[Archived] Frost Death Knight 5.4

[Guest frocker]

This is a great site with some great guides.

With that said, I just wanted to point out that with patch 5.2 Death Siphon now heals for 150% of the damage dealt, as stated on the tooltip in the guide, but not in the explantion of the ability

[Guest Fyrenz]

Why isn't Death and Decay included in the single target DW rotation when nothing else is available before Horn of Winter, and to piggy back off that why don't any sites mention to throw in a Plague Strike if D&D is on CD? It isn't even in SimC when it's a clear (however small) dps boost. Sure it doesn't happen often but isn't the point of these sites to be exhaustive?

[Guest Joseph]

Strength gems priority over haste gems now? I really don't want to go back to gemming strength, the spec feels so much more fluent with haste gemming. Rarely ever get those times when I just can't do anything because RNG doesn't proc runic empowerment or rime. I remember sitting there for 4-6 seconds at a time when gemming strength, the haste counter acts that. I'll wait to see what Mr.robot says before I start regemming.

[Guest Monkey]

OK i just wanna know ATM , are 2H Frost DK,s Gemming haste or Strength as a priority

[Driftakos 0]

hello there :)

first of all thnx for the guide and the info u share, its rly helpfull.

now, i have some questions regarding the gemming of a frost dk. my dk (2H - ilvl 512) was in start gemmed haste based (as it was in the previous guide). at start it was workin kinda well but at a point i started to stay back in dps. then i saw that ur guide has changed and regemmed to str based. the result (in dummies ofc) was that i lost dps. i hitted harder but my rune regen was rly low. finally i used the middle solution. all my ilvl522 gear gemmed in str, the rest in haste. (got in total a 11.9k haste). with this setup it seemed to have the best results in the dummy.

what i wonder is, is there any kinda of haste-cap in dk's? meaning that to opt ur dps u must have a certain amount of haste and above that is better to gem in str since u will gain more from hitting harder than often?

[Vlad 411]

Strength gems priority over haste gems now? I really don't want to go back to gemming strength, the spec feels so much more fluent with haste gemming. Rarely ever get those times when I just can't do anything because RNG doesn't proc runic empowerment or rime. I remember sitting there for 4-6 seconds at a time when gemming strength, the haste counter acts that. I'll wait to see what Mr.robot says before I start regemming.

OK i just wanna know ATM , are 2H Frost DK,s Gemming haste or Strength as a priority

hello there

first of all thnx for the guide and the info u share, its rly helpfull.

now, i have some questions regarding the gemming of a frost dk. my dk (2H - ilvl 512) was in start gemmed haste based (as it was in the previous guide). at start it was workin kinda well but at a point i started to stay back in dps. then i saw that ur guide has changed and regemmed to str based. the result (in dummies ofc) was that i lost dps. i hitted harder but my rune regen was rly low. finally i used the middle solution. all my ilvl522 gear gemmed in str, the rest in haste. (got in total a 11.9k haste). with this setup it seemed to have the best results in the dummy.

what i wonder is, is there any kinda of haste-cap in dk's? meaning that to opt ur dps u must have a certain amount of haste and above that is better to gem in str since u will gain more from hitting harder than often?

The Strength vs. Haste debate has been going on since basically the start of Mists of Pandaria. It's a pretty delicate issue, so I'll try to shed some light on our most recent changes.

In a true Patchwerk style fight, Haste is better than Strength (in terms of gemming, and I'm sure you're all aware of the secondary stat gems giving twice the primary stat thing, so I won't go into it). This assumes you have perfect uptime on the boss, no latency, and just generally play really well. The truth is that in reality, this hardly ever happens, so while Haste pulls ahead on paper, Strength is really better for you in practice.

If you have lag, or make mistakes, it is much easier (well, unavoidable really sometimes) to accidentally cap your runes. Whenever this happens, your Haste is ruined.

If you cannot stay on the boss full time (the boss moves and you need to run after it and you're out of range for a while, or you're moving to a new target, etc), then two things happen. Firstly, while you aren't in range to attack, your runes may cap. Secondly, your DoTs remain on the target and tick. Your DoTs are affected by Strength, Mastery, and Critical Strike, but not by Haste, so, again, Haste loses out.

There's one more thing to factor in. If you are using Anti-Magic Shell to soak damage (as you should be doing whenever possible), the free runic power you get will cause your runes to cap (if you want to actually use it, of course, which, again, you should). This is something that happens many times per fight in most Throne of Thunder encounters, since you can usually mitigate quite a lot of stuff with AMS.

So, the conclusion of it all is that if you're in a fight where you have downtime on the boss, you've got latency (even moderate latency), you're at all likely to make some judgement errors, or you're using AMS to mitigate damage and get a lot of runic power, the value of Haste Rating drops significantly from what it appears to be at first glance.

Now, sure, if you've got a fight where none of these things are an issue (I am struggling to think of one), and you've got no latency and you're playing perfectly, Haste will be better than Strength.

We opted to make this change because it is more down to earth and it should result in better results for more people.

Now, you guys are saying that you're registering more DPS with Haste than with Strength gemming. While I'm not saying that it's not true, you should consider that your experience is based on a very small sample size, whereas the simulations run to get these results have a huge sample size. I think that it's unlikely you are getting less DPS on average with Strength, but perhaps you just need to play it a bit and get used to the slight differences.

As always, we monitor this particular issue closely, so rest assured that if we come to the conclusion that we are wrong, we'll be updating the guide promptly.

[Guest Joseph]

I'll stikc with haste then, since I'm perfect. Also, I see the BiS has finally been updated. That's gotta be a mistake though, why is that agi polearm BiS. There's no way 1000 haste makes up for losing 1600 STR from heroic Uroe. I call shenanigans.

[Hurtzdontit 0]

Just wanted to let you know that the CLCdk is currently up and any suggestions to help update this addon would be greatly appreicated. I am not the creator of the addon but I am using once again and very thankful to have it back. I just thought that you would like to know..

Thank you all for everything you have done for this site and information that you have given us for your toons on wow. Keep up the fantastic work.

[Guest Moograin]

Hey vlad I was wondering if you could tell me the relative value of tier 5 talents for 2H frost so I could see how much dps I would lose to go runic corruption? The values for unholy would be nice too as I'm thinking about switching.

[rodalpho 8]

I am surprised and dismayed to see Mendenbar's guide telling players to watch Killing Machine, when it was widely known and proven in the theorycrafting community that this was a bad idea back in beta.

Writing a FAQ should entail more than rewriting the simcraft optimal priority.

http://www.mmo-champ...-you-feel-lucky

Edited April 24, 2013 by rodalpho

[Vlad 411]

I'll stikc with haste then, since I'm perfect. Also, I see the BiS has finally been updated. That's gotta be a mistake though, why is that agi polearm BiS. There's no way 1000 haste makes up for losing 1600 STR from heroic Uroe. I call shenanigans.

I'm having a hard time finding the Agility polearm you're referring to on our gear page. Can you please be more specific so I can fix it? Thanks!

Just wanted to let you know that the CLCdk is currently up and any suggestions to help update this addon would be greatly appreicated. I am not the creator of the addon but I am using once again and very thankful to have it back. I just thought that you would like to know..

Thank you all for everything you have done for this site and information that you have given us for your toons on wow. Keep up the fantastic work.

Thank you as well!

I am surprised and dismayed to see Mendenbar's guide telling players to watch Killing Machine, when it was widely known and proven in the theorycrafting community that this was a bad idea back in beta.

Writing a FAQ should entail more than rewriting the simcraft optimal priority.

http://www.mmo-champ...-you-feel-lucky

Welcome back, rodalpho!

First of all, the guide is still my guide. I don't mean that to say that Menderbarr's contribution is not important, but rather that if there is a mistake, I am responsible for it.

Second of all, I have to confess I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to. Can you please elaborate (don't get me wrong, I'm sure you do have a point, you've always been spot on in the past).

Thanks!

Hey vlad I was wondering if you could tell me the relative value of tier 5 talents for 2H frost so I could see how much dps I would lose to go runic corruption? The values for unholy would be nice too as I'm thinking about switching.

You should browse around here and see if you can figure it out. It's a little something we are working on, not quite finished yet but it should do it for you. Let me know if you have questions!

[rodalpho 8]

Can you please elaborate

The link I posted to Euliat's analysis goes into extreme detail, but long story short, frost DKs should completely ignore Killing Machine in PvE. It shouldn't enter the priority list at all. I personally disable the blizzard powerauras and use weakauras to disable the button glow when it procs.

[Guest Moograin]

Hey vlad thanks for the reply but what do the numbers on the orght side of that page mean? Are those total dps? Or dps above a control or what? Seems a little bit of a big difference. Also did I miss ones with normal gear?

[Hurtzdontit 0]

Now I do understand that there has been a huge debate about the gem situation with the 2h Frost Dk's - But tonight I bought a new peice of gear and went to Mr. Robot to reforge and for some reason we are now going back to Str gems vs the haste?

http://us.battle.net...dontit/advanced

I first thought or understood that 1 point of haste = 2 points of str and it seems to work for the regeneration of runes and such, but I have noticed that my dps is slowly dropping. I tried to figure it out and reworked the rotation with no solution at hand. Then I wanted to see if getting a new piece of gear would change how I was looking at the stats. Thats when I noticed that the Mr. Robot changed its gems stats.

Was there some kind of change that I wasnt aware of or is it something that I am doing wrong on my end? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Hurtzdontit

[Vlad 411]

The link I posted to Euliat's analysis goes into extreme detail, but long story short, frost DKs should completely ignore Killing Machine in PvE. It shouldn't enter the priority list at all. I personally disable the blizzard powerauras and use weakauras to disable the button glow when it procs.

Alright, thanks. I see what you mean now. I'll make the appropriate changes. Thanks!

Now I do understand that there has been a huge debate about the gem situation with the 2h Frost Dk's - But tonight I bought a new peice of gear and went to Mr. Robot to reforge and for some reason we are now going back to Str gems vs the haste?

http://us.battle.net...dontit/advanced

I first thought or understood that 1 point of haste = 2 points of str and it seems to work for the regeneration of runes and such, but I have noticed that my dps is slowly dropping. I tried to figure it out and reworked the rotation with no solution at hand. Then I wanted to see if getting a new piece of gear would change how I was looking at the stats. Thats when I noticed that the Mr. Robot changed its gems stats.

Was there some kind of change that I wasnt aware of or is it something that I am doing wrong on my end? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I posted earlier in this thread that we had switched our gemming for 2H Fros DKs to Strength. As I said, it is true that in a vacuum/perfect conditions, gemming Haste would yield a bit more DPS. But in reality, taking into account the myriad of factors that lower the value of haste, Strength gemming is better.

[Damien 1,514]

Hey vlad thanks for the reply but what do the numbers on the orght side of that page mean? Are those total dps? Or dps above a control or what? Seems a little bit of a big difference. Also did I miss ones with normal gear?

Which numbers are you talking about, precisely? In case of the numbers on the index page, these just correspond to the size of the .html files :P

[Hurtzdontit 0]

Alright, thanks. I see what you mean now. I'll make the appropriate changes. Thanks!

I posted earlier in this thread that we had switched our gemming for 2H Fros DKs to Strength. As I said, it is true that in a vacuum/perfect conditions, gemming Haste would yield a bit more DPS. But in reality, taking into account the myriad of factors that lower the value of haste, Strength gemming is better.

Well in honesty I didnt go thru the whole thread which is my fault and should have taken more time and gone thru it completely, but I do understand what your are saying, and Thank you for your response to my post so quickly. I will try the strength gems and see how this all works out.

Ok now I am truly confused because I went to use Mr. Robot and it is now saying that haste is better, so with that being said. Is Mr. Robot going to reflect the change in the gems?

Edited April 28, 2013 by Hurtzdontit

[Guest Moograin]

Ok thanks Damien I have NO idea how to use simcraft I guess just let me know when you figure the tier 5 thing out.

[Guest diamondsmasher]

Glyph of Army of the Dead causes your ghouls to no longer taunt their target. This glyph is useful because it gives you the option of having your target (an add, since bosses cannot be taunted by Army of the Dead anyway) continue attacking its tank, in case this is desirable.

Since when did Army of the Dead stop taunting bosses???

[Vlad 411]

Since when did Army of the Dead stop taunting bosses???

Long time ago. I don't recall exactly, maybe start of Cataclysm?

[rodalpho 8]

It was hotfixed at some point in the 3.0 patch cycle. By which I mean, before 3.1 released. Army taunted bosses in WOTLK beta and shortly after release, but stopped early on in Naxx. So the answer is late 2008/early 2009.

Of course it can still screw you on bosses with adds, which is almost all of them, so the glyph is well worth taking.

Edited April 30, 2013 by rodalpho

[Tarazet 144]

It was hotfixed at some point in the 3.0 patch cycle. By which I mean, before 3.1 released. Army taunted bosses in WOTLK beta and shortly after release, but stopped early on in Naxx. So the answer is late 2008/early 2009.

Of course it can still screw you on bosses with adds, which is almost all of them, so the glyph is well worth taking.

It can definitely screw you up if the adds need to be moved or positioned precisely, but I can also see using an unglyphed version on, say, normal Dark Animus.

[thatoneguy 1]

ok, dumb question. i follow the rot guide for 2hd dk (frost) but cant substain more than 65 RP. but when im unholy i substain between 85-100 RP (granted im only lvl 66) but still im waiting on CD's in frost spec, am i doing something wrong still? or is unholy jus that boss ATM?

[Guest Khrock]

Just a macro that I like, if you've taken Asphyxiate. It pulls the enemy to you and stuns them at the same time.

/cast Death Grip

/cast Asphyxiate

[Guest Dazzazza]

Hi iv just started to level my Dk im at level 70 and Just wondering about tier 4 as personally ithink death siphon is better but the guide says to go with death pact i found that i get more healing done with death siphon plus the added dps just wondering does this change as i get higher in level would i benefit from changing as i get higher in level as my health goes up.