World of Warcraft™

Update: 1/6/11

Death Knight PVP General FAQ

a. EXAMPLE SPECS

The specs listed are for use with 2H weapons. For a discussion regarding why, see the post that follows.

2H Frost

Spec: 7/32/2

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jMh0bZGcorfuRd0ub:MmaVq0mzc

Comments: Frost is a great spec for its sheer burst-damage potential and it CC abilities. It features the use of Howling Blast as a ranged slow effect thanks to the "Chilblains" talent, often without the use of runes thanks to the "Rime" talent. It also showcases beautiful crits from Obliterate and Frost Strike because of the "Killing Machine" talent.

Possible Changes: Though frost tree selections are pretty straightforward, players vary widely in their preference when it comes to the Blood and Unholy trees. "Butchery" and "Improved Blood Tap" are popular choices in the Blood tree, and "Virulence" and "Epidemic" are popular choices in the Unholy tree. Where you put your points in those two trees is a matter of personal preference and play-style. Find something that works for you!


Unholy

Spec: 0/8/33

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZG0obZbGcdcIkdfo:skV0cVmMz

Comments: This spec is one of the most popular UH arena specs. It features phenomenal utility against casters and great self-reliance, while retaining the crucial Lichborne ability from the Frost tree. It benefits from the obvious UH choices, including "Dark Transformation," "Desecration," and "Unholy Frenzy." Beyond that, it gets slightly controversial. The only talent in the UH tree widely agreed upon as entirely useless is "Contagion."

Possible Changes: There exists a plethora of alternative choices in this UH spec. Because "Virulence" can be made obsolete by gear choices and "Resilient Infection" by "UB," most players would rather save the points. There has been controversy as to the necessity of "Unholy Blight," "Improved Unholy Presence," and "Summon Gargoyle," where some players would lose the points in one or more of those talents in favor of some depth in the Blood tree (mainly for the added attack power "Bladed Armor"). Like most spec changes, though...these are dependent on your gear, playing style, and personal preference.


b. TIPS & TRICKS

General:

-Lichborne Heals: You can use a combination of the Lichborne talent and Death Coil to heal yourself. Macro for a quick self-targeted DC: "/cast [@player] Death Coil"

-Death Pact can be used as an effective self-heal.

-Blood Tap when pressed for runes.

-Lichborne as an alternative to trinket on fears/charms.

-Dark Simulacrum is most effectively used to copy CC effects or big heals. Another particularly great use of it is to copy a Mage's Blink, if you can predict it. Mages often use Blink to escape snare effects or as a quick evade out of Ice Bloack.

-NEVER open on someone with Death Grip. It's much better used to counter pillar-humpers, interrupt heals, or peel DPS off of your teammates.

-When fighting appropriate classes, use Strangulate after casting has already begun (Glyph of Strangulate adds an additional 2 secs of silence when used this way).


Frost Only:

-Glyphed Howling Blast is an affective AoE ranged slow-effect.

-Save Obliterate for Killing Machine procs.

-Pillar of Frost can be effectively used offensively and defensively.

01/03/2011 8:05 AMPosted by Àndry

IF YOU USE PILLAR OF FROST when you use lichborne heal, it will increases EACH heal about 5-6k more than normal death coil heals. If you can time it with your pvp trinket that procs +strength, it's extremely OP. Enjoy :).

Unholy Only:

-Unholy Frenzy can break some CC effects (ex. Polymorph/Blind)

-Unholy Frenzy paired with Gargoyle is a good finisher.

-Risen Ghoul abilities should be set to manual use!

Update 1/6/11

Frost & Unholy FAQ

Q: Why 2H over DW?

Though your own experience may indicate a flaw in this choice, most of the highest ranked DKs in arenas agree that a 2H weapon is better for PVP. Without going too deeply into it, this is because of rune regeneration and burst capability. You're free to play DW if you wish, obviously, and the spec changes aren't very complicated!

Q: Which is better, Frost or Unholy?

Aside from the ridiculously subjective nature of this question, a strong case can be made for both specs. There's a relatively equal distribution of both among DKs on 1800+ rated arena teams of all sizes. The general difference is that Frost features more CC and less survivability...UH being its counterpart in that regard. Beyond that we're getting into matters of player skill and preference. Those are dangerous waters! Experiment with both specs and choose the one that suits you best. If you hit a wall in arenas, a change can't hurt.


a. STAT CAPS & PRIORITIES

Stat Caps:

Spell Penetration Cap: ~195
Hit Cap: ~5%
Resilience Cap: NONE!

Priorities: Once caps are met, these vary slightly depending on spec...

UH; (subject to change with upcoming mastery fix)

Resilience > Haste > Strength > Crit > Mastery

Frost;

Resilience > Strength > Mastery > Haste > Crit


b. GEMMING & ENCHANTS

It should go without saying that your gemming and enchants should be based on reaching your stat caps and then on priority. Some available gems and enchants that are relatively cheap and good to start with:

Gems:

Meta: +54 Crit & 1% Spell Reflect or +54 Crit & 3% Increased Critical Damage
Blue: +50 Spell Pen
Red: +20 Str & +20 Resil
Yellow: +40 Resil

Enchants:

Head: +60 Strength & +35 Mastery [Wildhammer/Dragonmaw Rep]
Shoulders: +50 Strength & +25 Crit [Therazane Rep]
Cloak: +70 Spell Pen (3x Hypnotic)
Chest: +40 Resil (9x Hypnotic)
Bracers: +65 Haste (Greater Speed)
Gloves: +50 Str (Mighty Strength)
Belt: Eternium Belt Buckle
Legs: Dragonscale Leg Armor
Boots: +50 Haste (2x Hypnotic/1x Greater Celestial) or Lavawalker
Weapon: Rune of the Fallen Crusader


c. POPULAR TEAM COMPS

2v2:

DPS/DPS - Rogues, Frost Mages, and even Boomkin are popular choices for this style of comp. Unholy DKs usually fair better in a 2DPS setting.

DPS/HEAL - Holy Pally is by far the most popular partner choice, followed by Resto Shaman and Resto Druid. Priest healing is gimp at the moment.

3v3:

3DPS - Any selection of Warrior/Rogue/Feral Druid/Frost Mage can make for an extremely promising comp for a DK.

2DPS/HEAL - The healer preference is the same as 2v2, and generally a Rogue, Warrior, or Mage is ideal on this team comp.


d. USEFUL MACROS

Self-target Death Coil:
/cast [@player] Death Coil

Lichborne & Self-target Death Coil Simultaneous:
#showtooltip Lichborne
/cast Lichborne;
/cast [@player] Death Coil

WE NEED MORE OF THESE, SO PLEASE POST YOURS!

e. STRATEGIES

Please post yours in the thread!

2v2:
vs. DPS/DPS
vs. DPS/HEAL
vs. OTHER

3v3:
vs. 3DPS
vs. HEAL/2DPS
vs. OTHER

UH: Better AMS and better Dc's therefore more survivability. Sustained damage from you're ghoul and diseases. You're ghoul when DT'ed can finish off the target even if you're feared. You can spam NS. On a dummy I got around 200k of NS stacked in about 10, 15 seconds. Ghoul stun for interrupting, cc'ing catching up to a target. Unholy frenzy Gargoyle is also a very nice addition to dps. Stack haste. If you get a shaman team bloodlust will give you amazing burst.
Frost: Big shiny crits. You have a buff which gives you're teammates increased haste I believe. Try to save Unholy runes for Obliterate procs unless the healer is cc'ed, then stack some necro strikes. A pretty good aoe cc that freezes targets but breaks easilly. Shortened strangulate.

Tips: When you are rune starved use your blood tap. Always go for the priest or shaman since Dk's tear them up pretty fast.

thanks for doing this, i'm new to frost 2 hand pvp.

Bump to keep this up...the more who see, the more who will hopefully contribute!

Bump again...getting lost in the shuffle...

I tried a little Blood in 2s with a Prot Paladin partner. It was a pretty interesting experience, because I was basically unkillable unless facing a Warlock/Druid team. Otherwise, I usually ended up tanking the melee while my partner worked the healer over, or alternately I would tank both DPS.

There were some ups and downs. With time and more experience, it would do well. There are some team comps that took us down pretty fast, some that didn't.

After I got my conquest Hammer though, I decided to go back and try out 2H Frost, if nothing else than to actually be able to kill people in Battlegrounds when I wasn't doing Arena. Both specs are great for Battlegrounding, but against large groups I prefer 2H Frost's AOE damage.

Anyway, if I had anything meaningful to contribute past the rambling, I'd say it seems pretty solid to just gem two +50 spell pens and do the +70 spell pen cloak enchant. It's 170, but the alternatives for cloak are not that exciting. Just +65 crit, I believe.

welp...I tried to help.

You did only post this a little ago. Keep bumping the thread, it's quite helpful.

I enjoyed it.

A comp I think more people should investigate as well are double DK (Frost/Unholy). We've had a lot of success early on steam rolling people (until last week where my gear fell drastically behind due to Tol Barad - Once I caught up, we returned to steam rolling people.)

Granted this is sub-1500 and just coming up, but it seems to work well.

I love 2HUH, but i have a sneaky blood pvp spec i run in unholy pres, great flag carrier. I rarely die, but cant kill as fast as my unholy.

The comp to beat right now seems to be Rogue/DK and Rogue/DK/War

Deathgripping someone 30 yards further away from their healer and roflstomping them inside of a smoke bomb is an easy and almost uncounterable tactic at the moment.

Unselfish bumpage.


...sitll trying to save this.

Good read and helpful post. I haven't been in arenas since BC, until two days ago. Lots of fun.

Nice post, should be stickied. Not trying to troll here but last time I saw a big discussion about the best pvp specs (probably about 2 weeks or so ago) the consensus seemed to be that DW had something like a 10% (or maybe5?) advantage in damage over 2hand. Has something changed or was that info just incorrect?

01/05/2011 2:44 PMPosted by Bigbawse

Nice post, should be stickied. Not trying to troll here but last time I saw a big discussion about the best pvp specs (probably about 2 weeks or so ago) the consensus seemed to be that DW had something like a 10% (or maybe5?) advantage in damage over 2hand. Has something changed or was that info just incorrect?

Those figures are in large part only for PVE considerations.

In PVP you almost always want to go with a two-handed weapon with as high top end damage as possible. Burst is king!

Nice, although UH does have a ranged snare. :)

-No ranged snare (Howling Blast with Chilblains).

01/05/2011 2:58 PMPosted by Raggok

Nice, although UH does have a ranged snare. :)

-No ranged snare (Howling Blast with Chilblains).

Ah, what is it? I only specced UH to level in WotLK so I don't remember having one...

Chains of Ice, all DKS have it. Of course, it's not AoE like howling blast. That is it's disadvantage. It's advantage is that it can't be dispelled. Which is kind of huge in certain situations.