Death Knight Builds

This site contains popular WOW Death Knight Builds and other resources on how to play a Death Knight. As you all know, the Wrath of the Litch King(WotLK) expansion for World of Warcraft(WOW) has been released and the new Death Knight class is now active. This class is a damage dealer / tank hybrid. The Death Knight class starts at level 55 and they unlockable if you have level 55+ character on that realm. You can only have one Death Knight per server.

WOW Death Knights do not have shields but do have good avoidance and powerful anti magic protection that have them being used as the main tanks against magic attack based bosses in raids. Don't think that because they are not able to use a shield that they will not make effective tanks as they do make good tanks if geared, spec'd and played correctly.

WOW Death Knights can dual wield or use 2-handed weapons. They use a unique rune system for their special skills so playing a Death Knight you will find you will be commonly be using combo rotations to maximize damage and agro. Also death knights gain runic power when using spells that use runs and this runic power can be used to cast spells such as death coil or Frost Strike.

Death Knight talents are split into 3 different trees:
Blood: Talents in this tree focus on weapons, armor, healing, and strikes. A great tree to use initialy for leveling because of healing/damage.
Frost: Talents in this tree focus on armor, control, counters, and combos. Considered to be one of stongest trees for tanking but all trees can be used to tank.
Unholy: Talents in this tree focus on spells, summons, diseases, and AOE. One of the highest damage dealing trees and allows for a perma-ghoul pet.

As I have people submit builds or I come across them myself I will be posting them here to share. I receive a lot of submissions so sometimes it may take a while for some to be posted and some may not be posted. Thanks for all of your submissions. Please feel free to email me about any of the below or any you wish to add. Please note the build type and number for ones you wish to comment on.

You can see the current trees at: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=j

*important note now that patch 3.1 has been released the talent trees have changed so the old builds on the site have been removed. I am adding back new builds as I find/receive them. It may take a little bit to build up the content again, please be patient.

 

DPS Builds

1 - 50/0/21 - Blood/Unholy DPS High DPS raiding spec using Death Strike. Rotation: PS>IT>HS>HS>DS>UB>(DC til rp is empty) HS>HS>HS>HS*(DS)HS>HS

2 - 50/0/21 - Blood/Unholy DPS #2 Also a high DPS raiding spec, all of the major damage traits are the same just some difference in survivability.

3 - 51/0/20 - Blood Pure PvE DPS This is a pure blood dps build for raids. Rotation: IT>PS>HSx2>DS>DC while runes refreshing do Heart Strikes if diseases are still up.

4 - 44/0/27 - Blood Ghoul High DPS raiding spec with perma ghoul, blood worms

5 - 51/2/18 - Pure Raid DPS, Blood/Unholy Please note you can replace glyph of Rune Tap with Dancing Rune Weapon to increase damage. Rotation: PS>IT>DS>HS>HS>Hyst>DRW>Refresh runes DS>HS>HS>HS>Blood tap>HS also helps to use that when your raid leader or party leader tells the shammy to use hero ive hit 4-5k easy in first 20 seconds of the fight after your initial burst its: PS>IT>DS>HS>HS>ONE DC (because your death strike will do more damage if you keep RP) Please note you can replace glyph of Rune Tap with Dancing Rune Weapon to increase damage.

Tank Builds

6 - 50/14/7 - Standard (+3DS) This build is excellent for tanking 3-drake Sarth, and doesn't require regular respecs to do it. Single Target Rotation - IT-PS-OB-HS-HS OB-HS-HS-HS-HS RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HS/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil

7 - 45/5/21 - DPS Off Tank It has the benefits of Bloods survivability / crits and the ability for good AOE control from Unholy.

8 - 55/7/9 - Blood Tank Build DS is used in the DK blood tank spec instead of oblit.

9 - 55/8/8 - Self Healing Tank This build centers around three aspects:1. Damage Reduction (Avoidance) 2. Heavy Agro Generation 3. No Fuss Self Healing

10 - 58/13/0 - Blood Spec Tank\DPS I am able to tank or off tank with this build. I can also DPS with it. I know Unholy still gets higher but I have recently load a damage meter and in the last few heroics I have been in I have been second in damage done and DPS( a ret. pally beat me both times). I have Frost spec-ed as me second talent spec. When I compare the two the blood is better. I have higher HP's and better aggro. The Frost spec does have higher Armor and can take a hit better, but I have been finding I can last longer in blood. The healers like it to because as a frost tank I lose aggro and they start getting hit. My rotation is IT, PS, OB, HS, HS, RS, DC, and for more then one mod it is DnD, PS, IT, Pes, RS, DC, HS, HS. My crit hits for around 4.2k to 5.7k. My dps is 1.75k normally. I am still working on the T7 gear. I am miss matched right now with some tanking and some dps gear.

PVP Builds

11 - 48/23/0 - Blood PVP build This is a PVP build based on Lichborne/Death Coil Heal and Death Strike Heal. This is mostly a build with huge survivability and and avrage damage. Rotation: CI>>IT>>PS>>HS>>HS>>BT>>DS If low health drop HS and do VB>>RT If Blood Tap is on CD Drop CI If target has low health I recomend keeping HS>>HS and just do Lichborne/DCx3

12 - - Blood PVP DS Build Its a very easy handling build which makes your DS the main attack. As you can see almost none of the talents are used to improve Bs or Hs and is more focused on survival no extra pet things would make build more difficult without reaping 2/3 instead of maximizing it i thought 66% was enough. The rotation is simple IT>Ps>BB(x2 or VB)>DC>DS>DS and after that you should have 90-100% hp depending on people around you and i also took in BW and RT for bad situations and if you manage to get in an auto attack between you will be able to get Necrosis and Blood-Caked strikes and impurity increases the effect of them. Hysteria are a free pop you use it before or after killing/battling an opponent or in the middle of a fight Idk.. Improved blood presence is for battling in Unholy Presence faster attacks and lower global CDS. I also tried to get imp Unholy Presence but without MoM crits wouldn't heal that much. Some pluses Increases attack power when using DS, 8% bonus str,6%Stam,6 expertise, after crit 3% physical damage 3stacks. Ghoul is Optional. Some minuses if you use DaD you have will maybe have to reset all Runes. This spec has had up to 5k dps in HoL (hc) don't know about raids.

13 - 51/20/0 - PvP: Chilled Blood This build was developed to increase healing and self sufficiency in arena and some battle grounds. A rotation usable for this is IT—PS—DS—HT—HT—Obliterate—DC(optional Lichborn for healing yourself)—DC—and repeat. Also instead of DC you can use DRW before you restart cycle to increase damage greatly. I put the Endless Winter talent in for the ability to catch running enemies and for the same reason Icy Reach. Toughness is for increasing survivability and decreasing slowing effects, as an additional bonus it increases your AP because of the Bladed Armor talent in the blood tree.

Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility)

14 - 54/0/17 - Leveling - On a bloody pale horse Leveling build kinda similar to "on a bloody pale horse".

15 - 61/0/10 - Blood Leveling Build #2 A blood build with good damage and survivability talents selected. You should be able to be constantly be killing without having to rest.

16 - 53/18/0 - Blood Leveling Build #3

17 - 53/18/0 - Bloodtalons (Blood/Frost dps) rotation: IT, PS, HS, HS, Obliterate. HS, HS, HS, HS. then start over with IT, PS, HS, HS, Obliterate, pop the dancing runeblade as soon as you're at full runic power

 

 

DPS Builds

1 - 17/51/3 - 2H Frost Glyphs: Frost Strike, Obliterate, Icy Touch. Gear Setup: 4pc T7 Rotation: PS > IT > BS > BS > OB dump OB > OB > OB > Dump, 3702.6 DPS

2 - 0/51/20 - Duel wield Frost DPS spec Modified from one of the Hybrid spec's (frost & Unholy) for DPS and I am still putting out between 6 and 7k dps. The rotation is IT, PS, HB, BS, BS (dump), IT, PS, HB, IT, IT, PS, HB, BS, BS (dump).

3 - - 2H Frost Raid DPS Glyphs: Frost Strike, Obliterate, Icy Touch. Gear Setup: 4pc T7 Rotation: PS > IT > BS > BS > OB dump OB > OB > OB > Dump, 3702.6 DPS, With this guild i have done 7k dps single target and 9k multi target in 25 naxx

4 - - Tony's Frost Raid DPS Spec High dps'ing raid spec, it allocates all 71 points MOST effectively for greatest dps in Raids. The focal point of the standard rotation is Howling Blast on mobs, which i crit for 5k+ 50% of the time to all mobs within 10 yards - IT, PS, HB, FS, BS, BS, FS, FS, HB ..etc. And on single target: IT, PS, OB, FS, BS, BS, FS, FS, OB, FS ..etc. With 6 points in both runic power generation and capacity, and Glyph of Frost Strike, I am often able to cast Frost Strike 4 times in a row, and with rhime my Obliterate crits 8k+. With my current mediocre lvl 80 Gear (overall avg lvl 200 -purples and blues) i make 2.5k - 3k dps consistently in 5 mans, always out dps better geared unholy and blood DKs. And unlike them I am almost never waiting on cooldowns due to the fact that Frost Strike (7.5k crits/50% time) uses not runes like the main strikes in the other two trees, but runic power, which i always have plenty of.

Tank Builds

5 - 10/53/8 - Hadi's Frost tank I hardly have any runic power talents at all, coz I personally never concider it an issue. Also, I play a human DK so the lichborne talent is pretty useless after they changed it. And since the duration of the diseases in patch 3.1 was lengthened to 15 seconds, I don't find it needed to have epidemic. but need to try it out a bit more before can be sure which is the best way to go

6 - 20/51/0 - Bloody Snowman 3.1 Raid DPS/Tank spec - the rotation is IT-PS-Pest-BS-OB-FS-FS then come back again with IT-PS-Pest-BS-HB-OB then RPDump with FS, rinse & repeat. I have popped Blood Boil a few times after the 2nd rotation just for added damage, but most of the time I see it as a waste of a rune. For single targets use IT-PS-BS-BS-OB-FS-OB-FS-OB-FS and repeat until you need to refresh diseases then repeat.

7 - 17/51/3 - DW DK Frost Tank This is a Dual wielding spec for a Frost Tank. Single target rotations are: IT, PS, BS, BS, OB, RS, HB, Dump RP w/ Rune Strike and Frost Strike. Look for the Rime proc, as well as the killing machine proc. Rime will give you a free Howling Blast. Killing machine will give you a guaranteed crit on Frost Strike, HB, or Icy Touch. Refresh the diseases when they run out. With the added melee haste from Imp. Icy Talons you will have more chances to crit on normal melee attacks which causes Rime, and Killing Machine to proc more often. For AoE tanking. Lead in with DnD, HB, BB, Rune Tap, BB, RS, HB should be off cd by then, and rinse and repeat. Remember that with all of the mobs attacking you, you will parry and dodge a lot of them. Which is going to activate RS. Also, Try to keep the mobs in front of you as any good tank will know, because you can’t dodge or parry from behind. In the event that you find yourself with all of your runes on cd, and no RS proc. You can use Empower rune weapon to reset all of your runes and give you 25 more RP, or you can FS a single target. This build is focuses on a slow main hand tanking weapon. Infantry Assault Blade, or Broken Promise. Although you can use weapons such as: Last Laugh, and Red Sword of Courage, or Axe of the Sen’jin protector, (or it’s inferior alliance counterpart: Teldrassil protector.) Finally, you can’t leave out another good 1h tanking sword: Slayer of the Lifeless.

8 - 7/54/10 - Basic Frost Tank Spec Rotation: IT, PS, Pest, DnD. HB when ready, repeat. It’s a very simple starting tank spec good threat on it

9 - 22/44/5 - Advanced Frost Tank Spec Initial aggro is little difficult to manage, but that's easily managed threw DC, DG, and HC, after all this spec provides plenty of runic power too spare. Due too all the avoidance for physical and spells this spec can also be used for PvP. I don't recommend this spec for people who are just starting their tank sets, this is an advanced tanking build.

PVP Builds

10 - 15/52/4 - Frostfan's Frost PVP Build This build is made mainly for arena pvp, as the extra armor helps any clothys you might team with. There's no special rotation, just have to know when to use your spells at the right time. In other words don't rush in key-board smashing using up everything at once. Hungering Cold is optional, I like to keep it for the CC and with the new glyph its much easier to use.

11 - 16/55/0 - DK Frost PVP This build focuses on the snaring, dmg, and mitigation talents of the frost tree, while picking up a few more dps talents in the blood tree to include rune tap for a little healing. The rotation I use is everything gets icy touched, which gives them frost fever. From there it's blood strikes and death strikes to do dmg and get back hp, and then dumping RP with frost strike or death coil if they're ranged. Don't forget to use your deathchill, or bind it to one of your attacks, a free crit every 2 min's is great. Also, don't forget to put up your icebound fortitude and use mind freeze and strangulate generously on casters.

12 - 19/50/2 - Tom's DW frost/blood spec Raid survivability/PVP The imp blood tap will help healers not worry about you all too much, making it easier for a raid or even arena partners. The bladed armor increases with the toughness to give extra AP. Make sure you get the right glyphs (FS, OB, IC for major) this is also a DW build. Fast burn also and extra crit on you FS and OB. In a boss fight, try to grab a haste pot and a Flask of Endless Rage on to get that speed going and to increase your AP. Rotation for raids: IT-PS-BS-BS-OB---FS---OB-OB-OB-FS

Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility)

 

 

DPS Builds

1 - 12/0/59 - Unholy / Blood Cookie Cutter Build Similar to the pre 3.1 cookie cutter build this is supposedly the more effective build to start out with, and will phase out as you get Uldaur gear, however this is still up for debate so it's indisputable advantage is that you have threat reduction. Whether or not threat reduction is necessary is up for debate however.

2 - 0/10/61 - Unholy / Frost Cookie Cutter Build A build shown to scale with gear better than the Unholy / Blood counter part the lack of threat reduction is cause for concern. In regards to Ghoul Frenzy: You'll want to keep Ghoul Frenzy up at all times, you can do this several ways - After an SS pop blood tap and Ghoul Frenzy in order to keep yourself with your rotations while increasing your pet's haste by 25%.

3 - 0/13/58

4 - 2-13-56 - Unholy-Frost DPS Blackhydra hit 6.5k dps with this unholy build, he hit 6.8k with the same build but took points out of imp unholy pre and put them into morbidity. priority

5 - 0/18/53 - Drajii's Raid DPS DW build This is a unholy DW build really good dps almost as good as the 0/33/38 the old hybrid with HB i loved its AoE the rotation is IT,PS,SSx2,BS,UB also you want to use Ghoul frenzy as often as possible for the 25% haste and makes it hard to kill with its heal 60% of its health in 30 seconds.

6 - 0/29/42 - DW Unholy/Frost Dual-wielding Perma-ghoul spec; it is my fix to the loss of howling blast and the gargoyle from my pre-3.1 patch build.

7 - 19/0/52 - Mujahadeen's Blood Raid DPS Survivability Went into blood to pick up the anti-threat stuff, improved rune tap and the increased crit chance. Skipped 2 hand weapon specialization because 4% white damage is not as important as increased crit chance in my opinion. Unlike most unholies, I skipped desecration totally because in most boss fights it doesn't work (bosses/adds move too quickly), skipped desecration because I'd rather blow my RP on death coil than on popping a disease, and skipped impurity because most DPS from a dk is from melee damage not spell damage. Instead I maxed out my ghoul, gargoyle, and the other disease-damage related abilities, and picked up corpse explosion for some burst AOE. I've found this spec maximizes my DPS and survivability in raid and PVP situations. My philosophy is: you can't DPS when you're dead.

8 - 17/0/54 - Unholy/Blood talent build Basic rotation consists of PS,IT,BS,BS,SS,UB, then spamming of SS and DC, with an occasional BS if SS or DC is on cd. I did not put any points into Ghoul Frenzy or Summon Gargoyle, and I manage to pull around 4.2k in 25 man Naxx with only a few epic pieces and blues. Here's my armory profile if you'd like to take a look at my build. It's similar to the cookie cutter build but with a few changes.

9 - 11/10/50 - Unholy Raid DPS The most competitive DPS wise in Ulduar. It scales much better with gear than some other builds, and provides an extra edge for pure raiders. There aren't any wasted talents. This is a mostly single-target oriented build, but it still does excellent AoE as I am right behind Shadow Priests for AoE on the meters. The only AoE Talent that is sacrificed is Wandering Plague, which usually adds a 1-2% boost at best.

Tank Builds

10 - 12/5/54 - 2h AOE Tank Build

11 - 10/10/51 - High Threat DND Uldar Tank I’m a number cruncher and this build gives me far more threat than SS based unholy tanking builds. Keep Death and Decay down at all times, even against a single target. It has the highest threat multiplier of any of our abilities, use it, love it. Because of DnD your not using SS enough for glyph of SS to be reliable so use glyph of disease and use pestilence right before diseases are about to expire, even single target. Magic suppression and anti-magic zone are essential as many of the hard bosses in ulduar deal magic damage. Reaping is useless because DnD does not create a death rune. My experiments show that on anything with armor, necrosis >> blood-caked strikes. Summon Gargoyle is great dps, 0 threat makes it useless for tanking. Personally my crit chance is no where near high enough to justify wandering plague, especially if I want to ever hold threat against a single target and because this build has amazing AoE threat already. Things to consider playing with, virulence if your hit rating is low, maybe instead of unholy command and one point of necrosis. Also if your off tank and expect to be AoE tanking a lot Ravenous dead becomes better than necrosis because it helps our AoE abilities.

12 - 18/5/48 - Unholy Tank Build - AoE Mitigation Unlike the 2h build, this one focuses on mitigating/reducing damage that you take, and increased survivability. You will want to maximize your parry rating to make best use of the mitigation talents. As it is possible to crit with a disease (causing an AoE damage), crit rating is an important secondary stat. Drop Death and Decay at the start of any pull. Usually you don't need it more than once in a fight, but it's on a 15s recast, which allows for fast pulling. Rotation (trash, AoE): PS > IT > Pestilence > Blood Boil > Death Strike. Use Unholy Blight whenever needed, use Death Coil as a focus dump. I typically see about 4-4.5k self heal every 10s with Death Strike, which helps to make the healer's job a little easier and adds to your survivability. Rotation (single target, boss): PS > IT > Blood Strike > Blood Strike > Scourge Strike. Use Unholy Blight, and Death Coil as a dump. You can substitute Death Strike for Scourge Strike, if you want to free up the talent, but it does allow the tank to do some respectable DPS at the same time as tanking.

13 - 25/5/41 - Gorelust's Bloody Bugs AOE Tank This spec utilizes spell defense, boneshield, Improved rune tap and unholy blight. See glyphs for reference. Rotation: IT>PS>BS>BS>DS---Dump AOE Rotation is IT>PS>PEST>DnD>UB>BB>BB---Dump

14 - 23/5/43 - Deathgamel from Silvermoon Tanking build It is incredibly good for AOE tanking and Single target boss tanking.Improved Rune Tap along with the glyph make me the favorite tank of my healers on fights like XT-OO2 in Ulduar since I can assist in healing the melee in my group with the glyph of Rune tap on each and every Timpanic Tantrum. A lot of people don't like Boneshield because it goes away pretty quickly when tanking, but the increased damage in the very beginning of a boss fight helps increase threat. Rotations are pretty common sense, start out with diseases and then either pestilence and death and decay for AOE fights or Scourge Strike and Blood Strikes for single target/boss encounters and always dumping runic power on Unholy blight for AOE and Rune Strike/Death Coil for single/boss. In my current gear I receive about a 8.2k heal and group members about 2.6k heal from my Rune Tap when raid buffed, it won't top healing meters but it doesn't go unnoticed and I'll usually always get a "thanks for the back up" from a healer or two after a boss fight.

PVP Builds

15 - 21/0/50 - beginner pvp build Designed to maximize damage and survivability before you have the gear to goto an all out dps build. This build is not as gear dependent as full DPS builds. The healing of rune tap and mark of blood really increase survivability in arenas and BG's but mark of blood can be dropped for garg. plays like normal fully unholy so rotation would be along the lines of IT>>PS>>Pest>>BB>>UhB>>SS. The goal is to get diseases spread and keep pumping scourge strikes.

Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility)

 

 

DPS Builds

1 - 15/18/38 - hybrid DPS Thin is a hybrid DPS build that has done over 3.9k on 25 man os and naxx raids with some T-7 gear the rotation is up for debate

2 - 0/34/37 - belly's DPS hybrid build

3 - 41/0/30 - hybrid Blood Unholy build This build is a hybrid Blood Unholy build. It has the main spells from the blood and unholy tree (Heart Strike and summon Ghoul). Using this build and spell rotation i have managed to pull out 5.3K DPS with average 5 man and heroic gear. With Naxx 25 gear or tier 8.5 i can easily pull a 7.5 - 9K DPS

Tanking Builds

4 - 24/11/36 - 3DS Build Single Target Rotation - IT-PS-BS-BS-IT-PS RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil

5 - 25/8/38 - DK Unholy/Frost/Blood Spell Mitigation Tank This build is focus 'd on dealing with bosses with a high magic dmg output.

PVP Builds

6 - 37/34/0 - Bloody Cold Obliterate This build is a great pvp build. It gives you great survivability with Rune Tap, Mark of Blood, Vampiric Blood, Improved Blood Presence, Toughness, Improved Frost Presence and Hungering Cold, but this build doesn't stop at that. It allows Large burst damage, mainly from obliterate, and with Deathchill(auto crit), and Hysteria obliterate becomes deadly. Cast sequence should be IT or CoI, PS, BS, BS, Hysteria, Deathchill, OB.(feel free to pop Hysteria whenever you see fit)

7 - 0/35/36 - Bone Chilling Cold This build is similar to Bloody Cold Obliterate it just shifts its dps from two-handed melee damage to DW shadow damage. It retains survivability through Magic Suppression, Anti-Magic Zone, and Bone Shield. Plus the same frost bonuses in the previous build. This build has more consistent dps between, DW, Disease and Shadow damage, and the benefits of having a perma ghoul to chase down any kiters. Also with Deathchill you still can have fun getting those big Obliterate crits.

8 - 38/0/33 - tank pvp

Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility)