Frost DPS | 4.2 Against All Odds

Kithus · 04/26/11, 11:22 AM

Chillblains... This is going to change your spec and you'll end up dropping a point in Butchery and one point from either Bladed Armor, Epidemic, or Virulence.

You cannot drop a point in butchery without dropping improved blood tap first. Your best bet would actually be to drop improved frost presence for the 2 points.

Titus Pullo · 04/26/11, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by Kithus

You cannot drop a point in butchery without dropping improved blood tap first. Your best bet would actually be to drop improved frost presence for the 2 points.

Good catch. Must have missed that when I changed to the IBT spec. For future referenece, please PM an errors you find to me to keep the thread clean for discussion. Thanks.

Davidson · 04/26/11, 11:37 AM

Does improved frost presence actually work this build? Last build, the talent did nothing in unholy presence and was simply wasted points. Hoping it was addressed in the patch, but not holding my breath.

Devodante · 04/26/11, 12:14 PM

Keep using [Glyph of Plague Strike] is mandatory: it retained it's old effect of increasing the damage of Plague Strike by 20% (even more worth getting with the IBT spec).

dardack · 04/26/11, 12:20 PM

Your DW build doesn't have increased disease length, but outbreak talks about having it in base builds. So is the standard to Outbreak/PS/PS/Outbreak now?

Also, is Imp Frost Pres really part of the base build now? I mean if DPS'ing unholy as DW, that 4% runic power regen isn't worth it to me.

Brutil · 04/26/11, 12:34 PM

First off thank you for reviving the Frost thread.

Secondly as you mentioned initially DW will be ahead of 2H very slightly, due to both specs having the same stat priority, swapping between the two specs should be easy, provided you have the same iLvl weapons for both sets.

Having played frost exclusively for this tier, I can't really think of severe advantages one spec has over the other, or that there are any special mechanics one spec can take advantage of in particular fights. My question boils down to this: Is there anything that I can’t think of that would make either DW or 2H vastly superior on different fights?

blackhand_gundles · 04/26/11, 12:36 PM

As far as hit goes, should we be aiming for white hit or just spell hit(DW-yellow with nerves is 14?)(DW-white with nerves is 24?)?

Thanks for taking the time to update and polish frost thread.

Titus Pullo · 04/26/11, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by dardack

Your DW build doesn't have increased disease length, but outbreak talks about having it in base builds. So is the standard to Outbreak/PS/PS/Outbreak now?

Also, is Imp Frost Pres really part of the base build now? I mean if DPS'ing unholy as DW, that 4% runic power regen isn't worth it to me.

It's still part of a base build but it's the first thing to go if you need to pick something else up in the frost tree, like Runic Power Mastery, Icy Reach, or Chillbains. Still weeding out some of the remenants of the Epidemic build but yes it should go Outbreak/PS/PS/OUtbreak with a IBT build.

dardack · 04/26/11, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by Titus Pullo

It's still part of a base build but it's the first thing to go if you need to pick something else up in the frost tree, like Runic Power Mastery, Icy Reach, or Chillbains. Still weeding out some of the remenants of the Epidemic build but yes it should go Outbreak/PS/PS/OUtbreak with a IBT build.

Can I drop Frost Pres Imp to pick up chillbains? I know it's personal preference but would like a spec I could dps/half pvp in.

acidskeets · 04/26/11, 12:52 PM

The reforging for 2handed frost(w/ no restrictions) is not optimal.

chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm <---Yours

chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm <---Mine

:X

Very nice job on this thread overall =)

Djarioch · 04/26/11, 1:24 PM

One small typo/mistake, Human racial is Sword and Mace spec. You have only sword listed. Otherwise some nice info.

Mhobius · 04/26/11, 2:38 PM

It would be cool if you actually make the Frost Presence build part of the guide. Even if it's not optimal for single target, is idd the best for AoE. Unholy Presence Frost will be nerfed soon or later IMO, that's not the way it's meant to be played. Like Simulationcraft takes into account multiple variants of the same spec in its dps chart, this should happen the same to DW Frost Presence.

• MagdalenaDK · 04/26/11, 3:32 PM

The talent distribution confuses me slightly. Although an IBT spec certainly has stronger burst potential, wasn't Virulence proven to be an overall stronger DPS talent, stronger than Epidemic even?

I had always been under the impression that a 4/31/6 was the optimal way to go, with Butchery and Epidemic being the first talents from which you dropped points if you needed something like Chillbains (this is assuming you didn't want to drop points from Improved Frost Presence).

rh8452 · 04/26/11, 3:43 PM

The logic is that because we don't blood strike anymore, and are playing in unholy presence, we're no longer GCD capped and thus longer diseases aren't an issue, as we can PS an additional time per minute to keep BP up.

The difference is minor in most situations, amounting to little more than the extra PS in gained DPS. On some fights like heroic nef it may actually be a loss due to the rolled diseases gaining the stolen power buff for their duration, so losing disease duration will mean lost DPS. You could respec accordingly between IBT spec and epidemic spec on a fight by fight basis.

holycricket · 04/26/11, 4:22 PM

Greetings,

Well updated frost post I cant thank you enough for being a major part of the community.

I am probably going to get reported for this post but id like to think I have a valid point.

I am humbly requesting we post some information about Imp Blood Tap vs Imp Frost Presence. Im new to dk, and I just macro blood tap to my pillar macro, using it to cast pillar whenever I had it ready.

What is the intended usage of that ability? just use it on cd for the extra HB?

Im a bit confused as you can see, Is it really worth getting over Imp Frost Presence?

I am unfortunately stuck with chillblains as my 10 man raid relies on me for the snare, I am trying to work a build that lets me take this talent without taking too large a hit on my personal dps.

I see lots of posts explaining that Imp Blood Tap is the way to go in 4.1, but nothing with an explanation as to why.

Ill try to rummage through the other threads to find some more information, If someone wanted to answer it here though I would be very appreciative.

Editing this post: It seems there is some bit of discussion still going on about the questions I ask. Some of the questions above are outdated after reading the posts leading up to mine. I apologize if this causes anyone problems.