Frost Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

The Frost Death Knight generally runs a build combining Obliteration with Frostbane. The general choice comes down to how much you want to focus on Remorseless Winter and thus your AoE. Leaning fully into gives about 11% AoE DPS gain but costs 9% Single Target. This means that you need to really justify going for the extra AoE.

When it comes to 2H vs Dual-Wield, both options are 100% viable. We either run Dual-Wield with Frostbane or 2H with Breath of Sindragosa. Both options are neck-and-neck and primarily comes down to preference.

For Hero Talents, Rider of the Apocalypse is our recommended Hero Talent for both Raid and Mythic+ when running Dual-Wield Frostbane. For 2H Breath, we instead run Deathbringer.

The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents provide more focus on minion damage with your Riders being summoned both passively as well as actively via Frostwyrm's Fury. It also has nice synergy with Frostbane via the Hungering Thirst talent which increases Frost Strike damage. It brings great utility through the Death Charge ability as well as more emphasis is but on your 1.5 Cooldown window with Frostwyrm's Fury.

Deathbringer focuses on your 45-seconds burst windows with Reaper's Mark both dealing significant damage on its own, but also buffing your other abilities. It comes with lots of extra procs and benefits, providing multiple extra procs of Killing Machine via Exterminate and free Frost Fever applications.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents that are best for leveling and doing open-world content.

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 25% more experience and quest awards gained while leveling.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Frost Death Knight-specific PvE talents.

1. Deathchill roots enemies for 4 seconds. It is applied either via the direct cast of Remorseless Winter, or by casting Chains of Ice on a target already affected by Chains of Ice. Not valuable in PvE content.
2. Delirium causes your Howling Blast and Frost Strike to apply Delirium to the target. Delirium reduces the cooldown recovery rate of movement abilities by 50% for 12 seconds.
3. Shroud of Winter reduces the cast range of enemies within 8 yards around you by 30%. Not useful in PvE.
4. Dark Simulacrum places a debuff on your enemy, activating when they cast a spell that uses mana. It allows you to use that same spell for some time. Not useful in PvE content.
5. Strangulate silences your target for 4 seconds. Inferior to just running Asphyxiate (it replaces the talent) and a pretty useless PvE talent.
6. Bitter Chill reduces the target's haste by 8% when affected by Chains of Ice. Frost Strike extends its duration. Not useful in PvE.
7. Rot and Wither adds an absorption shield to any target hit by Death and Decay for 100% of the damage amount. Not useful in PvE.
8. Bloodforged Armor provides 4 seconds of 25% physical damage reduction whenever you press Death Strike. Solid defensive gain!
9. Spellwarden lowers the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell by 10 seconds and allows you to use it on allies. It's just a nice defensive gain because it allows more AMS usage.
10. Death's Cold Embrace empowers your Pillar of Frost to cast a Remorseless Winter at 400% increase damage and 150% increased radius. Your movement speed is heavily reduced and the cooldown of Pillar of Frost is increased by 15 seconds. Generally not worth it in PvE.

Bloodforged Armor is a solid defensive upgrade and Deathchill helps to control your enemies. All other talents are not very impactful or simply worse for our damage throughput!