Frost Death Knight Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.1

This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:

• Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
• Death Knight Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Death Knights gain by joining each Covenant;
• How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
• General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
• Death Knight Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Death Knights.

The recommendations below are meant to maximize your performance for Sanctum of Domination, Mythic+ and Torghast. This page's recommendations are subject to change, so make sure to keep yourself updated.

You can be very successful in all forms of content as any Covenant. In this section we will go over the recommended builds using the recommended Covenant for Frost Death Knights.

Focus	Covenant	Soulbind	Advised Tree
Raiding ( Breath of Sindragosa)	Necrolord	Emeni	Frost Death Knight Necrolord Raiding Tree
Raiding ( Obliteration)	Kyrian	Pelagos	Frost Death Knight Kyrian Raiding Tree
Mythic+	Necrolord	Emeni	Frost Death Knight Necrolord Raiding Tree
Torghast	Necrolord	Emeni	Frost Death Knight Necrolord Raiding Tree

Necrolord/Emeni is the best all-around option for Breath of Sindragosa. All other Covenants are very close options and definitely viable for all forms of content. Fleshcraft, after Patch 9.0.5, offers a 20% damage taken reduction while channeling, giving you another defensive cooldown.

Kyrian/Pelagos is the best all-around option for Obliteration. It simply brings much higher single-target compared to the other Covenants.

Make sure you remember that switching Covenants is not free, switching Covenants after you have already chosen one leaves you at the same level of progress with that Covenant. In order to return to a Covenant you previously left it takes two quests with at least a full week in between the two quests.

This is a brief overview of the Conduits for each different category and the role that they play. This list is organized in order from strongest to weakest, however some Conduits gain value in certain scenarios.

• Best Potency Conduits: Everfrost (all-rounder), Accelerated Cold (all-rounder), Unleashed Frenzy (all-rounder), Adaptive Armor Fragment (all-rounder)
• Potency Conduit AoE alternative (for your third option): Brutal Grasp/ Proliferation/ Impenetrable Gloom/ Withering Ground.
• Best Finesse Conduits: Spirit Drain (offensive option), Fleeting Wind (movement option), Chilled Resilience (defensive option)
• Best Endurance Conduits: Reinforced Shell (raid CD), Hardened Bones (strong defensive), Condensed Anima Sphere (nice passive healing).

Everfrost and Accelerated Cold are the best first two Conduits for both single-target and AoE scenarios by a decent margin for both Obliteration and Breath of Sindragosa. For your third option, pick up Unleashed Frenzy. Any of the Covenant Conduits or Adaptive Armor Fragment are good alternatives for AoE.

Reinforced Shell is without a doubt the best option for anything involving a group or other players. It increases the benefits of Anti-Magic Zone, making it a better Raid Cooldown. Hardened Bones is the best personal defensive option. Condensed Anima Sphere is a solid, additional personal defensive option.

These Conduits are for utility and mobility purposes, meaning they do not directly impact your DPS, so we recommend picking whatever suits the situation that you are in the most.

Kyrian provides very high single-target damage that syncs well with the cooldowns for Frost Death Knights.

Necrolord is a strong Covenant for Frost Death Knights, providing competitive single-target DPS that is comparable to Kyrian, while also providing significantly more AoE DPS. Since this Covenant is the best option for Unholy Death Knights as well, this is a great Covenant to use if you plan on swapping specs.

Night Fae is a great Covenant for Frost Death Knights for Mythic+. It provides fantastic single-target and AoE damage on a very short cooldown.

Venthyr is a very competitive option to Necrolord with either Theotar the Mad Duke's' or Nadjia the Mistblade's Soulbinds. Swarming Mist is incredibly powerful in Mythic+ with the Breath of Sindragosa build allowing you to easily keep Breath of Sindragosa up in AoE scenarios.

These Soulbinds are always subject to change, but we will keep updating so you can have an accurate ranking of your options. This page is for maximizing your performance in Sanctum of Domination and Mythic+.

• Pelagos is generally the best choice for single-target, thanks to Combat Meditation, Better Together, and Newfound Resolve, however it offers weaker AoE damage compared to the Venthyr and Necrolord Soulbinds. In situations where you prioritise single-target damage, this will be your overall BiS Soulbind for Obliteration builds.
• Kleia does offer multiple Soulbind traits that increase damage throughput, mainly focused on critical strikes. They make Kleia a generally good Soulbind that is a possible pick, depending on your stat distribution.
• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos is also a strong option, especially for AoE content like Mythic+.

• Emeni does provide a nice buff to your teammates as well as good single-target DPS, especially with Breath of Sindragosa. It is considered the BiS Soulbind for Breath builds.
• Bonesmith Heirmir is a solid option, providing windows of large Critical Strike buffs. She is really close to Emeni and is a viable pick.
• Plague Deviser Marileth becomes a viable pick at Renown 60 when you can pick up Kevin's Oozeling, offering solid single-target!

• Theotar the Mad Duke is good pick for Frost Death Knights, especially in Mythic+. He does not quite bring the most single-target, though.
• Nadjia the Mistblade is a very consistent option that is competitive with Theotar. She is generally the recommended Soulbind for Venthyr raid builds.
• General Draven is simply a weaker choice than the other two options, so you will rarely ever see him used in Mythic+ or Raid content.

• Korayn is not a great option to pick, generally considered the middle Night Fae Soulbind for Frost DKs. She brings okay single-target and AoE.
• Niya is the best Night Fae Soulbind for Frost Death Knights, being slightly ahead of the other 2 options for both single-target and AoE. She works especially well in Mythic+ but does not perform as well in raids.
• Dreamweaver is one of the weakest options out of all Covenant trees.