• Lanky

Scourge strike will only be better than HB frost if they fix the weird issue it has with resilience and pvp mitigation. I don't know of any extensive testing, but SS does not hit nearly as hard as it should in pvp, 4.5k crits instead of a more expected 5.5 or 6 when fully procced and buffed, even with considerable spellpen.

As for Chillblains as undispellable, oh man, jesus. Frost will be the PvP spec based on that change alone.

HB having a longer CD is not a big deal. It still hits really really hard at range, for the finisher.

 

Aeronx

Yes, I though on this too, but SS damage has been increased a lot! I didnt tested, but, I'll try frost!

 

Vrillon1

Death Knight tend to copy any spec from a DK up high in the arena ranks.

its apparent since specs for PVP has switchs from Blood/Shadow to Shadow/Blood, to Shadow/Frost, to this cheezy 21/50 we using now.

I tested out a nice 17/54/0 and 0/54/17 build currently, I find it has more burst then the IT spamming does. You get HB which is an added instant spell, FS which seems the same as SS basically, you get hungering cold for those OMG I need to CC moments, you got Killing machine, the biggest point to the build is Spamming Obliterate basically, getting the OB glyph, Sigil of Awareness, and frost talents, OB can become quite a critting machine. I have found bigger crits in these builds then what IT could ever do.

But since I am not one of those 2800 rated DKs bought up by a paladin, no one is really going to get 2 looks at frost just right now.

 

thevidon

No offense, but its not like you are capped by your comps. You are playing in the 1400's.

Frost is a really fun spec to play, the only real issue right now is the lack of a pet. It is very difficult to control casters without a pet stun. I think frost will be much stronger next patch, as will 34/37 frost/unholy hybrids.

Lankey - have there been posts on the issue? Has it been addressed at all?

 

Vrillon1

I played with Frost spec as high as the 1600s close to 1700. I am deciding to climb that ladder now even though my partner is under geared.

I found the spec more bursty though, you may not get a controllable pet for that extra stun, but the sheer burst Frost has more then makes up for it. Hungering Cold pretty much replaces the pet, the pet is just about nothing more then an extra stun and at times maybe to keep from a healer going behind pillars and drinking.

I just find the 21/50 spec to not be as reliable as pass specs have been like Blood and even when SS was used, the spec fully revolves around spamming Icy touch along with Strangulate and Pet Gnaw factored into the mix.

The whole birth of 21/50 was from like the top rated DK in the world on 2s who specced that, with the current arena system the way it is now, who is to really say that spec is the best spec for a PVP DK?

 

Stoical

Frost looks very promising in the patch, but what's your point with these posts? It seems like you're trying to convince people that it's better than the alternatives now, but you don't have good arguments or a good rating to point to in support of your position. Hungering Cold is fun, but a 1m cooldown CC that breaks on damage does not in any way "replace" a controllable pet with a 30s cooldown stun and the ability to leap and keep players in combat. Whether you find it better or worse, it's not even remotely the same mechanic.

I'm glad for you that you found a frost spec that you prefer playing, but getting into the high 1600s is no indication that your spec is superior to Shadowfrost or deep blood. Your comment that Shadowfrost "fully revolves around spamming icy touch along with strangulate and pet gnaw" and that somehow makes it "less reliable" is nonsensical. You don't have to be a 2800 player to have people listen to you, but you'll need much better points if you want to convince anyone other than yourself that your spec is better right now than the spec used by every single DK in the top 20 teams playing with your exact comp.

 

Vrillon1

Thats the problem now, people think you need good ratings to make a point about anything.

When the system is designed to carry you up and not down, people who could not break 1800 before is now 2300+.

I am not trying to convince anyone, the problem is each time a new spec is found to work (aka FOTM), they end up going further down the Frost tree then previously before.

Look, before this disastrous season, I would get 2200 teams every season with the exception of Season 1 and most likely this season depending on when the patch hits. I know PVP really well, I know most of whats in the 2000s now do not belong there either. I know next season for 3.1, you going to start seeing Shaman/Warrior teams replace DK/Pal teams.

But suppose I did have a high rating like 2400? What would it prove?

All you do is PS>IT>BB>BB>IT>IT>IT>IT> along with having a healer set focus target to strangulate unless you are on the healer during the fight, along with pet stun macro, thats an easy win.

I dont think getting over 2000 proves much anything like it use to in the previous system when this new system carries you to the top after you played 300-400 games.

 

Taiyoken

I play 17/54 frost (because I dislike Shadowfrost although I think I will be forced to play it in 3s). I love the idea of hungering cold, and when paired with a shaman the amount of cc in the form of freeze/hex is great. This may work better with a priest for fears and more offense, but meh.

The greatest thing about this spec is that once you're in melee range and landing obliterates (you have +32% ob crit chance with 2pc tier bonus), things can die really really quickly. If someone is at 35%, your ob will most likely oneshot them. The spec doesn't have as much control as Shadowfrost's snares and stuns, but Hungering Cold can catch many people offguard.

This spec DESTROYS priests. A priest will have to pain sup/power infusion on the first freeze because of your chain crits and fear immunity(ies).
That being said, I think it's a 2s spec, where you can freeze one person and unload into the other (it really helps if you play with an offensive healer). Your first hungering cold will get trinketed, hex may get bubbled (since every team has a pally), so all you have to do is play defensively for ~50 seconds and your cds are up again, which will most likely net you the kill.

While I agree that Shadowfrost is the better spec overall, I will continue to play Frost and see how far I can get up with this. Just upgraded from ID with a Jawbone so I'm curious as to how much more damage I'll be doing.

edit: also frost strike with all the frost talents make it hit EXTREMELY hard even in unholy presence

 

Illundai

The problem with Frost is that it's very kitable. No Blood Boil glyph (suppose you could use it) or no Desecration means people are running around freely unless you're facing a Druid or Shaman healer. That's very rarely the case in Cyclone at least. Chillblains and Chains get instantly dispelled by any Paladin or Priest that knows what he's doing. Not to mention that you're a lot more vulnerable as Frost then you are as Unholy.

People complain about our survivability because of Bone Shield and Death Pact. Not because of Unbreakable armor and Rune Tap. Often I would get swapped to when my healer has to drink and if I don't have Bone Shield or Death Pact ready (+ instant resummon of course) I will take quite a beating.

But all said and done, the inability to stick on your target will destroy you against Paladin/Hunter, Priest/Hunter, DK/Paladin, DK/Priest, Priest/Rogue and I think you get the picture. Most high end comps will kite you to infinity and there is very little you can do.

I just wish they would remove the snare from Chains already. Make it a smaller range, make it last 3-5 seconds, make it have a long cooldown and make it root your target. If it's something like 10 yards, then you can only use it for what you most desperately use Chains for - sticking on your target. It could even be undispellable if the cooldown was long enough, IMO.

For 3.1 I'm looking at a Frost+Pet build and I can already imagine the destruction you bring upon people with the stupid clusterfuck of CC chain:

Mind Freeze -> Strangulate -> Gnaw -> Mind Freeze -> Hungering Cold -> Mind Freeze.

That's insane to lock out a healer that long. The changes just generally make me boggle. DKs are so strong because they can apply pressure to people even if they're not in melee and once you get with them in melee, you can wave goodbye because of the CC chain that we can do on healers.
And then they allow us to Howling Blast from 30 yards away, hitting for ~8-9k on multiple targets, applying a dot and instantly snaring every affected target to 50% movement speed... lolwut? Also, 9k Frost Strikes are ridiculous FYI.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Taiyoken

You don't ALWAYS have to stay on the healer as Frost. What's good about frost is if you turn around to a target with 3 ob and 2 FS, the target WILL take a lot of damage, plate or cloth. DPS will probably be on you (unless it's a warrior), and then you can abuse rune strikes. This is why I say play with a dispel/purge healer, so you can remove freedom. I always ghoul/death pact in arenas when I tell my healer to drink, every DK has it. But yes with the movement of Hungering Cold I'm also considering a pet/cold build, but I'm not sure if pure unholy will be better due to the ridiculous gargoyle.

I agree that Hunter/Pally is a big counter to Dk/Shaman, but not even desecration will help you here and both classes can get out of it very easily.

But yeah, I agree shadowfrost (or unholy) is more viable than frost, but I like to play the surprise aspect and repeatedly freeze teams.

 

Illundai

FOTM build in 3.1, pretty sure of it.

It's just so ridiculously strong:

Your 30 yards range spells (IT, HB & CoI) all apply a 50% undispellable snare.
A Runic Power dump that ignores the melee hit table (can't be missed, dodged or parried)
Crowd Control in the form of an AE blind on a minute cooldown.
A pet with a 30 sec cd stun.
Big crits with Obliterate.
Shorter CD on Death Grip (important!)
Extremely high crit rate on your main nukes. (Killing Machine procs + Frost Strike = nomnomnom!)
Interrupt free of charge. Less RP to use on interrupts = more Frost Strikes.
Extremely strong ranged damage. 30 yards to boot as well..

I'd love to get Acclimation for Warlock teams though. And Death Chill would be nice for some extra on demand burst.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

• Lanky

No there haven't, so either SS is supposed to hit like it does, or they consider the problem fixed with the buffs to it in 3.1, which are considerable. I still mildly object to having +spellpen directly affect a strike attack, but it is part of the strength of the attack that it does shadow damage.

Personally I think an "unholy" damage system similar to ret. paladins would be easier to tune and balance around, and would stop this silly spellpen stacking that we do.

 

royaljester

I've been reading this thread and still had questions about a few things...

I went 0/20/51, picking up AMZ and only 2 pts in Descration. I was unsure about picking up SS, so I decided to not get it and try to using OB for my main nuke. Anyone have reasoning/math to tell me to respec? I couldn't find any here and didnt think of anything off hand that would matter.

Also, since I'm fairly new to pvp on this DK, what's my focus or purpose? As a rogue/mage, I was there to hold the person still for my mage to burst him; as a dk/holy pally, who am I normally getting on? (Assume that I have no idea how to play with a pally)

Also, I know blood heals me, but is the movement/gcd's of unholy worth it?

 

Foreverjian

I've been thinking about this for the last week and havent seen anyone bring it up.

Chillbains will have an undispellable slow while frost fever is on the target. But this doesnt stop frost fever from being dispelled therebye removing the chillbains effect.

Am I incorrect?

 

Fieh

Scourge Strike deals Shadow damage and thus ignores armor. That's the best reason to get it.

 

Illundai

Chillblains is a second debuff that gets applied everytime you apply a FF. They have seperate durations and need to be seperately dispelled at the moment. I'd be surprised if that would change.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Soulplague

I was thinking of a similar type of build when 3.1 hits. I started playing Frost in PvP when I first reached 80 and found the playstyle more to my liking, but found "ShadowFrost" the most productive in terms of win:loss ratio in 2v2 in the current build.

With regards to Acclimation, I can see Warlock teams being a pain in 3.1, especially in 3v3 comps. With this in mind I was thinking of a build along these lines - 0/55/16.

My thinking would be a defensive style of play with a window for burst every minute by using Hungering Cold. I would expect this to be trinketed, so the real burst would come 1 minute later when the HC cooldown is off and it is used in conjunction with Unbreakable Armor. Add the spell lockout combination and when performed correctly could be devastating to any class. If RNG don't go your way, it's only 1 minute until you can start the chain again so you're free to use Gnaw defensively. Even when playing defensively, protecting your healer, you will be dealing high burst damage and building Runic Power in preparation for a potential take-down.

The synergy between Howling Blast and Hungering Cold should also not be underestimated. Using a well timed HB with a Killing Machine proc to hit both targets in 2v2, followed by HC will leave either target at a health level that would make them viable to be burst down within the time it takes for the other's HC to wear off. This would give the option to take down the DPS if you know that the healer has already used their trinket. Having a partner who isn't afraid to play offensively at this time and you should end up with a positive result.

All in all it would seem Frost will make for a more tactical fight, with high survivabilty, burst and the ability to snare targets better than Unholy in the current 3.1 build. Given that we will inevitably see buffs to classes that were previously free kills this season, I think that the old adage "a change is as good as a rest" will be pertinent in 3.1

 

Galadrial

You are missing the whole concept of ShadowFrost. You NEVER use SS as shadowfrost ,you just use IT with frost runes and Plague Strike with Unholy runes. You are using the Unholy runes mostly for utility(10% more dmg and desecration) so if u waste them on SS you wont have that utility,especially with built like mine that dont include epidemic.

In shadowfrost built SS is 1 talent point on an ability you will never use

Also KM is the backbone of this built ,it wouldnt have be half that strong without it imho,since IT crit chance vs high resilience targets would have been like 15% or less...

I also personally dont like shadowfrost,but really i get more upset when i lose hands down esp vs shadowfrost DK or hunters... Frost is NOT viable at all in arenas atm. The so called 230 resistance also doesnt help in the short term,vs shadowfrost DKs seemed to be completly useless,vs locks it might be better. I am speaking btw for games vs 2.3k rated teams , i only played about 10 games thought,couldnt afford to lose more rating :P

The satisfaction you get from playing an original spec will soon deteriorate from your dissapoinment on how easy it is for frost fever and chillbain to get dispelled and then it all come down again to spamming IT like shadowfrost... Really great on paper but useless in real Arenas.

PS: Vs locks you cant really win the game with the way described above... In order to win you need to kill the first pet then the 2nd and then kill the lock...After that you need to apply continuous pressure on lock and also make sure you dont let lock summon a 3rd one by abusing teleport .

Pets have high chance to resist hangering cold and they can Dispel the paladin from it if the lock is half compitent...

Where i find Frost extremely effective is 3s cause of the increased number on cloth users and rogues in this Bracket.

 

Soulplague

I currently play ShadowFrost with a 0/21/50 spec that does not include SS and I'm fully aware of the concept and tactics behind the build, what I was doing was theorycrafting with regards to 3.1. I understand that at this juncture no-one can predict with any great accuracy what will be the "overpowered" spec in 3.1 but by looking ahead now from what we know to be the case on the PTR we can have a better idea as to the new mechanics that will provide our most important strategies.

You seem to have missed my point and taken my post as a build for today, on Live servers. Apologies if it wasn't clear, but it is meant from a 3.1 perspective. If I'm not mistaken, Chillblains will be a non-dispellable snare in 3.1 whereas deep Unholy / ShadowFrost will suffer from the removal of the Blood Boil Glyph as it's primary snare. In addition, there will be a number of different abilities that will apply Chillblains if I'm not mistaken?

 

Galadrial

Shadowfrost is dead ,mostly cause it loses like 30% damage ,the miss of BB is the peak of the iceberg . I am starting to wonder if 3 talents for 15% more IT dmg is even worth if you are Blood/Frost next patch ... I would preffer 30% less snare duration and ~80 ap than 15% dmg on It... Since we will be mostly a melee class in 3.1 i am starting to believe that Toughtness has increased value as a talent...

With Glyph HB will also apply Chillblain, along with CoI and Pestilence on targets with Frost Fever.( i hope at least that wont change)

 

Aezoc

Chillblains is currently undispellable on the PTR, and is applied by anything that applies FF. I've been messing around with something like this for a deep unholy build. I think I'll be sticking with a frost build like Illundai posted, but this doesn't feel too horrible either. The biggest weakness is how reliant on diseases it is; I think you'd pretty much have to pair with another DPS, because I can forget taking down most healers if gargoyle's on CD.

Edit: Nevermind on AotD, Stoical pointed out that arena usability is determined by base, not talented, cooldown.

 

Soulplague

Is AotD usable in arena now? I always thought it was one of the "This will never be allowable in the arena environment" types of abilities?

 

Aezoc

I waited 20 minutes without being able to get an arena match earlier when I was messing around with the spec, so I can't confirm it. I was under the impression that any ability with a 15 minute CD or less was usable in arenas though. Have they specifically disallowed any other classes' abilities that met the cooldown requirement?

 

Stoical

15 minutes base time (pre-talent/glyph-reduction), if I recall correctly, and I think that's a safe assumption unless testing proves otherwise. I'll try to find support for that statement other than my shoddy memory and assumptions. Note that if it's not true, pallies will have Lay on Hands in arena for the cost of a minor glyph in 3.1.

Edit: Example currently in-game: Shaman with the glyph decreasing elemental totem cooldown to 15 minutes still can't use those totems in arena.

 

Aezoc

That makes sense, I hadn't even considered the lay on hands example. In which case that spec I linked probably doesn't have anything to recommend it.