1. #1

    Frost VS Unholy.

    I am wanting to switch from Unholy to frost, I've got decent gear, spattering of ICC 10 gear, and 245 gear. As unholy I'm pulling about 8.5k-ish on fights like Festergut and Saurfang, I'm using a 251 weapon in my unholy spec and I have two 232 1her's might be able to pick up a 245/251 one later this week. Would switching down to frost be a large DPS loss for me?, or should I wait till I pick up higher 1h weapons till switching. I hear a lot of people say that Frost>Unholy and I liked playing frost earlier during Wrath, Im quite good at managing things like KM and Rime so I shouldn't have trouble switching playstyles. Also Im asking this from a pure dps min/maxing point of view, so enjoyment isnt really a factor because I love playing my DK no matter what Im doing.
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated, or direction to some other post, thread or forum.

  2. #2
    Since you said that you are asking from a "pure min/max standpoint", I would suggest a simulator. I would guess that you will do more in UH right now due to having a better weapon.

  3. #3
    Pandaren Monk Yosef1015's Avatar
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    frost is much better on single target fights and if played right aoe fights as well. if you get decent 1handers, go frost. it is very fun and good. all you need to do is get the "rotation" down and your good.

  4. #4
    What's a good DK simulator?, I've heard Rawr doesnt work well for DK's.

  5. #5

  6. #6
    I like Team Robot Simulator on the EJ frost thread. I'm not sure how it stacks up to kahories or anything, but it's much simpler to use and the interface is almost fun to navigate. In any event, I downgraded from 264 Cryptmaker as unholy to DWing 251 Frost Giant's Cleaver and my DPS went up by a fairly decent margin. I can regularly hit over 12k~ DPS on saurfang/festergut as frost. Granted, I haven't tried Unholy recently so I can't say how it would compare. After looking at WorldofLogs for a while, I conclude that world top DPS on tank-n-spank style fights is pretty comparable between frost and UH. But like previous posters have said, for your particular gearset, you'd want to hit up a simulator.

  7. #7
    I think you should test out Frost and just see which you like better, maybe unholy does better im not sure because when I played it I really hated it so I tried frost which I enjoy so much more and think i'd stick with even if it does start to do less dps with unholy just because of how much fun it is.

  8. #8
    It should be possible to reach that same DPS with that gear as frost spec, though of course it may take you some time to adjust, and it may require you to be more on the ball (I haven't used Unholy spec so I can't say if your numbers leave a lot of slack or not). Simming is useful, but the best thing to do is to just try it out.

  9. #9
    As DW frost i beat the unholy dk in my guild, but were at higher gear lvs so frost may scale better not sure about in 10 man gear.

  10. #10
    I ran with an unholy sub frost build for ages, still do, I was using bryntroll and had two 251 weapons for offspec. However recently i've gotten myself two 264 one handers and have seen a marked difference in dps. I find it to be better than Unholy for nigh on every single fight as long as you keep your procs and usages tight. However there are downsides.

    I pull more threat than most tanks, i average around 9-10k threat a second our tanks are incredibly well geared, icc25 hc gear and they struggle sometimes. For example on LK, going in frost means I tend to wait 5-6 seconds after the spawn of a raging spirit before nuking, this results in a solid dps loss for that segment. So for these kind of fights I tend to go back to unholy.

    HOwever fights like BQL, Sindragosa, Putricide, pretty much all the others actually it's a win. Much better burst, much better aoe if played right, higher single target. But get familiar with the playstyle and disadvantages or you'll get facerolled by an angry raging spirit.

    Also another lvoely thing about frost is the merciless combat talent, that's a god send on fights with an important final burn.

  11. #11
    I've played around with both Frost and Unholy, and since getting my two iLevel 264 weapons I've found that I do tend to higher DPS with Frost, and the rotation is a bit more fun to play.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Conno View Post
    I pull more threat than most tanks,
    Agree

    Quote Originally Posted by Conno View Post
    For example on LK, going in frost means I tend to wait 5-6 seconds after the spawn of a raging spirit before nuking, this results in a solid dps loss for that segment.
    May have just had a bad experience with Soul Shriek and the silence effect. But either way, threat generation is pretty huge, unless you spend a point into Subversion, which in the end isn't really needed.


    Quote Originally Posted by Conno View Post
    However fights like BQL, Sindragosa, Putricide, pretty much all the others actually it's a win.
    As DW, I cannot stand Sindragosa. Stacks can build very quickly at times, and then the damage will eat through your AMS before it holds long enough to reset stacks. Still, very manageable if you play smart, just not as simple as slower 2H Unholy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Conno View Post
    Also another lvoely thing about frost is the merciless combat talent, that's a god send on fights with an important final burn.
    And how! Usually heading into the last third of the boss's HP, I'll be in 3rd-4th DPS, but then with speed pot & BL, I gain considerable ground.


    Honestly, so few DKs are frost on our server, it's bizarre. Everyone's trucking around with Shadow's Edge (including guilds who aren't in any position to get the legendary made), and Ghoul pets in tow. I started to mess with Frost before 3.3.3, and it was decent. Unholy was worlds above it though. Now after 3.3.3, Frost is above Unholy by a slight bit, and Unholy is above Blood by a slight bit.

  13. #13
    I decided going frost. I love it so far, Kahories simulator is amazing, thanks for recommending it. I got very luck with drops the either day, Getting Bloodvenom Blade, Coldwraith links and the haste/crit gloves off of either Festergut/Rotface forget which. All really amazing upgrade. My dps has gone considerably higher and Im still mastering the "rotation" but its working out well. Thanks for all your help

  14. #14
    @Jurp just curious, did you get the normal or heroic version of those haste gloves? If the former, then the emblem gloves are actually still better because of the ArP vs Haste.

    @fangless Subversion is actually a DPS increase over alternatives when you are getting into higher ArP levels and using SoA. The threat reduction really does help out too when you're pushing 15k+.

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