New to DK, looking for advice.

Hello, veterans of Warmane!

I've recently made a DK on Frostmourne for the sake of PvP. I am not great at WotLK PvP and am looking for all the help I can get. Here are some questions:

1) Is Frost viable in arenas?

I have, of course, read the guides and watched a lot of Unholy breakdown videos. Tried the spec and it does not feel like I am doing enough pressure at any given point. Feels like playing an affliction warlock in slow motion (very slow motion). If someone could enlighten me as to why Unholy is the big cheese?

I went Frost and my damage tripled, with plenty of gear to still to pump into it.

2) If the answer to the above question is yes, what 2s/3s comps work well with it?

I am playing with a holy paladin in 2s and it is still a struggle to pump out enough damage sometimes. We play TSG in 3s and get one shot by any comp that has heroism up, our healer cant keep up. I know these are cookie cutter comps, but maybe there's a better option?

3) Any tips/tricks for doing as much damage as possible for both Frost and Unholy?

This sounds a bit vague, but I've seen DKs with similar gear to mine do a lot more damage in either spec. If any veterans have some hidden gems I have so clearly overlooked, I'd be delighted to know. Here's my character for your judgement; gear in progress as I said...: http://armory.warmane.com/character/...mourne/summary

Thank you in advance for any advice or judgement of my wheelchair character :)

P.S. Who clicked because the prefix said Cataclysm? :D

1) Frost is viable in 2vs2 with a healer, due to the burst. In general, frost has very high burst (something unholy lacks) and hungering cold (a very nice cc). What frost lacks is the pressure of unholy (weaker dots, no pet and no disease protection), survivability due to death strike healing for 10%hp only (unholy has 3 diseases, while blood has a talent which increases healing to 15%), no Bone Shield (which is 20% dmg reduction), no improved AMS and no AMZ. You also lack the 3s pet stun, but lets say Hungering Cold compensates for that. Frost also lacks Desecration, which is 50% aoe slow, while the frost equivalent Chillblains is removed when FF is dispelled.

In return, unholy lacks the burst of frost. If you want to land kills in 2s you need to make you'r char compensate for it. I.e. using Bryntroll HC for the life drain and Corpse Explosion for the pet boom, but in general these are the reasons why unholy is considered better.

2) For frost id go with a disc priest or a holy pal, you still need good gear and resi to be effective though.

I play only frost in pvp, and i can tell you most people speaking on forums in the internet doesn't understand how the spec works and how to properly use it. They will most of the time share their own belief more than actual knowledge discovered through gameplay. I found it frustrating to try things told to be "the best" while when i go with my instinct i find myself to have better results. So if you go to that spec, even if someone (like me) will told you something is good, don't be afraid to test other things, Frost spec allows more freedom of choice of valid gameply than the UH spec. You can go for a melee oriented spec, a range oriented spec, or even a tank based spec, and all remains valid if you know how to use that spec at his full potential.

I have some general advices tho if you ever want to try it out, advices that you probably saw nowhere on the Internet

PRESENCES
Frost is played mainly in FROST PRESENCE not UH. Only use UH presence if you're sure you're not focus by anyone and you're free to unleach all your dps. You don't have all the defensive tool UH spec propose : Bone Shield, longer Anti-Magic Shell, more frequent and more powerful heal through your ghoul, more auto-heal while you're in undead form... Frost is by math the spec which benefit the most from not playing in UH presence : you hit FAST, you can burst really high when you use your runic power for multiple Frost Strikes, and your main spell negate the movement of your opponent. And since your Icebound Fortitude last a bit longer, it's only when it's up that you can allow yourself to switch into UH presence while focused to optimize your dps and still not dying to a BIS war arpen capped doing his magic rotation. I use sometimes Blood presence when i 1v1 a tough healer constantly spamming heal

ARENA
No, being with a healer is not the best thing you can do as Frost, i tried it many time i found it to be more than a legend than a serious advice. You don't have a heal reduction debuff as DK. So any comp Healer + a class with that ability (rogue/war/hunter) will outmatch your comp easily, because they will have more healing on their side, which, by math, will negate the advantages of your bursts. I have way better results in arena as Frost when i play a double DPS comp, because the amount of dps unleached is often way too much for the opponent healer to handle. Hunter/War/Ret are really the best partner in my opinion, you can even try with rogue if he's CC mastermind and he allows you to duel someone (except a hybrid pal, don't duel that thing) : you put a constant pressure to the enemy toon and then the rogue teleport to give you the last dps needed to put down your target.

DESECRATION vs CHILLBLAINS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Turbolqk

Frost also lacks Desecration, which is 50% aoe slow, while the frost equivalent Chillblains is removed when FF is dispelled

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Desecration is slightly less good than Chillblains imho, but i understand that it can sounds counter-intuitive to an experienced player "because dispell muh." In reality : Desecration costs two runes, arrives late in your rotation, can only appears in your melee range, and when it's landed it's avoidable by anyone which looks on the ground. On the other hand a Chains of Ice boosted with Chillblains is a pain in the *** to anyone which have to face it : it costs one rune, arrives first in your rotation, can be launched at 30y distance if skilled, and you can use it even when you're showing your back. It can be used both offensively and defensively. If it's dispelled, well you just have to reapply it a second time if you really need it, and if it's dispelled again, you gained enormous amount of runic power while the dude was wasting his precious GCD just to maintaining you at distance, runic power which will translate to damage from Death Coils or Frost Strikes depending of the range.

GHOUL STUN vs HUNGERING COLD
Ghoul Stun from UH serves to secure you a kill, you have to think of it like a better silence, because you can still DPS while your target is stun. Hungering Cold main purpose on the other hand is to make you win tempo on a area at a certain moment of the fight. It's close in purpose but still not the same. For instance it negates the advantage provided by summoned toons. Like, NEVER use hungering cold to a UH DK if he hasn't summoned his gargoyle first. His gargoyle CD is 3minutes, your Hungering Cold CD is 1minute. Without his gargoyle, at equal gear a UH will give you no difficulty. It can be dispelled by priests tho, but a priest which is dispelling is a priest which is not healing, and a priest no healing himself while you're spamming your runic power on this back is a dead priest.

It's only a few things, but if it can help some people out there, it worth the time i took to write it

Is it possible that Blood Presence is bugged? I tried, but I don't see any damage increase from Frost Presence (with the same spec of course).

Thank you for the advice, guys :P

I'll be honest I stepped away from the DK for now and am playing a hunter, something a bit closer to comfort. I will, however, give it a bash at some point.