So, you decided that you want to PvP on your DK. Awesome. I'm going to lay out some basics and give a rundown of abilities we commonly use in PvP in this section. Questions are welcome, but please read tooltips and talents applicable before asking obvious questions.
Basics
Death Knights have a lot of abilities to master.
This one should be obvious; we have a literal sh*tton of abilities. Learning how to use them to the best of your ability will be the key to successful PvP.
You should be ready and able to switch presences depending on situation.
Your presences are all very different and should be used in different situations. I use all three in PvP. You shouldn't be stuck in one or another.
Death Knights play a very different type of PvP than other classes do.
Where rogues try to get in melee range and nuke someone down, or mages try and burst someone in shatter combos, DKs have the ability through specs to be very versatile.
So by this point, it should be pretty obvious that DKs are complicated to play in PvP. This is partly true and partly false, and no, I didn't just lie to you.
There are nuances to this class, much as there are nuances to other classes. This guide is written so that you can go from being one of those facerolling DKs that gets 30 KBs in a match but dies 15+ times to the DK that gets 40 KBs and dies once or twice. Through wise use of our cooldowns and with a good spec, this is very easy to do.
That said, let's move on.
Abilities
Frost Presence
This is our "osh*t" presence. With the amount of incoming damage that's reduced by this presence, it's great for getting focused. You don't get the advantages of Blood or Unholy presence, but you take a lot less damage, which makes it ideal for when you're trying to kill multiple enemies. This presence is getting nerfed in patch 3.1 (15% reduced spell damage is getting changed to flat 5% reduced damage of all types), but it will still remain the presence that I usually start every arena match in.
Blood Presence
Blood presence is a sustained damage presence. It is terrible for burst damage. No matter what anyone says, it is far inferior to Unholy presence for burst damage. On the other hand, it's incredible for sustained damage and putting pressure on healers. The 15% damage boost in this presence applies to all of our damage (but not pet damage), including Gargoyle and disease damage. This is usually the presence I switch to after the other team blows cooldowns on burst damage on me, or if they switch off me.
Unholy Presence
This is our burst presence, in addition to giving us more run speed. I usually only swap to the presence when I'm about to pop a Empower Rune Weapon for burst.
Chains of Ice
The only snare Death Knights have without speccing or glyphing. A very useful ability, especially with the tier 2 Frost talent, Icy Reach. PvP set gloves have a bonus that gives a chance on cast for the Frost rune used to immediately refresh on using this ability. This ability is a magic effect and can be cleansed by paladins, priests, and can be eaten by a Felhunter's Devour Magic.
Icy Touch
As this uses a Frost rune, it's of limited use in PvP if your opponent is trying to kite you. Yes it applies a disease and yes it does damage, but if you're getting kited that's of almost no use to you. There are exceptions to this, but I'll get to that in my talent discussion.
Blood Boil
Almost worthless in PvP except for when you've got the Blood Boil glyph. In patch 3.1 it will be close to useless, depending on it's damage.
Icebound Fortitude
Incredibly useful in PvP as it makes you immune to stuns for 12 secs. It also reduces damage, but using it for damage reduction isn't advised unless there are no stuns that can come out at that point. I use this while I'm kiting warriors, building RP with CoI for when they Intercept, and with rogues after they open, instead of trinketing their KS.
Anti-Magic Shell
Again, incredibly useful. Not only does this reduce magic damage by 75%, but it builds RP as you take damage, and it makes you immune to magic effects cast on you during the duration. I especially love popping this against mages and locks when they're trying to fear or poly me. Full resists FTW.
Death Grip
Possibly one of the most useful things a DK has, as it only doesn't work if someone is immune to magic (i.e. a DK using AMS/in AMZ) or is rooted/stunned. I love burning a warrior's spell reflect on this ability, as it pulls me to them and leaves me free to use my spells. Very useful against hunters when they use Disengage, locks when they use their summoning circle, warriors when they intervene, and mages when they blink.
Mind Freeze
Essentially a rogue's Kick. Has a 10 second cooldown with a 4 second lock out of the spell school. Only works in melee range.
Strangulate
Probably the single most useful ability DKs have for PvP, IMO. 5 second silence effect with a 30 yard range. This ability is so important that I get off at the right time that I've macroed the next ability with it, so that I have it ready on command.
Blood Tap
Turns a blood rune into a death rune. Doesn't seem great at first, but it refreshes that rune even if it's on cooldown, and it doesn't set off the GCD; in fact, if you've got the GCD going while you activate it, it'll reset the GCD to allow you to immediately use an ability, such as Strangulate. This is key as you may need to do a split-second Strangulate in an arena match in a CC chain.
Empower Rune Weapon
Same deal as blood tap, except it does every rune and doesn't convert them into death runes. Gives you RP as well. Like I said before, I use this in a burst chain which I usually switch to Unholy presence before so I can burn 12 runes in a row. This combined with Gargoyle or Dancing Rune Weapon amount to ridiculous amounts of burst.
Death Pact
One of our more useful abilities, and heavily underused. Summon a ghoul as you're at 20% HP, DP it for a 40% heal that can crit for double that, effectively healing you for 80% of your health. I've had DPs that healed me for 15k. It does destroy your ghoul, so specs with a permanent ghoul should use this ability with care. Will not be able to crit after patch 3.1 goes live.
Pestilence
Useful in BGs and 3v3s and 5v5s. I don't really use it much in 2v2s and never at all in 1v1s. Useful with the glyph of Blood Boil, as Blood Boil will snare every target with diseases up in a 20 yard radius around you.
Rune Strike
I'll be honest, I spend my RP on much more useful things, with how bursty arena is currently. Stuff like AMS, IBF, Gargoyle, DP, etc. Can be really useful against rogues, but the 40 RP cost kinda detracts from it, IMO.
Army of the Dead
Only useable in BGs and world PvP, but it owns face. You can also DP these ghouls if your ghoul isn't out/up.
Death and Decay
Useful in getting stealth classes out of stealth. Not very useful otherwise.
Death Strike
Not terribly useful as the damage sucks, but useful enough that I have it on my bars. I use it rarely, but can make the difference in a 1v1 when you're down low on life waiting for your ghoul and DP to be up again.
Raise Ally
Completely and totally OP in arena and deserves a nerf. You raise one of your allies up to fight for FOUR MINUTES as a ghoul. They can use a stun, shadowstep, and a claw attack. I'll cover a macro for this later, as to my knowledge it requires a target to work.
Raise Dead
Raises a ghoul. Not too useful other than to DP as blood and frost, but for unholy, this is our bread and butter. Permaghoul is incredibly useful, as it can stun.
Plague Strike
Decently useful. Very useful as unholy, as this will spread a Desecration circle, which is essentially a Frost Trap. Removes HoTs 100% of the time until patch 3.1, and Blood Plague has a 25% chance on a tick to remove a HoT.
I'll cover build-specific abilities in their individual tree breakdowns.
Edited, Mar 21st 2009 3:29am by Theophany
), and when I get bored I usually write FAQs. I figured since writing my rogue guide helped me become a better PvPer, I'd start writing a Death Knight version. This will cover basics (because let's face it, no one is an expert at DK PvP yet) on up to how to beat that lock/resto shaman comp that raped you for 120 rating last night.