Frost Death Knight 7.3

[Guest Sylphix]

22 hours ago, Tegu said:

Btw i have nothing to do with the recent changes to the  Frost guide including the stat weights, think there's another guy that did the update so don't ask me about them, i think they are quite off from the reality.

 

Shouldn't you change that then? I mean it DOES say that you approve of the stat weights. That or we should get someone tagged with the ability to get it updated. And it was 30% crit 20% haste when I was checking stats last week, so it was recently changed to the 20% crit current one.

[Tegu 1]

54 minutes ago, Guest Sylphix said:

Shouldn't you change that then? I mean it DOES say that you approve of the stat weights. That or we should get someone tagged with the ability to get it updated. And it was 30% crit 20% haste when I was checking stats last week, so it was recently changed to the 20% crit current one.

I can't change anything, usually i just send the information to the Icy Veins staff and they update. I told everyone that i wouldn't be able to update the guide till i'm done with progress and once progress was over had some IRL stuff to take care of so i was told that they have someone else to keep the Frost guide updated.

[Nicthecat 1]

Hi, I'm the guy who's been helping Vlad change the guide. All the information on the guide has been collected through simming, logging, and talking to other top frost DKs. If there is any particular reason why you don't think a part of the guide is correct, you can talk to me about it, I'm totally open to new ideas.

As for the stat weights, all the stats are very close together and at some point in Legion, every single stat will be your #1 stat (except for vers), because of how your values will change as you get gear. All the simming I've done leads me to believe that Haste, Mastery, and Crit can all be top stats depending on how much of each you currently have. I currently recommend haste as a generally priority however, as having higher haste makes the spec much easier to play due to higher Icy Talons uptime. Some DKs like Phenom gem/enchant full crit, and it works for them, but the majority of high parsing frost DKs in mythic only enchant crit when it's at or below 20%. Those I've talked to have said that like me, when they sim their character, haste and mastery come out on top.

The reason for the 20% crit breakpoint is that if I sim at 19% crit, it becomes my #1 stat, but if I sim at 22% crit, it becomes my 3rd best, and hasn't passed haste or mastery since I was below 20%.

[Guest gloom]

On 10/13/2016 at 9:02 PM, Tegu said:

Btw i have nothing to do with the recent changes to the  Frost guide including the stat weights, think there's another guy that did the update so don't ask me about them, i think they are quite off from the reality.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/lothar/Syhr/simple Is the stat update off? This guy has a lot of haste and top on a single target fight

[Tehass 0]

6 hours ago, Nicthecat said:

Hi, I'm the guy who's been helping Vlad change the guide. All the information on the guide has been collected through simming, logging, and talking to other top frost DKs. If there is any particular reason why you don't think a part of the guide is correct, you can talk to me about it, I'm totally open to new ideas.

As for the stat weights, all the stats are very close together and at some point in Legion, every single stat will be your #1 stat (except for vers), because of how your values will change as you get gear. All the simming I've done leads me to believe that Haste, Mastery, and Crit can all be top stats depending on how much of each you currently have. I currently recommend haste as a generally priority however, as having higher haste makes the spec much easier to play due to higher Icy Talons uptime. Some DKs like Phenom gem/enchant full crit, and it works for them, but the majority of high parsing frost DKs in mythic only enchant crit when it's at or below 20%. Those I've talked to have said that like me, when they sim their character, haste and mastery come out on top.

The reason for the 20% crit breakpoint is that if I sim at 19% crit, it becomes my #1 stat, but if I sim at 22% crit, it becomes my 3rd best, and hasn't passed haste or mastery since I was below 20%.

Thank you for coming in and giving reasons with provable data.

[Guest Nakuii]

Could one of u give any advice for the right trinket choice?

 

I have the following trinkets:

Spiked Counterweight        iLvL 860!

Chrono Shard                       iLvL 845!

Nature's Call                         iLvL 855 with socket!

Faulty Countermeasure      iLvL 845!

Ursoc's Rending Paw           iLvL 850!

Memento of Angerboda     iLvL 845!

If i ask Mr. Robot it tells me that i have to wear the Spiked Counterweight  with my  Chrono Shard, but if i read the logs on warcraftlogs, nobody plays with the Spiked trinket and most of all dk´s wear the memento trinket.

If i wear Chrono Shard together with memento the risk is high that i got to much haste if both procc.

For the moment im trying to play with memento and Natures Call, but really dont know if its right or not and i dont want to waste the titanforged counterweight :D

 

I hope u understand my english.

Nakuii

[Guest Nakuii]

Sry for double post but one question:

For the future, can i trust Ask mr Robot right now?

 

Nakuii

[Valks 2,373]

20 hours ago, Guest gloom said:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/lothar/Syhr/simple Is the stat update off? This guy has a lot of haste and top on a single target fight

Check the comment above yours.

[Valks 2,373]

8 hours ago, Guest Nakuii said:

Could one of u give any advice for the right trinket choice?

The best way to check this, in reality, is via SimCraft. Do you know how to use it?

[Valks 2,373]

8 hours ago, Guest Nakuii said:

Sry for double post but one question:

For the future, can i trust Ask mr Robot right now?

 

Nakuii

I would say that it's better to use SimCraft than the AMR sim tool.

[Amortis 0]

I meant to post on this yesterday but I could not find my old account... either I never got around to register must not have bothered to post before just read the articles and threads, but I have been using ask mr robot to configure and as long and you are not a sleep through the run, you can hang as a top dps... though having run with the burning crusade time walking I got to play with haste the way it was in wrath and my current build let me play the way figured that optimal frost DK can in legion. This is the target gearing 30% Haste, 38% Mastery, 17% Critical Strike, 1% Versatility, or  30% Haste, 40% Mastery, 15% Critical Strike, 2% Versatility maybe more versatility but the idea is to get haste above twenty five percent but below forty percent where the gear mostly soft caps. This allows runic power to stay up with other classes and for the runes to be up and ready for use. Frost DK have a major advantage in that as long as a tank is generating rage we don't tend to get targeted.

On my character I am using a new tricket I got timewalking this event and mine says 4,774 to haste 10% chance 55 sec cool down but in blood form I leach heal off everything... it fires often enough that I don't get the feeling of sitting there waiting for something to cool down. In frost spec only Death Strike is certain to count as spell but if the runes are up you can hit death strike until it triggers for ten seconds. It is shows what you can do if you can get toward the soft cap of about 40% haste. Either way the way to spec frost and blood is to aim at haste and mastery with a little versatility and crit. The crit is front loaded so while you need crit for the big numbers you need mastery and haste slightly more. With only using one legendary at a time, that is were some of the best haste + mastery comes from so it is more what drops and work around that.

I simulated several runs based on what I have on my character which of course broke since I have the new eight hundred level time walking gear, so I mixed up gearing to see what best in slot would do, and mixed up a gearing one legendary and got 310K, 320K, and variations of that aiming for dreadwyrm gear. with the best in slot which is not possible right now 370,000 damage is possible in the ursoc battle... that is roughly three times the damage of mythic warlords face rolling gear... but I also ignored the advice, well technically I read it after I set my first fifteen ranks into my swords, and made sure to have cold as ice as high as I could manage. Only swapping a cold as ice relic that was seven hundred ilvl for an 850 ilvl relic. Most of a frost dk's damage is frost but the ilvl verse the mob's ilvl really matters.

The thousand year pickled egg link... http://www.wowhead.com/item=117359/thousand-year-pickled-egg&bonus=1800

Don't forget most people wait to get singdrosa's fury which is mistake it is one of the strongest attacks a frost dk has provided you are facing the correct direction...

[Valks 2,373]

14 hours ago, Amortis said:

I meant to post on this yesterday but I could not find my old account..

Being completely honest, but your post is extremely difficult to follow. Are you supporting or criticising the guide with your post? Is there a question within it?

[Amortis 0]

7 hours ago, Blainie said:

Being completely honest, but your post is extremely difficult to follow. Are you supporting or criticising the guide with your post? Is there a question within it?

I read though the guild after setting up my current build. Many people on my server don't understand haste. I am in agreement that without enough haste you sit there with all your runes on cool down and no runic power. So supporting the view that haste is the stat to stack which agrees with the guild but disagrees with many people not seeming to understand that when you mouse over haste you notice that rune regeneration is directly linked to your haste level.

What I don't agree with is the talents since I build runic power much faster with a focus on building runic power so that when you have Breath of Sindragosa up I can keep that going as long as I don't use an ability that burns runic power but generates it. It means when I hit with heart strike it helps the tank and healer both by being less player damage they don't have to think about.

I think this should be clearer but I kinda did not want to go into this much detail since the point I wanted to make was that haste does make sense you just have to read the tool tips....

 

 Icy Talons

2    Icy Talons
1    Freezing Fog
2    Hungering Rune Weapon
2    Blinding Sleet
3    White Walker
3    Gathering Storm
2    Breath of Sindragosa

icy talons I agreed one

frozen pulse is what I try to avoid at all costs and freezing fog increases damage signifactly

hungering rune weapon generates noticable runic power which does not do damage directly but
allows skills to keep killing avalanche I ignored because most of the time in dungeons the
tank or the boss might have to move away from you are because of a ground circle or other
things that happen when you have to move around. sixy second cool down reduced by a couple
seconds might help in a longer fight but that runic power is far more useful if you have
runes that are avalible. saying hungering rune is not viable makes me wonder about the whole
guide which is why the post frost is viable and some of the stuff in the guide makes a whole
lot of sense but some of it downright weird.

Winter is coming requires a single mob to get hit five times in twenty seconds... which
means that five frost dk's have to all attack the same mob or the 8 sec ticks count on
an instant attack... maybe someone has gotten the stun to work but most of the time
frost dk are killing not stunning, unless it is uses as skill interupt the way I use
blinding sleet. the end in that section is use blinding sleet... which I agree with
just not nesacary how they got there.

Wraith walk breaks stuns, well some stuns are immune to it, but between that and catching
up with players trying to shave a few more seconds off a run... on top of being able to break
argo as a dps... the questions continue...

frostscythe verse gathering storm... this is where started asking with the whole talent
build built around pillar of frost being up... frostscythe makes big numbers everyone
notices came from the death knight... gathering storm is a dot... every time you get a
free activation you fire off a death rune... if haste is maxed you have runes up until
everything is dead... or you die but it is like the difference between a hurricane going
up the coast and torondo wreaking someone's house. The person that weathers the hurricane
but loses their roof to a tornado is going to freak out about tornado as a more appearnt
danger but everyone knows hurricans are forces of nature that a base if you are not
in their path.

Breath of Sindragosa verse Glacial Advance is why the post does not make sense to people
not understanding that haste effects runic power regeration and rune cool downs. The
faster you have your cool downs avalible the more damage you can do to the mobs but
the aoe's and dots on death knights that over lap the hits start ramping up the damage
far more than a couple more hits as dots can crit as well as single and aor hits can.

As to relics I would vendor relics with the over-powered trait three runic power every
ten oblierte attacks over as much as one percent extra damage from cold as ice that is
ten damage per second increase per thousand dps... depending on how your off hand skills
are setup ambi does thirty per second increase on per thousand dps on the weapon...
That is something that should be in the guide but likely was glossed over because you
find the relics you find and not having an over all ilvl of 825 to find better ones...

Then talking about two handed death knights started with great swords in both hands when
they were the new hero class then one handed clubs and other sillyness as people argued
over slow heavy damage verse fast less damage... the high damage caster swords with
one point eight speeds and high dps play to the frost dk strenghtys many fast attacks
while aoe everything with in a certain range...

last rime procs every third or forth hit or faster. That is important but no mention of
that more than one skill is up when it procs and you have to know that if you click one
the other cost runic power and or runes... so you click the oblite it does not cost a
death rune or two and generates runic power but some times it makes more sense to use
howling blast not obliertate but that is really the heart of the matter where sword
meets the enemies flesh or the actual in game stuff pieces are missing. I have been
playig a death knight since wrath of the lich king and I know we have the most argued
over class mechinces because there is more than one way to play it but the guide seems
to push some of the better mechincs we have in the wrong directions so that when
people start gearing for haste and not doing well they are blaming haste verse crit
not lack of time playing through raids and dungeons on mythic.

 

 

[Guest Toesoe]

Last updated on Oct 05, 2016 at 20:42 by Vlad

vs

• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 22 Jul. 2016: Added Strengths and Weaknesses.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.

 

It is really hard to keep up with the things that have been changed. I cant check every day and to look for 1 talent has changed. Is there a way to monitor this somehow these updates?

 

[demonardvark 556]

18 hours ago, Amortis said:

I read though the guild after setting up my current build. Many people on my server don't understand haste. I am in agreement that without enough haste you sit there with all your runes on cool down and no runic power. So supporting the view that haste is the stat to stack which agrees with the guild but disagrees with many people not seeming to understand that when you mouse over haste you notice that rune regeneration is directly linked to your haste level.

What I don't agree with is the talents since I build runic power much faster with a focus on building runic power so that when you have Breath of Sindragosa up I can keep that going as long as I don't use an ability that burns runic power but generates it. It means when I hit with heart strike it helps the tank and healer both by being less player damage they don't have to think about.

I think this should be clearer but I kinda did not want to go into this much detail since the point I wanted to make was that haste does make sense you just have to read the tool tips....

 

 Icy Talons

2    Icy Talons
1    Freezing Fog
2    Hungering Rune Weapon
2    Blinding Sleet
3    White Walker
3    Gathering Storm
2    Breath of Sindragosa

icy talons I agreed one

frozen pulse is what I try to avoid at all costs and freezing fog increases damage signifactly

hungering rune weapon generates noticable runic power which does not do damage directly but
allows skills to keep killing avalanche I ignored because most of the time in dungeons the
tank or the boss might have to move away from you are because of a ground circle or other
things that happen when you have to move around. sixy second cool down reduced by a couple
seconds might help in a longer fight but that runic power is far more useful if you have
runes that are avalible. saying hungering rune is not viable makes me wonder about the whole
guide which is why the post frost is viable and some of the stuff in the guide makes a whole
lot of sense but some of it downright weird.

Winter is coming requires a single mob to get hit five times in twenty seconds... which
means that five frost dk's have to all attack the same mob or the 8 sec ticks count on
an instant attack... maybe someone has gotten the stun to work but most of the time
frost dk are killing not stunning, unless it is uses as skill interupt the way I use
blinding sleet. the end in that section is use blinding sleet... which I agree with
just not nesacary how they got there.

Wraith walk breaks stuns, well some stuns are immune to it, but between that and catching
up with players trying to shave a few more seconds off a run... on top of being able to break
argo as a dps... the questions continue...

frostscythe verse gathering storm... this is where started asking with the whole talent
build built around pillar of frost being up... frostscythe makes big numbers everyone
notices came from the death knight... gathering storm is a dot... every time you get a
free activation you fire off a death rune... if haste is maxed you have runes up until
everything is dead... or you die but it is like the difference between a hurricane going
up the coast and torondo wreaking someone's house. The person that weathers the hurricane
but loses their roof to a tornado is going to freak out about tornado as a more appearnt
danger but everyone knows hurricans are forces of nature that a base if you are not
in their path.

Breath of Sindragosa verse Glacial Advance is why the post does not make sense to people
not understanding that haste effects runic power regeration and rune cool downs. The
faster you have your cool downs avalible the more damage you can do to the mobs but
the aoe's and dots on death knights that over lap the hits start ramping up the damage
far more than a couple more hits as dots can crit as well as single and aor hits can.

As to relics I would vendor relics with the over-powered trait three runic power every
ten oblierte attacks over as much as one percent extra damage from cold as ice that is
ten damage per second increase per thousand dps... depending on how your off hand skills
are setup ambi does thirty per second increase on per thousand dps on the weapon...
That is something that should be in the guide but likely was glossed over because you
find the relics you find and not having an over all ilvl of 825 to find better ones...

Then talking about two handed death knights started with great swords in both hands when
they were the new hero class then one handed clubs and other sillyness as people argued
over slow heavy damage verse fast less damage... the high damage caster swords with
one point eight speeds and high dps play to the frost dk strenghtys many fast attacks
while aoe everything with in a certain range...

last rime procs every third or forth hit or faster. That is important but no mention of
that more than one skill is up when it procs and you have to know that if you click one
the other cost runic power and or runes... so you click the oblite it does not cost a
death rune or two and generates runic power but some times it makes more sense to use
howling blast not obliertate but that is really the heart of the matter where sword
meets the enemies flesh or the actual in game stuff pieces are missing. I have been
playig a death knight since wrath of the lich king and I know we have the most argued
over class mechinces because there is more than one way to play it but the guide seems
to push some of the better mechincs we have in the wrong directions so that when
people start gearing for haste and not doing well they are blaming haste verse crit
not lack of time playing through raids and dungeons on mythic.

 

 

agreeing with blainie here bud, have a hard time understanding you

it sounds like you are trying to push a BoS build for frost, which there are several issues with , you even mention using heart strike and reference self healing. BoS doesn't heal and frost dks don't have heart strike they never did. Even then there is very common knowledge that haste has impact on rune regeneration. The goal isn't to have runes the goal is to burn them. Frozen pulse basically became mandatory in the current frost toolkit due to its power versus any other talent in that tier, frankly the other ones are dps losses. Many frost talents just are tuned poorly and are dps losses. Frozen pulse is the backbone of the machine gun rotation which is basically how one needs to play frost now, its the only way to make the spec viable. 

From there I'll be frank, it doesn't seem you are actively playing the spec or have done theorycrafting. You think gathering storm is stronger than frostscythe because in real life storms are strong? Even then hungering runic weapon isn't competitive to ice cap or avalanche or has any real synergy. BoS is so weakly tuned even with the upcoming buffs its not worth using unless you had an extended cleave fight which we don't in game at the moment. You denote very limited knowledge of talent synergy, stat application, or even link any logs or sims. 

So, not sure what you are going for here buddy, but no, BoS is not viable at all right now, and most of your listed talents are actually horrific dps losses on both single and aoe situations. Yes haste has some impact on dk strength but it suffers horrific diminishing returns, there is no mathematical reason to go about 20%. There was a time in cata when 2h dks wanted to stack haste but we are talking years ago. 

[Guest curiousdk]

after simming on simcraft my secondary stats came out at: .85 mastery, .79vers, .79crit, .68 haste.  I have been following the guide and stacking haste (im above 20%crit).  The top damage sources on the sim were: frozen pulse 13.6%, frostscythe 12.2%, FS MH 11.9%, FS OH 8.3%, Glacial advance, 6.3%, a few more then obliterate MH way at 3.9%.  I have been told on this forum I should really only frostscythe with killing machine procs, otherwise oblit.  So my question is should I start stacking mastery and use frostscythe>obliterate (outside of rune dumping at start of fight/ERW?) or is simcrafts rotation not optimal and I should continue following the guide?

My stats are as follows, in case it provides more info, 26.24% crit, 24.02% haste, 24.39% mastery, 0.78% vers. 26308 str

[Zaazz 0]

I was messing around with the RA build this past week, and am wondering how to react when only 1 rune is available (when GA on cd). I found myself spamming frost strike fishing for a runic empowerment proc so that I could oblit and retrigger frozen pulse. Is this correct? Or would it be better to HB to consume the rune and immediately trigger frozen pulse... I did get into a couple situations where frost strike did not proc RE, which ended up endangering talons uptime.

[TalonShadowsong 5]

12 hours ago, Guest curiousdk said:

after simming on simcraft my secondary stats came out at: .85 mastery, .79vers, .79crit, .68 haste.  I have been following the guide and stacking haste (im above 20%crit).  The top damage sources on the sim were: frozen pulse 13.6%, frostscythe 12.2%, FS MH 11.9%, FS OH 8.3%, Glacial advance, 6.3%, a few more then obliterate MH way at 3.9%.  I have been told on this forum I should really only frostscythe with killing machine procs, otherwise oblit.  So my question is should I start stacking mastery and use frostscythe>obliterate (outside of rune dumping at start of fight/ERW?) or is simcrafts rotation not optimal and I should continue following the guide?

My stats are as follows, in case it provides more info, 26.24% crit, 24.02% haste, 24.39% mastery, 0.78% vers. 26308 str

 

Simcraft is using a rotation that will basically use Frostscythe as soon as it is available, regardless of KM procs, resulting in a very high volume of uses vs obliterate. In turn, this is why it suggests Mastery as our primary stat to stack up.

With 49.36% Mastery (test gear build), my Frostscythe deals 53,972 damage per use, non-critical. As it only uses 1 rune, this makes it worth 53,972 damage per rune.
In comparison, my Obliterate deals 163,774 damage per use, which makes this 81,887 damage per rune.
While Frozen Pulse, our major damage dealer here, deals 34,450 (in this build) damage per auto-attack.
If, and only if, using Frostscythe without Killing Machine results in Frozen Pulse activation would it be a DPS increase to do so, as we can then adjust the damage per rune of the Frostscythe to also include the damage of Frozen Pulse as it is the source of the 0 rune trigger for Frozen Pulse. So with that said:
Frostscythe = 53,972 damage
Frozen Pulse = 34,450 damage
Obliterate = 81,887 damage

Frostscythe + Frozen Pulse = 88,422 damage (94,264.2 after Razorice)
Note: This assumes that you rune out of runes and get only 1 Frozen Pulse Auto-Attack before you have a rune available.

However, if you 2 runes up it is going to be a bit different
Frostscythe = 53,972 damage
Frostscythe = 53,972 damage
Frozen Pulse = 34,450 damage
Total for 2 runes: 142,384 damage (156,622.4 after Razorice)
vs.
Obliterate = 163,774 damage
Frozen Pulse = 34,450 damage
Total for 2 runes: 198,224 damage

Total Difference: 55,840 damage (41,601.6 damage after Razorice) in favor of Obliterate.

With that said, in this narrow look at the different between the two, you should only be using Frostscythe in a 1 rune scenario to maintain Frozen Pulse. If you need to use 2 runes to maintain Frozen Pulse, you should use Obliterate, even at a high Mastery value.

I have little time now, but I hope to continue this post and thought process later.

[Guest Ommie]

I've found dps is marginally higher if you FS to continue frozen pulse vs. waiting for a second rune to obliterate with and subsequently getting no pulses at all. If the difference in waiting for Obliterate vs a FS is <1s I tend to wait; no idea how this affects dps in theory but in practice, it seems to work just fine.

[Guest Antigeist]

At the moment, the 7.1 PTR seems to be giving some hefty buffs to Obliterate and Howling Blast, along with making Razorice 15% vulnerability instead of 10%. At the moment in 7.0, the Obliterate/Runic Attenuation build seems to do decent ST damage, it just doesn't surpass the machine gun set up.

 

However, given that the machine gun build doesn't rely on Rime procs or much Obliterating, the 7.1 buffs seem like they're barely going to affect the machine gun build, while it will heavily affect a RA build. It seems like, and I'm glad Blizzard is doing this, Blizzard is trying to make the frost single target rotation return to what it's intended to be: Obliterate, Frost Strike, and Howling Blast with Rime procs with Frostscythe being an AOE talent. 

 

So I suppose the question is: post 7.1 how much better will a pure RA/Obliterate build be compared to frostscythe? And on top of that, does a heavier focus on Obliterate make Obliteration worth taking? I've toyed with it a bit, and it's not a terrible dps cooldown to line up with other things. I've got an 880 Horn of Valor, so if I'm playing with that spec I can use that, Pillar of Frost, and Obliteration all lined up with heroism and get 4 obliterate crits right in a row while all my self-buffs are up. And this only seems compounded by the fact that the current BIS relics listed are the ones that boost offhand damage.

 

If RA becomes the go-to ST build, is Glacial Advance still going to be used or is Obliteration going to be a worthwhile cooldown to take?

[demonardvark 556]

5 hours ago, Guest Antigeist said:

At the moment, the 7.1 PTR seems to be giving some hefty buffs to Obliterate and Howling Blast, along with making Razorice 15% vulnerability instead of 10%. At the moment in 7.0, the Obliterate/Runic Attenuation build seems to do decent ST damage, it just doesn't surpass the machine gun set up.

 

However, given that the machine gun build doesn't rely on Rime procs or much Obliterating, the 7.1 buffs seem like they're barely going to affect the machine gun build, while it will heavily affect a RA build. It seems like, and I'm glad Blizzard is doing this, Blizzard is trying to make the frost single target rotation return to what it's intended to be: Obliterate, Frost Strike, and Howling Blast with Rime procs with Frostscythe being an AOE talent. 

 

So I suppose the question is: post 7.1 how much better will a pure RA/Obliterate build be compared to frostscythe? And on top of that, does a heavier focus on Obliterate make Obliteration worth taking? I've toyed with it a bit, and it's not a terrible dps cooldown to line up with other things. I've got an 880 Horn of Valor, so if I'm playing with that spec I can use that, Pillar of Frost, and Obliteration all lined up with heroism and get 4 obliterate crits right in a row while all my self-buffs are up. And this only seems compounded by the fact that the current BIS relics listed are the ones that boost offhand damage.

 

If RA becomes the go-to ST build, is Glacial Advance still going to be used or is Obliteration going to be a worthwhile cooldown to take?

you hit the nail on the head in the opening paragraph. OBRA will be better for pure single target with FsC being used for cleave. The issue present though is obliterate still doesn't scale at all. So, eventually machinegun will overtake it, currently its looking to be either late nighthold or early whatever is next (did someone say tomb of sargeras?). Basically every expac frost eventually migrates to some form of masterfrost playstyle, it is inevitable. 

As far as talents Obliteration will likely be the better farm short fights talent while GA will be more long term. simply because GA scales and benefits from mastery and also requires no set up. With the frozen pulse changes we don't need to be as much in a hurry to burn runes but Obliteration still requires a bit of set up and that. So GA likely will still be better for OBRA. Plus they are fixing some of the steering issues with GA so it should hit more reliably now too. That's the early guess I haven't played with it on PTR yet. 

[Guest Egthas]

I think this expansion may actually go into a different direction. It was stated during one of the Dev posts that the stats would start a higher level and not scale as far as it did in previous expansions i believe it was something where old expansions we would start around 1 and end the expansion with over 3x as much. While this expansion we will end with 2.7 or something around those lines. We can already see that with the high secondary stats we already have. 

In terms of frostscythe surpassing obliterate i think it isn't so simple with the buff on howling blast and the fact frostscythe does not proc rime. With the current upcoming set bonus(nighthold) we are already getting a indirect buff to obliterate and howling blast rotation. I think machine worked mainly because of frozen pulse, with the earlier patch notes frozen pulse will be up as long as you have less than two runes,  which takes out the whole point of always having all your runes on cooldown. I think it allows a "smarter" playstyle instead of a spammy play style which i'm happy about. In anything barring any redic. set bonuses frostscythe will be priority when KM procs otherwise oblit it is just too much ground to make up.  On the side of damage per rune,  without hte .5 GCD i don't really know if that will be relevant as when you haste gets higher you charge runes faster and i don't feel like you always can just expect to burn through all of them and leave room for frost strike. Through luck of drops i have 27-28crit, 12 haste, and 33 mastery and while i would like ot get haste higher an 870 vers/crit titanforge isn't gonna become worst than a 850 haste/crit piece, and to be honest the stats values really seem closer from practice than the sims would suggest because i actually hit around 280-300k on st fights(Egthas proudmore on warcraft logs).

[Guest Nakuii]

Hey guys,

could anyone of u tell me, how good is the spiked counterweight trinket? If i simulate my deathknight it says that the trinket is not soo good for me but im not sure about it. I have it in 860 titanforged and would love it to wear it together with memento.

Now i wear memento with faulty countermeasure both 845.

I know trinket questions sucks, but im really not the best simulater :P

Greetz Nakuii

 

[Guest Esploratore]

So I got some stuff and reached 855 item level, now I have 31,4% crit, 20% haste, 31% mastery, I swapped ring but now according to the priority demonardvark said, I think it's best to stop enchanting and gemming crit now.

 

Mostly I noticed that 3 dks of our guild have different amounts of haste and all go for machine gun build, we have respectively 11%, 20% and 24% haste and even the one who has 24 has some brief periods where he can't do anything due to lack of runes and rp, even while icy talons is up (and consequently drops off), this suggests to me that going beyond 20% haste doesn't seem to pay off, but that's just what I noticed, not sure if it's true.

 

Especially since I got a new ring I'm not sure how to enchant yet, do you think I should start gemming and enchanting mastery or do I need more haste before going for it? 
 

[Guest Guestborn]

Was wondering if there as been any insight on the tier gear coming in The Nighthold. I know that isn't for awhile but looking at the set bonuses for most dps I can't help but feel frost dk yet again got bent over and fucked