Frost Death Knight Gearing Guide

Season 3 has a unique approach to tier sets this time around, as the tier set bonuses are based on your hero talent specialization.

Rider of the Apocalypse Tier Set Bonus:

• 2 Set Bonus:Pillar of Frost now summons Trollbane for 10 sec. Trollbane’s Icy Fury deals 20% increased damage and his Obliterate deals 35% increased damage.
• 4 Set Bonus: Casting Obliterate or Frostscythe orders Trollbane to cast his Obliterate or Frostscythe alongside you at 100% effectiveness. Your Obliterate deals 20% increased damage to targets affected by Trollbane’s Icy Fury.

Deathbringer Tier Set Bonus:

• 2 Set Bonus:Casting Reaper’s Mark grants 1 stack of Exerminate with 150% first scythe and 125% second scythe effectiveness.
• 4 Set Bonus: Exterminate deals 20% increased damage, and Reaper’s Mark can stack up to 15 additional times. Upon exploding, Reaper’s Mark increases your critical strike chance by 10% for 8 sec.

Rider of the Apocalypse Tier Set

The strongest aspect of Rider of the Apocalypse is Trollbane for Frost, so this tierset activates this strength much more frequently, and most importantly during your most powerful cooldown Pillar of Frost. This tierset scales well in both single and multi-target damage profiles as Trollbane’s Icy Fury does ample damage in both.

Trollbane’s Icy Fury can now also be consumed by Obliterate as well as Obliterate, so even in multi-target your Trollbane’s Icy Fury will naturally pop while you’re consuming Killing Machine stacks with Frostscythe.

Trollbane himself also mimics your Obliterate and Frostscythe casts, which is a nice added bonus that adapts based on your actions so it works in both single and multi-target scenarios as well.

Obliterate is also a significant portion of your damage overall, so the additional 20% increased Obliterate damage on targets affected by Trollbane’s Icy Fury is very potent when combined with Killing Machine and your other buffs such as Pillar of Frost, Frozen Dominion, etc.

Deathbringer Tier Set

Exterminate is a very heavy hitting ability in both single and multi-target scenarios and is buffed by an additional 20% with this tierset bonus. The first Exterminate you get from the 2 set bonus hits extremely hard with the 50/25% increase effectiveness, especially if it crits. The first Exterminate is also always paired with Pillar of Frost as Reaper’s Mark has a cooldown of 45 seconds, so your Exterminate’s are always going to be buffed by Pillar of Frost and other buffs that follow with it such as Frozen Dominion.

Reaper’s Mark is also a significant portion of your damage, and even more so when it crits. The 15 additional stacks increase the damage that it will do, which further increases its scaling with Grim Reaper. It can also potentially delay it a little more which can be useful as it creates a bit more of a time buffer for your Wave of Souls to return, which will buff the damage of Reaper’s Mark and subsequent Exterminates by an additional 3%.

Frost is a very crit dependent spec, so the additional additive crit rating is also a very strong buff, although it only lasts 8 seconds which is not the full duration of Pillar of Frost.

The tables below aim to give you a general list of gear that is good for Frost Death Knight, these lists are not a perfect replacement for simming your character.

• Raiding
• Mythic+

This section will cover the most notable and strong items that you will want to acquire in this season, as well as alternative trinket options you can use if you don’t have the best ones yet.

Best Frost DK Trinkets:

• Araz’s Ritual Forge (On use)
• Astral Antenna (Passive)

Good/Decent Trinkets:

• Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker (Passive)
• Cursed Stone-Idol (On use)
• Unyielding Netherprism (On use)

Other Notable/Strong Items:

• Interloper’s Plated Sabatons

Everforged Vambracers & Everforged Greatbelt (with Dawnthread Lining).

In Season 3 Frost is currently tuned to perform best using 2 handed weapons. Due to this and the additional weapon ilvls you can gain from using weapons like Maw of the Void instead of a crafted weapon, Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension is not as worthwhile as Dawnthread Lining.

So, as we are not using Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension or Writhing Armor Banding (as it loses all of its value if it’s not buffing a Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension weapon), double Dawnthread Lining is the best option. Dawnthread Lining gives your best secondary stat (Crit), and Death Knight in general is a very strong class defensively, so your uptime on Dawnthread Lining is going to be pretty decent as well.

Reshii Wraps

Patch 11.2 takes you through a campaign in the new zone K’aresh. After completing Chapter 4 of the campaign you will unlock a new Artifact cloak called the Reshii Wraps. You will upgrade this cloak as you progress through the season and this will be the only cloak you use as no other cloaks are dropping from season 3 content. You can upgrade the cloak by turning in Ethereal Strands which are earned by doing World Content, Raid Bosses, Delves and Mythic Plus.

The Reshii Wraps have a passive damage effect which does not impact your rotation so there’s not much you can do with it other than upgrade and slot a Fibre into the socket slot to allocate a specific secondary stat to it. These Fibres come in two different qualities, with the best versions (Pure Fibers) requiring a Tailor to craft them for you via a Work Order.

It is always best to sim which Fiber is best for you in your current gear setup, but generally Frost will want to use Pure Energizing Fiber (Mastery).

Pure Fiber Stats:

• Pure Chronomatic Fiber (Haste)
• Pure Precise Fiber (Crit)
• Pure Energizing Fiber (Mastery)
• Pure Dexterous Fiber (Versatility)