Frost Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.2)

The Frost Death Knight generally runs a build combining Obliteration with Breath of Sindragosa. These two talents synergise extremely well with eachother and brings great burst and cleave. The general choice comes down to how much you want to focus on Remorseless Winter. You can either skip everything that buffs it, or pick it all up. Skipping is slightly better in pure Single Target but will remove much of your cleave capability. We generally recommend taking the minor Single Target loss to make sure you can cleave in pretty much all scenarios.

For Mythic+, the choice is either Breath of Sindragosa or Frostbane. Frostbane requires Dual-Wield and brings in Frost Strike as a major part of your AoE rotation. Unfortunately, it does cost a significant amount of Single Target DPS.

When it comes to 2H vs Dual-Wield, 2H will win out in most scenarios except when it comes to Frostbane builds in Mythic+. This is the one build where Dual-Wield shines as it pretty much requires the Razorice Runeforge.

For Hero Talents, Deathbringer is our recommended Hero Talent for both Raid and Mythic+. It deals slightly more Single Target and more consistent AoE burst. Furthermore, it has a simpler rotation without the need for multiple macros.

The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents provide more focus on minion damage with your Riders being summoned both passively as well as actively via Frostwyrm's Fury. It brings great damage as well as utility through the Death Charge ability. Furthermore, more emphasis is but on your 1.5 Cooldown window with Frostwyrm's Fury.

Deathbringer focuses on your 45-seconds burst windows with Reaper's Mark both dealing significant damage on its own, but also buffing your other abilities. It comes with lots of extra procs and benefits, providing lower-cost Obliterates/ Frostscythes, guaranteed procs of Killing Machine and free Frost Fever.

For more information on Hero Talents, please visit the dedicated page below:

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents that are best for leveling and doing open-world content.

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Frost Death Knight-specific PvE talents.

1. Bloodforged Armor reduces Physical damage taken by 20% for 3 seconds after using Death Strike. Solid defensive value in a PvE environment!
2. Deathchill causes your Remorseless Winter and Chains of Ice to root the target in place for 4 seconds. Your Remorseless Winter causes all targets within 5 yards to be afflicted with Deathchill. If a target is afflicted with Chains of Ice, then casting Chains of Ice again will afflict them with Deathchill. A good option for controlling the enemies you fight against!
3. Delirium causes your Howling Blast and Frost Strike to apply Delirium to the target. Delirium reduces the cooldown recovery rate of movement abilities by 25% stacking up to 2 times for 15 seconds.
4. Dark Simulacrum places a dark ward on the target for 12 seconds; when the target spends Mana on a spell, you gain a duplicate of that spell. This ability has a 20-second cooldown and costs 20 Runic Power. It can be used to steal a very strong spell that can turn the tides of a fight.
5. Strangulate silences the target for 4 seconds. Okay, against casters in PvE, but generally not worth the point.
6. Bitter Chill reduces the target's haste by 8% when affected by Chains of Ice. Frost Strike extends its duration. Good for PvP CC but generally worthless in PvE.
7. Rot and Wither applies a 100% absorb shield for the damage dealt by Death and Decay. Not worth it in any PvE content.
8. Shroud of Winter reduces the cast range of enemies within 8 yards around you by 30%. Not useful in PvE.
9. Dead of Winter causes your Remorseless Winter to stun an enemy for 4 seconds when it deals damage 5 times to that enemy. It also increases Remorseless Winter's cooldown by 25 seconds and reduces the radius by 5 yards. This is a bad PvP talent since it reduces our DPS. Remorseless Winter is a big part of our DPS, and increasing its cooldown is a bad thing.
10. Spellwarden reduces the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell by 10 seconds, and allows you to cast it on allies. Somewhat useful defensive talent to pick up!

Bloodforged Armor is a solid defensive upgrade and Deathchill helps to control your enemies. All other talents are not very impactful or simply worse for our damage throughput!