Raidbots says otherwise.

Overall DPS 25H - DPS Bot - RaidBots - Web Tools for WoW Nerds

Also ahead in 10 man for the spec score (though i don't know how much I truly agree with that). Even just browsing through top logs on WoL you can see that on most fights frost is capable of more dps.

As I see it, even ignoring the DPS difference UH's utility beats out frost's this tier. Frost was great in FL because of great frontloaded AoE and kiting ability which trivialized Beth'tilac and to a much lesser extent P2 Rag, but neither of those are exceptional in DS the only situations where those are impressive are Madness and Yor'sahj, yet it isn't so much Front-loaded AoE as much as just AoE that fits into a single-target rotation for Yor'sahj.

On the other hand Unholy's utility is incredible this tier, AMZ and AMS are incredibly useful in many fights this tier as there is predictable magical damage all over the place. Morchok, Yor'sahj, Zon'ozz, Blackhorn, Spine and Madness all have predictable ways to utilize AMS's runic power generation and Morchok, Zon'ozz, Blackhorn, Spine and Madness have powerful uses for AMZ.

Raidbots or even WoL is not yet a reliable way to determine spec superiority. Either is the sim for that matter.

Normal mode raid results are pretty much useless. They include people that just have no idea how to dps, or have extremely varying gear levels. And hard mode raids are still very limited on results, with only 1500 or so parses on Morchok, and down below 200 for yor'sahj.

Add to that the fact that many people will be switching to unholy after mastering frost for so long, it will take some time for people to maximise their unholy potential. As with frost, it's easy to pull 80-90% of your potential, but squeezing out that last 10% requires skill which takes time to master.

And as huntcaudata pointed out, unholy is actually ahead in many measures.

I don't think it is so clear cut. AMS as a raid cooldown is, in most situations, pretty useless. It only shines when there is a single instance of huge raid damage, where it absorbs much more than it otherwise would.

Many fights have timed dps requirements that fit frost's 1m 20% burst cooldown extremely well. Hagara with the increased damage after phase ends; madness with the 25ish second burst absolute requirement on tendons; aoe damage requires while maintaining maximum single target dps (masterfrost), a strong necessity this early in progression at least. Burst aoe is still a requirement, and there's no fight this tier that requires slow gradual aoe which is a strength of unholy.

There are strenghts to both, but I'm undecided if there is a clear winner for this tier yet.

This is found in Morchok (crystal explosion), Zon'ozz (takes out a whole bounce), Yor'sahj (worse than the others, but still eats a whole shot of red), Blackhorn (eats most of a big swirl), Ultraxion (eats an hour of twilight), Spine (the explosion) and Madness (bolt if yellow isn't left for last).

Some of those are big enough that I'd say that even if you are frost generally, you should have an unholy spec for some of these fights. Blackhorn, Zon'ozz and Ultraxion in particular.

Though in most of these cases, additional unholy DKs aren't as useful - in particular on Madness and Blackhorn.

Morchok the crystal damage isn't really a problem. Either is the bounce on Zon'ozz, the healing stress is in other areas. Yor'sahj, as you say limited use and burst aoe is probably more useful. Ultraxion I remain unclear how useful it is. I'm yet to find a log where it has been used with a majority of the raid staying out. In 10s, which I play, it's pretty limited use if the debuff still gets applied as several people would need to go out anyway. Speccing into pure dps is far more important. Spine, unholy is currently useless given the pet bugs. And on madness for the bolt, even in 10 man raid cooldowns for that are easily available.

I'm not saying it isn't useful in some of those. But the use is limited, and although it's useful in several fights it's not gamebreaking and I believe much better to spec pure dps for most of them, given AMZ isn't free. Perhaps 25s on Ultraxion, and Boatship for the swirl. I'm yet to experience boatship, we stack all range for our kills still!

For me at least, having both specs on hand is purely for providing the appropriate raid buff/debuff, or for when strong single target is needed (i can pull more in unholy), or strong burst aoe (frost, of course).

I have been getting really good results (and WOL ranks, too bad our uploader wasn't there for our tuesday's ultraxion normal kill to prove a decent 39.5k) on all DS single target fights overall as well using a similar playstyle (burn unholy runes when I have horn or BT off cd, as well as when I'm high on RP, using obliterate more overall than in the standard masterfrost priority).

However I play a 5/31/5 build without Imp. BT because frankly I'm rarely rune or rp starved to use BT twice in a minute and I try not to achieve spell hit cap. Also, my haste is somewhat higher than yours seeing your armory while still having mastery as my top secondary stat. I'm considering getting back my 2xt12 set bonus to get a nice chunk of RP before the fight, but so far the ilvl difference doesn't make it necessary, especially when I can army pre-pull.

Anyway my point is, I'm pretty sure my dps is higher using this prio list than the standard haste stacking obliterate, to the point I'm never going back to that .

With both 2p bonuses mastery simmed at about equal with haste from a bit over 1.7k haste rating upwards for me. After dropping 2p t12 for 4p t13 haste took the lead again. At my current ratings (2277 haste, 1375 mastery) the value of haste is at 1.94 and mastery at 1.85. This was simmed using the standard frost priority and my own gear (H Hand of Morchok and N Souldrinker).

As for "masterfrost", as pointed out by a few people here and 2p t13 devaluing it comparing to the standard priority, it shouldn't come off as a dps increase. Making out an increase of it is also very complex and a few mistakes will push it down below the standard priority even in the situations it was simmed out to be an increase. Using HB as a filler as described in the bottom of the standard priority in the OP is the only situation you'd want to be using HB with your runes on single target.

About the discussion on frost versus unholy on specific fights; I would prioritize frost over unholy on heroic hagara, spine and possibly on madness from what I have seen so far. On yor'sahj the adds aren't dying fast enough to actually make howling blasting a real increase due to its burst. Unholy can also continue with the standard single target priority after pestilencing and dropping a DnD on the ground since a single add wave doesn't require the whole raid to push them down. During double adds the second wave spawns just a bit before you have to head for a new blob; this gives unholy an advantage since having dots tick on all targets without having them to be lumped together while hitting the blob hard is not something frost can do. AMZ also almost completely stops a single aoe shadowbolt when a yellow blob has gone through.

Hagara is a fairly irrelevant fight, but if you have trouble on it you'll do better as frost during the burst on electrocution. Unholy has its uses on the ice phase though where you can send your pet to attack the highest crystal on the other side of the platform while running around yourself with having diseases tick on most of them.

As for spine the availability of pillar on every tendon, not having to rely on a pet that might despawn and higher burst make it the absolute choice for the encounter as opposed to unholys gargoyle and frenzy on 1/3 of the tendon burns at best with every tendon brought out 2 times.

Even though I'm not on madness yet I would say frost has it better on it as well. You don't have to deal with your pet bugging out while swapping platforms even if it doesn't happen too often, you can burst the blobs down a lot faster and the burn phase in the end has the full benefit of merciless combat. I'm not sure on how high priority blistering tentacles are on the heroic mode, but on normal I like mouseover howling blasting each of them to apply frost fever and deal a bit of damage to each tentacle. While HB doesn't hit the other tentacles, it does hit the part of deathwing on the platform. Having one AMZ in the raid would have its uses for incoming bolt damage though.

In practice this playstyle never had top parses on single target. I can only spot a single german DK doing fairly well with it. The fact that "masterfrost" was somehow simmed marginally higher in perfect play conditions just makes it less than credible. The difference is within RNG range as it is, then you need to add considerable player skill and attention to your playing to not make a single mistake in the more complex priority. "Masterfrost" also lessens one of frosts best qualities; burst.

With 2p t13 HB x2 would need to outdamage OB + 0.72 * HB. The higher RP generation of "masterfrost" is also almost completely gone, with OB generating 37.2 RP on average and HB x2 generating 40. KM is also consumed by OB more often in the standard priority due to it being used more.

If 1.28 HB > OB it could work out as an increase. Though you need to factor in the haste lost for stacking mastery high enough for that and it's not even very close. You also fill more GCD's with HB's making the playstyle less flexible and more easily GCD capped at times, which requires switching back to the standard priority at specific RP and rune values.

Well lets get something straight before this continues any further.

The masterfrost priority has it's foundations in maths, and the numbers were put out for all to see in the prevoius thread. If you disagree with them, please, point out where they are wrong. Secondly they were confirmed in the sim. That's two checks. Finally, it has been confirmed in game. Our own Murava posted in this thread and is currently holding a #6 ranking.

It's credibility is founded on much more than you make out.

If you want to provide maths that follows through with actual dps numbers I'd be very interested to see your proofs for why it would be less dps. I'm yet to see any, other than what I pointed out already when combing t13 2pc with souldrinkers which both increase obl value.

If you just want to point at logs where most people stack haste and use a traditional obl priority, then, well, that proves that most people stack haste and use an OBL priority.

and then again:

Please make up your mind as to which one it is. As it stands the only real confirmation we have on "masterfrost" is an incomplete mathematical formulation of the DK rune system and the sims. Since you said the sim is not reliable for spec superiority, that lends itself to the notion that variance within the spec is also something it is incapable of confirming.

Irongnome, you're confusing evidence with proof to create a false dichotomy.

You're also assuming that I believe that because the maths works, and the sim works, and real world logs are working, that it is therefore proven to be correct.

But if someone posts something completely incorrect (never had a top parse. It in fact had the first top parse held for a couple of weeks, and maintains a top parse), in the interest of keeping any debate factual and not opinionated that should be pointed out. Even last patch there were several top parsers who played with a mastery stacking profile on Baleroc, a fight with no adds -- the idea isn't new and the evidence isn't new.