Problem - Guilds resident Frost DK DPS

[Sly]

Ugg why would you give that firestones.
Certainly he couldn't have convinced you his terrible play was his lack of 391 weapons.
If by some crazy chance we would have considered someone like him for weapon upgrades, he woulda been forced to at least purchase bracers first.

Infracted

While this comment is certainly rude, it does raise a good point: why doesn't he have the valor bracers? They're a big upgrade.

Anyway, most of the above posts covered everything else.

[Valiea]

I understand the whole str > 8% hit > 26 exp > haste > mastery > crit --- BUUUUUUUUUT.... Is there a specific goal for haste and mastery? Or is it just, reforge to haste at all costs, reforge to mastery with pieces that have haste already on them, and reforge out of crit like it's a bad apple regardless of set % recommendations?

[soxyboi]

I wish i had his gear QQ

Already been said I think a few times but his reforging needs sorting, as there is no real coherency in how he is reforging (reforging to and away from all stats)
as mentioned above: hit cap > exp cap > haste > mastery > crit

Glyph of Frost Strike to replace Icy touch glyph, also glyph of anti magic shell is much more useful than glyph of blood boil, using blood boil instead of howling blast is as bad as icy touch instead of howling blast.

Band of bees not upgraded to serrated brimstone signet is a bit lazy too seeing as its a valor item with direct stat upgrades.


EDIT: currently no haste/mastery plateaus/caps achievable (or none have been proved), crit is a viable stat for white damage and HB damage, but due to the uptime of killing machine its greatly reduced in usefulness, its still better than over exp/hit cap though


here is an awesome reforging tool, http://www.reforgemaster.com/

these stat weights might not be spot on atm, but they still serve me well, cant remember where I found them
Yellow Hit 2.29
Expertise 1.64
Haste 1.47
Mastery 1.44
Crit 1.16

[Callax]

As many have pointed out, his blood plague uptime is terribad, his frost strikes are hitting more then obliterate (never should happen), and he rarely uses pillar of frost, which should always be on cd.

If someone beat me to it, he's got some bad glyphs also, icy touch should be replaced with frost strike, I have no idea why he would use blood boil, so take that out also. Plus, hungering cold is useless so I'd get rid of that to.

Just have this guy read some guides, he's not doing ANYTHING right.

[Breyers]

I understand the whole str > 8% hit > 26 exp > haste > mastery > crit --- BUUUUUUUUUT.... Is there a specific goal for haste and mastery? Or is it just, reforge to haste at all costs, reforge to mastery with pieces that have haste already on them, and reforge out of crit like it's a bad apple regardless of set % recommendations?

That seems about right.

You should definitely read over the EJ thread, and have him do the same, to learn the Single and AoE priorities etc.

[burbon]

I understand the whole str > 8% hit > 26 exp > haste > mastery > crit --- BUUUUUUUUUT.... Is there a specific goal for haste and mastery? Or is it just, reforge to haste at all costs, reforge to mastery with pieces that have haste already on them, and reforge out of crit like it's a bad apple regardless of set % recommendations?

Yes your assumption is correct. With the current tier there is no set haste, mastery or crit % you should be going for. We may reach a haste plateau in Tier 13 but for now just follow the priority.

One thing to point out is, while most often people in this thread are correct about reforging certain pieces here or there to help someone boost their secondary stats to the max, our secondary stats aren't all that far off from each other in value.

I only bring this up because, while we can certainly give accurate advise to people seeking help, reforging optimally will typically not be the one thing that gives a tremendous boost to someone's dps if they are pulling 20k in full 378 gear, when they really should be doing upwards of 26k-30k depending on skill, raid comp and kill times.

To the OP, it would appear your friend simply has a long way to go in understanding his class. Looking through the expression editor on WOL for Baleorc, there are many troubling signs here. See below as example of part of his rotation.

Source - http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6...and+type+%3D+6

[21:03:09.597] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:10.619] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:11.622] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:12.624] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:13.630] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:14.639] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:16.264] Skurge casts Obliterate on Baleroc
[21:03:17.992] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:19.026] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:20.002] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:21.012] Skurge casts Icy Touch on Baleroc
[21:03:22.023] Skurge casts Plague Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:24.175] Skurge casts Obliterate on Baleroc
[21:03:25.269] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:26.281] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:27.269] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:29.307] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc
[21:03:30.328] Skurge casts Frost Strike on Baleroc
[21:03:31.454] Skurge casts Howling Blast on Baleroc

He seems to be using abilities with no rhyme or reason. You should never be using Howling blast unless rime has procced, which only occurs 45% of the time after you Obliterate. He seems to be using Icy Touch even though his Frost Fever disease should already be applying it for him. He never used Blood Tap once in this encounter, and the only time his dps bursted to a reasonable level was midway through the encounter. The reason is because he actually used his cooldowns.

On the surface he or she seems like a player who just wants to have fun and isn't that concerned about their performance or the overall understanding of their class mechanics. While I hope that was helpful, it won't be of any use to them if they don't take the initiative themselves to improve. Remember you can't push your guildies buttons for them, as much as you might want to. Good Luck.

[Enfilade]

Glyph of Icy Touch. Should be using Glyph of Frost Strike instead.

Apparatus of Khaz'goroth is a terrible trinket, especially for Death Knights. Spend some time getting Heart of Rage, heroic or not. Either one is a huge upgrade. License to Slay wouldn't hurt, either.

21 Expertise. It's oh-so important to have this at 26. Since he's an Orc, he gets a free 3 Expertise. Lucky. Shouldn't be hard to hit especially if he gets Heart of Rage.

Rings. He definitely needs to get some upgrades, and the Valor Point one is a great start. The other one can be obtained either from Alysrazor or Exalted with Avengers of Hyjal.

Professions. Mining does not help out with DPS in any way, shape, or form. Should definitely pick up Engineering, Jewelcrafting, or Inscription.

Talent tree. Should definitely take the points out of Chilblains and put them into Improved Frost Presence. Also, take one point out of Epidemic and put it in Butchery. 2/3 Epidemic makes every other Outbreak line up perfectly with refreshing diseases.

I was looking at your Logs, namely Baleroc, and his Blood Plague diseases only has an 81% uptime. This needs to be 100%, because without that second disease being constantly up, Obliterate will deal 12.5% less damage. Obliterate makes up a huge chunk of our DPS.


If this is all rectified, barring playstyle, he SHOULD do a lot better. Refer to my signature if he, or anyone else, requires help with Death Knights.

[Valiea]

Thanks Burbon, I'll talk to him about this. Should he be using Power Aura's to track Rime on the enemy so he can use HB? Or is there a better way to track that? I know some DKs are just that good, obviously I'm trying to give him the most help I can.

Also, after doing all the tips and tricks, bought him the bracers, he got the ring from VP. Spent about 600g on reforging (a bunch of different times due to my own fault) and respecced him, he went from doing like 20-21k on a dummy to about 25k on a dummy. I also read that sticky on Dummy DPS, but I'm hoping that with the macro to his CDs with all the minor fixes we did it helped him, instead of being a fluke.

On another side note, I was reading the mouse-over DPS, he does keybind most of his abilities, but from what I understand he clicks his buffs. While that may not be optimal for a bleeding-edge progression, is it really a bigger DPS increase (like thousands) to have him use mouseover?

[Breyers]

Thanks Burbon, I'll talk to him about this. Should he be using Power Aura's to track Rime on the enemy so he can use HB? Or is there a better way to track that? I know some DKs are just that good, obviously I'm trying to give him the most help I can.

Also, after doing all the tips and tricks, bought him the bracers, he got the ring from VP. Spent about 600g on reforging (a bunch of different times due to my own fault) and respecced him, he went from doing like 20-21k on a dummy to about 25k on a dummy. I also read that sticky on Dummy DPS, but I'm hoping that with the macro to his CDs with all the minor fixes we did it helped him, instead of being a fluke.

On another side note, I was reading the mouse-over DPS, he does keybind most of his abilities, but from what I understand he clicks his buffs. While that may not be optimal for a bleeding-edge progression, is it really a bigger DPS increase (like thousands) to have him use mouseover?

Rime is a character proc, and lights up in the middle of your screen with the Blizzard in-game "power-aura" and puts a yellow sqaure around the Howling Blast icon on your action bar. It's not something that occurs to your target.

Like this http://www.curseforge.com/media/imag...529/rimekm.jpg

(It's the one in the centre top)

[Valiea]

Oh cool. Lol yea obviously I don't play a DK. I just do tons of research because currently jobless and not in school so I have nothing but time!

[burbon]

Thanks Burbon, I'll talk to him about this. Should he be using Power Aura's to track Rime on the enemy so he can use HB? Or is there a better way to track that? I know some DKs are just that good, obviously I'm trying to give him the most help I can.

Also, after doing all the tips and tricks, bought him the bracers, he got the ring from VP. Spent about 600g on reforging (a bunch of different times due to my own fault) and respecced him, he went from doing like 20-21k on a dummy to about 25k on a dummy. I also read that sticky on Dummy DPS, but I'm hoping that with the macro to his CDs with all the minor fixes we did it helped him, instead of being a fluke.

On another side note, I was reading the mouse-over DPS, he does keybind most of his abilities, but from what I understand he clicks his buffs. While that may not be optimal for a bleeding-edge progression, is it really a bigger DPS increase (like thousands) to have him use mouseover?

Blizzard implemented an ingame aura for Rime, which is technically a buff called Freezing Fog, so no need for a power aura there. I use power auras for pillar of frost, bloodtap, and blood plague on my dk. They are triggered when available or not active on the target as a reminder for me to maintain max uptime or usage. I would reccomned using a key bind for Pillar and anything else tbh. We are not a space that requires so many keybinds that the amount becomes overwhelming imo.

The only mouseover maccro he should be concerned with is howling blast or possibly deathgrip. The point of a mouseover maccro is to allow you to stay on your current target and simply place your mouse over another add or target without having to manually switch. This is helpful during aoe centric encounters for frost specifically.

See below:
#showtooltip Howling Blast
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists,nodead] Howling Blast; Howling Blast

[Hoomin]

I see a LOT wrong with what he's doing, from the glyphing to the diseases and everything in between he really just needs to better understand the class, send him to elitist jerks or something. Some of the mistakes he's making are very very "noob-ish".

[burbon]

Is there anyway you could get a screenshot of his UI? i find that cleaning up a UI and optimizing it to help track everything properly can really help improve awareness and overall dps with new players.

[Breyers]

A very helpful addon I would suggest for him, due to his Disease-uptime problem, is Three Rune Bars.

[Valiea]

See below:
#showtooltip Howling Blast
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists,nodead] Howling Blast; Howling Blast

I'm currently trying to figure out how this works, as in, I put it on my paladin's Exorcism (and tried Crusader Strike) but it doesn't do anything. Is there something else I'm missing?

[Foibles]

Assuming you changed the right words around, whenever you have your mouse hovering over a living enemy target, you should be able to cast Exo on said target. A good test is to replace howling blast in the macro with Holy Light for your Paladin, then test it by mousing over yourself, and anyone you are grouped with.

[Kaosbringer]

Other then the basic stat weighting and rotation priority that has been mentioned, I would check and see if hes is using Frost Prez or Unholy Prez. He should be using Unholy prez for the haste buff as haste should be stacked as much as possible. I am only bring this up because i haven't seen a post or anything that tells us what he is using and because his current setup suggest that hes set up for early T11 which was a mastery heavy build in Frost Prez.

also he should replace his Essence of Eternal Flame with Heart of Rage from Chimaeron as it is disputably BiS for DW Frost. also if in the mean time get License to Slay which was the Valor trinket from T11 as the haste and str proc is more desirable then Essence of Eternal Flame.

[Cactrot]

I'm currently trying to figure out how this works, as in, I put it on my paladin's Exorcism (and tried Crusader Strike) but it doesn't do anything. Is there something else I'm missing?

Are you sure you put exorcism in correctly? Is it showing the tooltip for exorcism? Personally, I prefer using the ? icon and #showtooltip, that way when using modifiers and such the icon/tooltip changes, so you can visually verify it's getting the new ability. I doubt that works with mouseover though.

It should work fine with exorcism though. It would cast at the target your mouse is on if it's an enemy(harm), you aren't mousing over something that isn't a target (exists), and isn't dead (nodead). If one of those conditions fails, it would just cast exorcism like normal.

[Shiira]

I'm currently trying to figure out how this works, as in, I put it on my paladin's Exorcism (and tried Crusader Strike) but it doesn't do anything. Is there something else I'm missing?

That macro will attempt to use howling blast on your mouseover if you have one, and your target otherwise.

It's useful if you want to use howling blast on something other than what you are targetting, like molten elementals at ragnaros.

[Breyers]

Other then the basic stat weighting and rotation priority that has been mentioned, I would check and see if hes is using Frost Prez or Unholy Prez. He should be using Unholy prez for the haste buff as haste should be stacked as much as possible. I am only bring this up because i haven't seen a post or anything that tells us what he is using and because his current setup suggest that hes set up for early T11 which was a mastery heavy build in Frost Prez.

also he should replace his Essence of Eternal Flame with Heart of Rage from Chimaeron as it is disputably BiS for DW Frost. also if in the mean time get License to Slay which was the Valor trinket from T11 as the haste and str proc is more desirable then Essence of Eternal Flame.

Even forged completely out of Hit on all pieces, he's over-cap.

So with his current gear, EotEF will be better for him.