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Death Siphon

Death Siphon

1 Death	40 yd range

Instant
Requires Death Knight
Requires level 75

Deals (60.2064% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage to an enemy, healing the Death Knight for 335% of damage dealt.

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Frost, Shadow

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

1 Death

Range

40 yards (Long)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1 second

Effect #1

School Damage (Frost, Shadow)

Effect #2

Script Effect
Value: 335

Guides

Blood Death Knight Guide

Death Knight DPS Guide
(Frost/Unholy)

Unholy Death Knight
PvP Guide (Gearing
up, Pressure and Utility)

Warlords of Draenor Death
Knight Changes

Comments

Comment by Otore

Death Siphon has been changed to deal shadowfrost damage, allowing it to benefit from both frost and unholy mastery.

It still costs 1 death rune and now heals for 100% of damage done.

Comment by razzem

This talent is worthless.

Blood will use a Death Rune on DS.

Frost or Unholy using a death rune on Siphon is a large dps loss.

A poor talent in so many ways. Conversion will be a better choice for every spec.

Comment by jaymzo74

This is going to be a useful ability when doing PvP against just about any class. Having frost's ability to consume its death runes for heals while using its frost runes for chains of ice. You can keep a target at bay while you get some of your health back, while doing damage.

Comment by Rankkor

@Flashadow I'm guessing that what Razzem meant by this being useless, is that using it is a clear DPS loss, it consumes runes used in main abilities, whereas Conversion uses Runic Power, which at most is used on filler skills, so if you need to waste a resource to heal yourself you may as well consume the less important one.

I disagree of course, given that Conversion's heal is periodic whereas this one is instant, and this one can crit. When you need that quick burst heal this indeed may be more useful and represents a smaller loss.

Comment by Kainser

The viability of this talent at max level is questionable, but it is pretty amazing while leveling. As a frost dk at level 69 it currently hits for about twice as much as an obliterate does on an enemy with both diseases.

Comment by Yaije

Just logged onto my DK first time since MoP and thought this ability looked too good to be true. Granted I'm stupid about what the classes can do now and it seemed that a 40yd ranged attack that hits consistently harder than scourge strike (no diseases) and heals for 100% of the damage dealt was over the top.

I've since seen it in a different light... unless I'm under 80% and/or running to the next mob. While leveling? Definately worth it imo. RP wise? Even more so, who didn't want to drain the life essence of their foes when they rolled a DK?

Waiting to see how it compares to other skills later on, though might still keep it when trying to solo stuff i probably shouldn't.

Comment by gabberlol

Incredibly Strong while leveling or in low-Level PvP. A fully loomed Dk should be able to 1shot Mobs in his/her level-Range and deal immense Pressure to enemy players. I strongly recommend to use this talent while leveling your DK

Comment by Grimtongue

At level 80 this talent is absolutely incredible. It heals for a tremendous amount (crits heal for over 30k, I've seen in excess of 50k with Windsong procced) and deals more damage than most abilities EVEN on a fully twinked character with a 409 2her.

Comment by guatafu

Costs 1 Death Rune

Comment by Aquifel

5.2 Patch Notes:
Death Siphon now heals for 150% of the damage dealt (was 100%).

Comment by TheEsc22

Im lookinf forword to test it out in the 5.2, when it heals 150 % of the dmg done : ' )

Comment by Everliving14

This is the talent you MUST use while leveling. It's incredibly OP at lower levels due to scaling, and easily heals for 40-50% of your health with no Vengeance. It makes soloing instances of the same level possible without your mastery. My rotation has the following priority when soloing instances:
1. Diseases
2. Death Siphon
3. Death Strike (to renew Death Runes for Death Siphon)
4. Blood Boil (better than Heart Strike single target at lower levels)

I can't wait to try it out in 5.2, when it will heal for 150% of the damage it deals.

Comment by Beyondmortal

Two shotting mobs three lvls higher than me... And not losing any health... Sweet! :D

Comment by lans83

People really do still underestimate this ability and it's usefulness. I use it in my tanking rotation and it helps me stay alive a lot longer with the Death Strike's bubble. In 5.2 it will make it more useful and even sweeter with the 50% increase. Death Pact is only useful if your minion/s are out, not sure if it works with the Army, but that has way too long of a cooldown on it to use during a boss fight and is more for the Oh S***! moments, which you know can happen back to back in a single raid boss fight. Using Conversion is just opening yourself up for more damage since you can't dodge/parry while using it and pretty sure it'll just get interrupted once you're hit, I've used it once outside of combat, never in it.

Comment by GaaraFredNorris

This is just my opinion from personal experience.. but it seems to be better than Death Pact for PvP and PvE. *raises up the shield*

Reasoning?

1. Death Pact is on a 1 Minute cooldown for almost the same effect. It heals you for 50% of max health and takes 50% from your ghoul's max health. Death Siphon heals for 150% of the damage it inflicts. At level 75, my DK's current level, it does 5334 without any extra damage buffs from passives or abilities applied. 1.5 x 5334 is approx. 8001. Double that and you have just a bit under my DK's current health which is 17.3K.

2. It can be cast multiple times. All you need is enough death runes which is made easiest for Frost and Blood. Frost innately have 2 death runes that replace the Blood Runes and Blood has the wonderful passive ability which makes runes consumed by Death Strike come back as Death Runes. SO... What does this mean? Well.. As a Frost and Unholy you can cast it up to two times in succession (this is not counting any talents which regain spent runes as Death Runes) and for Blood you can cast them 4 times in succession. Ok.. so for Skeith (my DK) that's a whopping 21336 Damage... after 2 Death Strikes. Plus it's ranged.

If someone could get an actual formula to compare the two, I'd be very grateful. I'd really like to see what actual stat increases Siphon's damage.

Comment by ab159413

Those of you level 90s who are spitting on Death Siphon before even thinking about it- Under Blood(Best Spec!) all runes consumed by Death Strike regenerate as Death Runes. Death Strike also heals you for quite a bit. In a PvP battle you're low on health- double use Death Strike, your at about half Heath. You fill in the time using up the Runic Power you just got while waiting on the Death Runes, then you can use Death Siphon FOUR TIMES IN SUCCESSION! That puts you back at full health, and your enemy (probably) at under half. Death pact on the other hand, only has one use a minute, only restores half your health, and puts your minion pretty much out of commission. I rest my case.

Comment by SciofSoA

Death siphon is definitely the superior talent for leveling. My 80 frost dk in full heirlooms gets ~75% health from a non crit death siphon and can use it often since bloods are deaths on frost. At lower levels it was getting over 100% not to mention one shoting stuff a couple levels higher on crits. I also used it while leveling my unholy dk. Between 80 and 90 its not quite as effective but it is still good and unholys have death runes coming out their nose between reaping and blood tap. I haven't leveled as a blood dk but I expect it is much the same as unholy.

Comment by heartlessnobody

It now heals for 335% of the 60.2064% damage it deals.
That's a strong heal even outside of leveling.
Now all we need is a true bubble for nah can't touch this

Comment by 11unone11

Love it, when you are DK, hate it, if not.
This thing not only almost oneshots with a critical, it also heals 150% of its damage back (so, 60% in PVP), and can be used from 2 times easily (Frost DK, has Death runes instead of Frost) to 4 times with preparation(Blood DK, 2 Death Strikes, runes spend refreshes and changes to Death runes, and bang-bang-bang...).
This is... ~~Fu**ed sh*t~~ ridiculously powerful, sudden-death attack for such a tough and self-healing class.

Comment by DrMango

You pretty much need this spell if you want to survive Purgatory. Unless you use Raise Ally and Death Pact.

Comment by Zoruman

With the 6.0.2 stat squish, this ability is pretty ridiculous in soloing. Since they decided to up your damage while soloing instead of changing the health of the bosses, you can be healed for a lot, upwards of 200k. And most people don't have much more than 100k health since the squish, so this ends up being a crazy heal. This does depend on how high the level of the enemy is however, so it does less damage (and therefore less healing) the higher the level of the enemy.

Edit: It does appear that the healing has been fixed, I am now only receiving about 9k from it. Thanks grim5000 for calling that to my attention.

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