Frost DPS is... wow.

[Nerrectuz]

As a former Blood DPS death knight prior to path 4.0.1, I changed to Unholy DPS, and with recent spec opinions gave Frost a chance. With Unholy I felt middle-tier with any 10m RAID, and while I did fairly well, it never felt like I did what I could.

With Frost spec, I have noticed a drastic performance change using the ideas of rotation and talent choices provided here in this post. Frost has changed my DPS to not drop and my total damage to increase significantly. In a raid environment it can be difficult when Single Target is the case, but when you have multiple trash with Boss it is overkill and noticeable that your damage is there.

I suggest for any straight DPS players using the two, try Unholy spec and Frost Spec as OS, and run a raid, switching off between the two depending on your boss encounter and the Single/Multi target situation, you'll see what I mean.

Frost is easier I believe to play, while Unholy has more and's and if's tied to it, when you wait for cooldowns and runes to regen. Just my two cents, will keep an update of what I discover in my next ICC 10man.

[uglybbtoo]

I checked and WoL doesn't show Obliterate damage correctly. I had 32k Oblit crits last night and WoL only shows about 20k.

Obliterate is not strictly modified by weapon damage. It is normalized.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Normalization

I don't use WOL for my data anyhow and it's simple to prove and hence not worth the arguement ... try it.

Lets assume you are in 271 gear or whatever use recount or whatever you want to record you dps. Now switch to a much lower weapon and of coarse you DPS will drop because melee + frost strike + obliterate all have weapon damage tied up in them in varying degrees. If you look at recount for example your howling blast damage is almost entirely unaffected as it only uses AP which is on your gear and only difference in stats between weapon will affect it.

In this situation slotting in extra Howling blasts will increase your damage over running "proper rotation" just based on damage levels of each of the abilities. Yes you lose proc and benificial effects etc etc no arguement and you can never reach your original DPS but your DPS will be higher that running a correct rotation.

This is the effect that we were seeking to understand ... it is a total mismatch between gear and weapon that produces the anomoly.


EDIT: Cheers for alerting me to the normalization however because I had been scratching my head trying to work out why there was less movement in the numbers for weapons of same ilevel. Helped me alot .. this has been quite a journey so far :-)

[uglybbtoo]

Is anybody using Frost DPS spec 3/31/2 with 2H weapon?
I am currently using 2x1Handed weapon, doing pretty fine.

But was wondering if 2H was better or at least equal to 2x1Handed.

Had a battered hilt drop, and i am undecided if i should sell it or trade it in for the 2H wep.

Just to make life confusing both normal specs for frost 2x1h and 2H are 3/31/2

2x1H spec is generally http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZMI0rfuRzfz0b:amM0
2H spec is genrally http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZGc0rfuRzbu0b:amM0

And neither works well with wrong spec because of the talent shifts based on the weapons you intend to use. On the gear levels available to me there is not much in it either way assuming similar level weapons.

[Rennadrel]

You're skewing your HB numbers by using dummies. If you look at what the HBs hit, you'll see that you're hitting a second dummy. Your DPS could very well be higher than Oblit, but it's misleading because your single target DPS is lowered.

My DK is almost hit capped, and fully expertise capped with very little in the ways of good gear, and as Frost Obliterate hits like a Mack truck. Half my gear is either blues or cheap epics with gems and no enchants, my Obliterate is hitting for 10-12k crits in a 5 man. My characters GS on WoW Heroes is only 2400 :P

Frost in my opinion has an upside for AoE with the amount of damage Howling Blast has, it's pretty disgusting in 5 mans that it crits for 11k on the main target and is hitting 5k on every other target in it's range.

I think dual wield Frost DPS will be better in Cataclysm then it is now because the weapons will be optimized for it better.

[penademuerte]

I am using 3/31/2 on my Dk Latormenta on Korgath and it is insane on trash in ICC, on the trash right before rot and festergut, I had a 32k dps spike and leveled off at 23k, and on bosses like saurfang and festergut i was staying at 11-12k so it is good. I am sure that blizzard will nerf it cause all the other classes will be griping about the DK's being to OP. On the question of the battered hilt I would sell it cause sure as the world you turn it in a bryntroll will drop for you or something like that.

[uglybbtoo]

It's not that frost DK's are OP its a scaling issue that they get higher DPS alot earlier than unholy. It's alot like paladin's doing 1.2-1.6K at level 60 which is alot more than any other class but then it all levels back. A frost DK at level 60 (I am raising a new one to plot DPS at lower levels) only does 400-600DPS because we don't have howling blast.

Unholy are definitely doing more damage in the higher gear bracket but they need the gear to pull it off. Given that why would blizz nerf frost DK's .. enjoy the fun :-)

Basically I would say if you are a DK and don't have access to raid gear you probably should be in frost. I really hate gearscore but GS terms thats sort of 4700-5600 and assuming normal Justice point gear. There is a massive difference between frost and unholy DPS at this gear level.

[Cocktales]

why are you guys so excited about AoE damage and dps on a heroic boss. If you were decently geared you should have already pulled these numbers in unholy or frost. Whoopdy doo da.

[uglybbtoo]

If you aren't top end gear near BiS frost will out DPS unholy even on single target. In unholy in my current gear I do 7K tops on fights like fester and saurfang as opposed to 11K+ in frost ... THATS THE POINT.

AOE and heroics is just fun.

No-one is knocking unholy at all but not everyone has access to BiS gear.

[Cocktales]

AoE and heroics doesnt count though. Besides, that stuff was normal in 3.3 even out of BiS. My point i guess is that this isnt magic, its always been this way

[Karhazn]

The thing about Unholy vs Dw frost is that Unholy currently requires a much higher haste level, nearing the soft cap, to see its dps excel. In 25-man t10 you can start seeing Unholy dps closing the gap and then exceeding the gap as gear increases. Because it's so gear dependant you may find that you personally do more dps as frost (talking purely single target raid dps now), depending on gear others may find different results.

[erox1000]

Looking for help with right rotation and what do i need to be building most. AP, crit, etc...

[uglybbtoo]

STAT PRIOTITIES:

1.) Hit (until 8% )
2.) Expertise (until 200 rating)
3.) Haste till 600 rating
4.) Strength
5.) Mastery
6.) Haste beyond 600 rating
7.) Crit
8.) Agility
9.) Spell Hit


REFORGING:
1.) Crit to mastery on items
2.) Any excess hit/expertise to mastery


PRESENCE: Unholy.
***EJ's and others say unholy for single target, Frost for AOE I find on my gear staying unholy works better ... so I would say check which for AOE.


PRIORITY:
1) Killing machine -> Frost strike (Learn to recognize UI animation)
2.)Keep frost disease running -> Howling blast
3.)keep blood plague running -> Plague strike
4.)Rime -> Howling blast (Learn to recognize UI animation)
5.)**Obliterate
6.) Howling blast
7.) Blood Srike (Locked out because you have no runes left ^-^ )

**Obliterate: For low gear levels go onto heroic target and check the damage of obliterate versus howling blast. If howling blast is significantly higher than obliterate ignore obliterate. Obliterate scales mainly off weapon damage while howling blast scales off AP so at low levels HB often does alot more damage than obliterate and can be ignored as it basically just gives free HB's via rime.


CLC_DK addon is useful if you want a visual queue on screen.

[Sterbefall]

You only need 177 expertise (23) for Wrath content.

Also, the above guide is geared toward 2 handers. DW need less hit (strange but true), weighing in at 146 IIRC because of NoCS. DW also ST DPS in Frost Presence.

That priority system also seems wrong. Obliterate hits harder than Frost Strike, so KM procs should optimally be used for Obliterate first. Howling Blast should be left off the priority listing unless it's used to apply FF or consuming a Rime proc. EJ has the optimal rotation, however, for simplicity I chop off some of it in my head to make it easier:

1) Diseases (applied with HB and PS)
2) Rime
3) Obliterate
4) Blood Strike if Blood Rune (not death) ready
5) Frost Strike
6) Horn of Winter

The EJ priority priority helps address the fact that Frost Strike gains priority when there is no KM proc and you're already RP capped (because you'll be wasting RP if you don't consume some before using a rune attack).

As for your ** note, I still contend that you're ignoring the Rime component, which is important. In order for HB to be more worthwhile single target than Obliterate, the following would need to be satisfied:

Let X = Obliterate damage.
Let Y = HB damage

In order for HB to be better than Obliterate, Obliterate (and associated Rime) needs to be less than HB. In math:
X + 0.45Y < Y
Let's simplify!
100X + 45Y < 100Y
100X < 55Y
X < 0.55Y

In other words, Obliterate needs to be nearly half as weak as a single HB in order for HB to be higher priority. I've never seen such a situation. Weaker weapon damage is not enough to cause this as Obliterate is normalized.

[uglybbtoo]

ALL rime does is give you a ZERO cost howling blast http://www.wowhead.com/spell=59057 If you were simply spamming howling blast you would have still inserted the howling blast it just would have cost runes.

It doesnt make the spell instant or do extra damage or anything else so you maths is total falacious because you are somehow adding in 0.45Y. When obliterate and howling blast are close you start using obliterate because the extra free runes starts to matter because you end up less often down having to blood strike.

Edit: I have had several EJ zealots arguing about using obliterate and saying I am wrong they keep quoting some 45% but noone has yet explained where this 45% comes from. I can only think they mean the annilation talent but that 45% extra is already added into the obliterate number recorded in the logs. As I have said a number of times I simply a programmer looking at the numbers in the logs and producing modelling.

This is not something we pulled out of simulation or some crap if you read the posts above we have like EJ's run numbers on it over and over.

Finally the priority you list above is exactly the same as the one I listed if you look carefully except priority 1 and you added frost strike/horn of winter after my list which would be the only things left you could press if blood strike was also on rune lock out.

You do bring up a good point however I took priority 1 off EJ's blindly I will indeed go and check numbers to see if frost strike crits are always bigger than obliterate crits at gear levels because killing machine just simply guarantees next swing is a crit http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51128 so you want to use the biggest.

EDIT: Just checked all the logs I have at hand and frost strike crits are bigger than obliterate crits but I will conceed this needs to be tested still it may not hold over all gear levels.

EDIT: I should also say sterball is correct the expertise level is 177 I havent updated my data. And the above info is for 2H frost sorry forgot to tag that in the top.

[uglybbtoo]

Ok I have been thru the suggestion to use Obliterate instead of Frost strike on KM and it has merit if obliterate is criting for you more than frost strike. Unfortunately my sim won't give me results because it is telling me there is going to be rune flow issues but I am not happy to say this is real because I would have done very little rune flow with this priority seq.

This close in to cata by the time I prove or disprove with good data it will be cata time :-) The reality is even if obliterate was critting for 3K more than frost strike the net change in DPS is around 320DPS. At my highest gear levels I have Frost strike crits 13-16K and Obliterate crits 12-15K but I presume in BiS obliterate will overhail frost strike.

So I will reconcile this as a post below to make a sort of combined sticky ... Again and as always this is sort a short form recomendation for the really nitt picky stuff with straining the last couple of hundred DPS hit the EJ's forums.

[uglybbtoo]

AMENDED 2H FROST DK SETUP

STAT PRIOTITIES:

1.) Hit (until 8% )
2.) Expertise (until 177 rating)(23 expertise)
3.) Haste till 600 rating
4.) Strength
5.) Mastery
6.) Haste beyond 600 rating
7.) Crit
8.) Agility
9.) Spell Hit


REFORGING:
1.) Crit to mastery on items
2.) Any excess hit/expertise to mastery


PRESENCE: Unholy.
*EJ's and others say unholy for single target, Frost for AOE I find on my gear staying unholy works better ... so I would say check which for AOE.


PRIORITY:
1) Killing machine -> **Frost strike/**Obliterate (Learn to recognize UI animation)
2.) Keep frost disease running -> Howling blast
3.) Keep blood plague running -> Plague strike
4.) Rime -> Howling blast (Learn to recognize UI animation)
5.) ***Obliterate
6.) Howling blast
7.) Blood Srike (Locked out because you have no runes left ^-^ )
8.) Frost strike
9.) Horn of winter

** Confirm which crit does more damage Frost strike or obliterate. Try other and confirm rune flow is not an issue.

***Obliterate: For low gear levels go onto heroic target and check the damage of obliterate versus howling blast. If howling blast is significantly higher than obliterate ignore obliterate. Obliterate scales mainly off weapon damage while howling blast scales off AP so at low levels HB often does alot more damage than obliterate and can be ignored as it basically just gives free HB's via rime.

CLC_DK addon is useful if you want a visual queue on screen.

[Krenian]

You might wanna look up Annihilation to figure out where they're pulling the 45% out of.

[uglybbtoo]

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51473 the extra 45% is recorded in the actual obliterate data ... its even written like how you would expect it work. Respec take the talent out and go hit something and you will see obliterate damage is down.

We are comparing the raw hits of obliterate and howling blast and that already includes annilation so I repeat where is the extra 45% coming from. I am willing to be wrong here I am not infalable but sorry I cant see how they keep coming up with this because the data simply doesn't show it.

[uglybbtoo]

To again help doubters I post another 3min bash on the heroic dummies in my highest gear

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/h55thkzfrcm2g7do/

To remove the splash of aoe on the targets along side select on the actual heroic target
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/h...7do/details/7/


Frost Strikeaverage hit5983.8 average crit 12176.2
Howling Blastaverage hit 6354.9 average crit 13160.0
Obliterateaverage hit6139.6 average crit12905.9



Again they are all in same ball park but howling blast is still higher.


So now notice that obliterate did 159757 total damage so you need to find 45% or 71890.65 somehow not recorded to obliterate but to make up your missing 45% as to why you are selecting it. The only number at that sort of level are clearly marked as plague strike, frost fever, blood strike and blood plague.

I am open to suggestions for interpretation ... I have provided evidence, details and logs to highlight my decisions. Against this I fight but EJ's says it isnt so and I should use obliterate?

EDIT: Can I also ask anyone in close to BiS gear to post a run against heroic dummy would love to see numbers would help me immensely to put values at top end of my curves.

[killabee]

The "mysterious" 45% that was referenced here is 45% of an extra rune-free HB that is triggered by Obliterate when specced to Rime. The math is done this way due to 45% trigger chance with 3/3 Rime, so using Obliterate instead of HB gives you Oblit damage + 45% of HB damage.

Is this math always true? No it isn't. If your haste is high enough, so your rune regeneration time + RP generation allow you to always have an attack available, such that Rime doesn't give you an extra attack, but a choice to replace an attack with Rime. Such high haste values are certainly available at 80 and BiS Frost setup runs into this problem often.

Is this math totally wrong? No, it's pretty damn close, since the question here was whether to use HB or Oblit, you'll always want to use Oblit to proc HB, since HB a high damage attack that you get to use for free and it even generates RP due to Chill of the Grave. This math is especially close, since the question whether to prioritize Oblit or HB is only relevant for gear set ups that are very far away from BiS; and such set ups won't have the required haste level to become GCD capped.

At 85, the GCD cap won't be available at least for a few tier levels, and hopefully, if Blizzard learned from their mistakes and they said they did, it will never be available in this expansion.