A mini guide to understanding 7.3 Frost DK

[FrostyK]

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Abbreviations used

RA = Runic Attenuation (Talent)
ME = Murderous Efficiency (Talent)
HoW = Horn of Winter (Talent)
PoF = Pillar of Frost (1min CD Spell)
ERW = Empowered Rune Weapon (3min CD spell)
KM = Killing Machine (passive proc)
HB = Howling Blast (spell)
RW = Remorseless Winter (spell)
GS = Gathering Storm (talent)
BoS = Breath of Sindragosa
RP = Runic Power
FS = Frost Strike
GCD = Global Cooldown
TOS = Tomb of Soakgaras

Im not sure if I used all these Abrrev but theres are the one that is commonly used.


Introduction

This guide assume you know the basic mechanics of the Frost DK and what each talent does. The goal of this "guide" is NOT to tell what talent/stats to play, but rather to help you understand the core mechanic of the Frost DK and arrive at your own decision. If you are here for a TLR on what talent to choose and what stats/trinket/legendaries to play, this is not the guide.



Frost DK in General

Frost DK is an extremely GCD reliant class. We have 4 main skills that we use

1) Obliterate
2) Howling Blast
3) Frost Strike
4) Remorseless Winter

All these 4 skills require a GCD. We have 2 procs that come up very frequently

1) Killing Machine
2) Rime

Both of these procs requires GCD to consume them (Obliterate and HB). Due to this, the only way for a Frost DK to do bigger and better DPS, is to

1) You hit harder per GCD usage.
2) Resource management. Every seconds you waste not casting your skills (because of lack of resource), is a loss DPS.

We will go through both of these points in depth. Always think of your skills and damage in terms of per GCD spent.



Optimizing GCD Usage

The TL: DR version is, you want to hit hard with every GCD usage. This is not as simple as it sounds though. The obvious way to do this is to have better gear. Better ilvl means more strength which means skills hit harder. Aside from gear, we have 3 other things

1) Killing Machine
2) Rime HB
3) Pillar of Frost

With these, the best way to dish out high DPS per GCD usage is, theoretically hitting all crit Obliterate during PoF window. Although on live this is impossible, we can get pretty close. Pillar of Frost last 20secs. Within that 20sec, you will want to squeeze in as many KM crit Obliterate and Rime HB as possible. The worst thing you can do during the 20sec PoF is sitting around waiting for your resource to regenerate. Thus you need to prep and have a "rotation" ready for PoF window. It is best to practice this "PoF rotation" on dummies.



Breathe of Sindragosa

The reason why BoS build is very powerful is because BOS allows you to constantly deal damage WITHOUT consuming a GCD. If you get BoS up for 45secs, you dealt extra 30 GCD worth of damage. BoS in the ONLY skill that Frost DK have that allows you to deals damage without consuming GCD. It also synergize very nicely with 2P TOS set bonus and Runic Empowerment, where it extend your PoF window AND gives you runes without needing to spend GCD. Without BoS, this can only be achieve by spamming Frost Strike, which consume a GCD that could be spend on Obliterate. Longer PoF means more damage with BoS. Thus your damage get compounded to ridiculous level the longer you can hold BoS.

The downside is that once your BoS end, you will be resource starved for a very long while. With 7.3, HRW is on the same Tier as BOS, you can longer hold BOS for 45-60sec duration. You will be lucky if you can hold it for 30secs. The "free" 20 GCD worth of damage is simply not worth the resource starvation that will occurs later IF you are unable to down the boss fast enough. But this guide will not go into BoS as that’s what we have been doing for the entire legion.



Priority and Proc management

1) Always consume KM asap
2) If KM/Rime is not up and your Runes are not capped, use frost strike if possible before Obliterate. If Runes are capped, use Obliterate.
3) Always consume the Rime proc before you Obliterate


Resource Management

So lets talk about maximizing your DPS and resource usage during PoF window.
You have 4 Talents and 1 Baseline passive that will help you with resource regeneration.
1) Runic Attenuation (Talent)
2) Murderous Efficiency or Horn of Winter (Talent). Note that HoW uses a GCD while ME is passive.
3) Runic Empowerment (Passive)
4) Hungering Rune Weapon (Talent). Currently not worth taking as it waste a lot of resources.

To a lesser extent, Rime can be considered a mini-resource proc, as it consume no runes. The GCD that Rimes takes up means you are given 1.5sec "free" to recharging your runes.

I personally find Runic Attenuation important as it will eliminate those awkward situations where you are sitting on 24RP and you can't Frost Strike.

Most of the time, your first PoF during the start of the fight will line up with Bloodlust and Potions. It is paramount that you do not screw it up. Thus Frost DK "opening" is something very crucial and you need to practice it to perfection. Bloodlust last 40sec and Prolonged Power last 1min. This mean, you wouldn't want to also go "all out" during PoF window and then not have enough resource for the remaining Bloodlust/Prolonged power duration.

As I mention earlier that during PoF window, you will want as many KM procs as possible because of crit Obliterate and Rime procs. The most reliable way to achieve this is Obliteration.
Now let’s talk a bit more about Obliteration.



Obliteration

Obliteration does one very simple thing; allow Frost Strike and Howling Blast to trigger KM for 10sec. But it also has a very beneficial side effect that is unwritten. It regenerates resources WHILE allowing you to dish out crit Obliterate for 10secs. How?

1) For 10secs Obliterate cost 1 rune
2) Due to Runic Empowerment, Frost Strike has 25% chance for granting you one rune, making your next crit Obliterate essentially free.
3) ME also gives your KM 50% granting you one rune.
4) Every Obliterate have 45% chance for Rime which allows you to trigger another KM without consuming RP. A Rime procced KM will net you 10RP.

This means that under Obliteration, every GCD usage (frost strike/HB or obliterate) have high chances of
1) Consuming no runes or even gaining 1 rune if both RE and ME triggers
2) Stocking up RP with every Rime procs

All these are happening while you are dishing out maximum damage and your runes are naturally regenerating. By the time Obliteration ends, you will most likely be at Full Runes and a healthy amount of RP. This is very important because you need to prepare yourself for an Obliteration usage so as NOT TO over cap yourself on resources. As a Frost DK, over capping and wasting resources is bad bad bad.

A general rule of thumb is to use Obliteration around 2-3 Runes and 40-ish Runic Power. Depending on what talents you take (RA/ME/HoW), it is important to work out an optimal state that you should be in before you cast Obliteration.

This make Obliteration more powerful than it seems as it allows you to dish out huge damage from resource starved situation and usually ending off with full runes.



Initial PoF Window

You will want to start off by consuming all your runes, usually in this manner
RW => HB => Obliterate => Obliterate

Whatever procs you get, consume them. Your goal is get your resource down to the optimal state for Obliteration that we talked about earlier. You have 10sec to achieve this (PoF last 20sec and you need the last 10sec for Obliteration) without wasting any procs. 10sec is more than sufficient with Bloodlust.

Get your Obliteration online. Make sure you practice your Obliteration rotation perfectly. Mistakes like accidentally casting frost strike twice in a row or not consuming a rime procs is not only a dps loss but also a resource loss. Sometime you might get natural KM procs, try not to miss it although it takes good response and awareness (and latency).

In short, during Obliteration, get all of these right,
1)Consume all KM as soon as they comes up. Even the natural ones. Every natural KM you missed is a waste of 25RP. This can be hard as sometimes you will need to Obliterate twice in a row, one from FS/HB and the other one from natural proc. Practice Practice Practice!
2)Consume all Rime Procs as soon as they comes up.
3) DO NOT accidentally frost strike twice in a row. This is a deal breaker. Never let this happen during Obliteration. If you do this, you would have wasted 25RP, a GCD which is very precious during the 10sec Obliteration window, a KM proc. Wasting a KM proc means wasting a potential ME and Rime proc. This could end up in huge loss of resource which you could have otherwise gained/saved.

Your Obliteration should end roughly about the same time as your PoF. This is the optimal situation.

What next?

Worry not because after Obliteration, you should not only have ample resources but also another Cooldown spell; Empowered Rune Weapon.



Empowered Rune Weapon

ERW, have a 3 minute cooldown. Most people will tend to hold of this spell until the perfect moment. But you do not want to be sitting on this spell for too long either as for most boss fights, you can get a second cast off. What you want is the same with Obliteration, to consciously create an ideal situation in which ERW is most effective.

The ideal state is to deplete all your RP first. Then it goes something like this

RW => use up all your remaining runes => consume rime procs.

Depending on the number runes you used up, your RP should be around 40-50-ish. This will allow you to cast ERW for maximum effect. The reason why you want to get RW off first is that since your runes are going to recharge to full, you can get very high stacks of gathering storm for maximum damage. If you are running RA, you can easily over cap your RP during this stage, especially if you get multiple Rime procs.

If you find yourself unable to manage over capping of your RP, You can run Shattering Strike instead of RA for bigger dps. But running SS instead of RA means you need to rework your "optimal state" for Obliteration. Note that Blood Elves have Arcane Torrent for a little bit of leeway. So long as you manage your resources properly, your Obliteration should come off cooldown before you become resource starved.



Cold Heart and Sindragosa Fury

If you have Cold Heart, always take Ice Cap as the talent as it will allow your PoF to line up nicely. If PoF is duration is ending and you have 10 or more stacks of Cold Heart, dump it.

Always try to line up all your trinket/potions/Concordance/PoF with these 2 spells. I can regularly get 7mil crit with Cold Heart, if it is lined up with concordance and PoF. This is your biggest source of damage per GCD usage on most fights.




Trash?

Nothing changes. Learn your trash packs and affixes. Your biggest dps contribution is gauging if you can get an Obliteration off during the trash and have it available before next boss fight. You can effectively go

PoF => RW => HB => 2 X Obliterate (Frostscythe) => Obliteration

Due to all the KM and reduce cost of Obliterate, you will get a lot of Rime procs which is your biggest DPS in trash packs.
There is no hard and fast rule as if you are running higher keys or fortified affix, trash can takes longer.



Frostcythe vs Gathering Storm

The choices between these two can be confusing. I will try to explain the factors you will need to consider. The choice is up to the player themselves. Sometime the choice is as simple as "I just like Frostscythe" or "I don't want an additional action button".

When comparing any kills as a Frost DK, you need to think in terms of GCD spent. Every GCD spent doing something is an opportunity cost that could spent on other things.

Here's the biggest issue when comparing Frostscythe against Gathering Storm; you cannot simply measure damage from FrostScythe vs damage from GS and determine which is better. This is because Frostscythe consume a GCD and KM proc (which could be spent on Obliterate), while GS doesn't.

Given a hypothetical trash fight against 3 x mobs, one have to consider
1) How many Frostscythe do you need to compete against 1 cast of RW with GS?
2) How many Rime procs can potentially occurs? Every GCD spent on Rime is a GCD NOT spent on Frostscythe which devalues Frostscythe.
3) Does the fight last long enough for GS to hit full potential?

Frostscythe values will goes up with increasing number of mobs. Frostscythe values will goes up for fights that do not last the full duration of RW. However, GS also scales well with increasing number of mobs relatively well, just not as much as Frostscythe. Frostscythe have huge bursting potential when combine with Obliteration, especially if you have multiple Rime procs. Sometime this reason alone is justifiable for the choice on affixes like teeming/Fortified. However on ST boss fights, Frostscythe is a dead talent.

Thus this is difficult to evaluate as the choice will differ greatly depends on Dungeons/affixes/raid. One also have to take into account of raid/group composition and progression.

If you are spamming M+ below your gear level, Frostscythe seems to be the way to go as it allows you to AoE burst down trash and cheese the meters.





Stats

Strength > everything

You need a good amount of base crit for your KM triggers outside of obliteration. If you are not taking ME, you can value crit lower. I find haste to be an important stats as our biggest DPS contributing factors comes from how much GCD we can squeeze in during PoF window. 10sec of that is under Obliteration thus, I value crit slightly lesser than haste. You won't be short on mastery as for some reason, Plate gears tend to be Crit/mastery or haste/mastery.

Summary:
1) ilvl Upgrade for gears with with strength on them are always better.
2) A good base crit stats (20-25%)
3) A balance of everything else.

It's important to have a good amount of haste, as if your haste is too low, the spec can feel clunky to play.


Summary
The most important this as a Frost DK are,
1) Never waste a GCD
2) Resource managment

Practice, practice and practice
1) Your optimal resource state before Obliteration
2) "Rotation" during PoF window


Hope this "guide" helps for all the lost Frost DK during 7.3.

[Dyra]

Thank you for helping us poor lost souls.

Just one small thing though. Could you include a key for your abbreviations? I imagine for the long term frost DKs it'll be fine, but those dipping into the spec for fun (like me) might not know what you mean.

For example, I was following along fine, since you talked about Pillar of Frost the paragraph before PoF was mentioned. But then I reached RW. And that took me longer than I care to admit to work out you meant Remorseless Winter.

Edit: Ah I read the introduction. Guide not 100% meant for me and my ilk. But still, though I try, I do struggle with abbreviations. Helpful irregardless.

[FrostyK]

Thank you for helping us poor lost souls.

Just one small thing though. Could you include a key for your abbreviations? I imagine for the long term frost DKs it'll be fine, but those dipping into the spec for fun (like me) might not know what you mean.

For example, I was following along fine, since you talked about Pillar of Frost the paragraph before PoF was mentioned. But then I reached RW. And that took me longer than I care to admit to work out you meant Remorseless Winter.

Edit: Ah I read the introduction. Guide not 100% meant for me and my ilk. But still, though I try, I do struggle with abbreviations. Helpful irregardless.

No Problem mate.

RA = Runic Attenuation (Talent)
ME = Murderous Efficiency (Talent)
HoW = Horn of Winter (Talent)
PoF = Pillar of Frost (1min CD Spell)
ERW = Empowered Rune Weapon (3min CD spell)
KM = Killing Machine (passive proc)
HB = Howling Blast (spell)
RW = Remorseless Winter (spell)
GS = Gathering Storm (talent)
RP = Runic Power
FS = Frost Strike

Im not sure if I used all these Abrrev but theres are the one that is commonly used.

[Emote]

You talk about m+ and rotations, and yet never mention Frost Scythe. Is there ever any situation in m+ (not raids) where you're not using this talent by default, or with ring? Pretty much your main damage source for burst aoe

[FrostyK]

You talk about m+ and rotations, and yet never mention Frost Scythe. Is there ever any situation in m+ (not raids) where you're not using this talent by default, or with ring? Pretty much your main damage source for burst aoe

As mentioned this "guide" isn't about telling you what talent to choose or compare talents but rather to understand what makes Frost DK ticks.

Within this context, you can definitely do some crazy damage combining Frostscythe with Obliteration and Pillar of Frost during huge trash pulls. However Frostscythe compete with Gathering Storm on the same talent tier. In terms of AoE damage, Frostscythe scales much better with each additional mobs however is useless on boss fights. Gathering Storm still do respectable AoE and is not a dead talent on boss fight.

Thus a choice have to be made base on the how high is the key you are doing. Are there trash affixes such as teeming, bolstering and fortified. The waist legendary also only affect Obliterate and not Frostscythe.

If you like using Frostscythe, you can basically replace all Obliterate with Frostscythe, and this guide still stands. If you are looking for specifics like at how many mobs does Froscythe out dps Gathering Storm, I apologized as that is not the scope of what I wanted to discuss.

[Clash the DK]

However Frostscythe compete with Gathering Storm on the same talent tier. In terms of AoE damage, Frostscythe scales much better with each additional mobs however is useless on boss fights. Gathering Storm still do respectable AoE and is not a dead talent on boss fight.

This information is wrong and misleading. Frostscythe is a viable choice for "boss fights".

[FrostyK]

This information is wrong and misleading. Frostscythe is a viable choice for "boss fights".

I assume readers here are smart enough to deduce the unwritten clause of "Single target" before the boss fights. Once again, it is not the scope of the guide to explain what talent for what boss and what dungeon and such. A quick wowlog on ToS mythic will show, HARDLY anyone takes Frostcythe. Also note that the Talent Legendary Ring is not a Legendary that most Frost DK would like to equip, despite giving you both Frostscythe and Gathering Storm.

I understand there a lot of Frostscythe fans here, I don't condemn this choice. I am not here to discuss frostscythe viability which is WHY it was purposely omitted from this post. I don't understand why people are digging it up yet not providing any information regarding it.

If you are a Frostscythe fan and you feels that it's good, make a guide about it. I'll be more than happy to read and learn from it.
If you have information and statistic showing on which boss fight does Frostscythe scales better compare to Gathering Storm, by all means share it here. It will be a good discussion and also a learning experience for me.

[Clash the DK]

I assume readers here are smart enough to deduce the unwritten clause of "Single target" before the boss fights. Once again, it is not the scope of the guide to explain what talent for what boss and what dungeon and such. A quick wowlog on ToS mythic will show, HARDLY anyone takes Frostcythe. Also note that the Talent Legendary Ring is not a Legendary that most Frost DK would like to equip, despite giving you both Frostscythe and Gathering Storm.

I understand there a lot of Frostscythe fans here, I don't condemn this choice. I am not here to discuss frostscythe viability which is WHY it was purposely omitted from this post. I don't understand why people are digging it up yet not providing any information regarding it.

If you are a Frostscythe fan and you feels that it's good, make a guide about it. I'll be more than happy to read and learn from it.
If you have information and statistic showing on which boss fight does Frostscythe scales better compare to Gathering Storm, by all means share it here. It will be a good discussion and also a learning experience for me.

Frostscythe / Obliteration and Gathering Storm / BoS are comparable, depending on which stats you choose and legendaries you equip. Frostscythe gaining the ability to proc Rime and Crystalline Swords was a big deal. But even after that, BoS was still the way to go. Now that BoS game play has been toned down though, things are different and we actually have options.

My point is that you said Frostscythe is useless on Boss fights and that is incorrect. The patch just came out. There will be further statistical evidence in the coming weeks as more people experiment.

[Raiz]

Trash?

Nothing changes. Learn your trash packs and affixes. Your biggest dps contribution is gauging if you can get an Obliteration off during the trash and have it available before next boss fight. You can effectively go

PoF => RW => HB => 2 X Obliterate => Obliteration

Due to all the KM and reduce cost of Obliterate, you will get a lot of Rime procs which is your biggest DPS in trash packs.
There is no hard and fast rule as if you are running higher keys or fortified affix, trash can takes longer.

Nice guide. I wish there were more of them because reading through stickies can get a bit tedious especially if they aren't up to date.

That being said, I prefer to use 2 obliterate first before using HB because we want a rime proc. My frost fever is doing pretty poor damage compared to all the other spell, so I don't feel like there's the need to give them fever disease as fast as you can like the others 2 specs of the DK. It's especially true if you have blast radius relics.

[FrostyK]

Nice guide. I wish there were more of them because reading through stickies can get a bit tedious especially if they aren't up to date.

That being said, I prefer to use 2 obliterate first before using HB because we want a rime proc. My frost fever is doing pretty poor damage compared to all the other spell, so I don't feel like there's the need to give them fever disease as fast as you can like the others 2 specs of the DK. It's especially true if you have blast radius relics.

Thank you. 2xObliterate before HB work as well =)

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Frostscythe / Obliteration and Gathering Storm / BoS are comparable, depending on which stats you choose and legendaries you equip. Frostscythe gaining the ability to proc Rime and Crystalline Swords was a big deal. But even after that, BoS was still the way to go. Now that BoS game play has been toned down though, things are different and we actually have options.

My point is that you said Frostscythe is useless on Boss fights and that is incorrect. The patch just came out. There will be further statistical evidence in the coming weeks as more people experiment.

My apology. "useless" was a poor choice of word there.

[Deleted]

Thank you. 2xObliterate before HB work as well =)

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My apology. "useless" was a poor choice of word there.

You never want to cast HB to apply Frost Fever without a Rime proc. Its just not worth it, Frost Fever dmg is so low (5-6% in a ST fight), its always a DPS loss to usw a rune for HB. Chances of not getting a Rime Proc with the 2 Oblits are 'only' 30%.

On top of that you want to use this Rune for Icy Chains as soon as you have the legendary Chest.

[FrostyK]

Updated; added a Frostscythe section and updated many other sections.

[Raiz]

My questions are:
Should you ever use Frostscythe to consume KM during Obliteration? If yes, at how many mobs
Should you consume KM with Frostscythe always outside Obliteration? Even if you are using the belt?
At how many mobs should you use Frostscythe without KM.

We may not have the same stats but :
- My Fsc always hit harder than obliterate against 2 targets or more.
- Of course you'd want to use KM with Fsc outside of obliteration against 2 targets. Against 1 target obliterate does better damage. Now for prolonged fight, I don't know. I don't have enough experience to know if it's better to save the runes. I do have the belt, but that's still pretty random. Sometimes I'd end up capping either RP or runes, and sometimes it's the opposite...
- Frankly, I don't bother using Fsc at all without KM. Obliterate with rime proc does the job. So I just wait for another KM proc in order to use Fsc. If it doesn't proc, I'll just use Obliterate and hope for either a KM or a rime proc. If you have that much mobs, I'd simply be content with Remorseless winter, and that'll often be enough because you won't be facing this situation regularly.

Hope it helps.

[Deleted]

pretty basic and far from optimal but should help alot of people on this forum after seeing their logs/playstyles

[Deleted]

pretty basic and far from optimal but should help alot of people on this forum after seeing their logs/playstyles

Pls enlighten us with the optimal playstyle t.t

My questions are:
Should you ever use Frostscythe to consume KM during Obliteration? If yes, at how many mobs
Should you consume KM with Frostscythe always outside Obliteration? Even if you are using the belt?
At how many mobs should you use Frostscythe without KM.

Use FScy during Oblit against 2 or more Targets

If you dont use the belt outside of Obliteration you always want to consume KM with FScy even against a single target. If you are using the belt you want to use FScy against 2 or more Targets, for ST Oblit / w Belt > FScy

Against 3-4 its worth to cast FScy without KM proc.

[Deleted]

A mini guide to understanding 7.3 Frost DK

And you are...?

[hellhamster]

Have to chime in that using HB on a non-Rime is a dps loss in all scenarios. Frost Fever should always be applied with a Rime.

So the opener looks like scrapping HB before Rimes.