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Frost Is King....(fixed for readability)Follow

#1 Mar 10 2009 at 5:49 AM Rating: Sub-Default
Our main focus in this discussion is looking into a theorycraft option that i have not seen mentioned throughout several forums that i monitor in dk dealings. I'm calling this theorycraft "Improved Rune Usage Focus" as i think that sums it up pretty well. I will discuss how i situationally use my current build to maximize rune usage while minimizing ability downtimes in an effort to create the most effective constant flow of continual burst damage.

A focusing point of my current build, is that just because you have the abilities, does not mean that you have to use them all. I found with the wide range of abilities, especially in PVP that it can become confusing to try and monitor/administer them all. This in turn leads to screwed up rotations and death. the main idea is to use abilities that require the least amount of rune usage. Keeping those runes rotated and available to use for situational abilities as the fight progresses. Here is my current build. Some of the magic resistances can be moved around in frost to other areas, but as I like to PVP and following my goal of survivability I tend to strengthen my physical and magical defenses.

http://www.wow-tools.org/ptr-talent-calculator/Deathknight/23a5b15a3r32525b1a5a2a31b331251313a1

In this build we focus on a high burst damage ranged build. Using icy touch and howling blast we work to effectively be able to constantly spam it. We can fight much like a hunter keeping our enemies at range using chains of ice. Originaly this build incorperated obliterate. It is a very powerful ability, this i know. However frost strike can be almost as effective and at the same time cost 0 runes, leaving them open for continual IT/HB Spam. The rotation is going to look similar to this, adding in situational abilities when needed.

IT/HB/BS/BS/HB/Rune Dump

Were using our IT to infect the target with frost fever. From here if fighting multiple enemies (Situationally) you can put down a pestilence to spread, then follow up with HB to do the double damage. Double BS's are going to convert those blood runes to death runes in order to prepare for the HB spam as well as any situational needs for runes.

I went ahead and took out PS from the rotation completely. It does minimal "strike" damage without being buffed, uses up a unholy rune and doesn't really bring a lot to the table as far as increased damage from other abilities. Leaving those unholy runes open is going to allow for non-stop HB pain. It will also open up the ability for situational instances to utilize death strike more effectively for heals. maintaining core abilities that require a unholy rune to be ready and available when you need them.

For our rune dump, we have two options. the obvious is frost strike, with the increased rune cap from talents we can drop 3x FS in a row on someone up close putting them in check, chains of icing and moving back to ranged to build up the RP again. The other option, in following this ranged burst dps build is your death coil. Less potent in damage, however it has the added ability of being ranged and with full RP we can dump 3x death coils on them.

so what were doing is minimizing rune usage and maximizing survivability/versatility/ranged capabilities. Our rotations become extremely simple focusing on IT/HB/BS/BS/rune dump. It gives us the ability and runes to add in situational effects anywhere in between with the limited rune usage focus.

I macro my defenses together; Lichborne/unbreakable armor/icebound fortitude giving extreme survivability for roughly 20+ seconds to survive long enough to beat down and live through a gank sqaud. Where you will either beat them down and hungering cold them giving you enough time to heal up, followed by a deathchill (next IT/HB/OB is crit) and HB to max crit the group at range waking them up and finishing them off. It could also just give you enough time to stay alive until help arrives. The AMS is used situationally against casters of course and can often be used in conjunction when fighting a gank sqaud simultaneously. The improved rune usage focus of this build allows all of this versatility to be able to happen effectively.

I am definately frost all the way at this point. I am a believer, and I think it is the most underestimated build out there right now.

Edited, Mar 10th 2009 11:06am by QwestKnyte
#2 Mar 10 2009 at 6:04 AM Rating: Decent
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I refuse to read this idiotic wall of text. Learn to punctuate and capitalize properly unless you're getting your kicks out of causing people headaches - in which case you should change your text to a nice neon-green color to add some more flavor to your crap.
#3REDACTED, Posted: Mar 10 2009 at 6:09 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Well Then Don't Read It.....And What's Wrong With A Little Pain For Some Theorycraft Gain?
#4 Mar 10 2009 at 6:13 AM Rating: Good
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QwestKnyte wrote:
Well Then Don't Read It.....And What's Wrong With A Little Pain For Some Theorycraft Gain?


A Lot, When You Could Go To EJ And Not Have Your Eyes Bleed From Ridiculous Writing Styles And A Huge Wall Of Text, Yet Probably Learn A Lot More. Unfortunately, Most Of Us Will Never Know If Your Post Has Merit Or Not Because It Is Too Much Of A Hassle To Read.
#5 Mar 10 2009 at 6:20 AM Rating: Decent
W-W-Wall of unreadable text. ratedown!
#6 Mar 10 2009 at 6:22 AM Rating: Good
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Ok, I read it. And I have to say... meh. It's PvP. I don't care that much, honestly. Sure, frost seems the best. What I don't agree with necessarily is your "rotation" set. It should be priorities if you're in PvP, not a hard and fast rotation... because anyone standing there and allowing you to beat on them for 10+ seconds is idiotic. Ideally they'll be getting behind you, stunning you, dispelling, getting out of the way... all of which will mess up your rotation.

Granted, I don't PvP on my DKs. I agree that survivability is good in PvP, but high-end PvP is also about burst. If you can't take them out before they take out out... game over anyway.

And please never write the way you did for most of that post again :-P It really is a pain to read.
#7 Mar 10 2009 at 6:31 AM Rating: Default
Ok, it's a rough draft so i'm going to clean it up. Granted it is more of a pvp build but it still has the ability to be effective in PVE as well. I don't forsee a problem with the burst damage in it. I currently have sub-par gear and have been able to crit an entire group with 4000+ HB crits consistantly. Using "Everyman For Himself" as well as other equipment tweaks (trinkets ect) you can minimize immobile effects. And while the defensive macro is running, you are going to be immune to fear, stun, sleep ect. With a 1 minute cooldown on the majority of these defensive abilities, it is effective.
#8 Mar 10 2009 at 6:37 AM Rating: Decent
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893 posts
Horrid Formatting.

Mediocre Guide.

Bad Attitude.

And please don't even think that this Wall-o-text constitutes "theorycraft"... Most of this basic information is covered in the stickies.

Rate down.

Smiley: oyvey
#9 Mar 10 2009 at 10:26 AM Rating: Good
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13,048 posts
That's an awful Frost PvP build.

You don't know **** about PvP.
#10 Mar 10 2009 at 1:00 PM Rating: Excellent
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While I'm sure you had the best intentions.....

First, I see no actual theorycraft in the piece. Not one bit of math at all really. You're suggesting a change to a standard resources and ability use, basically a general tactical shift not a mathematical proof or inquiry.

Dropping PS from your rotation (in the example) does little but lose a GCD and waste the unholy rune which will just have to sit there, taunting us, until you have that IT frost rune back from the start of the cycle.

Personally, I've found that PvP and rotations are not happy lovers. While I'm no expert in any way on PvP, I have found the advice of "forget rotations, react to the situation" to be right on the mark.

Proper formatting is vital to communication. If your paper is meant to be read, you have to avoid grammatical and syntax errors if for no other reason than ease of readability. Saying it's "only a rough draft" is a cop-out. Why post anything on this scale that isn't as good as you can make it?

While I applaud your intentions, the piece needs some work. Take some time, review what you've written so far and see where you can clean it up and perfect it.
#11REDACTED, Posted: Mar 10 2009 at 1:37 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) ya your right, i have no idea what i'm talking about or even what i'm doing. You should really look into the game mechanics a bit more before your so quick to judge someones template. Personally i'd rather you didn't take anything from it because then i wouldn't have to worry about facing it while pvping.
#12 Mar 10 2009 at 2:32 PM Rating: Excellent
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13,048 posts
QwestKnyte wrote:
There is no "Magic" talent or template out there that is going to make you the best in pvp. It's how you play that is the deciding factor in whether or not your good.

We could have the same exact talent builds and i could hand it to you everytime. I've PVP'd competively for years in the time that i have spent playing MMO's, way back to the days of gemstone and dragon realms when MUD's were big. The majority of my time in any game that i have played has been spent PVPing, i have learned a lot of systems and have done a good deal of research to build extremely effective builds geared for pvp. I grinded to 70 when BC came out and got bored. put the game down for over a year and recently picked it back up because i'm waiting for SWTOR to come out. So until that happens, i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing.

No, see, you don't know crap about PvP because you haven't played arena at competitive levels.

As an example: you have Chilblains and Endless Winter. One of those talents is wasted. You're either using IT or CoI. As a Frost build, you'd be stupid to use CoI.

Acclimation is a bad talent. I've taken it before. It does extremely little.

Imp Frost Presence is terrible in a PvP build when you've got Merciless Combat a tier below.

You don't have Tundra Stalker. 10% damage is HUGE. That's ~20% (or more, in some cases) on crits.

You go on and on and on and on about how gaining RP is huge and then skip Chill of the Grave. That's retarded.

I could tear apart your build more, (like not taking 2h Weapon Spec and taking Butchery over Blade Barrier), but it wouldn't be worth it.

I've been in the top tiers of PvP since S2, just to qualify my posts. That isn't like, "oh, I held a rating over 1600", that's a "the lowest rating of any season in PvP that I've ever held was 1790" and "I played feral/rogue as one of the top players of that comp in the world; the top 50, to be exact".

So when I say your build is crap, there's a good chance it's crap.
#13REDACTED, Posted: Mar 10 2009 at 3:41 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Now was that so hard to offer a constructive opinion?
#14 Mar 10 2009 at 4:25 PM Rating: Good
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You don't seem to get why I've said some of the things I have, so I'll elaborate (this is me being nice Smiley: grin).

1) CoI is an emergency tool. As you're using a 3.1 spec, there's no need to have CoI proc Frost Fever, as you have Chilblains, which is a 50% snare. Also, you're terrible if you can proc a snare off your IT and you open with CoI. End of story.

2) BS is decent in a frost PvP build, but I wouldn't glyph it. There are much better glyphs that you can get (i.e. Oblit/IT/FS).

2) Tundra Stalker is one of the highest DPS talents--point-for-point--in the Frost tree. Not taking it is akin to saying, "hey, I don't like doing damage". Frost Fever should NEVER EVER EVER EVER fall off someone. If it does, you're doing something severely wrong.

3) You realize that a vast majority of your burst in PvP comes from FS, right? 2h Weapon Spec boosts that damage, thus boosting your burst, thus allowing you to kill people more easily.

4) Bladed Armor is a set amount of AP you get. 2h Weapon Spec gets better as you gain more AP and as your weapon gets better. This is a no-brainer, 2h Weapon Spec, point-for-point, destroys Bladed Armor.

5) You need to have 5 points in Blade Barrier to make it effective? Not so much. You can put the 2 points from Butchery in there and your build will be much better, as Butchery is completely worthless in PvP.

I did you a favor and fixed your build for you.

You're welcome.
#15REDACTED, Posted: Mar 11 2009 at 4:20 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Wow, your pretty dense. Considering your trash talking your own statements now. Items 1 and 2 are dealing with the direct quote i quoted from your post on the PVP forums. Those are your words exactly. i think that was the same post that you were trolling the pvp forums asking for the FOTM build about 1 1/2 months ago due to the fact that you had no idea of what you were doing and needed help.
#16 Mar 11 2009 at 6:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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QwestKnyte wrote:


with runic power mastery increasing my RP pool to 130, i can fill the entire rune pool up in 5 consecutive spams between icy touch and HB. I can now do with one single rune, what takes the normal person 3 runes to accomplish.


I think I'm misunderstanding this point. IT takes one frost rune. HB takes a FU. Unless you're going in with a bunch of death runes, won't it takes 10 seconds to replenish your frost runes for this "spam"?

Again, don't know much about DKs, but the idea of rotations seems odd to me in PvP.

And don't mind Theo's attitude. Look to his information instead; it's usually pretty solid. Although I do seem to recall him laughing at dual-wielding DKs for a month while EJ was extolling how they were the best spec. No one player knows what's best for DKs in PvP because all situations are fluid. We can take the average, though. If your PvP rank is above 2000, I'd give you some credit. If you break 2.2k, I think you've probably found a great combo and spec. Same goes for Theo, whose DK currently hits under 1400 for a rank (despite the well-known successes on other characters previously).
#17REDACTED, Posted: Mar 11 2009 at 7:08 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) hey locke, what i'm doing here is using chill from the grave, causing IT and HB to generate an additon 5 runic power (not using OB with this). that's going to make IT generate 15 RP and HB generate 20 RP per cast. With the IT Glyph adding and additional 10 RP we are generating 25 RP for 1 rune that it costs to cast IT. it works much like the 6x IT build that is out there, ofcourse it's not possible to do IT>IT>IT>IT>IT.
#18 Mar 11 2009 at 8:52 AM Rating: Good
QwestKnyte wrote:
FOTM'ers


Playing a popular class that is effective at PVP makes you a flavor-of-the-month-er? Smiley: dubious

And for being a self proclaimed ranged build you have an awful lot of melee range abilities in your described method Smiley: sly

Edited, Mar 11th 2009 12:52pm by Norellicus
#19 Mar 11 2009 at 10:41 AM Rating: Excellent
Quote:
It's not stickied anywhere even though others say it's basic information "stickied" in top threads. Pardon me for throwing a bone to the community to perhaps bring up some interesting theory craft in an undeveloped area.


Yes. People rarely sticky bad ideas... often because they are bad ideas.

Quote:


2H weapon spec? ya i've thought about it, but considering the fact that our AP effects most of our abilities potency to include some spells and that i have a high armor rating, i would much rather gain 5 AP per 180 armor than 4% increased 2h damage.

<snip>

As you bashed someone is a previous post, calling them an idiot for assuming that AP contributed to a majority of spells, here's the info on that to prove you wrong. AP contributes to APC which inturn helps a bunch of our spells produce better damage results, v.s the effect of the 2h weapon specialization helping only strikes. My build concentrates on ranged tactics, so therefore i'm going to strengthening ranged spells.


This is because you're incredibly stupid.

Protip: 2H Weapon Specialization increases all damage you do if you're holding a 2H weapon. This includes spells. But hey, ignorance of basic class mechanics is no reason not to come up with a bad concept. It just shows you've got heart, kid.

Quote:

i had a lil time so i looked through some of your posts. surprisingly alot of them are all sub-default because of the fact that you must get your kicks piping in and bashing people. granted they may be asking some stupid questions, but as someone with 8k posts you should be out here trying to give people a hand instead of throwing a wrench in their quest for help or knowledge.

I've seen your type before. you say that you barely play the game anymore yet you still troll the forums. when i played SWG for 4 years and returned home from iraq to find the game totally screwed up, their were people like you all over the forums. the bitter people that didn't play anymore yet still had to troll the forums to put in their two cents. sad things is that you will still be doing this years from now. i've got no respect for FOTM'ers and definately no respect for forum trolls they truly live a sad reality. what a joke!


*cue Wah Wah Wahhhhh music in light of stupidity*

You've constructed a bad Shadowfrost build. There's a reason everyone in PvP is running Shadowfrost; that one will hit harder with Ranged attacks and can shift damage more rapidly than a Frost build can. It's not that Frost is horrible per se; it is the way you've specced it, but Frost Strike is quite strong and it has some nice control via Hungering Cold, but it's just not as good as Shadowfrost, which has stronger ranged damage and can sustain high-damage abilities pretty much no matter where you are or what you're doing.

To summarize;

1) Not using Unholy Runes is just retarded. Use them. Plague Strike may not hit very hard but Blood Plague does. That's in addition to the HoT removal, although that doesn't always come into play.
2) You don't know basic class mechanics, see: Tundra Stalker, Butchery, 2H Weapon Specialization, Chill of the Grave in the original spec.
3) Wah wah wahhhhh.

PS:
Quote:
You don't have Tundra Stalker. 10% damage is HUGE. That's ~20% (or more, in some cases) on crits.


Picard is sad with you, Theo. You made him facepalm.

10% more damage is 10% more damage. Crits will hit 10% harder. Hits will hit 10% harder. Misses will... miss 10% harder.

EDIT: Bonus!

Quote:


And don't mind Theo's attitude. Look to his information instead; it's usually pretty solid. Although I do seem to recall him laughing at dual-wielding DKs for a month while EJ was extolling how they were the best spec. No one player knows what's best for DKs in PvP because all situations are fluid. We can take the average, though. If your PvP rank is above 2000, I'd give you some credit. If you break 2.2k, I think you've probably found a great combo and spec. Same goes for Theo, whose DK currently hits under 1400 for a rank (despite the well-known successes on other characters previously).


I've seen DK/Holy teams around 2200 that are both keyboard turning. Playing a DK is srs bznss.

Edited, Mar 11th 2009 2:57pm by RPZip
#20 Mar 11 2009 at 11:57 AM Rating: Good
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QwestKnyte wrote:
Pardon me for throwing a bone to the community...

Ummm... after reading more from you I'm pretty sure you can keep that bone to yourself.

This thread should be taken out back and shot.
#21 Mar 11 2009 at 12:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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RPZip wrote:
PS:
Quote:
You don't have Tundra Stalker. 10% damage is HUGE. That's ~20% (or more, in some cases) on crits.


Picard is sad with you, Theo. You made him facepalm.

10% more damage is 10% more damage. Crits will hit 10% harder. Hits will hit 10% harder. Misses will... miss 10% harder.

Yes, that's what I meant.

When you crit, it's a double-damage hit.

If you increase the base of that hit by 10% (or even the crit itself by 10%), you're seeing a 20% increase in the damage done based on the normal damage of the attack.

I should have explained it more thoroughly, but I know that it's not a direct 20% increase to crits.

LockeColeMA wrote:
Same goes for Theo, whose DK currently hits under 1400 for a rank (despite the well-known successes on other characters previously).

My DK is under 1400 because my partner was in greens and level 70 epics at the time, with under 200 resilience and under 70 hit (that's almost 100 hit below the yellow hit cap).

I'm not trying to make excuses, but when he isn't doing anything (figuratively speaking) and I'm trying to solo hunter/shaman teams that lose us 20 points, yeah, we're in the 1300s.

Also keep in mind that at 2400 HKs, I don't have near the experience on my DK as I've had on a hunter or a rogue; though I still have a lot more than the OP, apparently.
#22 Mar 11 2009 at 12:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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QwestKnyte wrote:
Wow, your pretty dense. Considering your trash talking your own statements now. Items 1 and 2 are dealing with the direct quote i quoted from your post on the PVP forums. Those are your words exactly. i think that was the same post that you were trolling the pvp forums asking for the FOTM build about 1 1/2 months ago due to the fact that you had no idea of what you were doing and needed help.

yup your right. COI is an emergency tool. Endless winter is there for the sheer fact that it's giving me a free mind freeze saving RP power for RP dumps. The main purpose behind COI is not to apply frost fever, though it does it's an added bonus.

As for bladed armor v.s 2h. We can agree to disagree on that. I could easily work both into the build and will probably end up doing so following some more testing. Bladed armor is giving 5 attack power per 180 armor. were not looking at a SET AMOUNT of AP gained from it. with high armor. Currently bladed armor is giving me 416 AP, as my armor and equipment improves, so will that number.

As you bashed someone is a previous post, calling them an idiot for assuming that AP contributed to a majority of spells, here's the info on that to prove you wrong. AP contributes to APC which inturn helps a bunch of our spells produce better damage results, v.s the effect of the 2h weapon specialization helping only strikes. My build concentrates on ranged tactics, so therefore i'm going to strengthening ranged spells.

<stuff from EJ>

that info is widely available on EJ as well, surprised you didn't see it trolling their forums.

<stuff admitting ignorance about Tundra Stalker, misconceptions about PvP builds, and stalking my posts>

The PvP forums are mine. Do you realize that? At the top it says "Theophany's Journal: Allakhazam's Arena Forum".

And my post there was posting my findings about builds pre-3.0.8 patch.

I'll be the first to admit that I was still learning about DK PvP. I still am. I'm not a veteran DK like I was a rogue or hunter (I've played both on the tournament realm).

The thing is, you're misquoting me. CoI and BS glyph were used in a blood build. If you haven't figured out that blood plays differently and uses different abilities than frost, I don't know what to tell you; probably that your ideal career is janitorial in nature, or that driving busses will be in your future, because you're just too stupid to do much else with your life.

BTW, I know that AP contributes to every spell a DK uses. I've known that since I was playing a DK in alpha.

The thing you seem to be too dense to get is that armor is a static value. If you pump Agi you'll get more armor, but not at the rate that it wouldn't be better to stack Str.

Do you realize that with Bladed Armor, going from the Savage chest to the Deadly chest only gains you 2.9 AP via armor? Bladed Armor is very much a static value compared to 2h Weapon Spec.

I don't feel like going into your personal attacks about me. I started posting here again because I've started playing my DK again after a few month hiatus (that means break) to get my passion for the game back. I've been gearing up and doing some trial arena matches with a rogue just for fun. I'll probably end up with a geared feral for a partner or a geared priest closer to the end of the season.

Glad to see that you're not taking any of my advice seriously, despite my reputation. Hopefully when everyone calls you a moron for speccing like you do, you'll think back to this thread.
#23 Mar 11 2009 at 5:12 PM Rating: Default
Well i guess it's time to grind out, gear up and hit arena. I'll be sure to refrain from giving any other "horrible" advice to the community here as i progress. We'll see who knows how to PVP.
#24 Mar 11 2009 at 5:35 PM Rating: Excellent
QwestKnyte wrote:
Well i guess it's time to grind out, gear up and hit arena. I'll be sure to refrain from giving any other "horrible" advice to the community here as i progress. We'll see who knows how to PVP.


Oh yes. You'll see!

You'll all see! Mwuhahahaahaha... ha... guys?

Guys? Where'd you go?

...guys?
#25REDACTED, Posted: Mar 12 2009 at 3:54 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Wow you're funny, your mother should have done us all a favor and swallowed you.
#26 Mar 12 2009 at 6:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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BUUUUUURRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!
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