PvE Frost Death Knight Best Professions

Author: Nevermore
Date: July 6, 2022
Updated: July 21, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

PvE Frost Death Knight

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, potentially offering a large boost to your damage, healing or survivability, while also allowing you to generate some gold.

This section will cover some of your best options for professions as a Frost Death Knight.

Best Professions

Like with most other classes & specs in the game, Engineering will be your strongest profession. For the second profession slot, we recommend Jewelcrafting.

Engineering is the king of professions for PvE content, offering a vast, vast array of different benefits.

The main benefit of Engineering lies in the Hyperspeed Accelerators gloves enchant, which gives +340 haste rating for 12 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. This translates into a ~10% attack speed increase with a 20% uptime, which is already amazing on its own — but it becomes even bigger when you use the Accelerators when your various trinkets proc.

Hyperspeed Accelerators becomes even more powerful when taking into consideration that it shares the same cooldown with Unbreakable Armor, allowing you to greatly enhance your damage.

Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with the on-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds, allowing you to move out of dangerous AoE effects or catch up to your target quickly. This gadget is especially beneficial for Frost Death Knight as it lacks any form of mobility.

Finally, just like in previous expansions, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges.

Jewelcrafting is an extremely potent profession for most classes / specs and that includes Frost Death Knight. Not only do you gain access to powerful, Jewelcrafter-unique gems, but you also get to sell gems to others, granting you a steady income, depending on your server’s economy.

The main benefit of Jewelcrafting is the Jewelcrafter-unique gems, Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. The main ones you’ll be crafting as a Death Knight are Bold Dragon’s Eye and Fractured Dragon’s Eye, resulting in +42 strength or +42 armor penetration rating compared to using regular epic gems.

Useful Professions

The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions, so they’re not recommended. If you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimal, you can use any of these professions just fine.

Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. Socketing 2x Bold Cardinal Ruby or 2x Fractured Cardinal Ruby into them translates into a +40 strength or +40 armor penetration rating bonus.

Moreover, Blacksmithing allows you to craft some neat gear for yourself, which is especially useful early on in the expansion or when your character is freshly dinged level 80. However, the crafted gear is generally not as powerful as it was in previous expansions.

Blacksmithing also gives you access to crafting trading good materials such as different types of rods for Enchanters or even tools such as keys that can be used to open lockboxes, chests, and doors.

As a Tailor, you gain access to the Swordguard Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +400 attack power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This translates into a possible +133 attack power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +100 attack power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds, which is absolutely massive.

However, there is a significant opportunity cost attached to this bonus, as it prohibits you from using the standard cloak enchant, Enchant Cloak – Major Agility, making it slightly weaker in practice. Procs are extremely powerful as they can be stacked together with cooldowns, so this bonus shouldn’t be written off at all because of this — it’s just not as powerful as Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing, with their armor penetration bonuses.

Tailoring, depending on your serve economy, can provide a hefty amount of gold, especially when taking into consideration epic recipes.

As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +64 attack power increase when using Flask of Endless Rage, our preferred flask. This is sadly a smaller boost than what other professions can offer, but not by much.

Alchemy can be considered the best profession when it comes to gold generation, especially when you think about how many flasks, elixirs, and potions are in constant demand. Alchemists, just like in TBC, can acquire a sub-specialization, allowing them even more possibilities to acquire more gold.

As an Enchanter you gain access to the Enchant Ring – Assault enchant, which you can apply to both of your rings for a modest +80 attack power. This bonus ties Inscription and Leatherworking, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

Apart from the special bonus that it provides, Enchanting can be considered one of the most useful professions, along with Alchemy, providing you with plenty of opportunities to generate materials that you can either sell in the auction house or trade your services to other players in the form of direct interaction or scrolls that you can create and place on the auction house.

As a Leatherworker you gain access to the Fur Lining – Attack Power bracer enchant, which proves a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault. This bonus ties Inscription and Enchanting, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

There are sadly no other useful benefits gained from Leatherworking, apart from the crafting aspect of the profession which will generate you medium amounts of gold, depending on your server economy.

As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Axe shoulder enchant, which provides a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Greater Inscription of the Axe. This bonus ties Enchanting and Leatherworking, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

Scribes also get to make Glyphs & scrolls, providing a nice source of income, but many will argue that the real benefit in Inscription comes in not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the shoulder enchants!

Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is weaker than all of the other professions mentioned in this list, but at least it’s something.
Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.

Sub-Par Professions

The following professions do not offer any DPS-increasing benefits and are thus not considered viable for Frost Death Knights in PvE.

Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. This can occasionally come in handy, particularly while leveling, farming, or questing, but will generally never be enough to save you in a dungeon or raid.

On the flipside, Herbalism is one of the strongest professions for gold generation, as herbs are used in Alchemy and Inscription, and thus always in demand. This makes it a good profession to have on an alt, particularly a Druid!

Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. This profession is better suited for tanks, bringing little to no true stat benefits for a Frost Death Knight.

On the other hand, Mining is an extremely good gold-generating profession, as you can either sell the materials at the Auction House or trade them to crafters!

About the Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.