Frost Death Knight DPS Gear and Best in Slot — The War Within (11.0.7)

Last updated on Dec 15, 2024 at 16:00 by Bicepspump 52 comments
General Information

On this page, you will find the best gear and best in slot items for your Frost Death Knight in World of Warcraft The War Within (11.0.7).

1.

BiS Gear Guide for Frost Death Knight

Welcome to our Gear and BiS Page for Frost Death Knight for The War Within Season 1. Check this page to learn everything you need to know about gearing a Frost Death Knight, including the BiS Gear from all sources, Raiding, and Mythic+, information on the best Trinkets, Tier Sets, and much more.

We have three BiS lists below, each detailing the best gear you can obtain from a specific source. We have the overall list, a raid-only one, and, finally, a mythic+-only list. They are all optimised to give you the highest single target DPS. The various builds we run have very similar stat and trinket priorities and will run the same set of gear. The real change is 2H builds running a different weapon, of course; we include that as well in the lists..

2.

BiS Gear for Frost Death Knight

Overall BiS List Mythic+ Gear BiS List Raid Gear BiS List
3.

Overall BiS List for Frost Death Knight

Below, you will find the theoretical BiS set of gear for The War Within Season 1.

Slot Item Boss/ Dungeon/ Source
Helm Everforged Helm Icon Everforged Helm (Crit Mastery) Blacksmithing
Neck Trailspinner Pendant Icon Trailspinner Pendant Mists of Tirna Scithe
Shoulder Exhumed Centurion's Spikes Icon Exhumed Centurion's Spikes Rasha'nan
Cloak Royal Emblem of Nerub-ar Icon Royal Emblem of Nerub-ar Ulgrax the Devourer
Chest Exhumed Centurion's Breastplate Icon Exhumed Centurion's Breastplate Broodtwister Ovi'nax
Bracers Devoted Offering's Irons Icon Devoted Offering's Irons Queen Ansurek
Gloves Exhumed Centurion's Gauntlets Icon Exhumed Centurion's Gauntlets Sikran
Belt Crystal-Fissure Girdle Icon Crystal-Fissure Girdle The Stonevault
Legs Exhumed Centurion's Chausses Icon Exhumed Centurion's Chausses Nexus Princess Ky'veza
Boots Everforged Sabatons Icon Everforged Sabatons Blacksmithing
Ring #1 Seal of the Poisoned Pact Icon Seal of the Poisoned Pact Queen Ansurek
Ring #2 Band of the Roving Scalawag Icon Band of the Roving Scalawag Siege of Boralus
Trinket #1 Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Icon Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Broodtwister Ovi'nax
Trinket #2 Treacherous Transmitter Icon Treacherous Transmitter Nexus Princess Ky'veza
Mainhand Weapon Ansurek's Final Judgment Icon Ansurek's Final Judgment Queen Ansurek
Offhand Weapon Charged Slicer Icon Charged Slicer (Crit Mastery) with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension Icon Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension Blacksmithing
2H Weapon Charged Claymore Icon Charged Claymore (Crit Mastery) with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension Icon Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension Blacksmithing
3.

Mythic+ Gear BiS List for Frost Death Knight

This list contains the highest DPS setup, with farmable gear from Mythic+ Dungeons. This is a great place to start on a relatively new character, as you can infinitely grind out these items from Mythic+.

Slot Item Boss/ Dungeon/ Source
Helm Wrathbark Greathelm Icon Wrathbark Greathelm Mists of Tirna Scithe
Neck Trailspinner Pendant Icon Trailspinner Pendant Mists of Tirna Scithe
Shoulder Vile Butcher's Pauldrons Icon Vile Butcher's Pauldrons The Necrotic Wake
Cloak Troggstitched Drape Icon Troggstitched Drape Grim Batol
Chest Dark Priest's Carapace Icon Dark Priest's Carapace The Dawnbreaker
Bracers Bracers of Umbral Mending Icon Bracers of Umbral Mending Grim Batol
Gloves Fogweaver Gauntlets Icon Fogweaver Gauntlets Mists of Tirna Scithe
Belt Crystal-Fissure Girdle Icon Crystal-Fissure Girdle The Stonevault
Legs Legplates of Unholy Frenzy Icon Legplates of Unholy Frenzy The Necrotic Wake
Boots Ichor-Stained Sollerets Icon Ichor-Stained Sollerets City of Threads
Ring #1 Devout Zealot's Ring Icon Devout Zealot's Ring The Dawnbreaker
Ring #2 Band of the Roving Scalawag Icon Band of the Roving Scalawag Siege of Boralus
Trinket #1 Mark of Khardros Icon Mark of Khardros Grim Batol
Trinket #2 Ara-Kara Sacbrood Icon Ara-Kara Sacbrood (Skarmorak Shard Icon Skarmorak Shard for double on-use) Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
Mainhand Weapon Saber of Dread Pirate Lockwood Icon Saber of Dread Pirate Lockwood Siege of Boralus
Offhand Weapon Shipwrecker's Bludgeon Icon Shipwrecker's Bludgeon The Dawnbreaker
2H Weapon Surgical Heartstopper Icon Surgical Heartstopper City of Threads
3.

Raid Gear BiS List for Frost Death Knight

This list contains the highest DPS setup, only using gear from the Nerub-ar Palace Raid.

This list is mostly useful for informing your organized guild of what loot is optimal for you for loot distribution purposes.

Slot Item Boss/ Dungeon/ Source
Helm Visor of the Ascended Captain Icon Visor of the Ascended Captain Sikran
Neck Locket of Broken Memories Icon Locket of Broken Memories Rasha'nan
Shoulder Exhumed Centurion's Spikes Icon Exhumed Centurion's Spikes Rasha'nan
Cloak Royal Emblem of Nerub-ar Icon Royal Emblem of Nerub-ar Ulgrax the Devourer
Chest Exhumed Centurion's Breastplate Icon Exhumed Centurion's Breastplate Broodtwister Ovi'nax
Bracers Devoted Offering's Irons Icon Devoted Offering's Irons Queen Ansurek
Gloves Exhumed Centurion's Gauntlets Icon Exhumed Centurion's Gauntlets Sikran
Belt Nether Bounty's Greatbelt Icon Nether Bounty's Greatbelt Nexus Princess Ky'veza
Legs Exhumed Centurion's Chausses Icon Exhumed Centurion's Chausses Nexus Princess Ky'veza
Boots Shattershell Greaves Icon Shattershell Greaves Silken Court
Ring #1 Seal of the Poisoned Pact Icon Seal of the Poisoned Pact Queen Ansurek
Ring #2 Writhing Ringworm Icon Writhing Ringworm Broodtwister Ovi'nax
Trinket #1 Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Icon Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Broodtwister Ovi'nax
Trinket #2 Treacherous Transmitter Icon Treacherous Transmitter Nexus Princess Ky'veza
Mainhand Weapon Ansurek's Final Judgment Icon Ansurek's Final Judgment Queen Ansurek
Offhand Weapon Ansurek's Final Judgment Icon Ansurek's Final Judgment Queen Ansurek
2H Weapon Anub'arash's Colossal Mandible Icon Anub'arash's Colossal Mandible The Silken Court
3.

Best Cyrce's Circlet Gems for Frost Death Knight

The Patch 11.0.7 brings a new ring in the form of Cyrce's Circlet. You acquire it by completing various activities on the Siren Isle. What is special about the ring is that it has 3 sockets that can fit one kind of special gem each. You can have one of four different kinds of gem in each socket, resulting in a total of 12 different combinations to choose from!

The ring is released at a relatively low ilvl at the start of the new patch, making it unlikely that you will equip it straight away. As you journey your way up to 639 ilvl on the ring, and as Blizzard potentially buffs the gems, you are likely to exchange your current rings for this new one. It depends on how good your current rings are, so make sure to sim yourself to figure out when it is time to equip it!

As a general rule, you want to play the following:

  • Windsinger's Runed Citrine Icon Windsinger's Runed Citrine, Stormsurge Icon Stormsurge and Fathomdweller's Runed Citrine Icon Fathomdweller's Runed Citrine for both raid and Mythic+.

For more information on how to get the ring, as well as acquiring all of the different gems that you can possibly socket into it, check out our Cyrce's Circlet guide below!

4.

Gearing a Frost Death Knight

If you have a new piece of gear for which you need gems and enchant advice, you can find everything on our dedicated page below.

While gearing up, item level will be your primary target. Strength is our best stat, and you shouldn't focus too much on your secondaries at first. Once you start to receive gear pieces with the same ilvl but different stats, that is when you want to start optimizing your stat distribution. Generally, Frost Death Knights want to prioritize Crit and Mastery! We recommend simming your character to determine what upgrade is best for you! For a more detailed explanation, you can read the Simulations page.

Simming your character is far and beyond the best way to determine if a piece of gear is, in fact, an upgrade. The trick is knowing how to do it in a way that produces reliable results. If you follow the Simulations guide page, you can use this to have a more practical gearing guide than simply following a BiS list.

5.

Frost Death Knight Gear Upgrades in The War Within

The War Within has a powerful upgrade system for your gear where you use Valorstones Icon Valorstones and Crests to upgrade your gear. These are obtainable from practically all forms of content in the game.

For more information on the new Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page for it below.

The War Within Gear Upgrade System
6.

Season 1 Tier Set for Frost Death Knight

You only need 4 pieces out of 5 to get both set bonuses. We recommend you get all items except for the Head, due to its Versatility. Check out the BiS List for more information.

7.

Notable Crafted Gear

Frost wants to run one Charged Slicer Icon Charged Slicer in your offhand with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension Icon Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension embellishment. You then combine this with Writhing Armor Banding Icon Writhing Armor Banding on your crafted Everforged Helm Icon Everforged Helm for your two embellishments. Your weapon is a great choice to craft at a high ilvl early. You can start off with it on your mainhand slot before you manage to obtain another weapon at a higher ilvl, at which point you move the crafted weapon to the offhand. For 2H builds, craft Charged Claymore Icon Charged Claymore as your first craft. Notably, it does not matter which type the weapon is; axe, sword, polearm, mace, etc all work! Simply make sure you select the right type (1-hand or 2-hand) and that the weapon has strength. You get an early heroic crest upgrade early that you can use for free for the weapon, which is great value.

If your focus is purely on Mythic+, we recommend crafting one Dawnthread Lining Icon Dawnthread Lining (Head) and one Blessed Weapon Grip Icon Blessed Weapon Grip for your crafted weapon. If you want more early power, choose higher stat items like your non-tier piece or boots for your Dawnthread Lining.

Crafting double Charged Slicer Icon Charged Slicer with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension Icon Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension is a viable alternative for progression. It gives a strong early power spike that can be useful if you clear the Raid rather quickly.

When it comes to your other crafted slots, we are only wearing three crafted items in our BiS setup (due to the ilvl loss). Use crafting as a way of "filling in the gaps" in your gear, trying to find the best value upgrade in a slot where you already do not have a good piece. Sim yourself to find the best option for you! For Frost, in general, we love Crit Mastery so much, which is why you see both Helm and Boot slots being crafted even with the ilvl loss.

7.1.

Best Items to Upgrade for Frost Death Knight in The War Within

There are three primary items to upgrade as a Frost Death Knight:

  1. Weapon
  2. Trinket
  3. Head/ Chest/ Legs

With how the upgrade system works with Crests being the limited currency, you want to upgrade the most powerful slots you can. For Frost Death Knights, this will be your weapon of choice. The weapon is already great crest value, as well as providing one of our embellishments in the BiS setup. After you have crafted your weapon, upgrade your second one (if dual-wielding) or move on to trinkets and high-stat slot items like Legs, Helm, Chest, etc. Your second crafted item will be a helm with Writhing Armor Banding Icon Writhing Armor Banding.

7.2.

Overall Top Trinkets

Frost aims to use one on-use Trinket as well as one passive one. In The War Within Season 1, our best on-use is Treacherous Transmitter Icon Treacherous Transmitter, closely tied with Mark of Khardros Icon Mark of Khardros. Treacherous Transmitter does come with an attached minigame but this is generally not too difficult to complete properly. Mark is a good alternative where you don't need to care about this at all. You can run double on-use builds with Mark of Khardros and Treacherous Transmitter (or Skarmorak Shard Icon Skarmorak Shard) being the best combination. In this situation, use the Transmitter on pull and delay your second Trinket by one pillar window, using it at 45 seconds and 2min 15 seconds. For passives, Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Icon Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg is the best followed by Skyterror's Corrosive Organ Icon Skyterror's Corrosive Organ.

8.

Best Trinkets for Frost Death Knight in The War Within Season 1

Raiding Trinket Tier List Mythic+ Trinket Tier List
9.

Raiding Trinket Tier List for Frost Death Knight

This Trinket Tier List is single-target biased, as this tends to be the most important aspect of Raiding. Other aspects of the trinkets are also baked into the rankings, such as their ease of use.

8.1.

S-Tier

  • Treacherous Transmitter Icon Treacherous Transmitter — Best on-use Trinket but with an extra minigame attached to it. Use with Breath or every 1.5 min if running pure Obliteration builds.
  • Mark of Khardros Icon Mark of Khardros — Great 1.5min Trinket that ends up being a great Trinket when considering ease of use. Use every 1.5min with DW Obliteration Icon Obliteration builds, every 2min 15sec with Breath of Sindragosa Icon Breath of Sindragosa builds.
  • Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Icon Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg — Best passive Trinket with an attached minigame, allowing you to control whether or not you gain primary stat or your highest secondary stat. Works well in situations where you can maximise the stat gain by sitting on around 15 + 15 stacks. Does lose some power in real scenarios.
8.1.

A-Tier

  • Skyterror's Corrosive Organ Icon Skyterror's Corrosive Organ — Raw damage trinket that works well as a passive option. Simply desync with your on-use stat trinket.
  • Skarmorak Shard Icon Skarmorak Shard — Very similar to Mark of Khadros in pure Single Target but with an added bonus of gaining Mastery when enemies die. Works well on any AoE fight.
  • Ara-Kara Sacbrood Icon Ara-Kara Sacbrood — Solid passive trinket.
  • Shadow-Binding Ritual Knife Icon Shadow-Binding Ritual Knife — Strong passive Trinket from Delves, unfortunately, caps out at 626 ilvl.
  • Quickwick Candlestick Icon Quickwick Candlestick — Strong 2-min on-use that synergises well with Breath. Caps out at 626 ilvl, which is why it is only A-tier.
8.1.

B-Tier

  • Spare Meat Hook Icon Spare Meat Hook — Solid raw damage on-use working well as a passive trinket.
  • Void Pactstone Icon Void Pactstone — Raw damage trinket that does not quite do enough to beat out our good stat passive trinkets.
  • Sikran's Endless Arsenal Icon Sikran's Endless Arsenal — Primarily a tank trinket that still does okay damage for us.
  • Mad Queen's Mandate Icon Mad Queen's Mandate — Raw damage on-use that does okay damage.
8.1.

C-Tier

  • Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher Icon Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher
9.

Mythic+ Trinket Tier List for Frost Death Knight

This Trinket Tier List is more AoE focused as Mythic+ values AoE damage significantly more. We still look for a good balance between Single Target and AoE though! You can either choose to run one active and one passive or run double active to have a trinket up for every Pillar of Frost Icon Pillar of Frost window!

8.1.

S-Tier

  • Skarmorak Shard Icon Skarmorak Shard — Paired with every second pillar (or third with Breath), this Trinket gains extra value in Mythic+ due to the Mastery gained on enemy death.
  • Treacherous Transmitter Icon Treacherous Transmitter — Really powerful on-use Trinket which unfortunately has a minigame, making it somewhat difficult to use in real scenarios.
  • Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg Icon Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg — A passive trinket with an attached minigame, allowing you to control whether or not you gain primary stat or your highest secondary stat. Generally the best passive trinket
8.1.

A-Tier

  • Mark of Khardros Icon Mark of Khardros — Great 1.5min trinket trinket which is easy to use. Use every 1.5min with DW Obliteration Icon Obliteration builds, every 2min 15sec with Breath of Sindragosa Icon Breath of Sindragosa builds. Can be combined with Skarmorak Shard Icon Skarmorak Shard to gain an on-use trinket every single Pillar window.
  • Ara-Kara Sacbrood Icon Ara-Kara Sacbrood — Good passive trinket.
8.1.

B-Tier

  • Skyterror's Corrosive Organ Icon Skyterror's Corrosive Organ — Raw damage trinket that works well as a passive option. Simply desync with your on-use stat trinket.
  • Spare Meat Hook Icon Spare Meat Hook — Solid raw damage on-use working well as a passive trinket.
  • Void Pactstone Icon Void Pactstone — Raw damage trinket that does not quite do enough to beat out our good stat passive trinkets.
  • Sikran's Endless Arsenal Icon Sikran's Endless Arsenal — Primarily a tank trinket that still does okay damage for us.
  • Mad Queen's Mandate Icon Mad Queen's Mandate — Raw damage on-use that does okay damage.
8.1.

C-Tier

  • Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher Icon Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher
9.

Stats

Many people overthink the distribution of their secondary stats. An important thing to remember is that a higher quantity of stats is usually better than a better quality of stats. Because of this, wearing higher item-level gear with worse stats tends to be better than lower item-level gear with great stats. Keep this in mind when considering gear. For more information on stats, please refer to our dedicated page.

For Frost specifically, aim to have Crit as our top stat by raw amount, followed by Mastery. For a closer look at stats, please see the below article./p>

10.

Jewellery

For neck and ring pieces, you can generally afford to drop 5-10 ilevels in most cases to get our preferred stats: Crit and Mastery. That said, you should always sim yourself to see what is better as the secondary stat diminishing returns can still change your ideal setup. It can be useful to wear crafted jewelry due to how you can control the stats; just remember that you cannot craft the maximum ilvl possible!

11.

Changelog

  • 15 Dec. 2024: Update for Patch 11.0.7, adding Cyrce's Circlet.
  • 26 Oct. 2024: Added back missing trinkets in BiS list.
  • 21 Oct. 2024: Updated BiS list crafted pieces.
  • 14 Oct. 2024: Updated BiS passive trinket and added some delve trinkets.
  • 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
  • 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
  • 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
  • 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
  • 22 Apr. 2024: Updated all gear for Season 4.
  • 22 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
  • 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5.
  • 29 Nov. 2023: Added Legendary with proper link to bis.
  • 22 Nov. 2023: Updated drop location from dawn upper and lower and changed Breath m+ bis trinkets to mirror and porcelain.
  • 07 Nov. 2023: Updated BiS Lists and Embellishment recommendations after Sporecloak nerfs.
  • 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for patch 10.2. Added new bis lists, trinkets and embellishment.
  • 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
  • 10 Jul. 2023: Added 10.1.5 dungeon recommendation.
  • 01 Jun. 2023: Added m+ embellishment recommendation.
  • 31 May 2023: Added neltharion trinket as new bis for frost 2H oblit.
  • 08 May 2023: Updated after trinket tuning.
  • 01 May 2023: Updated all gear for Patch 10.1.
  • 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
  • 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
  • 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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