Cold Heart vs Execution Sentence vs Frostwyrm's Fury (PvP)

Classes Death Knight
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Cold Heart Talent
Every 2 sec, gain a stack of Cold Heart, causing your next Chains of Ice to deal (10.7% of Attack power) Frost damage. Stacks up to 20 times.

Execution Sentence Talent
Instant 1 min cooldown
A hammer slowly falls from the sky upon the target. After 8 sec, they suffer [(250% of Attack power) * 1] Holy damage, plus 20% of damage taken from your abilities in that time.

Frostwyrm’s Fury
Instant 3 min cooldown
Summons a frostwyrm who breathes on all enemies within 40 yd in front of you, dealing (321% of Attack power) Frost damage and slowing movement speed by 50% for 10 sec.

I’m struggling to put into words how bad it feels to use Either Frostwyrm’s Fury or Cold Heart in PvP versus hopping on my Paladin and using Execution Sentence.

CH and ES are both first tier talents. CH has a “40s” cooldown compared to ES’s 60s cooldown but has the stipulation of not using Chains of Ice (:frowning:) while the stacks ramp to get the max damage dump. However CH has a 70% damage nerf in PvP.

FF and ES do similar damage to one another, and while FF has cleave it also has 3x the cooldown. FF also has a 70% pvp nerf, while I push ES practically on CD and enjoy massive, unmitigated burst.

Are these nerfs just relics of the past that Blizzard forgot about? They don’t seem very adverse to high burst with the shadowlands changes so why are frost burst abilities still neutered?

PS It also bothers me that BoS is still nerfed by 30% in PvP when its one of the most easily countered playstyles. :man_shrugging:

14 Likes
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Everything you’ve said makes too much sense

6 Likes
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We can’t have that now.

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b/c blizz hates DKs

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Ahhh yes…there it is. The ol’ Blizz hates my class excuse.

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As of now, Frost single target damage is sitting near the bottom amongst all classes (24/36) according to Warcraft Logs on recent Ny-alotha raids. They trail Ret. Paladins by 10% and the leading Affliction Warlock by 40%. They trail Unholy by almost 30%. So Frost is doing poorly in PvE content. It doesn’t look like the PvP scaling is up to snuff either. There are 5 players in top 500 of 3v3 with Frost as their current loadout, 0 in top 500 of 2v2, and 2 in top 500 of 10v10. Unholy is like over 90% of representation for the class, which could be expected given their current PvE performance (I’m fine with Unholy doing well, that aspect should stay). But Frost as less than 1/2% of top 1500 spots of 3 PvP modes amongst all classes? Suffer well, indeed.

For myself as a hardcore casual, I get the most damage in PvP from Frost Fever in large groups (Battlegrounds), and Chill Streak in smaller groups (Arena). My single target damage is pretty poor. I typically Pillar of Frost/Empower Rune Weapon, Howling Blast to apply Frost Fever, start Obliterate/Frost Strike rotation, Blood of the Enemy a few seconds in, launch a Chill Streak, and hopefully I land enough critical strikes with Obliterate/Frost Strike to get the Icy Citadel/2nd PoF overlap with Icecap, then finish with Cold Heart/Chains of Ice and Frost Wyrm’s Fury. This whole rotations takes at least 15 seconds. Buuuut, an uninterrupted rotation rarely occurs. Most of the time, I have to launch Frostwyrm’s Fury with only Icy Citadel, Pillar of Frost is on cooldown, I can’t get the overlap. My Chains of Ice often has to be applied much earlier and more often to keep target(s) in range or ward off another target, I generally can’t sit on a utility for Cold Heart buildup. I don’t use BoS in PvP and rarely see it. It’s too easy to neutralize from what I’ve seen.

I generally lose to Paladins one on one. They hit too hard, heal too much, and have just as much utility as me <-This last one favors the Paladin in my opinion because Holy Power (buildup) isn’t on a timer, it will still be there indefinitely when they break out of a cc as opposed to Icy Citadel and Pillar of Frost expiring if you’re stunned, cc’d, or whatever for too long. Kiting doesn’t help me either, because Frost isn’t a strong ranged dps, it’s primarily melee. Frost ranged attacks aren’t enough to outpace all the Hammers/Blades paladins will throw along with their healing. For me, it’s usually a choice between face tanking and dying quicker while the Pal. walks away with like half their health or take longer to die kiting while the Pal. walks away with near full health.

So, yeah, Frost single target damage kind of sucks. The Obliterate nerfs hurt all the high damage damage builds significantly. We can only pray the rank 2 abilities combined with the right covenant conduits going into Shadowlands will allow Frost to catch up to the rest of the pack. Who really knows why Blizzard sets their coefficients the way they do outside of money. I kind of agree with what I read someone say in response to Blizzard’s supposed vision for Death knights as this slow, menacing force that hit hard- “…we just aren’t seeing the hit hard part” for Frost.

6 Likes
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This is pre-patch. Frost is currently severely underperforming due to missing two very important skill ranks, both of which will become available as we level through Shadowlands. Its performance on beta is just fine.

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Where is this “slow” thing coming from?

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My post is not about how well the class is functioning, where it sits on the PvE hierarchy, or 2h this and that. The concern I am sharing is that we are seeing high-burst CDs/abilities flourish again in PvP settings - and that Frosts (PvP Nerfed) abilities suffer from balance auras that are either irrelevant or forgotten by Blizzard.

I’m using Executioners Sentence as an example of comperable ability burst power that is now acceptable in PvP while frosts are seemingly not, and if that is an oversight/relic of past.

The greatest victims of this are the new or unaware players. If they didn’t constantly follow blue post (several years ago) they are probably wanting to throw their computer out the window trying to figure out why Frosts 3m signature cooldown consistantly hits other players for little more than the damage of a frost strike. This information is surprisingly hard to find.

3 Likes
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The person that had posted it above me. You could have read that for context.

But, I deleted the post you replied to to avoid stirring things up further.

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Again, where is this “slow” thing coming from. It doesnt matter who initially posted it if the idea that the death knight should be this slow menacing force that hit hard, its that that idea even exists.

The gameplay speed is directly tied to the rune system itself and that doesnt get faster or slower depending on the weapon equipped and never has.

Does it mean slow movement speed? Gameplay?

The question still stands, where is the “slow” thing coming from because I havent seen Blizzard say it, but Blizzard doesnt say much in what they want in terms of design direction.

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Which is why I deleted my post to avoid this type of response towards me.

Who knows what they intend, but the only thing that I can add to this is that with class design more can be done. I’ve even made my own post on this forum as some ideas as to what could be brought back or made baseline for frost specifically.

Tbh, for all of this going own they should have just shelved 2h and told everyone no forever. Yes, people would have still begged for it, but at least there wouldn’t really be this constant nerf cycle going on. The class isn’t even over powered or the best stuff out there.

But, I’ll just stop with that. I think frost needs more work. Dps isn’t the main issue. How it flows is. Right now for me it feels greats, but when I ditch the azerite, it won’t feel good at all. There needs to be abilities made baseline (Horn of winter and Icy talons for example) and replace those talent with new stuff. And then theres some current Azerite powers for all three specs that could either be new talents and or baseline abilities.

I’m seriously just getting frustrated with some decisions that they make where we have stuff that makes the classes flow smoothly and make game play satisfying, but they’re either nerfed into the ground or taken away because they felt like doing it.

Just my thoughts on the issue. I know you’ll bring up the “slow” thing again so I’ll say who f’n knows.

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Frost does very consistent dps with DW in pvp and then pops a burst spell when opponents are low.

The problem of unnerfing chains of ice and frostwyrms fury is they do ludicrous damage when buffed by razorice mastery and the 8% damage buff.

Lets say 1k AP for both the DK and the paladin as we are both ST classes with 2 handers.

Execution sentence does 2500 after an 8 second delay and 20% of damage dealt in that 8 seconds plus mastery bonus (40% for example just 150 mastery) so 2500+40% single target damage with an 8 second delay so you have an opportunity to pop defensives before it hits.

Frostwyrm does 3210 base + 15% from razorice + 40% from mastery +8% necrotic aura in a 40 yard line instant for close targets and delayed for longer ranged targets (ranged targets can pop defensives). This is alot of damage for an AoE skill on a class with high attack speed. Not counting that during bfa we had icy citadel and frost whelps to buff the damage further plus uncapped mastery.

Maybe in shadowlands we can get some of the nerfs reverted to our pvp damage but obliterate will likely prevent that as if we can 2 shot people with obliterate into frostwyrm would make us overpowered.

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The playerbase have created the slow thing on their own, which is the point I was getting at.

2h was not implemented properly and just causes balance issues. You buff anything but Obliterate and DW gets more use out of it. Buff Obliterate and you have to also touch Might of the Frozen Wastes so Obliterate doesnt run away in damage and brings 2h Obliterate levels closer to DW obliterate levels.

There is a conduit that rewards interrupting giving you 10 rp. Rime, used to give RP like a rune was used but doesnt anymore. A legendary for Obliterate that I think has a chance to give back a rune or something along those lines. I dont like these borrowed power systems, but if there are azerite traits that help with the flow of the spec which is the borrowed power from BFA, then its on the borrowed power SL as well.

On terms of this thread, though I dont pvp, if they kept its in pve strength I can see how it can get out of hand. Blizzard does have a history of nerfing problem abilities so they dont have to worry about it. They have done it multiple times.

1 Like
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Mastery is already calculated into the spell tooltip if that ability is Frost Damage. So with my gear FwF does basically 3000 damage with 60% mastery, if I remove about 70 mastery value I lose around 300 damage in the tooltip.

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Older thread with a quick search:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/the-fundamental-problem-with-death-knights/241331

They meant movement speed. I wasn’t fixated with the source or the claim, nor will I conduct a witch hunt pinpointing who said what. I’ve read similar points elsewhere (no I don’t have sources on hand and I’m not going to comb my forum history) in that death knights are a slow melee class. Regardless of heresay, it doesn’t move me to clutch my pearls when people say that when the class has death grip, chain of ice, chill streak, death and decay, or other movement impairing effects (<-pretty sure I’m missing some).

I don’t know of people complaining about gameplay speed. It’s all kind of the same s*** across all classes speed-wise with buildup, a core rotation, a few signature abilities, cooldowns, and resources to manage. Maybe some people prefer longer casting times as opposed to instant casts. Blizzard has the challenge of delivering a diverse set of classes that somehow minimize homogeneity to engage different people with different interests while somehow maintaining parity when these classes compete with one another. I’m fine with classes having different attack speeds as long as the magnitude of their connections averages out to fair amount dps-wise and that their damage chunks aren’t high enough to one shot a player.

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Seems like comparing those abilities was the focus of your thread.

But again, don’t know. Blizzard designs arbitrary abilities with arbitrary magnitudes to use against PvE bosses with arbitrary amounts health and then scales them to an arbitrary PvP target shared with other classes to bring everyone in line to compete. According to the Beta defenders in these threads, everything is going as planned and what is being experienced should be expected. Rather, there isn’t an oversight.

And I think the tooltips are pretty much Blizzards official “notice” to players of how powerful abilities are. I think they feel it’s on players to check it and figure it out for themselves, part of the discovery aspect of the game. All the “blue posts” seem like more of a courtesy than a must provide.

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Some people mean movement slow and some mean playstyle slow. In terms of movement Death Knights are anti-mobility and anti-movement impairing.

In terms of gameplay or playstyle between 2h and DW, 2h being slow while DW being fast doent exist and has never existed outside of auto attacks. Death Knights play the rune system and that doesnt change based on weapon choice.