Frost Death Knight WotLK Guide
Frost Death Knight DPS guide for WotLK 3.3.5a: rotation, cooldowns, the 15/56/0 talent build, glyphs, stat priority and BiS gear for ICC and Ruby Sanctum.
Frost is the steady, strong melee damage spec of the Death Knight, and it is the one that gives the group the most through a raid buff: Improved Icy Talons is a haste aura for the whole raid. It plays with two weapons, its damage is smooth on a single target, and it rewards a player who understands the rune system.
This guide covers the rotation, the cooldowns and how Blood Tap fits in, the talents and glyphs we run, the stats to reach and the mistakes that cost the most. It is written for Icecrown Citadel 25 and Ruby Sanctum on 3.3.5a. The short overview is in the class guide.
1.How the Frost Death Knight plays
The whole spec rests on one rule: always spend your runes before your runic power. Your runes come back on a timer, and a rune that sits ready is damage you lost. Runic power is only the extra: Frost Strike uses it when no rune is ready, never the other way around.
You keep Frost Fever and Blood Plague on the target with Icy Touch and Plague Strike first, then you fill the rest of the global cooldowns with Obliterate, using your Frost and Unholy runes, and use the Blood runes on Blood Strike and Pestilence so your runes stay in step. That is why Frost rewards practice: the rotation is simple to read and harder to keep clean.
2.Rotation and priorities
- Icy Touch and Plague StrikeBoth diseases on the target before anything else. Never spend damage abilities without them.
- ObliterateOn cooldown, with your Frost and Unholy runes. It is your main attack.
- Howling BlastWhen the Rime proc lights up, especially when your runic power is low.
- Frost StrikeWith a Killing Machine proc, and to spend runic power when you have no rune to use.
- Blood Strike and PestilenceAlternate them to spend your Blood runes and to keep your runes in step. Pestilence also refreshes the diseases.
Do not use Death and Decay in the single-target rotation: it takes runes away from the abilities that matter. And do not press Frost Strike while a rune is ready. It is the most common mistake in the spec.
3.Cooldowns and raid utility
Frost is a burst spec around its cooldowns and around Blood Tap. Learn how these three work together.
Gives you armor and strength for a short time, and it costs a Frost rune. Cast it with the Death rune that Blood Tap gives you, so your Frost and Unholy runes stay free for Obliterate.
Instantly readies a Blood rune and turns it into a Death rune for a short time, at a small cost in health. It is the key to keeping your runes flowing, so learn to use it with Unbreakable Armor.
Gives you all your runes back. A good opener, or a way to recover when you are behind. Use it once per fight, on the burst.
A pre-pull ability: cast it about eight or nine seconds before the pull so your runes are ready when the fight starts.
Absorbs spell damage. Use it on the fights that ask for it.
Gives the raid strength and agility, and gives you runic power. Keep it up.
4.Talents and glyphs
Our recommended Frost build is the 15/56/0 in the calculator, and there are variants: a Blood subspec for the early raids, an Unholy subspec (1/52/18) for the end-game, and a tank build. The talents that define the spec are Howling Blast, Frost Strike, Improved Icy Talons, Unbreakable Armor, Rime and Threat of Thassarian.
The major glyphs are Disease, Obliterate and Frost Strike. The Icy Touch and Howling Blast glyphs are options if the fight asks for them.
1 Unholy 1 Frost. 20 yd range. Instant. 8 sec cooldown. Blast the target with a frigid wind dealing 198 - 214 Frost damage to all enemies within 10 yards.
40 Runic Power. Melee Range. Instant. Requires Melee Weapon. Instantly strike the enemy, causing 55% weapon damage plus 48 as Frost damage.
Increases the melee haste of all party and raid members within 100 yds by 20% and your haste by an additional 5%.
1 Frost. Instant. 1 min cooldown. Reinforces your armor with a thick coat of ice, increasing your armor by 25% and increasing your Strength by 20% for 20 sec.
Increases the critical strike chance of your Icy Touch and Obliterate by 15% and casting Icy Touch has a 15% chance to cause your next Howling Blast to consume no runes.
When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Rune Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 100% chance to also deal damage with your offhand weapon.
Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations and secondary effects of diseases on your primary target back to their maximum duration.
Increases the damage of your Obliterate ability by 25%.
Reduces the cost of your Frost Strike by 8 Runic Power.
Swap options if the fight asks for them: Glyph of Icy Touch, Glyph of Howling Blast.
5.Stats, gems and gear
The priority is hit, then expertise, then strength and armor penetration, then critical strike, and haste last. Hit needs to reach about nine to eleven percent spell hit, expertise the 26 cap, and armor penetration works better the more you have, up to a very large amount. A raid-buffed critical strike of forty-two to forty-six percent is a good target.
Frost wants strength, and the BiS list shows the two-weapon build. Look at the list below for the best weapons and trinkets.
- Hit
- Expertise
- Armor Penetration
- Strength
~5% from gear (164 rating) for the DW special-attack cap with Nerves of Cold Steel
That is NOT the optimal final value — additional hit keeps paying off via white attacks, Howling Blast and spell damage. Spell cap is 17% total, reduced by Virulence + raid buffs.
26 expertise (214 rating base)
Tundra Stalker reduces the actual gear requirement.
1400 rating (theoretical cap)
Blood Fury, and if you run an axe, +5 expertise from Axe Specialization. Expertise is a priority stat for every DK spec, so racial expertise is worth a lot of gear budget.
Sword / Mace Specialization covers 2H sword and mace users with +3 expertise; Every Man for Himself for utility.
Havoc's Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings *
Havoc's Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings *
Sigil of Awareness
Sharpened Twilight Scale
Deathbringer's Will
Sanctified Scourgelord Helmet
Sanctified Scourgelord Battleplate
6.Common mistakes
• Using Frost Strike while a rune is ready.
• Dealing damage without both diseases.
• Casting Death and Decay in the single-target rotation.
• Casting Unbreakable Armor with a Frost rune when a Death rune from Blood Tap is available.
• Attacking from the front on bosses that parry, which speeds up their swing.
7.On the bosses
A few notes for Icecrown and Ruby Sanctum:
Attack from the side or the back to avoid parries, and use Blood Presence unless the fight needs movement.
The same rule: attack from the sides or the back. See the Ruby Sanctum guide.
In the first phase, Unholy Presence gives you movement speed when the raid has to reposition.
Unholy Presence again for the movement, and keep your diseases up on the target you are assigned.
Stay in Blood Presence even with target switching, and keep your diseases up. See the Lich King guide.
8.Questions people ask
Both are good. Frost is smoother on a single target and gives the raid a haste aura. Unholy brings a raid debuff and a pet and is stronger on multi-target fights.
It readies a Blood rune and turns it into a Death rune for a short time, at a small cost in health. That lets you cast Unbreakable Armor with the Death rune and keep your Frost and Unholy runes for Obliterate.
Blood Presence on most fights, and Unholy Presence for fights that ask you to move a lot.
Yes. The Frost build is a two-weapon build, and the talents are built around it.