Best Death Knight Specs for Max DPS 3.3 ICC

Wondering what the best Death Knight Specs are for ICC raiding and patch 3.3?

BLOOD SPECS

Well, theres two main ones.

Blood - 51/0/20 or 51/0/20 Disease build


These are your two main builds, and we'll discuss later the differences between them, and how to decide what is right for you.

In the Blood tree you will have 4 points to play with. If you are looking for absolute max DPS you will want to go with 3/3 Bloodworms and 1 point in Imp Blood presence. Why? Bloodworms will add a little (reports say ~ 80) DPS, and your other options being Mark of Blood and Vampiric Blood, both of which require the use of a Blood Rune, and that’s 1 less Heart Strike!

In the Unholy tree the most common line of thinking goes: Ravenous Dead > BCB > Necrosis. From my own experience, I’ve found BCB to be slightly higher than 1% DPS per talent point, whereas Necrosis was slightly


UNHOLY SPECS

Generalized Spec

With this latest patch and hot-fix to Scourge Strike, there are a couple truly viable spec, which are listed below. Unholy Dual Wielding is no longer considered competitive – although it didn’t lose dps with this patch, it simply didn’t gain near as much as 2H builds did. Improved Unholy Presence specs *did* lose dps with this patch, and as such fell to the wayside.

[Single Target]
17/0/54 without Reaping
The most optimal single target build before 2P T10 and/or several pieces of ICC gear. With the moderate buff to Scourge Strike along with the reworking of GoIT, ten second rotations are a thing of the past as Epidemic is once again most optimal. Reaping, on the other hand, doesn’t quite win out before the aforementioned gear level. Even with the secondary shadow portion of Scourge Strike being unable to crit, a Blood subspec is still vastly superior to a Frost variant – as although Scourge Strike now does more damage, less of its damage is shadow than the various version (when we still didn’t take Black Ice). Otherwise, the spec is fairly self-explanatory. Your auto-attack will be the highest percent of your total damage, followed by your Scourge Strike and then your Ghoul. Scourge Strike will be your hardest hitting individual ability, followed distantly by Death Coil and its subsequent Unholy Blight.

14/0/57 with Reaping
Once you attain 2P T10 and/or several pieces of ICC gear, Scourge Strike scales upward enough to make Reaping a dps gain once again, making this build the most optimal for single targets. With Dark Conviction being the weakest talent on a single target, the points for Reaping are taken from there. Aside from that, this spec is identical to the one already mentioned. Your Scourge Strike will be the highest percent of your total damage, followed by your auto-attack and then your Ghoul. Scourge Strike will be your hardest hitting individual ability, followed distantly by Death Coil and its subsequent Unholy Blight.

[Multiple Target / AoE]
17/0/54 without Reaping
The most optimal multi-target / AoE build . Compared to its single target variation, it simply sacrficices points from Necrosis to fill out Morbidity, due to the huge gain of the DnD cooldown. The damage loss is rather minor on single target encounters relative to the large amount of damage gained on multiple target / AoE encounters, and as such if you don’t have the luxury of using your dual spec for two dps specs, this could be considered the superior “general” spec. Your auto-attack will be the highest percent of your total damage, followed by your Scourge Strike and then your Ghoul. Scourge Strike will be your hardest hitting individual ability, followed distantly by Death Coil and its subsequent Unholy Blight.

Glyphs

Major
Single Target
•[Glyph of Dark Death]
•[Glyph of the Ghoul]
•[Glyph of Icy Touch]

Multiple Target / AoE
•[Glyph of Death and Decay]
•[Glyph of Disease]
•[Glyph of Icy Touch]

Minor
•[Glyph of Blood Tap]
•[Glyph of Pestilence]
•[Glyph of Raise Dead]

The major glyphs are set in stone for Unholy. No matter which of the “optional” talents you take, no matter what gear level you are currently at, no matter what tier of content you are currently progressing through, no matter whether or not you take Reaping, you’ll use the same three glyphs depending on if the encounter is primarily single target or multiple target.

The same goes for the multi-target glyphs.

It’s important to note that as of this patch, Glyph of Disease will no longer cause Pestilence to ‘roll’ the AP value present when you applied diseases. Instead, whenever you case Pestilence to refresh them, diseases will look at your current value of AP (and then use that number until you cast Pestilence again). As such, one doesn’t have to worry about lining up trinket procs at the start of the encounter. This makes GoD non-competitive for a single target, but still a must for a multiple target encounter.

None of the minor glyphs will have any large impact on your dps, so which you choose is largely up to you. Glyph of Pestilence is the one exception – although it won’t increase your dps on paper or in a simulator, a 50% range increases on Pestilence is generally considered a godsend for AoEing, and to go without it would be rather silly.

-ELITISTJERKS