Frost Death Knight Pre-Patch Guide for WotLK Classic

Death Knights are able to be made and playable in the Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch and while the general play style is quite similar to what you will be doing at Level 80, this page will go over how to play your Death Knight, Gear you should seek out during the pre-patch, how you should spend your talent points, and what consumables you should use if you are considering tackling some of the Burning Crusade raid content while waiting for Wrath to officially start!

This talent tree is focused largely on getting all of the rotation-altering and stat-increasing talents from the Frost tree as you will likely be undergeared, so any static stat increases you can get are great and scale even better when you become more geared. Any Burning Crusade content you are doing in the pre-patch of Wrath of the Lich King will be significantly nerfed and you will likely be more focused on dealing as much damage as possible.

1. Hit/Expertise to cap;
2. Strength;
3. Armor Penetration;
4. Critical Strike;
5. Haste.

The single largest difference between playing Death Knight at 70 and 80 is the lack of Empower Rune Weapon, which offers you a significantly more powerful opener on bosses as you have access to twice as many runes.

AOE DPSing as a Frost Death Knight is extremely simple. Your main focus is to maintain your Frost Fever and Blood Plague diseases on as many enemies as possible using Pestilence while spamming Howling Blast.

• Cast Icy Touch and Plague Strike on a target that you will be able to spread diseases from using Pestilence.
• Use Howling Blast as much as possible, making sure to utilize tools such as Blood Tap to maximize your casts.
• Consider using Death and Decay if you know the mobs will be stationary for a long period of time.

Frost Death Knight single-target does use a rotation, but it is much more like a list of priorities as opposed to a strict rotation you must follow. There are many conditions to consider and below we will go over each of them and to optimally handle each situation. This rotation is assuming that you are using the talents recommended in the talents section of the Frost Death Knight DPS guide as the sub-spec you choose can greatly impact your Rune/Runic Power generation. You must always prioritize spending Runes over Runic Power; Frost and Unholy Runes should be spent on Obliterate — after Frost Fever and Blood Plague are applied — and it is crucial to always use both of your Blood Runes together to ensure they are synchronized.

• Icy Touch needs to be used to apply Frost Fever
• Plague Strike needs to be used to apply Blood Plague
• Blood Strike is your main spender of Blood Runes.
• Pestilence should be used to refresh your diseases so you can spend your Frost and Unholy Runes on Obliterate. Note that Glyph of Disease causes Pestilence to refresh the duration of diseases.
• Obliterate will be your primary spender of Unholy and Frost Runes; thanks to Annihilation your diseases will be not be removed from the target when you cast Obliterate.
• Frost Strike will be your spender of Runic Power.

Your priority list should be as follows:

1. Make sure Frost Fever and Blood Plague are active;
2. Cast Obliterateh;
3. Use Pestilence if your diseases need to be refreshed; if not, cast Blood Strike;
4. Cast Frost Strike if you have a Killing Machine proc;
5. Only cast Howling Blast in a single-target situation if you have a Rime proc;
6. Cast Frost Strike without a Killing Machine proc.

Listed below will be a list of some items that are very powerful and require a relatively low time investment to get to help you get a bit more powerful during the Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch as you prepare to head to Northrend and continue your journey through WoW classic.

Slot	Item	Source
Helm	Mayhem Projection Goggles	Engineering
Back	Dory's Embrace	Badge of Justice vendor
Wrist	Swiftsteel Bracers	Blacksmithing
Gloves	Hard Khorium Battlefists	Blacksmithing
Belt	Red Belt of Battle	Blacksmithing
Pants	Legplates of Unending Fury	Badge of Justice Vendor
Ring	Hard Khorium Band	Jewelcrafting
Ring	Angelista's Revenge	Badge of Justice Vendor
Trinket	Shard of Contempt	Priestess Delrissa — Magister's Terrace
Trinket	Bloodlust Brooch	Badge of Justice Vendor

Spicy Hot Talbuk is your best well-fed buff if you are not Hit-capped, or use Roasted Clefthoof if you are Hit-capped as your goal is to maximize your Strength.

Flask of Relentless Assault is your typical go-to against most all mobs. The exception to this is that when fighting Demons, Elixir of Demonslaying by itself is stronger than any flask and can be paired with a Guardian Elixir of your choosing.

Haste Potion is your best choice as the added Haste allows for more melee swings to maximize your damage.