Breath Spec still pulling ahead on the PTR....

[mmowin]

I've been on the ptr past couple of days testing out frost and surprisingly (or non surprisingly) BOS is still doing more dps than other non BOS specs i've been testing, and ive been testing everything. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? If not, do you guys have a good non BOS build I can test out?

[cuafpr]

I dont really use the PTR but this doesn't surprise me and I'm ok with it being ahead long as its not leaps and bounds ahead. Not being a min/maxer if i do 100k dps less to pay a spec I enjoy i'll do it.

[Drakonskyr]

Baseline perhaps, but if t21 stays as is, paired with Koltira's it's a 25% dmg buff to Oblit, so unless numbers change drastically and Breath gets buffed again, I highly doubt it won't get beat by Obliteration.

[bungie]

I've been on the ptr past couple of days testing out frost and surprisingly (or non surprisingly) BOS is still doing more dps than other non BOS specs i've been testing, and ive been testing everything. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? If not, do you guys have a good non BOS build I can test out?

What do you mean 'testing', what have you been testing. What kind of talent selections have you been doing. This is all very anecdotal evidence. We don't even know what your skill level or gear level is. As well as the fact that this is simply the first iteration of changes on a PTR that will probably be up for another 2+ months there are bound to me more changes as well.

I'm personally going to wait till we get all the changes properly represented in simcraft as well as T21 in it's current state to test things out and see where things sit.

[oland138]

I don't play frost at all so I'm just going by what Blizzard was addressing in their post on the changes.

Wouldn't Breath be punished by movement? If you're just patchwerking this then ya maybe breath should be pulling ahead a little bit, but I would imagine that other builds would be a little bit more forgiving to movement. If you could maximize runic power generation and uptime on the target, it probably should be pulling ahead. I mean they obviously don't want to kill the talent.

[Tehterokkar]

Question is, by how much does it pull ahead?

Their entire point of reworking Frost talents a bit was to reduce the gap between BoS and other builds, they said nothing about making BoS the worst talent.

And this was only the first round of PTR balancing, they will further tune stuff before release.

[Schizoide]

Yup. Breath requires the most work to execute properly so it should offer the highest performance. They're just trying to narrow the gap so not choosing breath doesn't instantly brand you a baddie.

[Kluian05]

I hope BoS is still the "Best" spec because it is more difficult and requires proper play. Other frost specs should just be near it.

[Piz813]

What do you mean 'testing', what have you been testing. What kind of talent selections have you been doing. This is all very anecdotal evidence. We don't even know what your skill level or gear level is. As well as the fact that this is simply the first iteration of changes on a PTR that will probably be up for another 2+ months there are bound to me more changes as well.

I'm personally going to wait till we get all the changes properly represented in simcraft as well as T21 in it's current state to test things out and see where things sit.

+1 For using the word anecdotal

Are the changes/some changes on the PTR right now? I'm with you. I don't consider a target dummy full proof evidence. I like my data from real raid settings. Moving bosses, adds, etc

I understand it's exciting to see huge numbers on the PTR whacking a dummy but if the changes are on PTR they just got there... tuning comes right after

- - - Updated - - -

I hope BoS is still the "Best" spec because it is more difficult and requires proper play. Other frost specs should just be near it.

Yes true. Brains are needed for breath. MG is just fun IMO and if it does damage like it did in 7.1.5, go for it!

[Hctaz]

Baseline perhaps, but if t21 stays as is, paired with Koltira's it's a 25% dmg buff to Oblit, so unless numbers change drastically and Breath gets buffed again, I highly doubt it won't get beat by Obliteration.

I'm not sure of the interaction with Breath and Obliterate post changes but I do know that, as of the last time I played Frost (4/9 M) Obliterate was my hardest hitting ability even beating Breath by a few mil on mythic Harjatan. It might not heavily favor machinegun/obliteration as much as you'd expect.

[Piz813]

I'm not sure of the interaction with Breath and Obliterate post changes but I do know that, as of the last time I played Frost (4/9 M) Obliterate was my hardest hitting ability even beating Breath by a few mil on mythic Harjatan. It might not heavily favor machinegun/obliteration as much as you'd expect.

We're you wearing Koltiras?

[Hctaz]

We're you wearing Koltiras?

Yeah but that was what was simmed to be the highest at the time I think. I guess ring ended up pulling ahead despite sims but I was using Belt/bracers with 4set 20 2set 19.

[Drakonskyr]

I'm not sure of the interaction with Breath and Obliterate post changes but I do know that, as of the last time I played Frost (4/9 M) Obliterate was my hardest hitting ability even beating Breath by a few mil on mythic Harjatan. It might not heavily favor machinegun/obliteration as much as you'd expect.

I'm not talking about live, though (unless you're saying you killed Harjatan on Mythic on the PTR, which I doubt). I'm talking about 7.3. If you take into consideration the fact that we'll have much less Breath uptime when the patch goes live due to the loss of HRW and the nerfs to the rest of our resource-generating talents, add to that the tier set for Argus, which buffs both Obliterate and HB by 15%, plus an extra 10% to Oblit if you're using Koltira's Newfound Will, which is also getting changed, plus the changes to Obliteration not only increasing its duration but making rime procs proc Killing Machine so the rimes no longer go wasted, whereas Breath will now force us to waste most of them since generating rp on a shorter Breath will be much more important than a free Howling Blast... When you put all these things together I just don't see how Breath will stay better unless it does a ton of damage per tick. It would have to be something on par with DA near the end of its duration.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for Breath being the talent with the highest dps potential, but without another buff I just can't see how Obliteration won't be better.

[Hctaz]

I'm not talking about live, though (unless you're saying you killed Harjatan on Mythic on the PTR, which I doubt). I'm talking about 7.3. If you take into consideration the fact that we'll have much less Breath uptime when the patch goes live due to the loss of HRW and the nerfs to the rest of our resource-generating talents, add to that the tier set for Argus, which buffs both Obliterate and HB by 15%, plus an extra 10% to Oblit if you're using Koltira's Newfound Will, which is also getting changed, plus the changes to Obliteration not only increasing its duration but making rime procs proc Killing Machine so the rimes no longer go wasted, whereas Breath will now force us to waste most of them since generating rp on a shorter Breath will be much more important than a free Howling Blast... When you put all these things together I just don't see how Breath will stay better unless it does a ton of damage per tick. It would have to be something on par with DA near the end of its duration.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for Breath being the talent with the highest dps potential, but without another buff I just can't see how Obliteration won't be better.

Okay but the PTR changes don't support making Obliteration better than Breath is my point. Obliterate is getting buffed but like I said, Obliterate is already doing more damage than Breath using Belt/Bracers on live. Obliteration is still a shit talent. It doesn't actively do much of anything to increase your damage for its duration. Your suggestion that players won't be able to use Rime procs during Breath is irrelevant because good players will find ways to make their Breath last as long as it needs to (it only need to last as long as Pillar to be effective) while still weaving Rime procs in. The nerf to Blast Radius already saw a pretty huge decrease in the damage of Howling Blast and they're further nerfing it by reducing the strength of the Freezing Fog talent. Missing a few rime procs is probably not going to matter as much as the power of Breath. It's still strong.

[Baddok21]

I'm not talking about live, though (unless you're saying you killed Harjatan on Mythic on the PTR, which I doubt). I'm talking about 7.3. If you take into consideration the fact that we'll have much less Breath uptime when the patch goes live due to the loss of HRW and the nerfs to the rest of our resource-generating talents, add to that the tier set for Argus, which buffs both Obliterate and HB by 15%, plus an extra 10% to Oblit if you're using Koltira's Newfound Will, which is also getting changed, plus the changes to Obliteration not only increasing its duration but making rime procs proc Killing Machine so the rimes no longer go wasted, whereas Breath will now force us to waste most of them since generating rp on a shorter Breath will be much more important than a free Howling Blast... When you put all these things together I just don't see how Breath will stay better unless it does a ton of damage per tick. It would have to be something on par with DA near the end of its duration.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for Breath being the talent with the highest dps potential, but without another buff I just can't see how Obliteration won't be better.

what is the Value of Obliteration to a DK with

36% crit
25% haste
35% mastery

with that much crit and haste you dont exactly even require Killing Machine for OB crits and with that much haste you dont even need the reduction in Rune cost for a continous flow of your rotation.

thats the problem with Obliteration it gives you 2 things that are trumped by higher ilvl or simply well itemized gear. back 800-865 ilvl it was great but at 925 I dont Value what is offers

[bakko]

I hope BoS is still the "Best" spec because it is more difficult and requires proper play. Other frost specs should just be near it.

yeah pooling some runes and stick on boss for maximum blargh requires so much skill, lol

[Coldvibes]

yeah pooling some runes and stick on boss for maximum blargh requires so much skill, lol

Relative to firing and forgetting? Yes that actually does take a little more brainpower....

[SenpaiDean]

breath is supposed to be best, they're just addressing the issue with breath having to last a minute in order for a frost dk to be viable dps

[bakko]

Relative to firing and forgetting? Yes that actually does take a little more brainpower....

What changes? Don't use Frost Strike, thats almost all. Why do people always act as if bos is godsend for Frost? It's scumy on mechanical bosses and forces the specc to stick to one single build. But yeah, go on with yourself thinking BoS is so skillful.

[Schizoide]

C'mon, now. You need to pool your resources, save your cooldowns, align to bloodlust and other external cooldowns, base your build and gear around maximizing uptime, and know the fight well enough to use it at the right spot so you don't have to leave melee range for the next 30+ seconds. All these things demonstrably require skill and attention. Not rocket-science, sure. But more than the standard frost builds.