If we are forced into IT spam or IT/PS spam rotations I'm going to be a very sad panda. I really hope the queue time shortens on PTR so I can get on their to do some testing.

So, since we're pretty much pigeon holed into taking RPM; the frost strike glyph really isn't need then. Is this a correct assumption? This would also seem to devalue the IT glyph as well.

Posted in wrong forum.

Just as in Beta, Blizzard will nerf IT (and now PS too) damage until non-spam rotations will be preferable to spamming two abilities constantly. Heck, even 3.0.8's 6IT rotation used Obliterate and BS twice each--Icy Touch just generates stupid amounts of RP per rune, and does more damage than old BS, so it became quite viable as long as you had the GCDs to burn.

Also, you never *have to* take RPM; there's this lovely talent called "Toughness" next to it which increases your AP scaling from Bladed Armor. If you ever, EVER reach 100 RP in this new and wonderful land of 15-21 second diseases in 3.1, you should seriously reconsider playing a Frost Death Knight because it is rather obviously not for you.

In fact, let me clarify that statement further: Non-PvP Frost Specs that take RPM are TERRIBLE as it is a 0 DPS/TPS/Survivability increase.

If you look at my current spec it is quite apparent that I am on the same page as you on this topic. 2/5 toughness just seems...meh... I was just saying that getting RPM would allow us to glyph for something other than froststrike, but anywho.

Looking at the talent calculator, howling blast has no rune or runic power cost. Is this intended? Can anyone on PTR confirm? I guess if this is so, rime needs to be re-looked at.

it still cost 1 unholy, 1 frost

This is true only for Patchwerk like bosses, as it comes to movement based encounters every bit of rp that you can save while you can not spent it immediately is an increase in dps.
It might not be a lot but 2 points in toughness result in how much extra ap? ~20? Thats not a lot either...

Haste is multiplicative

1.5 / (1 + (1.1067 * 1.08)/100) = 1.5 / 1.1953 = 1.255 GCD
That's a pretty bold generalization that you clearly feel strongly about. In a vacuum, without misses, in the land of perfect, unwaveringly ideal rotations, you're probably right.

As long as you do dps and not just running around you should never have more then ~60 rp because the most efficient way to make use of killing machine is to spread the FSs over your whole rotation instead of "duming" them at the end, this is a major difference to all other speccs.

Spending RP is secondary to preventing runes from idling for more than 2 seconds (misses, movement, a dozen other factors) -- which is a real, unrecoverable DPS loss -- unless doing so would over-cap your RP; hence RPM.

So geotte, are you an advocate of 2/2 RPM post 3.1? And if so, would you still find the FS glyph to be as viable a it is now?

I dont agree with that. As long as FS does more damage then your average DPS its more importent to spent the RP and use the KM proccs then keep your runes on cd.
As 2H deep frost this is most certainly the case and even more in 3.1 with 15% more FS dmg.

This is probably something a lot of people are murky on, so let's use an example.

Let's say I have 70 RP. A F/U is about to cool down (in <1 GCD). All of my other runes are >3 GCDs away from CD.

Approach 1: FS is my hardest hitting ability, so I spend my 70 RP on 2 FSs. This takes two GCDs, in which time the F/U pair cooled down and idled for >2 seconds. I hit obliterate with my F/U. Now I'm at 36 RP, so I FS again. (other runes begin coming off cooldown, and I continue...)

I've just permanently lost rune cooldown time -- those two F/Us are now irrecoverably "pushed back" in time because I didn't use them within 2 seconds of them cooling down.

Approach 2: I hit FS once, F/U cools down, I hit obliterate. Now I have 68 RP, so I hit FS twice more. (other runes begin coming off cooldown, and I continue...).

Both approaches achieve 3 FSs and one obliterate, in the same amount of time. Approach 1 pushes back the cooldown on F/U, which is an un-recoverable DPS loss. The point is: RP doesn't "grow stale" as it sits in your RP bar. It can stay there as long as it likes -- you can convert it into DPS by casting FS whenever you want -- as long as you don't overflow your RP. Runes grow stale, which lowers your DPS.

I don't understand your logic here. RP is a resource that you can keep until you use, runes are also a resource that you can keep until you use. If you wait 10 seconds to use a blood rune that's up then it isn't a dps loss as long as you can fill every GCD with a move that's more damaging than Blood Strike. If not using a rune results in downtime in your rotation where you don't have anything to do during a GCD then it would be a dps loss, but as long as you don't stop using skills then I would expect that using the most damaging skill that's available at a given GCD should result in the highest possible dps. In my experience it's very rare that I have a GCD without something to use during it.


I agree with you that the "Runic Power Mastery is a waste of points" argument is incredibly narrow minded though. What about fights like Heigan where you have long periods of time that you can only do ranged moves? What about fights like Saphiron or Malygos where you can put up AMS to generate ludicrous amounts of RP? RPM is going to remain a very valuable talent on non-Patchwerk style fights (most fights), and definitely more valuable than a measly 20 AP.

Spending RP as a Frost DK cannot be done in a haphazard manner because of how KM works--you will always want a gap between high-value KM-eating skills and the preceeding KM-eating skill to attempt to wait for an auto attack (and get a KM proc). This is why IT BS FS OB FS OB FS does more damage than IT BS OB OB 3FS--there are more auto-swings between FSes, increasing the chance of the buff being up when you hit FS (the IT we don't care about as it does about half of what FS does).

Simply because of that, option one is not a preferable option under any circumstances. In fact, you kinda *want* to have single GCD sized gaps between your strike rune CDs to slip FSes into; admittedly, you want to avoid bumping into the end of the grace period but, aside from that, abusing rune CDs is perfectly fine. Even better, if you cycle correctly, you'll not only do more damage but never cap out RP, negating the need for RPM. While I'll admit that I'm leaning toward epidemic as being the way of the future (21s diseases meshes very well with 10s rune CDs), I don't think that RPM is worth any real amount in PvE; besides, if you're capped, you can always fire off a DC or two while getting into range; it may be a slight loss but it's certainly not much worse than dropping from New Oblit to New HB due to range *shrug*.

TL/DR: RPM may add flexibility but a proper cycle has not, nor will need, such flexibility (and planning to need it is not feasible, just as planning on being able to abuse a stuck death rune is not feasible because it doesn't happen 100% of the time).

-----

@Veala: I tend to see my RP jump by 50-75 points each tick of Malygos' spinny thing o'doom so spending much of that on DCs to prevent from capping isn't too hard unless you forget to clear your bar while he flies to position *shrug*. I also can't come up with a good fight example where you can build RP over a period of time and be unable to use it. Heigan can be DCed while fast dancing, you're often killing adds in most of the other non-boss-dps phases in Naxx so you'll use RP then, etc.

This is a (maybe common?) misconception. While you *might* be able to invent circumstances in which you can fill 10 seconds worth of GCD with abilities more damaging than BS (although I'm not sure that I could), when you do hit BS, you're turning that blood rune into a death rune, which you would turn into (let's say) an obliterate which is (let's say) a high priority attack. That blood rune is valuable not only for its blood strike (and the RP that generates) but also the obliterate, or the IT, or whatever you do with the eventual death rune (and the RP that generates).

Specifically on the bolded quote: rune's are *not* a resource you can keep until you use. The longer you wait to use a rune (past 2 seconds!), the further into the future you must wait before you can use that rune again. Initially, I didn't consider runes a resource at all -- I considered a rune's cooldown mechanic its resource, and once this made sense to me, it helped me think about DK resources much more efficiently.

Put another way, you can think of runes as a renewable energy source. Like solar panels hooked up to a big battery. Once that battery is fully charged, you are wasting the energy output of the panels. The sun continues to shine, the photovoltaic cells *could* be generating current, but they won't, because you first need to empty that battery a little, to give that current somewhere to go.

Now think of our rune resource system as six solar panels, each attached independently to its own battery. As DKs, to avoid wasting energy (which gets converted directly into DPS ), we have to prevent any of the six batteries (runes) from becoming fully charged (idling for >2 seconds), or else the sunlight hitting the solar panel (*), with nowhere to go, is wasted.


(*) after writing out this metaphor, I think this is why I consider a rune's cooldown mechanic its resource. It fits the role of "sunlight".

I agree with your points about KM. Sorry, but I still think RPM is valuable in keeping a rotation (aka, a priority system with ideals ) flexible.
If you're really serious about KM procs (which I am!), get a swing meter, and make sure to place your frost strikes, or your howling blasts, 0.2-0.4 seconds (the KM proc 'delay') after your swings connect. And do this without wasting rune cooldowns or RP.

edit: I read your post again, and I suspect you and I have the same understanding of the mechanics, but a different approach; you go by rotations, and I go by priority systems (and convert every rotation into one). RPM is useless for a well-designed rotation, and is never useless to a priority system (outside a miss-less vacuum).

You need to explain more precisely what you see as backwards in my logic. Let's say I have 70 RP and 2F and 2U cooled down, past or about to be past the 2 second leniency. If I don't have RPM, I can't oblit twice (I have to OB - FS - OB ), so the second F/U pair sits idle longer (which as I explained in my posts immediately above, is a DPS loss). If I have RPM, I can oblit twice (OB - OB - FS) without capping.

"But with <rotation X>, you never have 2F and 2U cooled!": rotations can be designed for resilience and flexibility, but misses, movement, casting HoW/AotD/RD, a handful of other things, will still distort your rotation and make the situation I described a possibility -- and because of the way runes have a memory, once it happens, it might recur every 10 or 20 seconds.

If you are using a priority rotation, when would you ever have 70 RP and 2 unholy and frost runes cooled down? That would mean you basically only used 1 FS and 2 blood strikes in the last 10 seconds and no other attacks.....My point of a priority rotation is that you are prioritizing FS very high, so you should be using it every time it's available. Your OB/HB (whichever you prefer based on your spec/playstyle) would be prioritized first, FS second and IT 3rd unless you need to refresh your FF, and should be weaving FS regardless to make better use of the Killing Machine proc in almost any spec/rotation. So I just do not understand when or where you would be capping runic power if you are playing your spec/rotation/priority correctly. Sure in extreme situations maybe you needed to IT due to range and HB or whatever and you magically capped, but that's rare.

I think his point is more "you probably will never have FFUU *and* 70 RP if you're dumping your RP properly"; I can totally see some interesting circumstance arising that allows for FFUU coming up within 2-4 seconds of eachother with 30-50 RP in the tank, but never 50+ RP with FFUU coming up back-to-back simply because the last time you used one FU pair, you should've hit FS after it, creating a gap to continue to do so in the future (66%+ of the time, anyway)!

If you've never been in a situation when you've had runes off cooldown for >2 seconds, and you've never gone over 100 RP (especially: to avoid allowing a rune to be off cooldown for >2 seconds), then I congratulate you on your consistently spectacular performance, and I can't possibly expect to convince you of the value of RPM. There's nothing to debate.

You need to have <40 RP to OB back to back without capping. At this point I can't expect to sway the opinion of someone who hasn't shared some of my observations in combat: e.g., misses cause runes to clump together, causing situations like FFUU, or FFU (IT OB, which generates almost as much RP!). Inserting an FS between a clumped FFUU will not fix it for the next rotation (2 second leniency rule will "absorb" your attempted correction).

Obviously, as I mentioned before, there are situations where you could clip some runic power due to misses or improper rotation or whatever. But assuming you're correctly gearing and using a proper rotation/priority system efficiently, those moments should be few and far between. And along those lines, even if you do cap and clip 10-20 runic power due to these circumstances, because you should be going back to your FS weaving rotation/priority, you won't be using that runic power fast enough for it to matter in the first place so it is not truly *wasted* in the sense you think it is.

So if the argument is should you pick up 2-3 points in RPM vs. nothing, sure I see your logic. But the argument is should you pick up 2-3 points in RPM vs. 2 points in Toughness for a bit more AP, 2 points in Icy Reach or even 1 point in lichborne for some utility, I'd pick the latter and assume I know how to play my class efficiently unless I just feel like using lazy rotations on a particular day because you really shouldn't need it at all.

I'm not trying to convince you, or anyone, to pick up RPM. I'm trying to prevent you, or anyone, from trying to categorically convince *everyone* that RPM is useless. Incidentally, the underlined quote applies only to your rotation (and definitively not, for example, to ITx6).