DK Frost / Stealth Nerf ?

[Toxicated]

Hello, everyone. I have a question about the DK Frost Tree, as I've heard different things about it lately. First off all, i would like to say that i play as Dual Wield and this topic is not about 2H. I have been reading through the patch notes many times, but the only nerf i can see there is the decreased aoe damage on Howling Blast, which i don't really care about, i am more concerned about my single target dps. I have been reading on the PTR forum and DK forum on wow-europe, and have heard that our overall damage / dps have been decreased by about 10-20%. I am wondering if this is true? I don't really see why Blizzard would do this, if so. DK Frost DW is neither overpowered or underpowered, so they would basically fix something which isn't even broken.

[Nangz]

There haven't been any major nerfs to frost at all in any of the ptr builds except the howling blast nerf. Any decreases in damage on the ptr would probably be due to some bug since frost's single target damage isn't that amazing.

[Toxicated]

Yeah, most classes are already infront of us from what i understand, so i don't understand why they would nerf our single target dps.

[Kronik85]

There are certain bugs on live which cause Blood Strike to hit for 88% weapon damage instead of 80%, and Frost Strike to hit for 121% instead of 110% weapon damage, this means a reduction in single target. The Howling Blast change was warranted, despite this being a bug fix, it's still a stealth nerf. Maths isn't one of my strong points, so I'll leave it someone who can do it properly to give a rough estimate of how much these fixes will affect our single target DPS, somehow a 10-20% seems a like an exaggeration.

[fyske]

They removed the old bonus from Blood of the North (was +10% damage on Frost Strike and Blood Strike), so they both hit the same on Live and PTR.

We're still behind everything else right now, the best we got was an extra 12% damage from Plague Strike and Obliterate, it's good but hardly gamebreaking.

[Kronik85]

They removed the old bonus from Blood of the North (was +10% damage on Frost Strike and Blood Strike), so they both hit the same on Live and PTR.

We're still behind everything else right now, the best we got was an extra 12% damage from Plague Strike and Obliterate, it's good but hardly gamebreaking.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean. We lost Blood of the North (I get that, so less damage on FS and BS), but where is the extra damage for PS and OB? Are you talking about the 12% from Might of the Frozen Wastes for 2H Frost?

[fyske]

Yes, I am indeed refering to Might of the Frozen Waste.

[wvx]

Frost DK dam a lower on single target compared to UH (it sux a lot that a lot of the damage done is done by a PET), but it compensates on AoE fights (The worm and Maloriak)

[Deleted]

Frost DK dam a lower on single target compared to UH (it sux a lot that a lot of the damage done is done by a PET), but it compensates on AoE fights (The worm and Maloriak)

Why it sucks? We are masters of the undead. Our pet it's supossed to hit like a train.

[halmotors]

Why it sucks? We are masters of the undead. Our pet it's supossed to hit like a train.

It's my understanding (and I agree with it) that Unholy is meant as a disease-centric spec, that happens to have a pet as support, which is backed up by the mastery bonus for that tree.

[Deleted]

It's my understanding (and I agree with it) that Unholy is meant as a disease-centric spec, that happens to have a pet as support, which is backed up by the mastery bonus for that tree.

Well, I think that the support are the diseases. And the damage come from undead & shadow damage. But I can be wrong.

[Nikkaszal]

frost's single target damage isn't that amazing.

Errr what?

If you don't own single-target face as Frost you're doing something wrong.

[Kpoof]

Errr what?

If you don't own single-target face as Frost you're doing something wrong.

+1 there to be honest. Unholy may be strong, but frost is in a good place right now. And 2H frost will rock insane in the next patch.

[Nexic]

Errr what?

If you don't own single-target face as Frost you're doing something wrong.

http://stateofdps.com

Don't get me wrong frost single target is fine, but it's about middle of the road, not amazing. Frost single target isn't going to be beating similarly geared unholy dks/survival hunters/destro locks that know what they're doing, at least until the patch.

[Nikkaszal]

http://stateofdps.com

Don't get me wrong frost single target is fine, but it's about middle of the road, not amazing. Frost single target isn't going to be beating similarly geared unholy dks/survival hunters/destro locks that know what they're doing, at least until the patch.

You can't lump the entirety of a playerbase of certain specs into categories of "x spec does more damage than x class" and say that it's true in all situations.

I regularly top our meters as DW Frost. Granted there are several people in our raid who don't perform to scratch, but I'm also playing with people of high calibre who are damn good raiders and now how to min/max. All of us will usually be within ~3-400 DPS of each other on a fight without bias (interestingly enough, these people I'm talking about are Surv, Destro and Mut).

[Deleted]

I play DW frost too and I intend to play DW after patch. I never play wow on PTR but in my opinion DW frost boost will rely on old and new Virtulence talent.

Old Virtulence - 9% more hit on spells will be now implemented on every dk. New Virtulence provides 30% more disease dmg. Our talent tree will look like this:

http://wowtal.com/#k=3YQBc_t.aei.deathknight.iI6Rh

Feel free to comment this.

[GenesisZero]

Haven't noticed any really big differences in damage, HB's weakend cleave is a little annoying but is fair play (26k Crits on everything in range is a lil unfair). Because of the Rng of procs and the rune system it can be a varied in dps at times, sometimes 2K+ less dps (5 Oblits and no HB proc, you gotta be kidding me).

@Mashhad

The spec most likely to be up after patch is going to be -
http://wowtal.com/#k=xUD6WDAT.aei.deathknight.
First tier is whatever you want really as well as the free MF or Pale Horse/Lich, rest is pretty solid in place. Sub specing for blood is much better.
An extra Death Rune on demand and More passive Runic Power. The extra disease damage really isn't need to be honest.

[Nexic]

You can't lump the entirety of a playerbase of certain specs into categories of "x spec does more damage than x class" and say that it's true in all situations.

I regularly top our meters as DW Frost. Granted there are several people in our raid who don't perform to scratch, but I'm also playing with people of high calibre who are damn good raiders and now how to min/max. All of us will usually be within ~3-400 DPS of each other on a fight without bias (interestingly enough, these people I'm talking about are Surv, Destro and Mut).

Actually you can get a pretty good approximation, it's called inferential statistics, and you're of course assuming equal skill and gear. Comparing a reasonable sample of the top DPS parses for different classes is a lot more significant than observing a single raid group where some people are likely to be performing sub-optimally.

The truth is that at the upper tail of the raiding curve, frost is only coming out on top on fights like Magmaw/Maloriak (see: world of logs). Maybe things will change with the 2h frost buff and some specs getting knocked down a bit in the patch (survival/unholy/etc).

[Avatar Killer]

We lost Blood of the North (I get that, so less damage on FS and BS),

not exactly sure how we lost blood of the north as it is still there. we lost the damage portion of it from cata but lots of things changed. it hasn't changed our dps since cata was released...

[fangless]

You can't lump the entirety of a playerbase of certain specs into categories of "x spec does more damage than x class" and say that it's true in all situations.

I regularly top our meters as DW Frost.

lol?


Frost is middle of the road. The stateofdps site takes the top 200 logs, removing the bottom/top 5%, and gets an average for each fight.

I'd say comparing the top 180 parses for each spec on each individual fight is taking players who know what they're doing, and the comparison is valid. The Unholy nerfs in the upcoming patch may bring them down to Frost level, but that still leaves DKs in the middle of the pack compared to all other DPS.

That, unfortunately, leaves DW Frost still at average levels of dps compared to other DPS, but at least makes us not completely useless compared to speccing into Unholy.