2h Frost is back in Shadowlands!

[Unholyground]

That's the next problem with the spec. I didn't even want to start going there haha.

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I miss when unholy was more about disease management...Original Festerblight was the best iteration of unholy imho. Problem with unholy looking grave again is they will probably focus on reworking unholy again instead of frost which needs serious mechanical changes. Unholy had numerous reworks...theyve been trying to force wotlk systems to work in a post-wotlk world and it just doesn't work anymore. The entire class may actually need an entire revamp.

Blood while boring at times is in a really good place for tanking, it could use some talent revamps but the core gameplay is solid and works well. My guess is next expansion is the big rework to most of the classes, they seem to do it every 2-3 expansions where they rework stuff from every class. Blizzard needs to stop worrying about revamping a class during an expansion, if it is under performing they need to just do it, and the only reason they don't is because of tournaments/pvp and bullshit e-sports literally no one cares about.

PvP is the reason you don't see specs and classes iterated upon often enough, there is no other logical reason to not be continuously reworking things until they feel right or fit the class properly. This is why they should separate and take the classes on different directions when you decide to PvP so nothing they do there effects PvE.

[Alanar]

doesn't matter in PvE, great stuff for PvP

Exactly.. people are complaining about minmaxing about mythic raid tier level, where dw might overrule by maybe 5%..
Like.. who cares.. if I have to guess not even 5% of the people here raid in mythic or should care about that meta in the first place. W

People will play 2hand regardless of the runeforges just because fantasy etc and in pvp big OB critts will be favored over smaller consistant damage spikes with dw unless it turns out one of the new runeforges stand out in pvp big time then yea.. 2hand would be a random bg spec.

[Saltysquidoon]

I miss when unholy was more about disease management...Original Festerblight was the best iteration of unholy imho. Problem with unholy looking grave again is they will probably focus on reworking unholy again instead of frost which needs serious mechanical changes. Unholy had numerous reworks...theyve been trying to force wotlk systems to work in a post-wotlk world and it just doesn't work anymore. The entire class may actually need an entire revamp.

Disease management unholy doesn't work without snapshotting which is why it's gone. The wod version of unholy was the worst the spec was in the history of DK's you might as well have been playing a dk with no spec activated, you just pressed buttons that existed to be pressed that did nothing because they were designed around snapshotting.

Besides necromancer unholy is better than disease gardener unholy even with snapshotting.

The second part of the buff is even more important. If that change actually means that two handers will have MORE killing machine procs than a DVDK

2h won't have more KM procs, before this change km needed 36% crit to break even with DW KM procs. The PPM buff would have to be obscene for that to happen. People need to understand that 2h was that far behind and it will still be behind because...

Lastly, i think people are overestimating how vital the second runeforge might be at the end of it. They showed that they actually remember that runeforges exist by adding new ones, and i'd be surprised if they won't drop some more changes to balance them out more; at the end of it all i wouldn't be surprised if people actually ran razorice and the one that gives you more maximum RP for breath builds. Even currently you can run around with glacial advance to stack up the razorice stacks, which should work on certain fights. They actually showed this time that they are trying to do things, which is already better than what happened in BFA.

People really aren't underplaying how big runeforges are man and they are literally the reason 2h will never be as good as DW. The main reason for this is RotFC, a flat 15% buff that is up between 70 - 95% of the fight is so absurdly strong you can never justify not taking it. And because as a result razor ice can only be taken by DW, that means DW effectively just scales better with mastery and because mastery is just x more frost damage dw just scales better.

We've been down this road so many times since cata, it's mind-boggling blizzard has not only thrown themselves off the same cliff but they're making the same mistakes on the way down.

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Exactly.. people are complaining about minmaxing about mythic raid tier level, where dw might overrule by maybe 5%..
Like.. who cares.. if I have to guess not even 5% of the people here raid in mythic or should care about that meta in the first place.

Razor ice is a flat 15% buff to ~55% of your damage (ST, any aoe at all and 2h is dead in the water), although we will be dealing more frost damage in SL because KM oblits will deal frost damage. To offset this 2h is getting the 25% buff to ~20% (oblit) of it damage, less whatever amount of DW km procs because those oblits will be boosted by razor ice.
Napkin math is not looking so good.

That is of course pure single target, once you get into cleave or aoe 2h is dead, not to mention if BoS is meta then 2h is also dead.

[Ascius]

Exactly.. people are complaining about minmaxing about mythic raid tier level, where dw might overrule by maybe 5%..
Like.. who cares.. if I have to guess not even 5% of the people here raid in mythic or should care about that meta in the first place. W

People will play 2hand regardless of the runeforges just because fantasy etc and in pvp big OB critts will be favored over smaller consistant damage spikes with dw unless it turns out one of the new runeforges stand out in pvp big time then yea.. 2hand would be a random bg spec.

You're absolutely correct. I used to play 2h Frost since cata to end of WoD. I only did normal and heroic raids and it never mattered, sure I could have done a bit more dps as dw, but in that content and in general there are people who don't know how to use some of their abilities so that % is pretty much nonexistent.

And with MotFW return I'm confident I'll return to Frost as a main for the first time since 2h frost was removed.

[Hctaz]

Exactly.. people are complaining about minmaxing about mythic raid tier level, where dw might overrule by maybe 5%..
Like.. who cares.. if I have to guess not even 5% of the people here raid in mythic or should care about that meta in the first place. W

People will play 2hand regardless of the runeforges just because fantasy etc and in pvp big OB critts will be favored over smaller consistant damage spikes with dw unless it turns out one of the new runeforges stand out in pvp big time then yea.. 2hand would be a random bg spec.

2hand might be a random bg spec, but here's the OTHER issue.

This change could make 2hand optimal for single target and Dual Wield for cleave so now anybody who wants to play Frost DK for multiple things has to get THREE WEAPONS.

Also you can kinda... change your weapon mid combat still, can't you? Not gonna be fun to have to have three weapons in your inventory so you can swap back MID FIGHT depending on when adds spawn.

[Lucrece]

I hope they kill FSc spam with overbuffing frozen pulse or doing something else. Overcapping all the time is really anoying and FSc spam makes it even worse.

Kill off Razorice, should nerf FSc usage and just buff and make alternatives usable for 2h and dw for generic ST and cleave mix.

If frost had the slower and less capped flow as unholy, it would be so much enjoyable to play. Sadly unholy is completly gone in shadowlands, even more split damage, even less impact from wounds, even more anoying GCD ussage in AoE and the worste, still forced to AotD cooldown times and is not back to what it was - a simple utility cooldown.

I hope 2h frost gets at least till viable state, I would even take it with some major buff auras to make it work for the first 1-2 tiers. If Unholy is the only real choice with the most stupid LEGION/BFA iteration, I would be really sad to see another shit DK expansion.

I just want to use frost scythe and glacial advance because they're one of the few visually distinctive spells we have.

Frost Strike looks like total ass. It doesn't help for several races it's this quick spinning strike with yet another blue outline on a class that's all about being a lumbering juggernaut, not about quick strikes. I'm glad they redid the animation for Obliterate to give it weight and impact.

Hungering Cold and Sindragosa's Fury is currently besides Howling Blast the only visually impressive kit in frost DK.

Unholy has apocalypse, death coil looks 1000x better than frost strike, gets dark transformation, summons a gargoyle, and gets the swirling souls from Soul Reaper.

Unholy feels like an actual DK, whereas frost if it didn't have Hungering Cold and Sindragosa's Fury essentially looks like a warrior with blue outlines instead of red because of how they homogenized melee attacks to save time.

[loanel]

Disease management unholy doesn't work without snapshotting which is why it's gone. The wod version of unholy was the worst the spec was in the history of DK's you might as well have been playing a dk with no spec activated, you just pressed buttons that existed to be pressed that did nothing because they were designed around snapshotting.

Besides necromancer unholy is better than disease gardener unholy even with snapshotting.


2h won't have more KM procs, before this change km needed 36% crit to break even with DW KM procs. The PPM buff would have to be obscene for that to happen. People need to understand that 2h was that far behind and it will still be behind because...

People really aren't underplaying how big runeforges are man and they are literally the reason 2h will never be as good as DW. The main reason for this is RotFC, a flat 15% buff that is up between 70 - 95% of the fight is so absurdly strong you can never justify not taking it. And because as a result razor ice can only be taken by DW, that means DW effectively just scales better with mastery and because mastery is just x more frost damage dw just scales better.

We've been down this road so many times since cata, it's mind-boggling blizzard has not only thrown themselves off the same cliff but they're making the same mistakes on the way down.

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Razor ice is a flat 15% buff to ~55% of your damage (ST, any aoe at all and 2h is dead in the water), although we will be dealing more frost damage in SL because KM oblits will deal frost damage. To offset this 2h is getting the 25% buff to ~20% (oblit) of it damage, less whatever amount of DW km procs because those oblits will be boosted by razor ice.
Napkin math is not looking so good.

That is of course pure single target, once you get into cleave or aoe 2h is dead, not to mention if BoS is meta then 2h is also dead.

The rune problem exists because of the razorice buff, which was impossible to overcome in cata-wod. This time, glacial advance exists; its true that it takes a bit of time to ramp up (20-25 seconds with decent haste), but in certain situations you CAN overcome the limitation. Things are definitely going in the right direction; as i said before, back in the day two handed frost was fucked on a fundamental level of mastery being literally fucking useless for it for 3 expansions in a row. This time it will actually scale. It might be behind DV by some %, but now it has fucking cohesion and can be properly tuned.
I really think that the intent is to use runeforges and balance the weapons based on what you engrave. You said that the buff for killing machine would have to be crazy; i agree, and i think it will actually be crazy. MOTFW gives 25% damage only to obliterate, i wouldn't be surprised if they intend to go all-in on two handed just being a slam damage burst spec and make it so with a two hander you're rewarded for playing around killing machine and with DV you are rewarded for playing around your runic power.

[Clash the DK]

So I did some controlled testing on the PTR. Removed neck piece and trinkets.

DW Frost is approximately ahead by 15% on single target and approximately 30% ahead on 3 targets.

DW: IA, RA, FP, GS, Icecap
2H: IA, ME, Avalanche, GS, Obliteration

I did not test BoS because I can not stand that ability.


If they move some damage from FS to Obliterate (pre-MotFW) then it shouldn't be too hard to balance single target. Scaling might be another issue, but I will refrain from that headache.

The big problem will be AoE. MotFW will also need to do something like increase Rime damage or they are going to need a new talent in which the AoE damage is tied to Obliterate damage. For example, they could rework Avalanche so that it causes your KM Obliterates to deal some % of the Frost damage to nearby enemies. That might work.

[loanel]

So I did some controlled testing on the PTR. Removed neck piece and trinkets.

DW Frost is approximately ahead by 15% on single target and approximately 30% ahead on 3 targets.

DW: IA, RA, FP, GS, Icecap
2H: IA, ME, Avalanche, GS, Obliteration

I did not test BoS because I can not stand that ability.

Try with glacial advance and maybe icecap with a two hander. Get razorice to 5 stacks and then use GA only to keep the debuff up.
Can you estimate how often Killing Machine procs with a two hander compared to DV with same crit%?

[Lucrece]

So I did some controlled testing on the PTR. Removed neck piece and trinkets.

DW Frost is approximately ahead by 15% on single target and approximately 30% ahead on 3 targets.

DW: IA, RA, FP, GS, Icecap
2H: IA, ME, Avalanche, GS, Obliteration

I did not test BoS because I can not stand that ability.


If they move some damage from FS to Obliterate (pre-MotFW) then it shouldn't be too hard to balance single target. Scaling might be another issue, but I will refrain from that headache.

The big problem will be AoE. MotFW will also need to do something like increase Rime damage or they are going to need a new talent in which the AoE damage is tied to Obliterate damage. For example, they could rework Avalanche so that it causes your KM Obliterates to deal some % of the Frost damage to nearby enemies. That might work.

Let's not create more development intensive balancing nightmares by creating even further separate tuning mechanisms.

The fix is simple. Limit runforges to 1 for both or allow 2H frost to use 2. Then normalize KM procs and runic attenuation between both.

Forget this obliterate nonsense or separate performamce of spells by weapon type. It will never be balanced since Blizzard rarely tunes diligently by patch or season.

Once things go live they tune for mythic race between releases and then leave specs to rot till next xpac.

[Clash the DK]

Try with glacial advance and maybe icecap with a two hander. Get razorice to 5 stacks and then use GA only to keep the debuff up.
Can you estimate how often Killing Machine procs with a two hander compared to DV with same crit%?

I tried a few different combinations. The ones listed were the best outside of BoS.

The combination and synergy of Murderous Efficiency, Gathering Storm, and Obliteration always came out ahead for 2H Frost.

As I am running lots of short tests, there is a lot of RNG with crit rate. I can't put a finger on how much value KM is adding to 2H vs DW.

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Let's not create more development intensive balancing nightmares by creating even further separate tuning mechanisms.

The fix is simple. Limit runforges to 1 for both or allow 2H frost to use 2. Then normalize KM procs and runic attenuation between both.

Forget this obliterate nonsense or separate performamce of spells by weapon type. It will never be balanced since Blizzard rarely tunes diligently by patch or season.

Once things go live they tune for mythic race between releases and then leave specs to rot till next xpac.

Nothing is simple, especially the way they are approaching this puzzle. They increased the proc chance of KM for 2H which is a legitimate path. But that means that ME and RA will never be balanced for DW or 2H. One will always be better for one playstyle. MotFW opens a huge pandora's box. For things to be balanced, it will severely limit our choices in our talent grid based on the choice of DW vs 2H. And that's the part I really hate.

They just made a tooltip reminding us that DW can put runeforges on both weapons, so I see that being the direction there. The idea for 2 runeforges on 1 weapon doesn't make sense from a practical standpoint. Those are tied to visual enchants. Would your weapon have the Razorice and RotFC visual at the same time? That opens up new problems.

Like I said, the easiest fix is to have MotFW increase Rime damage by a certain percent and then shift some damage from Frost Strike into Obliterate.

[Vlaid]

If it turns out true that dual wield is optimal for cleave and 2h for single target (or vice versa), there is a certain elegance to being able to adjust your power to different content through a weapon pick without having to adjust your talents. Sure, requires more gear gathering, but does help differentiate an alt DK from a main DK who puts more work into their class.

I mean people don't seem to mind gathering different legendary 'sets' of gear for different things, this doesn't seem much more to ask.

[RuneDK]

So I did some controlled testing on the PTR. Removed neck piece and trinkets.

DW Frost is approximately ahead by 15% on single target and approximately 30% ahead on 3 targets.

DW: IA, RA, FP, GS, Icecap
2H: IA, ME, Avalanche, GS, Obliteration

I did not test BoS because I can not stand that ability.


If they move some damage from FS to Obliterate (pre-MotFW) then it shouldn't be too hard to balance single target. Scaling might be another issue, but I will refrain from that headache.

The big problem will be AoE. MotFW will also need to do something like increase Rime damage or they are going to need a new talent in which the AoE damage is tied to Obliterate damage. For example, they could rework Avalanche so that it causes your KM Obliterates to deal some % of the Frost damage to nearby enemies. That might work.

They need a talent that during PoF Obliterate cleaves 4 targets around the main target for x damage

[docterfreeze]

Blizzard delivers and makes 2h the go-to for big obliterate burst. Smug naysayers get absolutely owned. Hope you don't have warmode on.

[Lucrece]

I tried a few different combinations. The ones listed were the best outside of BoS.

The combination and synergy of Murderous Efficiency, Gathering Storm, and Obliteration always came out ahead for 2H Frost.

As I am running lots of short tests, there is a lot of RNG with crit rate. I can't put a finger on how much value KM is adding to 2H vs DW.

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Nothing is simple, especially the way they are approaching this puzzle. They increased the proc chance of KM for 2H which is a legitimate path. But that means that ME and RA will never be balanced for DW or 2H. One will always be better for one playstyle. MotFW opens a huge pandora's box. For things to be balanced, it will severely limit our choices in our talent grid based on the choice of DW vs 2H. And that's the part I really hate.

They just made a tooltip reminding us that DW can put runeforges on both weapons, so I see that being the direction there. The idea for 2 runeforges on 1 weapon doesn't make sense from a practical standpoint. Those are tied to visual enchants. Would your weapon have the Razorice and RotFC visual at the same time? That opens up new problems.

Like I said, the easiest fix is to have MotFW increase Rime damage by a certain percent and then shift some damage from Frost Strike into Obliterate.

The issue of runeforge visuals is easily fixed already by transmog, as we can already transmog razor ice.

The point is they should revert these latest changes splitting the weapon and simply make both play under the same rulebook. I'm sure there would still be issues in terms of balancing white autoattack damage/parries, etc, but that can be addressed in a separate pass.

No need to create more bifurcations to balance separately than already exist.

[Baroclinic]

They need a talent that during PoF Obliterate cleaves 4 targets around the main target for x damage

So it sounds like its about like it was when 2-handed frost was still a thing. Which is what I would expect. Its most likely going to be "an option", but not the best option if you have 2 good 1-handed weapons.

[Hctaz]

If it turns out true that dual wield is optimal for cleave and 2h for single target (or vice versa), there is a certain elegance to being able to adjust your power to different content through a weapon pick without having to adjust your talents. Sure, requires more gear gathering, but does help differentiate an alt DK from a main DK who puts more work into their class.

I mean people don't seem to mind gathering different legendary 'sets' of gear for different things, this doesn't seem much more to ask.

You... do know you can change your weapons mid combat right? Can't wait to swap to my one handers when I want to stack Razorice or when the adds spawn and swap back to 2 hand when it's purely single target all in the same fight....

[Saltysquidoon]

If it turns out true that dual wield is optimal for cleave and 2h for single target (or vice versa), there is a certain elegance to being able to adjust your power to different content through a weapon pick without having to adjust your talents. Sure, requires more gear gathering, but does help differentiate an alt DK from a main DK who puts more work into their class.

2h (assuming its viable at all in pve) will almost assuredly use different talents then DW, so you will likely have to respect between pulls to be optimal.

This is the eternal problem 2h and DW has always had at first it seems like an easy fix then you realize there's a whole world of pain trying to fix it and blizzard spends all of frost's dev time trying to bring the two sub specs to parity instead of working on frost as a coherent whole.

[Vlaid]

2h (assuming its viable at all in pve) will almost assuredly use different talents then DW, so you will likely have to respect between pulls to be optimal.

This is the eternal problem 2h and DW has always had at first it seems like an easy fix then you realize there's a whole world of pain trying to fix it and blizzard spends all of frost's dev time trying to bring the two sub specs to parity instead of working on frost as a coherent whole.

That's a good point. I suppose if you just want to play frost DK and don't care which weapon style is more optimal, it looks like a positive. If you really want to use one or the other it feels like a negative because you'll be forced into one or the other regardless of your preference.

I don't have a preference so it feels to me more like an option to tailoring yourself more to single or multi target. If I had to choose I would just say scrap dual wield so the entire class can cohesively function around a two hander as the dual wield thing was a bit slapped on in Legion anyway and has never fit the fantasy of a death knight, thematically.

[RuneDK]

Blizzard delivers and makes 2h the go-to for big obliterate burst. Smug naysayers get absolutely owned. Hope you don't have warmode on.

Yea, situational PvP. In organized PvP and Organized PvE it's going to probably be trash since they are literally making the same mistakes again.

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So it sounds like its about like it was when 2-handed frost was still a thing. Which is what I would expect. Its most likely going to be "an option", but not the best option if you have 2 good 1-handed weapons.

Unfortunately yes. They can figure out how to balance 2H vs dw for other specs but somehow can't figure it out with Frost because they think there's nothing mechanically wrong with the spec. KM has been an issue forever and they refuse to acknowledge the problem....Part of fixing a problem is admitting there is one...and they just wont admit it.

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You... do know you can change your weapons mid combat right? Can't wait to swap to my one handers when I want to stack Razorice or when the adds spawn and swap back to 2 hand when it's purely single target all in the same fight....

That's something I hope gets addressed because I dont want macros switching weapons for each ability.

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2h (assuming its viable at all in pve) will almost assuredly use different talents then DW, so you will likely have to respect between pulls to be optimal.

This is the eternal problem 2h and DW has always had at first it seems like an easy fix then you realize there's a whole world of pain trying to fix it and blizzard spends all of frost's dev time trying to bring the two sub specs to parity instead of working on frost as a coherent whole.

So much this, it's why im moving on from the class I feel. I can't stand seeing them make the same damn mistakes time and time again with this.