Death knight build samples " This article contains builds submitted by individual WoWWiki editors . Their accuracy is not guaranteed , so read them with caution . For those who want to contribute their own builds here , please add a new subsection under the corresponding section . Please also feel free to add comments to others ' builds . " Blood . Talents in this tree focus on physical damage and health return . Blood specs should always use a two - handed weapon . A dual - wielding Blood DK is a classic example of the Death Knoob . Blood tanks have higher stamina than other tanks ( useful when starting out , since PuGs tend to blindly look at health totals ) , and good self - healing ability . They have merely decent AoE ability , which can be greatly augmented by going far enough into Unholy to take Morbidity . Although the main point of a DPS Blood Death Knight is for insane single target damage . This is very similar to a normal Blood tanking spec but it takes 2 points in Runic Power Mastery also it takes Corpse Explosion for instant AoE aggro . The only downside to this spec is that Corpse Explosion is virtually useless for boss fights unless they have mobs that spawn with them . I have tested this spec in 25 ToC and 10 ICC and have found it ' s threat generation significantly better than a normal Blood spec . This half Blood half Unholy spec has given me amazing survivability against other people my lvl or higher up to about 3 - 5 lvls higher . The key in the spec is to keep your pet alive , keep your diseases on , and spam Death Strike and Rune Tap if necessary . If you find your self dying pop Death Pact or Mark of Blood . If your against a caster spam your Anti - Magic Shell or use Anti - Magic Zone when you can and watch them die . Similar to the normal blood raiding build , this is primarily made for building up runic power then unleashing it . The boss rotation ( starter ) is Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Death Strike > Heart Strike > Heart Strike > Blood Tap > Heart Strike > Dancing Rune Weapon > Heart Strike > Death Strike After that pop hysteria and trinkets then reapply icy touch and plague strike when needed . Heart strike whenever you have blood / death runes active and death strike whenever you have a Frost and Unholy rune active to turn them into death runes ! When you get to 130 runic power spam Death Coil ! Insane DPS + Insane Survivability : With this build you will be able to level extremely fast with next to 0 deaths ! you will need 3 macros : first [ F ] : / castrandom Blood Strike , Heart Strike second [ S ] : / castrandom Icy Touch , Obliterate last [ L ] : / castrandom Death Strike , Plague Strike rotation is : S - F - F - L - S - L - F Spam death coil whenever it is up - pestilence every now and then . Conmment : Useful for soloing older content and for soloing world elites ( such as the elites need at the end of the Nessingwary Mastery quests in Nagrand ) . It misses out on Dark Conviction and Bloody Vengeance , and picks up disposable talents within all trees . Not recommended for raids and instances . Rotation = IT , PS , HS , HS or Pestilence ( depending on number of mobs ) , DS , DC , HSx4 , Pestilence to refresh diseases , DS to get more death runes This build can make quick work of your enemies from Heart Strike spam caused by using Pestilence to keep your diseases up , allowing more Death Strikes to make Death Runes . Comment : Standard raid DPS , optimal for single - target damage . The point in Improved Blood Presence is filler and can be moved to Mark of Blood or Rune Tap . Since 3 . 3 , Glyph of Disease is slightly suboptimal and should be replaced with Glyph of Dark Death . A good blood DPS spec with a little survivability in case your tank dies and someone else has to take damage . Comment : Misses out on the DPS gained by Bloody Strikes . Improved Icy Touch is disposable . make this spec mainly for 1 - 3 target tanking . increases your parry and easier on heals . Main Tank Spec , this spec gives TONS of Threat and Amazing Survivability . Rotaion : Boss = IT > PS > Hysteria > HS > HS > DS . . . HS as much as you can . . . DS for Death Runes For HS . . . Keep Diseases up ! AOE = DnD > IT > PS > Pest . . . then BB till you can get a DnD off . . . Keep Diseases up ! Frost . Talents in this tree focus on spells and control , such as Frost Presence . Frost is a tree built for critical burst damage . This can be seen in the tree ' s talents . Since 3 . 3 , Frost has been designed for dual - wielding . Using a two handed weapon to tank is possible , but will reduce threat . Using a two - handed weapon to DPS is a huge loss . Since most abilities are based of the damage range of the weapons , slow weapons ( 2 . 5 + speed ) should be used . Since there are almost no slow tanking weapons , this means that tanking builds will use DPS weapons . This is fine , as Rune of the Nerubian Carapace will provide enough defense . Frost tanks have the best avoidance of any tree , as well as the only access to good burst threat in the form of Howling Blast . They have less health and healing ability than Blood tanks , and strong AoE but not quite as strong as Unholy . This build should be able to maintain a very respectable amount of threat on single targets as well as groups . An auto - crit Howling Blast is worth a TON of threat in most any situation . Rotation = Icy Touch , Plague Strike ( to get diseases going ) , Blood Strike , Howling Blast , then Frost Strike to dump runic power . Make sure you ' re hitting Rune Strike every time it comes up . . . it ' s only 20 RP and generates a lot of threat to a single target . Blood boil is a good aggro generator when you ' re waiting for cooldown on Howling Blast . In situations where you need to generate a large amount of initial threat , drop Death & Decay and pull the first target into the D & D circle with Death Grip . This macro for Howling Blast auto - casts Deathchill whenever it is up to guarantee a crit : " # showtooltip Howling Blast < br > / cast Deathchill < br > / cast Howling Blast " Comment : 2H Frost is less threat than dual wield . you want two slow weapon for a bigger buff from Improve Icy Talons , this build forcuses more on 5 mans where simply moving Morbidity points to Acclimation will make it more of a raiding build . It ' s strong in aoe and single target , through you might want to not lose focus during battle do to a little lacking aggro problem . Build that uses primarily Howling Blast Obliterate and Frost Strike . Oblit gains 24 % extra crit on top of what your own crit is making this even in high resil pvp gear ( lets say 10 % crit reduction ) a 30 - 40 % critical chance high dmging attack . Since the only two spells you could use your KM and Deathchill are HB and FS theese too get insanely high overall crit rate . Great burst dmg can be achieved through Rime procks coupled with KM . This Build could be altered if you do not like Acclimation or swap out Icy Reach for Runic Power Mastery or Chill of the grave for more FSs . Some might even go into Unholy for Stun Reduction , Disease Lenghth and Lower CD on Grip . Positives : High Controlled Burst dmg . Moderate survivability Moderate CC Negatives : Vulnerable to Dispells Downtime mid combat P . S . - Yes this build only uses frost fever disease due to the fact 2 / 3 of your attacks dont rely on it , and the boost to the 1 / 3 is not substancial enough to make a difference A good little dual - wield spec which , when using Glyph of Disease , allows you to refresh your diseases with a single Pestilence . This combined with the increased disease duration allows you to use your two death runes for an obliterate and still refresh afterwards with a single blood rune , allowing for long chains of Obliterate spam . This setup obviously can be tweaked for 2h with a little shifting about . Example rotation : Plague > Touch > Blood St . > Pestilence > Howling > Obliterate > Obliterate > Obliterate Use Blood St . > Pestilence whenever diseases are about to expire ( theres loads of time ) and replace an obliterate with Howling any time it comes off cooldown , in the event of a Freezing Fog proc it is reccommended that you use all runes beforehand as the disease refreshing can be a little tight on time using this method . Frost Strikes should be used as RP dumps when runes are on CD and Freezing Fog is not active . Comment : In 3 . 3 , drop Subversion for Blood - Caked Blade , and Glyph of Disease for Glyph of Icy Touch . A great PvP spec for 2v2 and arena . Particularly strong against a melee team . Gets crucial PvP talents in both the Frost and Unholy tree , such as On a Pale Horse , Toughness , and Endless Winter for the free Mind Freeze . Also gets burst abilities such as Deathchill . This couples high burst with good survivability for a very strong build . Also contains Glyphs . Unholy . Talents in this tree emphasize disease damage , AoE , and minion summoning . As of 3 . 3 , Unholy is the top raid damage spec at high levels of gear . Talent build compleate with surjested glyphs & has 3 points left over to put where you see fit . This build excels at tanking multiple mobs due to the decreased cooldown on Death and Decay & improved disease damage ie ; Crypt Fever which can easily be spread to multiple targets . Also Necrosis , Blood - Caked Blade & Unholy Blight give the Unholy Death Knight an edge on single target tanking . Another great thing about Unholy Death Knight tanks is thier ability to negate magical damage thanks to abilities such as Magic Suppression , Anti - Magic Zone & of course Bone Shield which reduces all damage taken by 20 % while active . As per Elitist Jerks , this build offers the highest single - target DPS at Tier 9 levels of gear . At tier 10 levels , Scourge Strike hits hard enough that Reaping is worth taking . The spec then drops three points in Dark Conviction to get that talent . Glyphs should be Dark Death , Ghoul and Icy Touch . Rotation : Icy Touch , Plague Strike , Blood Strike , Blood Strike , Death Coil ( until out of RP ) , Horn of Winter ( if runes still on cooldown ) , Scourge Strike , Death Coil , Blood Strike , Blood Strike , Scourge Strike , Death Coil You can start off by using Plague Strike then Icy Touch to apply the diseases . This build allows for awesome survivability and high reaching DPS in both PvP and PvE / Raid situations . Includes recommended glyphs as well . Build that outputs some great DPS . You can switch out Dirge for something else as I found Butchery can be just as effective . Or effective enough . This build is perfect for FoS / PoS / HoR Runs . ' Could ' go for more AoE . Add 1 point into Corpse Explosion with Glyph of CO . And 1 pt into Dark Conviction . So could be used when Gargoyle is not up . OR go Desecration to slow mobs down . Both not tested , just theories . Single Target Rotation : / castsequence reset = combat / target / 6 Icy Touch , Plague Strike , Blood Strike , Blood Strike , Death Coil , Scourge Strike , Horn of Winter , Scourge Strike , Death Coil , Scourge Strike , Scourge Strike Works perfect if not pounding the keys as soon as ready . Slow - easy rotation to not pull aggro off of tank . If you do frantically hit the buttons , you will be stopped at one Scourge Strike , which would be good , stops you for a moment . This rotation is set to output the maximum DPS . Keeping Death Coil next to macro to shoot off if generating more than enough RP . But like to save that RP for Mind Freeze if in FoS / PoS / HoR . Multi - Target : / castsequence reset = combat / 6 Icy Touch , Plague Strike , Pestilence , Death and Decay , Horn of Winter , Death Coil , Scourge Strike , Blood Boil , Scourge Strike , Death Coil Allows you to start on first target and will continue with sequence to the next target . By the time you loop around , DnD will be up again . When using this , good to quickly switch targets to shoot off a Death Coil to use that extra RP and switch back to previous main target . A lot of people shun anything in the Frost tree for dps . . . well , ladies and gents , if you want high dps , this is the way to go . If you want some more AoE dps , then take 3 points out of Necrosis and put them into Morbidity . This build is a more evened out build , with high single , and very good AoE . Rotation - IT , PS , Pest ( If you want to AoE , if so , skip 1 BS ) BS , BS , SS , Dump , Repeat This build is designed to maximise your dps while providing useful abilities like Anti - Magic Zone . If you prefered you could also drop a talent in Improved Unholy Presence to add to Bone Shield . The suggested rotation for single targets is : IT - PS - SS - SS - BS - OB ( Scourge Strike as much as you can then finish with Obliterate and repeat ) . For multiple targets : IT - PS - Pes - BB - BB - SS - OB . You can pop AMZ when appropriate . NB : Requires personal healer - Very solid damage from Death Coils and SS - Two very useful counters : Lichborne and runicpower - free Mind Freezes - AMZ to counter mages , they cant really do much about you in your shield ( works very nice against mirror image ) - Effective as a kiting build ( * seems * to be a good build against Paladins ) - Doesnt have Reaping , could invest in it if you find yourself needing the Death Runes . Personally I believe more DPS can be done without Reaping . I have used this build with Reaping and it works perfectly fine . - Rotation : IT , PS , BS , BS , SS , SS , DC , BS , BS , DC , SS , SS , DC , DC , DT / OB - Additionally use AMS , IF , and Mind Freeze as necessary . Save Lichborne for fears , Strangulate for when healers are nearly down and desperately healing ( just to lock them down ) . AMZ for Mage Mirror Images and Shammies , DG them in if they run ( ideally pop the AMZ on top of them - Mages are bound to Blink ) . Gargoyle to harass the Healer ( and occasionally kill ) . Ghoul to interrupt and harass the healer or if the main 2v2 dps is a off - healer class , to add more dps and stun ( note : I have used this build with stun on auto and manaul - > works both ways I find ) . Pestilence is useful to take down Mirror Images . Trinket out of Cyclones and Polymorphs and apply AMS ASAP if possible . Do not use Lichborne for short fears like Howl of Terror or the Warlock Death Coil , On A Pale Horse deals with that ( pop AMS as soon as you come out of those fears and spam back Death Coils ) . Similar to my above Arena 2v2 build . However this has Rune Tap and Blade Barrier for increased survival in solo PvP . Not having Lichborne and runicpower - free Mind Freezes is , however , very limiting . Used in pvp and arenas , trust me , Impurity is a help , but not REQUIRED to fill up 5 / 5 . Not finding a good build ? Try making your own , it ' s rather simple , you just need to get a few key points in each build . For tanking you always want to get the 5 points in every tree for tanking regardless of what tree you want to focus in . Also glyphs are pretty easy . Get Rune Strike , one of your cool down glyphs , and a spam attack glyph . Frost is mainly either aoe and / or duel wield . It works great for under geared tanks and 5 player runs .