Problems to Deal WIth for Frost Death Knights and their Legion Rotation

I realize that I've probably made two or three posts already about the future of Death Knights' ghoul-less DPS spec, but, hell, it's been on my mind.

While Fury Warriors are eagerly awaiting news of their artifact weapons and speculating on whether Titan's Grip or Single-Minded Fury winds up getting enshrined (and there's a good argument on Blizzard Watch for Titan's Grip, even if I disagree with the "power arguments" because I think they should start with the feel of a spec and then balance that accordingly,) this isn't quite the same as the implications for Frost. While Fury basically plays the same regardless of your weapon choice (you might get more Sudden Death procs in SMF,) Frost takes the same abilities but puts them in an entirely different priority. For two-handed, you focus on massive Obliterate crits while pretty much only using Howling Blast when you get the proc-formerly-known-as-Rime or need to do fast-paced "Swarm AoE." Dual-Wield practically flips this, making Howling Blast your main ability while only hitting Obliterate when you have absolutely nothing to do with your Unholy runes. Dual-Wield does try to use Frost Strike instead of Obliterate on Killing Machine, but at least in my early phases of exploring the playstyle, Killing Machine starts to feel like more of a bonus than something you need to carefully watch to maximize your DPS.

So let's start there:

Killing Machine Needs a Change or Needs to Get Replaced With Something More Interesting:

Right now, what's clever about Killing Machine is the way that it works differently for the two playstyles. Because 2H gets a big buff to Obliterate, you want to make sure you use KM procs on that. DW, by contrast, gets a buff to Frost Strike, so you want to use KM on that. Essentially, the preferred strike for one style is the "wasted" strike for the other.

That becomes a lot less interesting when there's only one playstyle. If using it on Obliterate is always a waste, people will call (reasonably,) that Obliterate's half of Killing Machine be removed. Of course, then what the proc winds up being is just the occasional guaranteed crit for one of your abilities, which is hardly interactive.

Granted, a proc doesn't have to be waste-able for it to be interesting. The other kind of Frost (Mages) has plenty of procs, and these make the spec a fun game of managing your instant-cast spells, but unless you aren't quick enough on the draw (or if your Frozen Orb is going nuts on a big group of adds,) you don't really waste the procs. Still, with Frost, the spec's whole gameplay is built around responding to procs, whereas Frost DKs already have the inherent challenge of maximizing the efficient use of the Rune system as part of their gameplay. Frost Mages' rotations get pleasantly interrupted by Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze, whereas this hypothetical version of Killing Machine would probably not change the way anyone played.

There's also the issue that Killing Machine naturally devalues crit. Sure, that's far from unique to Death Knights, but it does mean that every bit of crit on your gear starts to look a bit disappointing.

Right now I think what's interesting in 2H Frost is the balance of wanting to hit Obliterate as often as possible (to generate Runic Power for Frost Strike and thus feed that back into level 60 talents to regenerate Runes,) but also to save a pair of runes in case Killing Machine comes up.

One could imagine that what Killing Machine does instead is to make Obliterate deal pure Frost Damage, rather than Physical Damage. It could also buff the strength of the attack a bit, though if the mastery stays the same, that would happen anyway.

On the other hand, this has that same problem of a kind of passive bonus to the rotation, rather than something interactive. You could make it waste-able on Frost Strike, but then we're pretty much back to square one.

Howling Blast Confuses Single-Target with AoE Rotations:

One of the things that inflates DW Frost's damage in any kind of cleave/AoE rotation is that they constantly spam Howling Blast. Howling Blast is a wonderful ability - it feels good and flavorful, and it has the one-two punch of hitting a bunch of targets for a bunch of Frost damage as well as afflicting them with Frost Fever for the next 30 seconds. While getting Blood Plague up requires a bit more finagling, spamming Howling Blast can result in some terrifically large numbers in AoE situations (and if you go with Necrotic Plague, it's easy to stack the plague up quickly and re-apply it swiftly to go along with the bonus of not having to worry about Blood Plague anymore.)

I'm fine with Frost's AoE rotation being heavy on Howling Blast. But I think a spec's rotation should differ at least somewhat between Single-Target and AoE. At the moment, if there is a difference for DW Frost, it's a very subtle one. So why has it devolved into this?

Mastery: Frozen Heart and Obliterate Do Not Get Along:

The two Death Knight DPS masteries are very similar and simple. Frost's boosts Frost Damage, Unholy's boosts Shadow Damage. But given that DW Frost already favors Frost Strike for Killing Machine, plus the (arguably more important) fact that DW Frost has room for a weapon to be inscribed with Rune of Razorice (which both adds a Frost damage component to auto attacks and also further boosts Frost Damage done,) DW basically has to shoehorn in as much Frost Damage as possible, which is why Howling Blast starts taking over for Obliterate.

I wish they had followed through with the original plans during the Warlords Beta to give 2H Frost their own special Rune (reworking Cinderglacier, which is now off in the spellbook in the sky with Sentry Totem and Mana Burn.) Frankly, I think Fallen Crusader should be Unholy only, or eliminated entirely with Unholy getting its own equally powerful but more spec-synergetic Rune. As it stands, there was nothing they could give to 2H specifically to counterbalance Razorice.

I would argue that Obliterate is a Death Knight's most iconic attack (it shares an icon with the Class Symbol in character creation,) and with such a name, it deserves to be something that Death Knights see high on their individual damage meters. It deserves to be an attack that one is excited to make - something that it definitely is not in the DW rotation these days.

So either Obliterate's got to become a Frost attack or get a Frost component (which kind of steps on the toes of Unholy's Scourge Strike,) or Frozen Heart has got to be reworked to stop penalizing the use of Obliterate.

Stay Frosty Out There:

So those are the three big issues. That might not be a lot, but these are all at the very heart of the spec, and if Blizzard chooses to address them, rather than simply enshrining the existing DW playstyle, it will mean enormous changes for Frost Death Knights.

I suspect we won't really know for sure what they intend to do with the spec until Blizzcon at the earliest, or more likely the Legion beta (I'm assuming that Blizzcon will come first.)