DK+4 rets: How to manage FEAR bombs

[Firstcow]

When I would get fear bombed in arena I used to just trinket all of them. So a second fear could many times be fatal. One pally or my DK would die easily.

Somehow last night I ended up playing against a 2400 MMR team. I'm around 1820 or so. I don't know why the stupid system put me against them but it did. And to my surprise I beat them. I got lucky a little bit because one of their DPS came after me and he was out of sight of his healers for a just a few seconds which was enough to land me a kill. After which it all went downstream for them.

But the critical thing was how I managed fear. They had a priest and a lock I think. That combination is often lethal for me if they time their fears right.

So here's how it works. Do NOT trinket all the pallies. Do this:

Trinket pally1. Immediatelly on that pally target pally2 and spam Cleanse.
Then spam Cleanse with all pallies on pally3.
Then spam Cleanse with all pallies on pally4.

This can be done with macros, although a little cumbersome, but it can be done.
You need 4 general cleanse macros for each pally. Let's call these G1, G2, G3, G4.
And you need 4 macros that does "trinket + target next pally + cleanse". Let's call these T1, T2, T3, T4.

I think with some cast sequences you could do this in just 4 buttons. Let's say on button one: first cast is trinket + cleanse on next pally, then cleanse on 3rd pally, then cleanse on 4th pally. On button 2, pally1 does only cleanses, no trinket, but pally2 does trinket and then cleanse. etc.

At the first fear bomb, you spam T1, then G3, G4. This puts the trinket of pally1 on CD. [If the case sequence thing works, then you just spam one button. I haven't tried it yet though.]
At second fear bomb, you spam T2, then G4, G1. This puts the trinket of pally2 on CD.
Etc.
If you practice this and do it real fast while watching some mod that tells you when all fears are off, in a couple of GCDs (i.e. 3 seconds) all pallies are out of fear and you only blow ONE trinket instead of FOUR.

Also, while this is happening, make sure you press some DK defensive ability so that until pallies get out of fear he doesn't die from focussed dps.

Hope this helps...

[modhackmaster]

Sorry for being a noob, but can Cleanse remove fear?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Sorry for being a noob, but can Cleanse remove fear?

Some fears are magic effects; they can be cleansed/purged.
Horror effects cannot, IIRC.

[Maxion]

Horror effects don't last as long though, and are normally not aoe.

[heyaz]

cross cleansing is the way to go.I don't quite have the system the OP described but they will alternate cleanses. not everyone gets hit by fear, and 2 of them get out of it 30% faster and it works pretty well actually. I lot of times I'll trinket a full fear bomb immediately because it may prevent a kill and I don't have time for 3 globals to get everyone out

[Firstcow]

Disregard this thread if they completely screw the ret pallies with their planned changes for dispels. If rets lose ability to dispel, it's game over for DK+rets. There won't be any way to get out of fear bombs except the trinket. It might still be possible to get to 1800 without being able to dispell anything, but I don't see DK+rets viable post 1800 without Cleanse.

[Boylston]

Firstcow, are the other members of your multibox team named:

Foxyloxy
Turkeylurky
Duckylucky
Gooseyloosey

Just curious?

[heyaz]

Disregard this thread if they completely screw the ret pallies with their planned changes for dispels. If rets lose ability to dispel, it's game over for DK+rets. There won't be any way to get out of fear bombs except the trinket. It might still be possible to get to 1800 without being able to dispell anything, but I don't see DK+rets viable post 1800 without Cleanse.

game over. now what to do with all these obsolete toons?

[Boylston]

game over. now what to do with all these obsolete toons?

We will be forced to sell them all on eBay where we bought them in the first place!!1!

[Svpernova09]

We will be forced to sell them all on eBay where we bought them in the first place!!1!

true story



(i lol'd irl)

[Zugdud]

we will be forced to sell them all on ebay where we bought them in the first place!!1!

haha, awesome

[drevil]

Disregard this thread if they completely screw the ret pallies with their planned changes for dispels. If rets lose ability to dispel, it's game over for DK+rets. There won't be any way to get out of fear bombs except the trinket. It might still be possible to get to 1800 without being able to dispell anything, but I don't see DK+rets viable post 1800 without Cleanse.


yup.. game over

another 5 pvp chars down the toilet... again

best thing.. priests mass dispell is so overpowered and they don't touch it

[Fat Tire]

yup.. game over

another 5 pvp chars down the toilet... again

best thing.. priests mass dispell is so overpowered and they don't touch it


The mana cost for dispels is going way up and mana regen is being destroyed. I wouldnt hesitate to say that dispels are going to play a much smaller role now.

I would for sure wait until the class previews before trashing your team. Also, its wise to lvl up a whole set of characters that way you never have to worry bout nerfs. :D



OT: Ebay thing was priceless!

[Boylston]

Glad I could entertain. I didn't know whether Svpernova would ban me for the eBay reference or laugh...

[Shodokan]

Eating fears sucks, but dont forget with the extra points we have if the things stay the way they are we will have an extra 30% reduced disorientation/fear time as well. Fear is an offensive spell as well... so there will only be 2 classes able to dispell it (shaman and priest)... so it is a problem for multiple classes and not just paladins. So technically this makes every melee team unusable unless it has a priest or shaman healer.

[Maxion]

Eating fears sucks, but dont forget with the extra points we have if the things stay the way they are we will have an extra 30% reduced disorientation/fear time as well. Fear is an offensive spell as well... so there will only be 2 classes able to dispell it (shaman and priest)... so it is a problem for multiple classes and not just paladins. So technically this makes every melee team unusable unless it has a priest or shaman healer.

I think you must have missread what blizzard meant about offensive dispelling, which only shamans and priests can do, dispelling buffs on the enemy.

Fear will be dispelled on your own team with defensive dispelling, which all the healing class/specs will be able to do.

[Shodokan]

I think you must have missread what blizzard meant about offensive dispelling, which only shamans and priests can do, dispelling buffs on the enemy.

Fear will be dispelled on your own team with defensive dispelling, which all the healing class/specs will be able to do.

aah... mmk i did misread it. Thanks for the clarification.

Heres to hoping that rets get some sort of snare so we can throw a healer in the mix then.

[Ualaa]

Go with kitties...

Berserk x5, is a fear break and 15 seconds immunity (20 glyphed), plus you have your trinket.
I'm thinking my second glyph will be full health from battle rez, which will be round-robin.

I'd think the DK/Ret team would have the edge in arena, but am not sold on them being stronger in battlegrounds, especially with all the toys druids get.

You also have dual-spec for Bear + Tree, for the PvE aspect of the game.

[Firstcow]

Go with kitties...

Berserk x5, is a fear break and 15 seconds immunity (20 glyphed), plus you have your trinket.
I'm thinking my second glyph will be full health from battle rez, which will be round-robin.

I'd think the DK/Ret team would have the edge in arena, but am not sold on them being stronger in battlegrounds, especially with all the toys druids get.

You also have dual-spec for Bear + Tree, for the PvE aspect of the game.

I tried 5 kitties in pvp and it doesn't work. Yes, you get fear immuniti for 20 seconds, but that's about it. You have no healing whatsoever, you can only heal a couple of times and you're OOM. And those heals take cast time which is a NO NO in arena. If you just use the insta heals they are pathetic without any spell power, and it takes 3 seconds until the first tick actually ticks. In 3 seconds you are dead, and kicked while being dead, like a dead kitty.

The great thing about rets is they have great burst and at the same time a lot of insta flash heal procs. And all this while in plate armor. Nothing matches them right now except shamans with a dedicated healer. But I hate having to depend on other people so shamans is not an option for me.

[Firstcow]

This can give some hope to DK+rets:

"We’re going to change almost every number in Cataclysm to adjust for everything from single ranks of spells to larger health pools to new combat ratings. With much higher health pools, hopefully burst damage will go back to being a tool and not the only way to win matches. "

Much higher health pools means you probably can't be killed no matter how long one fear lasts. And for sure it won't last long on the person that is being trained, who can at that point use a defensive ability.

This means the first fear could probably be ignored and NOT trinketed, unless they use it when one of my chars are already low on HP.

So if I don't trinket the first fear assuming I can survive through it, then my palies will be all over the place so a second AOE fear is unlikely to happen immediatelly, they will be too spread out. So as soon as first fear is over, I quickly change target and hit interact on all so they get back all together. Of course there's corners to worry about and stuff, but that's the basic idea.

[Boylston]

I don't know how you can say that a comment made by the devs stating that they want to de-emphasize burst damage as a surefire way to win matches will be good news for a multiboxing comp specifically designed for maximum burst damage.

*boggle*

[Shodokan]

This can give some hope to DK+rets:

"We’re going to change almost every number in Cataclysm to adjust for everything from single ranks of spells to larger health pools to new combat ratings. With much higher health pools, hopefully burst damage will go back to being a tool and not the only way to win matches. "

Much higher health pools means you probably can't be killed no matter how long one fear lasts. And for sure it won't last long on the person that is being trained, who can at that point use a defensive ability.

This means the first fear could probably be ignored and NOT trinketed, unless they use it when one of my chars are already low on HP.

So if I don't trinket the first fear assuming I can survive through it, then my palies will be all over the place so a second AOE fear is unlikely to happen immediatelly, they will be too spread out. So as soon as first fear is over, I quickly change target and hit interact on all so they get back all together. Of course there's corners to worry about and stuff, but that's the basic idea.

Hopefully we still have bubble.

[Firstcow]

I don't know how you can say that a comment made by the devs stating that they want to de-emphasize burst damage as a surefire way to win matches will be good news for a multiboxing comp specifically designed for maximum burst damage.

*boggle*

We'll have to see how much burst Paladins have left in cata. If things stay similar with how much burst Paladins have now compared with the other classes, that means this comp will still have more burst than other comps. And combined with the survivability of this comp, dk+rets can still be ahead of most other comps. Think about it, if I can't burst them fast, they for sure won't be able to burst me. So since mana won't be an issue for paladins, it's a matter of how fast you can make their healers go OOM.

But if they nerf paladin burst then obviously it's no longer viable and we all have to go locks or shamans or who knows what.

[Boylston]

I think you have a fair and interesting point with other teams not being able to burst DK+Pally teams down so fast. All the arena games I play in are over VERY VERY fast. (The meaningful part, anyhow).

I just worry if that battles are drawn out longer, the advantage goes to the singleboxed teams who have finer control over their characters' actions. The "everyone focus fires at the same time" advantage that multiboxers have may go away significantly if burst is not as compelling a factor in winning matches.

One thing we CAN do that singleboxed teams struggle with is switch focus targets quickly and completely. That's a nice advantage now, but again, I fear that it becomes less of an issue later on. (Maybe a good way to cause healers to blow their mana pools less efficiently, though...)

[Ualaa]

Well, while it can be retarded to have someone drop in a global or two...
They won't want to go with the opposite route too far, as players are going to really hate the shortest matches being in the 10-15 minute range.
There will be a happy medium somewhere.

We still retain the advantage of coordination and burst vs single box teams.
And are still lacking in simultaneous different actions by toons.

The other consideration is rated battlegrounds.
Surely we'll have the burst to take out individual players without healer support.
But the question becomes, can our group of five take out more then five at once in BG's.

Wherever we have a larger advantage, that's where we will play.
Arena and BG's give more options for attaining a high rating.

[Firstcow]

Rated BGs will be much harder for us boxers because they will be practically bigger arenas. And arena players are a lot better at pvp than your average BGer you see in BGs today. It's just like fighting a premade in a BG today, it's very hard, unless you have a full premade too, which still doesn't make it easy, it just gives you a chance to win.

[Ualaa]

Still they said all of the battlegrounds will either be 10, 15 or 25 players.
And that you cannot queue with more then 5 toons at once for a BG.
There won't be nearly as many premades, in rated battlegrounds as there are currently... as you can only be certain groups of five arrive in the same BG.

Given a rated battleground that rewards points which purchase the same rewards as rated arena...
I would assume the majority of the battlegrounders will choose the rated option.
Currently under 1500 rating, you get the same base amount of points, so there's nothing to lose and points to gain.
Which would mean, rated BG's won't be any harder then the current unrated BG's.

So the question remains, looking at the required win percentage to reach or maintain 'x' rating in arenas...
Which will be easier/harder to do - win that percentage while controlling 80/100% of your side but playing against five focused/coordinated toons, or controlling 20/33/50% of your side but playing against competition of much greater variation in skill and gearing?

[drevil]

Rated BGs will be much harder for us boxers because they will be practically bigger arenas. And arena players are a lot better at pvp than your average BGer you see in BGs today. It's just like fighting a premade in a BG today, it's very hard, unless you have a full premade too, which still doesn't make it easy, it just gives you a chance to win.


well, premades always have the advantage.. no matter if arena, bg, open pvp or whatever.

ofcourse we have to wait for notes from blizzard about rated arenas first to make useful claims,
but one thing is sure, boxers will "always have a benefit" in the large (40) bgs,
because of two simple reasons: more confusion & killing > tactics.

[Mosg2]

Rated BGs will be much harder for us boxers because they will be practically bigger arenas. And arena players are a lot better at pvp than your average BGer you see in BGs today. It's just like fighting a premade in a BG today, it's very hard, unless you have a full premade too, which still doesn't make it easy, it just gives you a chance to win.

I completely disagree.

Rated BG's are going to be a boxer's paradise. They specifically stated that they would not allow more than 5 people to que in a single group--This means that *at worst* it's your premade vs their premade... And considering how capable we are already at dismantling evenly matched teams I think it's going to get much better. Please also consider that there really won't be a best comp for rated BG's--People are just going to gravitate into groups where they play well together and can be on at the same time. This is going to be good for us: No more Wiz Cleave, 4x Melee Cleave etc. Gimmick teams (minus boxing of course) just won't work well.

All imo~

[heyaz]

I completely disagree.

Rated BG's are going to be a boxer's paradise. They specifically stated that they would not allow more than 5 people to que in a single group--This means that *at worst* it's your premade vs their premade... And considering how capable we are already at dismantling evenly matched teams I think it's going to get much better. Please also consider that there really won't be a best comp for rated BG's--People are just going to gravitate into groups where they play well together and can be on at the same time. This is going to be good for us: No more Wiz Cleave, 4x Melee Cleave etc. Gimmick teams (minus boxing of course) just won't work well.

All imo~

I dunno man, when I see a 4-5 man premade, especially in the smaller groups, even when you manage to shut them down they'll still annihilate the rest of your team and you won't be able to carry them. Hell as many tricks as we have to pull just to carry the rest of the team pug vs pug I don't see how it's going to go very well if a half or third of their team plays like a 2k+ arena team

[Mosg2]

I dunno man, when I see a 4-5 man premade, especially in the smaller groups, even when you manage to shut them down they'll still annihilate the rest of your team and you won't be able to carry them. Hell as many tricks as we have to pull just to carry the rest of the team pug vs pug I don't see how it's going to go very well if a half or third of their team plays like a 2k+ arena team

Well, I think proportionately compared to now there will be a lot more people doing rated BG's than arenas--My hunch is that instead of a que for rated games vs non-rated you'll just que for whatever game (Or random I guess) and then get a personal rating based off off win/loss and personal performance. Imo~.

All of that means, to me, that there will be more people playing and your chances of running into a game where half of'em play like a 2k+ arena team are low.

In any case, Void and I are brainstorming our asses off looking for good BG/arena comps post Cata launch :)

[Ualaa]

They stated that AV will become a 25-man, instead of a 40-man.
And that all BG's will be 10, 15 or 25 players.
And the largest group that can queue together will be a 5-man group.

I'd suspect if you want a rated battleground, you'll be forced to choose the random BG.
Which would make premades even harder to build.

Sure the opposing side can have a 5-man 'premade' group.
And they might even have multiple groups in a given BG.
But your side has the same likelihood of this.
And we are already a highly coordinated 5-man premade.
So the only thing certain in BG's is your side has a single premade.

I have a lot more fun in battlegrounds against random masses, then in arena against focused opposition.
Battlegrounds are chaotic, and aren't always 5 vs 5, you'll find 15 vs 2 or whatever.
Plus in BG's you can mix it up, recap bunkers/towers or rush the end base etc.. not always the same game every game.