5.4 Frost Death Knight DPS Guide - Warcraft Academy

hello and welcome to the Warcraft academy guide to playing a frost death knight in patch 5.4 this guide is going to cover the basics of the rotation as well as some more advanced tips and later talk about stats and character customization we're going to be focused primarily on doing as much damage as possible use the menu at the top of the screen to skip between sections you can also find a written counterpart to this guide on every layer calm as well as a forum to ask all the questions you might have first of all let's quickly run over how the rotation works and how your abilities work as a death knight you have a unique resource called runes and runic power you have three types of runes blood runes frost runes armor holy runes you have two ruins of each type in total many of your ability to each consume various types of runes for example howling blasts will consume one frost room whereas obliterate will consume one unholy and one frost when a rune has been consumed it immediately begins to regenerate the time it takes to regenerate depends upon your haste in addition only one rune of each type can be regenerating at once so if you use two frost runes the first one will regenerate fully before the second begins to regenerate your abilities will appear to be on cooldown until the appropriate rune type is available for it to be used death runes are a special type of wound certain abilities will cause death rooms to replace one of your existing runes death runes can act as any type of rune for example if you have a death rune active you can still use howling blast even if you do not have frost runes available in addition normal ruins are prioritized over death runes so if you have a frost rune on a deterrent available using howling blasts will consume the frost rune first runic power is a separate resource you can gain runic power when you consumed one of your runes runic power allows you to use frost strike and you can have up to 100 runic power stored frost strike is your main method of spending runic power it has a hundred and fifteen percent weapon damage to a target and consumes twenty runic power howling blast and soul reaper are your primary ways to spend frost Soul Reaper is your execute spell it does a hundred and thirty percent weapon damage to the target and does additional damage after five seconds if the target is below thirty five percent health if the enemy dies before this triggers you gain 50 percent haste for five seconds this spell has a 6 second cooldown and cost one Frost word howling blasts does frost damage to a target and fifty percent of that damage to all enemies within ten yards it costs one frost rune to use and any targets hit are affected by frost fever which does damage over time plague strike cost one unholy rune does damage to the target and affects the target with blood plague wished a shadow damage over time outbreak applies both frost fever and blood plague to a target for free but it has a 60 second cooldown obliterate costs one on holy rune and one frost rune it does two hundred and fifty percent weapon damage to the target and additional damage for each disease on the target obliterate has a forty five percent chance to give you the run proc which causes your next howling blast to consume no runes your auto attacks can killing machine which gives your next frost strike or obliterate a guaranteed crit plague leech is a talent that you should always be using it removes your diseases from the target and turns two of your empty wounds into active death rooms it has a 25 second cooldown Horn of winter generates 10 runic power when used as well as providing your party or raid with the 10 percent attack power raid buff it has a 20 second cooldown and is used primarily for the runic power gain blood tap is another talent which again you should always be using when using it every time you use frost strike you gain two blood charges you can have up to 12 blood charges stored at any time and you can activate blood tap to consume 5 of these charges doing so will turn one empty room into an active death rune you also have a few cooldowns that you'll use in addition to your standard rotational abilities pillar of frost increases your strength by 20% for 20 seconds with a 1 minute cooldown this is your primary cooldown raise dead summons a ghoul to fight by your side you can have a maximum of one goal at a time this lasts for 60 seconds with a two minute cooldown and power rune weapon is a five minute cooldown it generates 25 runic power and immediately activates all of your runes army of the Dead summons an army of ghouls to fight for you for 40 seconds it has a 10 minute cooldown and requires you to stand still and channel it for several seconds before it's complete anti magic shell is a 45 second cooldown aside from its use as a defensive cooldown whenever it absorbs damage it also generates runic power which you can use to give yourself a DPS boost finally you have death and decay this is a targeted AoE spell that does damage every second two enemies in the area it has a 30 second cooldown and cost one on holy rune so now that we've gone over how your spell's work let's talk about how to apply them in your rotation frost death Knights have different priorities depending on whether they dual wield or use a two-handed weapon currently dual wielding is the best way to play so our guide will focus primarily on that we will also cover the two-hundred rotation for those of you that don't have suitable weapons to dual wield you can click on screen to skip to the rotation most suitable for you as a dual wield death Knight there are two different priorities that you can use the standard priority list and another more simple rotation that has been continuing as masters simple the master simple play style massively simplifies your rotation by removing a couple of spells from your priority list but it comes with a DPS penalty at 5:40 item level it does around 5% less DPS than the standard priority however the better your gear gets the smaller this penalty gets eventually the penalty is so small that it actually becomes the best way to play even for extremely good players with that said even if you have lower levels of gear it's very likely that you'll get better results with the master simple rotation than the standard priority since it's a lot easier to execute perfectly so to sum up we recommend that basically everyone should use the master simple play style with that in mind we'll cover the master simple play style first and then go over the standard dual wield priority after your first priority is to use frost strike whenever you get a killing machine proc or whenever you're about to reach maximum runic power so that you don't cap and therefore waste runic power next use howling blast as much as possible you need to maintain frost fever and blood plug on your target howling blasts will take care of this automatically so plague strike will be used to apply blood plague if you run out of frost and death runes use frost strike if you're above 40 runic power and then Horn of winter when you're below 40 runic power when Horn of winter is on cooldown use plague leech if it's available next use empower rune weapon if that's available when you have no frost runes or death runes no runic power and everything is on cooldown you can use death and decay on cooldown and then finally plague strike to consume any remaining unholy runes with that said if you have the tier 16 for set bonus do not use death and decay whilst pillar of frost is up death and decay won't prop the 4-piece effect and so is the DPS loss use plague struck instead during pillar for the vast majority of the time your priority will consist of howling blast and frost strike spam your other abilities are used to help you do that now let's cover the standard priority instead your first priority is to use frost strike whenever you get a killing machine proc or whenever you're about to reach maximum runic power so that you don't cap and therefore waste or any power next use Soul Reaper on cooldown if the enemy is below 35% next you don't want your runes to remain unused when they become available so use howling blast whenever you have to frost runes or to death runes next ensure that your blood plague and frost feather are kept up on the enemy frost fever will be automatically applied when you use howling blast so it's unlikely that you'll need to think about it much to keep blood plague up you'll need to use plague struck ideally when the existing Blood Plague is less than three seconds remaining you should only use plague strike if you have an unholy rune don't waste a death rune on it whenever you get a Ryan proc you should use howling blasts to consume the proc this will not cost you any runes mechs use obliterate whenever you have a stare unholy rune available and use howling blasts as a filler to exhaust any remaining frost or death runes after that use frost strike if you have 40 or more runic power or Horn of winter if you have less finally use plague leech when blood plague has less than 3 seconds remaining as long as you have two fully empty rooms this will remove your diseases from the target and grant you to death runes allowing you to execute more actions finally use empower rune weapon if you have nothing else to do if you're playing with a two-handed weapon your priority list is as follows your highest priority is maintaining both of your diseases on the target this is important because your obliterate won't deal full damage to the target unless both of your diseases are applied use outbreak to apply diseases whenever possible as you want to save your unholy runes for obliterate next you use Soul Reaper on cooldown if the enemy is below 35% whenever you get a rime proc you should use howling Blast you can assume the proc this will not cost you any runes when you get a killing machine prague use obliterate if it's available or frost strike if it's not outside of this proc obliterate should be used as long as it won't cause you to reach full runic power when this occurs use frost strike to lower your power to a level that will prevent you from capping when you obliterate use Horn of winter when you have nothing else to do for some extra runic power if Horn of winter is on cooldown use empower rune weapon as a last resort plague leet should be used when your blood plague has less than 3 seconds remaining but only if you have either a rime proc or outbreak available the outbreak in guarantees that you don't have to waste the runes on reapplying your diseases and the rime proc guarantees that you at least save one if you have neither available simply plague strike to extend the debuff rather than using platelet outside of your primary rotation you also have to factor your cooldowns in we've already covered how to use empower rune weapon so we won't go over that again pillar of frost and raise dead should both generally be used immediately as they become available you want to sync these up whenever possible since pillar of frost has a 1 minute cooldown and raise dead has a 2 minute cooldown they'll line up every second cast of pillar of frost army of the Dead should be used 6 to 7 seconds before combat begins although in some cases you can save it to use just before in Bernays fun particularly long fights when you can get two casts out of it try to use it during periods of downtime on the encounter so that your rotation is not affected as a death knight your Ailey rotation is very straightforward and takes place as soon as there are four or more targets that can be a Oh heed if there are fewer targets than this is better to simply stick to your single target rotation although if you're following the master simple play style you can alternate your plague strike casts on different targets to spread your blood play to multiple enemies against four or more enemies and make sure to use howling blasts as often as possible and make sure death and decay is kept on cooldown when death and decay is on cooldown each plague strike to spend your in holy runes and use frost strike to spend your runic power so that you don't cap and to generate blood charges if you have nothing else to do use Horn winter to generate some runic power we also need to cover how to use blood tap properly for general purposes the simple rule of using blood type is to make sure that you don't cap on charges so make sure to cast blood tap if you have 11 or more charges the beauty of it however is the ability to stall the charges for when you need them if you want to save up runes for important burst phases or if your cooldowns are coming up you can make sure to have blood charges stored up to allow you to blood tap to gain extra death runes allowing you to do additional howling glass for extra burst damage if you don't want to deal with the extra management of blood tap you can simply macro in with your frost strike using the macro in the description and in the written guard this will mean you can't save the charges for on-demand thirst but this is still again over using the other talents on offer anti magic shell is a powerful offensive and defensive cooldown as a death note with it you can soak runic power from damaging magic attacks or D buffs and gain extra frost strikes from doing so it's important to try and try in your AMS soaking around points in your rotation where you feel you're about to have nothing to do in a few Global's this means points where you don't have any blood charges much runic power and you'll soon run out of runes using AMS at these points to soak runic power will give you several Global's to spam frost strikes and build up extra resources knowing the boss fight and strategically using AMS at points where you can soak up large amounts of runic power safely are key to doing absolutely maximum DPS as a death knight so with all that information in mind here's how to open up in an encounter precast army of the Dead six to seven seconds before the bosses pulled use raised dead after you finish showering and then a potion of Mulgrew power just before the bosses pull if you're playing jewel wield use Holley blast continuously until you're in Mele range of the boss and then plague strike as soon as you reach Mele that resuming your standard rotation if you're playing two-handed use outbreak as you run toward the boss and then start following your standard rotation so moving on to your character development choices your first priority is strength and then hit an expertise each up to their respective counts of 7.5% after that your priority depends on whether your jewel wield or two-handed for dual wield you generally want to prioritize mastery then crypt and then haste for two-handed however Creek wins out over the other two due to how hard obliterate crits with that in mind these are the best gems and enchants to choose from obviously their crit gems are intended for two-handed and the mastery gems for dual wield glyphs are largely situational choices but this is a list of the more commonly used ones Griffith the loud horn increases the runic power generated by Horn of winter but also increases the cooldown this is a small DPS increase and allows you to cause frost strike immediately after using it cliff of regenerative magic causes the cooldown of your anti magic shell to be reduced based on the amount of damage absorbed this allows for more uses of anti-magic shell throughout the fight which equates to more runic power generated lip of dark simulacrum is useful for fights where dark simulacrum can be used examples are the corchran dark shaman where frost storm bolt can be copied from wave binder kardris and spoils of Pandaria where you can copy the buffs provided by the amber priests and win wielders glyph of death and decay adds a slowing component to death and decay this is very powerful for keeping ads slowed glyph of death grip increases the range on death grip making it easier to grip targets from further away cliff of ice bound fortitude reduces the cooldown of ice bound fortitude by 50% and its duration by 75% this is useful for fights where semi-regular large single hits of damage occur cliff of tranquil grip is a minor glyph that prevents your death grip from taunting the target this is essential if you ever use death grip in a raid finally glyph of army of the Dead ensures that your army of the Dead it doesn't accidentally taunt adds moving on to your talents choices each tier may have talents that are useful in specific situations where a son may have one mandatory talent in the first tier your default choice should be plague leech this removes your diseases from the target and returns to death runes to you rolling blood is completely useless of frost and the Holy Blood cannot compute with plague leech in the second tier your default choice should be purgatory this allows you to essentially die every three minutes assuming the overkill can be healed within three seconds some effects ignore purgatory however you will be killed outright you can take anti magic Zone on fights where heavier a wide magic damage is taken and the raid is clumped up in area examples are on Paragons of the clacks me for the malli group during fiery lines and on garish 4rm star explosions and whirling corruptions in the third tier deaths advance should be taken by default asphyxiate can be useful on fights where an extra stun is needed such as the bone crusher dad's on Galactus to interrupt fracture take chilblains for fights where ad need to be reliably slowed such as the crawler mines on seed craft of black fuse in the fourth tier death pack should be taken by default as it's the best option available deaths Lifan can be useful on fights where a target takes the increased damage and you can benefit from the extra healing in the fifth tier blood tap is the best choice for both dual wield and two-handed it requires extra management in the form of blood charges that it offers the most control of any of the other options blood tap can also be Mac Road in with your frost strike from minor dps loss we don't necessarily advise this but even if you do play this way it still beats the other talents in the tier in tier 6 the talents you choose depends on the fight ghoul fiends grasp is incredibly powerful for gripping a group of adds to the target that it's cast on remorseless winter is less useful because a lot of other class already provides strong AoE stones finally your gear decisions like most things that your gear selection will depend on whether you're playing dual wield or two-handed you can find a full best in slot list in the written guide on of earlier calm for weapons try to pick up the highest item level weapons that you can get your hands on and then start comparing stats when the weapons are the same item level the best weapon for dual wield is zipping long blade of the Titanic Guardian for 200 is a lot o desecrated image of Gor he'll try to obtain the 4 set tier bonus because it's very strong use it like plates of willful doom as your set broker if possible for trinkets fox tail tip and evil eye of Galactus are both very strong you can go with skiers bludsoe talisman if you're unlucky but it is weaker than the other two thanks very much for watching this guide if you have any comments or suggestions post them below or email us and if you're interested in being coached by a top death knight click on-screen for more information

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Keywords: evrelia, evreliagaming, world of warcraft, frost death knight, frost dk, frost death knight guide, frost death knight dps guide, frost death knight stats, frost death knight rotation, frost dk glyphs, warcraftacademy

Id: mr7a79Ne07s

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 30 2014