Frost Death Knight PvP Best Arena Compositions — The War Within (11.0.5)
Team composition in 2v2 or 3v3 Arena is very important, because not all classes work well together. Here, we give you the best compositions you can have for your Frost Death Knight (i.e., the best classes to pair with it).
This page is part of our Frost Death Knight PvP Guide.
2v2 Arena
2v2 Arena comps are not quite as intricate as 3v3 Arena comps because you are not finding an entire DPS toolkit that synergizes with yours and can handle the toolkits of other groups of 3. Therefore, most healers work well with DK in 2s, and you have a pretty standard game plan, no matter which one you are playing with. DK's mobility is limited, meaning you will really want to hit whatever target has the least escapes or is closest to you. You can frequently swap targets based on this condition. You want to keep Chains of Ice on both targets to limit their setups or escapes. You also want to try to set up Chill Streak with Death Grip and Blinding Sleet, paired with whatever stun your healer brings. Keep the pressure up, communicate your defensive cooldowns with your healer, and you should be able to handle many enemy comps!
Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:
- Frost Death Knight + Restoration Shaman
- Frost Death Knight + Restoration Druid
- Frost Death Knight + Holy Paladin
- Frost Death Knight + Preservation Evoker
3v3 Arena
These comps are subject to change as the meta can be extremely volatile at the start of an expansion but some of the most powerful 3v3 Compositions for Frost Death Knight are:
- Walking Dead (Frost Death Knight + Windwalker Monk + Holy Paladin/Restoration Shaman)
- TSG (Frost Death Knight + Arms Warrior + Holy Paladin/Restoration Shaman)
- Shadowcleave (Frost Death Knight + Destruction Warlock + Holy Paladin)
- Vanguards (Frost Death Knight + Retribution Paladin + Holy Paladin/Restoration Shaman)
- Hero Cleave (Frost Death Knight + Havoc Demon Hunter + Restoration Shaman)
- Dev DK (Frost Death Knight + Devastation Evoker + Healer)
Frost Death Knight/Windwalker Monk/Healer
Frost DK specializes in cleave, and this comp has a potent cleave setup every minute. The Death Knight uses Death Grip on a healer to grip them on top of their DPS. This will allow your Windwalker Monk to use Leg Sweep and stun each member of the enemy team. Now, both the Windwalker and the Frost DK use cooldowns to apply immense pressure to the enemy team, forcing them to use important defensive cooldowns. This would be where you would follow the burst rotation. This can be particularly powerful with a Restoration Shaman because during this window, they can use Purge. Since this setup can be repeated in a minute, the enemy team will eventually run out of answers, and you will get a kill on either the DPS or the healer in a swap. In addition to having stuns, both Frost Death Knights and Windwalker Monks have fantastic slows and peels by using Paralysis, Disable, and Chains of Ice. Windwalker Monks also have a talent, Ride the Wind, which can help you and your healer to get away from dangerous situations.
Frost Death Knight/Havoc Demon Hunter/Healer
This composition plays similarly to 'Walking Dead', where it revolves around gripping targets together for AoE stuns and AoE damage. Demon Hunter brings the AoE stun Chaos Nova, so like before, you will use Death Grip on a healer to pull them on top of their DPS to get Chaos Nova to stun them both. The Demon Hunter has plenty of cleave from Eye Beam and Blade Dance, but also receives the AoE Mortal Wound effect Mortal Dance that severely amplifies the power of the composition. This means Blade Dance should be used as the last ability in the burst rotation during the stun, so when they come out of this, they receive less healing. This combo will be very difficult to recover from. Furthermore, both classes have many team-wide defensives or utility to rotate that, if communicated properly, increases the survivability of the comp drastically. Darkness and Anti-Magic Zone can be rotated as well as Reverse Magic, which can get your healer out of CC. This gives you more opportunities to continue doing your burst window every minute until the enemy team has run out of cooldowns. Finally, because of Demon Hunter's mobility, and Death Knight's potential crowd control immunity, you can follow up your setup by running down the healer while being difficult to peel. This can be particularly damaging against comps which will not have instant counterpressure and need to set it up, namely wizard cleaves. You can end the match before they have a good chance to respond.
Frost Death Knight/Arms Warrior/Healer
Unlike 'Walking Dead', which has heavy AoE burst windows, 'TSG' plays more toward single-target and a lot of sustained pressure. This is due to Warrior's Mortal Strike effect, combined with Frost Death Knight's very consistent damage from its potent resource generation. This comp puts together powerful 1-shot setups from Warrior's Sharpen Blade and Frost DK's Chill Streak. This time, the DK will use Asphyxiate on the healer, and your Warrior will use Storm Bolt on the kill target every time you are trying to set up a kill. The Warrior can also use Intimidating Shout to follow up. The sustained pressure from TSG is so high that these short CC windows end up generating a lot of panic for the enemy team. Once the healer no longer has trinket, the DK can again use Death Grip to pull them in, and either stun can be used to swap to the healer with their cooldowns. This is another good time to use Chill Streak if you could not before, because now they have two adjacent targets in your burst window.
Frost Death Knight/Destruction Warlock/Healer
Shadowcleave is similar to other Frost Death Knight comps but it does have more single-target pressure kill windows after setting up your initial AoE burst. The AoE setup will still be using Death Grip on a healer to pull them to their DPS, and the Warlock will use Shadowfury on this stun and then using Havoc with Mortal Coil. During this window you should be doing the single target burst that your classes have with the Warlock using all of their soul shards for Chaos Bolt and you using the remaining pillar for Obliterate buffed by Killing Machine. This burst is extremely potent but should be rotated 45 seconds. During the downtime, it is best to peel for each other using the vast amount of Crowd Control this composition has and stall out for the next setup. This includes Chains of Ice and Fear and of course Death Grip If you keep these setups going every 45 seconds, you will certainly land a kill!
Frost Death Knight/Retribution Paladin/Healer
This composition has features from all of the others. It has immense single-target pressure, some potential AoE setups, and even great survivability from Retribution Paladin off-healing. Your setup once again will be using Death Grip on the healer, followed by your AoE stun from Absolute Zero. This is where you will send your offensive cooldowns , and the Retribution Paladin will use his most potent AoE cooldowns. However, if the enemy team trinkets or gets low, you can use a Hammer of Justice which will be half duration because of Diminishing Returns. Regardless, it will still be a 3-second stun, which is enough time for both DPS to use their more single target-oriented burst to finish off a healer. Furthermore, you can stay glued to the healer because of rotating defensive cooldowns and the off-healing that Retribution Paladin provides until Hammer of Justice is back up. This is extremely difficult for healers to manage because they generally have to use many defensive cooldowns in your first setup if done properly. You do not always have to run down the healer, especially against spell cleaves; you can instead swap to them during your AoE setup and then swap back to the spellcaster to stop their disruptive Crowd Control and damage if left untouched. This comp needs to properly utilize its powerful healing to be effective.
Frost Death Knight/Devastation Evoker/Healer
This composition is very straightforward and has been in the spotlight. The goal is to use Death Grip and Blinding Sleet in order to set up a go with the Evoker's Deep Breath and Dragonrage. With multiple targets stacked, this creates one-shot potential every minute. The main flaw of this composition is its predictability, allowing other comps with short defensive cooldowns to properly trade for each major go. Despite this, it has proven to be one of the best comps available to Frost.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for War Within Launch.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Reviewed for War Within Prepatch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.0.
- 01 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 05 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Reviewed for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 02 Mar. 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.0.
- 11 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 20 Feb. 2021: Additions of new comps and removal of an old one due to the new meta.
- 12 Nov. 2020: Updates made by new writer.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
Other PvP Guides
Keator is a Rank 1 Death Knight and has been playing Death Knight since Wrath. After having raided in US Top 50 guilds for multiple expansions, he decided to dive into PvP where he found his passion. He also streams occasionally on Twitch.
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