glyphs Frost Death Knight: Mists of Pandaria Rotation Changes, Talents, and Glyphs (Patch 5.0.4)

[Vlad 411]

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Frost Death Knight guide, which is fully compatible with Mists of Pandaria, and is being constantly updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4, we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Frost Death Knight rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Frost Death Knight Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.

New Abilities

• Control Undead allows you to take control of any hostile Undead mob (only one mob at a time, however). Bosses are immune to this ability. The mob's attack speed and casting speed are diminished, but it retains all of its abilities. You cannot summon your ghoul (Raise Dead) while you have a controlled mob, although you can control a mob while your ghoul is active, having both up at the same time.
• Soul Reaper is a nuke, with "execute" properties. It deals 100% weapon damage and applies a debuff on the target, lasting 5 seconds. If, when the debuff expires, the target is below 35% health, it deals a moderate amount of Shadow damage. The ability's damage, when the target is not below 35% health, does not make it worth casting. Finally, if the target is killed while the debuff is active, the Death Knight gains 50% haste for 10 seconds.
• Tier 1 talents offer a choice between Plague Leech and Unholy Blight (and Roiling Blood, although this is a passive ability). We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
• Tier 4 talents offer a choice between Death Siphon, Death Pact, and Conversion, although Death Siphon is the only spell that deals damage. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
• Tier 5 talents offer a choice between Blood Tap and two passive spells, Runic Empowerment and Runic Corruption. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.

Changes to Existing Mechanics

• The base global cooldown is now 1 second by default. Previously, this was a feature of Unholy Presence.
• Frost Presence now grants 20% increased runic power generation and reduces the cost of Frost Strike by 15 runic power. It also reduces the duration of effects that cause loss of control of your character by 20%.
• Unholy Presence no longer reduces the global cooldown, but it is otherwise unchanged.
• Horn of Winter now grants 10% increased attack power to all raid members. This is due to the old buff of Horn of Winter (549 Strength and Agility to all raid members) having been removed. Horn of Winter now also lasts for 5 minutes.
• Howling Blast now innately applies Frost Fever to all targets. Previously, this was done through a glyph.
• Frost Fever and Blood Plague now last 30 seconds.
• Unholy Aura is a new raid buff that increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all raid members by 10%. This effect was previously provided by a talent, Improved Icy Talons, which no longer exists. A new version of Improved Icy Talons exists, but it only benefits yourself now (see below).
• Icy Talons provides you with 20% increased attack speed. It is derived from the old Improved Icy Talons.
• Might of the Frozen Wastes has been changed. It now causes your Obliterate to deal 50% extra damage when using a two-handed weapon, and it increases the damage done by all your melee attacks by 10%. Might of the Frozen Wastes is now provided to you by default (previously, it was a talent you had to choose).
• Threat of Thassarian has been changed slightly. In addition to causing your Death Strike, Obliterate, Plague Strike, and Frost Strike to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon when you are dual-wielding, Threat of Thassarian increases the damage of Frost Strike by 50%. Like Might of the Frozen Wastes, this talent is also provided to you by default.

Removed Abilities

• Blood Tap has practically been removed. There is a new spell with the same name in Mists of Pandaria, although it has nothing to do with the Cataclysm version of Blood Tap.
• Blood Strike has been removed (although it was not part of the Frost rotation anyway). It is now only available to Unholy Death Knights.

Rotation

Your rotation in Mists of Pandaria will, broadly speaking, be very similar to your Cataclysm rotation. There are two changes that occur:

• The inclusion of Soul Reaper in your rotation when the target is below 35% health. It seems almost certain that you will want to use this spell on cooldown once the target is below 35% health (assuming that the damage it deals remains the same as it is now).
• Incorporating your choice of rune regeneration talents from the tier 5 talents. We go into more detail about this below.

Suffice it to say that if you choose Runic Empowerment, your rotation will probably remain virtually unchanged from Cataclysm. Our existing Frost Death Knight guide describes this best. There are only two differences to keep in mind:

• Soul Reaper should be used on cooldown when the target is below 35% health. Due to the high damage that it deals, it gains a very high priority.
• Killing Machine procs should be used differently, depending on whether you are dual-wielding or using a 2-handed weapon
• Killing Machine should be used with Frost Strike when dual-wielding.
• Killing Machine should be used with Obliterate when you are using a 2-handed weapon.

If you instead choose Blood Tap, your rotation becomes more lax. You will have to keep an eye on the number of Blood Charges (a byproduct of the Blood Tap talent) you have.

In any case, your rotation becomes roughly the following:

• Keep both diseases up (Frost Fever will automatically be applied by Howling Blast; you will have to use Plague Strike to apply Blood Plague).
• Cast Soul Reaper on cooldown, if the target is below 35% health.
• Use your Killing Machine procs on Frost Strike if you are dual-wielding or on Obliterate if you are using a 2-handed weapon.
• Cast Frost Strike if your runic power is about to reach maximum.
• Cast Blood Tap if you have 11 or 12 stacks of Blood Charge. This will require that you have both runes of a certain kind depleted, but this should be a simple byproduct of performing your rotation. If you are using the macro listed above, this step will likely never come up in your gameplay.
• Cast Howling Blast if you have a Rime proc.

Once you maintain the order of these steps, you will simply have to fill remaining global cooldowns with using Blood Charges (when below 11), casting Horn of Winter and casting Obliterate and Howling Blast without their respective procs.

If, instead of Blood Tap, you choose Runic Corruption, your rotation becomes even simpler. You no longer have to worry about runes being fully depleted and you don't have to manage Blood Charge stacks. You should simply maintain your diseases and cast Obliterate and Howling Blast with priority when they benefit from their procs.

Cooldowns

You do not gain any DPS cooldowns, compared to Cataclysm. As we mention at the start, Blood Tap is gone in its old incarnation.

• Pillar of Frost increases your Strength by 20% for 20 seconds. It should be used as many times as possible during the fight. You should also make sure to stack with as many procs as you can.
• Empower Rune Weapon replenishes all of your runes and grants you 25 runic power. To take advantage of this cooldown, you should use it when all your runes are on cooldown and when you are not at full runic power. It provides you with tremendous burst damage potential.
• Raise Dead calls a ghoul to fight by your side for 1 minute. It should be used as many times as possible during a fight.
• Army of the Dead functions identically to the way it did in Cataclysm and should be used in the same way.

Multiple Target Rotation

The multiple target rotation only becomes viable when you are facing a considerable number of enemies (4 or more), provided that they are close together. Howling Blast becomes your main nuke. Additionally, you will use Death and Decay on cooldown. When Death and Decay is not available, your Unholy runes will be used on Plague Strike (which you should use alternatingly on the enemies, so as to apply the disease to as many of them as possible).

Finally, you will want to dump your runic power with Frost Strike, in order to enable your rune regeneration mechanic of choice.

Talents

Tier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that are related to your diseases:

• Roiling Blood
• Plague Leech
• Unholy Blight

We believe that each of these talents has a usefulness in a particular set of circumstances, and your choice will be based on this, although Roiling Blood is probably the worst of the 3 talents, because Blood Boil was not part of the AoE rotation during Cataclysm, and we see no reason why this would change in Mists of Pandaria.

Plague Leech consumes your diseases from the target, replenishing a fully depleted rune, as a Death Rune. Both of your diseases must be up on the target for this spell to work. It will be useful in two situations:

• When you need to quickly stop all DPS on a target (to avoid a phase transition, for example), allowing you to remove your DoTs.
• As a rune-regeneration tool. In this case, you will be casting Plague Leech right as the target is about to die.

Unholy Blight is an extremely efficient means of applying your diseases to a large number of enemies without using a large number of global cooldowns or runes. You can simply turn this ability on and run through the enemies. When this type of situation can arise during the encounter (for example, a pack of adds spawns at a certain point), we believe this talent to be extremely benenficial.

Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 survival talents:

• Lichborne
• Anti-Magic Zone
• Purgatory

Lichborne allows you to heal yourself with Death Coil for 10 seconds every 2 minutes.

Anti-Magic Zone places a protective barrier at a target location, reducing the magic damage taken by any raid members inside it by 75%. The zone lasts for 10 seconds, or until it absorbs a fixed amount of damage (rather low). It is unchanged from its Cataclysm version, and it will remain useful for reducing the damage of a powerful AoE attack, and less useful for reducing damage that comes in over time.

Purgatory allows you to survive an attack that would otherwise kill you, every 3 minutes. The amount of damage that is prevented from reaching you (i.e., the amount of damage that would have been the "overkill" portion) will be turned into a healing absorption effect on you, lasting 3 seconds. If, after 3 seconds, you were not healed for that amount (so, if the absorption effect still exists), you will die.

The mechanics of the encounter you are progressing on will determine your choice. Anti-Magic zone is useful as a raid cooldown any time there is a big magic damage attack that you want to mitigate. Purgatory can be useful in allowing you to bypass encounter mechanics, while Lichborne simply allows you to help out the healers by keeping yourself alive during times of heavy damage.

Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control and utility talents:

• Death's Advance
• Chilblains
• Asphyxiate

Death's Advance will probably be the default choice unless encounter mechanics require something else, simply due to the fact that it offers a passive 10% increased movement speed at all times.

Chilblains will be useful when there are adds that must be kited.

Asphyxiate, which is an improved Strangulate (half the cooldown, no rune cost, stun instead of silence, when possible), will mostly have PvP applications and, unless there is a specific encounter where it is for some reason particularly beneficial, it will not show up in PvE.

Tier 4vtalents offer a choice between 3 self-healing talents:

• Death Pact
• Death Siphon
• Conversion

Of these 3 talents, Death Siphon moves unquestionably to the forefront (at least in the current state of the Beta), because in addition to its self-healing component, it also deals damage to the target. The damage portion is quite appealing, and it scales with both attack power and Mastery, meaning it will remain appealing as gear improves.

Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that improve your resource regeneration:

• Blood Tap
• Runic Empowerment
• Runic Corruption

This is the tier that is by far the most important (for Death Knights of all specialisations, most likely). Your choice here will not only provide you with increased rune regeneration, but the different ways in which your rune regeneration is improved will also affect your gameplay.

Prior to Mists of Pandaria, the default means of rune regeneration for Frost Death Knights has been Runic Empowerment. Should you choose this talent, your rotation will revolve around making sure to use Frost Strike only when you have both runes of a certain type in a state of being depleted or regenerating, since otherwise Runic Empowerment is unable to proc its rune-refreshing mechanic. Additionally, you will have to sometimes use Frost Strike simply because your runic power may be reaching maximum capacity - in this case, since the condition regarding runes may not be met, you risk losing out on Runic Empowerment procs.

Blood Tap, on the other hand, puts your rune regeneration entirely in your hands. If you take this talent, each time you cast Frost Strike, you gain 2 charges of Blood Charge, up to a maximum of 12. Using Blood Tap consumes 5 charges and replenishes a fully depleted rune, as a Death Rune. The condition we mentioned above still stands, meaning that you cannot use Blood Tap unless both runes of the same type are unavailable.

Finally, Runic Corruption grants your Frost Strike a 45% chance to grant you 100% increased rune regeneration rate for 3 seconds. This 3 second buff stacks with successive applications, the duration being increased each time, so it is never wasted even if two or more successive Frost Strikes all proc Runic Corruption.

Currently, both Runic Empowerment and Runic Corruption provide you with a higher rune regeneration rate increase than Blood Tap does (although Runic Corruption is almost the same as Blood Tap). However, Blood Tap gives you more control over the situation, allowing you to potentially time things in such a way as to take advantage of fight mechanics. We believe the best choice of these 3 talents will eventually be determined through theorycrafting. However, the difference in terms of DPS, between the 3, is likely to be small. What is more important is that you choose the mechanic that you like best, and that you execute its particular playstyle well.

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control talents:

• Gorefiend's Grasp
• Remorseless Winter
• Desecrated Ground

In a rather disappointing turn of events, the tier 6 talents have no effect on your actual DPS performance. These talents are heavily PvP-centric and we believe that for PvE the choice will be largely irrelevant.

Glyphs

While many Death Knight glyphs are interesting and have applicability for PvP or questing, in terms of PvE performance, there are 3 Major Glyphs that we consider worth mentioning:

• Glyph of Death Coil grants your Death Coil the ability to be cast on allies. When doing so, it will place a damage absorption shield on them.
• Glyph of Shifting Presences allows you to retain 70% of your runic power when changing between presences (by default, you lose all your runic power when doing so).
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell allows your Anti-Magic Shell to absorb all the magic damage taken (up from 75% without the glyph), up to 50% of your maximum health. In practice, this will allow Anti-Magic Shell to absorb slightly more damage, in some situations, improving your survivability.

There are also 2 Minor Glyphs that are interesting:

• Glyph of Tranquil Grip removes the taunting component of your Death Grip. This is extremely useful in encounters with adds, where you wish to bring an add quickly to a location where it can be DPSed, without being forced to tank it.
• Glyph of Death's Embrace refunds 20 runic power after using Death Coil to heal your minion. Even though this scenario is unlikely to occur often (in PvE, in any case), there are no better alternatives.

This concludes our Frost Death Knight preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!

[rodalpho 8]

Some significant mistakes and missing points here.

- DKs have a 1.0s GCD baseline now. Very important to mention this as it's a big change (and our largest victory in beta).

- Runic corruption (40.5%) and Blood Tap (40%) are neck-and-neck in efficiency

- You don't talk about "rune-tetris" or "gaming" runic empowerment, which is the only way it's useful

- You don't mention that blood tap gives a death rune, which can be used to necrotic strike or death siphon (soul reaper is being changed to runic power)

- You should talk about macroing blood tap into frost strike, as this makes it very easy to use on cooldown.

- Soul reaper is frost's highest priority sub-35%

- DW frost probably won't bother maintaining blood plague when outbreak is on cooldown

- You don't talk about killing machine priority at all. 2H frost uses it on obliterate, DW frost on frost strike.

- Conversion is much better than death siphon at currently attainable gear levels in beta (ilvl 483). Death siphon is a ~5% heal for a death rune. Conversion heals 6% for 30RP-- much lower cost. Death Siphon also deals damage, but it is negligible. Death rune costs are very high.

- The runic empowerment section is off-base where it talks about RE being unable to proc. After the first 5s of the fight, you will never have 0 fully-depleted runes. It's theoretically possible when you lose time on target and lead off with a frost strike, but... just don't do that. Howling blast at range.

- Also, what is this "cannot use unless 2 runes of the same type" stuff? It's in both RC and blood tap. No such constraint exists.

- Runic Corruption does not last for 3 seconds. It lasts for [rune regen speed]*0.3 seconds.

- Glyph of anti-magic shell is not wonderful, but it is our 3rd major glyph.

Edited July 10, 2012 by rodalpho

[Vlad 411]

Some significant mistakes and missing points here.

- DKs have a 1.0s GCD baseline now. Very important to mention this as it's a big change (and our largest victory in beta).

- Runic corruption (40.5%) and Blood Tap (40%) are neck-and-neck in efficiency

- You don't talk about "rune-tetris" or "gaming" runic empowerment, which is the only way it's useful

- You don't mention that blood tap gives a death rune, which can be used to necrotic strike or death siphon (soul reaper is being changed to runic power)

- You should talk about macroing blood tap into frost strike, as this makes it very easy to use on cooldown.

- Soul reaper is frost's highest priority sub-35%

- DW frost probably won't bother maintaining blood plague when outbreak is on cooldown

- You don't talk about killing machine priority at all. 2H frost uses it on obliterate, DW frost on frost strike.

- Conversion is much better than death siphon at currently attainable gear levels in beta (ilvl 483). Death siphon is a ~5% heal for a death rune. Conversion heals 6% for 30RP-- much lower cost. Death Siphon also deals damage, but it is negligible. Death rune costs are very high.

- The runic empowerment section is off-base where it talks about RE being unable to proc. After the first 5s of the fight, you will never have 0 fully-depleted runes. It's theoretically possible when you lose time on target and lead off with a frost strike, but... just don't do that. Howling blast at range.

- Also, what is this "cannot use unless 2 runes of the same type" stuff? It's in both RC and blood tap. No such constraint exists.

- Runic Corruption does not last for 3 seconds. It lasts for [rune regen speed]*0.3 seconds.

- Glyph of anti-magic shell is not wonderful, but it is our 3rd major glyph.

Thank you very much for your very insightful comment!

We have taken some of your suggestions into account, as they were indeed things we had omitted to mention (the baseline 1.0 second global cooldown most notably).

In other cases, we have chosen not to include some things in the article because while they are true on the Beta, we feel it is premature to go into such depth when it is likely that they will change (dropping Blood Plague when not refreshing it with Outbreak, differences in usage of Killing Machine procs between 2H and DW).

Other points are too fine to go into detail about here (like the actual duration of the Runic Corruption buff - it is 3 seconds at its base and the small changes that occur in the duration make absolutely no difference).

Regarding Runic Empowerment being unable to proc - it is a real concern. It will just not proc unless both runes of the same type are unavailable. 1 fully depleted rune and 1 available rune won't allow it to proc - both need to be down (see below).

Finally, to answer your question regarding "cannot use unless 2 runes of the same type" stuff: you cannot use Blood Tap, and Runic Empowerment won't proc unless both runes of the same type are unavailable (1 fully depleted and 1 in the process of regenerating). If one rune is "ready" and sitting there while the other is recharging, Blood Tap will not work.

Later edit: Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell allows your Anti-Magic Shell to absorb 75% of the spell damage dealt to you over 5 seconds, regardless of whether or not it exceeds 50% of your maximum health, right? This seems beneficial, in both PvP and PvE but I'd go so far as to say it's overpowered to the point of being broken - and I seriously doubt it will stay in the game until release.

Also, I'd like to ask you to clarify what you mean about "rune gaming" as Frost? The only situations where I can see it being "mandatory" is if you are playing Masterfrost (which probably won't be the case come MoP going live, I would say) or if you are in some kind of prolonged AoE situation where you want to maximize your use of Howling Blast. In this case, you'd game Unholy runes to allow for more Howling Blast usage - but what gaming are you thinking of for a normal single target rotation, and why would it be needed?

[rodalpho 8]

While the 50% obliterate/frost strike buffs may be modified (and IMO should be as 2H frost oblit will be too bursty for PvP), killing machine priorities are unlikely to change, as that was done purposefully. It's the only difference in playstyle between 2H and DW.

The runic corruption change is new in beta-- it does last 3s no matter what on live. It means that it won't double-dip on haste. If you feel that's too mathy for your readers that's fine. Most people don't understand this, and as long as they know that it's the same efficiency as blood tap, that should be good enough.

I see what you mean by "2 runes of the same type" now. All that actually matters is that one is fully depleted, but that can't happen unless the other is refreshing. That's not actually a concern while playing the game since you should always be using your resources.

The glyph of AMS allows it to absorb 100% of incoming magic damage, up to 50% of your total health. Lets say you have 100k health and are hit by 50k magic damage with AMS up. Unglyphed, it will absorb 37.5k. Glyphed, it will absorb 50k. On the other hand, if you're hit for 100k magic damage over the duration of your entire AMS, unglyphed and glyphed will both absorb 50k damage. So it's primarily a PvP glyph, but it does have some minor PvE use too. Since most of our glyphs unfortunately don't apply to frost and/or PvE, "minor PvE use" is good enough to be on the list.

Frost RE gaming does primarily apply to AE.

But really RE and RC aren't competitive alternatives to macroed blood tap for AE anyway, since BT has the same efficiency as RC, slightly less than RE, but gives a death rune. Gamed RE loses 10RP per cycle, which is basically 22.5% of a rune every cycle (0.5*0.45) since frost strike only costs 10 runic power. This compensates for its slightly greater efficiency otherwise.

Sims show BT as the best choice, but they all assume Soul Reaper costs a death rune, and that's changing. My guess is that runic empowerment will pull SLIGHTLY ahead on single-targets once the dust settles with the new soul reaper. But that's too early to call.

Edited July 11, 2012 by rodalpho

[Vlad 411]

While the 50% obliterate/frost strike buffs may be modified (and IMO should be as 2H frost oblit will be too bursty for PvP), killing machine priorities are unlikely to change, as that was done purposefully. It's the only difference in playstyle between 2H and DW.

Fair enough. I'll make a mention of this

The runic corruption change is new in beta-- it does last 3s no matter what on live. It means that it won't double-dip on haste. If you feel that's too mathy for your readers that's fine. Most people don't understand this, and as long as they know that it's the same efficiency as blood tap, that should be good enough.

It is mathy, but more importantly it's not relevant to the reader. It's only relevant for determining, through running the numbers, which rune regeneration mechanic yields better results. But the duration of the buff makes no difference to someone while they're playing.

I see what you mean by "2 runes of the same type" now. All that actually matters is that one is fully depleted, but that can't happen unless the other is refreshing. That's not actually a concern while playing the game since you should always be using your resources.

Well, I agree with you that it rarely pops up as a concern if you are executing your rotation correctly (or even remotely correctly). Traditionally, though, it's one of the few things that are actually worth mentioning regarding the Frost Death Knight rotation since the rest is quite basic. I'll think of a better way to approach this subject.

The glyph of AMS allows it to absorb 100% of incoming magic damage, up to 50% of your total health. Lets say you have 100k health and are hit by 50k magic damage with AMS up. Unglyphed, it will absorb 37.5k. Glyphed, it will absorb 50k. On the other hand, if you're hit for 100k magic damage over the duration of your entire AMS, unglyphed and glyphed will both absorb 50k damage. So it's primarily a PvP glyph, but it does have some minor PvE use too. Since most of our glyphs unfortunately don't apply to frost and/or PvE, "minor PvE use" is good enough to be on the list.

Ah, I see. Well, since in PvE the big limiting factor has generally always been the "50% of your total health" part, the glyph is not that overpowered. It's still something that helps or can help survival, so I'll add it to the list!

Frost RE gaming does primarily apply to AE.

Thought so

But really RE and RC aren't competitive alternatives to macroed blood tap for AE anyway, since BT has the same efficiency as RC, slightly less than RE, but gives a death rune. Gamed RE loses 10RP per cycle, which is basically 22.5% of a rune every cycle (0.5*0.45) since frost strike only costs 10 runic power. This compensates for its slightly greater efficiency otherwise.

Doesn't Frost Strike cost 20 runic power? It's 35 base, and Frost Presence reduces it by 15. In-game for me on the Beta it's costing 20

Sims show BT as the best choice, but they all assume Soul Reaper costs a death rune, and that's changing. My guess is that runic empowerment will pull SLIGHTLY ahead on single-targets once the dust settles with the new soul reaper. But that's too early to call.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think my initial assessment is still correct, in that Runic Empowerment will be better than Blood Tap - but I don't think it will be ahead by much, as you said.

Thank you again for your input. It helps a lot! Keep it coming, if you have anything else to add.

[Vlad 411]

I've added the glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, the mention of different Killing Machine priorities and the Frost Strike/Blood Tap macro. I'll still think about a better way to discuss the tier 5 talents, but I've got to go now :)

[rodalpho 8]

Sorry, I meant to say FS cost 20RP. My math was correct, just not the text around it.

As for the L75 tier and blood tap vs RE for frost, we need to see what they do with soul reaper. All we know is that it'll probably cost runic power. We don't know how much RP, whether it'll proc the L75 tier, unholy's shadow infusion, etc.

Good stuff overall!

[Leoric 2]

Very nice topic, now waiting to see Unholy DK's rotation.

[Vlad 411]

Soul Reaper seems to have been changed to now cost 1 Frost rune (for Frost) / 1 Blood rune (for Blood) / 1 Unholy rune (for Unholy), instead of the predicted runic power cost :)

[Mortifer 0]

Currently, i have not seen a mention about the damage difference between Frost 2h, and Frost DW, and Unholy is put to the side to not be mentioned, it was only better this tier because mastery benefited Gurthalaik, and it's seeing some devastating nerfs with the upcoming expansion. Currently Frost 2h seems to be superior in both PvE and PvP circumstances, Currently, not only does Frost 2h use Killing Machine on Obliterate, but it games runes completely differently, but for Frost is seems to be the same as the original frost, not the masterfrost set up with Howling Blast as key priority aside from 1 obliterate per rune cycle, and then Frost strike for gaming runes. But, Currently Frost 2h is Expertise Hit Mastery Haste Crit, same as not, and Frost DW, As of now, Frost Death Knights are one of the top damage dealers, especially for burst. Optimally,

[Vlad 411]

Currently, i have not seen a mention about the damage difference between Frost 2h, and Frost DW, and Unholy is put to the side to not be mentioned, it was only better this tier because mastery benefited Gurthalaik, and it's seeing some devastating nerfs with the upcoming expansion. Currently Frost 2h seems to be superior in both PvE and PvP circumstances, Currently, not only does Frost 2h use Killing Machine on Obliterate, but it games runes completely differently, but for Frost is seems to be the same as the original frost, not the masterfrost set up with Howling Blast as key priority aside from 1 obliterate per rune cycle, and then Frost strike for gaming runes. But, Currently Frost 2h is Expertise Hit Mastery Haste Crit, same as not, and Frost DW, As of now, Frost Death Knights are one of the top damage dealers, especially for burst. Optimally,

I don't understand most of your post. Also, it seems to have been cut off prematurely, since you ended it mid-sentence. I'm going to reply to what little I can understand of it:

• This is a preview of the changes to the spec - not an extensive guide covering every subtlety of the spec. The idea is that players who are used to playing a Frost Death Knight in Wrath of the Lich King, at least somewhat, can get a good view of how things will change. We do not go into every single detail, because many of these things change several times during Beta testing. That's why things like "2H does more damage than DW" is for all intents and purposes a useless statement. When Mists of Pandaria is released, you can be sure that such mentions will be made, since they can actually have an impact.
• This is a preview of Frost Death Knights - therefore, there's hardly any reason to mention Unholy Death Knights. I don't see why you'd think they are "put to the side". Again, this isn't meant as a comparative analysis of how much DPS each spec is performing.
• If you wish to make suggestions regarding rune gaming strategies, by all means please do so. But saying "2H Frost games runes completely differently" is not helpful at all.
• I understand that you are making a point regarding stat priorities but I cannot work out what you are trying to say.

[rodalpho 8]

1) 2H frost is indeed much better on single-targets than DW frost, even with soul reaper costing a frost rune. DW frost still wins on AE.

2) 2H frost does not game RE different than DW frost. Neither spec games runes at all on single-targets, since every rune can be used to Obliterate. Both subspecs game against blood runes to AE.

3) Nobody uses masterfrost priority

4) Your stat weights are wrong.

2H frost is expertise = hit > haste > mastery > crit

DW frost is expertise = hit > mastery > haste > crit

[Vlad 411]

1) 2H frost is indeed much better on single-targets than DW frost, even with soul reaper costing a frost rune. DW frost still wins on AE.

2) 2H frost does not game RE different than DW frost. Neither spec games runes at all on single-targets, since every rune can be used to Obliterate. Both subspecs game against blood runes to AE.

3) Nobody uses masterfrost priority

4) Your stat weights are wrong.

2H frost is expertise = hit > haste > mastery > crit

DW frost is expertise = hit > mastery > haste > crit

Thank you for your post.

Don't hesitate to keep us/this thread updated with things like which playstyle is performing better and what the stat priorities are. We're going to include such things when we get closer to a release date :)

Regarding rune-gaming as Frost (and Unholy), I'd appreciate it if you could provide a short explanation of the state of things now on the Beta (i.e., what the best way to handle your runes is).

[rodalpho 8]

Unholy: Unholy uses runic corruption. Doesn't rune-game, since it would result in less Festering Strikes, which you need to extend diseases and turn into death runes via reaping.

Frost: Uses runic empowerment. Only games RE to AE. Use death and decay when all frost and death runes are on cooldown and you don't have enough RP to frost strike. Beyond that, don't use unholy runes at all. Every rune returned by RE will either be frost or death and thus usable to Howling Blast.

Blood: Probably uses runic empowerment. Only use one blood rune per cycle. Every rune returned from RE will be either frost or unholy and thus usable to Death Strike. Runic corruption may be a viable alternative for blood tanks who don't want to play rune tetris.

Also Blood Tap is now on the GCD. The macro doesn't work anymore. Nobody should take Blood Tap, it's a dead talent.

Edited July 18, 2012 by rodalpho