Frost Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.1

NEW! The Icy Veins app is here Try out the WoW Class Codex Addon with the Icy Veins app Download App

Welcome to our talent guide for Frost Death Knight. Here we will discuss all matters associated with your talent choices, providing the best available builds, as well as details regarding alternative picks and potential talent swaps.

Frost Death Knight has one major choice in its talent tree: whether or not to route into Shattering Blade and Frostbane. These talents rely on Dual-Wield builds that pick up Rune of Razorice as a Runeforging option on the Main hand. The alternative is to run a pure Breath of Sindragosa setup, which works well with both 2H and Dual-Wield.

We recommend running the Dual-Wield Breath of Sindragosa build in all content.

Quick Start Import Codes:

The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

The Omnium Folio is a new system introduced in Midnight's Patch 12.0.7, and offers some minor performance-enhancing customization options after a multi-week quest series. Some of these bonuses affect your damage output, while others are more defensive in nature.

We recommend you pick the following bonuses in the first couple of weeks, but as you can freely switch between them at any time, feel free to experiment with other options yourself if you feel you do not get enough mileage out of the recommended options:

• Week 1: Rune of Unleashed Fire
• Week 2: Rune of Void-Tainted Shell
• Week 3: Rune of Lingering
• Week 4: Rune of Critical Power
• Week 5: Rune of Overload

Frost Death Knight gets access to Chosen of Frostbrood Apex Talents as you level up from 80 to 90 in Midnight. The first rank buffs Frostwyrm's Fury by 100% and provides a Haste buff when you use the ability. The second rank Chosen of Frostbrood extends your active Pillar of Frost by 2/4 seconds when you cast Frostwyrm's Fury in it, and improves the power of Enduring Strength. The final rank Chosen of Frostbrood provides a flat 10% Frost damage buff, an additional 100% increase to Frostwyrm's Fury damage and allows you to recast the ability at 50% effectiveness for 45 seconds after the first use.

The Apex Talents significantly incentivise picking up Frostwyrm's Fury and additionally using it in our Pillar of Frost windows. We send both charges in our first window to avoid missing the next one, making sure to spread them out to not overlap the buffs.

Available at level 71, Hero talents are mutually exclusive trees you can choose to slightly alter gameplay. Frost Death Knight can choose between Rider of the Apocalypse and Deathbringer.

The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents provide more focus on minion damage with your Riders being summoned both passively as well as actively via Frostwyrm's Fury. It also has nice synergy with Frostbane via the Hungering Thirst talent which increases Frost Strike damage. It brings great utility through the Death Charge ability as well as more emphasis is but on your 1.5 minute Cooldown window with Apocalypse Now.

Deathbringer focuses on your 45-seconds burst windows with Reaper's Mark both dealing significant damage on its own, but also buffing your other abilities. It comes with lots of extra procs and benefits, providing multiple extra procs of Killing Machine via Exterminate and free Frost Fever applications.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents that are best for leveling and doing open-world content.

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 15% more experience and quest awards gained while leveling.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Frost Death Knight-specific PvE talents.

1. Deathchill roots enemies for 4 seconds. It is applied either via the direct cast of Remorseless Winter, or by casting Chains of Ice on a target already affected by Chains of Ice. Not valuable in PvE content.
2. Delirium causes your Howling Blast and Frost Strike to apply Delirium to the target. Delirium reduces the cooldown recovery rate of movement abilities by 50% for 12 seconds.
3. Shroud of Winter reduces the cast range of enemies within 8 yards around you by 30%. Not useful in PvE.
4. Dark Simulacrum places a debuff on your enemy, activating when they cast a spell that uses mana. It allows you to use that same spell for some time. Not useful in PvE content.
5. Strangulate silences your target for 4 seconds. Inferior to just running Asphyxiate (it replaces the talent) and a pretty useless PvE talent.
6. Bitter Chill reduces the target's haste by 8% when affected by Chains of Ice. Frost Strike extends its duration. Not useful in PvE.
7. Rot and Wither adds an absorption shield to any target hit by Death and Decay for 100% of the damage amount. Not useful in PvE.
8. Bloodforged Armor provides 4 seconds of 25% physical damage reduction whenever you press Death Strike. Solid defensive gain!
9. Spellwarden lowers the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell by 10 seconds and allows you to use it on allies. It's just a nice defensive gain because it allows more AMS usage.
10. Death's Cold Embrace empowers your Pillar of Frost to cast a Remorseless Winter at 400% increase damage and 150% increased radius. Your movement speed is heavily reduced and the cooldown of Pillar of Frost is increased by 15 seconds. Generally not worth it in PvE.

Bloodforged Armor is a solid defensive upgrade and Deathchill helps to control your enemies. All other talents are not very impactful or simply worse for our damage throughput!

Bicepspump

Guide Author

Follow Bicepspump

This guide has been written by Bicepspump, a semi-hardcore player raiding with Pixelbased Lifeforms on Kazzak. He is heavily involved in the DK DPS theorycrafting community, testing hyoptheses and investigating the correct priority to use. He produces guide content on YouTube and frequently streams on Twitch.

In The Same Category

Unholy Death Knight GuideUnholy Death Knight RotationUnholy Death Knight TalentsUnholy Death Knight Mythic+Unholy Death Knight Easy ModeFrost Death Knight Guide