picture with all permanent buffs, Ulzaad’s Decree and Soul Harvest
Introduction
Perhaps you’ve seen my Beginner’s pre-Krieg Death Knight before. It’s an old build I made back in 2018, and I never really considered it to be among the best of my works, quite the opposite actually. But somehow that build became wildly popular and still gets linked from time to time, which is a bit embarrassing. I even wanted to slap “outdated” on it sometime after Forgotten Gods release because you want sword & board you get Warlord instead. Moreover, interest in Death Knights, especially Krieg set based ones, was in decline, so I wasn’t sure my “pre-Krieg” build has any meaning if noone posts an updated follow up.
Anyway, here’s a new build I made to actualize Death Knight. It’s still good old hyper effective 2H Forcewave levelling up to level 90, but instead of the out of meta shield cadence transition it is now a state of the art Celestial Halberd powered 2H Blade Arc build later in the game. It’s free of quirks that made me question my own older build, so I can recommend it wholeheartly.
#BestStarterBuild2020
Mechanics of Physical Damage
Physical damage is a special case because unlike other common damage types (like fire, aether, etc) it is reduced not only by it’s respective physical resistance, but by armor as well. Yes, it is not just player mechanic – enemies do have an armor value too, which is an impactful factor when making a physical damage build.
Contrary to what one might expect armor value isn’t simply subtracted from the total physical damage you inflict upon an enemy at the moment you hit. This is because that “total” exists only as a tooltip, in reality you’re inflicting all sources of your damage separately. The weapon’s base damage, the built-in damage of a skill, the flat damage you get from buffs and auras and these small flat damage bonuses of gear pieces too – they are all considered to be independent instances of damage. And armor is actually subtracted from each one of them.
In practice it means that enemy armor is negligible for big chunks of physical damage while small chunks of physical damage suffer a lot. They aren’t completely nullified no matter how small they are because of the armor absorption stat – if armor is bigger than damage instance then armor absorption acts as damage reduction for that damage instance. Enemies don’t have means to increase their armor absorption past the default 70%, so in cases of damage instance being too small it’s reduced to 30%.
The last detail, which is actually hyper important, is that armor applies only to native sources of physical damage. Damage that became physical via conversions from other damage types completely bypasses armor. Ironic, but while native physical damage is known to be lackluster, converted physical is one of the best damage types in the game.
Rules of thumb:
- Physical damage works better with 2H weapons than with 1H weapons. Armor effect is usually negligible for 2H’s high base damage, while for 1H it’s still in the area where it could have a noticeable effect.
- Stack damage. Base values are one thing, but in the end armor is subtracted from the actual damage instances. It’s a runaway effect, the higher damage you deal the less impact armor has on your damage overall.
- Ignore flat damage pieces smaller than 30 (before %bonuses, ofcourse!). They are severely affected by armor.
- Ignore the above for damage that was converted to physical. Converted physical is not subject to armor.
Levelling
Test character was levelled on Hardcore from zero (no stashed items and no blueprints). I started on Veteran and went through vanilla campaign, then switched to Elite difficulty, which I cleared with all DLCs. Once I’ve done all I wanted on Elite I started Ultimate, which happened around level 90. Total time it took me to level 100 is around 28 hours. Mind that this time includes farming Krieg set and other stuff.
Generally I do not recommend skipping DLC campaigns to new players. This is because factions of interest are exactly the DLC factions, so if you skip you will be missing a good chunk of reputation, which you’d have to somehow grind up later anyway. This character is a major exception because unlike all of my other builds it doesn’t rely on faction gear (still needs augments though).
Levelling is done with Forcewave until levels 95+. What, boring you say? Well too bad. This build isn’t about having fun. It’s about crude efficiency. The ultimate shortcut to farming high end content from scratch.
Attribute distribution is around 30 into physique to wear high end heavy armor and around 10 into spirit to wear high end jewelry, the rest goes into cunning for damage.
Levels 1-20
Start with Soldier. Early on you can level by just picking a random rifle and shooting everything, but you should prioritize getting the 2H melee weapon and rush Forcewave with Tremor. Suggested by-level path:
| Level | |
|---|---|
| 2 to 5 | 1 point into Soldier Mastery Bar, 2 into Forcewave |
| 6 | 3 points into Soldier |
| Kasparov | Tremor, assuming you’ve already got 2H Melee stick |
| 7 | 3 points into Forcewave |
| 8 to 11 | 2 points into Forcewave, 1 point into Soldier |
| 12 | 1 point into Soldier, 2 points into Rending Force |
| 13 to 17 | 2 points into Soldier, 1 point into Rending Force |
| 18 | 3 points into Rending Force |
| 19 | 2 points into Rending Force, 1 point into Internal Trauma |
| 20 | 3 points into Soldier |
This is an optimal variant tested many times. Actually, you don’t have to follow it point to point, as long as you understand the principle. The principle is to progress Soldier bar and Forcewave in parallel, pretty much one point into Soldier bar per point invested into Forcewave. It isn’t wise to rush forcewave without improving the bar because then you’d end up with low stats.
I’ve been asked before why I don’t take Menhir’s Will, Military Conditioning, etc. This is because early in the game enemy’s health scaling is pretty steep on Veteran, so you need to permanently raise damage to beat that scaling. Defense is easier to get from gear and frankly this early in the game best defense is just wiping shit instantly.
There’s a stone golem boss (Ancient Shambler by name) in the Flooded Passage that drops Shambler’s Heart. I insist you farm this one item, because it boosts Forcewave a fair bit. Chance to drop is 50%, so it shouldn’t take much farming. Affixes don’t really matter at this point.
Once you rescue the Blacksmith craft a couple of Scaled Hides and Wardstones. Unfortunately there are no weapon buff components for physical damage, so if you’re looking for what to put into your weapon I suggest Purifier Salt.
Levels 21-35
Very very trivial – you rush for Oleron’s Rage, get Oleron’s Rage maxed out, then open Necromancer and go for Spectral Wrath. I don’t think any sort of expanded commentary is necessary here.
Level 35 is where you get access to your first faction gear, but the only faction you’d probably have Respected with at the time is probably going to be Devil’s Crossing. Still you should check out their quartermaster for goodies, perhaps some things there would be better than what you’re currently using. I recommend in particular to get a Devil’s Cord blueprint and craft one for easy +1 to all skills in Soldier. If you have Respected reputation with Rovers already then you should also get the Restless Remains blueprint from them and craft one. It’s very good for Forcewave especially.
As for Relics good ones at these levels are Guile and Sanctuary, but both require a randomly dropped blueprint.
Levels 36-50
First get 15 in Necromancer, then 1 point into Spectral Binding and max Spectral Wrath. Next max out War Cry and Break Morale. These are resistance reduction skills available to Death Knight so they will bump your real damage a bit. War Cry would also make you more durable due to damage reduction. It is a skill you should spam on cooldown in fights. After than start investing into Field Command and Squad Tactics, perhaps a point or two into passives to capitalize on +1 to all skills in Soldier in case you have it.
There are two good Monster Infrequents to look for this level range. One is Obsidian War Cleaver dropping from specific Chthonian enemies that inhabit deepest parts of the void. You’d probably meet them in good quantity close to the end of vanilla campaign. Another item to look for is Fleshwarped Casque, which drops from aether-corrupted Mistborns. You’ll meet them first in the locations around Homestead, later on a good place to look for them is Fort Ikon dungeon, Plains of Strife and Necropolis.
Late 40’s is about the time you’ve cleared Normal (or Veteran) and moved into Elite.
Levels 51-65
Finish on Field Command and then max Military Conditioning too, then just aim to push Necromancer to 32 for more base health and stat points.
Nothing special is going on this level range, simply proceed through Elite vanilla campaign and then Ashes of Malmouth campaign.
Levels 66-75
Same as the previous level range, nothing special. Assumingly you’ll reach Malmouth on Elite somewhere in the middle of that level range. In that case I’d recommend to grind reputation with Malmouth Resistance so that you could buy Malmouth Vanguard Cuirass from them. Then it doesn’t really matter how you reach 75, you can either do Forgotten Gods campaign, switch to Ultimate until 75, try Shattered Realm or roguelikes on Elite, or just boringly grind exp anywhere on Elite. It is a rare case when certain level is the goal itself rather than something that naturally happens while you do content.
Skill-wise get Fighting Spirit and push necromancer bar to 32. Not like it has much meaning, you’ve simply cherry-picked all the important stuff already.
Levels 76-84
It is the level range where you start grinding Krieg set, which drops if you have level 75+ according to the database. I tried grinding before that mark and had no success, so I can only assume that database is correct. The first piece dropped for me at 78 and the last one at 86 or 87.
Krieg set pieces drop from Valaxteria (shoulders, hands), Fleshweaver Krieg (head, chest) and Terrnox (boots). Valaxteria is pretty much on the way to Fleshweaver Krieg so it makes the most sense to do Valaxteria and Krieg first. If you’re lucky Krieg would drop his stuff early, then runs would become much shorter.
Krieg set pieces can’t be transmuted with Inventor just so that you knew.
Definitely pick up Blitz to speed up the runs. I’ve also got more points into Ravenous Earth to reliably proc Assasin’s Mark and the rest of points went into Menhir’s Will.
Levels 84-90
If you haven’t got Krieg set yet then continue to grind it, otherwise do the Forgotten Gods campaign on Elite. Your goal is Tomb of the Heretic because you want a decent Korvan Celestial Halberd which drops from Keeper of the Seal and similar enemies inside the tomb. I recommend to get your first Halberd on Elite because it’s easier.
Other than that you’ll have to grind reputation. Krieg set farm would bring you to Revered with Malmouth Resistance and Black Legion unless you’re unbelievably lucky. Then you’d want maxed reputation with Cults of Bysmiel, Dreeg and Solael. Especially Cult of Bysmiel since you want Potent Bysmiel’s Shroud for your weapon. Cult reputation I personally grind with mix of bounties and totem runs.
Skill-wise start putting points into Spectral Binding.
Levels 91-100
There are a few more Monster Infrequents which you need access to, that’s Mogara’s Fangs, Balthazar’s Crest. Ideally you also want decent Cronley’s Signet’s and Solael-Sect Legguards, but the latter can be replaced temporarily with Coven Storm Seal and any crafted green pants with abundance of resistances. Farming all of that on Elite is pointless, so move into Ultimate.
You can technically snap Krieg set on yourself once you’re level 94, but I’ll be honest with you – it’s not the easiest respec ever. Krieg set is pretty good, but while it has juicy physical resistance common resistances are a bit lacking. Pierce and bleeding would be of least concern while everything else would need to be found on other slots. The reason it’s not the easy respec is because you probably have your resistances sourced by items that would need to be replaced with Krieg set.
What I did is replacing my items with Krieg set pieces one by one, while simultaneously farming for the abovementioned set of Monster Infrequents to cover up the resistances.
This is also the level range where you’re switching to Blade Arc with Celestial Halberd. At first DPS would seem to be the same as Forcewave, but once all the items come in you’d be looking at much higher numbers.
Skill-wise do tweaks until you reach close to my final setup. Consult with Endgame Skill Min-Maxing section when not sure.
Devotions
- Crossroads (purple)
- Hammer
- Crossroads (blue)
- Eel
- Dire Bear (bind proc to Forcewave)
- Crossroads (green)
- Scholar’s Light
- Kraken
- Empty Throne
- Ulzaad (bind proc to War Cry)
- Toad
- Remove Scholar’s Light
- Remove Crossroads (green)
- Remove Hammer
- Solemn Watcher
- Assasin’s Blade (bind proc to Ravenous Earth)
- Panther
- Remove Eel
- Azraaka (without proc node)
- Wolverine
- Crossroads (yellow)
- Remove Dire Bear
- Oleron (without head node, bind proc to Forcewave / Blade Arc)
- Owl (3 nodes)
This is an optimized route. It’s roughly the same one I did when I was levelling, but I usually try various stuff when I level, I simply cut away steps I found to be unnecessary to make the devotion route neat and short. Don’t be surprised that levelling character snapshots have slightly different devotions.
Endgame Skill Min-Maxing
Blade Arc - main skill, you want as much as possible here.
Laceration - max it; while the main benefit is the attack angle, extra targets and critical damage, which kind of have a breakpoint at 12/12, flat physical continues to scale well and becomes a respectable 178 extra physical damage at 22/12
Oleron’s Rage - max it, you can always use more damage and offensive ability. Given the absurdly high crit damage on Blade Arc which exclusive skill to get shouldn’t be a question.
War Cry - definitely max these days, since it nets you 1% extra damage reduction per point even past the softcap, which is a very reasonable investment.
Break Morale - max it, it was buffed recently so I’m using it as a flat RR source instead of picking up one from devotions. Good uptime with Krieg’s Mask.
Blitz - one point for mobility.
Blindside - one point for freebie Defensive Ability reduction.
Field Command - I prefer maxing this, because OA/DA scaling on it is quite respectable even past the softcap.
Squad Tactics - keep at 12/12, investing past that isn’t worth it.
Spectral Binding - max it, Korvan Celestial Halberd will convert that flat aether into physical, and since converted physical bypasses armor it’s not worthless. Moreover, given high crit damage of the build it can always use more Offensive Ability.
Spectral Wrath - max it, resistance reduction skill.
Bone Harvest - one point needed to enable Soul Harvest.
Dread - possibly one point for extra range, but I don’t find it terribly important.
Soul Harvest - taken for flat vitality damage buff. Korvan Celestial Halberd will convert that vitality damage into physical for Blade Arc, and since converted physical bypasses armor it’s not worthless.
Ravenous Earth - I use the skill to proc Assasin’s Mark, but at low investment it only has 3-5 fragments, which makes it less reliable than I’d want it to be. So I bump Ravenous Earth a bit to get more fragments. Good spots are 6/16, 9/16 and 11/16, anything more than that would be an unreasonable investment.
Mark of Torment - in case all other means of defense turn out to be insufficient.
Military Conditioning - sweet spots are 11/10 and 14/10.
Veterancy - one hard point and let +skills do the rest. It’s here for physique requirement reduction, which together with Military Conditioning allows putting less points into physique and focus on cunning instead, bumping damage and offensive ability of the build.
Menhir’s Will - at least 6/16 and then as much as you can reasonably afford.
Decorated Soldier - one-point, the returns on this skill are not that good.
Scars of Battle - keep at 8/8, it’s a lot of good CC resistances and armor absorption, which allows you to avoid using Scaled Hide in the final setup and get the resistance-heavy component instead.
Fighting Spirit - still a very questionable investment even with the recent buffs
Endgame Items & Farming
Weapon - Korvan Celestial Halberd (GT Link)
- Drops from Keeper of the Seal and similar enemies past the door he guards. You can farm just the Keeper, but it’s probably more efficient to do the whole dungeon.
- Must have attack speed affixes. Even “of Alacrity” is fine.
- The absolute fantasy version would be something like Barbaric Korvan Celestial Halberd of Voracity.
Chest - Krieg’s Chestguard (GT Link)
- Drops from Fleshweaver Krieg
- Player must be level 75+
- Can farm on Elite, Ultimate and maybe Normal as well (didn’t test). Recommended on Elite.
- Ideally max roll on physical resistance (4%)
Head - Krieg’s Mask (GT Link)
- Drops from Fleshweaver Krieg
- Player must be level 75+
- Can farm on Elite, Ultimate and maybe Normal as well (didn’t test). Recommended on Elite.
- Ideally max roll on physical resistance (4%)
Shoulders - Krieg’s Shoulderguards (GT Link)
- Drops from Valaxteria
- Player must be level 75+
- Can farm on Elite, Ultimate and maybe Normal as well (didn’t test). Recommended on Elite.
Gloves - Krieg’s Grip (GT Link)
- Drops from Valaxteria
- Player must be level 75+
- Can farm on Elite, Ultimate and maybe Normal as well (didn’t test). Recommended on Elite.
- Ideally max roll on attack speed and physical resistance (12% and 4% respectively, good luck!)
Boots - Krieg’s Boots (GT Link)
- Drops from Terrnox
- Player must be level 75+
- Can farm on Elite, Ultimate and maybe Normal as well (didn’t test). Recommended on Elite.
- Ideally max roll on physical resistance (4%)
Leg Armor – Grava’Thul’s Legguards (GT Link) or Reaper’s Legguards (GT Link)
- Drop from respective nemesis enemies, which require nemesis reputation with corresponding factions to spawn.
- I would prioritize Grava’s Legguards because they have built-in aether resistance, while Reaper’s Legguards have pierce resistance, and pierce resistance isn’t a problem for this build. Reaper spawn spots are way more spread out, which makes farming him more problematic.
- From affixes you’d want a variety of resistances above anything else, with %physical damage, offensive and defensive ability being a good side stats. Fantasy dream piece for me would be Formidable Grava’Thul’s Legguards of Kings
- Overall not a high priority to farm exactly these pants. If you can manage to get some other pants with respectable resistances they would do you better than MI pants with crap affixes. Also, Solael-Sect Legguards are a decent alternative too. Drop from Guardian of Solael.
Belt - Ugdenbog Girdle (GT Link)
- Drops from crabs in Ugdenbog, good farming spots are Den of Carraxus and Barrowholm Mine
- Priority is resistances, both damage and crowdcontrol, with stats like %physical damage, offensive and defensive abilities, health being a good bonus. Top tier affixes would be Consecrated, Dread Lord’s, Harmonious, Imposing, Incorruptible, Menacing, of Supremacy.
- That said, given that you’d probably want to replace it with Mythical Gladiator’s Distinction later in the game I recommend to not go overboard farming uber affixes here. Get something semi-decent and call it a day.
Rings - Cronley’s Signet (GT Link)
- Drops from Darius Cronley
- Amazing rings because of built-in attack speed. Ideally with Of Alacrity suffix for even higher attack speed.
- You need only one good Cronley ring, the other one can be so-so. This is because you’d want to replace one of the rings with Mythical Ring of the Black Matriarch once you get one.
- In case you’re not mentally prepaired to farm Cronley for a few hours yet Coven Storm Seal is a decent faction option. If you’re going with these rings then get max roll on defensive ability (4%) and attack speed (5%). This is done by restarting the game and shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes.
Amulet - Mogara’s Fangs (GT Link)
- Drops from Mogara
- Ideally with Of Clout suffix, which has nutty bonuses being a relatively common yellow affix. For prefix yet again prioritize resistances. Krieg set is super loaded with physical resistance, but the price for that is less resistances of other types.
Medal - Balthazar’s Crest (GT Link)
- Drops from Nicholas Balthazar
- Any resistance-heavy affixes. Krieg set is super loaded with physical resistance, but the price for that is less resistances of other types. Good secondary stats to have are offensive and defensive ability, %physical damage, health, etc.
- Can be a bit difficult to farm because it has both physical and fire bias, and the latter ends up being a magnet for not only fire, but elemental affixes as well.
Relic - Deathstalker (GT Link)
- Blueprint drops from Manticore Deathstalker in Ancient Grove on Ultimate difficulty.
- Before that use any Soldier relic, namely Juggernaut, Oleron’s Wrath, Menhir’s Bastion, Doom or alternatively Serenity
Conclusion
The build turned out to be super strong, as I totally expected. While it’s not as strong as some of the top tier high end setups you can find on the forum it is pretty much the strongest budget setup I posted so far by great margin. Don’t expect my next builds to be similarly powerful, this one is just kinda broken in terms of power versus how fast it comes online. As of now the character you see on the screenshot has 35 hours clocked in-game (from scratch on hardcore, mind you), but actually it was in a more or less decent state around 26-28 hours mark and the rest was improving gear just a bit.
This setup should be able to clear SR65. I haven’t done it yet because HC, but since @John_Smith was able to do it with the very similar budget setup by @Nery it is beyound reasonable doubt that my DK is capable of same feat.
For the very similar but more advanced setup check out this Bloodrager DK build by @grey-maybe
As for my “pre-Krieg” build – for now I’m leaving it be. That build doubles as both Death Knight for beginners and budget shield setup, and while the former lost any meaning now it’s still worth keeping as an example of latter. Hopefully I’ll have an inspiration to do shield Warlord at some point, then the legendary, without false modesty, build of mine can be finally put to rest.
