Frost Death Knight Class Guide - MoP Classic

Welcome to our Mists of Pandaria Classic (MoP Classic) Frost Death Knight Class Guide for Phase 1, it focuses on getting you up to speed with the Spec for PvE content, Dungeons and Raiding. The guide includes key information for what has changed going into MoP, the best Talent builds, Major Glyphs, your Rotation, Gearing and Consumables for Frost Death Knight.

Table of Content

• Changes from Cataclysm to MoP
• Talents
• Rotation & Abilities
• Gearing & Consumables

What’s New for Frost Death Knights in Mists of Pandaria Classic

Being a Death Knight in World of Warcraft has always been good since its release. Always strong, with a lot of good build options, and a unique play style loved by a lot of players. Will that change in Mists of Pandaria? No. Death Knights in MoP go through a few changes, but most of them are QoL changes. Your rotation will be slightly altered, but it will still be pretty close to what you knew in Cataclysm. Here are the main changes:

• Anti-Magic Zone has been reworked: you can now place it wherever you want, but it lasts 3 seconds.
• Our Global Cooldown is set to 1 second.
• Icebound Fortitude, Dancing Rune Weapon, Mind freeze, Bone Shield have no resource cost anymore.
• Plagues will now last 30 seconds.
• Horn of Winter now increases attack power.
• Unholy Presence increases haste but no longer increase attack speed.
• Scent of Blood has been reworked.

Is Frost Death Knight Good?

Frost DKs are fine at the start of Mists of Pandaria Classic. It’s still a very good leveling specialization, great to face the challenges of the open world on your own while still dealing pretty good damage when you reach level 90. The little change Blizzard brought to the spec is welcomed and gives interesting changes without modifying the specs’ nature. Frost Death Knight is a safe pick in MoP Classic, but maybe not the best one.

Best Talents & Glyphs for Frost Death Knight in MoP Classic

The new talent system gives us a lot of utility options. In this guide, we will provide you with 2 default talent builds for Raids and Dungeons, but always consider changing your talent choices depending on the specific encounter or Dungeon.

Frost Death Knight Raiding Talent Build

In Raids, we would advise you to try this raiding talent build out. There are a few changes you can make and a few talents we need to talk about. Consider these changes:

• In raid fights with a lot of AoE, swap Plague Leech for Roiling Blood. There needs to be a lot of cleave to make this change worthwhile.
• Purgatory can be swapped with Anti-Magic Zone if you need a strong defensive cooldown for your whole raid.
• Remorseless Winter can be picked if you don’t need the mass grip from Gorefiend’s Grasp.

Finally, regarding damage output, Blood Tap is better than other options in this row, but Runic Corruption is a strong competitor and is way easier to play around, so you might want to consider this talent if you are new to Frost Death Knight.

Best Frost Death Knight Raid Glyphs

Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Pestilence, Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, Glyph of Loud Horn.

Other choices might be Glyph of Regenerative Magic, Glyph of Outbreak, Glyph of Festering Blood for AoE Damage and Glyph of Dark Simulacrum.

Minor Glyphs aren’t that great, so take whatever you want.

Frost Death Knight Dungeons & Challenge Mode Talent Build

In dungeon builds, you mostly want the same talents. You can change depending on the dungeon in very niche situation. However, Gorefiends Grasp is even better in dungeons, so you will most likely never change that.

In dungeons and in challenge modes, there are often more things happening than in raid, and we find Runic Corruption to be better for players that are not completely familiar with their class and the challenge modes.

Best Frost Death Knight Dungeon Glyphs

Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Pestilence, Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, Glyph of Loud Horn.

Other choices might be Glyph of Regenerative Magic, Glyph of Outbreak, Glyph of Festering Blood for AoE Damage and Glyph of Dark Simulacrum.

Minor Glyphs aren’t that great, so take whatever you want.

Rotation for Frost Death Knight in MoP Classic

Frost Death Knights use two resources: Runes and Runic Power. Depending on what resource you have available, your rotation will change a lot.

Single Target Rotation & Priority

1. Stay in Frost Presence.
2. Maintain Horn of Winter if assigned to it.
3. Maintain Frost Fever and Blood Plague.
4. Use Army of the Dead only just before pulling.
5. Use Raise Dead on cooldown.
6. Use Empower Rune Weapon on cooldown if you have no Runes.
7. Use Pillar of Frost on cooldown.
8. Use Blood Tap if you aren’t capped in runes and with at least 10 charges.
9. Use Plague Leech with 2 Runes on cooldown and less than 3 seconds on Blood Plague.
10. Cast Howling Blast with free Rime procs.
11. Cast Obliterate to spend Unholy Runes.
12. Use Howling Blast on cooldown.
13. Use Frost strike to spend Runic Power.

Regarding openers, you need to first summon the dead: cast Army of the Dead, Raise dead, Horn of Winter. Then cast Howling Blast and Plague Strike to get your diseases on your targets, and finish with Pillar of Frost before continuing with your single target rotation.

AoE Rotation & Priority

1. Use Pestilence to spread diseases.
2. Maintain Death and Decay.
3. Proceed with single target rotation.

Best Gear & Stats for Frost Death Knight in MoP Classic

Best in Slot (BiS Gear) aren’t as big in Mists of Pandaria Classic. Reforging is the new hype, so you can tailor your gear better than before.

The gear you should aim for are: Trinkets, Tier Sets and Weapons.

The best weapons you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:

• Inelava, Spirit of Inebriation, from Stormstout Brewery, Yan-Zhu the Uncasked
• Masterwork Phantasmal Hammer from Blacksmithing.

The best pre-raid trinkets for Frost Death Knight are:

• Relic of Xuen from Inscription.
• Lessons of the Darkmaster from Scholomance, Darkmaster Gandling.
• Mogu Rune of Paralysis, Justice points.
• Ghost Iron Dragonling, from Engineering.

MoP Classic Frost Death Knight Stat Priority

Reach your Hit cap, so 7.5% and then your Expertise cap, also around 7.5%. Then, Strength is your best stats.

Regarding the other stats, you want to get a lot of Mastery, then Critical Strike Chance and finally Haste, in that order.

Consumables, Enchants & Gems for Frost Death Knight in MoP Classic

The following tables outline the recommended Consumables, Enchants and Gems for Frost Death Knight in Raiding and Dungeon content.

Consumables

Enchants

Gems

We hope this guide helped you improve your Frost Death Knight Gameplay and better understand the spec. To check out all of our MoP Classic content, such as Class Guides, Tier Lists and more, you can browse our full library of MoP Classic Guides.