Death Knight Builds

The Death Knight Spells are constantly changing and I will be trying to get them from the most up to date source. This time I was able to find the most up to date information at WOTLKWIKI. Updated March 15th 2009.

 

Blood Spells:

Trainable Spells:
Spell	Cost	Cooldown	Description
Blood Boil	Blood Rune	None	Causes any of the Death Knight's diseases on the target, and all enemies within 30 yards of the target, to painfully erupt, dealing (117 to 143) + 4% AP Shadow damage. Instant cast. Costs 1 Blood rune.
Blood Strike	Blood Rune	None	Instantly strike the enemy, causing 50% weapon damage plus 191, and an additional 95.5 bonus damage per disease. Costs 1 Blood Rune.
Blood Tap	15% of base health	1 Minute	Immediately activates a Blood Rune and temporarily converts it into a Death Rune. This rune counts as a Blood, Unholy, or Frost Rune. Lasts 20 sec. Costs 6% of the Death Knight's base health. 1 Min Cooldown.
Dark Command	None	8 Seconds	Commands the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you. Instant cast. 20 yard range. 8 sec. cooldown.
Death Pact	40 Runic Power	2 Minutes	Sacrifices an undead minion, healing the Death Knight for 40% of <his/her> maximum health. Instant cast. 30 yard range. 2 min cooldown. Costs 40 Runic power.
Pestilence	Blood Rune	None	Causes (65 to 79) + 4% AP Shadow damage to the target and all targets within 10 yards and spreads any diseases on the target to the additional targets. Instant cast. Melee Range.
Strangulate	Blood Rune	2 Minutes	Strangulates an enemy, silencing them for 5 sec, and deals 180 + 6% AP Shadow damage at the end of the effect. Instant cast. 30 yard range. 2 min cooldown.
Talented Abilities:
Dancing Rune Weapon	50 Runic Power	90 Secs	Unleashes all available runic power to summon a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 5 sec plus 1 sec per 10 additional runic power, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight but for 50% reduced damage.
Heart Strike	Blood Rune	None	Instantly strike the target and his nearest ally, causing 50% weapon damage plus 125, total damage increased by 10% for each of your diseases on the target. 5 yd range, Instant
Hysteria	none	3 Minutes	Induces a friendly unit into a killing frenzy for 30 sec. The target is Enraged, which increases their physical damage by 20%, but causes them to suffer damage equal to 1% of their maximum health every second. 30 yards range.
Mark of Blood	Blood Rune	3 Minutes	Place a Mark of Blood on an enemy. Whenever the marked enemy deals damage to a target, that target is healed for 4% of its maximum health. Lasts for 20 sec. 30 yards range.
Rune Tap	Blood Rune	1 Minute	Converts 1 Blood Rune into 10% of your maximum health.
Vampiric Blood	Blood Rune	1 Minutes	Increases the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 50% for 20 sec.

Frost Spells:

Trainable Spells:
Spell	Cost	Cooldown	Description
Chains of Ice	Frost Rune	None	Shackles the target with heavy chains, reducing their movement to zero. The target regains 5% of their movement each second. Lasts for 20 sec.
Empower Rune Weapon	None	5 Minutes	Empower your rune weapon, immediately activating all your runes and generating 25 runic power.
Horn of Winter	20 Runic Power	None	The Death Knight blows the Horn of Winter, increasing total Strength and Agility of all party or raid members within 30 yards by 155. Lasts 2 min.
Icebound Fortitude	20 Runic Power	1 Minute	The Death Knight freezes their blood to become immune to Stun effects and reduce all damage by 50% for 12 sec. Does not remove existing Stun effects.
Icy Touch	Frost Rune	None	Rank 5: Chills the target for 90 to 96 Frost damage and infects them with Frost Fever, a disease that reduces melee and ranged attack speed by 14% for 12 sec.
Mind Freeze	20 Runic Power	10 Seconds	Strike the target’s mind with cold, interrupting spellcasting while also preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.
Obliterate	Frost Rune, Unholy Rune	None	A brutal instant attack that deals 100% weapon damage plus 217, and an additional 108.5 bonus damage per disease, but consumes the diseases.
Path of Frost	Frost Rune	None	The Death Knight’s freezing aura creates ice beneath his/her feet, allowing him/her and his/her party or raid to walk on water for 10 min. Works while mounted. Any damage will cancel the effect.
Rune Strike	15 Runic Power	5 Seconds	Instantly strike the target for 60% weapon damage. Only usable after the Death Knight performs critical hit with an ability that causes a disease.
Talented Abilities:
Lichborne	None	3 Minutes	Draw upon unholy energy to become undead for 15 sec. While undead, you are immune to Charm, Fear and Sleep effects, and your horrifying visage causes melee attacks to have an additional 25% chance to miss you.
Deathchill	None	2 Minutes	When activated, makes your next Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Frost Strike or Obliterate a critical hit.
Howling Blast	Frost Rune, Unholy Rune	6 Seconds	Blast the target with a frigid wind dealing 192 to 208 Frost damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Deals double damage to targets infected with Frost Fever.
Unbreakable Armor	Frost Rune	1 Minutes	Increases your armor by 25% and total strength by 10% for 20 seconds.
Frost Strike	40 Runic Power	None	Rank 6: Instantly strike the enemy, causing 30% weapon damage plus 80.1 as Frost damage.
Hungering Cold	60 Runic Power	1 Minute	Purges the earth around the Death Knight of all heat. Enemies within 10 yards are trapped in ice, preventing them from performing any action for 10 sec and infecting them with Frost Fever. Enemies are considered Frozen, but any damage other than diseases will break the ice.

Unholy Spells:

Trainable Spells:
Spell	Cost	Cooldown	Description
Anti-Magic Shell	20 Runic Power	15 Seconds	Surrounds the Death Knight in an Anti-Magic Shell, absorbing 75% of the damage dealt by harmful spells and preventing application of harmful magical effects. Damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell energizes the Death Knight with additional runic power. Lasts 5 sec.
Army of the Dead	Blood Rune, Frost Rune, Unholy Rune	20 Minutes	Summons an entire legion of Ghouls to fight by your side. The Ghouls will swarm the area, taunting and fighting anything they can. While channeling Army of the Dead, you will take less damage equal to your Dodge plus Parry chance.
Death and Decay	Blood Rune, Frost Rune, Unholy Rune	30 Seconds	Corrupts the ground targeted by the Death Knight, causing 52 Shadow damage every sec that targets remain in the area for 10 sec. This ability produces a high amount of threat.
Death Coil	40 Runic Power	None	Fire a blast of unholy energy, causing 148 Shadow damage to an enemy target or healing 222 damage from a friendly Undead target.
Death Gate	Unholy Rune	1 Minute	Returns you to Ebon Hold.
Death Grip	None	35 Seconds	Harness the unholy energy that surrounds and binds all matter, drawing the target toward the Death Knight and forcing the enemy to attack the Death Knight for 3 sec.
Death Strike	Frost Rune, Unholy Rune	None	A deadly attack that deals 60% weapon damage plus 178.2 and heals the Death Knight for a percent of damage done for each of <his/her> diseases on the target.
Plague Strike	Unholy Rune	None	A vicious strike that deals 30% weapon damage plus 30 and infects the target with Blood Plague, a disease dealing Shadow damage over time. The strike removes one heal over time effect from the target.
Raise Dead	None	5 Minutes	Raises a Ghoul to fight by your side. If no humanoid corpse that yields experience or honor is available, you must supply Corpse Dust to complete the spell. If the corpses of friendly players are raised, they will have control over the Ghoul. You can have a maximum of one Ghoul at a time.
Acherus Deathcharger	None	None	Summons a Deathcharger, which serves as a mount. Speed is increased by 100%.
Talented Abilities:
Corpse Explosion	Unholy Rune	None	Rank 5: Cause a corpse to explode for 220 Shadow damage to all enemies within 20 yards. Will use a nearby corpse if the target is not a corpse. Does not affect mechanical or elemental corpses.
Summon Gargoyle	30 Runic Power	3 Minutes	A gargoyle flies into the area and bombards the target with Nature damage modified by the Death Knight’s attack power. Persists for 1 sec per 8 runic power up to 1 min.
Anti-Magic Zone	Unholy Rune	2 Minutes	Places a large, static Anti-Magic Zone which can protect any party members inside it. The Anti-Magic Zone absorbs 75% of the damage dealt by the next harmful spell. Absorbs up to 10000 damage. Lasts 30 sec.
Bone Shield	Unholy Rune	1 Minute	The Death Knight is surrounded by 4 whirling bones. While at least 1 bone remains, he or she takes 40% less damage from all sources and deals 2% more damage with all attacks, spells and abilities. Each damaging attack that lands consumes 1 bone. Lasts 5 mins.
Scourge Strike	Frost Rune, Unholy Rune	None	Rank 4: An unholy strike that deals 65% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus 196.95, and an additional 98.475 bonus damage per disease.
Unholy Blight	60 Runic Power	None	Rank 4: A vile swarm of unholy insects surrounds the Death Knight for a 10 yard radius. Enemies caught in the area take 37 Shadow damage per sec and are considered diseased. Lasts 20 sec.

 

Presences

The Death Knight will have three presences they can choose from at any time (similar to stances) to best fit their current task. They are as follows:

• Blood Presence: Increases damage done by 15% and returns back 4% of the damage done as health.
• Frost Presence: Increases armor by 45%, magic resistance by 57, and threat generated by 45%.
• Unholy Presence: Increases attack speed by 15% and lowers the global cooldown by 0.5 seconds.

 

Ghoul Overview

At level 56 the Death Knight gains the ability to Summon a Ghoul through the Raise Dead spell. Untalented the Ghoul lasts 2 minutes and Raise Dead has a 5 minute cooldown. Through talents such as Ravenous Dead and Ferocious Dead it is possible to have the Ghoul last up to 3.5 minutes and reduce the cooldown on raise dead by 2.5 minutes. However, it is currently impossible to have two ghouls at a time.

Ability	Cost	Description
Claw	40 Energy	Claw the enemy causing 14 additional damage.
Explode	40 Energy	Explode self, destroying the ghoul and causing 500 shadow damage to all nearby enemies.
Gnaw	30 Energy	Chew a limb off the target, stunning for 3 seconds and dealing 90 - 110 damage.
Huddle	10 Energy	Go into a defensive crouch, reducing damage dealt and taken by melee attacks, ranged attacks and spells by 50% for 10 seconds.
Infect	20 Energy	Inflicts 51 - 52 nature damage to an enemy every 3 seconds.
Leap	10 Energy	Leap through the shadows and reappear behind your enemy.
Ghoul Taunt	NA	Taunts and causes additional high threat to all enemies within 15 yards.
Thrash	30 Energy	A physical attack, injuring a single foe for 110 damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell of that school from being cast for 5 seconds.