Nerd Culture Podcast

This was the 1st spec i had created that was open ended (OE) and I am intending on keeping it this way, since it gives a little more flexibility for the player. This is an Unholy Death Knight spec.

Click to see spec on WoWHead

The main point of this spec was and still is to keep your diseases on your enemies at all times, which Unholy Blight does a great job of. This will also allow the Death Knight more runes to use Festering Strike (to change frost and blood runes into death runes) while using your 2 Unholy runes into Scourge Strike (which is one of your primary damage ability). While your runes are recharging, Death Coil (which is also one of your other primary damage abilities) will be your attack of choice. Not only will this deal some decent damage, but it will also power up your Ghoul minion. For times in which you need more damage to be thrown around, Glyph of Unholy Frenzy will allow you to use Unholy Frenzy without worry of taking more damage. Also, ensure you are using Unholy Presence.

As for survivability, there are several abilities in this spec to help when the Death Knights own demise seems inevitable. Thankfully, once you have built up all of your death runes, this spec can use 4 consecutive Death Siphons. To follow that, you can target yourself and cast Lichborne (I recommend making a macro to do that for you)

/target (your characters name without the parenthesis)
/cast Lichborne 

Then proceed to cast Death Coil on yourself until you have enough health, or have run out of runic power (and these still increase your Ghoul’s power and add up to be able to cast Dark Transformation). Also, every time you cast your Death Coil, Runic Corruption has a 45% chance to proc, allowing your Runes to be ready sooner (possibly some as Death runes, if you have just used Festering Strikes). Remorseless Winter is also useful if you need to back away from a few enemies or be able to stop them dead in their tracks for a few seconds for a little breathing room. Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell will stop enemy caster from hitting you, and will also supply you with more needed runic power to cast more Death Coils. Also, if you want a faster way to develop your Dark Transformation, you can have your ghoul go to the fray first, using spare rune power to heal your pet for only 20 (instead of 40 due to Glyph of Death’s Embrace) which will get you 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion with only 100 runic power instead of 200.

As for the Open Ended (OE) part of this spec, I have left the choices of Death’s Advance, Chilblains, and Asphyxiate, as well as 1 major Glyph. I like Asphyxiate, but the times when they other 2 are usable, they really shine in their niches. As for the Major Glyph opening, there are several good choices. Outbreak may not be too great of a choice, due to this spec needing to use its Death Coil. However, Death Coil can help protect your friends, while Pestilence could be of use while your Unholy Blight is on cool down. Death Grip is good for giving a better range, but if you are soloing, then Unholy Command is a better choice.

Keep a high Mastery (to increase shadow damage) and Critical Strike chance (also for damage) to allow your strikes to keep as much power as possible. This way, your Scourge Strikes and Death Coils are always dealing as much damage as possible. Also, make sure you keep an eye on how long your diseases have left on them, since it’s better to use a Festering Strike than to need to re apply your diseases.

Mists of Pandaria is out and WoW Yoda makes his triumphant return!

To start out this wonderful occasion, we will begin with a Blood spec Death Knight.

http://www.wowhead.com/

My Life Render spec is all about throwing damage onto your opponents and gaining hit points for yourself as much as possible. After all, if Blizzard makes this a step up like Burning Crusade and Cataclysm were for those just entering the new lands, you will want to keep yourself alive to make sure you get those precious experience points.

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In Cold Blood is a Death Knight spec that wraps your enemy in frigid winds and a flurry of heavy strikes. The main reason is due to Might of the Frozen Wastes with Butchery in conjunction with glyphs of Frost Strike and Howling Blast.  Chill of the Grave allows you to build up a lot of rune power, up to a maximum of 130 with Runic Power Mastery, for a total of 4 Frost Strikes in rapid succession. In order to gain that rune power, you simply use your Obliterate after having applied your diseases to your foe.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jbhMZGcRbfzRdbuc:MamqMbmMc

Also, there is a lot of survivability with this spec found in Hungering Cold, Scarlet Fever, Chilblains, On a Pale Horse, and Endless Winter. It’s hard to complain against your enemy dealing 10% less damage, your enemy being stuck for 3 seconds, having 30% shorter duration of slows, and free casting spell disruptions!  Also Hungering Cold is always entertaining for survival purposes, especially if it is used after Howling Blast, since Frost Fever won’t break the effect. Also Dark Succor will help replenish any lost life while going in PvE, but for PvP or raiding, you may want Strangulate or Death Grip.  The points in the Unholy tree are an interesting choice that are up to you, but are still very important. The 30% extra damage is very handy, however, going with a 12 second longer duration would allow for more uses of Obliterate and Frost Strike without having to reapply your Plague Strike, Howling Blast, or an Outbreak cool down.

As for your rune of choice, if you keep your diseases on your enemies, then your Obliterate will pretty much always deal more damage than your Frost Strike (and I do not know how much Mastery is needed to make Frost Strike surpass it, if it even can). I do know, however, that it is just plain funny using either Razor Ice or Cinder Glacier to further increase the damage of your Frost Strike to make it somewhat close, and be a better form of burst damage. My character is in somewhat decent gear, and my critical hits were for 30-39 thousand damage and each strike was right when the GCD was completed, so I would say that is fast enough damage. Oh, and of course you should be in Frost Presence for the quick build up of rune power and extra frost damage.

For all of these reasons, this spec will help you take down any threat In Cold Blood!