Gear
In Season 2 of Dragonflight, we will be able to acquire a new tier set! This can be obtained from raid bosses in Aberrus the Shadowed Crucible. We will also be able to craft tier pieces with the Creation Catalyst a few weeks after the season starts. You will want to get this tier set as it is an excellent bonus to your throughput!
Notable Items:
Neltharion’s Call to Suffering: This trinket is mainly good due to the large amount of primary stat (strength) you get once it procs, so if it procs during your cooldowns then it provides a significant boost to your throughput. However, since the nerfs to the RPPM proc rate scaling with haste, this trinket can be very hit or miss and inconsistent. It is a good trinket, however I would recommend using Ominous Chromatic Essense instead in progression scenarios for more consistency.
Ashkandur, Fall of the Brotherhood: Luckily this is not a very rare item, and it’s pretty good! It is the highest item level 2H strength weapon for Obliteration in Season 2, which has good secondary stats as well a small extra damage proc (while it may not be much, you are not losing anything for the proc so free extra damage is always a big plus). So this is another item you will want from Echo of Neltharion in the new raid.
Ominous Chromatic Essense: This is one of the best performing trinkets for Frost, however you do need other people using this trinket with different buffs in the raid to get most of the value out of it (so you benefit from all of the secondary stat buffs). The stat you attune it to will depend on your current gear, to make sure to sim your gear to find the best stat to use for it.
Voice of the Silent Star: This is a rare cloak from the raid which is a dps increase, but with a cost. When using this cloak you will sacrifice quite a lot of health for it (Death Knight has stamina multipliers such as Veteran of the Third War), which is definitely not worthwhile in a progress setting so I would only recommend using this cloak in farm scenarios when you and your guild are comfortable with the raid and are not having any issues with survivability.
Elementium Pocket Anvil: This is a trinket that ramps up over the course of an encounter, the longer the encounter, the better this trinket will perform. I would not recommend using this trinket on short kill time bosses, as this trinket is more likely to perform on longer fights. In Mythic Plus you will also be able to extend the stacks from pack to pack, so it also has some potential there too (although you only have 15 seconds to do so, which can be quite tricky). It can also be used alongside another on use trinket, as its own on use ability does not incur the cooldown on your other trinkets, which is also another good reason to use this trinket.
Irideus Fragment: Quite a good option for Breath of Sindragosa in heavy AoE/Mythic Plus scenarios simply because of the large amount of upfront damage it gives you, however not so strong in most raid encounters. It is also a good option when playing Obliteration in Mythic Plus scenarios, because again it’s just such a front loaded trinket. It would essentially be the Season 2 version of Algeth’ar Puzzle Box for Obliteration, and used in conjunction with Pillar of Frost, and Frostwyrm’s Fury for big aoe burst damage, something which Obliteration can do very well. However, if you are not doing massive mythic plus pulls as Obliteration then I would recommend using Vial of Animated Blood instead.
Vial of Animated Blood: The alternative to Irideus Fragment would be this trinket. As mentioned before, it’s very similar to Irideus Fragment, but its cooldown is a lot shorter for the price of less upfront damage. However, in Mythic Plus/AoE scenarios you won’t always be doing massive pulls, and instead will do more consistent medium sized pulls. When this is the case then you want to have this trinket instead, due to the shorter cooldown you are going to have it ready with your Obliteration windows more often, leading to a better and more consistent flow of throughput throughout the dungeon.
Crafted Embellishment Gear:
Crafted gear in Dragonflight allows you to get two 447 Embellished pieces. Embellishments can provide a significant damage increase so they are definitely worth picking up.
Primal Molten Sabatons (with Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch): While the Primal Molten Sabatons are nothing special on their own, by applying a Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch it makes them one of the best pieces of gear you can craft in Season 2. It is the best performing Embellishment in single target (but does not scale well in AoE) and will be an important item for raiding in Season 2.
Primal Molten Greatbelt (with Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch): Just like the Primal Molten Sabatons above, applying a Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch to these crafted boots has the same effect, making it one of the best you can craft. Wearing 2 Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch will also double the effect, so it is very strong to use this belt alongside the Primal Molten Sabatons, both embellished with Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch. However, once you have acquired 5+ gem slots in your gear, Elemental Lariat will pull ahead of one of these Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch embellished pieces.
Allied Wristguard of Companionship: You will mainly want to have these ready for AoE scenarios like Mythic Plus. Mainly because the other options (except Elemental Lariat) do not scale well in AoE, and these wrists just give you raw stats which always scales well in AoE, even if its versatility (a stat which is not that great for Frost).
Elemental Lariat: Gives you a stat proc based on the gems you have socketed in the neck piece; with it also being able to go up to 447 item level and being fully customizable stat-wise. Early on in the gearing stage, it won’t be that great in single target scenarios as you will not have enough sockets to make full use out of the proc effect, so it’s better to look at other alternatives until you have enough sockets to make it worth using (around 5+ across your gear). However for AoE, this is one of the best Embellishments due to the amount of secondary stats it provides. The other embellishments (except Allied Wristguard of Companionship) are single target and do not scale as well as raw secondary stats in AoE scenarios.
Season 2 Tier Set
- 2 Set Bonus: Howling Blast damage increased by 20%. Consuming Rime increases the damage of your next Frostwyrm's Fury by 5%, stacking 10 times. Pillar of Frost calls a Frostwyrm's Fury at 30% effectiveness that cannot Freeze enemies.
- 4 Set Bonus: Frostwyrm's Fury causes enemies hit to take 20% increased damage from your critical strikes for 12 sec.
2 Set Bonus
On Frost you will generally get quite a lot of Rime procs, especially during Abomination Limb. So the first part of this tier set bonus is just a nice bonus to those Rime procs, the rest of the bonus also gives those Rime procs more value by giving your next Frostwyrm’s Fury 5% additional damage per stack up to 50% (although, it will be pretty hard to get 10 stacks before your next Pillar of Frost).
This is nice to buff the Frostwyrm’s Fury that comes out from this set bonus, however the bread and butter of this tier-set comes from the 4 Set Bonus, which we will discuss next.
4 Set Bonus
With this 4 Set Bonus, the value of crit for Frost skyrockets. Pillar of Frost is a vital cooldown in Frost’s kit and has a few talents to complement it throughout the Frost talent tree, so adding 20% increased critical strike damage during Pillar of Frost windows is insanely good. So naturally the value of crit goes up, the more crits you get during Pillar of Frost, the more value you are getting out of this Set Bonus, and there is another talent which works very well with more crit… Icecap.
It’s going to create a snowball effect where more crit will allow you to deal more damage during Pillar of Frost, and also increase the rate at which Pillar of Frost comes off cooldown through Icecap, which then leads to more Pillar of Frost uptime.
Needless to say, you are going to be getting a lot of value from this Set Bonus, and it scales incredibly well in all scenarios.
Which bosses drop tier pieces?
- Lingering Phantom’s Dreadhorns: from Magmorax
- Lingering Phantom’s Shoulderplates: from Echo of Neltharion
- Lingering Phantom’s Plackart: from The Vigilant Skeward, Zskarn
- Lingering Phantom’s Gauntlets: from The Forgotten Experiments
- Lingering Phantom’s Schynbalds: from Rashok, the Elder