Frost Downtime

[infinitemeridian]

Is it normal to experience a lot of downtime as frost? I find myself always rune/rp starved. I usually open with Outbreak>Defile>obliterate>obliterate>frost strike>then I have huge waittimes for obliterate...is this normal? Makes me seem like i'm not doing dps, even though overall it is fine.

[Deleted]

This is really normal at the start of a fight. Later on it will be better when you spend more RP and get some Blood Tap charges. It should also be better if Hero is cast at start since this increases your rune regen, but that would depend on the fight/what your raid leader wants.

[infinitemeridian]

This is really normal at the start of a fight. Later on it will be better when you spend more RP and get some Blood Tap charges. It should also be better if Hero is cast at start since this increases your rune regen, but that would depend on the fight/what your raid leader wants.

I thought you weren't supposed to talent blood tap for frost?

[OneTripleZero]

I thought you weren't supposed to talent blood tap for frost?

You're not, unless you're pushing in a high-end guild. It can provide the best DPS of the three talents at that tier but the skill level to squeeze it out can be very high; most recommend Runic Empowerment instead.

[infinitemeridian]

You're not, unless you're pushing in a high-end guild. It can provide the best DPS of the three talents at that tier but the skill level to squeeze it out can be very high; most recommend Runic Empowerment instead.

Oh cool i actually prefer it since I usually go blood and am used to using it. Thanks!

[Schizoide]

2H frost has very high downtime-- I personally find it completely unplayable without Plague Leech. Plague Leech is completely mandatory. It knocks off ~15% wait time, which is huuuge. Luckily (if you don't hate using it) it's the best performing talent by a very large margin also.

All 3 rune regen talents are fine. They perform identically and are all best used passively in PvE.

[Deleted]

Frost requires a tight management of plague leech and/or blood tap. to rely solely on runic empowerement will leave you rune starved and, yeah, pretty much downtimed most of the fights.

once you learn it, frost will be fluid as the old lk times.

[Schizoide]

It doesn't matter which rune regen talent you take, none of them impact downtime as Blood Tap is off the GCD.

Only Plague Leech makes a real difference, and even with PL 2H frost isn't close to GCD-locked in currently available gear.

[willyhog]

You're not, unless you're pushing in a high-end guild. It can provide the best DPS of the three talents at that tier but the skill level to squeeze it out can be very high; most recommend Runic Empowerment instead.

Whooaaaa. It's not a very high skill level at all. I would recommend Blood Tap to anyone, it doesn't take that much skill to manage if you pay attention to it. Just wait for all runes to be on CD and then hit it twice when charges are at or over 10. It's not exclusive to high-end raiders and the DPS increase is worlds ahead of what either RC or RE can offer.

As to OP, yeah there's some downtime but Blood Tap and Plague Leech can help fill the holes by providing a way to regen runes outside of their normal rate. It is fairly normal to experience a few seconds of inactivity here and there. What Schizoide said about Plague Leech is completely true, I find it to be a 2-3k DPS difference plus it smooths the whole experience out quite a bit.

Edit: You can even make WeakAuras scripts to remind you of what your Blood Charges are at, also. This helps somewhat.

[Schizoide]

the DPS increase is worlds ahead of what either RC or RE can offer.

Cool. Now prove it.