

Blood 2H PvE (53/15/3) Good for leveling. That’s how the build looks at level 59. Also, Dancing Rune Weapon is not suggested for leveling. by Casap → Tested

Blood 2H Tanking (51/14/5) Build for off-tank or main tank. by Casap → Tested

Frost
 Talents in this tree focus on spells and control, such as Frost Presence. Frost is a tree built for critical burst damage. This can be seen in the tree’s talents.

Rcon’s Death Rune Extreme (14/52/5) With current beta itemization and leveling, 2h weapons are your best be for effective tanking due to the lower hit rating cap and on higher %dmg dealing spells. Focuses on causing Death Runes which allow you to change your approach at any given time, even allowing up to 4 Death Strikes for burst healing. Life Tap for soloing and last minute saves. Lichborne and Unbreakable armor provide additional DPS and survival. Blade barrier offers a secondary (almost passive) avoidance stat, while Bladed Armor gives you more STR from the Armor you will be stacking naturally. Last but not least, Hungering Cold followed by a Death Chill / Howling Blast for burst AoE threat when needed most.

Chillrend’s Glacial Resolve (14/50/7) This build is meant for single target tanking, and should be considered by the Death Knight with MT aspirations. ‘Glacial Resolve’ is indeed similar to ‘Death Rune Extreme’ (as seen above), but with a few key differences. Both are versatile builds that use Death Rune Mastery and Blood of the North for easy rotation changes on the fly. Both builds rely on increasing avoidance stats through talents in all three trees. Both builds incorporate Rune Tap as a means of self-healing and tricky saves. One key difference between the two builds is that ‘Glacial Resolve’ sacrifices some of the *oomph offered by Black Ice in favor of better RP generation via Chill of the Grave, which, if nothing else, allows for more frequent use of abilities like Frost Strike. The extra couple of points go towards a guaranteed activation from Blood of the North, which should thereby improve the secondary avoidance provided by Blade Barrier, while at the same time improving the overall versatility of the build. One final difference between these builds is that ‘Glacial Resolve’ does not take Hungering Cold from the top of the Frost tree, seeing as how this ability eats up a good chunk of RP, is more likely useful for AoE tanking, and will probably be useless when fighting bosses that are immune to freezing effects (almost all of them). Instead, the last two points of this build are put into Unholy Command for the improved taunt, which is oh-so-crucial for effective MTs…

Animation’s frost tanking 2h tanking while doing a fair amoung of dmg

PVP-Frost-DPS-DK Dual-wield (0/60/10)

Frost 2H PvP (18/53/0) Build for BGs/World PvP and possibly arena (will test soon with 2v2, 3v3, 5v5). by Casap → Tested (except arena)

Frost DW PvP (0/52/19) Build for BGs/World PvP, big white damage. by Casap → Tested in beta only

Frost 2H Tanking (14/50/7) Build for off-tank or main tank. by Casap → Tested

Unholy
 Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases, and PvP-focused abilities, such as Unholy Presence.

SOLO Questing + Quick Leveling PvE DPS (13/18/40) This spec provides you with the key abilities from each tree that will make solo leveling a breeze. NOTE: This is not the best spec to use when running an instance/raid/group questing. Deep enough into unholy to get Master of Ghouls so your ghoul is helping you always, and Crypt Fever for another disease. Deep enough into blood to get Death Rune Mastery to go along with Reaping in the unholy tree, maximizing death runes for flexibility. Deep enough into frost to get Icy Talons and Annihilation, giving you 20% attack speed while Frost Fever is up, and keeping your diseases up while using Obliterate. Your combat rotation should be Plague Strike>Icy Touch>Blood Strike>Obliterate>Blood Strike>Obliterate If the mob isn’t dead after that, it should be within 10% of death, so either Death Coil or let your pet smack it around. Spec provides for maximum movement and mounted speed for quick transportation between quests. For elites substitute Death Strike for Obliterate. Keep Blood Presence up until you’re high enough to get unholy presence. Since this is a leveling spec, start off putting your talents into the unholy tree far enough to get Master of Ghouls, then slowly dump points into blood, and then frost.

Huogo’s Unholy Rampage (25/5/41) Blood provides survivability in both tanking and pvp and unholy adds to the overall damaging ability with 5 points for inc armor, to my knowledge tanking as this would require some presence swapping between frost for aggro and blood to heal self; feedback on this spec from beta players would be much appreciated.
Jaime’s No Escape (2h Weapon UnholyTank) (7/0/64)
(0/20/51) DW unholy build The unholy tree is great for dw with its shadow damage from auto attacks and the oblit-like blood caked blade,adding in some upper tier frost makes this a great spec.

Mortician’s Unholy Critter (17/13/41) This build is based heavily in the unholy tree, far enough down to get Scourge Strike, but it goes into the blood and frost trees to get their critical strike bonuses and damage bonus. The idea of this build was to be as well rounded as possible, and to be able to tank, dps, or pvp all as effectively as each other.

Zephire’s Deep Unholy DPS build (16/0/55) Utilizes DoT mechanics to maximize Scourge and Death Strike output. Gets the most out of your Ghoul and also snags Rune Tap for the free heal.

Golgofa’s dw dps build (10/8/53) Another version of Unholy PvE dps build,as it was said before dw is usefull because of Necrosis and Blood-caked Blade;Corpse Explosion,Wandering plague and Unholy blight give high AoE dps.Frost till Nerves of cold steel (dw);I go in Blood tree to decrease threat and for Bladed Armor in order to increase Attack power.

Hellriser’s Rising Unholy Tanker Build (10/5/56) This build helps you transit gradually from Unholy Leveling to Unholy Tanking. Start off getting your Unholy Blight in the Unholy tree without Unholy Aura. Next form up the Blood tree to get the strength and parry bonuses followed by Toughness for armor bonuses. Unholy Aura will be last because you won’t be needing it till you are running in parties as a Unholy tank. (Submitted by Hellriser of The Exiles in Khaz’goroth)

Death Tanking
Jaime’s No Escape (2h Weapon Unholy Tank) (7/0/64) - “This build is my obvious AoE tanking build. End game stat building will focus more around being able to dodge and parry incoming attacks, rather than absorbing damage (Be aware of the lack of Toughness). Talents like Desecration will assist the tank in keeping crowd control over his victims as he mercilessly forces them to spread diseases between each other; they are your rats and you are the cage. There shouldn’t be an excuse when it comes to Runic Power; spend your bar on Unholy Blight. The Morbidity talent early on is specifically for the Death and Decay cool down reduction since you won’t be using Death Coil. Go, Death Knight, and show them what it means to suffer!”

Healing Frost Tank (13/53/5) - A frost death knight build that provides tanking capabilities and can heal self with rune tap.

Blood Hybrid Tank (39/14/18) - based on fear resistance and being as self sufficient in heals as possible

Unholy Summoning Tank (7/11/53)

Hybrid Blood/Frost/Unholy Tank (20/14/37) - who in my opinion can take more of a punch than the others but needs a good healer

Death Knights are World of Warcraft’s first Hero class. They are a hybrid class that combines damage dealing and tanking. Each talent tree for Death knights can be used for either of those roles but depending which you choose will affect their play style. Blood focuses on the physical damage dealt by melee spell, weapons and abilities with a high self-healing rate and single target DPS. Frost focuses on control elements, with a strong critical-strike/bonus-damage, as well as several talents that improve damage mitigation. Unholy heavily focus on diseases, improving summoned minions, AoE, spell damage shielding and movement improvement abilities.