I’ve recently decided that I want to main my DK again going into TWW. The last time I mained the class was during 9.0 before I quit in 9.1, so I’ve been playing it a bit in S4 to reacquaint myself with the class.One of the most stand out aspects of the current iteration of the class is how clunky and awkward to play frost is, especially 2H Obliteration spec, and I wanted to get some thoughts out on how I would improve the playstyle going into TWW beta.
The current state of Obliteration (and why it’s jank af)
When you get down to it, the primary problem with the talent is the friction it adds to all of your resources. Between talents like Frigid Executioner and Murderous Efficiency, passive effects like Runic Empowerment and Runic Attenuation, and Cooldowns like Empower Rune Weapon and Horn of Winter, as well of the relative low cost of Frost Strike and Glacial Advance, the average Frost rotation is already struggling to keep up with all of the procs and resource generation. The current design of Obliteration just throws a massive wrench into that already stressed balance. Consider how The game incentivizes you to press nothing but Obliterate in your CDs by having incredibly tight timers. You have 12 in Pillar itself, and 10 seconds in D&D to get as many Killing machine procs out as possible. It can feel at times the optimal play is to ignore everything the game is telling you should be correct (not overcapping runic power) and just spam Obliterate as much as humanly possible.
So what would I change?
Here’s my proposed rework of the Obliteration talent that I think will keep the general theming of the build but removing this friction.
“Obliteration- While Pillar of Frost is active, Obliterate always benefits from the effects of Killing Machine. Additionally, when Killing Machine is consumed, it instead consumes X amount of runic power to deal an additional Y frost damage to the target.”
(I left the values of the second part non specific, as those would be determined by tuning, but I imagine values close to Frost Strike, if not a little bit lower)
This design would allow the build to do what it feels like it wants to do, spam Obliterate for big dam, without also sacrificing the rest of your resources in the process. The Storm build of Enhance shaman has a similar talent in Thorim’s Invocation, and I think it has been very successful in that spec.
In addition I would make changes to one of our passive talents, namely removing Murderous Efficiency, as all it does is contribute to our overabundance of resources. In its Place I propose a new passive.
“While Pillar of Frost is active, your Mastery percentage is increased by an amount equal to X% of your Critical Strike percentage.”
This would enable this build to do more damage as well as placing more value on your crit stat. (and frankly, every class that has a mechanic/CD that guarantees crits should have something like this.)
These are the main changes I would propose for this spec. There are more changes I think the spec needs regarding resource generation/ spending. As well as changes to Breath of Sindragosa, but I don’t have anything to say on those at this time.
I would love any feedback on this post, both on my proposed changes, as well as my writing, as this is my first time posting something like this.