4x Ret Arena Week Two

[Mosg2]

http://www.filefront.com/14985457/Rets%20Week%202.wmv

1. Yes I know I'm skill-less.
2. Yes I know I need gladius.
3. Yes I know I need a new healer.

Just wanted to share my week and let everyone see. A few issues I noticed:

1. When I swap targets I have to hit my follow key for my guys to actually swap targets. I focus the lead toon and have everything assist them and I'm not sure what I need to do fix this. You can see one or two games where my dps is split because I couldn't get everyone on the same target.

2. Not having a snare or a MS is ridiculously hard to deal with. As I move from the blues I have to nice pvp purples this should get easier but the no-snare thing is never going to be straight up solved. This bodes ill for me in the long run.

So, feel free to blast me all you want. Just wanted to share my experiences this week :) I expect things to get better as I get more purples. Hopefully :)

[asonimie]

very nice! thanks for posting. And yes your UI and arena mods & overall targeting strategy could use some work, but it comes with experience. Let me know if you have any questions about anything.

[Mosg2]

We ended up going 5 and 5 this week and I got a new piece of gear this morning. If my Rogues weren't distracting me I'd be in full purples right now :)

I think once 3.3 hits and I can put on that sweet quested 250 dps 2h sword I'll be doing much better.

[Chronic1337]

Nice video! How come that you can turn so fast? (with a and d the turn keys)

Kind regards,

Chronic1337

[Mosg2]

I have IAWT on the main too so I can focus on other things.

[asonimie]

I have IAWT on the main too so I can focus on other things.

I was gonna ask you about that, how you likin it? Any issues with accidental mouse right clicks sending you running? How about maps like blades edge and sewers that have a lot of drop offs and LOS issues?

I've been debating with my inner self on whether or not to use IAWT on the main... or continue managing him manually. I suppose if a boxer gets RLY good at being efficient while using IAWT, it would free up SOOO much brainpower for other things like blinds / cc cooldowns etc. Almost feels like cheating lol.

[Mosg2]

Well, I justify it like this:

If I run the main and keep him on target the others will still be falling off edges etc while they're parkouring all over the target. 1/4th the dps on someone is worthless--I can't manually keep on a target and get the others on him too in, for example, Blade's Edge or The Sewers anyways. So, overall, I think it's a net increase to efficiency since NOW you can focus on all the nitty-gritty details of the toons.

And I totally think that time spent in the arena is going to be the major determining factor in how a melee multiboxed team does. I'm still getting used to my new healing and Divine Shield/Divine Sacrifice keybinds. Getting a feel for when to wings vice waiting for DS/DS is going to be super important and will hopefully get better over the next few weeks. It's a learning process :)

I had a n52e gamepad for a few days and apart from the fact that I have small girly hands that don't fit, it was really awesome. I bound IAWT to the wheel and they were STUCK to the target.

[asonimie]

Well, I justify it like this:

If I run the main and keep him on target the others will still be falling off edges etc while they're parkouring all over the target. 1/4th the dps on someone is worthless--I can't manually keep on a target and get the others on him too in, for example, Blade's Edge or The Sewers anyways. So, overall, I think it's a net increase to efficiency since NOW you can focus on all the nitty-gritty details of the toons.

And I totally think that time spent in the arena is going to be the major determining factor in how a melee multiboxed team does. I'm still getting used to my new healing and Divine Shield/Divine Sacrifice keybinds. Getting a feel for when to wings vice waiting for DS/DS is going to be super important and will hopefully get better over the next few weeks. It's a learning process :)

I had a n52e gamepad for a few days and apart from the fact that I have small girly hands that don't fit, it was really awesome. I bound IAWT to the wheel and they were STUCK to the target.

ya i have a really good IAWT keybind on my mouse, and my guys are glued to target as well. I can finger spam pretty fast (yay for drummers :P) I was discussing with Heyaz, for people getting into melee boxing, having a RLY comfortable and fast IAWT keybind that doesnt interfere with your regular keybind clicking is ESSENTIAL. Bad or uncomfortable IAWT keybind = huge loss in efficiency.

I think I'm going to keep with manual control for now.

[Mosg2]

Yeah, being able to IAWT on your mouse hand 2-3 times a second is essential imo~. I really wish I'd have been able to use the n52e effectively but it just didn't work out. I need something that more comfortably fits my little girly hands :)

I guess my goal is to get the Rogues to 80 also and grind both teams to full honor gear as quickly as possible. Without a snare/root/ms I'm really really really scared about my Ret team. I guess maybe I should consider doing DK+3 rets and a healer? Maybe drop the healer and just try DK+4 rets? Unfortunately I'm not good at thinking outside the box--I can replicate results but coming up with the initial idea is a bit beyond me :)

I think my major issue is that I get off track. My Rets are 80 and I love them but fear for their viability, so I roll some Rogues. Rogues are 65 and going nicely but I also fear for their viability, so I consider doing 4x DK. I guess I should just focus on taking 4x Rets as far as I can and then worry about other things. Hmmmm.

[BobGnarly]

http://www.filefront.com/14985457/Rets%20Week%202.wmv

1. Yes I know I'm skill-less.
2. Yes I know I need gladius.
3. Yes I know I need a new healer.


You forgot:

4. Yes I know I need to upload this to youtube. :)

[Multibocks]

Ya I would recommend a DK main as I can see you getting kited pretty well.

[Mosg2]

Well my DK is at 80 and fairly well geared. I guess I could give it a try in some AV's... Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. I hate mixed teams in pvp like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hates Jews.

[Multibocks]

Lol


................

[shaeman]

What is IAWT.?


I figured it was something like Interact with Target, but I'm missing an A :)

I enjoyed the video. Looking forward to seeing more, as you refine your setup.

[Multibocks]

It is interact with target and no I dont know where the extra A comes from, lol.

[Ualaa]

I always use IWT. But if someone wants an A in there, that's fine on their posts.

[asonimie]

Yeah, being able to IAWT on your mouse hand 2-3 times a second is essential imo~. I really wish I'd have been able to use the n52e effectively but it just didn't work out. I need something that more comfortably fits my little girly hands :)

I guess my goal is to get the Rogues to 80 also and grind both teams to full honor gear as quickly as possible. Without a snare/root/ms I'm really really really scared about my Ret team. I guess maybe I should consider doing DK+3 rets and a healer? Maybe drop the healer and just try DK+4 rets? Unfortunately I'm not good at thinking outside the box--I can replicate results but coming up with the initial idea is a bit beyond me :)

I think my major issue is that I get off track. My Rets are 80 and I love them but fear for their viability, so I roll some Rogues. Rogues are 65 and going nicely but I also fear for their viability, so I consider doing 4x DK. I guess I should just focus on taking 4x Rets as far as I can and then worry about other things. Hmmmm.

I think it's been shown that a person of average skill level can probably take rets to 1800 easily. If rogues prove insanely successful, I'll let you guys know... as soon as I hit gladiator muahaha.


What is IAWT.?


I figured it was something like Interact with Target, but I'm missing an A :)

I enjoyed the video. Looking forward to seeing more, as you refine your setup.

Interact Artfully With Target

[Mosg2]

My fiance noted to me a couple months ago that our kittens practice parkour all over the house whenever they get frisky. This kind of became an inside joke to us and our close friends. So, when I tried to relate the IAWT concept to her (she knows a bit about WoW already) my best shot was "Basically, this button makes my Paladins parkour all over the target". Since then, in my mind that's all I can think of when I see IAWT. I have to control myself from just calling it "parkour" on the message boards.

On topic:

I'm thinking about swapping from Keyclone to ISBoxer just so that I can use the repeater region to heal with left/right clicks on the character portraits. Anyone have any tips/suggestions? That would be a powerful feature that would free up a lot of buttons for me to use for other more important things.

[asonimie]

My fiance noted to me a couple months ago that our kittens practice parkour all over the house whenever they get frisky. This kind of became an inside joke to us and our close friends. So, when I tried to relate the IAWT concept to her (she knows a bit about WoW already) my best shot was "Basically, this button makes my Paladins parkour all over the target". Since then, in my mind that's all I can think of when I see IAWT. I have to control myself from just calling it "parkour" on the message boards.

On topic:

I'm thinking about swapping from Keyclone to ISBoxer just so that I can use the repeater region to heal with left/right clicks on the character portraits. Anyone have any tips/suggestions? That would be a powerful feature that would free up a lot of buttons for me to use for other more important things.

or 4 bindings, each binding directs all heals to a player.

[Mosg2]

That works, but that's a lot of button real estate just for healing. You've got Cleansing, HoF'ing, DS/DS round robin macroing, etc etc. Lots of buttons. Ugh.

[Multibocks]

Yes I find I have a shitton of utility buttons for my rets, need a keymap for my keyboard really. I think what you need to do is focus on whats important.
1. DPSing, probably need a seperate key for DS
2. Healing
3. Blessing of Freedom RR'd on main
4. Divine Shield on all
5. Divine Protection on all
6. Ret stun RR'd
7. Stun RR'd

and then just control the DK manually.

[Mosg2]

I agree, but fitting that plus IAW is not going to be easy methinks. I'm literally working on my keybinds as we speak.

[Multibocks]

Put your IWT in a place thats easy to hit and then work the other keys in as necessary.
I put IWT on my F key and then I just mash it as I move around.

[Mosg2]

Update:

I took the plunge and added my DK to the mix. All I can say is...

You know the Holocaust? Imagine the exact opposite of that.

Snares+DG+Buffs=Amazing sauce. It's a whole different world. Once I fixed the healing macros up everything started going my way.

[Mokoi]

ok when you mentioned your team parkouring all over a target, a little pee came out.

[Seldum]

I use repeater regions with ISboxer and I have more or less replaced Vuhdo with the normal mana and health bars as I only look at vuhdo during fights for information about health....

I don't have any clue how you guys gets your melee team to run around a given target... but if you are dependent on a mouseclick to attach targets then I think you might have a hard time using repeater regions to the max as they require you to move the mouse over the toon you want to heal (depending on the mod you use).

But Vuhdo really free up alot of keys - atleast for me, and I can bind different macros for different clicks ie. Right click = Regrowth, left = click - Rejuv etc. Also Vuhdo decurse etc. if you want it to.

I try not to have alot of shift+ctrl+x keybinds as they get a bit confusing to me.... KISS as they say hehe (Keep It Simple Stupid)

[David]

Ya I would recommend a DK main as I can see you getting kited pretty well.
I`m actually thinking of adding a 5th paladin to the team instead of the DK. I have no fun boxing my ret team with a dk as main, I really HATE dk`s:mad:

+ so far I din`t see much advantages. I never had real problems with people kiting me, unless it were really good mages, tho I`m not that skilled with my pallies yet. I think I`ll see how it goes with 5 of them.

Playing the team should be fun anyway:p, with a dk as main it doesn`t feel like playing rets anymore. I rather select the skills I want to use rather then have them on automode macro.

[David]

I just got to thinking. what if the main was a prot paladin? He offers some extra slows and silence. + his dps isn`t to bad. And he is hell hard to kill.

[Mosg2]

Sorry David, I'm sold. I did 5-6 AV's last night with the DK+4 Ret setup and the difference was like night and day. Chains of Ice alone would be worth it.

[shaeman]

I just got to thinking. what if the main was a prot paladin? He offers some extra slows and silence. + his dps isn`t to bad. And he is hell hard to kill.

Not sure Avenger's shield would be worth not running that pally as ret as well.

You could do the Prot in holy gear route for some big heals on the other toons, but probably wouldn't want to run him as the main in that case.

I know what you mean about DK's (I can't play on my solo DK because I just wish it was a pally), but I think the DK adds more overall - with Chains of ice, strangulate, mind freeze, and deathgrip.

[Seldum]

Put in a druid as the main... you woulden't find a more versatile char as your main.... :D But since druids suck in pvp (except when healing - comming from a guy who never pvp) it might not be a good idear.

[Whowantstoknow]

Prot Pally dps is perfectly viable (Prot Pally in Holy gear was nerfed hard and is not). I think a DK brings more than a Prot Pally though but going all ret I cant see being as viable as against good teams you will be kited.

[Mosg2]

After playing around with it I can't see any other main added to 4 Rets that brings as much as the DK does. Their buffs are comparable/better than every other melee class plus they have a shitload of defensive cooldowns and a lot of passive defense. Death Grip is amazing, as is Chains of Ice. Nobody is going to be doing any kiting with all the snares and stuns the team has together.

Prot Pally? I can't believe that even got mentioned in my thread :)

[David]

How did you handle your dps. DK and pallies both on a castsequence or click macro?

The idea what I get when doing the dk with my pallies is that I`m not really playing either class. I just spam 1 button to IAWT, another button spam to do dps with all 5. And then a few buttons to stun, slow silence and so.

The way it feels to me is that I don`t feel like I`m playing pallies anymore. Just running 4 in AV without the dk was tons of fun hehe.

[Mosg2]

All my Paladins have a /click for DPS and I manually control all the DK abilities. Healing and DS/DS macros and all the little stuff is mostly my mouse and my 1-4 keys. All of my DK damage abilities also pass through to activate their /click DPS macro so it's actually *really* simple. It took a couple hours and some outside-the-box thinking to get it done but now I'm super happy.

As an aside, after much testing I got a /click to work for me that's more DPS than I can manually output on the target dummy. Period. It's absolutely amazing.

So, I spam one mouse button for IWT and my E, F, Q, R, and Space Bar all do DK abilities and pass through to the /click for the Rets.

[David]

So with every ability clicked by your dk you send a keyclick to your pallies click macro as well?

[Mosg2]

Yes, all of my DK offensive abilities. Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Death Coil, Pestilence, Strangulate, Gargoyle, and Mind Freeze. This way I can still "spam" my DPS /click on the Rets while I selectively do abilities on the main. And as I said before, I got a click to work that is more efficient than I was manually doing abilities--It's that f'ing powerful.

[David]

But you can only bind 2 keys to one macro or do you have have a few of the same macro`s?

I really have to try this I think. Might be a good way.

[Multibocks]

If you are using innerspace its real easy. For each ability you use on your DK you just add the /click sequence on your Rets.
So, pressing 1 on your keyboards does:
DK
/cast Chains of Ice
Rets
/click Button1
/click button2
etc

Makes stuff real easy. However! You should make two sequences one with Divine Storm and one without. Divine Storm is one of those abilities you really want to be available when you need it. Sucks when they all go off at same time and person ran out of range. Doh!

[Mosg2]

When I get home I can post my /click macros for my Rets if someone really wants them. I got them off this board in the first place and then modified the number of nils in each to match my spam speed.

[David]

I use a click macro for my rets I just used a template from the forums and removed a ton of comma`s. Now it uses every skill once it comes from cooldown. Since they only really use 4 main abilities they are idle autoattack most of the time anyway soa finetuned click doesn`t seem usefull for me.

[Mokoi]

everyone is crying about having the DK as the main.. so make it the alt, the DPS he does (if specced for buffing the pallies) isn't as good as the pallies anyway, and with glyphs, you replace icy touch with chains of ice, and the kiting issue is solved almost XD

I prefer to play my paladins with 4 DPS buttons, it makes the burst easier to handle, and sometimes you dont want to spam your buttons and if you pause for a bit, you lose cooldowns. I prefer to have all my buttons ready for me to choose when to use them. Pallies don't have enough abilities, like feral druids, for me to have to use clicks, i dunno, personal preference I guess =)

I really enjoy my paladin team, and we have a blast in BGs and arenas so far, losing more than winning since my gear is junk, but it feels a lot more organic than facerolling on my shamans.

[Multibocks]

Eh I would think you would want to drive the DK, so many abilities that you really dont want to find keyboard space to macro (yes sometimes clicking is a good thing!)

[Mosg2]

I have no problem at all driving the DK while the Rets are in tow. As I said, my /click is more efficient than I can possibly be. I think the hardest part is getting used to a new keybind set to be honest. Now that I'm starting to sink into the one I'm currently using I feel 10x better.

[Multibocks]

Hardest part to me is specc'ing the DK and figuring out what I should be casting, lol. Everytime I look into it I get discouraged and stop before I finish.

[Mosg2]

For PvP I'm trying out this Blood/Frost spec for max group damage and self healing. I looked at Krom's spec and it appears his Blood/Frost is for his 5's team and the Unholy is for his 2's and 3's. I will be trying to do a bunch of games this weeked (I've gotten 4-5 upgrades in the past week) and I'll do my best to Fraps them.

[Ruodhaid]

When I get home I can post my /click macros for my Rets if someone really wants them. I got them off this board in the first place and then modified the number of nils in each to match my spam speed.

I would love this, i just reactivatet my accounts, and dm/sm boostet 4 paladins to 35, i have a dk ready at 60 to take over my main´s boosring spot for the pvp grind i will do 60-80.

I would relly love some macros and some advice interact? what is that :)

[heyaz]

Yes please post the click macros, I have no idea how to play my rets

I just hit buttons and i see a lot of yellow sparklies and stuff
sometimes people die