This is the Death Knight DK Guide I used to maximize my DPS for End Game Raiding! Thanks to Kaeladin of Kirin Tor for this very informative post!
All the information on this guide has been updated as of patch 4.0.1. PLEASE be aware that for people who have never touched a DK before, much of what I have written won't make complete sense until you've gotten some experience with the class.
Also please be aware that this looks at DK's at the high-end (Experienced level 80 working on raid content) of DK performance. This will not be the absolute end-all when it comes to maximizing DPS in every single situation, but it has worked and I am confident in its reliability and applicability. This information is a composite of personal experiences, collaboration with other experienced DK's, extensive reading and learning from various other DK communities (Such as EJ), and so on. I would HIGHLY recommend that you feel free to experiment and try out each talent for yourself before you come back to this guide; try to make sense of the information I present from the perspective that you gain, NOT from what I simply tell you. You only get a new class once.
Cheers,
Khaeladin of Kirin Tor (Level 80 DK)
Maximum DK DPS Guide - By Khaeladin
We stand on the precipice of Cataclysm. In a short period of time, the world as we know it will forever change. We will be saying farewell to many of the old areas, quests, and instances as we remembered them, and exploring the exciting new transformations of our landscape, cities, and more.
However in regards to the DK class, said transformations have happened a few months earlier than the release of the new expansion. Blood is now a tanking tree, frost retains its dual-wield dominance but also re-introduces its long estranged 2-hander cousin, and unholy earns an even uglier pet (On cooldown). Runic empowerment adds a random factor to our core rune resource system, and iur rune system has changed as well. In most cases DPS'ing as a DK will require greater attention and effort than before to perform extremely well.
With that said, the DK is a very complicated class to master. There are several mechanics at work that make this class so.
1) It is a melee class. Generally speaking, it is more dangerous and harder on positioning for melee classes than for ranged classes. There are certainly some exceptions to this, but one cannot deny that there are more melee unfriendly fights than there are ranged unfriendly fights.
2) The class runs on two resource systems as opposed to one. Runic power's (RP) closest equivalent is rage, but even that is a limited comparison (RP is only generated from using rune moves, and does not generate from being hit or hitting something with auto-attacks). The rune system is somewhat similar to energy, except it is much more stringent and restrictive in terms of what you can use runes for (Death runes help to mitigate this a bit) and the only way to refresh runes outside of their natural cooldown is through the somewhat unpredictable Runic Empowerment.. This can be very attention-demanding for some players, especially also given the need to watch for melee dangers/repositioning.
3) The class also makes usage of damage-over-time (DoT's) diseases. These days, early refreshing on DoT's is fairly commonplace (Early meaning when it has about 1 - 3 seconds left), but maximizing the amount of time you spend to use your non-disease moves still remains an important practice for most DPS specs. For some specs, the DPS sequences come down to some fairly tight constraints in terms of global cooldowns (GCD's).
4) The class makes use of arguably the most instant-attacks in the whole game in order to do the majority of its DPS. There are many decisions you make on a micro-level that are small at the moment, but overtime these decisions will ultimately decide just how much extra output you are squeezing out through your skill priorities. This is a class where attention to detail makes a big difference.
Add to this some powerful defensive cooldowns (Anti-magic shell, icebound fortitude) that can make or break someone's survival, and a short cooldown interrupt (Mind freeze) and useful situational tools (Death grip and strangulate), and you've got the makings of a phenomenal class.
Without further ado, let's get to the meat of what I hope will interest you. Please note this is primarily for the purposes of raiding and running instances, and I hope that the information here will prove to be of assistance in understanding and enjoying this great class.
