axyl

Lanky,
What do you think of a build like this?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

or do you not think the spell resist talents will be worth it in arenas? I know if Battlegrounds atm it's very helpful. I just don't see people targetting a DK and focus-firing him first. So maybe I should go more of a strict DPS build?

Also, what's your feeling on Icy Touch?
I find myself using COI more than icy touch, which is why i took the points out of chilblains, and I don't want to use both my frost runes on snares. but maybe I should go back to using Icy Touch mainly and just use COI for mages and runners? I just like to use COI on rogues, to keep em from runnin in circles.

I can see chilblains be necessary for the blood strike glyph.. but i was thinking these glyphs for arena

Frost Strike
Obliterate
Icebound Fortitude

with the new changes to FS glyph having 130RP means you can unload 4 FS in a row for a burst combo.

 

• Lanky

Well, in order:

1. If you are getting focused by primarily magic damage, you can use Anti-magic shield. If you are not running with a Druid, then 2 points in frost Aura provides some reasonable starting resistance, but it is not going to save you from being focused, and Acclimation takes far too long to build up to become meaningful resistance. I'd recommend skipping those talents.

2. Chains of Ice will be used more than IT, no doubts, but Chillblains actually only affects Frost Fever, which a talented COI applies anyways. I consider Chillblains a must-have Frost PvP talent, it means that there are now two snares that must be dispelled in order to get back to full movement, and it allows you to use Hungering Cold as both an AOE stun and an AOE snare effect as well.

3. My Feelings on Icy Touch are that you may end up using it to apply some pressure at 30 yards, it is a third tool for ranged damage in that frost build, after Howling Blast and Death Coil, so typically when snared you would throw an IT, then DC if you have the RP, and then crit a Howling Blast if the target might die from it. Having the additional 6% melee slowing effect on frost fever is also a minor benefit.

 

axyl

I do see the usefulness of chilblains.. but It's still going to take one dispel from a priest to get it off. Dispel takes off two magic effects at once... now granted, if your running with another class adding magic effects, it's going to be a lot more useful. I'm going to try the build you posted for a while to see how I like it. Only takes gold to switch back.

I also see a lot of frost DKs saying it's not necessary to use Plague Strike as frost spec, so they don't bother putting it on. They start out using Blood tap to make a death rune, COI, OBL, OBL, BS, FS for RP.. then the same rotation a second time. I've always felt the more dots I could put on someone the better.. but then again, I come from playing a priest.

 

◊ Eej

Not to burst your bubble, Lanky, but you can only apply Chilblains on a target that is affected by Chains of Ice if CoI has 3 seconds or less left on the duration (aka is snared by 30% or less). This is also the only way to stack it such that you have CoI and Chilblains both up to play the debuff stacking game. If you really are planning to use CoI as your main snare and Frost Fever debuffer, you will see Chilblains come up very rarely.

 

• Lanky

Yah I respecced and tested it today, and found this out. That said, I think I'd still take Chillblains, because against several classes you don't need chains up all the time to stay in range, and you can use IT to start the fight off. Seems to work well against hunters and non-frost mages, and it is also nice against rogues once sprint is down. Also, its nice to have that snare coming out of Hungering cold as well.

In other news: 52 Frost / 18 Blood is critting stuff constantly for me. Almost 70% of my Obliterates have been critting, and I am finding Howling Blast to be a solid alternative from range, when I am getting kited. Also, Frost Strike is hitting extremely hard against classes with no innate spell resists, I saw a few 5.5k plus crits just rolling around in BGs. Being able to spam a 32 RP Frost Strike with the new glyph will make for some very nasty spike damage. The spec really maximizes every single strike you use in it, an advantage over Unholy where Blood Strike stays really weak.

 

axyl

with frost/blood Obliterate crits a TON now... but what happens when people start getting some serious resilience? I'm thinking as the season progresses we're going to have to look at other avenues of dealing damage.. As it is, it seems like I don't do good damage unless I crit.. I couldn't imagine trying to burst someone down that's resil stacked.

The build I'm going to try out tonight is this
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Trying to maximize damage rather than survivability. Although I do have the important survival tactics.

Do you guys think toughness is worth it? Or should I move those 5 pts to killing machine? I don't generally like the idea of killing machine since, I don't see it being very useful against anyone with resil. But my mind can always be changed.

 

Maldais

Personally what I like about frost and a glyphed obliterate is that it is not as reliant on diseases as Unholy. I've found that plague strike is simply not easy to use in pvp. It does very little damage, needs to be applied from melee range, and means that you spend the first two to three seconds of any fight just applying debuffs instead of dealing damage. Not to mention that it uses a precious unholy rune. Frost Strike, Howling Blast, Death Coil and Icy Touch do not gain any benefit from blood plague. Only Obliterate benefits and with the glyph it's not a large amount. The only time I see plague strike being useful as frost in pvp is to remove HoT's.

 

Aerenx

Does anyone have a price list for our pvp gear?

 

amaii

Just posting a few observations.

I did 2s skirmishes with a fellow DK last night.
He was specced heavy Unholy (something akin to 17/0/54) and I decided to spec heavy Frost. Our games this way went decently, but I found that the opponents would generally go after me more often because A) I was a human and he was a gnome and B) I didn't have a swirl of bones around my body. Granted I did always pop Lichborne fairly early, I felt like my survivability was a lot worse off than my teammate. After a few games, I decided to spec Unholy as well (I think this has been mentioned before, but I think if one player specs for Crypt Fever, the Crypt Fever won't override Ebon Plague, making two diseases on the target instead of one). My survivability skyrocketed, but I did notice a blow in my damage. 5 pts in Magic Suppression and the 1 pt in AMZ were quite good against casters.

Honestly, at this point in the game, where no one is wearing resilience, things just die too fast to make any gander at what spec is superior. I'm sure when people start decking out in resilience and stamina, our ability to deal damage becomes greatly diminished (for lack of an MS effect). Another thing I noticed is that we get kited to hell - it's pretty close to how bad it is for warriors, granted we have both Death Grip and Strangulate, dealing with Frost Mages is still going to be a pain in the ass. I think that Toughness becomes extremely important in light of this discovery, as well as the possibility of using Swordshattering (Dismantle is REALLY, REALLY bad for us - especially when we have no resilience to survive and fight back). As far as damage is concerned: I'm just going to have to play more. However I still believe that heavy Unholy offers the most utility and anti-burst cooldowns of any spec, putting it at the top of the list for me.

 

Settler

I am thinking Swordshattering is shaping to be the one of the best runes for PVP. Disarm wrecks me

 

axyl

I agree with you there.. After being jumped by a rogue today quite a few times while mining.. I'm going to put swordshattering on.. I beat him the first 3 times.. but once he figured out how to beat me... he won every time.. he kept coming back until he finally got me. I would hit icebound fort and he'd blind me and fade.. /sigh rogues

 

axyl

tonight I was convinced that blade barrier is a must have for pvp.. I was fighting a DK that had it.. and he parried almost everything I threw at him.. in my pvp gear, when blade barrier is active (pretty much all the time) I have 23% parry chance.. that's pretty huge.. therefore runestrike is available all the time.

 

Sju av Nio

an interesting note on lichborne which I haven't seen been mentioned enough is that not only can it be used to break charm/fear/sleep it also makes you an _invalid target_ for polymorphs, sap and hex although you can't use it to break these effects. however, popping lichborne when a poly/hex is mid-cast will still give "invalid target", so it basically makes you immune to sheep/sap/hex/fear/charm/sleep, grants self-healing via death coil and gives 25% miss (which is much better than dodge/parry since miss negates attacks from all directions, any attacks made from stealth and all attacks made while not in control of your character, otherwise unavoidable).

you can't really dispute the total pwnsauce of this 11pt talent and I can't see any build without it.

 

axyl

I agree with you about lichborne

but be careful.. Priests can shackle you when it's active.. and paladins use turn undead on you.

It may be wise to make a macro that turns it off if you click it again. I'll have to look at mine again, but I think it goes

/cancel lichborne
/cast lichborne

it basically makes it so you press it once and lichborne activates.. but if you hit it again, it toggles it off.


here is my final build I will be running in arenas

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
glyphs
frost strike
obliterate
blood strike

 

Maldais

So far it seems to me like Epidemic is a must have talent for all builds in all play types. If you don't have the increased disease time you will be spending one of your two frost runes on icy touch every time it's up, and one unholy too if your trying to keep both diseases up. This mostly applies to deep frost builds like the one above. I'm curious what others think about this.

 

axyl

Frost isn't as reliant on diseases to do damage. COI puts on frost fever which is enough.. I usually don't even use plague strike in pvp. You spend too much time trying to hit a moving target that it sucks to try and take the time to add that effect. I don't see Epidemic as a necessity. Going down blood I get a LOT more crit.. a BUNCH more AP, 10% parry, and a 20% heal every 30 seconds. That extra crit and AP alone are going to make up for not getting epidemic.

Here's the rotation I try to get off.. in a perfect world

COI > BS > BS > OBL > then I use blood tap > OBL> FS
then the next round.. COI > bs > OBL > OBL > FS > FS

I use my BS first because then I get my blade barrier buff.. and it stays up the whole fight. using blood tap AFTER you use two BS in the first rotation gives you an extra blood strike in the first rotation. but doing this sets it up so you can do the second rotation each time.. as you will always have 1b 1d 2f 2u

I rarely use Icy Touch in pvp. COI to hold someone in place is much more effective, and you get a lot more damage on them.

 

Dristig

What kinda crit/AP are you guys seeing on your character sheet when you are getting these crazy burst frost build numbers. I'm seeing people claiming 4000+ crits and occasional 5000+ but I respecced to blood/Frost on PTR and am not seeing number much different than my Live Unholy build and I have much less survivability. I'm starting to assume its really just a big gear difference not some frost spec magic.

 

thevidon

Your gear is quite bad. There is no frost magic.

 

Emeraude

Personally I think Acclimation is the better talent point investment vs improved Rune Tap. On top of Frost Aura it can stack up to 3 times for a total of 230 resistance. It lasts long enough(18 seconds) and refreshes constantly to ANY caster focus fire to allow you to live through lots of caster damage(This even includes dots) and procs through your AMS so you can get a head start when AMS is up. 10% additional health on your heal/-30 sec CD vs 150 potential resistance for focus fire.

Were you planning to use Icy Touch a lot over Chains of Ice? If not you might want to consider taking 2 points out of it and getting merciless combat. If you had somebody for snares I see the merit for putting 3 in Imp Icy Touch.

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Dristig

I know my gear is bad, I just hit 80 and have all quest gear from the mid 70s. Storm Peaks decided to go with all spell damage plate for some reason.

What I'm really asking is what level of Crit /AP is required for the kind of numbers I'm hearing about.

 

Caesura

I'm running about 3k AP and 20% crit chance and reliably see 5-7k hits in pvp.

 

salviastria

First of all, I can't believe you're comparing Imp Rune Tap to Acclimation. IRT is on demand 4500 heal for me, and ~1500 hp heal for my part (glyphed), next patch the heal on myself will be over 5k. every 30 seconds. Impressively useful vs ALL team comps, not just casters who focus the DK who has the most defensive anti caster cooldowns (at least on my comp of warrior/druid/dk). Acclimation is an RNG talent that only works vs some teams. Meh.

Additionally....all this talk of COI vs Icy Touch...it totally depends on the situation, however keep in mind if you're running a team with another melee that Icy Touch procs Improved Icy Talons for 20 seconds...

The thing I love about frost is the ability to kite, nuke from range, aoe blind 1 min cd, etc. Unholy sure does survive a lot longer, but you're more easily kiteable and don't do as much damage. Plus you have less CC. Im definitely going frost for the foreseeable future.

 

axyl

I had acclimation for the longest time, and I was a firm believer in it. and I still am, it's an amazing talent. But, the problem with it is that in Arenas, it takes too long to build up.. 30% chance to get the buff = and average of 9 magical attacks to get the full buff.. all I know, is with 9 attacks from me, that's a whole health bar.

When I was using acclimation, whenever I noticed it stacked to 3, I was almost dead anyways. And that was only in battle grounds. In the arena, most likely the DK is not going to get focus fired, but CC'd. Especially after the buffs we're getting to frost presence... i'm going to be the last person they're going to be killing.. and if I'm the last man standing against a group, acclimation isn't going to help anyways.

That's why I went more for a damage build. as much damage as possible when I can get up on someone. The reason I have 3/3 Icy Touch is for runners.. a quick HB > IT might just finish someone off.. and I want it to do as much damage as possible. 30% > 12%

 

Othieus

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is the build I'm leaning toward but there's a few thing's I'm unsure about. Maybe changing 2/2 Two-Handed Spec and 3/5 Bladed Armor to 5/5 Bladed Armor due to Unholy's ability to deal damage with spells and a larger bonus with Impurity. I don't understand what everyone likes about Lichborne considering it turns you undead. Paladin's and Priests would love for you to use it and normally the only time that there isn't a priest or a pally is in some 2v2's and very few 3v3's. Gargoyle is not worth it in PvP, I'd rather spend my RP on other things like mind freeze. Also, I have 1 point left to spend and not really sure where to put it.

 

Othieus

Edit: Sorry for double post