Frost Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within Pre-Patch

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 good 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!

• Shattering Blade Talented

1. Use Frost Strike to stack/ keep up your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy. Prioritise stacking up the buffs over using Rime at the start of any encounter.
2. Use Obliterate if you have 2 stacks of Killing Machine.
3. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown.
4. Use Frost Strike if you have 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice.
5. Use Howling Blast, if you have a Rime proc.
6. Use Obliterate, if you have a Killing Machine proc.
7. Use Soul Reaper if the target is below 35% health.
8. Use Frost Strike, if you have 70+ Runic Power.
9. Use Obliterate.
10. Use Frost Strike.

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

• Use Frost Strike to stack and maintain our Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs. These will almost always be part of your talent setup and should be maintained. At the start of the encounter, this means prioritizing Frost Strike over procs of Rime until you reach 3 stacks. We also use it as a high priority when we want to consume Rune of Razorice stacks with the Shattering Blade talent.
• Use Obliterate to consume procs of Killing Machine. Killing Machine procs are triggered off your critical auto attacks, so we must spend them relatively quickly to avoid wasting any procs (remember that you can stack Killing Machine two times!). If you have two stacks, consume instantly. Otherwise, it is fine to use Rime before you consume the Killing Machine.
• 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 only ever worthwhile to maintain your Frost Fever. We do this at the start of the encounter, either if we have the Legendary or if we are running Obliteration.
• Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown. The power of this ability varies with the talents you use, but it is still always a DPS upgrade to use on cooldown. We pretty much always pick up most of the talents for it anyway.
• Use Soul Reaper on cooldown when the target reaches 35% health.
• Use Frost Strike to avoid capping Runic Power. This priority comes after managing your Killing Machine procs and Runes. You would rather overcap on Runic Power than sit on 4+ Runes.
• 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.

• Glacial Advance Talented

1. Use Remorseless Winter.
2. Use Death and Decay.
3. Use Obliterate, if you have a Killing Machine proc.
4. Use Glacial Advance if your Unleashed Frenzy is about to fall off.
5. Use Frost Strike if your Unleashed Frenzy is about to fall off, or if you have 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice and Shattered Frost talented. Tab through enemies to burst your Rune of Razorice stacks on them.
6. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc.
7. Use Obliterate.
8. Use Glacial Advance.
9. Use Frost Strike.

Your AoE rotation is almost identical to your single-target rotation, primarily being different when Glacial Advance is your Runic Power spender. Death and Decay is also used in a new way, being your primary source of cleave to due Obliterate hitting up to three targets when you are standing in it. You generally do not care as much about Runic Power, and it is fine to cap it when prioritizing Rune Spenders.

Optimising your AoE damage is generally all about leveraging your Death and Decay in your Obliteration windows properly! See the Obliteration priority in AoE further down this page for a more detailed discussion!

Breath of Sindragosa is a unique cooldown that offers a completely different play style from Obliteration. Currently, you will experience an average duration of 45+ seconds with Heroism / Bloodlust, and 30+ seconds without Heroism / Bloodlust. There are outliers where you do not get sufficient Runic Empowerment or Murderous Efficiency procs that can cut it short. Furthermore, mechanics can force you out of range , which will ruin your uptime of Breath.

• Chill Streak Talented.

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

• Soul Reaper Talented

1. Use Obliterate if you are low on Runic Power (less than 30 RP).
2. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown.
3. Use Soul Reaper on cooldown when the boss is below 35% health.
4. 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 30 Runic Power.
5. Use Obliterate if you are nearly capped on Runes or have less than 45 Runic Power.
6. Use Obliterate.
7. Use Arcane Torrent if you are a Blood Elf, and it will not overcap your Runic Power.

The Breath of Sindragosa rotation is all about managing your Runic Power generation throughout the duration of your Breath. Your Runic Power drains at a rate of 17 per second, and you want to ensure this does not turn into a Runic Power deficit for long periods of time! The very first point to consider is the type of ability you use during your Breath. Never ever use an ability that costs Runic Power, as it will significantly reduce the duration of your Breath. Instead, you will pretty much only use Obliterate, Remorseless Winter, and Howling Blast with procs of Rime and Soul Reaper when the target is low on health.

Before you initiate your Breath, you want to pool appropriate resources. For a Breath during Bloodlust, this will only be around 60 Runic Power. Non-lusted Breath require more resources and you should aim to go to 80+ and have 1-2 Runes before you enter the Breath.

The start of your Breath will generally be very easy to manage. You will pool resources beforehand and have all your cooldowns available to help with your resources. Important to note here is to not blindly spam your Obliterate button. You can easily end up in scenarios where you have so many resources that you actually overcap on Runic Power and end up wasting it! Do not Obliterate if you are about to overcap on Runic Power and you have 3 or fewer Runes (in reality, we will overcap some Runic Power due to our very fast Rune recharge rate).

Once the initial resource-heavy phase is gone, you will start entering a region of potential Runic Power deficit. With good procs, you are fine and keep your Runic Power up, but with streaks of unlucky periods, your Runic Power will start to drop. This is the part where you want to actively manage your resource-generating cooldowns. Empower Rune Weapon, Horn of Winter and Anti-Magic Shell. Use Empower Rune Weapon relatively early to not screw up your second Breath. Even if you feel healthy on Runic Power, remember that the time you use Empower Rune Weapon sets the time you can use it during your second Breath. If you hold it for too long, you might drop your second Breath before you even get Empower Rune Weapon off cooldown again! Horn of Winter should be used quite aggressively, allowing for a potential second use during the Breath. Try and use it as soon as you run out of Runes, and it will not overcap your Runic Power. Anti-Magic Shell should be used when you can soak up magic damage. Again, be quite aggressive to enable a potential second use, but also make sure the magic damage you soak is significant. Try and space out your cooldowns appropriately and do not use them all at the same time. If used all together, you risk wasting resources.

In the final part of Breath, you are dropping further and further down. No resources cooldowns are left to use, and you just hope for good procs. Here, you will distinctly prioritize using Obliterate over Howling Blast with Rime, as well as Remorseless Winter and Soul Reaper. You want to optimize your Runic Power in the next GCD in the hope of getting potential procs. You can also consider using Death and Decay, giving you that 10 Runic Power for one more tick and potentially more procs. Also, make sure to really spam your buttons here so that any Rune proc is used up ASAP!

Finally, let us consider the scenario when you are forced out of range due to mechanics. In this scenario, it can be viable to spam Howling Blast to keep up your Breath! Try and make use of Anti-Magic Shell and Horn of Winter to avoid using Howling Blast since it is quite the waste of Runes to do it. Also, consider the extra Breath duration you gain by doing it. If your Breath is dropping 4-5 seconds after getting back to the boss anyway, using Howling Blast will end up being a waste. In short, if you are forced out of range early in your Breath window, use all the tools you can to keep it up. If it is late in the window, only use naked Howling Blasts if it will net you 5+ seconds or so of extra boss Breath uptime.

Obliteration is executed in a far shorter cooldown window compared to Breath of Sindragosa, putting more emphasis on the GCD-by-GCD decisions.

• Chill Streak Talented.
• Fyr'alath the Dreamrender equipped.

1. Use Howling Blast as you run towards the boss.
2. Use Fyr'alath the Dreamrender
3. Use Abomination Limb.
4. Use Remorseless Winter.
5. Use Chill Streak.
6. Use Empower Rune Weapon + Pillar of Frost + Raise Dead + Howling Blast + Racial + Trinket.
7. Use Empower Rune Weapon + Pillar of Frost + Raise Dead + Frost Strike + Racial + Trinket.
8. Use Obliterate.
9. Follow the "rotation during Obliteration priority" (below).

We cast a potentially naked Howling Blast in this opener to immediately proc a Killing Machine in your Pillar of Frost window or to initiate the Legendary DoT on the target.

You have a high priority to stack up Unleashed Frenzy in your first Pillar of Frost window, essentially ignoring Rime until you have stacked up 3 charges of the buff.

For AoE, the opener stays pretty much the same. The one difference is that you use Death and Decay just before your Pillar of Frost window! Death and Decay provides 14 seconds of Cleave and Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds baseline. If you are running The Long Winter, use Death and Decay after you have generate two procs of Killing Machine in your Pillar window.

We will generally run two charges of Death and Decay in AoE. The way to use your second charge is 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! Try and use Empower Rune Weapon right at the start of the initial window if you intend to use a secondary Death and Decay. 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!

• Breath of Sindragosa Talented and Active

1. Use Remorseless Winter.
2. Use Obliterate if you have a stack of Killing Machine.
3. Use Frost Strike 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. Glacial Advance if using this talent.
4. Use Howling Blast, if you have a Rime proc.
5. Use Soul Reaper to generate a proc of Killing Machine if your target is below 35% and you have 3 or more Runes.
6. Use Frost Strike to generate a Killing Machine proc. Glacial Advance if using this talent.
7. Use Howling Blast to generate a Killing Machine proc, and you have 3 or more Runes.
8. Use Obliterate to generate Runic Power

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, so make sure to be ready for when that happens to avoid overcapping on procs. 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.

Note that Frost Strike has a higher priority than Howling Blast when you need to either stack or refresh your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs! It is more important to maintain these buffs than to spend the proc of Rime. Furthermore, you should also use Frost Strike above Rime procs when low on Runes. Due to them spending Runic Power, you have a higher probability of generating a Rune when using a Frost Strike vs consuming a proc of Killing Machine!

With Soul Reaper, we will use it to generate procs of Killing Machine. This generally has a lower priority since the ability costs a Rune, potentially disrupting our weaving if are at low Runes. Only use it if you have 3 or more Runes available!

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.

Breath of Sindragosa is a checkbox at the top due to it being a viable option to run in combination with Obliteration. When you do this, you essentially do not do your general weaving rotation. Instead, you continue with your Breath rotation and enjoy the increased number of Killing Machine procs you get from using up your Rimes.

Just like in the general AoE rotation, Glacial Advance becomes your Runic Power spender of choice within your Obliteration window as soon as you are fighting 2+ targets!

Remorseless Winter is included in this window as well as a high priority. This abilities simply do so much damage for a single button press that it is worthwhile to use it even during the GCD-restricted Obliteration window!

As a Frost Death Knight, you have 10 Core DPS 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 doesn't scale with your Strength so you don't want to waste 2 GCDs in your burst window pressing something that doesn't 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.
• 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. Don't 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. If you are running Obliteration, wait until just after your Pillar window to send the Cooldown in pure Single Target.
• 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 won't 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.

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 The War Within Pre-Patch. 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 a guaranteed critical strike and 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, Glacial Advance, Soul Reaper and Howling Blast to trigger Killing Machine (for the duration of Pillar of Frost). Aim to never overcap Killing Machine, never actively generating one if you are already at 2 charges.

Your Obliterate has a 45% 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 is used again to prevent the buff from being overwritten. It is not always the highest priority, but you should still try and prevent overwrites.

Throws a snowball at your enemy that bounces to nearby enemies, dealing damage each time. Can bounce off yourself if no enemies are nearby. Good synergy with Pillar of Frost with Icecap as you can send Chill Streak before each Pillar window, allowing the bounces to overlap with the Strength buff.

Pillar of Frost grants you 30% Strength for 12 seconds, with a 1-minute cooldown. The cooldown can be reduced to 45 seconds with Icecap and the duration increased to 18 seconds with The Long Winter.

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. You use it relatively early in your window to allow for secondary uses to be timed well.

For secondary Breath of Sindragosa, use Empower Rune Weapon greedily when you start starving.

With Obliteration, it is ideal to use Empower Rune Weapon a couple of seconds before your Pillar window. With The Long Winter, wait until 0-2 seconds. Without, using it 2-7 seconds before. In AoE, always use it with Pillar of Frost to boost your damage after the Pillar window ends.

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. In some scenarios, you even have multiple seconds left on the buff once the cooldown comes off. In this case, wait until there is less than 2 seconds remaining on the buff before you recast it.

Everfrost works similarly, but you instead refresh a debuff on your enemies. It does not require quite as many Runes to be used as 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 your Pillar of Frost in AoE. For pure single target with Obliteration, wait until just after your Pillar of Frost to use it.

Cold Heart turns your Chains of Ice slow into a powerful nuke that ramps over 40 seconds. 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. With Icecap, you can hold it for each Pillar of Frost window.

If you are using Horn of Winter, 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. It is important to not hold on to it for too long as you will end up losing casts overall. Use it as soon as you cannot use Obliterate and it will not overcap Runic Power for you. Around 15-25 seconds into your Breath. With Obliteration, use it before your Pillar window to boost your resources for the burst.

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+ with Bloodlust, 80+ without). 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) or if your Runic Power deficit is greater than 20.

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+ or so). 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 maximize 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 maximize your own damage as well as the damage of your party. For pure single target, you simply use this spell on cooldown.