Help me maximize my Frost DW damage

[got3n]

There are alot of things i see wrong with your character, not being mean just saying thats all.

Please re gem for STR for all slots, if you need your 2 blue gems the epic 10str+15stam will do just nicely or you can even do 10crit+15stam. Please get some expertise, you need 26/26 if im not mistaken. i understand only being able to do 10mans so youre limited on gear. Alot of people put emphasis on ArP but since its getting nerfed its probably not something you want to shoot for. Heck im a DW frost DK and I have very little ArP but I'm a compulsive hit/crit stacker ^_^ I dont have room for ArP in my gear. your 0.53.18 spec is nice, but i went for 4 Killing machine and put the 1 point into Unbreakable armor, its nice for when Heroism/bloodlust and all your other chance on hit spells go off all at once, i think there are many times in 25 man raids i peak over 10k AP but only barley. here is my char for comparison, but remember im doing 25 mans.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...d&n=Sherbatsky

[Daehauq]

There are alot of things i see wrong with your character, not being mean just saying thats all.

Please re gem for STR for all slots, if you need your 2 blue gems the epic 10str+15stam will do just nicely or you can even do 10crit+15stam. Please get some expertise, you need 26/26 if im not mistaken. i understand only being able to do 10mans so youre limited on gear. Alot of people put emphasis on ArP but since its getting nerfed its probably not something you want to shoot for. Heck im a DW frost DK and I have very little ArP but I'm a compulsive hit/crit stacker ^_^ I dont have room for ArP in my gear. your 0.53.18 spec is nice, but i went for 4 Killing machine and put the 1 point into Unbreakable armor, its nice for when Heroism/bloodlust and all your other chance on hit spells go off all at once, i think there are many times in 25 man raids i peak over 10k AP but only barley. here is my char for comparison, but remember im doing 25 mans.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...d&n=Sherbatsky

You'd be better off with 1 less point in CotG or BCB. 5/5 KM is mandatory

[got3n]

You'd be better off with 1 less point in CotG or BCB. 5/5 KM is mandatory

I would tend to agree, but after raiding like this last night i have to say im pretty impressed with the amount of times Killing machine proc'ed. I have power auras and its up pretty much all the time, even with 4 points. I still may take 1 point out of BCB but im going to finish the raiding week out like this and compare the numbers on our guilds dmg meter site.

[starvethedead]

Death Rune Mastery is a horrible useless waste for Frost spec...


Go with this instead:http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfV0V...bckfzcuzAo:ksa

[bpcatt1]

Let me preface this with "I'm a math guy". However, I won't do any math here.

Your gem/hit issues have been beaten over the head, so I won't touch on those. Strength is king because of Blessing of Kings (i.e. 1 str becomes 2.2 AP whereas an AP gem would stay locked at 2 AP). You should also use Sigil of Awareness b/c the 380 damage is applied to both hands. SoVH only applies 113 to each hand (or something like that). Nerfing the sigil and frost strikes base damage at the same time makes obliterate > frost strike until you get deep into T9 and go with Sigil of Virulence. At that point, obliterate and frost strike become almost equal.

On a dummy, blood sub-spec's normally win. In a raid, unholy sub-spec's win. The reason is scaling. With the exception of devo aura, armor really doesn't go up in a raid setting (nor does it go up much from tier to tier), so bladed armor gets almost no scaling with buffs or progression. Dark conviction is a flat %, therefore it also does not scale (and crit is devalued as frost because of killing machine).

Unholy sub-spec's allow you to get longer diseases (i.e. less disease refreshes, so more damage). Glyph of Disease does sim higher in fights spanning hundreds of hours. This is utterly impractical. When you reduce the durations down to 4-7 minutes (much more practical), non-GoD specs do more damage almost every time (RNG always determines the overall outcome). Unholy sub-specs also allow you to pick up 3% extra strength, necrosis, and blood-caked blade. All of these scale very well with raid buffs. Using a mod such as "needtoknow" or "power auras" to track when killing machine and rime proc are also huge for frost. So, if you aren't doing that currently, it would help a lot.

All that being said, I was 2H frost before 3.2 and did very good damage (usually around 6k or so and going as high as 13k on Hodir). After the patch (i.e. 2H frost gut job), I tried DW... every spec you can think of. The one that actually did the highest raid dps for me was the old howling blast single-disease rotation and build using the glyph of howling blast. Simulators will never show it being higher.... it's just what worked best for me. I've since switched to an unholy 2H obliterate build and am doing more damage than I ever have... even as blood. Just my 2 coppers worth...

[Gomexus]

@bpcatt1:

Oddly enough my first spec when 3.2 came out was also a single disease HB+Glyph build. I was also Blood sub spec running something like:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...D,wMa3eO,10392

I enjoyed the spec and did really decent dps with it as well and have been tempted to try it again ever since...patch night I pulled 5.5k overall in Ulduar10 up to Hodir before I left...which isn't anything to write home about or anything...but it was fun and easy as hell.

HB>OB>BS>BS>Dump
OB>OB>OB>Dump

4 button rotations ftw!

It also leaves you with plenty of time to dump RP and you can re-apply that one disease from ranged so bosses with a lot of movement are no problem lol.

I'm a math guy as well but in my experience math only applies heavily to the actual game on the tanking side of DK's...math on the dps side can sometimes be misleading.

[Onjage]

This is the order of how dps works:

- Don't die.
- Engage the mob earlier (and start your rotation quicker)
- Understand your own stat weights (and consider these when gearing)
- Run with the most optimal spec for you.

As for DK related things:

Gemming: STR only, use a Agi+crit damage+3% meta, and a Nightmare's Tear
Enchant: All AP, AGI for cloak, and if you need hit rating - Icewalker
Hit Rating: It's 5% for DW frost specials, hit rating holds one of the highest stat weights for you; consider necrosis and bcb