Frost Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (Legion 7.3.5)
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we list your Frost Death Knight core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Frost Death Knight.
The other pages of our Frost Death Knight guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
About Our Reviewer
This guide has been reviewed and approved by Ertrak, a top Frost Death Knight who raids in Azshari Vegans.
1. Single Target Rotation for Frost Death Knights
The single target rotation is based on the following priority.
- Use
Sindragosa's Fury (with
Pillar of Frost, the proc from
Rune of the Fallen Crusader, and 5 stacks of Razorice).
- Use
Remorseless Winter on cooldown (for
Gathering Storm).
- Use
Howling Blast, only if you have a
Rime proc.
- Use
Obliterate to avoid capping runes, or if you have a
Killing Machine proc.
- Use
Frost Strike when you are about to cap Runic Power.
- Use
Obliterate.
- Use
Frost Strike.
2. Multiple Target Rotation for Frost Death Knights
The multiple target rotation assumes you are using
Breath of Sindragosa as your tier 7 talent. In preparation for Breath of
Sindragosa becoming available, you should pool up 50+ Runic Power and 4 runes.
While it is active, perform the following steps.
- Use
Obliterate if
Breath of Sindragosa is about to fall off.
- Use
Remorseless Winter (for
Gathering Storm).
- Use
Howling Blast, only if you have a
Rime proc.
- Use
Obliterate.
- Use
Empower Rune Weapon if nothing else is available.
- Use
Horn of Winter, if you are using this talent.
When Breath of Sindragosa is on cooldown, use the following
priority instead.
- Use
Sindragosa's Fury.
- Use
Howling Blast, only if you have a
Rime proc.
- Use
Frost Strike, if you have 90+ Runic Power.
- Use
Frostscythe, if you have a
Killing Machine proc.
- Use
Remorseless Winter on cooldown.
- Use
Frostscythe.
- Use
Frost Strike, if you have 70+ Runic Power.
3. Cooldown Usage for Frost Death Knights
As a Frost Death Knight, you have 2 DPS cooldowns. In addition to this, you gain another cooldown from your Artifact weapon. Below, we explain how they are best used.
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.
Empower Rune Weapon should be used as many times as possible throughout the encounter, making sure not to waste any of the resources it provides you with.
Sindragosa's Fury should be used as many times as possible throughout an encounter. Ideally, it should be used against multiple targets (and it is worth saving for this purpose), but it can also be used against a single target.
You can read more about these cooldowns, as well as about any cooldowns you gain from talents in our dedicated section.
4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Frost Death Knight
Following the guide up to this point will allow you to play a Frost Death Knight at a very high level. That said, below we go into a bit more detail about some aspects of the specialisation.
4.1. Runes and Runic Power
Death Knights use a dual resource system of runes and Runic Power. While it is quite straightforward in how it works, we will explain it here for the sake of completion.
4.1.1. Runes
You have a total of 6 Runes, which are available by default. Some of your abilities have Rune costs, and whenever you use an ability that consumes one or more Runes, those Runes will immediately begin recharging. The exact amount of time it takes a Rune to recharge depends on how much Haste you have.
Whenever a Rune is consumed, you gain 10 Runic Power (more on that below).
At most, 3 of your runes can be charging up at the same time. It is therefore optimal to keep at least 3 runes on cooldown in order to maximise the recharge rate over the course of the fight.
4.1.2. Runic Power
Runic Power is a resource that resembles Rage, in the sense that it decays when out of combat, but does not decay during combat. As mentioned above, consuming Runes generates 10 Runic Power per Rune spent, and this is the primary means of generating Runic Power, although some abilities also help with this. You can have a maximum of 100 Runic Power.
4.2. Dual-Wielding Versus Two-Handed
Despite historically being able to use both Two-Handed weapons and to dual-wield One-Handed weapons, Frost Death Knights can now only use most of their damaging abilities if they are using One-Handed Weapons. As a result, the Two-Handed playstyle is dead.
The fact that the Artifact weapons are two One-Handed weapons further reinforces this fact.
4.3. Mastery: Frozen Heart
Mastery: Frozen Heart increases all Frost damage that you do.
4.4. Procs
Frost Death Knights have two procs that will regularly show up in the rotation, so it is important that you understand them.
4.4.1. Killing Machine Procs
Your auto attack critical strikes have a chance to make your next
Obliterate (or
Frostscythe, if you have taken this talent) a
guaranteed critical strike, thanks to
Killing Machine.
Generally, these procs should be used right away so as to ensure that no procs are overwritten.
If you have the Obliteration tier 7 talent, then this ability
causes each
Frost Strike and
Howling Blast to trigger
Killing Machine (for 10 seconds). Each time you trigger Killing Machine,
you should consume the proc before getting a new one, so as not to waste any
procs.
4.4.2. Rime Procs
Your Obliterate has a 45% chance and your
Frostscythe a 22.5% chance to cause your next
Howling Blast
to be free of cost and deal 300% additional damage, thanks to
Rime.
These procs should be used quickly, certainly before Obliterate or Frostscythe
are used again
to prevent them from being overwritten.
4.5. Anti-Magic Shell Usage
Anti-Magic Shell absorbs 100% of all magic damage taken, up to 30%
of your maximum health, for 5 seconds and grants you Runic Power based on the
amount of damage that it absorbs.
While this ability has amazing survivability benefits, allowing you to often taken practically no damage from various raid-damaging mechanics, it also has great benefits for your DPS.
Indeed, the amount of Runic Power you gain if you absorb a lot of magic damage is far from negligible. Therefore, you should always try to make use of Anti-Magic Shell to boost your Runic Power generation throughout the fight. The best way to do it is to know when a raid-damaging attack is coming, and to have Anti Magic Shell up for that time. Then, simply enjoy the extra Runic Power (and do not forget to spend it).
That said, for progression content, we fully recommend first and foremost
saving Anti-Magic Shell to mitigate magic damage, before you consider
how to use it to increase your DPS.
The Volatile Shielding tier 5 talent can be used to increase
the amount of damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell, allowing you to survive
even more dangerous mechanics. It also causes Anti-Magic Shell to generated
more Runic Power.
4.6. Advanced Cooldown Usage
4.6.1. Pillar of Frost
Pillar of Frost grants you 20% Strength for 20 seconds, with a
1-minute cooldown. It also grants you immunity to external movement effects
such as knockbacks (which could be useful in some situations).
You should use this ability on cooldown and ideally couple it with any potions or on-use trinkets you may have. That said, it can sometimes be better to save it until a high priority target becomes available.
If you are using the Breath of Sindragosa or
Obliteration, it is best to stack
Pillar of Frost with these
talents.
4.6.2. Empower Rune Weapon
Empower Rune Weapon refreshes all of your Runes and grants you 25
Runic Power. It has a 3-minute cooldown.
Empower Rune Weapon should be used when all of your Runes are on cooldown and you have low runic power. It is useful in providing a large burst of DPS, so keep that in mind when deciding when to use it.
If you are using the Breath of Sindragosa talent, Empower Rune Weapon
is crucial to extending its duration, so saving it for such moments is
important.
Note that if you have the Seal of Necrofantasia legendary,
Empower Rune Weapon will have 2 charges.
If you are using Hungering Rune Weapon as your tier 7 talent, then
you should use it whenever you can, as often as possible.
4.6.3. Frost Death Knight Artifact Abilities
The main Artifact ability, Crystalline Swords, is entirely
passive and you should not concern yourself with it.
On the other hand, the Sindragosa's Fury trait provides you with
a 5-minute cooldown that deals massive Frost damage to all enemies located
in a cone in front of you, also slowing their movement speed by 50% for
10 seconds. You should use this as many times as possible throughout the
fight, ideally against multiple targets. If no multiple targets will spawn,
you should use it on cooldown against a single target.
4.6.4. Horn of Winter
If you are using Horn of Winter as your tier 2 talent, then you
should cast it as often as you can, whenever nothing on your rotational
priority list is available.
5. ChangeLog
- 21 Jan. 2018: Updated a mention of Volatile Shielding that still referred to the way the talent used to work in the past.
- 01 Sep. 2017: Updated AoE rotation to include Breath of Sindragosa.
- 31 Aug. 2017: Removed an outdated mention regarding how Obliteration works.
- 28 Aug. 2017: Updated rotation sections.
- 11 Aug. 2017: Made a small tweak to the Breath of Sindragosa rotation to remove the mention of Hungering Rune Weapon.
- 13 Jun. 2017: Updated Rime description to account for Patch 7.2.5 changes.
- 24 Apr. 2017: Removed mentions of Machine Gun playstyle.
- 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
- 21 Feb. 2017: Updated the page to show the two viable playstyle (Breath of Sindragosa, the most prominent, and Machine Gun).
- 21 Jan. 2017: Updated the Breath of Sindragosa rotation.
- 13 Jan. 2017: Changed the text to reflect that the only recommended tier 6 talent for the Breath of Sindragosa playstyle is Gathering Storm.
- 10 Jan. 2017: Added Breath of Sindragosa rotation.
- 11 Dec. 2016: Fixed a typo in the rotation section and one in the Cooldown Usage section.
- 28 Oct. 2016: Amended the Obliterate line in the single target priority to include one with and one without a Killing Machine proc.
- 27 Oct. 2016: Added the Runic Attenuation + Obliteration rotation to the guide.
- 05 Oct. 2016: Split the rotation into single target and AoE.
- 26 Sep. 2016: Improved the single target rotation.
- 25 Sep. 2016: Removed the non-machine gun rotations.
- 24 Sep. 2016: Updated the guide to reflect that the machine gun rotation is currently recommended in all situations.
- 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
- 22 Jul. 2016: Several updates.
- Tweaked the Frostscythe line in the Machine Gun rotation.
- Removed mentions of Rime procs from all rotations except single target one, since not using Obliterate means you will never have them.
- 21 Jul. 2016: Added machine gun rotation to the guide.
- 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.



- Unholy DPS, any other specs ?
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- Battle for Azeroth Live Developer Q/A Roundup: Apr 26
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- Pet Battle Changes in Battle for Azeroth Beta
- Mythic(+) Mounts in Battle for Azeroth
- The Underrot Dungeon in Battle for Azeroth
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- Patch 7.3.5 Hotfixes: April 24th
- Upcoming Battle for Azeroth Beta Live Developer Q/A: Apr 26


- Class Order Halls - Champions
- Class Order Halls - Resources and Advancements
- The Help My DPS Thread
- Question about Blizzard Shop's Race Change for hunterz
- What you think about raid progress and logs?
- I am a mess, please help. :(
- Frost Mage 7.3
- Unholy DPS, any other specs ?


- The Help My DPS Thread
- Class Order Halls - Resources and Advancements
- Question about Blizzard Shop's Race Change for hunterz
- Unholy DPS, any other specs ?
- DH DD - Which Trinkets
- I am a mess, please help. :(
- What you think about raid progress and logs?
- Class Order Halls - Champions
