Frost Death Knight PvP Stat Priority, Gear, and Trinkets (Season 4)
Choosing your gear carefully is important for your Frost Death Knight in PvP. We give you a stat priority to help you choose items with the right stats, followed by advice on how to choose the rest of your gear and your trinkets.
This page is part of our Frost Death Knight PvP Guide.
Stat Priority for Frost Death Knights in PvP
The stat priority for Frost Death Knights in PvP is as follows:
- Versatility
- Mastery
- Haste
- Critical Strike
Versatility is the best stat by far. Versatility, in PvP, has the highest contribution to output while also heavily increasing survivability through healing and damage mitigation. No other stat can compete with Versatility in value in PvP.
Mastery and Haste are both very valuable stats, and a combination of both should be used. Mastery drastically improves output to important abilities like Chill Streak and Obliterate during Killing Machine while Haste improves your ability to use your important burst windows by increasing resource generation and reducing the global cooldown.
Critical Strike is purely an output stat and does not do as much for our class as the other stats. Furthermore, during Pillar of Frost using the talent Obliteration, all of our Obliterate presses will already crit, making the stat much less worthwhile during those windows.
Gear Recommendations
General Guidelines
As for gearing, there are no pieces you truly need to target for slots like legs or boots; you are just looking for the proper stats on them, which will come from honor, conquest, professions, and the weekly cache. Due to the introduction of Spark of Dreams, you are able to craft Versatility and Mastery in every slot, allowing for maximum burst potential. Embellishments can vary. For more sustain, you can play Verdant Conduit on the Chest and Belt. A more defensive option is the Flourishing Dream Helm. It is recommended that wrists, rings, and legs be crafted with Versatility and Mastery.
Recommended Trinkets
Draconic Gladiator's Emblem can be an option if you need to play particularly defensive against a comp you have not been able to survive against (probably Rogue/Hunter comps). Death Knights scale very well with increased health effects because their heals are based on a percentage of your maximum health.
Draconic Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity is a viable option. The trinket provides a main stat proc along with static Haste. Early on, there will be low haste values, so this trinket will prove to be useful.
Draconic Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity is best used with your damage cooldowns. Badge has a higher value later into the season and is generally used over Insignia.
Gems and Enchants
Fill every gem socket you have with Zen Neltharite.
These are the best Frost Death Knight enchants by slot:
- Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Devotion of Leech or Enchant Bracer - Devotion of Leech
- Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Regenerative Leech or Enchant Cloak - Homebound Speed
- Chest: Enchant Chest - Sustained Strength
- Legs: Fierce Armor Kit
- Rings: Enchant Ring - Devotion of Mastery
- Neck: Tiered Medallion Setting
- Boots: Enchant Boots - Watcher's Loam
Death Knights get a special weapon enchant called Runeforges. Runeforging is done by using your Death Gate to get back to Acherus, the Ebon Hold. Rune of the Fallen Crusader, Rune of Razorice, Rune of Sanguination and Rune of Spellwarding all have value in a PvP setting. Fallen Crusader and Razorice are the standard output-increasing Runeforges. However, Sanguination provides increased survivability against all comps, and Spellwarding provides heavily increased survivability against spell-cleaves. You can have multiple weapon sets in your bag and switch them based on the enemy team composition.
Changelog
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.0.
- 01 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 05 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Reviewed for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 02 Mar. 2022: Page updated for Patch 9.2.
- 11 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 20 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands Season 1.
- 12 Nov. 2020: Updates made by new writer.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
Other PvP Guides
Keator is a Rank 1 Death Knight and has been playing Death Knight since Wrath. After having raided in US Top 50 guilds for multiple expansions, he decided to dive into PvP where he found his passion. He also streams occasionally on Twitch.
- Developer Thoughts on Plunderstorm
- Flightstone Upgrade Costs Reduced For Specific Items
- Patch 10.2.7 and MoP Remix Splash Screens
- RP Addon Throttling Issue Is Actually a Bug in Patch 10.2.7
- Mythic+ Runs During Dragonflight Season 4 Week 1
- Everything Coming in Patch 10.2.7
- Earthen Don't Leave Skeletons Behind in War Within
- Dragonflight 10.2.6 and SoD Hotfixes, April 29th