Frost Death Knight PvP Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA 8.1)

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

1.2. Weaknesses of Frost Death Knights

• Limited crowd control
• Predictable burst damage
• Little to no mobility
• Not a lot of self healing

2. Stat Priority for Frost Death Knights in PvP

The stat priority for Frost Death Knights in PvP is as follows:

1. Strength;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste;
5. Critical Strike.

Strength is the best stat in all situations. Frost Death Knight Mastery ( Mastery: Frozen Heart) increases the damage of your frost abilities. Because all of your damaging spells are frost abilities, this stat is crucial for increasing your damage. Versatility is also a good secondary stat due to it reducing the damage you take and increasing the healing you do.

3. Azerite Traits for Frost Death Knights

Azerite traits are unlocked in you helm, shoulders and chest. With each Azerite level in your neck, you get closer to unlocking the center trait in your gear. These traits vary from increasing damage of certain abilities to helping increase your survivability. Depending on what traits you use, it can completely alter your playstyle and what talents you should be using.

3.1. Outer Rings

Below are the best Outer Ring traits.

1. Frostwhelp's Indignation
2. Icy Citadel
3. Battlefield Precision/ Battlefield Focus
4. Glacial Contagion

Frost Death Knights do not depend on one single trait to increase their damage. Instead, they want a mix of the above traits. Icy Citadel increases your sustained damage significantly. After you use your primary burst cooldown, Pillar of Frost, you will gain a Strength buff. Frostwhelp's Indignation will increase your burst damage and is very effective versus teams with multiple pets or teams that will be stacked. This is an increase to your overall damage. Battlefield Precision increases damage dealt to the enemy team and increase your overall sustained damage. Glacial Contagion is a great passive that will also increase the damage you deal with your Obliterate.

3.2. Middle Ring

Below are the best Middle Ring traits.

1. Overwhelming Power
2. Heed My Call
3. Earthlink
4. Gutripper

The Middle and Inner Rings are important for additional damage. Overwhelming Power and Earthlink give an increase to your stats. These are minor stat boosts, but still increase your damage. Gutripper and Heed My Call will both help increase your single target and spread pressure.

3.3. Inner Ring

Below are the best Inner Ring traits.

1. Resounding Protection
2. March of the Damned
3. Runic Barrier
4. Longstrider

All of these traits give you additional ways of surviving. These are all passive, but are crucial to have.

4. Gear Recommendations

4.1. General Guidelines

In general, Frost Death Knights want to get trinkets that line up well with Pillar of Frost. These trinkets can have a passive or on-use effect. The stat you want to be increasing is Versatility or Strength. The reason you want to increase these stats is because they increases your overall damage.

To be successful in 3v3 arena, you need to have multiple different traits in your Azerite gear. These traits should be Icy Citadel or Frostwhelp's Indignation. You will also want either Overwhelming Power or Earthlink in the Inner Ring.

Below, we list the items that have these traits.

4.1.1. Helms

• Helm of Tempered Jade;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Helm;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Helm;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Headcover;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Headcover;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Warhelm;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Warhelm;
• Overseer's Riot Helmet.

4.1.2. Shoulders

• Spaulders of the Gorilla King;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulderguards;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulderguards;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulders;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulders;

4.1.3. Chests

• Sea Swell Chestplate;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Chestpiece;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Chestpiece;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Breastplate;
• Sinister Gladiator's Plate Breastplate;
• Chestguard of Virulent Mutagens.

4.2. Recommended Items

Sinister Gladiator's Maledict is absolutely the best trinket you can have. The on-use damage and healing absorption is capable of forcing defensives by itself. This can be used by itself or while you are using your burst rotation to force multiple cooldowns out of enemy teams.

Sinister Gladiator's Safeguard is a mandatory trinket if you think the enemy team can swap to you and kill you. This provides and additional defensive for when you drop to low health. If you do not think a team will swap to you and kill you, you can use replace this one with any of the trinkets below.

Sinister Gladiator's Badge is strong for the Versatility and the on-use Strength effect. The 2-minute cooldown lines up well with every other Pillar of Frost.

Sinister Gladiator's Insignia has a good amount of Versatility on it and has a passive effect. This effect increases your Strength. This increases your sustained damage.

Sinister Gladiator's Medallion is good because of the on-use Versatility effect. This increases your overall damage and lines up well with your burst cooldowns.

4.3. Weapon Enchant

Rune of the Fallen Crusader and Rune of Razorice are the best weapon enchants for Frost Death Knights. Rune of the Fallen Crusader gives you a proc that will increase your total Strength by 15%. This significantly increases your overall damage. Rune of Razorice increases frost damage dealt to your target. This helps with increasing your sustained damage.

5. Talent Choices for Frost Death Knights

Level	Choices
56	✘ Inexorable Assault	✘ Icy Talons	✔ Cold Heart
57	✔ Runic Attenuation	✘ Murderous Efficiency	✘ Horn of Winter
58	✘ Death's Reach	✔ Asphyxiate	✘ Blinding Sleet
60	✘ Avalanche	✔ Frozen Pulse	✘ Frostscythe
75	✘ Permafrost	✘ Wraith Walk	✔ Death Pact
90	✘ Gathering Storm	✘ Glacial Advance	✔ Frostwyrm's Fury
100	✘ Icecap	✘ Obliteration	✔ Breath of Sindragosa

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

5.1. Tier 1 (Level 56) Talents

Cold Heart is the best choice in this tier. This gives you more single target damage that can be used often.

5.2. Tier 2 (Level 57) Talents

Runic Attenuation is the best choice in this tier. This talent is crucial for your burst and sustained damage. By getting more Runic Power, you are able to use Frost Strike for damage or Death Strike for healing.

5.3. Tier 3 (Level 58) Talents

Asphyxiate is the best choice in this tier. This gives you and your team a reliable stun from range every 45 seconds.

5.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

Frozen Pulse is the best choice in this tier. Because you will always have less than 3 Runes, this talent passively increases your sustained and cleave damage.

5.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

Death Pact is the best choice in this tier. This heals you for a large amount of health, but it does have a downside. It will absorb incoming healing so you do not want to be aggressive while Death Pact is active.

5.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

Frostwyrm's Fury is the best choice in this tier. Although this has a very long cooldown, it is crucial for killing enemies that are low or hitting enemies that are far away. If you want more cleave damage, against a team with two melee on it, Gathering Storm is the better choice.

5.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

Breath of Sindragosa is the best choice in this tier. This will be your primary source of burst and cleave damage.

6. PvP Talents for Frost Death Knights

The first PvP talent tier will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel.

Necrotic Aura causes all enemies within 12 yards to take 8% increased magical damage. Because most of your damage is magical, this is a flat 8% increase to your overall damage. This is great for consistent and spread pressure.

Lichborne is a mandatory PvP talent against teams with two melee on it. With only a 1 minute cooldown, this ability gives Frost Death Knights a very strong defensive cooldown. Although it reduces your speed while active, it drastically reduces damage you take and makes you immune to several effects.

Decomposing Aura decreases the max health of all enemies within 10 yards. This talent is great for when you are not focusing an enemy, but plan on swapping/rotting the enemy team.

Anti-Magic Zone places an Anti-Magic Zone for 10 seconds that reduce spell damage taken by part or raid members by 60%. It is recommended to take this talent when you are playing against a team with two DPS that have magical damage. You should replace Lichborne with this PvP talent.

Dark Simulacrum is great versus teams that have to cast their crowd control (Warlocks have Fear, Mages have Polymorph). You can also use it aggressively versus Fire Mages when they are casting Greater Pyroblast. You can replace Lichborne with this PvP talent.

7. Racial Bonuses for Frost Death Knights

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

7.1. 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 to remove important buffs like Blessing of Protection or Enveloping Mist.

7.2. Alliance

The Human bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a good way to escape stuns and works great with the Relentless PvP talent.

8. 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.

8.1. 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 Asphyxiate to setup crowd control on healers.

8.1.1. 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 Chains of Ice to keep your primary target slowed.
2. Use Howling Blast to apply Frost Fever.
   • It is important to maintain Frost Fever on as many targets as you can.
3. Use Obliterate to avoid capping Runes, or if you have a Killing Machine proc.
4. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power for it.
5. Use Howling Blast if you have a Rime proc or to reapply Frost Fever.
6. Use your burst rotation.

8.1.2. 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 Pillar of Frost.
4. Use Empower Rune Weapon.
5. Use Remorseless Winter.
6. Use Howling Blast when you have a Rime proc.
7. Use Chains of Ice if you have 15+ stacks of Cold Heart.
8. Use Obliterate until you are almost capped on Runic Power.
9. Use Breath of Sindragosa.
   • While Breath of Sindragosa is active, you want to be using Obliterate and Howling Blast as often as you can.
   • Use Frostwyrm's Fury if Pillar of Frost is active and your kill target is low on health or the enemy team is stacked.
   • Once Breath of Sindragosa is close to being over, you should continue with the rest of the burst rotation.
10. Use Frost Strike.
11. Use Obliterate.
    • Use Obliterate as often as you can as long as it does not make you cap on Runic Power.
12. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power to use it.
13. Use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc.
14. Use Obliterate.
15. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power to use it.
16. Use Obliterate with Killing Machine procs.
17. Use Frostwyrm's Fury if Pillar of Frost is active and your kill target is low on health or the enemy team is stacked.

8.1.3. Sustained damage

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

1. Use Chains of Ice to keep your primary target slowed.
   • After this, you will want to use Chains of Ice after you have 15+ stacks of Cold Heart.
2. Use Remorseless Winter off cooldown.
3. Use Howling Blast and Obliterate to generate Runic Power.
4. Use Howling Blast to also apply Frost Fever.
   • It is important to maintain Frost Fever on as many targets as you can.
   • You also want to use Howling Blast as soon as you get a Rime proc.
5. Use Obliterate to avoid capping runes, or if you have a Killing Machine proc.
6. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power for it.

8.2. 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.

Lichborne replaces Icebound Fortitude and is another defensive you can rotate. Lichborne removes multiple effects and makes you immune to them (stuns, snares, fears, and roots). The only downfall to this talent is that you cannot move faster than 50% of normal speed. That is why you should only use this against teams with melee on it.

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

Death Strike is an ability that uses Runic Power and heals you for 35% of all damage taken in the last 5 seconds. This means that if you need to be healed and your healer is in crowd control, you should spend Runic Power on Death Strike instead of Frost Strike.

Death Pact heals you for a large amount of health, but absorbs incoming healing so you do not want to be aggressive while Death Pact is active.

Death's Advance, although not exactly a defensive ability, should be used when you need to get to an enemy or to avoid incoming crowd control.

9. Best Team Compositions for Frost Death Knights

Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage rotation, it is time to step into the arena with your team. With spells like Pillar of Frost and Death Grip, Frost Death Knights have a very aggressive playstyle and you will want to focus on cleave damage.

9.1. 2v2 Arena

In 2v2 Arena, you will be focusing on single target damage. You will want to use Death Grip to grip the healer close to the enemy DPS you are focusing and use your burst rotation. This will maximize your cleave damage during your burst damage. It is important to note that although Death Knights lack mobility, you should focus on hitting a target that you can touch. If your primary target is too far away it is okay to switch targets until your Death Grip is available.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:

• Frost Death Knight + Mistweaver Monk
• Frost Death Knight + Restoration Druid
• Frost Death Knight + Holy Paladin
• Frost Death Knight + Discipline Priest

9.2. 3v3 Arena

Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. You will want to focus on maximizing your single target damage, but make sure you are doing cleave damage if the enemy team is stacked. When your team has damage, you will want to use Death Grip on the enemy healer and have one of your partners stun them. For example, if you are playing with a Windwalker Monk, you will use Death Grip and the Monk will use Leg Sweep to get a triple stun. Once the enemy team is stunned you should use your burst rotation. If they are in range, use Mind Freeze on the enemy healer.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

• Walking Dead (Frost Death Knight + Windwalker Monk + Holy Paladin/ Restoration Druid)
• Shadowcleave (Frost Death Knight + Destruction Warlock + Holy Paladin)
• TSG (Frost Death Knight + Arms Warrior + Holy Paladin/Mistweaver Monk)
• Hero Cleave (Frost Death Knight + Havoc Demon Hunter + Holy Paladin/Restoration Druid)

10. 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.

10.1. Asphyxiate 123 Macro

• #showtooltip Asphyxiate
• /cast [target=arena1] Asphyxiate

Using this macro will use Asphyxiate on arena enemy 1. This makes it easier to stun 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.

10.2. 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.

10.3. Death Grip Focus Macro

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

If you find that you do not have much room on your action bars, 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.

10.4. 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.

11. Changelog