new to dk's - need pvp advise

[Garkanh]

so, i've leveled my first dk to lvl 90 now, and i love tanking as blood.

however, when it comes to pvp, i'm kind of clueless.

i kind of like the idea of duelwield frost ever since wotlk, but never got the time to level one up.

however now, i got some troubles figuring out what to do.

i don't know if i should go 2h frost, dw frost, or 2h unholy.

i only got 5 pieces pvp gear atm, and 3k honor, so i can soon buy a 2h or 2 1h's.


tryed out dw and 2h frost with 463 blue pve weps, and do decently with the 2hander, while i get completely steamrolled with duelwield. i'm just not putting out any dammage at all, and i don't know if it's mainly a gear thing, or i just don't know what buttons to "prioritize"

and that's my second problem.

at each spec, what is the most important keys? right now i got so manny defirent keys, that as a newly dinged 90 dk, i haven't used half of them when tanking as blood, and it all just seems pretty awkward to me. i would like to cut down the abillitys on my keyboard, cause right now i got like 30-40 keybindings, while when watching pvp videos, they got maybe 10-15 abillitys in their action bar. so some of them must be kind of useless in pvp.


any help is appreciated.

[Tripz]

afaik 2h Frost in Unholy Presence is great

As for Frost you want to put up Outbreak so your obliterates hit like a train, and use your frost strikes when you are taking in a lot of runic power. Other than that, everything speaks for itself.

Noxxic (link below) will give you a general guide line to what talents to take and what to glyph, gem, etc. BUT you can still choose whatever you are comfortable with, which is recommended. Noxxic pretty much grabs all of the talents used by the general group of players running pvp, showing witch is more common (which is usually the most effective) but if you feel you want to then go to Arena Junkies and look at the rankings, find a Frost DK and check out his armory.

http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pvp/death-knight/frost

here is a simple pvp guide from youtube for frost, cross reference the 2 sites to find what you feel good with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k742gmQqFE

[Wrien]

afaik 2h Frost in Unholy Presence is great

Was like that in cataclysm

as DW frost (which is superior to 2h frost in pvp IMO) you'll be using these abilities mainly:

1. Frost Strike
2. Howling Blast
3. Chains of Ice
4. Icy Touch (with glyph for dispell)
5. Necrotic Strike (vs classes with lots of undispellable healings)
6. Plague Strike and Death and Decay (when and if you need to use your unholy runes)
7. Death Strike (against classes when you need to an extra healing boost, no big dps-loss due to heavy Frost Strike damage)
8. Obliterate (only use if you have one frost rune and one unholy rune free with killing machine procced and no runic power, used very rarely. Else use killing machine on Frost Strike)
9. Outbreak (used very rarely, you'll be applying both diseases very often with HB, IT, Chains and Plague Strike anyway. Use if you need to apply diseases from range)

Can't really tell any rotation because it depends on the situation you're in and what classes you are facing. Mainly you'll be building RP for Frost Strike, while runes are mostly for mobility-moves. Use Howling Blast when you're going for pure damage.

Reforge:
hit cap (3%) > expertise cap 3%) > Mastery > crit > haste

Gems:
PvP power gems mainly, always use the gems needed for socket bonuses. Try to get pvp power on every gem (pure pvp power, pvp power + strength/mastery etc.)

[bals]

afaik 2h frost in unholy presence is great
]

no no no no no no no no no
please never do that anymore
no.
You're wrong stop talking.

[Deleted]

Recommends unholy presence. Recommends Noxxic. Recommends guide from a mute guy. Great advice!

[TeeZed]

Firstly if you're not getting focused you really want to be in frost presence... Reduced CC, increased RP generation and half the cost on frost strike make the ability to mess people up 10x more useful than unholy presence. If you're getting boned pretty hard, go into blood presence, the increased armour, damage reduction and stamina prove to be a minor tradeoff for the RP gen and reduced frost strike cost. If you're going 2H anyway your frost strikes will serve little purpose other than to give you more obliterates through your talents.

Frost is the easiest class to play because it has so few cooldowns. Your burst comes from procs, not from 2-5 minute long abilities that boost your damage which means your constant pressure AND burst are already quite strong. With Pillar of frost and outbreak you can make sure your obliterates crit for outlandish amounts of damage and if you get a lucky proc straight after cause of the stupid amount of melee haste you can easily do 200K damage in the space of 2 seconds making it VERY hard for people to deal with because they panic, and that's the first flaw of PvP really, that and "not knowing what the fuck to do"

I'd personally put necrotic strike up the priority list against anybody that casts or heals. The reduced cast speed is very strong and the healing absorbed speaks for itself... You'll find necrotic to be useful against ANYONE really considering the stupid amount of self heals in the game now. Second wind? Not any more, Blood strike? NOPE. It's a very unique ability with the healing denial COMBINED with cast speed reduction, it was clearly designed to make killing healers so much easier... and now it's a bit too good combined with double life grip from PvP gear meaning things like Inner focus can get interrupted twice from just grips and then a necro, silence, interrupt on top of that it's pretty nasty.

Also... Strangulate glyph on a caster is the longest silence in the game... 7 seconds, That's not a school lockout of 7 seconds, that's a complete silence of 7 seconds.

I've found the toolkit of a DK to be very powerful in the right hands although a little easy. A good frost DK and a bad frost DK still do the same faceroll damage but don't apply as much pressure. BUT a bad unholy DK and a good unholy DK, the distance is actually rather big and although unholy doesn't have as much burst they have much better sustained damage and can get 6 necrotic strikes in a row... that's nasty.

TL;DR VERSION

What i'd recommend is playing 2H frost first, it's so much easier and you can do a lot more with 3 buttons. Once you get comfortable with the class and learn your utility spells try out 2H unholy to see if you like it. They both play just fine but everyone has personal preferences.

[Omertocracy]

As a major fan of Death Knights, and a terrible PvPer (1400 rating 3 seasons running!), I say if you are not superb at your PvPing and know your class inside out and back in, reroll or get curbstomped in 4 seconds.