Whats 5.2 DPS Sims Looking Like? Unholy or Frost

[rap87]

Hey guys,

Coming back a bit after a month or so break whilst the content became stale and had some RL things to deal with and I'm wondering what Unholy vs DW Frost is looking like for 5.2. DW Frost was just too good to pass up this tier with the Cleave and High Mobility. I would look forward to mastering a new spec if Unholy was right at or beating DW Frost in anything, is this perhaps the case this time around? I didn't really see this addressed specifically anywhere yet or is it still too early to tell?

Much appreciated,

Proklus

[jasonleekungfu]

idk about sims atm. But new dps gears don't look very good for frost. I saw lots of crits - -

[Deleted]

Seeing as abilities and whatnot are still fluctuating on the PTR (last change was today iirc) then I doubt simcraft is completely up to date.

At the moment it's still looking "fairly" close:

Frost
Howling Blast now deals 8% more damage to the primary target. Damage to other enemies in the area-of-effect remains unchanged.
Icy Talons now increases attack speed by 25% (was 20%).
Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases melee damage by 15% (was 10%).

Unholy
Reaping now also applies to Icy Touch.
Summon Gargoyle no longer costs Runic Power.
Gargoyle Strike now also deals Shadow damage, in addition to Nature damage.
Ebon Plaguebringer now causes Plague Strike to inflict Frost Fever, in addition to its other effects.
Scourge Strike now deals 3.8% more damage.

Read from that what you will... Unholy has had some nice QoL changes, scourge strike has been buffed slightly and the tier14 2PC bonus (which was awesome for 2H frost, good for DW and "meh" for unholy) has been nerfed (and will eventually be lost once you have more tier15 pieces) which is an indirect buff to unholy IMO. If you liked unholy before then it's just slightly more competitive and less annoying in 5.2.

Frost has had some buffs aswell (listed above) and DW has the buff to HB - cementing Blizzard's "masterfrost" position. All in all it's too early to say without accurate sims but I doubt much will have changed, from the looks of it DW will still have the edge (could be wrong, ofc)

[Nangz]

Sims point to the specs all being within 1-3% of each other. However it never truely is sims that determine what spec we play.

Unholy "sims" reasonably close to frost in this tier but everyone plays frost because frost is better on the fights of the tier.

[Gabbynator]

at ilvl 532 as 2h frost obliterate hit like 1m damage crit so its useless to use soul reaper

[Deleted]

at ilvl 532 as 2h frost obliterate hit like 1m damage crit so its useless to use soul reaper

I assume SR will scale too. I have no idea where you got the 1million damage number from, assuming you're exaggerating.

In fact I have no idea why you posted this :-/

[Gabbynator]

I assume SR will scale too. I have no idea where you got the 1million damage number from, assuming you're exaggerating.

In fact I have no idea why you posted this :-/

on the fight primordius 1m oblit crit

[Equalizer]

That's probably with fully mutated buff. I'm quite sure it's different than normal damage on a boss even though the mutation buff lets you do "full damage" to him.

[Deleted]

That's probably with fully mutated buff. I'm quite sure it's different than normal damage on a boss even though the mutation buff lets you do "full damage" to him.

It's not possible to do 1m Obliterates with 532 without any encounterspecific buffs/debuffs. Not like you'd hit a cap in between 510 and 532 which doubles your Obliterate, especially with the nerfed t14. He was probably lucky with +stats and had some procs/potion up (even then I'd still doubt the number, because 5 stacks of +stats are super rare in the first instance and 'only' give 25%). Even if you'd do an 1m Obliterate, SR would probably hit for a lot more and still only uses one rune, so the argument would be invalid anyway.
From my personal experiences they look pretty close to each other, depending on the encounter obviously (did they really fix the pestilence range on megaera? wasnt possible @ normal testing, but was today). As far as I could experience the fights, especially primordius looked like a decent frost fight, wouldn't want to play unholy there, most of the others should be pretty on par regardless of spec (some of them may, of course, favor one spec slightly, but wouldnt say there was, except for primordius, one specific encounter where I wouldnt want to play spec x, would prefer unholy 24/7 anyway), couldnt test lei shen or dark animus yet, so I'd need a hint from those who had.

[rap87]

Well if they didn't make Unholy just scale much better Single Target, or give it better AoE, it would seem DW Frost is just going to win based on Ease and Cleave dmg still right? Sucks but true, I'm glad I enjoy DW Frost, but every few tiers its nice to play a different spec.

[Keiyra]

snip of the PTR changes for DK's

You forgot to include:
Blood Plague now deals 15% more damage.
Frost Fever now deals 15% more damage.

That buffs all specs, but it buffs Unholy more than the rest due to Ebon plaguebringer (increases disease damage by 60%) and the fact that disease do a larger proportion of unholy dps.

[kallaesia]

Maybe？
http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topi...r-build-16650/

[rap87]

174984 - 2H Frost DK
173469 - Unholy DK
169677 - 1H Frost DK

I feel like Unholy would have to be at say 175 or so to be competitive if there are a ton of Cleave Fights like this Tier, because 1h Frost will just own once it gets a 2nd target especially if it isn't that far behind in single target, with very little ramp up to boot, there isn't the reward for taking on the pet etc. Looking somewhat better however. Be curious as to what the sims are for 2 target, perhaps it could be bad ass if say you do the FS type rotation and when you Pest to another target if it kept the snapshots that might do it..

[Deleted]

Maybe？
http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topi...r-build-16650/

Whoever thinks these results are accurate is absolutely retarded. They make no sense.

[Samsarathedk]

Whoever thinks these results are accurate is absolutely retarded. They make no sense.

Agreed. There is absolutely no way that dw frost has dropped this far below unholy as the last time I checked it was NOT nerfed into the ground as would be required for these numbers to make any sense. Furthermore, anyone who would ever think that 2 hand WW monk would actually beat dw is insane. DW is the dps monk spec, 2 hand is tanking.

[Nitwit]

Furthermore, anyone who would ever think that 2 hand WW monk would actually beat dw is insane. DW is the dps monk spec, 2 hand is tanking.

1. 2h windwalker (dps spec) has nothing to do with brewmaster (the tank spec)
2. The 2h bonus for windwalkers (40% haste) synergizes insanely well with the new rppm trinkets and the legendary meta gem

[Deleted]

Those results won't be accurate.
The true BiS profiles are still being worked out and debated.
The latest version of simcraft is likely not completely upto date with the PTR changes.
AMS absorbs still aren't factored in.

[Shiira]

AMS absorbs still aren't factored in.

This is a huge factor, this community in general really needs to learn to appreciate how much of a difference free runic power makes.

[Kapaya]

Question: What rotation for DW are those sims using? Are they following that crap posted on Icy Veins?

[Deleted]

Agreed. There is absolutely no way that dw frost has dropped this far below unholy as the last time I checked it was NOT nerfed into the ground as would be required for these numbers to make any sense.

that's what I was wondering, I don't see what would put DW behind 2H and UH (even with patch changes). DW is not supposed to have better scalling with stats (1st & secondary) than UH or 2H ?