Frost Death Knight DPS Gear and Best in Slot — The War Within (11.0.7)
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).
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..
BiS Gear for Frost Death Knight
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 (Crit Mastery) | Blacksmithing |
Neck | Trailspinner Pendant | Mists of Tirna Scithe |
Shoulder | Exhumed Centurion's Spikes | Rasha'nan |
Cloak | Royal Emblem of Nerub-ar | Ulgrax the Devourer |
Chest | Exhumed Centurion's Breastplate | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
Bracers | Devoted Offering's Irons | Queen Ansurek |
Gloves | Exhumed Centurion's Gauntlets | Sikran |
Belt | Crystal-Fissure Girdle | The Stonevault |
Legs | Exhumed Centurion's Chausses | Nexus Princess Ky'veza |
Boots | Everforged Sabatons | Blacksmithing |
Ring #1 | Seal of the Poisoned Pact | Queen Ansurek |
Ring #2 | Band of the Roving Scalawag | Siege of Boralus |
Trinket #1 | Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
Trinket #2 | Treacherous Transmitter | Nexus Princess Ky'veza |
Mainhand Weapon | Ansurek's Final Judgment | Queen Ansurek |
Offhand Weapon | Charged Slicer (Crit Mastery) with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension | Blacksmithing |
2H Weapon | Charged Claymore (Crit Mastery) with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension | Blacksmithing |
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 | Mists of Tirna Scithe |
Neck | Trailspinner Pendant | Mists of Tirna Scithe |
Shoulder | Vile Butcher's Pauldrons | The Necrotic Wake |
Cloak | Troggstitched Drape | Grim Batol |
Chest | Dark Priest's Carapace | The Dawnbreaker |
Bracers | Bracers of Umbral Mending | Grim Batol |
Gloves | Fogweaver Gauntlets | Mists of Tirna Scithe |
Belt | Crystal-Fissure Girdle | The Stonevault |
Legs | Legplates of Unholy Frenzy | The Necrotic Wake |
Boots | Ichor-Stained Sollerets | City of Threads |
Ring #1 | Devout Zealot's Ring | The Dawnbreaker |
Ring #2 | Band of the Roving Scalawag | Siege of Boralus |
Trinket #1 | Mark of Khardros | Grim Batol |
Trinket #2 | Ara-Kara Sacbrood ( Skarmorak Shard for double on-use) | Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
Mainhand Weapon | Saber of Dread Pirate Lockwood | Siege of Boralus |
Offhand Weapon | Shipwrecker's Bludgeon | The Dawnbreaker |
2H Weapon | Surgical Heartstopper | City of Threads |
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 | Sikran |
Neck | Locket of Broken Memories | Rasha'nan |
Shoulder | Exhumed Centurion's Spikes | Rasha'nan |
Cloak | Royal Emblem of Nerub-ar | Ulgrax the Devourer |
Chest | Exhumed Centurion's Breastplate | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
Bracers | Devoted Offering's Irons | Queen Ansurek |
Gloves | Exhumed Centurion's Gauntlets | Sikran |
Belt | Nether Bounty's Greatbelt | Nexus Princess Ky'veza |
Legs | Exhumed Centurion's Chausses | Nexus Princess Ky'veza |
Boots | Shattershell Greaves | Silken Court |
Ring #1 | Seal of the Poisoned Pact | Queen Ansurek |
Ring #2 | Writhing Ringworm | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
Trinket #1 | Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
Trinket #2 | Treacherous Transmitter | Nexus Princess Ky'veza |
Mainhand Weapon | Ansurek's Final Judgment | Queen Ansurek |
Offhand Weapon | Ansurek's Final Judgment | Queen Ansurek |
2H Weapon | Anub'arash's Colossal Mandible | The Silken Court |
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, Stormsurge and 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!
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.
Frost Death Knight Gear Upgrades in The War Within
The War Within has a powerful upgrade system for your gear where you use 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.
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.
Notable Crafted Gear
Frost wants to run one Charged Slicer in your offhand with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension embellishment. You then combine this with Writhing Armor Banding on your crafted 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 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 (Head) and one 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 with 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.
Best Items to Upgrade for Frost Death Knight in The War Within
There are three primary items to upgrade as a Frost Death Knight:
- Weapon
- Trinket
- 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.
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, closely tied with 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) 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 is the best followed by Skyterror's Corrosive Organ.
Best Trinkets for Frost Death Knight in The War Within Season 1
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.
S-Tier
- 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 — Great 1.5min Trinket that ends up being a great Trinket when considering ease of use. Use every 1.5min with DW Obliteration builds, every 2min 15sec with Breath of Sindragosa builds.
- 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.
A-Tier
- Skyterror's Corrosive Organ — Raw damage trinket that works well as a passive option. Simply desync with your on-use stat trinket.
- 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 — Solid passive trinket.
- Shadow-Binding Ritual Knife — Strong passive Trinket from Delves, unfortunately, caps out at 626 ilvl.
- 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.
B-Tier
- Spare Meat Hook — Solid raw damage on-use working well as a passive trinket.
- Void Pactstone — Raw damage trinket that does not quite do enough to beat out our good stat passive trinkets.
- Sikran's Endless Arsenal — Primarily a tank trinket that still does okay damage for us.
- Mad Queen's Mandate — Raw damage on-use that does okay damage.
C-Tier
- Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher
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 window!
S-Tier
- 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 — Really powerful on-use Trinket which unfortunately has a minigame, making it somewhat difficult to use in real scenarios.
- 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
A-Tier
- Mark of Khardros — Great 1.5min trinket trinket which is easy to use. Use every 1.5min with DW Obliteration builds, every 2min 15sec with Breath of Sindragosa builds. Can be combined with Skarmorak Shard to gain an on-use trinket every single Pillar window.
- Ara-Kara Sacbrood — Good passive trinket.
B-Tier
- 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 — Solid raw damage on-use working well as a passive trinket.
- Void Pactstone — Raw damage trinket that does not quite do enough to beat out our good stat passive trinkets.
- Sikran's Endless Arsenal — Primarily a tank trinket that still does okay damage for us.
- Mad Queen's Mandate — Raw damage on-use that does okay damage.
C-Tier
- Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher
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>
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!
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.
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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