As many of you know, i prefer melee dps when i dps. back when i first started playing wow, i thought i'd be a good mage. but as time wore on and i learned how to use my strafe buttons more (really, my n52 controller makes it a breeze) i began to love melee dps. this began the obsession with my feral druid and later moved on to my DK, paladin, warrior, rogue and, finally, my mage. =D I'll explain more about my mage later.
But of all the dps characters i played, i loved the wotlk paladin and dk the most. now that they've changed the whole design of playing a paladin, i feel like a very gimped rogue. Although the holy power system is not reliant on the mob you're facing, but rather, its energy built and sustained with you no matter how many times you switch mobs (and surely, a rogue should be able to put multiple stacks of combo points on multiple mobs at the same time). inquisition feels like savage roar or slice and dice. and procs (or lack thereof) only add to the incredible inconsistancy of every fight. i dont like it one bit. now i do like procs. but for the paladin, i dont see it working well with our holy power system. now in comes the dk. it hasnt changed much throughout the years. each deathknight spec used to have its own flavor of tanking and dps. now we have one dedicated tanking tree and two dps trees. the whole dual weild vs. 2hander debate continues (although 2handers have had the edge for ages) til this day and the whole class has gotten its share of loltards.
PvE Frost DK Basic Talent Tree
I've chosen dual wield since i like the idea of walking around with two one-handers. this is the only reason why i've gone dual wield vs. a single 2hander. i dont think it matters much in the end (apart from stat priorities), so pick whichever your heart desires. some will argue that a single 2hander will do more damage. that's great if you care that you're doing 15,684 dps vs 15,612 dps. overall, it doesnt matter. and those numbers were taken directly out of my ass, so take it for what its worth. what matters more is that you, me, and everyone else enjoy the game play while doing their best. some folks like to enjoy the game without doing jack, at the expense of others carrying them. that's not what im talking about. at least, if you choose to be in a sub-optimal spec (ie. sub rogues) at least play it to your best ability. thats all i ask.
There are three talents in which you will have to decide upon based on your choice of weapon:
1. Nerves of Cold Steel for dual wielding.
2. Threat of Thassarian for dual-wielding.
3. Might of the Frozen Wastes for single, 2-handers.
These talents arent mutually exclusive, but picking all (3 points each) will waste 3 to 6 talent points no matter how you look at it, since, if you're using a 2-hander, you get no benefit from Nerves or Threat and if you're dual-wielding, you'll get no benefit from Might. Do not pick them all simply because you want the ease of switching between dual-weild or 2handers without respec or switching talent specs. This is suboptimal and will rob you of precious extra damage you can be doing, or wasted on utility talents you can place elsewhere.
Overall, the talents are cut and dry with some variations on the subspec options.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZMI0bfuRzf
What i've left out of this spec is the last two talents necessary to reach howling blast. What you'll need to decide, for yourself, is whether you prefer Endless Winter, On a Pale Horse, Merciless Combat, or Runic Power Mastery. There's a total of four points in which you can choose to use in any of these talents. The only one with direct dps increase would be Merciless Combat. Some people prefer the utility of having free mind freezes whenever they're necessary or added speed increase to their movement or more runic power so they do not lose runic power from being "capped". Once you decide which talents you prefer, finish the tree with Howling Blast. Now you're set to move to the blood or unholy trees.
Some pointers regarding Merciless Combat: you'll get more mileage out of this talent if you raid more. Seeing that most raid bosses spend a lot of time under 35% makes this talent worth while. however, you can also argue that even for trash mobs, they will have a point in time where they will be below 35% health too. my argument to this is that you can only dps so many at once, and if you're lucky, you might get two Obliterates in before the mob you're targeting dies. If things line up perfectly, this will be a great talent for trash. but more often than not, i find mobs under 35% dont live long enough for me to take advantage of this talent. again, mileage may vary.
From the above talent tree i ended up taking Runic power mastery because i find myself capped at 100% often, and an extra strike will have wasted my runic power buildup. it isnt necessary to do this if you're good at weaving in frost strikes between your normal strikes, but its tough to get it down right all the time, especially when there's interupting, running out of bad, activating cooldowns, etc to deal with. i find the extra 20 (or 30) runic power to my power bar becomes a godsend at times.
Here is what the distribution looks like now:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZrI0bfuRzfz
As far as subtrees and dps goes, putting 3 points in bladed armor in the blood tree is the first step there. In the unholy tree, you'll want Epidemic to extend the life of your diseases since this talent will save you precious dps time reapplying diseases. Honestly, i'd pick Obliterate over having to Icy Touch+Plague Strike, Or Howling Blast+Plague Strike a second or time in a fight when i dont have to with Epidemic. Also, do not forget Virulence, as it increases disease damage by a lot. After auto-attack, Obliterate and Frost Strike, your diseases should be fourth in damage done.
Now, with my options to pick Endless Winter and Runic Power Master as my optional talents, i end up with this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZrI0bfuRzfzMh
Now, there's two more talent points to be used. And really, there isnt very many choices left. If you find yourself in 5-man dungeons often, you might want to go for Morbidity in the Unholy tree. This will give you more damage to your Death and Decay. I often pull this spell out once in a while when i find that i have an extra unholy rune to use. Death and Decay is not my primary aoe spell as frost since i already have howling blast (when glyphed, will add Frost Fever, so double the awesome!). Honestly, you'll barely miss the aoe damage that DnD does when you're busy doing HB to everything in sight. It will only become an afterthought once you try to figure out what to do with the extra unholy runes you have (PS, FeS or DnD).
Besides Morbidity, you can also choose Butchery in the Blood tree. This will give you extra runic power (however small that might be) but it might be a dealbreaker when you're stuck at 30 RP and wished you had 32 RP for that last frost strike. Yes, it does make a little difference, but no, it also doesnt make that much of a difference. And giving you 10 RP when you kill a mob probably means that you have to do the killing blow. This might be great for solo play but the odds of you actually landing the killing blow on a mob is about 25%. more or less depending on group composition.
Finally, you can use the last two talent points in the frost tree. yes, you can do that. there's nothing against that. As for me, if i wanted to, i can put the remaining points into Merciless Combat, since my build didnt have that. Or, on a pale horse offers some utility.
Another toss up, if you want some utility, would be Desecration in the Unholy tree vs. Chillblains in the Frost tree. both will cause a slowing effect, but with 20 second Desecration, they will be slowed when in a circle area whereas with Chillblains, the mobs will be slowed for 10 seconds so long as they've been hit with Frost Fever. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. And if you end up thinking Runic power mastery is for the less alert, and who needs On a Pale Horse when you have speed enchants on your boots, then go for Chillblains or Desecration.... or both or Endless Winter, or Morbidity if you really like DnD. Keep in mind, the slowing effects wont stack. If you run with an unholy dk, chances are they already have Desecration ;)
So with that, i leave you with a talent tree with options. Some options are better than other options based on how you play, what you prefer, and what enchants and/or glyphs you might have.
As seen above, I have two points left in which to spend anywhere (again, with the optional points in Runic Power Mastery and Endless Winter, which can also go anywhere). It is up to you, the player, to determine where these talents go. Please dont put all your talents into the frost tree, as these will not be as useful in DPS as some of the talents in the Unholy or Blood Trees. Once you're able to add points to the other trees, i would suggest adding points to Epidemic. It will lessen the amount of times you refresh your diseases on boss fights and will almost eliminate refreshing your diseases on dungeons mobs (boss or trash) in TBC and Wrath dungeons.
I wanted to highlight the talent points you'll definitely need in the picture above, but MS Paint isnt giving me the options i need. If you read through the blog post and click on the links, you'll be able to see which talents are "needed" and which are filler. Sorry, i cant make a TL:DR picture for the masses. =[
Also note two talent points in the middle: Hungering Cold and Pillar of Frost.
Before 4.0 we had this cooldown called Unbreakable Armor, which increased our strength for a while. This is basically what Pillar of Frost is. Take it. Use it often!
As for Hungering Cold, this seems more like a pvp ability to me, and rightly so, as it freezes enemies in place. But dont forget that even if the spell is primarily aimed at PvPers, it still has it's PvE uses. Ignoring the high cost of the spell (and dont glyph it unless you'll pvp), it can be useful in certain situations. learn to use it since you will already have it, as it's necessary to take in order to get Howling Blast anyway. But think about all the little spots in dungeons and raids that you can use this ability, especially if you dont have a mage and for a split second, thought to yourself, "A frost nova would be great right about now." It will be worth while.
In the future, i'd like to continue this pseudo guide with a post on stats, gemming, enchanting and reforging with a post on how to actually play the DK (you know, when you actually have to dance and press buttons). But for now, the talent points will hopefully help a lot of people out there.
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