[Guide] Death Knight Frost DPS Guide! By ChildeRoland

[Emrys]

This guide is a wall of text, cuz I try to explain all possibilities for DKs, even for the dummies

 

Shortenings:

Icy Touch: IT

Plague Strike: PS

Obliterate: OB

Howling Blast: HB

Blood Strike: BS

Frost Strike: FS

Death Coil: DC

Death and Decay: DnD

Runic Power: RP

Attack Power: AP

Death Knight: DK

 

Introduction

After I got bored of tanking and wanted to dps in raids, I got myself two nice one-handers, and started with the Frost spec. When I later got myself a Betrayer of Humanity I kept using frost, to see how hard my Frost Strikes and Obliterates could possibly get. This guide will help you to Dual wield dps, as well as using a two hander.

 

Important:

When you dps, ALWAYS stand behind the boss, unless it is not possible (Kologarn). If you stand in the front the boss will often parry attacks, which will do two things.

One: you won't deal dmg with that attack.

Two: the tank will take the next hit faster, giving the healers a hard time.

 

Stats

Strength: Your main stat. All my sockets are Strength ones.

Agility: Agi gives crit, but is often only gained by cloak enchant and accessories.

Stamina: Stamina is gained from almost every piece of item, and having around 20000 hit points is useful.

Spirit and Intellect: None of those gives you anything, so no need to pick them on any piece of item.

 

Bonus Stats:

Crit: Certainly a great stat, and it gives a lot of dps.

Hit: -for one hand dps 8% is a must. -1% from Draeneis. Dual wielders should aim for 17%, minus 3% from Virulence.

Expertise: Having 6.5% is good for some bosses, but standing behind targets means you don't need it very much.

Armor Penetration: Good enough for OB.

 

Specs and glyphs

Two hand frost spec:Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Dual Wield frost spec:Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

Deeper into the talents

Blood:

Tier one:

Butchery and Subversion. Those will reduce your aggro and increase RP gain, and are surely better than Blade Barrier for dpsing.

Tier two:

Bladed Armor and Two Handed Weapon Specialization: Both of those will increase your damage output greatly.

Tier Three:

Dark Conviction: 5% critical strike I use in each spec, and crit in frost is very useful.

Frost:

Tier one:

Imp. Icy touch and RP mastery is much better than armor for dps, and is the obvious choice.

Tier two:

Black Ice: A must-have for frost DK. A big percent of your damage is frost, and therefore this increase your dmg output by a heavy amount.

Icy Reach or Nerves of Cold Steel: Those depends on your spec. Icy Reach is just a small filler, but you don't need that when you DW and got Nerves.

Tier Three:

Icy Talons and Annihilation: 20% melee haste is incredible. It's a group buff pretty equal to blood DK's and enhancement shamans 10% AP. Also, 3% crit and you won't dispel diseases is very very useful.

Tier Four:

Killing Machine, Chill of the Grave: Killing Machine gives almost each critical white hit a free crit with HB and FS, and is a insane talent. Chill of the Grave gives more RP, and therefore more FSs'.

Tier five:

Glacier Rot and Deathchill: Glacier Rot: 20% increased dmg, Deathchill, one of very few Death Knight cooldowns. Useful on some boss fights, and a Deathchill HB combo is dangerous in AoE.

Tier six:

Imp Icy Talons, Merciless Combat and Rime: 20% attack speed to raid. 12% increased dmg to targets with less than 35% hp is a great boost when you start to get 10k crits . Rime: Free HB's is really useful, especially with Killing Machine.

Tier seven:

Nothing useful for dps here.

Tier eight:

Blood of the North: Gives your BS more dmg, and gives some Death Runes you can use for more OBs.

Tier Nine:

Frost Strike and Guile of Gorefiend: FS is one of the top damaging abilities, and Guile of Gorefiend increases crit damage to most of your abilities.

Tier ten:

Tundra Stalker: Even more damage, 15% extra as there is always at least one desease on the target.

Tier Eleven:

Howling Blast: A very useful AoE spell.

Unholy

Tier one:

Virulence: 3% more spellhit is pretty ok. The other effect is not for PvE tho.

 

How to DPS

Rotation: IT, PS, OB/HB, BS, BS. If your deseases are still up, or you chose to use Empowered Rune Weapon: OB, OB, OB, RP dump.

On RP dumps, use FS, or if out of range use DC untill you are in range.

Always keep deseases up on your targets, and remember: Single target= OB, AoE groups= HB.

AoE rotation:

DnD, IT, PS, Pestilence, HB, Boil Bloodx2, wait, HB, OB, Boil Blood. Repeat.

 

On boss fights you might want to cast Army of the Dead and Raise Dead to improve your dps.

 

Glyphs

You might chose between many glyphs, but here is what I use, and why.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Frost Strike: "zomgwtfbbq", this is the best glyph available. FS is your RP dump ability, and you should spam it often. Using this glyph allows you to use it even more.

Glyph of Death and Decay: 20% increased damage is a nice amount, + 35% from talents. DnD is very very useful in AoE groups.

Glyph of Obliterate: This also will increase your dmg so greatly it is a must-have for DKs. OB is your main ability, and should be spammed ALL the time.

 

Minor Glyphs

Glyph of Pestilence: Bonus range is nice.

Glyph of Horn of Winter: one min increases duration from 100% to 150%. nice.

Glyph of Raise Dead: No corpse dust wasted.

 

Macros

I do not use any "helpful" macros when dpsing, but I do use two fun ones.

 

Deathchill macro: Plays "You.. Will.. Die.." when cast Deatchill:

#showtooltip Deathchill

/cast Deathchill

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\CThun\\CThunYouWillDIe.wav")

 

Army of the Dead macro: Plays "Soildiers arise, Stand and fight! Bring victory at last, to this fallen knight." when cast Army of the Dead

#showtooltip Army of the Dead

/cast Army of the Dead

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\HeadlessHorseman\\Horseman_Special_01.wav")

 

Credits: ChildeRoland

[xKenji]

Credits?

[WebM0nst3r]

Credits to ChildeRoland i think :D

[xKenji]

Credits to ChildeRoland i think :D

 

added on first post where they are supposed to be :S

[Emrys]

added on first post where they are supposed to be :S

But I put it look by ****** in title

[Ident]

nice dps guide, thx for share it, specially the macro part of it :)

[Madboy]

Hi

I am new on Wow can someone tell me what is DPS?

[Emrys]

damage dealer.