DW Frost Min/Maxing tips?

[Lyon]

I'd like some of the high rankers here to give some tips on min/maxing DW frost dps.

I feel like given my gear, my dps is very lackluster. I didn't post this in the fix my dps thread, as this is more about min/maxing, general tips and tricks, and fight specific tips. As far as the basics go, I'm using PoF on CD, double potting, following the right priority for my rotation, AMS soaking, etc. But it's the clever little tricks I'm missing.

My opening burst feels really weak, and I think my problem is that I stick to the priority for DW Frost too strongly. I know there are certain situations where you should ignore the priority and just do something else.

For example: Big aoe burst on opener (Galakras for example), pillar of Frost, then spam howling blast, plague strike, plague leech, more howling blast -> ERW and more howling blast spam, then go into your rotation. I'm always hesitant as to whether this is optimal or not.

Another example would be resource capping during AMS soaking. I find myself in situations with full blood charges + runes + RP, and all I can do is frost strike. I cringe at the thought of all those wasted blood charges. And then AMS soaking for cleave like Protectors; do you ignore the RP capping if you have runes and howling blast, or do you try to dump some RP before going into howling blast spam?

Then there's fights like Norushen, where I'm not entirely sure whether staying on the boss, or running around killing adds will be more dps. I'm given free reign to stay on the boss (our guild has melee stay on the boss, ranged kill adds). I'm one of the first people to get purified, but I can't decide what will be more dps. Is the dps lost from running around made up for from the cleave you get on adds?

So long story short, any tips on general DW frost min/maxing, and fight specific tips so that I can start putting out numbers worthy of ranking are what I'd like. Thanks for your time.

[ploob]

Thats the trick with AMS soaking. You want to waste as little of the RP gained and Blood Charges gained as possible. I feel like the ideal situation for AMS soaking would be when you are low on Blood Charges and already have a rune pair(or two) on CD.

On Galakras I open with Pre-placed DnD Pop all CDs>outbreak>pest>use all runes on HB>ERW>HB spam(ignore frost strike until trinkets/pof/potion fall)>PL> more HB.

On Norushen I would definitely try to HB cleave the adds. Frost strike the boss while running out. Once out of melee range of the boss target the add and start HBing.

My single target opener is:
army@7
ghoul after army
pot@1
Horn As soon as combat starts while running in.
PoF
Outbreak
Howling blast if still out of melee range.
Obliterate
FSx2
Obliterate
FSx1 to convert unholy rune to death
HB spam/FS on KM procs.

I would say a lot of Frosts damage comes from really good AMS usage. Banking some Blood Charges/Plague Leech for AoE/cleave scenarios(malkorok adds)

[Darkfriend]

Thats the trick with AMS soaking. You want to waste as little of the RP gained and Blood Charges gained as possible. I feel like the ideal situation for AMS soaking would be when you are low on Blood Charges and already have a rune pair(or two) on CD.

On Galakras I open with Pre-placed DnD Pop all CDs>outbreak>pest>use all runes on HB>ERW>HB spam(ignore frost strike until trinkets/pof/potion fall)>PL> more HB.

On Norushen I would definitely try to HB cleave the adds. Frost strike the boss while running out. Once out of melee range of the boss target the add and start HBing.

My single target opener is:
army@7
ghoul after army
pot@1
Horn As soon as combat starts while running in.
PoF
Outbreak
Howling blast if still out of melee range.
Obliterate
FSx2
Obliterate
FSx1 to convert unholy rune to death
HB spam/FS on KM procs.

I would say a lot of Frosts damage comes from really good AMS usage. Banking some Blood Charges/Plague Leech for AoE/cleave scenarios(malkorok adds)

Few things wrong.

1.) Don't outbreak

2.) You can horn before army, the RP decay is the same (well maybe 1 more RP but you gain a GCD).

Should be more like PoF-HB-HB-PS to start.

[CausalXXLinkXx]

Normally I would say you're correct on "don't outbreak" but this is ploob you're talking to, he is a min/maxing champion, and as such holds the #1 Frost DK slot in the world for frost DKs with public logs. I think he knows what he is doing to min/max.

[bals]

Few things wrong.

1.) Don't outbreak

you can outbreak when you're not in melee range.

[Deleted]

Few things wrong.

1.) Don't outbreak

2.) You can horn before army, the RP decay is the same (well maybe 1 more RP but you gain a GCD).

Should be more like PoF-HB-HB-PS to start.

He is more than right tbh

Just a fun fact, I don't know if this is ploob, I guess so at least. If it is, you might want to look him up, from what I believe he is currently the frost dk with the most rank 1s in 25H SoO (Believe he was by far in ToT aswell)

[Darkfriend]

He is more than right tbh

Just a fun fact, I don't know if this is ploob, I guess so at least. If it is, you might want to look him up, from what I believe he is currently the frost dk with the most rank 1s in 25H SoO (Believe he was by far in ToT aswell)

Eh I don't judge skill by rank or guild progress. Just on what people say.

It's possible it's wrong, but according to the math I've seen dropping outbreak from the opener and replacing it w/ HB/PS was a gain. Using Outbreak other times when you can't be in melee makes sense (E.G protectors if they aren't stacked.) But not during the opening, and especially not w/ PoF running.

[Nangz]

Depending on what you want to do in the first few globals, it can be worth using outbreak on an opener if you don't want to howling blast as much during the run in. For instance, if you are unable to get closer than 30 yards, you have at least 3 globals worth of runes to spend. Also depends on if you have dropped obliterate from your priority nowadays.

[Vereesa]

Outbreaking when out of melee range is fine. Using a rune for Pestilence on Galakras' first wave, the one that's only going to be up for a few seconds, however, should be avoided and better utilized for an HB.

[Darkfriend]

Outbreaking when out of melee range is fine. Using a rune for Pestilence on Galakras' first wave, the one that's only going to be up for a few seconds, however, should be avoided and better utilized for an HB.

Good point.

I'm curious as to the damage/time breakpoint for A. Number of adds and B. Time adds are alive for when pestilance is even worth spreading. Adds that day in a few seconds clearly are not, but how long do adds need to live to make it worth using?

Also, I'm 99% certain that the cleave trinket can proc off DOT ticks, if that changes anything.

[Deleted]

cleave trinket can proc off dots and off a proc itself apparently.

[Deleted]

cleave trinket can proc off dots and off a proc itself apparently.

As a DW frost dk this cleave trink might be awesome and awfull at same time(favoring "awfull" from my xp with it), because .. yeah .. it might proc of dot tick, cloak tick, and the worst - for offhand hit, but at same time it can proc off howling blast and in that case can do something really silly :P
From my expirience with it (it was the first SoO trinket i got, gladly from coin roll) its utter crap on single target fights - i did more dps with shado-pan assault vp trink. However in a multitarget fight like Protectors (if u stakc them for cleave), Galakras 1st phase, Dark Shamans (if the tanks manage to move them together), spoils and specialy 1st phase on Garrosh its is just awesome - it deals around 10% of my total dps for encounter lenght of 6 mins.
But for 2H frost it might be actualy good just because all attacks hit kinda "harder" than DW ones, however i just cant understand one thing on the trinket - it says - "Your attacks have a x.xx% chance to Cleave, dealing the same damage to up to 5 other nearby targets". In my mind that means it doesnt do the dmg on the main target right?

[Vereesa]

As a DW frost dk this cleave trink might be awesome and awfull at same time(favoring "awfull" from my xp with it), because .. yeah .. it might proc of dot tick, cloak tick, and the worst - for offhand hit, but at same time it can proc off howling blast and in that case can do something really silly :P
From my expirience with it (it was the first SoO trinket i got, gladly from coin roll) its utter crap on single target fights - i did more dps with shado-pan assault vp trink. However in a multitarget fight like Protectors (if u stakc them for cleave), Galakras 1st phase, Dark Shamans (if the tanks manage to move them together), spoils and specialy 1st phase on Garrosh its is just awesome - it deals around 10% of my total dps for encounter lenght of 6 mins.
But for 2H frost it might be actualy good just because all attacks hit kinda "harder" than DW ones, however i just cant understand one thing on the trinket - it says - "Your attacks have a x.xx% chance to Cleave, dealing the same damage to up to 5 other nearby targets". In my mind that means it doesnt do the dmg on the main target right?

Fusion-Fire Core was adjusted during the PTR to not proc off itself because it could theoretically loop infinitely.

As for 2H getting more out of it; the proc has no internal cooldown whatsoever, which translates to it being universally equal for all users.

And you're right, it does indeed not damage the target it procs off of.

[Deleted]

In my opinion the only fight where it shines is on spoils. For protectors and dark shaman it might be dps increase but I'm skeptical about it.
As for Garrosh, its only useful in p1, with doesn't matter at all for kiling the boss. And the more your raid has dps and use iron stars, the less this trinket will be efficient dps wise.

And thx for the correction, i thought it didn't changed about pricing off itself^^

[Rashi]

on Higher Ilvl (570) do we stop using Soul reaper? because alot of kills I see on loggs dks never use it anymore? I can imagine with thok trinket HB hits harder but without?

[Vereesa]

on Higher Ilvl (570) do we stop using Soul reaper? because alot of kills I see on loggs dks never use it anymore? I can imagine with thok trinket HB hits harder but without?

((average main-hand weapon damage) + (2.4 *(X/ 14)))*1.3*1.15*1.04*0.68+(60000+1.2X)*1.15*1.05=(499+0.8487X)* 1.10*1.05*1.15*mastery

Plug in your main-hand weapon damage and your mastery percentage and solve X to find out at what amount of AP HB outdamages SR on pure single-target.

As for why you're not seeing any SR in peoples' logs - it's most likely them not bothering to use it, or they're never in a situation where SR would be beneficial.

[Deleted]

Thats the trick with AMS soaking. You want to waste as little of the RP gained and Blood Charges gained as possible. I feel like the ideal situation for AMS soaking would be when you are low on Blood Charges and already have a rune pair(or two) on CD.

On Galakras I open with Pre-placed DnD Pop all CDs>outbreak>pest>use all runes on HB>ERW>HB spam(ignore frost strike until trinkets/pof/potion fall)>PL> more HB.

On Norushen I would definitely try to HB cleave the adds. Frost strike the boss while running out. Once out of melee range of the boss target the add and start HBing.

My single target opener is:
army@7
ghoul after army
pot@1
Horn As soon as combat starts while running in.
PoF
Outbreak
Howling blast if still out of melee range.
Obliterate
FSx2
Obliterate
FSx1 to convert unholy rune to death
HB spam/FS on KM procs.

I would say a lot of Frosts damage comes from really good AMS usage. Banking some Blood Charges/Plague Leech for AoE/cleave scenarios(malkorok adds)

You should macro ghoul into PoF as it scales of your str.

[bals]

You should macro ghoul into PoF as it scales of your str.

ghoul updates dynamically. use it before pof *pref. a couple of seconds before since he takes like 3-5 seconds to start doing anything.

[Deleted]

Ghoul is on global too, PoF isn't.

[Nangz]

You should macro ghoul into PoF as it scales of your str.

You don't need to macro them to use them together.

With the cdr trinket your PoF will have a ~40 second cooldown. If you macro them, at times you will waste a good duration of a ghoul.

Use them separately, due to the 1 minute duration, you will always have 20 seconds of ghoul buffed with Pillar. Pillar use on cd and ghoul use on cd allows this to work perfectly.