Melizande

In fact, I have watched the blood rune go on cooldown as I BS, and not change into a Death Rune. Unless I'm missing something.

NOTE: Blood rune is activated and does not turn into a Death Rune. The fact that it was a Blood Rune prior to tapping means it couldn't have been used for an OB.

 

bearformlol

What is your rotation for the 6xIT? I mean I imagine you start with BT-IT-OB-OB-BS-dump, then go into the ITx6 but after that what are you guys running?

 

VonHellsing

Having tested the 0/44/27 build out for the past couple weeks I can say this, it works well regardless of what weapon and even to a lesser extent what gear you have. I am still using a Titansteel Destroyer and I can break 3500 DPS with this spec in 10 man Naxx. The draw backs that I see are it won't scale well. You would need a large increase in attack power to make a really noticeable difference. From the parses I ran the ghoul did roughly 390 dps when it could stay alive and the gargoyle was pushing 600. This does help boost the dps of this spec in the short term, but on fights with heavy AoE damage the ghoul doesn't last and you've left yourself in a 400dps hole.

I recently switched to 21/50/0 and though my DPS has increased only very slightly it basically stays the same since I no longer have to worry about if my ghoul will stay alive. The 21/50/0 spec takes better gear to be effective but it will also scale better in the long run. Especially with weapon upgrades.

 

Melizande

I'm following this rotation: http://elitistjerks.com/1096974-post1144.html

But again, see the last page for the problems I've encountered with it. I'm still waiting for some feedback on those.

 

Goetterdaemmerung

Responses:

1) Maybe the rotation is more complicated (than IT OB BS OB); the obvious solution is to practice until it consumes less of your attention, with more to spend on watching for fissures. If it is more complex, it would certainly not be a flaw -- in fact, it might be the reason I favor it over blood presence rotations: it's more engaging.

2) I have never once noticed an issue with BotN. I have only seen a D prematurely switch to a B without being consumed when a Blood Tap buff expires.

3) My single target rotation (which you linked) is of course not useful for trash. I use some combination of DnD, IT, Pestilence, HB, BB.

4) On Sapphiron I switch to Blood Presence, equip SoA, and approximate a IT OB BS OB rotation (sapphiron has ~25% frost mitigation).

Uh, they don't. 21/50 are the numbers you will see for 2 hand frost. Maybe you're in the wrong place.

 

Melizande

Thanks for the responses. I'm starting to feel it out. I like the 20/51 build I have at the moment because it allows me to do both.

When I'm in Unholy Presence, I can use the 6xIT build, and then can switch to Blood Presence, swap out SoA, and do the adjusted strike rotation that alternates IT-OB-OB-BS with IT-OB-OB-IT, thanks to the extra death runes.

I may actually start using the Strike rotation in Blood Presence against the Necromancers, Noth, Sapphiron, and switch over to the 6xIT rotation for "Heavy" bosses like Rasuvious and Patchwerk. I haven't decided yet which rotation will prevail against bosses like Thaddius or Kel'Thuzad yet.

I will say this, though. I've started yielding higher strike-rotation (Blood Presence) numbers using Razorice over Fallen Crusader. Go figure.

 

Khaosknight

I personally use the

Horn of winter right before
BS OB BS OB

ITx6 in a row

rotation. It's somewhat harder then the 'conventional' rotation, in that you have to really wactch killing machine *I suggest the mod need to know, it's great stuff* aside from that you are golden, plus this rotation (with 4 piece t7) generates 10 + 25x2 +10x2 + 25x6 = 260 RP in 20 seconds, which is 8 frost strikes (at least in the first rotation, every rotation afterwords generally seems to do 7 then 8 then 7 then 8 etc etc. or something closeish to that. But it's definitely a sweet rotation to use. with 18 - 19 GCD's, you pretty much need perfect latency to pull it off, but it's very worth it.

 

krapniknil

For 21/50 frost I find ITx6 and OBx4 to put out similar numbers but it depends on the raid make up to determine which one to use. If your raid has curse of elements and ebon plaguebringer then ITx6 will probably perform better. If you dont have CoE and EPB then OBx4 will probably perform better especially if one of your dps warriors is throwing on sunder armor.

I bet once the gear levels increase one raid instance, blood presence + OBx4 will be the highest dps option because OB has a high critrate and doesnt consume KM, and because FS is used at the end of the rotation you can use FS+IT quickly at the end of the rotation to help prevent your IT from consuming KM. This way almost every KM proc will be eaten by a FS. You can also throw in a FS mid rotation if you see a KM proc because sometimes KM procs twice in a row.

The rotation would be the standard OB > OB > BS > IT > Dump. However in blood presence you can more easily keep an eye out for KM procs with the longer GCD to throw in a FS when you see KM to eat up as much KM's as possible.

 

Melizande

I am not familiar with this rotation XD

Right now I use a 20/51/0 build and when I use my strike rotation, I open with Blood tap, followed by:

IT-OB-OB-BS-FS(spam) then
IT-OB-OB-IT-FS(spam) and repeat that.

 

◊ foolish_fool

How do you manage to have the runes for the 3rd IT? Normally the rotation has a BS there, which gives you the death rune you need to continue.

Shaman | Priest | Warrior

 

Khaosknight

He's saying that rather then doing the traditional rotation, he substitutes a IT for a BS every other rotation, and then consequentially starts his whole rotation over.

However I'm not sure if that's entirely feasible in the long run.

 

Melizande

It was actually quite easy once I switched to 20/51.

I probably can describe it easily, but I can try. Having both Blood of the North and Death Rune Mastery means that every one of my runes is turning into Death Runes as I fight.

My first rotation, after Blood Tap, that sole blood rune is the last to be used, and gets tapped with a Blood Strike.
The second rotation, I've noticed consistently that the LAST rune up is instead one of my death runes, so instead I sub IT for BS.

No setbacks, no delays. Every other rotation I can use IT instead of BS. O.o

 

EwokChilli

While Blood Tap is up, you'll have one blood rune stay a death rune, so you can pull off the extra IT while BT is up. When it isn't up though, it'll work like the normal rotation.

 

Melizande

Could it be a bug with either Blood Tap or Death Rune Mastery? I practiced it this morning, and was able to sustain the rotation without error for well over a minute — long enough to refresh Blood Taps cooldown multiple times without needing to re-activate it. I could IT in place of my BS every other rotation for five minutes until I got bored and quit.

Do I not understand the way Blood Tap works? I can record and post a video if necessary.

 

EwokChilli

BT will sometimes bug out a Death Rune (if you already have a death rune) and make it stay permanent until the end of the encounter.

 

Kisho

I don't mean to derail the thread in any way; however, we finally saw a Betrayer drop last night. I've been wanting to try frost for some time, and I feel I now have the gear to support a strike-heavy frost rotation. It seems that there are several different rotations that people are having some success with. I was wondering what your feelings were on them and if there is a "superior" frost rotation that I could begin to test with. Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Taizu

The most widely accepted strike-heavy frost rotation is
IT - BS - (BT) - Oblit - Oblit (Use Blood tap to convert the second blood rune to death)
IT - BS - Ob - Ob

With rune dumps mixed in.

Spend some time reading the thread, I know it's hundreds of them but it gets old to see the same questions popping out.

 

Khaosknight

It's actually
(Blood Tap)
IT OB BS OB repeat. If you do two Ob's in a row you run the risk of causing rune clipping with the refreshes. It's nothing major, but IT OB BS OB Is a cleaner rotation.

 

Melizande

This is getting really frustrating because I don't know what's going wrong. It is still happening, and constantly. When I get a chance I'll record it and post a video. I will click Blood Strike, watch it trigger a blood rune, and the blood rune won't convert. This happens, all the time, and I am 5/5.

I'm surprised no one else is experiencing this using 6xIT.

EDIT: I will say that I am definitely netting higher DPS using the 6xIT rotation, so Imta thanks for the suggestion. It can just be a headache constantly having to correct rotation errors given the current circumstances.

 

awakened

Been running Frost DPS since the day I rolled a DK. Can't say that it's the top DPS and it certainly doesn't require awesome gear to put out decent numbers. Right now, your runic dumps are doing more DPS than your primary strike (OB). Yes, OB hits for more and has a higher crit rate, but you get far more FS's in your rotation and on average, they typically outpace your OB's by a good 10% overall damage. Sad, but true. I cry sometimes when I see someone spamming nothing but IT and HB getting crits greater than an OB when they already get double the melee hits as me because they are DW. This game totally favors DW right now.

 

Komanc

I'm sorry, but I really think that posts like this don't add any value and are actually very misleading:

1. You actually need a very good gear to do reasonable DPS as Frost. But at the top-end of gear, you start to outdamage DW significantly. However you can get away with lvl200 gear as DW and still do reasonable damage. You can't do that as frost. The biggest advantage of Frost over DW/Unholy is the fact that you have most suistanable damage - you don't rely on any pets and cooldowns. When you'll fight Sart+3d you'll see what I'm speaking about. Pwerk fight is actually very bad for Frost as our DPS is less spiky and can't really take advantage of short kill time. Still I manage to do around 6k DPS over 3 min kills. There should be post in top raid DPS soon with link.

2. FS does the most % of your dmg, that's right, but what's wrong about it? It's only reason why "IT6" rotations in UP are viable and actually gives you more flexibility in choosing what's good for you. Either standard rotation in BP or IT6 in UP. That's what I like and I actually use different rotations/styles for each encounter.

3. Meelee dmg difference is not that much coming from the fact that they DW (difference is about 20% to 28% in total dmg output), but in talents they have - BCB + Necrosis which adds another 10% - 12%. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

4. Playing for long time for both DW and Frost I can easily say that Frost is much more skill intensive (and more rewarding on that end) spec than DW. This is my personal view. And I do enjoy Frost very much and I'm happy that they made it viable in comparison to DW, which wasn't true pre-patch...

 

Ihmemies

Did someone mention Sarth 3D? We did it last tuesday on first pull, I was 21/50 frost (same gear as now):

Wow Web Stats

 

Goetterdaemmerung

I agree with some of this, but it too is misleading. The numbers demonstrate DW's dominance: it holds 19 out of every 20 frost-spec'd spots on the leaderboards.

Statistically, the bolded statement will be false (for the general "you") -- but it's my opinion that 2h frost, and especially 6xIT, (1) scales with player skill more or as much as any other, and (2) is the more resilient rotation and will pull ahead in hard ulduar progression, where fights are ostensibly not reducible to <3 minute, 98% dps presence, cooldown blow-fests.

 

bluerage

I'll also point out that in the upcoming 3.1 patch DW builds will be losing Gargoyle which will lower their dps by even more. I think that we'll find 2H frost builds to outdamage DW in Ulduar as well.

 

Komanc

You're right... it's not true... I should have read it more properly before I posted - Frost doesn't outdamage DW significantly with good gear, it does starts to outdamage it slightly and it seems so far that it will outdamage it significantly in future progression. That's my view, that's not a fact. Also since there will be big changes to DK talents, it'll anyway be different...