Welcome to Part 1 of the 3-part "Meet the Death Knight" series of articles. In Part 1 I'm going to address my personal favorite and the spec I started out as; Frost. Blizzard has referred to the Frost talent tree's utility as "Burst and Control". I'm not sure what "Burst" means but I definitely get the "Control" part. Frost gets the option of granting a lot of crowd control effects, like slowly down targets or trapping them in ice. They also cause attack speed penalties to enemies and simulatneously grant attack speed bonuses to the entire raid. They're very precise as well. They aren't as big on random procs and they have a few abilties that help the Death Knight restore balance to a situation if things go awry.
FROST PRESENCE
Sick, right? The health bonus is nice and so is the bonus to threat generation and spell damage reduction. What makes this stand out is the massive 60% bonus to armor. In previous versions of the Beta, Frost Presence used to also say that it would grant a 45% bonus to threat generated. This in combination with a trinket proc made my defenses soar high at only level 60.
Frost also gets two nice buffs that are pretty cookie-cutter but extremely effective for tanking purposes.
Lichborne is a phenominal PVP ability. Its very anti-Warlock because of the fear immunity, which is great considering how much of a pain they can be sometimes. The 25% avoidance bonus is great for tanking, especially since Death Knights can't block. The coolest part about this ability is that it turns your "Undead". The only reason that this is cool is because of Death Coil, and ability that either deals damage or heals your undead minions. While Lichborne is active, you can actually use Death Coil to heal yourself. Very cool.
Unbreakable armor is pretty much only good for tanking. It lasts 20 seconds and only has a 1 minute cooldown, making it viable for constant use. The 10% boost to strength is good for DPS and therefore threat generation as well.
While not very interesting, Deathchill gives a lot of control so you can immediately gain threat at the beggining of battle with a nice critical hit from Howling Blast or the less risky Frost Strike.
This is the best AOE damage that a Death Knight can potentially deal. This ends up being superior to Obliterate in every possible manner; It hits multiple targets, it is ranged, and it deals more damage. This is the ability you are going to try to use every chance you can get.
The greatest spammable tank ability around. Though it doesn't cause a high amount of threat like Heroic Strike, it can't be dodged, blocked or parried. This is great for the fact that Tanks have to rely heavily on getting a good expertise rating. With Frost Strike, the Death Knight won't have to worry so much about it. This ability is also great after racking up a lot of Runic Power when you have spent all of your Runes; You can just continue to spam this ability while your Runes recover.
Hungering Cold is an awkward ability that is only good for PVP or tanking. You're not going to use this ability much if while grinding unless you are trying to escape an enemy while you are hurt. If you use this during an intense raid, a party member could easily screw up this ability. It also requires runic power to be prepped already if you want to use it before combat. This is an ability that is far more useful to use right at the pull so everyone knows who to attack and who not to attack. On a good note, Frost Mages ought to scream with glee if they see this used in PVP because all enemies effected by it are considered frozen, making them eligible for many of the Frost Mage's spells and effects.
Now, the big reasons I like the Frost build over Blood and Unholy is 1) It is a tank that deals plenty of damage 2) Huge variety in the abilities you rotate through during combat 3) AOE Grinding is a quick way to build up. There are two main rotations for a Frost spec Death Knight.
Pattern 1) No Death Runes...
Icy Touch - Howling Blast - Plague Strike - Blood Strike x 2 - Frost Strike until Runic Power is depleted
Pattern 2) Two Death Runes...
Icy Touch - Howling Blast - Icy Touch x 2 - Frost Strike until Runic Power is depleted
After going through Pattern 2, going back to the middle of Pattern 1 where you use Plague Strike is probably a good idea. Pattern 1 is set up to immediately gain the melee haste benefit from Icy Talons, a talent that increases your melee attack speed while Frost Fever is inflicted on a target. It also sets up Howling Blast to do double damage. Plague Strike comes next so that Blood Plague is also inflicted upon the target so Blood Strike will do extra damage. Blood Strike is used twice to change your Blood runes into Death runes to set up for Pattern 2. After using all of these abilities, you'll have collected a hefty amount of Runic Power to be able to use Frost Strike potentially three times. You might notice that Obliterate isn't amongst the rotations. This is because I did my math.
Obliterate costs the same runes as Howling Blast and Howling Blast causes far superior damage. Obliterate is only attractive just because it seems to have almost double your base critical strike chance to critically hit.
Let me just remind you that Howling Blast is also AOE damage, so you can easily take out two enemies at a time while grinding up your experience. Howling Blast does have a 6-second cooldown while Obliterate does not. You know what else doesn't have a cooldown? Icy Touch. Frost Fever (the disease inflicted by Icy Touch) made up a nice chunk of my damage (6.5%) and Icy Touch was about 10% of my damage. Those two combined together at 16.5% of my total damage, which is higher than Obliterate's 14%. Considering the use of Death Runes, Icy Touch used twice is a lot more damage than one Obliterate.
Here is the build that I used with my level 62 Death Knight.
Here is the build that I would suggest for a level 80 Death Knight Tank.
Though Frost lacks the massive HP recovery of Blood or the cool factor of having a pet Ghoul with Unholy, Frost gives control to the wild abilities that the Death Knight has, the best AOE ability a Death Knight can get, a massive amount of variety in your combat rotation, and the best options if you are trying to be a Tank.
