[DK Guide] -Riku-'s PvE DPS Frost DPS Guide for Death Knights.

[SuperNinjaBob]

Introduction:

Well after doing a lot of research into frost DPS, and reading ChildeRoland's guide: (http://www.mmowned.com/forums/wow-gu...dps-guide.html) ( Good Guide btw )
The guide posted above, has inspired me to make my own guide. I have raided a while as Frost DPS.

No one really knows the Death Knight. What I mean by that is people that have been playing their class for a year or two can say they know their class, anyone who says that about a Death Knight is full of themselves. I may not know all about the Death Knight but I have tried to learned as much as I could, starting with Frost DPS PvE. So enjoy and please comment.

Things to note:

* When doing DPS it should be in Blood Presence.
* Make sure Horn of Winter is up.
* Make sure diseases are up, they really increase your dps.
* You should use Fallen Crusader as your Runeforge enchant.

Acronyms:

Death Knight - DK
Icy Touch - IT
Plague Strike - PS
Blood Strike - BS
Obliterate - OB
Frost Strike - FS
Howling Blast - HB
Death Coil - DC
Blood Boil - BB
Death and Decay - DnD
Attack Power - AP
Runic Power - RP
Two-Hander - 2h
Damage Per Second - DPS
Global Cooldown - GCD

Ideal Frost PvE DPS Build+Glyphs

2h - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
(Note: I haven't put too much research into DW Frost DPS, so I cannot say much about DW, I will do more research and update the guide later. Though you should be 2h because your FS, BS, PS, and OB and based off of your main hand weapon damage.)

Overview of the build:

Blood:

Butchery - 2 RP/ 5 seconds will make a difference.
Subversion - Reduces threat by 25% and increases Crit of OB and BS.
Bladed Armor - Increases AP by 5 for every 180 armor you have. Good AP increase.
2h Weapon Specialization - Increases damage with you 2h by 2%, pretty decent.
Dark Conviction - Great Crit increase. I would call it a staple for Frost DPS.

Frost:

Improved Icy Touch - A great 15% increased damage for IT.
Runic Power Mastery - Give you 30 more base RP. Increased RP dump.
Black Ice - 10% increase for shadow and frost damage? Not too shabby.
Icy Talons- Increases haste, more white hits basically.
Annihilation - A staple spec in PvE Frost DPS. OB consumes no diseases and increased OB crit by 3%.
Killing Machine - Often occurance of making your IT, HB, or FS crit.
Chill of the Grave - May not seem like it but a great RP generation.
Glacier Rot - Diseased enemies take 20% more damage from IT, FS, and HB. Always make sure diseases are up.
Deathchill - Yay! A guaranteed crit from IT, HB, FS or OB every 2min.
Improved Icy Talons - Moar haste, moar white strikes.
Merciless Combat - +12% Damage from IT, HB, FS, and OB when target's health is less then 35%. Good DPS increase.
Rime - Free HB Procs.
Blood of the North - Another staple talent. Needed to get off the rotation below.
Unbreakable Armor - Increases strength by 25% for 20sec. Hit this and then hit Blood Tap. So it doesn't mess up your rotation.
Frost Strike - Your Frost DPS RP Dump. It's your friend.
Tundra Stalker - 15% damage increase and 5 expertise? What more could you ask for.
Howling Blast - Your Frost AoE.

Unholy

Virulence - 3% increase to hit rating, get it. Less hit rating gems and gear you need.

Glyphs

Major:
Frost Strike - -8RP required for FS. Now with a full 130 RP, you can do 4 FS.
Obliterate - Increases damage from OB by 20%, which is quite a alot.
Icy Touch - Increases RP gain from IT by 10, get more FS off during RP dumps.

Minor:
Horn of Winter - Make it last longer by 1min.
Pestilence - Increase the range of Pestilence by 5 yards. Useful for AoE.
Raise Dead - Less money spent and more inventory space.


Stats:

Hit Rating - You need 262.32 hit rating to hit the required hit cap. This should be your first priority.

Expertise - You need 21 expertise (26 but you get 5 from Tundra Stalker) get it.

Strength - After those two, you can finally start focusing on strength.
Every 1 Strength = 2 AP basically.

Crit Rating - An important stat, You need 45.91 Crit Rating to gain 1% melee and spell crit. The crit you get from your gear is more than sufficient where necessary. Out of all the trees, Frost benefits the most from it.

Haste - Only affects white strikes, 1% Haste will generate 1% more auto attack DPS. Not a very good stat for a Death Knight

Agility - Not even remotely useful as Crit rating, you need 62.5 Agility to gain 1% Crit. Agility doesn't increase spell crit.

Stamina - Generally only needed for PvP, you don't really need it if you have good gear.

Spell Power - You don't need it at all, you don't need it ever. Never get it. Ever.

Rotations

Single Target -

PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> OB -> RP Dump
PS -> IT -> OB -> OB -> RP Dump

AoE - Almost all the time you will be doing single target but here is your AoE rotation:

PS -> IT -> Pestilence -> HB -> BB -> BB

* Note: Unless Empower Rune Weapon is up, don't use DnD.

Extras

EventAlert - Addons - Curse

A useful addon to tell me when Rune Strike or Rime procs.


This is it guys, again please post questions or comments
I thank Scrawl and gumbo999 for pointing out some errors.



Guide by
-Riku-

[Scrawl]

In reality, what PvE Death knight wouldn't use Fallen Crusader RuneForge?

[SuperNinjaBob]

In reality, what PvE Death knight wouldn't use Fallen Crusader RuneForge?

A frost specced one.

Do I win?

[gumbo999]

Two major mistake. Rune of FC > Razorice in most situations. You only need enough hit for yellow attacks melee not spell attacks, which is 8%, anyone who tells you otherwise is dead wrong. The only reason I may see spell cap being important if you're trying out an 6x IT rotation with death rune mastery which is still a rather experimental spec and even then I'm still rather hesitant to believe spell hit will outdo strength.

[SuperNinjaBob]

Two major mistake. Rune of FC > Razorice in most situations. You only need enough hit for yellow attacks melee not spell attacks, which is 8%, anyone who tells you otherwise is dead wrong. The only reason I may see spell cap being important if you're trying out an 6x IT rotation with death rune mastery which is still a rather experimental spec and even then I'm still rather hesitant to believe spell hit will outdo strength.

Well I've tested Fallan Crusader and Razorice more then once and they were pretty close but Razorice turned out to do better.
Maybe it's changed but I will go test it again.

EDIT: Razorice wins

And about hit rating, the majority of your attacks will be spell based. (IT, HB, and FS) when you cap it you will see a difference. I have tried this spec with and without Virulence. Trust me, hit really counts and people who say you should just be capped at 8% is wrong.

[Scrawl]

I believe Frost Strike falls under the 8% cap not the spellcap, for indeed it is a melee swing with just added frost damage, not a frost spell.

[SuperNinjaBob]

I believe Frost Strike falls under the 8% cap not the spellcap, for indeed it is a melee swing with just added frost damage, not a frost spell.

Frost damage is spell damage. If you look at HB and IT they both say Frost damage.

[Scrawl]

It's a melee swing that'll deal spelldamage on contact - Thus not missing. You can't Hit Frost Strike and miss the frost damage - Howling Blast, Your right, Frost Strike though is an 8% hitcap.

[SuperNinjaBob]

It's a melee swing that'll deal spelldamage on contact - Thus not missing. You can't Hit Frost Strike and miss the frost damage - Howling Blast, Your right, Frost Strike though is an 8% hitcap.

You have a point.

Still, I have a little over 13% Spell hit, with virulence.
I tried going without it and my DPS went down. I'd rather be safe then sorry.

And Frost Strike can be resisted.

[gumbo999]

Yes frost strike is indeed considered a melee hit that deals frost damage which falls under the 8% cap. The reason caster value spell hit so much is due to the fact that if your spell miss you lose 1:mana used on the spell and 2:The amount of time spent casting the spell. For DK if any hit does not land your runes are not used and the only thing you lose is a GCD which is why hit is not as valuable as strength.

As for FC vs RazorIce, The only time I can see it being better is on fight where boss are completely stationary and you can keep up 5 stacks continously. Any fight that require some movement may cause the stacks to drop which will substantially lower your dps. Even as frost majority of your damage falls under melee white hit and obliterate which does not benefit from razorice.

[SuperNinjaBob]

You're right I will have to edit the guide.
Thanks for pointing that out.

[Lucent~]

Good format, easy to read and understand. Great job +Rep

[maww]

Oh my ): please don't use this as a guideline for your frost dps.

Hit Rating - You need 163.95 hit rating with Virulence to hit the required hit cap. This should be your first priority.

Virulence is spell hit - you still need 8% for all your melee attacks.

Crit Rating - After Hit rating, start with crit rating. You should get about 30% ( unbuffed crit rating before you move on.

No.

Strength - After those two, you can finally start focusing on strength.
Every 1 Strength = 2 AP basically.

This is your #1 stat to stack. It's on par with hit and expertise, prior soft caps, in terms of returns.
Also, you completely left expertise out, which is just as important as hit. And in your rotations - you forgot to include weaving in of frost strikes as killing machine procs. This is what makes frost dps dps.

And frost dps isn't competitive until you attain a XT sigil, so if you feel like gimping yourself then by all means.

[ChildeRoland]

Nice guide, I can see that I inspired you ^^ (the starting of the guide is pretty the same ^^ )
I have always used Rune of the Fallen Crusader, for my OB crits, but I haven't thought about it, after I got Sigil of the somthing that drops from Deconstructor 25 man I should really have changed to razorice.. Think I'll try next raid and check my dps

+rep for nice guide and for the tip.

[Thidan]

*Cough*51/2/18*Cough*4.5k dps*Cough*
Good guide nonetheless, although I prefer ye olde Blood spec.