What's Frost feel like now?

[pies1]

It kind of freaks me out how many people think the frost buffs actually change anything. Looking at reddit people legitimately think this makes frost great.

It's a fucking token buff which doesn't address the actual issues and, considering most other specs got buff too, has no meaningful impact on dps.

[Shimazu]

Unholy running unholy frenzy and necrosis...

Look at the frost ones, Horn of winter, Runic attenuation and obliteration. I'm not saying frost is going to be great but... Those choices could be better for the sim.

[Nition]

Unholy running unholy frenzy and necrosis...

Necrosis is the best single target talent to take For fights like Nythendra and Ursoc, its ahead of the others.

[Deleted]

right now sim ranks are a load of rubbish, used to be useful but not any more, they are just plain wrong. Compare the pre-hotfix sim rankings to actual in game rankings in raids so far and you will see how misleading they are. Would be better if people just stopped linking them until such a point as the figures they produce are even vaguely relevant to the game itself.

[Coffeh]

It kind of freaks me out how many people think the frost buffs actually change anything. Looking at reddit people legitimately think this makes frost great.

It's a fucking token buff which doesn't address the actual issues and, considering most other specs got buff too, has no meaningful impact on dps.

I re-rolled to druid: Blizzard's favorite class. Great mobility, utility. Feral is like top dps. Why be the worst at everything when you can be the best?

[Gr1mdark]

I re-rolled to druid: Blizzard's favorite class. Great mobility, utility. Feral is like top dps. Why be the worst at everything when you can be the best?

Because you may like the class itself?
I was druid for Cata and mop, and switched to DK because it just gives me a better game.
I like the class and i love the fantasy. So why would you play only for charts?

[RaynesZen]

Is it certain that Simcraft is using the correct talent choices and rotation for patchwerk fights? It seems different from what it is proposed in Icy-Veins (the so-called Machine Gun rotation).

[Gr1mdark]

Is it certain that Simcraft is using the correct talent choices and rotation for patchwerk fights? It seems different from what it is proposed in Icy-Veins (the so-called Machine Gun rotation).

Frost doesnt run SF (which isn't that kind of burst, but it still is) and anyway we are like only 50k dps behind the
top tier (300k dps) which seems as a good balance for sims.
Please dont look at mages and demo locks, as they will never be that high.
First, even if they could pull out the dmg, they would need a full statick boss with everything done 100% right.
Movement destroys them and there is a lot of movement for ranged classes in the Nighmare.
So the sims look great to me, 250dps - 300dps for all of the specs looks like a great balance to me.
Now the equip and your play will come to the frontline.

[Schizoide]

Is it certain that Simcraft is using the correct talent choices and rotation for patchwerk fights? It seems different from what it is proposed in Icy-Veins (the so-called Machine Gun rotation).

I can't get the machine-gun playstyle to sim anywhere close to traditional "as-designed" Frost DK.

FrostT19P default profile: 258.4k DPS
FrostT19P default actionlist, talents from IV: 248.3k DPS
FrostT19P machine-gun actionlist, talents from IV: 245.8k DPS

This is using the latest SC snapshot as of Sept 26. For my APL, I added the following lines below actions.bos+=/howling_blast,if=buff.rime.react and removed the rest of the APL, as it does not apply to machine-gun style.

actions.generic+=howling_blast,target_if=!dot.frost_fever.ticking
actions.generic+=/frost_strike,if=runic_power>=80
actions.generic+=/glacial_advance
actions.generic+=/remorseless_winter
actions.generic+=/frostscythe,if=talent.frozen_pulse.enabled
actions.generic+=/frost_strike

That priority doesn't win on multiple targets, either. The talent choices do of course as they're all AE.

FrostT19P 3 targets, default profile: 351.7k DPS
FrostT19P 3 targets, default actionlist, talents from IV: 412.4k DPS
FrostT19P 3 targets, machine-gun actionlist, talents from IV: 405.8k DPS

It is of course possible that Simcraft doesn't model something correctly, or I may have missed something in my APL. But my guess is that IV guide was written for people in cutting-edge raiding with a ton of mastery, which explains why Frostscythe might be worth using without Killing Machine or multiple targets. The simcraft gear profile is average itemlvl 844.

[Deleted]

Unholy running unholy frenzy and necrosis...

UF with bracers and Necrosis is actually the best setup for Single target.

[Deleted]

I can't get the machine-gun playstyle to sim anywhere close to traditional "as-designed" Frost DK.

FrostT19P default profile: 258.4k DPS
FrostT19P default actionlist, talents from IV: 248.3k DPS
FrostT19P machine-gun actionlist, talents from IV: 245.8k DPS

This is using the latest SC snapshot as of Sept 26. For my APL, I added the following lines below actions.bos+=/howling_blast,if=buff.rime.react and removed the rest of the APL, as it does not apply to machine-gun style.

actions.generic+=howling_blast,target_if=!dot.frost_fever.ticking
actions.generic+=/frost_strike,if=runic_power>=80
actions.generic+=/glacial_advance
actions.generic+=/remorseless_winter
actions.generic+=/frostscythe,if=talent.frozen_pulse.enabled
actions.generic+=/frost_strike

That priority doesn't win on multiple targets, either. The talent choices do of course as they're all AE.

FrostT19P 3 targets, default profile: 351.7k DPS
FrostT19P 3 targets, default actionlist, talents from IV: 412.4k DPS
FrostT19P 3 targets, machine-gun actionlist, talents from IV: 405.8k DPS

It is of course possible that Simcraft doesn't model something correctly, or I may have missed something in my APL. But my guess is that IV guide was written for people in cutting-edge raiding with a ton of mastery, which explains why Frostscythe might be worth using without Killing Machine or multiple targets. The simcraft gear profile is average itemlvl 844.

Do you use Obliterate when 2 runes are up ?
In my rotation I can't keep runes depleted with only Frostscythe. When 2 runes are up I use Obliterate and when only 1 Rune is up I use FSc.
Don't know your Sim-Results in detail but maybe it's all about FrozenPulse with low uptime ?

And what's about IcyTalon ? I think in your actionlist should be something like every 2 GCDs there has to be 1 FrostStrike for IcyTalon not running out.

[Schizoide]

Do you use Obliterate when 2 runes are up ?

Nope. The Icy-Veins guide says not to use Obliterate at all, except for during the Obliteration cooldown, if you take that talent. But it also says to take Glacial Advance, which means Obliteration is not an option.

That's really the core of why the MG priority doesn't work-- without tons of mastery, Frostscythe is terrible on single-targets without Killing Machine up. And yet it says to do it anyway. So either the guide author missed something, like for example using Obliterate when overwhelmed by runes, or it's targeting elite players stacking mastery. But if so it doesn't say that, which is misleading for all the casuals happily machine-gunning away and hurting their performance.

[Deleted]

FrozenPulse is a very deep impact on DPS. So without Obliterate I think you can't really keep your runes depleted (Maybe it works with 7.1).
But I havent really tried machinegun-style that long - maybe someone else can comment this ?

What's about IcyTalon ? I edited my post above:

"And what's about IcyTalon ? I think in your actionlist should be something like every 2 GCDs there has to be 1 FrostStrike for IcyTalon not running out. "

[Schizoide]

I just checked with a static 300s fight length; Frozen Pulse triggered 235 times in that fight length across 370 total autoattacks for an effective uptime of 63.5%. It was 14.6% of total DPS, so even with that uptime it did a ton of damage.

Frost Strike executed every 4.8s, which should be more than enough to maintain Icy Talons. Icy Talons uptime was 83.4%.

I can make various changes to the MG APL to address this stuff. For example, using Obliterate when >X runes are active, using Frost Strike when Icy Talons duration is <2 seconds, and so on. But all that stuff isn't in the Icy-Veins guide, which is what we were talking about here. My feeling is that guide doesn't work unless you have a high itemlvl and stack mastery.

[RaynesZen]

How about using Obliterate when KM is not up and use FSc on KM procs within the MG rotation style?
Also, in IV, in the stat priority page they state sthing about getting 30% crit and 20% haste and then get mastery which makes me worried.

[Seraphel]

Using icy-veins is completely useless. Tegu who is writing the guides hasn't touched frost since beta(his own words in the comment section). Use wowhead or the archerus discord if you are after information about frost dk.

[Schizoide]

@RaynesZen: Like I said, I can make all kinds of changes to try to make MG work, but that won't change the IV guide.

@Seraphel: You can't really blame him for that, Frost is garbage pre-buff. But I can't figure out why he modified the guide to suggest ONLY MG priority without any sort of TC or sims backing it up. That's why I assumed it was aimed at players with very high mastery.

[hellhamster]

But horn of winter is better than frozen pulse at single target now no? At least for obliterate centered builds

[Schizoide]

But horn of winter is better than frozen pulse at single target now no? At least for obliterate centered builds

Not really, not in sustained DPS. And FPulse smokes it on cleave/AE. It really is a very strong talent. Every frost DK should take it in all PvE circumstances.

Frost T19P 1 target HoW (default profile): 258.4k
Frost T19P 1 target FPulse: 257.4k (-0.4%)

Frost T19P 3 targets HoW (default profile): 351.5k
Frost T19P 3 targets FPulse: 405.4k (+15.3%)

It's a shame, because FPulse is completely passive and HoW adds a button. It's simply undertuned. HoW should be buffed, perhaps by reducing the cooldown to 20s. Passive talents that don't change gameplay should always underperform active ones.

Of course if you need timed single-target burst HoW could pull ahead, but it has a 30s cooldown so you won't see much benefit delaying it either.

Update
While messing around with the latest Simcraft, I found quite a few "trap" talents. Frostscythe in particular is a shame, as I love using it and it's an active button versus the passive optimal talent, Runic Attenuation. But Frostscythe sims as hot stinking garbage.

T1 Murderous Efficiency: Balanced fine standalone, but Icy Talons has strong synergy with Frozen Pulse and Avalanche.

T2 Freezing Fog: 5% single-target DPS loss
T2 HoW: 15% AE DPS loss

T3 Icecap: Only a 1% loss single-target, but 4.4% AE/cleave loss
T3 Hungering Rune Weapon: Balanced single-target; but 5.2% AE/cleave loss

T6 Frostscythe: 8.2% single-target loss and 7.8% AE/cleave loss (Yes, the active AE talent sucks in AE. I simmed this several times to be sure.)
T6 Gathering Storm: 7.4% single-target loss, and 1.8% AE/cleave loss (An AE-specific talent sucks in AE. Seems legit.)

T7 Breath of Sindragosa: 9.4% single-target loss, and 3.1% AE/cleave loss. (Seeing a pattern here? All Frost DK AE talents suck in AE!)
T7 Glacial Advance: 2.2% single-target loss, and 6.0% AE/cleave gain. (Finally, an AE talent that's worth using in AE!)

Overall, unless you're switching talents every fight and are faced with an exclusively single-target encounter, the only truly valid talent choices are

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/d...ght/frost/c6gc

If you prefer managing additional buttons from Horn of Winter and Frostscythe, or the cool gameplay elements from Shattering Strikes, Gathering Storm, Obliteration, or Breath of Sindragosa... too bad. Even though those talents are much more work to use properly, they underperform passive talents.

The only reason I can imagine that people aren't outraged over this stuff is because Frost has performed so poorly this expansion that nobody really bothered looking into it. If the number buffs make Frost competitive, that should change.

[bungie]

Schizoide what kind of single target ability priority would we be looking at with that?

Sounds like it would be similar to what we are seeing on the wowhead guide but without obliteration, and only using Glacial Advance on 2 or more targets.