DK leveling spec. Yes.

[Saraki]

Hello,
I'm looking for a decent leveling spec, but without a flame war.
So I want to ask YOU! ;D To post your build + the pro's en con's of the build.

If you would, that would be awesome.


Thank you in advance!

[Porphy]

I leveled with something like this Unholy build then switched it up just a little when I started raiding. As per norm, you are using this spec in Blood Presence.

Pros:

No runners.
More disease damage.
Perma pet.
Gargoyle.
Fast movement speed
Great AOE for fast kill quests and AOE grinding.
Bone shield for nice mitigation and basically a static 2% damage buff when instancing as DPS.

Cons:

Doesn't heal as well as blood BUT you shouldn't need it with a glyphed Death Strike (which you substitute for a Scourge Strike when you are 60ish % or less HP).

IMO a great build to level with. With a couple small tweaks at 80 you're in the build that will give you great DPS raiding/grouping and since you leveled with it you'll be a pro.

The rotation is:
Single
PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> SS -> UB
SS -> SS -> SS -> DC

(or)
PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> SS -> DC
SS -> SS -> SS -> DC

AoE
PS -> IT -> BB -> Pest -> SS -> UB
SS -> SS -> BB -> DC

(or) - threat not an issue
DnD -> PS -> IT -> Pest -> UB (repeat of the abovce to finish off the rotation if they live that long)

Glyphs:

Death Strike - better heals
Scourge Strike - more Scourge Strikes and freedom in rotation
Pestilence - Godly (that extra range makes a big difference)
Horn of Winter - great for leveling to keep the buff up

The rest of the glyphs I think are preference, even some listed are for that matter. Just make sure you have Scourge Strike and Pestilence for sure.

At 80 make it look something like THIS. You can drop 2 points from Necrosis and put them into Unholy Aura if you want more utility. The big switch here is you drop 2 points from Desecration for Dirge. Since when you raid you move a LOT and the more you move the less useful Desecration is. Keeping 3 points in the talent pretty much guarantees it'll be up on stationary fights like Patchwerk but switching 2 points for Dirge give you more mobile DPS (an issue you don't have to worry about until raids).

[Saraki]

Very nice and helpfull post!

But, can you also post what it should be @ level 58? (So its easy to put points in talents from there)

Thanks allready!

[Offhand]

Leveling as a DK is super-easy, the best way I found was to spend only 7 points in actual "leveling" stuff and the rest into dps increases.

Between vendetta and imp rune tap you won't need to eat or bandage ever and solo everything except Ring of Blood or Amphitheater.

At 58 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfcMqIcIcboxzI

At 70 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfcMqIcIcboxzAobZfM

Don't worry about obliterate removing diseases. Things won't live that long.

[Porphy]

Sure!

You can go 2 ways. Either take away from the deep unholy items: Here

(or)

Drop all the blood talents and only a couple of the Unholy stuff. You'll just finish out the Unholy points and then work your way up the blood tree as you level: Here

I suggest the later option (drop blood) as losing Scourge strike will kill the rotation and since threat and damage aren't paramount till later you'll have plenty of time to learn the core of the spec.

[Porphy]

Little known fact. While leveling you'll never really have to eat or bandage anyway. One Death Strike (instead of Scourge Strike) with enough runic (glyphed) fixes everything.

[crhme]

The truth is it probably doesn't matter what you spec blood/frost/unholy as long as you make sensible choices and get all the damage increases you can.

Personally i levelled as frost with no glyphs and no fancy shit and I killed mobs in 1 rune rotation with a frost strike in the end. Once you get rune strike, you want to macro it into every rune ability you use in your rotation and watch those +4k crits chain kill mobs like there's no tomorrow. If you kill mobs slower than 1 rune rotation ie 10-12 seconds you could probably spec for something that kills faster, but it really depends on what you're comfortable with. Reason I liked frost is it crits often and it crits big on most of your abilitites. Icy touch does good damage, plague strike is meh, but increases your blood strikes and obliterates and frost strike rips aswell. Big burst steamrolls mobs, and if you steamroll mobs they won't have time to do any real damage to you, so an unglyphed+untalented death strike once every 5/6th mob and blood presence will be enough to keep you permanently topped off.

There will come a point where you can drop blood presence in favor of unholy presence for faster movement and faster killing, since your damage is so high against mobs you won't need the healing or the extra 15% damage from blood presence and it will become favorable to just dump your damage into mobs as fast as possible, and runes will refresh while you loot and find the next victim. The power here lies in excessive runic power, which will make you capable of spamming frost strikes quite heavily. When you can dump 2 frost strikes after each rune rotation blood presence will hold you back against normal mobs that die fast. In instances it will be better to use blood presence.

That's what I experienced with frost and I had a lot of fun. That said, I levelled as frost and can't really comment on the power of blood and unholy, just wanted to let you know that all the fancy healing from blood/unholy is not needed or missed in any way as frost spec. There's an addon on curse that plays a sound when rime procs, that I can't remember the name of. I would get that if you decide on frost, because you don't want to miss those free howling blasts.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jbZG0xxIxdRhoV0sx 61 build, from there subversion, blade barrier (for rune strike), dark conviction etc.

[Akashiya]

the name of that addon is called Death Knight Alert if i'm not wrong. And yes, its an absolute must get if your a frost spec cuz that sweet sound of the chime when Rime procs is a signal to dish out lotsa pain for no rune cost ;D