Death Knight: Thoughts on Frost

So, I got my Death Knight Kymurii through the starting quests for the Death Knights, and I won't do much commenting on the quests themselves here, as that's not the reason for this. This is for my thoughts on the only tree so far that I've played around some with, the Frost Tree.

Initial Thoughts

Its interesting, and between the three, the most likely choice for tanking Death Knights. Most of the skills are designed to help you survive, aside from helping you kill. The key ones being Lichborne, Unbreakable Armor, Toughness, and Frigid Dreadplate. It also has Frost Aura and Acclimation, both solid tanking skills to help reduce magic damage to you and your allies.

The most interesting part of it is, actually, having to deal with Icy Touch. While I don't really do any number crunching, the Frost Fever effect that it imparts will most likely be one of the biggest ways for the Death Knight to mitigate damage. Coupled with Pestilence from the Blood skills, you should be able to AoE tank rather nicely.

I personally like, though, the talents Icy Talons and Improved Icy Talons. Both increase your attack speed, and I theorize will be among the keys needed for Dual Wielding Tanking. Those and Nerves of Cold Steel.

While I'm only 58 still, and haven't tried it out yet, Hungering Cold seems like a very powerful emergency skill, provided that your allies know you're going to use it. If you pop it as one of them unleashes an AoE, then all you've done is placed Frost Fever on all the enemies around you. The other case could be that they go and attack something just as you use it, but its not as bad as one of them using an AoE.

In Action

Honestly, I really like just how Frost seems to play out. Not just from a tanking standpoint, but just a general AoE point. Icy Touch into Pestilence into Howling Blast and you've done a good amount of damage on multiple targets right off the bat. Throw in a Plague Strike before the Pestilence to spread the diseases out even more, but it won't double up the damage on Howling Blast any.

Frost Strike is a very nice skill to dump excess Runic Power into, which you should have plenty to spare. I haven't gotten an attack cycle going, beyond what I've mentioned before, but Frost Strike easily will fit into most any spot where needed.

Single target DPS isn't too bad either, generally replacing Howling Blast with Obliterate, especially thanks to Annhilation. Just use all the rest of your skills and it'll be easy.

Final Thoughts

Well, in the end here, I really like the Frost tree, if it wasn't obvious. While I doubt it'll have the damage output of Blood, nor the interesting mechanics and additional damage that Unholy has, Frost is still a very nice little tree. It is and most likely will be my tree of choice, but I have yet to actually try out Blood or Unholy, so it might change.