PVE Frost Death Knight DPS Guide (WotLK 3.3.5a)

Welcome to the Frost Death Knight DPS guide for World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King 3.3.5a. In this guide, you will learn about playing a Frost Death Knight in a raid. The guide includes Talents, Glyphs, Gems, Enchantments, Add-ons, Gameplay & Skill rotation tips.

Talent Tree

This is an optimal build for players with medium to high gear.

I’d like to write about these 4 talents below because they are taken not fully sometimes. Depending on the situation, gear, encounter, and raid you might want to tweak them a bit from optimization of your build

• Subversion – small DPS increase and a nice Treat decrease. Useful if you don’t have a Paladin with Hand of Salvation in your raid.
• Black Ice – is taken minimum 2/5 as a go-through talent. Note that, this talent has synergy with Strength, not Armor Penetration.
• Killing Machine – is taken either way. The efficiency of this talent is inverse to the amount of Critical Strike chance. The less crit you have, the more useful this talent is.
• Blood-Caked Blade – a nice DPS boost. Works best with Armor Penetration, the more you have it – the more damage it will deal.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Frost Strike
• Glyph of Obliterate
• Glyph of Disease

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Pestilence
• Glyph of Horn of Winter
• Glyph of Raise Dead

Gems

Gems are situational and depend on the build and equipment. They are used to reach the required stat caps.

• Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
• Red: Bold Cardinal Ruby
• Yellow: Inscribed Ametrine
• Blue: Nightmare Tear x1 – The rest is filled with Red Gems

Enchants

• Head – Arcanum of Torment
• Shoulder – Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Cloak – Scroll of Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed or Scroll of Enchant Cloak – Major Agility
• Chest – Scroll of Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
• Bracers – Scroll of Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault
• Gloves – Scroll of Enchant Gloves – Crusher
• Waist – Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs – Icescale Leg Armor
• Boots –Scroll of Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality or Scroll of Enchant Boots – Greater Assault
• Weapons – Rune of Razorice for the main-hand. Rune of the Fallen Crusader for the off-hand.

Gameplay & Rotations

Stat Priority

Hit → Expertise → Strength → Armor Pen. → Crit. → Haste → Attack Power → Agility

With this build, you’ll need 5% (164 Hit) thanks to Nerves of Cold Steel (4% if Draenei). Also a total of 26 Expertise.

Rotations

Your opener should look like thisRotationAbility Priorities

• Killing Machine > Frost Strike
• Keep Frost Fever and Blood Plague on the target
• Obliterate
• Blood Strike
• Frost Strike
• Rime > Howling Blast
• Horn of Winter
• Unbreakable Armor, Army of the Dead and Raise Dead is used on cooldown.