As a frost death knight, what's the point of Icy Touch, Plague Strike and Blood Boil?

[Resurgo]

You're still missing what I'm saying which I've already said: Howling blast will break CC. Icy Touch does not.

Icy Touch is single target for this reason.

You say this like it's a viable choice.
Have you actually looked at the damage (single target) Icy Touch is vs Howling Blast?

The smarter thing to do if you were really worried about CC is to grip or mass grip whatever isn't CC'd to yourself or another area and continue with Howling Blast in another direction.

[ChakanDH]

Not playing my DK much, mainly because i hate micromanaging stuff like diseases. Whats better using defile + howling blast (no plague strike) or Howling blast + necrotic. Does Defile really need that blood plague to be effective?

It's not so much that you need blood plague up for its damage, but in order to use plague leech(the only viable talent on that tier), both frost fever and blood plague need to be up on the target. So a defile build does still require plague strike usage.

[Tehterokkar]

You're still missing what I'm saying which I've already said: Howling blast will break CC. Icy Touch does not.

Icy Touch is single target for this reason.

Do you tank mobs right on top of the CC'd ones? Like your reason doesn't make any fucking sense. There's WAY too much random AoE/Cleave in the game, for example Blood DKs only have 1 way to get rid of Blood Runes; Blood Boil, which is an AoE attack.

[ChakanDH]

You're still missing what I'm saying which I've already said: Howling blast will break CC. Icy Touch does not.

Icy Touch is single target for this reason.

I understand what you're saying, but the fact is Icy Touch is an outdated relic from when it was required by all specs to apply frost fever, before howling blast did for frost and plague strike was all that is required for unholy to apply both diseases. I would say the only reason it is still around is that it's still needed for that reason for blood, and the glyphed dispel for the other specs. Hence why it's being culled for legion.

[ElDoorO]

I understand what you're saying, but the fact is Icy Touch is an outdated relic from when it was required by all specs to apply frost fever, before howling blast did for frost and plague strike was all that is required for unholy to apply both diseases. I would say the only reason it is still around is that it's still needed for that reason for blood, and the glyphed dispel for the other specs. Hence why it's being culled for legion.

We're talking about Frost, not Blood. They could have easily removed it for frost but they didn't and since it's requires a glyph for dispel, you can not argue that dispel is the main purpose. Single target is its primary purpose.

DK's have gone through so much changes since the start of Alpha to now I can't even begin to comment on anything because for all I know it'll change *again*.

Do you tank mobs right on top of the CC'd ones? Like your reason doesn't make any fucking sense. There's WAY too much random AoE/Cleave in the game, for example Blood DKs only have 1 way to get rid of Blood Runes; Blood Boil, which is an AoE attack.

and

You say this like it's a viable choice.
Have you actually looked at the damage (single target) Icy Touch is vs Howling Blast?

The smarter thing to do if you were really worried about CC is to grip or mass grip whatever isn't CC'd to yourself or another area and continue with Howling Blast in another direction.

I'm going to assume WoD is your first xpac and you've never had to worry about CC before, like seriously. Have you *never* played any other expansion before or ran when content needed CC'ing? Seriously, you act like you've never had to pay attention and try harder than mashing buttons.

If you've never had to deal with, say, Cata-like dungeons then I don't expect you to understand and that's as far as you'll be able to understand since CC is something you've never used. I run into this a low when people don't know mind freeze is an interrupt and such, so I'm expecting CC is new to you as well.

Death grip has a cool down. You can't grip, grip, grip, grip.

Unless someone is about to say not attacking at all is better than using IT, then your argument is moot. IT is better than nothing which is the point of having *something* as single target. So you don't fuck over CC'ed targets.

Using HB is as stupid as a hunter using barrage and pulling a room / un-CC'ing targets. This was the point of keeping IT in the first place. When you *can't* use HB.

[S7orm]

I think you're missing my point. HB will break CC, I'm 99% sure of it. IT is single target and will not break CC.

This is the point of having IT in the first place: The choice of AoE or single target.

The dispel is purely a secondary benefit, if you're glyphed for it.

If the fights is supposed to have CC near the boss than Frost is not the right spec to use. You don't bring a mattress to a pillow fight

As for PvP making HB avoid CCed targets and the glyph to dispel only the primary target (HB damage is already divided between primary and AoE) would make way more sense

[RuneDK]

You're still missing what I'm saying which I've already said: Howling blast will break CC. Icy Touch does not.

Icy Touch is single target for this reason.

And you're missing he point entirely....how often have you used crowd control this expansion outside of pvp? Also howling blast is directional..it only hits targets in front of you....so if your back is to the sheep and you howling blast it doesn't break cc

[Gungnir]

If the fights is supposed to have CC near the boss than Frost is not the right spec to use. You don't bring a mattress to a pillow fight

As for PvP making HB avoid CCed targets and the glyph to dispel only the primary target (HB damage is already divided between primary and AoE) would make way more sense

Then what spec would you actually bring?
UH isn't exactly non-cleave friendly so to say.

[Resurgo]

We're talking about Frost, not Blood. They could have easily removed it for frost but they didn't and since it's requires a glyph for dispel, you can not argue that dispel is the main purpose. Single target is its primary purpose.

DK's have gone through so much changes since the start of Alpha to now I can't even begin to comment on anything because for all I know it'll change *again*.



and



I'm going to assume WoD is your first xpac and you've never had to worry about CC before, like seriously. Have you *never* played any other expansion before or ran when content needed CC'ing? Seriously, you act like you've never had to pay attention and try harder than mashing buttons.

If you've never had to deal with, say, Cata-like dungeons then I don't expect you to understand and that's as far as you'll be able to understand since CC is something you've never used. I run into this a low when people don't know mind freeze is an interrupt and such, so I'm expecting CC is new to you as well.

Death grip has a cool down. You can't grip, grip, grip, grip.

Unless someone is about to say not attacking at all is better than using IT, then your argument is moot. IT is better than nothing which is the point of having *something* as single target. So you don't fuck over CC'ed targets.

Using HB is as stupid as a hunter using barrage and pulling a room / un-CC'ing targets. This was the point of keeping IT in the first place. When you *can't* use HB.

Uh, so turn around? I've CC'd in Vanilla, but that has no bearing on how the game plays today.

If you can't Howling Blast to the front, grip a mob, or position so you don't cleave the CC. How hard is that?
I mean use your head here. Even if today's hunter can't barrage to the front for fear of bringing a train of mobs down the hall, you know what he does? He positions from the other direction! Oh the horror!

[ro9ue]

You use it because it sounds cool.

[Fenrkyr]

We're talking about Frost, not Blood. They could have easily removed it for frost but they didn't and since it's requires a glyph for dispel, you can not argue that dispel is the main purpose. Single target is its primary purpose.

DK's have gone through so much changes since the start of Alpha to now I can't even begin to comment on anything because for all I know it'll change *again*.



and



I'm going to assume WoD is your first xpac and you've never had to worry about CC before, like seriously. Have you *never* played any other expansion before or ran when content needed CC'ing? Seriously, you act like you've never had to pay attention and try harder than mashing buttons.

If you've never had to deal with, say, Cata-like dungeons then I don't expect you to understand and that's as far as you'll be able to understand since CC is something you've never used. I run into this a low when people don't know mind freeze is an interrupt and such, so I'm expecting CC is new to you as well.

Death grip has a cool down. You can't grip, grip, grip, grip.

Unless someone is about to say not attacking at all is better than using IT, then your argument is moot. IT is better than nothing which is the point of having *something* as single target. So you don't fuck over CC'ed targets.

Using HB is as stupid as a hunter using barrage and pulling a room / un-CC'ing targets. This was the point of keeping IT in the first place. When you *can't* use HB.

Breakable CC is only relevant for trivial content. Can't even recall the last time a raid fight required a polymorph. But if you are limited to trivial 5man content and still having difficulty, then sure, use IT instead of HB.

Or you could just turn around.....

[Marrilaife]

I'm going to assume WoD is your first xpac and you've never had to worry about CC before, like seriously. Have you *never* played any other expansion before or ran when content needed CC'ing? Seriously, you act like you've never had to pay attention and try harder than mashing buttons.

If you've never had to deal with, say, Cata-like dungeons then I don't expect you to understand and that's as far as you'll be able to understand since CC is something you've never used. I run into this a low when people don't know mind freeze is an interrupt and such, so I'm expecting CC is new to you as well.

Last time cc was the way to go in dungeons was TBC. There was no DKs in TBC.

I don't know what world you live in, but Cata dungeons didn't require cc except very rare occasions. Maybe if you had a shaman or warlock you'd cc some elementals in grim batol but that was about it. Dangerous mobs required mostly interrupts, purges and maybe aoe stuns (I loved glyphed holy wrath for stunning all the elementals and dragons). There was 1 pack in stonecore that if you wanted to be careful and meticulous you'd corner pull to previous room vanilla style.

Cata dungeons were "hard" not because you needed cc, but because healers were running oom all the time and there was plenty of dodgeable 1-shot mechanisms that if you didn't or couldn't dodge, rip. The Vanessa gauntlet with the electricity lines for example. 1 fuckup and a person was dead. And nearly every dungeon had those. Stonecore for example, every boss had mechanics that would 1 shot a person.

Cata was also extremely interrupt heavy, lots of trash had heals or nasty spells, you really wanted to have plenty of stuns / interrupts in your group. You could try to cc a healer mob if you didn't have enough interrupts, but that wasn't the default approach.

Anyway, if you wanted to cc a mob and keep it cced you'd never want to keep the rest of the group within small range of him.

[ElDoorO]

Last time cc was the way to go in dungeons was TBC. There was no DKs in TBC.

I don't know what world you live in, but Cata dungeons didn't require cc except very rare occasions. Maybe if you had a shaman or warlock you'd cc some elementals in grim batol but that was about it. Dangerous mobs required mostly interrupts, purges and maybe aoe stuns (I loved glyphed holy wrath for stunning all the elementals and dragons). There was 1 pack in stonecore that if you wanted to be careful and meticulous you'd corner pull to previous room vanilla style.

Cata dungeons were "hard" not because you needed cc, but because healers were running oom all the time and there was plenty of dodgeable 1-shot mechanisms that if you didn't or couldn't dodge, rip. The Vanessa gauntlet with the electricity lines for example. 1 fuckup and a person was dead. And nearly every dungeon had those. Stonecore for example, every boss had mechanics that would 1 shot a person.

Cata was also extremely interrupt heavy, lots of trash had heals or nasty spells, you really wanted to have plenty of stuns / interrupts in your group. You could try to cc a healer mob if you didn't have enough interrupts, but that wasn't the default approach.

Anyway, if you wanted to cc a mob and keep it cced you'd never want to keep the rest of the group within small range of him.

I'm guessing everyone responding to me is not reading the entire conversation because y'all keep saying the same stupid shit over and over.

IT is for single target when you can't multi-target. Full stop. You can add the benefit (in what's called a glyph) for dispelling. That's what's known as a secondary effect.

HB is in all other circumstances.

Additionally, since apparently there aren't many DK players in this thread (or we couldn't be having this discussion about these parts of the spells), Death Grip (DG) has a cooldown. This means that sometimes you can't always pull everything out of the way into a perfect pile every single time in WoW. DK's are the only one with this type of ability. The reason this is important is casters don't move unless silenced. You'd be a complete moron to use HB on a caster that's right next to a sheep or sapped target.

The last time this was taken super seriously was in Cata and before that BC. Deny it all you want but this was the case in Cata more often than not. You did CC in dungeons if you could. The main difficulty was not being in com's. LFD basically required CC primarily because people didn't know they had interrupts -- so instead a full CC was used. This went on through the Troll dungeons and wasn't needed during the DS dungeons. We went from Wrath into Cata. Wrath you facerolled most dungeons with Halls of Reflection being the most difficult (namely the first boss) encounter. You didn't need CC in Wrath dungeons at all or in general. You did in Cata *because* healer mana pools were low. Additionally many people weren't transitioned well from the easiness of Wrath into the difficulty of Cata (e.g. not knowing they had interrupts; an issue I still run into today, especially if I run into fresh 100's that are clueless on why something is getting healed or bubbled).

These are important distinctions to make primarily so the OP understands the purpose of single target versus multi/any-target in its form of: "Can you use multi-target or not in your rotation?" -- this is an important distinction that needs to be made, especially with Legion stuff coming up where you may want to use CC or not use AoE spells potentially.

Now, unless someone wants to add something new to the conversation such as a claim that HB does not break CC -- this discussion on this particular point is over. There's nothing new to add here. There's been nothing new to add here for a while relative to this specific distinction on IT versus HB. I've yet to see new paradigms, explanations, anything.

Worth adding: This is excluding PvP, which presents different dynamics.

[ChakanDH]

I may be wrong here, but it seems the way you're implying IT as single target, is that you would actually use it as a rotational ability. IT has been for the longest time just a way to apply frost fever for all specs, nothing more - hence why it does sweet FA damage. And since mid cata for frost, and MoP for unholy, it's only real use has been the dispelling effect the glyph gives it. Blood is the only spec that regularly uses it to apply frost fever now, when outbreak is on CD. No one in their right mind would use it now, CC or not, its just not worth the rune usage. You would be better off spending an unholy rune as well and obliterate instead.

[Resurgo]

And what every other DK in here is saying is that there is ZERO reason in today's game to need to use Icy Touch at all over Howling Blast that can't be taken care of by moving the mob or pointing in another direction.

Especially considering that Icy Touch does 85% less damage per rune than Howling Blast.

[Kio]

I'm guessing everyone responding to me is not reading the entire conversation because y'all keep saying the same stupid shit over and over.

IT is for single target when you can't multi-target. Full stop. You can add the benefit (in what's called a glyph) for dispelling. That's what's known as a secondary effect.

HB is in all other circumstances.

Additionally, since apparently there aren't many DK players in this thread (or we couldn't be having this discussion about these parts of the spells), Death Grip (DG) has a cooldown. This means that sometimes you can't always pull everything out of the way into a perfect pile every single time in WoW. DK's are the only one with this type of ability. The reason this is important is casters don't move unless silenced. You'd be a complete moron to use HB on a caster that's right next to a sheep or sapped target.

The last time this was taken super seriously was in Cata and before that BC. Deny it all you want but this was the case in Cata more often than not. You did CC in dungeons if you could. The main difficulty was not being in com's. LFD basically required CC primarily because people didn't know they had interrupts -- so instead a full CC was used. This went on through the Troll dungeons and wasn't needed during the DS dungeons. We went from Wrath into Cata. Wrath you facerolled most dungeons with Halls of Reflection being the most difficult (namely the first boss) encounter. You didn't need CC in Wrath dungeons at all or in general. You did in Cata *because* healer mana pools were low. Additionally many people weren't transitioned well from the easiness of Wrath into the difficulty of Cata (e.g. not knowing they had interrupts; an issue I still run into today, especially if I run into fresh 100's that are clueless on why something is getting healed or bubbled).

These are important distinctions to make primarily so the OP understands the purpose of single target versus multi/any-target in its form of: "Can you use multi-target or not in your rotation?" -- this is an important distinction that needs to be made, especially with Legion stuff coming up where you may want to use CC or not use AoE spells potentially.

Now, unless someone wants to add something new to the conversation such as a claim that HB does not break CC -- this discussion on this particular point is over. There's nothing new to add here. There's been nothing new to add here for a while relative to this specific distinction on IT versus HB. I've yet to see new paradigms, explanations, anything.

Worth adding: This is excluding PvP, which presents different dynamics.

That's cool and all, but there hasn't been a time in, like, 4 years where you *can't* AoE.