by Zuggy

How do I gain reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade?

There are several ways you will be able to gain reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade.

1. If you’re a Death Knight you’ll have the option of doing four quests which give you Knights of Ebon Blade reputation. These include: Taking Back Acherus, The Battle For The Ebon Hold, The Ebon Watch, and The Light of Dawn. Note: only Death Knights can complete these quests.
2. For everyone else, you can complete the normal mode daily dungeon quests. These quests reward 1 of 4 reputation tokens, one of which is Ebon Blade Commendation Badge. This badge awards +250 Knights of the Ebon Blade reputation when used.
   • Timear Foresees Centrifuge Constructs in your Future! – The Oculus
   • Timear Foresees Infinite Agents in your Future! – CoT: Stratholme Past
   • Timear Forese es Titanium Vanguards in your Future! – Halls of Lightning
   • Timear Foresees Ymirjar Berserkers in your Future! – Utgarde Pinnacle
3. Finally, you’ll have the option of championing the Knights of the Ebon. To champion this faction you must wear your Tabard of the Ebon Blade while you completing other level 80 5 man dungeons. This will award you reputation with the Knights of the Ebon Blade for any mobs or bosses you kill.
   • Non-Elite Mobs Normal – 0
   • Non-Elite Mobs Heroic – 1-2
   • Elite Trash Normal – 5
   • Elite Trash Heroic – 15
   • Super Trash Normal – 10
   • Super Trash Heroic – 30
   • Boss Normal – 50
   • Boss Heroic – 250

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by Zach Yonzon

Today we’ll take a look at the dreaded death knight and try to outline a few key points to remember when facing one. Just as with the first installment of this series, these articles are by no means an exhaustive and complete guide to fighting a particular class. PvP depends greatly on context, in part determined by your own class, your environment, your opponent’s spec, and player skill among other things. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s take a quick overview of death knights just to give players a general idea of what to expect.

Dual resources
The main thing that separates death knights from other classes is that they operate using a completely different resource mechanic — Runes and Runic Power. The three basic Runes — Blood, Frost, and Unholy — are a constantly regenerating or more appropriately, refreshing, resource that can be used to cast spells. Because they renew at a constant rate, the closest parallel resource to runes would probably be rogue Energy. On the other hand, Runic Power is generated when the death knight attacks or uses special abilities but decays over time through inactivity. In this way, one could imagine Runic Power being very similar to warrior Rage.

Death knights basically have two sets of spells that use two different resources. The advantage that death knights have over other classes is that Runic Power is the only one of the two resources visible to opponents, such that there’s no way for players to know what Runes are off cooldown. Even if players were to memorize the Rune requirements of a spell, all three death knight trees have talents that can conditionally produce Death Runes which count as Blood, Frost, or Unholy Runes which complicates matters for those who like to keep track of these things.

Furthermore, death knights also have a few spells which require absolutely no resources such as Death Grip, a spell that very often sees use in PvP. Blood Tap is a spell that converts a Blood Rune into an active Death Rune and uses no resources, although demands 6% of the caster’s base health. Then there’s the Frost talent Lichborne, an extremely useful PvP talent, which doesn’t use either Runes or Runic Power. As an added bonus, none of the aforementioned abilities trigger the global cooldown, which make them usable pretty much anytime.

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

This section of the Death Knight guide is all about the gear you use and the improvements that you can apply to it.  You spend a lot of time leveling, questing, and raiding to earn your gear, but what is it that really makes a piece any good?  Which stats are good for which type of Death Knight?  Better yet, what can you do to make that gear even better?

We start this guide by looking at the basic and advanced stats that you will require as a Death Knight as both a DPS and Tanking character.  Since gear lists change all the time depending on your level or the current raid content you are working on, it is far more important to have a good understanding of the stats you are looking for rather than the pieces at that level or in that raid.

As a Death Knight, unlike most other classes, you can choose your role regardless of which talent tree you wish to focus on.  This means that unlike a Paladin tank that must spend most if his talent points on the Protection tree, as a Death Knight you can choose to tank with the majority of your points in any of your three talent trees.  The same holds true for DPS.  Each tree offers enough to make you viable as either DPS or Tank.

Basic Stats

Lets Start out by looking at the basic stats and see which is best for each type of Death Knight.  Remember though that these are only your basic stats – Strength, Stamina, Intellect, Agility, and Spirit, not your advanced stats.  The next section will cover your advanced stats and they are at least as important as the basics, if not more so.

DPS – As a DPS Death Knight your main goal is to get as much Strength as possible since it allows you to cause the most damage. Beyond the stats that come on the gear that bring you the most Strength, don’t even worry about other stats.

Tank – As a Tanking Death Knight your main stat will be Stamina to increase your health pool.   Strength is also a solid stat since it will up your damage output and therefore your threat, but it is a distant second from Stamina.
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Now, dps stats are not as complicated as tanks, however they do differ between the specs
The most commonly accepted specs right now are
Blood:The World of Warcraft Armory
Frost:The World of Warcraft Armory

Stats:
For both specs you want as much str as possible, however hit is also important
Frost you need 5% hit for your yellows to always hit
14%(13 for draenei, 11% with a spriest or boomkin, 10% with both) for your spells to always hit

Blood
8% hit cap, roughly 262 hit, this is the melee hit cap, ignore spell hit cap

The gear:
This is the ToC/crafted stuff
Next time I will incorporate badge rewards
*Note* the ArP on this gear isnt great for frost but is wonderful for blood, not discouraging frosties but maybe wait it out and look for my badge gear version of this coming soon

Now onto the gear
Head:Helm of the Violent Fray – Item – World of Warcraft
Neck:Ancient Pendant of Arathor – Item – World of Warcraft
Shoulders:Majestic Silversmith Shoulderplates – Item – World of Warcraft
Back:Drape of the Undefeated – Item – World of Warcraft
Chest:Breastplate of the Imperial Joust – Item – World of Warcraft
Wrists:Vambraces of Unholy Command – Item – World of Warcraft
Gloves:Gauntlets of the Stouthearted Crusader – Item – World of Warcraft
Waist:Belt of the Titans – Item – World of Warcraft
Legs:Legplates of Relentless Onslaught – Item – World of Warcraft
Boots:Plated Greaves of Providence – Item – World of Warcraft
Ring1:Uruka’s Band of Zeal – Item – World of Warcraft
Ring2:Titanium Impact Band – Item – World of Warcraft
Trinket1:Banner of Victory – Item – World of Warcraft
Trinket2:Mirror of Truth – Item – World of Warcraft
Weapon:Edge of Ruin – Item – World of Warcraft
Sigil: This is debatable but Sigil of Awareness – Item – World of Warcraft is always a good bet

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Did your Death Knight just hit 80 and did you decide to follow the wonderful path that many of us have: Tanking
Well if you took the plunge you probably need a little help, with words and acronyms flying everywhere be it Avoidance,EH,Def,parrygib or anything of the sort you are confused, you are undergeared, and you need help. Well never fear Stangcobra is here.

So lets start with where the gear comes from and a stat overview
The majority of your gear will be coming from badges, however in order to get into heroics you need a def, or Defense of 540, note this is different from defense rating, this is shown in your character sheet as Defense. 540 defense renders you uncrittable against raid bosses. So you can see why this is important

Now: The pre-heroic gear
Head:Tempered Titansteel Helm – Item – World of Warcraft
Neck:Titanium Earthguard Chain – Item – World of Warcraft
Shoulder:Tempered Saronite Shoulders – Item – World of Warcraft
Chest:Breastplate of the White Knight – Item – World of Warcraft
Bracer:Saronite Swordbreakers – Item – World of Warcraft
Gloves:Daunting Handguards – Item – World of Warcraft
Belt:Indestructible Plate Girdle – Item – World of Warcraft
Legs:Daunting Legplates – Item – World of Warcraft
Boots:Spiked Deathdealers – Item – World of Warcraft
Ring1:Titanium Earthguard Ring – Item – World of Warcraft
Ring2:Gal’darah’s Signet – Item – World of Warcraft
Trinket1:The Black Heart – Item – World of Warcraft
Trinket2:Seal of the Pantheon – Item – World of Warcraft
Weapon:Titansteel Destroyer – Item – World of Warcraft
Sigil:Use whatever youve got till you can get Sigil of Deflection – Item – World of Warcraft

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Written by zkygge

Table of contents
1 Talents
1.1 Stats
2 Rotations and Ability Usage.
2.1 Unholy Rotation
2.2 Blood Rotation
3 Consumables
4. Sigils
5. Macros
6. Add-ons

Talents:

I will be covering the following two specs, and these are the specs our Death Knights primarily use.
Unholy 12/0/59 Glyphs are: Scourge Strike, the Ghoul, Dark Death
Blood 51/2/18 Glyphs are: Rune Dancing Weapon, Death Strike, Dark Death

Stats:

Expertise: 6,5% or 26 expertise needed for dodge cap – Different specs gain the following expertise:
Blood 6 – Frost 5 – Unholy 5 (these do show in character sheet)
Hit Rating: 8% is hit cap for special and 2H attacks.
Spell hit cap is 17% – 3% for misery -3% for Virulence = 11% needed. Only a few skills of ours use spell hit cap, Icy Touch, Death Coil, Unholy Blight, Howling Blast AND Mind Freeze. Remember that spell hit cap is on a different conversion ratio than melee hit (check your spell tab in character screen). You will be very close to spell hit cap at 8% melee hit (with virulence).

What stats should I go for?

Strength has been our best stat by far for a long time – and it still is.
With that being said, Armor Penetration for Blood spec, is at least as good as strength – if not better.
When blood specced, aim for the hit/expertise cap, to ease your rotation without dodge/misses. Unlike Unholy you don’t always have that much time in-between a rotation.
I will just leave it at that for now.

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Written by Fenira

UPDATED FOR 3.2
Table of contents

1. Talents
1.1. Stats
2. Rotations and Ability Usage
2.1. Blood Rotation
2.2. Frost Rotation
2.3. Unholy Rotation
3. Consumables
4. Sigils
5. Macros
6. Addons
7. Personal Preference

Talents
Blood Spec, Glyphs are: Death Strike, Vampiric Blood and then either Dark Command or Rune Strike
Frost Spec, Glpyhs are: Obliterate, Frost Strike and then either Rune Strike, Unbreakable Armor or Dark Command
Unholy Spec, Glyphs are: Scourge Strike, Bone Shield and then either Dark Command, Rune Strike or Death and Decay

Stats
Expertise: 15% or 60 expertise needed for the parry cap against bosses (almost impossible to get) – You gain 5 expertise from any talent tree (6 for Blood) and it shows in the character screen.
Hit Rating: 8% is the hit cap for 2H attacks and sepcials.
Spell hit cap is at 17% – 3% from Misery. Since we don’t have Virulence we’d need to get to 14% to be capped, which is almost impossible with the current gear available. However not all our attacks are spells, only Icy Touch, Death Coil, Unholy Blight, Howling Blast and Mind Freeze are spells. In addition to that you are required to get less hit rating to obtain 1% spell hit compared to melee hit, so make sure to check your Spell tab for your actual hit rating.

What stats to aim for
With the launch of TBC tanks started to gem for Stamina so they don’t have to rely on RNG for their survivability. Of course you might get lucky dodge/parry streaks by gemming for avoidance, but you might also get unlucky and take several hits in a row and die. A tank that gemmed for stamina could have survived that just because of the higher HP pool which also gives your healers more time to heal you up. You can always rely on Stamina because there is no RNG involved and the main goal of a successful raider should be to reduce the possible amount of RNG to a minimum. This statement holds true for all three specs which makes it easy to jump between specs without getting different gems each time.

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The basics.

Spec.
At the moment in 3v3 im using a frost 2h spec. you can find it here. Its working quite well but i havnt tested it in 5v5 or 2v2.
the other alternative is the unholy spec found here. this was working VERY well for me in 2v2 with a druid healer.

Partners.
Death knight partners can be almost anything when it comes to PvP.
At the moment im running a Resto shaman/Ass rogue/frost DK. Its going quite well and we currently are at 1256 rating after 3days.
The other setup is unholy DK/Holy pal/Arms warrior. Going for the cleave setup. this retup is pretty good because you ahve two high dps classes.
Or theres the Disc priest/ass or mut rogue/frost DK. I think that disc priests got a buff this patch so they own in any section in PvP.
Having a rogue in your group with a death knight can help you out with burst, interupts and confusion for the other team.

Gear.
NEVER EVER use savage gear. its blue and crappy. Id go for hateful minimum. it should only take a week or two max to farm the honor to get it.
Gem for stats most of the time while adding some resiliance gems in if needed.
Get minimum 75 spell pen(cloack enchant + hands gem + waist or legs Spell pen gem)
Get a 2 piece t8.5/7.5 set bonus (pref legs and hands) for some more DPS and the bonus you get with the two peice.
Save your WG marks for the trinkets and belt if you cant get a better one.

The Priority dps system.
For my death knight i use Plague strike, icy touch, blood strike, obliterate and frost strike for the rune dumps. Make sure to keep refreshing that system to pull out maximum dps.
With my team i start off by letting the rogue going in, sapping their healer then disarming what seems to be their strongest DPS. then we move on to the remaining DPS and when or if the healer gets out of the sap we get our shaman to hex them then we burn down the DPS.
If we ever get into trouble i hungrying cold in the middle of the opposing team to give us time to refresh or heal. Or if we are out of stuns to stop the healer doing what they need to do so we can burn one of thier players.
If our healer dies or we get into even more trouble i use this macro that pops all my ’staying alive’ cooldowns.

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—————–
Old Way: Get to level 58. Summon Ghoul in Ebon Hold. Go to org/sw and kill npcs.
**This has been fixed. You can no longer summon ghouls in Ebon Hold**
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New Way: Get to level 58. Go to Org/Sw. Enter Stockades or Ragefire Chasm. Summon Ghoul. Kill NPCs.
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How to: (for those who don’t know what this is):

*Needed: level 58+ Unholy Deathknight with the quest to speak to the king/thrall.

1. Level DK to level 58 and spec Unholy with permanant ghoul pet.

2. Accept quest to talk to the king/Thrall.

3. Take Stormwind/Org portal and then enter the stockades or Ragefire Chasm.

4. Summon Ghoul, Buff up, ect…

5. Exit and proceed to kill NPCS. Using your ghouls attack button.
(You can go back to the stockades/ragefire every time you need to resummon your ghoul or get away from guards)

*You can kill Auctioneers, Bankers, Innkeepers, Trainers, etc…You can also train them around the city so the people can not use them.
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