Frost Death Knight PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / 9.0.2)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as a Frost Death Knight and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Frost Death Knight PvP Guide.
Talent Choices for Frost Death Knights
Level | Choices | ||
---|---|---|---|
15 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
25 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
30 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
35 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
40 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
45 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
50 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
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.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
Inexorable Assault is the best choice here due to PvP dynamics.
In arena, uptime is much lower due to CC, so the uptime dependant talent
Icy Talons becomes much worse. You will frequently lose stacks in a
root effect or a
Polymorph.
Cold Heart is nerfed by 70%
in PvP combat, so it becomes unusable as well.
Inexorable Assault
stacks even while idle in CC, making it the only usable talent in this row.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents
Runic Attenuation is a powerful overall talent that passively
generates more spenders, and rarely over-caps you on resources. It will be
valuable for both survivability and pressure.
Murderous Efficiency
has immense synergy with the talent
Obliteration and provides
significant on-demand damage for every burst window.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents
Blinding Sleet is a very powerful tool for setting up AoE burst
windows with comps that prioritize this. Windwalker/DK and Demon Hunter/DK
are both prime candidates for doing this setup. You will grip the healer
into their DPS, use
Blinding Sleet, get your
Chill Streak
out, and then they will AoE stun.
Blinding Sleet can also be used
to peel, by being a 5-second CC that does not DR with any other ability in
your toolkit.
Asphyxiate is preferred when you really need an on-demand
stun for a comp that does not rely on AoE setups. This would be valuable
with Warlock or Shadow Priest.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents
Frozen Pulse is passive output with a pretty high uptime. You
will never play around this talent specifically, but having free pressure
to every burst window is fine.
Avalanche is a nearly identical
concept. However, it gets a lot of value when using the Necrolord Covenant
because of the
Rime procs generated during
Abomination Limb.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents
All three talents in this row are situationally playable.
Wraith Walk helps deal with some of DK's mobility issues. It is on a
fairly long cooldown, but helps tremendously if you are rooted after your
healer has already dispelled, or if you are LoS.
Death Pact is very
meta-dependant. In dampening metas with a lot of sustain, and passive
self-healing, it is very poor. In burst matchups, with windows where you
need to survive just a few more seconds, it is fantastic.
Permafrost is the opposite. It is prioritized in dampening matchups
and is not very impactful in burst situations.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents
Gathering Storm is a solid, nearly passive, output increase to
every burst window.
Remorseless Winter is a short cooldown, allowing
this talent to get frequent and consistent use.
Glacial Advance is interesting, in that it applies
Rune of Razorice regardless if you have the Runeforge or not. Therefore,
it can be very useful for AoE pressure as 2H Frost.
Hypothermic Presence is also interesting, as it reduces the runic
power cost of both offensive and defensive runic power spending abilities.
Notably, you can use it with
Death Strike and
Death Coil
when using
Lichborne to heal yourself. The survivability uses make it
a very powerful option.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents
Obliteration is so powerful it renders the other talents in this
row unusable. It adds an enormous amount of on-demand damage to every
Pillar of Frost, both through rune generation and
Killing Machine. This synergizes particularly well with 2H Frost.
Icecap is a fine tool that increases the frequency of your burst
windows. This is preferred with sustained damage comps, like when paired with
casters or Arms Warrior. It sadly just cannot keep up with
Obliteration, which is a win condition every 1 minute.
PvP Talents for Frost Death Knights
PvP Talents are very situational with their usage. They tend to fill certain niche roles in your own comp, or counters to other comps. Therefore, instead of a cookie cutter PvP talent setup, you will change them in the gates before a match starts, depending on the enemy classes.
Mandatory PvP Talents
Chill Streak is one of the highest output abilities in the game,
but it requires the proper setup. In order for it to do its full damage, it
must bounce between two nearby targets 9 times. Therefore, you want to set
this ability up by using your
Death Grip into an AoE stun from your
partner. You can also use two single-target stuns. Since it applies a 70%
slow, it is very difficult for an enemy team to recover after taking
multiple hits. Landing a full
Chill Streak can effectively end
the game.
Heartstop Aura is arguably the best general PvP talent in the game.
It is single-handedly responsible for Frost DK's immense viability within melee
cleaves. It affects EVERYTHING, from enemy defensives, to enemy rotational
abilities, to mobility, to kicks. This slows down the gameplan of the enemy
team drastically, allowing you more setups while they are waiting for cooldowns
to come back.
Situational PvP Talents
Delirium is a unique and powerful anti-movement effect that works
against abilities that will move a player's character; namely, Mage's
Blink, Monk's
Roll, and Demon Hunter's
Fel Rush.
Because of this, this talent is generally taken against any of those classes
to shutdown their mobility.
Dark Simulacrum is one of the more interesting spells in the game
currently. It is extremely powerful against spammable CC effects, such as
Polymorph, or
Cyclone as well as powerful healing cooldowns
such as
Life Cocoon. It is a neat addition to Death Knight's toolkit,
while having a high skill-cap and awareness requirement.
Dome of Ancient Shadow is very powerful for team survivability and
should be used in almost every spell cleave where you will not be targeted.
It provides an answer to the 'setups' of any comp that deals with magical
damage. This also handles rot comps extremely well, as stacking in it allows
your team to stabilize through the sustained pressure.
Necrotic Aura is very powerful when paired with a teammate
that also does magical damage. For Frost DK, a significant portion of your
damage comes from spell damage.
Cadaverous Pallor actually has a niche against spell cleaves, despite being underrepresented, if you are fairly certain you will be the target. The survivability that this provides over the length of the game against two spellcasters is unmatched.
Changelog
- 20 Feb. 2021: Updates for the developing meta.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands Season 1.
- 12 Nov. 2020: Updates made by new writer.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Flarkness, a multi r1 DK who has reached 3300 rating. He streams competitive gameplay and coaching on Twitch and creates guides, highlights, and news videos on Youtube.
- Shattered Helm of Domination Arrives to Collector
- Rogue Update in Patch 9.0.5
- Will Patch 9.0.5 Release on March 16?
- Undocumented Windwalker Monk Changes in Patch 9.0.5
- Castle Nathria Alliance Hall of Fame Complete, Cross-Realm Mythic Enabled Soon
- Night Fae Blood DK Finishes Keystone Master on Controller in PUGs
- World Boss for the Week of March 2nd - Mortanis
- EU Server Issues: No Servers Currently Available (March 2nd)