Frost Death Knight DPS Guide — The War Within (11.1.0)

The Death Knight class has received multiple changes in 11.1, with the most impactful ones being covered here. To view a full list of changes, please see the link below:

The Frost Death Knight has received a number of changes in the 11.1 Patch, including nerfs to our survivability, visual updates, functional updates as well as ability tuning. The list below includes the most important bits.

• Veteran of the Third War now grants 12% increased stamina (was 20%).
• Null Magic now reduces magical damage taken by 5% (was 8%).
• Permafrost now generates an absorb shield at 30% of your auto attack damage (was 40%).
• Glacial Advance visual has been updated.
• Obliterate, Frost Strike, Rime and Breath of Sindragosa have all been buffed.

The survivability changes will clearly impact us negatively. However, we will still be close to the tankiest spec in the game. They are justified in our option, when one considers the absurd lengths that DPS Death Knights could tank both mechanics, but also raid and dungeon bosses at times.

The update to Glacial Advance is pretty nice due to the old animation looking pretty clunky. Have a look to see if you enjoy this new look yourself!

The tuning changes are not that significant. Breath of Sindragosa was buffed a little bit less compared to the other abilities, reducing its relative strength slightly. Furthermore, the new tier set has strong synergy with builds relying on Frost Strike damage, pushing them ahead of Breath of Sindragosa.

For guide changes, BiS gear has been updated to include the new gear available in 11.1. Furthermore, there is a stronger focus on Shattering Blade builds due to their strength in 11.1.