Frost Death Knight DPS Spell Summary — Shadowlands 9.0.2
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 9.0.2.
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 Legion, 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.
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 35% 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.
Anti-Magic Zone places a zone on the ground that reduces magic damage
taken by 20% for the duration. This is a raid cooldown new to Death Knights
and provides us with incredible utility for Mythic+ and Raid.
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.
Cooldowns for Frost Death Knights
Frost Death Knights have two important offensive cooldowns.
Pillar of Frost increases your Strength by 20% for 12 seconds, also making you immune to "external movement effects", such as knockbacks, for the duration. 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.
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 currently does not work.
Changelog
- 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 Abyssalwave, a top level Death Knight player. He is a former US #2 hardcore raider who currently raids with didnt ask. You can also check out his YouTube channel.
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