Frost Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.0.5

Welcome to our Rotation page for Frost Death Knights. Here we will go over everything you will need to know to optimally play your spec for Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

Frost is a very interesting Mythic+ spec, as it has fantastic single-target burst potential and AoE burst potential, however, this differs depending on your talents. For more information about Mythic+ as a Frost Death Knight, please check out our Mythic+ guide linked below.

If these rotations seem fairly complicated, then you may want to check out our Easy Mode page which gives you a much more simplistic build and rotation to play.

Since the guides on this page are for PvE content, if you are looking for a PvP rotation guide, then please visit our PvP page linked below.

The single-target rotation is based on the following priority. I have not included the usage of your cooldowns here; find detailed explanations of those further down the page!

1. Use Frost Strike to keep up your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy.
2. Use Frost Strike if you have 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice and the Shattering Blade talent.
3. Use Obliterate, if you have a Killing Machine proc or 4+ Runes.
4. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown.
5. Use Howling Blast, if you have a Rime proc.
6. Use Frost Strike, if you have 70+ Runic Power.
7. Use Obliterate.
8. Use Frost Strike.

Now, we will translate this into something a bit more readable!

• Use Frost Strike to maintain our Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs. These will almost always be part of your talent setup and should be maintained.
• Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown. The power of this ability varies with the cooldowns you use but it is still always a DPS upgrade to use on cooldown.
• Use Obliterate to consume procs of Killing Machine and avoid capping on Runes. Killing Machine procs are triggered off your critical auto attacks so we must spend them quickly to avoid wasting any procs. We also want to avoid sitting at 4+ Runes available since that means we lose out on Rune recharge. You can recharge 3 Runes at the time max. Any time you are not doing so, you lose out on Rune recharging!
• Spend your 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice with Frost Strike if you have picked up Shattering Blade.
• Spend your procs of Rime on Howling Blast. We have this high in our priority since we want to avoid "overcapping" procs. This is when you generate a proc when you already have one, wasting one use. Casting a naked Howling Blast (without Rime) is kind of worthwhile. It does not matter too much if you do it or not.
• Use Frost Strike to avoid capping Runic Power. This priority comes after managing your Killing Machine procs and Runes. For Frost Death Knight, Runic Power simply is not worth as much as Runes. We will overcap on it and not care generally!
• Use Obliterate to spend Runes and generate Runic Power. Use Frost Strike to spend the Runic Power you generate. This is the majority of your rotation where you build and spend your resources.

If you are using Glacial Advance, then use instead of Frost Strike whenever you would have used Frost Strike. With Frostwyrm's Fury, it is recommended that you synergize with Pillar of Frost and as many targets as possible.

The multiple target rotation is as follows.

• Frostscythe Talented
• Glacial Advance Talented

1. Use Remorseless Winter.
2. Use Death and Decay.
3. Use Frostscythe, if you have a Killing Machine proc and you're not in your Death and Decay window.
4. Use Obliterate, if you have a Killing Machine proc.
5. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc.
6. Use Glacial Advance if your Unleashed Frenzy is about to fall off.
7. Use Frostscythe.
8. Use Obliterate.
9. Use Frost Strike.

Your AoE rotation is almost identical to your single-target rotation if you do not pick up Frostscythe nor Glacial Advance. Only Death and Decay is the new ability that is used to gain Obliterate cleave. You generally do not care as much about Runic Power and it is fine to cap it when prioritising Rune Spenders. The only exception here is if you do pick up Glacial Advance. In that case, the priority is not capping Runic Power by spending it on Glacial Advance.

Breath of Sindragosa is a unique cooldown that offers a completely different play style from the other tier 7 talents. Currently, you will experience an average duration of 120+ seconds with Heroism / Bloodlust, and 60+ seconds without Heroism / Bloodlust. There are outliers where you do not get sufficient Runic Empowerment procs, Frost Fever procs or get a mechanic that causes you to go out of melee.

With Pillar of Frost being a 1-minute cooldown, this means that it does line up well with Breath of Sindragosa and Empower Rune Weapon.

1. Use Abomination Limb.
2. Use Remorseless Winter
3. Use Obliterate (use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc).
4. Use Obliterate (use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc).
5. Use Pillar of Frost.
6. Use Breath of Sindragosa.
7. Use Raise Dead.
8. Use Blood Fury if Orc, Berserking if Troll.
9. Follow the "rotation during Breath of Sindragosa priority" (below).

1. Use Obliterate if you are low on Runic Power (less than 30 RP).
2. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown (for Gathering Storm, if you have taken this talent).
3. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc or Frost Fever is about to drop. Only use Howling Blast if you are above 50 Runic Power (or ~30 if you are using Rage of the Frozen Champion).
4. Use Obliterate if you are nearly capped on Runes or have less than 45 Runic Power.
5. Use Remorseless Winter.
6. Use Obliterate.
7. Use Arcane Torrent if you are a Blood Elf and it will not overcap your Runic Power.

Basically, your goal during Breath of Sindragosa is to keep the duration up by using Obliterate to generate lots of Runic Power. You should only be using abilities like Howling Blast with a Rime proc, when you are not in danger of dropping Breath of Sindragosa, as it does not generate Runic Power (if you do not have the Rage of the Frozen Champion legendary).

Death and Decay has some use when running Breath of Sindragosa in an AoE scenario. It can be used as a last-resort Runic Power generator at the end of your Breath!

Anti-Magic Shell is a defensive ability that can be used offensively to generate Runic Power. This can be used to extend the duration of Breath of Sindragosa. Make sure that the ability you are using Anti-Magic Shell on is magic damage.

Obliteration plays very smoothly and fluidly, as opposed to Breath of Sindragosa.

1. Use Chains of Ice at 20 stacks (if you have taken Cold Heart).
2. Use Remorseless Winter.
3. Use Obliterate (if you got an early Killing Machine proc).
4. Use Empower Rune Weapon.
5. Use Blood Fury if Orc, Berserking if Troll.
6. Use Pillar of Frost.
7. Use Raise Dead.
8. Use Howling Blast.
9. Use Obliterate.
10. Follow the "rotation during Obliteration priority" (below).

We cast a naked Howling Blast in this opener to immediately proc a Killing Machine in your Pillar of Frost window.

1. Use Obliterate with a Killing Machine proc.
2. Use Howling Blast if you have a Rime proc and to generate a Killing Machine proc.
3. Use Frost Strike to generate a Killing Machine proc.
4. Use Howling Blast to generate a Killing Machine proc and you have 3 or more Runes.

The idea here is to weave your abilities to both generate and consume the maximum amount of Killing Machine procs! You can get procs of Killing Machine naturally, forcing you to sometimes use Obliterate twice in a row. It is important to ensure you have sufficient resources before entering the Obliteration window. This generally means saving some Runic Power and Runes ~5 seconds before the window. It is generally sufficient to enter with 2 or more Runes and 30 or more Runic Power. You can have less Runic Power if you have a proc of Rime.

You do want to swap around your Frost Strike and Howling Blast priority when your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs are running out. It is more important to maintain these buffs than to spend the proc of Rime.

The final Howling Blast is an edge-case where you are unlucky with your procs of Rime. You might end up depleting your Runic Power but still have a lot of Runes. We then send a naked Howling Blast to trigger the next Killing Machine.

As a Frost Death Knight, you have 4 Core DPS cooldowns. 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 paired with your Pillar of Frost windows. For Breath of Sindragosa, use it 5-10 seconds after you pop Breath of Sindragosa, making sure you start to starve slightly before you use it. For Obliteration, use it 3 seconds before casting your Pillar of Frost. This ensures you get full uptime of the Haste buff as well as helping pooling for the cooldown window.
• Frostwyrm's Fury should be used in synergy with Pillar of Frost (at the end of the cooldown window when your Strength buff is the highest) and on as many targets as possible. If you are running Obliteration, only use Frostwyrm's Fury in your Pillar of Frost window in AoE scenarios.
• Cold Heart governs your Chains of Ice usage. Generally, use Frost Strike at 16+ stacks of Cold Heart. Ideally, time it with procs of Unholy Strength. You can also opt for using it with 20 stacks in your Pillar window, and then 10 stacks outside of it. This ensures you time the stacks nicely with each Pillar window.
• Breath of Sindragosa should be used on cooldown. Always use in conjunction with Pillar of Frost and Empower Rune Weapon. Always be aware of any mechanics that could force you out of melee, so you do not need to run away right after using this cooldown. Once active, do not spend Runic Power on anything else. Ensure you have at least 60 Runic Power saved up before you use your Breath!
• Obliteration alters your Pillar of Frost. Once active, spend every GCD either generating procs of Killing Machine or consuming said procs. Use Empower Rune Weapon 3 seconds before your Pillar of Frost.
• 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 you need to.

You can read more about these cooldowns, as well as about any cooldowns you gain from talents in our dedicated section.

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 specialization.

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.

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 to maximise the recharge rate over the course of the fight.

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.

Two-Handed builds are viable in the Dragonflight. They do viable damage and have a damage profile that does well in certain scenarios.

Mastery: Frozen Heart increases all Frost damage that you do.

Frost Death Knights have two procs that will regularly show up in the rotation, so you must understand them.

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 at Level 58, you get Killing Machine Rank 2 which makes your next Obliterate deal Frost Damage, meaning it will scale off your Mastery and ignore armor. Killing Machine works based on the number of auto-attack critical strikes you have had since the last proc. For dual wield, the first time you get an auto-attack critical strike after your previous proc, you have a 30% chance to get a new proc. If this fails, the next auto attack has a 60% chance. If this also fails, you get a 90% proc chance and then a 100% proc chance if 3 auto-attack critical strikes have failed in a row.

Wielding a Two-Handed weapon and talenting into Might of the Frozen Wastes increases these proc chances. You simply have a 100% chance to trigger a proc every time you get a critical auto-attack. Still, due to the lower attack speed of a Two-Handed weapon, and since you only have one weapon to attack with, you still get 28% fewer procs when with Two-Handed builds.

Generally, these procs should be used right away to ensure that no procs are overwritten.

If you have the Obliteration talent, then this ability causes each Frost Strike and Howling Blast to trigger Killing Machine (for the duration of Pillar of Frost). Each time you trigger Killing Machine, you should consume the proc before getting a new one, to not waste any 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 additional damage, thanks to Rime. These procs should be used quickly, most importantly generally, before Obliterate or Frostscythe are used again to prevent the buff from being overwritten. It is not always the highest priority but you should still try and prevent overwrites.

Pillar of Frost grants you 20% Strength increasing by 1% for each rune you spend for 12 seconds, with a 1-minute cooldown.

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. When using Breath of Sindragosa you should always pair it with Pillar of Frost and Empower Rune Weapon.

Empower Rune Weapon grants you 15% haste and generates 1 Rune and 5 Runic Power instantly and every 5 seconds for 20 seconds. It has a 120-second cooldown.

Empower Rune Weapon should generally be used in conjunction with Pillar of Frost. The extra haste and resources help to make the most of these damage windows.

If you are using the Breath of Sindragosa talent, Empower Rune Weapon is crucial to extending its duration. It is ideal to wait a couple of seconds into your Breath of Sindragosa window before activating Empower Rune Weapon. This is to avoid overcapping resources.

You will often run with two charges of Empower Rune Weapon. As a general rule, you'll want to use the first charge aggressively in your opening burst. The second charge will be used much later to extend the window as much as possible. There are cases when the first use is also delayed and you'll have to plan for each encounter based on how much you need Empower Rune Weapon to extend your Breath.

With Obliteration, it is ideal to use Empower Rune Weapon 3-7 seconds before your Pillar window. This helps with pooling while maintaining full Pillar uptime on the Haste buff.

Remorseless Winter deals damage and slows by 20% to all targets around you over 8 seconds. The damage and duration can be significantly increased with Gathering Storm, Biting Cold and Everfrost.

Always use this spell on cooldown. An important part of this cooldown, when talented into Gathering Storm, is that you can refresh its duration with the maximum of 10 stacks rolling. If you can spend enough Runes to increase the duration by 10 seconds, you can then recast Remorseless Winter and keep the 10 stacks. This is a huge damage increase and should always be aimed for.

Everfrost works similarly but you instead refresh a debuff on your enemies. It does not require quite as many Runes to be as used Gathering Storm to be extended.

The huge AoE burst of this spell warrants saving it for any potential add phases. As the value grows linearly with added targets, one use of this spell on three targets is better than three overall uses. Do always try to time it with the end of your Pillar of Frost window. The only exception to this is with Obliteration and the Frost DK 4-Piece tier set bonus in pure single-target. The opportunity cost of pressing Frostwyrm's Fury becomes too great at that point, pushing it outside the Pillar window!

Cold Heart turns your Chains of Ice slow into a powerful nuke that ramps over 40 seconds. This unfortunately makes it misalign with our 60 seconds Pillar of Frost cooldown. As a rule of thumb, use Chains of Ice when above 16 stacks of Cold Heart. Do try to time it with procs of Unholy Strength, using Chains of Ice if this proc is about to fall off and you are above 16 stacks. It is also a good idea to use Chains of Ice in your Pillar of Frost window, as long as you have not specced into Obliteration. If using it in Pillar of Frost, use it as the last GCD within that window.

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. If you are using Breath of Sindragosa, make sure to use Horn of Winter when you are low on Runes within the Breath of Sindragosa window.

We have already covered the opener and priority when running this talent, but let us put it in words. Before using Breath of Sindragosa, you want to pool some Runic Power (60+). Do not worry too much about pooling any Runes. Breath of Sindragosa provides 2 Runes on activation, which is generally sufficient to get going. Once you have activated your Breath of Sindragosa, your highest priority is to prolong it as much as possible. This means using Obliterate to consume Runes and generate Runic Power. You should not simply mash this button as much as possible though.

At the start of your Breath of Sindragosa, you will most likely have a lot of Runic Power, making it important to not overcap on Runic Power as you hit your Obliterates. Only use Obliterate if you have more than 3 Runes (avoiding overcapping on Runes) and less than 70 Runic Power.

There are other spells to use within your Breath of Sindragosa window. Howling Blast should be used with procs of Rime as long as you are at a healthy level of Runic Power (30+ with the Rage of the Frozen Champion legendary, 50+ without it). Remorseless Winter should also be used when available (your Breath of Sindragosa window is the easiest time to extend your Gathering Storm stacks).

Using your resource-generating cooldowns smartly in your Breath of Sindragosa window is also crucial. Empower Rune Weapon and Horn of Winter will give you the resources needed to maximise your Breath duration. Still don't hold on to them too long since you'll then end up losing the value of multiple uses. Especially Horn of Winter should be used as soon as doing so won't overcap you on resources.

This talent can either be used as a single-target moderate damage cooldown, a big AoE burst cooldown or as a utility tool to help grip adds together. For any fight that has adds, you should save this cooldown for when they spawn. Both to maximise your own damage as well as the damage of your party. For pure single target, you simply use this spell on cooldown.