Make it a 27 and we have a deal!
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Unfortunately having glacial advance would only benefit DW since it would scale in mastery; On top of that iâll just swap razorice with hysteria or fallen crusader for more frost strikes or healing
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Spent some time investigating the impact of the second/third runeforge. I think the overall conclusion is that we might see 2H Obliteration moving into the meta.
There isnât any good options for a third runeforge for DW. We canât use stoneskin since itâs 2H only, and hysteria only adds 2.5% DPS for breath builds (0% for Obliteration DW builds). 2H on the other hand gains 7% from picking up Fallen Crusader, significantly more. 2H Obliteration will also be significantly stronger in AoE scenarios. You know have a big damage component attached to your PoF windows with all those GAs firing off.
Iâm excited to try this out on the PTR, I def see possibilities of 2H Obliteration builds becomes far more viable/ meta.
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Do give Rolling Everfrost a try too, Biceps!
Since Remorseless Winter also got stronger.
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Those isnât new. Every good obliteration player uses everfrost and biting cold for m+. KF still beats it for ST though.
That seems like an overstatement as DW BoS scales better with Everfrost and BC. The stronger Everfrost is, the stronger RW scales. Heck, I used to believe KF was a good all-purpose legendary before conduits are able to be empowered.
Everfrost is a weird conduit that does the most ST for an ability that is what is meant to be a consistent AoE damage.
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Yeah its dumb⊠Good dam, but so out of place that an AoE conduit is BiS for ST.
Music to my ears. Iâm sick of being the outcast.
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So will DW. DW will have the same if not more KM procs to go off of.
Also, what about Hysteria with Icy Talons, Hysteria to give 20 more RP and to somtimes give more RP, which would play into being able to keep Icy Talons up more, able to drop some crit for haste as DW because of the 8% crit with Remorseless Winter, get even more auto attacks with the same amount of crit which would most likely result in even more KM procs, which means more GAâs which means stacking RI quicker outside of Pillar windows.
We dont know if the GA will proc KM in Pillar windows with Obliteration. So far all we know is the player has to cast either HB or Frost Strike to be able to get a KM proc, thats the real unknown is if GA, that is procced from a proc, will proc the proc that procced it. If that makes any sense.
Just saying that sounds too good to be true. Will the game register it as the player casting GA? They technically are because they are using KM with the 4 set, but they arent because they are using Obliterate and its just a secondary effect.
The set might also put Kyrian as the go to covenant due to Pelagos. Mastery every minute to pair with PoF windows with Obliteration throwing out GAs for every KM consumed. Sounds like a no brainer to me.
Weapon swapping is an absolute nope though.
BoS has too long of a CD. Shorter CD would make it more useful in Mythics
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Sure, but there needs to be a viable aoe skill to dump RP when not talented into BoS.
I could take or leave BoS, but itâs rather bad design to have Breath be the end all be all for ST and AoE.
Give Frost strike cleave in DnD, glacial advance baseline, or maybe a shorter cd/less powerful chill streak as a baseline ability.
I guess weâre sort of past the glacial advance thing as itâs now becoming sort of the set bonus for frost.
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Chillstreak that cost all current RP and has X bounces per 10rp spent could be cool. Or something that utilises RP for AoE world be great.
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That needs to be a thing even when youâre talented into BoS.
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I was implying it was needed baseline, yes.
I have a hard time believing anything will change while breath exists though. A new aoe RP dump baseline would probably just make breath oriented builds stronger.
There are some short sighted design decisions that make frost very hard to balance otherwise. One of the better options may be to make BoS baseline with a dmg nerf, and make a final tier talent that buffs it rather than it being a talented ability, seeing as for many itâs a very spec defining ability. Maybe the talent could be something along the lines of summoning a frost wrym at the end of your breath based on x% dmg done during the channel.
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Why does there need to be a viable aoe skill to dump RP when it doesnt even have a viable/reliable aoe rune dump? Is it because of MotFW and an aoe RP spender is the only way for 2h to have some form of aoe?
Iâm terms of resource building abilities, there arenât many specs in the game that have a builder that is strictly aoe, or even aoe capable.
This is probably the biggest inconsistency within the DK specs. Unholy gets the best of all worlds with a baseline ST and AoE spender, while also having the benefit of SS acting as an aoe builder if youâve got stacks on multiple targets when you drop DnD.
Heart strike cleave in DnD is also somewhat similar to SS (off the top of my head Iâm not sure if hitting additional targets also gives you an RP gain benefit from secondary targets). But then blood has no way to spend RP for aoe baseline. The only option is to talent into bonestorm, which I might argue would feel better being baseline as well.
Then we come to frost. [edit: Howling blast is generally only used on rime procs, so itâs value as an aoe rune dump is sort of wishy washy.] Frost scythe has no RP benefit vs multiple targets (you generate 9rp regardless of the number of targets hit) and the damage is nothing to write home about vs avalanche which has no rune or resource interaction whatsoever. On top of that, if specâd into obliterate or icecap, you literally have no aoe, and in the case of running frost scythe with either of those talents, youâre better off mashing scythe till the cows come home and overcapping on RP above 4 targets.
Now taking a step back, every other melee spec has a baseline resource spender, and most talent options just provide some sort of benefit to those abilities.
Warrior gets whirlwind
Monk gets spinning crane kick
Rogue gets blade flurry, fan of knives, and potentially more (havenât played all the rogue specs)
Survival gets carve and wildfire bomb
Havoc gets bladefury and eyebeam
Ret has divine storm
Enh, idk tbh
And feral is basically in the same boat as frost and does horrible aoe damage as is.
Almost every melee spec has a baseline resource spender. And those that donât either suffer in aoe potential, or are forced to take talents to actually make their aoe viable. Itâs inconsistent design, and forces specs such as frost DK into a one dimensional build for all content to maximize dps and still perform worse than majority of other specs.
*I hate trying to edit posts on a phone
Iâd argue that Obliterate is an AoE rune spender to some degree. Since every Obliterate has a 45% chance to trigger rime free of cost, you could view the ability as a 2 Rune, 2 GCD st Oblit + 0.45 Rime spell.
True.
My main point, getting past all my rambling, is that frost has no way to spend RP for aoe unless talented into BoS. If frost was given another baseline aoe spender, breath would still be the best, and frost would likely see a massive power creep.
I think BoS becoming baseline with some kind of nerf and itâs talent slot being replaced by some kind of augement would be a lesser evil. The spec appears rather hard to balance if anything else was added, placing the tipping point on BoS.
They seem very wary to change anything, and I believe breath is the sole reason.
Why should it? It never had it. The only thing im really reading is since other classes have it so should DK. Why not have DK be opposite where RP builders do aoe and RP serves as a means to fill in downtime between when runes are back up, and it giving a way to get back runes so you can aoe more.
Making BoS baseline would be like Void Form, they would have to change it because there were already problems between high end players that could use Void Form well, and just average players that couldnt. It was a huge dps gap and was a pain to balance.
Breath isnt the reason they are wary to change anything. It can be buffed and nerfed on its own without impacting any other build and its being used as a lightning rod to say its the problem and to delete it or whatever solution people want to give even though the base design of the spec makes it hard to balance. There are still people complaining about the base design of the spec.
Frostscythe was used in Icecap builds in fact its one of the best ways to lower Pillar CD since it just has to crit on one target. DW is also basically required for Icecap because of DW crit mechanics. The issue with Frostscythe came in with KM rank 2, and MotFW for 2h making the ability have less appeal. Before the Obliterate nerf you couldnt use Frostscythe unless you were DW and attacking 5 targets 2h couldnt reach the number of mobs because the ability was capped at 5. Outside of KM procs though, Frostscythe would do more damage than Obliterate and for some reason people arent looking at that because of Avalanche. Avalanche requires you to spend runes for you to even be able to get that damage because its behind Rime procs. Rime requires Obliterate to be used.
Its a stretch to say Obliterate is an AoE rune spender ability. Its ST. Just because you get access to full HB damage (thanks to having to solve the issue that Masterfrost brought into the fold). HB damage to other targets is reduced anyways. Its around 50-60% lower than the initial target. FF ticks are almost as strong as HB secondary damage when Rime is procced.
I know you generally come here to disagree with anyone and everyone as your job, especially when players have any issue with breath. So Iâll stop at this reply.
The issue is, you want the best AoE, you go Breath. You want the best single target, breath and obliterate are within margin of error, so you go Breath.
There is no downside to going Breath. This makes the final tier of talents pointless if you want to play optimally as current balance stands.
Provide a new baseline aoe spender, breath is still the best talent for ST or AoE. The change needs to start with breath.
Even the 4 piece set bonus is a subtle admission that some kind of baseline aoe spender should be provided to frost. Viability should not come from borrowed power and or tier sets, the class should function without those.
Frost in my book has a fundamental flaw in that itâs basically the only class with no aoe rotation unless you absolutely talent for frostscythe and GA, to your detriment at that.
Bad design.
I dont like breath either so quit making stuff up because someone disagrees with you that there is a problem with not having an aoe rp dump ability. It hasnt been a problem since DK was released, its not an issue now.
Obliterate is not a talent. And there is a downside in going breath. If you cant play with it properly you dont take it. It has the same issue Void Form has, its entirely based on being able to keep it up. If you are just looking at it on paper then its always going to be the best option because on paper it assumes perfect play.
Being the best on paper is just that, being the best on paper. Once you get out of the top players other options start to come into play because they are more forgiving. Breath is an option, and there needs to be a reward for taking it because unlike the other 2 options are basically entirely passive. BoS does take some certain type of play for the player to keep it up as long as possible. All you have to do with Obliteration is hit either Frost Strike or Howling Blast in between Obliterate usages, something that you can find yourself doing in the priority list anyways.
Frost does have baseline aoe spell, Howling Blast. Its damage is locked behind Rime because of what masterfrost did to the spec.
The real issue is other aoe options were tanked. HB needs rime to do damage, Frostscythe is there too but KM rank 2 puts a lot of power into Obliterate and Frostscythe has to compete with its damage per GCD when KM has been procced, outside of KM Frostscythe is pretty good as long as you have crit to support taking it. Icecap, paired with Frostscythe also reduces its cd if you get any crit with it. Icecap and Obliteration is reliant on other talents being good enough to justify taking.