Part seven of my controller friendly build series: Physical Leviathan Cadence Death Knight
Grimtools link.
1.2.0.2 update: build updated to clear SR90
To start, I should acknowledge RektbyProtoss’s Leviathan Death knight. I made my build without looking to see if it had already been done. As it turns out, RektbyProtoss had created something very similar. Except for the amulet and boots, everything in my build was done without looking at RbP’s build. That said, the similarities made me wonder about whether I should post this as a separate build, but ultimately I decided to for a few reasons:
- My build is rated for SR90, while RbP’s build is rated for SR65, which is much much much easier to reach.
- This is updated to 1.2.0.2.
- Like all my builds, my Death Knight is confirmed and tagged as controller friendly. I think RbP’s is controller friendly, but it’s not in the tag.
- My Death Knight has no MIs.
- My Death Knight has a few different skills, most notably Menhir’s Bulwark instead of Oleron’s Rage, and I don’t use Bone Harvest/Soul Harvest.
- I believe my active devotion skill choices are superior, more on that below.
Overall, despite the lower OA and DA, I believe my build is substantially tougher, and I think it has more damage as well, which is good for high SRs. I have higher sheet DPS (unless RbP’s is without Fighting Form active), higher WPS percentage and greatly improved Zolhan’s Technique.
Regardless of their relative merits, this one can clear SR90, although I wouldn’t try it much higher.
There is also a max damage variant which uses Voldrak’s Crusher, but won’t be tough enough for high SR. It’s good fun though.
Deadly Momentum is active in this screenshot, since it has 100% uptime, other temporary buffs are not:
Video proof of clear
Fight tips
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Offense: Ulzaad’s Decree is on Great Tide so that you can use it when you like. Save it for when you need the damage or defense. Use War Cry on CD for it’s insane resist reduction, and make sure to Blitz/Blindside important enemies on CD as well for the DA reduction. You actually have a .5 second gap between when these skills come off of CD and when their debuffs wear off, so don’t need to hit them exactly on CD.
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Defense: Save Mark of Torment for when you need the protection.
Gear
As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR.
Essential Gear:
- nothing is essential; this build will work with any of its items replaced with a lesser alternative.
Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:
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Leviathan: weapons are important. Voldrak’s Crusher does more damage, but leads to lower defensive performance.
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Ring of the Black Matriarch: +2 to cadence, and -10% physical resistance makes it really good.
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Avenger of Cairn: 4% cap to all resistances (and another 4% to aether), and a bunch of health and DA make it super valuable.
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Warborn Visor: +1 to all skills is great, and the -3s recharge to War Cry means you can perpetually debuff your enemies with it.
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Warborn Pauldrons and Warborn Chestguard: bonuses to key skills, and provides a pretty useful 3 item set bonus.
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The Crimson Claws: 60 degree arc increase to Cadence +2 extra targets is great. That brings the Arc to 300 degrees, and 8 targets.
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Windshear Greaves: not sure how I missed them in my intial build, they’re really good.
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Arcane Harmony Leggings: I know I’m probably the biggest fan of these, but I believe a build is only as strong as its weakest link, and without disruption protection you will really struggle against certain enemies. +84/126 spirit goes towards the spirit requirements of your gear, and +84/126 DA is awesome as well. The resistances are good too. I don’t know why other people don’t use this as much as I do.
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Serenity: helps finish your Chaos resist, and gives +1 to all skills. Doom or Oleron’s Wrath would give you more damage, but to clear SR80 with a melee build you need a lot of defense.
Other stuff:
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Gladiator’s Distinction: turns all Vit into Phys, and has a nice passive. But there are probably other strong options here as well.
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Mark of the Dreadblade: There isn’t a great fit here, but it gives you some mediocre bonuses (Cadence only needs 12 points to hit its maximum of 26, so the +3 from Mark of the Dreadblade goes to other, less important, skills.)
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Combustion Band: gives you attack speed and -8% phys resist reduction, but doesn’t boost any of your skills, so there are probably other options.
Devotions
Core
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Assassin’s Blade: Physical RR, so it goes on the main skill.
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Azrakaa, the Eternal Sands: good bonuses to your damage, and gives OA reduction and impaired aim. It’s on Zolhan’s Technique since that is the highest percentage WPS in the build. While Azrakaa won’t be procced on CD, the debuffing it provides should still have very high uptime.
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Kraken: 26% attack speed, and other good stuff.
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Dire Bear: the armor reduction isn’t too important, since pretty much all enemies have low armor. Apparently, (thanks Gnomish_Inquisition), each flat source of damage gets reduced by armor individually, so there are around 10 sources on an attack, making Dire Bear worth a few percent damage increase. But by putting it on War Cry it gets a 100% activation chance, so it’s consistently applied to enemies. Dire Bear also makes War Cry deal some AOE damage every time you use it, and it can instantly heal you to full health if there are enough enemies around.
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Ulzaad’s Decree: putting it on Great Tide means it has a 100% activation chance, so Great Tide goes from a mediocre skill to a useful and reliable buff for when you need it. I forgot about that for the clear in the SR90 video, but I still recommend that.
Not core
- Everything else is mostly for defense. Tortoise is probably worse than Solemn Watcher, so I’m not sure why I went with it.
Skill choices
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Cadence: main damage skill. Max this.
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Zolhan’s Technique, Reaping Strike, and Necrotic Edge: WPS are good, but the way Cadence works is: you do two normal attacks which can proc WPS, followed by the Cadence strike which cannot. So your WPS are far less important than in most auto attack buids.
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Menhir’s Bulwark: this provides more defense than I would have expected. You lose the OA from Oleron’s Rage, and the internal trauma, and the physical % increase, but get 95 flat physical damage back. More importantly, the combination of 17% damage absorption and 17% healing increase makes a big difference in your survivability. 38% resistance to life reduction is nothing to scoff at either.
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War Cry provides great damage reduction, 43 physical resist reduction from Break Morale, and procs Dire Bear on all enemies hit for potentially huge healing.
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Spectral Wrath: AS reduction and Physical Resist reduction make this core.
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Blitz/Blindside: 340 DA reduction perpetually applied.
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Mark of Torment: has low uptime, so save it for when you need it. The number of points in it varies by need. You should be nearly unkillable while it’s active. I found I needed a total of 8 points.
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Everything else: points in passives should be allocated by need, based on the stats of your particular items.
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Bone Harvest/Soul Harvest: I considered these, since much of the damage converts to phys. However, it didn’t actually work out to be that significant, (maybe 10%? I don’t remember.) With this build, the defense you can get from those 13 points is far more important if you’re interested in clearing high SR.
Leveling tips
I levelled this build a few weeks before I wrote this guide, so I don’t remember it super well. I do recall that I found this to be one of the smoothest levelling experiences I’ve had. Cadence is great from start to finish, and there are plenty of sources of defense to keep you alive.
Try to get Azrakaa as soon as possible because it takes so much experience to max out.
