Frost Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Shadowlands 9.0.5

Welcome to our Rotation page for Frost Death Knights. Here we will go over everything you will need to know in order 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 that 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.

• Cold Heart Talented
• Horn of Winter Talented

1. Use Chains of Ice, if you have 20 stacks (try to use at the end of Pillar of Frost when the strength bonus is at the highest).
2. Use Frostwyrm's Fury at the end of Pillar of Frost and after Chains of Ice.
3. Use Horn of Winter when you have 1 or less Runes available and less than 25 Runic Power.
4. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown (for Gathering Storm, if you have taken this talent).
5. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc.
6. Use Obliterate, if you have a Killing Machine proc or 4+ Runes.
7. Use Frost Strike, if you have 70+ Runic Power.
8. Use Obliterate.
9. Use Frost Strike.

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.

1. Use Remorseless Winter (if you have taken Gathering Storm).
2. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc.
3. Use Frostscythe, if you have a Killing Machine proc.
4. Use Remorseless Winter.
5. Use Death and Decay.
6. Use Frostscythe.
7. Use Obliterate.
8. Use Frost Strike.

Breath of Sindragosa is a unique cooldown that offers a completely different playstyle from the other tier 7 talents. You may experience a significant amount of downtime outside of your Breath of Sindragosa windows, which is completely normal. Currently you will experience an average duration of 25 seconds without Heroism / Bloodlust, and about 30-35 seconds with 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 the new version of 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 Obliterate (use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc).
2. Use Obliterate (use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc).
3. Use Obliterate (use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc).
4. Use Empower Rune Weapon.
5. Use Pillar of Frost.
6. Use Breath of Sindragosa.
7. Use Raise Dead.
8. Use Blood Fury if Orc, Berserking if Troll.
9. Use Remorseless Winter.
10. 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.
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.

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.
11. Follow the "rotation during Obliteration priority" (below).

1. Use Remorseless Winter, if specced into Gathering Storm.
2. Use Obliterate with a Killing Machine proc.
3. Use Frost Strike if you do not have a Killing Machine proc OR are about to cap Runic Power (70+).
4. Use Howling Blast if you have a Rime proc.
5. Use Obliterate to generate Runic Power.

1. Use Howling Blast (if you have a Rime proc).
2. Use Obliterate (if you have more 3+ Runes available).
3. Use Frost Strike (if you are about to cap Runic Power).
4. Use Obliterate.
5. Use Frost Strike.

As a Frost Death Knight, you have 3 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. When using Breath of Sindragosa you should always pair these 2 cooldowns together, as well as Empower Rune Weapon.
• 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. If you are talented into Breath of Sindragosa then sync up your Empower Rune Weapon with Breath of Sindragosa.
• Frostwyrm'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.

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 in order 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.

Currently Dual-Wield and Two-Handed are both very viable builds although Two-Handed plays better in PvP situations while Dual-Wield plays better in PvE situations.

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 it is important that you 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.

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 the duration of Pillar of Frost). Each time you trigger Killing Machine, you should consume the proc before getting a new one, so as not to 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 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.

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 105-second cooldown (before level 56, the cooldown is 2 minutes).

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.

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, use Horn of Winter when you are low on Runes.