I’m not going to list out all the talent specs I’ve seen thus far for the Death Knight on the Internet – there are literally dozens of them and many more are being put up all the time. Because players essentially get access to 49 talents within the first two hours of gameplay, it’s no surprise that there are so many different options – no one has really spent enough time sorting through all the talents to figure it out.

I won’t say I have either, but here are a few of my thoughts on what you’re getting with each of the major talent builds:

Blood Tree
The blood tree is designed to be a hybrid spec for DPS or tanking that focuses on physical damage as well as disease augmentation.
You can usually raid with this spec or DPS at the same time and in PvP, the DPS build is very popular. Builds here will usually go with 51 points in Blood and a combination of points in Frost and Unholy to get a boost to Icy Touch, Glacier Rot, and Vicious Strikes

Frost Tree
The frost tree is based on burst damage and tanking, allowing you to land huge damage by freezing opponents and hitting them hard with explosion and frost related abilities. The majority of these builds will start with 51 or 52 talent points in Frost and the rest in Blood for additional physical damage output.

Unholy Tree
The Unholy talent tree is designed for those who want to summon ghouls and use them in their combat. You are going to find that this tree focuses on summons and diseases – the closest similarity being to Warlocks (though nowhere near the same in actuality). This is a good leveling build and has solid DPS as well. Most builds will go with 54 points in Unholy and a split of the rest with 10 or more in Frost to maintain DPS.

Of course, these are just the basics – there are dozens of hybrids and useful mixtures that can make a Death Knight useful in almost any situation when properly played.

WotLK Secrets

When WotLK launched, it brought the idea of the 10 man raid to a full head and included a number of new options for smaller guilds, casual players, and those with less time than large guilds to enjoy raiding content that they could not enjoy previously. It has made the game more accessible to many players and yet the quality of play in the 10 man raid has not been raised as it needs to be due to the completely new format and style of play that so many players are having trouble with.

What a 10 Man Raiding Group Looks Like

A 10 man raiding group is going to fundamentally look a bit differently from any other group out there. While the 10 man raids are technically considered to be easier than the 25 man raids (and currently are pretty easy when you get it down), they do require quite a bit of flexibility from every member on your team. You’ll be going up against 1 million HP bosses with two teams of players and if a healer goes down you may have one extra on your staff. The same is true for your tank, so it is important that every single person on your team can play at least two roles. This is much easier these days with stats compounding for casters and tanks.

For tanks, you should have two tanks for every 10 man group and at least one off-tank who will act as DPS but can step in for tanking if necessary. Feral Druids, Blood Death Knights and Retribution Paladins are all good for this.

For healers, you’ll need two for most groups – this provides one for each tank but can make it hard to maintain the healing you’ll need to keep your group members alive against AoE bosses or ones with diseases or DoTs. Three healers is better, though you then need to consider whether you have enough DPS coming from the remaining 5 DPS members, especially against bosses with enrage timers that are shorter than most.

The best way to balance this out is to have two dedicated healers and an off healer who can throw out heals as needed for DPS members when they get hit – Shamans, Druids and Paladins can all play this role if they are properly specced. Shadow Priests are also good here because the Priest gear is all pretty close to the same now since Spell Power covers healing and damage.

Keep in mind that when you go into a 10 man raid, you need to flexible and versatile. Keep your eyes open, build up a group of highly talented, multi-functional people and bring the player not the class and you’ll do well.

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