Frost Death Knight DPS Spell Summary — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, we present you with all spells and procs that you need to understand as a Frost Death Knight in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.
Introduction
If you are new to Frost, this is a great place to start to get an understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialisation, how they interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Frost and are comfortable with it in the current expansion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.
Main Resources of Frost Death Knights
Runic Power and Runes are your two resources. Throughout the fight, you will look to spend as many Runes as possible and generate as much Runic Power as you can, which you will then use to help you deal more damage.
Unlocking Abilities
Spells and passive abilities are unlocked as you level up, but this page simply lists everything you have available to you at max level. Linked below is our Leveling page, which has all the detailed information of when you unlock these abilities.
Frost Death Knight Basic Abilities
These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents, and form the core gameplay of the specialisation.
Frost Fever is a DoT that is applied by
Howling Blast,
and which you should aim to have up on the target(s) essentially at all
times.
Frost Fever has a chance each time it deals damage to
generate 5 Runic Power.
Howling Blast costs 1 Rune (although its cost is removed when you
have a
Rime proc), deals Frost damage to the target and all other
enemies within 10 yards of them, and affects all targets it hits with
Frost Fever. The damage is reduced on secondary targets following
the "square root formula".
Obliterate costs 2 Runes and deals a high amount of Physical
damage to the target, and using it has a 45% chance to grant you a
Rime proc.
Frost Strike costs 25 Runic Power and is your main way of consuming
Runic Power on single target. In AoE, you have the option to take the
Glacial Advance talent as an AoE Runic Power spender.
Remorseless Winter costs 1 Rune and deals Frost damage over time
to all enemies in a radius around you, also slowing their movement speed by
20% for the duration.
Death's Advance is a useful movement ability that has a 45-second
cooldown which increases your movement speed by 35%, prevents you from being
slowed below 100% of your baseline movement speed, and you are also immune to
knockbacks and forced movement effects for the duration. It also passively prevents
you from being slowed below 70% of your baseline movement speed.
Anti-Magic Shell absorbs up to 30% of your maximum health in magic
damage over 5 seconds, and generates Runic Power based on the damage absorbed.
This should be used to mitigate magic damage throughout the fight, while the
added Runic Power will help increase your DPS. You can also use it before a
magic debuff is applied to you in order to prevent the application.
Anti-Magic Zone places a zone on the ground that reduces magic damage
taken by 20% for the duration. The maximum amount that can be absorbed is equal to
1.5 times your Maximum Health, increased by your Versatility. This is a strong
raid cooldown.
Death and Decay costs 1 Rune and places a damaging area at the
target location, which persists for 10 seconds.
Sacrificial Pact sacrifices your temporary Ghoul to heal yourself
and deal AoE damage.
For more detailed information on how these abilities are used in your rotation, please read our rotation page linked below.
Important Procs for Frost Death Knights
Frost Death Knights have two important procs.
Rime is a proc that can be triggered by either your
Obliterate (with a 45% chance) or your
Frostscythe
(with a 22.5% chance), and it causes the next
Howling Blast to cost
no Runes and deal 300% increased damage. Using these procs before re-casting
Obliterate is a very high priority.
Killing Machine grants your auto-attacks a chance to cause your
next
Obliterate to be a guaranteed critical hit. At level 58,
your
Killing Machine procs cause your next
Obliterate to
deal Frost damage, meaning it will gain damage based on your Mastery stat and
ignore your target's Armor. Killing Machine has an effective proc rate of ~50%
for dual-wield and ~77% for two-handed builds.
Cooldowns for Frost Death Knights
Frost Death Knights have three important baseline offensive cooldowns.
Pillar of Frost increases your Strength by 20% for 12 seconds. It has a 1-minute cooldown. Each Rune spent during Pillar of Frost increases your Strength by 1%.
Empower Rune Weapon increases your Haste by 15% and generates 1 Rune and 5 Runic Power instantly and every 5 seconds for 20 seconds. It has a 105-second cooldown (2 minutes before level 56).
Frostwyrm's Fury is now baseline and provides a very powerful 3-minute cooldown that is strong on both single-target and AoE. This is best used when paired with
Pillar of Frost. It also slows the movement speed of all targets hit by 50% for 10 seconds.
Talent Abilities
Cold Heart gives you a stack of Cold Heart every 2 seconds, stacking up
to 20 times. Using
Chains of Ice consumes the stacks dealing Frost damage.
This is best paired with
Pillar of Frost to deal massive damage.
Horn of Winter is a 45-second cooldown that gives you 2 Runes and
25 Runic Power. This has great synergy with
Breath of Sindragosa, however
it is on the GCD and has to compete with 2 very strong passive talents.
Hypothermic Presence is a 45-second cooldown that reduces the Runic Power
cost on your abilities by 35% for 8 seconds. This talent seems to have fantastic
synergy with
Breath of Sindragosa, however it is not as strong as
Gathering Storm currently so it does not see much play.
Glacial Advance is a 6-second cooldown that is reduced by Haste that
deals Frost damage in a small line forward applying
Rune of Razorice to all
targets hit.
Glacial Advance costs 30 Runic Power making it a priority
over
Frost Strike in 2+ target combat.
Changelog
- 20 Feb. 2022: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Guide reviewed and updated for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 24 Jan. 2021: Guide reviewed and completely updated.
- 19 Dec. 2020: Updated Pillar of Frost and Death's Advance descriptions.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Page updated for Shadowlands release. Added information on new Rank 2 abilities.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Death Knight Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Bicepspump, a semi-hardcore player raiding with Wicked Vigilantes on Kazzak. He is heavily involved in the DK DPS theorycrafting community, testing hyoptheses and investigating the correct priority to use. He is also a useful-minion in the Acherus discord, frequently answering questions and discussing optimisations (do not hesitate to reach out). He produces guide-content on YouTube and frequently streams on Twitch.
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