After spending a couple of days experimenting with all three Death Knight talent trees, I finally opted to stick with Unholy. Blood is also very strong, but frost, even after the recent beta patch, is still somewhat lacking at this point. Just last night I hit 60, unlocking all of the 51 point talents, but I decided to fraps some PVP footage before actually experimenting with the final talents in an effort to portray the basic abilities of what a DK starts with.

The movie is short (roughly ~6-7 minutes) and there are definitely a couple of errors on my behalf throughout the footage - but it's mostly just my adjustment period with different talent specs and their respective playstyles. Also, the beta server likes to erase your key-binds every time you log out for an extended period of time, so you might see me clicking a couple of things that I forgot to rebind when logging back in. This is the second time I've ever made a video, and first time using windows movie maker (which I'll never ever use again) so bear with me. I could not, for the life of me, get the music to queue up correctly on the compressed version even though in the WMM interface before hand it was fine, so there is some dead air at the end.

The talent spec I'm currently playing with can be seen here: 0/0/50 Unholy

The reason I find this to be the strongest build thus far is due to the fact that you can control your Ghouls, as well as reduce the recast timer on summoning them to the point where you can actually overlap them. In the first clip, you'll actually see me with two of them momentarily. Control over your ghouls allows access to an on demand stun, and the ability to detonate your ghoul - which is by far the strongest and most damaging ability if and only if  you can actually land it. The issue right now is that the range is quite small, there's a small delay, and you have to time it with the energy tic of your ghoul or you'll miss badly. However, if you are able to land it, it's a 2k AOE shot on anyone in range - but at the cost of losing the ghoul. You'll see me miss every time I've attempted it except one, but I hit the opposing player's Ghoul and not him. The damage is half of your Ghoul's current life, so it scales as you level as well.

The on demand stun is very crucial due to the fact that the only other means a DK has (at this level) of slowing or stopping an opponent is Chains of Ice, which is a 3 second root, followed by a small duration slow after it breaks. If you trinket the actual root, you're still hit with the slow affect, which is a nice addition. Even with Death Grip, it's hard to keep an opponent from retreating.

In terms of other reasons why I find Unholy to be the best, Lichborne, Shadow of Death, Bone Armor, Summon Gargoyle, and later when I'm not fighting other DK's 100% of the time, Anti-Magic Zone.

Lichborne is ridiculously good based on the fact that it's a 30 second fear immunity in itself, but it gets even stronger when you take into account that it causes opponents to miss their melee swings 25% of the time for the entire duration as well.

Bone armor is a damage absorption on a 30 second cooldown that reduces the 4 next incoming hit's by 40%, so that's pretty self explanatory.

Summon Gargoyle should really be the 51 point talent, as even though I haven't yet tried the 51 pointer, the amount of damage the gargoyle does (which you can see in some of the footage) is pretty damn strong. Each attack does around 3-500 damage, it scales with attack power, and the attack speed is quite fast.

The issue is, is that it uses your Ruinic Power up pretty quickly, so you can't use death coil or really the 51 point talent at the same time without cutting down the duration quite drastically. The good thing is though, it's worth those sacrifices. In combination with the Dirge talent, you can actually generate enough Runic power while fighting to keep it attacking for the entire 1 minute duration.

Finally, Shadow of Death is equally hilarious as it is powerful. Not only do you do decent damage in the Ghoul form, but you gain the exact same abilities as your summoned Ghouls - meaning you can stun, puke some disease, and detonate yourself as well. If somehow you lose a battle and the opponent has 10% life left, you can simply blow up immediately and end yourself in a laugh ensuing blaze of glory.

Anti-Magic zone is difficult to comment on, as it's basically impossible to test since there are no casters to fight, but it has some potential if used correctly instead of a disco dome for Ghoul form.

Anyway, you can find the video here: DK Unholy

The first fight shows the exact problems a DK has to face when attempting to pursue a runner. Even if I open with the Ghoul stun, the only real available form of snare I have is the chains of Ice, and it's still not enough to keep my second  opponent from escaping. Death Grip is a real life saver in this specific fight as well, as I'm able to at least throw in some damage each time I use it. I suppose I could have saved the stun for when he began to run, but it's hard to predict (except in this case) who will run and who won't and using it during a fight gives you a pretty significant edge. The Ghoul also has to be within melee range so it's practically impossible to land on a mounted target.

After I gained a significant amount of Runic power, you'll see me pop out the Gargoyle. I try to bring the other DK low enough that dots will kill him by tossing in a Death Coil as well but he was able to get away. Had he not made a stupid turn, I highly doubt I would have caught up. Granted an ability in the unholy tree grants you 20% more mounted speed, but it's still doubtful.

63 BE DK Round 1

The next clip is against a 63 DK, who starts the battle with 100 Runic power. Needless to say he has a pretty significant advantage in terms of RP, but he didn't have a Ghoul out so it was pretty even other than level advantage. I open with the Ghoul stun, and make an amateur mistake by using my gargoyle way too early, so it only attacks a single time and easily cost me the fight This shows you how the runic power system works in terms of the summons - use it to early and it's a huge waste; use it late enough and you can keep it up quite a while. You can also see when I trinket chains of ice that the slow affect still applied. This fight gives you a prime example of how effective Lichborne is at mitigating damage as well, as it takes him quite some time to actually land enough blows to really hurt me. I figured I was quite a bit ahead and opted at blowing him up (which missed) and quickly the tides turned as I lost my Ghoul and he used a pot. My system lagged pretty hard here upon death, but I wasn't able to finish him off in ghoul form.

Round 2

This second round was much better than the first. Once again I give him time to finish his current fight so as to have a fair match other than my opener and his starting 100 Runic power vs my ~10. In this fight you can see exactly how the Gargoyle should be used, as it easily brings the fight in my favor. I knew he was unholy because of bone armor, so I attempted to detonate my ghoul the second he transformed, but it was delayed due to energy tics. It did land on his ghoul though, assuring me if he were to detonate his it would do significantly less damage. Here you can see the power of the Ghoul form, as even though I was still in human form, he was able to continue the fight by opening with a stun and bring me to Ghoul as well. Most of the time you're better off just running from the ghoul, but they do have a leap ability that can close the gap pretty quickly if a stun is used right after.

Here is where there was an example of a beta glitch. After transforming, I didn't  actually have access to the standard Ghoul abilities, rather the typical human arsenal. You'll see me trying to find them, and in the end I decide to just pop Anti-Magic Zone for the hell of it until the Ghoul form ran out.

59 UD DK

I started fraps a little late on this fight. Basically I jumped the guy and he came back for a second round. Lichborn again proves to be quite useful and the second time around I had a huge advantage with stored Ruinc Power + Gargoyle.

Final 2 on 1

This final fight was a nice battle of me being outmatched 2-1. I open with the Ghoul stun, and make sure to reapply bone armor when it falls and use Lichborne immediately. Once again the Gargoyle brings the fight to my side, and it comes down to a very close 1v1 at the end. I try a combo of Ghoul stun to detonate, but from my experience, you don't have the energy to catch them during the stun. I opted to save Chains of Ice for my main target instead of using it to CC the Tauren as usually once someone is chained, their first instinct will be to just Death Grip me right over, completely defeating the purpose of using it on them. Now if my main target succumbs to the same twitch instinct, it works in my favor.

Anyway, if you have any questions feel free to leave them in comments and I'll answer asap.



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