Frost Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.5)

Welcome to our Rotation page for Frost Death Knights. Here we will go over everything you will need to know to optimally play your spec for Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

Frost is a very interesting Mythic+ spec, as it has good single-target burst potential and AoE burst potential. However, this differs depending on your talents. For more information about Mythic+ as a Frost Death Knight, please check out our Mythic+ guide, which is linked below. You can also find information on your Mythic+ rotation on this page!

If these rotations seem fairly complicated, then you may want to check out our Easy Mode page, which gives you a much more simplistic build and rotation to play.

Since the guides on this page are for PvE content, if you are looking for a PvP rotation guide, then please visit our PvP page linked below.

The single-target rotation is based on the following priority. I have not included the usage of your cooldowns here; find detailed explanations of those further down the page!

• Shattering Blade Talented

1. Use Obliterate if you have a Killing Machine proc.
2. Use Frost Strike to stack up your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy or if the buffs are about to fall off.
3. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown.
4. Use Frost Strike if you have 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice.
5. Use Howling Blast, if you have a Rime proc.
6. Use Soul Reaper if the target is below 35% health and you have 3+ Runes.
7. Use Frost Strike, if you have 70+ Runic Power.
8. Use Obliterate.
9. Use Frost Strike.

Now, we will translate this into something a bit more readable!

• Use Obliterate to consume procs of Killing Machine. Killing Machine procs are triggered off your critical auto attacks, so we must spend them relatively quickly to avoid wasting any procs (remember that you can stack Killing Machine two times!). It also helps maintain your buffs via the Arctic Assault talent.
• Use Frost Strike to stack and maintain our Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs. These will almost always be part of your talent setup and should be maintained. At the start of the encounter, this means prioritizing Frost Strike over procs of Rime until you reach 5 stacks. Generally, Killing Machine will maintain our stacks as Arctic Assault acts as if you casted Glacial Advance for the buffs. We also use it as a high priority when we want to consume Rune of Razorice stacks with the Shattering Blade talent.
• Spend your procs of Rime on Howling Blast. We have this relatively high in our priority since we want to avoid "overcapping" procs. This is when you generate a proc when you already have one, wasting one use. Casting a naked Howling Blast (without Rime) is only ever worthwhile to maintain your Frost Fever. We also sometimes do this at the start of an encounter when we enter our first Obliteration window with insufficient Runic Power to use Frost Strike.
• Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown. The power of this ability varies with the talents you use, but it is still always a DPS upgrade to use on cooldown. We pretty much always pick up most of the talents for it anyway.
• Use Soul Reaper on cooldown when the target reaches 35% health. Only do this if you have a healthy amount of Runes (3+). We do not want to starve on Runes due to prioritising Soul Reaper.
• Use Frost Strike to avoid capping Runic Power. This priority comes after managing your Killing Machine procs and Runes. You would rather overcap on Runic Power than sit on 4+ Runes.
• Use Obliterate to spend Runes and generate Runic Power. Use Frost Strike to spend the Runic Power you generate. This is the majority of your rotation where you build and spend your resources.

If you are using Glacial Advance, then use instead of Frost Strike whenever you would have used Frost Strike. With Frostwyrm's Fury, it is recommended that you synergize with Pillar of Frost and as many targets as possible.

The multiple target rotation is as follows.

• Glacial Advance Talented

1. Use Death and Decay.
2. Use Obliterate, if you have a Killing Machine proc.
3. Use Remorseless Winter.
4. Use Glacial Advance if your Unleashed Frenzy/ Icy Talons is not at max stacks, or the buffs are about to fall off.
5. Use Frost Strike if your @ Unleashed Frenzy/ Icy Talons is not at max stacks, or the buffs are about to fall off, or if you have 5 stacks of Rune of Razorice and Shattered Frost talented. Tab through enemies to burst your Rune of Razorice stacks on them.
6. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc.
7. Use Obliterate.
8. Use Glacial Advance.
9. Use Frost Strike.

Your AoE rotation is almost identical to your single-target rotation, primarily being different when Glacial Advance is your Runic Power spender. Death and Decay is also used in a new way, being your primary source of cleave to due Obliterate hitting up to three targets when you are standing in it. You generally do not care as much about Runic Power, and it is fine to cap it when prioritizing Rune Spenders.

Optimising your AoE damage is generally all about leveraging your Death and Decay in your Obliteration windows properly! See the Obliteration priority in AoE further down this page for a more detailed discussion!

• Chill Streak Talented.
• Deathbringer Talented.

1. Use Abomination Limb.
2. Use Remorseless Winter.
3. Use Chill Streak.
4. Use Empower Rune Weapon + Pillar of Frost + Raise Dead + Reaper's Mark + Racial + Trinket.
5. Use Empower Rune Weapon + Pillar of Frost + Raise Dead + Frostwyrm's Fury + Racial + Trinket.
6. Follow the "rotation during Obliteration priority" (below).

You have a high priority to stack up Unleashed Frenzy and Icy Talons in your first Pillar of Frost window, essentially ignoring Rime until you have stacked up 5 stacks of the buff. This should not take long, however, as your Killing Machines will stack them up as well.

For AoE, the opener stays pretty much the same. The one difference is that you use Death and Decay after you have generated two stacks of Killing Machine in your Pillar of Frost window (when running The Long Winter)! With The Long Winter, you Death and Decay before your Pillar! Death and Decay provides 14 seconds of Cleave and Pillar of Frost lasts for 12-18 seconds (with The Long Winter talented).

We will generally run two charges of Death and Decay in AoE. The way to use your second charge is right after a strong Death and Decay window! This often means you have left-over procs of Killing Machine to spend, as well as buffs such as Trinket, Potion, and Empower Rune Weapon! This second window also benefits from Enduring Strength, making it strong as well! As a final note, using your second Death and Decay right after the first one means you cannot end up in a situation where you do not have a charge ready for a Pillar of Frost window!

• Breath of Sindragosa Talented and Active
• DW Obliteration Build Talented
• Reaper of Souls Talented

1. Use Obliterate if you have a stack of Killing Machine.
2. Use Frost Strike to generate a Killing Machine proc if your Unleashed Frenzy/ Icy Talons will expire within the next GCD. Use Glacial Advance if using this talent and in AoE.
3. Use Frost Strike to generate a Killing Machine proc if you are at less than max stacks of Unleashed Frenzy/ Icy Talons or if you have 5 stacks of Razorice and are running Shattering Blade. Glacial Advance if using this talent and in AoE.
4. Use Soul Reaper to generate a Killing Machine proc if you have the Reaper of Souls buff up.
5. Use Howling Blast, if you have a Rime proc.
6. Use Soul Reaper to generate a proc of Killing Machine if your target is below 35%, and you have 3 or more Runes.
7. Use Frost Strike to generate a Killing Machine proc. Glacial Advance if using this talent and in AoE.
8. Use Howling Blast to generate a Killing Machine proc and you have 3 or more Runes.
9. Use Obliterate to generate Runic Power

The idea here is to weave your abilities to both generate and consume the maximum amount of Killing Machine procs! You can get procs of Killing Machine naturally, so make sure to be ready for when that happens to avoid overcapping on procs. It is important to ensure you have sufficient resources before entering the Obliteration window. This generally means saving some Runic Power and Runes ~5 seconds before the window. It is generally sufficient to enter with 2 or more Runes and 30 or more Runic Power. You can have less Runic Power if you have a proc of Rime.

Note that Frost Strike has a higher priority than Howling Blast when you need to either stack or refresh your Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy buffs! It is more important to maintain these buffs than to spend the proc of Rime. Furthermore, you should also use Frost Strike above Rime procs when low on Runes. Due to them spending Runic Power, you have a higher probability of generating a Rune when using a Frost Strike vs consuming a proc of Rime! Finally, with Shattering Blade, Frost Strike again takes priority over Howling Blast when at 5 stacks of Razorice. You end up with so many cases that Howling Blast rarely is prioritised.

With Soul Reaper, we will use it to generate procs of Killing Machine. This generally has a lower priority since the ability costs a Rune (except with Reaper of Souls if you have it talented, where you get the spell for free and use it at a high priority), potentially disrupting our weaving if we are at low Runes. Only use it if you have 3 or more Runes available! Furthermore, if you are running the Dual-Wield Obliteration, you can simply ignore Soul Reaper. It is not worthwhile to press at all.

The final Howling Blast is an edge case where you are unlucky with your procs of Rime. You might end up depleting your Runic Power but still have a lot of Runes. We then send a naked Howling Blast to trigger the next Killing Machine.

Breath of Sindragosa is a checkbox at the top due to it being a viable option to run in combination with Obliteration. When you do this, you essentially do not do your general weaving rotation. Instead, you continue with your Breath rotation and enjoy the increased number of Killing Machine procs you get from using up your Rimes.

Just like in the general AoE rotation, Glacial Advance becomes your Runic Power spender of choice within your Obliteration window as soon as you are fighting 2+ targets (and have picked up this talent, normally in 2H Obliteration builds)!

Pooling appropriately before this window is also crucial. A significant part of your damage comes from your Pillar of Frost windows, and you want to avoid starving on resources while in them. Try to dump Runic Power beforehand to generate extra Runes. Furthermore, you might want to sit around and do nothing just to generate extra resources before the window. As a general rule, pool 5 seconds before so that you have at least 2 Runes and 30 Runic Power when entering the window.

Finally, timing your Pillar with another GCD instantly is important to maximise the number of GCDs you can fit into your Pillar window. We do this by leveraging a macro, commonly using Pillar of Frost and Reaper's Mark together during a free GCD. Read more about these Macros in the Macros and Addons section of the guide!

Breath of Sindragosa is a unique cooldown that offers a quite different play style from Obliteration. Currently, you will experience an average duration of 45+ seconds with Heroism / Bloodlust and 30+ seconds without Heroism / Bloodlust. There are outliers where you do not get sufficient Runic Empowerment or Murderous Efficiency procs that can cut it short. Furthermore, mechanics can force you out of range, which will ruin your uptime of Breath.

• Chill Streak Talented.
• Deathbringer Talented.

1. Use Abomination Limb.
2. Use Remorseless Winter
3. Use Chill Streak.
4. Use 2x Obliterate (use Howling Blast if you get a Rime proc).
5. Use Death and Decay if you have a spare Rune.
6. Use Pillar of Frost + Reaper's Mark + Breath of Sindragosa + Empower Rune Weapon + Raise Dead + Blood Fury if Orc, Berserking if Troll.
7. Use Pillar of Frost + Frostwyrm's Fury + Breath of Sindragosa + Empower Rune Weapon + Raise Dead + Blood Fury if Orc, Berserking if Troll.

1. Use Obliterate if you are low on Runic Power (less than 60 RP).
2. Use Remorseless Winter on cooldown.
3. Use Soul Reaper on cooldown when the boss is below 35% health.
4. Use Howling Blast, only if you have a Rime proc or Frost Fever is about to drop. Only use Howling Blast if you are above 30 Runic Power.
5. Use Obliterate.
6. Use Arcane Torrent if you are a Blood Elf, and it will not overcap your Runic Power.

The Breath of Sindragosa rotation is all about managing your Runic Power generation throughout your Breath. Your Runic Power drains at a rate of 17 per second, and you want to ensure this does not turn into a Runic Power deficit for long periods! The very first point to consider is the type of ability you use during your Breath. Never use an ability that costs Runic Power, as it will significantly reduce the duration of your Breath. Instead, you will pretty much only use Obliterate, Remorseless Winter, and Howling Blast with procs of Rime and Soul Reaper when the target is low on health.

Before you initiate your Breath, you want to pool appropriate resources. For a Breath during Bloodlust, this will only be around 60 Runic Power. Non-lusted Breath requires more resources, and you should aim to go to 80+ and have 1-2 Runes before you enter the Breath.

The start of your Breath will generally be very easy to manage. You will pool resources beforehand and have all your cooldowns available to help with your resources. Furthermore, you use Empower Rune Weapon with your Breath to boost your initial Pillar window. Important to note here is to not blindly spam your Obliterate button. You can easily end up in scenarios where you have so many resources that you actually overcap on Runic Power and end up wasting it! Do not Obliterate if you are about to overcap on Runic Power and you have 3 or fewer Runes (in reality, we will overcap some Runic Power due to our very fast Rune recharge rate).

Once the initial resource-heavy phase is gone, you will start entering a region of potential Runic Power deficit. With good procs, you are fine and keep your Runic Power up, but with streaks of unlucky periods, your Runic Power will start to drop. This is the part where you want to actively manage your resource-generating cooldowns. Horn of Winter and Anti-Magic Shell. Horn of Winter should be used quite aggressively, allowing for a potential second use during the Breath. Try to use it as soon as you run out of Runes, and it will not overcap your Runic Power. Anti-Magic Shell should be used when you can soak up magic damage. Again, be quite aggressive to enable a potential second use, but also make sure the magic damage you soak is significant. Try to space out your cooldowns appropriately, and do not use them all at the same time. If used all together, you risk wasting resources.

In the final part of Breath, you are dropping further and further down. No resources cooldowns are left to use, and you just hope for good procs. Here, you will distinctly prioritize using Obliterate over Howling Blast with Rime, as well as Remorseless Winter and Soul Reaper. You want to optimize your Runic Power in the next GCD in the hope of getting potential procs. You can also consider using Death and Decay, which gives you 10 Runic Power for one more tick and potentially more procs. Also, make sure to really spam your buttons here so that any Rune proc is used up ASAP!

Finally, let us consider the scenario when you are forced out of range due to mechanics. In this scenario, it can be viable to spam Howling Blast to keep up your Breath! Try and make use of Anti-Magic Shell and Horn of Winter to avoid using Howling Blast since it is quite a waste of Runes to do it. Also, consider the extra Breath duration you gain by doing it. If your Breath is dropping 4-5 seconds after getting back to the boss anyway, using Howling Blast will end up being a waste. In short, if you are forced out of range early in your Breath window, use all the tools you can to keep it up. If it is late in the window, only use naked Howling Blasts if it will net you 5+ seconds or so of extra boss Breath uptime.

As a Frost Death Knight, you have 10 Core DPS cooldowns. Below, we explain how they are best used.

• Reaper's Mark should be used on cooldown with each Pillar of Frost window (you should macro the two of them). We pick up Icecap to make sure both Pillar and Reapers Mark have a 45-second cooldown, allowing you to align them every time. You can end up in situations where you might delay Reapers Mark into Pillar if you lack the resources to send it right at the start. Ideally, dump Runic Power around 5 seconds before each Pillar to gain sufficient Runes to send it with it.
• Remorseless Winter should be used on cooldown. However, refrain from using it during your Pillar of Frost when running Obliteration builds.
• Chill Streak should be used on cooldown. Use it before each Pillar of Frost (they align when you pick up Icecap).
• Pillar of Frost should be used on cooldown, stacking it with potions or any on-use trinkets you have. Using this as soon as it comes up is very important for maximising your DPS.
• Empower Rune Weapon should be paired with your Pillar of Frost windows. Even for Breath of Sindragosa, you use it with the first Pillar window to boost the damage fully. Always save for 2min 15 seconds where you get your third Pillar window.
• Frostwyrm's Fury should be used in synergy with Pillar of Frost and on as many targets as possible. For Single Target, you ideally do not use it in Pillar unless you cannot generate or consume a Killing Machine proc during the GCD. It is safe to wait until just after Pillar to send it. When using Rider of the Apocalypse, use with your Pillar of Frost press to summon your Riders for the duration of Pillar! For advanced use, wait until you proc Bonegrinder in your Pillar before you send it.
• Cold Heart governs your Chains of Ice usage. Generally, use Chains of Ice at 16+ stacks of Cold Heart. With Icecap, simply use it with each window of Pillar of Frost.
• Breath of Sindragosa should be used with your Pillar of Frost windows, using it on pull and then after 2min 15 seconds. Make sure to pool resources before you use it, and time abilities such as Horn of Winter and Anti-Magic Shell for when you start to starve in your Breath. Try to space them out evenly.
• Obliteration alters your Pillar of Frost. Once active, spend every GCD generating procs of Killing Machine or consuming said procs. Use Empower Rune Weapon 0-2 seconds before your Pillar of Frost. If you are running both Breath of Sindragosa and Obliteration, only use Obliterate and consume procs of Rime in your Pillar of Frost window.
• Abomination Limb should generally be used on cooldown. Hold it for add waves that need grouping up.
• Horn of Winter should be used to generate Resources when needed. In Breath, that means pressing it when you cannot cast Obliterate in a GCD and you will not overcap Runic Power by using the CD! For Obliteration builds, use it ahead of your Pillar of Frost window when you are low on resources.
• Death and Decay should be used to enable cleave in AoE (with Cleaving Strikes). Time it with your Pillar of Frost windows, using it after you have generated two stacks of Killing Machine.
• Frostscythe should be used on Cooldown outside of your Pillar of Frost windows.

You can read more about these cooldowns, as well as about any cooldowns you gain from talents in our dedicated section.

Following the guide up to this point will allow you to play a Frost Death Knight at a very high level. That said, below, we go into a bit more detail about some aspects of the specialization.

The Frost Death Knight has a number of spells, both active and passive, that hit enemies in front of your character. Breath of Sindragosa, Glacial Advance and Icy Death Torrent being the main ones. Due to this, positioning your character to face as many enemies as possible is crucial when doing AoE damage. Always stand at the edge of a pack of enemies and face inward to maximise your DPS.

Death Knights use a dual resource system of runes and Runic Power. While it is quite straightforward in how it works, we will explain it here for the sake of completion.

You have a total of 6 Runes, which are available by default. Some of your abilities have Rune costs, and whenever you use an ability that consumes one or more Runes, those Runes will immediately begin recharging. The exact amount of time it takes a Rune to recharge depends on how much Haste you have.

Whenever a Rune is consumed, you gain 10 Runic Power (more on that below).

At most, 3 of your runes can be charging up at the same time. It is therefore optimal to keep at least 3 runes on cooldown to maximise the recharge rate over the course of the fight.

Runic Power is a resource that resembles Rage, in the sense that it decays when out of combat, but does not decay during combat. As mentioned above, consuming Runes generates 10 Runic Power per Rune spent, and this is the primary means of generating Runic Power, although some abilities also help with this. You can have a maximum of 100 Runic Power.

Two-handed builds are viable in The War Within. They do viable damage and have a damage profile that does okay in certain scenarios.

Mastery: Frozen Heart increases all Frost damage that you do.

Frost Death Knights have two procs that will regularly show up in the rotation, so you must understand them.

Your auto-attack critical strikes have a chance to make your next Obliterate a guaranteed critical strike and deal Frost Damage, meaning it will scale off your Mastery and ignore armor. Killing Machine works based on the number of auto-attack critical strikes you have had since the last proc. For dual wield, the first time you get an auto-attack critical strike after your previous proc, you have a 30% chance to get a new proc. If this fails, the next auto attack has a 60% chance. If this also fails, you get a 90% proc chance and then a 100% proc chance if 3 auto-attack critical strikes have failed in a row.

Wielding a Two-Handed weapon and talenting into Might of the Frozen Wastes increases these proc chances. You simply have a 100% chance to trigger a proc every time you get a critical auto-attack. Still, due to the lower attack speed of a Two-Handed weapon, and since you only have one weapon to attack with, you still get 28% fewer procs when with Two-Handed builds.

Generally, these procs should be used right away to ensure that no procs are overwritten.

If you have the Obliteration talent, then this ability causes each Frost Strike, Glacial Advance, Soul Reaper and Howling Blast to trigger Killing Machine (for the duration of Pillar of Frost). Aim to never overcap Killing Machine, never actively generating one if you are already at 2 charges.

Your Obliterate has a 45% chance of causing your next Howling Blast to be free of cost and deal additional damage, thanks to Rime. These procs should be used quickly, most importantly generally, before Obliterate is used again to prevent the buff from being overwritten. It is not always the highest priority, but you should still try and prevent overwrites where possible.

Reaper's Mark is the active ability you gain from the Deathbringer tree. With a 45-second cooldown, you can align it with every Pillar of Frost window! Simply cast it the GCD before you use your Pillar macro every time. You can use it within the first few GCDs in Pillar as well, as the Mark itself does a lot of damage. This becomes relevant if you are really low on resources just before your Pillar window. Do not delay it too much, though, as you will end up having to hold Pillar for a few seconds to align them properly.

Throws a snowball at your enemy that bounces to nearby enemies, dealing damage each time. Can bounce off yourself if no enemies are nearby. Good synergy with Pillar of Frost with Icecap as you can send Chill Streak before each Pillar window, allowing the bounces to overlap with the Strength buff. Use Chill Streak the GCD before Reaper's Mark when running both these talents.

Pillar of Frost grants you 30% Strength for 12 seconds, with a 1-minute cooldown. The cooldown can be reduced to 45 seconds with Icecap, and the duration can be increased to 18 seconds with The Long Winter.

You should use this ability on cooldown and ideally couple it with any potions or on-use trinkets you may have. That said, it can sometimes be better to save it for a few seconds until a high-priority target becomes available.

Empower Rune Weapon grants you 15% haste and generates 1 Rune and 5 Runic Power instantly and every 5 seconds for 20 seconds. It has a 120-second cooldown.

Empower Rune Weapon should generally be used in conjunction with Pillar of Frost. The extra haste and resources help to make the most of these damage windows. This means saving it for 15 seconds after it comes up to use with Pillar at 2min 15seconds.

If you are using the Breath of Sindragosa talent, Empower Rune Weapon is crucial to extending its duration. Generally, use it after 10-15 seconds, depending on how quickly you starve.

With Obliteration, it is ideal to use Empower Rune Weapon a couple of seconds before your Pillar window. With The Long Winter, wait until 0-2 seconds. Without, use it 2-7 seconds before. In AoE, always use it with Pillar of Frost to boost your damage after the Pillar window ends.

Remorseless Winter deals damage and slows by 20% to all targets around you over 8 seconds. The damage and duration can be significantly increased with Gathering Storm, Biting Cold, and Everfrost.

Generally use this spell on cooldown. An important part of this cooldown, when talented into Gathering Storm, is that you can refresh its duration with the maximum of 10 stacks rolling. If you can spend enough Runes to increase the duration by 10 seconds, you can then recast Remorseless Winter and keep the 10 stacks. This is a huge damage increase and should always be aimed for. In some scenarios, you even have multiple seconds left on the buff once the cooldown comes off. In this case, wait until there is less than 2 seconds remaining on the buff before you recast it.

Everfrost works similarly, but you instead refresh a debuff on your enemies. It does not require quite as many Runes to be used as Gathering Storm to be extended.

Do not use Remorseless Winter inside of Pillar of Frost when running Obliteration builds, the GCD is not worth it.

The huge AoE burst of this spell warrants saving it for any potential add phases. As the value grows linearly with added targets, one use of this spell on three targets is better than three overall uses. Do always try to time it with your Pillar of Frost in AoE. For pure single target with Obliteration, wait until just after your Pillar of Frost to use it. If you are running Rider of the Apocalypse, use it with your Pillar press instead to summon the Horsemen for the duration of your Pillar!

Cold Heart turns your Chains of Ice slow into a powerful nuke that ramps over 40 seconds. As a rule of thumb, use Chains of Ice when above 16 stacks of Cold Heart. Do try to time it with procs of Unholy Strength, using Chains of Ice if this proc is about to fall off and you are above 16 stacks. It is also a good idea to use Chains of Ice in your Pillar of Frost window, as long as you have not specced into Obliteration. With Icecap, you can hold it for each Pillar of Frost window.

If you are using Breath of Sindragosa, make sure to use Horn of Winter when you are low on Runes within the Breath of Sindragosa window. It is important not to hold on to it for too long as you will end up losing casts overall. Use it as soon as you cannot use Obliterate and it will not overcap Runic Power for you. Around 15-25 seconds into your Breath. With Obliteration, use it before your Pillar window to boost your resources for the burst.

We have already covered the opener and priority when running this talent, but let us put it in words. Before using Breath of Sindragosa, you want to pool some Runic Power (60+ with Bloodlust, 80+ without). Do not worry too much about pooling any Runes. Breath of Sindragosa provides 2 Runes on activation, which is generally sufficient to get going. Once you have activated your Breath of Sindragosa, your highest priority is to prolong it as much as possible. This means using Obliterate to consume Runes and generate Runic Power. You should not simply mash this button as much as possible, though.

At the start of your Breath of Sindragosa, you will most likely have a lot of Runic Power, making it important to not overcap on Runic Power as you hit your Obliterates. Only use Obliterate if you have more than 3 Runes (avoiding overcapping on Runes) or if your Runic Power deficit is greater than 20.

There are other spells to use within your Breath of Sindragosa window. Howling Blast should be used with procs of Rime (as long as you are at a healthy level of Runic Power, 40+ or so). Remorseless Winter should also be used when available (your Breath of Sindragosa window is the easiest time to extend your Gathering Storm stacks).

Using your resource-generating cooldowns smartly in your Breath of Sindragosa window is also crucial. Empower Rune Weapon and Horn of Winter will give you the resources needed to maximize your Breath duration. Use Empower Rune Weapon when you cast your Breath and save Horn of Winter for later, using it when you run out of Runes. After your Breath finishes, save Horn for before your Pillar of Frost windows, to optimise your Obliteration damage.

This talent can either be used as a single-target moderate damage cooldown, a big AoE burst cooldown, or as a utility tool to help grip adds together. For any fight that has adds, you should save this cooldown for when they spawn. Both to maximize your own damage as well as the damage of your party. For pure single target, you simply use this spell on cooldown.

Frostscythe is quite similar to Frostwyrm's Fury for its use. We simply press it as it comes up as long as we are not in our Pillar of Frost window (the opportunity cost of using it during Pillar tends to be too high).