Death knight builds Instructions to WoWWiki editors : In order to keep this page precise and concise , please DO NOT add complete builds here . For those who are interested in contributing their own builds , please add them to the Death knight build samples . Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples . Blood . Talents in this tree focus on physical damage - dealing abilities , such as Blood Presence . Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples . If you specialize your talents in the Blood tree , your style of play will have two defining features . The first is that your main attack , Heart Strike , uses only one rune . This will result in you doing more attacks , albeit with less strength . The second is that , in comparison to the other trees , the majority of your damage is physical and not magical . Blood Leveling Build . A Blood Death Knight will rely on physical damage while having above average self - healing abilities to improve survivability . This is more obvious when investing in Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap , and as you level up Improved Rune Tap . You will gain expertise and strength bonuses by investing in Veteran of the Third War , Abomination ' s Might , and Blood Gorged ; however , a Blood Death Knight will shine the best when combining his Death Strike , Rune Tap and Vampiric Blood with Blood Gorged by keeping himself at full health the majority of the time . Example of useful rotations : Suggested Major Glyphs Suggested Minor Glyphs From here , filling out the Blood Tree is a decent way to proceed , with Bloodworms , Vendetta , Scent of Blood and Improved Rune Tap all being strong talents for soloing . Picking up Virulence will give an advantage in Player versus Player combat , especially against dispelling classes ( if that ' s an interest of yours ) , as well as a small improvement to Death Coil . Blood Raid build . 51 / 13 / 7 This build focus ' s on [ Obliterate ] & [ Heart Strike ] as main dps , ignoring [ Blood Strikes ] & [ Death Strike ] . [ Improved Death Strikes ] is not taken . [ Glyph of Obliterate ] [ Glyph of Icy Touch ] & [ Glyph of Death & Decay ] are taken as Majors to increase the effectiveness of [ Improved Icy Touch ] & [ Black Ice ] . { Bloodworms ] adds a negligible amount of dps , but with no DS spending for improved DS is a greater waste . Blood PvP build . While most of the core talents of a PvE Blood build is still useful in PvP , PvP Blood Death Knights need several more talents to enhance their survivability from enemy players and help to defeat them . These include - Most users wouldn ' t use Blood for PvP , mainly because you are easily kited around . Personally I would disagree , Blood can be kited but with the right rotation on CD ' s you should be able to get back in . Blood has a very high ability to stay alive with its own heals like Vampiric Blood , Rune Tap , and Mark of Blood . Blood is a rogue and feral druid killer , since they really cant do anything to you with your constant heals and wearing plate . It ' s not good to spec into full Blood for PvP ( trust me , its not good ) and Unholy would power up your spells and diseases like Death Coil and Icy Touch . So , to get the most out of your melee , the only option really is going hybrid to frost . Speccing down to Annihilation would be your best bet , since you can burst it with Empowered Rune Weapon without having to worry about losing the bonus damage from your diseases . Making the choice from either Killing Machine or Runic Power Mastery , you ' ll either get 6 secs on your Dancing Rune Weapon , or you can auto - crit with Icy Touch if they get out of range , which does make a difference . From there , stop putting points into Frost and focus back on the Blood tree . Spec all the way to Dancing Rune Weapon for the instant death on someone , and make sure to pick up Vampiric Blood and Hysteria . IMO stay out of Blood Worms because Blizzard has yet to make them useful , and stay out of Vendetta because it ' s not worth 3 points for something that has a 5 % chance on keeping you alive , if you ' re dealing with a caster or pally . So - big hits , melee hits , short range , and heal yourself . Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Blood Build Samples Frost . Talents in this tree focus on spells and control , such as Hungering Cold and Chains of Ice . Frost is also a tree built for critical burst damage , with talents such as Guile of Gorefiend and Deathchill . Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples . The Frost tree has the best ranged attacks , with Howling Blast and an upgraded Icy Touch . A decent amount of damage done by the frost tree is spell damage , though not as much as Unholy . The frost tree ' s main attacks are big hitters like Obliterate , Frost Strike and Howling Blast , and with Guile of Gorefiend they can crit ( on demand with Deathchill ) for large amounts of burst damage . This is of course averaged out over time to ensure that the sustained damage is in line with other specs . Frost Leveling Build . Annihilation is a must so you can use Obliterate in your rotation without consuming the diseases on the target . Howling Blast will be your AoE bread and butter attack . Guile of Gorefiend is a big damage talent , and Rime , Deathchill and Killing Machine all have good synergy with it . Blood of the North , Glacier Rot , Tundra Stalker and Black Ice are all good damage talents . Icy Talons and Improved Icy Talons increase both your auto - attack damage and your Killing Machine proc rate . Hungering Cold is taken to give you the ability to freeze multiple enemies while you deal with them one at a time . Example of useful rotations : Suggested Major Glyphs Suggested Minor Glyphs Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Frost Build Samples . Frost Raid DPS . Frost is generally considered the only tree viable for dual wielding . The reason being that all ' strikes ' such as Heart Strike , Scourge Strike , Obliterate , etc . are heavily dependent on weapon damage , and only the main hand weapon is taken into account unless the Threat of Thassarian talent is taken . When dual wielding your auto - attack damage will form more of your damage than would be the case with a 2 - hander , so talents that boost auto - attacks are more powerful than usual . You will also benefit slightly more from haste than other death knights . Frost death knight DPS is based around Obliterate and Frost Strike on the main target , with Howling Blast s for AOE or when the death knight cannot get close , or on Rime procs . Blood Strike is used mainly to convert Blood Runes into Death Runes that can be used to Obliterate or Howling Blast next time around the rotation . There are two general rotations for Frost DPS . The more traditional one is to Plague Strike + Icy Touch and then Obliterate , using Pestilence to spread diseases to multiple targets . The second way is to take Glyph of Howling Blast and use Howling Blast to apply Frost Fever and to never use Plague Strike ( and therefore Blood Plague ) . The single disease approach has the advantage of simplicity and quick startup . The double disease approach does more damage , but is a tighter rotation and is harder to maintain in very dynamic fights . Hungering Cold is generally a good solo and tanking talent , but has few uses for pure DPS . From here it is the player ' s choice to take extra talents in Blood or Unholy . In Blood Subversion , Bladed Armor and Dark Conviction are good choices , but Necrosis and Blood - Caked Blade in Unholy edge them out in practice . If threat is an issue then dropping Blood - Caked Blade in favor of Subversion might be necessary anyway . Two - hand frost is generally lower damage than dual wield frost , as you can expect roughly the same damage from special attacks as a dual wielder , but with lower auto - attack damage . As such , 2H - frost is rarely a good choice for raid DPS , with Blood and Unholy performing better with 2 - handed weapons . The mechanics are otherwise similar to dual wield frost , with identical rotations and single and double disease rotations possible . The main difference to dual wielding is that the off - tree talents have different considerations . Necrosis and Blood - Caked Blade lose much of their value , while Two - Handed Weapon Specialization becomes very good , making a blood off - tree a generally better option than unholy . Frost PvP build . While most of the core talents of a PvE Frost build is still useful in PvP , PvP Frost Death Knights need several more talents to enhance their survivability from enemy players and help to defeat them . These include - Unholy . Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons , diseases , and PvP - focused abilities , such as Unholy Presence . Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples . Unholy has two defining features as DPS . The first is that it has many talents that improve your area of effect damage significantly . On any multi - mob fights Unholy has a significant advantage . The second is that Unholy , out of the three talent trees , has the highest percentage of damage as spell damage . Unholy Death Knights will thus find that they have a distinct advantage on any fights against mobs with high armor . Unholy PvE build . Glyphs : Unholy DPS is based on diseasing your target with Plague Strike + Icy Touch , then Scourge Striking it continually , with Glyph of Scourge Strike keeping the diseases up for as long as possible . Blood Strike is used to convert blood runes to death runes for more scourge strikes . Death Coil is used to dump runic power . The second aspect of maximising Unholy DPS is the Gargoyle . Your gargoyle ' s power is based on your attributes at the time you summon him , so the optimum time is " during " Bloodlust , preferably when you have a trinket such as Mirror of Truth proc . Even buffs that you only have for a few seconds will apply to the gargoyle for its whole duration . One of the highlights of Unholy DPS is Improved Unholy Presence , as it allows 15 % increased movement speed while DPSing in Blood Presence . In many raid boss fights movement is important , so it ' s well worth getting . Another highlight is Bone Shield , which should be used for the damage bonus anyway , and will reduce damage taken by 20 % . Because a DPS death knight is not hit often like a tank , the charges on Bone Shield are usually not used up , meaning it grants its damage reduction most of the time during raid fights . Good further talents in Unholy are Dirge , Desecration , Wandering Plague and Ghoul Frenzy . Both Blood and Frost are competitive as off trees , but not both . Both trees have ' wasted ' points in the first tier before the good talents like Black Ice , Endless Winter , Bladed Armor , Two - Handed Weapon Specialization and Dark Conviction are reached , so taking points in both of them is not recommended . Unholy PvP build . While most of the core talents of a PvE Unholy build is still useful in PvP , PvP Unholy Death Knights need several more talents to enhance their survivability from enemy players and help to defeat them . These include - Unholy leveling build . Notable talents and why : Skipped : Example of useful rotations : Single target : Replace Scourge Strikes with Death Strikes as needed to heal . AoE : Suggested Glyphs Alternatives From here , filling out the Unholy tree gives the most immediate gain , with , and all good choices for the soloist . After that Blood has the edge with , , , , and . Frost is also viable with and . Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Unholy Build Samples . Tanking . See Death Knights as Tanks for more info . Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples . Even though each of the 3 trees is capable of tanking , that is only true if you have the appropriate talents within your tree . Tier 1 tanking talents are available to everyone : Blade Barrier , Anticipation , and Toughness . Then , depending on what tree you specialize in , you can pick up additional tanking talents . Blood Tanking . Notable talents in the Blood tree are : Tank talents from other trees ( Good for Blood Tanks ) : Glyphs : MAJOR MINOR Blood tanks use and as their primary strikes , with as their second ( for healing and Death Runes ) . Blood tanks have One of the best single ( and double thanks to heart strike ) target threat but lack true AOE threat , despite the upgrades to . Blood Tanks have the advantage that Death Strike is a part of their standard rotation , giving passive healing at no loss of threat . Frost Tanking . Notable talents in the Frost tree are : The Frost tree has the best physical mitigation talents of the three . Big bonuses to Obliterate give decent single target threat , alternatively Howling Blast can be used for AOE threat . Frost Strike is a major upgrade over Death Coil for dumping runic power for even more single target threat . Hungering Cold is a situational tanking ability . This talent was previously skipped by many raid tanks , but now that Hungering Cold is not a 51 - point talent it can now be taken with little effort . Frost Tanks are particularly notable for their ability to generate instant aggro on packs of mobs with Howling Blast , and at a 20 ( upgradable to 30 ) yard range . This makes them very good at picking up adds that spawn on some encounters . Acclimation is generally considered a poor investment for magic mitigation because there are few enemies that cast spells at you often enough to be sure of keeping the three stacks up , though there are of course exceptions . Unholy Tanking . Notable talents in the Unholy tree are : Unholy tanks have the best sustained AOE threat abilities of the three , with upgraded diseases , Corpse Explosion and faster Death and Decays . The down side is that of these only Corpse Explosion provides instant threat in the way that Howling Blast does . Unholy tanks have the best overall magic mitigation of all the tanking classes and specs with Magic Suppression and Anti - Magic Zone . Unholy tanks will have a greatly improved Death Strike for healing , but Scourge Strike is not as strong as the competition , so single target threat generation is lower than the others . As an additional complication , an Unholy tank must choose between Death Striking for its strong self - heal and Scourge Striking for threat . An Unholy tank that spends all of their runes on Death Strike will likely have major threat issues . Your ghoul and gargoyle do not contribute to your threat , so they are both ignored for tanking . The choice of further talents is fairly inconsequential . Other than the tier 1 talents in the blood and frost trees there are no significant mitigation talents within reach except possibly Rune Tap . Improved Unholy Presence is definitely worth consideration given how many raid fights involve movement . Desecration may be worth it for keeping adds and trash under control better if you find yourself tackling them often . Besides those it ' s basically a choice between Black Ice , Bladed Armor and Desolation for threat .