Is Frost dead

[Shiira]

(makes you ignore soul reaper/obliterate even more).

I have 577 item level and using soul reaper on cooldown is still 700 more dps than ignoring it completely. At this rate it's looking like whether or not you want to have it on your bars is practically irrelevant in bis gear. I'm working on a better priority system but don't count on anything soon.

As for obliterate, it's gone the way of pestilence for me.

[Acelius]

I was 2/14 HC when all my motivation dissappeared. I realized just how far down the meters i would go once people got gear. When SoO launched i was pretty much top 3 in every fight dps wise, but after we had cleared it and started heroic i went down amazingly quick to the lower-mid end of the meter.

I dont want to level another class as i love playing DK, so now i've just stopped raiding until WoD.

[Louis CK]

I understand that some people want to see Frost's toolkit expanded. They feel that it is too easy compared to more complicated specs that have 5 or 6 spells in their priority list and have to make split second decisions.

I counter that Frost, and indeed all DK specs, are beautiful and mysterious in their own way. First, Frost (at least 2H, I've never tried masterfrost) might put the same two abilities on the bar the most (Oblit/FS) but it matters how you use them with Blood Tap (a must for anyone trying to game their runes). Oblit without Rime up, prioritize KM, don't cap RP, dump RP into FS while avoiding capping charges.

Secondly I envision my dps as a wave. As my RP fills up, I'm riding the wave, high on the powerful strikes of my Oblit. I crest the wave as I am just about to cap RP and begin the long ride down, dumping my RP into BC's while my runes regen. Then the wave begins again! I rise up with Oblit (helped by BT), build up that RP, and ride back down the wave.

It's graceful. I've felt for a long time we're one of the more graceful specs in the game. Do we have a crapton of buttons to press? No. But there is beauty in the simplicity of our rotation and the complexity of truly mastering it. I don't want to see that change.

What I do want to see change is our scaling with gear. I'm not sure how to fix that but it's pretty bad, especially for 2H frost. I don't want to see our rotation change to accomplish it.

Maximizing your potential as a Frost DK is exciting for me. It may be "simple" at first glance, but getting everything to work together perfectly is what makes it fun. I do miss the .5 GCD and rune gaming as masterfrost at the end of Cata, but I've gotten used to the 1gcd and BT/PL setup I'm using now, and it proves exciting as well. I like the simplicity, almost an art form to work it properly. And I say this, because I rarely ever find another Frost DK that can keep up with me, even if they're better geared. It takes a certain finesse, regardless of how "simple" one wants to say it is.

As far as the chart that was noted... I'm curious what he does with his Unholy runes...

I've actually played nothing but my DK since the end of Cata, but recently started a Warlock w/my girlfriend to have a ranged class to play... And I have to say I was surprised how absurdly simple they are. I expected a lot more buttons and complication compared to my DK, but it seems to be about the same idea: "easy to learn, difficult to master". (As destro currently, not sure how other specs compare). Just surprising because I haven't played a lock since the beginning of BC, and it's a lot less complicated than I remember.

[Lolretadin]

In Arena, unholy rules. Frost can still be useful in bg's (and RBG's) as part of a team.

Frost is still 2k viable. You can do well as a Frost DK, but Unholy is better.

[Molestron]

I dunno whenever I see a frost dk in pvp I think to myself "Here comes a noob". If he's also a male draenei or male worgen, he's definitely a noob.

[Louis CK]

I dunno whenever I see a frost dk in pvp I think to myself "Here comes a noob". If he's also a male draenei or male worgen, he's definitely a noob.

I've never met a Male Draenei character that wasn't an absolutely awful player. And not just mildly bad, but mouth breathing licking the wallpaper bad. I don't know why or how, but they seem to flock to that race/sex.

[Skarssen]

As far as the chart that was noted... I'm curious what he does with his Unholy runes...

Nothing, most of the time.

Obliterate ends up being a loss at high gear levels. Outside of being completely rune and RP capped, where you might use 1 OB to get things on CD, you pretty much ignore unholy runes unless;

1) Blood plague isn't ticking on the target
2) You have no frost or death runes, and your RP is under 40
3) 2+ targets are in range that will take full ticks of DnD

[Shiira]

As far as the chart that was noted... I'm curious what he does with his Unholy runes...

Very little. I can't spend unholy runes to use abilities that do frost damage, when you have 99% increased frost damage from mastery you aren't too bothered about abilities that don't do frost damage any more.

Unholy runes are used to keep up blood plague and generate more runic power when I have less than 40 and no frost runes.

[Louis CK]

Nothing, most of the time.

Obliterate ends up being a loss at high gear levels. Outside of being completely rune and RP capped, where you might use 1 OB to get things on CD, you pretty much ignore unholy runes unless;

1) Blood plague isn't ticking on the target
2) You have no frost or death runes, and your RP is under 40
3) 2+ targets are in range that will take full ticks of DnD

At what ilvl would you start ignoring OB completely? I rarely use it as it is, but I still use it to dump an UH rune when I've got 2 almost full (and could use the RP), which isn't very often, but the chart noted had no OB's whatsoever.

[Skarssen]

I've never met a Male Draenei character that wasn't an absolutely awful player. And not just mildly bad, but mouth breathing licking the wallpaper bad. I don't know why or how, but they seem to flock to that race/sex.

Male draenei are the only masculine, muscular option for Alliance players. Male humans are too small, NE are too skinny and lanky, Worgen are hunched backs, and female melee, aside from Orcs and Tauren.....shouldn't even exist. Their physical weakness is offensive.

[Louis CK]

Very little. I can't spend unholy runes to use abilities that do frost damage, when you have 99% increased frost damage from mastery you aren't too bothered about abilities that don't do frost damage any more.

Unholy runes are used to keep up blood plague and generate more runic power when I have less than 40 and no frost runes.

Correct, for very little yes. But there's not one OB on there. I still use it, as noted, when I have 2 capping UH runes and could use the RP. It's rare of course.

Not arguing, I'm genuinely asking at what point would you ignore it completely?

- - - Updated - - -

Male draenei are the only masculine, muscular option for Alliance players. Male humans are too small, NE are too skinny and lanky, Worgen are hunched backs, and female melee.....shouldn't even exist. Their physical weakness is offensive.

Not sure why, but I've always been drawn to the "weaker" type characters. Gnomes are my fav. Female characters, etc. Despite the fact that my character's name is "Compensating" I've never like the feeling that my character is somehow compensating for something (i.e. huge muscles, etc.). I like the underdog thing, or maybe rather the "don't underestimate my power" type characters. My character right now is an orc for the racial, but in general I've have gnomes, dwarves, goblins, females, etc.

Always interesting to me the choices people make for their toons. I like it.

[Spalding]

Pointless thread once more. Check pvp ladders and pve rankings. Simple.

[Shiira]

Not arguing, I'm genuinely asking at what point would you ignore it completely?

I don't know.

There are top 10 ranks with obliterate and there are top 10 ranks without it.

I'm not using it any more because I haven't been able to make a sim profile with obliterate that beats my current one, but either way the difference is very small at close to bis gear levels, with obliterate becoming more worth using at low gear levels.

If you need to ask you should probably still be using obliterate.

3) 2+ targets are in range that will take full ticks of DnD

The rule I've been using for dnd is at least one extra tick from it, less current AP than I applied blood plague with, and blood plague having more than 10 seconds left.

Pointless thread once more. Check pvp ladders and pve rankings. Simple.

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_...11100000000000

What's your point, every other class has a spec that outperforms both of ours and many of them have more than one.

[Louis CK]

I don't know.

There are top 10 ranks with obliterate and there are top 10 ranks without it.

I'm not using it any more because I haven't been able to make a sim profile with obliterate that beats my current one, but either way the difference is very small at close to bis gear levels, with obliterate becoming more worth using at low gear levels.

If you need to ask you should probably still be using obliterate.

The rule I've been using for dnd is at least one extra tick from it, less current AP than I applied blood plague with, and blood plague having more than 10 seconds left.

Understood.

I also stopped spreading my BP in almost every AOE case since I went DW. Any specific fights you would suggest still spreading it? Seems like a DPS loss in most cases since most adds die so quickly.

EDIT: Sorry if this is derailing, I'll leave it be.

[Hilltopperpete]

We wouldn't be having this conversation about frost if people didn't freak out on the PTR when frost was #1 damage by far, resulting in massive nerds to the planned changes to HB without really fixing gear scaling. It's takes a lot of math™ to ensure that all specs are generally balanced over what is now a 40+ ilvl range, and Frost and UH clearly need some work. DPS DKs were wonderful for the world first races, many of the top 25m guilds carried two. They just happen to be awful for farm content and they will fall far behind for moderate progression with very high ilvl groups.

I'd be alright with 2h frost being the intro spec and UH being the high-scaling endgame spec, with DW being a niche AOE spec (because it sucks to play- hop on your bear tank and only use lacerate and maul- you'd claw your eyes out). I only dps Thok right now because our paladin tank is absolutely horrendous at ret even though he rolls on every single piece of offspec gear that drops (as in he has haste/mastery in that slot already and wants another piece for "dps set"… in other news, he's an enchanter), so I'll be personally sticking to 2h frost for now because it's more fun to 2-shot everything while questing.

[Shiira]

EDIT: Sorry if this is derailing, I'll leave it be.

Oh no you don't, you asked me a maths question and that means it's time for theorycraft.

According to my current sims my average howling blast hits for 247400 on the primary target, so 123700 on every other target.

So on n mobs where n is not greater than 10 my howling blast does 247400 + 123700 * ( n - 1 ) damage, which can be simplified to 123700 * ( n + 1 ), and the maximum damage is 1360700.

Also according to my sims, my average blood plague tick is 23413.

So pestilencing blood plague to n extra mobs is worth 23413 * ( n - 1) * t, where t is the number of ticks they stay alive for.

So what we are looking for are the cases where 123700 * ( n + 1 ) is less than 23413 * ( n - 1) * t.

We can work that out as follows for values of n that are not greater than 9.

123700 * ( n + 1 ) < 23413 * ( n - 1) * t
( 123700 / 23413 ) * ( n + 1 ) < ( n - 1) * t
( ( 123700 / 23413 ) * (n + 1) ) / ( n - 1 ) < t

It's a lot simpler when looking at values of n greater than 9. Due to the aoe cap, the maximum damage of a howling blast is roughly equivalent to 59 blood plague ticks. So you need 1 tick on 59 or more targets, 2 on 30 or more, 3 on 20 or more, 4 on 15 or more, 5 on 12 or more and 6 on 10 or more.

So let's look at the cases for smaller numbers of targets. As I said you're looking for when ( ( 123700 / 23413 ) * (n + 1) ) / ( n - 1 ) < t.

I'm not going to write the whole table out for every number of targets, I'll just give you my results.

You want 6 ticks on 9 or 8 targets, 7 on 7, 6, 5 or 4 targets, and 8 on 3 or 2 targets.

Realistically speaking those numbers are irrelevant for small numbers of targets as you could just tab your plague strikes onto the extra targets anyway, but the larger numbers should be reliable enough.

Of course there are very few situations with enough targets or adds living long enough for any of this post to be relevant anyway. So if you need to ask just don't pestilence. Apart from during the terrace intermission at garrosh, maybe. But probably not.

EDIT: The aoe cap is 20, not 10, so disregard everything involving greater than 10 targets. My point remains as this makes pestilence even worse.

[Berri]

Unholy is really good for Paragons HC (you get tons of damage as Unholy from the Disector buff) and Thok - because of the nature of many of the fights in SoO being cleave & magic-damage-heavy, DW frost is really strong.

Also AoE slows on Siegecrafter bombs, and PoF burst on the construction belt is really good.

DK DPS in general seems to have a pretty strong niche as a good AoE spec this tier; our single target is really limited by how much AMS soaking we can do, which can make us pretty shit for some fights.

[Skarssen]

I'd be alright with 2h frost being the intro spec and UH being the high-scaling endgame spec, with DW being a niche AOE spec

I'd quit DKs the second that became the game plan. Unholy is nothing more than a warlock in plate. They took away blood DPS and forced players who wanted a hard-hitting warrior type of DK into frost. They can't take that away from us too.

[Louis CK]

Oh no you don't, you asked me a maths question and that means it's time for theorycraft.

According to my current sims my average howling blast hits for 247400 on the primary target, so 123700 on every other target.

So on n mobs where n is not greater than 10 my howling blast does 247400 + 123700 * ( n - 1 ) damage, which can be simplified to 123700 * ( n + 1 ), and the maximum damage is 1360700.

Also according to my sims, my average blood plague tick is 23413.

So pestilencing blood plague to n extra mobs is worth 23413 * ( n - 1) * t, where t is the number of ticks they stay alive for.

So what we are looking for are the cases where 123700 * ( n + 1 ) is less than 23413 * ( n - 1) * t.

We can work that out as follows for values of n that are not greater than 9.

123700 * ( n + 1 ) < 23413 * ( n - 1) * t
( 123700 / 23413 ) * ( n + 1 ) < ( n - 1) * t
( ( 123700 / 23413 ) * (n + 1) ) / ( n - 1 ) < t

It's a lot simpler when looking at values of n greater than 9. Due to the aoe cap, the maximum damage of a howling blast is roughly equivalent to 59 blood plague ticks. So you need 1 tick on 59 or more targets, 2 on 30 or more, 3 on 20 or more, 4 on 15 or more, 5 on 12 or more and 6 on 10 or more.

So let's look at the cases for smaller numbers of targets. As I said you're looking for when ( ( 123700 / 23413 ) * (n + 1) ) / ( n - 1 ) < t.

I'm not going to write the whole table out for every number of targets, I'll just give you my results.

You want 6 ticks on 9 or 8 targets, 7 on 7, 6, 5 or 4 targets, and 8 on 3 or 2 targets.

Realistically speaking those numbers are irrelevant for small numbers of targets as you could just tab your plague strikes onto the extra targets anyway, but the larger numbers should be reliable enough.

Of course there are very few situations with enough targets or adds living long enough for any of this post to be relevant anyway. So if you need to ask just don't pestilence. Apart from during the terrace intermission at garrosh, maybe. But probably not.

I like you.

[Deleted]

I've never met a Male Draenei character that wasn't an absolutely awful player. And not just mildly bad, but mouth breathing licking the wallpaper bad. I don't know why or how, but they seem to flock to that race/sex.

the same goes for blood elf male dks, complete utter shite