Confused dk

[davidg]

Well finally leveled my dk and been having fun as blood but I have started to pvp. Blood is the spec I have been playing and leveled as but I have been told blood is bad in pvp.I enjoy it but I plan on making the to conversion to frost and have been trying to find the right abilities to use and what I have seen is obliterate and frost strike is the most used abilities an then I see that festering strike is priority unless it's a non plate wearer .So which is right I plan to be 2hand frost since I have the 403 gurth. Please don't judge I'm a ok skilled player on a freshly rerolled dk 85 on 4/20 . Thanks for all responses and help in advanced

[Zeoni]

You don't need to Festering at all. Howling Blast your Frost Runes away, Necrotic Strike your Unholy/Death Runes away and dump Runic Power into Frost Strikes. If the target is sub 35% and you think you'll kill him use an Obliterate if you have the runes. If there are no heals you can just put 1-2 Necrotic Strikes on the target to absorb that classes self-healing and Obliterate them down.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZGc...0ubG:Mma0qVMm0 - is how I spec you can sub Obliterate glyph out for Frost Fever if you don't plan on using Oblit often.

Make a macro to Lichborne heal yourself.

/cast Lichborne
/cast [target=SELF] Death Coil - Works for me. Obviously put your name where SELF is.

Reforge so you have as close to 5% hit as possible, wowreforge or other reforge tools can be used or you can just wing it like I do. After that reforge everything to Mastery so your Howling Blast and Frost Strikes hit harder. As Human, I use the 2 resil trinkets, one with Strength proc and the other with Strength on use. I think these are the best since DK's are kind of squishy and it isn't really worth it to use a PvE trinket. Macro the on-use Strength with Pillar of Frost for maximum burst potential.

/use Cataclysmic Gladiator's Badge of Victory - Replace Cataclysmic with Ruthless if you have to.
/cast Pillar of Frost

As far as gemming goes, if you only intend on doing battlegrounds I'd go with all +40 Strength in every slot. You could swap Resplendent's into Yellow if you feel you're lacking Resilience. You will also need 195 Spell Penetration so either put 2 epic Stormy Deepholm Iolite in your blue slots + Spell Pen Cloak enchant. If you don't have enough gold just put 3 Stormy Ocean Sapphire's in the 3 blue slots with the cloak enchant. This insures you will never see "Resist" unless someone has more than 195 Magic Resist which shoulden't ever happen. Buy the hit neck, mastery cloak, haste bracers, mastery belt, and haste boots over the other options. If you intend on doing arena, I highly suggest investing in some more resil. Either 40 STR in red, 40 resil in yellow or all out 20 str/20 resil in red, 40 resil in yellow, 2 63 spell pen in blues, and 40 resils in any other open spaces (belt buckle, 3rd blue slot, Blacksmith slots if you have those).

Overall Frost is a very fun spec but Unholy is better for arena if you plan on going down that path. That's not to say Frost is bad, Unholy just suits more comps because of various tools. You won't see as big numbers as Frost though, which is part of the fun. Obviously if you're rich enough invest in epic gems over the 40 str 40 resil ect that I suggested if you have it. Good luck and enjoy.

Other notes on things you can do:

-When you pop your Pillar of Frost macro, immediately use Blood Tap to get that Rune that was used for PoF back.
-Use Raise Dead and quickly use Death Pact if you're desperate for a heal.
-Hungering Cold in the middle of big groups to land a huge CC.
-Try to save Empower Rune Weapon when it will give you all 6 Runes back.
-You can spam Chains of Ice on melee to kite them when you're low because of the root.
-If there is a healer present, always use Necrotic over Obliterate. Especially if it's a big team fight, the big snare on the ground will be useful to someone.
-Death Grip interrupts a cast so if you're in a bind with Strangulate and Mind Freeze down or you're simply out of range of someone casting you can use that to stop them.
-When facing a somewhat skilled healer who is juking (canceling his cast bar in hopes you will use Mind Freeze) just save your Mind Freeze for when he's very low with a big Necrotic stack on him. If he jukes you, Strangulate his next cast. If he trinkets or doesn't die, Death Grip the next cast. Mind Freeze should be up again if he is still not dead.
-When heading into a battle your skill usage should usually be like this:

Howling Blast to slow/apply Frost Fever, Pillar of Frost macro then Blood Tap, Necrotic Strike 4x in a row - if you get a Killing Machine proc use a Frost Strike in between Necrotics, Frost Strike the rest if your Runic Power away. Runic Empowerment talent has a 45% chance to refresh a rune when you use Frost Strike, pay attention to which one it does. From here on out, follow this priority. No Frost Fever? Howling Blast. Killing Machine? Frost Strike. Frost Fever is up but no Killing Machine - spam Necrotic until you're out of Unholy/Death runes. No Runes left, spam Frost Strike.
-Blood Boil and Death and Decay can be used to take Rogues out of stealth.
-Land Strangulates mid cast for a 7 second silence via Glyph of Strangulate.

[metalgemini]

Zeoni is right on about dps so I won't double up.

Just wanted to comment that Blood isn't a completely dead pvp spec. If you want to dedicate yourself to FC, I've seen some great Blood DKs stack resil and get a pocket healer to make any flag BG or defending nodes a huge pain for the other team

[Daboogyman]

Your trinket macro is off. You need to use the trinket before you cast PoF or you won't get the bonus from the trinket into PoF.

[Zeoni]

What he said, I was in a hurry typing and put them in the wrong places, I'll change that for you.

[Firebert]

This insures you will never see "Resist" unless someone has more than 195 Magic Resist which shoulden't ever happen.

Mage Armor says hi. Used by Mages without the Frost Armor glyph when they're out of mana.

240 is the Spell Penetration cap you're after.

[Rorke]

You don't need to Festering at all. Howling Blast your Frost Runes away, Necrotic Strike your Unholy/Death Runes away and dump Runic Power into Frost Strikes. If the target is sub 35% and you think you'll kill him use an Obliterate if you have the runes. If there are no heals you can just put 1-2 Necrotic Strikes on the target to absorb that classes self-healing and Obliterate them down.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZGc...0ubG:Mma0qVMm0 - is how I spec you can sub Obliterate glyph out for Frost Fever if you don't plan on using Oblit often.

Make a macro to Lichborne heal yourself.

/cast Lichborne
/cast [target=SELF] Death Coil - Works for me. Obviously put your name where SELF is.

Reforge so you have as close to 5% hit as possible, wowreforge or other reforge tools can be used or you can just wing it like I do. After that reforge everything to Mastery so your Howling Blast and Frost Strikes hit harder. As Human, I use the 2 resil trinkets, one with Strength proc and the other with Strength on use. I think these are the best since DK's are kind of squishy and it isn't really worth it to use a PvE trinket. Macro the on-use Strength with Pillar of Frost for maximum burst potential.

/use Cataclysmic Gladiator's Badge of Victory - Replace Cataclysmic with Ruthless if you have to.
/cast Pillar of Frost

As far as gemming goes, if you only intend on doing battlegrounds I'd go with all +40 Strength in every slot. You could swap Resplendent's into Yellow if you feel you're lacking Resilience. You will also need 195 Spell Penetration so either put 2 epic Stormy Deepholm Iolite in your blue slots + Spell Pen Cloak enchant. If you don't have enough gold just put 3 Stormy Ocean Sapphire's in the 3 blue slots with the cloak enchant. This insures you will never see "Resist" unless someone has more than 195 Magic Resist which shoulden't ever happen. Buy the hit neck, mastery cloak, haste bracers, mastery belt, and haste boots over the other options. If you intend on doing arena, I highly suggest investing in some more resil. Either 40 STR in red, 40 resil in yellow or all out 20 str/20 resil in red, 40 resil in yellow, 2 63 spell pen in blues, and 40 resils in any other open spaces (belt buckle, 3rd blue slot, Blacksmith slots if you have those).

Overall Frost is a very fun spec but Unholy is better for arena if you plan on going down that path. That's not to say Frost is bad, Unholy just suits more comps because of various tools. You won't see as big numbers as Frost though, which is part of the fun. Obviously if you're rich enough invest in epic gems over the 40 str 40 resil ect that I suggested if you have it. Good luck and enjoy.

Other notes on things you can do:

-When you pop your Pillar of Frost macro, immediately use Blood Tap to get that Rune that was used for PoF back.
-Use Raise Dead and quickly use Death Pact if you're desperate for a heal.
-Hungering Cold in the middle of big groups to land a huge CC.
-Try to save Empower Rune Weapon when it will give you all 6 Runes back.
-You can spam Chains of Ice on melee to kite them when you're low because of the root.
-If there is a healer present, always use Necrotic over Obliterate. Especially if it's a big team fight, the big snare on the ground will be useful to someone.
-Death Grip interrupts a cast so if you're in a bind with Strangulate and Mind Freeze down or you're simply out of range of someone casting you can use that to stop them.
-When facing a somewhat skilled healer who is juking (canceling his cast bar in hopes you will use Mind Freeze) just save your Mind Freeze for when he's very low with a big Necrotic stack on him. If he jukes you, Strangulate his next cast. If he trinkets or doesn't die, Death Grip the next cast. Mind Freeze should be up again if he is still not dead.
-When heading into a battle your skill usage should usually be like this:

Howling Blast to slow/apply Frost Fever, Pillar of Frost macro then Blood Tap, Necrotic Strike 4x in a row - if you get a Killing Machine proc use a Frost Strike in between Necrotics, Frost Strike the rest if your Runic Power away. Runic Empowerment talent has a 45% chance to refresh a rune when you use Frost Strike, pay attention to which one it does. From here on out, follow this priority. No Frost Fever? Howling Blast. Killing Machine? Frost Strike. Frost Fever is up but no Killing Machine - spam Necrotic until you're out of Unholy/Death runes. No Runes left, spam Frost Strike.
-Blood Boil and Death and Decay can be used to take Rogues out of stealth.
-Land Strangulates mid cast for a 7 second silence via Glyph of Strangulate.

This is probably the best guide you will find about frost dks on the internet. Short and sweet this guy pretty much sums up what you need to do.

[davidg]

Thanks so much for the help and the lagniappe with gemming. One last thing in the guide there was no mention of outbreak And also refreshing diseases . Why would I not open with outbreak and am I still going to use plague strike to refresh them ?

[Soisoisoi]

This is probably the best guide you will find about frost dks on the internet. Short and sweet this guy pretty much sums up what you need to do.

Did you really need to quote the whole thing for one sentence? >.>;


OT: Zeoni said most of it for us, though I would change those macros just for the sake of making it simple:

Trinkets (top slot is 13, bottom is 14)

/use 13
/cast Pillar of Frost

Lichborne self-heal

/cast !Lichborne
/cast [@player] Death Coil

[Deleted]

Great guide.
Just 1 thing that it might miss even though im not sure since I havnt played at all this season.
When dualweilding, I remember spamming howlings (rbgs), 1 unholy on necrotic then mash frost strike to dump runic. When u dump u have 1 unholy rune fresh, the others should be on recharge which results in only frost or death runes to proc back which= more howlings, which= more runic.

Burning out all unholy runes before runic dump "can" result in unholy runes to proc back which u dont want since necrotic gives 0 runic regen which in turn leaves u starved.
I do remember however howling got a minor nerf this season so i really dont know if its still that viable

[Zeoni]

Mage Armor says hi. Used by Mages without the Frost Armor glyph when they're out of mana.

240 is the Spell Penetration cap you're after.

240 isn't needed, nobody runs Resistance Aura and 40 resil or 40 strength is a better trade off than being Spell Pen capped for Mages who have Mark/Kings, Mage Armour, and Resist Aura.

I didn't include anything about Duel Wield because he asked for 2H and I personally believe 2H is way better. No point in getting technical with Runic Power and Necrotic usage with a relatively new DK player. As for Outbreak and Plague Strike, I use Outbreak when Frost Fever is going to drop and I have no Frost Runes. Typically as Frost you don't have to worry about diseases. Plague Strike isn't worth it to maintain Blood Plague, keep it simple just spam Necrotic, Howling Blast, and Frost Strike. Outbreak can be used if you need a bit of extra damage but I don't think it's the difference between life and death. Some people do however, that's such a minor issue imo.

[DeathcowDan]

Nice write up...2 thumbs up.

[creamo42]

I'd go 195 pen, if that mage is staying in mage armor against you he deserves what he gets!

[Firebert]

I'd go 195 pen, if that mage is staying in mage armor against you he deserves what he gets!

Resisted silences, free mana regeneration, greater protection against casters...?

He gets quite a lot. He will switch to Frost Armor when you get up in his grill though.

Also, it's only possible to build an Obliterate-free spec if you Dual Wield (and I encourage it due to the comparative DPS of HB and Obliterate).

[Leopraecordia]

This might be off-topic but I don't understand how Blood DKs fair so well in regard to public opinion as FCs? Doesn't blood shield only mitigate *physical* damage? The only other spell resistance they have is AMS and Lichborne, but when your 4 or so seconds from AMS are up and your Lichborne (3min CD) has been used to free you from fears/MC, you're now in another cycle of having to take a crap load of ranged damage which puts your healers in a bigger pinch.

[Firebert]

This might be off-topic but I don't understand how Blood DKs fair so well in regard to public opinion as FCs?

If there's something there for them to Death Strike then they can survive quite a long time, and the pre-Vengeance nerf Blood DKs still hold a lot of sway after people had been tortured by them.

Take a Prot Warrior now, though.

[Deleted]

Recheck your talents.

[Leopraecordia]

If there's something there for them to Death Strike then they can survive quite a long time, and the pre-Vengeance nerf Blood DKs still hold a lot of sway after people had been tortured by them.

Take a Prot Warrior now, though.

I have a prot warrior at only 4700 resil, I love it. So many ways to avoid melee/ranged/spell damage all together plus disarm for those pesky rogues. But my DK (Blood) has always gotten owned by caster DPS. A lot of good RBG teams will keep their melee and pets off me. It's amazing how quickly I'll drop once my healers are gone or down to one.

[count dante]

Late to the party but:

1. Blook PvP is viable but limited. It is a niche type of spec and you will have to accept that any caster DPS will most likely roll you, but you are a pure anti-melee tank. Good for FC, node protect type roles. But where it has great strength in anti-melee, it is very weak to caster DPS. So weak in fact as Frost I kite Blood DK with limited F DK casting.

2. UH vs F in comps. For the record, I play 2h Mastery based frost for RBGs and comps. I always see UH is better for arenas, but I will say that it certainly isnt for me (because I admittedly suck with UH, I just cant seem to get the flow) but it does have a greater syngery for most comps. As frost I am limited to only melee-type comps where UH is much more flexible. But if you do thrive to play frost in arenas it IS viable and you will shine in RBGs (I typically hit 5-6mill dmg in your average 25 min 1 - 0 WSG). Currently in 2's I run with a Resto Druid and 3's I run with a Resto druid and warr or rogue.