Death knight tactics

''Death knight tactics for Mists of Pandaria are presented below. Be advised that the rest of the article is significantly out of date, and that while it may contain some strategies and advice that is still relevant to the current game, much of its content may no longer be accurate.''

Soloing
Rotation and general advice: Cooldowns and situational abilities:
 * Staying in Blood Presence is generally advised.
 * You should be wielding a two-handed strength weapon.
 * Remember to Runeforge your weapon.
 * Before combat, pre-buff with Horn of Winter and Bone Shield.
 * Open with Icy Touch and Plague Strike (or Outbreak) to apply Frost Fever and Blood Plague and Weakened Blows from Scarlet Fever. If you are fighting two or more foes, you should then spread the diseases with Blood Boil (or Pestilence if you haven't learned Scarlet Fever yet).
 * Pull casters and ranged attackers with Death Grip. Use Unholy Command (death knight talent) if Death Grip is on cooldown.
 * If Crimson Scourge is active, use Death and Decay, if Death and Decay is on cooldown, use Blood Boil.
 * Use Death Strike when available, it hits hard, heals, and, after you've activated Mastery at Level 80, it applies the Mastery: Blood Shield buff.
 * If you don't have the runes for Death Strike, use Heart Strike (or Blood Strike if you haven't learned Heart Strike yet).
 * Use Rune Strike as your main Runic Power dump unce you learn it at level 65 (until then, use Death Coil instead).
 * Use Blood Boil to refresh diseases once you learn Scarlet Fever at level 65 (before then, diseases can only be refreshed by recasting Icy Touch and Plague Strike).
 * When fighting several enemies, use Death and Decay. When fighting particularly large packs, Blood Boil will deal more total damage than Heart Strike (the exact break even point varies depending on weapon damage and attack power).
 * Necrotic Strike should be used to maintain the debuff on healers and tougher casters. It should also be used against other enemies when you've got a free GCD and don't have enough runes or runic power for anything else.
 * Once you get Soul Reaper at level 87, it should be used against tougher enemies (in other words, any monster likely to survive until the end of the 5 second countdown) when they're below ~1/3 health. Soul Reaper should also be used for the haste buff while fighting several weaker enemies.
 * Remember, glyphs and talents may affect your rotation.
 * Raise Dead summons a ghoul pet for 1 minute, with a 2 minute cooldown. It should be used against larger pulls and elites.
 * Mind Freeze has a 15 second cooldown, and should be used to interrupt casters.
 * Strangulate has a 2 minute cooldown, it applies a 5 second silence and a 3 second interrupt. It should be saved for elite casters.
 * Anti-Magic Shell absorbs a huge chunk of spell damage on a 45 second cooldown. It should be used whenever you're fighting casters.
 * Control Undead allows you to control one undead enemy as a pet for up to 5 minutes.
 * Icebound Fortitude reduces all incoming damage by 50% for 12 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown (or 20% before you get [[Sanguine Fortitude at level 72). It should be used against tougher pulls, and in emergencies.
 * Rune Tap expends a Blood Rune to heal 10% of your maximum health.
 * Dancing Rune Weapon increases your damage and gives you a 20% parry chance for 12 seconds with a 90 second cooldown. It should be used on larger pulls, and against elites.
 * Empower Rune Weapon recharges all your runes and generates 25 runic power, with a 5 minute cooldown. It should be reserved for tough pulls and emergencies.
 * Vampiric Blood temporarily grants you bonus health equal to 15% of your maximum health, and increases incoming healing (including healing from Death Strike, Rune Tap and Bloodworms) by 25%, both effects last 10 seconds, and the ability has a 1 minute cooldown. When the temporary health bonus expires, it won't reduce your health below 1. Vampiric Blood should be used in emergencies.
 * Army of the Dead is your most powerful offensive cooldown, summoning 10 ghouls with a 10 minute cooldown. The ghouls taunt enemies, making the ability an effective defensive cooldown while soloing. It should be used before particularly tough pulls, and in emergencies when you are being overwhelmed by enemies.
 * Dark Simulacrum allows you to duplicate the next spell the target casts, but it doesn't work on every spell. If you're fighting a caster with a powerful spell, it might be worth a try.

Frost
Rotation and general advice: Cooldowns and situational abilities:
 * Staying in Frost Presence is generally advised.
 * You should be wielding a two-handed strength weapon or two one-handed strength weapons.
 * Remember to Runeforge your weapon(s).
 * Before combat, pre-buff with Horn of Winter.
 * Open with Howling Blast and Plague Strike (or Outbreak) to apply Frost Fever, Physical Vulnerability (via Brittle Bones) and Blood Plague. If you are fighting two or more foes, you should then spread the diseases with Pestilence.
 * Pull casters and ranged attackers with Death Grip. Use Unholy Command (death knight talent) if Death Grip is on cooldown and you don't have a tank in your party.
 * Use Obliterate as your main rune spender. Death Strike can be used in place of Obliterate when you need healing.
 * Use Frost Strike as your main Runic Power dump.
 * Use Howling Blast whenever Rime procs, and to refresh Frost Fever.
 * Use Plague Strike or Outbreak to refresh Blood Plague.
 * When fighting several enemies, use Death and Decay.
 * Necrotic Strike should be used to maintain the debuff on healers and tougher casters. It should also be used against other enemies when you've got a free GCD and don't have enough runes or runic power for anything else.
 * Once you get Soul Reaper at level 87, it should be used against tougher enemies (in other words, any monster likely to survive until the end of the 5 second countdown) when they're below ~1/3 health. Soul Reaper should also be used for the haste buff while fighting several weaker enemies.
 * Remember, glyphs and talents may affect your rotation.
 * Raise Dead summons a ghoul pet for 1 minute, with a 2 minute cooldown. It should be used against larger pulls and elites.
 * Mind Freeze has a 15 second cooldown, and should be used to interrupt casters.
 * Strangulate has a 2 minute cooldown, it applies a 5 second silence and a 3 second interrupt. It should be saved for elite casters.
 * Anti-Magic Shell absorbs a huge chunk of spell damage on a 45 second cooldown. It should be used whenever you're fighting casters.
 * Control Undead allows you to control one undead enemy as a pet for up to 5 minutes.
 * Icebound Fortitude reduces all incoming damage by 20% for 12 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown. It should be used against tougher pulls, and in emergencies.
 * Empower Rune Weapon recharges all your runes and generates 25 runic power, with a 5 minute cooldown. It should be reserved for tough pulls.
 * Army of the Dead is your most powerful offensive cooldown, summoning 10 ghouls with a 10 minute cooldown. The ghouls taunt enemies, making the ability an effective defensive cooldown while soloing. It should be used before particularly tough pulls, and in emergencies when you are being overwhelmed by enemies.
 * Dark Simulacrum allows you to duplicate the next spell the target casts, but it doesn't work on every spell. If you're fighting a caster with a powerful spell, it might be worth a try.

Unholy
Rotation and general advice: Cooldowns and situational abilities:
 * Staying in Unholy Presence is generally advised.
 * You should be wielding a two-handed strength weapon.
 * Remember to Runeforge your weapon(s).
 * Remember to keep your ghoul pet up.
 * Before combat, pre-buff with Horn of Winter.
 * Open with Icy Touch and Plague Strike (or Outbreak) to apply Frost Fever, Blood Plague and Physical Vulnerability (via Ebon Plaguebringer). If you are fighting two or more foes, you should then spread the diseases with Pestilence.
 * Pull casters and ranged attackers with Death Grip. Use Unholy Command (death knight talent) if Death Grip is on cooldown and you don't have a tank in your party.
 * Use Death and Decay on cooldown.
 * Use Dark Transformation whenever your ghoul gets to 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion.
 * If Death and Decay is on cooldown, you should spend your Unholy and Death Runes on Scourge Strike.
 * You should spend your Blood and Frost runes on Festering Strike, which refreshes your diseases. If the diseases fall off, they should be reapplied with Outbreak or Icy Touch and Plague Strike.
 * Use Death Coil whenever your Runic Power gets high or Sudden Doom procs.
 * Death Strike can be used when you need healing.
 * Necrotic Strike should be used to maintain the debuff on healers and tougher casters. It should also be used against other enemies when you've got a free GCD and don't have enough runes or runic power for anything else.
 * Once you get Soul Reaper at level 87, it should be used against tougher enemies (in other words, any monster likely to survive until the end of the 5 second countdown) when they're below ~1/3 health. Soul Reaper should also be used for the haste buff while fighting several weaker enemies.
 * For large AoE pulls, it might be a good idea to work Blood Boil into your rotation, but remember to keep your diseases up on everyone. Roiling Blood can make spreading diseases with Blood Boil even easier
 * Remember, glyphs and talents may affect your rotation.
 * Mind Freeze has a 15 second cooldown, and should be used to interrupt casters.
 * Strangulate has a 2 minute cooldown, it applies a 5 second silence and a 3 second interrupt. It should be saved for elite casters.
 * Unholy Frenzy gives you or an ally a huge 20% haste buff for 30 seconds, but it chews through 20% of the recipient's health, so use with caution.
 * Anti-Magic Shell absorbs a huge chunk of spell damage on a 45 second cooldown. It should be used whenever you're fighting casters.
 * Control Undead allows you to control one undead enemy as a pet for up to 5 minutes.
 * Icebound Fortitude reduces all incoming damage by 20% for 12 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown. It should be used against tougher pulls, and in emergencies.
 * Summon Gargoyle summons a gargoyle to attack your target for 30 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown. It should be saved for tougher pulls.
 * Empower Rune Weapon recharges all your runes and generates 25 runic power, with a 5 minute cooldown. It should be reserved for tough pulls.
 * Army of the Dead is your most powerful offensive cooldown, summoning 10 ghouls with a 10 minute cooldown. The ghouls taunt enemies, making the ability an effective defensive cooldown while soloing. It should be used before particularly tough pulls, and in emergencies when you are being overwhelmed by enemies.
 * Dark Simulacrum allows you to duplicate the next spell the target casts, but it doesn't work on every spell. If you're fighting a caster with a powerful spell, it might be worth a try.

Opening remarks
Death knight tactics have undergone some radical changes since they were first introduced with Wrath of the Lich King's release, and several options that were both viable and competitive have been removed from the game. Cataclysm brought changes to the talent specs that meant this Hero Class is no longer the utility beast it once was - while Death Knights can be effective as a Tank or DPS, they are now more structured due to talent trees being more strictly defined.

Roles
Death Knight can be divided into at least four basic concepts, each of which requires a different approach:

Tanking
Tanking is a concept that has meaning only in PvE groups. Since tanking depends on the game mechanics of threat, it has no meaning in solo play and practically none in PvP. Prior to Cataclysm, Blood and Frost Death Knights could both function as tanks, but talent tree restructures mean that Blood is now the only viable tanking tree. Death Knight tanks work differently to Warrior, Druid and Paladin tanks, in that they specialise in self-healing more so than damage mitigation. They cannot use a shield, so in a similar manner to Druids, they gain a passive bonus to their armor, roughly equivalent to that of a good shield, by being in their tanking "stance" - Blood Presence.

Off tanking
Off-tanking usually happens when a party is attempting kill a group of enemies with more than one serious threat. While the main tank is busy holding aggro on the main threat, the off tank makes sure any secondary threats don't attack the healers and casters. For practical purposes, an Off-Tanking Warrior has exactly similar itemization needs as a Main Tank  Raiding Off-Tanks will be well-advised to carry a set of DPS gear for fights in which either a secondary tank is impractical or DPS is of paramount importance.

Depending on the particular fight, an off-tank may hold a weaker enemy or enemies that the group as a whole focuses on killing quickly while the Main Tank holds aggro on a more dangerous enemy, or they may pull weaker enemies off healers, casters, etc. that the Main Tank has lost aggro on (common when large groups of mobs are pulled, or a bad pull is made).

DPS
Death Knights have a very solid DPS potential. Both Frost and Unholy trees have the ability to produce viable and competitive DPS. Death Knight DPS depends heavily on runes, the global cooldown, runic power, and diseases. Most damage comes from abilities and not white hits.

Many of the DK's damage dealing abilities scale with the number of diseases on the target. As a result, DKs rely heavily on the application and reapplication of these diseases.

In addition, there are a few long cooldown abilities which deliver excellent burst DPS potential. Examples of this are Dancing Rune Weapon (DRW) and Summon Gargoyle. These abilities scale excellently with buffs that at a high level, increase DPS. For this reason, DKs wait before many of these abilities proc at the same time before popping their long cooldowns.

Enemy Casters
Death knights have two baseline spell interrupts for dealing with casters, Mind Freeze, a melee interrupt that prevents spell from the same tree to be used again for three seconds and Strangulate, a ranged silence which lasts for 5 seconds. These are usable assuming that the Death Knight has enough runic power or a blood rune respectively. Mind Freeze's runic power cost may also be removed with the Frost talent Endless Winter. Depending on your race, one other spell interrupt can be added to this list; War Stomp for Tauren and Arcane Torrent for Blood Elves.

Along with many interrupts Death knights also have ways of reducing both magic and physical damage or preventing the application of magic debuffs.

Skills
For discussions, advice and strategies relating to the many and diverse individual Death knights Abilities, see the entries listed from the Abilities page, here.

Frost

 * Frost used to be primarily a dual-wielding spec; players were limiting the potential of the tree by using a 2 handed weapon. Since the talent tree redesigns, Frost is now a very strong option for a 2-handed weapon, with more talents being useful to users of either kind of weapon. Both dual-wielders and 2-handers have talents that only benefit them, with dual-wielders taking Nerves of Cold Steel and Threat of Thassarian, while users of a 2-handed weapon should take Might of the Frozen Wastes. Whatever weapon you decide to use, it should be on the slower end of the scale (around 2.5 for 1-handers and around 3.6 for 2-handers), as there are several abilities used in the standard Frost rotation that scale directly from weapon damage.


 * One of the few ways to heal yourself is to cast a combination of Lichborne and Death Coil. Death Coil does damage to enemy characters and heals friendly undead characters. By turning yourself undead with Lichborne, Death Coil can now heal you.


 * Frost Presence or Unholy Presence can be used for DPS, with Unholy being slightly ahead as of patch 4.2.0, but the difference is very small. Ultimately, if you are currently using Frost Presence, stick with it because your dps will suffer more in the short term because it takes time to get used to the reduced global cooldown on all your strikes, and less runic power to use when you have no runes active.


 * Strength is quite obviously the most beneficial primary stat for Frost Death Knights. As far as secondary stats go, once the Hit and Expertise caps are reached, Haste rating and Mastery rating are the next best, while Critical Strike rating should be bottom of the priority list, as the main strikes used for Frost's outstanding burst DPS (Obliterate and Frost Strike) both have a chance of a guaranteed critical strike thanks to the Killing Machine talent.

Blood
The basic idea of Blood rotations is a disease dependent single-target attack. Example:


 * 1) Apply diseases (Plague Strike, Icy Touch)
 * 2) Use damage abilities (which depend on above diseases for more DPS) to do damage, generating threat and runic power.
 * 3) When runes are exhausted and/or runic power is full, dump the runic power with the Runic Strike

Some claim a priority system is best:
 * 1) Make sure diseases are always up.
 * 2) Try to keep up Mastery as often as possible via using Death Strike on cooldown, or save it if you can anticipate a big damage spike coming, so you can heal and shield yourself for more.
 * 3) While diseases are up, spam Heart Strike.
 * 4) When you reach 100 RP or everything else is on CD, use Runic Strike to deplete it and build some threat.

Dancing Rune Weapon usage is critical to high burst TPS for Blood specced DKs. DRW empowered via Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon can give you a tremendous amount of burst threat in addition to some damage and avoidance, since the second weapon will perform half-powered version of your attacks and will increase your parry chance for it's duration.

Death Knight tanks naturally have high AoE threat. The general idea is to apply diseases, use Pestilence to spread the diseases, and use Death and Decay/Blood Boil to do additional AoE damage. Heart Strikes can be thrown in between to take advantage of the cleave effect. Now that the Death and Decay uses only one unholy rune it's save to use it on a packs of any size to build some good initial threat on them.

Unholy
As an Unholy Death Knight, your DPS will have the smallest portion of white damage. You will want to get all your diseases up on the target, as they will influence your damage output as well as debuff the enemy (Icy Touch). It is a very good idea to spec for Crypt Fever (death knight talent)/Ebon Plague, as this will up your damage and and increase the DPS of the casters. You will also want to extend the duration of your diseases by talent and Glyph of Scourge Strike.

Scourge Strike will be the bread and butter of your rotations. It hits fairly hard on its own, but gets a 12% damage increase for each of your diseases on target. With Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague, that's a whopping 36% extra damage, and because the disease bonus is not physical damage, it is not reduced by armor (PvE mobs seldom, if ever, have resistances).

When going up against multiple mobs you will want to apply your diseases and then use Pestilence to spread them to other targets. Then, use Blood Boil. Continue to hit with Scourge Strike, dump your runic power with Death Coil, and down your targets one by one. Make sure the targets have diseases on them and use Blood Boil when necessary. It is to be noted that while both Blood Boil and Pestilence use a Blood Rune, you will achieve more DPS by getting the diseases spread, rather than having them on a single target and using Blood Boil twice.

Against a single mob, or boss, you will want to get your diseases up and use Scourge Strike. Make sure to max out points in Reaping, as the death runes will be essential to your rotation. After you get your diseases and Scourge Strike in, use Blood Strike twice to generate Death Runes. Now, while your runes are on cooldown and providing you have the RP, throw in some Death Coils or summon a Gargoyle. When your runes are back up, you will have a shot at three Scourge Strikes.

One last thing to note; your gargoyle's power is based on the Attack Power you have when it is summoned. This means that a summoned gargoyle will do more damage if you summon it when Rune of the Fallen Crusader procs or you pop a trinket that increases AP or Strength.

Blood Spec
 Downtime 

This spec's strongest advantage while leveling is the lack of downtime. Optimally, with good gear, it should take no more than a single spell rotation to kill a mob of the same level. Thus, you need to be able to make back whatever damage a mob will do to you within those ~10 seconds.

Vendetta is a strong talent for this. However, you need to be careful to get the killing blow, especially if you have Bloodworms active. Blood spec does not have many runic power dumps, so Death Coil might be a good choice to ensure a killing blow if you have the extra RP. You also need to be sure that 6% (if you have 3 talent points invested) of your total health is more than what a typical mob will damage you for in 10 seconds. For example, if you are leveling and have 10,000 total HP, a typical mob for your level should not do much more than 600 damage to you in 10 seconds. However, keep in mind that this is AFTER the leach you gain through Blood Presence and Bloodworms.

Even if the extra healing from those 3 basic talents/abilities isn't enough, don't worry because Blood spec'd Death Knights have an advantage through Rune Tap and Vampiric Blood. When combining the Rune Tap talent with Improved Rune Tap and Vampiric Blood, it will heal a grand total of 27% of your HP, making it a strong potion available twice per minute.

 Spell rotation 

The spell rotation for a Blood spec'd Death Knight usually starts with a Death Grip, followed by Icy Touch and Plague Strike to apply the diseases to the target. When fighting multiple mobs, it's a good idea to use Pestilence to spread the diseases around. Then, use Blood Strike (or Heart Strike, if specced in it) to cause some initial damage. If you begin to get low on health, use a Death Strike to build up some health. When the diseases are close to fading, use Obliterate to cause some extra damage. If the target is not dead yet, use Death Coil (Death Knight) as a runic power dump.

A basic build to use for this can be found here. This incorporates some nice Blood talents, as well as a few points in Unholy and Frost to pick up some nice additions.

 Soloing elites 

As a Blood Death Knight, Elites aren't much of a problem. A Death Knight specced in Bloodworms shouldn't have much trouble taking out an Elite within 2 levels of them.

To kill an Elite, you can use the same rotation shown above, but with Death Strike whenever it's available. Also, if you are specced in Dancing Rune Weapon, it's a good idea to throw it out there once you hit 100 RP. An example spell rotation would go like this:

Death Grip, Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Death Strike, Dancing Rune Weapon, and repeat. If the Elite hasn't died by the time you hit Dancing Rune Weapon, it will increase the damage you do with the next cycle of spells. It's also a good idea to use Vampiric Blood with Rune Tap to heal yourself if you get low on health.

 Pulling groups 

Should you find that you can take on more than one mob at once, there are several skills available to the Death Knight which will aid in pulling these mobs efficiently during solo play. To achieve a maximum pull, given sufficient mobs, you could perform the following:
 * If any mobs are in melee range, one quick plague strike will suffice, or simply run through them.
 * Run through the first mob
 * Chains of Ice on a second mob
 * Icy Touch on the third mob
 * Dark Command on the fourth mob
 * Death Coil (if sufficient RP is available) on the fifth mob
 * Stop just within Death Grip range of the sixth mob and Death Grip it to you.
 * By now, the Chains of Ice should have worn off the second mob.
 * You should be close, but not far from the leash return effect of the first/second mobs.
 * Now you can continue with your chosen AOE rotation.

Unholy spec
 Ghouls 

If you have the talent Master of Ghouls, you have just created one of your greatest assets. You will most likely use him more than you would have expected. However, the ghoul pet does have drawbacks that should be dealt with if you want your pet to be used properly. If you are about to use Death Grip, make sure Leap is turned off automatic cast, or your ghoul may jump to the back of the target, where you would pull the target to your location. The ghoul would have to run back to you, and you would lose valuable damage to be put on the target. If you are attempting to pull a mob without Death Grip, you may want to turn Gnaw off of automatic cast, otherwise your ghoul would stun the target in the middle of him running toward you, taking most of the threat with him.

Another strategy to circumvent the ghoul leaping to where the target used to be is to put your ghoul on passive and bind this macro to a key. /petattack /cast gnaw Simply pull and use the macro and you'll get the most out of your pet. Also keep in mind that if your ghoul kills a target without your help, you will not be able to loot the target if it dies.

 Spell rotation 

A good spell rotation for an Unholy spec'd player varies. I recommend starting your rotation with Death Grip (see above for dealing with ghoul problems). Always cast Icy Touch before Plague Strike. There are glyphs and more that encourage this. If you are battling one single opponent, cast Blood Strike twice. If you are battling more than one, cast Pestilence, then Blood Boil or Blood Strike. It also may be smart to cast Death and Decay (death knight ability) prior to battle. Finish off the target with Scourge Strike.

Death Strike heals you for just as much as it does a Blood DK, since you have three diseases, instead of two. It doesn't hit nearly as hard as Scourge Strike. but if you're soloing and need the heals, use it.

If the target still stands, cast Death Coil (death knight ability) or Corpse Explosion if there are nearby corpses, then you may restart the rotation.

If you battled more than one target and have just killed your first, move onto the next victim target and check if he has any diseases on him if you casted Pestilence in the earlier battle. If he does, cast Scourge Strike, Blood Strike twice (if you have more targets, you may cast another Pestilence in substitution), and finally, cast Scourge Strike again. If he does not have diseases, do the regular rotation.

 Staying alive 

If you find yourself low on health, there are many solutions for you. Death Strike, for example, heals you admirably if used right. To use it right, cast any disease you can put on the target; Frost Fever, Crypt Fever (death knight talent)/Ebon Plague (if you have them), and Blood Plague. Then, wait ~10 seconds. If you are truly low on health, these will be the longest 10 seconds of your life. If you could finally make it that long, cast Death Strike. If you critically healed, congratulations!! You probably healed around 1/4 of the health bar, which can easily turn the tides of a battle.

Death Pact is a fantastic cure for low health! Your ghoul is a walking healing potion ready for use! If you spec'd Master of Ghouls, this will be nice because you normally have your ghoul longer than 5 minutes as a pet, so you can easily summon another ghoul if you used the spell.

 AoE 

Unholy Death Knights are one of the strongest AOE specs in the game. . If you find yourself in a mob big enough to reduce your framerates, you may want to consider some of the following: Start infecting your target and spread it down the aisle with Pestilence. Once all the targets are infected, cast Blood Boil.

The basic rotation: Icy Touch - Plague Strike - Pestilence - Death and Decay (Death Coil) - Scourge Strike - Blood Strike - Blood Boil - Scourge Strike.

If you're soloing, replace the Scourge Strikes with Death Strikes.

 Kiting

Although Death Knights are a melee class, they have some ranged attacks. This can sometimes be used to solo elite mobs that hit too hard to heal through. Use Chains of Ice to keep a mob well behind you, Unholy Aura (death knight talent) to run faster, and use Icy Touch, Death Coil and (if you're Frost) Howling Blast whenever possible. You can also have your ghoul or gargoyle out for more damage. If you do it right, you'll never get hit, and eventually the mob will die.

Stats
The primary stats of a Death Knight are very similar to those of other melee classes. Death Knights do have ranged abilities; however, at their core Death Knights are a melee class and should be in melee range to maximize damage. That being said, Spell Power does little for a Death Knight and should never be itemized in a Death Knight's gear set.

According to elitistjerks.com, the order of importance for stats for a PvE Death Knight is: [hit > expertise > str > hit (spell) > crit > ap > agi]

Attack Power - This is the base stat for all melee. It increases damage with every attack, spell, skill and ability. Every Death Knight skill has a coefficient to Attack Power which increases the strength of the skill. Attack Power also increases the amount of damage your normal or white attacks do and thus it is very potent.

Strength - Death Knights get 2 Attack Power for every 1 point of Strength. That fact makes Strength an extremely strong stat to itemize for any Death Knight. Strength is probably the top itemized stat, assuming the 1 str = 2 Attack Power on one item is greater than the Attack Power another item gives, in addition to other bonuses that Strength gives on its own. Death Knights also get 0.25 parry rating per point of Strength. Strength is always more desirable in terms of item budget than Attack Power, because Strength scales Rune of the Fallen Crusader, talents like Veteran of the Third War, as well as Blessing of Kings.

Hit Rating - This stat is only important until you hit the cap for your special attacks (at 8%). Considerably more rating is needed to reach the spell hit cap of 17% (14% with Virulence), but the benefit here is minor - hit rating about the melee cap is better spent on other things.

Armor Penetration Rating - Armor Penetration is overall weak for Frost and Unholy, but strong to have for Blood. The reason is that most of the damage for Unholy and some of the damage for Frost will not be mitigated by armor. Blood, however, deals mostly in physical damage and is affected by armor to a greater deal than the other two specs. Since the value of armor penetration increases with the more you have of it, at a certain point a Blood DK should regem for nothing but armor penetration. There is a hard cap of 1400 armor penetration (which gives 100% armor reduction).

Expertise Rating - Expertise has its uses for a Death Knight, depending on the spec. As Blood, Expertise is nearly as strong as Hit Rating, because 70-80% of Blood damage is of physical/melee nature and can be dodged, parried or blocked. As an Unholy, Expertise is not as important as as Blood, but still very useful, because your main damage sources (Scourge Strike, White Hits and Blood Strike) are of melee nature and can be dodged, parried or blocked. After Patch 3.2, Frost Strike can be dodged, parried or blocked, so Expertise Rating is more important for Frost than before, but it still is not as important as for Blood. You need 26 expertise skill to never be dodged.

Crit Rating - Crit Rating has its uses for a Death Knight, but it is dependent on the spec. All specs benefit from crit, but none should bother gemming for it.

Agility - Agility only affects two things in a Death Knight: armor and crit chance. Overall, a Death Knight is better served by Crit Rating over Agility because Crit Rating will turn into more crit than Agility, as far as DPS goes.

Haste Rating - Haste Rating is in the same arena as Agility in that it doesn't affect a lot of the Death Knight's abilities. That is because the GCD for Death Knights is not affected by haste and thus it only makes white damage swing faster. As much of the Death Knight's damage comes from abilities and disease and not white damage, haste has little bearing on DPS.

PvE Grouping
Both Abomination's Might (old) and Ebon Plague are much wanted in raids for obvious reasons, so a guild can make you cut back on damage to increase others'. 5-man instances can be done with a full physical/magical group to benefit more from the talents, but as the group is often balanced it is better to just spec for your own damage.

Be sure to keep Horn of Winter up at all times unless superseded by a Shaman's totem. In this case, the shaman may choose to situationally use a different totem instead. Hysteria can drastically improve a player's DPS but be sure healers are aware of who you are using it on and when. More often than not, Hysteria is best placed on a character other than the Death Knight which is doing more DPS, since the damage increase is a percentage. Hysteria was removed in patch 4.0.1.

Mark of Blood is useful in tight situations with a DPS race condition.