Frost dps just got buffed, but Blood got nerfed.

I tried leveling as blood and unholy, and due to the more passive bonuses in Unholy (better pet/dots and faster mount, and better AoE abilities), it kills faster than Blood. Now Blood does even less dps, so there is little contest there.

I will try Frost to see how it goes.

I've also leveled mostly as blood, primarily because of the minimal downtime and steady damage. The nerf to blood (vengeance change) is pretty minimal, considering most of your damage is physical anyway. Your Icy Touches and Death Coils don't get a 9% bonus-- that's it. The increased cooldown on Dancing Rune Weapon is a bit of a blow, though.

But yeah; right now my single target damage champion is Unholy, with a slight edge over Blood. My previous comment just meant I wasn't seeing Frost doing massive amounts more dps; it really needs those buffs to even compete.

I tried my level 60 Frost specced DK on a level 55 training dummy, managed to pull off 700DPS. I don't know what most classes do at that level with the new talents (or how much the 5 level difference helps against the dummy), but considering that I usually do around 1k DPS on live with my shaman that seems really high to me. This was in full DK gear except dual wielding some green quest rewards from Hellfire Peninsula, 2.4 speed MH with Cinderglacier and 1.8 speed OH with Razorice. Priority was IT (50% of my damage), Frost Strike, Howling Blast when Rime procced (I acknowledge that it hits all three of the training dummies, but it only accounts for less than 9% of my total damage), and Blood Strike when no other skill was usable, which I doubt is even close to the perfect rotation. Does this kind of DPS sound normal or did they just buff Icy Touch a bit too much?

Talents I used

Could you guys who are trying out different leveling builds in the various trees post links to talent calculators with the builds you're using? I've looked back a few pages to see, for example, an unholy leveling build, but with the constant talent changes the builds are obsolete by the time I find them, or the link doesn't work because the old numbers don't match the new tree.

I ran a series of DPS tests on the Ebon Hold target dummies both today and yesterday (before the new build), and the difference is pretty significant. I was using Violation to track DPS, using all premade pvp gear and the pvp 2h mace with Rune of the Fallen Crusader. I was keeping Horn up.

All tests were 5 minutes long.

Yesterday (old build)

Frost-sub-Blood
Unholy Presence: 1.9k Blood Presence: 1.9k
Unholy-sub-Frost
Unholy Presence: 2.1k Blood Presence: 2.2k
Blood-sub-Frost
Unholy Presence: 2.8k Blood Presence: 2.6k

Today (new build)

Frost-sub-Blood
Unholy Presence: 2.3k Blood Presence: 2.2k
Unholy-sub-Frost(w/Reaping)
Unholy Presence: 2.7k Blood Presence: 2.9k
Blood-sub-Frost
Unholy Presence: 2.4k Blood Presence: 2.2k

As expected, frost goes up, blood goes down, unholy goes way up.

Interestingly, I also fooled around with the Scourge Strike glyph a little, and when it procs it re-ups Icy Talons. It also appears to re-up only Blood Plague some small fraction of the time, which leads me to suspect that either it's an obvious bug or the re-applications have their own miss check. Anyone experience anything that might shed light on that last?

I wonder if plague strike will get a bit of love soon. Not to the degree of IT to be sure, but maybe so that its base is maybe 10% higher or so. The only reason I seem to hit it these days is for the disease and because I will have 1 U rune left over after a IT and Oblit/HB.

Speaking of HB, am I the only one who is happy with the balance between HB and Oblit as deep frost spec?

Nevermind, I'm tired. :<

So, no matter what builds, it seems DW is not the way to go and to stick to 2H for the strikes?

I was debating on going the DK starting sword -> Blade of Misfortune -> Halaani Claymore for 2H or DK starting sword -> 2x Fist of Reckoning -> 2x Axe of the Legion for DW.

I was planning on going Unholy/Frost as the talent tree.

I'm trying to reproduce your DPS here in Ebon Hold, but I seem to be far less damage than you... It's the Savage Gladiator stuff you start with right? Or is it the epic version?

Premade stuff is about half and half. Bulky pieces are savage, but neck, cloak, bracers, belt and one ring are hateful, and the other ring is deadly. Weapon is savage. Trinkets are the DPS-irrelevant Medallion of the Alliance and the less irrelevant Battlemaster's Conviction (190ap).

The gear does come enchanted, but every gem socket is stam/resil besides the meta, which is crit rating/3% crit damage.

Correct, but if you do not spec threat reduction you can pull off an inexperienced tank.