Death Knight
A Death Knight built for sustained PvM, combining heavy armor, Chivalry, and disease effects for strong survivability and consistent melee damage.
Overview
This build is an extremely tanky swordsman that is primarily used to farm PvM. This build will utilize the disease procs from Death Aspect and combine them with bleeds from the Swords weapon special to provide a great amount of sustained damage. The goal with this build is to stack melee special chance to increase procs from swords which cause bleeds. Using holy weapon in a group adds a great support element as well.
This version uses Focus to top up our swing speed, making it a more beginner-friendly option. It requires less investment into swing speed links while still maintaining strong sustained damage. The tradeoff is that it will do slightly less overall damage than the Arms Lore version.
Aspect Options
- PvM -> Death Armor & Holy Weapon
- Alternative -> Frost Weapon, Madness Weapon
Link Options
Thanks to the swing speed from Chivalry and Focus, all of our links will continue to increase our damage. The build feels good from the start even with little to no links, making this a great option for newer characters.
- PvM:
- Melee Special Chance / Special Damage
- Damage to Bleeding
- Damage to Diseased
Codex Use
-
Swords
- Run Aggressive for weapon special chance
- Run Execute as finisher
- Run Spinslash for more weapon special chance or Rend for bigger bleeds and bursts
-
Parry
- You will sit in Testudo most of the time and run Last Stand as a finisher.
- You can use other stances situationally but Testudo offers the most DR when farming.
Additional Codex info is in the build card
Equipment
This build will run full plate. Mastercrafted gear at whatever ore your budget will allow.
- Weapon:
- Run (2H) Halberd, Bardiche, Zweihander, Great Axe for maximum damage (+25% Melee Damage)
- Run (1H) Longswords, Broadsword, Viking Sword, Norse Axe for less damage but more DR. (+10% Accuracy, +10% Damage Resistance)
- Off Hand:
- Run a kite/chaos shield of the best ore your budget allows.
- This is needed to enable parry if running 1H sword
Farming/Gameplay
This build is a great dungeon farmer and does very well in group content in a tank/damage role. It has a ton of survivability and can still do fantastic damage.
The Focus version is particularly well suited for players who are newer to the build or do not yet have the swing speed links needed to fully optimize the Arms Lore version.
Additional Notes
We only use Death for the extra disease ticks.
Focus is used to help maintain our swing speed without requiring as much investment into swing speed links.
Stats
STR: 100, INT: 25, DEX: 100
Death Knight
- Aggressive 7
- Cleave 7
- Defensive 7
- Flaying 7
- Warrior 7
- Execute 1
- Spinslash 1
- Consecrate Weapon 1
- Divine Fury 1
- Combat Medic 3
- Pressure Points 3
- Self Treatment 3
- Triage 3
- Bandolier 3
- Mixed Results 3
- Panacea 3
- Volatile 3