Talent Builds
In this section I will give a comprehensive overview of talent builds for Raiding and Mythic Plus, as well as highlighting specific talents and their strengths/synergies.
These talent builds can be altered depending on your scenario, primarily being adapted based on what utility/defensive talents you may need/require to get the most out of the class.
[Raid] Breath of Sindragosa
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This build does its damage by using Frost Strike & Rime procs during Pillar of Frost to generate Killing Machine stacks. Killing Machine stacks up to 2 times and greatly increases Obliterate’s damage by making it always crit and deal Frost damage (which makes it scale with your Mastery: Frozen Heart). Consuming Killing Machine also applies Razorice to all targets in front of you via Arctic Assault, which buffs your weapon & Frost damage, further increasing the potency of your Obliterate casts.
Breath of Sindragosa is another source of throughput for this build and is extended by consuming Killing Machine stacks, so this plays very well into Obliteration as you are buffing Breath of Sindragosa with Pillar of Frost and also extending your Breath of Sindragosa with the Killing Machine stacks you are generating.
Pillar of Frost will also activate Remorseless Winter via the talent Frozen Dominion, and increases your Mastery for each target hit by 8%, stacking up to 5 times. This additional Mastery is additive so even on one target, you are still gaining 8% Frost damage for your entire Pillar of Frost window.
Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds, but is extended by an additional 6 seconds with The Long Winter. With Pillar of Frost being our most powerful cooldown, this drastically increases our throughput and allows us to generate more Killing Machine stacks and extend Breath of Sindragosa even further.Rime procs are additionally buffed by Northwinds and are important to reduce the cooldown of your Empower Rune Weapon via Frostbound Will. You will also have some cleave with Breath of Sindragosa, Glacial Advance (from Arctic Assault), Frostreaper, Remorseless Winter and Rime procs. However, if you are in an encounter with any form of cleave you should use the Breath of Sindragosa cleave build below instead.
Weapon Runeforges
- 2 Hand (recommended): Rune of the Fallen Crusader
- Dual Wield: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (Main Hand) + Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Off Hand)
[Raid] Breath of Sindragosa Cleave
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This build does its damage by using Frost Strike/Glacial Advance & Rime procs during Pillar of Frost to generate Killing Machine stacks. Killing Machine stacks up to 2 times and greatly increases Obliterate’s damage by making it always crit and deal Frost damage (which makes it scale with your Mastery: Frozen Heart). It also makes Frostscythe always crit and deal 4 times its normal crit damage.
Consuming Killing Machine also applies Razorice to all targets in front of you via Arctic Assault, which buffs your weapon & Frost damage, further increasing the potency of your Obliterate/Frostscythe casts.
Breath of Sindragosa is another source of throughput for this build and is extended by consuming Killing Machine stacks, so this plays very well into Obliteration as you are buffing Breath of Sindragosa with Pillar of Frost and also extending your Breath of Sindragosa with the Killing Machine stacks you are generating.
Pillar of Frost will also activate Remorseless Winter via the talent Frozen Dominion, and increases your Mastery for each target hit by 8%, stacking up to 5 times. This additional Mastery is additive so it's a significant Frost damage buff when dealing with multiple targets. Remorseless Winter is also amplified and extended by Gathering Storm, Biting Cold and Everfrost.
Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds, but is extended by an additional 6 seconds with The Long Winter. With Pillar of Frost being our most powerful cooldown, this drastically increases our throughput and allows us to generate more Killing Machine stacks and extend Breath of Sindragosa even further.Rime procs are additionally buffed by Northwinds and are important to reduce the cooldown of your Empower Rune Weapon via Frostbound Will.
While this is a cleave build, it only loses a small bit of single target damage, so overall it is the best all round build. With this build, you will want to use Obliterate & Frost Strike on 1-2 targets, then Frostscythe and Glacial Advance on 3+ targets. This build is made to be an effective way to deal boss damage while also having high cleave capabilities for additional targets.
Weapon Runeforges
- 2 Hand (recommended) - Rune of the Fallen Crusader
- Dual Wield - Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (Main Hand) + Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Off Hand)
[Raid] Shattering Blade
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This build does its damage by using Frost Strike & Rime procs during Pillar of Frost to generate Killing Machine stacks. Killing Machine stacks up to 2 times and greatly increases Obliterate’s damage by making it always crit and deal Frost damage (which makes it scale with your Mastery: Frozen Heart). Consuming Killing Machine also applies Razorice to all targets in front of you via Arctic Assault, which buffs your weapon & Frost damage, increases the potency of your Obliterate casts and once 5 stacks of Razorice have been applied to your target, your next Frost Strike will consume these Razorice stacks to deal additional damage via the talent Shattering Blade.
Razorice stacks are generated through auto attacks & Arctic Assault, and are used to play into another key talent of this build, Shattering Blade. It works well with Obliteration because the more Killing Machine stacks you generate and spend, the more Razorice stacks you will apply to feed into your Frost Strikes.
Pillar of Frost will also activate Remorseless Winter via the talent Frozen Dominion, and increases your Mastery for each target hit by 8%, stacking up to 5 times. This additional Mastery is additive so even on one target, you are still gaining 8% Frost damage for your entire Pillar of Frost window.
Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds, but is extended by an additional 6 seconds with The Long Winter. With Pillar of Frost being our most powerful cooldown, this drastically increases our throughput and allows us to generate more Killing Machine stacks and consume more Razorice.
Rime procs are additionally buffed by Northwinds and are important to reduce the cooldown of your Empower Rune Weapon via Frostbound Will.
You will also have some cleave with Glacial Advance (from Arctic Assault), Frostreaper, Remorseless Winter and Rime procs. However, if you are in a heavy cleave scenario or dealing with 3+ targets regularly, then using the Frostbane Cleave build is recommended.
Weapon Runeforges
Dual Wield: Rune of Razorice (Main Hand) + Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Off Hand)
[Raid] Frostbane Cleave
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This build does its damage by using Frost Strike/Glacial Advance & Rime procs during Pillar of Frost to generate Killing Machine stacks. Killing Machine stacks up to 2 times and greatly increases Obliterate’s damage by making it always crit and deal Frost damage (which makes it scale with your Mastery: Frozen Heart). It also makes Frostscythe always crit and deal 4 times its normal crit damage.
Consuming Killing Machine also applies Razorice to all targets in front of you via Arctic Assault, which buffs your weapon & Frost damage, increases the potency of your Obliterate/Frostscythe casts, and once 5 stacks of Razorice have been applied to your target your next Frost Strike will consume these Razorice stacks to deal additional damage via the talent Shattering Blade.
Razorice stacks are generated through auto attacks & Arctic Assault, and are used to play into another key talent of this build, Shattering Blade. It works well with Obliteration because the more Killing Machine stacks you generate and spend, the more Razorice stacks you will apply to feed into your Frost Strikes.
For this build to have a strong cleave/multi-target damage profile, it uses the capstone talent Frostbane to make Frost Strike cleave and consume Razorice stacks on multiple enemies around your target. Frostbane is triggered by Glacial Advance hitting an enemy that is afflicted with Razorice, and the proc chance is increased for each Razorice stack you have applied to that enemy.
As you consume Killing Machine stacks and shoot out Glacial Advances, Frostbane will passively proc and make your Frost Strike have powerful multi-target damage capabilities instead of just being a single target ability. If you do not have Frostbane after consuming Killing Machine stacks you will then use Glacial Advance instead of Frost Strike to spend runic power and attempt to manually trigger Frostbane.
Pillar of Frost will also activate Remorseless Winter via the talent Frozen Dominion, and increases your Mastery for each target hit by 8%, stacking up to 5 times. This additional Mastery is additive so it's a significant Frost damage buff when dealing with multiple targets. Remorseless Winter is also amplified and extended by Gathering Storm, Biting Cold and Everfrost.
Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds, but is extended by an additional 6 seconds with The Long Winter. With Pillar of Frost being our most powerful cooldown, this drastically increases our throughput and allows us to generate more Killing Machine stacks, consume more Razorice stacks and trigger Frostbane more frequently.
Rime procs are additionally buffed by Northwinds and are important to reduce the cooldown of your Empower Rune Weapon via Frostbound Will.
As this is a cleave build, you will want to use Obliterate & Frost Strike on 1-2 targets, then Frostscythe and Glacial Advance on 3+ targets, the only exception to this rule is if you have a Frostbane proc and 5 stacks of Razorice on your primary target, then you will use Frost Strike to consume Frostbane instead of Glacial Advance, then you can continue as normal until your next Frostbane proc.
Weapon Runeforges
Dual Wield: Rune of Razorice (Main Hand) + Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Off Hand)
[Mythic Plus] Breath of Sindragosa
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This build does its damage by using Frost Strike/Glacial Advance & Rime procs during Pillar of Frost to generate Killing Machine stacks. Killing Machine stacks up to 2 times and greatly increases Obliterate’s damage by making it always crit and deal Frost damage (which makes it scale with your Mastery: Frozen Heart). It also makes Frostscythe always crit and deal 4 times its normal crit damage.
Consuming Killing Machine also applies Razorice to all targets in front of you via Arctic Assault, which buffs your weapon & Frost damage, further increasing the potency of your Obliterate/Frostscythe casts.
Breath of Sindragosa is another source of throughput for this build and is extended by consuming Killing Machine stacks, so this plays very well into Obliteration as you are buffing Breath of Sindragosa with Pillar of Frost and also extending your Breath of Sindragosa with the Killing Machine stacks you are generating.
Pillar of Frost will also activate Remorseless Winter via the talent Frozen Dominion, and increases your Mastery for each target hit by 8%, stacking up to 5 times. This additional Mastery is additive so it's a significant Frost damage buff when dealing with multiple targets. Remorseless Winter is also amplified and extended by Gathering Storm, Biting Cold and Everfrost.
Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds, but is extended by an additional 6 seconds with The Long Winter. With Pillar of Frost being our most powerful cooldown, this drastically increases our throughput and allows us to generate more Killing Machine stacks and extend Breath of Sindragosa even further.
Rime procs are additionally buffed by Northwinds & Everfrost, and are important to reduce the cooldown of your Empower Rune Weapon via Frostbound Will.
As this is a cleave build, you will want to use Obliterate & Frost Strike on 1-2 targets, then Frostscythe and Glacial Advance on 3+ targets.
Situational Adjustments
Mythic Plus often requires different forms of utility depending on your comp and which key you are doing, so you can give up talents such as Wraith Walk, Grip of the Dead, Coldthirst, etc for others such as Anti-Magic Zone, Asphyxiate, Vestigial Shell, Control Undead, etc.
Weapon Runeforges
2 Hand (recommended) - Rune of the Fallen Crusader
Dual Wield - Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (Main Hand) + Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Off Hand)
[Mythic Plus] Frostbane
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This build does its damage by using Frost Strike/Glacial Advance & Rime procs during Pillar of Frost to generate Killing Machine stacks. Killing Machine stacks up to 2 times and greatly increases Obliterate’s damage by making it always crit and deal Frost damage (which makes it scale with your Mastery: Frozen Heart). It also makes Frostscythe always crit and deal 4 times its normal crit damage.
Consuming Killing Machine also applies Razorice to all targets in front of you via Arctic Assault, which buffs your weapon & Frost damage, increases the potency of your Obliterate/Frostscythe casts, and once 5 stacks of Razorice have been applied to your target your next Frost Strike will consume these Razorice stacks to deal additional damage via the talent Shattering Blade.
Razorice stacks are generated through auto attacks & Arctic Assault, and are used to play into another key talent of this build, Shattering Blade. It works well with Obliteration because the more Killing Machine stacks you generate and spend, the more Razorice stacks you will apply to feed into your Frost Strikes.
For this build to have a strong cleave/multi-target damage profile, it uses the capstone talent Frostbane to make Frost Strike cleave and consume Razorice stacks on multiple enemies around your target. Frostbane is triggered by Glacial Advance hitting an enemy that is afflicted with Razorice, and the proc chance is increased for each Razorice stack you have applied to that enemy.
As you consume Killing Machine stacks and shoot out Glacial Advances, Frostbane will passively proc and make your Frost Strike have powerful multi-target damage capabilities instead of just being a single target ability. If you do not have Frostbane after consuming Killing Machine stacks you will then use Glacial Advance instead of Frost Strike to spend runic power and attempt to manually trigger Frostbane.
Pillar of Frost will also activate Remorseless Winter via the talent Frozen Dominion, and increases your Mastery for each target hit by 8%, stacking up to 5 times. This additional Mastery is additive so it's a significant Frost damage buff when dealing with multiple targets. Remorseless Winter is also amplified and extended by Gathering Storm, Biting Cold and Everfrost.
Pillar of Frost lasts for 12 seconds, but is extended by an additional 6 seconds with The Long Winter. With Pillar of Frost being our most powerful cooldown, this drastically increases our throughput and allows us to generate more Killing Machine stacks, consume more Razorice stacks and trigger Frostbane more frequently.
Rime procs are additionally buffed by Northwinds & Everfrost, and are important to reduce the cooldown of your Empower Rune Weapon via Frostbound Will.
As this is a cleave build, you will want to use Obliterate & Frost Strike on 1-2 targets, then Frostscythe and Glacial Advance on 3+ targets, the only exception to this rule is if you have a Frostbane proc and 5 stacks of Razorice on your primary target, then you will use Frost Strike to consume Frostbane instead of Glacial Advance, then you can continue as normal until your next Frostbane proc.
Situational Adjustments
Mythic Plus often requires different forms of utility depending on your comp and which key you are doing, so you can give up talents such as Wraith Walk, Grip of the Dead, Coldthirst, etc for others such as Anti-Magic Zone, Asphyxiate, Vestigial Shell, Control Undead, etc.
Weapon Runeforges
(Dual Wield): Rune of Razorice (Main Hand) + Rune of the Fallen Crusader (Off Hand)
Hero Talents
Rider of the Apocalypse
This hero talent tree is themed around the 4 horsemen, giving you a chance to summon a horseman to assist you for 10 seconds. Each horseman has unique abilities which they will use to deal damage and also increase your damage.
Mograine
When summoned he will have a Death and Decay around him, this will always follow him wherever he goes. While standing inside it, you gain 5% crit and damage from Mograine’s Might.
Nazgrim
While active he will give you a 3% strength buff which is increased by either nearby enemies dying (3%) or spending a rune (1%).
Whitemane
She will cast a DoT called Undeath onto her target which deals damage over 24 seconds (this cannot be extended). Undeath applies an additional stack every 3 seconds, and can be stacked up further by using Obliterate/Frostscythe on the afflicted target (up to 15 stacks total). Obliterate/Frostscythe will also spread Undeath to nearby enemies.
Trollbane
When summoned, Trollbane will cast Chains of Ice on the target, which slows the target and increases the damage you deal to them by 5% for 8 seconds. He will keep applying this debuff to the target while he is active. This talent scales in both single and multi-target scenarios, because of Trollbane’s Icy Fury, so you will want to Obliterate/Frostscythe the target affected by Trollbane’s Chains of Ice for some additional cleave/multi-target damage.
Apocalypse Now
This hero talent tree is very burst oriented with Apocalypse Now, which makes Frost’s burst damage even stronger. This does mean that you have to talent into Frostwyrm’s Fury.
Defense/Utility Talents
Defense and mobility capabilities are also greatly enhanced with this hero tree, with Death Charge being one of the most powerful movement talents in the game. Death’s Advance is already a very strong ability when used properly, and Death Charge makes DK super fast and immune to displacement effects. You can also get a 5% damage reduction for each Rider that is active (which is a 20% damage reduction during Apocalypse Now) via Pact of the Apocalypse, or a lot of additional magic damage prevention/mitigation with Horsemen’s Aid.
What does Rider of the Apocalypse do for Frost's rotation/gameplay?
This hero talent specialization greatly increases the throughput of your Obliterate casts with Mawsworn Menace, as well as extend your Remorseless Winter by an additional 2 seconds with the same talent, which works very well with Frozen Dominion and Gathering Storm in multi-target scenarios.
The main reason for Rider of the Apocalypse working well with Frost is Trollbane’s Icy Fury. This is because it is Shadowfrost damage which scales with your Mastery: Frozen Heart, and can be consumed by Obliterate/Frostscythe so it will naturally detonate without having to change your gameplay too much around it. You still want to make it a higher priority to trigger the Trollbane’s Icy Fury because he can only reapply again once it has been consumed. It does decent single target damage and scales very well when hitting multiple targets, so it’s very well rounded and flexible for different damage profiles.
Rider of the Apocalypse is more of a passive bonus style specialization, rather than greatly altering your gameplay like Deathbringer. The main thing to keep in mind with Rider of the Apocalypse is that you will ALWAYS need to use Frostwyrm’s Fury in every build that you play, as that is how you trigger Apocalypse Now (the best hero talent Riders has) so that is something to keep in mind when playing with Rider of the Apocalypse.
Deathbringer
Deathbringer is themed around applying a Reaper’s Mark to your target, which detonates giving you Exterminate. This is a hero talent tree which does well in both single target and multi-target scenarios, with Exterminate doing a lot of multi-target damage. It also increases the potency of your Frost Fever with talents such as Wither Away.
Reaper's Mark
Reaper’s Mark is the core of this hero talent spec. It costs two runes and when applied deals instant damage, then gains stacks over its duration. After 12 seconds or by reaching 40 stacks, it detonates and empowers your next Obliterate/Frostscythe with Exterminate. This bonus will make your next 2 Obliterate/Frostscythe casts cost 1 rune and send out 2 scythes. The first scythe will deal damage to your primary target and grant you a stack of Killing Machine, while the second scythe will hit all enemies near/behind your main target and apply Frost Fever to all targets hit via Wither Away.
Grim Reaper
This talent simply grants a Killing Machine proc after using Reaper’s Mark and increases the detonation damage of Reaper’s Mark based on the target's missing health by up to 30%. This talent is useful in both single and multi-target scenarios in comparison to Reaper of Souls, which is a single target based talent which buffs Soul Reaper.
Reaper of Souls
Reaper of Souls is a single target focused talent that empowers Soul Reaper throughout the entire encounter, and allows for Soul Reaper uses before a boss is within execute range (=<35% health). During your execute phase it will enable you to use 2 Soul Reapers back to back, as you can apply Soul Reaper, then cast Reaper’s Mark to reset the cooldown of Soul Reaper. This can also be useful during Pillar of Frost windows, as Soul Reaper triggers Killing Machine during Pillar of Frost (when playing with Obliteration).
Dark Talons
Auto attacking is a key part of Frost's kit as it procs Killing Machine, Runic Attenuation, Icy Death Torrent and The Long Winter. Auto attacks are also empowered by talents such as Smothering Offense. With this in mind, Dark Talons is a very strong talent as it can give you two additional Icy Talons stacks, resulting in more attack speed. It also makes Breath of Sindragosa, Frost Strike, Death Strike and Glacial Advance act as if they dealt Shadow Frost damage, doubling the stacks of Reaper’s Mark you generate via Bind in Darkness (which detonates Reaper’s Mark much faster).
Reaper’s Onslaught
Reaper’s Onslaught simply reduces the cooldown of Reaper’s Mark to 30 seconds, but reduces the amount of Obliterate/Frostscythe empowered to 1. This talent is not worth playing as you will always want to sync your Reaper’s Mark with your Pillar of Frost (which is a 45 second cooldown).
Defense/Utility Talents
Outside of throughput Deathbringer has two defensive gains with Rune Carved Plates, essentially giving you a permanent 10% magic and physical damage reduction, which is very strong. It also has Death’s Messenger, making your Lichborne a 1.5 minute cooldown, which is a nice defensive bonus if you also use the talent Unholy Endurance. You also gain a minor throughput increase with this talent, because it also makes your Raise Dead a 1.5 minute cooldown. Both of these talents are the strongest in each of their choice nodes, so you will want to use these most if not all the time.
What does Deathbringer do for Frost’s rotation/gameplay?
Deathbringer plays well into Frost’s kit for multiple builds, because Exterminate reduces the rune cost of your Obliterate/Frostscythe casts to 1 rune, which frees up more runes to be spent on additional Obliterate/Frostscythe’s after generating more Killing Machine stacks. Reaper’s Mark has the same cooldown as Pillar of Frost so they can always be used together. When you use Reaper’s Mark you will gain a Killing Machine stack via Grim Reaper, and also shoot out a Wave of Souls, increasing all of your damage dealt by 5-10% to all targets hit for 15 seconds (which will last for the majority of your Pillar of Frost window).Rime damage is also increased by Bind in Darkness, multiplicatively scaling with Northwinds and Everfrost.Reaper’s Mark and Exterminate have great cleave potential and do high bursts of Shadowfrost damage, which is buffed by Pillar of Frost, Frozen Dominion, Wave of Souls & Bonegrinder.