Frost Death Knight DPS Easy Mode — The War Within Pre-Patch

This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

For those who are new to Frost Death Knight and are not sure what each ability does and how they interact with the Frost toolkit, we recommend checking out our Spell Summary guide linked below.

Frost Death Knights are a melee DPS specialization with strong single-target and AoE damage and a fairly simple and approachable play style. They can use either 2-Handed or 1-Handed weapons.

Your main goal throughout fights will be to maximize your Obliterate usage while keeping an eye out for your two procs, Rime and Killing Machine.

Furthermore, if running the Breath build, you want to maximize your uptime of Breath of Sindragosa by generating your Runic Power efficiently and leveraging your cooldowns, such as Empower Rune Weapon and Horn of Winter in a smart way.

For a detailed breakdown of Frost Death Knight talent choices, please read out Frost Death Knight Talent Guide!

1. Critical Strike;
2. Haste;
3. Mastery;
4. Versatility.

This can be different depending on your character's gear, so make sure you sim yourself, to find what your stat priority is. Breath of Sindragosa wants quite a lot more Crit compared to Haste and Mastery. Obliteration prefers a lot more balanced stats, having roughly equal raw amounts of Haste, Mastery , and Crit.

Note that the rotations listed below are not fully optimized for the highest possible output, instead making some sacrifices to ensure their ease of use. If you wish to put out the most DPS you possibly can, you should check out our dedicated Rotation page instead.

1. Spend your Runes on Obliterate.
2. Spend your procs of Rime on Howling Blast.
3. Spend your Runic Power on Frost Strike (single target) or Glacial Advance (AoE and if you have picked the talent). Try to keep up your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs.
4. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown.

When your Breath of Sindragosa is active, do not spend Runic Power on anything else!

As a Frost Death Knight, you have potentially 10 total cooldowns. Below, we explain how they are best used.

• Fyr'alath the Dreamrender should be used on cooldown but not during your Pillar of Frost windows! The damage of the on-use does not scale with your Strength so you do not want to waste 2 GCDs in your burst window pressing something that does not synergise with the burst! For Single Target, use it right after you have applied your first mark, before you have entered your first CD window. In AoE, use towards the end of packs when your main burst has finished.
• Chill Streak should be used on cooldown. Use it before each Pillar of Frost (they align when you pick up Icecap).
• Pillar of Frost should be used on cooldown, stacking it with potions or any on-use trinkets you have. Alternatively, you can save it for moments when you need increased damage, but remember that the cooldown is really short, making it easy to waste uses!
• Empower Rune Weapon should be paired with your Pillar of Frost windows. For Breath of Sindragosa, try and hold the cooldown for when you start to feel starved. Do not wait too long though, since you need to plan for your next window as well! If you wait 30 seconds with Bloodlust active, you cannot use the next one until 30 seconds into your next Breath.
• Frostwyrm's Fury should be used in synergy with Pillar of Frost and on as many targets as possible.
• Cold Heart governs your Chains of Ice usage. Generally, use Chains of Ice at 16+ stacks of Cold Heart. With Icecap, simply use it with each window of Pillar of Frost.
• Breath of Sindragosa should be used on cooldown in synergy with your other cooldowns. Make sure to pool resources before you use it, and time abilities such as Horn of Winter and Empower Rune Weapon for when you start to starve in your Breath. Try and space them out evenly.
• Obliteration alters your Pillar of Frost. Once active, spend every GCD generating procs of Killing Machine or consuming said procs. Use Empower Rune Weapon 0-2 seconds before your Pillar of Frost. If you are running both Breath of Sindragosa and Obliteration, only use Obliterate and consume procs of Rime in your Pillar of Frost window.
• Abomination Limb should generally be used on cooldown. Hold it for add waves that need grouping up.
• Horn of Winter should be used to generate Resources when needed. In Breath, that means pressing it when you cannot cast Obliterate in a GCD, and you will not overcap Runic Power by using the CD! For Obliteration builds, use it ahead of your Pillar of Frost window when you are low on resources.
• Death and Decay should be used to enable cleave in AoE (with Cleaving Strikes). Time it with your Pillar of Frost windows, using it the GCD before you enter into the window.