insane_machine

I haven't really had any serious issues there. Yes, on the first cloud, afew seconds in, after multiple FS crits I have to watch it. But nothing like what you described.

Are you giving your tank a cloud buff though? First Storm Cloud we get, we sent the guy in melee to buff tank. Helps alot with tps.

If you already do that, I honestly don't know.

 

Taizu

Help break the NPCs for the first 2 flash freeze, then u can go all out. Ranged pulling aggro is easily remedied with a quick taunt from the tank; melee pulling aggro usually results in a dead melee dps.

 

Theldon

Why is the Howling Blast glyph an upgrade over Obliterate glyph for IT6? You seem to use Obliterate much more often and Howling Blast only when Rime is up. It seems that 20% additional Obliterate damage would be much better than overwriting Frost Fever (which is up due to Icy Touch).

 

zagor

Reasons for HB glyph are well described on the pages before.

For example, last vezax I did 5473dps, and OB did 9.7% of that, that's 530dps. With glyphed OB it would be some 100dps more. And this is on a static fight which favors OB glyph.
vezax log
I value the versatility of HB glyph much more than 100dps on static tank and spank encounter. It's not needed, but it's very handy. Kind of like SS glyph atm.

 

voltzzlol

What should the damage breakup of a double disease rotation be? I'm new to frost so I don't get to do many tests on standing bosses. I was able to pull 6.8k on 25man thaddius in BP with 4 pc 7.5 using rotation of

IT PS OB BS BS DUMP OB IT PS IT IT

My damage breakup was 33% FS, 22% melee, 22% obliterate.

Is FS really supposed to be 40-45% of dmg makeup? Also, when DPS'ing in UP, is it beneficial to spam hit your next move in queue (such as IT's) in the above cycle or to wait to see if a KM proc comes up? Many times have my IT's eaten up my KM procs even with the above rotation because I'm just itching to IT. If I'm in unholy, should I not be spamming my buttons to get off my moves as fast as possible?

 

Quieck

Have you been able to try it already? I used to go with that rotation and now that i came back to play i wanted to know if it is still reliable.

The reason it doesn't start with IT is actually quite clear if you try the rotation, using that correct order of Strikes on the beginnign of the fight you'll have the timing of the runes refreshing perfectly for the rest of the rotation, allowing you to have a rotation were all the waiting time you have from runes will be spent doing FS, and this, will clearly surpass the DPS gain of a rotation starting with IT.

 

Theldon

This is what I mean that its not so clear to me. I'm only concerned about top single target DPS. In that case, Glyph of Obliterate pulls out ahead and Glyph of Howling Blast is just to artificially boost DPS by applying FF as an area of effect?

 

Valtiel

You don't artificially boost dps using AoE. The only fight were (a part) of the AoE is (potentially) not needed is Kologarn.

If you're AoEing at Razorscale, you're doing your job. If you're aoeing scrapbots at XT, you're being useful. If you're AoEing at Auriaya, you're making the kill happen. If you hit multiple Flash Freezes at Hodir with a Storm buffed HB crit, you're awesome. If you are HB BB BBing down the arena trash of Thorim, you're keeping your healers from being swarmed. If you AoE at Freya, you're getting things right. If you AoE at Mimir phase 3 and 4, you're more useful than any single target dps. Howling Blast in the brain phase of Yogg? Priceless.

However, if you're skipping your aoe potential to become the ultimate Frost Specced Single Target DPS DK, then you're probably gonna be a pretty gimped rogue.

Frost's single target dps isn't terrible, but it's leagues behind what most other classes can do. Frost Strike is what makes us viable, but Howling Blast is what makes us excel. If your goal is pumping the best single target dps for the good of your raid (and not for your personal satisfaction), then the best advice you could get is respeccing Blood. You can do well as single target Frost (expecially with the sigil and an ITx6 rotation), but you're only really competitive with HB on AoE fights.

12 weeks without a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart drop and counting.

 

Theldon

Thanks, this was exactly what I was looking for. I kept seeing all of these rotations/priorities based on single target DPS, but was confused why everyone was using the Howling Blast Glyph over Obliterate. My raid role is to provide my Icy Talons buff, I'm just looking to better improve/maximize my DPS as frost.

 

Travaggie

I completely disagree, same as I did several pages ago when it was first brought up that AOE damage is equally as important if not more than single target. The only way you can possibly say this is if you have not tried nor care to try hardmodes. There is not a single fight in Ulduar that RELIES on AOE damage on any critical or stressful part of any encounter. For every boss fight, the single target burn is THE most important fight on any hardmode, and therefore should be the most sought after way to maximize DPS, which is what most people are refuting.

Saying "well then you should go blood if you're interested in max single target dps" is naive because many of us are providing the haste buff which is significantly better to the enhance version simply because its constant and available through all the movement sensitive fights, and we're more likely not to die. I'm in one of the top DPS guilds in the world and am constantly a top DPS on almost every fight, including pure single target burns, so it is far from "Leagues behind what most other classes can do" if you know how to play it well. A little more focus on progressing through the harder content, not completely trivial AOE portions would be much appreciated.

 

fr86

I'd like to add that I don't think blood is higher single target dps.

The parse I linked earlier showed me doing 6.5k dps on Ignis as frost, this week as blood I did 6.1k.

Really on most fights in ulduar I do better as frost, save XT's heart phase.

 

• Darkside

This is probably because your gear was sub-optimal for Blood; simply switching specs without making gear changes will result in a net DPS decrease. Particularly, Blood requires a substantial (>300) amount of ArPen in order to be effective, in addition to one of Grim Toll or the Mjolnir Runestone.

Anecdotally, I switched over to Blood a few weeks back (after accumulating some ArPen gear) and have noticed a net increase in my DPS. I've also found Blood to be far more useful in Ulduar, especially for hardmodes, with the inherent "bursty" nature of it's damage.

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

 

fr86

I didn't simply change specs. I made a few gear changes, including grim toll and 4pt8.5, obviously I'm not gonna use my 370 hit rating 20/51 set as blood! Furthermore in the blood thread it shows 1 str to be more valuable then 1 arp, so while I could regem to achieve ~300 arp (from my 150 or so) that doesn't seem like it would benefit my damage.

I do agree however that blood seems more suited for ulduar, for burning xt's heart, steelbreaker, mimiron's head and yogg's brain, among others.

 

dr_AllCOM3

Me too. Add the incredible survivability Blood has and it's clearly the superior spec. Running around with 31k hp, 10% more heal and a lot of selfheal makes hardmode fights like Thorim, Freya, Mimiron or Vezax a lot easier.

DocsDK UI
Simulator

 

richard

Why is this even an issue? What prevents you from using both?

On the topic of blood vs. other specs, it largely depends on the fight. My guild typically has 3 DKs, one of each spec, and we are usually pretty close to each other on overall damage done. Hodir is one example where blood will fall behind by a lot because magic damage is simply superior on that fight, but blood excels on stuff like XTs heart and any other encounter that requires burst.

You can't just say "Blood is better", because the reality is much more nuanced, and changes every fight in Ulduar.

 

zagor

1. IT glyph
2. FS glyph

 

dr_AllCOM3

I tried both, even with items that favor Frost, and Blood always did more dps (except Hodir, but hey..). Frost has some weaknesses while Blood has none.

DocsDK UI
Simulator

 

Travaggie

If you dual spec, then HB glyph can have a niche in some fights with alot of AOE where you aren't doing hardmodes. If you want the best DPS possible to help your guild, not just top DPS meters on AOE fights, then use the OB/IT/FS glyphs if you will be dual speccing a PVP, tank or blood/unholy 2nd dps spec. And yes blood has been proven to be higher single target DPS, not by a huge margin but by some, but the fact remains a Frost DK is still very valuable for the buff alone that is easier to keep up and more constant while still providing very very good single target and AOE damage.

 

jimbo637

6xIT 20/51 - Since I will not have Virulence, is it worth it to have more hit to make up for it? If so, how much hit should I aim for?

 

Lazengann

I'd go with making up extra hit instead of screwing up your rotation by missing on Icy Touches.

 

Faelor

Jimbo:
Yes, like many other posters running the 20/51 build I find that squeezing in extra +hit helps a lot. My biggest fear is missing an IT and ruining the flow of things, which I find far more critical that trying to get a few extra points of AP, or what have you.

Working on your rotation and knowing what to do when a problem arises (KM procs, Rime procs, running out to avoid an AE, knowing when to pop AMS to gain RP, etc) is your best bet in having 20/51 work for you. If you can't maintain the rotation, I recommend switching to another spec. Everyone has their own play styles, and the Death Knight caters to quite a few. I think 20/51 is one of the most engaging builds I've seen not only in WoW but a MMO period. But if you're not hammering your keys to keep up with the 1 second GCD and can may attention to the script-heavy encounters of Ulduar, it defiantly is NOT the spec for you. I know it took me the last week of staying up late and at the test dummies trying to get it down. Though I'm an awfully slow learner. I suppose the phrase Practice Makes Perfect applies to me heavily.

For my guild's raids I always try to pull in our Blood and two Unholy Death Knights, they do great DPS. I think their numbers are much more static than a Frost's because the rotations and CDs are typically easier to keep track of. A lot of Ulduar fights require burst, and I know both specs can do just that. But, Frost's advantage in Hodir is just ridiculous. My guild recently got Glory of the Ulduar Raider, and with the 10 man group they brought a Blood Death Knight. I know Blood's survivability definitely helped the group, along with the burst it provides.


My Gear :
Please don't be too harsh on my DPS gear. I have only one BIS item, that being the [Sigil of the Vengeful Heart]. With 20/51, I did manage to pull over 12,000 DPS on Hodir on Tuesday. My primary spec is tanking, so as mentioned above that is why my DPS gear isn't all that super. I've only spec'd DPS a few times since Ulduar came out, primary on Mimiron and Hodir.

Since I'm only DPS spec'd twice throughout Ulduar (Mimiron and Hodir), I would appreciate any gear suggestions as well. Currently with Ulduar being out for two months I'm finally going to get my chance at some Plate DPS gear so hopefully I see an improvement, though it won't be for a bit.

Despite the crappy DPS gear and with a dash of luck I managed to pull over 12,000 DPS on Hodir. Parse link here. It makes me happy knowing staying up 'till 8am the previous day with a few guild mates working on my rotation, gems and enchants was worth it. Ah man, I told myself I wouldn't try a lengthy post but it's past 6:00 am and I'm rambling like mad.


Summary:
20/51 rocks, but you gotta keep up with the speed and can not make any mistakes during the rotation. If you look at my above parse I lose my focus about 60-70% of the way through the fight and trying to help judge if the raid should continue or pull out (since killing Hodir a few seconds late means no more hard more attempts), totally wrecking my rotation (thankfully someone called to keep going!). I believe I hit Obliterate like twice instead of 4x IT, ugh. Hopefully no errors next week! Thankfully I fixed it as CDs were coming back up and Hodir went under 20%, resulting in a massive DPS increase and shooting me in to the #2 position for the parse.


Edit:
I don't even have the 20/51 spec on Tag right now, had to go Blood tank spec to try out a few things. Logging out with crud DPS gear in a few minutes.

Tagnikzur - Guild Leader of Halcyon Affinity: World of Warcraft

 

Dominated

Offtopic: Erekose, What is the name of the music on the vid. Completely kicks ass.

OnTopic: Many bosses dont have a lot of 'tank and spank' but you can still get a decently averaged count with XT heartbreaker (which im sure many more guilds already have and will be able to do, especially in 10 man where its much easier).

Last night's parse for 25 man Heartbreaker (I was low because i had to clean up some trash and ranged is full time on balls):
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

I've been off the EJ forums for a couple weeks, and still doing my 2x disease IT-PS-BS-BS-OB-DUMP-HoW -- IT-IT-FS-OB-OB-DUMP which basically allows me to do the same thing as when T7.5 was viable, I use IT/OB/FS glyph.

I need to look into the 6x IT gun as I have the ping to do it, but wasnt sure about how the build would mature. Regarding the HoW/IT glyph thing. Trash is nifty, but boss kills are always where its at.

I'll post some logs from tonight's run with ITx6 and see how it works. I need to change up some things because im rolling with 15% ArP due to my heavy strike rotation. If the ITx6 works better, that would open up a lot of new options because I have quite a bit of the BiS gear, but was keeping the 20% oblit gain since I run 2x disease just about full time (although i should get off my lazy ass and do the math again because the others have caught up to me in dps.) Regarding the other DKs, we run 3x DK (Frost, Blood, Unholy) and it works out well.

Also regarding light and dark bombs. I need to figure out what the special thing is because i usually keep in the top 3 and rarely if ever get a light/dark bomb on me, but when I cleaned up the trash, I got a light bomb for the first time in like 4 raid lockouts.

This is from last night's yogg kill (ignore the other attempts, we have been testing different strats for faster/easier hard mode kills):
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis - Using low arm pen (3%) exp/hit capped (6530 DPS)

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis - Using high arm pen (16%) exp/hit capped (5876 DPS)

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis (Hodir 10 man - 10.8k dps)

As you can see dual disease is pretty damn competitive and very consistent (dps average wise) with 6x as well. I plan to try and master the 6x rotation just to use it as a comparison, but the ease of the current rotation I do above right now is keeping me off that method.

And i forgot to mention that I run in unholy presence, and any time Rime procs, you use HB on the tail of the rotation, so you get 100% free HB without any chances of screwing it up as oblits are always at the end of the rotation and you get 1-1.5 seconds of swing time on the end which is perfect for the HB or HoW as needed. As for KM procs, you are using 3x IT and 5-6x FS, so odds are well in your favor, especially since you do your ITs up front and the rest of the time you are doing BS/Oblits/FS, so there is a fantastic chance your KM will be on a FS. I also have my rune strike macro'd to my PS/BS and my Deathchill tied to FS/HB.

On my 2nd rotation if i need to even out the rotation, I use IT-FS-IT-OB-OB-FS-FS-FS since the FS in the middle of the first 2 IT evens the timer back out for the next full rotation. When you are heavy into combat the fortunate thing about this rotation is you only need to check that if you have death runes up, you need to do the 2nd half of the rotation since they key to any DPS combo is getting the right sequence to allow buffs to stack and benefit each other.

I had a place for using UA, but remembering it after the 4th rotation can be a PITA. I need to dissect this a little further because I know its usable on my first rotation/2nd BS with rune tap (which is where i have it macro'd) with an extra IT since my oblit has my 2nd frost rune on cooldown.

Edit: Now that I remember, it also screws up my 2nd rotation because i wind up with 2 blood runes from UA/IT after I tap (2 DR -> UA ->1 DR -> IT -> 0 DR - 2 BR on CD) so i have to do my 1st rotation over again then go back to 2nd.

 

Sylari

Sort of a noob question here, but under the double disease rotation section of the OP, it mentions

Why does this not apply with the Howling Blast single disease rotation? replacing one of the OB in the back half of the rotation with ITx2?

 

voltzzlol

you don't have IT glyph with that spec, and the obliterates cause rime procs.

 

Valtiel

That's more or less the long and short of it.

AoE has a role in Ulduar, and Frost is great on those fights.
Hardmodes generally need burst, single target dps, and bar a few notable exceptions, Blood completely destroys Frost in those fights, and Unholy potentially even more so.

The long story short is:

On AoE, Blood presence Frost works good because it can use its main strength (Howling Blast) to great efficiency. However, UH works probably even better than Blood can be no slouch either expecially if you're in a part of the rotation with 4 Death runes to power you BB with.

On single target dps, you can go Unholy presence IT spamm, and do sensibly less damage than Unholy and a lot less damage than Blood.

This isn't the place for whining, but it's safe to say that at the moment Frost isn't competitive. It's viable, but both other speccs are a better option and if you're facing something were good dps actually matters, you will do a better service to your guild. If you look at the WMO top 20 for all bosses and hardmodes, there's about 62 DKs, 40 of which are unholy, 18 are blood, and 4 are frost, and none of the frost is on an hardmode. That's the long and short of it.

12 weeks without a Sigil of the Vengeful Heart drop and counting.