55-80 Death Knight Leveling Specs and tactics

Currently Blood is the most popular leveling path for Death Knights due to the constant health regeneration and high damage output. There are many different paths, but here are two of my favorites. I'll provide a breakdown, starting at level 60 since the DK talents are all given over their intro quests which will have you on your own between levels 57 and 60, and from there you can fill in the rest.

By level 60, you will want these talents maxed:

Butchery, Subversion, Bladed Armor, 2-Handed Weapon Specialization, Dark Conviction, Death Rune Mastery, Vendetta, Bloody Strikes, Veteran of the Third War, Bloody Vengeance, Abomination's Might, Imp Blood Presence, Imp Death Strike, Sudden Doom, Heart Strike, Might of Mograine, Blood Gorged, Dancing, Rune Weapon

From here, there are a lot of different options and talents to take. It's actually kinda hard to go wrong. But I'll post a few different specs you can work with from this basic template:

61/0/10 Blood/Unholy

Plain and simple, in the Blood tree, you will get every talent except for Blade Barrier, Scent of Blood, Spell Deflection, and Will of the Necropolis. This will put you at about 61 points in the Blood tree

The remaining 10 points will all go unholy

Unholy –

Vicious Strikes, Virulence, Epidemic, Ravenous Dead

51/20/0 Blood/Frost

Max out the following talents:

Frost –

Imp Icy Touch, Runic Power Mastery, Black Ice, Icy Talons, Annihilation, Endless Winter

I like this build because of the raw increases to stats: a total of 8% raw crit added through talents, not including special abilities; 12% flat increase from strength; Bladed armor 5 per 180 armor and Abom might’s 10% Attack power are sweet, plus a 20% haste buff from icy talons. You are hitting hard, and the damage bonuses all boost the health received through blood presence.

There are so many different ways we can go from the 51 points at 60, but that basic template are probably the essentials for leveling. There are many other popular builds and advocates for each one. I liked the two above for leveling, and when stacking strength, crit and stamina, you are gonna be charging through Outland and Northrend at an almost unstoppable rate. Keep in mind, these are not endgame raiding or pvp specs. Those will change depending on your gear, glyphs, and raid composition.

If you are still having trouble picking which talents, or have your basic template down and want to get going in Outland, don't forget to grab Zygor’s Leveling Guide to get that head start and cut through all the useless quests that bar your way in plowing through to the endgame. Zygor’s Leveling Guide will save you precious time and even help you stay geared through the next 20 levels.

Before you set out on your dark journey as a Death Knight, Click Here and pick up Zygor’s Leveling Guide.