Frost DK - Does it do anything well?

[Maruken 31]

Frost DK has been at the very bottom of the DPS rankings for years, clearly that's not changing. But why is it at the bottom? It doesn't have any raid utility, and Unholy does its job better, so why would you ever take a Frost DK?

Reason I'm asking is because I'm leveling a DK as Frost. I LOVE the Frost playstyle, but I don't like Unholy. I don't want to be forced to play Unholy to be accepted.

[Valks 2,375]

I mean... I don't want to answer your question with a simple no, but, no. Frost seems to be REALLY weak right now. Perhaps others can think of something it does well, but I think UH outperforms it in every aspect of the game currently.

[Zefyrk 5]

4 hours ago, Maruken said:

Frost DK has been at the very bottom of the DPS rankings for years, clearly that's not changing. But why is it at the bottom? It doesn't have any raid utility, and Unholy does its job better, so why would you ever take a Frost DK?

Reason I'm asking is because I'm leveling a DK as Frost. I LOVE the Frost playstyle, but I don't like Unholy. I don't want to be forced to play Unholy to be accepted.

Dude i made an account just to answer and help you:
Look i've been playing frost (btw im currently 851 and loving it), so far no one except a friend who's a monk ww dps has beaten me in dps (both aoe and single target). I've seen unholy death knights in at least every single dungeon so far and none of them has beaten me in dps. If u dont believe me just add me (Zefyrk - Ragnaros) and i will provide you with more info and some skada recounts of me toping and beating the sht out of ppl in terms of dps.

Frost dk's for now and from what i have seen in ACTUAL gameplaying is one of the strongest specs to play. I also saw some charts in simulationcraft saying that frost is like at the bottem with something like 210k dps if u get the full raid gear (from nightmare), but dude my current dps in single target is like 230k.... 

Just trust me go with frost, read a lot and try different talents cause the spec is really strong, fun to play (no downtimes) and the lore is just amazing (that artifact quest ommgggg).

PD: for talents im going with: icy talons, frozen pulse, avalanche, white walker, the antimagic upgrade one lol, runic attenuation and glacial advance. My stats are like 31% crit, 20% haste and like 18% mastery (i may have waayyy too much haste, but im working on it :D)

 

Keep playing the things that you like and love, if u put enough effort into it u will surprise yourself.

[demonardvark 556]

25 minutes ago, Zefyrk said:

Keep playing the things that you like and love, if u put enough effort into it u will surprise yourself.

Love that quote Zef, stealing it and put it in my sig :)

Actually frost was the strongest DK dps spec end game MoP, Dragon soul, and aside from BOS masters, in HFC. Sims assume flawless rotation, perfect gear, and that your raid team is doing their job too. Now Zef above is quite passionate, but does offer a good point, a skilled frost player will out dps an unskilled unholy player. This goes for every spec, just because your individual spec sims high doesn't mean you can do it yourself. A simple point was destro locks back in MoP, they were amazingly powerful. A guy in our guild paid a small fortune for mythic carries and challenge mode carries. He had one of the highest ilvls on the server yet he could barely break 200k. He had the best gear in the world but was terrible at the rotation.

So realistically does frost do anything well or have its strong points? Yes, it exceeds at cleave and multi target situations. Frost is a trash mob blender. Plus, sindragosas's fury may be the single most damaging attack in the game by itself. Where frost is now however, is the little brother of the all star quarter back back home. Big brother is the captain of the football team, Straight A student, dating the hottest girl in school and little brother is always in his shadow. The gist of it is anything frost can do, unholy can do better. Unholy also has a better toolkit. The crutch however, comes to dungeon and raid bosses. Frost has very poor single target dps. In addition, it won't get better, obliterate scales the same way as it did in the past, we are inevitably headed to howling blast spam eventually. 

So, frost excels at cleave but lets be honest. You don't get a raid spot because of your ability to clear trash. Even PvP wise, Unholy can deal just so much damage and pressure to a team. All this combined, frost just really doesn't have a viable niche right now in the game. 

Is it a bad spec? No. It just not the top dps allstar anymore. Dps ranking really only matter if you are pushing mythic progression which statistically you are probably not. So, if you are having fun with frost just keep going, its your game to play. Your overall dps in dungeons will be very high and in longer dungeons you can count on sindragosa to keep your dps up. For world quests its a blast to play. It's just forever in the shadow of its big brother right now, and compared to other classes its lack luster. Most classes got huge reworks at some level, frost stayed the same. 

So, as said above, just stick with what you love :)

edit: also pre raid there are usually huge scaling changes at hot fixes, so for all we know, unholy will get nerfed to oblivion. dps rankings are basically on  patch to patch basis. If blizz nerfs apocalypse or bursting sores, unholy goes into the garbage can quick.

[Maruken 31]

Thanks guys, the last two posts motivate me to keep going with my Frost DK. I think the 2 most important things I forgot to factor in is that:

1. I'm going nowhere near Mythic raiding

2. Simulationcraft implies that you do every rotation perfectly

I'm definitely doing some Mythic+ dungeons, but I'm not min/maxing anything so I'll be fine.

[Arbite 0]

8 hours ago, Zefyrk said:

If u dont believe me just add me (Zefyrk - Ragnaros)

Hey, can I add you even if I do believe you? Im a new DK and I would love to see how you do what you do!

Im Arbite - The Emerald Dream

[Zefyrk 5]

Sure just send a request, no problem. 

[Lyshnek 1]

17 minutes ago, Zefyrk said:

Sure just send a request, no problem. 

I would like to see you in action as well if that is okay, I don't have nearly as many traits in frost as I do in unholy, but frost is more fun to me. My dk is Glaceus - Windrunner Ally

[demonardvark 556]

one thing to drop in here, is for those wanting to instruct others on rotation, logs are a very concise and easy to follow guideline. You may find them a useful tool for education instead of just messaging " i do this, then this, then this, then this, etc.". Logs are just really helpfully for detailing rotations :D

[Arbite 0]

Yeah logs would be great Zefyk! 

[Zefyrk 5]

Gonna try using logs, give me a day pls

 

[Xanatos 0]

Now all of this being said... why exactly was the class changes.... this? 
 

Death Knight

• Frozen Pulse now triggers if you have fewer than 2 full Runes (was 1).
• Frozen Pulse damage reduced to 60% of Attack Power (was 72%).
• Glacial Advance now hits targets in melee range more reliably.

[Zefyrk 5]

Already did Darkheart in heroic, gonna do some mythics now to show you guys. The link above!, btw we used lust on a few bosses and none flask from me.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vJ47bG8y2nYRNjK6#type=damage-done&fight=5

 

[Pestilencos 2]

6 hours ago, Xanatos said:

Now all of this being said... why exactly was the class changes.... this? 
 

Death Knight

• Frozen Pulse now triggers if you have fewer than 2 full Runes (was 1).
• Frozen Pulse damage reduced to 60% of Attack Power (was 72%).
• Glacial Advance now hits targets in melee range more reliably.

 

To be honest, I don't think that Blizz cares for Frost DKs in general.

It's the "lore spec" but it seems that someone doesn't really like Ner'zhul, Arthas and their children (us) :/

Edited September 15, 2016 by Pestilencos

[demonardvark 556]

10 hours ago, Xanatos said:

Now all of this being said... why exactly was the class changes.... this? 
 

Death Knight

• Frozen Pulse now triggers if you have fewer than 2 full Runes (was 1).
• Frozen Pulse damage reduced to 60% of Attack Power (was 72%).
• Glacial Advance now hits targets in melee range more reliably.

The last one I like, Glacial Advance is the most reliably strong 100 talent and I'm glad they helped the aiming on that. So, thats a good change. Frankly the first two are a tad confusing to me. The frozen pulse triggering sooner is awesome and really helps the shotgun rotation. However, then, the power of being reduced seems to negate the point in buffing it. They buffed and ability and debuffed it in the exact same update. So I guess it goes

"we want you to be a little bit stronger, but not much"

[Browed 19]

10 hours ago, Zefyrk said:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vJ47bG8y2nYRNjK6#type=damage-done&fight=5

Thanks for posting this, I found it very useful.

Personally, I can say I've had much the same experience, although to my cost I've found that collecting traits into Hypothermia first was a mistake for my burst capabilities but I did that before properly researching the optimum artifact builds.

I've got a heavy mastery setup at the moment (40%) but I'm working to reduce it and arrive at around 30% crit, 30% haste as a sweet spot before I build it up again.

I'll post logs once I've collected some data. 

*grats on the Legendary btw ;)

Edited September 15, 2016 by Browed

[demonardvark 556]

10 hours ago, Zefyrk said:

Already did Darkheart in heroic, gonna do some mythics now to show you guys. The link above!, btw we used lust on a few bosses and none flask from me.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vJ47bG8y2nYRNjK6#type=damage-done&fight=5

 

Truly impressive logs. One point to note is you have a very high ilvl but I find your damage sources exceedingly interesting. Frost strike is your number one damage source while glacial advance is only 4%. I'd wonder if you switched to obliteration if you could shoot quite higher. However, the part I like the most here is it appears frost is scaling quite well with gear. So for unholy you only see so much gain in damage from stat increase but frost seems to gain quite a bit and scale much better than i thought they would. Keep up the good work buddy, you've got my attention :)

[Browed 19]

54 minutes ago, demonardvark said:

 I'd wonder if you switched to obliteration if you could shoot quite higher. However, the part I like the most here is it appears frost is scaling quite well with gear. So for unholy you only see so much gain in damage from stat increase but frost seems to gain quite a bit and scale much better than i thought they would. Keep up the good work buddy, you've got my attention :)

With my 40% mastery, I definitely see this in action.

So much so that I regularly see numbers like Zefyrk and even higher when I get the stars align. (over 300k Frostscythe crits etc.) and I'm over 10 ilvls behind.

Personally, I'd love to see what change Zef would get if he takes relics out of 'Over-powered' which he has 2x (surely he is getting more runic power than he can spend considering the talent choices), and go for the '+1% of all Frost dmg' or '+offhand 10%' (especially, seeing the Frost strike usage in those logs).

Certainly as mastery increases and considering the percentage of frost centric damage in general, I see it becoming more valuable.

** lol, I just realised Zefyrk has 2 x legendaries !! wow, grats man

Edited September 15, 2016 by Browed
formatting

[demonardvark 556]

49 minutes ago, Browed said:

With my 40% mastery, I definitely see this in action.

So much so that I regularly see numbers like Zefyrk and even higher when I get the stars align. (over 300k Frostscythe crits etc.) and I'm over 10 ilvls behind.

Personally, I'd love to see what change Zef would get if he takes relics out of 'Over-powered' which he has 2x (surely he is getting more runic power than he can spend considering the talent choices), and go for the '+1% of all Frost dmg' or '+offhand 10%' (especially, seeing the Frost strike usage in those logs).

Certainly as mastery increases and considering the percentage of frost centric damage in general, I see it becoming more valuable.

** lol, I just realised Zefyrk has 2 x legendaries !! wow, grats man

Yeah there is a lot though I am noticing gear wise.  As you said he has the legendaries but in addition he has Valarjar's Path which is just a tremendously powerful trinket, one of my favorites right now. So, his ilvl is very high and his gear is frankly sublime. 

So the original point of this post it shows you, that with dedication, the time to get the gear, and good rotation,  low simmed specs can do amazingly well. 

[Pestilencos 2]

I've got a question.

I'm testing the Machine Gun Build right now and stacking Mastery and Crit.

Would you recommend to use Frostscythe and Obliterate when 2 Runes are up to get a chance to proc Rime or should I spend all my runes on Frostscythe and forget about Obliterate completely?

Without Obliterate it feels much more fluid to me but I don't know if the 300% Dmg HB with Rime is worth it.

 

Also I  would say "Hello" to you all.

I play Frost DK as my main char since WotLK and have been reading here for years before I now decided to become active in this community.

[Browed 19]

For single target, I would ignore manufacturing Rime procs to some degree, but use them when they're up... my strategy is to use KM on Frostscythe in preference to Oblit but it's not a big deal if you eat a KM with Oblit., if no KM proc, use Oblit and FS until KM procs... HB only to maintain FF before it drops off.

My thinking tends to be that Rime is more valuable to fill rune downtime than because of it's %dmg boost but that's more for managing my idle time in the rotation.

Never. ever. use Frostscythe without KM unless you have more than 3 (high mastery) - 5 (low mastery) mobs (the more the better). Do test your own numbers to check, you may find you get a different crossover point to me so the figures are approximations.

For AoE you CAN spam all runes on it for large numbers of targets. Just watch for Rime so you don't miss it.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Browed

[Xanatos 0]

In other words, always use your last 3 runes on obliterate on machine gun build you are saying?

[Zefyrk 5]

Im glad i helped some of u guys that talked to me in-game. Im not an expert nor anything, simply a guy that plays a lot and wants to have fun, i think my point has been proved and lets expect that frost gets buffed. 

It will be interesting to see how artifacts with more points on them could eventually put up a decent fact. 

Best of lucks, im available if u need help and hoping ppl will post more stuff about frost and not only for unholy :)

[demonardvark 556]

10 hours ago, Zefyrk said:

Im glad i helped some of u guys that talked to me in-game. Im not an expert nor anything, simply a guy that plays a lot and wants to have fun, i think my point has been proved and lets expect that frost gets buffed. 

It will be interesting to see how artifacts with more points on them could eventually put up a decent fact. 

Best of lucks, im available if u need help and hoping ppl will post more stuff about frost and not only for unholy :)

One favor to ask of you, would you mind posting your current artifact build? Like screenshot the page. Just so we can further see how you are allotting points and that. Or if you would mind just detailing the order you did them. That would really help out people as well. The passives in the artifact influence quite a bit :)

[Deneglio 0]

To answer to you , even if someone say you frost DK have a good DPS.

IT S NOT TRUE.

i'm ok it's sad for all DK frost but they are really the worst dps actually in this game . You can get 210k with 840 and not 851 ilvl like Zefryk said, and OMG 230k in single with 851 ilvl it's just the worst dps i seen with that gear. Even with my shaman elem ( almost the worst dps) i can do 250+ with 846ilvl.

 

I seen really good geared top tier DPS with 845+ ilvl and they all did 300k+ in single target.

 

Even if you think the simulation ranking dps isn't true it's just because ppl wich you play don't know how to play their class...

 

I play with good and bad ppl and i can see a thief with ilvl 845 at 220k dps single and another with the same gear at 300k+ so it's just because ppl sucks.

 

The dps ranking is real , and with almost the best fight. it's a long fight so class like SP can have excecution phase , that why they are so high.

 

HF :)