AOE grinding guide at lvl 60Follow

This is a 2-part post, so bare with me. And mind you this is only my experience, and have taken the time to share it. Critique all you want, but unless you try it for yourself please remember that we’re all learning and trying new things.

This is what I'm using now, and it's powerful! But please note this is not the full version of the spec I’m recommending at level 65 (I’ll respect to move a few talents around)>

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents.html?tal=2010000000000000000000000002000000000000000000000000000230212330103113203150003133100

This build is working for me and I think it’s the best for leveling by AOE grinding. I always pull at least 3 mobs and end with full health (unless Death Strike fails to crit-heal too often - which is rare). I try to get 4-5 if possible and use my pet ghoul to tank 2 of them. These mobs are usually =< 1+ level higher than me. Ideally you would pull 1-2 levels lower to reduce damage, but with certain DK damage mitigation and self-healing this usually isn’t an issue.

PART 1: SPEC’IN (lvl 60)

Wiki Linkhttp://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jbbZZfghh0ckrcq0csu

This is really a dual-spec at level 60. You’re like, “what the heck man? You cant dual-spec at 60 and be effective”. And you have a point, but you can’t do what I’m about to do while leveling if you don’t.

UNHOLY: to take SS, EP, and WP! These are your massive AOE disease talents and allow you to place heavy hitting diseases on multiple mobs. SS does +dmg per disease you have on ALL mobs (not just the target you are attacking. Notice I have not gone all the way down to Rage of Rivendare and Unholy Blight…I will take them AFTER I’ve gone down Blood tree to get the talents there first.
1. Morbidity - AOE dmg
2. Epidemic - increased time for diseases
3. Ravenous Dead – imp ghoul survival. If he dies you will have a hard time surviving.
4. Virulence - to ensure I’m hitting with my Death Strike. VERY important to hit with DS when your overwhelmed and dying.
5. I’m taking anticipation over any tier 3 talents as they are not essential to this strategy. However Impurity will be the overflow talent.
6. Blood-caked, Dirge, Gargoyle and of course
7. Reaping and Master of Ghouls – fill in the extra point in Impurity. runes are key to keeping your death strike rolling to self heal
8. Full desecration
9. Crypt fever and Bone shield…extra point in Impurity
10. Fill in tier 9 Ebon Plaguebringer - crit-o-licious diseases and Deathstrike healing crits for 1100-1500+ each hit! Wandering Plague! Key AOE grinding talent! You'll see what I'm talking about when you see your diseases swarming your screen with yellow damaging crits...it's overwhelming...in a good way :)

**I took Imp Icy Touch for the imp Frost Fever as it helps reduces damage that multiple mobs do, but I need to respect and put the points in blood.

Lastly, I'm going down Blood for Death Rune Mastery (I'll respec out of the Frost and a couple Unholy talents when I hit 65 to take full Death Rune Mastery). This will free up your cooldowns on runes. As you should know by know (since I just learned 2 days ago…hehe) that death runes are like wildcards and can be used as any rune class (blood, ice, or unholy rune). I’m looking forward to getting to this point. A key Blood talent as you’ll see in my play strategy is generating extra Runic Power so I always take Butchery.

PART 2: PLAY’IN
1. I open the fight simply pulling mobs running by them, having ghoul attack a 2nd/3rd and pulling the last with Death Grip. You should have 4-5 mobs. Now getting them in your vicinity is where this strategy succeeds or fails. The key is getting you ghoul to pull one or two mobs AT THE SAME TIME! While he’s gaining agro on those, and you’re pulling yours, they should stay on him until the mass AOE damage really starts kicking in. However, you must ‘call him back to you’ by putting him on Passive stance. He’ll start heading back to you with the mobs in tow. When he’s close enough you must switch him back to defensive (or aggressive) to keep his DPS up.
2. Once I have them heading toward me I start the attack with Icy Touch to apply Frost Fever and Plague Strike for Blood Plague. These will then proc Ebon Plaguebringer for a total of 3 diseases on the first mob. Once your ghouls has returned and your mobs surrounding you - let the fun begin!
3. Infect them all using Pestilence.
4. Cast Death and Decay centered on mobs (not yourself or you may find yourself trying to pull them around). Don’t use Blood Boil yet! I know it’s tempting, but you’ll take agro off your ghoul too soon.
5. Now your job is to keep yourself alive and maintain your diseases on all the mobs going. Hitting with damage-dealing spells is secondary! The key to keeping yourself alive is Death Strike and getting it to crit heal for that 1100-1500+ hp. To do that you have to use it often which use your runes.
6. Now Blood Boil and Corpes Explode all you want, but remember you want to try and keep your health near full so you can keep grinding. Your cooldowns and runes don’t synch quite right yet until you get to about level 68 when you should also have added Death Rune Mastery.
7. Take down the weak ones first. I prefer Scourge strike since you should have 3 diseases and the talent vicious strikes (massive single hit crits at lvl 60!). If your runes are not up Blood-caked talent should be kicking in and doing enough white damage itself, but you’ll probably be applying Icy touch and Plague strike enough to keep you busy. This gets me into my secondary strategy…
8. Using gargoyle! He is a heavy hitter and stay active as long as you have the 8 RP to sustain him. If you start a fight with some RP already, then by the time you started the fight and summon him you should have a full bar – but DON’T summon until your bar is FULL, or you’ll wait the summon. This is why I’ve dual-spec’d even at lvl 60 for the RP generating talents. When you’re AOE grinding you get LOADS of RP and the Gargoyle is the best way to spend those points fighting 4-5 mobs equal to your level. Mobs 2 levels lower die too fast to make it worth it sometimes, but still tons-of-fun!

That’s about it for the grinding strategy. If you find something is working better for you, or that you’re not ending fights with full health try some variations. Like I said, it’s working for me. You may want to look at your spell crit chance too and get that up since that’s what gives you the large healing in combat. Remember too that DKs crits are always doubled, not 50% extra damage like the standard. This is what separated the standard classes and the hero class. Hence, DKs crits can go upwards of 250-300% normal damage/healz! Pretty sweet, huh? And you as a DK’er need to capitalize on that.

So, Blood spec’d DKs may be able to heal themselves better, but it seemed too much of the normal grind. Hope someone find this as fun as I am. Happy hunting! - Æcoli