Hello, I’m Geist.  And yes, I am a chick that plays WoW.

Ok so now that that’s out of the way, on to why I’m writing for SJ. My Main is Geistig, an Undead Death Knight. While I have played a few classes, the Death Knight has been my favorite character since I rolled Geistig the day WotLK was released. I liked the fact that I could choose a viable leveling build from any one of the three talent trees. I liked the fact that I’d be able to pick a viable raiding spec out of any one of the three talent trees. And I liked the fact that Death Knights could serve as DPS or as Tanks.

When I rolled Geistig, everyone was still figuring out the Death Knight class. You couldn’t find a ton of information about Death Knights that wasn’t beta material. And to me…this made the Death Knight class that much more fun. It was still getting figured out. Fortunately folks like SJ leveled up quickly, and I gathered up their ideas and experiences while leveling my own undead knight of death and destruction!

Granted, I’ve taken a lot longer than pretty much everyone else (still not quite 80). But I’ve taken some detours along the way. I’ve spent some time experiencing what it’s like to be a Death Knight Alliance side, I’ve hung out with SJ over on BB leveling some shaman and druid alts, I’ve been testing Dual Wield leveling viability, and taking advantage of the Death Gate to get back into the Old World and help out some friends that kept getting eaten by something.

That’s the one awesome thing about being Undead. After you kill it, you get to bite it back.

Right now I’m working on leveling Geistig to 80 and getting all the gear, enchants, glyphs, etc that she’ll need for end game. Unlike SJ though, I prefer to Dual Wield!! The Undead DK Dual Wield animations are awesome. Geistig practically does some Kung-Fu style moves you’d usually only see on Night Elves. Pfft… why should they get all the fun? I’ve got your Kung Fu Fighting right here!

Dual Wielding

Ok aside from that, there’s a ton of DPS to be had using the 0/33/38 spec. That’s totally on my to-do list. I’m not stoked with the PTR changes to Dual Wield and I’ve tested what I can with a Death Knight that hasn’t hit 80 yet. So I’m hoping that Blizz doesn’t tear up Dual Wielding so badly that it isn’t raid viable (I mean Shadow Priests are raid viable, come on Blizz!!), but hey I play the game. I don’t build it. I don’t think it would be a deal breaker for me if Geistig had to carry a big two hander over dual wielding a pair of hefty axes, but I’d have to say that I’d have a few choice words to say about it (insert mature language filter… here…).

Can you Dual Wield while leveling? Hells yeah! Though I’ve put off Dual Wielding here and there whenever I picked up a really sweet 2 handed weapon just because the improved dps of a brand new blue weapon would cut through mobs all that much faster. When you kill quicker you get XP faster from the kills, speeding up questing in general. Rocket science right?

Weapon drop rate aside, there’s some gearing issues to deal with when you Dual Wield that you don’t have to deal with when working with standard 2 handers.  Such as making sure that you have enough +hit and +expertise.  If you want to land some extra damage with your offhand and make sure that each hit with your main hand makes contact (and brings on the pain), you can’t just slap any green item on. Here and there, you can find some gear that helps out with these factors.

Realistically you don’t want to cheat your performance by trading out a weapon with +strength for two weapons that just have +stamina and +hit. They’ll boost your hit points and they’ll help make your weapon land on the target, but that +strength would have put a little more oomph behind it. Not to mention the fact that you’ll want to select talents that’ll boost DPS, but that aren’t as reliant on pure weapon damage.  DW builds will never do as much damage on Strikes as a 2H build.  So focus on things that increase your spell damage, or can proc damage before focusing on Strike talents. With DW you’re not going to get as much damage per hit.  And the list goes on and on.

Personally, my favorite leveling tree has been Unholy. I love the perma Ghoul, Bone Shield is just hawt!, On a Pale Horse gets you to the quest turn ins a lot faster, and pulling extra mobs with AOE overflow just adds XP. Yep! Nothing like killing a Clefthoof in Negrand, having Desecrate proc, and aggroing a Elek wandering by minding it’s own business. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

So in future posts I’ll offer up more details on current Death Knight leveling specs as well as post some basic Death Knight leveling gear recommendations (with some notes for folks that have the Dual Wielding bug too).  But for now I thought I’d leave you with this to enjoy.

3.0.9 DW Leveling Build

• Try to find a slow MH weapon for Death Strikes when you need the healing.
• Use Death Runes for either IT, DS, or BB as needed.
• Use HB and Corpse Explosion whenever you can.  Combined with BB, this will blow things up like the 4th of July!

ST Rotation

IT -> PS -> HB -> BS -> BS  -> Dump

IT -> PS -> HB -> IT -> IT  -> Dump

AoE Rotation

IT -> PS -> Pest -> HB -> BB -> Dump (repeat)

Now before you go, “Are you crazy?”  This spec is 2 things.  One a rough draft, and Two exactly the same premise as what SJ normally recommends.  Some tanking talents go a really long way when leveling, especially when you want to AoE!!  Which I love doing.  SJ mentioned 3.1 will probably come out within the next few weeks, so I’ll try to get working on some 3.1 leveling specs too.

-Geist

P.S.  This is what my sexy Death Knight looks like:

Totally hot?!  I know right?!  You totally dig her bones. 

Tags: Geistig, Power Leveling, Specs