Death Knight Changes

Some really interesting changes will be implemented in the next beta build. All 3 talent trees got some nice improvements, but in terms of DPS improvement, the blood tree got the most.

Unholy also got a major upgrade with the change to Master of the Ghouls. Now this talent makes your ghoul have no duration, which means they stay and fight for you as long as they don't get killed. Pretty amazing, and I'll have to do some tests to see how this compares to the new Blood Talents.

However, at first glance, I'd say the Blood/Frost build still remains the quickest way to level.

Look at all the cool things we got:

  • Bloody Strikes revamped: Now increases the damage by 6/12/18% (used to be 0%) and the bonus damage from diseases by 20/40/60% of your Blood Strike and Heart Strike. +18% damage, this is a significant upgrade.
  • Bladed Armor revamped: Now increases your Strength by 1/2/3/4/5 for every 400 armor value you have. Much better than before. It used to give attack power, now it gives str. Because for Death Knight, STR doesn't only give you more attack power, but also more parry, thanks to one of our core abilities: Forceful Deflection.
  • Mark of Blood: Now heals target for 4% (up from 2%) of its maximum health. Now lasts for 20 sec (down from 30 sec). This ability already was strong, not it's even stronger. This will help tremendously when soloing difficult elites.
  • Blood Gorged: Now also increases your expertise by 1/2/3/4/5. Can't complain, 5 talent points for +10% damage and +5 expertise, pretty damn good deal if you ask me :P
  • Abomination’s Might: Now also increases your total Strengh by 1/2%. That's one sick talent right there, just 2 points and you get +10% Attack power and +2% str. Can hardly get a better deal.
And of course, obliterate will also get a boost in a future update, which consolidates my opinion on Blood/Frost being the quickest build for solo leveling.

Anyway, the new talent build I'm going to try is this: Blood/Frost

The changes they made to Will of the Necropolis / Blood Gorged allowed me to have a free point to put in Rune Tap. It's probably overkill in the lifedrain department now, but well, can't complain about having too much lifedrain can we?

I will tell you how it goes as soon as I get time to test out some new builds. In the meantime, I'm gonna go back to writing my guides ;)

Stay tuned!

2 Response to "Death Knight Changes"

  1. Dennet says:

    Have they fixed Icy Talons yet? I'm inclined to agree with you regarding frost vs unholy if this talent works properly. However I'm currently trying out deep unholy as an aoe grind build and it's just SO much fun:-) You are as safe as a prot pally and as fast as a frost mage (if not faster), while using agbilities that are much more fun (Corpse Explosion, Gargoyle, Unholy Blight, Bone Armor and ofc Pestilence+Blood Boil).

    Jame says:

    Yes, they did. Actually I'm doing some parsing as we speak, blog post will follow :)