Masterfrost

[Vladamyr 169]

I was wanting to get your opinion on the Masterfrost style used by some DK's. Is it viable? Are there particular gear levels for it or specific weapons? I have read the EJ forums on it but really wanted your take.

Thanks and great name btw,

Vladamyr

[Vlad 411]

It's very late now, I'll write you a more detailed post about what you need to do/how to play Masterfrost, in the morning.

To answer your question about it being viable... Yes, it's viable. However, the difference in single target DPS is very very small, and only if you manage to really play your rotation perfectly and get lucky with Runic Empowerment procs. If you mess it up, you'll get low DPS.

For AoE/cleave fights, the increase is a bit more noticeable. No gear level is too low for Masterfrost. If you're already in some form of DS raiding gear (even LFR and Valor pieces), then you're good to go.

Anyway, I'll post more tomorrow.

[LCSscallywag 57]

The hell is Masterfrost? I've never heard of this and I am now intrigued.

[HardBeatZ 39]

In the little time I've played Masterfrost I've found it to be more difficult then the minor gain is worth. You have to do your rotation perfectly and without any deviation in order to gain a minor benefit over normal frost spec.

[Zagam 1,982]

The DK in my group plays Masterfrost. He has had TERRIBLE luck with weapon drops and is using 2 of the 1H Agility axes off of Madness. He easily pushes 35k+ on Ultraxion and does an amazing job on AoE situations. When he has strength based weapons, I shudder to think the DPS he could push. It simplifies the rotation greatly to have you use Howling Blast a much higher percent of the time to benefit from Frost's mastery. It really should only require a very minor adjustment to playstyle.

[Vlad 411]

I was wanting to get your opinion on the Masterfrost style used by some DK's. Is it viable? Are there particular gear levels for it or specific weapons? I have read the EJ forums on it but really wanted your take.

Thanks and great name btw,

Vladamyr

Sorry for taking so long to reply to you.

I'll summarise Masterfrost for you.

My personal advice is that you should not bother with it, because, as HardBeatZ pointed out, making mistakes in the rotation is very punishing on your DPS. If you play it perfectly, you will still end up only doing marginally more DPS than with a normal rotation. Moreover, the Masterfrost rotation is quite tight, and if you have latency problems at all, you will probably end up losing more DPS rather than gaining any.

First off, as the name suggests, you want to prioritise Mastery Rating. You should, ideally, be dual wielding (it provides slightly more DPS than using a two-handed weapon) and using this talent build.

Despite what you may read, you should still get your Expertise and Hit caps.

For your rotation, it's a slightly modified version of the rotation we provide in the guide. Namely:

• You should "game" an Unholy Rune. This means you should make sure that one Unholy Rune is always available when you use Frost Strike, so that it cannot be refreshed by Runic Empowerment (you don't want RE giving you Unholy Runes since you can't use them on Howling Blast). This especially means that, if you have no Death Runes, you shouldn't cast Obliterate unless both Unholy Runes are available. Moreover, don't cast it even if both are available, if you need to refresh Blood Plague very soon (1-2 seconds).
• Howling Blast moves up on the priority list, somewhat. It moves above Frost Strike.

To sum it up for you:

• Keep up Blood Plague (Outbreak and Plague Strike).
• Game an Unholy rune. Don't Frost Strike if both Unholy runes are available. Use Unholy Runes for refreshing Blood Plague and casting Obliterate (ideally cast Obliterate with Killing Machine procs).
• Use your Frost and Death runes on Howling Blast (make sure to use those Rime procs, too).

The result is that you get to use Howling Blast more, the damage of which is increased by your Mastery. Since you're stacking Mastery Rating, there you go. Theoretical damage increase.

It gets a bit tight, in practice, to make sure those runes are available/spent properly to maximise your Runic Empowerment procs. As I said in my previous post, in AoE situations (where Howling Blast is hands down your best spell), the DPS gain is bigger.

Again, I don't recommend it, but you can definitely give it a go and see how it works out for you in practice (and it will take a bit of getting used to).

Let me know if you have any more questions or you want me to clarify something I said.