(Written by Sudhee) (Write for us!)

“DK’s can tank in all 3 specs.” Tired of hearing that without knowing why? Well, read on…

1. Starter DK tanking gear for heroics.
2. Tanking stats.
3. Blood tanking spec.
4. Frost 2h tanking spec.
5. Frost DW tanking spec.
6. Unholy tanking spec.

Starter DK tanking gear for heroics:

Tempered Titansteel Helm (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41387

Crusader’s Square Pauldrons (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37115

Tempered Saronite Breastplate(BOE- rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40672

Tempered Saronite Bracers (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41116

Waistguard of the Risen Knight (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37801

Daunting Legplates (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41345

Daunting handguards (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41357

Tempered Saronite Boots (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40671

Durable Nerubhide Cape (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43565

Ring of Earthen Might (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43250

Titanium Earthguard Ring (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42643

Torta’s Oversized Choker (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37794

Titansteel Destroyer (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41257

Essence of Gossamer (BOP – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37220

The Black Heart (BOP – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47216

There are no sigils before level 80, so you need to do heroics to get a decent sigil.

Enchants to get:

Stoneskin Gargoyle – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41257

Enchant Chest – Greater Defense – http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47766

Enchant Cloak – Titanweave – http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44591

Austere Earthsiege Diamond – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41380

3x Thick Autumn’s Glow – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40015

I have purposefully left out the head and shoulder enchants, as they need faction reputation, but, you can get:

Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (Head enchant) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40015

Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle (Shoulder enchant) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44136

One trip to the Auction House, and you will be able to buy everything but the trinkets. With all the BOE armor, enchants and gems, you will hit exactly 537 defense rating, which is what you need to tank heroics, and 10 man Naxxramas, but anything beyond that, will be troublesome.

Tanking stats:

Till you get 540 defense, its defense > stamina > parry/dodge > strength/agility

After you get 540 defense, its stamina > parry/dodge > strength/agility

540 is the defense cap where you can no longer be crit, so it is unnecessary to go over that, and your time would be better spent going for stamina.

Strength is used for Attack Power as well as Parry rating, because Forceful Deflection gives you parry rating equal to 25% of your total strength. So it helps generate threat as well as help you tank.

Agility is used for Crit and Dodge, but since you have very little crit as a tank, it is almost negligible, and in most cases it is better to go for strength.

Blood Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EGVh0Icbofsox0xZ0gh0xz:iGd

At a glance: Blood mainly deals with single target threat generation and health regeneration with Death Strike.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch and Plague Strike up on all targets at all times, use Heart Strike before Death Strike, so you can benefit from the Death Strike glyph.

The main tanking talents you need to get for this spec are Blade Barrier, Veteran of the Third War, Improved Death Strike, Vampiric Blood and Will of the Necropolis, Toughness and Anticipation.

The main threat generating talents in this spec are, Bladed Armor, Scent of Blood, Dark Conviction, Bloody Strikes, Bloody Vengeance, Abomination’s Might, Sudden Doom, Heart Strike, Morbidity, and Necrosis.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

The spec given above is designed to generate massive amounts of threat rather than survivability, but it is an excellent spec to tank heroics.

Frost 2H Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcxZhxxxAbIoc0buzAo0th:sadVMm

At a glance: Frost is geared towards tanking melee, because of the haste debuffs you can put on your targets, and the talents that increase the chance for melee attacks to miss you.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch and Plague Strike on all targets at, all times, and rotate with Howling blast (whenever it’s up), Obliterate (for threat generation) and Blood Strike (to keep up the Blade Barrier talent).

The main tanking talents to get for this spec are Blade Barrier, Toughness, Icy Talons, Frigid Dreadplate, Annihilation, Improved Frost Presence, Unbreakable Armor, and Anticipation.

The main threat generating talents in this spec are Killing Machine, Deathchill, Frost Strike, Howling Blast, and Morbidity.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

The given spec is based on getting snap aggro on a number of mobs, and survivability, more than single target threat generation.

Frost DW Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcxhZhxe0NbI0c0fuzAo0xb:adsVMm

This spec will be more viable after patch 3.2.2, when they let Threat of Thassarian affect Rune Strike.

At a glance: Frost is geared towards tanking melee, because of the haste debuffs you can put on your targets, and the talents that increase the chance for melee attacks to miss you.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch and Plague Strike on all targets at, all times, and rotate with Howling blast (whenever it’s up), Obliterate (for threat generation) and Blood Strike (to keep up the Blade Barrier talent).

The main tanking talents to get for this spec are Blade Barrier, Toughness, Annihilation, Icy Talons, Nerves of Cold Steel, Threat of Thassarian, Frigid Dreadplate, Improved Frost Presence, Unbreakable Armor, and Anticipation.

The main threat generating talents in this spec are Killing Machine, Deathchill, Frost Strike, Scent of Blood, Howling Blast, and Morbidity.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

The given spec is based on getting snap aggro on a number of mobs, and survivability, more than single target threat generation.

Unholy Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcxhMZ0xZbxhIx0zg0hx0uIq:rMomVM

At a glance: The Unholy tree is based around dealing magic damage, this spec is very potent when you have around 50% avoidance, because that makes your Bone Shield last longer.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch, and Plague Strike on all targets at all times, then rotate between Blood Strikes and Scourge Strikes as you see fit.

The main Tanking talents to get for this spec are, Blade Barrier, Toughness, Anticipation, Bone Shield, and Rage of Rivendare.

The main threat generating talents in this tree are, Subversion (after 3.2.2, when it affects Scourge Strike), Scent of Blood, Dark Conviction, Vicious Strikes, Morbidity, Outbreak, Necrosis, Ravenous Dead, Impurity, Desolation, Ebon Plaguebringer, and Wandering Plague.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

As you may have noticed, there are a lot more threat generating talents than there are tanking talents in this tree, and a lot of those talents do AOE damage, so it is very suitable for AOE tanking, as well as excellent single target threat generation as well, second only to Blood.

To conclude, I hope you have learned something useful about Death Knight tanks, hope you enjoy tanking!

Death Knights have a variety of PvP based skills, and since they are considered the “clicky” or “timer” tank, a lot of their abilities carry over well into PvP. All three trees have useful PVP skills; the choice is dependent on your play style and whom you may be doing arena with. If you are running 2’s with Double DPS; you may want to look more at the blood tree. Whereas if you are playing with a healer, frost/unholy may work out better for you.

The following is a look at some of the more PvP/Arena oriented abilities the various trees have to offer.

Blood –

Rune Tap/Improved Rune Tap: Having the ability to heal yourself for 20% of your total health every 30 seconds, really gives you alternatives to not running a healer. Obviously it doesn’t compensate, but every bit helps. If you choose to get the Rune Tap glyph, it also heals you for an additional 10% and heals your group for 10%. This can make or break some arena fights and allow you to run double DPS and still provide healing for your group.

Mark of Blood: This ability, like Rune Tap, gives you extra healing without the need of a healer. It can be placed on your target for 20 seconds, and every single attack they do to you, will heal you for 4% of your max HP. This is a magic effect so it can be dispelled; however, it cannot be cloak of shadows off. This can be a very effective way of killing arena teams that choose to run with rogues.

Frost –

Endless Winter: This talent not only gives you a free interrupt/spell lock out, but also gives your chains of ice the ability to proc frost fever.  Chains of ice currently has no reduced duration, so being able to apply frost fever without using icy touch is a nice alternative.

Hungering Cold: This ability is basically an AoE freeze, with a twist. If you apply your diseases prior to using this skill, they will still take damage even while frozen. Effectively giving you, or your group time to regroup and recover while still doing decent damage to your enemy. This ability can be very useful in 2’s, 3’s and 5’s, as it takes players out of the fight, and can force trinket cool downs, invulnerabilities or multiple global cool downs just to dispel a single button press.

Unholy –

Master of Ghouls: Having a permanent pet in arena not only adds an extra element of damage, but gives you an extra stun, or the ability sacrifice for a big heal. While the DK’s pet may not hit for as hard as a Hunters, it still helps keeping people from casting, and allows you to keep pressure on a target that you may not be focusing.

Shadow of Death: This ability allows you to come back to life after you die, to help your teammates finish the fight. You maintain your characters attack power and weapon procs and do quite a lot of damage in this form. I personally have won a few arena matches; even after dying, by finishing off my enemy while in ghoul form. You have a stun, leap and damaging attack in this form, not to mention a suicide command that does 25% of your max health in damage.

Build

This PvP Build (21/0/50) (as of patch 3.0.3) is a great starting place if you are indecisive about which tree you’d like to go. Try it out and play around with these other talents to get a feel for your play style.

Unlike for PvE, there are no clear cut winners for the PvP DK. Each tree brings multiple benefactors to the fight, and can adapt to your teams makeup. Design your DK around your play style, and make sure to factor in whom you are playing with and you can’t go wrong.

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With WoW having such an open interface with options and modules, finding the right one for you may be difficult.

This article is to help show the new interface options that can really help Death Knights maximize their potential and allow the players to enjoy the class with ease.

The top three interfaces that will help the everyday death knight are:

Fundamental

Magic Runes
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/magicrunes.aspx
This modification helps display your runes in a more visually friendly manner and allows you to track them easier.

One of the most difficult things for the Death Knight is to make sure they are expending their runes as fast as possible, and as efficiently as possible.

Being able to clearly see what runes are up and when they can be used allow you to do this much easier than with the default UI.

Class Timer
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/classtimer.aspx
This modification works for all classes, not just the Death Knight. However, it allows you to track everything you need to; in regards to Debuffs, Damage over Time(DoTs) and Crowd Control(CC).

Being able to see when your DoTs are fading allow you to re-apply with maximum efficiency therefore increasing your DPS or Tanking ability as a Death Knight. This Module also tracks your cool downs; so if you are waiting for your defensive abilities to come back up, you can easily see how long they have remaining.

DoTimer
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/do-timer.aspx
This modification is very similar to Class Timer. This is merely an alternative choice for players, and tends to be a little more lightweight.

When you first install it starts in simple mode, but you can adjust your functionality and preferences by going into the options.

Now that the more fundamental Interface Modules are taken care of, time for the fun stuff!

Extras

Get Over Here!
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/dk_goh1.aspx
This module is designed to play sound clips from Mortal Combat when your abilities are ready. You can play around with them, turning on and off the ones you want to hear.

Classic Deathknight Frames
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/cdkf.aspx
If you want to adjust your UI to get a more “DK” Feel, this may be the Interface for you!

There are many great Add-ons out there, and many more to choose from.  Be careful of Add-ons, and always be aware of where you download from and look at the comments of previous downloader’s for potential threats.  I hope some of these Add-ons help provide the ease and enjoyment of playing the Death Knight class as they have for me.

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Welcome Dirge, a good friend of mine, to WoWConfidential. He has tons of knowledge about the game and he’s coming on board to contribute articles. He recently hit level 80 with his Death knight and shares how he got there.

With Death knight’s (DK) being able to begin at the character creation level of 55, many players have chosen this class as their new mains or alts. DK is Blizzards fourth tanking class edition in Wrath of the Lich King and many peoples’ opinions are still up in the air when it comes to what the DKs roles will be in raiding. However, if you are looking to have a little fun solo, PVP, or in small groups; DK might be the class for you!

Continue reading to find out the best talent builds for leveling

No matter what talent spec you decide to go with, the Death Knight has damage and survival in every line. The more popular lines for solo leveling tend to be Blood and Unholy. Combine this with a good leveling guide and you’ll hit 80 in no time, read the reviews here.

Before breaking down the trees, I’ll give a little bit of background on each.

Blood Tree

Blood tends to be more single target oriented* With the specialization in physical damage, burst and the ability to amplify the rewards of leeching health. While many will argue the benefits of each talent end game; blood has a few talents that really speed up the leveling process.

Butchery – This skill is a very solid for anyone leveling and most DPS builds that want to utilize some of the blood tree. Being able to Generate 20 RP(Runic Power) each mob you kill and 2 every 5 seconds, allows you to continuously have RP to go from mob to mob.

Scent of Blood – When deciding on this skill, you need to remember that it goes off when you are attacked, so DPS Death knights aren’t going to benefit from this as much as ones being hit, however this is a great skill in combination with Butchery for the solo leveling DK that wants to spam death coil or blow their Runic Power.

Vendetta – Another skill that is very, very useful for the solo DK. While leveling up as blood, you will almost never need to rest or stop to heal as you gain 6% total life per honor/exp kill.

Now, there are many other talents that help PVE, but the above three really push the Blood DK forward when it comes to leveling fast and efficiently.

(*) As stated in a recent post from Blizzard, they are looking at possible ways to add AoE damage attacks to the Blood tree. This could very well push blood over the top when it comes to the ideal solo leveling build!

Here is an example solo leveling build for Blood (note: this is a level 70 build)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVGqIcIsbotzAZZc

Unholy Tree

Unholy is more sustained DPS which specializes procs, pets, movement increases and Area of Effect damage. A lot of people prefer Unholy, because it tends to be the more “fun” oriented tree in the eyes of most. There are a few abilities that speed up your leveling, and they are :

Impurity - This is the main ability that amplifies the DKs spell damage. Like DK’s already receive 25% parry rating from strength, this talent converts 25% of Attack Power into spell damage. This means your dots tick for more, and your deathcoils start hitting well into the thousands. This talent is almost mandatory for any DK thinking of going unholy.

Ebon Plaguebringer – This combined with the above talent are what make Unholy a sustained DPS. These abilities amplify your dots and magic damage even further. Not only does this affect your commonly used frost fever and blood plague, but other talents if you so choose; Wandering Plague or Unholy Blight benefit as well as other AoE skills like Pestilence and Bloodboil.

Master of Ghouls – This talent allows the ghoul you summon to be controlled by you, and become permanent. Your ghoul with the Ravenous Dead talent, gains 60% of your personal strength and stamina, and you can also choose to get a glyph which gives your ghoul another 20% of your strength. These combined allow your ghoul to do some serious damage. Being able to control your ghoul; like the hunter pet, gives you the option to “leap”, “stun”, “claw” and “huddle”.

Personally, I find the unholy tree very hard to skip over talents. I find almost every talent in it useful, and hard to turn up. It may not be the greatest 1v1 spec over a short duration fight, but for long boss fights or AoE, you will find Unholy to be a strong talent tree choice.

Here is an example solo leveling build for Blood (note: this is a level 70 build)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jrZZfM0IbfkgcqMcsut

When deciding between Blood and Unholy, personal preference and play style should be the deciding factor. I Personally leveled to 75 with blood then switched to unholy until 80, but could of gone either way. Frost is not a bad tree, just not a popular one for leveling.

Combine this talent build with Zygor’s Leveling guide which has an in-game addon walkthrough for all WOTLK quests for maximum efficiency and to get a level every 2-3 hours. For a free alternative check out my write up about leveling guides in this post.

Death Knights are the new hybrid tanking class introduced by Blizzard in Wrath of the Lich King and offer some unique abilities in PvE and PvP to throw into the class mix.

While Blizzard has clearly stated that Death Knights will not replace Warriors as end-game main tanks, they are certainly viable as a tank, and more efficient at dealing with caster bosses then any of the other tanks with abilities like Anti-Magic Zone and Anti-Magic Shell.

With Druid’s healing superiority over arena’s in TBC with their high mobility, instant cast HoT’s and stacking lifeblooms, death knights are going to be the equalizer, with abilities like Plague Strike, unfortunately it looks like Degeneration didn’t make it through, but maybe a little overpowered.

Blizzard made a lot of changes with racials, and while many people say that you should only pick a race based on “looks”, racial abilities should be another factor to look at if you are serious about end game play.

Continue reading to see how each race’s abilities benefit the death knight most in PvE and PvP.

Horde

Blood Elf

- Arcane Torrent – Silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec and restores 15 Runic Power

Mana tap and global cool down has been removed from this spell making it much more viable. A great pvp talent to allow death knights an extra silence in their attack sequence with Strangulate and Mind Freeze and also gives them 15 runic power which can be inserted at crucial points to complete certain combos, almost like how rogues use energy.

- Magic Resistance  (passive) Reduces the chance you will be hit by spells by 2%.

This ability will make Blood Elfs the best magic tanks in the game for min/maxers. This ability already plays up to the death knights advantage in mitigating magic damage and the guilds that will want to use a death knight to take on really tough end game magic bosses will definitely want a magic tank who has a +2% chance to mitigate even more magic damage.

Orc

- Blood Fury (instant – 2 min cooldown) – Increases attack power by (Level*4)+2 per character level (322 at 80). Lasts 15 sec.

They removed the -50% healing debuff from this racial which is HUGE! Orcs will be the highest DPS melee of any DK’s out there and this makes them even more leathal when they get their death grip on you.

- Hardiness (passive) – Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 15%.

This will let you handle rogues and paladins much easier, stacking this with On a Pale Horse (20% talented) and meta gems (+15%) will give you (ex. 8 second stun – 20% = 6.4 – 15% = 5.44 – 15% = 4.26 stun). However death knights already have a stun immunity Icebound Fortitude that they can cast if in combat with a heavy stun user, but it doesn’t break stun so it must be used offensively and it’s on a 1 minute cooldown.

- Command (passive) – Damage dealt by Death Knight, Hunter and Warlock pets increased by 5%.

This ability increases the damage that your summoned Ghoul’s do from Army of the Dead, while 5% is not game breaking you do summon about 9 ghouls so buffing all their damage starts to add up.

- Axe Specialization (passive) Expertise with Axes and Two-Handed Axes increased by 5.

solidifying orcs as the best melee dps DK you can pick, disappointed that this ability wasn’t buffed since you see a lot of items now having +expertise on it.

Tauren

- War Stomp (instant) – 0.5 sec cast – 2 min cooldown. Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yds for 2 sec.

the staple Tauren pvp ability, however with a lot of ways to already shut out casters (Strangulate, Mind Freeze) this is a weakened version of Arcane Torrent that blood elfs get, still has its situational uses and is AoE.

- Endurance (passive) – Base Health increased by 5%

Nerfed from being +5% of total health to base health which pretty much negates any scaling this ability would have with level 80 gear in later tiers. However it is a passive talent that will boost your health by about 400-500. An ability welcome for PvE making Taurens the 2nd best tank.

- Nature Resistance (passive) Reduces the chance you will be hit by Nature spells by 2%.

Nothing to talk about here, you are a little more annoying for druids to deal with.

Troll

- Berserking (instant) 3 min cooldown. Increases your attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec.

An ability with some pretty great potential for scaling a DPS Death Knight, putting them just behind Orcs for best PvE DPS.

- Regeneration (passive) Health regeneration increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat.

This ability regenerates 10% of total health which is pretty awesome. For a death knight that is able to keep himself healed with abilities this will be an extra welcome addition to health management.

- Da Voodoo Shuffle (passive) Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%.

Here is the best survivability talent that horde DK’s could hope for, since the main weakness of a DK is to get crowd controlled and kept at a distance from their targets. This stacks with Toughness but unfortunately it is only multiplicative (30%+15%= 34.5%) giving trolls 34.5% reduced duration of all roots and snares. If you think about it – getting snared for 8 seconds now equals 5.24 seconds, and then diminishing returns on the next snare would be 2.62 seconds, almost making a root only a global cooldown after the first. Roots and Snares are the only CC ability in which DK’s don’t have other immunities like stun, fear, sleep, and charm.

Undead

- Will of the Forsaken (instant) 2 min cooldown. Removes any Charm, Fear and Sleep effect.

One of the staple horde pvp abilities, greatly increasing our defense against a warlock or priest. For a DK this is only has very limited use as you can utilize Lichborne to be immune to fear, sleep, charm AND since you are now undead effects like polymorph, hex and sap will no longer work on you. However WotF can be used while you are under the effect and Lichborne must be activated prior, so it is still good for getting out and saving your trinket. Be careful as Lichborne also makes you susceptable to Priest and Paladins PvE-only spells against undead targets like Shackle and Turn Undead.

- Shadow Resistance (passive) Reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%.

Since most of DK’s abilities are shadow based and they even get talents that add shadow damage to their attacks, this will make undead the best class to fight against another DK.

Alliance

Draenei

- Gift of the Naaru (active) Heals the target 50 + 15/Level over 15 sec – 40 yd range – 1.5 sec cast – 3 min cooldown. The amount healed is increased based on the caster’s Spell Power or Attack Power. This ability does not lose casting time from taking damage.

With the casting time on this, I doubt you would use it in place of another spell a DK could use to steal life and deal dmg at the same time. Good for extra survivability when you are rooted or out of LOS, but not that great.

- Heroic Presence (passive) Increases chance to hit with all spells and attacks by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.

+hit is always welcome for PvE encounters and will help you reach the cap so you can gem for other things. A good PvE DPS racial.

- Shadow Resistance (passive) Reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%.

Same as Undeads talent – “Since most of DK’s abilities are shadow based and they even get talents that add shadow damage to their attacks, this will make undead/Draenei the best class to fight against another DK.”

Dwarf

- Stoneform (instant) 3 min cooldown. While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armor increases by 10%. Lasts 8 sec.

A little boost in both PvE and PVP abilities here. This will stack (multiplicative) with Toughness to increase your total armor by (ex. 1000 armor: (1000+15%= 150) + 10% = +165 armor). Useful in PvP aganinst the powerful poisons and bleeds of warriors/rogues. Great against other DK’s who’s arsenal is mostly made up of diseases.

- Frost Resistance (passive) Reduces the chance you will be hit by Frost spells by 2%.

Will make dealing with frost mages and DK’s frost line easier.

Gnomes

- Escape Artist (instant) – 1.75 min cooldown. Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect.

Free trinket to get out of snares/roots? making this the best PvP racial you can get by far. As stated earlier DK’s only weakness is against being CC’ed and snared and this negates that.

-  Arcane Resistance  – passiveReduces the chance you will be hit by Arcane spells by 2%.

Nice against those arcane barraging mages, but I have a feeling you won’t see many mages specing arcane with frost builds usually taking over pvp at the higher levels.

Human

- Perception (passive) Increases your Stealth detection.

increases your stealth detection by +1 level, ability to detect rogues before they get an opener on you? yes please.

- Sword and Mace Specialiation. +3 expertise.

A rounded version of what orcs get, increases to maces and swords opposed to only axes. A nice DPS upgrade.

- Every Man for Himself – instant – 2 min cooldown. Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.

Huh? where’d this come from! wow, they gave humans the best racial PvP talent in the game, have to confirm if this pops your trinket but from the sounds of it this will put that on cooldown as well, giving humans a free trinket slot to put something else. This talent makes Humans and Gnomes the best PvP races by far.

Night Elf

- Shadowmeld (instant) 2 min cooldown. Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.

This acts like a “vanish” in PvP as it makes you lose your target and interrupts any casting on that target when they disappear for a brief second. An extremely great ability for hunters, but as a death knight you would only use this when your abilities like Anti-Magic Zone and Anti-Magic Shell are not available.

- Quickness (passive) Reduces the chance that melee and ranged attackers will hit you by 2%.

A decent PvP and PvE defensive ability but not that great for PvP.

- Nature Resistance (passive) Reduces the chance you will be hit by Nature spells by 2%.

Makes druids a little easier to handle.

Summary

Horde PvP

Undead – to give you the extra fear/sleep/charm break without the risk of making yourself vulnerable to paladin/priest PvE undead spells. You can also break out of a warlock/priest fear if you aren’t able to cast Lichborne in-time.

Horde PvE – Tanking

Blood Elf – For end game raiding a DK will only be called upon to tank magic bosses and 2% mitigation to this will make you that much better at your specific role. (not saying DK’s can’t tank end game bosses, but min/max guilds will take a warrior for those and dk’s for magic bosses.)

Horde PvE – DPS

Orc/Troll – A tie here going more to the side of orc, but trolls ability has better scaling potential. However I don’t see DK’s getting called upon much to be only DPS, as many of the pure dps classes excel at that role, expect to be brought on raids for tanking.

Alliance PvP

Human – with perception and a free trinket break of any loss of control of your character this will definately be the way to go, with gnomes trailing behind.

Alliance PvE – Tanking

Night Elf/Dwarf – -2% chance to be hit by melee/ranged helps NE’s excel in tanking and dwarfs are close behind getting 10% to armor, however that 10% is only multiplicative on toughness, considering they both are specced fully in.

Alliance PvE – DPS

Human/Draenei – +3 expertise in Maces, Swords will allow humans to dish out more damage, Draenei will get +1% to hit and that buff goes to others as well, close tie here.

Choosing a race can be pretty difficult as you know your decision is irreversable once you make it, blizzard has made big changes to racials and don’t want them to be “game breaking” and in the last patch have deminished the value most of them have in PvE regards. Tauren used to be considered the only tanking option for warriors for min/max guilds but as we saw that was nerfed and now almost any race has a pro/con.

With this in mind don’t pick a race you hate looking at just because of the racial ability, you never know how blizzard will change the racials in patches to come, but this is a good thing to consider in making your decision.

If you found this article helpful in deciding the DK race you want, send it to any of your friends/guildmates who are also considering rolling a DK.