Frost Death Knight DPS Macros and Addons — 12.0.5
On this page, you will find a number of useful macros and addons to make your life easier when playing your Frost Death Knight in World of Warcraft — 12.0.5.
If you were looking for Mists of Pandaria Classic content, please refer to our MoP Death Knight addons and macros.
Macros
Generic Macros for Death Knights
Raise Ally
Raise Ally
This macro casts
Raise Ally on your mouseover target, if they are a
friendly player. Otherwise, it casts Raise Ally on your current target.
Mind Freeze
Mind Freeze
This macro allows you to interrupt your focus target, if you have one, and if not to simply interrupt your current target.
Specific Macros for Frost Death Knights
Pillar Trigger Macro
Deathbringer can use a condensed macro for the burst
to help cut down on button presses. This is pressed off the GCD inbetween
Reaper's Mark
and
Frostwyrm's Fury in the opener.
Deathbringer Opener
For
Rider of the Apocalypse, we end up in a more complicated situation
as we ideally want to use different on-GCD abilities depending on the situation we are in.
With
Frostwyrm's Fury we can simply use that, but otherwise we need
to press the button that is appropriate for the situation. The "big burst"
macro is the following:
Deathbringer Opener
For our non-burst, we have separate macros for
Frost Strike,
Glacial Advance,
Obliterate,
Frostscythe and
Howling Blast. Choosing what macro
you press is exactly like following your standard priority (Frostwyrm when available,
Frost Strike with Frostbane/ 5 stacks of
Razorice,
Obliterate with Killing Machine in Single Target etc). If you want to fully optimise
each one of your standard abilities has a pillar macro version as well with the following
structure:
Generic Pillar Macro
The exact macros to use are the written out below.
Frost Strike Pillar
Glacial Advance Pillar
Obliterate Pillar
Frostscythe Pillar
Howling Blast Pillar
Death Grip Mouseover Macro
Death Grip Mouseover
This macro will cast
Death Grip on your mouseover target.
Anti-Magic Zone Cursor
This macro instantly casts
Anti-Magic Zone at your cursor's location.
It is useful for activating the Zone a tiny bit more quickly by spamming this
macro button. It also generally helps in placing it effectively.
Mind Freeze Mouseover
This macro allows you to use your interrupt with a mouseover, avoiding having to swap targets to interrupt.
Focus Mouseover
This macro enables a quick focus target setting using a mouseover.
Control Undead
Controlling an Undead creature in dungeons is a nice way to add some minor extra damage, as well as control a specific mob for however long you want. It does need re-controlling every 5 minutes, and this macro is perfect for that! It will target your pet, dismiss it, and then instantly control it again.
Control Undead
Addons
Generic Addons for Death Knights
Before you go downloading a bunch of different Addons, we recommend you set up your base UI first. Blizzard has added a wide variety of improvements to the base UI, and many Addons you may think you cannot do without, are now available through the standard interface. Once you've set up your UI, we recommend thinking about which aspects or customization layers you would like to add, and then look for Addons that do those things, instead of downloading an entire suite's worth of Addons that you may not even need anymore.
It might even be worth it to see how far you can get without any additional Addons, and maybe you'll even enjoy not having to spend hours every Patch updating and reconfiguring your UI. Many Addons are still in development or are specifically aiming to launch with all their options for Midnight launch, so some of your favorites may not be available just yet.
ElvUI
ElvUI is a complete replacement for the default User Interface, and you will often find even the best players in the world use ElvUI for certain customization options. ElvUI is extremely user friendly, and takes very little time to set up and master. It also comes already furnished with almost everything you need; unit frames, raid frames, minimap, buffs and debuffs, and much more. You can easily unlock and drag all the components around so your UI will look exactly the way you want it to. ElvUI is clean, easy to use, and a great starting point for your UI.
Boss Mods
Boss Mods are helpful pre-made timers that allow you to keep track of the noteworthy mechanics in any given encounter. Usually they come equipped with helpful prompts, visuals, and sounds to ensure you do not miss anything important.
BigWigs Bossmods
BigWigs is the best boss mod available currently. It is extremely customizable, allowing you to change what is displayed on an individual boss level and how boldly you want each alert customized.
LittleWigs Bossmods
This is really just BigWigs, but for dungeons. It has the same customization options, and allows you to prepare as best as you can for all mechanics that will be thrown at you in regular or Mythic+ dungeons.
Deadly Boss Mods
Deadly Boss Mods is an alternative to BigWigs, and offers almost the exact same customization options for keeping track of boss abilities, trash mobs, and combat timers. It is a great tool to help you focus more on your own character, instead of having to worry about keeping track of all those pesky boss mechanics!
Name Plates
Nameplates are essential for allowing you to easily keep track of basic debuffs and quickly select new targets in combat. While ElvUI nameplates do come standard with the AddOn, they are a little limited and occasionally buggy. Listed below are some good alternatives.
Plater Nameplates
Plater offers a very high degree of customization and accuracy, although somewhat limited due to the Addon changes in Midnight. You can still configure the nameplates to enlarge and change color in certain circumstances, and it might help you keep track of important buffs and debuffs in a chaotic fight, so you do not get lost in the weeds. Some setup is required, although it is very simple and straightforward.
Platynator
Platynator is a new Addon developed by plusmouse, who is known for many super helpful addons like Auctionator, Baganator, Prat, and many more. They have now developed a very customizable Nameplate addon that offers numerous options for debuffs, status colors, icons, textures, and much more. It is definitely worth checking out, especially if you end up having any issues with Plater for any reason.
Details
Details is still around as the #1 Addon to customize damage and healing meters. While it may not offer as many tracking options as before due to the limits imposed by Blizzard, it is still around and kicking to help you customize the Blizzard Damage, Healing, and Other metrics pane.
Specific Addons for Frost Death Knights
Currently, we do not believe that you need any additional addons to play your specialisation to its full potential.
Changelog
- 24 Apr. 2026: Updated pillar macros.
- 20 Apr. 2026: Reviewed for 12.0.5.
- 16 Mar. 2026: Updated for Midnight Season 1, adding a note on ERW usage in pillar macro.
- 26 Feb. 2026: Updated macros for Midnight with new copy functionality.
- 10 Feb. 2026: Updated for Midnight pre-patch with some macro clarification for rider.
- 30 Nov. 2025: Reviewed for patch 11.2.7.
- 05 Oct. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.5.
- 12 Aug. 2025: Simplified and clarified pillar macros.
- 07 Aug. 2025: Elaborated on Macros.
- 04 Aug. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.2.
- 15 Jun. 2025: Updated opener macro to more accurately represent Breath -> Macro opener.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.5.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Reviewed and updated for Patch 11.1.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Reviewed and update for Patch 11.0.7.
- 26 Oct. 2024: Updated Obliteration macros for better clarity.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 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: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 22 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 01 Dec. 2023: Clarified loss when not using Oblit Macros.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed and Updated for Patch 10.1. Emphasised that oblit macros are not necessary.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed 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 Pixelbased Lifeforms 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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