Frosty DPS Discussion (no magic hat required) - Page 2

Applejuiced · 11/26/08, 9:02 AM

Originally Posted by Alvira

I am curious about such a hybrid frost/blood build also. I think it would scale better and should actually be higher DPS than a pure frost build.

The reasons being that the entire build focuses on upping the damage of its most frequently used strikes - blood strike, frost strike, IT and Obliterates. So, the majority of its strikes are well supported by talents with this build. It neglects plague strike, but since that is the weakest strike for frost anyway, no amount of talents boosting it is going to make any difference.

Because it has AP and Str modifiers from the sub in blood tree. Hence, I think it will eventually scale better than a pure frost tree that goes all the way down to hungering cold. Only change I would make is the 3 points in death rune mastery. I would put them elsewhere. Maybe blade barrier so that there is a higher chance of rune strikes from parried attacks.

Oh, and one other change that can further boost blood strikes. Shift 3 points from killing machine into 2/2 endless winter and 1 pt into chilblains. This then applies a snared effect to mobs and allows gylph of bloodstrike to do 20% more damage with bloodstrikes. (Only thing is if we are talking about strictly for raiding, then I am not sure if this would work on raid bosses).

Because this build would stick to using IT, Obliterates, and blood strikes and frost strikes each 10 second rotation. There is no neccesity to have a two cycle rotation for this build because its blood strikes are well supported by talents and every bit as powerful on their own, same for the obliterates and ITs.

well there shouldnt be much use of rune strike in a raid, I was considering shifting two points from icy reach into RPM just to see if the extra RP would be useful to dump out three frost strikes in arow, but I'll need to test. I'll try the one I linked when we go to finish naxx and try to provide a wws parse for it.

Nicolai · 11/26/08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Aten

I'm also in doubt why we should even specc into icy talons and imp. icy talons, my guild always takes a Enhanc. Shaman, always, so i dont see the point on spend 6 points, cause as i understand Haste isn't reallythat good for a death knight anyways.

What i really would like to know with the following specc, is how much dps loss would it be if instead of 5/5 Thundra Stalker, i only use 3/5 so i can reach 3/3 in Vot3W, will the extra 4 points of expertise and 6% of str compensate for the loss of 4% damage.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Edit: some typos.

If your raid has an enh shaman, the buffs are much less valuable. Once you're capped, the extra expertise and str isn't going to scale as well as the damage from Tundra Stalker.

Nefertiri · 11/26/08, 10:47 AM

So if I understand this correctly, DK fevers unlike spriest dots can and should be refreshed before they run out. I had some trouble retraining myself to refresh these before they were finished after playing a spriest through tbc. As you probably know you don't refresh spriest dots till they've dropped off or you clip dps. Fevers apparently should be viewed as effects with initial DPS rather than damage over time.

I've been using the following rotation:

FS->PS->BS->BS->OB-> and then DC to dump RP

but after reading through this thread I will be switching to:

PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> OB -> FS
PS -> IT -> OB -> OB -> FS

Thanks to you guys for providing good reference material.

Nicolai · 11/26/08, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Nefertiri

So if I understand this correctly, DK fevers unlike spriest dots can and should be refreshed before they run out. I had some trouble retraining myself to refresh these before they were finished after playing a spriest through tbc. As you probably know you don't refresh spriest dots till they've dropped off or you clip dps. Fevers apparently should be viewed as effects with initial DPS rather than damage over time.

Has there been some math done or an argument made as to why that is? I haven't seen one yet.

imabearlol · 11/26/08, 11:32 AM

I think this has been asked before, but with the Annihilation talent where Obliterate doesn't consume diseases, is there any advantage of using Blood Strikes before Obliterate? Isn't it easier to manage Rime procs using Ob first, as you can immediately replace Obliterate with Howling Blast as soon as you use Icy Touch to proc it, making sure the cooldown of Howling Blast is up as soon as possible, in case you need to use it before the next Icy Touch (say an AoE situation)?

Andread · 11/26/08, 12:29 PM

I've been working on the scaling between HB and OB to see at what point, if any, AP and armor work together to make HB better for single target dps. Without boss armor values it's difficult to figure out what kind of mitigation naxx bosses actually have, so instead I imagined a hypothetical frost DK with a 3.4 speed, 203.7 dps 2Her with 4000 AP buffed to see how much armor a boss would need to make HB do more dps:

for HB I used:

(270 + 4000 * 0.1) * 2 * 1.1 * 1.3
1916.2

where 270 is the avg base dmg, 0.1 is the coeficient from the compendium thread, * 2 is double damage from disease, 1.1 is glacier rot and 1.3 is black ice

for OB I used:

(692.5 + (4000 * 3.3 / 14) * 1.2 + 292 + 146)
2261.9

where 692.5 is avg weapon dmg, 3.3 is normalized weapon speed, 1.2 is from the glyph and 146 is disease damage (146 * 2 / 2).

Obviously this is before crit is factored, which is once place OB shines, and also where I expect my napkin math falls apart. I went with an assumed crit of 30%, both with an extra 45% crit damage from guile of gorefiend. OB gets and extra 15% crit from rime, 9% from subversion and 3% from annihilation, for 57% crit.

I calculated the avg hit considering crit like this:

1916 + .3 * (1916 * 1.45) for HB
2749.5

2261.9 + .57 * (2261.9 * 1.45) for OB
4131.4

Finally, my conclusion would then be that

1 - 2749.5 / 4131.4 = mitigation would be needed, or about 33.4%, which seems to be about 7653.8 armor. Depending on what naxx armor values turn out to be, this *could* be less than a debuffed boss has, meaning HB would hit harder (if my math is correct, the big caveat).

Feedback and criticism would be appreciated.

[edit] Adjusted crit to 30% and added the 292 dmg, thanks to Hraka. Also fixed my mitigation calculation and added an armor estimate. I'm not considering miss rates at this point since they're more difficult to predict with simplistic math like this. I'm just hoping to get an idea of how close they may even be as noted in the OP.

Feorthas · 11/26/08, 2:09 PM

Regarding Obliterate vs Howling Blast:

Your math is probably sound but you need to remember to account for yellow attack miss/hit/crit vs magic attack miss/resist/hit/crit. Even when taking only the additional 8% miss into account, magic attacks tend to fall nicely behind melée swings; additionally, obliterate tends to have an outragious crit rate--40%+--whereas HB will have a few % less than the 'expected' crit rate because your base int & magic crit are simply lower than your agi & physical crit.

Edit: hmm... Looks like you did handle crit but may have neglected miss; try seeing what that does.

Mild Confusion · 11/26/08, 2:12 PM

I see two ways you can go with doing BSx2 first or OB first.

On one hand, you may want to do two BS so that they can come around as death runes sooner into the next rotation,

However, 2 blood strikes will have 2 chances for your target to dodge prolonging your rotation and possibly having your diseases tick off before you can oblit.

So after you oblit, you can BSx2 and the runes will come back as death runes into the next rotation assuming they are not dodged.

In the end it is probably near equal enough that it is up to personal preferance, but I personally prefer making sure my big hit lands while and not risk diseases running out.

Eej · 11/26/08, 2:33 PM

Originally Posted by Feorthas

Regarding Obliterate vs Howling Blast:

Your math is probably sound but you need to remember to account for yellow attack miss/hit/crit vs magic attack miss/resist/hit/crit. Even when taking only the additional 8% miss into account, magic attacks tend to fall nicely behind melée swings; additionally, obliterate tends to have an outragious crit rate--40%+--whereas HB will have a few % less than the 'expected' crit rate because your base int & magic crit are simply lower than your agi & physical crit.

Edit: hmm... Looks like you did handle crit but may have neglected miss; try seeing what that does.

Int does not affect DK spell crit.

Nefertiri · 11/26/08, 3:57 PM

Originally Posted by Nicolai

Has there been some math done or an argument made as to why that is? I haven't seen one yet.

->1.5-> 1.5-> 1.5-> 1.5-> 1.5-> 1.5-> 1.5-> 1.5 (GCD)
PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> OB -> FS -> FS -> (assuming RP for 2FS)
12 seconds- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >PS 1.5 IT -> BS

From this it appears IT would be refreshed at 12 seconds (8xGCD) into the rotation if you FS twice on the end of the rotation (stepping on 2 seconds of the duration of frost fever). If you specced Runic Power Mastery and can do FS 3 times the fever has expired already so it's not an issue although whether 2xFS or 3xFS is better still isn't clear to me. I have RPM but haven't been using FS much at all so I can't say whether it's hitting harder than IT but if IT is hitting harder then FS a third FS for the sake of a RP dump isn't necessary when your runes are ready. Or so it seems to me anyway.

Hraka · 11/26/08, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by Andread

for OB I used:

(692.5 + (4000 * 3.3 / 14) * 1.2 + 146)
1969.9

where 692.5 is avg weapon dmg, 3.3 is normalized weapon speed, 1.2 is from the glyph and 146 is disease damage (146 * 2 / 2).

Your numbers for OB are off slightly cause you did not factor in the +292 bonus dmg (its 100%+292+146/disease or glyphed: 120%+292+73/disease)

I think the stats you used are a bit accurate however the crit you're using is probably a bit too low for those numbers of AP and weapon dmg, I'd say factor in something more like 30-35% (might have fury or feral in raid) I know with my crappy blues plus few heroics pieces I'm sitting at 25% crit with just horn of winter sitting at a training dummy.

And from the looks of it I didnt factor in subversion or guile of gorefeind into my above calculations (yay for math too early in the morning).

Baphomette · 11/26/08, 5:03 PM

Originally Posted by Aten

What i really would like to know with the following specc, is how much dps loss would it be if instead of 5/5 Thundra Stalker, i only use 3/5 so i can reach 3/3 in Vot3W, will the extra 4 points of expertise and 6% of str compensate for the loss of 4% damage.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I've been debating 5/5 TS 1/3 Vo3W versus 3/5 TS 3/3 Vo3W for a while myself. 4% damage on your specials is about 3% of your total DPS, and it's actually only 2 extra expertise gained because you lose 2 switching points from Tundra Stalker. +4% Strength is certainly less than +3% DPS but +4% Strength +4% Stamina and +2 expertise make it a harder decision. I'm looking at some variant of a 23/48/0 spec myself, should fare very well PVP and tanking and be good enough to DPS with until dual specs come along.

Andread · 11/26/08, 5:23 PM

Originally Posted by Hraka

Your numbers for OB are off slightly cause you did not factor in the +292 bonus dmg (its 100%+292+146/disease or glyphed: 120%+292+73/disease)

I think the stats you used are a bit accurate however the crit you're using is probably a bit too low

Thanks, I adjusted my post.

Hopefully someone figures out boss armor values soon and we can get an idea if OB and HB are in the same ballpark - so far I'm surprised how close they are.

Applejuiced · 11/26/08, 6:13 PM

I'm not really liking the 27/44 blood and frost hybrid spec, I got spoiled with epidemic, so I'm thinking of maybe trying something along the lines of this 14/50/7 Spec if anyone has any input, it would be appreciated

Hraka · 11/26/08, 7:01 PM

Originally Posted by Andread

Thanks, I adjusted my post.

Hopefully someone figures out boss armor values soon and we can get an idea if OB and HB are in the same ballpark - so far I'm surprised how close they are.

With the slightly different numbers I ran for the two abilities above the DR needed would be 37.12% showing that as the ratio to AP and crit/weapondmg changes this DR equalizer also changes. Other large factors would be differences in spell hit and presence of EP/CoE/Earth and Moon.

So w/e here goes those comparisons all assuming specials hit capped:
HB(0.92)/OB (no EP/misery/virulence): 42.15% DR
HB(0.92)(1.13)/OB (EP, no misery, no virulence): 34.63% DR
HB(0.95)(1.13)/OB (EP, Misery, no virulence): 32.50% DR
HB(0.98)(1.13)/OB (EP, Misery, Virulence): 30.37% DR
HB(0.95)/OB (Virulence, no misery/EP): 40.26% DR