Death Knight Hero Talents — The War Within (11.1.0)

This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Frost Death Knight, check out our Talents page:

Deathbringer is your go-to hero talent for builds relying on Breath of Sindragosa. Breath helps stack Reaper's Mark up really quickly and explode for huge damage, sometimes multiple times within the Pillar of Frost window. We use Reaper's Mark with every Pillar of Frost window to gain the strength benefit during the explosion, as well as to benefit from Wave of Souls to amp up our burst even further. We will run this setup before we get the new tier set, as well as on fight with good cleave potential.

Rider of the Apocalypse works well with Shattering Blade builds, benefitting nicely from Hungering Thirst. Furthermore, the "empty" GCD of pressing Frostwyrm's Fury at the start of our Pillar of Frost windows does not have as big of a negative impact at it has for Breath. This is our best single-target build once we obtain the new tier set and we run it for fights that are primarily single-target focused.

For Mythic+, Deathbringer is our go-to Hero Talent build with Breath of Sindragosa. Breath deals a significant amount of damage in Mythic+ due to its cleave potential, and we run the Hero Talent that works best with it. This is especially true on higher keys where we gain a lot of benefit from packs living significantly longer.

Rider of the Apocalypse is your go-to choice for builds with Shattered Frost. Just like in Raid, we gain good benefits from the Rider Tree and do not see much of a negative impact from the GCDs we use casting Frostwyrm's Fury. Rider also deals its damage quickly which is great in lower keys. Finally, this is really the only Hero Talent that works okay with 2H builds, if you really want to run one of those.

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Best Hero Talent Builds for Frost Death Knight

Deathbringer Universal Build Rider of the Apocalypse Universal Build

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Best Deathbringer Build for Frost Death Knight

Deathbringer is a quite straightforward build. Grim Reaper is around 2% better than Reaper of Souls and Dark Talons is 8% better than Reaper's Onslaught in all situations. This 8% is a large number, which is primarily due to the desync of Pillar of Frost with Reaper's Mark.

For utility choices, Rune Carved Plates provides you with a nice passive raw defensive boost. Pact of the Deathbringer does give you protection against large hits, but Death Pact is not very strong and makes the talent a worse choice. Death's Messenger is our go-to option in the last choice node, giving both some extra defensive power and some DPS through the shorter cooldown on Raise Dead (0.2% DPS...). Expelling Shield provides no tangible benefit, so it is no real choice.

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Best Rider of the Apocalypse Build for Frost Death Knight

Rider of the Apocalypse is also quite locked in when it comes to choices. Fury of the Horsemen is generally stronger than A Feast of Souls (0.5%+) and thus is a default pick everywhere. For the utility choices, On a Paler Horse is probably the most powerful leveling talent we have but is not useful in any Raiding or Mythic+ content. Finally, Pact of the Apocalypse provides a useful amount of raw defensive power in all situations. Horsemen's Aid is a potential pick if you expect lots of magic damage and debuffs coming out in a given encounter.

Deathbringer has a very simple impact on our rotation. We gain the Reaper's Mark ability, which we want to use with each Pillar of Frost window! We simply use Reaper's Mark and Pillar in a Macro. This makes sure that we quickly stack up the debuff and gain the strength benefit of the explosion damage. Furthermore, we also ensure that we buff the Pillar window with Wave of Souls by doing it this way.

Rider of the Apocalypse does not present a significant change to your rotation. The effects of the Riders themselves are passive and do not require you to react to them. The one exception is Mograine, who will cast Death and Decay and enable your cleave. When he does this, you do not need to use Death and Decay yourself! Furthermore, you want to make sure you use Frostwyrm's Fury at the start of your Pillar of Frost, to make sure your riders gain the most benefit from the Strength buff over its duration. Create a macro to use both Pillar and Frostwyrm's Fury at the same time.