1. #1

    Frost DPS DK - Need help on gear/stats

    I'm a casual gamer at the age of 36. I don't play more than a few days a week, and between 1-3 hours when I play.
    I've just started Heroic dungeons because I want new and improved gear and Faction Rep.

    I'm trying to play as a DPS Frost DK, but I've got some complaints about how I play and some complaints about my gear. I know there is some missing enchants but they will be bought in time. Please give me suggestions what to replace and what enchants I should use (and why...)

    My profile is Fourkids on Earthen Ring server EU (I cant post a link yet, since its my 1st post)

    Feedback is needed.

  2. #2
    Ugh. Take time to do some research before you post blindly on a forum but to summarize things click below for Frost DK Dps. It's a little outdated but still a good starting point. There are too many things to explain to you so I'd rather let a guide do it for you.

    http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110296-...4_0_6_my_life/

  3. #3
    Consider's guide will explain most of it, but you might want to avoid Frost DW atm, no one is really clear on which stats to stack atm, where as Frost 2 hand seems relatively solved.

  4. #4
    If you roll blood and tank, you'll only get bitched at for having low ilvl/health instead of mastery/haste/dps/blah blah blah

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Kronik85 View Post
    Consider's guide will explain most of it, but you might want to avoid Frost DW atm, no one is really clear on which stats to stack atm, where as Frost 2 hand seems relatively solved.
    frost dw stacks mastery, as haste gives almost no value due to gcd cap. And crit isnt very good either, but it is still a larger boost than haste.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Confessor Kahlan View Post
    frost dw stacks mastery, as haste gives almost no value due to gcd cap. And crit isnt very good either, but it is still a larger boost than haste.
    The best way to do DW frost right now is to stack haste. Icy Talons makes haste a very good stat for frost DKs. If you run in Unholy Presence you are not GCD capped. I'm sitting at 76% melee haste right now and I'm not GCD capped.

    My Armory/simple

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by gamma Ray View Post
    The best way to do DW frost right now is to stack haste. Icy Talons makes haste a very good stat for frost DKs. If you run in Unholy Presence you are not GCD capped. I'm sitting at 76% melee haste right now and I'm not GCD capped.

    My Armory/simple
    Wellllll DW uses frost pres so....

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by gamma Ray View Post
    The best way to do DW frost right now is to stack haste. Icy Talons makes haste a very good stat for frost DKs. If you run in Unholy Presence you are not GCD capped. I'm sitting at 76% melee haste right now and I'm not GCD capped.

    My Armory/simple
    Before giving advice on how to prioritize stats you might want to lead by example by avoiding reforging for more than 2% over hit cap and getting exp capped. Next you'll be telling people that spellhit cap> haste>expertise.

    For the OP, you're currently using a 2H weapon, but specced into DW talents like nerves of cold steel, which does nothing for you so decide whether you want to go DW or 2H depending on your preferred play style. You're also gemming for socket bonuses, which is wasteful unless the bonus is +20 strength or more so no more gemming for stam . Just go straight strength in most cases.

    The EJ link provided early on is indeed a great place to start and should give you a better idea on how to prioritize your rotation and gear.
    Last edited by burbon; 2011-03-30 at 08:16 PM.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Confessor Kahlan View Post
    frost dw stacks mastery, as haste gives almost no value due to gcd cap. And crit isnt very good either, but it is still a larger boost than haste.
    actually after capping hit and exp the stats you want are mastery and crit. you would forge off any extra haste or expertise or hit you have into crit (if the piece has mastery on it) because it IS good for DW.

    ---------- Post added 2011-03-30 at 03:58 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by gamma Ray View Post
    The best way to do DW frost right now is to stack haste. Icy Talons makes haste a very good stat for frost DKs. If you run in Unholy Presence you are not GCD capped. I'm sitting at 76% melee haste right now and I'm not GCD capped.
    please please ignore this post. DW literally cannot use haste and favors using Frost Presence with Mastery and crit. Haste is literally the most worthless stat you can find on plate gear (next to int and spirit for paladins of course) for DW frost.

    DW frost you want to get 8% melee hit, 26 (or close) expertise and then stack mastery and crit. the first stat you forge off is haste.
    Last edited by Avatar Killer; 2011-03-30 at 09:00 PM.
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by burbon View Post
    Before giving advice on how to prioritize stats you might want to lead by example by avoiding reforging for more than 2% over hit cap and getting exp capped. Next you'll be telling people that spellhit cap> haste>expertise.
    If you are required to Interupt, then yes you do need to make sure you are at Spell Hit Cap. Also, I said I'm not GCD capped so EXP doesn't have as high a rating when you are running in FP and GCD capped.

    Also. I don't think people have been reading past the first post in the EJ forum. Consider's post has no math behind it. SimC and other sims have put haste at the top with Crit (yes crit!) over or equal to mastery. I didn't believe it either but try it sometime. After going UP I'm not going back to Mastery on top. I pull out much more DPS this way.
    Last edited by gamma Ray; 2011-03-30 at 09:25 PM.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by gamma Ray View Post
    If you are required to Interupt, then yes you do need to make sure you are at Spell Hit Cap. Also, I said I'm not GCD capped so EXP doesn't have as high a rating when you are running in FP and GCD capped.

    Also. I don't think people have been reading past the first post in the EJ forum. Consider's post has no math behind it. SimC and other sims have put haste at the top with Crit (yes crit!) over or equal to mastery. I didn't believe it either but try it sometime. After going UP I'm not going back to Mastery on top. I pull out much more DPS this way.
    there is no way you "pull more dps" with hit capping frost to spell cap while also stacking haste. that is literally the same thing as saying "lets get int and spirit gear as a dk because it helps our spell power" when we dont even use spell power.

    your advice is backwards and completely wrong please stop trying to make a valid point out of thin air and lies. you cannot possibly do more dps with what you claim. i have personally tested it along with MANY other players (who make sites to justify these facts) and found that it is clearly better to be in frost presence along with stacking mastery and crit (after hit to ONLY 8% and expertise to ~26) while dual wielding frost spec.

    the only thing you need to hit cap for is interrupting bosses and thats not even close to a valid point since you are close enough to it as it is for one, two if its a 10 man its "reasonable" to do it for THAT FIGHT ONLY but still a bad idea and three its a pure dps loss to do such things. stacking haste and standing in UH presence is just terrible for DW and getting to spell hit cap is for interrupting ONLY until the next patch comes out at which point your entire story will crumble into oblivion.

    if you are getting a dps increase stacking frost and using UH presence then you obviously stand there and look pretty because you get more auto attacks in because your lazy. if you actually play the spec the way it was intended (also known as the right way) you would know this.
    Last edited by Avatar Killer; 2011-03-30 at 09:41 PM.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by gamma Ray View Post
    If you are required to Interupt, then yes you do need to make sure you are at Spell Hit Cap. Also, I said I'm not GCD capped so EXP doesn't have as high a rating when you are running in FP and GCD capped.

    Also. I don't think people have been reading past the first post in the EJ forum. Consider's post has no math behind it. SimC and other sims have put haste at the top with Crit (yes crit!) over or equal to mastery. I didn't believe it either but try it sometime. After going UP I'm not going back to Mastery on top. I pull out much more DPS this way.
    Just because consider might not have posted his math doesn't mean he hasn't done any. While EJ is by no means bullet proof, Consider has said in the past he himself uses sims to calculate his values and part of doing that is knowing how to best calibrate the sim before running it. SimC doesn't have a frost dk on their team by their own admission so I wouldn't place as much stock in their findings as I would top various frost dks.

    If you perform better in UH stacking haste that's fine, but to suggest that it's better just because that's your experience doesn't mean that it has the best potential for the spec when played correctly. Go look at numerous top world parses and find me a DW parse where the person was in UH, stacking haste, over melee cap, and under expertise cap. =/

  13. #13
    Burbon thank you for engaging me civilly unlike the previous poster. While SimC doesn't have a frost DK on their team, at least one member has been engaging the EJ community pretty actively stamping out bugs.

    The fact that haste gets boosted by Icy Talons doesn't change from DW to 2H. I don't understand why people get upset at hearing this change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Avatar Killer View Post

    your advice is backwards and completely wrong please stop trying to make a valid point out of thin air and lies. you cannot possibly do more dps with what you claim. i have personally tested it along with MANY other players (who make sites to justify these facts) and found that it is clearly better to be in frost presence along with stacking mastery and crit (after hit to ONLY 8% and expertise to ~26) while dual wielding frost spec.

    the only thing you need to hit cap for is interrupting bosses and thats not even close to a valid point since you are close enough to it as it is for one, two if its a 10 man its "reasonable" to do it for THAT FIGHT ONLY but still a bad idea and three its a pure dps loss to do such things. stacking haste and standing in UH presence is just terrible for DW and getting to spell hit cap is for interrupting ONLY until the next patch comes out at which point your entire story will crumble into oblivion.

    if you are getting a dps increase stacking frost and using UH presence then you obviously stand there and look pretty because you get more auto attacks in because your lazy. if you actually play the spec the way it was intended (also known as the right way) you would know this.
    If you are required to interupt, then it is completely necessary to get to spell hit cap. And yes, next patch it will be moot, until then there are numerous mechanics that require interupts to land everytime. Deprevity during Cho'Gall, Blast Nova during Nefarian, Arcanotron ODS.

    Again, there are sims and other data that prove that it is at the very least competative with stacking mastery. In my experience I've gotten more DPS out of it. Yes I do think its the best way to go, but if you've tried it and didn't like it, thats fine too.

    ps. I liked the part where you said "crumble into oblivion", that was a nice touch lol.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    The guide on EJ is currently out of date as Consider stopped updating the post.

    For a quick reference for recently simmed stat weights check;
    elitistjerks.com/f72/t110296-frost_dps_cataclysm_4_0_6_my_life/p13/#322

    It seems even in FP those sims prefer Crit > Haste > Mastery, and in UP Haste > Crit > Mastery.

    Both seem pretty close on dps though.

  15. #15
    To every poster talking about Consider's stat weights, they are by no means accurate. Consider used Kahories Sim, Kahories Sim wasn't working properly at Cata release, wasn't updated for 4.06 and the author hasn't posted on EJ for 2 months, those stat weights are by no means accurate. The guys at SimC however regularly post in the Frost thread and have been updating/changing SimC with feedback from the Frost DK community.

    I'm not trying to devalue Consider or Kahories hard work, infact I'm rather grateful for their help over the last 2 years, what people need to accept is that after Cata was released these sources are no longer infallable. If you want to believe Mastery>All then fair play, but don't espouse it like it's not up for debate.

  16. #16
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    Hi guys,
    I also have a question on which I'm a bit confused: How much expertise do I need? I'm currently on 36 Expertise. Do I need more or I should lower it?(sory in advance that I'm a noob >.<)

  17. #17
    Deleted
    26 expertise is required, you can happily drop 10.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Imo there currently is no need to clash about stat weights that heavily since 4.1 will most likely hit live in 1-2 weeks.
    All things point towards mastery beeing the best stat with 4.1 because of the devalued OB and the buffed FS.

    For the current status, there are heavy discussions going on weather haste>crit>mastery in UP is better or crit>=mastery>haste in FP. The simmed difference is about 200-500 DPS depending on gear and stuff, so it's not really worth the time spend on arguing.
    In addition, you should keep in Mind that stat weights depend heavily on your gear, as stats don't stack up linear. And the value of haste heavily depends on your latency and reaction time 8at least more than crit/mastery), since you have to use the benefit of hast and UH-presence yourself.

    The best way to find out what's working best for yourself is: try it. take half an hour of time and about 200 Gold, reforge the one way, test it a few times, reforge the other way and test again. Then compare the values (and don't forget your personal feelings about it) and take the version wich fits best.

    And about the spellhit-thing:
    As far as i know, the Dk interrupt directly benefits from runic focus, since the tooltip says "Spells are all Death Knight abilities that are not direct weapon strikes"... since Mind Freeze is an DK-Ability and no direct weapon strike, this should be the case and therefore make Hit above the melee hit cap completely worthless.
    But if you're the ONLY one in the raid who can interrupt and NEED to hit every Interrupt, you possibly should go for the missing ~2% because of nerves of cold steel not applying to casts
    Last edited by mmoc2359d021de; 2011-03-31 at 11:33 AM.

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