Frost Death Knight Builds – Best Death Knight DPS Spec
Posted on December 21st, 2009 by Lawbringer under Blood Elf, Build, Death Knights, Dranei, Druid, Dwarf, General Tips, Gnome, Heroics, Horde, Human, Instances, Night Elf, Orc, PVE, Patch, Raiding, Spec, Tauren, Tips, World of Warcraft, WotLKFrost Tree Blood Presence Build Tops Charts In 3.3
Every now and then, a patch makes a big change to a class. You don’t always see the changes coming, and it often takes people a while to adjust. With a theoretical maximum of 9923 – this build rivals even mages for chart topping Domination
Gear
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=18133075
Since the build at simcraft didn’t contain the Pawn scales for this profile, you’ll just have to make do with looking for the best-in-slot gear from the profile itself.
Talent Build
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=18133075#talents
Glyphs
Major
Minor
Runes
- Rune of the Fallen Crusader – Main Hand
- Rune of Razorice – Off Hand
This is one case where the minor glyphs are as much a part of the build as the Major glyphs. Having the Horn of Winter glyph moves the horn of winter ability to the bottom of the priority list, although you will want horn of winter up before the pull for obvious reasons. We’ve also included the rune forging choices for each weapon to bring the entire thing in line with the build.
Priorities
- Blood Presence
- Flask = Endless Rage
- Food = Dragonfin Filet
- Auto Attack
- Raise Dead
- Icy Touch
- Plague Strike
- Pestilence
- Howling Blast
- Deathchill
- Obliterate
- Blood Strike
- Blood Strike/Death Strike
- Frost Strike
- Empower Rune Weapon
- Howling Blast
- Horn of Winter
You can see that although this is quite a bit more complex than the Arcane mage priority list, it’s nothing compared to something from the Blood build rotations you’ve seen in the past. As you look at the chart below you get a good feel for just how easy this can be. Your mele weapon white swings do a big chunk of your DPS, so after you hit Empower Rune Weapon you can just wait for the Howling Blast cooldown, hit it and then start back with Icy Touch. Just be sure to throw in a raise dead whenever you can.
We know that the temptation is to mash buttons like a fiend, but it is really hard to argue with the numbers here. There are other DK DPS builds in the Starfox file with Priority lists that include internalized rotations – in more than one spot. If I want to think that hard about what I’m doing I’ll go engineer a bridge or something. The great thing about this build is that the priority list is simple and it does ridiculous DPS.
Damage Sources
Obviously the fellow who built this profile doesn’t go in for Pawn scales (you might not use them either) so you’ll have to live without them in this case. Considering that this build should handily beat any other DK build for DPS and it has a painfully simple rotation (yes I know we’re not calling it a rotation any more) for a DK, you just might find yourself falling in love with beating almost everyone but rogues and mages (and the odd feral druid who knows what they are doing) while Dominating with this build.
I realize this is a competative spec but I think the claim that it is the “best” is not accurrate. Most of the data I am seeing indicates that unholy is “best” dps atm. The headline did it’s job and sucked me in and I will do a little more homework and some testing of my own. I think you guys should do a bit of homework on unholy though to before you make any this is the “best” claims. I know for AoE unholy is unmatched but I am also seeing some impressive single target numbers.
It’s very nice. Of course, it’s all purple gear, and a lot of it from 25man Heroic raids. How well does it do only equipped with blue or green gear? Because it looks like a long long road to getting all the purple gear, and in the mean time, you’ve still gotta have gear.
I’ve had great luck leveling up my undead death knight with the Horde Guide, but I am finding myself woefully undergeared as I rocket up in levels.
Any help for the more casual player who doesn’t want to be a sucktastic burden on their guild during raids, and doesn’t have a 25K+ gp bankroll to fund th AH purchase on all those purples?
Thanks
Wasn’t Anibow preaching Unholy? According to the Armory he was and still is Unholy.
hey all at dominate,
im currently new to dks, and im loving all the help you’ve been giving out. but i was wondering, is tanking with 0/53/18 possible? and does swapping to frost presence instead of blood make that much of a difference to dps?
thanks
belzagar
frostmourne
I am sure this spec is competative, but calling it “best” and stating that it “should handily beat other DK DPS specs” is not accurrate in my opinion. My understanding and experience is that right now unholy is tops. It certainly is in regard to AoE DPS and from the parses I am seeing is equally as powerful for single target.
Hi I was wondering is there a good or specific rotation that is used for this build thanks ..
OMG are you serious…your gonna make me cry…after your last posting on Blood Spec I switched from this EXACT spec to the blood spec you recommended…and I am suppose to go back?!?! After Halloween I was dual wielding 2 Tankards’o'Terror. Indeed this is an amazing spec, better than the blood spec Ive been using, mostly because of Howling Blast. Now that farming heroics is back in again, you run into a lot of multiple mob pulls and howling blast can do mega crits on large groups. The blood spec has little to offer other than the diseases.
Oh and for the record, I even had the razorice enchant, goes perfect with the spec in dual wield.
OH by the way, I was looking over your dps rotation and your glyphs, Glyph of Howling Blast imho is the better glyph to use here, it infects your target with Frost Feaver, basicly taking away the need to use your Icy Touch. On your DPS chart, clearly Icy Touch does the least amount of damage, and in your rotation its only use it so cause frost feaver. SO..change glyphs, take it completely out of your rotation and substitue with another howling blast = more dps.
At least that is the way I played this spec and I felt it kept the rotation even more simple. FS/PS/OB/FS blood strikes to fill in the gaps when unholy and frost runes are on cooldown.
I may need correcting but the reason you Icy touch is the same reason you do not use glyph of disease. I was under the assumption that the only way Improved Icy Talons(the raid buff) procs is from actually casting Icy Touch.
I may be mislead though.
Thanks, helped my DK actually get over a dps milestone.
Any MACROs set up for this build?
I can’t see any character data in those linked profiles, for some reason. Can you link the spec using Blizzard’s site?
Each of these best in slot builds is comparing apples to apples. In the very best gear for each “spec” you can look at the theoretical maximum numbers. The interesting thing about theorycrafting at this point is that you can actually get pretty close to the theoretical numbers in live play. Yes, certain builds will shine more in certain situations such as single target or AoE, but we are focusing more on single target builds since it doesn’t matter if you do 5 million DPS on AoE trash pulls and then 3k on a boss. Boss fights are where the rubber meets the road and you win or lose.
The theorycrafting engine shows that for single target dps this build is capable of putting out more than 1,000 dps more than the next best spec. So it “should” handily beat other DK specs for DPS. Combine those numbers with the fact that the priority list is far simpler than other builds and even a relative nub should be able to do fine with this spec. You can never build player skill into a spec, but if the player stinks they will stink no matter what build they use, so again, you’re back to apples to apples.
We’re going to cover all the “best” specs for each tree for all the classes in the coming weeks. So if you just don’t want to do frost that’s fine, there are perfectly good blood and unholy builds out there as well, it’s just that a good player with this build on boss fights will probably do more DPS. But I will make sure to make the titles a little less misleading in the future.
Unholy, according to Kahorie simulator still pulls ahead of Frost DW DPS.
The thing about Frost is that it is a lot less reliable. KM/Rime procs can severely skew your DPS in either direction. You can argue proc values but Frost only really shines when the stars align.
Unholy is a far more consistent and I believe a far superior specc.
Calling this the best Death Knight DPS specc is a gross exaggeration.
Give me a link to the Kahorie simulator and we’ll run the numbers again. Based on the Simcraft engine with BiS gear this spec is well over 1k DPS above anything else. But we’re always open to objective numbers that show a different point of view. The statement, based on the figures posted above is both accurate and hardly a gross exaggeration.
Love the articles guys. I am full epics, with 4 piece Tier 9. I am currently using your blood spec and I love it, using Mourning Malice from normal Halls of Reflection. If I were to switch to this spec, I have two of the Ironforge Smashers from Argent Tournament sitting in the bank. Will my DPS with those match or surpass what I am getting with Blood?
Thanks, Pikket, Dalaran.
What would the rotation be on this build?
Law one thing i wanna ask can dk’s really tank with any spec? because quite a few people say they can tank with all 3 but i was wondering whether you agree with that
Hey guys, i love this spec.
my main is a resto druid, i used the spec u guys gave and turn it into my own. i now top heal EVERYTHING and i am top heal in guild.suck it pallys.
though i love the spec u guys give for druids, i also like to read the other classes.
i hated DK’s to death when they were first available to play, but i made one anyways to get a good name lo1 “shadowcon”.
i hated them because they had too many button to push and i had no idea what to do. I am a druid and if i wanted to melee i would come up with a good feral kitty build.
when u guys came out with the blood dps build i thought about finally lvling my dk, since u guys always come up with awsoome builds, i tried to understand the build and “rotation” and i was like. “ummmm NO”
too complicated for me, i knew nothing on how to play a melee.
i usually just hop around on my druid specs when i get bored and am happy with it.
when i saw this build u guys came out with for DK’s i was very curious to test it out. because to my understanding frost is for tnaking. so i log onto my dk and copy the build. thoguh i am only a lvl 64 i am toping the charts in dungeons and doign about 1kdps.
i am having so much fun lvling with this spec i cant wait to hit 80 and beat this annoying dk in my guild who thinks his the shit.
wow i seemed to wrie alot about nothing lol.
point it i love this spec. i am Dominating =)