How To: Melt faces as a Blood DK in arena

Hi all - been having enormous fun with Blood/Frost arena spec 51/18/0 in 2v2 and since we hit 2100 rating last week (we've dropped down a little since, but np) I made a video to celebrate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJA7xHoQh0M&fmt=22

[or you can access it shortly through yogscast.com and I'm uploading to warcraftmovies as we speak, link up soon!]

I also typed up a little guide for what you need to do and I highly recomment you try it before the patch in case they ruin it somehow, as Blizzard are apt to do! However, I'm thinking this spec is going to become more popular as the damage is already high, so the planned buffs in 3.1 should push it over to the popular spec. We'll see!

Here's how you do it:

1. Find a friendly healer that is good at surviving for a while against heavy damage.

2. Take this spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMqI0IsbotzAohg0kI
[Edit: if you don't want to click this - basically you take the 51pt blood talent DRW and then go down the frost tree and take 3/3 Runic Power Mastery]
[Note! This spec is getting buffed quite a lot in the next patch (3.1) - e.g. 10 seconds longer DRW, 10% armor pen and insta death coils from heart strike! Also, you won't have to spec so deeply in frost to get 130 runic power, which means you can take some dps talents from unholy! Awesome news!]

3. Wear all PvE gear, unless you're geared in blues (but who is geared in blues these days? endgame gear is sooooo accessible) - EXCEPT you need the pvp gloves and one other piece, I'd advise a hateful pvp chest because the leggings are expensive to enchant, the helm is expensive to gem and the shoulders are just difficult to acquire.

4. Replace your "icy touch" key with "chains of ice" - because to be honest, diseaseless is king when you are specced with short diseases. This way, you chains all the time which is incredibly good.

5. When in arena, work your way up to 130 runic power while keeping yourself and your healer alive.

6. Make a macro like below and spam it when you are ready to burst on your target:
/cast Dancing Rune Weapon
/cast [target=player] Hysteria

7. Remember to save Death Grip until you burst, because if they get away from you then you can use it as an additional interrupt.

8. Forget about diseases when bursting and aim (and practice hard on dummies!) casting this little rotation: Obliterate
Obliterate
Empower Rune Weapon
Obliterate
Obliterate

9. If you are hitting the target that your DRW is hitting (it often switches to healers until they get immunity effects) and your target doesn't die, you were probably unlucky. Retreat so your healer can drink up if possible (let them drink too, it doesnt matter) and try to burst again in 3 minutes time.

10. Against double dps teams, use Hysteria on yourself very early to break any saps/blinds/polymorphs that hit you, save trinkets. These are usually going to be your hardest fights, but if your healer uses LoS and you hit DRW early you should be able to take at least one of them down fast.


Good luck :D

edit: edited some clarity into the links