Frost Death Knight Raid Guide

Offensive Nodes

• Rider's Champion - Each Rune spent gives you a 10% chance to summon one of the following Four Horsemen:
  • Mograine
    • Puts up a Death and Decay that follows him.
      • You gain the benefit of Mograine's Might and Unholy Ground if you are standing in this.
  • Whitemane
    • Undeath is a disease with a 24 second duration that spreads and gains 1 stack every time you use Obliterate on the infected target.
  • Trollbane
    • Repeatedly casts Chains of Ice over his duration that gets shattered by Obliterate with Trollbane's Icy Fury.
  • Nazgrim
    • Grants you 5% Strength, increasing by 1% for every Rune spent while Nazgrim is active.
• Apocalypse Now
  • Summons all 4 Horsemen for 20 seconds after casting Frostwyrm's Fury making Absolute Zero mandatory to line this up with every other use of Pillar of Frost allowing for huge burst every 1m30s.
    • If a Horsemen is already out, it extends the current duration by 20 seconds instead.
      • Mograine does not recast his Death and Decay but all other Horsemen recast their abilities.
• Hungering Thirst
  • Passively increases Frost Fever and Frost Strike damage.
• Mawsworn Menace
  • Increases Obliterate damage by 10% and reduces the cooldown of Death and Decay by 10 seconds allowing you to use 2 charges of Death and Decay during Pillar of Frost in AoE.

Offensive Choice Nodes

• Fury of the Horsemen or A Feast of Souls
  • Fury of the Horsemen increases the duration of your Horsemen while they are up but A Feast of Souls enables massive Frost Strikes periodically and is prolonged during Apocalypse Now. When combined with Shattering Blade and Shattered Frost this is especially powerful. As this is purely a numbers difference, A Feast of Souls currently wins when paired with Shattering Blade.

Defensive Choice Nodes

• Death Charge or On a Paler Horse
  • On a Paler Horse does not work at all in this raid so you always choose Death Charge which is not a bad thing as this greatly increases your mobility and allows you to break roots and slows.
• Horsemen's Aid or Pact of the Apocalypse
  • Horsemen's Aid depends on the value of Anti-Magic Shell during the fight as this can be incredibly potent allowing you to pre-immune debuffs or randomly absorb high amounts of magic damage. On the other hand, Pact of the Apocalypse grants you 5% damage reduction per Horsemen out or a 20% damage reduction during your cooldowns with Apocalypse Now. Due to the situational value of both of these, there is no auto pick for this as it just depends on the fight.

When to use this Spec

This build is specifically to be used on fights where you can take advantage of Frostwhelp's Aid combined with Reaper's Mark as well as Shattering Blade to do massive amounts of consistent aoe.

Talent Adjustments

Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.

Spec Tree

• Added
  • Deathbringer
  • Shattered Frost

• Removed
  • Rider of the Apocalypse
  • Absolute Zero

Runeforges

• Main-Hand
  • Rune of Razorice
• Off-Hand
  • Rune of the Fallen Crusader

When to use this Spec

There is not currently a set fight where you would currently use this spec on as this is very timer dependent as well as the ability to stay in melee, however this build could prove useful in Mythic.

Talent Adjustments

Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.

Spec Tree

• Added
  • Deathbringer
  • Breath of Sindragosa
  • Hyperpyrexia
  • Icebreaker
  • Horn of Winter
  • Inexorable Assault
• Removed
  • Rider of the Apocalypse
  • Shattering Blade
  • Avalanche
  • The Long Winter
  • Frostwyrm's Fury
  • Absolute Zero
  • Murderous Efficiency

Runeforges

• Main-Hand
  • Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle
• Off-Hand
  • Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Opener

• This is an example of an opener on Single Target when talented into Breath of Sindragosa.

• In the Breath of Sindragosa opener, how fast you get in to Breath of Sindragosa depends on what procs you get. If you get a lot of procs you can delay up until the point where you are capped on Runic Power.
• In a sense, the same thing goes for Empower Rune Weapon. This can be delayed if you end up going in to Breath with high amounts of resources, but it is very normal to have to use it right with Pillar on pull as it is not normal to get an excessive amount of procs.

During Breath Priority List

• Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
• Cast Pillar of Frost when it is ready.
• Cast Remorseless Winter if you are not in Pillar of Frost.
  • While in Pillar, if you are above 60 Runic Power, do not have a Killing Machine or Rime proc, and Remorseless Winter is already stacked, you can refresh Remorseless Winter.
• Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you have more than 50 Runic Power.
• Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power and have a Killing Machine.
• Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime and you have more than 60 Runic Power.
• Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power.
• Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Runes.
• Cast Death and Decay.

Priority While not in Breath

• Cast Frost Strike if Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy are about to expire.
• Cast Remorseless Winter.
• Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
• Cast Pillar of Frost when it is available.
• Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health or will be when this expires.
• Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
• Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
• Cast Frost Strike.
• Cast Obliterate.
• Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Breath of Sindragosa has more than 30 seconds remaining on its' cooldown.
• Cast Abomination Limb if you have nothing else.

During Pillar of Frost Priority

This priority is used during Pillar of Frost while not in Breath.

• Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
• Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you do not have a Killing Machine as well as having at least 2 Runes.
• Cast Howling Blast if Frost Fever is missing.
• Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
• Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
• Cast Frost Strike.
• Cast Howling Blast if you do not have a Killing Machine.

In this Raid, there are no fights with AoE directly in the opener, because of that, it will not be focused on in this guide.

Opener

• This is an example of an opener on Single Target when talented into Breath of Sindragosa.

• In the Breath of Sindragosa opener, how fast you get in to Breath of Sindragosa depends on what procs you get. If you get a lot of procs you can delay up until the point where you are capped on Runic Power or when Reaper's Mark is about to explode as you want to get that in Pillar of Frost.
• In a sense, the same thing goes for Empower Rune Weapon. This can be delayed if you end up going in to Breath with high amounts of resources, but it is very normal to have to use it right with Pillar on pull as it is not normal to get an excessive amount of procs.

During Breath Priority List

• Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
• Cast Pillar of Frost when it is ready.
• Cast Remorseless Winter if you are not in Pillar of Frost.
  • While in Pillar, if you are above 60 Runic Power, do not have a Killing Machine or Rime proc, and Remorseless Winter is already stacked, you can refresh Remorseless Winter.
• Cast Death and Decay.
• Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you have more than 50 Runic Power.
  • This is only cast if you have 1 or 2 targets, never 3 or above.
• Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power and have a Killing Machine.
• Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime and you have more than 60 Runic Power.
• Cast Obliterate if you are not above 80 Runic Power.
• Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Runes.

Priority While not in Breath

• Cast Frost Strike if Icy Talons and Unleashed Frenzy are about to expire.
• Cast Remorseless Winter.
• Cast Reaper's Mark when it is ready.
• Cast Pillar of Frost when it is available.
• Cast Death and Decay if you have 2 charges.
• Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health or will be when this expires.
  • This is only cast if you have 1 or 2 targets, never above 3.
• Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
• Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
• Cast Frost Strike.
• Cast Obliterate.
• Cast Horn of Winter if you are not wasting Runic Power and Breath of Sindragosa has more than 30 seconds remaining on its' cooldown.
• Cast Abomination Limb if you have nothing else.

During Pillar of Frost Priority

This priority is used during Pillar of Frost while not in Breath.

• Cast Death and Decay
  • Ideally this is cast before Pillar as in this spec Pillar only lasts for 12 seconds and Death and Decay lasts for 14 seconds assuming you are standing in it the entire time.
• Cast Obliterate when you have a Killing Machine.
• Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health and you do not have a Killing Machine as well as having at least 2 Runes.
• Cast Howling Blast if Frost Fever is missing.
• Cast Frost Strike if you have 5 Razorice stacks on your target.
• Cast Howling Blast when you have Rime.
• Cast Frost Strike.
• Cast Howling Blast if you do not have a Killing Machine.

Breath of Sindragosa

As you usually only talent into this with Breath of Sindragosa, this is only used when you do not have Runes to spend on an Obliterate, or a Rime empowered Howling Blast when talented in to Rage of the Frozen Champion and you do not overcap on Runic Power and Runes when casting.

You can use this once outside of Breath of Sindragosa and is generally used well around the time you cast Reaper's Mark as you are regularly running out of resources around that time.

Use this as a filler global when you have nothing else to press as it does not deal enough damage to be worth pressing otherwise. If you can, try to use it when you can get value going in to Pillar of Frost or after with Enduring Strength.

You should macro this in with either of Pillar of Frost or Empower Rune Weapon as this does not do enough to offset from either of these.

Boss Tips

• Use Anti-Magic Shell when you soak the Scrapbomb.
  • If you pop Icebound Fortitude or Lichborne with Anti-Magic Shell, you can avoid getting the following Molten Phlegm.
• Cleave both bosses during Colossal Clash, but be wary and dodge the Zapbolt and the Fiery Wave.
  • Try to stand in the middle so Icy Death Torrent and Remorseless Winter hits both bosses. Cleaving Strikes does not cleave in this phase as they are too far apart.
• You can crowd control the Voltaic Image withChains of Ice if they get too close and Death Grip to help your group.
  • Make sure to not Death Grip the one fixated on you, it will instantly kill you. This is purely to help others out.

Boss Tips

• On this fight you use your Anti-Magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, or Lichborne whenever you soak an Amplifier to decrease the damage intake from Lingering Voltage.
• The boss has a deadly frontal on the tank always position yourself behind the boss.
• Make sure to have both stacks of Death Charge for Phase 2, this is a very high mobility phase and you need everything you can get here.
  • If you are in the circle when the Amplifier explodes and knocks your entire group up but you do not get knocked, you are still safe. It not knocking you is just a bug.

Boss Tips

• Use Pillar of Frost on every add wave, they are 55 seconds apart so you do need to hold, but it is worth it to get 4-5 stacks of Frostwhelp's Aid every wave.
  • Make sure you line this up well, hitting many adds at once is not always the easiest.
• Use Anti-Magic Shell on every other use of Incinerator, this prevents you from getting the debuff.
  • Avoid the Garbage Piles on the ground at all costs before the boss casts Incinerator in case you get targeted, even if Anti-Magic Shell is up, it still explodes Garbage Piles if you are standing on them.
• If you get targeted by Rolling Rubbish pre position yourself so that you can get as many Garbage Piles as fast as you can, and destroy the Discarded Doomsplosive once you reach maximum Energy.
• Death Grip in the Territorial Bombshells once they hit 75% health
  • Make sure to do this before Short Fuse triggers.
• Interupt the Scrapmasters Scrap Rockets.

Death Grip

• Death Grip does not work on all adds on this boss, it only works on
  • Territorial Bombshells
  • Junkyard Hyena

Boss Tips

• Rotate between Anti-Magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, and Lichborne when Sonic Ba-Boom is up and you trigger Foot-Blasters.
• Pyro Party Pack is fall off damage based on your distance from you and the tank with it, if for some reason the boss is debuffed tank is tanking the boss move away from the boss.
• Drop the Screw Up away from melee if you get targeted.
• Death's Advance prevents you from being moved on the conveyor belts in the room.
  • Make sure you have a charge for Beta Launch so you can quickly run back to the boss over the conveyor belts.

Boss Tips

• Always watch out for the Pay-Line, they will come from the boss and from another person that is rolling the chips back.
  • You get High Roller! if you are close to the path of the coin.
  • If you get stunned, you can Icebound Fortitude out of it (if you live)
• Dodge the Traveling Flames that come out of the Superheated Coils.
• You can help stack the Dynamite Booty and the Fiery Dynamite Booty with Death Grip.
  • Do not Death Grip them in to other players as they can fixate melee.
  • The Premium Dynamite Booty is not affected by any crowd control.
• Interrupt the Reel Assistants Overload!.
• Use Anti-Magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, and Lichborne on Flame and Coin.
  • Anti-Magic Shell prevents you from getting stacks while it is up, so maximize the amount you can absorb by stacking DR's.

Boss Tips

• Try and get Frostwhelp's Aid stacks from Unstable Crawler Mines and MK II Electro Shocker when mines are not up.
• While you are on Zee's side use Anti-Magic Shell for Goblin-guided Rocket.
• On the Mug side Soak the Earthshaker Gaol and kill the Gallagio Goon.
• If you get targeted by Frostshatter Boots go behind a wall spawned from Earthshaker Gaol to avoid the Frostshatter Spear.

This boss has not yet been tested. Be sure to check back after the Race to World First for updates on this boss!

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.