There are, essentially, two cases in which you will want to divert from the “Gem everything for strength” mantra that otherwise holds true and go for yellow/orange.
The first case is if you aren’t at the hit cap. Hit is your most valuable stat before such a point, and as such it is ideal to gem for it. In such a situation simply use [Item not found!] in yellow sockets with [Etched Ametrine] in red sockets until you reach the melee cap.
The second case is a matter of the following chart. Whenever a socket bonus requiring any number of red sockets, zero blue sockets, and then one or two yellow sockets, has a bonus that is equal to or higher than the number listed in the following chart utilize an [Inscribed Ametrine].
Bonus per Yellow:
iLvl 226/239
iLvl 245/258
iLvl 262/277
Hit Rating
2
1
1
Expertise Rating
3
1
1
Strength
3
1
1
Crit Rating
3
1
1
ArP Rating
4
1
1
Agility
4
1
7
Attack Power
8
2
1
Haste
7
2
1
How relevant is this information to Frost? (taken from Consider's UH thread) Maybe add it to the main page?
I've recently been asked to respec to Frost due to the departure of our enhancement shaman, and I was noticing a few problems with using UA as it says in the OP.
I'm finding that once the Blood Tap buff runs out, I'm left with 1Blood&1Death Rune, so I added a macro to my UA ability to cancel the buff as soon as I've used it to prevent this messing with my rotation.
/cast unbreakable armor
/cancelaura blood tap
Might be worth adding to the OP to help out anyone else that's new to the spec.
This may be a stupid question, but: why FC on the mainhand and Razorice on the OH? Wouldn't it be better to have Razorice on the MH so that the frost dmg bonus gets applied to the greater source of white damage? The only thing I can think of is that OHs have a lower proc rate on effects like FC, but if this is the case I'm not aware of it.
This may be a stupid question, but: why FC on the mainhand and Razorice on the OH? Wouldn't it be better to have Razorice on the MH so that the frost dmg bonus gets applied to the greater source of white damage? The only thing I can think of is that OHs have a lower proc rate on effects like FC, but if this is the case I'm not aware of it.
In all honestly, it doesn't really matter. I would assume having FC in the main hand would maximize uptime on the proc. Since ToT lets all your attacks hit with both weapons, placement wont be a huge DPS increase or decrease. Nearly every attack you do will have a chance to apply RI.
How relevant is this information to Frost? (taken from Consider's UH thread) Maybe add it to the main page?
Frost has very different stat weights than Unholy, thus that table would be completely off. It would be simple enough for Darkside to create one, however. Or for anyone to do so, for that matter. It's simply a matter of figuring out the loss of 10 strength, the gain of 10 crit rating, and then calculating how much of each stat (in the form of the socket bonus) is needed to cover the gap.
This may be a stupid question, but: why FC on the mainhand and Razorice on the OH? Wouldn't it be better to have Razorice on the MH so that the frost dmg bonus gets applied to the greater source of white damage? The only thing I can think of is that OHs have a lower proc rate on effects like FC, but if this is the case I'm not aware of it.
RI is already affected by your MH damage, even if it's on your OH. Furthermore, the proc accounts for something like 4k damage over the course of the entire fight, which is a stupidly small amount to be min/maxing around.
Originally Posted by Consider
Frost has very different stat weights than Unholy, thus that table would be completely off. It would be simple enough for Darkside to create one, however. Or for anyone to do so, for that matter. It's simply a matter of figuring out the loss of 10 strength, the gain of 10 crit rating, and then calculating how much of each stat (in the form of the socket bonus) is needed to cover the gap.
I'm trying to avoid posting absolute stat weight numbers, since they vary so much person to person. It is, like Consider suggests, absurdly simple to calculate for yourself when to gem orange and when to gem red, assuming you get your latest weights from a sim.
This nerf to SS has me very optimistic as well. We had an UH DK in raid last night, but his damage output on that fight was not far off from mine. I'm sure he was using the right spec and glyphs for 3.3. I suspect blood and frost will claim the single target dps superiority soon.
Please refrain from posting personal anecdotes in this thread; they contribute nothin meaningful to discussion and only serve to distract everyone from what is actually going on.
While the nerfs to unholy are fairly severe, I don't think that they're enough to put Frost on top for ICC. Unholy was parsing 2000 DPS higher than Frost pre-nerf and I think it's unlikely that this nerf will close even more than half that gap. SS still scales better than almost anything else in the game, just by a smaller margin.
Has anyone been able to test whether the new sigil the hanged one out performs awareness for single target fights? I did some testing on the dummy, and both seemed to be about the same.
Just food for thought mainly it's it even worth switching away from awareness to that new sigil.
Just reading through this thread to see what people's thoughts are on DW frost with 3.3. It's likely what I'd play, since I enjoy the priority based playstyle better than a fixed rotation (spamming 1 gets boring fast). Most of the information seems straight forward, although one point confused me a bit - specifically boot enchants.
Would you take the Cat's swiftness for the movement speed bonus like Tuskarr's Vitality, while still having some sort of DPS gain (as opposed to stam)? I'm guessing the mobility provides more usefulness than the extra AP or hit/crit that would serve as the alternatives.
I'm trying to avoid posting absolute stat weight numbers, since they vary so much person to person. It is, like Consider suggests, absurdly simple to calculate for yourself when to gem orange and when to gem red, assuming you get your latest weights from a sim.
I think they want global numbers, affected by the spec. I am sure you knew that - this is how it has always been, with people figuring out their own needs from their own gear that they chose based on the numbers from these threads.
And if it was "absurdly simple" to do so (bordering on insulting) then the thread would be needed nor would questions need to be asked.
Has anyone been able to test whether the new sigil the hanged one out performs awareness for single target fights? I did some testing on the dummy, and both seemed to be about the same.
Just food for thought mainly it's it even worth switching away from awareness to that new sigil.
The main problem is the ramp up time with hanged man, though once its up, it will stay up from what I can tell. The difference between Virulence and Awareness wasn't all that great, so I imagine since hanged man is more strength, the gap might be slightly smaller.
I currently have 2 Nighttime. [Nighttime]
Last night in ICC 10 The Bone Wardens Splitter dropped and was passed to me as the shaman did not want this. [Bone Warden's Splitter]
Would it be better to use 2 Nighttime as the weps are slower or use TBWS in the OH?
I currently have 2 Nighttime. [Nighttime]
Last night in ICC 10 The Bone Wardens Splitter dropped and was passed to me as the shaman did not want this. [Bone Warden's Splitter]
Would it be better to use 2 Nighttime as the weps are slower or use TBWS in the OH?
In the last thread we calculated that each .1 speed is worth about 5 weapon dps, so for the fast weapon to be better in a 2.6 vs 1.5 situation, the 1.5 speed weapon needs to be 55 dps higher than the 2.6 speed weapon. This does not take stats on the weapon into account, but clearly in your situation the slow weapon is superior.
Has anyone seen any numbers or done testing on Sigil of Awareness with this build? I know it was mentioned earlier in this thread. Reason I ask is because I finally got my Needle-Encrusted Scorpion a few days ago, and looking over the T10 gear and all ICC gear in general which contains alot of ArP, on strictly single target fights (like Saurfang), would Awareness take over?
I've recently been asked to respec to Frost due to the departure of our enhancement shaman, and I was noticing a few problems with using UA as it says in the OP.
I'm finding that once the Blood Tap buff runs out, I'm left with 1Blood&1Death Rune, so I added a macro to my UA ability to cancel the buff as soon as I've used it to prevent this messing with my rotation.
/cast unbreakable armor
/cancelaura blood tap
Might be worth adding to the OP to help out anyone else that's new to the spec.
To help you out with that, I always use my Blood Tap-UA right after my first Blood Strike. IIRC, you'll still get 2 Blood Strikes and it won't mess with your rotation at all, and when you're starting it back up again, it should be off and back to normal by the time you're ready to hit the target with BS again.
I got battered hilt, now after reading through the posts here. I basically should abandon this spec and get the 2 hander?
Have you tested more and found out better which pulls ahead? I specced 0/53/18 without unholy armor. I miss the icy touch glyph a bit, there comes times every once in a while where there is nothing to do except to use horn of winter, thankfully arcane torrent + blood tap helps a bit with that.
Just wondering if a 2.70 speed weapon from that quest would be a better option than the 2 hander.
So I have an alt DK that dual wields. I use the glyph of howling blast instead of casting plague strike. So my rotation is HB, BS, BS, OB, OB ect. I do a lot of DPS, but is this a bad way to play? I never hear anyone talking about this method. I like it because it avoids global cooldowns on a lot of runes. Everything comes off cooldown at the same time and I can just hammer out OBs and HBs.
So I have an alt DK that dual wields. I use the glyph of howling blast instead of casting plague strike. So my rotation is HB, BS, BS, OB, OB ect. I do a lot of DPS, but is this a bad way to play? I never hear anyone talking about this method. I like it because it avoids global cooldowns on a lot of runes. Everything comes off cooldown at the same time and I can just hammer out OBs and HBs.
The problem with that (and as Darkside has posted) is that your damage relies heavily on the fact that you run both diseases up on the target to maximize and no longer will glyph of howling blast pull ahead on damage.
I got battered hilt, now after reading through the posts here. I basically should abandon this spec and get the 2 hander?
Have you tested more and found out better which pulls ahead? I specced 0/53/18 without unholy armor. I miss the icy touch glyph a bit, there comes times every once in a while where there is nothing to do except to use horn of winter, thankfully arcane torrent + blood tap helps a bit with that.
Just wondering if a 2.70 speed weapon from that quest would be a better option than the 2 hander.
I too thought of getting the 2 hander and going Unholy, but in terms of gains, of course unholy would pull ahead. It is simply a better spec at this time. It all depends on how you wish to play. I for one, will still be running frost, because I enjoy the way it plays the most, and I still put out competative damage. Our Unholy dk pulls ahead most of the time, but I am rarely out of the top 10 dps (below 7k). Being frost also allows our enhance shaman to spec out of imp windfury to improve his personal dps. The guild likes me as frost, and I enjoy being able to play the game how I wish.
It depends more on which is more important to you, absolute top dps, or enjoying the game the way you want.
The problem with that (and as Darkside has posted) is that your damage relies heavily on the fact that you run both diseases up on the target to maximize and no longer will glyph of howling blast pull ahead on damage.
Furthermore, the Howling Blast glyph prevents you from using the IT glyph, so you lose out on 20% IT damage, without really gaining anything.
Has anyone been able to test whether the new sigil the hanged one out performs awareness for single target fights? I did some testing on the dummy, and both seemed to be about the same.
Just food for thought mainly it's it even worth switching away from awareness to that new sigil.
Even if it does, the difference will be very small and you would be far better off getting your tier gear rather than swapping sigils. Even discounting ramp-up time, it's only 20-some strength over Sigil of Virulence, which has a much lower opportunity cost.
Even if it does, the difference will be very small and you would be far better off getting your tier gear rather than swapping sigils. Even discounting ramp-up time, it's only 20-some strength over Sigil of Virulence, which has a much lower opportunity cost.
This has been my feeling. On pure, tank-and-spank fights (I think Saurfang and Festergut are the only two in ICC) SotHM will likely be superior, but only slightly. On every other fight the buff will drop off with even a minimal amount of movement and take much longer than SoV to reacquire. While you should eventually grab the sigil, it should probably be the last thing you spend your badges on.
On a related note, does anyone know if the buff from SotHM is applied twice when Oblit is used as DW?
12/11/09, 5:18 AM
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