Frost Death Knight DPS Mythic+ Tips — Dragonflight 10.2.5
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Frost Death Knight in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.2.5.
Frost Death Knight in Mythic+
Frost Death Knight is a powerful melee in Mythic+ offering high burst AoE damage. It can also offer good, consistent AoE damage.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.
Mythic+ Talents for Frost Death Knights
Please note that the talents that we recommend below are specifically for Mythic+. If you want to see a talent overview for Frost Death Knights, then you can check out our main talent page linked below.
Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all affixes and keystone levels. For more information on particular talents and when to use them, refer to the Builds and Talents page.
Use the 'Copy Export String' on the calculator to easily copy the build in-game.
The go-to Mythic+ build is the 2H Obliteration one. It got really good cleave with Cleaving Strikes and the short (30-45 seconds) cooldowns make it deal great damage on pretty much every pull.
Chill Streak and Enduring Chill are only picked once you obtain your Death Knight Frost 10.2 Class Set 2pc. Before you obtain the new set, put the points in the following way:
- Second point of Enduring Strength and Frostwyrm's Fury for Mythic+ Obliteration.
When it comes to your spec talents, we do have some choices to make. We can run double Enduring Chill instead of double Frostwhelp's Aid. This is around 0.8% DPS loss overall but brings slightly more (0.2%) Single Target DPS. Other than that the talents are pretty set in stone!
The class tree does not have much choice in Mythic+ either. We pick up so many defensive talents that there are not much choice left. Still, we again get the choice around Will of the Necropolis. It might seem overkill to pick this up, but it increases your effective max health by 16%! Not strictly needed with perfect play, but a really nice cushion to have. You do sacrifice 3-4% as you need to give up a point in Unholy Bond in the Mythic+ build. Sacrificing Death's Echo is not a good idea.
If you really like Breath of Sindragosa, it is a viable alternative. However, you need your tank to play around your Breath to make it worth it. Chaining packs is crucial so that you can leverage those very high Breath uptimes!
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For a more in-depth look at all the Frost Death Knight talents, visit the link below.
Frost Death Knight Mythic+ Rotation
The Frost Death Knight Mythic+ rotation is all about your Obliteration windows with your Death and Decay cleave. Optimizing these is the key to doing great damage in Mythic+. As you approach a given pack, you want to following the opening set of abilities:
- Use Abomination Limb, Remorseless Winter and Chill Streak before your pillar.
- Use Pillar of Frost
- Generate a stack of Killing Machine using Howling Blast and Glacial Advance. Death and Decay if at two stacks of Killing Machine.
- Generate a stack of Killing Machine using Howling Blast and Glacial Advance. Death and Decay if at two stacks of Killing Machine.
- Death and Decay
- Obliterate cleave.
Let's discuss exactly what is going on with this opener and why we are doing it:
- We start by getting all of our GCD abilities out of the way before we enter our Pillar window. We generally don't want to spend any GCDs on stuff that aren't either consuming or generating procs of Killing Machine once our Pillar is down. We still do this with Remorseless Winter and Chill Streak but avoid it when possible!
- We then enter our Pillar of Frost window using one of our Macros that will instantly generate a proc of Killing Machine.
- Next, we focus on when to put down our Death and Decay. We ideally want to first generate two procs of Killing Machine before we do this. If you get a natural proc just before your Pillar or within that first GCD, you would pop down Death and Decay as your second GCD. Usually, however, you will manually generate another one and then use Death and Decay.
- Once Death and Decay is down, we generate and consume as many procs of Killing Machine as possible to do heavy cleave damage.
The opener above is for an Obliteration window where you do not use Frostwyrm's Fury at the end! If you are using Wyrm at the end of your Pillar, you always want to use Death and Decay as your second GCD (so do not worry about stacking double Killing Machine). We do this because our final GCD will be used on Wyrm anyway, thus removing the need to get proper end-of-pillar overlap with Death and Decay!
The Obliterate cleave priority looks like the following:
- Use Remorseless Winter.
- Use Chill Streak.
- Use Obliterate if you have a stack of Killing Machine.
- Use Glacial Advance to generate a Killing Machine proc if you are at fewer than 3 stacks of Unleashed Frenzy or your Unleashed Frenzy is about to expire.
- Use Howling Blast, if you have a Rime proc.
- Use Howling Blast to generate a Killing Machine proc, and you have 3 or more Runes.
This is all about generating and consuming as many procs of Killing Machine as possible, as well as keeping up buffs and using procs efficiently. Finally, we also use Remorseless Winter and Chill Streak due to their high damage and buff value.
We will generally run two charges of Death and Decay in AoE. The way to use your second charge is to pop it down right after a strong Death and Decay window! This often means you have left-over procs of Killing Machine to spend, as well as buffs such as Trinket, Potion, and Empower Rune Weapon! This second window then also benefits from Enduring Strength, making it strong as well! As a final note, using your second Death and Decay right after the first one means you cannot end up in a situation where you do not have a charge ready for a Pillar of Frost window! Aim to use a second charge every time you enter a Pillar window with two charges, ideally timing with Cooldowns, trinkets , and potions. Furthermore, when you are aiming to do a double Death and Decay window, make sure to use your Empower Rune Weapon close to the start of your first Pillar of Frost, to ensure maximum overlap with the second window!
Your Rime vs. Glacial Advance priority is important to discuss here. Generally, you always prioritize Rime regardless of target count. The one exception is when you're at 7+ targets , and your Remorseless Winter is not active (thus not giving you any benefit from Rime via Gathering Storm) OR when your Unleashed Frenzy is about to fall off/ isn't stacked fully. It is pretty much only the Unleashed Frenzy condition that ever matters here. Still, that condition means that we prioritize Glacial Advance in our Obliteration cleave rotation at the start of packs (unless you are able to maintain the Unleashed Frenzy from the previous pack.
When your Death and Decay window finishes, your rotation turns into a simple:
- Spend any procs of Rime as soon as possible.
- Spend runes on Obliterate.
- Spend Runic Power on Glacial Advance.
You might be wondering why Frostscythe is not mentioned anywhere in the AoE rotation. That is due to the very lower power of the talent itself! You only ever use Frostscythe if you have Fyr'alath the Dreamrender equipped and want to spread the DoT on all targets. Outside of this scenario, it is a DPS downgrade to even press the spell!
For a detailed breakdown of the rotation, please see the Rotation page:
Frost Death Knight Utility
- Death Grip is an iconic Death Knight spell that pulls an enemy that you are targeting to you. Use this to stack enemies that are far apart together to maximize cleave damage. This can also be used as an extra interrupt or to interrupt casts that cannot be interrupted by Mind Freeze. Another great application of this ability is to pull mobs out of Sanguine pools.
- Blinding Sleet is a 1-minute cooldown AoE stop interrupt that also slows the enemies when they are broken from its blind. Very useful to interrupt casts and help your tank to kite.
- Mind Freeze is Death Knight's interrupt ability. This should be used to interrupt near the end of the target's cast time as they do not attack while casting a spell, so it will minimize damage to the tanks. It is recommended you communicate your interrupts with the rest of your group so you do not end up overlapping interrupts.
- Anti-Magic Shell is your magic-soaking ability. This ability can be used to generate Runic Power by soaking magic damage. If you cast Anti-Magic Shell before a magical debuff would be applied to you, such as Bursting, the Anti-Magic Shell will prevent the application of the debuff.
- Wraith Walk is a movement talent ability that increases your movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds and removes all root effects. This talent should be taken if you are expecting to be slowed or rooted multiple times in a short time. This talent has lost some of the value it had due to Death's Advance being baseline and having close to the same effect.
- Death's Advance is another extremely useful utility of the Death Knights, which increases your movement speed by 35% and gives you an immunity toward forced movement effects and knockbacks for 10 seconds. You can use it for effectively dodging mechanics or to neutralize an incoming knockback. Keep in mind any second that you do not spend in melee will decrease your overall damage output, which can sometimes result in depleting the keystone. Make use of all of your utilities to get an edge over any dungeon.
- Dark Command is a single-target taunt ability that instantly generates threat on the targeted enemy unit. Useful in very niche situations where you need to soak a tank mechanic from a particularly difficult boss! Make sure to use a defensive beforehand so you do not die.
- Dark Succor is a proc that occurs whenever you kill an enemy and grants you a free cast of Death Strike. This can be very useful if your group is taking high amounts of AoE damage.
- Death Pact is a utility talent that provides you a heal for 50% of your maximum health. This is incredibly useful in Grievous or Bursting where sometimes the damage your group is taking can overwhelm your healer.
- Anti-Magic Zone is one of our most useful utility cooldowns. It is very powerful against heavy group-wide magic damage such as from Bursting or the Tormented Lieutenants Arkolath.
- Control Undead is a very useful ability for Frost Death Knight, allowing us to control Undead mobs for 2 minutes. It comes with the small loss of being unable to use your Raise Dead cooldown. It can be used to CC the incorporeal mobs, so make sure to leverage it for that! The most useful mob you can control is the Fallen Deathspeaker, which provides a 10% haste buff every 30 seconds or so.
- Death Coil can be used to heal the Afflicted mobs. The heal is quite low, so it should only be used in an emergency when that extra heal prevents the mob from casting! Furthermore, you can heal yourself with Death Coil by activating Lichborne first. Really quite niche situation , but still good to know!
- Icebound Fortitude is a powerful defensive ability that decreases any incoming damage by 30% for 8 seconds. Moreover, during that 8-second window, the ability provides you with stun immunity, which can be useful for several dungeon boss fights.
Changelog
- 15 Jan. 2024: Added note on Scythe usage.
- 15 Dec. 2023: Updated Obliteration KM priority.
- 15 Dec. 2023: Clarified DnD location in pillar for AoE.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2. Expanded on rotation significantly.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated talents for Patch 10.1. and removed Thundering affix mention.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated talent builds for 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Death Knight Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Bicepspump, a semi-hardcore player raiding with Pescorus on Kazzak. He is heavily involved in the DK DPS theorycrafting community, testing hyoptheses and investigating the correct priority to use. He is also a moderator in the Acherus Death Knight Discord, frequently answering questions and discussing optimisations (do not hesitate to reach out). He produces guide content on YouTube and frequently streams on Twitch.
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