@Stupid_Dragon Hi, im newbie here and i followed your build here and currently level 50 with this, so what is the perfect time for me to switch from Forceway to Candance build.
Either switch at 65 or 90 for maximum effect, that’s the breakpoints where faction gear pieces become available.
To be honest, these days I’d simply keep forcewave until I got Krieg set and a decent Celestial Halberd and switch to 2H Blade Arc, skipping Cadence altogether. The build is old, the game have evolved.
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Tks man and BTW do you have twitch or any youtube channels, i would love to follow to get more knowledge of the game since im bored of reading stuffs, just want to watch someone play.
Nah, I’m not a streamer. But I wholeheartly recommend RektByProtoss streams.
@Stupid_Dragon: thank you so much for these brilliant guides. I’m a returning player, haven’t played since 2016. I’m about to play co-op hardcore, likely on hard. We have no starting items oor other characters.
I wanted to ask:
(1) is this build viable with the recent expansions?
(2) do you have any supplementary build to recommend for my co-op friend?
(3) are there any other builds that you think are noob(-ish) friendly and hardcore viable?
Thank you!
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I recommend Warlord (soldier + Oathkeeper) instead if you want sword and board. The guide was written when Oathkeeper wasn’t released yet. If it has to be Deathknight I’d level with 2H Forcewave and then switch to 2H Blade Arc.
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Some AoE caster (Demolitionist or Arcanist based), Fire Strike Purifier or Primal Strike Vindicator, or something pet related, perhaps Conjurer.
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Most of my builds was levelled on hardcore with additional artifical limitations to emulate a fresh start. But I avoid actually calling them HC viable, except this one, which was initially a joke. The reason is HC viability being an experience thing. I can level to 100 with some glassy builds while beginners will die even with something that appears to be excessively durable to me.
Anyway, if you want some beginners builds you can find them there, in the first post under “Beginners Build” tab.
But if you want something that would guarantee you level 100 on HC with zero experience then you’re out of luck I’m afraid.
Hah, definitely not my expectation. Thanks for all of the tips! Can’t seem to find a good Warlord beginner build that has a breakdown of stats / skills etc and is up to date with the recent builds. But I’ll figure something out…
Basically same as my build on the soldier side but you want Safeguard, Presence of Virtue and Celestial Presence on Oathkeeper side. A bit more difficult to min max but it’s going to be better.
I’m not sure I understand the order of leveling skills. When do you start investing in military conditining, menhir, etc I compared to my other build with soldier and got those earlier than blitz and rending force and it’s way more effective than this.What am I missing here?
My usual priorities when levelling a character, not just deathknight or soldier:
- Damage and core stats from mastery bar
- Passive defense
- Everything else
Why it’s like that - damage is just needed so that fights didn’t take too long, and fights easily deteriorate into slugfest if you don’t pursue damage early on, at least on Veteran difficulty. Rending Force in particular is crazy damage boost, first point gives you +20% physical damage for Forcewave and the rest of investment is quite efficient as well. At 12/12 it’s +175% physical damage, which is huge that early in time. You should also understand that enemies scale crazy early on too in durability department and then it flattens out a bit, so rushing damage is basically keeping the pace with them. Similarly core stats from mastery bar are needed to keep up with gear requirements that raise very quickly early on.
It’s baffling that you consider picking up Military Conditioning, Menhir and whatever else to be more efficient that my approach. Military Conditioning gives literally same shit as just pushing mastery bar higher, moreover it’s a percent modifier so obviously better later on. Menhir is good on paper but in practice it’s just not needed because Forcewave is an incredibly safe playstyle, assuming one possess basic kiting skills. Whatever you hid under that ‘etc’ is also going to be pretty secondary.
yeah it’s probably an issue of playstyle lol. I’m still very early on in the build so it might be my early impression. Some times it clicks later on in the build for me. How would you recommend distributing the devotions? Do you just add whenever you have a point or do you accumulate them and put it all at once?
I’d add them as you get them since the ones that have proc skills on them gain levels with your XP gains. Since the tier 1’s can go up to L25 max it makes sense to start them gaining levels as soon as you can since they add to your damage output.
Depends. Sometimes I’ve got a clear idea how I want my devotion path to be, sometimes I just play the game while accumulating 4-8 points and then think where should I invest them.
Sometimes I just try out new stuff too just for the sake of trying out something new. Ironic, but I level DK right now too, Forcewave for now but going to switch to Blade Arc later. I broke all kind of common sense which tells to rush Kraken and got Dire Bear instead, because I wanted to try it out.
In general I don’t treat devotions as something rigid like a lot of new players do. It’s a flexible tool that can give you stats your build and gear is missing, and you can always adjust it later on.
alright, now that i’ve adapted my playstyle I can totally see the build, it really is effective. I went up a few levels and yeah I was wrong lol. My last question is for level 18, did you mean 3 points in Rending force or is there a typo?
Yeah, 3 points into Rending Force.
Basically you need 16 Forcewave and 12 Rending Force and 1 point in Tremor, then rush Oleron’s Rage. Internal Trauma is unnecessary.
So this build although fairly old has been updated and is still viable it looks like right? I’m just starting to play bought the game and all it’s expansions and plan to follow this build and then hopefully I’m able to farm gear to try all the other fun builds too 
Not…quite…
The guide is two years old, the game was different then. For example there was no Oathkeeper, so anything + Soldier was a fair game for the shield guy. Now if you want a sword and board build you go the cookie cutter Soldier + Oathkeeper, period. If S&B is the goal then this guide is in fact outdated beyond repair. You can replicate my shield cadence setup, just there isn’t any meaning anymore.
If you simply want an edgy class named Death Knight and don’t care much if it’s S&B or not then you can still use this guide, except when it says “it’s time to switch to Cadence” you ignore it and keep levelling with Forcewave until the bitter end, farm Krieg set, etc. Death Knight ain’t exaclty a bad class, well, not good one either and perfectly average sounds just right.
I’m currently levelling a new DK in a similar way to this one, but my endgame plan would be 2H Blade Arc with Celestial Halberd and Krieg set (which I expect to be a silly strong budget build) instead of that silly Cadence affair. If all goes well I’ll post it in a month maybe, and then I can finally put big red “obsolete” on this one without pissing any of the fans.
ahhh thanks Stupid_Dragon got it, so it seems you’ve contributed quite a bit to build guides thats awesome! I don’t want to go way off topic but what of your builds would you recommend for me just bought the game and the expansions so I have no items it will have to be all on self found gear. I haven’t even made a character yet but I’m about to 
All of my ‘beginners’ series build guides are self-found proven. Out of stuff that’s not too dated I have Blademaster, Dervish, Infiltrator, Spellbinder, Templar and another DK which is pet-based. I can recommend any of them except Pet DK, which is self-found proven too, but microcontrolling skeletons and still fighting close quarters is beyond normal player’s capabilities.
As for the list of beginner build guides you can check the Compendium, they are under the Builds for Beginners.
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Hello man,
Is there any similar build like that with forcewave ?