• Darkside

Discussion within this thread should be largely confined to the Points of Discussion as dictated in the later part of this post and/or suggesting new points of discussion. Please attempt to remain focused, or this will rapidly degenerate into the shitstorm that was the previous thread.

STOP POSTING YOUR SHIT DPS RESULTS FROM DUMMY TESTS. IT HAS BEEN STATED TIME AND TIME AGAIN THAT TESTS DONE IN THIS FASHION ARE IN NO WAY REPRESENTATIVE OF ACTUAL RAID DATA.


CONTENTS

Common Abbreviations
Specs & Runeforges
--Accepted
--Experimental
--Runeforges
Glyphs
--Major
--Minor
Generalized Rotation
--Single Target
----Single Disease
----Double Disease
--AoE
--Priority Systems
--UP vs. BP
Recommended Tools
Taking Advantage of AMS
Gearing & Stat Weights
--Sigils
Consumables & Cooldowns
Obscure and Esoteric Methods
Points of Discussion
Edits/Changes


I. COMMON ABBREVIATIONS

AoE = Area of Effect
AMS = Anti-Magic Shell
BB = Blood Boil
BP = Blood Presence
IT = Icy Touch
DCh = Deathchill
DK = Death Knight
DnD = Death and Decay
DPS = Damage per Second
FC = Rune of the Fallen Crusader
FF = Frost Fever
FS = Frost Strike
GCD = Global Cooldown
HoW = Horn of Winter
KM = Killing Machine
OB = Obliterate
PS = Plague Strike
RP = Runic Power
UA = Unbreakable Armor
UP = Unholy Presence

II. SPECS

Currently Accepted Spec(s)

17/51/3

Unlike other classes, there is nothing exceedingly mystical about the talent choices made by a Frost DK, due largely in part to the Frost tree being free of any extraneous bloat found in many other specs. 51 points happens to be the exact amount needed to grab every essential DPS talent from the frost tree. This leaves us with 20 talent points left for the other trees. Blood has been chosen as the primary sub-tree for the following reasons:

• Frost's heavy reliance on crit.
• Frost's heavy dependence on 2h weapon attacks.
• Largely undesirable talents found in the Unholy tree.

However, you are able to grab all the essential talents from the Blood tree by only spending 17 points. These 3 extra points are best placed in Virulence, as the extra 3% hit will very likely get you spell-hit capped.

Experimental Spec(s)

20/51/0 or 17/51/3

These two specs are centered around using [Glyph of Icy Touch] to generate the maximum amount of RP possible, in order to spam FS as much as can be allowed. The talent choices are identical to a traditional Frost spec, with one notable exception: 3 points are either taken from Virulence or Dark Conviction and placed in Death Rune Mastery. It is currently unknown which of these will yield higher DPS.

Runeforges

There is currently only one viable Runeforge for PvE DPS: Fallen Crusader. This is largely due to the time it takes to apply Razorice, as well as FC affecting all your damage (not just damage done to your current target).

III. GLYPHS

Major

• [Glyph of Frost Strike]
• [Glyph of Howling Blast]*
• [Glyph of Icy Touch]*
• [Glyph of Obliterate]

*Interchangeable

Minor

• [Glyph of Horn of Winter]
• [Glyph of Pestilence]
• [Glyph of Raise Dead]

As with specs, glyph choices for a Frost DK are fairly obvious. [Glyph of Frost Strike] is absolutely critical, as it increases the amount of FS you preform by 25%. Since this is easily your hardest hitting attack, you will see a greater DPS gain from this glyph than from any other. While not as critical, [Glyph of Obliterate] is similarly mandatory, as OB will be your second-highest damage special on all non-AoE boss encounters.

There is currently some debate going on as to whether of not it is better to use [Glyph of Icy Touch] or [Glyph of Howling Blast]. Switching between the two results in greatly differing playstyles, both with their own advantages and disadvantages. This is discussed further in the Rotations section.

IV. GENERALIZED ROTATIONS

SINGLE TARGET

Single Disease

Howling Blast

When using [Glyph of Howling Blast] one usually resorts to a single disease rotation. This is because it is a DPS loss to spend an Unholy rune on PS when you could find much greater DPS by using it for HB or OB. In general, the rotation for this spec is as follows:

HB -> OB -> BS -> BS -> DUMP
OB -> OB -> OB -> DUMP

Note that HB should replace OB at any time where it looks like the duration of Frost Fever is about to expire. Due to the inherent OB spam nature of this rotation, it is heavily reliant on the generation of Rime procs. When Rime is procced, there are two things that must be considered before the proc is used:

1. How much time is left of the Frost Fever timer?
2. How many Obliterates do I have left in my rotation?

If the timer for FF is getting low (<5s), the Rime proc should be consumed immediately to prevent the disease from falling off the target.
If there is still a significant amount of time (>6s) left on FF's timer and you have no OBs left in your rotation, the Rime proc should not be spent until just before you begin to use OB again. The reason for this is to simply insure that you get the maximum duration out of each application of FF, so you are not forced to spend any runes on HB that would otherwise be better spent on OB. Furthermore, by never holding onto a Rime proc while using OB, you insure that you will never "lose" a Rime proc to a double proc situation.
This rotation is best used while in Blood Presence, owing to the small amount of Global Cooldowns needed for two-rune attacks.

6x IT Machine Gun

This is the rotation that a 20/51/0 DK will use. It follows the same essential philosophy as the standard double disease rotation with a few key differences. The generalized starting rotation for this spec is as follows:

IT -> OB -> BS -> BT -> OB -> IT -> DUMP

From this point on, a static rotation is nearly impossible to maintain, due to the incredibly dynamic nature of this spec. As a general rule, though, you should ALWAYS burn your Unholy Runes with OB and everything else should be spent on IT or BS. You will have to watch carefully for KM procs and do your best to prevent them from being eaten by IT.


Note that you are highly likely to become RP capped during the second part of this cycle. As such, you should weave in FS every time you approach the cap.

Double Disease

This spec is largely the same as the Machine Gun spec, except instead of taking 3/3 Death Rune Mastery, you grab 3/3 Epidemic for the spell hit. It should be noted that this spec is largely inferior to the Machine Gun spec, due to poor use of Unholy Runes and a marginal benefit from an extra disease.

IT -> PS -> OB -> BS -> BS -> DUMP
OB -> IT ->PS -> IT -> IT -> DUMP

It important to note that the your Death Runes are much better spent on 2x IT than on OB. This is because while 2x IT will result in marginally less damage than OB, you will generate 25 more RP. The gain from this RP gen (and the additional FS it will eventually allow) far outweighs the damage loss from missing one OB.
While this rotation can be done in Blood Presence, it is generally a better idea to use Unholy Presence. This is because the use of many single rune attacks requires many GCDs in order to fit everything into the rotation while leaving time for FS spam.

AoE

In general, AoE rotations are identical to standard DPS rotations with a few changes:

• Use Howling Blast as much as possible.
• Use Pestilence in place of BS to spread your diseases around.

On some fights with a lot of mobs (Freya/Auriaya, for example) it is also beneficial to use DnD and Blood Boil whenever possible.

Priority Systems

It is important to realize that Death Knight DPS cannot be effectively done with a rigid rotation. The systems detailed above are applicable only for stationary single target fights. Attempting to follow them absolutely as some sort of Frozen Bible will result in terrible DPS and even more people complaining about how DKs have become the new huntards.
Because of this, most people have developed a priority system that they follow instead, which allows for fluid adaptation to new scenarios and overall produces a higher amount of damage done. Generally, it works as follows:

Do I have a KM proc?
-If yes, then FS. If not, try and quickly generate enough RP without losing the KM proc to preform a FS.

Am I RP capped/will using a rune ability cause me to be capped?
-If so, dump RP.

Are my diseases (specifically FF) up on my target/about to expire?
-Refresh them if necessary.

Do I have any Runes available for use/will I have runes available as soon as my current GCD finishes?
-If you do, use them in accordance with whichever rotation you have chosen to follow.

If none of the above criteria apply, dump RP with FS.

If you have no RP, use HoW while waiting for runes to recharge.

UNHOLY PRESENCE V. BLOOD PRESENCE

There has been much debate and discussion regarding whether or not it is better to use UP or BP while playing as Frost. Analysis and discussion of this issue can be found around the following post in this this thread: Frozen Blows -- Frost DPS (Updated 06.11.09)

V. Recommended Tools

Frost is by far the most proc dependent of all the DK specs (and one of the most proc dependent specs overall), so using a good proc monitoring addon is essential for your success. There are several tools that can accomplish this, including, but not limited to:

• Tell Me When
• Need to Know
• Parrot
• Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
• Power Auras
• Satrina Buff Frames

VI. TAKING ADVANTAGE OF AMS

With Frost Strike easily being Frost's hardest hitting and most used ability (generally about 35-40% of your total damage will be from FS), Frost is by far the most RP reliant of the three major Death Knight DPS specs. As such, generating large amounts of RP is of vital concern for a DK who wants to top the damage meters.

Thankfully, Blizzard has provided us with an abundance of AoE magic damage on nearly every fight in Ulduar. Through clever timing, you can use Anti-Magic Shell to produce an abundance of RP every 45s, insuring that you can spam FS as much as possible.

Here is a breakdown on each boss encounter in Ulduar, with notes on when it is best to use AMS

Flame Leviathan
n/a

Razorscale
Normal
P1: Run through a fire patch on your way over to Razorscale after she's been harpooned.
P2: There is usually a flame patch in the near vicinity of the boss, simply hop in that every 45s.
Hard
n/a

Ignis
Normal
Simply time AMS for use right after he finishes his Flame Jets cast. Know that if you use AMS before the cast is finished you won't receive the debuff and will therefore generate far less RP than you could otherwise.
Hard
n/a

XT
Normal
If you feel like playing risky and enjoy pissing your healers off, you can elect to follow a light-bombed melee as they run out of the group. Otherwise, save AMS for when you get bombed.
Hard
There is no major change in this fight for Death Knights when hardmode is activated.

Kologarn
Normal
Wait until Shockwave comes off of cooldown then, pop AMS and pray that he uses the ability within 5s seconds (he usually does).
Hard
n/a

Assembly of Iron
Normal
Steelbreaker: The High Voltage aura makes this fight one of the best for consist RP generation through AMS. Simply use AMS every time it is off cooldown and enjoy the free damage.
Molgriem:You'll have to wait for a Rune of Death on the melee group and use AMS as you leave.
Brundir: Lightning Tendrils is the best source of reliable magic damage. You can also take advantage of Overload, though know that you will suffer a 2s knockdown.
Hard
During P2 of the Assembly of Iron hardmode, Steelbreaker will be casting Static Disruption of various raidmembers. If this happens to land in the melee clump, you can AMS for substantial RP gains. While you should not be taking damage from this in P3, you should know that the damage from High Voltage will have increased substantially, so making sure you have AMS up going into the Steelbreaker burn phase is essential.

Auriaya
Normal
Wait for a fear and then dance through a void zone on your way back to the melee clump.
Hard
n/a

Hodir
Normal
Save AMS for Frozen Blows. Real ballers can also get 2-3 stacks of Biting Cold at the same time, though your healers will complain.
Hard
There are no major changes from the normal mode to the hardmode.

Thorim
Normal
P1: Wait for a Stormhammer cast and hope that you're standing near the target.
P2: Instead of moving out, just sit in and soak the Lightning Charges.
Hard
P1: Identical to the normal mode.
P2: Due to the stacking damage buff on Thorim, you should do your best to avoid all Lightning Charges lest you get instagibbed. However, Sif will be tossing around a substantial amount of magic damage, so you can still use AMS for fun and profit. Probably the best time to use it is when you notice her teleport to the melee clump. This signifies that you have ~2s before she frost nova's you for ~10k damage + a root.

Freya
Normal
P1: Sunbeam, if you can move close enough to the target in a timely fashion. There's also Nature's Fury.
P2: Not much, as the bombs will tend to blow you away from the boss and should thus be avoided.
Hard
NYI

Mimiron
Normal
P1: Find an isolated land mine and trigger it on your way back to the boss from a Shock Blast.
P2: Use AMS immedietly after you see Heat Wave pulse to make your healers happier.
P3: Bomb bot explosions are the only source of magic damage.
P4: Use AMS whenever it is off cooldown. Odds are, you will be targeted by Hand Pulse sometime during the duration.
Hard
In between phases on hardmode you can dance into the fire with AMS to insure that you have full RP going into each transition.

Vezax
Normal
This is the only fight in Ulduar without reliable AoE magic damage.
Hard
Save AMS for the later part of the Animus, when the AoE damage has fully ramped up and he's in execute range.

Yogg-Saron
Normal
P1: If your guild elects to tank all the guardians in the center, you can use AMS to soak their detonations.
P2: There is lots of shadow damage if you're in the portal group (hint: you should be) from Grim Reprisal.
P3: Nothing here, as you should not be getting hit with Lunatic Gaze.
Hard
There is no additional source of magic damage on Yogg's hardmode.

VII. GEARING AND STATS WEIGHTS

Stat Equivalences are determined for individual abilities via the following relationship:



h = Hit chance
B = Base damage
AP = Current total AP
k = AP Coefficient for that particular attack
m = Crit bonus multiplier
c = Current Crit chance

Note that to get a normalized stat weighting from the equivalence equation, simply take its inverse. For example, the weighting for crit rating would be:



Where AP = the weighting for crit rating (how much AP it would take to get the equivalent damage increase of 1 crit rating).

It's almost important to note that hit/expertise share the same equivalence/weighting formula. So for a melee attack, these will have identical values assuming you are under both the hit and expertise caps.

I will work on including a list of the above variable's values for individual attacks in a moment. I am also working on a spreadsheet to automate the calculation of these weightings.
For now, assume the following stat priorities:

Under the hitcap:
Hit > Strength > Expertise = Crit > Agility > Haste ~ ArPen > Everything else.

Hitcapped, but not Expertise capped:
Strength > Crit > Expertise > Agility > Haste ~ ArPen > Everything else.

Gear Lists will also be uploaded once the approximate weightings have been sorted out. For now, it is probably best to refer to the Optimal gearing: the BiS thread.

Sigils

There is only 1 truly viable Sigil for competitive Frost DPS and that is the [Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]. You will see no greater DPS gain from any item currently in the game as you will with this Sigil. You can DPS as Frost without it, but in reality, you will see FAR better results as an Unholy spec.

For further discussion and analysis on this topic, see: Frozen Blows -- Frost DPS (Updated 06.11.09)

VII. CONSUMABLES & COOLDOWNS

Flask: [Flask of Endless Rage]
Primary Potion:[Insane Strength Potion] (To be used in conjunction with Unbreakable Armor
Secondary Potion: [Indestructible Potion] (The gain from Bladed Armor is ~97 AP).

All cooldowns should be timed with Bloodlust (which your raidleader should be calling at the start of every fight). If for some reason you are saving Lust (Mimiron P2, for example), use cooldowns (sans potion) immedietly at the beginning of the fight and then again during Bloodlust.

You should be saving Blood Tap for when you use UA, so as to not affect the flow of your attacks. This can be done after using UA with a Frost Rune, or before if all your runes happen to be on cooldown.

Notes on [Indestructible Potion]: This should be used about 5s before you enter into combat on any given fight. This will result in you not being potion locked for that particular encounter and enable you to use another potion as soon as the cooldown expires. It should also be noted that the AP gains from the armor will not be calculated till your strength changes in value. This can be done via a simple weaponswap macro, cancelling and reapplying HoW or simply waiting for a FC proc.

IX. OBSCURE AND ESOTERIC METHODS

Abusing Revitalize and Rapture

These two abilities are currently the only reliable methods outside of AMS soaking and standard rune generation for generating RP. It is therefore in your best interest to somehow convince your disc priests and resto droods to contunually spam these abilities on you and pray for a proc.

Taking advantage of Blood Tap

If you use BT after using one of your Blood Runes, but before the other, you will end up with 2x Death Runes. It works something like this:

BBUUFF -> Blood Strike
dBUUFF -> Blood Tap
DDUUFF

Where upper case letters denote runes ready to use and lower case denote runes currently recharging.

By doing this you are able to start of any rotation with an abundance of RP, as you will be able to ITx2 immediately at the beginning of the fight.


X. POINTS OF DISCUSSION

In order of priority:

• How do stat weights change for ITx6?

Please attempt to provide mathematical proof and/or parses for all your answers to the above questions, elsewise you're not really contributing anything to the discussion.

XI. EDITS

[1]: 05.20.09 Thread Launched
[2]: 05.23.09 Added UP v BP section // Added [Indestructible Potion] to consumables // Added Obscure and Esoteric Methods.
[3]: 06.11.09 Updated ITx6 rotation // Added recommended addons // Added hardmode fight breakdowns.

<XI|> if your dog barks do you debate the philosophical reason behind him barking
<XI|> no
<XI|> you say shut up idiot

 

Erekose

STOP CRAPPING UP THE NEW THREAD

Already we are getting the same exact personal/useless comments that the last thread was FULL of. I am reporting your posts, please do NOT post anything unless it is USEFUL information. Thanks.

Excellent job Kroot, I was just about to make a new post to summarize this information but you beat me to it if I might make a suggestion - you should have a 'Weave' section to explain what that means so we have less people asking the optimal way to insert FS into the rotation. Considering your organization sofar I would put it under the "Priority" section.

The 'Weave' concept is simple in practice but harder to execute: ideally we want every KM proc to go to a FS, but KM procs are not coming in at specific times. This makes your priority system a little more complicated on paper but I find it to be very intuitive in practice, especially using Unholy Presence. Simply put, if KM procs and you have enough RP you should FS, unless you are for some reason sitting on all your runes and they're past the 3 second rule.

When DPSing in Blood Presence you have very little lee-way for weaving....if you don't use your runes within 1 global you're most likely going to go past the 3 second refresh rule and end up losing ideal DPS. You can't prioritize KM to FS without delaying your rune usage (in most cases). However, with Unholy you can easily throw 2 FS *after* runes refresh and then use the rune abilities without losing any refresh time.

This is especially important with the ITx6 priority system as it generates the most RP and uses single rune abilities which in turn leads to more GCDs required, especially during the 6x Death Rune refresh on the second half. This system in particular is very sensitive to when you use your runes. If they all refresh at the same time because you used them back to back you will be forced into chaining IT 3, 4, possibly 5 times in a row in order to avoid going over the 3 second rule and IT will eat some KM procs.


The other option is to separate your rune abilities by 2-3 GCDs which leads to better (read: KM powered) FS use and a cleaner overall system. This will also reduce the chance that your death runes will come in at inopportune times. For example, you're attempting to use the death rune on your bottom-most FU pair, but your blood rune just came in as a death rune. You IT and it uses the topmost rune, leaving your last death rune at the bottom un-used and going over the 3 second rule.

EDIT: Also, a section clarifying Runeforges (Crusader > All) so people don't keep popping up with that question, I'd love for this thread to remain un-crapped up as much as possible seeing as the old one got really, really bad.

 

Xzard

First of all, thank you Kroot for cleaning this up.

As a suggestion, I think it would help prevent "crap" in the thread if you can include some stat weighting information in your gearing section, especially with regards to the "rating" stats. I think there is a lot of confusion out there with regards to which of these stats benefit Frost the most and why. (Like why Crit is better than Haste, which attacks ArP benefits and which it does not, etc.) Ideally, I think the more that can be answered in the OP the better off this thread will be.

 

Valimar

Thanks for cleaning and updating this Kroot.

Just an addenum suggestion to Xzard's information, if you possibly have links back to the old thread on several keypoints of discussion so people don't cluster this thread up with asking the same questions to information we've gone over and the math presented it should help keep this thread clean.

 

• Darkside

I plan on including all of what you have mentioned in the OP of this thread. It's just taking me some time to update it all .

In the meantime, if you could link the posts that you feel are relevant to the discussion, that would help speed things along.

<XI|> if your dog barks do you debate the philosophical reason behind him barking
<XI|> no
<XI|> you say shut up idiot

 

Aezoc

No mention of 13/51/7? After running through Ulduar with it and 17/51/3, the DPS looked pretty comparable between the two, and the run speed from UP just makes life easier on some fights.

 

Vaelzek

I am also surprised that this core build was not initially mentioned. 2 disease rotation is heavily intertwined with 13/51/7 because 2/2 Epidemic allows you to push out one or two additional Obl before diseases fall off. Anyway, I'd like to bring up something regarding Frost gear stats. I don't believe I've seen this mentioned in depth before, so here it is:

UP Frost and Expertise
Frost Stat Weights (pulled from the BiS topic) shows Expertise very high up, dominating crit and arp. Personally, I do not see the need to have much (at least not the cap) expertise when dpsing in unholy presence due to open GCD times.

This is further reinforced by dropping t7 4p bonus when moving into t8, where by sticking to the standard 3xObl rotation results in a few more open GCDs. When an attack is dodged or parried due to low expertise, we simply lose time but not resources (like a miss would). I believe these failed attacks can be compensated for by simply trying again, pushing the rotation behind a little which would end up filling those empty GCDs. Any thoughts about the true importance of expertise?

 

Takingcake

I was wondering, in regards to the HB single disease rotation, if it would be too much of a DPS loss to use icy touch (glyphed) for better RP generation and refreshing FF.

I am currently using this rotatation:

BT>IT>BS>OB>OB>DUMP
IT>BS>OB>OB>DUMP

I found that my DPS was slightly higher in Blood Presence since I spent less time waiting on runes. I am unable to test out the HB glyph/rotation since I'm at work >.< lol. I was wondering if anyone knew which glyph/rotation would put out more DPS?

 

Lynri

Ok few mentions.
@ Darkside, nice thread. One argument on the IT builds. IT does not demand for double disease. Some builds, especially the classic pre 3.1 IT rotation using DRM for UA does not use PS. They use BT to allow for the extra OB then BoTN talent to allow the rotation to continue while BT is on cd. For example a rotation for that would be: IT > OB > BS > BS > BT > OB > FS* : OB > OB > OB > FS* It's also been proven in ulduar content to be viable using the classic 20/51/0 build.

@Vaelzek, ArP is up there depending on rotation. For HB builds or the heavy IT spam build ArP scale worse then would an IT build using the extra OBs or even PS (if you really must use it) as they'll get more out of it. The loss of 4set t7/7.5 makes Unholy Presence weaker generally for some builds as you don't generate the rp for Frost Strikes to fill up (depending on glyph/build/rotation). As to why some people are leaning towards Blood > Unholy Presence. This would make Expertise crucial again due to GCD.

The issue of the 13/51/7 build is you don't need Epidemic. It's nice but with HB shooting off at a minimum of every 8seconds or faster depending on Rime procs (and/or usage of Empower Rune Weapon) you don't need to worry about Frost Fever dropping unless you do something foolish. Yes it allows for a possibility of an extra OB but so does Rime without requiring 2 extra talent points (which means 2% less crit)

So overall Expertise - Haste - ArP are heavily dependent on spec/glyph choice then anything else. ArP/Expertise has done amazingly for the more classic IT build using the 20/51/0 build then it does for HB or heavy IT but then again Haste does slightly better for the latter builds.

@ Takingcake, blowing BT too early losing valuable dps. Using a Blood Strike prior to using BT will increase dps since the rune used for BS will be refreshed and turned into a Death Rune by BT. Since the 15% damage increase on BoTN talent, this makes using BS even more important. HB vs IT still has a hefty debate though on average they generally pull the same dps.

 

odie

In my honest opinion, unless rime procs its unnecessary to waste your runes on it or hb. Once rime procs use your hb with its nice glyphed effects you are on your way to dpsing. I found once i started putting hb or it into my rotation and not waiting on rime i found the dps to drop.

 

Tristone

On Hodir, another option for AMS that can be riskier is near the end of the flash freeze cast. This prevents you from being flash frozen and allows you to stay on the boss in the effect of starlight, if snowdrifts are farther away.

 

Erekose

The reason (I believe) for the exclusion of 13/51/7 is that it is an 'old' build. If you are using this build with IT glyph, then you're using less IT because you're pumping out more OBs, whereas if you went 17/51/3 you'd be using IT more and hence getting more RP for FS. If you are using 13/51/7 with HB glyph, then you're 'wasting' some talent points on either attacks you wont use (PS) or tanking talents (Dodge) to get to Epidemic.

I personally was a big proponent of 13/51/7 back when the HB rotation was new and we were all still using t7. *IF* you are still using 4pt7 and the HB glyph, this build will probably be the best performing for you, although it won't be as good as it used to with the 4p nerf. Additionally, once you move past 4pt7 you encounter a lot of dead GCD time even in Blood Presence because your RP generation got owned by the set bonus.

As for your question of Expertise, it depends. If you are running an OB heavy rotation in Blood Presence then Expertise is very important as getting pushed back will mess with a relatively tight rotation. If you're running 6xIT in Unholy Presence however, Expertise is not very important (relatively speaking) since we're using spells or FS the majority of the time. You are correct in stating that even if you get a dodge on an OB you should have enough leeway with UP in order to not see any correlating butterfly effect on your priority system.

I can see why people like to play around with or debate stat weighting, but I've always seen it as being very intuitive for Frost and the stat weighting never effects my decisions when it comes to Ulduar loot. You ideally want to be spell hit capped without Virulence and this is easy to do as Ulduar gear has oodles of Hit on it. I'm spell hit capped in raids without gemming/enchanting for it, without Virulence and without a Draenei. A Miss on an IT in certain parts of the ITx6 system can be very disruptive however so if you're below that threshold Virulence will obviously be a necessary investment.

For those who are at spell hit cap without Virulence and who are not using 6xIT you could do some very nice things with those 3 extra talent points. Extra range on your frost spells, Lichborne for anti-fear/MC, 3 points in Toughness for BA synergy, or my favorite...3 in Scent of Blood. If that procs, thats a free FS with Butchery and as we all know Ulduar has a lot of AoE damage going out. Used in conjunction (assuming it works) with Darkside/Kroot's AMS strategies you could net yourself a sizable amount of RP over the course of some fights with Scent of Blood. EDIT: I've only ever taken it as a tank role, I'm assuming that it can proc off of AoE that goes out to the raid, but if not then its not viable for DPS.

Anyways, back to the stat weighting...you just want to pick up the highest Str gear you can, and thats what makes the decisions for gear exceedingly easy. Unless you like being a DKP whore or you are in a guild that is dropping all the hardmodes already and you are waiting for those items, almost everything in Ulduar (with some exceptions of course) that is Plate and Str based will be an upgrade over what the previous Tier had available even if it has 'non-optimal' stats like Arp and Haste or it has less sockets. Get RatingBuster and if its an AP upgrade, take it. ArP ~= Haste in my estimation, they both only affect portions of our DPS whereas Str affects everything.

 

waffletimeyo

I'd like to preface this reply with the fact that my DK is a tank, thus I do not get to spend a lot of time in raids experimenting with dps specs/rotations, and my gear isn't the greatest ever (using mostly 10 man/heroic/rep epics with a couple naxx 25 drops, sigil of awareness, and Death's Bite)

That being said, the dps spec I've been working with is in fact 13/51/7, using glyphs for IT, OBl, and FS. Of what dps testing I've done, I've been finding this spec to work best overall for me. The basic rotation I use is IT, PS, OB, BSx2, FS x2, OB x2, FS, OB, FSx2. However, every time KM procs, I break the rotation for FS (unless FF needs to be refreshed). I do not use rime procs because both OB and FS hit harder than HB every time with my current gear, and I never have a time where a GCD goes unused (I could swap to unholy presence, but when I do that I get strings of 2-3 unused GCDs, which blows entirely). I think the best example of dps I've put out with this rotation was about 4.2k on 10 man maexna, with kings, might, a ret paladin, and curse of elements affecting my dps

The reason I think this spec works well for me is that the majority of my yellow hits are crits. The base crit chance on obliterate with my gear and spec is roughly 48%, so roughly 58% on full raid buffs, and most of the frost strikes I land are used with KM (I seem to recall dps breakdown on a training dummy over 15 minutes using this rotation had 71% crit, 29% hit for FS). My reasoning for going for epidemic is for maximizing the amount of OB's I can afford to drop per rotation without letting my diseases drop during RP dumps, since OB is my strongest hit with my current gear.

That being said, I suspect that if indeed 13/51/7 is the strongest frost dps spec for my DK, it is because of gearing. I suspect that if you are working with naxx/maly/OS gear, which I am, this would be when 13/51/7 would be most viable, for several reasons. First, you have the 4 set on T7 providing ample mounts of RP such that you never run out. Second, your best available sigil raises the dammage done by OB. Third (and I'm not quite sure about this one so please correct me if I'm wrong), I suspect FS and HB scale more with gear than OB, since they are not affected by armor. I have absolutely no doubt that as soon as I break my T7 4 set and pick up a sigil of the vengeful heart, I will see much better dps as 17/51/3.

In summary, I suspect that 13/51/7 is a viable spec for death knights with low to mid range gear, while I agree entirely that something along the lines of 17/51/3 or 20/51/0 would be more viable in ulduar gear. Of course, when I get home today, I will be sure to do some testing towards this theory. Also, it would be very helpfull if a dps main could slap on some of their old naxx gear and do some spec testing along these lines, because after all, my main spec is tanking.

 

Erekose

This discussion is (or should be) focused on what is the best spec/priority/rotation/build what have you for Ulduar in post-t7 gear. Darkside has been kind enough to summarize some stuff about the HB rotation, and he probably will expand on his rotation section once we give him enough time to update, but that's where it should end (at least in this thread). I don't mean to sound like a dick waffle, but if you want information regarding Frost DPS with old gear and an old rotation, you should go read the old thread, theres plenty of stuff there that will answer your questions or lead you in the right direction.

I'm sure the majority of the people who are reading and keeping up with this discussion don't really give a shit about Naxx DPS, or the type of DPS you get if you switch back to old gear. It is a complete waste of time to re-hash old rotations with old gear, and I would appreciate anyone who is reading this to strongly consider *NOT* posting anything if it is a question about old rotations with old gear.

Please keep the discussion current and relevant, it would be amazing to keep this new thread relatively clean for *new* information.

 

ryankhamilton

I might be wrong so please correct me if I am.

When you are running the single disease / HB Glyph approach when you do not get a rime proc to refresh FF is it not better to do a IT / PS?

Comparing the two; HB may hit harder then PS and IT but BP and the increase in damage it applies for the obliterates surely to follow provide more damage then what the HB hits for.

I think I read this in the last thread and if this is still true should probably be mentioned for the HB single disease section.

 

Lynri

No. Since HB comes off cd by itself in 8 seconds, giving more then enough time to use HB again before diseases drop. Frost fever has a natural 15second duration. Blood Plague does nothing but increase OB damage and is only affected by universal talents like Black Ice and Tundra Stalker.

It's not worth the runes to use IT + PS to refresh diseases, actually lowers dps as both are the weakest abilities of their type (IT is now one of the weakest spells while PS is weakest strike). Also ruins the point of the glyph truthfully. if you're going to use IT to refresh FF might as well run Glyph of Icy Touch instead.

Blood Plague can either help or hinder depending on gear itemization. It's not all that amazing without the 4set t8 bonus and even then it's pretty lackluster compared to Unholy. (Though admittedly the legs and helm are quite strong slot wise).

 

waffletimeyo

Just to clarify, the purpous of my post was more for people going into the new content who still havent picked up much loot out of it (and I'm fairly sure that dps in that category are still very common right now). I respect that this post is for new content and gear, I just wanted to somewhat clarify whether specs like 17/51/3 etc. require you to have some ulduar loot to be more viable than older specs.

The reason I posted my dps on a naxx fight is that it was the only time recently I've had the chance to dps in any raids at all (since I swapped my dps spec for frost to provide the haste buff). In ulduar, I have yet to get the chance to dps on anything other than trash, so I had nothing else to really guage my dps by and therefore picked a fight out of a recent naxx run that has regular interuptions to dps. As for asking people to see about slapping on some old gear and testing it out, that is just for more evidence for or against gear dependancy.

In any case, I absolutely respect the purpous here and the effort that Darkside puts in to producing excellent guides, and if my posts do indeed violate the purpous of this thread I'm not the type to QQ if you decide to delete all of them.

EDIT: Tonight I got to dps on Hodir using my frost spec, and it was quite dissapointing...only sustained 5k. Last time I dpsed him I was unholy and I sustained about 6.8k. Frost spec definitely gets far more friendly once you pick up a sigil of the vengefull heart, because I think the difference here proves it won't do great otherwise (or at least in my mind it does). If my guild wasnt missing a regular enh shaman, I'd probably be speccing back to unholy on my dps spec until I pick up that sigil.

 

Veliya

I've had pretty decent success as a single disease build using glyphs of Obliterate, Icy Touch, and Frost Strike, in Unholy Presence, with the 17/51/3 spec.

Granted I usually tank, and am constrained to DPSing on a few fights, but I classically do a rotation of:

Obliterate, BS, Obliterate, IT

Pretty much you are continuously cycling one blood rune as Death for IT, and resetting one to Death. Those Death runes always go to IT, all of your F/U runes go to Unholy, and you only ever HB on Rime Procs, unelss you are in a fight where the AoE damage is beneficial to use. Outside of this I use obviously Frost Strike.

The only down side is that this spec is a super RP hog due to Unholy Presence, but it's managable on most fights if you utilize AMS on cooldown to give you extra RP (running through Mines on Mimiron, through Frozen Blows on Hodir, so on and so forth). It's also insanely beneficial if you can start the pull with a lot of RP by building it up before the fight, or keeping it high from the last trash pull.

The rotation is awkward at the start because you need to get IT up and get your blood runes on alternating cooldowns, but once you get that under control, and get used to using AMS "offensively" as opposed to defensively, it's a pretty solid DPS spec overall. I've been manging to make it work without the four piece T7 pre patch on many fights.

I think this spec's usefulness hinges on the raid damage you take in the fight, and if you can regularly refill your RP through use of AMS - if you can, or if you involve a lot of movement, this is good, if you can't, the HB Glyph single disease rotation is probably better. I really think the spec is better and far more realistic because as long as you are moving or taking extra damage, you don't waste time standing there. It won't be better on a target dummy for sure, Blood Presence would probably look better, but eh, I dunno.

 

Lynri

Valiya
Blood Presence would alleviate the GCD issues when dealing with Rp generation problems as mentioned. The huge issue was the change from 4set t7/7.5 You used to be able to generate enough rp to fill the gap using Unholy Presence 100% of the time, with the change you can't making Blood > Unholy even if only slightly for that build/rotation.

using BT after the BSx2 allows for the extra OB as well as the continuous death rune generation you've mentioned. Makes the rotation fairly easy to manage too, especially with UA usage. After BT comes off cd you can use it for UA like Unholy do for GF and it doesn't mess up rotation.

Depending on gear for your dps spec you can drop Virulence (as well as raid comp.) If you hit roughly 10-11% hit you'll generally either hit cap for spells or come close enough (with Misery/Imp. FF or the like) that you won't have to worry too much about Virulence leaving the 3 points for other talents (most notably DRM or something along those lines)

 

Erekose

That actually is a pretty well worded question and one I haven't seen articulated yet (at least, in a well thought out manner)

One of the rotations I consider to be gear-constrained is the 13/51/7 or 17/51/3 HB glyph solo disease Blood Presence rotation, and unfortunately it doesn't work out (as) well in t8 as it did in t7, specifically due to the loss of additional RP from 4pt7.

The only major difference between Ulduar frost gear and Naxx frost gear (excepting the bonus which I just talked about of course) is the Sigil. Vengeful Heart makes FS so good that it trumps every other ability by a even more significant margin, so going from that the rotations that are RP-rich will most likely perform better.

This probably means that until you get the Sigil, ITx6 may not be as effective as 2x disease IT that has more OBs (benefiting from Awareness).

I will be running tonights raid as ITx6 and will hopefully have an informative parse up by tomorrow. Honestly I don't mind IT glyph having such a big impact on the rotation, its just another choice depending on how you want to min/max your char/spec/build.

As others have already stated, SS glyph completely changes their "rotation" (insert joke about Unholy here), DS glyph somewhat changes how Blood's rotations work (keeping RP reservoir), and if any glyph is "overpowered" I would say it is the FS glyph that allows for 25% more of them.

For all its RP rich awesomeness, ITx6 has its disadvantages (FF clipping, KM eating, etc) to go along with its advantages. It'll be interesting to see which rotation comes out on top for single target dps.

 

Erekose

What spec/rotation/priority system are you talking about?

Your statements are not worded very well, and are erroneous. With IT glyph and either ITx6 or IT PS BS BS OB - OB IT IT OB style rotations you are much better off in Unholy Presence, especially in a raid setting where you can soak RP with AMS. Please try to be more clear in what you are talking about.

 

Lynri

It was in response to the post prior on the heavy Ob rotation that Veliya was talking about. It's the classic pre 3.1 Frost 2h rotation using IT just to refresh and using OB for the main damage output + HB on Rime procs. None of what was said was "erroneous" and I thought I was being pretty clear. My apologies I'll add his/her name before the start of the post though

 

seraphthrone

"Ignis
Simply time AMS for use ~1s before he finishes his Flame Jets cast."

Is it just me or when you use AMS before he finishes you prevent yourself from getting the DOT afterward?

I mean you can probably keep dumping FS as you gain RP from the dot, that's more RP than the initial damage.

 

Erekose

What I meant about erroneous was that you basically said that Blood Presence was better than Unholy for the rotation mentioned, and that is clearly not true. I just ran the single disease OB heavy rotation (its worth nothing that even in the OB heavy rotations, FS is the highest portion of your damage) in both Blood Presence and Unholy, and Unholy came out ahead by over 400 dps, and thats just on a target dummy without AMS soaks that can only be utilized effectively by UP rotations.

As of this moment for Frost (going off of impact of new Sigil + initial data coming from ITx6/ IT 2x disease) I don't see Blood as being the better presence for any gear level/spec/rotation with the exception of HB glyph 4pt7 single disease.

 

• Darkside

You make a good point. I'm not sure whether or not the dot applies if AMS is used before the cast has finished. As you say, it should not, but I recall gaining loads of RP even if I used AMS before the cast finished. If someone raiding tonight could please investigate this, it would be appreciated.

Added both of these.

<XI|> if your dog barks do you debate the philosophical reason behind him barking
<XI|> no
<XI|> you say shut up idiot