Game-Teched

I've decided to post more games then just wow, and to broaden from just frost dk (or dps dk for that case) to more classes, specs, etc, to try to be as helpful as possible. I'll start out with some handy hints for starcraft II, CSS, and some others, as well as covering maybe some tanking specs in wow, like feral druid, prot warr, etc, however don't expect me to be doing healing reviews since I am quite possibly the worst healer ever, i don't do well with the pressure of everyone needing me at once instead of just making things attack me or trying to kill everything in the room asap.

Ok they've finally put in reforging and mastery rating in this new patch which will take some getting used to. Reforging will allow you to now change secondary item stats and increase or implement new skills. With this coupled with the new mastery rating added which allows for specific bonuses based on what spec you go into, in the case of frost, a bonus for frost damage 16% w/o adding extra, with 2% wiith every point of mastery. Note that this skill works along the same ideas behind expertise so there is rating, and the higher rating you have the higher the skill itself will be.

As we all know with cataclysm's immenint release, everything will be changing in a short order, and as of 4.0.1 we can already see that with a redo of the spellbook system, character screen system, talent system, guild system, pvp system, pve emblem system, practically everything, I'll try to cover this and jam it into a section as small as possible.

Ok, lets start with the new talent system, now, there is only one tanking spec, blood, and frost and unholy are now the only dps specs, with frost dw, frost 2h and unholy 2h, being the available specs, not only are there these changes, but the availability of your talent points and how you spend them have changed, since you will only have 35 talents to spend or so, and each tree now has 31 points minimum, because you have to specify which talent tree you want to spec into for the mastery bonus, and once you get to 31 points in the tree you can branch out into other trees, for us its to grab extra spell hit and att power.

For a while, i'm staying frost dw, but, according to what i've seen so far (one day after patch) frost 2h is now the most powerful dps class for death knights. Basically it's the same build for frost dual wield, with changes because of the new talents. Also, the glyphs changed so I still have to get an inscriptionist to make me some because you can now have 9 glyphs, instead of 6, but their functions are different.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0bZhIorcuRzbuc:mMamsVM0c

There is a lot of potential for frost 2h unlike pre-patch because of the uber buffing of obliterate, and with reforging, you can have this talent build, stack haste by taking out some un-needed stats, go unholy presence and have your runes practically always available because you will now have a passive ability to make your runic power dump spells to randomly respawn a rune around 50% of the time, meaning you could potentially have a never ending supply of runes and that means a never ending stream of yellows causing your dps to sky rocket, because you won't see that big of a difference in your white dps, unless you get some weapon upgrades or you gem differently, because if you gem all haste you might lose white dps but gain the yellow, however, i'm planning to gem half in str and half in haste for my off spec and see how it works out after doing some more research.

Ok, everything has now changed in preperation for Cataclysm's release, so practically everything except for the recommended hit cap and expertise cap has changed and even the hit is a little different because i'm now just barely at the hit cap, because of the loss of some of the talents.

I will now explain how to better create your death knight, and how to respec, re gem and bascially prepare for cataclysm all around.

Ok, now it's for important stats, like hit/crit/exp cap, and what to gem for or look for in gear after that.

The hit cap for Frost DW dk is a hotly debated topic that if you look it up there's answers everwhere from 440 to 900 (<- 900= impossible don't even take into consideration) at the moment mines sitting at about 490 and i only see a miss once in a blue moon, so I think this is a very good goal to go for, around 460-490, and should gem to that point until you get better gear that has a bit more hit, next you need to get your crit to an acceptable level, mine is about 33% unbuffed at the moment, just because I have some good crit gear, but typically you'll want a minimum of 27-28% to do you well. Expertise is a little different, I have mine at about 150, but as you get higher level gear you may get more, but this seems like a good level (keep in mind this is expertise not expertise rating, 150 rating would be insane and would take more then all your gem slots to fill. Next is pretty simple, after you meet this, you'll want to gem pure strength, and MAYBE a bit of Armor Penetration, however, in the coming patch 4.0.1, arm pen. will be replaced by crit, so there won't be any need for us to have it, so you'll want pure strength it will increase your dps the most and will help alot.

What to look for in gear is pretty easy, I'll recommend a good addon in the next post that will help you decide, but until then, make sure intellect=0 as does spell power, look for as many red gem slots as possible, and take strength over anything.

PS, i recommend getting a bit of haste as getting it will make you attack faster and thus increase your white dps which is some of the highest damage you'll do.

Ok in my last post I discussed our to properly set up your talent tree and select your talents, next I will talk about a proper rotation as well as the priority system and stat requirements you'll have to meet.

As you may or may not know, frost dw does not have a set rotation, it's quite fluid and you must continue to pay attention throughout or your dps will be very low. Now on two side notes, one, i don't suggest having frost dw as ur spec until after you hit 80, mainly because w/o having all 71 talent points available your dps will really suffer, and blood is generally better to level, or blood/unholy because these have much better survivability which is always nice when your lower level and questing. Second, there is of course a basic rotation that you can basically use as a mainframe, or at lower levels you can spam since you won't have extremely AoE oriented fights you will have once you get to 80 (or close to it), this is Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Runic Power dump through Frost Strikes. After you do this, it changes though, if you have glyph of disease at least, it changes to this after this first rotation: Obliterate, Obliterate, Obliterate, Frost Strike, Frost Strike, then pestilence, after this you will do Obliterate, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Runic power dump until your diseases are about to expire, then pestilence, like i said however, there isn't a set rotation and this will be subject to change alot, this is just basically the mainframe of it.

This dps rotation depends on several different factors, primarily your skill/reaction speed and luck. The majority of you damage in a single target (boss) fight will be from your melee attacks, Frost Strike and Obliterate, three of the strongest abilities in your arsenal. Basically the priority system of frost dw depends on procs, like Killing Machine, and Rime (for AoE situations), killing machine will make your next icy touch, frost strike, or howling blast an auto crit (which is extremely nice) and whenever you get it in a single target you should use frost strike immediately, or in AoE you should use howling blast asap, same goes for rime, when it procs, you should, in single target situations, check to see if you have killing machine, if so, use frost strike and wait to use the free howling blast from rime, because it will be more damage, but, in AoE, if you have killing machine use howling blast very quickly, if not, try to wait and see if it will proc, but be careful, the proc from rime will only last 10seconds, and you'll just have to watch. Also, more importantly, always make sure that both of your diseases are up (I'll later say some good addons to use to monitor). I'll list the priority list for single target and AoE fights.

1. Diseases -> if about to run out use pestilence
2. If Killing Machine -> Frost Strike
3. If Rime -> Howling Blast
4. If Diseases up and unholy/frost or double death runes up -> Obliterate
5. If greater then 32 Runic Power -> Frost Strike
6. If disease are up and extra single blood or death -> Blood Strike

Ok, at the moment the Frost Dual Wield spec for death knights is the most OP of the three main dps specs for death knights (while others may argue that unholy is better, I find that frost is a much more versatile spec). There are alot of different talent builds out there for this spec, and it depends on your gear, your level and how good you are. I would recommend a mixture of blood/frost if you are undergeared or aren't quite level 80 yet, because the boost from some of the talents in early blood can be a nice boost to your dps. However, once you get some decent gear or once you're 80, I would suggest moving all of these into frost/unholy. The auto-attack bonus damage you get from Blood-Caked Blade and Necrosis is a definate advantage to the blood mainly because the majority of your damage you will push will be from your auto attacks and from your frost strikes and maybe your obliterate if they crit enough. (keep in mind <--- all that is relating to single target dps since obviously your main damage generating attack during AoE situations will be howling blast and frost strike)

This is my current build, nothing to out of the ordinary here, oh and don't forget the glyphs, they're extremely important, at the moment i'm using Glyphs of: Frost Strike, Disease, and Obliterate and Minor glyphs of: Horn of Winter, Blood Tap, and Pestilence (this last one can be replaced by the ghoul minor glyph if you don't want to take up an inventory spot for corpse dust.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZG0jxAMczf0cuzAofM0hxc:pkaM0m all that information can be found here, next I will discuss hit cap, expertise cap, and how to properly gem once you get there, as well as the "proper" rotation for frost dw dps.