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4.2 Frost Dual Wield DPS
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Post by
apocalypsa
<on 4.3: Not much changed, except a new experimental idea where you stack mastery and forget OB. If youre interested, check EJ, but for 99% of the people it wont lead to better results(quite the opposite). Crit is even worse than it used to be, but thats all>
4.2 Frost DW dps
What you’re currently reading is a frost DW dps guide for 4.2. There has been a certain lack of dps guides lately, causing many people to recommend EJ to those who are new to the DK class and are looking for information. While EJ is very in-depth and provides a lot of information, wowhead is known for its easier accessible format and generally more to-the-point approach to a class. This will be my goal in this guide; don’t expect anything new or revolutionairy, but expect a decent readability and clear statements that may help your dps a little.
Notable changes in 4.2:
Obliterate base damage has been reduced to 150% weapon damage, down from 160%.
Hungering Cold now has a 1.5-second cast time.
The talent Killing Machine can now properly be triggered from off-hand attacks as well as main-hand attacks.
Nerf to our aoe blind, OB damage nerf, and huge increase in KM procs. Value of crit is even lower now. Dual Wield is now much better than 2h.
Introduction
Table of content
Some frost info
Spec/glyphs
Priority System
Stat priorities, caps and gearing
Gemming
Reforging
Enchanting
Consumables
Cooldowns
Notes
The frost spec is a very versatile dps spec. It allows for both DW and 2h, and it can utilize both to great effect. It offers a few utility talents, like free interrupts and an aoe cc, and there are somepoints to fit in as you like. Its mastery is
Mastery: Frozen Heart
.
is what makes Frost Dual Wield viable,
Might of the Frozen Wastes
is 2h’s special talent. Dual Wielding currently offers better dps than 2h. DW frost>2h unholy>2h frost, although frosts proccy nature may smooth it out a little in reality.
Spec
There are two ways you can spec:
the Epidemic build
and
the Improved Blood Tap build
. Both are viable.
With the Improved Blood Tap build you will use Unholy Presence. Because your diseases have a shorter duration, keeping them up will require more use of PS. Rime-HB's will still take care of the frost fever.
Because of the extra runes generated, this spec is theoretically the best dps option, but it is quite a bit harder to play.
The Epidemic build is a little bit safer as it has a longer duration on its diseases, and its dps is almost as good. It has a few free global cooldowns, so it allows for small slips, and because of the less tight disease duration they wont fall off as easy. This spec uses Unholy Presence, but you COULD also use an Epidemic build with frost presence and the old priority system(Strength > Hit to Cap > Expertise to Cap > Mastery > Haste > Crit), this would net a small dps loss (about 700 in BiS gear) but if you dont like pressing a lot of keys, it works.
The 2 points in EW are still free to put wherever you want.
Priority System
Frost dps uses a priority system, which means that different abilitys are more important and should be hit sooner. The priority system for frost is:
Diseases > Ob if both Frost/Unholy pairs and/or both Death runes are up, or if KM is procced > FS if RP capped > Rime > Ob > FS > HoW.
Diseases always are top priority. Howling Blast and Plague Strike/Outbreak will cover those. As stated above, Frost Fever should rarely ever be a problem thanks to Glyph of Howling Blast applying Frost Fever for us. Blood Plague is simple enough to manage between Plague Strike and Outbreak. Try to reapply Blood Plague as close as possible with the end of the current application but anywhere under 6 seconds or less is acceptable.
Keeping runes on cooldown is next on priority. This means getting one of each rune on cooldown before starting on the other set of runes. This is largely due to how our rune system works as of 4.0. Each pair of runes shares a internal cooldown where neither can be refilling at the same time so having one of each rune available is the same as having used all your runes in terms of when all your runes will next be available again and gives some flexibility for our procs to fit in our priority.
This means using Obliterate when both Frost and Unholy sets are up or two Death runes. This is followed by Frost Strike to keep you from reaching your max RP and wasting extra Runic Power and using any Rime procs you may have. Then Obliterating again to put as many of your runes on cooldown.
Lastly, Frost Strike; Make sure you're not Frost Striking when you don't actually have at least two runes of the same pair on cooldown. You need to have runes fully depleted in order for Runic Empowerment to proc. That is the reason why Frost Strike is prioritized last. Although, under the new rune system you aren't inherently punished for sitting on a single rune of a pair, you will lose benefit from Runic Empowerment, and thus rune abilities must come first.
Fill any remaining downtime with Horn of Winter.
Be aware that the loss of Blood Strike from our priority is going to leave you with an extra GCD every two cycles* of your runes so you may be seeing more downtime than in 4.0.6. Take advantage of this downtime to line up Killing Machine procs with your Obliterates when possible. It’s hard to put an exact number on it but if you have a Killing Machine proc waiting a sec or two to get runes to Obliterate rather than using Killing Machine on Frost Strike will show an increase of DPS.
*A cycle is the complete depletion and re-activation of your six runes. Due to Runic Empowerment, this is more of a theoretical idea than one that will always occur.
Stat priorities, caps and gearing
The general stat priority for DW is Strength > Hit to Cap > Expertise to Cap > Haste > Mastery > Crit > Agility. As you can see strength is still king, with the caps following close second and then the ratings.
There is a point in haste that dw frost would use Unholy Presence and favour haste more, but that isn’t currently reachable.
Is what I said last patch, and we've reached it now. Unholy presence is the way to go for DW aswell, and thus haste is our best secondary stat.
5% hit chance is needed to always hit on your special attacks, because
takes 3% away from it. This takes 600 hit rating. The spell hit cap is still 816 rating, so that’s your goal. The white swing hitcap is 24(27-3) %, and not worth going for.
Your attacks have a 6.50 % chance to get dodged, which is the expertise cap. It takes 780 rating to get there. Your attacks also have a chance to get parried, but only from up front: thus, you want to attack from behind.(also avoiding cleave ability’s). In the case of tailswipes or likewise annoying things, stand at the sides.
Gemming
The most important stat to gem is strength. Why? Because it’s the biggest dps increase per point, and because all other stats can be reforged. You want to gem all strength, except when theres a socket bonus that gives +20 str, +30 of any other stat for one blue/yellow socket, and +30 strength for two.
Bold Inferno Ruby
Fierce Ember Topaz
Etched Demonseye
And as meta,
Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond
ofcourse. If you can’t get that,
Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond
is also fine.(but quite a bit worse!)
Reforging
Reforging is a new concept added with Cataclysm. What it does is take 40% of a secondary stat(all ratings but resilience, and spirit) and add it to another stat of your choice that isn’t currently on the item. Reforging can be quite difficult to do properly on the first try, as “take the least worthwhile stat and turn it into something better”. Especially the hit and expertise caps can be a problem. What you want to do is sit as close to those caps as possible, and then reforge to a desired stat. Example:
You have an item with crit and mastery and an item with crit and haste. Now, you should reforge the first crit into hit and the second into mastery, instead of the first crit into haste and the second into hit, because mastery>haste.
You may also want to sometimes reforge hit OFF an item. For example, you are overcapped on hit so you reforge a ton of hit off your chest into mastery, but that leaves you undercapped. So then you want to reforge, for example, some haste off your boots into hit.
Note that you will also have some hit from purple gems, so don’t forget to gem before reforging.
Enchanting
Head:
Arcanum of the Wildhammer
Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone
, or if you’re a scribe,
Lionsmane Inscription
Cloak:
Greater Critical Strike
Cheaper alternative:
Critical Strike
Chest:
Peerless Stats
Cheaper alternative:
Mighty Stats
Bracers:
Major Strength
, or
if you’re a leatherworker. Cheaper alternative:
Precision
/
Critical Strike
Gloves:
Mighty Strength
Cheaper alternative:
Exceptional Strength
Legs:
Dragonscale Leg Armor
Cheaper alternative:
Scorched Leg Armor
Boots:
Mastery
/
Lavawalker
. The movement helps a ton on heavy movement fights, so I’d take it.
Precision
if problems with reforging to exact hit cap. Cheaper alternative: +50 mastery
Weapons:
Rune of Razorice
on the mainhand and
Rune of the Fallen Crusader
on the offhand. It is also worth to keep a third onehander around with
for aoe, as its quite an increase.
Consumables
Flask of Titanic Strength
Golemblood Potion
Beer-Basted Crocolisk
Fortune Cookie
Post by
apocalypsa
Seafood Magnifique Feast
The “useful stat” is strength. Not much else to say here.
Note that prepotting with armor potions is no longer viable because they last just as long as normal potions now.
Cooldowns
As frost you have three cooldowns: Pillar of Frost, Raise Dead and Army of the Dead.
Pillar of Frost
20% extra strength for 20 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. Use it as much as possible, preferably with a blood tap or frost Runic Empowerment proc. Use it alongside other things such as trinket procs/cooldowns, raid buffs like hero and your ghoul.
Raise Dead
The ghoul takes a snapshot of your AP, haste and hit when it is summoned and does not benefit from any buffs used after its summon. It gains expertise from hit, so if you’re hitcapped he is hit and exp capped. Again, try to line it up with other cooldowns, but don’t wait too long – using it 3 times is always better than 2.
Army of the Dead
Practically the same as the ghoul. Use it at the start of a fight to prevent dps loss from channelling and interruptions, and don’t use it just before a boss aoe. If you have to use them mid-fight, try doing so during phase transitions or otherwise dead(pun not intended) time. They will not taunt raid bosses, but they will taunt dungeon bosses and adds, wiping(or saving if correctly used) your raid.
Refreshes a blood rune and turns it into a death rune. This can be used for a variety of things, but its main use is to supplement RE procs. For example, if an unholy rune procs, you can use this and Obliterate. Best used while your blood runes are blood runes(and not already death), but the refreshment alone is worth it.
It can also be used to deal additional AoE damage or refresh your diseases if they decide to run out when you just unloaded a couple OB's(although that'd be bad planning)
Empower Rune Weapon
Refreshes all your runes and grants RP. Has gained a lot of value with the 4.0.1 changes(which basically improved the value of 1 rune by 100%) and is thus a very powerful, although lengthy, cooldown. Best used alongside other dmg-increasing stuff.
The general consensus with cooldowns: use them together, during +dmg moments(
time,
Heroism
or encounter-specific moments of free damage or burn phases)
Notes
Do you guys prefer the setup with item/spell links as it is now or the old system?
And report any inconsistencies/lies/something else thats not good. I may appear perfect, and I am, but Word 2000 isnt.
Happy frost dpsing!
Post by
apocalypsa
reserved for future use and cool looks
Post by
Orranis
You should work on making it a wee bit more presentable, with spacing and all that, as well as clean up some grammar. Maybe because you were doing it in Word and pasting here.
First of all, I would make a note about putting the two points in On a Pale Horse into Endless Winter if you're in an interrupt rotation.
Furthermore, you should make abandon the 'Frost info' and make two different categories, one including an actual priority (you didn't even mention Obliterate), and make the other one Runeforging/Presences (can probably keep the 2-hand information in that guide).
Blood Tap itself could go in the cooldown category.
That's all I can think of now.
Post by
dervasavred
Please reference the fact that Haste has become much stronger for DW. It is practically right behind Mastery as far as importance, depending on your gear.
To reinforce this point, have people sim out stats in AskMrRobot or SimulationCraft to determine what to do at their level of gear.
Post by
apocalypsa
Raarg, I knew I was missing something - prioritys and blood tap. And, indeed orranis, runeforges and presences shouldnt be in general info...
Ill fix that dervasavred, I took my info from EJ and their sticky isnt updated yet.
Ill fix those things asap.
Post by
391117
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Orranis
Empower Rune Weapon as a cooldown.
Post by
Zakkhar
Stat priorities, caps and gearing
The general stat priority for DW is Strength > Hit to cap = Expertise to cap > Mastery > Haste > Agility.
It should be Mastery > Haste > Crit > Agility.
Wierd how
EJ disagrees
with both ideas.
Post by
apocalypsa
I just forgot to put crit in there. If what dervasavred is true haste>crit now, which kinda makes sense to me - but EJ still puts haste last... Seeing as there's 4.0.6 above the post now, I guess I'll got with that.
And Orranis, EPW doesnt need much explanation... Guess I'll put it in anyway.
Post by
Zakkhar
I just forgot to put crit in there. If what dervasavred is true haste>crit now, which kinda makes sense to me - but EJ still puts haste last... Seeing as there's 4.0.6 above the post now, I guess I'll got with that.
And Orranis, EPW doesnt need much explanation... Guess I'll put it in anyway.
Well i wouldnt call mr robot very reliable since it told me to reforge and regem my crit to haste...on fire mage.
Post by
dervasavred
Well i wouldnt call mr robot very reliable since it told me to reforge and regem my crit to haste...on fire mage.
There could be a number of factors there, like your Haste pushing you over a vital threshold for an extra tick on something like LB while in a raid group. Fire Mages after a certain point require a somewhat delicate balance.
The correct course of action is to run SimulationCraft on your own toon to determine stat weights, then plug those weights into AskMrRobot. The default stat weights are not usable 100% of the time and will not realistically apply to the undergeared or extremely well-geared characters. Take the time to learn SimC and utilize its stat weights; then you should see an improvement in what AMR is telling you.
As far as the DW Frost thread is concerned, Consider himself put in gigantic red text at the top that some of the opening post with all the information is out-of-date. The BiS section for DW Frost is actually pretty awful in comparison to how DW plays out nowadays. I believe it's page 11 or 12 that someone provides a chardev.org character link that should be extremely close to the new BiS.
Also, I believe starting on page 8 or so they start discussing the legitimacy of Haste rising up. Since the opening post is considered out-of-date, people will actually have to do a bit of digging through people posting in the thread discussing stats and whatnot.
The correct answer, of course, is to sim your own character to see if Haste is really gaining in value for your particular toon. Just be sure you understand what you are looking at.
Post by
148101
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
apocalypsa
Great to hear I helped someone, always makes me smile :)
Post by
Orranis
I just forgot to put crit in there. If what dervasavred is true haste>crit now, which kinda makes sense to me - but EJ still puts haste last... Seeing as there's 4.0.6 above the post now, I guess I'll got with that.
And Orranis, EPW doesnt need much explanation... Guess I'll put it in anyway.
Well i wouldnt call mr robot very reliable since it told me to reforge and regem my crit to haste...on fire mage.
Haste is extremely important to Fire Mage's, even more-so then crit until you reach the extra-tick soft cap.
Post by
Kartu84
Okay, I rested my DK for a long time (like 3.2) before coming back right after 4.1 launched and I'm a bit confused... this thread talks a lot about
, but doesn't
make that completely obsolete for us frost DKs? Or am I totally not seeing what's right in front of me?
Post by
379675
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
WTBaggrodump
The DW stat priority is now the same as 2h: Strength > Hit to Cap > Expertise to Cap > Haste > Mastery > Crit
Now when you say "Hit to Cap", you mean to 8%, correct? I'm only pointing this out for those of us who may take it the wrong way or aren't as experienced as some of us.
Melee Special Hit cap = 8% or 960 hit rating. (Due to
this
, you'd only need 5% or 600 hit rating.)
Expertise is 26(/26) or 780 expertise rating.
Also, there really is no substantual reason for a DW DK to not go past the 8% hit cap (for specials)?
I mean, there's
this
, but other than that, I don't see any other procs (besides any on-hit trinkets you may have and the "enchant" you'll have from your "DKsmithing"). I have no idea what the uptime on KM is like even with full 27% hit cap, but I'm sure it'd be great to have it going off as often as possible without screwing over the stat priority.
P.S. What about spell hit cap? Is that not as much a priority for Frost as it is, say, for Unholy? You still cast plenty of target spells from what I see~
The spell hit rating cap is 1632 = 16%, or 102 = 1%, in case anyone was wondering.
Post by
Orranis
If 102 equals 1%, then you need 816 hit rating for spell-hit cap, which is what you should be aiming for.
Edit: Spell hit cap is 8% for DK's.
Post by
WTBaggrodump
If 102 equals 1%, then you need 816 hit rating for spell-hit cap, which is what you should be aiming for.
Edit: Spell hit cap is 8% for DK's.
That I did not know. So pretty much, you get to the melee hit cap and you have nothing to worry about, right?
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