Frost Death Knight PvP Rotation and Playstyle (BfA / Patch 8.3)

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.

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.

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 Reaping Flames if you are using this Major Essence.
7. Use your burst rotation.

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 Chill Streak.
7. Use Reaping Flamesif you are using this Major Essence.
8. Use Howling Blast when you have a Rime proc.
9. Use Obliterate until you are almost capped on Runic Power.
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.

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

1. Use Chains of Ice to keep your primary target slowed.
2. Use Remorseless Winter off cooldown.
3. Use Chill Streak off cooldown.
4. Use Howling Blast and Obliterate to generate Runic Power.
5. 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.
6. Use Reaping Flames off cooldown if you are using this Major Essence.
7. Use Obliterate to avoid capping runes, or if you have a Killing Machine proc.
8. Use Frost Strike whenever you have the Runic Power for it.

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.

Transfusion gives you a strong healing cooldown. This PvP Talent reduces the Runic Power cost of Death Strike and increases the healing it does. This should be used to stabilize your health if you are low.

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.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.