Frost Death Knight PvP Guide (Legion 7.3.5)

Table of Contents

• +1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Frost Death Knights
  • 1.1. Strengths of Frost Death Knights
  • 1.2. Weaknesses of Frost Death Knights
• +2. Talent Choices for Frost Death Knights
  • 2.1. Regular Talents for Frost Death Knights
    • 2.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
    • 2.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
    • 2.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
    • 2.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
    • 2.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
    • 2.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
    • 2.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 2.2. Honor Talents for Frost Death Knights
    • 2.2.1. Tier 1 Talents
    • 2.2.2. Tier 2 Talents
    • 2.2.3. Tier 3 Talents
    • 2.2.4. Tier 4 Talents
    • 2.2.5. Tier 5 Talents
    • 2.2.6. Tier 6 Talents
• +3. Racial Bonuses for Frost Death Knights
  • 3.1. Horde
  • 3.2. Alliance
• +4. Playstyle for Frost Death Knights
  • 4.1. Before Gates Open
    • 4.1.1. The Opener
    • 4.1.2. Burst Damage
    • 4.1.3. Sustained damage
  • 4.2. Defensive Techniques
• +5. Useful Macros for Frost Death Knights
  • 5.1. Death Grip 123 Macro
  • 5.2. Death Grip Focus Macro
  • 5.3. Mind Freeze Focus Macro
• 6. Gear for Frost Death Knights
• +7. Artifact Traits for Frost Death Knights
  • 7.1. First Golden Trait
  • 7.2. Second Golden Trait
  • 7.3. Remaining Traits
• 8. Relics for Frost Death Knights
• 9. ChangeLog

Introduction

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play a Frost Death Knight in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, artifacts, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.

About The Author

This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.

1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Frost Death Knights

Frost Death Knights are a force to be reckoned with in arena. They have the ability to singlehandedly force defensive cooldowns from enemies and have some of the strongest sustained damage outside of burst cooldowns. Even when a Frost Death Knight does not have offensive cooldowns active they can still force defensives with the large amounts of damage they can do.

1.1. Strengths of Frost Death Knights

• Strong burst damage
• Unmatched cleave and consistent damage
• Great self-healing

1.2. Weaknesses of Frost Death Knights

• Limited crowd control
• Predictable burst damage
• Little to no mobility

2. Talent Choices for Frost Death Knights

Regular talents work in both PvP and PvE content (although they may sometimes work differently in the two environments, which is indicated by their tooltips). In other words, they are always active.

On the other hand, Honor talents are inactive outside of a PvP environment.

2.1. Regular Talents for Frost Death Knights

2.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

Icy Talons is the best choice in this tier. This increases your sustained damage.

2.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

Freezing Fog is the best choice in this tier. This is large increase to your sustained and burst damage.

2.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

Avalanche is the best choice in this tier. This makes your Pillar of Frost and burst output even more powerful.

2.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

If your team does not have a stun, Winter is Coming is the best choice in this tier. This gives your team a reliable stun to use when you are connecting to an enemy. However, if your team already has a stun, Blinding Sleet is the best choice in this tier. This gives your team an extra crowd control.

2.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

If you are playing against a team with a melee DPS on it, Permafrost is the best choice in this tier. This is strong because you will constantly be attacking the enemy melee DPS and gaining the absorb shield.

If you are playing against a team with two caster DPS on it, Volatile Shielding is the best choice in this tier. This makes your Anti-Magic Shell a very strong defensive against caster DPS.

2.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

Gathering Storm is the best choice in this tier. Remorseless Winter is primarily used while using burst cooldowns and increases your overall burst damage. This talent works great with Winter is Coming.

2.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

Obliteration is the best choice in this tier. This allows you to maintain your consistent pressure on a relatively short cooldown.

2.2. Honor Talents for Frost Death Knights

2.2.1. Tier 1 Talents

Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier, which provides a standard PvP trinket effect.

2.2.2. Tier 2 Talents

If you are playing against a team with a caster on it, we recommend Reinforced Armor in this tier.

If you are playing against a team with two melee on it, we recommend Sparring. Both of these talents improve survivability, you just have to switch them based on the team you are playing against.

2.2.3. Tier 3 Talents

Anti-Magic Zone is the best choice in this tier. This is an extra defensive against casters and even some melee classes. If you are playing against a team with very little spell damage, Dark Simulacrum could be better. Try to steal important crowd control like Cyclone, Fear or Polymorph.

2.2.4. Tier 4 Talents

Heartstop Aura is the best choice in this tier. Because the enemy team's defensive cooldowns will have a longer cooldown, this talent allows you to play very offensively. However, if you are playing with a teammate that uses mainly magical damage, Necrotic Aura is the best choice in this tier.

2.2.5. Tier 5 Talents

Frozen Center is the best choice in this tier. This is a great talent to make it easier to hit targets that will try to kite your damage. This also makes it easier for you to do spread pressure to the enemy team if multiple enemies are rooted.

2.2.6. Tier 6 Talents

Overpowered Rune Weapon is the best choice in this tier. This makes one of your strongest offensive cooldowns much shorter.

3. Racial Bonuses for Frost Death Knights

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.

3.1. Horde

Orc is the best race for Frost Death Knights, thanks to the passive Orcs have ( Hardiness) reducing all stuns greatly improves survivability.

Alternatively, Blood Elf is also a good race. The passive you gain ( Arcane Torrent) is a great ability with how little crowd control Death Knights have. The additional silence helps you lock down casters much more easily.

3.2. Alliance

The Human bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to escape stuns.

4. Playstyle for Frost Death Knights

The Frost Death Knight has one role when in an Arena: do unrelenting sustained damage. Frost Death Knights lack crowd control with a very small amount of utility for teammates. Players should focus on maximizing their sustained damage as much as they can. Death Knights lack mobility, which is why when you get to the enemy you should deal as much damage as you can to them. With relatively short cooldowns, Frost Death Knights have the ability to use their burst rotation and force cooldowns as soon as the Arena begins. They have great sustained damage and very short burst cooldowns.

4.1. Before Gates Open

Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on. Although Frost Death Knights lack crowd control, they still have one depending on whether Winter is Coming or Blinding Sleet is taken.

4.1.1. The Opener

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns.

If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. In the opener, Frost Death Knights should focus on sticking to an enemy and dealing large amounts of damage to the target.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.

1. Use Howling Blast to apply Frost Fever.
   • It is important to maintain Frost Fever on as many targets as you can.
2. Use Obliterate to avoid capping runes, or if you have a Killing Machine proc.
3. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power for it.
4. Use Howling Blast if you have a Rime proc or to reapply Frost Fever.
5. Use your burst rotation.

4.1.2. Burst Damage

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

1. If you get a Rime or Killing Machine proc it is important to use them immediately.
2. Use Death Grip on your kill target.
   • It is important that you have a teammate stun your kill target.
3. Use Remorseless Winter.
4. Use Pillar of Frost.
5. Use Obliteration.
6. Use Howling Blast when you have a Rime proc.
7. Use Obliterate.
8. Use Frost Strike.
9. Use Obliterate.
   • Use Obliterate as often as you can as long as it does not make you cap on Runic Power.
10. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power to use it.
11. Use Empower Rune Weapon when you have no more Runes left.
12. Use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc.
13. Use Obliterate.
14. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power to use it.
15. Use Obliterate with Killing Machine procs.
16. Use Sindragosa's Fury if Pillar of Frost is active and your kill target is low on health or the enemy team is stacked.

4.1.3. Sustained damage

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Use Howling Blast to maintain Frost Fever.
2. If Frost Fever is active only use Howling Blast when you get a Rime proc.
3. Use Obliterate whenever you have 2 Runes to avoid capping them.
4. Use Frost Strike when you have enough Runic Power.
5. Use Rime and Killing Machine procs as soon as you can.
6. Do not waste your Death Grips as this is vital to your burst damage.

4.2. Defensive Techniques

Anti-Magic Shell is your primary defensive ability. This is very strong against caster classes. With a relatively short cooldown, use this if you are being focused and need to negate incoming spell damage.

Icebound Fortitude is another strong defensive ability. This will give you immunity to all stuns and reduce all damage on you. Use this when you are in a stun and being focused. Ice in Your Veins makes it much stronger when you use Death Strike while Icebound Fortitude is active.

Wraith Walk is not exactly a defensive, but use this when you need to get to an enemy or to avoid incoming crowd control.

Anti-Magic Zone should be used when your team is stacked and the enemy team is doing strong single target or spread spell damage.

5. Useful Macros for Frost Death Knights

Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Frost Death Knights can benefit from.

5.1. Death Grip 123 Macro

• #showtooltip Death Grip
• /cast [target=arena1] Death Grip

Using this macro will use Death Grip on arena enemy 1. This makes it easier to crowd control an enemy while staying focused on your target. If you want macros for the second and third enemies, simply change the arena1 to arena2 or arena3.

5.2. Death Grip Focus Macro

• #showtooltip Death Grip
• /cast [target=focus] Death Grip

If you find that you do not have much room on your actionbars, you can use a focus macro. This is much simpler to use than the arena123 macro. Put an enemy on focus and this macro will use Death Grip on that player while you are still focused on your target.

5.3. Mind Freeze Focus Macro

• #showtooltip Mind Freeze
• /cast [target=focus] Mind Freeze

This macro will use Mind Freeze on whichever enemy you have on focus. Because you will be primarily using Mind Freeze on the enemy healer or your main target, you should only need this focus macro.

6. Gear for Frost Death Knights

With regards to gear, the biggest change in Legion is that there is no more PvP gear. Your strength in PvP will be determined based on the average item level of your gear (as displayed on your character sheet). For example, the base item level at level 110 is 800, so your stats in PvP will be adjusted accordingly. For every 10 item levels you gain, your stats are increased by 1%.

The implication is that it does not matter where your gear comes from, and all that matters is its item level. Gear from quests or PvE content is just as good as gear you get as a reward from PvP (which, in fact, will be very similar to PvE gear; there are no more PvP stats on gear).

Practically, you will simply look to collect gear with the highest item levels possible, and the stat distribution on the gear will not matter.

7. Artifact Traits for Frost Death Knights

Below, we will explain what the recommended order for artifact traits is, if you wish to maximise your PvP potential. It is quite possible that your artifact path (at the time of reading this guide) differs from our suggestions. If this is the case, do not worry, and use the information below to help you understand your traits and guide your future choices.

If you have suddenly decided that you want to turn to PvP, the best thing to do in your artifact progression is continue to your closest Golden trait, and then follow the recommendations below. Picking up the most useful traits ( Mirror Ball, Frozen Core, and Ice in Your Veins) along the way is a great way to boost your potential.

7.1. First Golden Trait

The first Golden trait you should go for is Sindragosa's Fury.

1. Take Blades of Frost.
2. Take Nothing but the Boots.
3. Take Frozen Core.
4. Take Frozen Skin.
5. Take Dead of Winter.
6. Take Sindragosa's Fury.

7.2. Second Golden Trait

The second Golden trait to take is Hypothermia.

1. Backtrack and take Cold as Ice.
2. Take Mirror Ball.
3. Take Bad to the Bone.
4. Take Hypothermia.

7.3. Remaining Traits

After this, you should head for your last Golden Trait, Frozen Soul, picking up any remaining traits after that. Although there is no particular order to get the remaining traits, you should look to get Ice in Your Veins, Chill of the Grave, and Ambidexterity early on.

8. Relics for Frost Death Knights

Relics are disabled in PvP, so they are not a concern to you.

9. ChangeLog

• 30 Mar. 2018: Made several updates to the guide and its structure.
  • Added sections for Macros, Strengths, and Weaknesses.
  • Moved Gear, Artifact Traits, and Relics sections to the end, since they are not that important.
• 02 Feb. 2018: No major changes needed for patch 7.3.5.
• 24 Dec. 2017: No major changes needed for patch 7.3.2.
• 23 Sep. 2017: Several changes needed for Patch 7.3
  • Removed Artifact Trait descriptions.
  • Changed recommended tier 2 regular talents.
  • Changed recommended tier 6 honor talents.
  • Updated burst and sustained damage rotations.
• 09 Jun. 2017: Frost Death Knight PvP Guide was created.

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