Frost DPS | Winter of Discontent [4.3] - Page 32

Zeugedessofas · 01/17/12, 7:06 AM

With my gear i get (SimC)
40,3k 2x cleaver hc 391 reforged standard build
39,3k Gurthalak 403 reforged mastery heavy

Popiolek · 01/17/12, 8:37 AM

I did some raid dummy tests: 2xObsidium Cleaver vs Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps.
I did around 21-22k for 2xObs. Cleav. and 24-26k for Gurthalak (only self buffs, no pots and food in both cases). As use can see 2H gave around 2-4k improvement which in my opinion is a great improvement. I also tried two different builds for 2H, 5/31/5 and 7/31/3, usually second one gave me around 1k dps increase.
Concerning reforge, i did not notice big difference bettwen Master>Haste and Haste>Mastery, although it noticed that Master>Haste had bigger burst at the beginning of the test but around 5-6M od DMG they where very similar. I used normal rotation because i am not very familiar with shadowfrost. The dps was highly dependent on the weapon proc. Another things worth mentioning is that tests with 2H felt much smoother.

Kurg · 01/17/12, 9:51 AM

Couple of things to keep in mind if people actually want to give 2-hand frost w/ 403 Gurth a try;
- You need to drop a lot of haste. There is too much RP generation with standard levels of haste and you won't be able to expend resources quickly enough. Reforge to mastery as much as possible. Haste in the 69-72% range is probably okay.
- Masterfrost priority probably won't work. To much emphasis on HB likely means lower Tentacle uptime.
- Critical strike probably gains in value as 2-hand has fewer KM procs, and the haste floor is definitely lower. Simcraft has pretty much ignored 2-hand frost (mostly with good reason) so stat weights aren't really available, but I think it probably goes: strength > hit > expertise > mastery > haste (to ~70% or so) > critical strike > haste past ~70%

Maikro · 01/17/12, 3:35 PM

So previously in this thread I thought it had been determined that Reg. Souldrinker was more DPS than Heroic Hand of Morchok, but after running sims using 1 Souldrinker and 1 H HoM (and trying both hand combinations) it seems that it is a DPS loss over 2x H HoM. Is there a problem with the way SimC handles the Souldrinker procs or is this accurate?

fatsquirrel · 01/17/12, 8:44 PM

I dont see any thread that would say Souldrinker is preforming better than Hand of Morchok.
Also simming it several times, Hand of morchok comes out better everytime. Also add that to masterfrost spec where additional mastery on it will only make it more effecient, and you have a clear winner.

I do see a lot of high end players wielding 1 hom and souldrinker. Most likely for some less stress on healers...or am i wrong?

gharnef · 01/17/12, 9:06 PM

Originally Posted by fatsquirrel

I dont see any thread that would say Souldrinker is preforming better than Hand of Morchok.
Also simming it several times, Hand of morchok comes out better everytime. Also add that to masterfrost spec where additional mastery on it will only make it more effecient, and you have a clear winner.

I do see a lot of high end players wielding 1 hom and souldrinker. Most likely for some less stress on healers...or am i wrong?

It was simming that way when souldrinker's proc was able to proc from both weapon's swings, ever since that was fixed HoM has been better than the previous souldrinker.

I don't see why one souldrinker would be an improvement over two HoMs in any way so I'm betting it's just an issue of drops.

Maeylor · 01/18/12, 12:20 AM

Originally Posted by gharnef

It was simming that way when souldrinker's proc was able to proc from both weapon's swings, ever since that was fixed HoM has been better than the previous souldrinker.

I don't see why one souldrinker would be an improvement over two HoMs in any way so I'm betting it's just an issue of drops.

I have yet to see one drop.
I'm currently using Reg Souldrinker + 391 Cleaver. If another Souldrinker drops I'm the one to get it, which will be an upgrade yes, it's just a pain trying to hit expertise mixing sword/axe with the orc racial.

however, my numbers using masterfrost are far from terrible.

Cohesiac · 01/18/12, 12:55 AM

Originally Posted by fatsquirrel

I do see a lot of high end players wielding 1 hom and souldrinker. Most likely for some less stress on healers...or am i wrong?

The reason we use Hand of Morchok in the main hand is because the increased weapon damage, strength, and secondary stats outweigh the proc from Souldrinker. When you equip Hand of Morchok in the off-hand, weapon damage is reduced, which in most cases is enough to push Souldrinker back above Hand of Morchok.

In guilds with several Frost Death Knights, you may see them distributing Hand of Morchoks to all of their Death Knights for use in their main-hand, before giving any for use in the off-hand.

Krenom · 01/18/12, 6:16 AM

Since the DPS difference between Masterfrost and normal haste priority play is relatively small for some gear levels (~100 DPS for me, 1990 Mastery, 1873 Haste), I wonder if letting 4pc T13 (Runic Mastery proc) define wether or not to use Masterfrost priority would be beneficial. Using the Masterfrost priority when Runic Mastery proc is up, and normal priority when it isn't. Of course AoK with Mastery should trigger use of masterfrost priority as well.

710 additional Mastery equals ~8 percentagepoints increase to Mastery, atleast at ~2k Mastery rating. Collecting data from 50 or so of my own Ultraxion kills/tries, I find that Runic Mastery has a ~40% uptime when using masterfrost priority. I guess it will be lower when using standard priority - considerably.

The reason I'm bringing this here is that my abilities with SimC are limited, meaning I have no idea how to create a priority profile that does the job. I have no chance of exploring this idea on my own.

The idea should be pretty straightforward. Given in my example, that masterfrost and standard priority is indeed very close, it would indicate that masterfrost priority has some very clear points where it outperforms the standard priority, and som points where it underperforms. I think it's fair to agree, that masterfrost would outperform standard priority in scenarios where mastery procs occur, i.e Runic Mastery procs. The idea is to isolate the masterfrost priority to situations where the DPS increase is at its best.

ffaorlandu · 01/21/12, 7:27 PM

Good afternoon EJ,

I've been arguing a point about Masterfrost over at MMO-Champion and I'd like to present it here for consideration. It's also how I've been playing Mastefrost and so far I think it does pretty well.

The main concept is to not refresh Blood Plague except through Outbreak. By not using Plague Strike, it allows me to use that Unholy rune for Obliterate every time it's up. Yes, Obliterate does less damage without having 2x diseases, but being able to use it 2-3 times more per minute means more chances for Rime to proc which means more Howling Blasts and more Frost Strikes from the Runic Power generated. This allows you to basically just spam Howling Blast and Frost Strike, only using Obliterate when both Unholy runes are up or coming off cooldown within 1 second.

I downloaded SimulationCraft and ran a sim with the BiS Masterfrost gear and rotation that's built in. Simply by removing the Plague Strike line from the code, it increased the DPS by 50. And I think it'd be higher with some modifications to have it use Howling Blast more.

It is a simpler rotation to follow than having to use Plague Strike every 21 seconds or so since the Masterfrost spec is 7/31/3 without Epidemic. I know a lot of people use 5/31/5 or 3/31/6 for Masterfrost but having Improved Blood Tap is a must for true Masterfrost. And always having to keep 1 Unholy rune off cooldown makes it so you can only do 1 Obliterate per Plague Strike, 2 if you time it right.

My basic priority in game is:

Howling Blast if Rime is proc'd
Obliterate if both Unholy runes up, or coming off CD w/in 1 second
Frost Strike if Runic Power > 90
Howling Blast

Let me know what you think, and if anyone with more experience simming wants to do some more testing on it.

zebrahed · 01/22/12, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by irongnome

I went over the data about No'kaled and thought it was slightly undervalued. This prompted me to test it out in simcraft just to see what would happen.

Lo and behold, if you replace:

main_hand=souldrinker,heroic=1,ilevel=416,quality=epic,stats=249str_373sta,enchant=rune_of_razorice,weapon=sword_2.60speed_1431min_2658max
off_hand=souldrinker,heroic=1,ilevel=416,quality=epic,stats=249str_373sta,enchant=rune_of_the_fallen_crusader,weapon=sword_2.60speed_1431min_2658max

with:

main_hand=nokaled_the_elements_of_death,heroic=1,ilevel=416,quality=epic,stats=249agi_373sta,enchant=rune_of_razorice,weapon=axe_2.60speed_1431min_2658max
off_hand=nokaled_the_elements_of_death,heroic=1,ilevel=416,quality=epic,stats=249agi_373sta,enchant=rune_of_the_fallen_crusader,weapon=axe_2.60speed_1431min_2658max

In the "Death_Knight_Frost_1h_T13H" profile with simcraft 4.3-6, the DPS goes up from
~46,887
to
~47,105

Is anyone else seeing the same thing and/or is this due to a bug of some sort?

Edit:
Here is the napkin math that prompted me to check the data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...k1jVUVtdzZ1Qnc

3.08 seems low for Str value, but either way, the end result DPS in that sheet looks like Souldrinker is ahead? Where does the change from 46,887 => 47,105 come in?

Unless I missed something.

gharnef · 01/22/12, 6:08 PM

Originally Posted by zebrahed

3.08 seems low for Str value, but either way, the end result DPS in that sheet looks like Souldrinker is ahead? Where does the change from 46,887 => 47,105 come in?

Unless I missed something.

The napkin math was only to see if it was remotely close (which 13 dps is). The simC profile change is the part that shows No'kaled being ahead.

aigarius · 01/23/12, 4:48 PM

I am getting a weird result in SimCraft, DW frost, default priority, 391 ilvl, 2470 haste rating, 840 mastery, 1500 crit rating (capped yellow hit and expertise). With the normal Patchwerk style fight I am getting the expected stat weights ( haste >= mastery >> crit), but switching to Ultraxion fight mode suddenly makes SimCraft to calculate stat weights as mastery >= crit >> haste. It even shows haste lower than agility. SimCraft bug?

khel · 01/24/12, 11:22 AM

I would like to see some discussion for maximizing burst dps on Heroic Spine. For gearing, I went with the spell hit cap to guarantee that Outbreak would hit, then reforged such that Mastery > Haste > Crit > Extra Hit >>> Expertise.

My approach to this so far has been:

1. Make sure to enter the burn phase with >60 RP and full runes.
2. D&D as soon as the Nuclear Blast happens to gain a few tics of damage for free. It needs to be cast early enough that the Rune has regenned before the 2nd GCD on the tendon.
3. With no target selected, pop the pet before the tendon becomes vulnerable.
4. At the last second before the tendon becomes vulnerable, PoF.
5. Blood Fury + Rotting Skull + Outbreak as the first GCD.
6. Oblit, Oblit, BT+Oblit as the first 3 GCD's
7. FSx2
8. Prioritize Oblit > FS > Rime from here on, and use Eng gloves (via macro to strikes) the moment the trinket fades.

At the moment I am saving DRW for when I can't Oblit or FS, and if DRW is down and I get unlucky with Runic Empowerment procs, I am using up the Rime procs and doing an extra HB or two to get back to Oblit/FS spam.

About Hyperspeed Accelerators, they don't stack with Rotting Skull so you need to make sure that you don't have them macro'd into the same keys for abilities you use on Amalgamations and bloods, etc. Rotting Skull needs to get popped at the start, and then Hyperspeed Accelerators as soon as it fades. In practice I just use 2 sets of oblit/fs binds, one for normal dps and one for the tendon burst periods.

I'm not sure what to do with the pet though. Often I have FF going on a few bloods so it's a gamble if the pet will attack the Tendon or not. I don't think it would be a dps gain to wait until I can target the tendon and waste a GCD on spawning it then, would it?

Would you make any changes to this? Do you see how this could be improved?

Dossou · 01/24/12, 12:05 PM

I've been doing something very similar to what you've been doing Khel.

How does everyone feel about DW VS. 2H? I have Double Heroic Hand of Morchok and a H Ataraxis available.

Honestly, I feel DW provides more reliable burst with the increased proc rate on Killing Machine vs. 2H.

I'd be interested to see the value of spell hit capping as DW vs. stacking more mastery and haste, and what the value of that missed Outbreak GCD is.

I usually save ERW for the second burn on each Tendon. (Execute Phase).

Frost DKs are suboptimal to even bring for heroic Spine considering a majority of our burst is based on Killing Machine and Rime procs.

I've gone through a burn phase with 1 Killing Machine and 1 Rime Proc, doing only around 700k damage.

When I get a decent amount of procs, I do around 1 million. I've peaked around 1.5 with lust+an obscene amount of KMs+ERW.

I'd like to see what other people are running in terms of spell hit and DW vs. 2H.