So I noticed that Frost DPS was getting some buffs in the next patch (woo!). Now I’ve always wanted to give Frost a go, but since my current DK is Blood/Unholy, and since the only way to try out a new spec would be (a) in Heroics (where everything dies so fast I could ditch all my talent points entirely and it’d scarcely make any difference) or (b) in Raids (where I’d probably severely nerf my DPS, particularly before the patch goes live). So I rolled another DK on another server and decided to play with frost for a bit.
Then I noticed something.
So as far as I can tell in Frost your main abilities are (a) Obliterate (b) Frost Strike and (c) Howling Blast. The playstyle near as I can tell involves watching for procs of Killing Machine and Rime, in order to better capitalize on automatic crits and free damage (I’m sure somebody can tell me if this is wrong).
I rocked through the starter zone, did the godawful annoying bloody dragon-riding quest and the tedious-as-hell Battle for Light’s Hope Chapel (seriously Blizzard, I don’t know how you managed to get this mixed up but where I come from “you cannot influence the outcome” is in fact the opposite of “Epic”).
So I got out the starter zone and made a beeline for Outland, because while I always have these tremendously high-minded ideas about doing the Plaguelands and Winterspring like you damned well should the truth is that they’re actually … kinda boring. When I got there I realised some key problems with my setup.
No Howling Blast. No Obliterate. No single handed weapons.
Okay, I had Frost Strike, which acted as my RP dump but I’m not actually certain it’s better than Death Coil at this stage. Although I do get a different coloured button to push and honestly nine times out of ten that’s all I want. Still I was left looking at my talent tree and realising that pretty much every single thing in it was based around buffing spells I didn’t have (or in the particularly extreme case of Rime: using one spell I didn’t have to buff as second spell which I also didn’t have).
Now I should mention here that I think part of the reason I like DKs is that I’ve been playing one for pretty much as long as they’ve been out. I leveled fairly slowly, and didn’t get into raiding for a while, but as DK players go I’ve got about as much experience as anybody else, which is a nice position to be in when you’re relatively new to the game. I mention this because I remember that when the DKs first hit the live realms, Howling Blast (and for that matter Gargoyle) was much lower in the tree, with the top spot being taken by Hungering Cold (and Unholy Blight) which led to a lot of irate Frost (and Unholy) DKs saying “I spent 51 points for this?”
I mention this because I think it highlights an interesting, well I don’t want to overuse the word paradox (actually that’s a lie, I love to overuse the word “paradox” – if I had a livejournal, it would list “overusing the word paradox” amongst my interests, if I used Facebook, I would sign up as a fan of “overusing the word paradox”) but it points at a certain tension in the way talent trees are designed.
If the 51-point talent in a tree is lacklustre, it feels like a massive anticlimax. You hit level 60, you get your flashing golden light and your achie, and you get some lame AoE freeze effect or something. On the other hand if the 51-point talent in a tree is awesome, then it can become the defining feature of the tree, which has the knock-on effect that playing that tree feels like a horrible uphill slog until the 50s or 60s.
It gets even sillier when you factor in the fact that the first-tier talents in a tree are frequently designed around the assumption that people are going to dip into that tree as part of their subspec. This leads to peculiarities, like the way the for Paladins your starting Holy talents make you do more damage, your starting Protection talents make you better at healing, and your starting Retribution talents give you an increased chance to parry.
This is one of those “this is a thing, I’m not sure what the solution is” posts, and I know that complaining about Frost DKs not hitting their stride until level 61 is a bit rich, since there’s a lot of classes you have to play for a full forty levels before you get so much as a sniff of a signature ability (non-dual-wielding Enancement Shamans, shadow-priests without Shadowform, and of course Protadins who can’t pull because they have no ranged abilities – although this is less of an issue now they get a single target taunt and can use Exorcism on the living).
Which leaves me with a mildly interesting observation, no particular conclusion, and a 60th level Death Knight in Outland with a tree full of wasted talents.
My warrior has the same issue — leveling protection with no Warbringer is painful, but they had to put it really deep in the tree so that non-prot specs wouldn't have access to it. It makes me a sad panda.
I had a lot of fun with frost way back when BC first came out, maybe I'll try it out again since the tree's been changed almost completely since then. My last DK to 80 started out as frost, discovered the joys of frost/unholy almost immediately, switched to full unholy when that hybrid spec was nerfed, and eventually changed completely over to blood. I haven't played her in 6 months >_>
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It'll be interesting how the strange layout and ordering of talents for particular classes changes in Cataclysm, with the talents that increase damage, healing or defensive abilities being taken out and replaced by 'interesting' talents. I'm very much looking forward to it! I really like the retribution paladin tree in some respects, as you can get everything that makes you a better damage dealer without sacrificing anything. However, the knowledge that (assuming you spec sensibly) from around level 75-80 nothing you decide to put your talent points in will increase your damage in any way is strange and kind of demoralising.
This'll be one of those things where I expect it to get either better or worse. I can imagine a nightmare scenario where in an effort to make all the talents "interesting" they have to make all of the low-end talents "interesting" in the sense that they do something awesome with your high end abilities. Otherwise you'd be back to the old problem of people cherrypicking the best talents from the bottom of every tree.
We can live in hope that they at least fix some of this for cataclysm. There’s a lot of these all over the talent trees, like master shapeshifters balance bonuses when you can’t get moonkin til your 31st point.
I can just about forgive Master Shapeshifter since, IIRC, it's a Restoration talent, so you'd be unlikely to pick it up before boomkin anyway (unless you wanted to delay your chickenform by another bunch of talent points).
Of course the fact that Resto is chock full of stuff that boosts shapeshifting is also kinda weird…
I have a lvl 60 frost DK in the noun guild for the excact same purpose, and I came to the excact same conclusion. So that is one draft I can go delete
I think the comparison between shadowpriests and Frost DKs is a very good one: It does not make sense til much later in levels.
So enjoy blood until you get to 61. I know I will.
We can live in hope that they at least fix some of this for cataclysm. There’s a lot of these all over the talent trees, like master shapeshifters balance bonuses when you can’t get moonkin til your 31st point.
Regarding the lack of one-handers, I seem to recall there being rather nice blue rep swords/axes (for alliance and horde respectively). Shouldn't take more than a few ramps runs to get them.
I might try that, although I confess I'm a bit timorous about pugging in Outland these days…
Yeah, they moved Howling Blast waaay too downn in the tree simply because 32/39 hybrid builds. Who were OP.
I would like 30, 40 and 50 level talents that were awesome, not a must to make the tree viable *cough*Mutilate*cough*
Unfortunately it’s like that for a lot of classes. You get improved this and that aaages before you get the spell it’s self. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in Cata.
Unfortunately it’s like that for a lot of classes. You get improved this and that aaages before you get the spell it’s self. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in Cata.
I played frost to 63 to be different when I levelled. Survivability wise, I did manage to generally kill all the other horde dks I faced in hellfire peninsula although considering a lot of the huntards rerolled DK I'm not sure that's saying much.
Havin re-examined the tree at 80 for Dual Wield Dps it's way more fun than unholy or blood. I still love blood for tanking but its still so much fun popping HB when you have a km + rime double proc.
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How about Concussion and Call of Flame – The first 2 tiers of talent points for elemental shaman, improving the damage of Lava Burst… which you don't get until level 75!
Its one of Ele Shamans signature spells.
It is, I suspect, one of the big issues with balancing talent trees that, almost by definition, the things which make the tree unique have to be things which the other trees can't get. Interestingly I think it works better with classes that have role-dedicated trees (I appreciate Warriors are an exception here). Shadow Priests, for example, at least get Mind Flay at 20, because there's no way any sane Disc or Holy priest is going to sub-spec into Shadow for it.
I'm level 60 now, so I'm probably not going to respec just for one level. Besides, it's not like Hellfire Penninsula is massively challenging for a freshly rolled DK in their Acherus gear…
It's a difficult balance to strike. It always faintly saddens me that Fury Warriors have to take Titan's grip too. For some reason my inner weapons geek just feels that dual-wielding two-handers is DOING IT WRONG.
Have you thought about copying your "main" DK over to the PTR and trying out frost there? I know training dummies and world mobs aren't exactly excitement central but it could give you a feel for the spec as it'll be in 3.3.3 and perhaps let you get confident enough with it to try in raids on your main?
This is exactly what I was going to comment, but cvtosh beat me to it!
This is by far the better way to go (although I myself have one official and one 'partial' level 80 DK alt); you get to try the much-improved talent, you can try them out at level 80 with all the trees filled out – how could it be better!
I rolled Frost on the PTR with my full T10 and hoo doggies, it's something else! I'm actually doing better than my blood and unholy specs as the moment – and I'm much more comfortable with those!
You did get the very brief synopsis of frost right tho – you maintain a fairly 'typical' DK rune rotation, while waiting for your procs.
Good luck!
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I levelled my Dk as a dual-wield frost and he has never been anything else. I prefer dual-wielding to using 2-handers. I don't know why, i just do. Maybe a should level a fury warrior and try DWing 2-handers…
I mained a rogue for 2+ years, so when I switched to DK, I wanted a different experience. Conceptually, it makes much more sense for a DK to be a wielder of BIG 2-handers, so I've favored those as a DK. However, the DW playstyle can still be fun and I've actually had some decent stints as DW frost and DW unholy when they were viable at different times in the past.
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I have to say
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Itr isn't. I think I did almost all Outlands in the Acherus blue gear, keeping most of it until 66 or 67. Did almost no dungeons (Ramparts I think was the only one) and all the leveling was due to questing. At level 67 you start picking good Northrend greens to replace Acherus gear.
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This is exactly what I was going to comment, but cvtosh beat me to it! This is by far the better way to go (although I myself have one official and one 'partial' level 80 DK alt); you get to try the much-improved talent, you can try them out at level 80 with all the trees filled out – how could it be better! I rolled Frost on the PTR with my full T10 and hoo doggies, it's something else! I'm actually doing better than my blood and unholy specs as the moment – and I'm much more comfortable with those! You did get the very brief synopsis of frost right tho – you maintain a fairly 'typical' DK rune rotation, while waiting for your procs. Good luck! My recent post Update: SAN
This is exactly what I was going to comment, but cvtosh beat me to it! This is by far the better way to go (although I myself have one official and one 'partial' level 80 DK alt); you get to try the much-improved talent, you can try them out at level 80 with all the trees filled out – how could it be better! I rolled Frost on the PTR with my full T10 and hoo doggies, it's something else! I'm actually doing better than my blood and unholy specs as the moment – and I'm much more comfortable with those! You did get the very brief synopsis of frost right tho – you maintain a fairly 'typical' DK rune rotation, while waiting for your procs. Good luck! My recent post Update: SAN
This is exactly what I was going to comment, but cvtosh beat me to it! This is by far the better way to go (although I myself have one official and one 'partial' level 80 DK alt); you get to try the much-improved talent, you can try them out at level 80 with all the trees filled out – how could it be better! I rolled Frost on the PTR with my full T10 and hoo doggies, it's something else! I'm actually doing better than my blood and unholy specs as the moment – and I'm much more comfortable with those! You did get the very brief synopsis of frost right tho – you maintain a fairly 'typical' DK rune rotation, while waiting for your procs. Good luck! My recent post Update: SAN
This is exactly what I was going to comment, but cvtosh beat me to it! This is by far the better way to go (although I myself have one official and one 'partial' level 80 DK alt); you get to try the much-improved talent, you can try them out at level 80 with all the trees filled out – how could it be better! I rolled Frost on the PTR with my full T10 and hoo doggies, it's something else! I'm actually doing better than my blood and unholy specs as the moment – and I'm much more comfortable with those! You did get the very brief synopsis of frost right tho – you maintain a fairly 'typical' DK rune rotation, while waiting for your procs. Good luck! My recent post Update: SAN
Howling Blast is where it is because of the broken 0/32/39 hybrid builds. Simple as that.
As a DW Frost Tank, I'm excited with all the buffs incoming. Is going to be awesome.
Oh this is so true. I love fury, but just can't bring myself to justify using two two handers.
Dual wielding in general requires suspension of disbelief for me, having tried it.
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