Frost DK's lacking in PvP for Cataclysm

[Lopiak]

Does anyone else think that Frost DK's are currently lacking PvP compared to Unholy for cataclysm? I cant currently
see a single reason not to choose Unholy over Frost in any team or even in BG's. Compared to each other (Ignoring
what everyone shares and has in Cata)

Unholy: Permanent Pet + Pet Stun, AMZ, Gargoyle, Higher AoE diseas Damage, Dispel Resistance on diseases and desecration
Frost: Knockback Immunity on Damage CD, Hungering Cold

It feels as though Blizzard hasnt really put any effort at all into Frost DK's for PvP in Cataclysm. I realise its still
beta, and numbers arent final however fairly late into the Beta, Im getting worried that it will only get fixed mid Xpac,
or possibly not at all.

[charivari]

My thoughts exactly. I am not in beta so I would like to hear more on this. But right now it seems all numbers aside it seems that unholy has all the cool utility skills and frost only has 1 or 2 really.

I think they need to do something with frost strike...like add a frost stacking mechanic like ret paladins get except when you reach 3 stacks your enemy is deathchilled (bring back deathchill in a way lol) allowing your next frost strike to be undodgeable and unparryable or your next obliterate deals 20% more damage.

That way it would make frost much more interesting and fun to play and it would give it the much needed flavor to differentiate it from unholy and give it some utility in PvP. So in PvP unholy could be the ultimate disease/ghoul stun/AMZ harrassment class plus it deals good damage...and frost could be more of the "chill your bones" and get harder hitting oblits or frost trikes that dont miss when you really NEED to hit that pesky rogue.

I know they took out the frost strike no dodge or parry ability a long time ago since in pvp they thought it was OP (booo) but by making it available less often and you would have to plan for it I feel it would make it more fun and at the same time not be OP. All they have to do is adjust the stacks of "deathchilled" to balance the usage of it.

Anyway...frost needs some utility and flavor...I only offer my ideas and yes I have posted this on the official suggestion forum.

---------- Post added 2010-09-16 at 06:45 PM ----------

Another thing that concerns me is self healing. Now that DS got the big nerf I wonder how it will be for self heling in PvE and PvP. I currently have rune tap in my pvp build since I sub blood but I wont come cata. So that leaves me with 3 not so reliable ways to get health...death strike, ghoul sac, and Lichborne heal with death coil. 2 of those are reliable but on a longer CD which makes them only situational.

[Lopiak]

Yeah Im sadly not in Beta so my view comes from mostly what I've read. It looks like they've left us in WotLK though atleast for PvP

[Brince]

Well every class has only 1 pvp tree (if you're not an healer/dps class) so i don't think it's that strange.
Fury is not good for pvp either, if you wanna do some serious pvp you must spec arms. That's quite similar for us, if you wanna pvp just go unholy.
I really doubt they want to balance 2 trees to be competitive in pvp, it would be a huge pain.

[charivari]

Well every class has only 1 pvp tree (if you're not an healer/dps class) so i don't think it's that strange.
Fury is not good for pvp either, if you wanna do some serious pvp you must spec arms. That's quite similar for us, if you wanna pvp just go unholy.
I really doubt they want to balance 2 trees to be competitive in pvp, it would be a huge pain.

I dont see why it would be a huge pain and I disagree...many classes have more than one "PvP" tree. Blizzard has never stated (to my knowledge) that they wish to have only one PvP tree per class. PvP is about utility not DPS so as per my suggestion above how would it be such a pain to add a couple utility talents to the frost tree to make it more fun in PvE and more desirable for PvP?

It would not unbalance the game or be a huge pain IMO...designing this game is already a huge pain and remember this isnt free to play so I dont see why they cant do something simple like this.

[Blomgren]

Frost has better aoe in ptr/beta. Howling blast hits higher than even obliterate and diseases are doing pathetic damage.

AMZ - pillar of frost
Pet stun - hungering cold
Desecration - chillblains (can be spread aoe by howling blast glyph)(and chains of ice is undispellable)
Disease protection - resilient infection common to both trees

Utility wise they are pretty even. Play style/damage will determine what people chose.

[Deleted]

I think Blizzards primary aim to to make sure each class has at least one spec that is balanced in PvP.

Im not on the Beta so take my words with a pinch of salt.
Frost DK is may have some utility in rated BGs since you might be able to get away with having less tools if you are going round in a group that already has the tool you need. Hungering Cold is gonna be great CC for when your 5-7 man crew in a BG wanna focus down one guy.

[Deleted]

sigh, frost for pve and unholy for pvp, blizzard is screwing us like they did with the blood tree. I'm gnna miss my cookie-cutter spec

[GodTier]

Ultimately you can get both chibil and desecration for PVP frost.

With howling blast being as powerful as it is (twice as powerful as scourge strike as it stands from my numbers on PTR) the chance of getting 4 of those in a row is simply amazing. As well as frost strike hitting for full weapon damage (i was getting 16k crits) plus killing machine...

Hungering cold = reliable CC
Desecration = close up 50% reduce movement
Lichborne = anti-fear + you can heal yourself (both unholy and frost can get this)
Chibilitans = ranged added hamstring to your CoI
Howling blast can keep constant disease pressure and free up blood runes for things other than pestilence.
Extra runic power is 45% chance off of melee swings and it takes three to get a frost strike where as you generate less runic power as unholy and the proc does less damage as it stands right now (the free death coil)
Festering strike isn't going to play a big role in either spec IMO plus it hits like a wet noodle.
Anti-knockdown and such from pillars of frost

It is EXTREMELY viable. Sorry but beating out a set of

[Obliterate > howling blast (45% proc) > frost strike] x 3 > 2-3 howling blasts at the end (from 45% rune regeneration) is A LOT of damage. As it stands now that would be as follows

[16k crit > 17k crit > ~16k crit (higher with mastery)] x 3 > 2-3(17k crit)

Total burst: 48000 + 51000 + 48000 + ~45000 = 192k max burst (at 80) Unholy can't compete with that burst... The best they can get is like...

Scourge strike x 6 + 3x death coil + dc procs
From what I saw SS was critting for ~ 12k so the total burst (even if you get three dc procs in a row) would end up being < frost even if frost was only using 4x howling blast + frost strikes.
If you want to take pet increased damage into consideration + gargoyle sure it can win out in burst... but those are heavily reliant on situations and deplete your RP and require more ramp up time.

Both are going to be GREAT, probably the best melee in the game at the moment is death knight. For threes both will be great, especially keeping pressure if you can manage to make the DoT's from diseases stick and have enough mastery to make them tick hard enough to require extra heals to oom healers since it will be more heal intensive.

These would be the two specs I would run something along the lines of...

Frost: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#jZGcR...ubGb:MdVMmaMzm
Unholy: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#jZG0o...k0fo:0rVskVMzm

Survival does matter, but burst also matters just as much. I think frost has superior burst, at least at the moment.

[MortalWombat]

Ghoul stun > hungering cold. The stun doesn't break if someone sneezes at the CCed guy.

I would hope that if you're hoping to arena in cata you would communicate your CCs with your partner. Blind breaks on damage too, but I don't see people saying that it sucks. Hungering Cold can easily turn the battle around if you use it at the right time. A 3v3 could turn to a 3v1 if you time it so they don't have trinket and you DG the other guy close to the 2nd.

[Venziir]

Does anyone else think that Frost DK's are currently lacking PvP compared to Unholy for cataclysm? I cant currently
see a single reason not to choose Unholy over Frost in any team or even in BG's. Compared to each other (Ignoring
what everyone shares and has in Cata)

Unholy: Permanent Pet + Pet Stun, AMZ, Gargoyle, Higher AoE diseas Damage, Dispel Resistance on diseases and desecration
Frost: Knockback Immunity on Damage CD, Hungering Cold

It feels as though Blizzard hasnt really put any effort at all into Frost DK's for PvP in Cataclysm. I realise its still
beta, and numbers arent final however fairly late into the Beta, Im getting worried that it will only get fixed mid Xpac,
or possibly not at all.

Wel... Frost is ment to be the pve dmg spec, and unholy the pvp dmg spec.

[Roose]

Good thing DKs have such great baseline abilities. Other classes would kill for chains, strangulate, range snare(icy touch), and lolgrip. All usable in any presence and do not require runic power(rage).

[DerGenerale]

I dont see why it would be a huge pain and I disagree...many classes have more than one "PvP" tree.

Ever heard of hybrids?
only non-hybrids with 2 GOOD PvP speccs are warlocks and rogues.

[Deleted]

I hope they remove all PvP related stuff from Frost tree. I wouldn't mind at all if Unholy would be only spec for PvP and Frost just pure PvE.

[Daggy1111]

Yeah short awnser.. no. Forst has a hell of a lot more burst on demand then unholy(which has a long cd and build up effect to gain burst). this means in groups with a lot of cc(which is pretty much anything with a lock in it) and has the second easiest slow application effect in game(only class that out slows a frostdk is frost mage... go figure). Now this comes with some down sides of course. For one frosts ranged damage, while good, really isnt as good as unholy and unholy will do more damage over time then frost in pvp. Also 2hander frost(which is pretty much pvp frost)relies on you sitting on the enemey to gain that extra rp for more fs's. Being as in pvp everyone is running around like a chicken with no head, thats really hard to do. ALso id like to add that if used right hungering cold is bar none the best cc in game(no other ability can shut down an entire team). Yeah its hard to use and its a nitch style cc, but that dosnt mean that it is bad.

Overall expect to see a lot of frost in bgs(were there are more number and the extra aoe damage of frost will kill) and more unholys in arena(were utility is king).

[grimkiller]

Blizzard wants every spec for every class to be viable in PVP.
They do not want dedicated trees to PVE/PVP.
They DO want dedicated trees for roles, such as tanks/damage/healer.

Frost is not far behind because Unholy has nothing that hits like Howling Blast (as of now).
With Howling Blast having no cooldown and procs for freebies, Frost can do some sick burst, whereas Unholy has to ramp up with diseases first.
Another post desribed the talents/abilities of each pretty well, and they are similar in usefulness.

While numbers are not balanced, I think they are pretty close in concept.

[djcoin]

well 1st of all dks get an ms and the fact that dks can actually do damage again means this tree will be viable in arena. it just lacks the survivability and mobility of unholy but it does like twice the damage.

[Foibles]

Frost has better aoe in ptr/beta. Howling blast hits higher than even obliterate and diseases are doing pathetic damage.

AMZ - pillar of frost
Pet stun - hungering cold
Desecration - chillblains (can be spread aoe by howling blast glyph)(and chains of ice is undispellable)
Disease protection - resilient infection common to both trees

Utility wise they are pretty even. Play style/damage will determine what people chose.

I would take AMZ over not being able to be knocked back.
Pet stun is way better than HC.
Desecration is instant, and I think Chillbains is still dispellable.

Frost does win on bloat though.

[Nukularpower]

FROST PVP CAN GET DESECRATION

caps'd because people don't seem to be paying attention

and to the inevitable "but then how do I obliterate if I'm using Plague Strike for Desecration??" Why bother with Oblit when Howling Blast is only 1 rune, hits almost as hard (and might hit harder when we get gear with mastery,) frequently gets 100% crits from killing machine, can be 6-chained (with 2 blood-->death runes+ERW) and has a 40 yard range? It's like super-duper Shadowfrost 10.0, only with way more damage than the original Shadowfrost ever had... I just hope Blizzard doesn't nerf it because it feels really OP to me atm, especially with the 10-11k Frost Strikes waiting if you do bother to close in. You don't even need diseases, screw disease protection/Resilient Infection imo, spamming Plague Strike with UH runes anyways and glyph'd Howling Blast applies Frost Fever...

In short, you people crying about how the sky is falling should really try it a bit or at least think about it, it's possibly one of the most OP specs in the game atm and only flying under the radar cuz of Fulminate and Kill Command :P And it is almost definately going to be nerfed, so save your whining for then...

Edit: Also, Glyph of Pillar of Frost is sick if you can line up a 6-chain HB streak as I mentioned above, as long as clicking off a buff isn't above your skill level and you know where your Death Grip button is. No fear of interruption and potentially 80kish damage from range - I'm lovin it. But go on, rage away

---------- Post added 2010-09-17 at 09:44 PM ----------

Of course I forgot to mention above the normal stun/fear/poly/silence/allmagiceffect immunities you get as a Frost DK, along with the 1 minute AoE CC and a 60% heal waiting in your ghoul... Unholy is definately one of the best melees in the PTR right now, but Frost is one of the best casters. And with Dark Simalcrum, it gets even better.

[charivari]

I like what you guys are saying about frost and I dont disagree that the damage numbers are good and that ultimately for damage the trees will be balanced.

I just think frost needs a bit more utility to make it more fun and useful in pvp especially. No one wants a game where all DK's are going unholy for PvP because it offers the best options by far. I think just adding a bit more utility and flavor to a couple of the talents that already exist (ie frost strike or chillblains) would really spice up the tree and not make it OP.

They didnt need to change the already cool permanent ghoul aspect of unholy...but they did and everyone is excited about how cool it will be. Lets do something like that for frost...basically the talents in the new 31 pt frost tree are the same ones from the old talent trees, there really havent been many real changes to the tree and I dont count the 1st and 2nd tier talent shuffling that all trees can get.

I remember really "feeling" like a frost knight back in the day when Frost Strike could not be blocked dodged or parried...when they took that away nearly all the flavor went away and it made it less fun. If it was so unbalanced then just make it so you have to get a few stacks of icy chill or something before your next strike becomes a nearly automatic hit. That would give us a cool playstyle aspect that would be fun similar to the new ret pally mechanic of stacking holy power to get that big hit.