Frost Death Knight DPS Spell Summary — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. 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 Legion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

2. 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.

3. 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.

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.

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 this is your only means to dump Runic Power and deal damage throughout the fight.

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 50% for the duration.

Death's Advance is a useful movement ability that has a 45-second cooldown which increases your movement speed by 30% and prevents you from being slowed below 100% of your baseline movement speed. 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.

4. 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.

5. Cooldowns for Frost Death Knights

Frost Death Knights have two important offensive cooldowns.

• Pillar of Frost increases your Strength by 20% for 15 seconds, also making you immune to "external movement effects", such as knockbacks, for the duration. It has a 45-second 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 2-minute cooldown.

6. Changelog