Frost Deathknight Gearing Guide

In Season 4 of Dragonflight, we will be able to acquire the Season 2 tierset (as voted for by the community)! This can be obtained from raid bosses across all 3 of the Awakened Raids. We will also be able to craft tier pieces with the Creation Catalyst from week 1 of the season. You will want to get this tier set as it is an excellent bonus to your throughput!

Season 4 Tier Set

• 2 Set Bonus: Howling Blast damage increased by 20%. Consuming Rime increases the damage of your next Frostwyrm's Fury by 5%, stacking 10 times. Pillar of Frost calls a Frostwyrm's Fury at 30% effectiveness that cannot Freeze enemies.
• 4 Set Bonus: Frostwyrm's Fury causes enemies hit to take 20% increased damage from your critical strikes for 12 sec.

2 Set Bonus

On Frost you will generally get quite a lot of Rime procs, especially during Abomination Limb. So the first part of this tier set bonus is just a nice bonus to those Rime procs, the rest of the bonus also gives those Rime procs more value by giving your next Frostwyrm’s Fury 5% additional damage per stack up to 50% (although, it will be pretty hard to get 10 stacks before your next Pillar of Frost).

This is nice to buff the Frostwyrm’s Fury that comes out from this set bonus, however the bread and butter of this tier-set comes from the 4 Set Bonus, which we will discuss next.

4 Set Bonus

With this 4 Set Bonus, the value of crit for Frost skyrockets. Pillar of Frost is a vital cooldown in Frost’s kit and has a few talents to complement it throughout the Frost talent tree, so adding 20% increased critical strike damage during Pillar of Frost windows is insanely good. So naturally the value of crit goes up, the more crits you get during Pillar of Frost, the more value you are getting out of this Set Bonus, and there is another talent which works very well with more crit… Icecap. It’s going to create a snowball effect where more crit will allow you to deal more damage during Pillar of Frost, and also increase the rate at which Pillar of Frost comes off cooldown through Icecap, which then leads to more Pillar of Frost uptime. Needless to say, you are going to be getting a lot of value from this Set Bonus, and it scales incredibly well in all scenarios.

Where do I get tier pieces in Season 4?

Tier set pieces can be acquired from a number of bosses in each Awakened Raid. You can also acquire a piece of gear from Mythic Plus, an Awakened Raid or your weekly vault and turn it into a tier piece of the same slot with the Creation Catalyst!

Frost Death Knight Best in Slot Gear

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.

Frost Death Knight Raid Best in Slot List

These lists will provide the Best in Slot gear for a raid environment, using gear from both Mythic+ and the raid itself, including both Breath of Sindragosa and Obliteration builds.

Breath of Sindragosa Raid Best in Slot

Obliteration Raid Best in Slot

Frost Death Knight Mythic+ Best in Slot List

This list will provide the Best in Slot gear for doing M+ keys focusing on damage output.

Obliteration M+ Best in Slot List

Notable Items

Fyr’alath the Dreamrender - Death Knights this season have a legendary weapon which they can obtain from Amirdrassil the Dreams Hope raid. This is a random drop from Fyrakk the Blazing, with a bad luck protection system built in for each time the weapon does not drop, so you will eventually get it!

This is an insanely powerful weapon and the best 2H in the game. Not only is it the highest item level, but it also has an on use ability and passive damage effect (without losing any secondary stats for it, which is really big!).

Bare in mind however, that 2H Breath of Sindragosa isn’t very viable, and this weapon is only strong for the Obliteration build.

The on use is a channeled ability and you cannot do anything else while this ability is channeling. You will want to use this before you use your Pillar of Frost as the ability does not affect the throughput of your other cooldowns so you don’t want to use it during your Obliteration window. The weapon ability also has a 2 minute cooldown, so it will naturally not align with your other abilities as long as you use it on cooldown.

Gholak, the Final Conflagration & Strike Twice: Both of these weapons are the best you can get for Breath of Sindragosa (as long as they are at the maximum ilvl, if you have another 1H weapon that is a higher ilvl, it is worth simming because the dps gained from weapon ilvl might surpass the bonus effects on these weapons). The main reason why is because not only are the stats good, but you also get a unique additional damage effect on the weapons without losing any secondary or primary stat value, making these weapons better than any other 1H weapon in the game (when comparing at equal ilvls, of course).

Whispering Incarnate Icon: This is one of the best trinkets for both Breath of Sindragosa and Obliteration if you are able to get a tank and healer to also use this same trinket. If you cannot, then it is still strong but will fall behind other options such as Neltharion’s Call to Suffering or Elementium Pocket Anvil. As there will be a lot of trinkets available to everyone in Season 4, it may be difficult to secure the additional buffs for this trinket to pay off, so these are some others options you can consider if that is the case.

Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge - Frost this late into an expansion scales exceptionally well with secondary stats, even when they are hitting diminishing returns. This trinket buffs you with a steady flow of secondary stats throughout a dungeon/raid, which plays well into Breath of Sindragosa (which is less burst oriented, and more of a sustained damage profile) and Obliteration (due to the high frequency of Obliteration windows).

Neltharion’s Call to Suffering: This trinket is mainly good due to the large amount of primary stat (strength) you get once it procs, so if it procs during your cooldowns then it provides a significant boost to your throughput. Frost has quite a consistent damage profile, so this trinkets rng factor is not too bad for both Breath of Sindragosa and Obliteration. I recommend using this trinket when you are not able to get the maximum benefit out of Ominous Chromatic Essense.

Ominous Chromatic Essense: This is one of the best performing trinkets for Frost on sims, however you do need other people using this trinket with different buffs in the raid to get most of the value out of it (so you benefit from all of the secondary stat buffs). In season 4 there are a lot of very strong trinkets so it might be hard to get all 5 of the buffs, in which case you’re better off using Neltharion’s Call to Suffering instead. The stat you attune it to will depend on your current gear, to make sure to sim your gear to find the best stat to use for it.

Voice of the Silent Star: While this cloak is a dps increase, it does come with a cost. When using this cloak you will sacrifice quite a lot of health for it (Death Knight has stamina multipliers such as Veteran of the Third War), which is definitely not worthwhile in a progress setting so I would only recommend using this cloak in farm scenarios when you and your guild are comfortable with the raid and are not having any issues with survivability.

Seal of Diurna’s Chosen & Seal of Filial Duty: In Season 1 of Dragonflight, Frost Death Knight’s didn’t really use these rings, as there were not many ways to proc their effects (they are procced by fire damage). However, in Season we have Fyr’alath the Dreamrender, which applies a DoT which will constantly tick and deal Shadowflame damage (Fire and Shadow damage). This means that we can reliably proc the effects of these rings which makes them much better for us in Season 4.

Another reason is because in Season 4 we have so many secondary stats, that our “ideal” stats are going to be hitting very high diminishing returns thresholds, so the value of the less desirable stats goes up because we already have enough of our most important stats. So the downside of these rings having stats we wouldn’t typically want is not much of a thing in Season 4.

Crafted Embellishment Gear

Torc of Passed Time & Primal Molten Vambraces (with Blue Silken Lining) - This embellishment provides a lot of Mastery while you are above 90% health which can be very strong for Frost (due to the increased Frost damage from Mastery: Frozen Heart).

Currently these embellishments are giving the most total throughput, however they can be quite inconsistent if you are frequently taking damage (which is typical during progression). So, when using Blue Silken Lining you want to make sure that you are at least getting 30% total uptime of the buff to make using them worthwhile.

In Season 4 this is generally quite achievable as the raids you will be doing are in a nerfed state to their original form, and if you have been playing Dragonflight since launch you will know how to best mitigate the damage you will be taking, making optimisation for Blue Silken Lining more reliable.

DISCLAIMER: If you are struggling to get at least 30%+ uptime on Blue Silken Lining then you should consider using the following alternatives.

Elemental Lariat - Lariat is a solid option once you have at least 6+ sockets in your gear. Generally I don’t recommend using this embellishment early on in the season as you won’t be able to get the max benefit out of it. As mentioned in the disclaimer this is a good option if you are struggling to get good uptime out of Blue Silken Lining instead of Torc of Passed Time.

Allied Wristguard of Companionship - This embellishment is very simple and just gives you a decent amount of Versatility. Not the best option sim wise, but certainly not the worst and can be a worthwhile embellishment if you are struggling with Blue Silken Lining uptime. You can use these instead of Primal Molten Vambraces if that is the case.

Bullion Items Priority List

In Season 4 we will have access to Antique Bronze Bullions by defeating Awakened raid bosses! You will be able to acquire one Antique Bronze Bullion a week, and items will cost you 2 Antique Bronze Bullions. These items are all of the weapons, trinkets and unique items from all three Awakened Dragonflight raids, so this is a great way to acquire those key pieces of powerful raid gear.

Here is a list of which items you want to prioritize and in what order (if you manage to loot one of these items before you acquire it via Bullions, then you are lucky and can move onto the next!)

1. Scale of Awakening - used to upgrade Fyr’alath the Dreamrender if you are playing Obliteration. However if you are playing Breath of Sindragosa then prioritize Gholak, the Final Conflagration instead.
2. Neltharion’s Call to Suffering
3. Seal of Diurna’s Chosen
4. Seal of Filial Duty
5. Voice of the Silent Star