How To Spec Into A Talent Tree Automatically

If you are like me, you spent more time playing with talents and getting things to jive, than actually playing the game.  I have an awful time of looking at a web page talent calculator, alt+tab back to WoW, do a few talents, alt tab back to the other window, rinse and repeat until fully spec'd.  However, you should know that there is a simpler way and WowTal.com provides a quick and easy script to facilitate updating your talent trees.

First, cruise on over to WowTal.com and start building on your Death Knight Talent Spec.  WowTal.com has even been updated to allow for glyphs and Cataclysm only spells and glyphs.  So, future builds can already start being theory crafted or actually used if you are lucky enough to be playing the beta.

Next, click the 'Use it ingame!' button.  This will provide you with a popout, which contains a command line script which instructs you to copy and then paste in game.  But where are you supposed to paste the code from WowTal in the World of Warcraft game client?

The WowTal script must be pasted into the chat window of the Wow client.  If you are not familiar with scripts in Wow, then know that it is common place to allow certain commands within the chat line.  Yes, the same place you make 'anal' jokes is the same place you will make your life easier with seemingly complicated script lines.

For a complete list of chat command line summaries please click here.

I should also mention that there are certain Addons that allow the same type of functionality.  Talented is one such addon that allowed users to link spec's from many popular talent builders and then have them automatically previewed, then applied.  However, most of these addons have yet to be updated for 4.0.1, so for now WowTal.com will be my talent builder of choice.  Expect these builds to be linked in my posts, much like my Death Knight Tank 4.0.1 Spec.

4.0.1 Death Knight Blood Tank Talent Spec

Looking to hit the ground running with the all new 4.0.1 patch?  How about starting things off with this level 79 Blood Tank spec, which gets you the basics of a good build, at least what worked well on the public test realm.

This build also focuses on Rune Strike, which continues to be a primary threat builder moving into 4.0.1 and beyond.  However, if you are looking for a bit more of survivability and less on the threat scale, then perhaps consider putting some points into improved Blood Tap.

Blood Tank Spec for 4.0.1
WowHead Link - http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#jchr0srrusdZ0h:Rzosmac
WowTal Link - http://wowtal.com/#k=YfHoQ3t1.a5o.deathknight. (How to use WowTal.com to automatically update your talent spec in game.)

Patch Day For 4.0.1

Looks like the new patch is for sure hitting the Blizzard servers as we speak.  It's a massive patch, 4.8gb to be exact and is reportedly taking up to 2 hours on a decent computer to install.  Yes, that is 2 hours to install, not just download.  Hopefully everyone started their background downloader a week ago.

4.0.1 Patch Highlights for Death Knights

• Runes - The way they fill is different, which slows the special ability use down, but allows for some different fighting mechanics. Runes will now fill one at a time, instead of all at once. Not meant to gimp the Death Knight, just allow for some broader changes come Cataclysm.
• Blood Is Only Tanking Tree - As mentioned in another post, quite possibly the biggest change for patch 4.0.1 will be that blood is the only tanking tree for Death Knights.
• Rune Empowerment - Ability to instantly refill certain runes, which allows for less cut'n paste rotations, a little variety in your fights.

Blizzard claims the servers will most likely be back up at noon, I'm doubtful.  Such a huge patch and Blizzard's history of never hitting patch deadlines, you'll probably be lucky to play before dark.  Hmmm, wonder if there will be a que to log on to my server?

Blood Will Be Only Tanking Spec For Death Knights

Sure was nice while it lasted, being able to dual-wield, blood, frost, and even unholy tank as a Death Knight.  However, that time has come to pass and the next patch will be the end of unique tanking trees, when 4.0.1 becomes live, Blood will be the only tanking tree.  This becomes a real bummer for me, since I had finally got used to dual-wield tanking in Frost and loving it.

Early on, while learning to tank as a Death Knight, I had been using the Blood spec.  It provided a lot more room for error, plenty of hit points, just maybe not so much control over AOE threat.  Thankfully Blizzard has made it clear that they will be stealing some of the talents from Unholy and Frost to make up for the lack of Blood specific tanking abilities.

Several of the more fun tanking talents from Frost and Unholy will be moved into Blood. 

There has been some speculation that the next patch will be out next Tuesday, October 12th.  Start holding your breath now.

Death Knight Talent Tree Guide

This is a guest article on Death Knight Talent Trees in the World of Warcraft.

Death Knight is the hardest of all the classes in the World of Warcraft game. When playing the game, you can experiment with the different talent builds. There are three types of talent trees including blood, frost and unholy. The Death Knight talent has no DPS or tanking tree. There is also no connection between the blood, frost or unholy talent trees. The tank build always use the Frost presence. PvE DPS build uses blood presence whereas PvP builds can switch between different presences.

The blood tree increases the power of the Death Knight’s spells, and weapons. This tree will deplete the energy of the enemies. The blood branch can increase the damage of the enemies over a period of time. It can also incur high damage per seconds rating.

However, it has the longest kill time compare to other trees. The blood tree talent is used for the physical damage and self healing. For example, the butchery talent can generates up to 10/20 runic power. The subversion talent can improve the critical strike chance of Blood Strike, Heart Strike and Obliterate. The blade barrier will reduce the damage by 1% - 5% in 10 seconds. The bladed armor talent will increase the attack power within a range of 1 – 5 for each 180 armor.

The frost tree has many control elements including a powerful bonus-damage theme. The talents in this branch can improve the physical damage mitigation. Some Death Knight rarely carries their icy skeleton pet. The icy skeleton pet can enhance the damage per second rating of the group. Without the icy skeleton pet, you can still increase the damage per second by using the frost tree. The frost tree has a total of 30 talents which focus on burst, and dual-wielding. For example, the icy touch talent will create additional 5% – 15% damage and the frost fever will reduce the melee. The runic power mastery talent has the ability to increase to the maximum runic power in a range of 15 – 30

The unholy branch places a strong emphasis on diseases and related abilities. The unholy branch is also used to improve the minion summoning skill. The unholy tress has other elements including AoE, spell damage shielding, and themes for improving the mobility.

The unholy branch is the most important branch of the three in the talent tree and is responsible of fulfilling the group and the rank tank. Though players cannot easily level the protection paladin, they can use the unholy branch to increase the speed of the rune power so that it becomes more aggravating. The unholy tree has a total of 30 talents. For example, the vicious strikes talents increase the critical strike chance in a range of 3% – 6%. The virulence talent ill increase the spell casting chance by 1% – 3 % and reduce the damage on diseases by 10% – 30%

As the game becomes more mature, people can split the talent trees to attain a specific goal. By using the talent calculator, the player will be able to build his character more efficiently. However, you will not be aware of the overall effectiveness of the character you built.