Not sure I understand the Rime change, DW frost builds looking competitive enough to require that or something?

Edit: Forgot about the HB glyph.

Yah not sure what the thought process there is. There isn't a competitive dw build out there at the moment (competitive in this case meaning a dw spec that will do comparable damage to a 2h spec assuming similar gear level). Not sure if this is more evidence that GC means dw is to 2h (for dk's) as hybrids are to 'pure' dps spec and always a hair behind or if this is related to something else and just an unintended nerf to dw. Either way.../sigh

I don't see how that affects DW much at all, none of the potential DW specs went 51 into Frost. It still gives 15% IT crit which was what DW specs got it for.

Can anyone who has the items or the ability to datamine them check if they changed the stats on T8 again, specifically the shoulders?

The set bonuses changed on T7:

* DPS Set - 2 pieces - Increases the critical strike chance of your Obliterate, Scourge Strike and Death Strike abilities by 5%. (Old - Didn't affect Death Strike)
* DPS Set - 4 pieces - Your Obliterate, Scourge Strike and Death Strike generate an additional 10 Runic Power when used.

Tier 8 has the same bonuses it had before. Those changes happened to tier 7.

I tried to make new Thread but dont have ability to do so, so i post here what i was thinking beacuse its linked to 3.1 patch.

Whit Dual Talent specs, what two talent specs will you have,

One tank one dps or one dps one PvP or some other combination.

Im stuck with Sarth+3d spec at the moment beacuse we are trying to get him down before patch. So not respecing out till either he is dead or patch comes out. But with that spec problem is in PvP they call me farm and in Heroics i can lose aggro with trigger happy mage or crit happy rogue.

So was wonderign what two talend specs will you run when 3.1 comes out.

I will probably be frost tank for Ulduar for my guild and only if Ulduar mobs dont get to immune to frost and will run 15/51/5 spec for frost tanking. But second talent spec will probably be 0/44/27 dps spec.

I choose Frost dps as folow up or back up spec just beacuse of easiness of palying almost same spec and use almost same rotations like tanking. Only difference would be lack of HB in dps spec.

Talked to some other DK tank friends and they all told me they will either go Blood or Unholy for DPS spec.

Rime change while it's good was last nail to unholy presence coffin too. I don't see any spec using it at all except for running faster in Dalaran. DW builds will be prolly using it but in current PTR state I don't think that we will see those in raids at all.

I would like to see changes done to unholy presence for being viable presence..

Something I noticed today - watch your macros! Every time you switch spec and gain some new ability (SS, HS, HB) macros get Rank 1 of those abilities. You need to resave that macro then it will get proper max rank again or just edit all macros to use specific rank to avoid this problem.

Dont know if its been braught up: I was just on the PTR. Rime now procs off of Oblit and not IT at all. I verified this with the combat log. I was hoping it was just a typo. That largely kills rime for me in any DW build I might try to come up with.

It's intentional. Very bad for DW/IT spamm builds, very good for OB/2h Frost builds.

I guess they're trying to kill 1F shadowfrost builds.

Sounds like a bug that needs to be reported...

So you have a macro that has "/cast SS" that uses rank 1 of the ability when you have bought all ranks?

On live ignoring the rank part of a macro means it always uses the highest rank. I will try that out on the PTR though.


Regarding Unholy Presence (question was asked earlier), it is a great PvP ability and perhaps good for some grinding. Something that works it only limited areas is fine.


Edit: I did not have the rank 1 issue with my DK or Paladin so /cast talented ability x worked fine.

We had little fun with PTR patchwerks today while waiting for test to start and I would like to share something I found out.

All three specs (yes Blood included!) were damn close to each other. As for DK dps overall it on top, just behind crazy mutilate rogue and with ench shaman. So maybe all this doom saying about Blood being not viable is not really true. Just keep in mind we used Shirt of Uber so it may not be true with current level of gear.

For the past few builds, Summon Gargoyle has lasted 10 seconds less than the tooltip describes (max of 30 seconds vs 40). Been reporting it each PTR build, but the bug hasn't been fixed yet. This latest PTR patch says Release in the version info, and the in game bug report tool was taken out, so I can't report the Gargoyle bug this build (the bug still exists). Hopefully they can hotfix it, since if it goes live in this state, Gargoyle is 25% weaker than it's supposed to be.

EDIT: Seems my forum bug report on the PTR forums got a response saying they will look into it. Here's to hoping it's fixed before the patch goes live.

Are you sure you're not making the obvious mistake others (like me) made as well ?

Gargoyle when summoned has the first 10 seconds of its lifespan "for free".
Basically the actual buff "Summon Gargoyle" wont show up until 10 seconds after its summoned because it doesn't start draining RP yet.

Just wondering because this is a pretty awful design blizzard made. But if you are just counting the seconds the buff lasts and that is 30 seconds, it adds another 10 seconds before the buff is displayed.

Where are getting the information for these rankings of yours and why have you not discussed the two most prominent frost specs of 17/51/3 and 14/51/7 ?

As a note to that dps comparison.
The first 3 specs, so 2H unholy and blood, are all VERY close together. The difference in that area is really gonna be made between which spec fits you better.

Frost was slightly behind. Not by a huge margin, but enough to make the difference (4-5%).

Tests were done by Methods

Because, if you read his post, the data is from the unholy thread. Its also not his test (although we can actually blame Valtiel for not mentioning his source).

The test wasn't originally done to test frost builds.

It was to compare the 2 unholy builds versus the blood build of which people were expecting it would outscale other frost and unholy.

I got the frost speccs wrong because I'm an idiot. Of course nobody will play 17/54, it just came natural to type. My bad - 17/51/3 is where the money is IMHO, tho.

And the data are from the link posted. Thanks to the above poster.

Ah, they're sims, not actual fights/parses. At this point in time, I'm extremely hesitant to accept the results of sims, given the volatility of the PTR, the inherent error in modeling dynamic rotations and the variability associated with each fight.

Yeah, I took these consideration in account in my original post. However I need to point out that spreadsheet evaluation was pretty spot on in past PTR comparisons.

The only prediction that seems to be off target at this point is Frost scaling.

May I just say that I'm fully with Darkside (and many others) on the relative value of Sims/spreadsheets when it comes to small gaps between tests. Real fights mean more no matter what. Larger gaps are another story. Yes Sims/spreadsheets assume a lot. Averages only really make sense over long periods of time.

However, we predicted Frost's lag behind (fairly accurately might I add) before the proper gear was even available. I really don't see what Blizzard is seeing. Frost has always been behind.

-Maybe it's the 'goodwill' of Killing Machine ambiguity that has partially distorted figures (I think we've got a much better grasp on it now however).
-Maybe it's something as simple as the Razorice KM proc glitch. If I punch in double the KM procs Frost dps jumps to nearly equal blood (give or take 1%).
-Perhaps because of DW's taint? Now, DW is nearly dead/preference based and Frost 2H is better than before but not by enough IMO.
-Maybe they are compensating for the possible AOE burst available to frost through Rime.

The problem comes in when extensive error checking cannot reveal why a seemingly good spec would lag behind so much (4-5% is huge in e-peen world). Yes, Frost talents and skills are solid. Blood and Unholy just have more throughput. One major problem is Frost doesn't have a Gargoyle/DRW equivalent. Rime procs are now working in the right direction for 2H but it's still no DRW/Garg.

What could be done?:
-Increase high end talents so that frost has a top heavy spread like Unholy.
-Increase the haste given (DK only) on Imp Icy Talons
-Give more punch to Annihilation (and maybe give blood a reason to do 51/20/0 type builds)
-Create a frost damage proc similar to shaman frostbrand (or a frost Necrosis) to increase the value of Haste for frost.
-Talented skills like FS are already bursting for more than enough but Maybe shift some more damage into Blood of the north.
-Make merciless combat ~20% instead of 12%?
-Increase the PPM of Killing Machine?

Any combination of the above or better ideas would easily make up for the 5% missing. Most of the above changes would not be possible for 3.1 besides percentage tweaks.

I want to see what Blizzard is seeing. I wish I could see their models. They will never share it though. This is all we have and that is how they (GC at least) like it and honestly I can understand.

Frost is the last one left. Everything else has been done to near perfection. I'm very happy with what blizzard has done with all three of our specs. I just hope that Blizzard is taking a really good look at how the next week goes with frost specifically.

PS: I would have posted this on the suggestion forms but I haven't been able to post on Blizzard forms since before BC. Too bad for me/them but I guess there are plenty of others out there with the same or better ideas.