I don’t wanna bother arguing anymore honestly, but I totally agree with you that 2h should come back regardless. In fact, I think Frost should first have 2h come back, then we can start fixing Frost so that it won’t have anymore problems with 2h or DW. If we need it to be 2h or DW again though, I’d rather make it so that we’re 2h by default, but we can tmog DW over 2h, with the DW animations working properly still instead of having the main hand weapon being the only one that hits, and no offhand attack animations.
Now, what’s the easiest? Lift weapon restriction so that abilities just require a melee weapon and add in a runeforge? Or rewrite the transmog system to include animation while at the same time removing DW based on the feelings of people who just clearly hate DW?
I’d rather we both keep 2h and DW for real though, but lifting weapon restrictions is what I would prefer even more than having to use mogging. Also, I don’t think we need to add a new runeforge just yet, but rework the current runeforges first. After that, I think we can consider adding new runeforges.
The “new” runeforge isnt actually new. Its just a combination so that 2h doesnt lose out on 15% frost damage. The runeforges dont need to be reworked either.
The ap coefficients would need to be changed so that 2h wouldnt only work off of the main hand ap coefficient.
We are also looking to see if weapon dps even plays a part in ability damage, and if it does then its so small and would only be like 100 damage. The alpha calculation looks like it didnt make it through alpha/beta and if weapon dps is calculated in then its just added in. Not only that but both weapons arent calculated if ability damage has weapon dps in it.
There are 2 different things that even come close to the tooltip. Just ap calculation with damage modifiers, or ap calculation + weapon dps * damage modifiers and its only the main hand that is calculated.
Sorry for not responding sooner, but my thoughts as well back there. Thanks for saying all that. Plus, let’s save the “berserker” theme for Fury Warriors (they need SMF back). And the magic reliance for Unholy DKs and Frost Mages as well. And I honestly feel like a Rouge as current Frost DK instead of an actual DK, yet Rouges actually hit harder than Frost ever can in their current iterations. If we get 2h Frost back, I would like the attacks to get physical damage to play more into the spec like before.
And even though I don’t wanna remove DW and make Frost DKs who liked that suffer the same fate, I still agree that Frost DKs aren’t “agile”, in fact, they’re the exact opposite of that theme-wise. So slow-moving with quick attacks doesn’t make sense at all to me. I think slow but hitting like a truck would really fit the theme instead.
Serious question here.
Did ANY spec have 2 weapon options in Legion? I mean given the reduction to one weapon pretty much happened right before Legion (end of WOD) it made sense to shrink the sandbox for artifact weapons.
That makes sense from a DEV standpoint. I don’t generally agree with the claim of “it can’t be balanced” because blizzard messes with the base systems of the game on a annual basis which then ushers in a new round of balance changes - I do not think as long as that practice continues (which shows no sign of stopping with Shadowlands) that you can take the idea of everything being balanced seriously. I do not have a issue with Frost dual wielding - I do have a issue with that being the only reasonable option (I mean you could spam Howling Blast and Death Strike with a 2-hander in Frost; but you would be wasting your time). There were many times where a well armed DW Frost DK was very strong (I did Challenge Mode in MoP as DW Frost in fact). That should not be used as justification for the removal of 2-H frost however; a possibly sub-optimal option is still a option and options are good. One reason I would like the 2-Handed Frost back is because I enjoyed the playstyle more then the current Unholy playstyle - but I do not like the Weapon requirements/farming for DW and would prefer to Tank; but I realize that I like doing solo content that does not take all year.
Frankly I would like 2-H frost back for that reason - or ramp up Blood DPS; Frost 2-H would probably be less work and less destructive to overall balance imo.
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The berserker theme was the original theme. The Dk as a whole was not this slow playing class that it is now. So much has been removed to make it a slow playing class. The rune system was changed for the sake of haste, and I find it kind of funny that people talk about DW being rogue like but the actual rune system is more like a rogue in how the runes recharge. There has only been 1 ability other than Blood Strike and plague strike each just had a purpose to either apply a disease, or convert Blood Runes to Death Runes which was eventually just removed and Death Runes were just given.
Removing DW wouldnt make people suffer since most people just like the spec and just played what was best throughout the expansions which was DW.
Also they werent really slow moving since they had Unholy Presence and they also had On a Pale Horse which reduced movement slowing effects by 30% and increased Mounted Speed by 20% and made it harder to be knocked off of your mount. They just didnt have any Mobility. The only part of the Juggernaut theme that fit the DK is they were hard to stop because you cannot stop death.
2h was officially completely removed in BFA, you just didnt have a choice in Legion because you only got that one weapon.
DW frost beat out 2h over every single expansion up until Legion when you didnt have a choice. There were only very few times that 2h beat out DW. No one is using that as justification for the removal of, just the reason that it was removed. Over the expansions Blizzard has been removing options. In cata the option for a hybrid was removed and you had to get a set amount of points in a tree before you could go to another one because hybrids were just worse and they didnt want the playerbase to use something that was just clearly bad which went for every class. They removed mechanics like rune conversions because I guess people were having a hard time with it plus they were moving away from a set rotation for classes and more towards a priority system eventually removing the different types of runes. They were going that direction as far back as Cata to the “best option being the only option” because for the most part, it isnt worth keeping sub-optimal stuff in game as their view point. From their viewpoint, a sub-optimal option is not a good option. Its a bad option because it is worse than something else. Just look at it this way and I dont know if anyone else has played LoL, but you wouldnt want to go attack speed Veigar, even though its an option, when ability power is clearly the better/best option.
The weapon however right now does not have any bearing on playstyle. They could make the playstyle like 2h was before, which I take it you are only going as far back as MoP and WoD and not as far back as Wrath and Cata when there was no difference in playstyle for the 2 weapon options and Obliterate hit like a truck in DW critting for 25k+ while Blood 2h with Death Strike was critting for the same amount. It really depends on how far back in DK past you want to go. Why have a separation of playstyle? There wasnt one prior to MoP so why would there have to be one now? The different playstyles made it even worse to balance which is the entire argument there. 2 different playstyles sharing the same ability pool while trying to balance each playstyle using those abilities, and unless they just completely split every single ability, it was never going to be balanced with each other and with other classes. Just look how far behind Frost was late in WoD compared to other classes that were almost doubling its dps and at that point DW was ahead of 2h. Its creating more work for themselves when they already have what… 24? dps specs to balance with each other and they cant even really handle that and they have azerite gear which with some classes some options were dps losses. Some talents were dps losses over not taking a talent at all in this expansion.
There have been so many people that just take a visual and just run with it. Oh look there was this 2h frost dk in the Shadowlands reveal even though it was just a generic DK concept art piece from Wrath. Oh look at Bolvar hes a 2h frost dk when I wouldnt even call him a DK with his abysmal showing of the class as a whole which is what the Lich King is supposed to be.
The playstyle can be anything, and people keep pointing to “the 2h playstyle” like that playstyle would need 2h to even be a thing.
You made yet another very good point right there. Besides, the devs can easily bring back 2h Frost like how they removed it for Legion onward, they just need to actually bother with doing so and making both it and DW Frost work in the first place. Cause right now, in Frost’s current state, it just feels VERY un-fun now, and the removal of 2h Frost made it even worse sadly. Even if we have the same rotation, but get 2h Frost back, I would feel at least a bit better. And like you said, just cause there were times DW did better, that DID NOT justify deleting 2h Frost at all. I really hope they can bring 2h Frost back in Shadowlands, cause I wanna have fun with Frost again and pounding everything into oblivion with a huge 2 hander as a Death Knight again.
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DW did better most of the time outside of one raid tier. If it was the case that DW sometimes performed better which makes it sound 2h was superior, then why did they remove 2h? It doesn’t make sense to remove the better performing option.
They also both “worked” its just that DW was better. The majority of people play what is best or at least work towards what is best, it’s always been that way since ever.
No, commoners play is easiest. There is a massive difference between brainless damage/healing, and the highest potential for damage/healing. Sub Rogue and WW Monk in WoD were perfect examples. Nobody played the specs because they required ability line-ups and timing to do any damage. A lot of line-up and timing. But when the burst phase came, nothing could compete against them. Anybody that sat their burst was KIA. Survival Hunter was an extremely popular spec because of it was brainless damage and kiting, just like BM. Stampede GG. But survival didn’t out-damage a skilled WW or Sub. No way.
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Exactly Trumpknight. There’s a difference between what is truly best, and what is the easiest to play. And unfortunately enough, many guys out there keep forgetting, or even outright ignoring that difference. And just cause DW Frost played easier with Masterfrost (which got gutted for the 2h playstyle, but worse), that ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT MEAN it was THE best version of Frost at all! And I’m starting to see why some feel the devs should have never added DW to DKs in the first place. But since we used to have options, I’m for giving them back of course, not taking them away.
So you are talking about pvp and I’m talking about dps. It’s not like DW was hard in the limited timeframe that you guys are stuck in so shouldn’t that mean, if people take the path with least resistance that DW would have been the go to? I mean masterfrost did more dps than 2h and according to Frostlich said it was the easiest.
It’s almost like you guys are on 2 separate pages even though both of your underlying arguments are playstyle based and not actually weapon based. DW and 2h had different playstyles in 2 of the expansions and I don’t know why people are ignoring pre MoP or even post WoD. Most arguments have already been defeated. Pre MoP the playstyle was the same but DW was still better, same with Cata but again DW just few ahead because mastery and razorice played nice with each other. MoP and WoD were the only 2 expansions with this divide and people are stuck there.
Why does ther have to be a separation in playstyles?
My comment actually had nothing to do with DW or DK in general. But if we’re going to revisit the age-old conversation about DW vs 2H in different aspects of the game, DW was better in PvE and 2H was better in PvP.
The weapon type has zero effect on the ease of play. The abilities are still the same. The numbers were just modified depending on the weapon. Frost is easy to play, but it isn’t the commoner’s choice because it doesn’t have unjustified damage or high-grade defensives, and doesn’t have a haste-focused playstyle like Fury or DH.
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And the weapon has 0 effect on playstyle unless you want the spec to be split again which the question then becomes… why? Do people just hate DW so much that they don’t want to have any indication that it’s even a major part of the spec? I mean look how many people call 1h weapons “toys”.
I would also like to see where 2h was better in terms of pvp. if it’s just because of the presences that to me just shows how bad the design was in WoD.
I explained this before. I ran arenas, BG’s, and dueled a lot with it. DW was good for Death Siphon spamming in PvP which is why it was used a lot. I personally heard a lot of QQ about how hard it was to run 2H because of the Rune management. Conversion with Runic Empowerment was such an easy way to handle that. That and it required the lining up with offensive cooldowns for maximum burst. There is a reason Dual Wielders, especially in WoD, were called “rerollers” and “carries”. Remember. Ease vs potential.
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So are you saying now DW is better or am I missing something?
I asked for some proof that 2h was better for pvp and here you are making a case for DW. You are also making a blanket statement using a limited window which again makes me wonder if you, and other players, only played as far back as WoD.
Jesus I’m tired of these pointless arguments. Should I just make a mega thread or something with links to all 2h Frost supporting pages? I don’t wanna have to keep seeing these arguments endlessly. And honestly Kelliste, I’m starting to think you have an unhealthy amount of time to use to respond to everyone talking about supporting 2h Frost in any shape or form. Even I don’t go on and write as much when I’m trying to support 2h Frost.
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well, at least they did play right 
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I was giving an obligatory statement of one thing DW was good for in PvP, which started in MoP when Death Death Siphon was added. Before that, 2H was just better in general. PvP isn’t about DPS and parsing. It’s about killing players as fast as possible, and 2H did that. It was a high-burst play-style. That is what you wanted in PvP. High burst and self-sustainability. DW had high sustainability in PvP because of Death Siphon spamming that was made possible with it’s constant Runic Empowerment windows from Frost Strike focus. Unfortunately, Death Siphon did notable damage and was affected by mastery because it was Shadowfrost damage so basically DW that used the talent turned into necro-mages. It still wasn’t as good as 2H in PvP though. DW was better for PvE because of the consistent damage. Again, the one and only problem being Rune Management because of the Obliterate focus. As I said before, this problem was solved with Conversion and Runic Empowerment but obviously that was far more useful for PvP, and hence, my point about 2H vs DW in PvP and PvE.
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