Frost Death Knight Raid Guide

11.0.2 - The War Within

Last Updated:September 8, 2024|Change Log|FAQ

Welcome to the Frost Death Knight Raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.0! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!

Overview

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight
Frost Death KnightRaid
Single Target
Strong
AoE
Excellent
Utility
Weak
Survivability
Excellent
Mobility
Weak
Frost Death Knight Best in Slot

Hero Talents

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight
  • Between the two, Deathbringer is currently the winner as Rider of the Apocalypse is just not tuned high enough in raid content for it to be considered for Frost. For the remainder of the guide, it is assumed that you are specced into Deathbringer.
Deathbringer
Rider of the Apocalypse
Offensive Nodes
  • Reaper's Mark
    • The explosion grants you Exterminate.
  • Grim Reaper
    • This allows you to apply an additional Soul Reaper to targets below 35% HP.
  • Wave of Souls
    • Makes you deal 5% extra Shadowfrost damage to enemies hit.
  • Soul Rupture
    • When Reaper's Mark it explodes dealing damage to nearby enemies. Because the vast majority (>95%) of your damage is Frost damage, the physical damage increase does not matter.
  • Bind in Darkness and Blood Fever
    • Transforms Rime empowered Howling Blasts to deal Shadowfrost damage and givesFrost Fever a chance to deal extra Shadowfrost damage therefore contributing more stacks to Reaper's Mark.
  • Exterminate + Painful Death
    • With this talent combination, Reaper's Mark empowers your next 2 Obliterate casts after it explodes.
      • Obliterate now costs 1 Rune and summons two scythes dealing damage to all enemies around your target, applying Frost Fever and dealing considerable damage to them.
      • Additionally, they have a 30% chance to apply a new Reaper's Mark to the target.
    • Exterminate does not stack above 2 which means you need to use up both procs before a new Reaper's Mark explodes.
  • Dark Talons or Wither Away
    • Dark Talons
      • While it is not far behind, Dark Talons is just slightly undertuned compared to Wither Away and gets further pulled away from on multi-target.
    • Wither Away
      • As a Breath of Sindragosa build, this trait is invaluable due to the extra Runic Power it grants from the extra ticks of Frost Fever.
Defensive Choice Nodes
  • Pact of the Deathbringer or Rune Carved Plates
    • Pact of the Deathbringer is not a good enough talent to consider as it puts up a random healing absorb which in some cases can be extremely detrimental. On the other side you have Rune Carved Plates which is incredibly strong as it is a passive damage reduction based on what abilities you use. During your cooldowns this is essentially a 10% magic and physical damage taken reduction as you are constantly refreshing them.
  • Death's Messenger or Expelling Shield
    • Death's Messenger is the clear choice here as Expelling Shield does not work in PvE content on casts where it matters.
Offensive Nodes
  • Rider's Champion - Each Rune spent gives you a 10% chance to summon one of the following Four Horsemen:
    • Mograine
      • Puts up a Death and Decay that follows him.
        • You gain the benefit of Mograine's Might and Unholy Ground if you are standing in this.
    • Whitemane
      • Undeath is a disease with a 24 second duration that spreads and gains 1 stack every time you use Scourge Strike on the infected target.
    • Trollbane
      • Repeatedly casts Chains of Ice over his duration that gets shattered by Obliterate with Trollbane's Icy Fury.
    • Nazgrim
      • Grants you 3% Strength, increasing by 1% for every Rune spent while Nazgrim is active.
  • Apocalypse Now
    • Summons all 4 Horsemen for 20 seconds after casting Frostwyrm's Fury making Absolute Zero mandatory to line this up with every other use of Pillar of Frost allowing for huge burst every 1m30s.
      • If a Horsemen is already out, it extends the current duration by 20 seconds instead.
        • Mograine does not recast his Death and Decay but all other Horsemen recast their abilities.
  • Fury of the Horsemen or A Feast of Souls
    • Fury of the Horsemen increases the duration of your Horsemen while they are up but A Feast of Souls enables massive Frost Strikes periodically and is prolonged during Apocalypse Now. When combined with Shattering Blade and Shattered Frost this is especially powerful. As this is purely a numbers difference, A Feast of Souls currently wins when paired with Shattering Blade.
  • Hungering Thirst
    • Passively increases Frost Fever and Frost Strike damage.
  • Mawsworn Menace
    • Increases Obliterate damage by 10% and reduces the cooldown of Death and Decay by 10 seconds allowing you to use 2 charges of Death and Decay during Pillar of Frost in AoE.
Defensive Choice Nodes
  • Death Charge or On a Paler Horse
    • On a Paler Horse does not work at all in this raid so you always choose Death Charge which is not a bad thing as this greatly increases your mobility and allows you to break roots and slows.
  • Horsemen's Aid or Pact of the Apocalypse
    • Horsemen's Aid depends on the value of Anti-Magic Shell during the fight as this can be incredibly potent allowing you to pre-immune debuffs or randomly absorb high amounts of magic damage. On the other hand, Pact of the Apocalypse grants you 5% damage reduction per Horsemen out or a 20% damage reduction during your cooldowns with Apocalypse Now. Due to the situational value of both of these, there is no auto pick for this as it just depends on the fight.

Talents

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight
Dual-Wield
Obliteration
OmniFrost
Obliteration
Breath of Sindragosa

Gameplay Altering Talents

Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.

Spec Tree

  • Unleashed Frenzy and Icy Talons
    • Both of these buffs have the same duration and are refreshed by the same abilities. Keeping both active is very important!
  • Everfrost, Biting Cold, and Gathering Storm
    • All of these talents combined drastically increase your Remorseless Winter damage which contributes a good amount of single-target damage and is a very noticeable portion of your AoE.
  • Arctic Assault
    • Sends out a Glacial Advance towards your facing that applies Razorice to all enemies hit and refreshes both Unleashed Frenzy and Icy Talons.
    • This does not require you to talent into Glacial Advance for this to work and does not interact with Runic Empowerment.
  • Pillar of Frost, Icecap, and Frostwhelp's Aid
    • Pillar of Frost is a Frost Death Knight's major cooldown every 45 seconds when talented into Icecap.
  • Shattering Blade
    • When Dual-Wielding, you gain the benefit of being able to apply 2 Runeforges to your weapons. As this build, putting Rune of Razorice on your main-hand weapon allows Razorice to stack up very quickly because your main-hand hits of Auto Attack, Obliterate and Frost Strike now apply a stack of Razorice to the target.
  • Obliteration
    • Makes you gain a massive amount of Killing Machine buffs during your Pillar of Frost subsequently making it an incredibly high burst window as you can slam massive Killing Machine empowered Obliterates constantly.
  • Empower Rune Weapon
    • Increases your Haste by 15% for 20 seconds and gives you a Rune on use and every 5 seconds afterwards. This is very nice for your Pillar of Frosts as this allows you to fit in extra global cooldowns during this timeframe.

Class Tree

  • Soul Reaper
    • Used rotationally when hitting enemies under 35% health.
  • Cleaving Strikes
    • Cleaving Strikes allows your Obliterate to hit up to 2 additional enemies while you are standing in Death and Decay or when you have the buff from recently standing in your Death and Decay that lasts for 4 seconds.
  • Abomination Limb
    • Grips enemies to you for 12 seconds with a minimum range of 8 yards and a max range of 20 yards as well as dealing a decent amount of damage over the duration.
  • Runic Attenuation
    • A very nice source of passive Runic Power generation to help smooth out your rotation.
  • Anti-Magic Zone and Assimilation
    • Your raid cooldown that lasts for either 8 seconds or until 150% of your maximum health has been absorbed in total by everyone standing in the zone.
    • Talenting into Assimilation makes this absorb 10% stronger, 165% of your maximum health, and have its cooldown reduced by 30 seconds.
  • Null Magic
    • Reduces your magic damage taken by 8% and reduces the duration of harmful magic effects by 35%. While the reduced magic damage portion of Null Magic works against all magic damage, the reduced duration of harmful magic effects does not work on the vast majority of amount debuffs in Raid as that could simply break too many things. If it is important, the debuffs that this works on and does not work on are noted in the Nerub-ar Palace section.
  • Death's Echo
    • Gives you 1 extra charge of Death and Decay, Death's Advance, and Death Grip.
  • Will of the Necropolis
    • Reduces all damage taken below 30% by 35%, including the portion of the hit that takes you below 30%. For example, if you take a hit that takes you from 60% to 10%, the portion of the hit below 30% of your health is reduced by 35%
  • Unholy Endurance
    • Transforms Lichborne into a defensive cooldown and increases its' duration.
  • Gloom Ward
    • Increases all absorbs on you by 15%, this is incredibly powerful as it increases the absorb of spells like Anti-Magic Shell and Power Word: Shield and other similar abilities.
  • Unyielding Will or Vestigial Shell
    • Unyielding Will
      • Anti-Magic Shell's cooldown is increased by 20 seconds but removes all harmful magic effects when cast. While this says all, it doesn't mean all as removing certain debuffs could potentially break encounters if some debuffs were removed early. Make sure to check the Nerub-ar Palace section in this guide to see what you can and can't remove on a fight by fight basis.
    • Vestigial Shell
      • Puts a Lesser Anti-Magic Shell on 2 nearby allies that absorbs a small amount of damage and reduces the duration of some harmful magic effects. This does not have any immune capabilities and just acts as a shield on your allies that can reduce the duration of some harmful magic effects.

Runeforges

  • Main-Hand
    • Rune of Razorice
  • Off-Hand
    • Rune of the Fallen Crusader

When to use this Spec

There is not exactly a set place where you would currently use this spec as this is very fight dependent based on timers and the ability to stay in melee as well as capitalizing on the Runic Power gained from Anti-Magic Shell. Check out the Nerub-ar Palace section below to see if this is played on any bosses!

Talent Adjustments

Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.

Spec Tree

  • Added
    • Breath of Sindragosa
    • Hyperpyrexia
    • Icebreaker
    • Horn of Winter
  • Removed
    • Frostwhelp's Aid
    • Avalanche
    • Shattering Blade
    • The Long Winter
    • Chill Streak

Runeforges

  • Main-Hand
    • Rune of the Fallen Crusader
  • Off-Hand
    • Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle

Rotation

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

Tier Set

  • 2-Set: Your Runic Power spending abilities deal 8% increased damage.
  • 4-Set: Consuming Runic Power has a chance to increase your Strength by 10% for 8 sec.

Single-Target

Dual-Wield
Obliteration
OmniFrost
Obliteration
Breath of Sindragosa

Opener

  • Your goal is to activate your high powered cooldowns before Pillar of Frost and then cast as many Killing Machine empowered Obliterates during your Pillar of Frost. Below, you see an example of how your opener should look.
Frost Death Knight Example Single Target Opener in Raids

During Pillar of Frost Priority

  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you do not have a Killing Machine as well as having at least 2 Runes.
  • Cast Howling Blast if Frost Fever is missing.
  • Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Howling Blast if you do not have a Killing Machine.

Standard Priority

This is the priority list you follow while Pillar of Frost is not active.

  • Cast Frost Strike if Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy are about to expire.
  • Cast Remorseless Winter.
  • Cast Reaper's Mark.
    • This should only be used a global or 2 before Pillar of Frost as they have the same cooldown.
  • Cast Pillar of Frost.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health.
  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Obliterate.
  • Cast Abomination Limb.

Notes

  • There is a decent amount of holding you need to do and downtime that happens right before using Pillar of Frost. This is because you want to hold both Runes and Runic Power so you are able to cast all of your pre-Pillar abilities and go in to Pillar with enough resources.

Opener

  • This is an example of an opener on Single Target when talented into Breath of Sindragosa.
Frost Death Knight Example Breath Single Target Opener in Raids
  • In the Breath of Sindragosa opener, how fast you get in to Breath of Sindragosa depends on what procs you get. If you get a lot of procs you can delay up until the point where you are capped on Runic Power or when Reaper's Mark is about to explode as you want to get that in Pillar of Frost.
  • In a sense, the same thing goes for Empower Rune Weapon. This can be delayed if you end up going in to Breath with high amounts of resources, but it is very normal to have to use it right with Pillar on pull as it is not normal to get an excessive amount of procs.

During Breath Priority List

  • Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
  • Cast Pillar of Frost when it is ready.
  • Cast Remorseless Winter if you are not in Pillar of Frost.
    • While in Pillar, if you are above 60 Runic Power, do not have a Killing Machine or Rime proc, and Remorseless Winter is already stacked, you can refresh Remorseless Winter.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you have more than 50 Runic Power.
  • Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power and have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime and you have more than 60 Runic Power.
  • Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power.
  • Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Runes.
  • Cast Death and Decay.

Priority While not in Breath

  • Cast Frost Strike if Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy are about to expire.
  • Cast Remorseless Winter.
  • Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
  • Cast Pillar of Frost when it is available.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health or will be when this expires.
  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Obliterate.
  • Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Breath of Sindragosa has more than 30 seconds remaining on its' cooldown.
  • Cast Abomination Limb if you have nothing else.

During Pillar of Frost Priority

This priority is used during Pillar of Frost while not in Breath.

  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you do not have a Killing Machine as well as having at least 2 Runes.
  • Cast Howling Blast if Frost Fever is missing.
  • Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Howling Blast if you do not have a Killing Machine.

Multi-Target

Dual-Wield
Obliteration
OmniFrost
Obliteration
Breath of Sindragosa

In this Raid, there are no fights with AoE directly in the opener, because of that, it will not be focused on in this guide.

Opener

  • Your goal is to activate your high powered cooldowns before Pillar of Frost and then cast as many Killing Machine empowered Obliterates during your Pillar of Frost. Below, you see an example of how your opener should look.
Frost Death Knight Example Opener in Raids

During Pillar of Frost Priority

  • Cast Frostwyrm's Fury on as many targets as possible.
    • This is worth holding to hit as many targets as possible.
  • Cast Death and Decay if Pillar of Frost has more than 5 seconds remaining and it is not already down.
  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Soul Reaper and the enemy is below 35% health, you do not have a Killing Machine, and you have at least 2 Runes.
    • This is only cast if you have 1 or 2 targets, never 3 or above.
  • Cast Howling Blast if Frost Fever is missing.
  • Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Howling Blast if you do not have a Killing Machine.

Standard Priority

This is the priority list you follow while Pillar of Frost is not active.

  • Cast Frost Strike if Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy are about to expire.
  • Cast Remorseless Winter.
  • Cast Reaper's Mark.
    • This should only be used a global or 2 before Pillar of Frost as they have the same cooldown.
  • Cast Pillar of Frost.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health or will be when this expires.
  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Obliterate.
  • Cast Abomination Limb.

Notes

  • There is a decent amount of holding you need to do and downtime that happens right before using Pillar of Frost. This is because you want to hold both Runes and Runic Power so you are able to cast all of your pre-Pillar abilities and go in to Pillar with enough resources.
  • Death and Decay essentially has a 14 second duration as you gain 4 seconds of the buff after it expires so watch out for that before refreshing during Pillar of Frost!

In this Raid, there are no fights with AoE directly in the opener, because of that, it will not be focused on in this guide.

Opener

  • This is an example of an opener on Single Target when talented into Breath of Sindragosa.
Frost Death Knight Example Breath Opener in Raids
  • In the Breath of Sindragosa opener, how fast you get in to Breath of Sindragosa depends on what procs you get. If you get a lot of procs you can delay up until the point where you are capped on Runic Power or when Reaper's Mark is about to explode as you want to get that in Pillar of Frost.
  • In a sense, the same thing goes for Empower Rune Weapon. This can be delayed if you end up going in to Breath with high amounts of resources, but it is very normal to have to use it right with Pillar on pull as it is not normal to get an excessive amount of procs.

During Breath Priority List

  • Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
  • Cast Pillar of Frost when it is ready.
  • Cast Remorseless Winter if you are not in Pillar of Frost.
    • While in Pillar, if you are above 60 Runic Power, do not have a Killing Machine or Rime proc, and Remorseless Winter is already stacked, you can refresh Remorseless Winter.
  • Cast Death and Decay.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you have more than 50 Runic Power.
    • This is only cast if you have 1 or 2 targets, never 3 or above.
  • Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power and have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime and you have more than 60 Runic Power.
  • Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power.
  • Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Runes.

Priority While not in Breath

  • Cast Frost Strike if Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy are about to expire.
  • Cast Remorseless Winter.
  • Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
  • Cast Pillar of Frost when it is available.
  • Cast Death and Decay if you have 2 charges.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health or will be when this expires.
    • This is only cast if you have 1 or 2 targets, never above 3.
  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Obliterate.
  • Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Breath of Sindragosa has more than 30 seconds remaining on its' cooldown.
  • Cast Abomination Limb if you have nothing else.

During Pillar of Frost Priority

This priority is used during Pillar of Frost while not in Breath.

  • Cast Death and Decay
    • Ideally this is cast before Pillar as in this spec Pillar only lasts for 12 seconds and Death and Decay lasts for 14 seconds assuming you are standing in it the entire time.
  • Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
  • Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you do not have a Killing Machine as well as having at least 2 Runes.
  • Cast Howling Blast if Frost Fever is missing.
  • Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
  • Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
  • Cast Frost Strike.
  • Cast Howling Blast if you do not have a Killing Machine.

Deep Dive

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

Cooldown Usage

This section explains how and when to use your cooldowns as it is of the utmost importance for your damage as a Frost Death Knight.

Pillar of Frost
Reaper's Mark
Empower Rune Weapon
Horn of Winter
Chill Streak
Abomination Limb
Raise Dead

Obliteration

Pillar of Frost is used mostly on cooldown but sometimes you need to slightly delay it if you do not have enough Runes available. This is especially true while playing Deathbringer as ideally you prepare a Remorseless Winter and Chill Streak ahead of time as well as at least 3 more Runes so you can Reaper's Mark before and go into Pillar with at least 1 Rune available allowing you to Frost Strike or use a Rime proc and hopefully get a second Rune.

OmniFrost

When playing OmniFrost, Pillar of Frost gets offset from Breath as the cooldowns do not line up with 45 second Pillar. Even with this offset, you still use Pillar on cooldown with Reaper's Mark as it is too powerful to delay. As with Obliteration, you want to go into Pillar with at least 3 Runes and preferably a Remorseless Winter to help stack Reaper's Mark.

Obliteration

While you are playing Obliteration, you want to pair this with Pillar of Frost as often as possible. The 15% Haste this grants allows you to fit in more global cooldowns into your Pillar window so this is especially important. It can be used up to 2 seconds before Pillar because of The Long Winter extending your Pillar to 18 seconds.

OmniFrost and Breath of Sindragosa

As OmniFrost or Breath of Sindragosa, Empower Rune Weapon usage is not black and white due to the varying amount of resources you get. Sim usage says to use this when you are below 70 Runic Power and have less than 3 Runes but that gets more complicated with the extra Reaper's Mark procs as you get 2 free Obliterates. If you know you are about to get these resources, it can be beneficial to hold this until after to not excessively overcap on resources after using Empower Rune Weapon. As with Obliteration, it is beneficial to have Empower Rune Weapon up during Pillar but it is not absolutely mandatory but the most overlap possible while not wasting resources is ideal.

Breath of Sindragosa

As you usually only talent into this with Breath of Sindragosa, this is only used when you do not have Runes to spend on an Obliterate, or a Rime empowered Howling Blast when talented in to Rage of the Frozen Champion and you do not overcap on Runic Power and Runes when casting.

You can use this once outside of Breath of Sindragosa and is generally used well around the time you cast Reaper's Mark as you are regularly running out of resources around that time.

Obliteration and Breath of Sindragosa

Chill Streak should be used on cooldown, but ideally right before Pillar of Frost and after Remorseless Winter as it gains you the most damage. Doing it this way, you do not lose a valuable global during your Pillar windows and it gains the benefits of the Pillar buffs as it takes awhile to do its damage.

Use this as a filler global when you have nothing else to press as it does not deal enough damage to be worth pressing otherwise. If you can, try to use it when you can get value going in to Pillar of Frost or after with Enduring Strength.

You should macro this in with either of Pillar of Frost or Empower Rune Weapon as this does not do enough to offset from either of these.

Anti-Magic Shell Runic Power

  • Anti-Magic Shell grants you up to 40 Runic Power based on the amount it absorbs. This is incredibly powerful as you do get quite starved on Runic Power so you end up wanting to use this to your advantage as often as possible on bosses where Anti-Magic Shell isn't specifically used for defensive purposes.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

Nerub-ar Palace

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

The following tips are mainly applicable to Heroic Bosses. Mythic tips are released after our progression concludes.

← Scroll for more Bosses

Ulgrax
Bloodbound Horror
Sikran
Rasha'nan
Broodtwister
Nexus-Princess
Silken Court
Frost Death Knight Talents for Ulgrax in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • During Carnivorous Contest, use Death's Advance while soaking to prevent getting dragged to the boss.
    • With Death's Advance active you can walk back to the boss to attack.
      • Do not walk under the boss as Devour kills you almost instantly.
  • Clean up any undesired webs from Stalkers Webbing with Anti-Magic Shell and Icebound Fortitude.
Frost Death Knight Talents for The Bloodbound Horror in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • Anti-Magic Shell prevents the application of Black Blood when walking over the "water".
  • Utilize Abomination Limb, Chains of Ice, and Death Grip for the inside phase to grip and slow the small adds spawned from Manifest Horror together.
Frost Death Knight Talents for Sikran in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • Use Anti-Magic Shell right before Decimate goes off to immune the Cosmic Shards debuff.
    • If you are playing Unyielding Will you can also do it afterwards if necessary.
  • Phase Blades deal physical damage so use Icebound Fortitude or Lichborne when targeted.
Frost Death Knight Talents for Rasha'nan in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • Using Anti-Magic Shell allows you to immune stacks of Lingering Erosion from Erosive Spray.
  • When soaking Web Reave use Death's Advance to prevent the pull.
Frost Death Knight Talents for Broodtwister Ovi'nax in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • Use Abomination Limb, Chains of Ice, and Death Grip to help control the Blood Parasites that are close to your ranged.
    • Grip of the Dead is also an incredibly powerful slow for the ones that spawn in melee if necessary.
  • Using cooldowns on pull and basically on cooldown for the remainder of this fight is extremely important as the first wave of adds spawns roughly 45 seconds but take a few seconds to stack up. You want to have Pillar of Frost and Reaper's Mark up for each wave.
  • Interrupt the Voracious Worms just outside of melee since you have a kick with 15 yard range. Let the actual melee kicks do the ones under the boss.
  • Playing Unyielding Will allows you to use Anti-Magic Shell to remove the healing absorb from Experimental Dosage, Unstable Infusion, and Caustic Reaction if an egg explodes. You can also pre-immune all of these instead.
Frost Death Knight Talents for Nexus-Princess Ky'veza in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • Use Death's Advance to avoid the suck in from Nether Rift.
  • Unyielding Will or pre-using Anti-Magic Shell does not work on any debuffs on this fight, use it purely to absorb damage.
Frost Death Knight Talents for The Silken Court in Nerub-ar Palace

Boss Tips

  • Right after Call of the Swarm use Death Grip on one Shattershell Scarab and stand right under it to bait the Fixate on you. You should not be able to die in this fight unless you get hit by avoidable damage so the damage taken increase does not really matter.
  • During the first intermission, if you mess up dodging you can Death's Advance to immune the knockback and Anti-Magic Shell to prevent getting the debuff from getting hit.
  • Unyielding Will does not remove Stinging Swarm.
  • Death's Advance does not prevent the pull of Web Vortex.
  • On beta you were able to Icebound Fortitude out of Spike Storm's Impaled if you got hit. It is unclear if this was intended but it's worth a shot if you get hit.

Stat Priority

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as an Frost Death Knight. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

Frost Death Knight's Stats in Raid

Higher Item level items are better in most scenarios. For an accurate representation of what item to equip you should use Simcraft! A static "Stat Priority" is just a starting point and can easily shift depending on your individual gear.

  • All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

  • Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
  • Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
  • Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Gear

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight
Best in Slot
Farmable Alternatives
SlotItemLocation
HeadWrathbark GreathelmThe Great Vault
NeckTrailspinner PendantThe Great Vault
ShoulderExhumed Centurion's SpikesTier / Catalyst
CloakConsecrated CloakCrafted
ChestExhumed Centurion's BreastplateTier / Catalyst
WristDevoted Offering's IronsQueen Ansurek
GlovesExhumed Centurion's GauntletsTier / Catalyst
BeltCrystal-Fissure GirdleThe Great Vault
LegsExhumed Centurion's ChaussesTier / Catalyst
BootsBallast SinkersThe Great Vault
Ring 1Seal of the Poisoned PactQueen Ansurek
Ring 2Seal of the City WatchThe Great Vault
Trinket 1Ara-Kara SacbroodThe Great Vault
Trinket 2Mark of KhardrosThe Great Vault
Main-HandAnsurek's Final JudgmentQueen Ansurek
Off-HandCharged SlicerCrafted

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.

SlotItemLocation
HeadWrathbark GreathelmMists of Tirna Scithe
NeckTrailspinner PendantMists of Tirna Scithe
ShoulderFlesh Connector's EpauletsCity of Threads
CloakTroggstitched DrapeGrim Batol
ChestDark Priest's CarapaceThe Dawnbreaker
WristBracers of Umbral MendingGrim Batol
GlovesRope-Scored GauntletsSiege of Boralus
BeltCrystal-Fissure GirdleThe Stonevault
LegsLegplates of Broken TrustThe Stonevault
BootsBallast SinkersSiege of Boralus
Ring 1Umbriss BandGrim Batol
Ring 2Seal of the City WatchSiege of Boralus
Trinket 1Ara-Kara SacbroodAra-Kara, City of Echoes
Trinket 2Mark of KhardrosGrim Batol
WeaponMace of Transformed BoneGrim Batol

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the raid boss.

Active Trinket alternatives

All 3 of these on-use trinkets are virtually tied with each other DPS wise.

  • Skarmorak Shard
    • Both this and Mark of Khardros are essentially the same trinket but Skarmorak Shard gives you Mastery throughout the fight when adds die.

or

  • Treacherous Transmitter
    • This is an incredibly annoying but good trinket to use as it takes away your focus from the fight instead putting it on triggering this trinket.

Passive Trinket alternatives

  • Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg
    • While this is mostly a passive stat stick with how it works, it has an on-use that locks its' current amount of stacks for 20 seconds that does not share a cooldown with other active trinkets.
  • Void Pactstone
    • Not a bad option for a passive trinket, and better than most options just not as good as the other passive trinkets listed here.

Embellishments

It's recommended to hold your Spark of Omens craft and wait for further tuning.

  • Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension -- Weapon Only
    • This is a strong embellishment that can only go on your weapon. This does mean taking an item level hit on your off-hand as you can only craft up to 636 item level but it is currently the best option.

and

  • Writhing Armor Banding
    • This is a strong embellishment as it buffs your Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension effect by 100%.

Remaining Sparks

  • Crafted items are 636 item level and regular items are 639 on max item level, therefore, it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

Consumables

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight
  • Phials
    • Flask of Alchemical Chaos -- Maximum DPS.
  • Food
    • Salt Baked Seafood -- Maximum DPS
    • Feast of the Divine Day -- Small loss
  • Combat Potion
    • Tempered Potion
  • Health Potion
    • Algari Healing Potion -- A big burst of healing
  • Weapon Oil
    • Algari Mana Oil
  • Augment Rune
    • Crystallized Augment Rune
  • Sockets
    • Masterful Ruby
    • Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem color to enhance your Culminating Blasphemite.
      • Deadly Onyx
      • Deadly Emerald or Masterful Emerald
      • Deadly Sapphire or Masterful Sapphire

Enchantments

HeadNerubian Gemweaver
NeckMagnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x
CloakEnchant Cloak - Chant of Winged Grace
ChestEnchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance
WristEnchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Avoidance
Nerubian Gemweaver
WaistNerubian Gemweaver
LegsStormbound Armor Kit
BootsEnchant Boots - Scout's March
Ring 1Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike
Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x
Ring 2Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike
Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x
Main-HandRune of Razorice
Off-HandRune of the Fallen Crusader
Frost Death Knight Enchantments in Raids

You buy Nerubian Gemweaver from the Great Vault Vendor to add sockets to your Helm, Wrists & Waist.

Races

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

For min-maxing a Frost Death Knight in raiding, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your character. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

  • Combat Analysis -- Mechagnome
    • Currently an extremely strong racial due to the high value of Strength. This ramps up over the course of a minute and stays at the max value for the rest of the fight.
  • Stoneform -- Dwarf
    • Can dispel Magic and Bleed debuffs. Has been useful in the past on some bosses with Bleeds and is strong in Mythic+.
    • As well as having Stoneform, Might of the Mountain is a very strong racial bonus granting Critical Strike damage which makes this one of our better races along with Tauren as it has the same racial ability.
Frost Death Knight Race Sims for Obliteration

Recommendation

Overall for Frost in Raids, I would recommend Mechagnome as it is currently the best race by a good margin (for racial bonuses) while also being the second best race for Unholy.
If you also do Mythic+, both Dwarf and Night Elf are not that much worse and offer incredibly utility there.

Macros

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

Discover recommended macros for an Frost Death Knight during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Cursor Macros

Anti-Magic ZoneCasts Anti-Magic Zone at your Cursor position.

/cast [@cursor] Anti-Magic Zone

Death and Decay - Casts Death and Decay at your cursor position.

/cast [@cursor] Death and Decay

If you do not like Death and Decay on your cursor you can replace [@cursor] with [@player] and it will instead put it at your feet. Having either of these is important as it removes the targeting reticle and allows you to get it out faster.

/cast [@player] Death and Decay

Mouseover Macros

Focus Macros

Addons

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Frost Death Knight, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Unholy Raid Interface Mxr 1024 X 635
Unholy Death Knight Interface in Raids

Addons

WeakAuras

Changes this Patch

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Unholy Death Knight

Patch 11.0.2

Patch 11.0

FAQ

Patch 11.0.2 - The War Within
Frost Death Knight

Q: How do Killing Machine Procs Work?

Credits

Written By: Miniaug

Reviewed By: Narcolies, Maystine

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