3.1 Frost Changes

[taek]

Yeah it looks like i'll be just be spamming OB, with the occasional Pest refresh and FS for RP Dumps (as before). And with no ITs except 1 to start, Rime is worthless thus no rime procs.

All in all, frost DK went from one of the most interesting rotations to one of the most boring.

[Toysuprapr]

They buffed 2handed frost IMO. Extra damage on frost strike=godly. I'm not looking at the talents right now, but the only nerf I can remember is to HB, which 2hand frost will use much less often than obliterate.

dude, i hope your right, but i still think blizzard could have done a better job.

[Bailamos]

PS is in his first rotation and thus refreshed in his second.

Gomexus was referring to the second FULL rotation listed, you are referring to the second HALF of the first rotation.

The original poster for that comment even states the the second full rotation is sans PS, hence Gomexus's comment about the OBs and BSs being less powerful.

[superflystud]

Gomexus was referring to the second FULL rotation listed, you are referring to the second HALF of the first rotation.   

The original poster for that comment even states the the second full rotation is sans PS, hence Gomexus's comment about the OBs and BSs being less powerful.

This.

Regardless, I've ALSO been seeing some mention of IT/FS spam spec being possible.  I'm not sure exactly how this works, though.  I suppose with the Glyph and talent, you could get 4 x IT, 3 x FS per Rune CD (a half-second longer actually), but that doesn't seem like it would do more than 2.5 Oblit, 2 FS rotation (with Butchery you can get two Glyphed FS off per Rune CD after you gain a small RP cushion) I posted earlier.

I suppose you could try it in Unholy Presence...you could probably pull off some rotation to the effect of:

IT x 4 - BS x 2 -> FS Dump
IT x 6 - FS x 4 -> FS Dump

You would certainly be making enough RP to sustain 4 FS per Rune CD.  Considering the (average) of 5 IT and 1 BS, it may be more damage than 2.5 Oblit, 1 BS and 2 FS, but I'm not sure because you have to make up that loss of 15% damage...

Worth some theory-crafting, I say.  Though, if it ends up on top, it will likely get nerfed.  Lol.

[Bailamos]

@superflystud (sweet name btw, I believe it too )

The IT FS spam spec is currently 21/50. You do indeed do it in unholy presence, but you have the rotation off. In order to get an ITx6 spam you have to have death rune talents from both blood and frost. I'm not quite sure where you got 4 IT in your first rotation since you don't start with 4 frost runes, but the basic rotation goes like

OB-OB-BS-BS-FS dump (first one wont have IT up, sets up all further rotations though)
ITx6-FS dump

That's the basic format, if you have the FS and IT glyphs then you may need to unload a few more FS between the 6 IT. It's a fun spec, simply spamtastic. It will still be viable post-patch, and the buff to FS will only help it. That last point in blood may be better spent on HB for rime since HB has gone so far down the frost tree.

[Offhand]

With the new glyph of pest (assuming it makes it live) all three trees will be able to keep up diseases on their target indefinitely.

Unholy has the scourge strike glyph.

Frost has the pest glyph + blood of the north.

Blood has the pest glyph plus crazy death rune generation (just sub out something that would have been a heart strike).

The fact that no one needs to apply diseases anymore means we have no idea where the new top dps will be.

[Strawberry]

Alright so, does anyone know how Unbreakable Armor scales? I know it scales with armor, but what about the numbers?

[superflystud]

@superflystud (sweet name btw, I believe it too )

The IT FS spam spec is currently 21/50. You do indeed do it in unholy presence, but you have the rotation off. In order to get an ITx6 spam you have to have death rune talents from both blood and frost. I'm not quite sure where you got 4 IT in your first rotation since you don't start with 4 frost runes, but the basic rotation goes like

OB-OB-BS-BS-FS dump (first one wont have IT up, sets up all further rotations though)
ITx6-FS dump

That's the basic format, if you have the FS and IT glyphs then you may need to unload a few more FS between the 6 IT. It's a fun spec, simply spamtastic. It will still be viable post-patch, and the buff to FS will only help it. That last point in blood may be better spent on HB for rime since HB has gone so far down the frost tree.

Thanks for catching me on that, I had a bit of a brain fart there. So the rotation is based around grabbing Death Runes through both Death Rune Mastery and BotN? Makes sense.

I'm guessing you will have to repeat the OB - OB - BS - BS every time? No other way to keep up those Death Runes for your IT spam.

Looking at it from an RP perspective:

OB - OB - BS - BS -> 60 RP, or 64 w/Butchery (as long as it isn't your first rotation, this is fine) That gives 2 FS.
IT x 6 -> 154 RP (Butchery again), which gives 4 FS with 26 RP left over.
Note that you'll have to space your FSs in with the ITs to actually be able to utilize that 154 RP.

So, you gain about 80% of the RP required for another FS to stick back into your first rotation, which is the only one with free GCDS. That gives 6.8 FS per full rotation, plus another 2 Oblit, 2 BS and of the course the 6 IT. This verses the 5 OB, 1 Pest (no damage), 1 BS, 4 FS rotation.

I'm not sure if 2.8 FS, 1 BS and 6 IT makes up for the 15% flat DPS loss, the 3 Oblits and Blood Plague.

But again, worth looking with some serious theory crafting. If anyone will post their raid-buffed stats who is well-geared, I'll work on it and post it. I doubt that it will be fantastically accurate though.

And thanks about the name comment. It's a private joke b/c I'm quite the opposite. At least, I think I am. My wife disagrees though.

[Beachbum]

The other talent I'm just kind of like meh about is how they are changing blood gorged. Yes the armor ignore will be fantastic but that means if you don't have the best of the best gear you have to sacrifice your other stats to now get the expertise (which is what made blood so good in my eyes in the first place, you didn't have to stack expertise and could put those stats elsewhere).

Nah, this is a great change. Really the only clear buff we got in the Blood tree, I don't know about the anti-diseaseless changes, my DPS was far lower with diseases than without, not sure where those bonuses are really going to put his in comparison to the rest of the joneses.

Every other plate DPS spec is based around a certain bonus +expertise, and the current incarnation of gear in T7 equivalents has expertise all over the plate +strength pieces. The only two rings for example that are raid dropped, both have +expertise, and it was trivially easy to hit the expertise cap (or usually wind up way over it) between Veteran / Blood Gorged / Racial / gear.

Yeah it allowed us to get to the expertise cap with lower gear levels, but with the paucity of plate itemization without expertise in multiple slots (bracer too has all of one naxx 25 drop without it I believe) it was a wasted statistic. More armor pen is nothing but goodness.