AlucardVampires

Yes, I agree with you. I run with 0/51/20 on PTR now and its noticably more dps from Tundra Stalker compared to Impurity since Impurity only affects IT in this rotation.

 

windle

Greetings everyone. I have read a lot through this discussion, because as of late I've tried to find my ideal spec. Unless I missed it somewhere, there really is no talk about spreading diseases and then HB for the AoE damage. From what I gather, the rotations are focusing on single target dps? Forgive my stupidness, I'm just trying to figure out what's best for me, thank you.

 

Marinna

Hi all, I just recently joined to post here after being a long, long time lurker. Playing Frost for DPS and tanking in Wrath has been my most enjoyable WoW experience to date, and of overall I've learned the most from this thread and others like it here on EJ so I felt the urge to contribute with the upcoming 3.1 patch.

On live I currently run 21/50/0, running a OB>FS>OB>FS>IT>BS>FS rotation in Blood Presence sustained by my 4pt7, a tight one with the current 12 second disease duration, but I find it's very rewarding (and I find it the easiest rotation to weave in Unbreakable Armor). I currently wield a Jawbone and use Fallen Crusader. Lately I've been pushing near 5k on most meaningful dps check fights including Patchwerk (though we only just recently scored the 3 minute kill due to some slacking on a few people's parts). I am currently without a Sigil of Awareness, but I find the 2x OB rotation more natural so I choose to use that instead of ITx6.

I really like my rotation and have been dreading 3.1 and the new disease scaling, so I decided to do some comparative tests between live and the PTR using a similar spec and identical gear. I use a "standard" 21/50/0 spec on live (as in my armory profile, forgoing DRM because of quirks the death runes cause when not using a ITx6 rotation), and this this spec on the PTR, maintaining the choice talents, but working in Virulance and Howling Blast instead of taking the usual 1/3 VotTW as I felt the aoe utility (though nerfed as it is) and spell hit would be better overall (especially since I don't currently make use of the 2 expertise). My glyphs in both setups are Obliterate, Frost Strike, and Icy Touch. All tests were done on the level 80 nonboss dummies for comparison sake, as on multiple occasions the boss dummy was in execute range, which would have skewed my results, so instead of altering my spec I chose to use these dummies, ignoring the level difference, as I intended to take the tests as comparisons between Live and the PTR, not true dps output tests.

To clarify Blood of the North and its effect on the chosen rotation, I'll note that the talent does indeed work as expected, but not immediately after logging in. Instead, you have to either respec or switch back and forth between your dual talent specs. For some reason initially logging in seems to remove it from your spec (though showing it highlighted) and refund the 5 talent points (essentially giving you 76). This is in addition to other on-log-in quirks with the PTR, including reacquisition of certain titles.

It should be noted that at the time of the tests (not sure how it is now) 4pt7 and Bladed Armor were inactive on the PTR, cutting out my third Frost Strike every few rotations. For my live tests (I have no available screenshot atm though I can run another if needed, it's extremely reproducible) I generally floated between 3150 to 3250 dps on the chosen dummy. All tests were done on roughly a 6 minute timer, which I judged by kickstarting my rotation with Horn of Winter (for the first Frost Strike) and refreshing it in the middle, then ending as it fell off. In no cases did I use my Ghoul, Army of the Dead, or any consumables, in an attempt to keep the tests as closely alike as possible. I began my rotation placing a Blood Strike, firing off Blood Tap, and using Unbreakable Armor and Icy Touch with the two open Death Runes (something you can't do with DRM without messing up your OB runes). This works identically on Live and the PTR from my experience. Every minute into the test I used Blood Tap to place UA in place of a Blood Strike, continuing as normal thereafter.

Overall the results on the PTR sort of astounded me:



In all cases I came close to the same general area as live (as in the above example), and sometimes significantly higher, coming out upwards of 400 dps more on some occasions (generally RNG with procs stacking, I took very delicate care in keeping away from secondary factors like Ebon Plague). Again, this is with ~400 less AP, and missing out on an occasional third Frost Strike.

My own speculation is that this increase comes primarily from Frost Strike, as the new Glacier Rot and Black Ice stack slightly better multiplicatively, with the new Blood of the North on top of that. Overall I saw much much higher Frost Strikes than usual at the cost of very slightly degraded Obliterates. Additionally, the new Unbreakable Armor's 25% Strength increase appeared to be a significant advantage, especially when it stacked with Fallen Crusader (which was fairly often).

To conclude I find that 21/50/0 single-diseases likenesses will still be very alive in 3.1, though a potential problem with scaling may arise later due to the upcoming loss of 4pt7 (though speccing for Howling Blast to fill the open GCDs with Rime sounds plausible) and the smaller weapon-scaling from a single-disease Obliterate. I'd greatly appreciate anyone else's findings on the subject, as through my experiences with my Deathknight I have the most fun with this spec and hope for it to live on.

 

Travaggie

So here are my thoughts so far from the PTR:

1) Even with the changes to diseases, obliterate scaling, etc, Plague Strike is still a DPS loss in every case for Deep Frost, even when using the HB or Pest Glyphs to refresh diseases.

2) Frost Strike is now our hardest hitting ability, which is valuing Runic Power much higher and plays alot into why Plague Strike still has no place in a frost rotation.

Using the 3/52/16 spec and the same basic IT>OB>OB>BS rotation, even with the OB glitch thats cutting out 15 RP per OB, 60 RP per rotation, I'm still pulling in ~3400 dps per 3-5 minute trial on the 80 boss test dummy in ebon hold. That's roughly what I was averaging on live, if not a bit more sometimes peaking in the range of 4k+. Throw in an additional 1-2 frost strikes in place of that runic power I'm missing and I'm seeing a pretty nice damage increase. The rotations including PS or even those involving pestilence to refresh diseases simply don't generate nearly as much runic power as is possible with this rotation which I think is highly underestimated currently.

I'm not sold on this spec however, as it basically forces you to use the glyph of the ghoul, FS and OB since you're speccing for perma ghoul. I'm going to log on and try using the IT glyph and spec 17/51/3 to generate a bit more RP and it should be able to hold down an IT>OB>OB>BS>FSx3 Rotation indefinitely. All in all, I think frost is being overlooked as a dark horse for very high DPS at high level gear and with so much emphasis on unholy and blood and possibly nerfs incoming, I'm feeling pretty good at the moment.

On a side note, I don't feel like increasing plague strikes damage is really fixing anything for any spec. Since runic power value is increasing it seems as of the latest changes, I don't see why they don't just add PS to the IT glyph and make it increase the RP generated from both. This may actually be the tipping point to make it worth using more frequently.

Edit: Seems like the post above mine was posted as I was writing this and came to the same conclusion so it's good to see that I'm not the only one seeing good results.

 

Teme

I agree with this spec too, I use IT, OB, BS, OB rotation and going into impurity is a waste since only IT will really have any significant benefit from it.

Also 6xIT is still very viable for 20/51/0 even with the sigil nerf.

 

Goetterdaemmerung

I am anxious to provide a similar comparison for ITx6; unfortunately, obliterate is not working as intended. I observed immediately upon the PTR going up, and once a day (including a few moments ago) that 4pt7 is actually working fine. Instead, the 15 RP (base) from obliterate is missing (just as it was for the 3.0.8 PTR). Perhaps you've misidentified the problem, or perhaps you and I have different obliterate bugs, but I'm afraid until they fix it, we can't make interesting comparisons involving obliterate rotations.

I agree with your assessment of FS in 3.1, and I suspect that 6xIT will benefit from it more than the normal rotation.

I'm glad to see this caliber of first posting.

 

AlucardVampires

I'm not really using ITx6. I'll post what I posted on DK forums about my spec.

0/51/20 2H frost (Zerofrost)

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9626

Currently on Live, I use 0/44/27 with a similar rotation. I pull 3.5k on heroic dummy (only Horn of winter) and 6.3k on patchwerk 2.55min fight.

ImageShack - Image Hosting :: wowscrnshot022009235511.jpg (Patchwerk)

On PTR, with 0/51/20 and a similar rotation, I pull 3.7-3.8k on the heroic dummy with only horn of winter, 4-4.3k with Ebon plague and 4.6-4.7k with Ebon plague and Aboms might. My guess is it would do more in raid than on live now.

ImageShack - Image Hosting :: wowscrnshot022609091112.jpg (With Ebon Plague)

This spec uses a free rotation. Its really simply trying to produce the more RP as possible by using single runes instead of multiple runes in unholy presence. This means there is no Obliterate and only HB on Rime procs. All your RP will be used to FS by weaving them between your rotation.

There are some key points to make this work,

1. FS and IT glyph
2. Spell hit capped
3. Expertise cap but not as important as Spell hit cap
4. IT sigil
5. HB on Rime procs only


Points that makes this spec shine,

1. FS on KM procs as much as you can
2. Use Blood Tap for extra IT
3. Use unbreakable armor every CD
4. Glyph of Ghoul
5. Practice.. cause its not easy to look out for KM, rime, IT on death runes and your RP.

Downside of this spec,

1. A perm ghoul without NoTD.
2. (I'm still thinking)


I hope those who love 2H frost can find flavour in this spec. I do not view it as the best out there but feel its probably a viable spec in 3.1. I feel it scales better than my previous 0/44/27 on Live as IT sigil got nerfed and yet its capable of better dps on the dummy compared to live. I am open for feedback or any questions about this spec.

I am on PTR pvp realm. You can find me there if you wish to ask more inside

 

Tepesh

I did some quick testing on the PTR yesterday to get an idea how different deep-frost speccs work out on the PTR.

Every test took about 10 min, i guess all the time was someones ebon plague on the bossdummy, no HoW or any other buffs used. 4 T7,5, BoH, OB Sigil used.

21/50/0
OB, IT ans FS glyph
IT PS BS BS OB , FS when ever rdy- rinse and repeat.
Recount ~ 3100 DPS

0/50/21 - with perma ghoul
OB, FS and ghoul glyph
IT PS BS BS OB | OB OB OB , FS when ever rdy - rinse and repeat
Recount ~ 3100 DPS

3/50/18 - with perma ghoul
OB, FS and ghoul glyph
IT PS BS BS OB | OB OB OB , FS when ever rdy - rinse and repeat
Recount ~ 3200 DPS

11/50/10
OB, IT and FS glyph
IT PS BS BS OB | OB OB OB , FS when ever rdy - rinse and repeat
Recount ~3500 DPS

6min test with HoW, 3600 DPS:
PictureUpload (Hosted By PictureUpload.de)


So for me clearly OB heavy rota with epidemic and no perma ghoul worked best at the present PTR, i didnt make any screenshots but ill try to get on the PTR again to redo this to take recount screenshots to show more details on what i have done..

 

Travaggie

To say that clearly a heavy OB rotation with epidemic works best based on that testing is somewhat silly. You only tested a heavy OB rotation, so what did you compare it to? And with that style of rotation, not using epidemic is again just silly since it's a full 20 second rotation and you'll need those diseases up the entire time to get the most out of the last couple OB and FS's.

I do tend to agree with you that not having permaghoul will be better, especially considering it will be dying quite a bit in ulduar from what I hear anyways. I would however do some testing on both a 0/50/21 priority rotation and 17/51/3 IT>OB>OB>BS rotation and see what you come up with. I'd imagine you'll see very similar if not better results from both currently.

 

Odii

Wouldnt 13/51/7 make more sense? Ravenous Dead seems likes a weak talent without Master of Ghouls. I think youd get more mileage out of Dark Conviction and Bladed Armor.

 

Cherchez

Hey guys, I asked in another thread and I've been testing it on the dummies but I just can't get a solid answer. Assuming I'm hit capped, which weapon would be best for the 21/50 build?

[Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver]
[Titansteel Destroyer]
[Sword of Justice]

 

Khaosknight

This is not the place for that question, there is a thread made for those lacking in inteligence up at the top of the forum, it's pretty hard to miss. However, the item to use is [Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver] if you can get it (and are hit capped), I've had it for around 4 months (Shittastic luck on weapon drops) and it works fine for me.

 

Feyda

Which makes me worried about 17/51/3 when we replace our T7 sets and lose 1.25 Frost Strikes every rotation. I really hope the T8 set bonuses make up for that.

One option I haven't seen mentioned is a 0/49/22 build that take Dirge, either in an OB-centric or OB-less rotation.

I was playing around with the following rotation on the PTR with 0/49/22 in Unholy Pres with IT/FS/PS glyphs and IT sigil.

IT PS FS IT PS FS BS BS FS Horn 0.5FS -> IT PS FS IT PS FS IT IT FS FS

7.5 Frost Strikes per rotation and no dependence on T7 set bonuses. Sort of a modified 6xIT.

 

Tepesh

Of course i tested only OB rotations but the fact that OB hits that hard (unbuffed max crits over 8k with 2 diseases) showed me clearly that the alternatives ( IT or PS spamming?) would not be competitive.

@Odii - I don't like Dark Conviction as the critchances on the main attacks are already enormous (KM, Subversion, Rime, 2T7) but you are propably right that 1 point Bladed Armor is more viable then 1 point Ravenous Dead so i would go for 12/50/9 for the next tests.

 

Goetterdaemmerung

Your powers of analysis are amazing, and your logic untouchable. face. palm.

There's a random chance that you are correct -- but if you are, it would have been by utter luck.

it's "competitive"

edit:
Sorry, is there a diminishing returns on crit that I don't know about? Is 1% crit more valuable to an ability that would otherwise have 0% crit, or 50% crit, than to an ability that has 90% crit?

 

Kupoe

3.1 spec.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

0/44/27.

rotation.

PS IT BS BS OB FS

OB OB OB FS FS

Pest BS OB OB FS FS

rinse repeat last 2 steps.

glyphs. Glyph of Disease, Glyph of Frost Strike, Glyph of Obliterate for majors. Sigil of Awareness.

I tried this out with my current gear set, its not the greatest set of gear, as my gear consists of tank blues, with a titansteel 2h. But it looks very promising, anyone with better gear willing to post some numbers as a test for that build? Currently on the PTR its bugged though, the bonuses to runic power do nothing, its either that, or Obliterate is bugged and gives no RP.

 

Tepesh

Why specc into impurity while nothing you use for DPS apart from your disease-ticks do benefit from it? Same goes for Outbreak, 3 Talentpoints for a strike you use once every fight? And Icy Talons does require Icy touch not just Frostfever...

I like the idea with the new "Disease" Glyph but i havent found anyone who can craft it, actually i haven't even found proof that it really has been implemented yet.
But any built that is planed around that glyph should focus on the skills you actually use with that glyph and thats neiter IT nor PS.
Anyhow i am afraid without 4T7 this OB-only rotation will just not produce enough RP for FS, and 4T7 is basically not what i dream of thinking about Ulduar...

 

Waywilder

In a way, yes, and easily illustrated with basic math. Let's say ability deals 100 damage, crits for 200. If you do 100 strikes with 0% crit, you deal 10000 damage, with 1% crit you'll get to 10100 which is 1% increase. Now 100 strikes with 90% crit would deal 19000 damage, and with 91% crit 19100. Increase is still 100 damage, but in percentage the increase is only ~0.53%. Crit damage bonuses would obviously throw numbers around, but point still stands: the more crit you have, the less value the next point will have as well.

Anyhow, did some testing on the boss dummy between rotations and specs, and for my gear (having only one sigil and BoH since launch for our guild just isn't fair) I got the best results with 0/45/26. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Rotation used in Unholy Presence:
PS - IT - PS - IT - BS - BS - FS
PS - IT - PS - IT - IT - IT - FS
Frost Strikes mixed in during KM procs and when I was reaching RP cap. Used macro with Blood Tap+UA when ever it was off cd and runes were on cooldown. With sigil and fixed Obliterate I'd imagine I'd get better results with something around 12/50/7+2, but just have to wait until things get fixed to test it better.

Edit: I'll go and give a shot to 0/51/20 and see how it fares, can't believe I actually missed that one.

 

AlucardVampires

You should try using 0/51/20 with the same rotation but use HB on rime procs in unholy presence. I believe it would net you at least 100 more dps.

 

Kupoe

actually the whole point of going into unholy, was not for impurity, i just got that simply because its better filler than dodge or imp death grip.

the point was to go down and get Dirge.

assuming that dirge and chill of the grave stack, you get 25 RP per oblit without Tier Gear.
3 oblits, 75 RP.

with frost glyph. at 32 runic power per FS. 64 RP. you have 11 RP left over. so every 3rd rotation string you hit FS once more.

thats assuming Glyph of disease makes it live of course.

but how does more RP stack up vs 50/21?

I'm not the math guy to crunch those numbers, but the idea is there. it would be interesting to know, hence why I asked that when the PTRs are bugless enough to test 44/27 Max RP build vs 50/21 expertise damage build.

*edit for clarity*

in my rotation im allowing a .5 second lag time. so 2 seconds per attack? 1.5 GCD + average latency makes it 2? im not sure how badly latency affects this game, other than the fact my connection dies in dalamar sometimes. I remember reading awhile ago that anti latency measures have been put in place to "fix" lagtimes, but so far, my rogues vanish is still broken.

 

Doomers

I used to experiment a lot with DW builds, but the time has come to test some 2h. For start i used 21/50 build and pulled 2,8k on dummy without any buff, even horn, using 6xIT rotation (I'm aware of huge boost that came from Merciless Combat). The biggest surprise was when I've changed FC to Razorice - 3,1 k. Both trials took ~5 minutes.
As 3.1 is going to boost melee special attacks on diseased targets I'm going to test something like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Using such rotation:

0. OB (2 diseases since second iteration)
1,5. OB (2 diseases since second iteration)
3. BS (2 diseases since second iteration)
4,5. BS (2 diseases since second iteration if Blood Plague 15 sec)
6. FS (FF active since second iteration if 15 sec)
7,5. FS (FF active since second iteration if 15 sec)
9. FS
10,5. IT
12. IT
13,5. IT
15. IT
16,5. PS
18. IT
19,5. FS (FF active)
21. FS (FF active)
22,5. FS (FF active)
24. FS (FF active)

Where FF stands for Frost Fever.

1. As FS and IT are spells one need to be spell hit caped; depending on gear, you can put less points in Virulence and put them in Bladed Armor. I'm lost now in PTR versions, but if Frost Fewer duration will be extended to 15 seconds, there will be two skills without buff from Tundra Stalker - 1 FS and 1 IT. I don't believe it would be recomended to stack 14% hit from gear (13% for Alliance) to get 1/3 Veteran of the Third War using currently available gear, maybe with 3.1 gear, maybe.
2. It will scale nicely with weapon dmg.
3. Rotation is so long due to extremely good RP scaling with FS, but it can be tightened by replacing 2xIT with OB, and probably this will cut one FS in second part of the rotation. By this way, after first iteration, all skills will get bonus from Tundra Stalker. If rotation is shortened as described above it would take around 20 sec due to haste.
4. Unbreakable armor + Rune Tap should boost the damage nicely.
5. Diseases will tick for their full damage.
6. FC or Razoice - still needs to be checked, maybe FC + someone else in the raid with Razorice.

IT, OB and FS glyphs, 4T7 pieces are required.

I hope to deliver some valuable PTR test results soon.

 

Feorthas

@Doomers:

Regarding Razorice, I have seen it be a small DPS increase over Fallen Crusader in the very preliminary theory work I've done; however, Fallen Crusader will clearly allow for higher burst if used in conjunction with other %increase abilities.

Regarding builds, at first brush, I like 3/51/7 +10; Howling Blast, Subversion, and Epidemic are all there and you'll get some free + Plague Strike damage as well. Continuing on the same "theorycrafting on the seat of my pants" vein, I think that it will be valuable to go at least 7 deep in Blood, picking up 2H spec, and then probably 3 Bladed Armor, 3%(/5) Crit because the 6 points remaining for Unholy, after grabbing 2H spec, are not enough to get PermaGhoul; however, I can see a 3/51/17 spec being worthwhile as well (and 51/20 if the obscene crit bonus from subversion is not needed), so it simply remains to be seen how everything interacts.

At the very least, I don't think that Frost will be going without points in UH for 2 of 3 main 2H specs in the future if the disease scaling works out properly (if not, back to 20/51 we go!).

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.

 

Doomers

My idea was based entirely on 3/3 Death Rune Mastery and maximizing frost damage by RP usage -> FS, while keeping physical damage at highest possible level.

If PS damage will be higher than IT, than I'll replace some of them, but only if it wouldn't compromise RP production that fuels FS.

I'll test some ideas of "more unholy" frost builds later.

 

Odii

Thats similar to what I was playing around with. One thing to note, thats an RP building rotation if you use the IT, and FS glyphs. I found I had best results when I would swap in OBs instead at high RP and use the freed GCDs to toss in FS. Use HB instead of FS on rime procs.

 

Feorthas

Quick update on some messy in-progress theorycrafting:

My sheet isn't nearly as functional as I'd like--partly because the one at *home* is in way better shape--but 3/51/17 is looking extremely promising. Need to confirm this at home--because the talents are correct there--but it's not too far behind 20/51 without ghoul and the changes to talents may just make up for it if we get lucky.

Also, PS-less is still the rotation to beat, oddly enough; I guess 12.5% scaling per disease just isn't enough to slow down Obliterate and FS.

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.