Death Knight Guide

Death Knight Lv60-80 Damage and Stun Build
This let me beat Utgarde Keep at level 70 using a level 63 epic sword, 70 epic plate, 70 epic shield & 70 epic greatsword (swap to greatsword once health is below the increase of the shield)

Frost:

Howling blast: 10. 120% strength damage - what's not to like?



Frost fever: 5. Enemy debuff and damage, always nice.

Icy talons: 0. I've read about how this talent is useful, but I prefer to have the points elsewhere to get higher dps.

Hungering cold: 10. 4 seconds of stun on top of 5 seconds from Strangulate means a whole lot of free damage against everything.

Obliterate: 2. This is what the points are going into for the next few levels.

Blood:

Deathstrike: 5. Decent damage and some healing, takes a lot of the sting off of a boss's first attack.

Blood plague: 5. Highest DoT disease needs some points

{C}Rune tap, Blood Presence and Heartstrike all have 0 points. The blood tree is quite low damaging, so there aren't a lot of points in it.

Unholy

Bone shield: 10. Need to unlock Strangulate, and it does shield a decent amount of damage.

Crypt fever: 1. The damage is starting to cap out on bosses at higher levels, so we really only need one point.

Strangulate: 10. See Hungering Cold.

Ghoul: 0. Important later on, to keep the damage up while raiding, but for now it's not as important as other talents.

Pestilence: 5. Bumps 3 sources of dps and a debuff? Yes please.

Decent build, and there aren't any others on here yet, so it's better than nothing. Use a greatsword and the highest craftable armor or epics. This beat Utgarde Keep at lv72 for me, with a Lv70 superior greatsword and Lv72 plates.

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[For some reason this posted with more spaces between and within different sections than I intended. I hope it does not confuse anyone]

Hello, I am MeanKno from teh internetz. I'm a lvl 76 Death Knight and like the fellow/madam above, I've completed Utgarde Keep at the same level. I've worked through a level by level build for people who would rather just follow a build.

Here goes:

lvl 85 Overview (This is what you will end with. Reading from left to right is what you'd be looking at from top to bottom on the game screen)

Frost 10 / 6 / 0 / 10 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

Unholy 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

lvls 10-19

Blood 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

lvls 20-29

Frost 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

or

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

lvls 30-39

Frost 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

lvls 40-49

Frost 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

lvls 50-59

Frost 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

Unholy 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

lvls 60-69

Frost 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

Unholy 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

lvls 70-74

Frost 10 / 5 / 0 / 0 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

Unholy 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

lvls 75-84

Frost 10 / 5 / 0 / 10 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

Unholy 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

lvl 85

Frost 10 / 6 / 0 / 10 / 0

Blood 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10

Unholy 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0

Feel free to make appropriate alterations as you see fit and use whatever gives the most str stat for your level. I set my "wait for cool down" to 9 and I hardly rest. After lvl 69  I set my "wait for cool down" to 0 and I rest even less. By then you'll have your stuns to rape things with. Later on you'll hav 2 stuns so the enemy will be stunned for 9 seconds overall. This means 6 seconds between every 9 seconds stun. My final suggestions are to pull 1 mob at a time and set your rest percentage to 45%.

Using this build, the more points in your talent trees, the less you rest and die. Also, I've heard for the final bosses, stuns and slows come in very handy. [I'm planning to go all tank and dps for final bosses, but I'll keep you guys updated on that]

Enjoy!

Level 70 build for fastest grinding
(a lot of this will sound like the guy above) xD

Frost
10/10/0/0/0

Howling Blast: 120% damage.

Frost Fever: 20% slower attacks & 5% str every 2 secs :)

Icy Talons: With 10 points you hit 17% faster. Doesn't seem that helpful, I just skip it.

Hungering Cold: Doesn't make that big a difference when grinding, as most fights won't last more than a few hits. (Maybe more helpful at higher levels)

Obliterate: Not terrible, but with 10 points only 60% str damage - maybe if you have 3 diseases more helpful for a total of 90% str damage.

 Blood 

10/10/10/0/10

Deathstrike: 50% str damage & heal. This means you can go longer without resting. (Probably around 500-700 at level 70)

Blood Plague: 15% str damage every 2 secs. Very useful.

Rune Tap: 80% heal. Same principles as Deathstrike. (Probably around 800-1000)

Blood Presence: 2.5% more health per point. I use a shield, so not that helpful.

Heartstrike: 70% str damage to all enemies. Helpful for if you get jumped by a second mob (or are pulling 2)

 Unholy 

0/0/0/0/0

It doesn't really speed up your dps, only your survivability - so not that helpful when grinding, great when doing dungeons (see below) :D

Level 70 build for dungeons
This let me beat Utgarde Keep at level 70 using a level 63 epic sword, 70 epic plate, 70 epic shield & 70 epic greatsword (swap to greatsword once health is below the increase of the shield)

Frost
10/10/0/10/0

Howling Blast: 120% damage - probably your main damage in this build

Frost Fever: 20% slower attacks & 5% str every 2 secs :)

Icy Talons: With 10 points you hit 17% faster. Doesn't seem that helpful, I just skip it.

Hungering Cold: Very helpful (same as the guy at the top of this) 4 secs of no attacks on you. (Use it with Strangulate for 9secs total... then 6 seconds later your protection starts again - so you take about 4 hits every 30 seconds in a fight)

Obliterate: Not terrible, but with 10 points only 60% str damage - maybe if you have 3 diseases more helpful for a total of 90% str damage.

 Blood 

8/0/0/0/0

Deathstrike: 40% str damage & heal. Slightly higher damage for you, and helps you survive longer :D

Blood Plague: Probably more useful when you have more talents (level 80 or summit)

The rest of this tree doesn't do much, and I don't find it that helpful in dungeons, although it is great for grinding.

 Unholy 

10/3/10/0/0

Bone Shield: 50% damage absorbed for 3 hits. Takes 6 seconds to charge a shield. You will have enough charges to take 50% of the damage in the break between your Hungering Cold & Strangulate.

Crypt Fever: 1.05% of their max health damage every 2 secs. Max allowed is 350. 3 points brings you up to around that. (1 point at level 80+). You can swap this for more points in Deathstrike no problem.

Strangulate: 5 seconds of no attacking. Works well with Hungering Cold.

The last 2 skills in this tree aren't necessary, although at level 80 you'll probably have all 3 diseases maxed out (crypt fever on 1) so maybe get Pestilence.

This is a great build, even at lower levels. Max strangulate first, get Deathstrike to a comfortable level, and then max Hungering Cold. After that, place points however you wish.

Level 79 build for fastest grinding
I'd like to share this build (and a possible glitch) with you guys (your builds helped me along the way ;-) )

when reaching level 79 it's possible to focus on other dps talents: the fevers (combined with pestilence). So I tried to use them for dps with Hung Cold and Strangulate (+Bone Shield) for avoiding damage. Here's the complete build

Frost
5/10/0/10/0

Howling Blast: 60% damage, even divided among enemies: it's not the main dps, so it's good enough

Frost Fever: 20% slower attacks & 5% str every sec (!)

Icy Talons: useless (for me).

Hungering Cold: blocks ALL enemies for 4 secs: helps cooldowns, gives time for healing (while hitting hard!)

Obliterate: we need points elsewhere. 

 Blood 

5/10/0/0/0

Deathstrike: 25% str damage & heal. Needed for Blood Plague and it's the only healing talent; unfortunally it's not good as Rune tap.

Blood Plague: 15% str damage every 1 sec (!). The best dps in this build

Rune Tap: we need points elsewhere (Pestilence). Pity.

Blood Presence: we need points elsewhere.

<p style="font-size:13px;">Heartstrike: great before this level, while now...we need points elsewhere <p style="font-size:13px;">

<p style="font-size:13px;">

<p style="margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;"> Unholy 

8/2/10/0/10

Bone Shield: 40% damage absorbed for 3 hits. And needed for Strangulate.

Crypt Fever: 0.7% of their max health damage every 1 sec (!). At this levels it will not reach the cap and actually it's the worst dps among fevers, but it's better than nothing

Strangulate: 5 seconds of no attacking. Unfortunally it hits just 1 emeny. Combined with Hungering Cold comes more usefull.

Ghoul: we need points elsewhere

Pestilence: it reduces the downtime of all fevers to 1 second...!

 Pros  This build deliver a huge amount of damage per second (probably the best)...every second. Now I'm lev 81, but just to make an example, here's the comparision between Howling Blast (the best one-shot talent vs 1 enemy) and HearthStrike (best one-shot talent vs multiple enemies): STR: 2426 HB 10 pts = 2912 every 16 secs. If more than one enemy approach you (and we're pulling at least 2 at this level) the damage is divided HS 10 pts = 1699 (to all enemies) every 10 secs... Fevers 10+10+2 pts (+Pestilence) = 556 every sec...this means that in 10 secs (HS) it becames 5560 while in 16 secs (HB) 8896...to ALL enemies.

 Cons  Unfortunally just 5 pts in DeathStrike are not enough for never-resting-grinding: after a few (multiple) pulls, the effect of your defences (Shield, Strangulate and Hungering Cold...this one is the most important) is less effective and the health starts lowering until you'll need to rest.

 Corrections (and possible glitch)  Trying to decrease the resting time, I respeced: same as above, but I put 10 pts on Rune tap (taken from Pestilence): fevers are still the main damage dealers (but halved), while Rune tap keep me alive (and "awake") longer. And here cames the possible glitch: after respecing, I noticed that all enemies had still damages every sec (and the Stats seem to confirm): in brief, you'll have the same dps as if you have Pestilence AND the Rune Tap...almost unstoppable!

NOTE: reloading fix the glitch.

Hope it helps :-)