Dual Wield Frost DK - to Obliterate or not?

[agajones 0]

Hope someone can help with this as can't seem to find a definitive answer - as a Dual Wielding Frost DK should I use Obliterate at all? I have seen some posts which claim Obliterate should always be used whenever have Killing Machine proc, but others that claim even if have Killing Mach do not use Obliterate, just use Frost Strike. Is there a clear answer?

[Storm 426]

Always use killing machine procs for frost strike. It is your hardest hitting ability as a dw frost dk.

 

As far using obliterate in your rotation it's sort of dependent on your gear. In MSV/Hof it was all about spamming howling blast to use runes and only using obliterate when you needed to use unholy runes. In ToT with the higher weapon damage we were able to use almost the same roation as 2H frost, and mostly spam obliterate, just making sure we used killing machine procs for frost strike. I haven't tried dw frost in SoO, but I'm willing to bet there is probably a small difference regardless of which rotation you decide to use.

 

If you have high mastery but haven't gotten good weapons yet then you'll probably do better with howling blast as your primary spam ability, 

 

If you have 553+ weapons you may come out slightly ahead by obliterating more since it will do roughly the same amount of damage as howling blast with good weapons, and will generate RP faster than howling blast, which allows you to frost strike more often.

 

either way use your killing machine procs for frost strike.

[agajones 0]

Thanks Storm, first clear answer have had in ages! And as you seem to know your stuff .... Have just started using Mr Robot and he recommended I spec pretty much everything into Mastery after Hit and Exp caps met, but my attack power has gone down by 3K. Should I be concerned?

[Storm 426]

The only way you should lose attack power is if you were using str gems before, and have switched to mastery now. that's ok though. Mastery is the best stat for DW frost, especially if you're going to stick with howling blast spamming instead of using obliterate.

 

If you're going to obliterate more instead of using howling blast then Crit is probably actually your best stat, but from a min/max perspective I'm not sure which of these would be best.

[drumsmani 47]

Both HB and FS do frost damage and benefit directly from Mastery. As long as you are spamming HB and using up Killing Machine procs on FS, you shouldn't be too concerned.

[Failhard 2]

No don't use oblit- In maths its a good way to burn those UH runes.  In reality with plague leech, blood tap and movement, I really found myself trying to burn unholy with oblit only to get a KM proc right as I did so.  In math and reality it just doesn't work out to oblit when you could HB instead.  I really like the BT/FS macro icy veins has but when you macro it you lose the light up for KM procs on FS, to solve this I still have oblit on the bar to see when KM procs. (I disabled the onscreen blue crap because there is enough going on without obsuring my vision anymore.)

 

You will get 0 rime procs with this method, but honestly its not even an issue when you are already spamming HB.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Failhard

[stDarkness 0]

imo 100% NOT! From the time I've started playing DW at 5.4, I've tried both using Oblit and PS to spend Unholy runes and I can tell you that using PS is the best for me. Try it out and you'll see it. You'll always use your KM procs on FS with this way and the damage of HB + PS is WAY more than Oblit, you don't waste any time with your rotation while regening your runes and keeping your dots up are easier. As Failhard said Rime is not an issue with this way cos you'll be using all of your runes to HB anyway. But you have to rotate BT perfectly.

Edited November 5, 2013 by stDarkness