Frost Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within Pre-Patch

The Obliteration raid build is all about juicy Obliterate hits and big Pillar of Frost windows. Make sure you use your Pillar macros to make your windows as efficient as possible!

The primary choice in this build revolves around Horn of Winter. It is essentially at par with a single point in Icebreaker. The benefits of Horn is that it injects some nice resources in the rotation. You can use it ahead of each Pillar of Frost window to mitigate starving, smoothing out the rotation. Furthermore, Inexorable Assault is on-par with Frostwyrm's Fury on pure Single Target, presenting a completely passive choice. However, due to Frostwyrm being much better on AoE, it is the go-to choice.

For the class tree, there is a lot more realistic choice. Above the 20 point delimiter, we do not have too many mandatory spells:

• Death Strike
• Icebound Fortitude
• Runic Attenuation
• Anti-Magic Barrier
• Permafrost
• Icy Talons
• Gloom Ward
• Veteran of the Third War
• Brittle
• Unholy Bond
• Soul Reaper
• Unholy Endurance
• Unholy Ground (pathing)

Picking these up leaves us with 5 points that we can allocate freely. Cleaving Strikes is mandatory on any cleave fight. Mind Freeze for any fight with interrupt being required. Blinding Sleet if you need AoE CC. Wraith Walk and/or March of Darkness for extra mobility. Anti-Magic Zone and potentially Assimilation to get a nice defensive raid cooldown. There is simply a lot of choice here and you can cater your utility to each encounter!

The bottom part of the tree has a lot less choice. Blood Draw can be exchanged for Runic Protection on fights with a lot of physical damage intake. Furthermore, where you simply do not take any magic damage at all, Null Magic can be allocated to Osmosis or someplace further up the tree. Finally, when you cannot gain particular value from Unyielding Will, this point can be put better to use at Osmosis or, again, further up the tree.

The Dual-Wield Obliteration talent build is similar to its 2H counterpart. The main difference is the increased proc rate of Killing Machine as well as the playstyle surrounding Shattering Blade. You pick up Rune of Razorice on your mainhand weapon and then burst your stacks with Frost Strike whenever you reach 5. If you haven't been able to obtain the Legendary, this build will be your best option.

There are not that many great choices in the talent tree. Inexorable Assault is an alternative to Frostwyrm's Fury, giving 0.2% more Single-Target DPS but losing a ton of potential AoE and Cleave.

For the class tree, there is a lot more realistic choice. Above the 20 point delimiter, we do not have too many mandatory spells:

• Death Strike
• Icebound Fortitude
• Runic Attenuation
• Anti-Magic Barrier
• Permafrost
• Icy Talons
• Gloom Ward
• Veteran of the Third War
• Brittle
• Unholy Bond
• Soul Reaper
• Unholy Endurance
• Unholy Ground (pathing)

Picking these up leaves us with 5 points that we can allocate freely. Cleaving Strikes is mandatory on any cleave fight. Mind Freeze for any fight with interrupt being required. Blinding Sleet if you need AoE CC. Wraith Walk and/or March of Darkness for extra mobility. Anti-Magic Zone and potentially Assimilation to get a nice defensive raid cooldown. There is simply a lot of choice here and you can cater your utility to each encounter!

The bottom part of the tree has a lot less choice. Blood Draw can be exchanged for Runic Protection on fights with a lot of physical damage intake. Furthermore, where you simply do not take any magic damage at all, Null Magic can be allocated to Osmosis or someplace further up the tree. Finally, when you cannot gain particular value from Unyielding Will, this point can be put better to use at Osmosis or, again, further up the tree.

Breath of Sindragosa is your third option for talents, presenting a rewarding mini-game where you try and maintain your Breath for as long as possible. We run this in conjunction with Obliteration, the "Omnifrost" build. The rotation during Pillar of Frost does not change at all, instead we just keep spamming Obliterate and use our procs of Rime on Howling Blast.

For your spec talents, your Single Target choice is between Inexorable Assault and Frostwyrm's Fury. Inex is 0.3% ahead on pure Single Target and is completely passive. Frostwyrm is a lot better in AoE and is the talent we recommend by default.

For the class tree, there is a lot more realistic choice. Above the 20 point delimiter, we do not have too many mandatory spells:

• Death Strike
• Icebound Fortitude
• Runic Attenuation
• Anti-Magic Barrier
• Permafrost
• Icy Talons
• Gloom Ward
• Veteran of the Third War
• Brittle
• Unholy Bond
• Soul Reaper
• Unholy Endurance
• Unholy Ground (pathing)

Picking these up leaves us with 5 points that we can allocate freely. Cleaving Strikes is mandatory on any cleave fight. Mind Freeze for any fight with interrupt being required. Blinding Sleet if you need AoE CC. Wraith Walk and/or March of Darkness for extra mobility. Anti-Magic Zone and potentially Assimilation to get a nice defensive raid cooldown. There is simply a lot of choice here and you can cater your utility to each encounter!

The bottom part of the tree has a lot less choice. Blood Draw can be exchanged for Runic Protection on fights with a lot of physical damage intake. Furthermore, where you simply do not take any magic damage at all, Null Magic can be allocated to Osmosis or someplace further up the tree. Finally, when you cannot gain particular value from Unyielding Will, this point can be put better to use at Osmosis or, again, further up the tree.

For Mythic+, we are running Obliteration builds. The 2H version gets its damage primarily from Obliterate cleave in your Pillar of Frost + Death and Decay windows.

When it comes to the spec talents, Absolute Zero can be exchanged for Cryogenic Chamber. Cryogenic is a bit more passive and doesn't require you to choose the right time to use your dragon, at least not as often.

For the class tree, we are pretty locked for the most part. Both Blinding Sleet and Mind Freeze are mandatory, along with Cleaving Strikes. Anti-Magic Zone and March of Darkness can be freed up. Coldthirst, Grip of the Dead and Wraith Walk are good options.

The Dual-Wield Mythic+ build focuses a lot more on bursting Rune of Razorice stacks with the Shattered Frost talent. Frost Strike becomes your Runic Power spender, being used on targets that have 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice.

When it comes to the spec talents, Absolute Zero can be exchanged for Cryogenic Chamber. Cryogenic is a bit more passive and doesn't require you to choose the right time to use your dragon, at least not as often.

For the class tree, we are pretty locked for the most part. Both Blinding Sleet and Mind Freeze are mandatory, along with Cleaving Strikes. Anti-Magic Zone and March of Darkness can be freed up. Coldthirst, Grip of the Dead and Wraith Walk are good options.