New to DK, Seeking Advice on Which DPS Spec

[Ahrimal]

Hey everyone, I got my mains all up to 110 and fairly well geared so I was thinking of trying out Death Knight, a class I've never tried before. I'll personally try out both dps specs but before I do I thought I would get some info from you good people. Two of my mains are Druid and Ret Paladin so I'm used to some pretty high survivability. I know DK (other than Blood) probably doesn't have as much but do either of the DPS specs have self heals? I like to plow through levelling with little downtime, for instance. Other than that any info on the general flavor of each DPS spec and how it plays (ease of rotation or complexity, ease of levelling each comparatively, etc.) would be appreciated.

[Deleted]

Survivability while levelling is not a problem, you can heal for 25% with death strike after scoring a kill. Death strike is always usable for 10% health if you have runic power. The two spec are not really complex, with unholy just a bit more complex due to more thing to watch. Unholy has a bit more rotational abilities too. In the end dps is similar. Unholy got also a nice 90% dmg reduction from talents. It all boils down to "do you like to manage a pet?" (And wich spec blizz decided to screw more )

[zvr]

After recent buffs both specs are almost identical dps-wise. So which one you wanna play is up to you
Like @sguarada said - unholy and frost aren't very complex.
Frost is simple, it's priority straightforward and not very rng dependant and I personally find it incredibly fun in current patch.
Unholy have some rng stuff (like Runic Corruption or how much Wounds can you apply with one Festering Strike) but when stars align you can reach extremely solid numbers.
Both specs have nice survivability with Unholy being slightly ahead thanks to Corpse Shield. Great 'oh shit!' button
Frost don't have very strong defensive cooldowns BUT when you get Mirror Ball trait from your artifact your Anti-magic Shell will allow you to remove almost every possible magical debuff - it's wonderful in raids and mythic+ because you can cheese some boss mechanics (like clear all Mark stacks from Dragons of Nightmare) or remove nasty debuffs in mythic+ dungeons.

So in the end it's really up to you, but since I'm biased towards frost - I say try frost first

[lairpie]

"do you like to manage a pet?"

This should be nearly 100% of your decision. Both specs are pretty meh for damage compared to other classes of even skill and gear. Unholy requires a bit more attention to wound management and keeping your pets out of trouble. If you're going to be doing primarily mythic+ runs, I'd suggest frost, as the unholy pets require some extra attention to keep out of trouble in mythic+. If you're mostly raiding, soloing, and doing untimed dungeons though, unholy is fine and it's really just "do you like pets?"

[Flextt]

I would take Frost. Unholy is, for the lack of a better word, "fidgety" with lots of micromanagement.