Death Knight DPS FAQ [Updated 3/14/09]Follow

So yesterday I went to Naxx 25 man. One of our OT was an Unholy DK.

I didn't want my dps to suffer because he 'stole' my ebon plague. Nor did I want to ***** up his thread if I stole his.

So I bit the bullet and went Frost.

Observations:

- The AE damage is flat out insane. Getting 5 7.5 crit on 1 Howling Blast is almost **** inducing. I ended up 3rd in 'overall dps', despite the fact that we had many AE class (including an unholy dk tanking), that I died a lot and that my gear certainly wasn't the best out there. It might even be better then Unholy, because quite frankly, your Howling Blast can do as much damage as full Unholy Blight... but you can cast it 3 times in the duration of one UB.

Yes, I'm aware trash meter are srs business, but still - the more damage you do on trash, the faster you get to the boss.

- Single target dps was still quite decent, I'd put out an easy 2.3 to 2.5k dps, which was enough to grant me a 5th spot in the raid group. I have to say critting Frost Strike for 8k+ damage is a lot of fun. Frost may not be as effective as Unholy or Blood, but the big numbers it produce are extremely entertaining.

- I went with Frost Aura instead of Icy Reach, mainly because I figured if my talents isn't going to increase my dps, it might as well help the raid. And just as I thought, Frost Aura is easily the most underwhelming of all 3 DK aura. 2 point in Vicious Strike for more plague strike damage might even be worth than it...

- Icy Touch becomes quite a powerful damage dealing ability in its own right, capable of dealing over 3k damage on a hit, on top of applying Frost Fever. You certainly go from using FF because 'you have to' to using it because it deal very good damage... Since I had Imp Icy Talon, this allowed the enhancement shaman to use Grace of Air Totem and Flametongue totem instead of WF, without us losing the bonus.

- The 'Dps' curve of Frost is actually much more predictable then Unholy/Blood. Frost doesn't have DRW/Garg, its dps should be the same on a 2mins or a 10 min fight. Blood/Unholy dps highly depend on the proper use and timing of DRW/Garg and can vary greatly based on proc-rate, human error, lenght of fight, etc.


Edited, Dec 8th 2008 12:39pm by Tyrandor

Just did my first instance as Frost last night and I have to say, I doubt I'll be going back to Blood anytime soon. Just anecdotal of course, but it just felt smoother and stronger than my experience with Blood and Unholy (in beta mostly, but some live). The availability of strong AOE via Pestilence and Howling makes the current trend of "CC? What's CC??" less of an issue (like it is on my rogue, sigh) and the single-target DPS seemed right on track compared to the other DPS (all good players from my guild on alts). Recount gave me results of ~1.1k DPS on bosses (~950DPS over the entire run) at level 70 with quest greens/blues.

All in all, I'm preferring Frost to the other trees but haven't done any full DPS analysis yet (still leveling). My suspicions are that there will be some small percentage difference between the specs for total raid DPS output. But that these differences will only matter to min/maxing raiders.

Just thought I'd add my observational 2 pennies. Cheers.

Edit: Screenshot of damage distribution from the run noted above. More white damage than I expected, but that could be my noobs showing.

Edited, Dec 9th 2008 1:16am by TherionSaysWhat

Hello, im new on this foruns and i would like some help pls...
Im raiding 25 now and got some questions if u dont mind answering:
Ok this is me: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Burning+Steppes&n=Mazka

I would like to know how TF I got 5% miss on SS when im hit caped?
Anyone know why my pet never show on wws? As unholy, is a big part of my dps, just a temporary bug or...

Just a thought about DnD, I will not use it with 3 mobs or something but more then 5 defenily worth de 3 runes thats for sure, is by far my strongest aoe spell... the prob is maybe u will be tanking 1 our 2 mobs...

Another point is the blood vs unholy: I dont think blood is stronger then unholy, not even at 1v1,but will try one of this days, need ask GM 1st...
Tks in advance
Mazka from Burning Steps

Yeah probably was dodges...

About the wws, it doesnt show my gnoul, just my gargoyle...

About de packs, many packs got more then 5 mobs and of corse I use pestilence to spreed out all the deseases on my curent target, still DnD is the one that make more damage on that short period of time. If I know that that pack dies in 15 or 20 secs, and u got like 10 aoe people, not making DnD in this situations is a big mystaque... but is just my 2cents

U might recognize this I hope:
Quote
"2. How many enemies are there?

Every DK build has to change their rotation based on the number of enemies. It is almost always better to pestilence than anything else. Blood Boil is generally a worthwhile expenditure of the blood rune if there are more than 3 targets if you have Outbreak, and more than 6 as Blood (with no outbreak). Yes, Heart Strike just hits that hard. Death and Decay is still probably the best damage ability you can use in an AE situation."

My current spec is a PvP spec.

A very minor point in the original post asked whether or not pets (i.e., the ghoul) set off abilities like Shade of Aran's flame wreathe. The answer to that is no, pets will not set off the flame wreath.

The effect is not set off as follows (in case anyone is interested, or thinking about taking a ghoul with them to Aran).
Spell casting
Movement resulting from a spell cast (like Mind Flay for priests or Aimed Shot/Steady Shot for hunters)
Paladins' Divine Shield
Rogues' Cloak of Shadows
Warrior's Whirlwind
Nether Protection
Pets
Companions

The effect is triggered by the following:
Player character movement
Accepting a rez
Mages blink
Druid shapeshifting
Shaman elemental totems

Enjoy!

Edited, May 4th 2009 11:21am by Dosgamer

The FAQ is outdated. While there is a good amount of decent information, the builds and some of the presumptions are no longer accurate. Including dual-wielding.

Basically until we have an updated FAQ this needs to be read with a grain of salt.