From the recent beta update:
Continuing the discussion from The War Within Beta Development Notes:
Straight up massive W changes across the board. Maybe Frost will actually be fun to play now 
18 Likes
My joy in this moment… Immaculate.
6 Likes
We shall never speak of the noise I made when I read these notes. Ever.
7 Likes
Now Remove the zit popping from Unholy.
3 Likes
“The DK Dev’s brain grew three sizes on that day”
Truly a moment to behold.
2 Likes
It looks like our feedback was actually listened to!
Now if we can get the lone winter capstone changed to something more interesting (or not affect pillar at)
This is a huge win overall.
3 Likes
They do care.
For real though, give your forum intern a seat on the board for bubbling up this feedback. Freaking hero.
4 Likes
Id imagine real and meaningful balance can happen from here
1 Like
I don’t dislike the removal of ramp up, the other changes though…
I think overall frost will just be less fun to play than before, just remove the ramp up and be done with it, why all the other stuff?
2 Likes
Only L change in this list is purely tuning related. 5% increased frostscythe damage makes it do less damage than killing machines on obliteration builds until 4 targets.
outside of that, it seems pretty damn good.
they should also do more tuning for talents like hyperpyrexia. i did a parse and it was 1% of my damage when its sitting at the same level on the talent as obliteration when its also gated behind a 2 pointer lol. this talent needs a massive buff. 25% chance to do 30% of a runic power spendature’s damage over 4 seconds is pretty hilariously bad and even worse if it overlaps and overrides the DoT.
1 Like
It’s even better to play now. Blizzard had problems balancing around Icecap, which meant abilities like Glacial Advance were de-prioritized in AoE for Frost Strike CDR. It also means less emphasis on crit stacking for CDR and more stats across the board.
Not only that, but Shattering Blade + Frost Strike Obliteration buff only screwed up the rotation even more when trying to time abilities like Frostscythe and FWF at the end of the ramp to make use of Razorice.
PoF was/is overstacked with mechanics and something had to give for the spec as a whole. The changes are 100% better than them constantly bandaiding buffs on top of it. The overall spec will feel way better for the following:
- World content
- PvP
- Screwing up PoF uptime during fights and losing majority of damage for Obliteration
- Screwing up potential damage due to ramp mistiming or rotation
It’s not all about DPS logs.
10 Likes
I am a little concerned about Frostscythe not being buffed by the same amount as everything else. I’d hate to see such a great new update fall off a cliff due to tuning.
If its to be our Wake of Ashes it needs to do enough damage where we want to use it on cooldown in single target, not just in large scale aoe.
10 Likes
I cannot express the pure joy I felt when I scrolled down to the DK section and saw those changes, I never thought it would happen, but then it did! Biggest W for Frost DK so far, thank you blizz!
2 Likes
We’ll see…
1 Like
I wonder if they’ll tweak Icecap reduction or BOS CD. 40 second pillar seems like a better middle ground for both oblit and BOS; 3rd pillar would land on 2nd BOS and lusted opener may get two pillars, while oblit would potentially hold depending on hero spec.
Still surprised they cut ME as such. Healthy change moving forward but it’s gonna need a good round of balacing.
3 Likes
Good point. With them trying much harder to keep breath to the shorter window its going to feel weird.
Maybe the intent is for breath to not take Ice cap so Pillar lines up? That directly devalues Enduring Strength as well so not sure if the value of having them aligned is there.
Yeah. For now only getting 25% strength, 40 seconds would line up better. It doesn’t seem like it’d be too strong either.
The only issue I can see with 40 second CD is that almost all trinket CDs exist as a multiple of 15 seconds which would mean limiting frosts use of on use trinkets to 2 minute trinkets.
I think its probably better to make Breath a 1.5 minute CD. More specifically for Ice cape to make it 1.5 minutes.
1 Like
Probably the path of least resistance, then ERW, BOS (90 sec), Pillar, FWF kind of all line up. Hero specs are another story; I haven’t been following beta testing commentary and don’t have access because blizz certainly isn’t deserving of a pre-order just to get access (pretty scum tier policy imo).
Theres concern in the DK discord about encroaching on CD alignment with Unholy, but seems like a non issue to me. What matters is making frost feel better to play mechanically.
Rider is fine with the new changes because its based off of FWF, but Death Bringers new ability feels off by being on a 1 min CD, and the choice node that makes it 30 seconds is only slightly better assuming its more valuable to send it every 30 seconds and let it line up every 1.5 minutes and not hold it.
I actually prefer UH and Frost have the same CD timing. makes it easier to gear as I like to play all specs in a season to some degree.