DK FROST PVP WOTLK

 

AMS= Anti-Magic Shell
AMZ= -//- zone
IBF= Icebound Fortitude
Chains= Chains of Ice
Port/teleport= Warlock demonic Circle: teleport
HC= Hungering Cold



UPDATED: Gear (trinkets part) and Strangulate sections.

Setups

1) Paladin dk (kill stuff with hoj)
2) Disc priest dk (dispels + mana burn)
3) Rsham dk (purge, wind shear and hex are very effective vs healers)
4) Druid dk (boring setup but it's playable)
5) Rogue dk (I haven't played this setup as frost but as unholy it was viable up to 2,4k thus I believe it would work much better as Frost)



General

-Frost doesn't have undispellable diseases thus you have to spam chains and Plague Strike a lot.

For survivablity you depend on healer and avoiding enough damage with chains of ice kite, (it is ideal to swap to frost presence often when just waiting for cooldowns).

Forcing opponents defensive with ridiculous damage and stopping CC on healer is also important for staying alive.

-If you are in open vs any caster make sure either you or healer has cds.

-Try to time burst with DV procs. They have 45 second internal cooldown.


-Make sure to kill cleansing totem at least when bursting. Outside cc its just nuisance, same with spam dispels.

-Chains of ice people behind LoS so their healer can't dispel them. I recommend saving frost runes specificly for this

-You should be almost always in unholy presence, but I use frost presence often to make damage easier to heal for my healer, also to improve his mana state.

Doing damage

To do some serious burst, you want to have few procs at least. Scent of blood + Cinderglacier with rng or wait for DV procs since it's predictable.

If you're trying to land kill during stun you should just spam frost strike and Blood tap/ERW for runic power for last Frost Strikes.

During HC + other cc, it's ideal to chains of ice to keep target still and gain runic power for more frost strikes.

Fastest possible way to gain runic power and do damage is Obliterate as it gives 25 runic power.

However, best way to generate runic power is chains of ice/plague strike spam; chains is 20 runic power and plague strike 10.

Use Unbreakable Armor during stun or Hungering cold for burst. If you think you may get people to use cds without, then save it.

Using Unbreakable Armor during DV procs is around 500 extra AP with total 1k ap bonus.

For overall damage;

Vs dispellers and high armor spam chains of ice and plague strike and frost strike with some procs (just dont go over runic power cap and you do highest possible damage.

On low armor and when diseases aren't being dispelled you can obliterate whenever possible.

On high armor, you may icy touch but you need to be careful to not icy touch on Killing Machine proc. It results in dps loss because Frost Striking with KM proc is much more effective.

I dont specificly state it in tactics but I almost always aim to do my burst with double DV procs.

Strangulate



Most effective way would be strangulating healer before HC, dumping some damage in then double hungering cold, 3-4 seconds of RP gain with chain/pestilence, then Hammer of Justice.

Strangulate should be used as utility silence instead of trying to stop healing. It is quite useless versus bauble (you will almost never have enough runic power to land kill after bauble, unless you get scent of blood procs and crits)

Strangulating warlock during HC is favorable to stop shadowfury/death coil or fear on your team mate so he can continue cc after HC. Also you can stop warlock from being able to teleport then follow up with HoJ/bash.

Strangulate disc priest over hoj at low health to stop pain suppress. If he has no trinket ready he may die, or sometimes they don't trinket at all.

Strangulate disc in HC to stop pain suppress.

Strangulate DKs to stop their defensive cooldowns and they die easily.

You can strangulate hunter to stop trap after scatter shot.

Strangulating mage prevents him from using Cold Snap. If he doesn't have mage armor on, you can kill mage without him being able to ice block second time (can happen even with mage armor up on 2,5 second silence).

Vs healers you can strangulate them at full health just to stop shielding/hots and follow up with perfect HC.

Hungering Cold

Using Hungering Cold properly is necessary for creating pressure with it.

If you want to kill dps while CC'ing healer there are certain factors to consider;

Health

It's easier to kill target that isn't at full health.

Shields

Make sure that target has no absorb shield or that your team mate can dispel it.

- Sacred Shield;easy way is to make paladin use it on himself first.
- Power Word: Shield; just dps it off first.
- Ice Barrier (careful with this one as you will get nova'd by it).
Defensive abilities

-Kidney shot; Majority of rogues spam kidney shot so just waiting for kidney shot cooldown is usually good idea. You may use Icebound Fortitude to prevent also cheap shot if vanish is ready and you think you have good chance at killing rogue otherwise.

-Disarms; you can use swordbreaking weapon to reduce duration of disarm and give you enough time to kill even if you got disarmed

-Warlock teleport; Either wait that warlock uses it or just make him use it first (warlocks use it differently, he may teleport just because you might hungering cold). Warlock cannot teleport if you interrupt Shadow school thus interrupt + strangulate can be enough with HC to kill warlock, but stun after strangulate is favorable.

Also watch for positioning of portal; if it's in open you can grip warlock after port as well.

-Often warlocks run out of port range
-They also forget to refresh port

-Killing warlock with empower rune weapon is possible even if he has Earth or Sacred shield just as long you can stick to him for entire duration of HC + stun or fear.

-Shield block; this one is pretty annoying, warrior can block full Frost Strikes but you can also land them through it (if stunned). If you can go on warrior without Shield Block he's quite squishy.

-If you will get follow up cc after Hungering Cold, you can save runic power just to spam Frost Strike when Shield Block is over.

-AMS and AMZ by DKs can be stopped with strangulate, if they are on cooldown he can only lichborne or icebound, neither is particularly lifesaving. You can stop Death Pact by killing ghoul.

- Retri paladins Hand of Freedom; When playing with paladin it's quite irritating, I recommend just laming until he uses it or use strangulate to prevent dispel on HC.

Anti-Magic Shell

Vs casters this should be used anti-cc ability while using Hungering Cold (not necessary if you go for healer).

However, if warlock has trinket ready you should use AMS incase of trinket + shadowfury/death coil.

When AMS is unnecessary as defensive cooldown (mostly vs dk teams) you can use it to just generate runic power and avoid some chains.

With paladin, you can get freedom to break snares during AMS to get most out of it.

I use glyph of AMS specificly because it's important to stick to casters during HC.

Tactics

Paladin/DK

For this setup trinket cd's usually matter most. grip double hc + stun is most effective tactic to do when opponents have trinkets on cooldown.



Paladin/warrior;

Stun paladin without sacred shield while having double DV procs and he can die from full health unless he gets peels from warrior.
-Grip warrior into double HC and you can strangulate paladin to prevent sacred shield.

I usually try to kill paladin on first DV procs on first double hc + stun, surprisingly often neither uses trinket and paladin doesn't divine shield.

Dpsing warrior who is behind pillar then getting stun on paladin is effective, this forces cooldowns very easily.

Also stunning paladin and bursting without hungering cold is important for forcing cooldowns, paladin may die without using hungering cold.

You can kill paladin with sacred shield up. You frost strike him to around 15k before he holy shocks, grip double hc.
Then spam chains to get runic power up and burst with your paladin assisting.


Priest/hunter;

Keep training pet with Hungering cold/stun on priest. I recommend also using strangulate, priests usually dont use bauble on pet.

When the pet is dead, mitigate scatter trap from hunter.
You can eat trap (AMS snake trap or freedom on it) then just stand on top of paladin during scatter.
Another way is to grip hunter when he uses scatter. They usually will misfire trap or be too late with using it.

You may also just LoS hunter with chains/freedom around pillar and grip priest away before fear.

When scatter trap is on cooldown I find it favorable to hit hard on priest. Hunter keeps hitting for scent of blood proc so you can kill priest eventually always. After stun strangulate mind freeze and grip on penance / casts he will die

Effective way to get hungering cold stun off vs priests is to just dps spam him when he can't shield + penance (Weakened soul debuff) then grip double hc just before he can shield.


Priest/warrior;

It's important to mitigate enough warrior damage to not simply die, they will try to spam dispel DK + tunnel damage while priest keeps running at paladin for fears/mana burns.

Keep slowing both warrior and priest and try to keep kiting warrior much as possible.

At pillar LoS priest to avoid sacred shield dispel and chains warrior out of Priest LoS, let the paladin heal you up.

Most effective "tactic" is to just train damage to priest. Warrior will feed you runic power from scent of blood so you are able to more than enough damage to priest. Same thing as priest hunter, grip HC before he can shield at around 15-20k hp and priest can drop.

Also keep stunning priest outside HC to force defensive cds from them.

Hungering cold for paladin to drink/plea if necessary.


Priest/Mage;

They will try to only mana burn paladin.

If paladin somehow manages to kite them completely hit the priest until hungering cold is back.
Slightly before HC is ready, dps mage shields off then HC priest, AMS and burst mage.

Paladin stuns priest afterwards if possible, but he should just kite away with freedom on himself and plea/drink. Also paladin mounting up and just going to africa is favorable.

Paladin should keep stunning priest to avoid fears and mana burns.

Even if they get some burns on paladin it's enough for paladin to get to drink once in a while with Hungering cold/freedom/mount.

SP/mage

Key to winning them is to kill sp before your team is out of cooldowns.

Important factor is to use disarm weapon vs this setup.

Start with early AMS on sp, before you can be debuffed/nova'd/snared by mage. (AMS+freedom if timing failed). Use unbreakable armor right away, your DV's will proc. Use ERW as soon runes are on cd for maximum obliterate/frost strike spam (watch for dispels on chain/frost fever).

In this phase you should strangulate if sp tries to just heal. Strangulate will also prevent disarm.

Hungering cold his disperse, if he trinkets you can use lichborne/IBF to avoid poly and just have your paladin stun sp with divine shield and sp will die.

SP/rogue

Vs average sp rogues you can rush with crusader aura and Death & Decay for combat then reach sp. Otherwise lichborne, remount and run over to sp.

You can Icebound fortitude right away and start training sp down since they can't really peel for first 20 seconds. I recommend doing early double hungering cold when you get DV procs. If rogue trinkets swap to him with hoj and kill him while strangulating sp when rogue starts to get low (he should die during the stun).

Otherwise just strangulate sp and keep training him. Trinket kidney then bop cheap shot if sp has disperse on cd and you just trinketed kidney (as long you have dots for blind).

Kill the sp only with hpaladin, with any other healer go for rogue.


Disc/ele

Quite similar to disc/mage, paladin has to kite priest to avoid burns. He should freedom himself frequently. Paladin can melee ele with seal/judgement whenever he can.

If possible time freedom for killing ele with hc since you can't reach ele if you have snare up.

Reserve lichborne specificly for killing ele (lichborne hex cast so you dont have to interrupt it).

Reserve grip for pushback, get hc on disc without gripping him or go for hc kill when pushback is on cd.

I don't recommend trying to kill disc at all, prayer of mending proccing from frost fever will screw it, also ele can trinket to offheal.

AMS with HC to avoid roots, or freedom/trinket it (not ideal though).

Dps shield off before HC'ing, lower hp ele is before hc the easier it is to kill him.

Priest/rogue;

Envenom: mitigate enough damage to not die in kidney shot, don't get stun locked behind LoS and die. You can kill rogue easily with hungering cold + stun on priest and if trinkets are down you can HC + stun and kill rogue even if he gets pain suppression.

Subtetly: Most likely mana war, keep doing double hc and let paladin plea /drink with HC, wait until they make mistake and land kill.

You might kill rogue behind pillar in stun or solo priest when rogue isn't peeling and so on.

Keep combat and get paladin to help you with keeping rogue in combat. Use horn of winter to get combat from paladin.

Paladin should pick eyes to hit rogues stealth off, you can also get it yourself.

It's lame and probably semi long match but you should eventually win.

You can also grip rogue out of priests LoS to prevent pain suppression.

Disc/Ret

First of all you can kite this team quite effectively with chain spam, even if it is spam dispelled as they have no snares themselves.

This team might go for mana burns, but as they have nothing to keep paladin in spot for mana burns.

Mitigate their kill attempts by repentance/hoj/fear by AMS and kiting, maybe IBF. Save Death Pact at least for avenging wrath burst (wings). Most likely ret would like to hoj someone with wings thus keeping trinket for it is easiest way to mitigate it.

Don't bother using stun until freedom has been used. You can try to kite them to make them use freedom. Optionally you grip disc out of ret's LoS during HC, then stun the disc.

As for landing kill; you have to wait for rng burst/them to make some heavy mistakes. They won't necessarily even use cds on HC + strangulate + hoj.

If you can get ret without any shields and maybe lower health then HC, you can kill him in strangulate. Ideally you also grip him out of priest LoS to stop pain suppression. Otherwise try to just spam dps priest down especially if ret is feeding you runic power.

With disc priest, this team is close to free win as you can spam mana burn/dispel them down. Double HC when priest uses Power Word: Shield and spam mana burn, grip into open for burns etc. You can play it lame and just kite when grip and/or HC is on cooldown.

Ret/Hunter

Vs random ret/hunters, just spamming frost strike on ret with initial DV procs + AMS will force divine shield.

In general, to not die you can keep kiting ret (might force freedom for hoj), then just when possible, hit hunter or the pet. You may also use HC to just kill pet.

When pet's dead, there's no roar of sacrifice (no crits/absorb damage) or master's call (hunter freedom).

Cooldowns to track vs ret hunter:

-Scatter shot/hammer of justice (to mitigate cc/traps)
-Trinket cds
-Freedom (for stuns).

Once pet's dead, hunter is often easy enough target if you can get full HC on ret. Keep in mind however that rets do massive healing whenever they're meleeing anything.


Shaman/paladin

Paladin might be prot or ret, while rets can freedom hoj, that's just inconvenient. Usually rets take more damage than prots thus it's bit easier to kill ret than prot. Prots also have 3 min divine shield and thingy to proc hp when they're almost dead.

Sacred shield is just irritating, most paladins will never even switch it regardless how you switch and just keep it on shaman so if notice that paladin will not ever switch it off, dont bother trying to wait to get it off from desired target.

Earth shield is only thing you really need to keep track of. You won't be able to kill target with earth shield mostly (unless you manage to outdps the internal cd which is couple of seconds).

Standard is to double HC + hoj target without earth shield. Strangulate to either force double trinkets or kill.

It is necessary to hit target bit lower before attempting kill, you won't be able to kill shaman from full health (however, paladin might die from full health without shields).

It's usually possible to burst rets with just strangulate, providing you hit them low enough before HC.

Vs paladin shaman I've got lot of kills from strangulating paladin without divine sacrifice and just killing shaman who had trinket on cd.

Another tactic is to grip either target out of LoS to stop dispel or freedom on hc/hoj. (For example paladin without freedom won't get LoS with shaman with enough chain spam).

Paladin dispel only removes one magic debuff at time. This means it's entirely possible to chain before dispel on HC/HoJ and paladin won't get it. Paladin can help out with seal of vengeance/judgement when stunning shaman outside HC.





Warlock/healers;

You can kill warlock when teleport is on cd and warlock has no shield with HC + stun(or fear) on healer.

With paladin killing the healer is also very viable. It's enough to get only shaman/paladin to trinket. You can hungering cold him at around 20k hp without shield then get stun from paladin and land kill during AMS.

-Strangulate warlock to prevent fear so your team mate can get cc up.

Other setups (ye I'm too lazy to write it for all comps + almost everyone will play with paladin anyway or just isn't good enough to play with other class lol).

With priest and rshaman tactics are very similar except you keep trying to kill dps with HC+cc, or burst healer with spam dispel.

When going on healer with spam dispel, hex or fear after spamming frost strikes usually gets the kill, just fill up runic power during the fear/hex.

Very effective vs paladins and priests.


Gear

Weapons:

Either 2.6/2.6 (Slow) for strike damage,
or 2.6/1.5 for generating procs. (About 10% reduction in strike damage).

Cinderglacier on main hand and Razorice on offhand with slow weapons.

With fast offhand, cinderglacier on offhand.


Swap swordbreaking with Cinderglacier or Fallen Crusader (always keep razorice weapon equipped).

Full pvp main set.

Full pvp offsets, use hit rating cloak and +20 hit rating enchant (Precision) for hit cap.

When not playing with paladin, Battle Maiden's Legguards are BiS, gem with resilience.

Skeleton lord's Circle as pve ring.

Trinkets: Always double Death's Verdict. Currently on AT; Blood elf with DMC: Greatness.

Expertise is rather important because Frost Strike is parryable and dodgeable and getting unlucky parries and dodges during HC will stop you from landing kills.

Using quite high resilience is necessary as Frost, you need to often save AMS for HC to be able to do anything during it.

Haste is excellent stat, as it provides increase in KM and cinderglacier procs. However you have to choose between expertise and haste offsets. Most simple way to do it, is just using fast offhand.

It won't do much versus 9k chaos bolts.

Gem for 135 spell pen.

Use around 80 hit rating, with it you won't miss Hungering Colds on -2% hit racials. Also hit caps melee.

With pvp offsets you don't need to gem for resilience. I find resilience leg enchant favorable.


Specs

I found this spec with shorter grip cd favorable at season end, due priest and hunter teams.

http://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/deathknight.php?2300200000000000000000000000320053513422031120310331013502300020000000000000000000000000


Glyphs

Glyph of Frost Strike
Glyph of Hungering Cold
Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell

Minors: Glyph of Pestilence, Glyph of Death's Embrace, Glyph of Horn of Winter

I am certain Blood tap can sometimes proc Scent of Blood. More importantly I might forget to keep Horn of Winter up without glyph lolz.

My thanks to spectators that tell me to refresh horn and more importantly to people that whisper my paladin to refresh his stuff.

Also special thanks to people that whisper me that I have 1h on while playing unholy when I forget to change weapon swap macros.