Frost without Toughness (18/53/0) by Militant
I'm seeing a lot of DK builds using toughness, which I don't believe is worth the points. It only works on movement slowing effects such as hamstring, crippling poison, etc which are reapplied often. The armor increase is nice of course, but not worth warranting 5 points. In my current gear, the AP gain from Bladed Armor if I get Toughness would only add 23 Attack Power, definitely not substantial.
Glyphs:
With this build I use Frost Strike, Icy Tough, and Obliterate as my glyphs.
I dropped the point from Dark Conviction which is normally maxed in most Frost Builds in favor of Tundra Stalker. Killing Machine has down played the importance of crit, and even without it I'd rather have a 2% damage increase of abilities/spells as opposed to 1% crit. While using Icy Touch and Chains of Ice it is rare for Frost Fever not to be applied.
Chilblains is excellent when DPSing a target while you are not snared. It allows you to Icy Touch instead of Chains of Ice to stick to a target. This aside, with Chilblains you can Pestilence to spread Frost Fever to other targets, inflicting them with the Chilblains debuff.
As far as Acclimation/Frost aura, I believe these are extremely underrated, especially Frost Aura. This is a great benefit vs. any team that has a Rogue (poisons), Death Knight, Mage, Warlock, or Moonkin. The damage decrease from spell casters is very noticeable.
It is debatable putting the two points from Tundra Stalker into Runic Power Mastery, allowing 4 consecutive Frost Strikes. However, in an arena situation (and most pvp situations) it is impractical to generate such a large amount of runic power before using it, therefore I opted for Tundra Stalker for the DPS increase, as the two extra points for max runic power seemed wasted.
Blood (18)
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Frost (53)
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Comments: | |
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  Blacksparrow | Jan 30, 2009 - 10:14 AM (HideShow) |
| Isn't endless winther and chillblains redundant and the 2 pointes better spent in tundra stalker? What is the spell rotation? Blacksparrow | |
| Destiny | Jan 30, 2009 - 12:31 PM (HideShow) |
| Very strong build, i've been using it for dps/pvp for a few weeks now and i am getting top of dps and #1 in BG's. I would have put 3 points in the tundra stalker tho, if you put 2 points might as well just put all 5 to get the full effect. And icy Talons does come in handy sometimes especially when the last talent adds the +5% haste rating to your stats. | |
  Størm | Jan 31, 2009 - 12:08 AM (HideShow) |
| whats the rotation with a build like this? | |
 Gil | Jan 31, 2009 - 5:00 AM (HideShow) |
| Using a similar spec, Love it. Hungering GOLD | |
 Amigo | Feb 1, 2009 - 12:40 PM (HideShow) |
| Why do none of these builds include Unbreakable Armor? It's only 1 point. Take 1 out of Bladed Armor or Tundra Stalker and grab it IMO. Is there something I'm missing? | |
| Destiny | Feb 2, 2009 - 12:16 PM (HideShow) |
| Unbreakable armor is something not really worth putting in unless your using the Frost tree for tanking. And in PvP i have no clue when you would even think to use this unless your going 1 on 1 against a warrior which will probably never happen unless its arena. | |
| Alkros | Feb 5, 2009 - 9:00 AM (HideShow) |
| Unbreakable armor, imo, is definitely something you should get, both for pvp and pve, i use frost mostly in arenas, and UA comes in very handy when your letting off a burst on someone, as it not only increases armor, but also strength. Plus, with Bladed Armor, it gives you a further boost in AP. On top of that, if you get nuked by any melee classes, pop UA, Lichborne, and IBF, you'll be practically unkillable. Also, why not got for Icy Talons? in the spec i use, i remove the points in Blood of the North and go for Icy Talons, and imp. Icy Talons, it gives you a higher overall, plus, in my 3v3 it not only increases my dps, but the ret pally i play with aswell. Further more, only putting one point is Runic Power Mastery is just a waste. With one point in it, you don't get any real bonus, same thing goes with 3 points, imo, 2 points is clearly the optimal points to spend on it, as it will allow you to blast off 3 frost strikes within very little time, and burst someone down quickly. Frost in pvp is all about burst, and controlling the enemy. | |
 Dissentience | Feb 5, 2009 - 11:18 AM (HideShow) |
| Responding to a few posts: I would rather use the frost rune to go into frost presence than unbreakable armor. And its a bit of a waste using it to burst, i'd much rather use the frost rune on an attack. I've tried specs with it, there is never a situation that warranted it in effective use. Blood of north is an all or nothing talent for the most part. Use it for death runes. Runic power mastery talent point could be put in icy talons. Also, as frost I (and most others) use frost strike glyph. This makes 3x frost strike possible with 100 rune power. As said it is filler, you can get icy talons if you want. However some opt for 3/3 so they can do 4x frost strike in a row glyph. As far as rotation goes it is very situational, for straight up dps you'd do IT -> BS -> Oblit -> Blood tap + Oblit -> BS. If KM procs use HB. You can RP dump after this. Its very situational though. Frost has lots of burst that should be timed well for maximum pressure. This rotation obviously doesnt incorporate things such as pestilence and strangulate so there can never be a true rotation. You can vary this spec many ways (no chilblains, etc) but the basic idea stays the same. I thought the other frost spec posted had some glaring problems (death rune mastery) which would lead new players astray. | |
 Sophie | Feb 11, 2009 - 11:13 PM (HideShow) |
| This spec is so damn amazing in PvP I kill like everyone. | |
| Greyhero | Feb 15, 2009 - 3:26 AM (HideShow) |
| I do love this spec, I just have one question, have you been using Blood presence or Unholy presence? I personally prefer Unholy presence for the 15% movement speed and the ability to drop 4 frost strikes rather quickly. I have had a lot of success with this spec in 3v3 and 5v5 and I even leveled a team up to 2013 in 2s.I prefer this spec over blood simply because it doesn't rely on 3 minute cooldowns to set up a burst to kill someone. | |
| Dissentience | Feb 15, 2009 - 4:36 AM (HideShow) |
| Unholy presence for sure. You'll always be doing something with your global cooldowns. | |
  Rickyßobby | Feb 15, 2009 - 6:52 PM (HideShow) |
| You don't get unbreakable armor because you're better off using that rune for frost presence and use that talent point for something else. | |
 Avenel | Feb 20, 2009 - 7:42 PM (HideShow) |
| do you dual weild with this spec? i have the option to do either dual weild or 2h | |
 Mannerless | Feb 21, 2009 - 10:12 AM (HideShow) |
| Just to fully confirm some things, while i do understand your spec and agree with it, i still need some questions answered. Glyphs, what ones do you use, and if you can give me a small reason why. Basic rotation, while i did read your above comment and agree that it deppends on situtations, do you atleast have a basic rotation that you would use constantly, until a situation would occur? Partner, I would like to know who your 2v2 arena parter is, if you have one, and if you dont perhaps what you may think a good partner would be to compliment this spec. Thankyou John | |
| Mannerless | Feb 22, 2009 - 7:51 AM (HideShow) |
| Mannerless | Feb 22, 2009 - 7:52 AM (HideShow) |
| Also, do you use use a two handed weapon or duel wield. John. | |
| Dissentience | Feb 22, 2009 - 6:32 PM (HideShow) |
| Two-handed. All other information I already posted at the top or in replies. However, in the current patch (3.0.9) this build is inferior to 53/13/0 and 0/21/50 and I would suggest either of those. The only bracket i'd see this as better as those possibly would be 5v5. | |
| Bigdaddyyur | Feb 23, 2009 - 9:03 PM (HideShow) |
| As this spec, there is NO reason to not have 3/3 runic power mastery. 4 Frost strikes is the most powerful burst we have. I'd trade 2/5 in tundra for it as 130 RP isn't impractical at all. Spamming IT generates, as you know, a ridiculous amount of RP and there is no reason to not use 4xFS as your main burst. I agree about the viability only in 5v5 as well, it's amazing in 5s, but even then shadowfrost or blood would be probably be better. | |
| Fuzzywuggles | Feb 24, 2009 - 3:17 PM (HideShow) |
| DW in most cases is consistent DPS, 2h for burst IMO. thats IMO. my opinion. i play 0/32/39 in PVE, tried it in PVP and got raped after 1 arena match at 1500 in 2's. and went ok nvm then lol. and instantly tried about 7 specs. shadowfrost and deep frost for HC is he best hands down. | |
 Deeps | Apr 7, 2009 - 9:40 AM (HideShow) |
| not everyone plays with a paladin you know.. going to give a similar build to this a shot in 2v2 with a resto druid. | |
| Morrocan | Jul 6, 2009 - 12:21 AM (HideShow) |
| Review from a decent PvP Death Knight: I started off with the Unholy spec 21/0/50, the damage bugged me even when Blood Plague and Frost Fever was up it would still hit in the 1.5k range. I checked my Strength and AP and there was nothing wrong there. I turned to this spec, and even without Plagues i will hit around 3.5k and with Plagues (including Deathchill) i hit around 5k with Frost Strike and Howling Blast. This spec, is the best i have ever tried, The Hungering Cold spell absolutely helps when it comes to hunters and mages at running away. Survivability is decent, in the 21/0/50 spec it was hard to lose the Mark Of Blood due to high survivability against rogues and hunters. If you have your timing right you can destroy a Warlock in less then 10 seconds. Must Death knights wouldn't bother going frost because they are under the impression that it is a "tanking" spec only. Its a higher dps then blood, and higher burst damage. Unlike the Blood specs cooldowns. Using this spec, its almost like a warlock. You press fear, curse of agony, and whatever dots they have, with this is felt like you pressed Death chill, Frost strike, Howling Blast, and they were at 30% with clothies. I reccommend this spec. | |
| Êlusive | Jul 12, 2009 - 4:02 PM (HideShow) |
| Instead of using the 4 points on improved rune tap, use them to max tundra stalker and put 1 point into ubreakable armor, considering unbreakable armor gives 25% increase dmg... which u can then heal urself for a 4k crit with death strike, instead of using rune tap. | |
| Verynia | Jul 24, 2009 - 11:38 AM (HideShow) |
| This is old and outdated. | |
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