11.2 Frost Talent Tweak Suggestions

Classes Death Knight
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The changes to Frost have been largely positive, but I have a few suggestions to help improve the new talent tree:

Change Runic Overflow and Runic Command from 2 talent points to 1.

This was frequently mentioned in PTR and I’m a little disappointed it made it to live. Currently Runic Overflow is mainly just seeing play with Shattering Blade and Runic Command is seeing virtually no play at all. I think it’s entirely reasonable to flat out reduce both of these talents to a single talent point.

Reverse Icy Onslaught to Instead Stack When you DO get Runic Empowerment

Icy Onslaught feels backwards to me. When you get chain Empowerment procs you are flooded with resources, while failing to get procs leaves you resource starved. Right now Icy Onslaught is taxing you resources when you fail to get procs when it should be amping your spender cost so you can dump excess resources when you get procs.

I understand the intention is a talent to mitigate ‘bad luck streaks’, but currently this talent is not really accomplishing that as, again, it’s rewarding lack of resources with a resource dump component which is backwards. Right now I often find myself resource flooded anyway, so I feel reversing to instead stack when you get procs would better help with that.

Edit: The duration of stacks would likely need to be short in order to prevent runaway resource locking, so in a situation where the DK runs out of runes and runic power the stacks of Icy Onslaught can simply fall off. The other alternative is to tweak the talent so that Frost Strike and GA simply attempt to spend extra runic power to deal extra damage, but not explicitly require extra runic power to press.

Move Smothering Offense Elsewhere - Make Avalanche 2 Talent Points

Changes to the final talent row has driven Smothering Offense extinct as all the other talents are strictly superior. This however has had a knock-off effect of effectively nerfing Permafrost, as Smothering Offense was key in boosting our auto-attack DPS to keep Permafrost essentially online.

I am advocating moving Smothering Offense elsewhere (either underneath Icy Talons in the class tree or simply further up in the spec tree so it’s not in the final gated set), and then shifting talents so that Cryogenic Chamber and Everfrost connect to Avalanche, Avalanche connects to Icy Death Torrent and Shattering Blade, and then making Avalanche a 2 point talent (effectively double the current damage at 2 points or more).

2 Likes
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You know, it’s kind of funny to me that Icy Onslaught requires you to FAIL the Runic Empowerment proc to benefit from it and with my luck, it can only go uphill from there. :joy: :rofl:

My problem is: Frozen Dominion… replacing Remorseless Winter. Sure it would remove some agencies behind RW because people hate it much so, but it’s not really fair for me because… well… I’m a type of player that uses RW ahead of time to get GS stacks going to unleash the ultimate terror of BGs that is DCE. I like to roll RW.

Funny that FS got a nerf. So Reowyn will not be able to hit hard with FS often.

Over time, I’ll probably get used to it. Think 2H Frost would still hit hard but… I get a hunch that I’ll have a different calling.

Warlock elite pvp set looks absolute dope.

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I think the intention for the talent is that it’s supposed to mitigate bad luck streaks with Runic Empowerment. But like… the problem is that the reward is your finishers costing more power, which is counterintuitive to Runic Empowerment failing (resource bottlenecking).

Another option would be to make the talent spot a choice node: one talent would be for mitigating bad luck (i.e. refund some runic power), and the other being a reward for good luck (Icy Onslaught).

1 Like
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Out of curiosity, is your dk name based on a character from Throne of glass?

Also totally agree about rw.

I was leaning to dw for dk pvp, but am think 2h is the way I will go now.

Edit, I tried breath in pvp with dw shatter. Holy hell breath does some chunky damage. Even with this berf dk damage will be fine. Biggest issue is no more limb and the devs kind of deleted the amz pvp modifier…

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I agree with pretty much everything you said except for making avalanche a 2 pointer, the tree has enough 2 pointer nodes, even if they made the two at the top a 1 pointer, I think it would be fine to keep it a 1 pointer with the other stuff you suggested to make smothering offense a pick again.

I would also like to add that a choice node NEEDS to be added to Frozen Dominion so that people have the option to keep Remorseless Winter an active button. Many people loved the small RW windows that happened every 20 seconds but with how strong FD is, you would essentially be trolling yourself not to take it, there for losing the RW windows.

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Nope.

Also did they do away with BoS modifier? I know they did with AMZ which was a foolish decision on their part…

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I am not actually sure what the new modifier is now.
But even in just bgs, if it still has the nerf, it is hitting really damn hard. Getting 1-2mil crits from a single tick is pretty damn strong considering we are still in s2 gear. (Only use breath during Riders with a feast of souls for that extra juicy 20% damage).

I am leaning back into DW shatter.

My current build I like is below.

https://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/death-knight/frost/rider-of-the-apocalypse/DAPFVVEVEVEUURRIkQBQNVUZAVFVRGGRUEAEFVVUBVDhkLQLl0g4-0

I haven’t tested it with 2h yet. But I imagine dw would outperform because of how quickly the razor ice stacks. *Though technically you could make it work if you use GA a lot, but I feel the damage sustain is lower than dw but burst with 2h is very strong during pillar.

DB 2h I think will be viable though. Reaper’s mark even without tier atm is hitting over 3 mil non crit. With tier and s3 gear it will be very chunky.