Frost DK rotation question... swing timer.

[Deleted]

Hello DK fellows, I recently just levelled my DK to 90, currently in 2-hand Frost spec, had lots of fun, except a bit struggling in one aspect of his rotation (PS. I could not find this information on any guide available at the moment):

An important part of his rotation involves Obliterate when Killing Machine is procced.
At the same time, I find RP fills up very quickly, so to avoid wasting any resources, Frost Strike has to be constantly used.

What I have been struggling is lots of frost strike was used/wasted on Killing Machine. What I have come up with so far:

always frost strike after Obliterate, but sometimes, frost strike still ended up using killing machine proc (swing started in GCD of Obliterate).
For the first time, I enabled my swing timer, right after a swing, if no killing machine, use frost strike.

The problem is it requires too much of attention to constantly watch my swing timer. Any good suggestion from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

[Deleted]

Make it easier to be visible. Like really thin line in the middle, taking 60% of your monitor width. You'll see it without need of looking at it and it won't bother you much.

[Kraeth]

Unless you're really trying to get that extra <1% more dps you really shouldn't worry about KM, assuming you're 2h. The gain is just so miniscule and easy to mess up if you leave empty globals for trying to prio OB+KM.

[Coalbane]

I have not played 2H frost since HoF & ToES or so, but I remember using Quartz to monitor the swing timer. I always used up GCDs, never waiting to use abilities, but I got into a rhythm of always using Obliterate after a swing and Frost Strikes between swings, which helped to maximize the potential of KM procs. You should be able to get a feel for how many Frost Strikes you can use before your next swing and then you won't have to pay so much attention to the timer. As Kraeth pointed out, I doubt it resulted in a large gain, but you can try it if you're really trying to squeeze out every last bit of dps.

[Vereesa]

Go hit a dummy for a few hours with a big enough swing timer; that's how I learn things.

With that said, you shouldn't be paying attention to the swing timer in the first place and would be better served completely ignoring KM as 2H Frost.

[Shiira]

You aren't going to be able to gain dps from paying attention to your swing timer unless you're willing to put far more effort into it than the vast majority of the community.

[Deleted]

It seems I might have made too much of a deal of using frost strike on killing machine proc. Old habit...

Thanks god. Only been playing lvl90 DK for 2 weeks, all I can say is watching swing timer for a few hours in one night is "LOADS" of fun.

[Kraeth]

It seems I might have made too much of a deal of using frost strike on killing machine proc. Old habit...

Thanks god. Only been playing lvl90 DK for 2 weeks, all I can say is watching swing timer for a few hours in one night is "LOADS" of fun.

It can feel frustrating, yes. Turning off proc effects is a good way to reduce the pain

[Pickwickman]

It seems I might have made too much of a deal of using frost strike on killing machine proc. Old habit...

Thanks god. Only been playing lvl90 DK for 2 weeks, all I can say is watching swing timer for a few hours in one night is "LOADS" of fun.

Just think about it this way, you're not wasting the procs, but you're getting 50% of their benefit on a Frost Strike instead of an Obliterate, but by ignoring them you catch so many more extra procs that would otherwise get wasted that it really doesn't matter in the end (you use a lot more of them on Frost Strike, so that evens out waiting to use them on Oblit).

[CausalXXLinkXx]

I think someone did the math and holding your KM proc was a dps loss because you lose more KM procs. So, don't bother with a swing timer, it's a dps loss.

[Shiira]

There's a big difference between not delaying km to use it on obliterate and not paying attention to your swing timer at all.

If my next auto attack lands in less than one second I'm not going to obliterate without km unless I have to.

[Schizoide]

What you're describing is classic waiting on KM. If you feel you can properly execute that in a real boss encounter without standing in the fire and want the tiny theoretical performance increase, go crazy. Nothing wrong with that, play how you want. Just don't recommend others do the same.

[Vereesa]

There's a big difference between not delaying km to use it on obliterate and not paying attention to your swing timer at all.

If my next auto attack lands in less than one second I'm not going to obliterate without km unless I have to.

That's the thing, the difference isn't big. (which isn't to say it's not a DPS increase sometimes) That's something that should absolutely be resolved in WoD if they want anything to come out of 2H Frost.

[Shiira]

I meant in terms of playstyle, not results.

Having a load of mechanics that just don't matter is getting pretty boring.

In my opinion the two versions of frost have run their course and one should be scrapped so blizzard can focus on fixing our other specs for good, supporting multiple playstyles within a single specialisation has never ended well.

[Vereesa]

I meant in terms of playstyle, not results.

But that's hardly a playstyle because of the results.

In my opinion the two versions of frost have run their course and one should be scrapped so blizzard can focus on fixing our other specs for good, supporting multiple playstyles within a single specialisation has never ended well.

Agreed, but only because it's seemingly impossible for the two to be balanced.

[Schizoide]

I would like to see every weapon-using class move to the new monk mechanics utilizing weapon DPS rather than weapon damage. That way weapons can be different speeds, which is a neat little change, and you can do things like allowing players to switch between 2H and DW with the same gameplay and much less work balancing performance.

That said, the devs wanted 2H and DW frost to play differently. They initially failed, because we ignored KM, but in the end DW migrated to masterfrost so the gameplay difference occurred organically. My feeling is they will continue to cement masterfrost as "the" DW playstyle, and tune the numbers so 2H cares about killing machine. Hopefully in a way that plays well, that doesn't feel like the player is constantly being punished for missing an unpredictable instant KM on autoattacks.

[Raikh]

I meant in terms of playstyle, not results.

Having a load of mechanics that just don't matter is getting pretty boring.

In my opinion the two versions of frost have run their course and one should be scrapped so blizzard can focus on fixing our other specs for good, supporting multiple playstyles within a single specialisation has never ended well.

Atleast in t14 they worked though, 2h had enough room left to game km a bit and dw used oblit somewhat steadily.

Would still like to see not only superficial mechanisms on a dk, like mastery beign still frost dmg but a charged dmg unleashed on oblit or so, km tirggered by fs/km only affecting oblit in a more special way etc.
Would still be possible to have 2 specialized playstyles but would result in less mutilation thorugh stats over the course of an expansion.

Though keeping those two styles for the sake of it and getting them both mutilated yet again would not be worth it, there are you right for sure.

I still think that watching melee swings as a dps gain is a gross failure of game play design, especially if you give the class high haste value and 45%+ melee haste passive.
I also like it more to get my kms on oblits and do intelligent waiting, but the swing timer part is just bad. Said otherwise why km can't atleast stack twice is a miracle.

[Schizoide]

I agree that watching swing timers is poor gameplay. Luckily it hasn't been optimal for anyone to do that since hunters in TBC had to interleave attacks between autoshots.

KM stacking twice would make it feel better, and perception matters, but it wouldn't actually fix the root cause. Frost would still be ignoring KM. SSHA here proved that a year or so ago when I had the same bright idea.

[Shiira]

But that's hardly a playstyle because of the results.

And that's one of the problems with frost right now, we have too much stuff that you might as well just ignore because the benefit of handling it perfectly is barely a fraction of a percent at best.