Obliteration Question

[Nards 0]

Quick question, I'm having a little bit of trouble deciding what to do during the 8 seconds Obliteration is active. Is it better to solely alternate between Frost Strike and Obliterate or if say there is a Rime proc to use that before Obliterate? e.g. Obliteration > Frost Strike > Obliterate > (Rime Proc) Howling Blast > Obliterate and so on. Thanks in advance

[Sniz 60]

5 minutes ago, Nards said:

Quick question, I'm having a little bit of trouble deciding what to do during the 8 seconds Obliteration is active. Is it better to solely alternate between Frost Strike and Obliterate or if say there is a Rime proc to use that before Obliterate? e.g. Obliteration > Frost Strike > Obliterate > (Rime Proc) Howling Blast > Obliterate and so on. Thanks in advance

The icey guide says to use rime HBs "if Obliteration is not active".

 

That makes sense too, in that you get the full use of obliteration AND a rime HB, at the risk of "possibly" getting a second rime and wasting your obliteration for the most part.

Im new to frost though, so ill defer.

 

[mgibbonsjr 2]

I pulled this priority list from the DK Discord, which linked to this mini guide for frost 7.1. Full disclosure I do not know who any of these author's are personally, but they seem to be respected folks in the DK Discord channel. Based on this guide, I understand that if Obliteration is active you do not Howling Blast.

Single-target (With Runic Attenuation/Obliteration)

1. Frost Strike if Icy Talons is off or about to fall off

2. Howling Blast if Frost Fever is off or about to fall off

3. Frost Strike if >= 80 Runic Power (70 if you have 3/3 Over-Powered)

4. Howling Blast if Rime is up and Obliteration is not active

5. Obliteration if >= 2 runes and 25 Runic Power

6. Frost Strike (Obliteration active)

7. Obliterate (Killing Machine)

8. Remorseless Winter

9. Frost Strike if >= 40 Runic Power
    

Single-target (Without Runic Attenuation/Obliteration)

1. Frost Strike if Icy Talons is off or about to fall off

2. Howling Blast if Frost Fever is off or about to fall off

3. Frost Strike if >= 80 Runic Power (70 if you have 3/3 Over-Powered)

4. Frostscythe if Killing Machine is up

5. Glacial Advance

6. Obliterate

7. Remorseless Winter

8. Frost Strike if Icy Talons is below 3 stacks

9. Howling Blast if Rime is up

 

2+ AoE/Cleave (Without Runic Attenuation/Obliteration)

1. Frost Strike if Icy Talons is off or about to fall off

2. Howling Blast if Frost Fever is off or about to fall off

3. Frost Strike if >= 80 Runic Power

4. Frostscythe if Killing Machine is up

5. Glacial Advance

6. Remorseless Winter

7. Frostscythe

8. Frost Strike if Icy Talons is below 3 stacks

Edited November 1, 2016 by mgibbonsjr
Fixed text color

[demonardvark 556]

Correct, you only have at best a 8 GCD window in which to benefit from obliteration. That gives you 4 frost strikes and 4 km obliterates. So during obliteration your rotation focus switches to alternating between the two frost strike- obliterate - frost strike - obliterate etc. While rime howling blast is strong km obliterate is still stronger. That's why you wait on the rime proc. Otherwise you lose out on the power of obliterate and have to wait for it to come off cooldown. 

[mgibbonsjr 2]

@demonardvark it seems the guide I mentioned above doesn't touch on it, but where in that list would you prioritize howling blast on a rime proc? In my own opinion it would go between 4 and 5. I'm not sure if they didn't mention it on purpose, meaning you ignore rime procs all together because it isn't relevant, or if it was just an oversight.

[demonardvark 556]

7 hours ago, mgibbonsjr said:

@demonardvark it seems the guide I mentioned above doesn't touch on it, but where in that list would you prioritize howling blast on a rime proc? In my own opinion it would go between 4 and 5. I'm not sure if they didn't mention it on purpose, meaning you ignore rime procs all together because it isn't relevant, or if it was just an oversight.

no if you look at it the archerus guide has it listed at around 4 which is good. basically with a proc you want to dump it as soon as possible (at least for dks classically). So when you look at our priorities you want to keep your frost fever up and you want to keep up your icy talon stacks. So if your diseases are good, and you aren't about to drop off icy talons, rime howling blast would be next, simply because you want to reset it to get another proc.