Unholy arena run...

Well last night just to become familiar with unholy in case I need to use it for my PHDk I will be running I ran me and Naom's 10 matches last night as unholy.  I want to say its the first time I've ran unholy in the arena.  I *did* run it back in season 5, but being as I only started playing shortly before wrath was released I'm not gonna count those days because me and Naom were ultra noobs and sucked horribly.  Naom has stuck with resto since day 1 because that is where he comes from (about 10 years as a cleric on EQ's and played on EQ's hardest PvP since it was launched).

When leveling to 80 I leveled my DK specced as frost, started PvPing in season 5 with unholy didn't like the spec and returned as frost for season 6 and beyond.  So, playing as frost was how I ultimately learned the ropes of PvP and became decent.  So actually picking up unholy recently and playing with it it is all new to me.

Our matches last night didn't go too bad.  One of the major comps that gave us hell as frost / resto where rogue/X, just because rogue's wreck shamans and I didn't have the 3rd "tool" to relieve the pressure off shaman on the rogue's opening, that tool being gnaw.  It becomes more and more apparent why so many DKs flock to unholy, and it is all because of that ghoul.

Our first match was straight ass haha, and it was all my fault.  Being I have little experience with unholy it takes me some time to get set into the play style.  But, after I clumsily adjusted after the first match it was smooth sailing.

 Other then first match we lost, we lost two to a disc. priest / protret team.  I don't know wtf is up with protret lately but Jesus H. Christ he was putting INSANE pressure on Naom.  First match we went back and forth for ~5 minutes then the pally global'd Naom in one HoJ.  I'm talking about a fully wrathful shaman getting global'd in one stun ... WTF is that shit?!?  I couldn't even help either because he waited for that moment where I had already peeled with DG -> chains then he cast Hand of Freedom, went on Naom ... popped avenging wrath, I used gnaw ... he trinketed that then HoJ -> Naom dead.  It was insane, we fought them again and similar thing happened while I ate a fear.

The other loss was straight bullshit too, it was a rogue / frost mage team ... and the mage was really good.  They kept me CC'd on the side of a pillar while they raped Naom.  My ghoul managed to solo the rogue (lol) and I started to lace into the mage.  He nova'd me ran back started casting poly ... here is the bullshit ... he was mid-cast so I DG'd he was in the midpoint in the arc of the DG and poly went off and I got sheeped anyways.  I wish I was quick enough to get a screenshot because you could literally see the cast bar finish while he was up in the air.  Even Naom saw it and immediately called bullshit out on skype, which yeah, it can be choked up to latency but I run at ~70ms consistently and it was hovering around that at the time as well.  Also, typically when you have latency issues, as a lot of DKs experience with mindfreeze, it is when you use an interrupt near the end of the cast ... which is understandable.  But, like I said, I DG'd him in the ***middle*** of his poly cast.  So, long story short he ran off and evocated came back for 2nd sheep, then ran off and reset then came back and shattered me.  Only thing I can think of the mage must have had the latency problem and somehow on his client side the cast was ahead of the server and it just caught up after I DG'd.  I am by no means saying the mage cheated us, it happens and I deal with it.  I am not really pissed off (even though it sounds like it!) because I already have all I can obtain from 2s save the helm and it takes a lot to make me angry, especially when it comes to a PC game.

Overall, my unholy experiences are pretty good so far.  The matches where I played properly we squeezed out fast wins.  Gnaw in the arsenal makes dropping healers easy.  I think since I am become more accustomed to using the pet I might try that frost / unholy spec that I see some people use.  That way I can have hungering cold added and with his hex a lot of matches should play in our favor more.

I'm thinking:
Frost / Unholy 1/44/26

I picked up chilblains over desecration because with unholy blight my frost fever is now undispellable.  So, have the 50% snare stick with the target instead of them being able to step out of the ground AoE is alot better in my opinion.  Also, putting the points there lets me get 3/3 into Guile of the Gorefiend which makes my obliterate powerful.  I didn't grab Rime for the simple fact I can't get Howling Blast with this build.

I had a floating point that I put into Subversion, but I'm debating sticking it on Icy Talons since the haste from the 0/20/51 build that Darius over at AJ came up with has been phenomenal so far with my Bryntroll.  I'll have to play with it some though because that will be 3% obliterate crit chance I will be giving up, which for frost and just battle against the resilience stat alone it is good to have more crit for obliterate.

The glyph choices are also a burden.  I would love to get glyph of frost strike so I can squeeze one more into my RP dump, but I just don't seem to have the room for it.  It could go in the place of Obliterate glyph but I would have to adjust the build to remove reliance on obliterate as the damage dealer and rely on frost strike.  Which isn't necessarily wrong, but I would have to use Sigil of the Vengeful Heart over Sigil of Awareness.  Which this build could ultimately be the way to go.  The one thing that does suck about this build is missing 5/5 on tundra stalker.  That is 15% increased dmg to all my abilities to targets inflicted with frost fever, which could ultimately hurt the build in the long run and not make it viable.  We will see.

I will, of course, post my results.  Though, I still have a feeling this is going to be a bust.

*edit ... looking back at it, dunno how the game treats frost strike, but if it gains the bonus from impurity it could possibly make up for the loss of tundra stalker, which in all again makes frost strike as the go to dmg ability for this particular build.  But, if I remember correctly frost strike isn't affected by impurity because it is considered a melee attack and not a spell.

How is frost in arena?

This is an important question to ask.  When it comes down to any spec/class combo used in the game the question always asked is; "How viable is it in arena?"  Seems pretty straight forward, but there are several things to take into before this can even be answered.

Where are you trying to climb to in rankings?  Is 1800 just to grab T1 weapon and 4/5 current PvP set your goal?  Are you aiming 2200+ for all PvP gear and possibly a lower-end title obtainable through arena?  Or are you trying to reach gladiator for the season?  Well, currently I can only answer one of these questions.  Frost PvP should be more then suitable to take you to 1800.  As far as reaching gladiator I just really could not answer, or begin to answer that question.  My initial guess I would say no, just because when you play a game with 12 million + subscribers that when you get down to the bare-bones of it only deal in how numbers work out (this is a RPG after all), the number of class/combos that reach the higher rankings are there through skill and that the numbers work in their favor.  Also, you can also argue that it could work for the simple fact that most the DK PvP community gave up on frost after it was nerfed into season 6 and most players didn't take the time to re-evaluate it's place in arena.  With the right comp you probably could run a frost DK to gladiator without a doubt, I would almost say your comp would require a rogue to keep intended target on lock --- frost dk / rogue / h pally feels right to me.

The 2v2 team I run had absolutely no problems reaching 1800 this season, and I did this while only using Bryntroll, which currently frost is not used at it's peak if you are not using two one-handed weapons.  There is just no way around it, you hit a lot harder when DWing w/ Threat of Thassarian (ToT from now on).
->  When using a two hander it appears you do more per hit (maybe a lucky RNG crit of ~7-8k on a target), but two-handed thats only one hit.
->  Now, same type of hit with a one-handed will net about the same dmg overall, ~5k main hand hit, with roughly 2-3k with secondary.  Don't take these numbers as theory crafted out numbers, just rough estimates from my experiences.
--I try to use minimal add-ons, I stick with default to see my dmg numbers.  My shaman uses scrolling battle text and every 5-6 matches he pipes over vent, "I gotta relog scrolling text is fucking up."  <--- Thats why I don't use add-ons, also when some error out when it conflicts with another add-on I just loooove having the error dialog box pop up in the middle of my screen to block my view it is so AWESOME~~!  But, the major grip I have with default is the dmg scrolls can be really quick ... but there is little that can be done with that because it comes as fast as the attack does which is why it is easy to get fooled that two handers work better because the off hand hit with ToT flashes so fast sometimes it is hard to see.

As far as frost's viability in the 3v3 bracket I am unsure of at the moment.  I should be hopefully running PHDk after Tuesday and the other two players on the team are interested in trying out frost with this set-up, which normally runs with an unholy DK.  There is no reason in my mind that I don't believe you shouldn't be able to reach 1800 in 3v3 with frost.  If you can attain 1800 in 2s as frost it could be just as easily done in 3v3.  Reason I believe this is from my experience @ the various skill levels present in the brackets 2s appears harder just because the game is not balanced around 2v2 and some bullshit comps can dominate 2v2 while other classes/specs have no spot there what-so ever (hunters are a good class that lacks what is needed to run 2s, I am not saying any hunter can't do 2s ... mini-beast cleaves are successful in the 2v2 bracket, but overall you don't see too many hunters).  Plus the shear volume of teams that run 3v3 as opposed to 2v2 just puts more teams in that bracket which just through number crunching makes 1800 more obtainable.

The one argument I hear over and over on how frost isn't going to work is people always are quick to point out that the peels are not as effective.  This is a very very valid point, one so valid in fact I am kind of worried about how well I would be able to peel off my hunter or pally if needed.  The only way I can make my peels somewhat effective would be to adjust my talents to dip into the 2nd tier of the unholy tree to pick up reduced CD duration on deathgrip, but from there thats all I can do.  I will not have anything as effective as desecration.  I will be spec'ing into chilblains for the 50% snare but the problem there is that it is dispelled when frost fever gets dispelled.  Desecration can not be effectively dispelled since it is a ground AoE effect it is immediately re-applied.   But, the disadvantage of desecration is where I am hoping the advantage of applying my snare via icy touch can come into play.

I am not a completely pig-headed and selfish person, I am going to be running this comp with two other people with hopes of obtaining at least a 2200 rating eventually and if frost doesn't appear to cut it I am prepared to play unholy if I need to.  I have in fact been using unholy a lot lately to prepare and get familiar with it in case I do have to use it.  Which is where I have noticed a glaring dis-advantage to desecration, sometimes a player can get just out of melee range and off the edge of desecration to the point my plague strike / scourge strike won't connect to re-apply desecration.  I believe chilblains on icy touch *should* have the advantage here, allowing me to range snare and close the gap again.  It is going to take a lot of micromanaging runes on my part to make sure I always have that frost rune up for the icy touch.  Same could be said with the desecration problem, just chains if they get out of range ... true that is very very doable and it does get over the melee range issue but, I am still trying to figure ways to make my favorite spec work!!

I want to make it work just because I feel the big hits from the hunter combo'd with the massive hits frost supplies should wreck the person we are focusing quickly.  This we have tested through running skirmishes and battlegrounds with the hunter, we absolutely drop people fast.  Even through our skirmishes we ran a bunch the other day and out of the lot we ran (~10 or so) we only lost 2 or 3 and that wasn't because I was not able to peel effectively it was typical bullshit involving a rogue or mage just CC'ing the shit out of us.  Which does point out another disadvantage in not having the perma. ghoul to stun said class that is CC'ing us, but that was just a fraction of losses up against a series of wins so to me the lack of ghoul means little in the long run.

But, like I mentioned before I am prepared to do what it takes to win.  The way that I look at is this, I love frost spec over any other DK spec (if I had to rate them in order;  Frost, Blood, then Unholy), frost currently may not have it's place in the upper ratings of arena but frost without a doubt purely owns and dominates in battlegrounds and unlike most arena players I still love to run random battlegrounds.  ALSO, frost appears to finally get its day as the go-to spec for PvP DKs in cata, just reading through opinions and thoughts from the experienced DKs over at ArenaJunkies a few of them are preparing to spec frost for season 9 when it starts.  Like I mentioned earlier no one who plays this game and knows frost on a basic level will tell you it sucks in battlegrounds.  Most responses from the "Ask a Gladiator" section on AJ when asked about frost pvp is that "it is fun on battlegrounds," which one can have hope because rated BGs has already been mentioned to be the big focus for PvP in cata.  I can go on for days the advantages frost has in BGs, but I will tie all that into another post in the future.

For now, when we start our 3s run I will post numbers and updates throughout the course of our adventures to let the (non-existent lol) people who read this blog know how it is working out.

Spec

Well, this is it right?  The first thing anyone asks when venturing into a new class and/or spec?  What spec?

I'm gonna throw all that on ya right now bo!  I'll bust it down to different varying categories depending on gear.

This is what I use:
DW Frost, chilblains

I use chilblains because I still use icy touch even though they made chains apply frost fever baseline.  It's situational for me which I use, but I like chilblains because its 50% during its duration.  I have 5/5 toughness without 5/5 bladed armor ... hmm why the fuck did I do that?  Well I get toughness for the snare reduction, I would LOVE to put 5/5 into bladed armor, and actually could if I used this spec:

DW Frost, no chilblains, no virulence

This spec is iffy without virulence, and surprisingly I can tell you it works against teams over 1800 mostly.  Healers don't dispel my diseases hardly at all.  It could be due to the great pressure I can put out, or maybe they gave up when they gave unholy disease protection and assume I'm unholy... who knows?  5/5 toughness and bladed armor your hitting like a truck.  No chilblains, this carters more to a chains spam type of play.

Shit on people, BG build.

Like it says this build undeniably destroys people in BGs.

There is a lot to take into consideration when choosing which spec to use which largely all boils down to the gear you use.  If someone happens to stumble across my ramblings here and want some advice, by all means comment and I'll see what I can do!!

Must have MAX pt talents for ALL frost PvP specs:

• Hungering Cold - You would be MEGA useless without this!!!
  
• Lichborne - This season Warlocks and Priests rule Arena, being able to break fear is important.
  
• Annihilation - 100% Obliterate won't consume diseases on target, think this speaks for itself!
  
• Frost Strike - Your go-to runic power dump ... you should ONLY deathcoil from range, this isn't Unholy.
  
• Howling Blast - The amount of dmg this does across multiple targets it is hard not to get.  Besides, you need at least 5/5 Tundra Stalker, spend the one pt to get this incredible ability!
  
• Rime - People tend to talk shit about this on AJ about how it never procs.  Thats what you get for listening to Unholy DKs.  This procs A LOT.
  
• Endless Winter - Frost Strike as RP dump it is easy to drain RP, you need interrupt to be free cost when it is up, trust me without this talent I can guarantee you will be out of RP when you need to interrupt the most.
  
• Scent of Blood (mega importanté!!!!) - With this talent your RP bar will fill up in seconds.
  
• Subversion - Crit is a MAJOR modifier for all the dmg in the frost tree, more crit = more dmg.
  
• Chill of the Grave - The ONLY additional RP gain talent in the tree, and the abilities listed are used A LOT
• Side Note:  Having this talent makes classes like Frost Mage alot easier.  One chains when engaging the Frost Mage gives you enough RP to cast AMS, which allows you to stay on the Mage for a bit before the kite fest starts.  (Also, you will need PvP gloves equipped, otherwise you won't generate enough RP for the AMS).
  
• Glacier Rot - @ 7% a pt your an idiot for not maxing this.
  
• Blood of the North - Yeah have fun with those blood runes without this talent.
  
• Merciless Combat - Don't you notice that when you are sooooo close to killing someone you beat and beat and beat ... boom full life!  Juuuuust can't quite land that killing blow???  Well multiply that X100000 if you don't grab this talent!!
• Guile of the Gorefiend - If you question why you need this talent, sit down and read the tooltip veeeery carefully!
• Deathchill - @ 1 pt cost you can't deny this talent, it makes Obliterates crit BTW.  Plus goes great with Rime procs ... Rime -> get targets together spread diseases then DC -> HB for huge dmg across all targets within 10 yds of your target.
  
• Unbreakable Armor - I see a ton of DKs with frost specs who don't have this talent.  I'm guessing they are not reading the tooltip and are maybe assuming is only an armor increase.  Check the tool tip, 20% str increase, at 1 min CD for a single frost rune for 1 pt - HUGE talent for burst.
  

Talents you can shave 1 or 2 pts off of:

• Black Ice - 2% per pt, wont hurt to give up 1 or 2.
• Killing Machine - I'd say shave off 1 pt at the most, anymore and it just NEVER seems to proc.
• Icy Reach - I personally put 2/2 here, but its very doable with only 1 pt into it.
• Tundra Stalker - At 3% per it's cool to shave off at least 1 pt.

Also, bear in mind you should be mindful of how you shave pts, especially when it comes to any of the % increase talents, shaving multiple pts decreases multiple %'s and you will inadvertently screw your dmg doing this.

Examples:

-- The ideal way to shave pts would be, 1 pt off Black Ice, Killing Machine and Icy Reach, which frees up 3 pts and you only loose dmg wise 2% plus a small proc from KM and 5 yds off your abilities.

-- The wrong way would be to shave 2 pts off Black Ice and then maybe a 1 pt off Tundra Stalker.  Big picture, you killed off ~7% dmg for those 3 pts, not worth it IMO.  I personally wouldn't shave off pts in both Black Ice and Tundra Stalker, for me its 1 or 2 off Black Ice by itself, or 1 off Tundra Stalker alone ... NEVER the two combined.  My rule of thumb is kill off >%5 dmg if possible.



Situational / Gear / Play Style - Dependent Talents:

• Toughness - Even though I believe this is huge for frost, maybe you run with Pally or Rogue then you wouldn't need this.
• Improved Icy Talons - If you are good at staying on your target to dish out white dmg consistently you NEED to grab this talent, even without it 80% of the time in all matches (BGs and Arena), white dmg comes in first.
• Bladed Armor - Goes great with Toughness or if you play in Frost Presence.
• Chilblains - If you think why use Icy Touch when I can just spam chains?  Skip this talent.  But it is good for situational use between IT and chains.
• Virulence - Under geared I say definitely get this talent, if you are geared to the fucking teeth with heroic raid gear skip this talent healers are not gonna have time to dispel shit.  Or be like me I always pestilence after diseases and target swap and pestilence again if they get dispelled.
  
• Dark Conviction - Def. get some pts into this talent if you are under geared, like I mentioned before crit is big with frost.
• Improved Frost Presence - Again, under geared or running healer-less grab this.  Also note, boosts your dmg a lil bit going into Frost Presence if you have 5/5 Toughness.

And lastly, if you use a 2 handed weapon as opposed to two one handed weapons depends on whether you need to get Nerves of Cold Steel + Threat of Thassarian or Two-Handed Weapon Specialization.  Another note:  With 3/3 Nerves of Cold Steel you only need to obtain 2% hit as opposed to 5% if you are using a two handed weapon.

Blog Overhaul!

Well, changing this blog up.  I went ahead and deleted all my old posts, a lot of rambling and belly aching.

Now, I'm just gonna write about frost PvP.  No one does, and I love the spec and one of only a handful of people who run it.

So, this is it fresh start.