Ultimate frost dps comparison

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ribbaribbahey
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Ultimate frost dps comparison

#1 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 05 May 2014 14:07

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Hello folks! As I was searching for a new way to play the DK class, I thought to end the rumors that stir around this spec.
I am going to illustrate three different frost builds plus an unconventional frost glyphing. This is NOT a frost dps guide.

The followings are run with a full t9 dk + same tier offset and 216dps weapons on a normal lv80 dummy, stacking Strength. No CD's are used in the comparison as they are common to all the specs, and because they may accentuate the random procs' influence.

Approximately 5 minutes per test, each dps result is 200dps lower than the real one because of the few seconds of combat taken in observation when I stopped hitting the dummy. No human errors were made in these rotations for the DPS calculations.


FROST-UNHOLY common build (click me)
Glyphs: -of Frost strike, -of Obliterate, -of Disease
[hide="DPS result"][/hide]
[EDIT: 4th dps output among the considered builds]

This spec is the common one, hard to use at best because of the rigid two-phases rotation which requires a split-second accuracy with the only pestilence you cast at the end of the second phase of your rotation. In my opinion this spec doesn't allow you to use the Killing machine (KM) procs and the Freezing Fog (FF) procs at best because you are forced to use them in the small window of time when you have no runes.
A valid variation of this spec is to drop 3x KM and get Subversion.

FROST-UNHOLY blood-caked blade (click me)
Glyphs: -of Frost strike, -of Obliterate, -of Disease
[hide="DPS result"][/hide]
[EDIT: 2nd dps output among the considered builds]

Same as above, but having high crit the KM procs may be overwritten by your natural crits, and there blood-caked blade kicks its way in.

FROST-BLOOD common build (click me)
Glyphs: -of Frost strike, -of Obliterate, -of Disease
[hide="DPS result"][/hide]
[EDIT: least dps output among the considered builds]

This spec has a single-phase rotation: you use pestilence every rune cycle. This is because of the lack of Epidemic, but this is not a bad news. With this spec in fact you have some spare time after (and between) 2 obliterates to use your procs, and the use of Unbreakable Armor is way easier. Focusing hard on critting, this spec scales less with gearing than the others. A valid variation of this spec is to drop 3x KM and get Virulence.
P.S: For God's sake don't take Scent of Blood in pve i beg you.

GLYPH OF HOWLING BLAST FROST-UNHOLY VARIATIONS
Yea this is the reason why I am doing this. I am not really into rotations, they are easy, boring, and bring nothing interesting to the game.

The talent build can be any of the two above. To be most effective the build needs Epidemic 2/2, so blood subspec is simply bad.
Glyphs: -of Frost strike, -of Obliterate, -of Howling Blast

This glyph distorts the playstyle of frost spec because of the possibility to apply frost fever via Howling Blast, making it a priority-list spec.
The list is:
1) Refresh diseases with icy touch or plague strike if they are 1.5s from expiring
2) Convert blood runes into death runes via Blood Strike
3a) Use Killing Machine proc with Frost Strike
3b) Frost strike if your runic power is higher than 90
4) Use Freezing Fog Proc
5) Obliterate
6) Frost strike
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE THE TWO DISEASES GO TOGETHER. In fact one of the strong points of this rotation is to save you frost runes that, combined with death runes, will allow you to cast additional obliterates.

The pro aspects of the two builds are many, including the instant AoE disease on adds, the easier use of Unbreakable Armor and most importantly the steady use of the procs (which leads to less overwriting of them), the easiness to reapply your diseases in many boss encounters etc. Last but not least, I like it more because it is dynamic and more challenging.

Con aspects are the dependence from RNG, and someone may not like the effort you have to put in tracking diseases and your runes.

No Blood-caked blade
[hide="DPS result"][/hide]
[EDIT: 3rd dps output among the considered builds]

Blood-caked blade
[hide="DPS result"][/hide]
[EDIT: highest dps output among the considered builds]

That's all, mons.
See ya, have fun.
Last edited by ribbaribbahey on 24 May 2016 11:18, edited 4 times in total.

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Blacklustersoldier
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#2 » Post by Blacklustersoldier » 05 May 2014 16:08

only one problem that I have noticed.... if you have death runes and frost/unholy runes, if you use FR/UR consuming abilities, they will use those runes instead of prioritizing the DR... while it may not hurt you that much.. it may screw up your rotation if you use rune tap too soon or too late
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#3 » Post by Mythilogic » 05 May 2014 16:36

Blacklustersoldier wrote:only one problem that I have noticed.... if you have death runes and frost/unholy runes, if you use FR/UR consuming abilities, they will use those runes instead of prioritizing the DR... while it may not hurt you that much.. it may screw up your rotation if you use rune tap too soon or too late
This. Also from past expertise from maining deathknight, this aint a stable way to PvP on, since it all relays on your knowledge about the spells, to counter the enemies class spells.

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ribbaribbahey
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#4 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 05 May 2014 19:32

Talking about PvP, Howling Blast glyph is used by people who play "single-disease-Frost": they don't use plague strike. That changes the use of the spells a bit, like opening with HB. For BGs it is still effective (not many play frost in arena anyway).

@Blackluster: priorizing the use of normal runes is the best scenario possible, you can do anything with death runes. The real problem is that if you mistake and cast a blood strike having a death rune it turns back to blood rune instead staying death. I am not sure tho to have understood your comment.

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Blacklustersoldier
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#5 » Post by Blacklustersoldier » 05 May 2014 19:46

assuming you want to use a death rune to apply ONE disease... cause lets say you missed... or something... but you still have 1 UH and 1 FR runes remaining, if you use rune tap to get the blood rune turn into death rune, and try to apply the disease WITH the death rune, it won;t work....
also that rune tap is buggy, if you wanna use the way it should be used (refresh blood rune and turn it into death rune) it won't work, it will turn the blood rune into death rune, but it won;t refresh the CD... not sure if it was reported, but feel free to test and make a report on it... I am not playing DK that much so I don't know much about them.

Sorry if I am confusing you somehow. xD
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ribbaribbahey
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#6 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 05 May 2014 20:04

Ok I got what you say but i don't get why you would want to use the death rune instead of the frost rune :D There is no advantage in it. In your scenario the best thing is to apply the disease and save blood tap ^-^
About blood tap's bug, I still can't see the logic in it: if i remember well it refreshes my rune's cd.

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Blacklustersoldier
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#7 » Post by Blacklustersoldier » 05 May 2014 20:46

when I use it I don't get it refreshed, it gets turned into death rune, but the CD is still there... perhaps it's the glyph that bugs it... hmm
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Re: Ultimate frost dps comparison

#8 » Post by Crown » 19 Sep 2014 15:05

First, I'd like to say this is a really interesting experiment about playstyles you've presented here, Ribbaz. Good job on that. I have few suggestions that may enhance Frost-Unholy build.

Try these things with your experiment. Use Unbreakable Armor with synchronization along Blood Tap. After you've consumed that rune (with Obliterate of course) cancel it's aura so you'd leave with 2 blood runes. Blood Tap bug allows you to use blood runes only 2 times. That means you must always use it with a Pestilence. If you're having Unbreakable Armor on cooldown, and ~2 seconds with diseses left, you can use Blood Strike and Pestilence in that order. Always keep your blood runes synchronized. But beware of Rune Grace Period bug here. Sometimes you'd need to use two pestilences. This is for unholy-offspec build with epidemic and without Howling Blast glyph. Prioritize runes over runic power. With these tips you can use 3 Obliterates in a row. Also don't forget to use Frost Strikes/Rimes when your runes are on cooldown, but don't trigger a global cooldown.

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