So, everyone seems to be aware that Frost DK has several issues, and it occurred to me that the most obvious answer is the best one. The class’s main problems:
1) One of the key powers, Killing Machine, relies on crits. However, Critical Strike scales poorly with the rest of the class.
2) Single target damage is lackluster when that is the only thing that distinguished it from Unholy DKs in the past. This is especially true outside of the Pillar of Frost window.
3) The default way to dump runic power, Frost Strike, feels bad to use. Outside of Obliteration or Breath of Sindragosa, you are fishing for more runes with it, but success grants you an Obliterate that usually doesn’t have Killing Machine (which does 3-4x less damage as a result). Glacial Advance not only deviates from the best burst window talent (Gathering Storm), it also scales with haste, exacerbating Problem 1. When dumping RP in PvE, Death Strike realistically is only used as a bandaid when Lichborne or Sacrificial Pact aren’t available.
4) Currently, Frost DK mainly scales with one stat(Mastery), so it will sink from the average performing class to the bottom of the DPS as people get more geared. This is especially true with the diminishing returns on secondary stats.
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My proposed solution: Let Frost Strike criticals proc Killing Machines the same way that autoattacks do.
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How does Killing Machine work now?
You have a scaling chance of getting a proc on an autoattack. For 2h, it is a 70% and 100% (85% over 2 attacks on average). For dual wielders, it is 30%, 60%, 90%, and 100% (70% over 4 attacks on average). With 100% crit, this would be a KM proc every 8.47s(2H) or 7.43s(DW), or a ppm of 7.08(2H) / 8.07(DW). This assumes a 2H with 3.60 speed or two 1Hers with 2.6 speed; though there may be alternate options, this is likely a common amount. A realistically achievable value is 20-25% crit, which would give you 1.41-1.77 ppm(2h) and 1.61-2.01 ppm(DW) . Critical strike does not scale well because you barely notice the difference between the baseline and stacking it, even in the ability that relies on it.
The other place where Killing Machine would activate is inside of a Pillar of Frost window with Obliteration. You would prime the pump with Frost Strike or Howling Blast(Rime), alternating the priming ability with Obliterate (which consumes the KM). In a 12 second window, this realistically means 4 Killing Machine procs per minute. So, in total, depending on build, 4-6 Killing Machines per minute is the current meta (I’m personally at 4.7 KMs per minute in low gear and ~10% crit).
So, what happens when Frost Strike criticals count as well?
Outside of the Obliteration window, an optimal player can get about 9 Frost Strikes in a minute (18 when dual wielding) if no resources are going to waste (11-12 2H or 22-24 DW with unbuffed Empower Rune Weapon). This would bring the base ppm from 7.08 to 14.73 with 2H (85% average chance, remember?). With DW, it would be brought up from 8.07 to 14.37 (70% chance). In effect, Empower Rune Weapon would provide and extra 2.55 to 2Hers and 2.1 to dual wielders. This base ppm is the amount that would be multiplied by your Critical Strike percentage to determine what your real ppm is. Here is a table representing the real PPMs at various crit values. Most people won’t push much past 25% crit due to gear limitations. All of these values at each critical amount combine/stack.
KMs per minute
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Crit,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,30%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.25%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.20%
Autoatks (2H/DW),.,.,.,.,.,.2.13/2.42,.,1.77/2.02,.,.,.,.,.1.42/1.62
Obliteration,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.4,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.4,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,4
New FS suggestion,.,.,.,.,.2.3/3.78,.,.,1.91/3.15,.,.,.,.,1.53/2.52
As can be seen, the proposed change provides a noticeable increase in the number of Killing Machines over the existing amount, but not so much they overwhelm the rotation. When looked at in the context of Obliteration, it takes getting around 28% crit to get the same amount of KMs in your 48 seconds of cooldown time as in your 12 second, Obliteration-empowered Pillar of Frost window.
Various Increases due to Frost Strike Killing Machine
Crit,.,.,DPS(2h),.,DPS(DW),.,.total KM proc increase(including Obliteration)
30%,.,.6.02%,.,.,.,.5.02%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.37-58%
25%,.,.5.32%,.,.,.,.4.46%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.33-52%
20%,.,.4.54%,.,.,.,.3.82%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.28-44%
15%,.,.3.64%,.,.,.,.3.10%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.22-36%
10%,.,.2.61%,.,.,.,.2.24%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.16-26%
5%,.,.,.1.41%,.,.,.,.1.22%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.8-14%
The higher proc increase rate is for dual wielding. This chart makes a few assumptions on current Obliterate damage as a certain portion of the total damage. I based these values on sims that I ran, but it seems to match raid parses. Those assumptions are below.
Oblit dmg% of total DPS,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.Obliterate Button Presses
,.,.,.,.,.,KM,.,.,.,.,.,Regular,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.KM,.,.,.,.,.,Regular
2H,.,.20.3%,.,.,.,.,.,9.4%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.31.07%,.,.,.68.93%
DW,.,.12%,.,.,.,.,.,.,6.1%,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.36.30%,.,.,.63.70%
The result is a modest buff to Frost DK that makes 2h actually feel distinct from DW while not invalidating Breath of Sindragosa for those who prefer that. Even the extreme (likely unreachable for now) value of 6.02% translates to 180.6 DPS if you are at 3000 DPS, so it will not affect the charts enough to dislodge play at the median level. Since roughly 3/5s of your Oblits are still uncritted, this is more of just a change to play quality (while DW technically gets 30% more KMs, 2H does 30% more dmg with each one). It weights Frost Strike slightly in favor of Obliterate, which makes sense for single target. It gives more value to crit and Frost Strike at the same time by letting the player have more control of KM procs. It will help crit scale with gear on DKs in a way that will be noticed, but not mandatory. This change does not significantly affect AoE rotation, since it only creates interplay between Frost Strike and Killing Machine. I’m not an expert on Frostscythe, but from what I can tell it is only worth using on 3+ targets with KM up, which is still infrequent. This change won’t make Frostscythe superior, but maybe it’ll have a niche use again.
Finally, and most importantly, the Killing Machine proc mechanic is already in place for autoattacks. Allowing Frost Strike to add to the Killing Machine counter would be simple from a programmer perspective.
What if we let regular Frost strikes (not criticals) proc Killing Machines?
In short, that would break the rotation. In addition to making the secondary stat crit meaningless, adding 7.65 extra KMs per minute vastly outweighs even the Obliteration talent kill window’s 4 KM uses. Let’s be real, nobody is expecting to play a Frost DK and get a KM proc every 5 seconds all the time.
How does this not buff the Breath of Sindragosa Build? They Obliterate a lot during that.
Stacking crit is not suggested for a Breath build, as crit does not contribute to maintaining Breath. If you are stacking haste, ignoring mastery in favor of crit on a Breath build is likely a DPS loss, even with this change.
What else can be done in this line of thinking to make Frost DK more enjoyable to play?
You could give something like Frost Strike having double the chance to crit; that was something that Fury Warrior’s Bloodthirst had back in earlier Pandaria, but currently no other class has it. Such an ability would amplify this suggestion if further tuning upward was needed.
You could also have damage increased under Killing Machine by an amount equal to your critical strike chance, like Destro Lock has with Chaos Bolt. I don’t like taking abilities from other classes, though.
A third option is having Frost Fever ticks have a chance (equal to your critical strike chance) to trigger Killing Machine (on a 10 second internal cooldown). This would normalize the number of Killing Machine procs between DW and 2H, making it easier to tune down the buffs 2H gets from Might of the Frozen Wastes.
EDIT: Formatting and new further suggestions. The number of Frost Strike hits was not factored correctly for dual wielding and is now fixed. Added in a Frost Fever suggestion inspired by Kelliste’s input.