Frost Death Knight DPS Mythic+ Tips — Dragonflight 10.2
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.
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+. The general rule is the following:
- 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.
Obliterate if at two stacks.
- Generate a stack of
Killing Machine using
Howling Blast and
Glacial Advance.
Obliterate if at two stacks.
Death and Decay
Obliterate cleave.
By following this opener, you will be doing really good damage on any given pull!
Make sure to use Frostwyrm's Fury at the end of your
Pillar of Frost
and use
Remorseless Winter on cooldown!
The opener above is for an Obliteration window where you do not
use
Frostwyrm's Fury at the end! In the windows where you know you will use
this cooldown, you should use
Death and Decay one GCD earlier. Since the
last GCD is spent on the dragon anyway, you do not need to worry about having
Death and Decay active at this point!
The Obliterate cleave priority looks like the following:
- Use
Obliterate if you have 2 stacks of
Killing Machine.
- Use
Remorseless Winter.
- 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
Obliterate with a
Killing Machine proc.
- Use
Glacial Advance to generate a
Killing Machine 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 due to its high AoE damage!
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. 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.
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
- 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.
- Dragonflight 10.2 Hotfixes, November 30th
- Population Caps Increased, New Realm Added to Season of Discovery
- Season of Discovery Now Live
- Season of Discovery PvP Rank Caps
- Season of Discovery WoWCast Episode
- Mythic+ Tier List for Dragonflight Season 3 Week 3
- Amirdrassil a Proper Zone in Patch 10.2.5
- Season of Discovery Guides