Quick leveling and DK Tanking... againFollow

For single targets, just apply diseases and spam Death/Rune Strike. Rune Strike will enable you to spam more Death Strikes which in turn gives you more health back (and the bubble of imbalance once you hit level 80 or w/e) and hits like a truck. If you're having aggro issues on single targets, pop Dancing Rune Weapon and spam that Death Strike button.

For multiple targets, throwing down Death & Decay, hitting stuff once with Blood Boil (snap aggro) and then spreading diseases is my favorite route. Trying to apply diseases first is a pain in the *** since most DPS these days lack anything resembling attention spans. I swear to god, Hunters must be trading in Misdirection for imba DPS somewhere. In ~20 runs today, only one person used Misdirection and only after I told him to. Anyway, I use Heart Strike instead of Blood Boil when there are less than four targets left.

My Death Knight uses following glyphs:

Prime: Death Strike, Rune Strike and Heart Strike
Major: Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap and Pestilence
Minor: Horn of Winter, Resilient Grip and Path of Frost

As for leveling, I think a mix of dungeon runs and questing (serious questing) is the best route. Doing dungeons once you have the quests for them will bring in some good xp/hour.

I must admit, my stance towards Frost has always been to just keybind Howling Blast and Obliterate to every key on the keyboard and then /facedesk until win, but I guess there's more to it.

Changes from 4.1 to 4.2:

* Killing Machine can now proc from off-hand melee attacks
* Obliterate has been reduced from 160% to 150% base weapon damage (tooltip change)
* Hungering Cold now has a 1.5 second cast time
* Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases two-handed weapon damage by 3/7/10% down from 4/8/12%

So basically you do the same as in 4.2, but you do it better.

For single targets, keep diseases up and spam Obliterate. Use Frost Strike whenever you're nearing full runic power or run out of Obliterates. Frost Strikes will refresh Obliterates for more Obliterate spam. Blizzard heard that we like Obliterate, so they put some Obliterates in our rotation. Use the +str cooldown (forgot the name... Pillar of Ice? Frost?) whenever possible, preferably in tandem with some Killing Machine luck.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you should Obliterate when you get a Killing Machine proc, but you should not wait for Obliterate to come off cooldown. Frost Strike still hits like a truck, especially after they nerfed Obliterate.

For multiple targets, spam Howling Blast and use Frost Strikes to refresh Howling Blast for more Howling Blasts. Yeah, the rotations are complicated.

Cooldowns, such as Pillar of Whatever and Raise Dead should be used as soon as possible. I don't know if Pillar of Meh affects the strength value of the ghoul risen by Raise Dead, but I always activate the Pillar before I raise my ghoul, just in case.

Never use Army of the Dead in a heroic, unless the boss is a caster. The ghouls can and will taunt the boss, causing it to not only rotate around itself on end, much to the chagrin of any Rogues/Druids in the group, but also cleave any nearby non-tanks for over nine thousand damage.

As for glyphs, there are optimal glyph setups for both AOE and ST situations, but I prefer to roll with a bit of both (because I'm a cheap *** who doesn't want to roll with a million Disappearing Dust on me).

Prime: Obliterate, Howling Blast and Frost Strike
Major: Hungering Cold, Dark Succor and Pestilence
Minor: Horn of Winter, Path of Frost and Blood Tap

The veterans would have you switch out the Obliterate glyph for Icy Touch on AOE fights, but meh. I like having Dark Succor and Hungering Cold for those OSHI- moments that often occur when you're doing 5-mans (that's what I'm assuming a freshly dinged 85 will be doing for some time).

Anyway, I don't think I'm the resident Frost 2h player, so someone else might prove all of this wrong. That's what I'm rolling with, though, and I'm doing 8-10k DPS. At level 84. In tank gear, because I'm Blood first and foremost.

Edited, Aug 11th 2011 5:01pm by Mazra

If you can Rhode, you should try to get two of the BoE maces that drop in ZG. They probably aren't super cheap yet for you guys, but they're still doable. I think I only paid about 1300g a piece for mine back before 4.2 hit. DW is slightly better DPS than 2H though, and the rotation doesn't really change much. If both diseases are up and Rime procs, try to prioritize Obliterate if you can. Frost Strike should only be used if runic power is capped and/or all your runes are tapped out.

Oh right, I meant Killing Machine. =x

LOL thanks for the advice :) Ya like I said with my huntard I did it all in roughly 14 hours of play time.... with my pally, priest, and mage about a week of on and off for 2 hours a day.. so 14-16 hours then too...... so I'm hoping I can do the same with my DK with SOLID playing since I'm stuck playing one day a week on a laggy connection here in Russia till September when I come back home.. its so bad lately I can't do any of the troll heroics on my mains

Thanks guys!

Sounds like I've been doing things more or less correct, DW excepted.



Since we jumped straight from WotLK to just short of 4.2 in mid July, the AH has been a mess. I'm still trying to work my way out of quest rewards, so I'll be staying 2H until I can pull together two decent 1H weapons. Shiny purples are running upwards of 10K with most closer to 20K and I just started over on a new server so I'm still building a bankroll.

BTW stupid question of the day...... has anyone "Tried" a DW Tank spec for DKS? Just wondering if it was still feasible and worth it.

Ya.. I wish they would fix some things on it.. Frost tanking was great before.. its threat was near perfect, its aoe threat was balenced ( howling blast was a BIG aggro getter) and on a pull you wouldn't have to worry about someone pulling off you..

Look at pally tanking and warrior tanking.. ONE BIG aggro move to start out...

now look at DK tanking... Deathgrip ( maybe) but where is the " OMG YOU PISSED ME OFF ***** THIS MAGE ARCANE BLASTING ME I WANT YOU!"?

Icy Touch needs to be reconfigured back to where it was.. that had a HUGE aggro grab. And I know BLIZ didn't want to keep it that way but still..

What about charge? I thought Charge had some decent threat?


And no.. its one of my 4 classes I don't have an 85 in lol.


Nahh I figured out my aggro issue. At 85 things change.. 14 hours btw from 80-85. i still feel i could of done better....

Things I've noticed though is that even though I have a high amount of mastery, dodge, and parry I still get into these groves where I go from FULL HP to OMG POP ALL COOLDOWNS....... Im now geared enough to do troll heroics.. Lets hope I don't fall flat on my face