Here’s a fun thematic build I’ve put together and would like some feedback on. I’m currently leveling it and can’t find a blank level 100 toon to test it out with (Anyone has a save file, let me know!).
Death Knight
How to play
Blitz in and start swinging!
Main Damage Skills
Bone Harvest (Entire Line)
Cadence
Blitz
Siphon Souls
Crowd Control and Buff/Debuff
Spectral Binding
Mark of Torment
Harbinger of Souls
Menhir’s Will
Field Command (Entire Line)
Military Conditioning
Fighting Spirit
My damage is focused on Cold/Vitality. The aether comes from Spectral Binding basically and SoulRend converts 45% of physical to Cold and Harbinger of Souls converts some physical to Vitality as well.
Very little damage comes from sources other than Cold/Vitality.
Here’s what I came up with after looking at yours. I have both Vitality/Cold RR as well as Wendigo/Scales for Life Leach while still keeping the defensive Turtle.
All of my skills either do Cold/Vitality while all of my Devotions do Vitality.
Are you playing Hardcore? I see no other reason to take Turltle, honestly. Also, you really think Revenant is necessary? Kraken-Amatok combo is very solid.
I’ve found, for builds that are in Melee range, Turtle all but eliminates BS one-shot deaths. Gives a nice margin for error in case you stand in a crap ton of AOE or something else. Even non-HC.
Revenant is there for the thematic purpose of the build (Death Knight, raise dead, etc etc) and I don’t need any more damage boosts from kraken as I’m pushing +1500% Cold and +1900% Vitality. The vast majority of my damage is either Cold/Vitality after all.
Edit: Here’s another version that has Kraken. It’s an interesting devotion set up to be honest. Essentially trading Toad and Wendigo for Kraken.
Yes, except for Rashalga, actually. Her retaliation aura can hit through ton of procs, life steal, resists - she doesn’t give a shit, especially if you are melee. My retaliation Tactician can stand near Fabius or Valdaran with health bar not moving at all, while she blows my near 20k HP in one hit. With Ulcama, Turtle, Shieldmaiden, Obelisk and Tree of Life active no less. Still manage to down her with 2 to 1 rate.
But I doubt you want to fight her anyway.
1500+ and 1900+ is… kinda low, actually. With enough stacking you can push the damage near 3k, or even beyond it.
You can also have both Murmur and Bat, for example. But if you want to take Revenant and Turtle after all, I would still advise to seek more sources for cold damage.
I actually tried to come up with a build like this, but didn’t really end up with any item’s that went well together for it so I kinda headed the aether route instead, I know you lose some of the thematics, but I actually think the build looks quite decent on paper.
Aether is a better build for melee DK in my opinion. I just enjoy the Cold/Vitality aspect of it and figured I’d level him up then shelve him until some sets are made for it.
To be honest I’m not sure it’s better optimized because I’ve been away from the game for so long, but the items just made more sense atleast, even tho both our builds actually have compareable damage, but you’re right. It would make most sense just to leave it be untill some sets are actually made for it. But I’m gonna give it a go anyways!
It’ll run fine in Ultimate. If you want tankiness, go Tortoise. If you want more damage, go Wendigo. If you don’t want the skeletons from Revenant, take the points from Revenant and put them in Amatok for Blizzard.
Looking to make a death knight and just wondering what the most painless way of leveling it is in terms of skills. Would you focus on Necro or Soldier first and what skills would be most effective for earlier on?
I’m levelling as pure summon necro just because I started HC this time and had no gear to work with, lvl 67 getting near mid-end of elite, working out just fine. Planning on switching to Death Knight melee as soon as I’m comfortable with the gear I have.
