Unholy wasn’t changed all that much in the last patch. Scourge Strike has been altered so that it now deals 70% weapon damage plus 12% physical damage dealt as shadow damage, per disease on the target. According to the notes, this change was made to allow Scourge Strike to hit a little harder in Pvp. Also, now Unholy Blight prevents diseases from being dispelled. This change is intended to make Unholy a more attractive Pvp option.

Unholy spec focuses on disease damage, with strikes as a backup. These mechanics make Unholy the ultimate AoE spec; but a little less ideal for single-target battles. The primary specs are these:

Unholy AoE [17/0/54]

Glyphs: Death and Decay, Icy Touch, Disease

Rotation Openner:       

Rotation 1:     Dump(   )

Rotation 2:      

Unholy Single-Target [14/0/57]

Glyphs: Dark Death, Ghoul, Icy Touch

Rotation 1:        

Rotation 2:     Dump(   )

As soon as 3.3.3 hit, all the wowhead.com spec links died. I’m really not happy with that. As I’m sure my readers aren’t. I usually use those links to go back and revise my specs. I couldn’t even do that this time around. So, for the future, we’ll be using Mmo-Champ talent calculator links.

Of the three trees, Blood saw the least changes, from a dps view. The biggest change that comes to mind is that the Abomination’s Might raid buff is now passive instead of being triggered by strikes. What this means to you is that the order of Heart Strike and Death Strikes in your rotation will in no way affect your Abom’s Might uptime. Those of you who like to group the six Heart Strikes together can do so without affecting your buffs (I’m talking to you Cappadocian).

The other large change to Blood was an alteration to Will of the Necropolis, which is a tanking-only talent. The change got rid of the internal cooldown placed on the ability back in the Naxx days.

The bread and butter of this spec is still alternating Heart and Death Strikes and still centers around proc timing to pull off the best possible Dancing Rune Weapon. Make sure to continue to keep your speed pots around to improve your damage.

My advice to the Blood devotees out there is to live it up while you can. If you’re unhappy with these changes, feel free to let Blizzard know about that in a constructive non-QQ way.

Blood Single-Target DPS [51/0/20]

Glyphs: Dark Death, Dancing Rune Weapon, Death Strike

Rotation 1:       

Rotation 2:      Dump(   )

Frost DPS is my favorite spec, I guess I just like the style. It suits me.

Following Naxxramas, Blizzard pretty much killed Frost-based Dual-Wielding specs (and Unholy-Based Dual-Wielding specs). The problem was that these specs relied on Icy Touch spam to make ridiculously consistent Killing Machine procs. At the time, Killing Machine wasn’t really normalized, so the faster your weapons were, the more procs you could get, essentially buffing your crit percentages to insanely high numbers at the time.

In response to this, Blizzard nerfed Icy Touch, and some Sigils that took advantage of it. They also normalized Killing Machine to a procs-per-minute setup. The damage of Dual-Wielding specs was slaughtered, pushing most dps Death Knights to Unholy and Blood.

Popular demand forced Blizzard to redesign the Frost tree and make Dual-Wielding a viable option again. Nerves of Cold Steel, Threat of Thassarian, and changes to Obliterate were added to essential turn Frost into the Dual-Wielding tree. Frost is an iconic path for Death Knights in Wow Lore, while Dual-Wielding is a play-style that many players are drawn to. Part of it is rebellion against the norm and being different, part of it I believe is just personal preference.

The frost tree has always been more magic damage than melee. While Blood fills the melee-based roll, and Unholy is traditionally for AoE, Frost fills a spot in between. In a fight like Lady Deathwhisper a Death Knight can help kill those mobs that your Warriors, Paladins, or Hunters would be otherwise unable to kill effectively.

Strengths
* Frost excels at single-target damage, while still retaining competitive AoE damage via Howling Blast.
* Frost relies more heavily on magic damage than Blood.
* Frost provides raid utility in the form of Imp. Icy Talons, a haste buff similar to Windfury.
* Enhanced damage and survival via Unbreakable Armor.

Weaknesses
* Other classes can provide similar raid buffs.
* Weaker AoE damage performance.
* Weaker defensive capabilities, lacking the avoidance and mitigation of Blood or Unholy.
* At this time Blood or Unholy have a slight dps advantage.

Weapon Speed and Frost DPS

In previous incarnations, Dual-Wielding relied on Fast\Fast weapons or Slow\Fast weapons to achieve maximum dps. Since Killing Machine, one of Frost’s best procs is now based on procs per minute, slower weapon speeds are best. Get yourself a good 2.60 swords or axes (or maces if you’re a dorf) and you’ll achieve maximum dps. For best effect, you should use Fallen Crusader on your MH and Razorice on your OH.

Glyphs

Glyph of Icy Touch
Glyph of Obliterate
Glyph of Frost Strike

0/54/17 Rotation

Rotations for Frost are based on a priority system. Which will look kinda like this: Frost Strike (Killing Machine) > Diseases (IT, PS) > Howling Blast (if Rime and Killing Machine are up) > Obliterate > Blood Strike > Frost Strike. A priority system means that the priority queue is evaluated when deciding which ability to use; instead of following a set rotation. Please keep this in mind as you consider the rotation below.

General Frost rotations will look something like this.

Rotation 1
     Dump(  )

Rotation 2
    Dump(  )

NOTE: This ability list is prone to change based on your Killing Machine and Rime procs. For instance, when you have a Killing Machine and Rime proc, you should use Howling Blast. When you have a Killing Machine proc, you should use KM prior to hitting Icy Touch again. Also, I'm still trying to find some good stat weights for Frost.

Yesterday, we looked at an Unholy AoE DPS build. Today, we’re going to delve into Blood DPS. Blood is awesome because it’s old-school melee dps. This spec offers the highest theoretical Single-Target damage.

Strengths
At the moment, Unholy Single-Target specs appear to have a slight dps lead, but that is subject to change.
High Single-Target DPS – Highest possible theoretical single-target dps of all Death Knight builds.
Scales well with two or three targets
Raid Utility – Raid utility in the form of Abomination’s Might and Hysteria.
Improved Survivability – You gain improved survivability thanks to Improved Blood Presence, enhanced Death Strike, and Blood Worms.

Weaknesses
Raid buffs are duplicable; they aren’t specific to the Death Knight.
Works best with excellent connectivity, lag results in missed GCD’s and diseases can fall off
Weak AoE performance, Blood, at least this build, focuses more on Single-Target DPS.

A Note On DRW

Dancing Rune Weapon is your premium Runic Power Dump for Blood spec. Remember that DRW gains damage based on the buffs that you have at the time. You want to maximize your temporary buffs when using DRW. First, make sure that your diseases are up and at their peak duration. Secondly, make sure that Hysteria is up, and that you are ready to use your Trinkets. Most importantly, make sure that you are at maximum RP. Sometimes, you can’t coordinate all of these while keeping with your current rotation, or Hysteria may not be up because it has a longer cooldown, but try to meet as many of these conditions as you can to maximize your damage.

51/0/20 Rotation

Rotation 1
     Dump(   )

Rotation 2
     Dump(   )

Glyphs

Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon
Glyph of Death Strike
Glyph of Dark Death

Stat Weights

For information on what these stat weights mean, please see my BiS post

Weapon DPS 9.89
Strength 2.89
Armor Penetration 2.75
Hit Rating (to cap) 2.51
Haste Rating 1.5
Expertise Rating 2.47
Crit Rating 1.56
Agility 1.37
Attack Power 1

Stat Weights via ElitistJerks