Frost Death Knight Patch 9.1 Changes Analysis
On this page, we tell you how the Patch 9.1 changes for Frost Death Knight affect the spec and what the current state of theorycrafting is.
Frost Death Knight Patch 9.1 Changes Overview
The Frost Death Knight only saw a single change for PvE in Patch 9.1.
Anti-Magic Zone was nerfed to now have an absorption cap equal to
1.5 times your Maximum Health, increased by your Versatility. The base duration
was also nerfed from 10 to 8 seconds.
Base Spec Changes for Patch 9.1
There have been no base spec changes for the Frost Death Knight.
Talent Changes for Patch 9.1
Frost Death Knights have received no talent changes in 9.1.
Legendary Changes for Patch 9.1
Covenant Legendaries
All specs gained access to four Legendaries in Patch 9.1, with each of them working solely with one — and only one — Covenant.
Abomination's Frenzy
Abomination's Frenzy is the Necrolord Death Knight Legendary,
and modifies
Abomination Limb in three important ways:
- It makes it last longer, totaling roughly 30% more damage over its duration.
- It also reduces the interval between
Rime proc gains from 6s to 4s (+2 procs overall).
- Finally, whenever it grips a target, your current target gets a debuff making it take 10% additional damage for 12s. This is likely a bug compared to the debuff applying to the gripped target instead.
This is generally quite a weak Legendary. The increased duration is nice
and the two extra procs of Rime works well. However, the Legendary has
little value in single-target which is a big issue. The 10% additional damage
taken is difficult to leverage and simply does not work on bosses and certain
mobs; overall it is a lackluster legendary.
Final Sentence
Hearkening all the way back to early Shadowlands Beta, the Kyrian
Legendary is an effect that grants you 2% Strength and refunds a Rune whenever
you manage to spread Shackle the Unworthy. The Strength bonus caps at
10%.
With limited value in AoE and zero gain for single-target, this Legendary is simply not a great choice. Sure, you can boost your AoE but it relies on a spread mechanic which is inconsistent. It is, overall, lackluster and not something we would recommend
Rampant Transference
This Legendary is comprised of two distinct effects, even though the tooltip can be misleading:
- While you are in
Death's Due, you generate 20% more Runic Power.
- The
Death's Due buff lasts 2 seconds longer, and each stack grants 1% more Strength, boosting the total Strength bonus of
Death's Due to 12%.
Buffing the strength of Death's Due is not that great, especially since that is not the strong part of the Legendary to start with. Generating extra Runic Power is nice and can give ~20 Runic Power for each use. Overall though, this is not a lot and the Legendary is too undertuned for us to recommend it.
Insatiable Hunger
This Legendary adds a detonation at the end of Swarming Mist, scaling
up with the amount of Runic Power you spent during it.
This is a solid AoE Legendary that brings little value in single target. When
running Breath of Sindragosa, you can easily reach 300%+ damage increase
on the Legendary blast. However, outside of Breath the number is significantly
lower, especially since the Frost Death Knight does not fancy spending much
Runic Power in AoE. Furthermore, the damage is good on multiple targets, but
really lackluster on one. Overall, it is not tuned high enough to be recommended.
Other Legendary Changes for 9.1
Unlike some other classes, no other Legendaries have been tweaked or reworked.
Conduit and Soulbind Changes for Patch 9.1
In 9.1, all the Soulbinds gained a number of additional rows of Conduits and generic traits, along with a new capstone trait.
To provide a quick summary before the wall of text explaining each trait in detail:
- Kyrian players will likely stick to Pelagos.
- Venthyr players will likely switch to Nadjia the Mistblade for everything.
- Night Fae players likely stick to Niya for everything.
- Necrolord players will likely stick to Emeni.
Kyrian
Pelagos
Pelagos gains the following Conduits:
- An additional Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Better Together, effectively working out to 40 permanent additional Mastery.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Path of the Devoted, which is very weak considering that players generally do not get affected by full loss-of-control effects outside of core misplays in PvE.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Newfound Resolve, working like the Lady Inerva Darkvein Mythic mechanic, and granting you 12% Strength and Stamina for 15 seconds if you succeed in its test. This can be problematic as the add can spawn behind you.
Thanks to the last trait and the "bonus" 40 Mastery on top of the Mastery provided by the 9.0 tree, Pelagos remains a very viable and competitive Soulbind going into 9.1.
Kleia
Kleia gains the following Conduits:
- An additional Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and 3% Critical Strike whenever you damage an enemy above 90% health.
- A Finesse Conduit and 10% damage reduction for you and your lowest-health
ally, along with the heal and the debuff cleanse for them as well, whenever you
use your
Phial of Serenity.
Light the Path modifies
Valiant Strikes by making each stack grant 0.25% more Critical Strike. When the stacks convert into a heal, you and the affected party member gain 5% Critical Strike.
Kleia has gained quite a lot in terms of crit-buffing power. Still, it is not enough to topple the Kyrian king that is Pelagos.
Mikanikos
Forgelite Prime Mikanikos gains the following Conduits:
- An additional Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Soulglow Spectrometer, granting you up to 5% damage to your target, stacking over 15s, and possibly changing targets between activations.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Reactive Retrofitting, which works out two absorbs totaling 16% of your maximum Health at time of proc, one for physical damage, and one for magical damage, per 30 seconds.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Effusive Anima Accelerator deals AoE damage around the target you used
Shackle the Unworthy on, and reduces its cooldown by up to 20s. This is pretty potent, but not as impactful as it is for some of the other classes.
Overall, Mikanikos has been buffed but not enough to become competitive for the Frost Death Knight.
Venthyr
Nadjia
Nadjia the Mistblade gains the following Conduits:
- An additional Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- A Finesse Conduit and
Sinful Preservation, granting you 50% of the value of all
Healthstones and health potions you consume as an absorb. This has mad value for Mythic+.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Nimble Steps, snaring enemies near you by 10% and turning into a 4-second root when you drop below 35% health.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Fatal Flaw, granting you 20% Critical Strike or Versatility after The Euphoria effect from
Thrill Seeker ends for 10 seconds. It will pretty much always give us Critical Strike (as long as your stats are well-balanced). Unfortunately, it does not sync with any cooldown for pure single target. It does see a big jump in power for Mythic+ since you can trigger the effect more often.
With these changes, Nadjia will very likely dethrone Theotar as the default Soulbind overall, even on top-tier progression.
Theotar
Theotar the Mad Duke's last trait feels underwhelming and can vary in its provided buff. As a result, it is very difficult to gauge its relative strength, but it is otherwise weak and uncontrollable.
Draven
General Draven gains the following Conduits:
- An additional Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- A Finesse Conduit and
Regenerative Stone Skin, converting 15% of all overhealing into a 6s heal-over-time effect.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Intimidation Tactics, granting you cooldown reduction on
Door of Shadows when you are low on health. This is completely pointless.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Battlefield Presence, which is basically up to 3% damage increase. Important to note is that it is only 1% on pure single-target which is really quite bad.
Draven continues as the worst Venthyr Soulbind.
Night Fae
Niya
Niya gains the following Conduits:
- An additional Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Called Shot, granting you movement speed when you land a critical strike.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Survivor's Rally, working as a 20% heal over 10 seconds when you drop below 50%, once per minute. It is a nice defensive addition for us.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Bonded Hearts, causing you to effectively heal up to 5 nearby friendly targets for 2% of their health every 15s. If you heal somebody from another Covenant — which is kind of difficult considering that 95% of the DPS are Night Fae these days — each stack of
Grove Invigoration is amplified by 50%.
Overall, Niya is getting some nice additions. Her previous power is large enough to carry her into the top spot for Frost Death Knights in 9.1.
Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is unlikely to be a competitive Soulbind in 9.1.
Korayn
Korayn gains the following Conduits:
- A Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Vorkai Ambush, effectively working as a 5% DR from any mob you interrupt for 5 seconds. This has good value with
Blinding Sleet but is generally not great since we do not expect any adds to hit us an awful lot.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Hunt's Exhilaration, giving you 3% Leech for 5s when you damage a new mob.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Wild Hunt Strategem, allowing you to gain a small amount of execute damage whenever you trigger
First Strike and requiring you to have two targets nearby to optimize:
- One high on health (to proc
First Strike).
- One low on health (to convert the
Wild Hunt Strategem into its 5% extra damage buff).
- One high on health (to proc
Overall this Soulbind is, frankly, weak. First Strike still carries
it, but that is all it has going for it.
Necrolord
Plague Deviser Marileth
Plague Deviser Marileth gains the following Conduits:
- A Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Viscous Trail, which feels like a PvP Conduit.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Undulating Maneuvers, which is basically a reduced version of a Brewmaster Monk's
Stagger. It works as an absorb and can proc off itself.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Kevin's Oozeling, which is very unwieldy and very poorly-described by the tooltip. Think of it like a pet guardian that melees whatever you autoattacked last. Whenever somebody nearby takes real damage (i.e., not absorbed), they gain a small shield. You, meanwhile, get 2% extra damage to anything the oozeling touched while it was up. When it despawns, all the effects go away.
Plague Deviser Marileth is looking really strong in Patch 9.1 with the
addition of Kevin's Oozeling. A 6% damage increase is no joke and the
single-target output will probably be solid.
Emeni
Emeni gains the following Conduits:
- A Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Sole Slough, granting allies 20% speed when you start moving. Potentially situationally good on fights where fast, specific movement matters.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Resilient Stitching, working out to a 15% magic damage absorb per minute. This is weak and uninteresting, but still worth mentioning.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Pustule Eruption, which forces you to cast
Fleshcraft to deal some damage to nearby enemies every time you take damage and heal your friends for some as well.
The final trait does add a sizeable amount of damage. It does force you
to channel Fleshcraft for 3 seconds but you can often find instances
where this is not too bad.
Emeni is likely to stay as the best Frost Death Knight Necrolord soulbind due to aligning well with our cooldowns.
Bonesmith Heirmir
Bonesmith Heirmir gains the following Conduits:
- A Potency Conduit
- A choice of either:
- An Endurance Conduit and
Carver's Eye, granting you a large amount of Mastery for 5 seconds whenever you damage an enemy above 90% health, stacking 5 times. It is a lot of Mastery and it has a ton of value on fights with adds or in Mythic+.
- A Finesse Conduit and
Waking Bone Breastplate, increasing your max HP by 5% whenever 3 or more enemies are nearby. This is simple and likely good in Mythic+, but weaker than
Carver's Eye due to it having no offensive/throughput benefits.
- An Endurance Conduit and
Mnemonic Equipment, working out to 3% more execute damage which is nice. Its overall output increase is not huge but still nice with more execute damage.
Heirmir unfortunately does not synergise with the Frost Death Knight since
Heirmir's Arsenal: Marrowed Gemstone does not line up with our cooldowns.
The added traits are nice but not enough to make Heirmir the top choice.
Changelog
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 17 Jul. 2021: Updated with recent hotfixes.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Created page.
More Death Knight Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Bicepspump, a semi-hardcore player raiding with Pescorus on Kazzak. He is heavily involved in the DK DPS theorycrafting community, testing hyoptheses and investigating the correct priority to use. He produces guide content on YouTube and frequently streams on Twitch.
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