Need help on how to improve DK 3.3.5

[blubberfat]

Hey guys, I would like to first start off by saying that I'm fairly new to WoW only been playing a couple of months and I'm trying to learn as I go. I was just wondering that at this point in the game (Lvl 80) on what gear I should get and focus on and from where I can get them. Currently I'm a blood DK PVE DPS, with a gear score of 3372, but I've been hearing a lot that blood DK is a poor choice for DPS and I should switch to unholy or frost, I've been considering frost so another question I wanted to ask was which one has the better DPS output at this stage in the game and what items I should focus on for a frost DPS. I aprreciate guides but they only post end game gear that I will eventually get so I was wondering what gear should I look for from heroics, and other dungeons to be able to build up to NAXX to start building end game. All help is appreciated thank you

My gear is as follows

Head: Spiked Titansteel helm
Neck: Emerald Choker
Shoulder: Iron Dwarf Smith Pauldron(I realise this is a tank item, but I have yet to find a better alternative)
Cape: Cloak of Bloodied Water
Chest: Savage Saronite Haubreskk
Wrist: Cast Iron Shakles
Weapon: Runeblade of demonstratable power
Sigil: Sigil of haunted dreams
Trinket: Crusaders Locket and Canoneer's fuselighter
Rings: Titanium Earthgaurd (also tank, I know but needed it to get my GS up)
Scarlet Signet
Feet: Death Injured sabatons
Legs: Legplates of the Oculus Guardian
Belt: Verdungo's Barbarian Cord
Hands: Gauntlets of Dragon Wrath

I didn't know how to post pictures so I listed them, nor do I know how to link them.

Thank you in advance!

[dike]

like that thread with needed info is on the same page. i wont even bother asking u to use "search" function and obviously i wont link u that thread. if u cant find it on the first page of dk section, u dont deserve to be heard here lol

[blubberfat]

Instead of being a pseudo-cocky arrogant elitist dick you could actually help out a new player who's struggeling, not everyone has a grasp of the game or knows how to find what they're looking for on forums, so please get off you're high horse as you hide behind a computer screen insistent to bash players while trying to be coy and keep up a facade as pseudo "badass" through wow while in reality you're the reason why the WoW community has it's stereotypes of negativity, arrogance, and immature behavior, in short, either post a helpful reply to someone trying to enjoy the goddamn game or go crawl up your own *** and not reply and waste my time, and evidently your time ;)

[dike]

such an attitude just proves that im right lol. i dont give af about "new to wow,struggling" players like u, who pretends that everyone needs to help them. i even pointed out that thread which u need is on the first page of dk forum. and if u trying to insult me instead of figuring things out by urself, w8ing that i will use search instead of u, why should i even reply to u?

[Allskill]

Blood pve dps is only viable with tons of armor penetration, due to the fact most of the dps comes from physical abilities. With the current tier itemization you will not be able to get enough ArP for blood to be viable. This is why unholy / frost is currently superior. (Only applies to Lordaeron, if you play on Ragnaros / Deathwing you can disregard)

For frost, you want to go for plate items with crit / haste, while keeping your hit / exp caps. There is a pre-raid bis item list here for you to reference.

At this tier (again, applies to Lordaeron only), I personally would go for subversion and bladed armor over necrosis and blood-caked blade / subversion, which is what the end game guides mention, although this is debatable. I cant be bothered to link a full talent tree atm.

Remember you can create a fresh 80 dk on the ptr realm with end game naxx / icc tier items for you to experiment around with and to dps test with.

DPS "rotation" is pretty much the same as the rotations listed in the end game guides. (But hopefully you know by now dps is not about a rotation but about priorities and reacting to different situations)

Hope this helps.

[Gyoza]

For lower gear, I would go unholy, since its less gear dependent. Once you get to icc you can swap to frost if you like it more. A lot of people say one spec is better than the other for dps, so im not so sure im right here, but so far, ive done better dps as frost bis (with the exception when buffs stacked, which doesnt count coz it was a bug). Unholy has good AOE dmg, but the only thing they provide that noone else can is crypt fever, and that only buffs spriest devouring plague and dk's dots. Frost gives a melee haste raid buff (enhancement shamans can also give it, if talented for the 20%) and blood dks got the ap buff that 2 other classes can give and hysteria which is a unique burst buff. I still prefer frost for serious raiding instead of getting an enhancement shaman and unholy for pvp. If you play on ragnaros, ill be glad to help if im online. My nickname is Gyoza

[taralej]

Allskill explained it quite well - Blood has very high base numbers, which make it look like it deals big DPS, but that's only until you reach 80 and actually start PvEing. Also, this is 3.3.5a so Blood is a lot weaker than it was on 3.0, being capable of competing with the other specs only after you acquire a decent amount of ArPen.

So we're turning to Frost and Unholy now. Unholy is never a bad choice for DPS, not now and not even in endgame... if it worked. From what I know, the ghoul doesn't benefit correctly from the DK's stats even on Lordaeron and Scourge Strike also doesn't scale the way it is supposed to. And that leaves us with the only spec viable for this content - Frost. Threat of Thassarian was a talent added on 3.2, so Frost has a huge advantage over Unholy and Blood right now, significantly out-DPSing them. As Allskill said, Bladed Armor + Dark Conviction subspec is stronger on low gear than Necrosis + Blood-Caked Blade, as you need a lot of ArPen and haste to make the latter worthwhile.

And yes, these things only apply for Lordaeron. For the old realms you just tank as Blood and DPS as Frost, period. Blood is the best spec for ICC tanking and Frost is the only fully working DPS spec on these realms.