WOW Death Knights do not have shields but do have good avoidance and powerful anti magic protection that have them being used as the main tanks against magic attack based bosses in raids. Don't think that because they are not able to use a shield that they will not make effective tanks as they do make good tanks if geared, spec'd and played correctly.
WOW Death Knights can dual wield or use 2-handed weapons. They use a unique rune system for their special skills so playing a
Death Knight you will find you will be commonly be using combo rotations to maximize damage and agro. Also death knights gain runic power when using spells that use runs and this runic power can be used to cast spells such as death coil or Frost Strike.
Death Knight talents are split into 3 different trees:
Blood: Talents in this tree focus on weapons, armor, healing, and strikes. A great tree to use initialy for leveling because of healing/damage.
Frost: Talents in this tree focus on armor, control, counters, and combos. Considered to be one of stongest trees for tanking but all trees can be used to tank.
Unholy: Talents in this tree focus on spells, summons, diseases, and AOE. One of the highest damage dealing trees and allows for a perma-ghoul pet.
Updated on Aug 5th, 2009 A total of 30 builds are currently listed
Death Knight Builds(updated for 3.2 patch)As I have people submit builds or I come across them myself I will be posting them here to share. I receive a lot of submissions so sometimes it may take a while for some to be posted and some may not be posted. Thanks for all of your submissions. Please feel free to email me about any of the below or any you wish to add. Please note the build type and number for ones you wish to comment on.
You can see the current trees at: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/
*important note now that patch 3.2 has been released the talent trees have changed so the old builds on the site are being converted or are now obsolete. I am adding new builds as I find/receive them. As you can see a lot of the previous blood builds were not effected but frost and unholy were. It may take a a couple of days to completely convert some of the other builds and add some new ones, please be patient. The builds below are new or converted builds and all of the old builds should be all be removed now.
Blood Builds (updated for 3.2) 16 Builds currently listedDPS Builds
1 - 50/0/21 - Blood/Unholy DPS High DPS raiding spec using Death Strike. Rotation: PS>IT>HS>HS>DS>UB>(DC til rp is empty) HS>HS>HS>HS*(DS)HS>HS
2 - 50/0/21 - Blood/Unholy DPS #2 Also a high DPS raiding spec, all of the major damage traits are the same just some difference in survivability.
3 - 51/0/20 - Blood Pure PvE DPS This is a pure blood dps build for raids. Rotation: IT>PS>HSx2>DS>DC while runes refreshing do Heart Strikes if diseases are still up.
4 - 44/0/27 - Blood Ghoul High DPS raiding spec with perma ghoul, blood worms
5 - 51/2/18 - Pure Raid DPS, Blood/Unholy Please note you can replace glyph of Rune Tap with Dancing Rune Weapon to increase damage. Rotation: PS>IT>DS>HS>HS>Hyst>DRW>Refresh runes DS>HS>HS>HS>Blood tap>HS also helps to use that when your raid leader or party leader tells the shammy to use hero ive hit 4-5k easy in first 20 seconds of the fight after your initial burst its: PS>IT>DS>HS>HS>ONE DC (because your death strike will do more damage if you keep RP) Please note you can replace glyph of Rune Tap with Dancing Rune Weapon to increase damage.
Tank Builds
6 - 45/5/21 - DPS Off Tank It has the benefits of Bloods survivability / crits and the ability for good AOE control from Unholy.
7 - 55/7/9 - Blood Tank Build DS is used in the DK blood tank spec instead of oblit.
8 - 55/8/8 - Self Healing Tank This build centers around three aspects:1. Damage Reduction (Avoidance) 2. Heavy Agro Generation 3. No Fuss Self Healing
9 - 58/13/0 - Blood Spec Tank\DPS I am able to tank or off tank with this build. I can also DPS with it. I know Unholy still gets higher but I have recently load a damage meter and in the last few heroics I have been in I have been second in damage done and DPS( a ret. pally beat me both times). I have Frost spec-ed as me second talent spec. When I compare the two the blood is better. I have higher HP's and better aggro. The Frost spec does have higher Armor and can take a hit better, but I have been finding I can last longer in blood. The healers like it to because as a frost tank I lose aggro and they start getting hit. My rotation is IT, PS, OB, HS, HS, RS, DC, and for more then one mod it is DnD, PS, IT, Pes, RS, DC, HS, HS. My crit hits for around 4.2k to 5.7k. My dps is 1.75k normally. I am still working on the T7 gear. I am miss matched right now with some tanking and some dps gear.
PVP Builds
10 - 48/23/0 - Blood PVP build This is a PVP build based on Lichborne/Death Coil Heal and Death Strike Heal. This is mostly a build with huge survivability and and avrage damage. Rotation: CI>>IT>>PS>>HS>>HS>>BT>>DS If low health drop HS and do VB>>RT If Blood Tap is on CD Drop CI If target has low health I recomend keeping HS>>HS and just do Lichborne/DCx3
11 - 44/0/27 - Blood PVP DS Build Its a very easy handling build which makes your DS the main attack. As you can see almost none of the talents are used to improve Bs or Hs and is more focused on survival no extra pet things would make build more difficult without reaping 2/3 instead of maximizing it i thought 66% was enough. The rotation is simple IT>Ps>BB(x2 or VB)>DC>DS>DS and after that you should have 90-100% hp depending on people around you and i also took in BW and RT for bad situations and if you manage to get in an auto attack between you will be able to get Necrosis and Blood-Caked strikes and impurity increases the effect of them. Hysteria are a free pop you use it before or after killing/battling an opponent or in the middle of a fight Idk.. Improved blood presence is for battling in Unholy Presence faster attacks and lower global CDS. I also tried to get imp Unholy Presence but without MoM crits wouldn't heal that much. Some pluses Increases attack power when using DS, 8% bonus str,6%Stam,6 expertise, after crit 3% physical damage 3stacks. Ghoul is Optional. Some minuses if you use DaD you have will maybe have to reset all Runes. This spec has had up to 5k dps in HoL (hc) don't know about raids.
12 - 51/20/0 - PvP: Chilled Blood This build was developed to increase healing and self sufficiency in arena and some battle grounds. A rotation usable for this is IT—PS—DS—HT—HT—Obliterate—DC(optional Lichborn for healing yourself)—DC—and repeat. Also instead of DC you can use DRW before you restart cycle to increase damage greatly. I put the Endless Winter talent in for the ability to catch running enemies and for the same reason Icy Reach. Toughness is for increasing survivability and decreasing slowing effects, as an additional bonus it increases your AP because of the Bladed Armor talent in the blood tree.
Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility) 13 - 54/0/17 - Leveling - On a bloody pale horse Leveling build kinda similar to "on a bloody pale horse".
14 - 61/0/10 - Blood Leveling Build #2 A blood build with good damage and survivability talents selected. You should be able to be constantly be killing without having to rest.
15 - 53/18/0 - Blood Leveling Build #3
16 - 53/18/0 - Bloodtalons (Blood/Frost dps) rotation: IT, PS, HS, HS, Obliterate. HS, HS, HS, HS. then start over with IT, PS, HS, HS, Obliterate, pop the dancing runeblade as soon as you're at full runic power
Frost Builds (updated for 3.2) 5 Builds currently listedDPS Builds
1 - 0/53/18 - Frost/Unholy DW Raid DPS Build Has all the strong frost talents, as well as picking up the talents in unholy that scale well with dual wield. The rotation focuses on the power of obliterate. Killing Machine and Rime procs are to be used together to get the optimal dps. If rime procs hold it until you get a KM proc, if KM procs save it for a Rime, or let it be consumed by the FS dumps at the end of a rotation. The simple rotation is: IT PS OB BS BS Dump OB OB OB Dump Priority Rotation: Frost Fever, Blood Plague, Killing Machine + Rime, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Frost Strike
2 - 3/51/17 - Frost/Unholy DW Personal DPS Build This spec sacrifices improved icey touch in order to improve personal DPS. It uses Glyph of Disease to maximise the usage of Obliterate and Rime procs. Rotation: OB -> OB -> BS -> Pest -> Dump OB -> OB -> (Dump) -> OB -> Dump
3 - 3/51/17 - Frost/Unholy DW Variant Death runes are used for OB in this spec. Killing machine should be used with rime procs whenever possible. Rotation: IT PS OB BS BS Dump OB OB OB Dump, Presence: Blood presence, Runeforges: FC/RI, Sigil: Awareness
4 - 16/55/0 - Frost/Blood DPS Build
Tank Builds
5 - 13/51/7 - Frost Tank Build
6 - 7/52/12 - Frost Raid Tank Rotation: it>ps>bs>bs>oblit>dump, Multi mob rotation: fs>bb>bb or dnd>hb
PVP Builds
Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility)
Unholy Builds 2 Builds currently listedDPS Builds
1 - 0/17/54 - Death Coil Spam Build This build uses single rune attacks, and generates a lot of runic power in order to power death coil. Priority: Diseases (BP, FF) > DC > IT > BS > GF > PS, Rotation: PS IT BS DC GF IT BS DC PS IT IT DC DC PS IT IT DC DC, Presence: Unholy - You need a lower GCD to fit all the single rune attacks. Runeforges: FC/FC, Sigil: Vengeful heart
2 - 0/18/53 - Unholy Obliterate DW build This build takes uses 3 diseases to make obliterate do higher damage. This build requires high end gear. Priority System: Diseases(BP>FF) > OB > BS > UB > DC. Presence: Blood, Runeforges: FC/FC, Sigil: Awareness
3 - 19/0/52 - Mujahadeen's Blood Raid DPS Survivability Went into blood to pick up the anti-threat stuff, improved rune tap and the increased crit chance. Skipped 2 hand weapon specialization because 4% white damage is not as important as increased crit chance in my opinion. Unlike most unholies, I skipped desecration totally because in most boss fights it doesn't work (bosses/adds move too quickly), skipped desecration because I'd rather blow my RP on death coil than on popping a disease, and skipped impurity because most DPS from a dk is from melee damage not spell damage. Instead I maxed out my ghoul, gargoyle, and the other disease-damage related abilities, and picked up corpse explosion for some burst AOE. I've found this spec maximizes my DPS and survivability in raid and PVP situations. My philosophy is: you can't DPS when you're dead.
4 - 0/18/53 - Drajii's Raid DPS DW build This is a unholy DW build really good dps almost as good as the 0/33/38 the old hybrid with HB i loved its AoE the rotation is IT,PS,SSx2,BS,UB also you want to use Ghoul frenzy as often as possible for the 25% haste and makes it hard to kill with its heal 60% of its health in 30 seconds.
5 - 0/13/58
6 - 0/17/54 - Unholy/Frost DPS Build(not DW)
Tank Builds
PVP Builds
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Other Builds(Solo/Leveling/Utility)
Hybrid Builds (updated for 3.2) 2 Build currently listedDPS Builds
Tanking Builds
PVP Builds
1 - 37/34/0 - Bloody Cold Obliterate This build is a great pvp build. It gives you great survivability with Rune Tap, Mark of Blood, Vampiric Blood, Improved Blood Presence, Toughness, Improved Frost Presence and Hungering Cold, but this build doesn't stop at that. It allows Large burst damage, mainly from obliterate, and with Deathchill(auto crit), and Hysteria obliterate becomes deadly. Cast sequence should be IT or CoI, PS, BS, BS, Hysteria, Deathchill, OB.(feel free to pop Hysteria whenever you see fit)
2 - 0/35/36 - Bone Chilling Cold This build is similar to Bloody Cold Obliterate it just shifts its dps from two-handed melee damage to DW shadow damage. It retains survivability through Magic Suppression, Anti-Magic Zone, and Bone Shield. Plus the same frost bonuses in the previous build. This build has more consistent dps between, DW, Disease and Shadow damage, and the benefits of having a perma ghoul to chase down any kiters. Also with Deathchill you still can have fun getting those big Obliterate crits.</LI>
Subject: DeathKnight Builds 
