Frost Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3.2)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 5. Strengths
  • 6. Weaknesses
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Stat Choice
  • 3. Basic Rotations
    • 3.1. Single Target Rotation
    • 3.2. Multiple Target Rotation
  • 4. Cooldowns
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resources
  • 3. Basic Abilities
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• ×Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 56) Talents
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 57) Talents
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 58) Talents
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 9. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
  • 2. Relic Choice
    • 2.1. Single Target
    • 2.2. AoE
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice
  • 2. Tier 2 Upgrade Priority
  • 3. Tier 3 Upgrade Priority
    • 3.1. Single Target
    • 3.2. AoE
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation
  • 3. Cooldown Usage
  • 4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Frost Death Knight
    • 4.1. Runes and Runic Power
      • 4.1.1. Runes
      • 4.1.2. Runic Power
    • 4.2. Dual-Wielding Versus Two-Handed
    • 4.3. Mastery: Frozen Heart
    • 4.4. Procs
      • 4.4.1. Killing Machine Procs
      • 4.4.2. Rime Procs
    • 4.5. Anti-Magic Shell Usage
    • 4.6. Advanced Cooldown Usage
      • 4.6.1. Pillar of Frost
      • 4.6.2. Empower Rune Weapon
      • 4.6.3. Artifact Abilities
      • 4.6.4. Horn of Winter
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
    • 2.1. Statistics Priority
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Death Knights
      • 1.1.1. Raise Ally
      • 1.1.2. Mind Freeze
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Frost Death Knights
      • 1.2.1. Death Grip Mouseover Macro
      • 1.2.2. Howling Blast
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Death Knights
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.5. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.6. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 2.1.7. mRunes
      • 2.1.8. Omen Threat Meter
      • 2.1.9. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Frost Death Knights
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot
  • 2. Tier 21 Set Bonus
  • 3. Trinkets
  • 4. Legendary Items
  • 5. Loot Competition
  • 6. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Frost Death Knights in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.2. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Frost Death Knight guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Ertrak, a top Frost Death Knight who raids in Azshari Vegans.

1. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
56	✘ Shattering Strikes	? Icy Talons	✔ Runic Attenuation
57	✘ Freezing Fog	✔ Murderous Efficiency	✘ Horn of Winter
58	✔ Icecap	✘ Glacial Advance	✘ Avalanche
60	? Abomination's Might	? Blinding Sleet	? Winter is Coming
75	? Volatile Shielding	? Permafrost	? Inexorable Assault
90	✘ Frostscythe	✘ Frozen Pulse	✔ Gathering Storm
100	✔ Obliteration	? Breath of Sindragosa	✘ Hungering Rune Weapon

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Tier 1 (Level 56) Talents

✘ Shattering Strikes

? Icy Talons

✔ Runic Attenuation

• Shattering Strikes causes Frost Strike to deal 60% additional damage to a target that has 5 stacks of Razorice (from Rune of Razorice) on them, removing the stacks in the process.
• Icy Talons causes Frost Strike to increase your melee attack speed by 12% for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times (the attack speed increase stacks, but the duration cannot be greater than 6 seconds, with each new applications simply refreshing it).
• Runic Attenuation causes each auto attack to generate 1 Runic Power.

Runic Attenuation is the recommended talent, as it gives you a lot of Runic Power to work with, and you have very little downtime with it, meaning that it leads to more Frost Strikes and in turn more Obliterates. This talent also pairs well with the tier 7 Obliteration talent, because it makes sure you do not run out of resources while it is active.

Icy Talons could also be a viable choice, although we feel you are better off taking Runic Attenuation.

Shattering Strikes is currently undertuned and not worth taking.

3. Tier 2 (Level 57) Talents

✘ Freezing Fog

✔ Murderous Efficiency

✘ Horn of Winter

• Freezing Fog passively increases the damage of Howling Blast and Frost Fever by 20%.
• Murderous Efficiency gives you 50% chance to gain 1 Rune each time you use up a Killing Machine proc.
• Horn of Winter is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown that grants you 2 Rune and 20 Runic Power when used.

Murderous Efficiency is currently the best choice in this tier in all situations.

Horn of Winter is not a bad choice, and there has been some success using it against a single target, but believe Murderous Efficiency to currently be the best choice. Freezing Fog also provides good damage, but the benefits of the increased resource generation from Murderous Efficiency out-weighs this.

4. Tier 3 (Level 58) Talents

✔ Icecap

✘ Glacial Advance

✘ Avalanche

• Icecap causes your Frost Strike, Frostscythe, and Obliterate critical strikes to reduce the remaining cooldown of Pillar of Frost by 1 second.
• Glacial Advance is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown that causes spikes to come out from the ground in front of you, dealing Frost damage to enemies near their point of eruption.
• Avalanche causes icicles to fall on nearby enemies, dealing Frost damage to them, whenever you land melee critical strikes while Pillar of Frost is active.

We recommend taking Icecap for most situations, with the other two talents not really being worth considering currently.

It is also worth noting that with the Cold Heart legendary, Icecap lines up perfectly with when you consume the item's buff.

5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

? Abomination's Might

? Blinding Sleet

? Winter is Coming

• Abomination's Might causes your Obliterate critical strikes to have a 20% chance to stun lesser enemies (not raid bosses) for 2 seconds. Players are instead Dazed for 5 seconds.
• Blinding Sleet is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown. It is a frontal cone attack that causes affected targets to be disoriented for 4 seconds. Damaging disoriented targets may cancel the effect.
• Winter is Coming causes enemies who are struck 5 times by Remorseless Winter while Pillar of Frost is active to be stunned for 4 seconds.

The talents in this tier provide no increase in DPS, and you should just choose the one that satisfies the crowd-control requirements of your circumstances.

That said, Blinding Sleet will probably be the most useful choice, especially in dungeons where you can interrupt multiple enemies. Unfortunately, Winter is Coming requires Pillar of Frost to be active for it to work, which is a disadvantage (though it works well if you take the Icecap Tier 3 talent). Abomination's Might is unlikely to be able to compete with Blinding Sleet in anything other than solo play.

6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

? Volatile Shielding

? Permafrost

? Inexorable Assault

• Volatile Shielding modifies your Anti-Magic Shell to absorb 35% more damage and generate 100% additional Runic Power.
• Permafrost procs each time you deal damage with an auto attack, granting you a 9-second absorb shield equal to 100% of the damage dealt. The absorption amount stacks up to 20% of your maximum health, but the duration cannot be increased beyond 9 seconds, with subsequent attacks simply refreshing it.
• Inexorable Assault passively grants you a stack of a buff that causes your next autoattack to deal an additional 100% of its damage as Frost damage. The stacks are gained at a rate of 1 per second, whenever you are in combat but when there are no enemies within 8 yards of you. The buff lasts 10 seconds, and you can obtain a maximum of 10 stacks. Each autoattack you make consumes one stack.

Volatile Shielding should be used for heavy magic damage, Permafrost for low mobility situations or low constant damage, and Inexorable Assault for high mobility fights. It is worth noting that Inexorable Assault also deals some damage, while the other two talents do not.

7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

✘ Frostscythe

✘ Frozen Pulse

✔ Gathering Storm

• Frostscythe is an active ability that costs 1 Rune and deals Frost damage to all enemies in front of you. It benefits from Killing Machine in the same way that Obliterate does, and Frostscythe critical strikes deal 4 times normal damage.
• Frozen Pulse causes your auto attacks to trigger a pulse of Frost damage on all nearby enemies whenever you have fewer than 2 full Runes.
• Gathering Storm causes each Rune you spend during Remorseless Winter to increase its damage by 15% and extend its duration by 0.5 seconds.

We currently recommend taking Gathering Storm in all situations.

Frozen Pulse and Frostscythe are not worth taking.

8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

✔ Obliteration

? Breath of Sindragosa

✘ Hungering Rune Weapon

• Obliteration is an active ability with a 1.5-minute cooldown. For 10 seconds, Frost Strike and Howling Blast both grant Killing Machine, and Obliterate costs 1 less Rune.
• Breath of Sindragosa is an active ability with a 2-minute cooldown, which costs 15 Runic Power for each second that it is active (until canceled or until you run out of Runic Power). It is a frontal cone attack, which deals Shadowfrost damage to all enemies in front of you.
• Hungering Rune Weapon replaces your Empower Rune Weapon ability. It has a 3-minute cooldown, and it grants you 1 Rune and 5 Runic Power when used, and once every 1.5 seconds for its 15-second duration, and also grants you 20% haste for 12 seconds.

Generally, we recommend taking Obliteration in all situations. That said, for times when there are adds that need to die quickly and when your group lacks burst DPS, you could choose Breath of Sindragosa, but only if you pair it with Horn of Winter in tier 2.

Hungering Rune Weapon is not currently recommended.

9. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 28 Nov. 2017: Updated the recommendations for most talent tiers.
• 01 Sep. 2017: Updated tier 2 and 7 talent recommendations.
• 28 Aug. 2017: Updated the page to account for the changes to talents that came with Patch 7.3.
• 13 Jun. 2017: Updated Tier 6 talent discussion to mention that Frostscythe can be taken if you have the new legendary ring, Soul of the Deathlord.
• 24 Apr. 2017: Removed mentions of Machine Gun playstyle.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 21 Feb. 2017: Revamped most talent descriptions to account for Breath of Sindragosa now being the dominant playstyle.
• 22 Jan. 2017: Updated description of Volatile Shielding to account for the change in damage school.
• 21 Jan. 2017: Made a few small updates to some talent evaluations and updated the introductory text for the Breath of Sindragosa playstyle further. Also added checkmarks to talents viable in the Breath of Sindragosa build.
• 17 Jan. 2017: Reworded the introduction section for the Breath of Sindragosa build slightly, to confirm that it does indeed perform very well.
• 13 Jan. 2017: Changed tier 6 talent evaluation to Gather Storm only (for Breath of Sindragosa).
• 10 Jan. 2017: Added alternative talent choices to support Breath of Sindragosa build, and updated talent descriptions to account for Patch 7.1.5.
• 27 Oct. 2016: Updated tier 6 and 7 talent recommendations to account for a non machine gun playstyle now also being viable.
• 24 Oct. 2016: Updated the description of Frozen Pulse to account for patch 7.1 changes.
• 05 Oct. 2016: Updated the tier 3 talent discussion to state that Avalanche is best for raiding, while Icecap is recommended for Mythic+ dungeons.
• 25 Sep. 2016: Further updated the page to account for the prevalence of the Machine Gun rotation.
• 24 Sep. 2016: Added a mention of taking Icy Talons for the Machine Gun rotation.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 21 Jul. 2016: Updated tier 1 and 2 talent discussions.
• 19 Jul. 2016: Changed the evaluation of Icy Talons to include the possible situation where Murderous Efficiency results in you having too many resources, in which case Icy Talons could be a viable replacement.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.