Freezing Hell Over, One Step at a Time (Frost DPS) - Page 4

Vinexia · 03/07/09, 2:56 PM

KhaosK, I am obligated to point out that the Obliterate heavy build in that test is missing the benefit of Sunder or FaerieF. Armor debuffs will produce a larger percentage boost to the standard 13/51/7 over using the unholy heavy build which relies on Necrosis for a dps increase.

Lollersk8er · 03/07/09, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by Nexbellator

Only question I raise then, and something we may not have an answer for yet, is what survivability will a non-NotD non-Frenzy ghoul have in Ulduar?

That is the exact question I'm asking myself all the time. The cheap, permanent ghoul is great, but it will die in most aoe fights. Is that worth it?

Feorthas · 03/07/09, 5:22 PM

Originally Posted by Lollersk8er

That is the exact question I'm asking myself all the time. The cheap, permanent ghoul is great, but it will die in most aoe fights. Is that worth it?

Personal Opinion: If the DPS delta when the ghoul is dead is less than, or very close to, 100 in a combination of T7/7.5 level epics, you should seriously consider going the ghoul route (which it totally is right now).

Scary thing to consider, the above testing of the various specs had a +Spelldamage debuff present.... but not a -Armor one so those numbers go up quite nicely (even though they should be a little bit higher even without Ebon Plague I think--unless I'm misremembering my post-nerf FC Rune numbers).

Direheart · 03/07/09, 5:42 PM

5 min test
Boss level dummy at .1% health, so Merciless Combat was in effect
No outside debuffs present (there was a mage hitting a different dummy but otherwise I was alone)
Weapon: Black Ice, rune of RI
Sigil: Awareness (forgot to switch to the IT one)
Spec: 20/51 with DRM, Unholy Presence
Rotation: priority as described by several others above: B for BS, U+ for OB, IT spam otherwise; FS when at over 100 RP and/or on KM procs; HB on Rime procs only. Note that HB was hitting multiple targets - but as you can see I was pretty unlucky with Rime and only cast 10 HBs during the entire test. No UA, no Death Chill, Blood Tap once to begin the rotation. Was paying particular attention to trying to use KM procs for FS only.

Searix · 03/07/09, 6:06 PM

Latest PTR Build:

Goodbye Icy touch builds?

teiglin · 03/07/09, 9:55 PM

Originally Posted by Vinexia

KhaosK, I am obligated to point out that the Obliterate heavy build in that test is missing the benefit of Sunder or FaerieF. Armor debuffs will produce a larger percentage boost to the standard 13/51/7 over using the unholy heavy build which relies on Necrosis for a dps increase.

Necrosis damage increases with armor debuffs as well, since it's a percentage of autoattack damage. Necrosis also has its damage increased by EP/CoE, though trying to do a complete rundown of the comparative scaling is a non-trivial exercise, but suffice it to say, there's not an incredibly clear victor, aside from the fact that ghoul will scale extremely well with raid buffs while it's alive.

Originally Posted by Searix

Latest PTR Build:

Goodbye Icy touch builds?

This isn't new; it was true since the 3.1 PTR first went up. Pronouncing IT spam builds dead is more than a little extreme; especially ITx6, where the ITs are as much to generate RP for more FS as to do damage themselves. It's a nerf to ITx6 on the order of anywhere from ~35 DPS to maybe 70 DPS depending on how IT talents stack with the sigil (anyone know this definitively?).

Khaosknight · 03/07/09, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by Vinexia

KhaosK, I am obligated to point out that the Obliterate heavy build in that test is missing the benefit of Sunder or FaerieF. Armor debuffs will produce a larger percentage boost to the standard 13/51/7 over using the unholy heavy build which relies on Necrosis for a dps increase.

How do you figure that?

In both builds, you use similar rotations, unless I'm gravely mistaken and each rotation doesn't do 4 total obliterates at the end of 20 seconds, the Sunder/Ff debuff will help both builds.

And If I am mistaken, Sund/Ff still benefits the unholy subspec build, perhaps even more then the ob heavy build, as the unholy build uses Necrosis and BCB, BCB is a physical attack, and necrosis is based off of your white damage attacks, which gain benefit from S/Ff. Not to mention that ghoul gains some dps from sun/Ff.

overall, each build will be competitive and it really is a matter of personal preference, that said, I like the idea of having hard hitting frost strikes and Obliterates (although oblits have 9% less crit) as well as a pet, whereas you might prefer higher crit average obliterates.

If you want to talk numbers, we can min/maxx and figure out which is (on paper) absolutely best, but I have a feeling it'd be pretty much tied. That said, here is something else to consider:

Movement fights. Fights where you can't maintain a perfect rotation 100% of the time, on those fights, the unholy subspec build gains advatage from the ghoul. whereas 13-51-7 doesn't have that addition.

Edit: as far as the ghoul dieing thing goes, think about this. Does ANY other talent provide a 300+ dps increase (unbuffed) for a single point? even if it dies sometimes, it is well worth it to get, and with the glyph, just make sure you have 100% possible uptime. It might require micro managment if you want to keep it up all the time (read: macros to make it run back to you or stop attacking etc etc) but it's still a VERY nice dps enhancement if you are more of a 'Summon and Forget' kind of player.

Zigazaha · 03/07/09, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by Khaosknight

Edit: as far as the ghoul dieing thing goes, think about this. Does ANY other talent provide a 300+ dps increase (unbuffed) for a single point? even if it dies sometimes, it is well worth it to get, and with the glyph, just make sure you have 100% possible uptime. It might require micro managment if you want to keep it up all the time (read: macros to make it run back to you or stop attacking etc etc) but it's still a VERY nice dps enhancement if you are more of a 'Summon and Forget' kind of player.

Yes one talent point for 300+ dps but what you forget is all the points you have to put into unholy to get there, that compared to blood.

Feorthas · 03/08/09, 1:12 AM

Originally Posted by Zigazaha

Yes one talent point for 300+ dps but what you forget is all the points you have to put into unholy to get there, that compared to blood.

What's so bad about putting points in Unholy as opposed to Blood?

The result we're after is higher DPS, right? So if the average damage goes up, bringing the average non-ghoul DPS of the Ghoul Pet builds closer to the average non-ghoul DPS of 13/51/7, we're still in good shape with gobs of points in UH rather than Blood.

The only really, really unique thing that Blood gets us is threat reduction via Subversion; it may be the case that we won't need that in Ulduar so, if we don't, we might as well put the points into 'better' talents worth more DPS to us in the long run.

Personally, I'd love to have a reason to take Howling Blast AND Hungering Cold for a PvE build that isn't for tanking (and, even then, there are very few, if any, reasons to have HC); however, at this point, such a reason just doesn't exist. Subversion, and speccing into Blood for increased personal DPS, rather than having to worry about Micro-ing a pet, is also something I prefer as it saves more time to think about & avoid environmental damage (void zones, etc.) rather than having to make sure that your good friend the ghoul is doing what you want him to; however, if Unholy subspecs turn out the way to go, I'm all for putting points there.

teiglin · 03/08/09, 1:30 AM

Originally Posted by Feorthas

The only really, really unique thing that Blood gets us is threat reduction via Subversion; it may be the case that we won't need that in Ulduar so, if we don't, we might as well put the points into 'better' talents worth more DPS to us in the long run.

It's not like 3/51/17 is a bad build if the threat reduction ends up being needed for Ulduar. Assuming frost/unholy DK wants 3/3 BCB over 3/3 Subversion (which I think is likely from a pure DPS standpoint), I'd still think 1/51/19 would be better than moving that point from Subversion to Outbreak.

aldy · 03/08/09, 3:14 AM

Are people forgetting about dual spec? Assuming you never/rarely tank or are asked to spec unholy to provide EPB, you can create two frost dps specs, one with ghoul and one without, and switch instantly and freely between the two for any AoE-dangerous trash or boss fights.
The arguement of "the ghoul is too hard to keep alive on a few boss fights" is no longer valid. Now if you want to argue blood subspec is flat out better than unholy subspec, thats a different arguement.
The question isn't "Is permaghoul the best spec for an instance?" anymore, but more like "Is permaghoul spec the best for this fight?"

Nexbellator · 03/08/09, 4:08 AM

Originally Posted by aldy

Are people forgetting about dual spec? Assuming you never/rarely tank or are asked to spec unholy to provide EPB, you can create two frost dps specs, one with ghoul and one without, and switch instantly and freely between the two for any AoE-dangerous trash or boss fights.
The arguement of "the ghoul is too hard to keep alive on a few boss fights" is no longer valid. Now if you want to argue blood subspec is flat out better than unholy subspec, thats a different arguement.
The question isn't "Is permaghoul the best spec for an instance?" anymore, but more like "Is permaghoul spec the best for this fight?"

A very good point Aldy! Sadly, I am the 3D tank for my guild and assuming we continue farming that fatty and his three loser siblings after 3.1 goes live, my second spec will remain a tanking spec, leaving me one dps frost spec.

I think everyone will agree that there are several ways to play a DK, even as Frost dps spec, so it's more about personal preference at this point. Several people have made excellent posts providing good numbers for multiple Frost specs, so there is no single right spec. As a community we're looking to find the best possible DPS we can muster up! The pet is a very good addition to frost, but as mentioned it may not be viable for some fights. So until more facts come out about the bosses in Ulduar, it may be hard to really solidify any single spec as the #1 dps we're capable of.

As for HC... I see it as a free two rune FF spreader. In AoE situations it is very, very nice. Assuming you have at least 40 RP, you can pop HC followed directly by HB, rather than IT, Pest, HB. This saves you one GCD and the Frost / Blood runes it would have taken using pestilence. Plus... it just looks freakin' cool

Neckface · 03/08/09, 4:22 AM

As long as we're talking about how encounter factors can affect dps, one thing I really like about 20/51/0 w/UP is that it has 3 advantages in a movement heavy fight:
1) 15% run speed, of course
2) Short GCDs also favor bursty hit-and-run tactics
3) The emphasis on IT helps when you're at (short) range or closing to melee range

If I was going to take 2 dps spec I'd make one an UP spec for sure.

Zigazaha · 03/08/09, 12:18 PM

Everyone has been posting DPS numbers (and they may change with buffs and scaling)
but from what i can tell they're all close enough that its a matter of preference.
Rather that be 17/51/3 1/51/19 3/51/17 13/51/7
and if its IT heavy or OB heavy.

Personaly i think I'll be playing either 17/51/3 or 13/51/7 as OB heavy because i don't want to rely on a non resurrectable pet.

glorbelle · 03/08/09, 12:43 PM

I tend to agree with not wanting to rely on a pet that is so susceptible to death.

Something that people seem to be ignoring (at least I haven't seen much mention of it) is the fact that you can still summon a pet without going unholy, it just doesn't last forever. But unless the boss fights are particularly long and lack the sort of AoE to kill a pet, the only real difference is that one of the ghouls is stronger than the other. They will both probably die on most fights.

The questions, then, seem to be (1) whether a perma-ghoul will have significantly longer uptime than a standard summoned ghoul, and (2) whether that increased uptime and higher ghoul DPS translates to significantly higher overall DPS.

Zigazaha · 03/08/09, 1:06 PM

Summoned ghouls obviously last 2 minutes and perma ghouls are well.... perma.
After death they can both be resummoned after 5 minutes.
So if its an AoE fight and the ghoul dies after 2-3 minutes you've just poorly spent talents, but if there's no AoE and you can keep it up constantly, it (may?) be better than blood subspec. That's weighed against the AP boost, 5% crit, 9% OB/BS crit, rune Regen, 4% damage.
While as unholy you also get blood caked blade and necrosis (and I'm not sure how these compare, they may be better and I'm entirely wrong? But maybe not)

As i said I like blood subspec better but overall it may be of little consequence.
Also like someone said you could dual spec both and switch for what fight you're doing but i'de prefer having a tank spec for 5 mans and 10 mans.

teiglin · 03/08/09, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by Zigazaha

Summoned ghouls obviously last 2 minutes and perma ghouls are well.... perma.
After death they can both be resummoned after 5 minutes.

This was also changed in the patch. Untalented, ghoul lasts 1 min and Raise Dead CD is three minutes. Master of Ghouls reduces the CD by 1 min and makes your ghoul a pet. The patch notes at some point claimed that the CD on Raise Dead would not start until your ghoul dies, though this wasn't true on PTR last I looked and the CD still started as soon as you summon your ghoul.

Odii · 03/08/09, 2:38 PM

With the change to HB, I think you can make an interesting argument for 11/51/9. Dropping the CD of DnD to 20 seconds for AE purposes. Your AE rotation would then be something like:

IT-PS-Pest- HB-BB
DnD-HB-BB

Veritas17 · 03/08/09, 8:40 PM

It seems that my frost strike crit damage with the new changes were crushed into the ground, has anyone else been able to actually get any decent numbers for frost since the last changes went in? Looking for numbers/talent spec of course and i'll figure out the gear you have via your armory. After having DW thrown away, frost getting changed again... i'm starting to wonder where the dps is going to end up as once we're all done and finished with this patch.

EwokChilli · 03/09/09, 12:38 AM

The change to GoG was a huge nerf for frost because of KM procs. We used those to have a huge crit% with FS, so now our 60% crit FS doesn't hit for 245% like it use to.

On a side note, I saw that HB was changed to a 10 sec CD and isn't based on FF. Has anyone tried the HB glyph and tried something akin to HB OB BS BS FS FS - HB OB OB FS FS (other stuff to fill in here) or HB OB (BS PS) FS FS. Would need HB/OB/any other glyph here.

I've just been too busy to copy over and do my own testing. At least with the first rotation, every ability used is being affected by the new GoG, and HB might even be better with the new GoG than it use to be (since it only got 225% previously).

nachrichter · 03/09/09, 1:04 AM

Originally Posted by EwokChilli

The change to GoG was a huge nerf for frost because of KM procs. We used those to have a huge crit% with FS, so now our 60% crit FS doesn't hit for 245% like it use to.

On a side note, I saw that HB was changed to a 10 sec CD and isn't based on FF. Has anyone tried the HB glyph and tried something akin to HB OB BS BS FS FS - HB OB OB FS FS (other stuff to fill in here) or HB OB (BS PS) FS FS. Would need HB/OB/any other glyph here.

I've just been too busy to copy over and do my own testing. At least with the first rotation, every ability used is being affected by the new GoG, and HB might even be better with the new GoG than it use to be (since it only got 225% previously).

Ignoring metas and oversimplifying for easy, using your 60% crit rate.

Old: Hit for 3000, Crit for 7350, average 5610
New: Hit for 3450, Crit for 6900, average 5520

That's clearly not a gain, but it's not exactly huge. It also doesn't matter, because it's not happening in a vacuum.

Additionally, as you pointed out, HB doesn't get the whole benefit. Same easy, cheater math as before:

Old: Hit for 3000, Crit for 6675, average 5205
New: Hit for 3450, Crit for 6900, average 5520

There is more complicated, more accurate math, but even doing this little is incredibly easy and gives a much better indication than your feelings.

Nexbellator · 03/09/09, 2:45 AM

I did a brief 2 min test again, with the 13/51/7 spec to see what kind of damage FS was pulling. Note that the dummy was at 1%, but no other debuffs were present, so I was only gaining the 12% damage from Merciless.

Had a few 8k+ crits there, so even without merciless it would be at least 7.3k or more possible with no addition debuffs. Doesn't seem like much of a change to what I have now on Live.

And if you were wondering how I had 80% crit on that... I interrupted my rotation of OB / BS any time KM procced and tried to save all RP until runes were all on CD so I could hit on KM as soon as it was up. That's a pretty sexy number to have for such a hard hitting strike

moobear · 03/09/09, 5:01 AM

Just a quick question for the 13/15/7 spec. Why not 5/5 bladed and 1/1 dark convic?

Seeing as the nerf to GoG reduced the effectiveness of crit, and we still have KM to rely on. Would it be the better alternative.

thanks

.

Moshon · 03/09/09, 5:24 AM

How about the Glyph of Disease, that was announced here?

• Glyph of Disease: Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.

You could start with PS - IT - OB - Pestilence - BS and go on with a Cycle of OB - OB - Pestilence - BS // OB - OB - OB. You would use OB more often, while both diseases are up and gain an additional GCD per 20 seconds. Of course, this Rotation needs a glyphslot for Pestilence, 2 points in Epidemic so it will last 21 seconds, and very good timing because you only have 1 second to refresh your diseases with Pestilence.

What do you think about this?

[Edited Rotation, thanks @ EwokChilli]

EwokChilli · 03/09/09, 10:01 AM

@Moshon
How is PS IT OB OB standard? If you were implying IT PS OB BS BS, then it all makes sense.

Do you think the bonus you gain from rocking 5 OB is worth losing an attack that deals damage, then it sounds like a compelling argument and could be really good. Although, if you're ever slow in reapplying Pest, then you have to re-prime your entire rotation and you just spent a rune on a non-damaging attack. Personally I'm more fond of rotations that plan to just reapply the diseases every cycle (10sec) or every rotation (20 sec)(depending on spec of course).

Other topic:
With the change to HB and the use of the HB glyph, HB might make for a good opener for our rotations or a reasonable replacement for OB (one per cycle), since both crit for 200% damage instead of 245% vs 225%. I'm not sure how both of them scale with AP now. If HB still only scales at 0.1 AP, then without the 2x effect from IT it won't even be close to keeping up with OB.