Looking for some wisdom from those with experience with 5 DKs or 5 Melee

[Coltimar]

I have collected a bunch of sweet data from DK and melee boxers but I would like to lean on some specific wisdom. I am looking for 5 things that you either recommend doing or not doing, or both. If you have 5 DK or 5 melee experience please list 1 - 5 some tips that would have saved you some headache. Anything from formations, to specs to tips on getting all 5 in range.

Thank you very much, in advance,
Colt

[Tdog]

5xRet Pally is the way to go imo. You barely even need to do any actual healing even on boss fights. Should you actually come across a boss that hits too hard to have a ret pally tanking you can simply change your main into a prot spec real quick.

[ElectronDF]

I use 5 heavy blood (imp blood press/bloodworms) with range in frost and perm ghoul in unholy. I LOVE It. Pet can't be resummoned for a very short time (changed in 3.1) but still love it. I like Draenei for the heal (GotN). I use taunt to rotate aggro so almost everyone gets hits equally. My thought, if you have auto-magicial healing and you aren't hurt, you are wasting it. So I like to make everyone get hurt equally by taunting. Things I like about DKs that I would miss in a pure melee only group (warrior/rogue, etc)..... Runners (chains/deathgrip), ranged casters, ranged mobs in general, of course healing even if small self-healing. If I was too bored (working on my locks now), I would try 5 pallies. That just sounds fun now that they changed ret. Pretty much, heavy armor and a heal beat most other things.

[HPB]

What are you looking for tips about? Leveling up and questing? Instancing? PvP?

Tip #1
For leveling up and instancing, if you pick a ret team, you will want to set up your healing very carefully. Healing is a mana drain for a ret pally and you don't want to be doing it often. Here's how I had mine set up for leveling and ret pally instance runs: Pseudo AOE Little - Each Pally casts Flash of Light on themselves; Pseudo AOE Big - Each Pally casts Holy Light on themselves; Little Heal - Flash of Light on Main's Target's Target (main has a dummy macro, does not heal for this); Big Heal - Holy Light on Main's Target's Target (main has a dummy macro, does not heal for this). Remember that if everyone is almost full on health that judgement of light and divine storm should be enough to fill your pallies up. Most low level mobs die before you ever need a heal - but effective healing becomes important for higher level elite mobs while questing and instancing.

Tip #2
Use those judgements! If you have 5 Paladins, you should always be able to keep your judgements of light and wisdom up. You'll also have 5 auras at once. On your alts run: devo, ret, concentration and fire resist. On your main you can run crusader/frost. This way if you forget to switch out of crusader while running around questing, you don't lose much (unless you're going against a frost caster).

Tip #3
On your main, run righteous fury. This keeps the mobs focused on your main and makes your life so much easier. You know who needs a heal the most often and can keep control of damage. Otherwise, mobs will bounce from toon to toon and switch aggro due to crits.

Tip #4
Don't be afraid to spend a few points in holy or prot as you level. There are some great talents in those first few tiers. Also, while it is easier to just spec the 5 paladins the same, remember that your main is up front and taking a bit more damage. Your alts are casting heals more often than your main. You may spend a few more points in holy on your alts and a few more points in prot on your main. For this reason I often ran with a 1-H and a shield on my main (especially in instances).

Tip #5
Chose which toon will someday be your Prot (dual-spec) and which will be your Holy (dual-spec). Do this before you hit northrend. This way when a quest reward comes up that isn't really better than your current gear, but there is a holy/prot alternative available you can start building a second set. This is especially true for trinket rewards as many times you won't get better trinkets until you actually start doing heroics.

Tip #6
As far as Librams go, never throw them away or sell them. They are sometimes impossible to replace. For this reason be careful which ones you choose as quest rewards, and plan ahead. Do the venture bay/grizzly hills pvp quests. In a single day you will have enough venture coins to buy a nice libram for your whole team. Once you hit 80, you are likely to be using the epic librams for 15 emblems, but while you're leveling and instancing your way to 80, these quest rewards and pvp items are important.

[Coltimar]

Not really leveling as much as combat tips. I have a team at 64 that are all casters and 1 prot pally and I am looking at adding some melee dps to the group and, eventually, having a 10 man squad.

[Coltimar]

No one really weighed in on Death Knights. I have started a 5 man DK team and I'm set to jump into Ramparts. I was reading the litany of posts about 5 man group specs. Most everyone said Blood was the way to go at first but now people are recommending going into Unholy. I have checked out a lot of DK specs and almost all single DK groups are unholy. Did the healing decrease enough from blood to merit the shift to unholy?

If someone could illuminate the suject I would appreciate it.

[Stealthy]

DK's got hit with the nerf bat hard in 3.1...for multiboxers, the killer was blood aura no longer stacking...however they are still viable as a 5-dk group, although the spec is different now.

Have a look at Zerocool's armory here: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Durotan&n=Suxthemost

My armory is here, but at the moment I've set my DK team up as PvP based: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Magtheridon&n=De%C3%A2thgrip

Cheers,

S.

[Coltimar]

Ok, so Unholy/Blood now. Get 540 def and rock steady? I don't have Dark Command yet so if a guy gets aggro he is screwed. I tried changing my main to Frost Presence if a slave gets aggro but I can't get it back atm :/ Once my DKs hit 65 I am going to mix them into my main, mixed group anyhoo, I think. I imagine heroics are a bear.

[Stealthy]

Hmm, well if you in isntances, you should have all your guys in Frost Presence. But yeah without Dark Command you will struggle. Once you get it though, you can round robbin it to pass agro on to each of your toons and spread the damage around. When everyone gets low, rune tap the health back up (spec'cing Imp Rune Tap and having the Rune Tap Glyph is a must).

If you're going to have one of your DK's tanking for another group (like me) 540 defense is needed to be uncrittable by raid bosses. But if you are only running heroics, then 535 defense is all thats needed. Either way, at lvl 80 Defense should be the priority stat until capped...then start looking at Stam (you want 25K+ unbuffed for raids) / Strength (for threat) / Dodge / Parry / Expertise (reduces the chance a mob will block/parry your attack) and Hit as well. The good news is that a lot of tanking gear is either crafted / BOE / rep rewards.

Cheers,

S.