New to PvP and was wondering what talents you guys were running
If they are smart they are running the Unholy DK talent. /grin
Frost DKs still seem weak (from fighting them, haven’t played it yet), UH DK on the other hand feels pretty good now and has a much more forgiving playstyle for a player new to pvp.
Unholy was the better pre 8.1. Fdk got a few buffs recently that made them not trash tier. Plus were talking BGs anything really goes in random BGs kek
1 Like
They are probably better off now than they were, but UHDK got buffs as well that put them in a really good place. Also, if you really are a new player UHDK is more forgiving because of it’s ranged damage.
That is, if you are solo queuing you can still have fun as a UHDK. If you are solo queuing as Frost you are going to have some bad experiences for sure (same for any non-mobile melee).
^ That’s if it is up in the air. If your heart is set on Frost then that’s what you should do, ofc.
Yep i know. But fdk is my sheet. I love the spec and enjoy playing it. I never cared for 2h specs. Dw and the frost theme keeps me playing it. Fun for me
1 Like
than frost? that’s debatable. but as a spec unholy is much stronger in 8.1.
1 Like
UHDK can kill people at range. Frost DK can’t. That makes UHDK better for a newer player since they can play it safe and stay back more and use other people as a shield.
That isn’t the same thing as saying Frost has a higher skillcap than UHDK (which it doesn’t). You are so quick to find fault in something you don’t even think about what is being said.
unholy needs to be played aggressively to be played right, you also need to mix your abilities by moving in and out of melee while killing someone. if you just sit and kite someone all day it will take all day because of your poor damage at full range distance. also i wouldn’t call a spec that mixes combo points, pet management, cd management, multiple resource management, low mobility, and playing multiple playstyles based on situation a good choice for a new player.
2 Likes
Rofl this monk, OP is asking for Frost he doesnt care about UHDK.
Just quit it.
4 Likes
I didn’t say that it would be playing at it’s maximum potential, did I? They would have a better chance of doing more damage and not dying as much in a random BG on UHDK than on Frost. That is just a fact.
A NEW player is going to have an easier time playing UHDK in battlegrounds since they are less dependent on support. They are going to be spending a lot more time in the GY as frost. It has nothing to do with which one is harder to play or manage, it’s all about being able to protect yourself with positioning.
And as far as playing UHDK, I played it quite a lot when it had a hell of a lot more to manage than it does now.
Post movies of your gameplay. I know you are a capable player because I’ve seen you in the BGs and you do solid damage and you also break off from the zerg to solo objectives.
You see, just because you disagree with someone you don’t have to hate them or think they are liar. I will give credit where credit it due, but you just come off as a hater to me.
And I said he should consider UHDK instead if it was up in the air for him, but to play frost if his heart is set on it. He is going to have a hard time getting advice on frost. Even people with channels that have been dedicated to frost are playing UHDK.
He is set on Frost, so either someone comes to give him advice on Frost or quit m8. I agree with you UHDK is the best choice, but he doesnt care about.
So either give OP Frost info he is looking for or quit it.
2 Likes
I’m replying to someone else’s criticism. I’m not trying to convince him. He said he wants to play frost, that’s fine. I even took some time to look up some people who have done frost guides in the past, but they are playing UHDK.
you’re basing this whole assumption on the idea that ranged is better for noobs than melee, and not considering the different factors between unholy and frost.
further, unholy is not a true ranged class, it’s a hybrid, you have to talent into clawing shadows and reanimation to make it more ranged capable.
DK depends very much on support, granted the 8.1 buffs changed that a bit, but frost got the same buffs in that regard: 10% stam, better healing from deathstrike. the new defensive cds Lichborne and Transfusion are also available to both frost and unholy.
the only real buff unholy got was a fixed necrotic strike, it was doing pitiful amounts of damage and heal-absorb and now works properly again. so i wouldn’t really count that as a buff.
all the new self healing is nice, and unholy gets one more ability with Life and Death, that doesn’t make unholy easier to play, you still need to melee to self heal as an unholy dk, you still need to use deathstrike or festering to put wounds on everything in sight for LnD. the ranged aspect of unholy is for kiting around melee while you get your spells setup to take them down, it is not a full time playstyle.
not really, cata unholy had different stuff to manage, but not really more. the spec isn’t all that more or less complex than it has been in the past, if anything the modern wound iteration is probably one of the better and more complex ones. past versions with fixed rune types and multiple dots seemed more complex because there was more activity on your screen, but mechanically they were really simple.
i’ll think about it, atm all i have on my drive is a half done prepatch av and a 8.0 av loss, my NAS’s mainboard took a dump a few weeks ago and i haven’t replaced it yet so most of my pvp footage is inaccessible atm.
im not calling you a liar, im disagreeing with you. disagreeing with you does not make me a hater.
Ranged is “safer” to play than melee solo queuing in random bgs regardless of skill level, IMO. Now, if this guy was looking to do arenas then I would suggest frost (if it was as good as unholy) because it’s easier to play mechanically. Right now, unholy is just probably better for 1v1s, arena and bgs.
On a side note, if the person was so new that they don’t even use keybinds, click abilities, etc then they would be far better off playing something like a MM hunter than a melee class in the random bgs. Backpedaling NE hunters is a meme for a reason. 
Frost did get the same survive buffs that unholy got, but the deal with unholy is that you can dip in and out (as you said above) and still be effective. If your team has the advantage you can play aggressively, if your team is at a disadvantage you can play defensively and do more from range.
For a new player I would suggest going with a build that utilizes range more (clawing shadows, etc). The reason why I say this is because in my experience new players struggle the most with knowing when to use their defensive cooldowns and that is something more important for melee due to the focus fire that they draw in a group fight.
Well, you can take all of the stuff you listed above and add in rune management (frost, unholy, blood, death runes) and stance management along with having more spells to manage due to pruning. Also, I’m not sure since it was so long ago but dark sim might have been baseline. Even if not, it was something you could take without having to sacrifice something else that was really important.
Things like dark sim really up the skill cap but it’s hard to justify taking because of the other things you would have to sacrifice and that really sucks IMO. It should be baseline (same thing as spell reflect for warrior). I notice that you aren’t running dark sim which isn’t a criticism because neither am I and I really really really want to use it.
Same goes for AMZ. Does anyone use it? It ups the skill cap but it’s too situational (like dark sim) to justify taking over other options.
i don’t think position matters for new players. if you are melee, ranged, or even heals and you are new you are going to get out played by veteran players. the only difference is that ranged usually die 10 seconds after the melee. being the ranged that gets chased from mid until killed doesn’t count as safer.
in bgs unholy is very much a support spec that often takes the role of lead or team captain, this isn’t the kind of role for new players. frost is straight up melee damage and a much better role for new players to play with, same with ret paly.
then they should get more experience by playing melee, you don’t get better by avoiding your weak areas.
i’ll take the modern rune system over the old one. the old system didn’t have any real management to it, you know what runes would be available when and it predetermined what spells you could play next. this locked you into a pretty predicable rotation with little freedom of spell choice.
stance management wasn’t a whole lot, though i do miss it. in it’s place though is slightly deeper playstyles you can swap between at will depending on who/what you are fighting.
I agree dark sim should be baseline, it used to be baseline. and my default talents are usually dark sim, necrostrike, and reanimation. however the bomb is an amazing cd and i don’t like giving up necro strike so dark sim had to go.
IMO dark sim, AMZ, and necrostrike should all be baseline, or we should get another pvp talent row.
Poor OP. Thread got hijacked by idiots arguing about UH. Here’s a bump so someone can help you with Frost.
1 Like
Just putting this here as Blizzard pulls out the nerf stick:
Death Knight
- Unholy
- Melee damage dealt by Abominations summoned by Raise Abomination reduced by 25%.
- Attack speed of Abominations summoned by Raise Abomination reduced by 25%.
- Necrotic Strike now absorbs 7% of the target’s maximum health in healing (was 8%).
As I have not played Frost for a while, I checked out the thelootdistrict and their pvpstats and talents. As I was lurking, I was hoping to see a bit more about Frost in this thread.
I was going to suggest the same thing coincidentally.
Row 1 is literally 33.3% across the board. No single talent is pulling ahead.
Row 2 is 67% Runic Attenuation.
Row 3 is 83% Asphyxiate.
Row 4 is 83% Frozen Pulse.
Row 5 is 67% Death Pact.
Row 6 is split: 50% Gathering Storm and 50% Frostwyrm’s Fury
Row 7 is 83% Breath of Sindragosa.
PVP talents: Necrotic Aura, Transfusion, and Dead of Winter.
Would be better to look at the RBG frost dks. But, what works in arena or even rated bgs doesn’t always work in random bgs because if you are solo-queuing then you don’t always have healers that you can rely on.
Side note: I really love the data on 2600+ frost dks in 2v2