Frost DK - New RW Cleave Build?

[Jalius 0]

Hello all,

I've been maining a Frost DK this entire expansion. I started messing around with different builds last night running a few Mythic +'s, and I settled on a different cleave build than what I've seen everywhere else (machine gun), that focuses on Remorseless Winter. Talent build and rotation below.

***Please note: The below is all notes and thoughts from one night of play running 3 Mythic dungeons. There are no logs or specific number crunching at all at this point. This is simply for discussion purposes.

 

Talents: 

LINK TO CALCULATOR

The bread and butter of this proposed build is Remorseless Winter, and using the Gathering Storm level 90 talent to buff its damage and duration for as much as possible. Gathering Storm increases the damage of RW by 10% and extends its duration by 0.5 seconds for each rune spent. Therefore, the point of this is to have as much uptime of RW as possible for as much Frost cleave damage as possible.

56: Murderous Efficiency

ME allows simply allows for more Obliterate spamming. By getting more runes, that allows for the more spamming of runes to synergize with Gathering Storm.

57: ???

This one was a tough one and will probably require more number crunching. My first instinct is Horn of Winter, to simply have more cooldowns to spend more runes with. That said, Frozen Pulse may work well since the goal is to spam runes, we will have a lot of rune down-time. Finally, with the upcoming 7.1 changes, Freezing Fog might be an extra cleave buff. Hard to say.

58: Icecap (or Avalanche ?)

Personally I feel Icecap is the stronger option here. As long as played correctly, you should only have ~5 seconds of downtime between RW's. You will preferably want to have PoF up as much as possible. Since the name of the game is spam Obliterate, this should lower the CD by a good chunk. Some obvious testing will need to be done if the CD reduction is more beneficial than the extra Frost damage from Avalanche though. 

60: Blinding Sleet

Personal preference, but this is my go-to for Mythics. Winter is Coming is also viable given this build, but I've never been a fan of uncontrollable CC's. 

75: Permafrost

Again, personal preference. 

90: Gathering Storm

This is the bread and butter of this build. Each rune spent during RW increases its damage by 10% and extends its duration by 0.5 seconds. With 6 runes, that's a 3 second increase up to 11 second duration. With stacking Haste as we all, for the most part are at this point, plus the effect of Murderous Efficiency, Horn of Winter, and Empower Rune Weapon, you can easily extend the duration well past 11 seconds total. With a 20 second CD on RW, that's very little downtime. 

NOTE: I did notice that during play, the damage increase of Gathering Storm caps at 10 stacks. The time duration though, continues to increase as long as you're spending runes. I was able to consistently ramp up and maintain 10 stacks every 1-2 pulls, plus additional duration increase. 

100: ???

I haven't been able to decide on this one yet. Glacial Advance seems to be the best straight DPS increase, on top of being another Rune spender. However, I've been using it for 2 months now and the fact that it will randomly get stuck and not hit anything on totally flat surfaces it's really starting to get to me. Obliteration seems like a solid DPS CD for any RW downtimes or other CD downtimes, but I'm pretty sure BoS is still worthless for the most part. 

NOTE: I definitely want to revisit BoS though. I noticed while playing that I maxed out Runic Power a lot and had to dump of 2-3 Frost Strikes, since the build revolves around spending runes and I forget to spend down my Runic Power. With spamming rune spenders, BoS might be a viable option for some strong burst DPS, since this build consistently builds lots of Runic Power quickly.

 

Artifact: 

Unless Frozen Soul is re-worked, I think it should still be the last Gold Talent priority. 40% weapon power is not much, and the increase is based on # of enemies hit. So unless you're doing huge pulls, the trait doesn't seem to provide much of a DPS increase. Also, that DPS only happens when RW ends, and we obviously don't want RW to end quickly. 

Basically, I feel it should still go: Sindragosa's Fury -> Hypothermia -> Frozen Soul.

 

Rotation:

1.) Cast Howling Blast while approaching mob.

2.) Cast Pillar of Frost.

3.) Cast Remorseless Winter.

4.) Roll your face on your rune spenders (Obliterate & Glacial Advance).

5.) If you get close to capping Runic Power, hit Frost Strike.

6.) If RW is still up and you're out of runes, pop Horn of Winter or Empower Rune Weapon.

7.) Start again at Step 4 until mobs are dead.

8.) Rinse and repeat.

 

 

Again, I haven't done any number crunching or done any logs yet. The point of this is simply to spark discussion and see what you guys think. 

Thanks all!

 

[Alexizonfire 7]

I feel like you would want to rw first and then hb to add to not waste that rune on rw buff. Another question is, would you use rime on proc? Im not sure if it counts as spending a rune or not. If ot does, do you use it on proc for the chance for obliterate to proc more rimes, or do you want to get as many oblits as possible and then use rime on down times?Decisions, decisions...

[demonardvark 556]

It certainly is a well crafted aoe rotation the only issue is that it's more of an extended aoe rotation and it does require ramp up time. That being said in the current mythic + climate pure burst damage is really the more desired component as well as stun or interrupt capability. So the initial and hard point you'll run into is the simple question "why not just spam frostscythe?". It's faster, simpler, and with obliteration has some brutal burst cleave. Now don't get me wrong your build is great, but its really an extended aoe build, the current content climate and even the immediate future doesn't really call for extended aoe, one fight in nighthold so far to my knowledge will. 

So, its a fine build don't get me wrong, but there's already been a few variants of it on the market, and it just doesn't have a huge place in current content. Now, it certainly is a viable alternative to frostscythe spam, I'm sure you will do fine with it. It's just it will be overshadowed by other builds.

As far as your build goes, for your tier 1 and 2 talents I thing you will find a semi machine gun build will be beneficial here. Since you are spamming so many abilities in order to buff gathering storm frozen pulse would definetly have the most synergy with your build. Especially considering the 7.1 incoming changes. Tier 1 you might want to look at shattering strikes, if im udnerstanding you correctly you aren't casting frost strike all that much so it may benefit you to have it super buffed when you do. As far as lvl 100 talents go it will be glacial advance or BOS for you. Considering your mythic+ climate I say glacial advance. The issue with BOS is it has a rather long cooldown. Yes its much easier to keep up than it was, however, your priority is keeping up remorseless winter and spamming during it. I feel BOS would make too many things to manage. Plus glacial advance will give you a on demand 1 rune spender that will hit much harder than howling blast and allow you to burn another rune. So, that's my two cents on at least your talent set up :)