Dk references/

[Spinning Hat]

Any good Dk references in regards to gear / specs? was playing with Klecks last nite, and he's dual Specced with primarily tank gear, so I was thinking a DPS DK. What talents / gear should I be looking at? Any special Inscriptions?

My Armory Page:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Alleria&n=Rutt

[SilverTalon]

Wowhead has decent resources on their forums I've always found. There seems to be fewer "This is the only way you can ever play" types than other sites. Go in to the class forums and generally Gryph has a thread he's stickied...good start.

As way of a 50 cent guide...

• Copy Draaci's (really Swad's) spec for Blood and use the same glyphs
• Gear and gem for strength. Attack power isn't bad when there aren't other options (enchants, etc), but it's less useful than strength.
• With that in mind, there is no rune other than Fallen Crusader.
• Remember to keep your ghoul out, except in the places where he'll get lost.
• Two-handers are your friend. Edge of Ruin and Tyrannical Beheader are good things to try for in the newer instances.
• Basic rotation is (Practice on target dummies until you have how it should work down): Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Death Strike -> Pestilence (or Heart Strike if a single target) -> Heart Strike -> Deathcoil -> Death Strike -> 4xHeart Strike -> Repeat
• Learn when to use Hysteria, Empower Rune Weapon and other DPS cooldowns

That's a good primer...off of emblem gear and such you can put out a reasonably good amount of damage and it's not particularly hard to get down. That'll let you gear up and then you can decide how you want to play. Swad's dual-wield build seems to have a decent damage output as well.

[Swad]

To add along with what Silver wrote...

You may have to play around with some various builds to find the one you like most. That might get a bit pricey, but if you have a lot of gold, it's worth finding a build you like to play with. In the last five or so days I think I've respec'd about a half dozen times with various tweaks and adjustments to DPS builds to find one I like. I wound up going full circle back to duel wield frost DPS... I just enjoy it more even though it may not be the highest single target DPS for DK.

That said, here are some more really good resources to use for research. I know some people here don't like elitist jerks, but they have some of the best through-and-through research and information. They even provide alternatives and don't say "this is the only one best way to spec". Read up and see what sounds good.

• 2-Hand Blood DPS (Capable of the best DK single target DPS)
• Duel Wield Frost DPS (Good AOE, party buffs and OK single target DPS)
• 2-Hand Unholy DPS (Builds for single target as well as AOE--supposedly some of the best AOE in the game. Good debuffs for more party damage as well).

Look at these as some good starting areas. Each tree has a few builds to try based on what you'd like to do. The posts have lots of good information on how to gem, glyph, enchant, rotations / priorities on your attacks depending on build, etc. Like I said, some may not like elitist jerks, but I think they have the best raw information for end game play.

Another good resource is Skeleton Jack. Scroll through his new posts and look at some basic information he's compiled. He somewhat went AFK from the game a little while between 3.2 and 3.3, but I think he's back and providing some info. Feel free to yell at any of us active DKs if you have other questions. I've really been hitting my DK hard again lately and having fun. At the end of the day, there isn't one way to play or one build that's best *for you*. I've settled on Unholy single target and Frost DW for my two specs right now as they're the most fun for how I like to play. I'm soon probably going to dump Unholy DPS for Frost DW tanking and will be Frost for both DPS and Tanking. I don't know what it is about Frost that I can't get away--it's too much fun and fits my playstyle best I guess.

[SilverTalon]

Our dislike of Elitist Jerks has nothing to do with the information and everything to do with having to clear their blockades of UBRS and Kara for 3 years.

[Swad]

Oh--gotcha. Wasn't aware they made MG their home (or even that there was an official EJ guild since I just deal with them on a class information level on their forums).

[SilverTalon]

Yep, there was. I killed Gurgthock (yes, the inspiration of the NPC in Nagrand and Zul'Drak) many, many moons ago. Granted, his four or five buddies trounced me several times in return...

I believe the Orc Rogue in our Feralas ganking adventure was from Elitist Jerks as well. Let me tell you, it's damned hard to stunlock an orc rogue, but we brought enough rogues to do it.

[Ghryphen]

I check out WoW Popular which scans the Armory and finds the most popular builds, enchants, gems etc. They usually get me started then I can see how to tweak it for myself.

EJ is a main reason there was an over population of Horde on MG making it quite gankalicious.

[Stoke]

We had EJ on one side beating the hell out of us and Goon Squad on the other side annoying the hell out of us. We had to GTFO from Mal'Ganis.

However, at one time at least, regardless of your skill or ability, I feel like it was somewhat of an honor to have max level ALLIANCE characters over there. You went thru a ton of hell and gankings to get there.....

[Ghryphen]

I view EJ, Goon Squad, Hooligan Syndicate as the same thing, all the spawn of somethingawful.com community.

[SilverTalon]

Originally Posted by Gryphon

I view EJ, Goon Squad, Hooligan Syndicate as the same thing, all the spawn of somethingawful.com community.

Though in fairness...EJ was actually good at the game. Something I'm not sure Goon Squad could really claim if zerging wasn't an option...

[Ghryphen]

Yeah, that was the issue. Goon Squad was the zerg, Hooligan Syndicate was formed by those who wanted to form a non-zerg 1337 group, people called em Elitist Jerks so they changed their name.