Frost observations from the PTR

[Granpa]

So I've been doing some testing on the test servers with both DW frost and 2h Frost and here are my quick observations on both:

- The idea that 2h Frost won't be up to par with DW Frost seems to be a fallacy at this point. I was doing slightly more damage as 2h frost with my Byrantol than DW Bloodvenom Blades. Mind you, this does not necessarily mean 2h frost is better because....

- It was easier to maintain a set rotation with 2h frost than with DW frost. The added runic power made a huge difference in that I always had a frost strike available for use in between my obliterates. Cooldowns seemed really long which makes me suspect that ...

- Haste will take greater priority in our stats than it does on the live servers now. The way the game seems to work now, anything that will reduce our abilities' cooldown time would be beneficial.

- Rime was proccing all the time. Sometimes I was able to hit back-to-back-to-back Howling Blasts.

- Frost Strike hits like a truck in frost 2h. Frost strikes crits were averaging 11k and 14k on the test dummies.

- Howling Blast hits like a truck. Remember when 2h frost was awesome because Oblit, FS, and HB all hit like trucks? Well we are back to those days. My HB crits were averaging 12 to 14k. By comparison, Oblit crits between 14k to 16k. Which leads me to believe...

- Crit will also take priority in Cata over what we have now. Which ends up working out pretty good because...

- ArP is gone and seems to be replaced with Crit on all of my gear. I have no idea what my crit rating was however, because all the stats seems to be gone at the moment from the character screen, but looking at my recount parses, I was critting just over 60% of the time.

- I can't tell if any of the glyphs are working, I suspect they are not. Pestilence glyph is gone which makes me cry inside a little, but on the plus side diseases did seem to be lasting longer (without any disease increasing talents).

I'm going to do some more testing and give unholy a spin. Right now I'm happy that the option to either go 2h frost or DW frost is there as they both seem to be on par. I'm sure if I can clean up the priority system/rotation with DW they will be even.

[MilitantCasual]

No cool down HB feels kinda OP. Routinely yank aggro from Tanks with Double HB, Double BB.

[theomegapoint]

Usually helps to have numbers in this kind of thread so people can compare their data with yours.

With an average ilvl of 267, running a 5/31/0 Frost DW build I had about 31% crit, 18% haste, and 5k AP before horn. Ability numbers are a bit lower - 11k HBs and 14k Oblits on average - but of course this will even out with higher haste levels and more BCB procs. Howling Blast hits much, much harder than Icy Touch, so I assume Glyph of Howling Blast will be a mainstay for Frost, and we will only use the occasional UH to refresh Blood Plague - the rest will fuel Oblits. With 30-second diseases baseline, and Outbreak on a 1 min CD, that means we will only use 1 UH rune per minute refreshing our diseases, pretty nice considering there are many doubts about Glyph of Pestilence surviving the Cataclysm. The only concern I have is with HB hitting so hard, and with ArP out of the window, HB+PS might actually rival a single Oblit, at least for DW at certain gear levels. If that happens, it would only compound the next observation.

Rotation wise, we are still woefully GCD capped, even without factoring in cooldown usage like Blood Tap and Pillar of Frost. Frost generates so much RP that when coupled with Runic Empowerment procs and Rime, we simply can't dump our runes and RP fast enough. After about 10 minutes straight sitting on the dummy, I ran into maybe one or two free GCDs. Not sure how they can fix this with simple number tuning, since the reasons are various and interdependent. The rotation/priority is chaotic, but not to the point where you don't feel in control. If you follow a simple priority system like on Live, you'll be fine - only sub in HB for IT. Keep up your diseases, prioritize OB and HB, mo niter your rune CDs and try to keep one of every rune down all the time (to benefit the most from RE).

No cool down HB feels kinda OP. Routinely yank aggro from Tanks with Double HB, Double BB.

Remember, a lot of the tanking classes are coping with new mechanics and rotations, while many DPS classes received a significant boost to their damage output with the combined class/gear changes. Thankfully, we all have more stamina and the plate-wearers can generally handle some Heroic trash.

[Tacos]

any tips on any type of rotation? I'm still confused on how to make the best out of those random rune refreshes.

[TrickieTK]

I'm using a priority "rotation" right now. Which dummy was the OP on and what was it's HP at? I was getting inflated (though ridiculously fun) numbers on the Orgimmar one but that's because it was at 1hp and I was in merciless combat range. Doing something like 12k dps and hitting 40k Howling Blasts. On the Ebon Hold dummy I was hitting hard but more realistically and topping out around 7k-8k dps.

[theomegapoint]

any tips on any type of rotation? I'm still confused on how to make the best out of those random rune refreshes.

You're opening rotation should be similar to Live. As your first 3 runes (FUD) refresh, dump Rp with FS and use any Rime procs. If you refresh a Frost Rune, HB. If you Refresh an UH, nothing much you can do but PS or sit on it. If you refresh a Death you can HB or use it in conjunction with a UH rune for an extra Oblit. If you Proc a Blood you can use it on BS for single target, or BB for multi. Not sure if Pest to spread BP is really worth it with trash mobs dying so quickly right now. If you find yourself in a situation with lots of high-health mobs grouped together, and CC isn't an option, I suppose spending a B rune on Pest here and there would be okay.

But really you have to just watch the timers on all of your runes and think a couple of GCD's ahead. "If i get a UH rune refreshed well my F rune will be back up in 2 more GCDs and thats okay, because getting another UH rune from RE would be kinda pointless since I have 17 seconds on Plague, so I'll hold on to it and hope for a Death or F rune to Proc on the next FS. If one does, then I'll Oblit and use the next F rune on HB. If it doesn't then I'll simply Oblit in 2 GCDs." I would suggest dumping F runes on HB asap tho, since you want to keep your F runes down all the time, to maximize the chances of getting one refreshed through RE.

Keep in mind this is all just how I cope with the new system. It might not even be viable come Cata, very little hard testing has been done with numbers in mind, since data is still being gathered and numbers are being tweaked all the time. Apprently we only have six weeks to go, however, and its a good idea to at least spend some time on the dummy and get a feel for how your runes are going to be working.

[Granpa]

I'm using a priority "rotation" right now. Which dummy was the OP on and what was it's HP at? I was getting inflated (though ridiculously fun) numbers on the Orgimmar one but that's because it was at 1hp and I was in merciless combat range. Doing something like 12k dps and hitting 40k Howling Blasts. On the Ebon Hold dummy I was hitting hard but more realistically and topping out around 7k-8k dps.

I was on the Ebon Hold dummy and was topping out at about 7.4k dps 2h frost and 7.0k DW, but again my DW rotation/priority was really screwed up. I had severe problems with the new GCD while dual-wielding that I didn't have as 2h frost because of the added runic power. There was a lot of "down time" while dual-wielding (meaning runes on cooldown and not enough runic power for frost strikes), and I'm hoping that has to do more with me screwing up than the mechanics of the new GCD system.

By the way, I'm finding it very hard to fit Festering Strike into any priority system or rotation. Requiring two different kinds of runes to add additional time on your diseases is just pointless. They need to change it to only cost 1 rune (like Pestilence on live), or change the mechanic altogether. As it stands I can't find any reason to use it when I could do HB + PS to refresh diseases instead.

[evan_s]

Festering Strike is designed to be used by Unholy specs who have a single unholy strike to pair with the frost/blood that festering uses.

[Foibles]

Festering Strike is designed to be used by Unholy specs who have a single unholy strike to pair with the frost/blood that festering uses.

That's probably your main issue Granpa.

One fix that might help would be allowing the haste on IIT and Icy Talons to lower the GCD on Frost Strike.

[TrickieTK]

IT>PS>BS(to start blood to death runes)>Oblit>FS>HB was my priority system, I never really used Festering Strike at all. Using Pillar of Frost whenever is was off CD like Orc Racial and other CDs

[InfernalKatana]

I'm actually really curious about 2h frost, keep us posted

[Foibles]

Safe to assume you're using Blood Tap for Pillar of Frost? And does it have an interesting animation, or is it the same as UBA?

[TrickieTK]

i dont see any animation for it, didnt consider using blood tap, will try it from now on.

[Tony Stark]

Safe to assume you're using Blood Tap for Pillar of Frost? And does it have an interesting animation, or is it the same as UBA?

Rather hard to see the animation. Basically frost sprays out in very small amounts close to your body and the occasional snowflake falls.

I will be playing two-handed frost in Cataclysm, most likely. It'll probably get nerfed again, though.

[Confessor Kahlan]

I was sitting a good 2k higher as unholy that I was doing as frost. Unholy seems to flow a lot smoother than frost does, due to festering and scourge fitting together well. It also seems like dual wield frost is runic power dry, while 2h is capped often. Hopefully it will be wiggled around before it goes live.

[theomegapoint]

I never found myself starving for RP as DW Frost. With Frost Pres, 1/2 CotG, and Butchery I found myself with plenty of RP to spend in between my runic abilities. I'm seeing people report haste levels a bit lower than mine however (18% passive, self buffed) so that might be causing my runes to recharge a bit faster than normal. I'm also prioritizing FS over something like a lone UH rune - not only is it less damage per GCD, but having your UH always full or filling means you are more likely to proc a Frost or B/Death rune from RE. (This "trick" is something people see as gaming the mechanic, but it's kind of necessary to keep RE from proccing useless runes, sadly).

[Cymorìl]

I will be playing two-handed frost in Cataclysm, most likely. It'll probably get nerfed again, though.

It's fun to see how many people want to play 2h frost while blizz suggest to play dw usinf that spec and how many people want to play unholy with dw instead of 2h.

I personally prefer frost dw, but it seems we are all going to play unholy in cata

For sure I'll level as blood..

[Condemner]

No cool down HB feels kinda OP. Routinely yank aggro from Tanks with Double HB, Double BB.

It still uses 2 runes right? theres your cooldown

[Cymorìl]

HB will use only one frost rune

[Condemner]

HB will use only one frost rune

ah didn't know that. But if obligerate still uses 2 I guess that would be the strike of choice... If not, then I really did not add anything to this thread... AT ALL!