Hate to be lame, but it's not unexpected that the ITx6 rotation would post higher dps on a dummy. Oblit is affected by armor, remember? Probably not. Also, like was mentioned Oblit is based off weapon damage. If you have a green weapon but 4k AP, you're probably going to have a lot more success with ITx6 instead of OB rotation. It was mentioned many many months ago that Frost looked to be the most gearcentic of all the specs. If you don't have terribly good gear, then you should probably go 17/54 unholy or 32/39 DW.
But on the topic of new rotations, I was doing OB OB FS (IT BS) Dump and was having relatively good success with that. Although, I do like how the IT BS FS OB FS OB rotation looks, but unfortunately, I mystically don't have my 4 piece T7 bonus still. Bad luck is all i can really say.
Unless my math is totally and completely effed up, 6IT won't pull ahead of IT BS OB OB; 6IT is the new HB instead of OB rotation people--it sounds awesome but it really does come up short based on everything that I've seen... Unless I'm the only person on the planet capable of maintaining a proper IT BS OB OB that is; in that case, I totally understand swapping to UH because it is way, way easier. In fact, that's how I know that I messed up and didn't swap back to blood after running/farming/whatever--UH just makes life easier (but it doesn't increase your dps over blood except for allowing for more screwups).
I've been posting the less space-consuming math, and I sent you a private message hoping to start a conversation on the topic that wouldn't clog this thread (though by the amount of clogging it seems to be doing I shouldn't have bothered). I'm trying to find out why our numbers disagree, even though I'm using your spreadsheet.
I'm sorry I've caused dozens of people to post parses of their dummy damage, I don't think that's useful in any way (and will you people please stop?).
Originally Posted by Outkast661
From what I can see in your rotation, the reason why your not getting 6 IT's is because your throwing PS and IT in your first rotation and using PS to start your second. If you read the IT rotation above you'll notice that PS isn't used in this rotation. BS BS OB OB is your first rotation to get your Death Runes, then you'll have all the runes for 6 IT's.
It's probably actually better to split up the death runes, I just wrote it that way for impact -
IT,PS,IT,PS,BS,BS - OB,OB,IT,IT for the first rotation, and then IT,IT,IT,IT,BS,BS - OB,OB, IT,IT thereafter is better dps from the standpoint of not capping RP and spreading out the frost abilities a little more for KM use.
I think we've pretty much covered the fact that 2h frost is very viable at the moment, what I want to know is where the sweet spot lies between IT runic power generation, global cooldowns available, and how many OBs we want to sacrifice for how many ITs.
Some more thoughts on Unbreakable Armor as a dps tool would be ace too. I've searched the thread multiple times and all i've found is people using it on a macro. Nobody seems to know if it's best to do that or simply use it as a free IT.
From what I can tell, the 5 & 6 IT per 2nd rotation methods seem to generate far too much RP all at once . It feels like i'm wasting frost strikes.
I'd like to see some more opinions on this:
IT PS BS BS OB
->
IT PS IT IT IT IT
vs
IT PS BS BS OB
->
IT PS IT IT OB
vs
IT OB OB BS
->
IT IT IT IT IT BS
vs
OB OB BS BS
IT IT IT IT IT IT
I think we've pretty much covered the fact that 2h frost is very viable at the moment, what I want to know is where the sweet spot lies between IT runic power generation, global cooldowns available, and how many OBs we want to sacrifice for how many ITs.
Some more thoughts on Unbreakable Armor as a dps tool would be ace too. I've searched the thread multiple times and all i've found is people using it on a macro. Nobody seems to know if it's best to do that or simply use it as a free IT.
From what I can tell, the 5 & 6 IT per 2nd rotation methods seem to generate far too much RP all at once . It feels like i'm wasting frost strikes.
These are practically all the topics on which opinions are given in this thread. As I mentioned only a few posts ago, you don't really ever want to do 6 ITs in a row - you either weave Frost strikes in between them, or use an OB,OB,IT,IT - ITx4,BS,BS (you'll have to weave in FS anyway to keep from capping and to use up all your gcds).
As far as requesting information.. this is a thread for contributing to, not for demanding. If you're unwilling/unable to perform the theorycraft yourself, then just sit there and wait till we reach conclusions - we won't do it any faster because you want answers.
First time posting, but I've been running the 21/50 frost spec for a while and thought I would offer up some data from my 25 man Naxx run last night. Unfortunately, most of my pre-patch WWS parses are gone so I don't have any hard data to compare it against.
I upgraded my 2nd trinket to the Meteorite Whetstone but the rest of my gear has remained the same. I use the IT, OB and FS glyphs now, where before the patch I was using either the BS or Ghoul glyph in place of FS. Last night I did 5215 dps on Patchwerk where as my previous best was about 4.2k. WWS is not counting my AotD (which was cast right before the pull along with my ghoul), but according to my recount I was slightly over 5.5k dps and was 2nd on the meters behind our fury warrior.
I usually start out doing IT-PS-BS-BS-OB-FS x 3 dump then IT-BS-OB-OB-FS dump and in BP the whole time. I've been trying to weave my FS in the middle of the rotation to take advantage of the KM procs, but I tend to fall back to dumping FS at the end when things get hectic. Normally after the first rotation I use my BT/UA macro to fully utilize it during the second rotation and FS spree.
As for my spec, I was running with RPM at 3/3 and KM 4/5 - but I am going to take a point from RPM and max out KM now that I am getting the hang of weaving at least one FS into the middle of my rotation. I can't see giving up RPM for any other talent in the tree and it does provide a nice buffer.
As a slight aside, I am concerned with my current weapon The Jawbone. Since our 2 biggest attacks are based off weapon damage, I've stuck with it since it has the 2nd highest damage range just behind Betrayer of Humanity. I've seen other websites claiming that Death's Bite or Armageddon actually provide more dps. Since I'm saving my dkp for Betrayer I don't have any intention of taking Armageddon, but we don't use dkp for our 10 man Naxx runs so would picking up Death's Bite provide a dps increase? I'd rather not take it from someone who would benefit from it more.
I normally only read this thread, but did gloss over the weapon speed treatise thread and didn't see what I was looking for. If this has been answered elsewhere, I'd appreciate the help.
Unless I'm the only person on the planet capable of maintaining a proper IT BS OB OB that is; in that case, I totally understand swapping to UH because it is way, way easier. In fact, that's how I know that I messed up and didn't swap back to blood after running/farming/whatever--UH just makes life easier (but it doesn't increase your dps over blood except for allowing for more screwups).
I can't maintain this rotation without causing any delays. I just put togehter a simple graphic showing the issue I have using it:
As I wrote previously, currently I use Oblit-FS-Oblit-FS-IT-BS-FS/Rime Procs which works pretty fine so far.
I can't maintain this rotation without causing any delays. I just put togehter a simple graphic showing the issue I have using it:
As I wrote previously, currently I use Oblit-FS-Oblit-FS-IT-BS-FS/Rime Procs which works pretty fine so far.
The 'trick', which really isn't much of one, is getting the Icy Touch onto a Death Rune. Yes, you have to intentionally screw up the rotation twice (the initial setup, if you dont use a death rune, and then a single rotation to force the IT onto the one death rune). This only works if you can then immediately use the Blood Rune as a Blood Strike (hence why you had to screw up your rotation initially) but I never have an issue maintaining a smooth rotation after I get those two runes set up.
The only catch is that it is absolutely imperative that you use the Blood Rune to Blood Strike whenever it comes up--if you do not, FOR ANY REASON, everything comes falling apart.
Ok, it's not THAT bad but it definitely becomes more unstable the more non-Blood/Death runes you have in the IT/BS portion.
I am not your personal Frost Deathknight knowledge base. If you have a simple question, ask in the simple questions thread; if you have a more esoteric, specific, or complicated question, ask in the spec-appropriate thread.
My PM, WoWmail, and, especially, chat boxes are NOT the appropriate places for these questions.
For those questioning the ITx6 rotation and saying it feels like you are wasting FS's, you're doing it wrong.
The rotation isn't a <RUNE DUMP> <RP DUMP> rotation. I usually do a priority rotation, something along the lines of (at least for the 6x IT part)
32+ RP and Killing Machine = FS > IT
less then 32 RP and Killing Machine = HB if rime proc'd, otherwise IT
96+ RP FS > IT
less then 96 RP = IT until KM or nearly hitting cap.
It usually looks something like
IT IT FS IT IT FS IT FS IT FS FS or something like that. I don't think going slightly past the 10 second mark is a DPS decrease, in fact it seems like an increase, as you would otherwise have to wait a second for the runes to refresh for an OB since you weaved FS into your rotation. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but i don't chain rotations in this one, like you do for Blood or Unholy. I do the OBx2 BSx2 then ITx6, and then restart after spending as much RP as I can, while weaving FS for KM procs. So I usually restart the rotation anywhere from the 21s mark to the 22.5s mark depending on what my RNG for freezing fog and KM is. By that time, the first OB runes will be up, and i can breeze through the rotation again, pretty much filling every single second with a GCD.
For those questioning the ITx6 rotation and saying it feels like you are wasting FS's, you're doing it wrong.
The rotation isn't a <RUNE DUMP> <RP DUMP> rotation. I usually do a priority rotation, something along the lines of (at least for the 6x IT part)
IT IT FS IT IT FS IT FS IT FS FS or something like that. I don't think going slightly past the 10 second mark is a DPS decrease, in fact it seems like an increase, as you would otherwise have to wait a second for the runes to refresh for an OB since you weaved FS into your rotation. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but i don't chain rotations in this one, like you do for Blood or Unholy. I do the OBx2 BSx2 then ITx6, and then restart after spending as much RP as I can, while weaving FS for KM procs. So I usually restart the rotation anywhere from the 21s mark to the 22.5s mark depending on what my RNG for freezing fog and KM is. By that time, the first OB runes will be up, and i can breeze through the rotation again, pretty much filling every single second with a GCD.
If you're not using each rune as it becomes available, or ever capping RP while in unholy presence, you are doing something *very* wrong. If your 'rotation' restarts more than 20 seconds after it started last, you are losing dps from poor resource usage.
@Rope
I believe that in the Weapon Speed thread, the Jawbone proved to be greater than Death's Bite, by like a small dps amount, but enough to make Jawbone the 2nd best Frost 2h weapon behind BoH. In theory, there's an AP threshold where due to the Jawbone simply being slower, it's better, but that's a relatively absurd amount (been a while since i read the thread).
Just putting out my own rotation, which is kind of different from most of the other ones but probably just because i'm lazy and don't like to use a lot of buttons.
START IT, OB, BS, BS, (UA MACRO) DUMP (yes, i realize i don't use an unholy rune in this section, but i don't wan tot put PS on my hotbar)
REPEAT OB, OB, FS, IT, BS, DUMP
Been doing this, since it's kind of rare that i get more than 1 weapon swing to proc KM in 2 GCDs.
Oh, and if you're in a raid with multiple DK's, i've had hilarious success with just doing D&D, Pest, HB (then smash HB and Pest).
The 'trick', which really isn't much of one, is getting the Icy Touch onto a Death Rune. Yes, you have to intentionally screw up the rotation twice (the initial setup, if you dont use a death rune, and then a single rotation to force the IT onto the one death rune). This only works if you can then immediately use the Blood Rune as a Blood Strike (hence why you had to screw up your rotation initially) but I never have an issue maintaining a smooth rotation after I get those two runes set up.
The only catch is that it is absolutely imperative that you use the Blood Rune to Blood Strike whenever it comes up--if you do not, FOR ANY REASON, everything comes falling apart.
Ok, it's not THAT bad but it definitely becomes more unstable the more non-Blood/Death runes you have in the IT/BS portion.
Well you could do it like this:
Ob > Ob > Blood Tap > IT > BS
Ob > Ob > BS > IT
You'd only be screwing up the 2 obliterates in the initial cycle.
There is a big warning for this rotation though, as you already mentioned.
The IT>BS part has to be executed perfectly... If for any reason you're too late on the IT and it uses a Frost rune instead of the dead rune (because the obliterate glyphs come back up), you've pretty much killed your own rotation.
Thats why i kinda suggest you try to fit most RP dumps between IT>BS and the 2x Ob to buy yourself those seconds you need to deal with the Blood and Death rune.
You'd only be screwing up the 2 obliterates in the initial cycle.
There is a big warning for this rotation though, as you already mentioned.
The IT>BS part has to be executed perfectly... If for any reason you're too late on the IT and it uses a Frost rune instead of the dead rune (because the obliterate glyphs come back up), you've pretty much killed your own rotation.
Thats why i kinda suggest you try to fit most RP dumps between IT>BS and the 2x Ob to buy yourself those seconds you need to deal with the Blood and Death rune.
That's pretty much the rotation I currently use:
Oblit-FS-Oblit-FS-IT-BS-FS Dump/Rime Procs
Since I do not use a GCD between the IT and BS they come from cooldown within 1.5 seconds after each other. Usually I can easily maintain this rotation and use the Death Rune for IT only.
The UA-Macro however causes some issues sometimes. I use it before IT-BS since at this time only a blood and the death rune are active. From time to time the macro doesn't bring back the blood rune as death rune within the GCD but the rune stays on cooldown (so I loose a blood strike in this situation). Have not been able yet to figure out why this happens frequently.
Hey guys, I'm a bit new to frost, been blood for a long time... haven't been able to find much of it searching through this thread, so I figured I'd ask.
Has anyone been messing around with 0/44/27 very much? I just switched over to it to test it out and was fairly surprised with the numbers I was putting out, before I was even to grab the IT sigil ( allies gaining control of VB seems to be fairly rare on my server.. )
anyways, I just had one quick question about the spec, from the only post I've actually seen about it, why /cancelaura on rime procs? I've been finding ( although I'm still getting the rotation down, it feels rather clunky in general ), that using freezing fog has upped my DPS a lot, just curious as to the logic behind canceling FF...
anyways, I just had one quick question about the spec, from the only post I've actually seen about it, why /cancelaura on rime procs? I've been finding ( although I'm still getting the rotation down, it feels rather clunky in general ), that using freezing fog has upped my DPS a lot, just curious as to the logic behind canceling FF...
Freezing aura HB casts hardly give any RP. (0 + talented RP). This may cause fewer FS casts and it can also screw up your rotation (I personnaly still pref a priority system, but hey..)
The UA-Macro however causes some issues sometimes. I use it before IT-BS since at this time only a blood and the death rune are active. From time to time the macro doesn't bring back the blood rune as death rune within the GCD but the rune stays on cooldown (so I loose a blood strike in this situation). Have not been able yet to figure out why this happens frequently.
I find the ITx6 rotation very easy to play, considering my DK has been level 80 for a total of 5-6 days /played. On the same realm as my Shaman: EU Dragonblight (DK's name is Deathbloom, if you wish to reference the gear). Anyway, I have the IT sigil and using this rotation: I use the OB, FS and IT Glyphs.
BS BS OB OB FS FS
IT IT IT IT IT IT FS FS FS FS - Restart
In Unholy Aura, on the 'boss level' test dummy I'm pulling if not the same DPS as I achieve when in Blood Aura, and I'm quite perplexed as to why this is the case: both rotations can be maintained in either presence so why is Blood not pulling away from Unholy with the increased damage gains? It may be that Unholy Aura allows faster usage of the resources available, but this would only be a minor convenience in my honest opinion.
Oh, to add weight: my numbers are (in my gear, 3.2k~ AP 30% crit 12-1700 weap damage):
Blood Aura: 2350~ DPS
Unholy Aura: 2400~ DPS
This was self buffed with horns for 10 minutes of testing. I'd still like an answer, if possible, as to why Unholy Aura benefits DPS more so than Blood can. Also would like an answer if in my current gear (Deathbloom, EU Dragonblight) is the DPS I'm pulling (self buffed, without Ghoul or AotD) is 'good.'
why is Blood not pulling away from Unholy with the increased damage gains?
Because you don't spend resources fast enough. When you add IT glyph and 4xT7 it will be even harder to fit all those FS. UP have also bigger error margin which makes difference in real fight. Overall 6xIT is quite impossible in BP, OB rotation may be but again much would depend on skill, lag etc.
I've hit up the dummies to try out some 2h dps rotations and provide my numbers & opinions on them.
Yes - before anyone starts, I know physical vs spells on a dummy isn't a fair comparison. My suspisions are that the IT BS OB OB rotation when paired with the Sigil of Awareness may begin to outscale all the others. Pity, I really dislike that one.
IT BS OB OB -> IT BS OB OB
Blood pres: 2800.
Unholy pres: 2900.
After being in unholy pres for so long, blood felt like a very boring slug, which was on it's deathbed. Boring! Slow! I am not a fan of this rotation even after being able to pull it off. It's dull, doesn't generate enough RP, and generally doesn't feel as good as the others. One thing to note though is that Obliterate scales very well, so expect to see this rotation performing well for some people.
BS BS OB OB -> IT IT IT IT IT IT
Unholy pres: 3000.
I didn't like this one. There was far too much of a 'low dps, high dps' rotation switch feeling. I had way too much runic power coming in all at once which lead to wasted frost strikes, and if Rime procced I had to save it for after the Obliterates, which lead to even more wasted Frost Strikes. Not even Unholy presence is quick enough for this one in my opinion.
IT PS BS BS OB -> IT PS IT IT IT IT
Unholy pres: 2850.
The lower dps than the 6xIT rotation is expected. Not only do we have the same amount of IT casts - we now have 2 plague strikes instead of an obliterate. Less damage and more globals required.
IT PS BS BS OB -> IT PS IT IT OB
Unholy pres: 3050.
This was my favorite to use. Frost strike RP was consumed nicely and there was room for Rime procs. The difference we have here between the 6xIT and this rotation is swapping 2 PS for 2 IT. The raw damage we lose may well be bad, but the RP generation is more spread out - causing less wasted Runic Power and an easier time with Rime procs.
As a side note, Jan, I believe in post #779 you asked the exact same question you just slammed me for.
@Ruiz
If you do your UA macro before the IT BS part of your rotation, you'll activate your death rune then use it for UA, then your OTHER death rune will refresh as normal and you can only do IT or BS, not both.
On a fun side note,
With the OB OB IT BS (UA macro) rotation, blood tap makes that 2nd death rune stay a death rune for the full duration of blood tap, which is like 30 seconds or something. This has made me rotate between OB OB FS IT BS and OB OB FS IT IT, because the one death rune is locked into place. It's a nice little dps increase and RP increase.
But as a rule, i like to do my UA macro after my first rotation and it has proven to be a nice little dps increase to me.
I've been in a standard 21/50 (rune tap) build since 3.0.8 came out, and I've been having troubles dumping all my strikes and RP in blood presence. My normal rotation is IT/PS/OB/BS/BS/FS(dump), and then I use a priority system that values IT over obliterates with death runes, unless I'll have an orphan unholy rune, but keeping blood plague up with plague strikes. I also use howling blast over obliterate when KM is procced, but let most of my KM procs go to FS and IT. I use the free HB from rime as well, and will let it sit until a KM procs if I can do other things in the rotation first (FS, BS, etc) that wouldn't cause a rime overwrite.
So, it's a relatively complex priority system, but I've been going nuts in DPS. I've gone from pretty low on the 25-man raid DPS meters, to top-4 most of the time.
What I'm surprised about is that I've been doing about 200 better DPS in sustained boss fights while in blood presence, over unholy. I had thought that the extra wiggle room from the 1.0 GCD would really help, but it doesn't seem to do that. The problem, though, is that I tend to cap on RP. Even starting at 0 RP with a 130 RP bar, I still cap eventually.
Given that I'm capping in BP, and still doing more DPS than I was doing with the same gear and rotation in UP, I'm pretty sure I'm not really taking advantage of the frost strike glyph. While I'm happy with my place in the raid right now, I could probably squeeze more DPS out of my current gearing. I think I've got two options:
1) L2P noob. I could be screwing stuff up, especially in the rotations. I haven't been able to do the no-plague-strike rotation with much success, but that's because (I think) I have a 186DPS weapon and don't have the sigil of awareness.
2) Reglyph. If I'm not using the 8 extra RP in the fights, I might as well get a different glyph.
3) Regear. I am nowhere near the expertise cap, and I'm pretty sure I can feel it. I get a largish number of dodges of my regular strikes, and a fair amount of spell misses as well. Just a few of those really throws my rotation off.
I've been in a standard 21/50 (rune tap) build since 3.0.8 came out, and I've been having troubles dumping all my strikes and RP in blood presence. My normal rotation is IT/PS/OB/BS/BS/FS(dump), and then I use a priority system that values IT over obliterates with death runes, unless I'll have an orphan unholy rune, but keeping blood plague up with plague strikes. I also use howling blast over obliterate when KM is procced, but let most of my KM procs go to FS and IT. I use the free HB from rime as well, and will let it sit until a KM procs if I can do other things in the rotation first (FS, BS, etc) that wouldn't cause a rime overwrite.
So, it's a relatively complex priority system, but I've been going nuts in DPS. I've gone from pretty low on the 25-man raid DPS meters, to top-4 most of the time.
What I'm surprised about is that I've been doing about 200 better DPS in sustained boss fights while in blood presence, over unholy. I had thought that the extra wiggle room from the 1.0 GCD would really help, but it doesn't seem to do that. The problem, though, is that I tend to cap on RP. Even starting at 0 RP with a 130 RP bar, I still cap eventually.
Given that I'm capping in BP, and still doing more DPS than I was doing with the same gear and rotation in UP, I'm pretty sure I'm not really taking advantage of the frost strike glyph. While I'm happy with my place in the raid right now, I could probably squeeze more DPS out of my current gearing. I think I've got two options:
1) L2P noob. I could be screwing stuff up, especially in the rotations. I haven't been able to do the no-plague-strike rotation with much success, but that's because (I think) I have a 186DPS weapon and don't have the sigil of awareness.
2) Reglyph. If I'm not using the 8 extra RP in the fights, I might as well get a different glyph.
3) Regear. I am nowhere near the expertise cap, and I'm pretty sure I can feel it. I get a largish number of dodges of my regular strikes, and a fair amount of spell misses as well. Just a few of those really throws my rotation off.
Suggestions? Advice?
A suggestion - You should definitely use the following rotation in stead of your current: Blood Tap > Icy Touch > Obliterate > Obliterate > Blood Strike > Frost Strike dump. And then continue the rotation but obviously without Blood Tap. Try to use Frost Strike whenever Killing Machine pops up, and use Howling Blast only when Freezing Fog procs.
Use the PS-less rotation and stick a FS after the first 2 moves. So, IT BS <FS> OB OB <Dump>. Personally, i use OB OB <FS> IT BS <UA/macro & Dump>. I always dump all my RP at the end, but it rarely gets near full with the 1 FS i stick in the middle of my rotation. I also never mind "delaying" my rotation for FS, because it has a greater AVG DPS than my full rotation. Also, but sticking a FS in the middle of your rotation, you take better advantage of KM procs. My FS usually ends up with >50% crit.
01/26/09, 12:28 PM
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