Is Frost dead

[Deleted]

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.

It should be noted, that the AoE Cap was recently increased to 20 targets if i recall correctly. Apart from that, very useful calculations, thanks!

[Shiira]

Can't believe I forgot about that. I'm not redoing my numbers to demonstrate it but that just makes pestilence even more pointless as the maximum damage of howling blast is actually 2597700.

[boombeef]

Change for the sake of change? Please no.

DK's are in a good spot right now playstyle wise, we have something for anything a boss throws at us or that we can talent into.

Also you're comparing our movement with the two classes that have the best movement in the game, rogues with sprint/shadowstep/burstofspeed and warlocks with burningrush/portals/bigportals. Our movement is flawed for a reason, we have pretty high ranged damage. You can talent into Death's Advance if you need even more movement.

I agree that I don't want change for change sake. Personally I am also fine with our play style.
Death's advance however is one thing I would ask for a review on, maybe a slight boost or buff. Maybe even the ability to stack it with things like the Worgen racial.

On Heroic Lei Shen which I think sticks out as the best encounter for me for the entirety of MoP, only myself and the other DK absolutely had to have Lock portals to counter Helm of Command. I know the priest grip would have worked too but the transition got too hectic for us and we never quite coordinated that well. Every other class in my raid had some better ability to counter that Helm of command ability than we did and it usually was some form of better movement speed. I know I heard plenty of grumbling from my raid leader about it but he had to have us in there for the aoe grips.
It is probably more of a 10 man dilemma but if you were missing a Lock or Priest buddy and weren't an Engineer with Nitro boost you could be a liability to the raid on that encounter. I was in a 25 man and am no authority on anything 10 man so was just thinking that situation would be a bummer only for the DK class. If the Devs are going to be using more creative mechanics going forward (as they said in the argument for going with 20 man size for mythic raids) there is a possibility a similar situation like this could arise again.

[Shiira]

It was possible to get away with not having engineering or a portal with some creative use of group stacking and life grip/tiger's lust, but no one wants to play the rng game on that boss, and relying on other people to cover for your liabilities isn't really within my definition of fun.

[Maxweii]

Personally I never had a problem with it, and only ever casted my Engineer boots if I specifically wanted/was needed to get inside a puddle or I wanted to make sure my AMZ was in place with me under it. As long as you were in the center (or closer is even better) and popped Death's Advance while in Unholy Presence, then I never saw a problem with it.

Engineer was my "oh shit" button more then anything there. Though I will admit while it worked, you could only be so close to the edge at the start as to where it wouldn't work.

[Acelius]

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

Raegwyn is a bad player then?

[Alanar]

Raegwyn is a bad player then?

I agree, the hate on blood elf male dk was in wrath.

Sad to see people still hate on that for no real reason

[Pickwickman]

snip

Can't say that I wouldn't adore ANYTHING for more movement speed; I was being an advocate of the devil about the issue.

The explanation we got was that we got ranged abilities, just like enhance shaman and ret paladin, and that's the reason our movement is shitty compared to a rogue/feral/warrior.

[Shiira]

Let me know when we get a 30 yard melee range, because that's the point where that argument becomes valid in pve.

[Pickwickman]

Let me know when we get a 30 yard melee range, because that's the point where that argument becomes valid in pve.

I'm in complete agreement with you though, especially seeing that I can do more damage from ranged with my Ret paladin with wrath symbiosised onto me and properly glyphed than my frost dk would dream to do (tested a bit on Thok, just used ranged attacks during his kitephase), was pretty fun. Not.

I'd kill for a DeathGrip minor glyph to make it work in reverse and pull us TO the boss.

[Louis CK]

I'd kill for a DeathGrip minor glyph to make it work in reverse and pull us TO the boss.

I would do humiliating things to myself and put them online if that's what it took. Please, Blizz....