10.2 Obliteration Guide for Frost Death Knights

By Khazakdk

Introduction

What does this guide cover?

This guide will primarily focus on Obliteration gameplay, with smaller portions focused on gear and talents. Other guides and resources sufficiently cover those subjects.

Who am I?

I am Khazak, a Death Knight main since I started playing in 5.4. My notable theorycrafting contributions include working on the DK simc module, writing the Frost and Unholy modules for WoWAnalyzer, and helping in Acherus. In raid content, I achieved Cutting Edge 10 times, not missing any since 8.3, and I currently raid just shy of WR200 in Agency-Zul'jin (US) on both Enhancement Shaman and DPS DK.

Talents

Death Knight class talents

talent calc Nodes that give offensive throughput value are marked in green, significant defensive nodes are marked in blue, and the nodes taken to unlock the bottom rows are white. Coldthirst and Assimilation are unmarked here due to Obliteration builds wasting so much Runic Power to the point that taking extra generation is not relevant. To path to all the throughput, we will lose nearly all flexibility in the class tree. However, if there is little magic damage then we can drop Anti-Magic Zone for alternatives.

• Blinding Sleet is a solid AoE stop and should be taken by default in M+ content. In raid content Blinding Sleet is often not needed and can be dropped for something else.
• Improved Death Strike is very strong in the right situations. Its primary benefit to Frost is the RP cost reduction. Not to say that the extra healing is bad, but because Death Strike's healing is 25% of your recently taken damage, adding 60% of 25% damage taken ends up being underwhelming most of the time. Because of this, Improved Death Strike will primarily be beneficial in M+, where it is more likely that both Anti-Magic Zone will be less valuable, and that the saved RP will add up to a significant amount over the course of the key.
• March of Darkness is a cheap mobility boost. If you do not need anything else, this is a good point to default to.
• Asphyxiate is unfortunately hard to justify taking as other classes have better access to stuns but if you really need a stun and don't have a use for Anti-Magic Zone then it's there.
• If you are in pure single target, you can take Soul Reaper instead of Abomination Limb
• Control Undead is a good pick in Black Rook Hold for controlling Risen Arcanist, and Atal'Dazar for controlling Reanimated Honor Guard.

Frost spec talents

talent calc Like the class tree, pathing to the mandatory talents severely restricts options. The talents marked in green are build-defining talents that cannot be dropped. Talents marked in white need to be taken to get to the talents in green. Pillar of Frost is your primary way doing damage, and thus Icecap is a must pick to give more uses. Avalanche gives Rune of Razorice for free, a key enabler for 2H. Chill Streak is a must-pick because our tier bonus is useless without it. Obliteration is, of course, mandatory as the namesake of the build. Murderous Efficiency generates too many resources to ever consider dropping. Fatal Fixation prevents a significant amount of Killing Machine procs from going to waste, critical in a build that revolves around Killing Machine. From this point in the tree, there are only a few options.

• Glacial Advance will be taken anytime there is consistently more than 1 target available to hit.
• Empower Rune Weapon is a default pickup in raid encounters. It provides enough haste to fit another Killing Machine into a Pillar of Frost window and the second charge is a significant boost to opening burst by stacking the haste buff throughout the lust window.
• Enduring Strength can be dropped to 1/2 to free up points. Taking 2/2 is the default option, but because the build's damage is focused on Pillar of Frost windows it is one of the easiest single points to give up to take an additional talent elsewhere, usually an AoE talent since Cleaving Strikes should not be active outside of Pillar of Frost severely diminishing this talent's AoE benefit.
• Enduring Chill is a better option in small, prolonged AoE encounters. Chill Streak does not scale with the number of targets so we only take this when a second charge of Empower Rune Weapon makes less sense, particularly in keys where th long encounter time devalues the extra cast of Empower Rune Weapon. Right now the gap between Enduring Chill and the second Empower Rune Weapon charge is very close, if you are doing content where Chill Streak shines then Enduring Chill is worth serious consideration.
• Frostwyrm’s Fury will be great if you can hit large add packs on a reliable interval. Fine for keys, but be careful picking this up in raid content. It is fun to pad but has an expensive opportunity cost for boss damage.

Default Raid build

If there are consistent adds, drop Inexorable Assault for 2/2 Frostwhelp’s Aid. Raid talent calc

Default M+ build

Abilities and Rotation

High Priority things to do at all times

• Apply Frost Fever with a Rime empowered Howling Blast
• Stack and maintain Icy Talons/Unleashed Frenzy at full stacks. Prioritize Frost Strike/Glacial Advance over Rime during Pillar of Frost until fully stacked.
• Remorseless Winter off CD if Gathering Storm is talented (It will be in 10.2)

Priority list inside Pillar of Frost

• Howling Blast if you have Rime and if Pillar of Frost has less than one GCD left, and if you have less than 2 Killing Machine stacks
• Frost Strike (Glacial Advance against 2+ targets) if Pillar of Frost has less than one GCD left, and if you have less than 2 Killing Machine stacks
• Obliterate with a Killing Machine proc
• Soul Reaper when the target will be under 35% HP when the debuff expires
• Glacial Advance if there are 2+ targets or if Razorice is under 5 stacks
• Frost Strike if you have less than 2 Runes
• Howling Blast with Rime
• Frost Strike (Glacial Advance against 2+ targets)
• Howling Blast

Priority list outside Pillar of Frost

• Obliterate with a Killing Machine proc
• Soul Reaper when the target will be under 35% HP when the debuff expires
• Frost Strike (Glacial Advance against 2+ targets) to avoid overcapping RP
• Howling Blast with Rime
• Obliterate without Killing Machine to dump Runes
• Frost Strike (Glacial Advance against 2+ targets)

Rotational Concepts

Obliteration is a spinning plate class. On the surface it might just look like spamming Obliterate, but that view ignores some important optimizations. The most important concept is generating as many Killing Machine procs as you can without wasting any. Next would be maintaining Icy Talons/Unleashed Frenzy and keeping Rune of Razorice at 5 stacks on your target. Remorseless Winter also fits the maintenance buff archetype currently, as Frost always plays a talent package that makes Remorseless Winter one of the highest DPS per cast abilities in the kit through Gathering Storm. Finally, Frost needs to pay some attention to its resources. Enough Runes need to be pooled to fuel the Pillar of Frost windows that hit about every 30 seconds so that Killing Machine can be spent efficiently. Entering a Pillar of Frost window without pooling Runes risks wasting Killing Machine procs while waiting for Runes.

Cooldowns

• Pillar of Frost - Use whenever it's available. Delaying this cooldown is very bad, as it will delay the Icecap-driven CDR from the Killing Machine procs generated in the Pillar of Frost window. This adds up over a fight and can result in entire casts missing. Only delay it if you cannot complete the Pillar of Frost window due to a planned mechanic.
• Empower Rune Weapon - Pair this with Pillar of Frost whenever possible. The resources are nice, but the main value is the haste buff that will let you comfortably fit another GCD in your Pillar of Frost window.
• Chill Streak - Use when it is available. Holding this to line up with Pillar of Frost is a DPS loss.
• Raise Dead - Macro this to Pillar of Frost and forget about it.
• On-use trinkets and potions - Used on CD usually, but in raid encounters you save these so that they expire at the end of your second Pillar of Frost. When the second Pillar of Frost hits with fully stacked Icy Talons/Unleashed Frenzy/Rune of Razorice the resulting damage is higher than the first Pillar of Frost, and so its better to stack further buffs onto this Pillar of Frost.
• Death and Decay - Used in every Pillar of Frost with multiple targets available. Cleaving Strikes turns Death and Decay into the most important button for good AoE output. Because it only lasts for 10 seconds, use it after Pillar of Frost. You do not want to drop another Death and Decay charge after the first one ended if the next Pillar of Frost lines up with multiple targets as Death and Decay will not be available in time. Pillar of Frost has an effective cooldown of close to 30 seconds from Icecap.

Stats

Before going any further, SIM YOURSELF. Numerous factors go into the value of each stat and trying to come up with a value is best left to using a computer to solve for each particular situation. Sometimes a general trend can be found, but this is not always the case. The following description of each secondary is in no particular order.

Mastery

Simply increases the damage of frost spells. This only affects spells specific to the Frost spec and will not increase frost damage from items or other effects. It is often a better stat to pick up in AoE since Frost's primary multi-target spells are frost damage. Frost prefers mastery to versatility because of how mastery points work. It takes 180 mastery rating to gain 1 mastery point, which converts to 2% mastery on your sheet. Versatility takes 205 rating to gain 1% damage.

Critical Strike

Does what it says on the tin but has some extra benefits for Frost. Its primary extra benefit outside of the raw damage increase is crit gives more Killing Machine procs, and this has knock-on effects like more chances for Murderous Efficiency procs for Runes. Obliteration has a unique relationship with crit, as its value is severely diminished during Pillar of Frost when most globals are guaranteed to be critical strikes anyways.

Haste

Speeds up auto attacks, GCD, and Rune regeneration rate. The primary benefit you will see is the sped-up GCD and auto-attack rate. Obliteration gains an extra global inside of Pillar of Frost Windows every 12.5%. Rune regeneration is determined by (10 / 1 + haste). So with 10% haste, we get a rune cooldown of (10 / 1 + .10) = 9.09s. But, this same formula governs GCD. As we get Runes back faster, we can spend them faster. So, adding more haste will not fix downtime, it merely redirects it. If downtime is an issue, a deeper issue with rotational play needs to be solved first.

Versatility

Not much to stay here. It’s a boring and expensive stat.

Gearing

Sim yourself. All gearing can and should be handled by using Top Gear and Droptimizer on raidbots.com to see what’s going to be good for your specific character.

Early crafting for 10.2

First I will hit the major embellishments and point out the ones worth paying attention to, then I will provide several strategies for spending your early Spark of Dreams. Before going further, I strongly encourage you sim your toon with potential upgrades. There is not a clear undisputed winner for all situations.

• Elemental Lariat - Always sim yourself before crafting this one. It requires a certain number of sockets before it is better than other embellishments. Unlike the last patch, it looks like full sockets will not be needed this time.
• Shadowflame Armor Patch - Despite the nerf, it is still quite strong. You will not need to replace it on patch day. It still beats out the other embellishments in sims using mythic Aberrus gear.
• Undulating Sporecloak - In 10.2 this becomes a very strong pick. Blizzard took this one out behind the shed. Ignore it.
• Blue Silkin Lining - This one is a tough one to judge. When the buff is up it provides far more secondaries than the other embellishments and performs far better. However, we cannot be sure how consistent the uptime will be. At this time I can say that even as low as 30-40% uptime is enough for this to beat other embellishments.
• Allied Wristguard of Companionship - Solid all-around pick, most consistent embellishment we have this go. It's always up, as long you're within 30 yards of your allies (and that should always be true), and is useful in any target count unlike the Shadowflame Armor Patch.
• Allied Chestplate of Generosity - You may have seen this talked about, but it was nerfed during the PTR cycle. Its performance is not strong enough to warrant blocking a slot you might need to make your 4 piece.
• Dreamtender's Charm - This is bad. Being locked out for 30 seconds every time you drop below 70% stops this from seeing play.
• Unstable Frostfire Belt - Unfortunately just lags well behind the others. Better than nothing, but not great.
• Frostfire Legguards of Preparation - Potentially strong pick for M+ mains. Not recommended at all for raid content.

Routes for first crafts:

Craft Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl with Shadowflame Armor Patch, then Allied Wristguard of Companionship or Primal Molten Vambraces. You can put either Blue Silkin Lining or Shadowflame Armor Patch on the latter. From here, you are on your own and should sim yourself. By crafting two pieces with swappable embellishments you have options to change between Shadowflame Armor Patch and Blue Silkin Lining depending on the uptime for the content you're doing. At this time I am wary of weapon crafts until we know more about Fyr'alath, due to the expensive 2 Spark of Dreams cost to craft a 2H weapon.

Trinkets

The following is a list of trinkets to look for in 10.2, set to max ilevel. Running your own Droptimizer sims for the content you are doing is always recommended, but to supplement those sims you can use this list to look at trinket combinations for you toon, just add this to the end of your input to a Top Gear sim.

# trinket1=accelerating_sandglass,id=207566,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=ashes_of_the_embersoul,id=207167,bonus_id=7187/1498,ilevel=489
# trinket1=augury_of_the_primal_flame,id=208614,bonus_id=7187/1498,ilevel=496
# trinket1=branch_of_the_tormented_ancient,id=207169,bonus_id=7187/1498,ilevel=489
# trinket1=gore-crusted_butcher's_block,id=159616,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=infernal_signet_brand,id=207166,bonus_id=7187/1498,ilevel=489
# trinket1=might_of_the_ocean,id=133197,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=mirror_of_fractured_tomorrows,id=207581,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=nightmare_egg_shell,id=137312,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=pip's_emerald_friendship_badge,id=207168,bonus_id=7187/1498,ilevel=489
# trinket1=porcelain_crab,id=133192,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=rezan's_gleaming_eye,id=158712,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=spiked_counterweight,id=136715,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=spores_of_alacrity,id=110014,bonus_id=6536/1566/6646,ilevel=489
# trinket1=coiled_serpent_idol,id=207175,bonus_id=7187/1498,ilevel=489

Consumes

Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage is incredibly good for us. Buzzing Rune for the temporary enchant. Sim yourself for gems and enchants. For Runeforges, Take Rune of the Fallen Crusader as your Runeforge.

@khazakdk on Discord, @Khazakdk