General Information
On this page, we list your Frost Death Knight core
abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft
MoP 5.4. We also explain when
to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties
that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Frost
Death Knight.
The other pages of our Frost Death Knight guide can be accessed
from the table of contents on the right.
1. Single Target Rotation↑top
The single target Frost Death Knight rotation can be summarised in the form
of the following priority systems. They differ slightly depending on whether
you are dual-wielding or using a Two-Handed Weapon, so we have split them for
a better understanding.
1.1. Dual-Wielding
- Cast
Frost Strike if
- You are about to reach maximum runic power (89+) OR
- You have a
Killing Machine proc.
- Cast
Howling Blast when both Death or both Frost runes are
available.
- Cast
Soul Reaper
- only when the target is below 35% health.
- Keep your diseases (
Frost Fever and
Blood Plague) up at all times.
- Apply
Frost Fever with
Howling Blast, and apply
Blood Plague with
Plague Strike. In the case of Plague Strike, make
sure that you use an Unholy rune for it, and not a Death rune (if need be,
wait slightly for an Unholy rune to become available).
- Cast
Howling Blast when you have a
Rime proc.
- Cast
Obliterate if
- Cast
Howling Blast.
- Cast
Frost Strike if you have 40+ runic power.
- Cast
Horn of Winter.
Unless stated otherwise, this rotation assumes you have the
Blood Tap
talent (which we consider to be the best choice). Managing Blood Tap is a
simple matter of making sure to use your charges before they cap (at 12). The
easiest way of doing this is to macro it into a commonly-used ability, ideally
Frost Strike. The following is an example of this macro.
- #showtooltip Frost Strike
- /cast Blood Tap
- /cast Frost Strike
For a simplified version of the dual-wielding rotation, that provides
slightly less DPS, check this section.
1.2. Two-Handed
- Keep your diseases (
Frost Fever and
Blood Plague) up at all
times.
- Cast
Soul Reaper
- only when the target is below 35% health.
- Cast
Howling Blast when you have a
Rime proc.
- Cast
Obliterate if
- Cast
Frost Strike.
- Cast
Horn of Winter.
This rotation assumes you have the
Blood Tap talent (which
we consider to be the best choice). If you do not wish to manage Blood Tap,
you can use
Runic Empowerment instead.
1.3. Presence
You should always be in
Frost Presence.
2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top
The multiple target (AoE) rotation, also based on a priority system,
is the same for both dual wielding and two-handed playstyles. It can be
summarised as:
- Cast
Howling Blast whenever available.
- Cast
Death and Decay (when not on cooldown) and
Plague Strike
(when Death and Decay is on cooldown), only if both Unholy runes are
available.
- Cast
Frost Strike to avoid reaching maximum runic power, and to
proc
Runic Empowerment.
- Cast
Horn of Winter.
If the enemies will live long enough, then make sure you
spread
Blood Plague to them, either through
Pestilence, or through
use of your Tier 1 Talents. For Pestilence, by "long enough" we mean that the
diseases would need to have time to tick for a total of 30 seconds, among
all the adds. So, if you are spreading the disease to two adds, they would each
need to live for at least 15 seconds. If you were spreading to three adds,
they would each need to live for at least 10 seconds, and so on.
2.1. Presence
You should use
Frost Presence.
3. Cooldown Usage↑top
As a Frost Death Knight, you have a total of 4 DPS cooldowns. Below, we
explain how they are best used.
3.1. Pillar of Frost
Pillar of Frost grants you 20% Strength for 20 seconds, with a
1-minute cooldown. You should use this ability on cooldown. Ideally, you
should couple it with any on-use trinkets you may have, and/or profession
perks (if applicable).
3.2. Empower Rune Weapon
Empower Rune Weapon refreshes all of your runes and grants you 30
runic power. It has a 5-minute cooldown and, as such, it can realistically
be used only twice per fight.
Empower Rune Weapon should be used when all of your runes are on cooldown
and you have low runic power. It is useful in providing a large burst of
DPS, so keep that in mind when deciding when to use it.
3.3. Raise Dead
Raise Dead summons a ghoul that fights at your side for 1 minute,
with a 2-minute cooldown. Try to stack it with procs and cooldowns
(
Pillar of Frost and
Heroism/
Bloodlust/
Time Warp especially).
3.4. Army of the Dead
Army of the Dead summons a number of ghouls to fight at your side for
a short while. As it has a 10-minute cooldown, it can only be used once
per fight.
The ghouls also benefit from your stats, like in the case of
Raise Dead. That said, it is best to cast this shortly before combat or
during phases when you can't attack the boss, since it has a cast time during
which you cannot attack.
4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Frost Death Knight↑top
The above-mentioned priorities (and the resulting rotation) may appear
complex and confusing. To alleviate this, we will explain, among other things,
the rotation in a bit more detail.
4.1. Dual-Wielding Versus Two-Handed
Currently, the two-handed and dual-wielding playstyles are practically
even in single-target, but dual-wielding pulls ahead in AoE and cleaving
situations.
4.2. Dark Simulacrum
Dark Simulacrum is a very special ability. It places a debuff on the
target, which causes you to mimic their next spell cast that costs mana to
use. This grants you the ability (it will replace Dark Simulacrum on your
bars) for a short amount of time. Using this mimicked ability can be very
beneficial (even exploitative) on some encounters.
4.3. Single Target Rotation Explained
The Frost Death Knight single target rotations can get a bit
confusing when read in the form of a priority list. In the following
sub-sections, we will shed some light on what you should do in practice. We
mainly focus on the Two-Handed rotation, since it performs better and it is
more popular, but we also dedicate a section to Dual-Wielding.
4.3.1. Keeping Diseases Up
In addition to the damage that your two diseases do, the damage done by
Obliterate is increased by 12.5% for each disease present on the
target. Since Obliterate is your hardest hitting ability, it is imperative to
have a high up-time on your diseases.
Frost Fever will be automatically applied each time you cast
Howling Blast, so it will always be up, normally. Sometimes, it can happen
that a long period of time will go by without any
Rime procs (since,
as we have mentioned in the priority at the start of the guide, and as we will
see below, you should only cast Howling Blast with a Rime proc). In this case,
simply cast Howling Blast without a Rime proc to refresh Frost Fever.
Blood Plague will have to be kept up manually. You will do this
through a combination of
Outbreak (once every minute) and
Plague Strike (when Outbreak is on cooldown and you need to refresh
the disease).
Plague Leech is a tier 1 talent that we advise you to take. You
should use it to consume your existing diseases on the target, every time
that
Blood Plague is about to expire and
Outbreak is available.
Afterwards, you will quickly re-apply the diseases through
Outbreak.
Alternatively, you can use it to consume your diseases on the target even if
Outbreak is on cooldown, provided that Blood Plague is about to expire and
you have a
Rime proc. This allows you to gain one Death rune (from
consuming the diseases) at the expense of one Unholy rune (the cost of
refreshing Blood Plague through Plague Strike), since refreshing Frost Fever
will not cost any runes due to the Rime proc.
4.3.2. Using Frost Strike
If you are using
Runic Empowerment (a talent which we do not consider
to be optimal), you should not use Frost Strike blindly, as it has a "hidden"
benefit. Thanks to Runic Empowerment, each time you cast Frost Strike, you
have a 45% to regenerate a fully depleted rune. Therefore, you should only use
Frost Strike when both runes of a certain type are unavailable.
You will, of course, be forced to use Frost Strike in situations other than
these, because your runic power will reach maximum capacity otherwise. This
is acceptable. Just make sure that you are not using Frost Strike when your
runic power is not full and the above-mentioned rune condition is not met.
4.3.3. Killing Machine Procs
Your autoattacks have a chance to make your next
Obliterate or
Frost Strike a guaranteed critical strike, thanks to
Killing Machine.
You should use
Killing Machine
procs on
Obliterate (its damage is greatly boosted by
Might of the Frozen Wastes), and never on
Frost Strike. Sadly, this is
not always possible. Indeed, sometimes, you will get a Killing Machine proc
immediately before using Frost Strike (to dump runic power/proc
Runic Empowerment), and it will be wasted on the Frost Strike.
Alternatively, it can happen that you have your runes on cooldown and you need
to use Frost Strike for Runic Empowerment to enable the use of Obliterate. If
you get a Killing Machine at this time, you are left with the choice of wasting
it on Frost Strike, or waiting 5 seconds or more for your runes to regenerate
naturally. We advise you to "waste" the proc on Frost Strike in this
situation.
4.3.4. Rime Procs
Your Obliterate has a 45% chance to cause your next
Howling Blast or
Icy Touch to be free of cost, thanks to
Rime. These procs
should be used with
Howling Blast. There is no difficulty here.
Additionally, there is no need to use these procs right away - it only matters
that you use them before casting Obliterate again.
4.3.5. Dual-Wielding
The only difficult part about the Dual-Wielding rotation comes when trying
to master the proper balance of
Obliterate casts. This difficulty is
compounded by the fact that the way to use Obliterate differs wildly based on
your Tier 5 talent choice.
As a rule, Obliterate is not valuable to you as a Dual-Wielding Frost
Death Knight, and
Howling Blast is very valuable. As a result, you want to
use Howling Blast as much as possible, and Obliterate as little as possible.
However, if you never use Obliterate, then your Unholy runes do not get used
up (since Howling Blast only costs 1 Frost rune), which is not at all
desirable either. Therefore, you must keep your Unholy runes recharging,
while making sure that your Tier 5 talent of choice maximises your Howling
Blast usage.
If you are using
Runic Empowerment, keep in mind that this talent will
refresh a fully-depleted rune (so only when both runes of that type are on
cooldown). Since you never want Runic Empowerment to grant you Unholy runes,
you must make sure to never have both Unholy runes depleted when you use
Frost Strike. Consequently, you should only use Obliterate when you have
both Unholy runes active, since if you deplete both runes, then your next
Frost Strike may give you an Unholy rune back.
If you are using
Blood Tap, you do not really need to worry too much
about which runes it regenerates, as long as you do not allow Blood Tap to
reach maximum charges (12). Use up the charges (the macro mentioned at the
start of the guide makes it very easy) and use the resulting runes on
Howling Blast.
4.3.6. Simplified Dual-Wielding Rotation
For a relatively small DPS penalty (around 5% at 540 item level, and lower
as your item level increases), you can execute a simplified version of the
dual-wielding rotation. This rotation does not use
Obliterate or
Soul Reaper at all, and instead focuses on spamming
Howling Blast,
Frost Strike, and
Plague Strike. It is not
optimal, but it provides very good results with minimal effort, so it is good
for players who are less experienced or who just want to try things out.
4.4. Soul Reaper
Soul Reaper can be cast at any time during the fight (provided that you
have the necessary rune), and it works much like a DoT that has a single tick.
Specifically, Soul Reaper instantly applies a debuff to the target, that lasts
for 5 seconds, and at the end of this duration, it will tick once.
Soul Reaper will only tick if the target is at or below 35% health at the
moment when the tick takes place. If the target has more than 35% health,
the tick will do no damage, and the entire Soul Reaper will essentially have no
effect whatsoever, other than using up the respective rune.
So, even though in our priority we mention including Soul Reaper in your
rotation when the target is at or below 35% health, in reality, you can start
using Soul Reaper slightly sooner than that, provided that the target will be
at 35% health or less at the time that the 5-second debuff expires.
4.5. Horn of Winter
The mention of
Horn of Winter in the DPS priority list may seem odd,
so we would like to quickly clarify it. As a Frost Death Knight, there are
certain moments in your rotation when there is literally no damaging spell
you can cast. Occasionally, you can fill this dead-time with casts of
Horn of Winter, which will serve not only to refresh the buff for your raid,
but also to grant you 10 runic power.
4.6. Anti-Magic Shell Usage
Anti-Magic Shell absorbs a large amount of magic damage, and grants you
runic power based on the amount of damage that it absorbs.
While this ability has amazing survivability benefits, allowing you to often
taken practically no damage from various raid-damaging mechanics, it also has
great benefits for your DPS.
Indeed, the amount of runic power you gain if you absorb a lot of magic
damage is far from negligible.
Therefore, you should always try to make use of Anti-Magic Shell to boost
your runic power generation throughout the fight. The best way to do it is to
know when a raid-damaging attack is coming, and to have Anti Magic Shell up
for that time. Then, simply enjoy the extra runic power (and don't forget to
spend it).
That said, make sure that your Anti-Magic Shell is not needed for something
much more important to your own survival, before using it just to get more
runic power.
Finally, while you can use Anti-Magic Shell to purposefully stand in void
zones, you should be very careful when doing this.
5. Changelog↑top
- 10 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
- Completely reworked the single target dual-wielding rotation.
- Added a section on a simplified version of the dual-wielding
rotation.
- Improved the multiple target rotation section.
- Made a few adjustments to account for the fact that
Blood Tap is now
the best choice for both dual-wielding and two-handed playstyles.
- Updated the paragraph describing how the dual-wielding and two-handed
playstyles compare.
- 08 Jun. 2013: Corrected and simplified the way to manage
Obliterate when dual-wielding. The conditions for using it should now
making it much easier to follow in practice.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
- 03 Apr. 2013: Made several updates.
- Improved the Dual-Wielding rotation section (moved using
Frost Strike
above using
Howling Blast with
Rime procs; added a special mention
of how to use
Obliterate with
Blood Tap or
Runic Corruption).
- Fixed a few typos, and updated the paragraph that compares Dual-Wielding
to Two-Handed performances to accurately reflect the current situation on
live servers.
- Added a section that clarifies the Dual-Wielding rotation.