Blood

This spec is made to be a frost dps spec with resistances. This will allow you to wear most of your dps gear in resistance fights. With this build you will be using frost strike and howling blast as your main damage source. This also provides the 20% haste buff to the raid. This is a good build and buffs the raid with dps and resistance. This should be considered for every resistance fight.

The next blood death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 2/2 Butchery. (Whenever you kill an enemy that grants experience or honor, you generate up to 20 runic power. In addition, you generate 2 runic power per 5 sec while in combat.)
PVE* In pve this talent is ok. I would say this is a great grinding talent, and offers a little for long boss fights. This offers about .4% dps up per point.
PVP*In pvp this talent is very lack luster. Not many fights last long enough to give 2 runic power per 5 seconds much of an advantage. And if you kill something in pvp, the 20 runic power isn’t a big deal because you killed who you were trying to kill.

The next blood death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 Subversion. (Increases the critical strike chance of Blood Strike, Heart Strike and Obliterate by 9%, and reduces threat generated while in Blood or Unholy Presence by 25%.)
PVE*In pve this is a must have talent. The reduced threat will give you the ability to dish out max damage for however long you want. The increased critical strike is really nice especially for deep blood builds. For other builds the blood strike crit is nice and obliterate crit is just awesome. This ranges from a .7% dps up to 1.8% dps up per point depending on your build.
PVP*This is a great blood death knight talent and really not anything else. If blood is your off spec then i would say get blade barrier unless you are doing a build that uses blood strike a lot. This is just a minimal up to unholy and frost death kinghts.

The next blood death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 bladed armor. (Increases your attack power by 5 for every 180 armor value you have.)
PVE*In pve this is both a good tanking talent for making threat and a great pve dps talent. All death knights should have this dps or tank. A tank can expect 700+ attack power from this and a dpser can expect 400 attack power. This is around a 1.3% dps per point.
PVP*In pvp it is as good as pve. This is a talent that isnt hurt by resilience. Attack power is great in pvp. You will also find yourself in frost presence a lot in pvp, this will give you 600+ attack power in a defensive form. It is a great talent and i would say one of the must haves in almost every build.

The next blood death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 2/2 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization. (Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 4%.)
PVE*In pve this is a great talent. This is about a 1.7% dps up per point. This is great for all builds but is a little less useful for a deep frost build. I would say that this is on par point for point with bladed armor.
PVP*In pvp this is a great talent for burst. This is a pure damage up and is slightly worse that bladed armor. I would say this is a must for all builds in blood. Frost and unholy should stick to bladed armor.

The next blood death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 dark conviction. (Increases your chance to critically hit with weapons, spells and abilities by 5%.)
PVE*There isn’t a ton of synergy with death knights and crit besides you see some crazy numbers. This talent will give you about 1.1% dps up per point. I would say this is almost below average for death knight talents, but still good to invest in. Go with BA or 2H Special over this tho.
Frost

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 Improved Icy Touch. (Your Icy Touch does an additional 30% damage and your Frost Fever reduces melee and ranged attack speed by an additional 6%.)
PVE*This is a good pve damage up for frost, and a below average up for other builds. Of course this is a good utility talent, but if there is more than one death knight then it may not be as good. As for tanking, i would say it just depends on your focus, this will help to get some threat and is a good pulling tool. This is about a .8% dps up per point for frost.
PVP*In pvp i personally love icy touch. I use icy touch glyph and i think icy touch is one of the best pvp utilities for death knights. In a deep frost build this is a must and every build in frost at all should consider it.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 2/2 Glacier Rot. (diseased enemies take 10% more damage from your Icy Touch, Howling Blast and Frost Strike.)
PVE*In pve this is built for deep frost. All other builds should skip this one. This will give a 1.2% dps up per point for a frost build with frost strike and howling blast.
PVP*In pvp this is an ok talent. You will usually have a disease up, but if you are going for any build that doesn’t have frost strike, skip this.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 Black Ice. (Increases your Frost damage by 30%)
PVE*In pve this is a huge damage increase for for frost builds. This will be almost 3% damage increase per point. For non frost specs, i would say it depends on how your rotations look.
PVP*In pvp this is as helpful as pve. 30% damage on spells that already scale good. This will give frost builds the burst that you are looking for. To bad it is getting nerfed next patch.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 Icy Talons. (You leech heat from victims of your Frost Fever, so that when their melee attack speed is reduced, yours increases by 20% for the next 20 sec.)
PVE*In pve this is a great talent for any build because it is a huge raid buff. I would say this is a must have unless the buff is already provided.
PVP*In pvp this really isn’t a great because only 15 to 20% of your damage is white damage. In pvp you find yourself out of range all the time and you use melee as more of a joust once every 5 seconds. This is also why dual wield isn’t effective. I would say only get this is your running with rogues and fury warriors and even hunters.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 Annihilation. (Increases the critical strike chance of your melee special abilities by 3%. In addition, there is a 100% chance that your Obliterate will do its damage without consuming diseases.)
PVE*This is a huge pve talent. This is a great blood talent and should be in the best blood dps builds. Besides that, it isn’t a great talent for unholy and frost specs.
PVP*In pvp this isn’t really a great talent. You won’t use this unless you are deep blood pvp spec. If you are blood this is huge tho.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 Runic Power Mastery. (Increases your maximum Runic Power by 30.)
PVE*In pve this talent will give you some use. I don’t really love this talent for pve, but if you find yourself topping out runic power a lot this may be good.
PVP*In pvp this is a great talent. You can unload another frost strike with a full RP bar. This can be the difference between bursting that healer down or not.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 Killing Machine. (Your melee attacks have a chance to make your next Icy Touch, Howling Blast or Frost Strike a critical strike. Effect occurs more often than Killing Machine (Rank 4).)
PVE*Killing machine is a talent that makes frost competitive. It is a great dps talent for 2 handed and dual wield builds. This is a must have talent for any deep frost spec.
PVP*In pvp this makes frost amazing burst. The recent 2 handed buff to the talent makes it great for a burst down spec.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 2/2 Chill of the Grave. (Your Chains of Ice, Howling Blast, Icy Touch and Obliterate generate 5 additional runic power.)
PVE*This is a great talent for frost strike builds. For everything else, i would say not to waste your time with this one. It is a 1.1% dps up per pointvwith a solid 10 second rotation.
PVP*In pvp this is outstanding. You need that RP for ranged death coils, frost strikes, and some killer combos. Get this and glyph of icy touch and prosper.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 1/1 Improved Icy Talons. (Your Icy Talons effect increases the melee haste of your group or raid by 20% for the next 20 sec. In addition, increases your haste by 5% at all times.)
PVE*This is a great pve talent and if you get Icy talons this is a must. This will give you a very fast swing speed and i would say that a good hybrid build can be build around this and blood caked blades. This is your raid buff.
PVP*This is a not so good pvp talent. I usually skip in pvp builds, but some builds may have this. It really depends on who you are running with and you plan.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 2/2 Merciless Combat. (Your Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Obliterate and Frost Strike do an additional 12% damage when striking targets with less than 35% health.)
PVE*In pve this is a good talent. You will get a 2.4% dps per point increase from this. I would say every deep frost build will have this talent.
PVP*In pvp this makes frost death knights have some of the best burst in the game. The last 35% you might as well be spamming executes. This makes you deadly the last half of the fight and every pvp build that is frost must have this.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 rime. (Increases the critical strike chance of your Icy Touch and Obliterate by 15% and casting Icy Touch has a 15% chance to cause your next Howling Blast to consume no runes.)
PVE*I really am not a huge fan of big RNG talents. This is a little weak to tell you the truth. This should instantly cast a HB that cost no runes and no GCD on a proc, ORR have a higher proc rate. But this is still a 1.8%dps up if used right and is HUGE if you want to build a obliterate spec.
PVP*In pvp this is just ok. Rime procs are never seen and it just don’t work well. The extra crit is nice tho.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 1/1 Howling Blast. (Blast the target with a frigid wind dealing 259 to 281 Frost damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Deals double damage to targets infected with Frost Fever.)
PVE*In pve this is a good special attack that is great in aoe and a great tanking talent. It scales good with attack power and crits hard. I actually love the design but its is getting nerfed in the future so enjoy while you can.
PVP*In pvp this is an overpowered talent. The range on this makes you a frost mage. It is crazy how much range SUSTAINED DPS you can put out as a frost knight. Get this and you will never turn back.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 2/2 Frost Aura. (All party or raid members within 45 yards of the Death Knight gain 1 spell resistance.)
PVE*In pve this is great for resistance fights and even the fights that don’t require resistance. This is a great tanking talent and will make you useful in raids.
PVP*In pvp this is an insane talent. 80 resistance is a little more that 16% magic damage reduction. This is just way to much if you ask me. 8% damage reduction per point sounds good to me before it gets the nerf bat.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 Blood of the North. (Increases Blood Strike damage by 15%. In addition, whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence there is a 100% chance that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.)
PVE*I actually like this talent for pve. This is a good talent, gives you good blood strike damage, and lets you make some cool hybrid builds.
PVP*In pvp this talent really isnt worth it because when you are close to cloth, blood strike isnt what you are spamming. Blood boil and rune tap are. There are some builds that use this well but over half will waste points if you put them here. Frost strikes do a lot more damage and you will be hitting the blue button when you are in range, not the red one.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 Acclimation. (When you are hit by a spell, you have a 30% chance to boost your resistance to that type of magic for 18 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.)
PVE*Every tank should have this. This may even be ok for a dpser to have so you can shed some of that resist get and put on a few more pieces of dps gear.
PVP*In pvp this is just amazing. If you ever had trouble with a warlock, frost mage, shaman, well here you go. This just shuts down casters and stacked with frost aura, you are about magic immune. If you start running into caster teams get this and you will have no problems.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 1/1 Frost Strike. (Instantly strike the enemy, causing 60% weapon damage plus 150 as Frost damage. Can't be dodged, blocked, or parried.)
PVE*In pve this thing hits hard and scales good. I would say this is the corner stone of frost. This is a great talent and a great dps up.
PVP*In pvp this is amazing. Ignores armor and cant be parried, blocked, dodged. This is a rogue, death knight, pally, warrior, hunter killer. Even helps burst shamans down. Just get this and use it glyphed with runic power mastery and win.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 3/3 Guile of Gorefiend. (Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Blood Strike, Frost Strike, Howling Blast and Obliterate abilities by 45%, and increases the duration of your Icebound Fortitude by 6 secs.)
PVE*This is a great tanking talent and a great dps up. One of the best frost talents there is. Put all you points in this and enjoy the big crits and a better oh crap button.
PVP*In pvp this is even better than pve. The crit bonus helps all of your main attacks and you will see some insane numbers. Also, the IBF buff will help you through those stun teams. This is a great all around talen.

The next Frost death knight dps/pvp/arena/tanking talent you will get is 5/5 Tundra Stalker. (Your spells and abilities deal 2% more damage to targets infected with Frost Fever. Also increases your expertise by 1.)
PVE*This is a great talent, but you should know; This is only about a8% damage increase. The 10% bonus does not affect auto swing. This is still a great talent and a good dps up for the points.
PVP*In pvp this is a good talent actually. 80% or more of your damage is specials, and frost fever is almost always up because icy touch is ranged. This is a great talent if you are going 51 points frost.

-Brandon C.