So. I have loved Frost DK since the beginning; however, there have been many patches and expansions that it didn’t feel great. But, I stuck to it anyway because I am not a huge fan of Unholy. Don’t like the class fantasy and the play style is not something I like as much. Frost breath of sindragosa build is very fun to play because of the high risk high reward, although in some patches like the current one where you have to move away from the boss for mechanics, it can destroy your DPS if things just don’t line up well. But that’s the nature of that spec. Same in mythic+ if you don’t have a tank that is going to chain pull so you can keep up your BoS you are just dead in the water for the whole dungeon.
But what about Oblit build? It’s a good alternative that is less risky but can still get screwed if you just started your pillar of frost and now you are doing a mechanic or whatever, but it’s less punishing. But the main thing about Frost DK that feels bad is our cleaving. Frost scythe is awesome, but doesn’t synergize well cause of the rune usage and ends up not being as much AoE damage as it should be. It should feel a lot more like pressing Divine Storm like paladins. It is such a good button press. Maybe switch frost scythe to Runic power so we can still hit oblits and then frost scythe spender. Let’s face it, glacial advance feel like trash and I hate using it. Just replace glacial advance with a better version of frost scythe (also the frost scythe sound and animation is so awesome, just make me want to use the ability). Another more main issue than this I think is Death and Decay. Probably my most hated button press. You lay it down and now you have to move, wasted button press. But if you don’t, you lose out on so much cleave damage. Why not just make Death and decay an aura around the DK that follows you. Simple fix and now it doesn’t feel like a garbage button press.
In PvP frost can be frustrating to play because our defensive healing/defensives are not great. And our mobility is so far behind other classes. I feel like most classes are going to wreck a DK 1v1. The main issue is that unholy has pets and helps with gap closing with the extra stun and can do damage from distance. Buffing DK mobility would make unholy even more of a problem. But unfortunately frost either needs more mobility to keep up with other high mobility classes or some of frost abilities need to have some range. Howling blast is a joke for a ranged ability. Paladin’s feel great because they can launch their abilities at range and even though it’s a wheelchair class, it doesn’t feel as bad as DK. Now this may not be the best idea for a fix, but maybe make frost strike have more range or something. I think the fact that Unholy and Frost are so different, that if you buff or nerf DK, it affects both specs unequally because of the playstyle.
As a whole, I still really enjoy playing DK. But I think a small tweak here or there to make it feel a little smoother would help.
TLDR: Make death and Decay an aura instead of dropping on the ground. Make frost scythe great again. In PvP give frost a healing PvP talent like unholy has or help with some sort of better self healing that isn’t overbuffing death strike. Maybe add some range to frost strike to help with lack of mobility, gap closing ability, and damage at range. I just want the spec to flow better like a lot of the other classes I have played. Frost DK feels clunky and old. Needs a small update.
It was high risk-reward. Now it’s more medium risk, low reward.
Very common misconception. Obliteration is far, far more punishing to play than BoS. BoS is incredibly forgiving - and has been for a while - while missteps with Obliteration compound and tank your DPS.
That’s 100% a personal problem. Replacing GA with Scythe fundamentally changes nothing except the animation and the area of effect from a line to a direct cleave.
Frost needs a major update, not a small one. A builder shouldn’t be massively obscuring spenders in any form of content and the only way to achieve that is with large, sweeping changes, since the past 4 years has been focused on making Obliteration halfway viable and gutted the entire kit to do so.
One thing that is insane to me is just how LONG dnd cool down is on frost. Unh has the option for 20 seconds dnd with defile and it feels SO much better.
Frost has way way too much of its damage in obliterate with so many stacking damage mods.
The spec compounds so many things together during pillar for obliteration that they can’t allow any other spells to be good.
Frostscythe will never see play because obliterate with killing machine is too strong compared to normal obliterate.
Normal obliterate has a tool tip damage of like 20k as PHYSICAL damage so it ends up doing so little outside of cds,
I really wish we got the pvp changes in pve where non killing machine obliterates were changed to do like 70% more damage or something obscene. It makes frost feel WAY better in pvp than pve (even though frost is awful compared to unholy still in pvp because unh ALSO got unethical pvp mods to wounds)
I hate calling obliterate a builder because dk has an interesting and dynamic system of 2 resources.
Obliterate DOES do WAY too much damage compared to other spells but it is also a rune SPENDER.
Look at ret, ret had this same problem with templars verdict pre rework doing 40% of their damage and now it feels much more health at about 20%.
Obliterate doing less damage than now and buffing the ever living hell out of frost strike and frostscythe and glacial advance when you choose a non breath build would be so nice.
I just want a build that doesnt do 80% of its damage in 12 second windows every 45 seconds, both unh and frost are like this in m+.
For the most part, I think this is what a lot of people want. Sadly though, there are a lot of people pushing for even more obliterate damage… which is just insane to me.
I am hoping the devs finally rework us, but I am not holding my breath.
Obliterate is both a builder and a spender. Just like Frost Strike is both a builder and a spender. This isnt Wrath anymore where Obliterate is a builder / spender and Frost Strike is just a spender. Obliterate still did more damage than Frost Strike, but not over 4x the damage of Frost Strike like we are seeing now. It was doing about twice the damage. People are seeing 34k Obliterates (with DW) while Frost Strike is around 18k. Melee damage also made up a HUGE portion of the damage which it doesnt anymore.
So the whole Obliterate doing more damage than “spenders” is really how the spec did work and that is even before KM did anything to Obliterate. Things should be more even though, this whole throw all your eggs in the Obliterate basket is just bad design.
I do not think it is right to state your personal opinion as fact. Personally I do not find it fun to play. Making frost scythe use runic power is an idea I would explore though, if the skill and talents were all reworked.
Already have Glacial Advance. Frostscythe was specifically to have a rune spender cleave ability and that was killed in SL due to KM rank 2 making it so Frostscythe needing to hit 8-10 enemies (3-5 enemies over the target cap) until the Obliterate nerf came in and it still wasnt even worth it. Now there is cleaving strikes that kills it further all because “muh Obliterate thought!” mentality which people just want to make Obliterate cleave basically for nothing.
Frost needs to go back to basics, get a basic build and build off of it.
With Legion, Obliterate was moved to be entirely a builder.
Yes, it “spends” Runes, just like Rogues spend Energy and Enhancement “spends” abilities through cooldowns. You start the fight, you can’t use FS/GA/BoS, but you can use any Rune ability - that’s a builder, just like Pistol Shot, Stormstrike, Saber Slash, Lava Lash, etc. Pistol Shot and Lava Lash aren’t “spenders” when they spend a finite resource (cooldown or energy) just because you have a proc or buff that makes it do 300%+ damage and Obliterate isn’t a “spender” for the same reason.
Frost Strike refunding a rune makes it as much of a builder as Rogues having talents [1][2] that generate combo points or energy, or Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning refunding the Maelstrom spent with Static Accumulation.
DK has been along the generic builder/spender profile for almost 8 years now, which is almost more than it had been on the original rune system. Everything post-Legion within FDK has pointed towards Obliterate being a builder. Everything. It doesn’t matter that it spends Runes. It doesn’t matter that RP spenders can refund Runes. If it makes it easier, you can view Runes as a bundle of 10 energy and Rune abilities as builders that require 10 energy multiples.
Runes & RP are functionally - and objectively - the same as every other builder/spender pattern. It may feel different, and that’s great, but it functions exactly the same and, therefore, our abilities should function exactly as the others do.
Because most of the people posting that don’t want to play Frost, they want to play some romanticized version from 14 years ago when they were younger. Or basically play Ret/Arms with a DK locked transmog.
Blizzard backed themselves into a corner because the only way to fix Frost is removing the ramp from Pillar and putting that damage into anything but Obliterate, effectively gutting Obliterate damage, removing all “big Oblits”, and destroying a core DPS CD to achieve that, or remove damage directly from KM, which guts Obliterate damage and removes “big Oblits”.
Outside of KM and Pillar, there is 0 damage to shift around elsewhere, and if they do anything to touch KM Obliterate damage, these forums will be in an uproar over that. But if they don’t make those changes, people actually playing FDK will stop, giving more of a reason to just ignore the spec.
Its both. The same with Frost Strike, its both. We arent like rogues or enhancement or rets or warriors. Frost Strike has been refunding runes since cataclysm. It was only really a builder / spender during Wrath and even then runes were much more important to spend then.
It isn’t. Again, that’s like saying Pistol Shot or Lava Lash are “spenders” when they have their procs because they’re powered up like Obliterate and “spend” a resource similarly.
Yes, I very clearly understand that DKs aren’t Rogues, Enhancement, Ret, or Warriors. But this idea that DK is somehow special because “it has two resources” is a fallacy. Half of MDPS have two resources in some form. Obliterate “spending” runes is objectively the same as Stormstrike or Judgment “spending” a cooldown, Mutilate or Tiger Palm spending energy.
And Rogue finishers have been refunding energy & combo points since 2004. That doesn’t make either “a spender and a builder”, it just makes them a spender.
But it is. What is Lava Lash spending? Nothing, so they arent the same. Specs are different and should be treated as such.
That was literally one of the main points of the DK but runes were still much more valuable to spend than runic power.
Its not.
Kind of since they did make runes more like energy and even used rogue energy in explain how the change would work.
So? Combo points are the same as RP. RP is gained through the spending of runes, Runes are gained through the spending of RP. Its quite unique in that aspect. Do you get Lava Lash reset when you spend maelstrom stacks? No.
IMO a way to fix this(Not including a vast majority of other issues frost needs, especially talent wise) is to make obliterate do partial frost damage like scourge strike functions. have KM procs be PPM and causes obliterate to be 100% frost damage. I don’t think it should be 100% crit chance, but if it is, then part of our crit should be applied to the damage maybe? Cleaving strike in dnd needs to go and make frost sycthe 2 runes and adjusted properly. I think MOTFW should be changed to just give 2handed frost razor ice for free and have it affect other skills like frost strike, GA, and even HW maybe.
Obviously there is much more needed for the class as a whole, but those changes at least imo would help a lot with balancing the spec. In terms of Pillar, I wish it would be less impactful so our sustain damage could be higher.
Also Ret Paladins can use 90% of their melee abilities from far away dodging mechanics without it affecting their dps, whereas Frost DK relies on swing uptime to get procs compounding our dps loss considerably. Increasing the melee range of some abilities like Frost Strike, Soul Reaper, and Death Strike would help the swing uptime while dodging in order to get back to an Oblit rotation. Also, why isn’t Shattering Blade a base talent active only when Dualwielding? My guess, the Weapon Runes are genuinely outdated because of Rune of Histeria is wonky and Razorice served absolutely no purpose this entire expansion. Frost DK really needs a deep dive rework because even our Mastery (frost dmg) doesn’t fit into the Oblit playstyle, and Breath gameplay is so niche and inconsistent that it doesn’t feel rewarding, it sometimes feels like a 45sec whirlwind where most “dodging” mechanics tosses out the CD altogether because we can’t generate Runic Power because again, our swing range is too short. Too many variables need reworking here.
The only reason people wanted Obliterate to have Frost damage was because of the mastery and people wanting eveything within the spec to scale with mastery… which just take mastery out of the game already and just have stuff scale off of the primary stat.
Do you mean PPM or RPPM? While they both include “PPM” (procs per minute) they are completely different.
Frost is terrible and has been for EXPANSIONS. It needs a MASSIVE rework. Breath is terrible and Obliterate is a little better to play and once you start popping in cooldowns and got the rhythm of frost strike and howling blast and obliterate procs it feels great…. Until you see you’re doing zero damage.
The only posts about frost and unholy should be about massive reworks because it’s probably the most in need specs in the game that need it. Shadow priest always needs one it seems.
1: Scythe baseline, can be done in 2 ways, consumes 2 runes, is used in aoe in place of obliterate. Or scythe replaces killing machine obliterate, hits with both weapons with added aoe benefit. Deals more damage to primary target and less to secondary targets.
2: remove dnd for frost, or make it a purely flavor button, simply does not belong, oblit should not cleave.
3: Breath works like old voidform did, not necessarily the ramp up in crit/haste, and resource consumption, but just: you reach an adequate level of runic power, press breath and it continues for as long as you can keep it up. No cd, no bs. This will effectively completely solve the problem with uptime.
4: i would like glacial advance on killing machine back, maybe not 100% damage, that’s just tuning though.
5: shattering blade should have some aoe components, and be slightly stronger. At least in st, i mean, you could also just fix the interaction… And then it would be good in st.