DW Frost trinket question

[Veiled Shadow]

I was playing DW Frost for fun during the past few resets, and was particularly interested in trinket selection for Iron Reaver/Tyrant Velhari/Fel Lord Zakuun. Now, I know that the typical setup for Tyrant/Zakuun is Empty Drinking Horn + Gronntooth War Horn, but I tried this and it didn't produce better results than EDH + Vial of Convulsive Shadows. I then proceeded to swap out Discordant Chorus for Vial on Kormrok/Iskar, and surprisingly enough saw an increase there as well. Of course, this is probably just due to differences in my play/luck between the attempts, but I'm wondering whether the difference between GWH/DC and Vial is actually significant, as even if it is inferior numerically it seems to be much more consistent than the other trinkets. For me, Vial is also simming ahead of DC on a single target, but I'm not entirely confident in the default Frost APL and am unsure of how to sim GWH against a demon target.

So overall I'm wondering about ideal trinket selection for DW Frost, and whether Vial is comparable to GWH/DC for ST and burst AoE.

The trinkets above are
- heroic EDH
- mythic socketed Vial
- mythic DC
I also have access to a socketed mythic UeH, which I hear is quite good for Frost from recent sims (though I haven't had the opportunity to test this yet). My gear is gemmed/enchanted for multistrike.

[Piz813]

I was playing DW Frost for fun during the past few resets, and was particularly interested in trinket selection for Iron Reaver/Tyrant Velhari/Fel Lord Zakuun. Now, I know that the typical setup for Tyrant/Zakuun is Empty Drinking Horn + Gronntooth War Horn, but I tried this and it didn't produce better results than EDH + Vial of Convulsive Shadows. I then proceeded to swap out Discordant Chorus for Vial on Kormrok/Iskar, and surprisingly enough saw an increase there as well. Of course, this is probably just due to differences in my play/luck between the attempts, but I'm wondering whether the difference between GWH/DC and Vial is actually significant, as even if it is inferior numerically it seems to be much more consistent than the other trinkets. For me, Vial is also simming ahead of DC on a single target, but I'm not entirely confident in the default Frost APL and am unsure of how to sim GWH against a demon target.

So overall I'm wondering about ideal trinket selection for DW Frost, and whether Vial is comparable to GWH/DC for ST and burst AoE.

The trinkets above are
- heroic EDH
- mythic socketed Vial
- mythic DC
I also have access to a socketed mythic UeH, which I hear is quite good for Frost from recent sims (though I haven't had the opportunity to test this yet). My gear is gemmed/enchanted for multistrike.

Sims have always been wrong for frost. Need real raid xp to figure it all out. Personally I been doing fail Archie h pigs and swapping trinkets in and out and inspecting other frost dks to see what they are using and examining their skada damage. This week I'm gonna try M UeH as I always thought is wasn't good for frost but seen a few guys use it that are at least 5-8/13 mythic

[Shmevan]

For Frost EDH and Chorus 100% of the time, multistrike is not good enough for Frost for Vial to be worth the ilvl loss. Since your EDH is heroic you can consider using your mythic UeH until you get a mythic EDH, but you are probably looking at a marginal difference between heroic EDH and mythic UeH since the crit on UeH is pretty worthless

[Veiled Shadow]

For Frost EDH and Chorus 100% of the time, multistrike is not good enough for Frost for Vial to be worth the ilvl loss. Since your EDH is heroic you can consider using your mythic UeH until you get a mythic EDH, but you are probably looking at a marginal difference between heroic EDH and mythic UeH since the crit on UeH is pretty worthless

I don't agree with this analysis, really. The reason Vial is good for Unholy is not because it gives multistrike (in fact, if the active gave mastery, it would be even stronger for Unholy), but rather because it is quite overbudget for its ilevel* and most importantly serves as a powerful 2m CD that aligns with ring. This reasoning applies to Frost as well, and it is simming higher than Chorus for me - and while I don't fully trust sims they're better than nothing.

*On that note, it seems that HFC trinkets are bit underbudget compared to BRF trinkets. A mythic Vial has 443 passive strength, while a normal EDH has only 397 despite being the same ilevel.

[Shmevan]

Vial is primarily good for Unholy because it gives multistrike, it is best in slot because it pairs with the ring and Breath of Sindragosa. If Vial did not give multistrike it would not outclass the HFC trinkets. Now for Frost Chorus is much better than Vial because 1. Multistrike, while a good stat for Frost, is not the best stat and 2. Frost stacks more haste and has offhand attacks that can proc Chorus. This is also why EDH is far and away the best in slot trinket for Frost. Yes Vial has overbudget strength and yes it is good that it lines up with the Ring, but as Frost you aren't tunneling a vast majority of your damage into the Ring like you are with BoS Unholy, that just isn't how the spec works. EDH/Chorus is the best setup for Frost simply because they provide the best overall damage over the course of a fight, Vial does not.

Off topic would love to know your reasoning for Vial being better for Unholy if it gave Mastery instead of Multistrike as Multistrike is by far the best stat for Breath and Mastery is the 3rd best stat at best.

[Veiled Shadow]

Off topic would love to know your reasoning for Vial being better for Unholy if it gave Mastery instead of Multistrike as Multistrike is by far the best stat for Breath and Mastery is the 3rd best stat at best.

Because during ring (when Vial is used) BoS is your largest source of damage, and mastery is by far the strongest stat for increasing the damage done by BoS. Multistrike requires 110 rating to get a 1% damage increase, while mastery only needs 44 rating (multistrike is better on average overall on a single target because for longer fights BoS is a lower portion of your damage and it affects your auto-attacks/physical damage/necrosis). Also during Vial you are almost multistrike capped which significantly decreases its value, while mastery has no such issues.

Anyways, this is off-topic - was mostly just curious about overall trinket selection for DW Frost and how Vial compares to GWH in case it wasn't clear what I was asking.

[Fenrkyr]

So much of Vial's benefit is tied to both the ring and BoS though. Yes frost can benefit from the ring, but obviously not BoS. Considering that bit, Vial's value for frost is lower than unholy and no where near that for blood.

Between DC and GWH I've seen their value be pretty close on m Mann and m Arch. DC can win if it procs at the right time, GWH can win against a bad DC-proc pull or if you get KBs. For ST demon fights GWH is the clear winner. For ST non-demon I'd think mythic/socketed Vial would beat DC, but I'd go with DC for any multitarget fight. And I honestly wouldn't ever use UeH as frost with the 4-piece; you are only going to get a fraction of the benefit from the critical strike rating.

[friedmudkipz]

Use EDH + UeH for single target/2-3 target cleave, EDH + DC for aoe. Might be able to use BoA trinket but I haven't ever tried it personally. Vial is shit for frost, no reason to touch it with the trinkets you have. Always use your EDH, even heroic it is your most valuable trinket.

- - - Updated - - -

Because during ring (when Vial is used) BoS is your largest source of damage, and mastery is by far the strongest stat for increasing the damage done by BoS. Multistrike requires 110 rating to get a 1% damage increase, while mastery only needs 44 rating (multistrike is better on average overall on a single target because for longer fights BoS is a lower portion of your damage and it affects your auto-attacks/physical damage/necrosis). Also during Vial you are almost multistrike capped which significantly decreases its value, while mastery has no such issues.

Anyways, this is off-topic - was mostly just curious about overall trinket selection for DW Frost and how Vial compares to GWH in case it wasn't clear what I was asking.

Mastery is inferior to multistrike for every source of dk damage during ring except for breath, gargoyle (?), and blood plague. I'm fairly certain these abilities do not do enough damage to balance out that discrepancy, especially on non-opener rings which might not even have garg propping up mastery's value.

[Veiled Shadow]

Use EDH + UeH for single target/2-3 target cleave, EDH + DC for aoe.

Thanks for the response! I'll definitely try UeH then.

Mastery is inferior to multistrike for every source of dk damage during ring except for breath, gargoyle (?), and blood plague. I'm fairly certain these abilities do not do enough damage to balance out that discrepancy, especially on non-opener rings which might not even have garg propping up mastery's value.

Gargoyle damage does scale with mastery, and you left out Soul Reaper, which compensates for the lack of gargoyle on non-opener rings depending on fight. I generally have shadow damage comprising ~55-65% of my damage during ring, which seems to agree with random logs I checked (ex.). Of course, Necrosis skews this a little bit because it procs from multistrikes, but that's a fairly small factor. Again, when it comes to shadow damage mastery is hugely more effective than multistrike, and if even 50% of your damage is shadow damage, that means that you only need 88 mastery rating to give an overall 1% damage increase, while you need 110 multistrike to do the same.

[Piz813]

Im wondering the same as OP..

messing with frost this week on farm stuff.

MWF DC + M UeH w/ socket for 2-3 cleave (most of upper HFC dont do lower anymore) and for Xhul use M DC and H EDH?
swap in GWT as need per demon boss

are we going defile or NP?

[friedmudkipz]

Im wondering the same as OP..

messing with frost this week on farm stuff.

MWF DC + M UeH w/ socket for 2-3 cleave (most of upper HFC dont do lower anymore) and for Xhul use M DC and H EDH?
swap in GWT as need per demon boss

are we going defile or NP?

H EDH + M UeH on 1-3 targets, H EDH + M DC for aoe. Demon trinket etc etc. Use defile.

[LenytheMage]

H EDH + M UeH on 1-3 targets, H EDH + M DC for aoe. Demon trinket etc etc. Use defile.

Do you think DC be worth it on council for the razorice stacking on both Gurtogg/Jub if they live for a decent amount of time, or would UeH still win out?

[friedmudkipz]

Do you think DC be worth it on council for the razorice stacking on both Gurtogg/Jub if they live for a decent amount of time, or would UeH still win out?

You should know that my advice on trinkets is based on experience and gut feeling alone, not math.

That aside, I imagine it would be close, but I'd use UeH. Essentially any fight I'd use DC as unholy I use it as frost. Otherwise, UeH.