Frost Death Knight DPS Stat Priority — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, you will find out the optimal stat priority for your Frost Death Knight. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations. Our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.
The Basics of Stats for Frost Death Knight
The stat priority for a Frost Death Knight is not heavily weighted towards certain stats. In fact what you will notice when simming your character is that your stat weights will be very close together. Because of this, item level is generally considered as the most important decider in a piece of gear. It is still recommended that you sim an item to determine if it is an upgrade or not. However, here is the stat priority you will normally find when simming your character:
- Mastery;
- Critical Strike;
- Haste.
- Versatility;
Usually a higher item level piece of gear will be a bigger upgrade than a lower item level piece of gear even with better stats. We highly recommend you sim your character to find the stat weights that work best for you.
When you have the Inscrutable Quantum Device (IQD) equipped, your exact
stat numbers become more important. Since the trinket's on-use effect gives
you stats depending on your current raw values, you need to be careful to
keep these numbers in the right places. Mastery should be your highest stat,
followed by Critical Strike. During
Bloodlust, IQD will choose to empower
your highest stat, which is why we want Mastery at the top. Outside of lust,
IQD will make a 50/50 choice between your top two stats, which is why we want
Critical Strike as your second highest stat.
There is a slight difference in priority between Breath of Sindragosa
and
Obliteration. Breath generally wants more Crit, almost as much
as Mastery. Obliteration instead likes more even levels of Crit and Haste!
Getting a Better Understanding of Frost Death Knight Stats
Statistics Priority
Strength is your primary statistic. You should look for it in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Attack Power, which determines the damage your abilities do.
Haste increases your attack speed and your Rune regeneration rate while decreasing the global cooldown.
Critical Strike increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and abilities.
Mastery, through Mastery: Frozen Heart, increases your
Frost damage. Frost damage makes up a great part of your total damage.
Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.
Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
The gems, enchants, and consumables that you choose are directly affected by your stat priority. In order to find the best mix of these, we do recommend that you simulate yourself using a program like Raidbots or Simulationcraft, however, we have a page linked below that will give you advice on this topic.
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: 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 stat descriptions.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Page updated for Shadowlands release.
- 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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