Mosg2's DK Manifesto

[Mercbeast]

Looks like they nerfed holy paladin in a hurry.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/143288/holy-paladin-nerfs

Is it still a good choice for the DKs ? or simply take bloodlust + tremor for pew pew.

I don't like the passive healbot mode with the Paladin. I switched to Prot and it is working pretty well for me. I've made a DPS priority macro just like the DK one Mosg2 setup.

Now, if I am running with a pocket healer, I think Shaman might be the best bet. About the only thing that bothers me is fear bombing and tremor will be lovely to deal with that. Holy pali might be better able to survive, but I think I can keep any melee off the Shaman so all it would need to worry about is potential range DPS. With BL + Tremor ya, I think I'd love me a pocket shaman healer.

[Ualaa]

Prot is an interesting idea.
It adds to the attack, and is rather hard to down, can still bubble etc.
A good toon to lead the team with; DK's going IWT/Priority Macro spam.

You still bring some healing to the team.
Decurse is weaker, but the DK's are immune (via abilities) to a lot of crap.

I'll try Prot, and see how it goes (DK's just hit 80th).



For the healing.. I'd think Pally is the best choice at the moment.

But once Resilience/Mitigation catch up to damage...
Disc = Bubble popping, decent heal throughput, some mitigation, strong group heals, decurses, AoE decurse.
Shammy = Heroism, Tremor, Resistance via Healing Stream, Self Rez, Earth Shield.
Pally = Heal throughput, Bubble, Resistance Aura
Druid = HoT and forget, MotW, Thorns vs Melee, Cyclone/Root, Stealth until heals needed.

[Mosg2]

After playing some rated BG's and doing some Arenas I'm even more sold that the Paladin is the best healer. Bubble, HoP, Freedom, resist aura etc... These are all things that are great but really the Bubble breaks it. Bubble is insane.

[Mercbeast]

Has anyone played around with dropping HB for obliterate and using hungering cold on round robin?

Right now I have my DPS HB macro setup on R, considering making a DPS oblit macro on T. It will allow me to fluidly switch between the two for those situations where surgical precision is better than the HB blunt instrument.

However rolling into water works on ruins of gilneas late, using blood tap, and firing off 3 HB's then using empower rune weapon to fire off 2 more is pretty hilarious ;p

[Mokoi]

hungering cold is only useful if you havent used a single HB, because HB should be applying frost fever, and if you HC a group, they get broken by the frost fever.

OB is a nice single-target idea, though, but it is rather more costly, and perhaps not worth the alternatives in most situations. Also, you would need to glyph it to be most effective,. and i cant see dropping any of the glyphs for it

[Mercbeast]

Right, but that CC is pretty rowdy. I think it is definitely an alternative, even if only to supplement your style. In Arena's I think it could be quite handy on some maps that are more open. Locking down a healer for 6 seconds or so means whoever you are blowing up is going to die.

I've only done 2 5v5's with my group lost both but they were learning experiences. The second run, I picked druid out of a druid/priest healing combo and when my paladin went down, priest was oom and druid alone cannot heal through the DPS. This took maybe 10-15 seconds.

[Mosg2]

I think the problem with making any plans involving Hungering Cold in an arena setting is that it's just too easy to avoid it. When you see 4 DK's you know what's coming. All of the extra steps you have to take in order to make it work against another team are, in my opinion, not worth the stress. If you want CC, setup a Strangulatex4 on arenatarget1-4 and then go to town.

To be completely honest, this team is even more powerful than I expected it to be. The damage output, the healing capabilities, all of it--Insane. I'm considering making a more PvP focused thread for this team and explaining what I've changed post-Cata and what I've tried etc. Unfortunately any video making is going to cut into Zin'Rokh farming time :) I'll keep this thread updated as best I can.

On another note: Void and myself transferred to Kil'Jaeden Alliance and are mopping up with Legion of Boom. If you look at either Void's or my stream you can see the carnage--Mokoi Frapsed his end and should be putting it together sometime in the next week.

[Noids]

I use Hungering Cold more as an interrupt/distraction than a holding CC in PvP. I don't think the damage of frost fever breaks it either, it is only damage other than diseases that break it.

The main reason not to use oblit IMO is that you miss out on your necrotic strikes. Even if you are doing more damage with oblit vs NS/Icy touch, the psychological advantage you get with the heal debuff from NS is too good to pass up.

So for PvP single target attacks I would look more at Icy touch/NS instead of obliterate. Come to think of it what sort of damage does glyphed chains of ice do?

[BrothelMeister]

I use Hungering Cold more as an interrupt/distraction than a holding CC in PvP. I don't think the damage of frost fever breaks it either, it is only damage other than diseases that break it.

The main reason not to use oblit IMO is that you miss out on your necrotic strikes. Even if you are doing more damage with oblit vs NS/Icy touch, the psychological advantage you get with the heal debuff from NS is too good to pass up.

So for PvP single target attacks I would look more at Icy touch/NS instead of obliterate. Come to think of it what sort of damage does glyphed chains of ice do?

I'm not sold on this "psychological advantage" you guys are referring to for necrotic strike vs Obliterate.

Running Frost DK + 4 Rets, the moderate damage alone causes a double healer team to be completely oom after 30 seconds or less (time goes by in a weird way in arena :p ) I have my 1 DK use Obliterate as a priority, with HB only saved for ranged snare, or ranged damage.

Basically, if you are putting enough pressure on the target from using your OB, you shoudn't be running into an issue of Necrotic Strike really kicking in. The healers will already be using as effective (and inefficient) heals as possible from seeing 4 DK's mauling a target.

[Kromtor]

4dk + healer better than 4 ret 1 dk in arena at 2200+
you could have some fun vs ungeared teams early in the season with 4 ret 1 dk but don't expect to get 2200+

i love the 4 dk comp and i'm leveling it up now

[Mosg2]

@BrothelMeister:
Necrotic Strike takes overall more healing to repair than if we used the Unholy runes for OB or some such--Not to mention the whole getting-diseases-on-target stuff. The joy of it is that the DK's damage even without NS is enough to wreck people.

And I think the psychological point is a good one. I find that the other teams healer(s) *MUST* always be casting the fast inefficient heal in order to A) heal the damage and B) wear down the NS stacks. It means that when you do a Strangulatex4@arenatarget1-4 you win. I'm finding healers going OOM in less than 20 seconds.

@Kromtor:
I got your PM but I'm working 16 hour days for the next two days :) Tomorrow night maybe I'm going to do another Manifesto-type thing and hopefully comment on the issues you brought up.

@All:
This team is the balls.

[wyofiddler]

Mosg2: This thread, and your enthusiasm for this team in general, have me leveling a brand new team that I'm really excited about. Also, I really appreciate how open you and everyone else have been with talking through all the setup details of how to make this team work.

[Mosg2]

@all:
I did some testing on the target dummies tonight and found what I feel are some pretty conclusive results about specs:

1. Unholy single-target is about 6800-7k dps. I was able to get a really good mash button going that would reapply new diseases when I get a new target but otherwise would Scourge Strike and Festering Strike. The DPS spiked to 8k-8300 dps once the pets went enraged but that's not something you're going to see often in BG's and arenas I think.

2. Frost single-target was about 6k-6200 dps. I was able to fine-tune my dps setup and get a great mash button going that was equivalent to hand-running one of them as Frost. This however does NOT take into account the prevented healing from Necrotic Strike. Each NS I do is 6800 healing prevented. I get AT LEAST two per 10 second rotation, usually 3 based due to random rune resets from Frost Strikes. That makes another 13.5-20k "damage" per 10 seconds. Divide that down and you're basically doing 7.5k-8.5k dps on the Frost DK's to a target that's getting healing.

This is with ilevel 333 blue pvp gear and the CoC weapon against a single level 85 heroic dummy.

3. I tried out having one Blood DK/3x Frost and then one Unholy DK/3x Frost to see if the DPS went up across the board. The DPS went down with the Blood DK by a fair bit and it went down by a little bit with the Unholy DK.

4. I was able to work Hungering Cold into my spam button in such a way that I get all four of them usually in the first 15 seconds of combat but usually not all at the same time. It's insane.

5. Profit!

[Mercbeast]

@all:
I did some testing on the target dummies tonight and found what I feel are some pretty conclusive results about specs:

1. Unholy single-target is about 6800-7k dps. I was able to get a really good mash button going that would reapply new diseases when I get a new target but otherwise would Scourge Strike and Festering Strike. The DPS spiked to 8k-8300 dps once the pets went enraged but that's not something you're going to see often in BG's and arenas I think.

2. Frost single-target was about 6k-6200 dps. I was able to fine-tune my dps setup and get a great mash button going that was equivalent to hand-running one of them as Frost. This however does NOT take into account the prevented healing from Necrotic Strike. Each NS I do is 6800 healing prevented. I get AT LEAST two per 10 second rotation, usually 3 based due to random rune resets from Frost Strikes. That makes another 13.5-20k "damage" per 10 seconds. Divide that down and you're basically doing 7.5k-8.5k dps on the Frost DK's to a target that's getting healing.

This is with ilevel 333 blue pvp gear and the CoC weapon against a single level 85 heroic dummy.

3. I tried out having one Blood DK/3x Frost and then one Unholy DK/3x Frost to see if the DPS went up across the board. The DPS went down with the Blood DK by a fair bit and it went down by a little bit with the Unholy DK.

4. I was able to work Hungering Cold into my spam button in such a way that I get all four of them usually in the first 15 seconds of combat but usually not all at the same time. It's insane.

5. Profit!

Pertaining to point 4, do you find you are breaking them with HB's or what? I'd be interested to see your new setup.

Currently I am running HB HB HB NS NS FS BS

I was running HB HB HB FS FS NS BS before. Trying to hit that balance between frost striking and getting NS up early and often.

This is of course referring to the pseudo priority DPS macro you showed us.

[Mercbeast]

Ok, the arena with the elevator is absolutely comedy gold. The other team has almost no chance. I just finished my CQ points for the week and had that one pop up twice. Here is how the second fight went.

I hit blood tap as the elevator took us to the top, I hit lichborne as we reached the top. I tabbed to the shaman in their group.

I quickly unloaded 3 HB's without moving, Shaman is at 20k HP remaining~ hit Empower Rune Weapon, hit 2 more HB's without moving. Shaman dies. I tab to the next target, a warlock running away from me. I grip him and kill him, spin around to see what is left.

Match ends. My opening 15 HB's killed 4 of their team. I almost feel bad, the whole match lasted 7 seconds maybe.

I also ran into a 5 box shaman group named Zappity or something similar. That didn't go well for the shamans, who did pretty much instantly blow up one of my DK's. Once I got into them however, arcane torrent round robin left them helpless. I wonder if Zappity is on these forums.

[Shodokan]

I've been slacking, i need to get my games in but i had stuff going on :(

[Mosg2]

My current pseudo prioritization is this (Remember the FIRST HB gets pressed on downpress so happens first 90% of the time if there's a Frost rune available):

HB / HB / FS / FS / NS / BS / HC

Yes, they break HC now and then. Yes, sometimes it goes off when nobody else is around. Yes, sometimes they all use them in the first four seconds.

Those are rare occasions.

The reason I have it in the spam button is because, to me, healing is the #1 priority for this team. You *have* to be a good healer to make this team work. Anything I can do to minimize how much effort I have to use maximizing what the DK's do is that much more effort I can spend on healing and positioning. HC in the spam button means it's erratic and really messes with the other team. In the games I played HC frequently hit 2-3 people after all my Frost runes were on CD and then my team went FS/NS happy on a single target. It was amazing.

[BrothelMeister]

Ok, did some target dummy testing and I retract my previous statements suround Obliterate vs NS + HB.

NS + HB does more damage, even if you don't count the debuff from healing, and the debuff from healing is about 60% the damage of the two attacks combined.

Definitely replacing OB with NS on my DK + Rets team.

[Slats]

I'm planning on leveling my Priest up with my DK's simple so if I want to run a dungeon daily I can and having one DK die on my is a PITA.

However I'm curious if anyone is playing this comp in arena/bg's with a priest? Was wondering how mass dispell/power word: barrier would be in these situations.

Also I've been following heaps of the justin.tv stuff and enjoying everyone in EOTS and the newer battlegrounds owning it up. Looks like great fun.

Are you guys just letting you IWT spam? Or are you using some kind of wait xx seconds? I dont see your guys run around insane circles as much as my DK's seem to do.

[Boylston]

Slats, mosg2 has IWT wrapped into his down keypress actions in a PvP key group so that they are constantly IWT-ing. I would imagine his PvE keyset has more of a IWT once type setup.

As for priest, I think mosg2 (and others) are fans of the Paladin because of the bubble advantages. I think they are compelling, honestly. However, I am somewhat like you in that I have a Priest available to run with my fledgling DKs. There is one little thing I keep thinking about that might make the priest interesting.

Holy Spec's Spirit of Redemption. It's 15seconds of mana-free, un-interruptible healing. That's nearly double the length of time that Pally is in his bubble, and it can't be dispelled.

Now, I think the enemy team is going to probably always focus-fire your healer down if you play a priest, but it might be OK if you can have a good length of time to punish them for that effort.

Also, the cooldown on Spirit of Redemption resets, well, every time you die. This means in a BG situation, it becomes more useful if you're defending a node-- when you respawn, it's up again. :)

[Kromtor]

i still think in a perfect world you're going to want to mix DK specs for optimal DPS. think of all the time it took to tweak your frost, it'd probably take even longer to get everything working right with 2 more or 3 different spec'ed DK's at once.

that being said we don't operate under perfect settings and it very well may be that 4 frost is the way to go simply due to more simultaneous burst from all those HB's hitting at once.

i love seeing viable arena teams that are truly 5 boxed. 4+1 friend is cool, but I don't think we've had a real 5 boxer get gladiator since the Ellay days with 5 shaman - correct me if i'm wrong i've been out of it for a while.

[Mosg2]

@Boylston:
It's funny that you bring Priest up. Me, Mokoi, and Void have come to the further (further!) conclusion that Priest is just plain better. Basically, you're either playing in BG's/Arenas against scrubs in which case it doesn't matter who your healer is. Otherwise, you're playing rated BG's/Arenas against people who are capable--Which means bubble is going to get Shattering Throw'd or Mass Dispelled immediately.

Priest also brings:
Preventative healing.
Fear ward.
and most importantly...

YOU GET YOUR OWN MASS DISPEL!

Mass Dispel turns every target into a good one. Mages are my number 1 kill priority due to that stupid ring of frost... Mass Dispel fixes them just fine :)

So yeah, currently finishing Archaeology and then grinding out a Priest from 60 to 85.

[Mercbeast]

i still think in a perfect world you're going to want to mix DK specs for optimal DPS. think of all the time it took to tweak your frost, it'd probably take even longer to get everything working right with 2 more or 3 different spec'ed DK's at once.

that being said we don't operate under perfect settings and it very well may be that 4 frost is the way to go simply due to more simultaneous burst from all those HB's hitting at once.

i love seeing viable arena teams that are truly 5 boxed. 4+1 friend is cool, but I don't think we've had a real 5 boxer get gladiator since the Ellay days with 5 shaman - correct me if i'm wrong i've been out of it for a while.

I'm pretty sure mixing spec's won't maximize your DPS output. The pressure you put on other teams with just HB is ludicrous. In the elevator arena, I've killed 4 players of a team in less than 7 seconds just blowing cooldowns to keep churning out HB.

That is probably close to 500k cumulative damage deal in the first 10 seconds of a fight. That is going to OOM healers :)

[BrothelMeister]

Slats, mosg2 has IWT wrapped into his down keypress actions in a PvP key group so that they are constantly IWT-ing. I would imagine his PvE keyset has more of a IWT once type setup.

As for priest, I think mosg2 (and others) are fans of the Paladin because of the bubble advantages. I think they are compelling, honestly. However, I am somewhat like you in that I have a Priest available to run with my fledgling DKs. There is one little thing I keep thinking about that might make the priest interesting.

Holy Spec's Spirit of Redemption. It's 15seconds of mana-free, un-interruptible healing. That's nearly double the length of time that Pally is in his bubble, and it can't be dispelled.

Now, I think the enemy team is going to probably always focus-fire your healer down if you play a priest, but it might be OK if you can have a good length of time to punish them for that effort.

Also, the cooldown on Spirit of Redemption resets, well, every time you die. This means in a BG situation, it becomes more useful if you're defending a node-- when you respawn, it's up again. :)

I've done the whole spirit of redemption thing in arena, it doesnt work. all they have to do is outrange the healer and stay teh hell away for 15 sec, and theyre safe.

[BrothelMeister]

i still think in a perfect world you're going to want to mix DK specs for optimal DPS. think of all the time it took to tweak your frost, it'd probably take even longer to get everything working right with 2 more or 3 different spec'ed DK's at once.

that being said we don't operate under perfect settings and it very well may be that 4 frost is the way to go simply due to more simultaneous burst from all those HB's hitting at once.

i love seeing viable arena teams that are truly 5 boxed. 4+1 friend is cool, but I don't think we've had a real 5 boxer get gladiator since the Ellay days with 5 shaman - correct me if i'm wrong i've been out of it for a while.

Ellay 4 boxed shaman I thought with a 5th player healing, like the normal team 0_o

[Kromtor]

i don't know, i knew he did that toward the end but i thought he at least did some 5 shaman in the very beginning. maybe never to gladiator though. has anyone got gladiator playing all 5 themselves with any configuration?

[Slats]

So I'm setting up my Rotation. I am using F as my DPS Key. I have 2 Keymaps in my Death Knight PVP Key Set that are bound to F in ISBOXER.

DPS Priority (F)
2 Step Keymap, Functions on Press OR Release, Hold Other Actions Disabled
Step 1:
- FTL Assist Me > Self
- Melee IWT > Death Knight PVP ATG
- Howling Blast > Death Knight PvP ATG (WoW Macro Action)

Step 2:
Send CTRL + 7 > DK ATG (HB ingame)
Send ALT + 7 > DK ATG (HB ingame)
Send SHIFT + 7 > DK ATG (Necrotic Strike/Plague Strike)
Send CTRL + 8 > DK ATG (Frost Strike)
Send ALT + 8 > DK ATG (Frost Strike)
Send SHIFT + 8 > DK ATG (Blood Strike)
Send CTRL + 9 > DK ATG (Hungering Cold)

Mind Freeze RR (F)
4 Step Keymap, Functions on Pressed, Hold Other Actions Disabled
Step 1: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
. Mind Freeze -> Slattersa (WoW Macro Action
Step 2: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
- Mind Freeze -> Slattersb (WoW Macro Action)
Step 3: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
- Mind Freeze -> Slattersc (WoW Macro Action)
Step 4: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
- Mind Freeze -> Slattersd (WoW Macro Action)

Can mosq2 or void or any of the others running this comp let me know if this is the way its being done now? I really like to keep stuff in ISBoxer as much as possible so I was wondering if in the DPS Keymap Step 2 if you change all the keystrokes being sent to keymap actions being sent will it still have the same kind of effect or not? Any changes I need to make to this?

[Mosg2]

What you have is exactly how I have mine set up currently. That particular combination of abilities also led to the most DPS for me on a training dummy.

[zenga]

Mind Freeze RR (F)
4 Step Keymap, Functions on Pressed, Hold Other Actions Disabled
Step 1: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
. Mind Freeze -> Slattersa (WoW Macro Action
Step 2: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
- Mind Freeze -> Slattersb (WoW Macro Action)
Step 3: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
- Mind Freeze -> Slattersc (WoW Macro Action)
Step 4: (Do not advance to next step for 2.5s)
- Mind Freeze -> Slattersd (WoW Macro Action)


I'm not familiar with isboxer at all, so neither with its 'slang'. But what you do, is that pausing / delaying keypresses?

[Mosg2]

It will not advance to the next step for 2.5 seconds, so what you get is Mind Freeze as soon as they get in melee, then 2.5 seconds later you get another, then 2.5 seconds another etc etc. It's like commas in a pre-4.03 macro except it functions perfectly.

[Ualaa]

I prioritize the Frost Strikes ahead of the Necrotic Strike.

The software does execute top down.
Even though you are essentially spamming six buttons, the earlier spells are sent first and have a higher chance to be cast then the later spells.

I'd ideally like a system where:
a) Howling Blast is cast, if there are available Frost Runes;
b) When there are no Frost Runes, Frost Strike if there is Runic Power;
c) When no Frost Runes or Runic Power, do a Blood Tap;
d) Necrotic Strike when all that fails;
e) and Blood Strike if a-d fails;
f) and Hungering Cold if everything else fails.

Cannot quite get that precise.
But the six buttons being spammed is pretty decent.




I like the Priest route too.

I initially set up the Priest to join the DK's.
Then set the Paladin up.
And have ended up going with the Priest.

While not as durable as the Paladin..
I like Mass Dispel, and the Priest is my favorite healer.

Playing the Healing, with a mixture of Follow the Healer and IWT is very different.
Still learning the keybinds for the team; unfortunately, use the same keybinds for several teams.
So Shift A, is both Bear Form and Death & Decay.
But focusing on two primary teams, instead of seven.. might be able to learn the keybinds a bit faster.




The Mind Freeze is basically...

You have the software withhold the sending of a given keystroke for the predetermined duration.
You still have to push each keystroke yourself.
It just won't do anything, until the elapsed time has passed.

If you could push the button.
Wait for the determined time to pass.
And have the software push the button which you had queued previously, that would be a delay and bannable.

But the reverse...
Specifically not allowing a pushed button to be sent, is not in violation of the ToS/EULA at all.
You still have to push each Mind Freeze yourself, so it's ok.

[Slats]

OK I'm having issues.

I have several abilities I just never use. or activate with this 6 button spam style setup.

Is perhap the fact I have F bound to two keymaps also splitting that input so everything in Step 2 on the first keymap is harder to get through?

I have 3 HB, 1x PS, 2x FS, 1x BS, 1x HC.

I never ever seem to use PS or BS. Just a shit load of HB and the odd Frost Strike. Mind Freeze seems to be going off just fine. I've tried moving the buttons around a bit but while PS will go off every now and then its still feeling very busted.

Can someone put their Mind Freeze Keymap and their DPS Keymap into pastebin so I can import it and take a look?

[ashlor]

http://pastebin.com/kHUQhj9N

Here are my teams key maps Shift 4-6 are Defensive CDs Ams lichborn and IBF F3 is mount then the RR for death grip and send next click for DnD
on my bars in order 1-6 HB/HB/HB/FS/FS/PS,BS (cast sequence)
hope they help you figure out what you got going on =)

[Slats]

Thanks for jumping on my server ashlor was good to chat.

This is the solution I ended up going with - which long story short is dong ask ISBoxer to send a million modifier combinations of the same key rapidly along with expecting it to do FTL well.

It seemed my game clients didn't like me using key combinations like Ctrl +7 Alt +7 etc the way I was. Because in Step 1 I was also calling FTL I think perhaps there wasn't enough time in between the FTL modifer call and the keys being sent. Possible latency issue as I'm in AU on about 350ms ping.

I instead changed it up a bit. On downkey I am doing:

FTL Assist > Self
Melee IWT > DK's
1 > DK's (HB/IT)

On up I'm doing:

1> DK's (HB/IT)
1> DK's (HB/IT)
4 > DK's (FS)
4> DK's (FS)
2 > DK's (PS/Necrotic)
3 > DK's (BS)
Shift [ > DK's. (Hungering Cold)

Set it up with F being the trigger key and my Mind Freeze RR set to F also.

Works beautifully, gained 2-300dps (@68 so no HB yet for me) and my MF goes off just about every time its up and Hungering goes off quite reguarly and randomly.

Very very pleased!

[JackBurton]

b) When there are no Frost Runes, Frost Strike if there is Runic Power;
c) When no Frost Runes or Runic Power, do a Blood Tap;

I know your probally just making a priority top to bottom setup but can you see party members runes from Pitbull4?

[Ualaa]

I was using Pitbull 3.x prior to the Warcraft 4.x patch... which broke Pitbull 3.x. I looked at Pitbull 4.x, but it didn't have all the options I wanted, or at least after several hours of messing around with it, I could not find them. So I went with another unit frame addon, pretty sure it was Shadowed Unit Frames... which the default profile had exactly what I couldn't find with the newer Pitbull. Pretty sure I was looking for the Target of my Party Members, as a dragable bar, so I could position all four of them in a vertical stack immediately beneath the party frames.

Pretty sure Pitbull could be configured to show party runes; if you're willing to dig deep enough, it's been able to do just about everything else... But I'd rather have a mashable sequence, which prioritizes (as closely as possible) HB > FS > NS > Other Moves... and just mash the sequence, and then worry about targeting the team for IWT and Healing... and not actively manage my DPS based on the runes available.

Frost Strike has a 45% chance to instantly replenish a spent rune. Which is why I'd like to Howling Blast > Frost Strike, as with only Frost Runes spent, those would automatically be the replenished rune. Blood Tap is on the GCD, so while I don't mind it being cast prior to combat, it is a burst loss in combat. Necrotic Strike is the other big ability, which I'd like to stagger 4x every 5 seconds, so they're regularly being applied at an even pace.

[thedreameater]

Horde the clear choice is BE.

Ally human or worgen probably.

This is if you are absolutely set on min maxing.

The human trinket racial is really good and Worgen(And goblins) just have stupidly strong racials period)

BE's have arcane torrent and grip + arcane torrent spells insta-doom for any caster you suck in and you don't even need to use mind freeze to accomplish this. When I enter large fights, just running into as many casters as possible and cycling your arcane torrents works wonders for cutting healing or ranged magic DPS down.

I've skimmed the 20+ pages and didn't find a true preference for race. I've seen some are already going Orc..

Any thoughts about race preference?

[JackBurton]

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110296-frost_dps_cataclysm_4_0_3_stereo_love/

Worgen
The fact that they’re new is irrelevant; Worgen have, hands down, the best PvE racials of any Alliance (or, debatably, any) race. Visciousness provides a passive 1% crit, while Darkflight gives the utility of a 40% speed sprint every 3 minutes. The two just cannot be beat, and their value isn’t dependent on using a specific weapon type or gearing around a special stat cap.

Goblin
It shouldn’t come as any huge surprise that Goblins, being a brand new race, are much better than average. 1% increased attack/cast speed is quite decent, and a resource-free nuke (or, alternatively, blink) on a 2 minute cooldown is free dps, pure and simple. Easily the best horde race for Frost, although the competition isn’t exactly stellar, and they would easily lose out to Worgen and, potentially, Draenei.

Orc
Orcs are decent, but nothing stellar. 3 expertise when using an axe, 5% pet damage, and a 15s boost to AP every 2 minutes. Although that may all look good on paper, when you consider that the expertise boost is based on weapon itemization available, the pet boost is essentially meaningless for us, and the AP cooldown scales with level (1170 at 85) and not gear... well, it's nothing too special to say the least. Still, second best is better than last, and Orcs handily beat the rest of the horde races.

[Noids]

I chose gnomes for my DKs.

The logical part of this choice is the trinket free racial to escape snares which is sweet for melee classes.

The illogical part is the joy of seeing 4 small specs moving to and swarming a massive tauren and one shotting them :P

I do likt the fact that gnomes are slightly harder to click target in PvP also, but with arena bars this is negligible really.

I would suggest picking a race you enjoy playing rather than purely based on racials. In effect racials really only make 1% difference at best.

[Ualaa]

I like Blood Elves for horde.

From a mechanical point of view, the AoE silence is another excellent tool for the domination of casters.
The extra DPS for Goblins is probably superior, but I hate AoE fear and Spell Cleave as a boxer...

And from an aesthetic point of view, all my toons are female so Blood Elves are the premier horde option here.

[Mosg2]

Alliance side Humans are the best, hands down. A free trinket is worth, currently, 349 epic ilevels of DPS stats. Also consider that it scales as more tiers of gear become available.

However, I chose Worgen. They look so awesome swarming over people :)

[thedreameater]

Alliance side Humans are the best, hands down. A free trinket is worth, currently, 349 epic ilevels of DPS stats. Also consider that it scales as more tiers of gear become available.

However, I chose Worgen. They look so awesome swarming over people :)

I thought of the best name for Worgen toons - Misterwhite, Misterblonde, Misterorange, and Misterpink.

[thedreameater]

I like Blood Elves for horde.

From a mechanical point of view, the AoE silence is another excellent tool for the domination of casters.
The extra DPS for Goblins is probably superior, but I hate AoE fear and Spell Cleave as a boxer...

And from an aesthetic point of view, all my toons are female so Blood Elves are the premier horde option here.

Personally, I think Orcs look the best - they are so vicious looking! I think you're right though. A rotating AoE silence is quite wonderful.

Kills me to make a belf. They aren't horde.

[genghiskhan]

ima get around to reading this someday...just thought id let you know...

[Mercbeast]

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110296-frost_dps_cataclysm_4_0_3_stereo_love/

Worgen
The fact that they’re new is irrelevant; Worgen have, hands down, the best PvE racials of any Alliance (or, debatably, any) race. Visciousness provides a passive 1% crit, while Darkflight gives the utility of a 40% speed sprint every 3 minutes. The two just cannot be beat, and their value isn’t dependent on using a specific weapon type or gearing around a special stat cap.

Goblin
It shouldn’t come as any huge surprise that Goblins, being a brand new race, are much better than average. 1% increased attack/cast speed is quite decent, and a resource-free nuke (or, alternatively, blink) on a 2 minute cooldown is free dps, pure and simple. Easily the best horde race for Frost, although the competition isn’t exactly stellar, and they would easily lose out to Worgen and, potentially, Draenei.

Orc
Orcs are decent, but nothing stellar. 3 expertise when using an axe, 5% pet damage, and a 15s boost to AP every 2 minutes. Although that may all look good on paper, when you consider that the expertise boost is based on weapon itemization available, the pet boost is essentially meaningless for us, and the AP cooldown scales with level (1170 at 85) and not gear... well, it's nothing too special to say the least. Still, second best is better than last, and Orcs handily beat the rest of the horde races.

Gotta disagree here. Any melee class that can be BE, should be BE. You ask on arena junkies or any "hardcore" WoW PvP'r and they will tell you the same. Arcane torrent is the premier racial pvp ability for a melee class.

[Mercbeast]

Got my PvP 2h swords tonight. I'm sitting around 3k resil on my DK's and 3.5k on my Paladin (just straight stacking resil atm).

I still have plenty of room for improvement play wise, but I am going to make an earnest attempt this week to push to my rating limit.

Starting to learn what to do and what not to do. I HATE blades edge and dalaran arenas, they are a massive handicap for melee boxing.

One tip I would like to pass on that I have found to be extremely useful is this.

When you are about to engage with the enemy, don't spam your IWT DPS spam, instead fire off your blood tap, then hit a hotkey bound for HB 3x as fast as possible, then hit your rune reset and fire off 2 more. While you are doing this, have your DK's follow you and run away from the other team. The key to this is to catch a minimum of 2 or 3 people in the majority of your HB's.

Most healers will go into panic mode and not be able to handle the fact most of their team just went from full to dead or <20% hp in a matter of 5 or 6s. I like to target what I think is the primary healer if possible because they will focus on healing themselves while you can quickly mop up any DPS that is near death.

This has been my most successful opening move and when I catch more than 2 people in the HB barrage I have not lost.

It is a pretty effective kite tactic and allows you to unload as much DPS as possible before the fight really even begins.

[Boylston]

Two things:

First, I have started leveling my 4xDK+Priest team in earnest now. Thanks, mosg2... =P

Second, I see something scary on the horizon (From Ghostcrawler, re: PvE damage):


On fights where there is a lot of area damage, http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/iwarlocks.gif Demonology warlocks, http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/ideathknights.gif Frost DKs and possibly http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/ihunters.gif Survival hunters are all too high.

Howling Blast nerf inc??

[Mosg2]

I think they're just going to put a target-cap on it. Even if they do, /shrug. It won't be less than 5. Even if it was 2-3 it won't be bad.

On the upside, they plan on addressing DK mobility in pvp. It'll be huge if we get some sort of clicky for roots/snares on top of DG plus snares and all that jazz :)

Overall, this is the happiest I've been with a team in boxing since mid-BC :)

[Shodokan]

Two things:

First, I have started leveling my 4xDK+Priest team in earnest now. Thanks, mosg2... =P

Second, I see something scary on the horizon (From Ghostcrawler, re: PvE damage):



Howling Blast nerf inc??

we'll see what happens, i dont see it going under 5 targets though either.

[Ualaa]

Chances are, it will be target capped like most other AoE's.
As in full damage to 10 targets.
And if there are more than 10 targets, each takes a percentage of the damage that 10 would have taken (example 20 targets, each takes 50%).

I can live with that.

[Multibocks]

i still think in a perfect world you're going to want to mix DK specs for optimal DPS. think of all the time it took to tweak your frost, it'd probably take even longer to get everything working right with 2 more or 3 different spec'ed DK's at once.

that being said we don't operate under perfect settings and it very well may be that 4 frost is the way to go simply due to more simultaneous burst from all those HB's hitting at once.

i love seeing viable arena teams that are truly 5 boxed. 4+1 friend is cool, but I don't think we've had a real 5 boxer get gladiator since the Ellay days with 5 shaman - correct me if i'm wrong i've been out of it for a while.
you mean you didn't get gladiator for your paladin team??

[Kromtor]

nope, if i remember correctly i was in the top 10 but my stupid battlegroup had such low active teams that it wasn't high enough.

[Shodokan]

nope, if i remember correctly i was in the top 10 but my stupid battlegroup had such low active teams that it wasn't high enough.

highest 5's on my battlegroup is 1800... like 300 points behind every other battlegroup. i'm going to have to deal with that.

[Kromtor]

well it's a fair system they have, you just gotta be in the top 0.5% of the active teams in your battlegroup to get gladiator. you'll be at a disadvantage getting to 2200 when you're on a low population server but it's not really an excuse for not getting gladiator. My team just wasn't good enough to get it - good teams will kite your pants off even on the easier maps - and on the bridge map you might as well quit vs. a competent team.

they're already planning on nerfing necrotic strike by making it resilience affected, not sure if that'll be enough to jeopardize the DK team. msog2 is gearing up fast though and looking good.

[Shodokan]

well it's a fair system they have, you just gotta be in the top 0.5% of the active teams in your battlegroup to get gladiator. you'll be at a disadvantage getting to 2200 when you're on a low population server but it's not really an excuse for not getting gladiator. My team just wasn't good enough to get it - good teams will kite your pants off even on the easier maps - and on the bridge map you might as well quit vs. a competent team.

they're already planning on nerfing necrotic strike by making it resilience affected, not sure if that'll be enough to jeopardize the DK team. msog2 is gearing up fast though and looking good.

The reduction in healing for 4x dks won't matter really, even if effected by resil. You are still getting 4*(.6 ( .75*ap)) Assuming 10k AP you get 18k healing reduction per necrotic applied by your team, which is still unhealable considering you can get one on the target every 2-3 seconds.

[Noids]

The reduction in healing for 4x dks won't matter really, even if effected by resil. You are still getting 4*(.6 ( .75*ap)) Assuming 10k AP you get 18k healing reduction per necrotic applied by your team, which is still unhealable considering you can get one on the target every 2-3 seconds.

Yeah I agree. The only nerf that would really affect NS for us is if they stopped it stacking as it does currently. Mind you the theorycrafting we were doing pre XP assumed that it probably wouldn't stack anyway, so not sure this is a massive problem.

[Mosg2]

NS not being affected by resilience was most likely an oversight and it doesn't bother me at all that it's going to get fixed. In 2's/3's a competent DK can get 80k healing debuff on a target through a Strangulate/Ghoul Stun. It being affected by resilience changes nothing for this team--This team is about ridiculous melee-dps that's easy to one-button mash combined with ridiculous mobility via DG, AMS, Trinket, Snares, and great ranged DPS.

The fact that they acknowledge DK's need more mobility means we're probably going to get something that breaks the team for boxing even worse than NS :)

[Boylston]

I just blew up my first pack of 10 people in a level 69 BG last night. Damn you, mosg2...

One question-- if you folks have spent time leveling in instances, did you run one Blood DK as a tank?? I've cleared Utgarde Keep a couple times using all frost spec (but killing bosses with everyone in Blood Presence, if appropriate). It's a little dodgy on bosses, and I feel like my healer is repeatedly saving the day on the tougher guys. I wonder if I should dual-spec one into Blood and setup a true tank for at least the boss fights...

[Mercbeast]

I just blew up my first pack of 10 people in a level 69 BG last night. Damn you, mosg2...

One question-- if you folks have spent time leveling in instances, did you run one Blood DK as a tank?? I've cleared Utgarde Keep a couple times using all frost spec (but killing bosses with everyone in Blood Presence, if appropriate). It's a little dodgy on bosses, and I feel like my healer is repeatedly saving the day on the tougher guys. I wonder if I should dual-spec one into Blood and setup a true tank for at least the boss fights...

I've done a little instancing with my group. In some instances I run 1 blood DK and the rest frost, in some instances I run everyone blood and I have everyone DW.

The passive healing you generate through blood worms is almost more healing than you need for any normal instance.

As a melee group, I don't bother with heroics, I've downed a few bosses but for what I am doing it simply is not worth it.

My main blood DK however has 5 359 (think they are 359!?) epics and is over 160k HP with BoK so she can tank all the heroics pretty easily, the problem is how many fights are just totally unsuited to melee groups.

[Boylston]

Thanks for the input, Mercbeast!

My main concern is just having some fun levelling in Northrend content. I'm trying to make sure the team gets the daily BG and the daily dungeon done each day, and rest XP+instancing is real nice. Besides, there are some good 2H blue rewards along the way (UK, DTK, etc) that are handy to have for BGs.

I hadn't considered seriously going all Blood, but it makes sense. I could probably run my priest in Discipline Smite Spam mode to help top off any lowbies. I am probably one of the few people with a priest who is spec Disc/Holy. :)

[Mosg2]

I usually had one guy go Blood spec to "tank" while the 3 Frost guys do dps. Tank is a word I use quite loosely here... I've had some success doing regulars with them ALL Blood spec. Vengeance makes for some ridiculous damage.

As an update:

I picked up the Conquest weapons yesterday morning and I have to say that these guys are fucking insane. I can melt any non-Mage in about 2-3 seconds with just my regular DPS button. Mages take a bit more work (ie, I have to hit Strangulate once first) but they go down just as easy.

[Mercbeast]

I usually had one guy go Blood spec to "tank" while the 3 Frost guys do dps. Tank is a word I use quite loosely here... I've had some success doing regulars with them ALL Blood spec. Vengeance makes for some ridiculous damage.

As an update:

I picked up the Conquest weapons yesterday morning and I have to say that these guys are fucking insane. I can melt any non-Mage in about 2-3 seconds with just my regular DPS button. Mages take a bit more work (ie, I have to hit Strangulate once first) but they go down just as easy.

Ya, I'm in the full honor set + conq weapon. I've stacked resilience, paladin is around 3.5k, DK's a little below that. I picked up the conquest weapon for my DK's tuesday morning as soon as CQ points rolled over and I go through people like butter.

[Vociferate]

Will you be able to upload any of these videos to You Tube? I cannot watch Justin.tv on my iPhone, and I have limited bandwidth through my main internet provider.

Watch the first video, and very nice job. I'll see what I can do about continuing to watch the other's.

Oh and I guess one last thing, I sifted through about 15 pages but I wasn't able to find any of your macro's.

Will you possibly welcome the idea of posting your layout for your macro's? I have a general idea from what Ualaa posted, but I would be very thankful if you can post how you have your stuff set up.

Cheers for this, great job mate.

[Slats]

That is a really interesting notion. 4 Blood Tanks and 1 Healer. 4x Rune Tap is pretty crazy no? :-)

[Mosg2]

I've got the next three days off and my plan is to A) finish my honor set, and B) do another Manifesto that quite clearly explains everything I do in an easy-to-follow video format.

[Ualaa]

That is a really interesting notion. 4 Blood Tanks and 1 Healer. 4x Rune Tap is pretty crazy no? :-)


I leveled the DK's, quite a bit of the way with 5x Blood.

The Rune Tap every 30 seconds, is a sizeable heal.
The bloodworms from five DK's is pretty decent healing too.

Obviously the DPS is a lot lower.
But you have a lot of survivability in exchange for the DPS loss.
Death Strike, will heal for a fair amount too.

I was using a very basic sequence of Heart Strike & Obliterate, with Rune Strike as the fall through.
Chances are, that could be improved upon.
I like that Heart Strike hits three targets and is only a Blood Rune.
Obliterate was a Frost and Unholy, which probably isn't a great idea once we get Necrotic Strike.

I would think, with a dedicated healer, 4x Frost would be superior.
Or in instances 1x Blood, 3x Frost, 1x Healer.
But 4x Blood and a Healer would be a very decent option for instances.

[ashlor]

4 frost worked out quiet well for me doing early wrath normals, however If I were to make the team a PVE team It would be much wiser in the long run to make one of them blood and build them towards tanking. I was able to just blow through the content usually with minimal loses but at times one would take a huge hit and then I would fall behind on healing.


@Mosq2 super, I would love to see some more info on your current healer the pally and possible some theory craft on the priest, if you have some time to throw that in there and are taking request. =)

[Shodokan]

4 frost worked out quiet well for me doing early wrath normals, however If I were to make the team a PVE team It would be much wiser in the long run to make one of them blood and build them towards tanking. I was able to just blow through the content usually with minimal loses but at times one would take a huge hit and then I would fall behind on healing.


@Mosq2 super, I would love to see some more info on your current healer the pally and possible some theory craft on the priest, if you have some time to throw that in there and are taking request. =)

Priest is viable for bgs, but bubble makes the paladin a bad target... in arena if you do not run with a paladin or something with a lot of cooldowns to keep them self alive then you're fucked. You get pain suppression + power word: barrier basically as an o-shit.

I just rafed a priest and wasted some time, but it's fine.

[Mercbeast]

I leveled the DK's, quite a bit of the way with 5x Blood.

The Rune Tap every 30 seconds, is a sizeable heal.
The bloodworms from five DK's is pretty decent healing too.

Obviously the DPS is a lot lower.
But you have a lot of survivability in exchange for the DPS loss.
Death Strike, will heal for a fair amount too.

I was using a very basic sequence of Heart Strike & Obliterate, with Rune Strike as the fall through.
Chances are, that could be improved upon.
I like that Heart Strike hits three targets and is only a Blood Rune.
Obliterate was a Frost and Unholy, which probably isn't a great idea once we get Necrotic Strike.

I would think, with a dedicated healer, 4x Frost would be superior.
Or in instances 1x Blood, 3x Frost, 1x Healer.
But 4x Blood and a Healer would be a very decent option for instances.

The only time I really would recommend 4x blood for instances is fights where you really should CC, but due to your group you cannot. Then you just zerg in with all 4 DK's as blood and let them fight for agro. This is also why I use DW when I run all DK's as blood. Worms are a chance to spawn per hit, DW = more hits. It isn't uncommon to see 10+ worms up when you are all DWing.

[JackBurton]

Timings?

Im interested in what the community thinks are the most efficient use of timings. I normaly use 1.5 to prevent overuse from spaming. What are you guys using for your ISBoxer Reset and Next Step timings for each spell?

Name NextStep/Reset

Chain 4/NA
Strangulate 4/NA
Death Grip 1.5/30
Howling Blast 1.5/NA
Mind Freeze 2.5/10
Hungering Cold 1.5/60

[JackBurton]

What is your PVE stragegey for Trash and Bosses?

My Trash Strategy

2 Mobs
Death Grip most dangerous one, Most of the time thats the caster. If you Grip from max range It should be almost dead before the next one arrives. Use RangeDisplay to determine your range. I like range display better than any other range addon to date. because you can place the range to target anywhere on the screen. I place my range just below my toons feet.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/range-display.aspx

3 Mobs
I PW:Shield my team while en route to next bunch. I get two free hits on the enemy before im on them with two howling blasts. I Death Grip ranged in close and wait for most mobs to bunch up on me. I CC everything and effectively silence casters with Hungering cold. The intial salvo of howling blasts makes taking them out one by one much faster. I take out most dangerous targets first following each kill or two with another Hungering Cold. If faced with 4 or more mobs at the start lay DnD and PW:B and use HB based rotation. When fighting 3 ore more mobs to me its more important to PW:Shield all my toons than to get to soften up targets with HB while running to target. Its important to target the caster before you Hungering Cold them because your DK's will be wailing on whatever target you last had most of the time.

4+ Mobs
I PW:Shield my team while en route to next bunch. I get two free hits on the enemy before im on them with two howling blasts. I Death Grip ranged in close and wait for most mobs to bunch up on me. I CC everything and effectively silence casters with Hungering cold. Lay DnD and PW:B and use HB based rotation. Positioning is everything. When grabbing multible groups for AoE use Hungering Cold liberaly. This gives you breathing room to get the mobs into a nice ball.

[ashlor]

Priest is viable for bgs, but bubble makes the paladin a bad target... in arena if you do not run with a paladin or something with a lot of cooldowns to keep them self alive then you're fucked. You get pain suppression + power word: barrier basically as an o-shit.

I just rafed a priest and wasted some time, but it's fine.

yeah I probably should have been a little more specific on that, I can see the priest as the more suitable healer but, I don't have one or raf atm so I have stuck with the pallie for the time being, but I was more interested in the macros he uses currently and what he will be using in the future for the priest. =)

[Boylston]

I ran 4xBlood plus my priest in a few instances last night. I didn't glyph anything, since I was a little lazy, and it was still Faceroll time through the instance. Huge difference. Killing speed was a bit slower on trash, but it was completely safe. Glyphed Rune Tap would be even more healing...

I think the way to go may be to just flip flop back and forth between frost and blood depending on difficulty of the boss/fight.

[Shodokan]

yeah I probably should have been a little more specific on that, I can see the priest as the more suitable healer but, I don't have one or raf atm so I have stuck with the pallie for the time being, but I was more interested in the macros he uses currently and what he will be using in the future for the priest. =)

i think you mistook what i said. I leveled a priest and i wasted my time doing so as i'm back to playing paladin.

[Slats]

So you levelled up a Priest and did some Arenas with it and decided the Paladin 'bubble while I mash heals and my DPS keys' works alot better in this shock and awe style setup?

I guess I'm not too biased either way as I dont have too much experience either way. I'm collecting Honor Gear on my Paladin while i level up my Priest + 4 DK's.

[Shodokan]

So you levelled up a Priest and did some Arenas with it and decided the Paladin 'bubble while I mash heals and my DPS keys' works alot better in this shock and awe style setup?

I guess I'm not too biased either way as I dont have too much experience either way. I'm collecting Honor Gear on my Paladin while i level up my Priest + 4 DK's.

Priest has less ways to stay alive than a paladin and is less mana efficient... plain and simple. The pre-emptive healing is nice, and penance is nice... but ultimately their survivability when being focused is less than a paladin.

[Kromtor]

i was thinking druid at first just cause for some reason they're harder for me to kill in 5's than pallies, but im leveling my pally again now that they're gonna nerf bear juv.

[Noids]

Priest has less ways to stay alive than a paladin and is less mana efficient... plain and simple. The pre-emptive healing is nice, and penance is nice... but ultimately their survivability when being focused is less than a paladin.

Are you actually doing arenas with both though? I am levelling my team with 4DKs and a priest currently with my pally going solo slightly behind. I am actually running the priest in holy mode for super PoHs with chakra up. I find the survivability is decent at lvl 83-84 and the instants that priests have make for a much more mobile healer IMO which is a plus for this team. When I actually do die, spirit of redemption also makes for some awesome PoH spam for about 15 seconds while glyphed which generally lets the DKs mop up another 5 or so players with ease.

If Shodo isn't, is anyone actually using a Priest + 4DK setup in arenas or rated BGs at 85?

[genghiskhan]

Ive read strong cases for using either a paladin or shaman healer, but why not just go 5x frost dks? Wouldnt that make this comp even more powerful? Or would the extra dps etc. not make up for the lack of a dedicated healer?

[Boylston]

Priest has less ways to stay alive than a paladin and is less mana efficient... plain and simple. The pre-emptive healing is nice, and penance is nice... but ultimately their survivability when being focused is less than a paladin.

If you go Priest in arena, you must go holy... You get a LONG time of totally free, totally uninterruptible heals if they kill you. :)

[Shodokan]

Are you actually doing arenas with both though? I am levelling my team with 4DKs and a priest currently with my pally going solo slightly behind. I am actually running the priest in holy mode for super PoHs with chakra up. I find the survivability is decent at lvl 83-84 and the instants that priests have make for a much more mobile healer IMO which is a plus for this team. When I actually do die, spirit of redemption also makes for some awesome PoH spam for about 15 seconds while glyphed which generally lets the DKs mop up another 5 or so players with ease.

If Shodo isn't, is anyone actually using a Priest + 4DK setup in arenas or rated BGs at 85?

There is someone who does. It's not a bad healer at all, it just needs a bit of a buff and is certainly not worth leveling if you already have a paladin healer AT THIS POINT, maybe when their insta heals are better next patch it might change.

[Slats]

Yep I'm thinking about going Holy for sure. Since any spec can Glyph MD to make it awesome it isn't a huge deal anymore IMO. I find PW:B too small an area because of IWT spam in PvP.

[genghiskhan]

So if you use a priest as your healer with 4x frost dks, should your priest be disc or holy spec?

[Ualaa]

I'd say Disc, because this is PvP.

And while the mitigation + healing of Disc is roughly equal to the healing of Holy, for PvE.
The mitigation tools, let you survive a lot of stuff that a Holy priest would be lost on.



*Edit*

Had not really looked at the Spirit of Redemption thing.
That is a nice tool for Holy, especially if we can down a significant portion of the team in that window.

With Death Grip, if they were in the open to kill the Priest.
They're probably going to be vulnerable too.

I'd still look at Disc as much higher chance to stay alive.
But really, aside from Mass Dispel to break immunities for the team.
The priest doesn't bring a massive amount to the table, compared to another healer; they all heal a decent amount, but we don't need a large window to take out a lot of opposition.
We put out a lot of DPS, so no need for say Mana Burn or what not.

[genghiskhan]

@ualaa Thanks. And what healer do you feel would be best? From reading this thread i havent found a clear cut favorite...

[genghiskhan]

I finally finished reading this thread. And have come to the current conclusion that i also will be *gasp* running 4x frost dks. Lol. In my head 5x frost dks or 5x ret or prot pallys sounds AWESOME. Theres just nothing that points to it actually working :(

[Ualaa]

I went with a Disc Priest, but can see a strong argument for any healer type.
With this composition, you cannot really go that wrong.



Druid:
- Hots, Thorns, Battle Rez, Cyclone, Instant root, Tree of Life, initial Stealth until you need healing.

Paladin:
- Hammer, Bubble, Resistance Aura, Beacon, Word of Glory, Hand of Sacrifice.

Disc Priest:
- Pain Suppression, PW: Shield, Fear, Mass Dispel, Power Infusion, Drain Mana, PW: Barrier, Smite healing.

Holy Priest:
- AoE heals, Chakra, Spirit of Redemption.

Shaman:
- Tremor/Grounding totems, Healing Stream with resists, Reincarnation, Earth Shield, Heroism/Bloodlust.

[Mercbeast]

Ive read strong cases for using either a paladin or shaman healer, but why not just go 5x frost dks? Wouldnt that make this comp even more powerful? Or would the extra dps etc. not make up for the lack of a dedicated healer?

I think the cap rating wise is higher with 4x+healer, but with 5xDK I think you could reach a moderate level more easily. The extra DPs will push you over the edge, whereas really good teams will just interrupt your DPS long enough to whittle you away faster than you do them.

[Mercbeast]

I ran 4xBlood plus my priest in a few instances last night. I didn't glyph anything, since I was a little lazy, and it was still Faceroll time through the instance. Huge difference. Killing speed was a bit slower on trash, but it was completely safe. Glyphed Rune Tap would be even more healing...

I think the way to go may be to just flip flop back and forth between frost and blood depending on difficulty of the boss/fight.

For even more faceroll, switch to DW when using blood x4. You have so many blood worms out it gets a little silly.

[Mosg2]

@Ualaa:

I think you can go wrong--Druid :) They bring virtually no offensive buffs, very little survivability while still being able to heal, no offensive dispel, and no Mass Dispel.

I think for Arenas you want the Paladin but for BG's you want the Shaman or the Priest. That's my experience so far.

Today I will probably put up another Manifesto that's updated. No promises. I'm thinking time for a new thread too?

[Slats]

Yeah I think at least a summary of this one is in order. It has been a most excellent discussion so far with alot of good theory and testing and debate.

My kids got me up at 5:45AM and I wnt to bed at 1:30AM.

Don't they know we all want a sleep in for New Years Day? *sob*.

[Kromtor]

@Ualaa:

I think you can go wrong--Druid :) They bring virtually no offensive buffs, very little survivability while still being able to heal, no offensive dispel, and no Mass Dispel.

I think for Arenas you want the Paladin but for BG's you want the Shaman or the Priest. That's my experience so far.

Today I will probably put up another Manifesto that's updated. No promises. I'm thinking time for a new thread too?

druids arguably have the best passive offensive buffs: MoW 5% stats, resists, and FF 12% armor reduction on target
now in arenas there's no debating that mass dispel is actually the best active offensive spell (correct me if wrong) for a healer, but then you have to play a priest. Purge is awesome too but blizzard said they are eyeballing it (and spellsteal) for nerfs. They're nerfing bearjuv too so that kinda put the nail in the coffin of my druid idea. Having a bunch of hots on your team before even engaging kind of makes up for the fact that you can't heal in bear form when they switch to you. I dunno - druids are hard as hell for my pally team to kill but thats probably just cause they're the best mobile healer.

[genghiskhan]

@mosg2 I vote yes on new manifesto and thread @mercbeast Thanks. Ill go 4x frost dks + healer, id like to reach as high a rating as possible.

[JackBurton]

I posted a few questions a page or two ago. can anyone give me a few crumbs of wisdom?

[genghiskhan]

@jackburton It seems like a damn sound strategy to me. What sort of feedback are you looking for?

[Ualaa]

What is your PVE stragegey for Trash and Bosses?

Honestly, I've not done instances or heroics with this team yet.
I've configured my hotkeys and launched the team together and run enough quests to know all the pieces work.
But they're sitting at 80th, and will be the next team I play.

My main focus will be PvP; not even sure I will PvE with this composition at all.
If I were...

My downstroke activates Key 1 (Howling Blast + Trinket & the Mind Freeze rotation)
My upstroke, randomly picks between Shift F6-F8 and Alt F6-F8.
(Currently, HB, FS, FS, BS, PS [Will be NS], HC).



Option A:
If I were to take Howling Blast out of the rotation, replacing it with a single target one Frost ability...
Hungering Cold, on round-robin with four DK's, would be rather reliable AoE freezing.
Allowing for single target kills, if AoE packs were too much.

This would be easy to adjust on the fly:
a) Drag two Howling Blast spells out of the "called keys".
b) Replace them with two Frost Rune abilities.
c) Drag Hungering Cold from the last "random" position, to a round-robin key.

Could even make the DPS a tad more convoluted.
With Do Mapped Key Actions, in the place of Send Keystroke Actions.
And go with a toggle, which activates/deactivates the Howling Blast/Single Frost ability.

Option B:
Blow mobs up, with AoE.
IE, change nothing...

Given a bit of gearing over heroics, this will likely become the standard approach.

Option C:
Dual-Spec the DK's Blood (already done; they were Blood and going Dual-Spec for Frost was cheaper than a re-spec).

Probably dual-wield, for extra Blood Worms.
Have a hotkey for Rune Tap, which should be a sizeable heal.

And then either Heart Strike (which hits three targets), and don't care which DK has threat, as long as it is not the Healer.
Possibly have Taunt on round-robin, to move threat from DK to DK, if necessary.
Or an alternative key, which uses Death Strike; probably wouldn't need this with Blood Worms, Rune Tap and a dedicated Healer.





I'm leaning towards Option C, until content is outgeared, then Option B.
If I decide to attempt heroics with this composition.

My actual plan is:
- 5x Ferals (Alliance, PvP)
- 4x Frost DK's + 1x Priest (Horde, PvP)
- Mixed team (with dual-Healing, Heroics).

Possibly go Ferals (Rated Battlegrounds) and DK/Priest (Arena).

[Boylston]

Ualaa-- Here's what I'm doing, it's very similar to your Option C.

I'm running two specs. A frost PvP/PvE spec which uses a one-button IWT/Howling Blast AoE type setup. I have Hungering Cold on round-robin if necessary. It's useful even when you break it (sometimes immediately) to freeze casters or buy yourself just a little bit of time during a rough pull. I will eventually setup two DPS keys that spam different combinations of keys so that I have the option of going single-target frost or Howling Blast frost. It's easy enough to make that happen.

Second spec is Blood Spec, with the glyphed Death Strike and Rune Tap and Heart Strike, IIRC. I leave them in 2Her mode, which works fine. (I don't have decent 1H weapons, admittedly). The group's Rune Taps and Bloodworms and Death Strikes do a fantastic job of keeping everyone topped off. I just use Death Strike and Heart Strike in my "rotation". I've tried using both a runic power dump as well as leaving it at 100% and gaining extra 40% death strike damage-- both work fine. I don't round robin taunt or anything, I just let aggro bounce around (all in Blood Presence).

On trash, Frost clears packs faster with a bit more healer involvement, but Blood is very safe and efficient as well. On trash in 4xBlood, there is so little healing needed that I play Smite-spam with my Disc priest and just let its healing hit anyone who needs it.

I generally switch to Blood for bosses, but there are some that the AoE damage of Frost is more helpful (Keleseth in UK, for example). Switching on a non-mana class is trivially easy, takes a few seconds. I bounce back and forth a lot depending on my mood and the instance needs.

Hope that helps!

[Mercbeast]

I find that one of, if not my biggest problem in arenas are paladin main healers. They pop shield and there is basically nothing I can do to finish them off before I start losing DPS or the paladin drops.

Usually when I lose, that is the reason why, that or I got blades edge or dalaran and they kite me off and then onto the platform :) I don't really ever primary paladins anymore. I target pretty much anything but mage or paladin first.

As a DK group, this is a sprint, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest of priest/dkx4 works out better because it allows you to primary the paladin and not have to worry about shield.

[Boylston]

I find that one of, if not my biggest problem in arenas are paladin main healers. They pop shield and there is basically nothing I can do to finish them off before I start losing DPS or the paladin drops.

Usually when I lose, that is the reason why, that or I got blades edge or dalaran and they kite me off and then onto the platform :) I don't really ever primary paladins anymore. I target pretty much anything but mage or paladin first.

As a DK group, this is a sprint, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest of priest/dkx4 works out better because it allows you to primary the paladin and not have to worry about shield.

A couple of comments.

We faced bubble paladins when a lot of us ran 4xShamans competitively. I think you do the same thing-- force the bubble early, then switch targets and come back to the Pally when the bubble is gone.

Secondly, in both Blade's Edge and Dalaran, you have the option to fight in places where "falling off" isn't as big of a problem. If you don't want to get knocked off the bridge-- don't go on it in the first place.

[Mercbeast]

It doesn't really matter on blades edge or dalaran, if they are smart there is really nothing you can do to stop them from kiting you.

In blades edge I never go up top, but the other group can stick people up there to free cast etc. On Dalaran I am not sure which I prefer, fighting on the platform, or trying to pull them off the platform and fighting on the edges, I've had success and failure both ways. I think fighting off the platform is best, since one guy can totally screw you over by jumping off and pulling a couple DK's off with him. Then to get everyone back on DPS you gotta run down collect them and run them back up.

[Shodokan]

It doesn't really matter on blades edge or dalaran, if they are smart there is really nothing you can do to stop them from kiting you.

In blades edge I never go up top, but the other group can stick people up there to free cast etc. On Dalaran I am not sure which I prefer, fighting on the platform, or trying to pull them off the platform and fighting on the edges, I've had success and failure both ways. I think fighting off the platform is best, since one guy can totally screw you over by jumping off and pulling a couple DK's off with him. Then to get everyone back on DPS you gotta run down collect them and run them back up.

If you are nearly gauranteed a win on RoL, RoV, Nagrand and you lose on Dal and Blades Edge you still have a 3/5 chance to get what you want.

[genghiskhan]

@ualaa GRATS ON 5000 POSTS!

[tanknspanker]

I have some problems when i'm doing some dungeons with my dk paly team..
till now i could run them all as frost, and put 1 dk in blood presence for the threat,
however i did try several times to run 1 dk as blood but the frost aoe of howling blast is just to much to pick it up i guess?

i'm using the deathstrike blood boil macro

[BrothelMeister]

In Blade's Edge, I run under the bridge and rush the Opposing side's ramp from the back. Whoever is the last up the ramp is likely the target they didn't want in front, therefore I Deathgrip it in and go to town. Regardless of the class, the target will be caught under the bridge, way out of position, and u can usually cripple it into blowing defensive cooldowns, at which point you can move onto the next target.

[JackBurton]

Ualaa when we were discussing choice of race you mentioned something interesting. Using Blood Elves for the silence ability. I looked at the stats and noticed that Stomp has the same interrupt slash silence effect. With stomp affecting both casters and melee wouldn't it be the superior PVP racial?
http://www.wowwiki.com/Arcane_Torrent
http://www.wowwiki.com/War_Stomp

[Toned]

I went with blood elves because the torrent is instant cast and gives RP.

[Ualaa]

Arcane Torrent is instant and off of the GCD.
War Stomp is very fast, at 0.5 seconds, but costs a GCD.

Both are subject to diminishing returns.
Silence and Stun, respectively.

Off of the GCD is the determining factor for me.
But I will admit, melee and caster stun in the same range, is powerful.

[genghiskhan]

Well wouldnt the worgen/goblin racials be the best for their respective factions? Idk what the worgens racials are but the goblin racials sound REALLY GOOD for pvp.

[Shodokan]

Well wouldnt the worgen/goblin racials be the best for their respective factions? Idk what the worgens racials are but the goblin racials sound REALLY GOOD for pvp.

Human is the single best PVP race for this comp.

[genghiskhan]

@ Shodokan Yeah but what about horde side?

[Mercbeast]

Blood elf, in fact I disagree with Shodokan in that I think BE is the single best race for the comp.

5, instant AoE silences > free trinket IMO.

[Noids]

Dinged 85 with my 4 DK priest team over the weekend and had a chance to play some BGs and Arenas and had a few thoughts/questions to discuss.

First of all, the holy priest does great in BGs and OK in arenas unless focussed. The Guardian Spirit self cast gives some pretty decent survival and buys some time for the DKs to cause some damage and then wen the priest dies, Spirit of Redemption gives me a good 12s of uninterrupted healing.

I am struggling to put out a decent amount of damage at this stage though as well as finding it hard to keep the DKs up. I am still a bit slow at the defensive cooldowns for arenas but when I review the end of game stats, I have often done more damage, a similar amount of healing but gotten maybe 1 kill.

I am just in the crafted PvP gear at the moment with 3 pieces of honour gear and Crucible of Carnage Weapons all round. Is this simply a gear issue at this stage do you think? My guys buffed have about 110k health with about 1.8k res and most of the toons I am coming up against are around 130k health.

Did you guys find you had to farm a fair bit of honour gear up before you started becoming effective in arena or was it instant faceroll? :P

For what its worth, I have started levelling the shams up now also with a pally tank for PvE healer for PvP. When they are 85 I might play around with the pally as an alternative healer.

[Toned]

Gear issue ... 90% of your battlegroup got free gear with the 1800 tol barad...

Keep on trucking hit conquest cap weekly + do some BG's and you'll get there. Buy your Vicious Glad 2handers first.

[Kromtor]

1800 tol barad... ugh. what were they thinking. every one has full honor suits so breaking into arenas now is much tougher for new teams. with my fledgling 4dk pally (wish i didnt go pally) team i'm having more victories playing endurance with 4 blood than with 4 frost... when you average 3k damage per HB you're not going to be killing anyone.

[Mercbeast]

The 1800 honor thing was retarded. I grinded my honor up legit, with a 12 minute queue. Then they made honor easy to get with that. Kind of silly.

[Noids]

My record now is 0-20 :/ Had one today against a newish team and got sown to a rogue and one of my DKs but ended up losing. Gonna find it hard to get to my weekly cap at this rate :P

Krom, why are you regretting the pally? I definitely find it a bit frustrating having the priest focussed fired and first down almost everytime. Even with the Spirit healing, once that is down my guys have to go without heals which generally means I almost always lose. I tend to do more damage than the other team, but sometimes the priest only gets out 100k heals before death.

[Mosg2]

A few thoughts:

The Tol Barad honor was insane. Everyone who abused the bridge now has a full set of honor gear and most people, if they were smart, have the Conquest weapon(s) at this point. That means you're like a month behind as far as gear goes. Maybe more. Don't feel bad if you're having a hard time initially--It's like that for every team.

BE is best for Horde and Human for Alliance--No point in comparing the two versus each other :)

My Paladin is completely geared at this point with some serious reforging and his throughput is insane. Overall I wish I had a geared Priest and a geared Shaman and a geared Druid to choose from but... shrug. I'm not sure if you can definitively say that one healer is better than another. Paladins have the best survivability and are equal if not the best for throughput with healing but can't help you much with Ring of Frost or Ice Block or Hand of Protection or Bubble. Priests are 10x easier to focus and shut down than the Paladin but your first non-Hunter target is a guaranteed kill. /shrug

I keep meaning to sit down and do another manifesto but I'm working 12 hour shifts 2 on/2 off during the holiday period and I'm exhausted. It's on my to do list :)

[Mercbeast]

My Paladin is done as well, DK's need like 2 pieces of honor gear each but I've been slacking since 12 minute queues just kill my drive to grind honor and I have been playing Civ 5 heavily during the Tol Barad period.

I rarely put out much healing with my paladin Noids and I have 3500 resilience. Just isn't much you can do when they lock you down, you can bubble but once bubble is done you're done.

Here is what you need to do. Get 197 spell penetration, that will help your HB's. Then you gotta just slog through the honor grind.

I've slotted 100% resil on all my characters at this point, and I have reforged to mastery on my DK's.

I haven't reforged on the paladin but I imagine haste is king.

[Mosg2]

Spirit/Crit are currently the best stats for the Paladin according to arenajunkies.

[Mercbeast]

Spirit/Crit are currently the best stats for the Paladin according to arenajunkies.

Ya, I just went and checked after I realized I hadn't reforged my paladin :)

[Kromtor]

on a 4 dps + ??? team you have to ask yourself what the 5th character is bringing to the table. my pally - granted his gear is shit - is so effectively focused and burned down that he essentially only ever heals himself and he's not doing any damage. In essence he is a distraction or delay. I don't feel like he's keeping the team alive longer than any other class would - something that could CC and do damage perhaps like a lock would be interesting.

but maybe when i get him properly geared people won't have such an easy time killing him as long as im peeling off melee and interrupting casters a bit. We'll see.

All that i know is that shaman healers have been the hardest to actually kill for my team - which is unexpected. The spirit walkers grace + earth shield + stoneclaw then earthbind is a brutally effective way to get away from melee.

[remanz]

I am not convinced that controlling healer + 4 dps is better than 5 dps either. But with healers, they bring dispel. Which is a big part, 5 dps, being CCed for 2. Now you only have 3 dps left.

5 V 5. Someone is gonna get locked down/CC on both sides. So the attacking window with full force is small. Having a holy paladin can/should make sure you have 4 dps attacking for the 8 seconds bubble duration (minus cyclone of course). Without a healer, a simple AOE fear + ring of frost, my whole team is pretty much disabled.

as for killing the shaman, you sure it is Not because the other holy paladin spamming heal on him while you are chasing the shaman down ?

[Mosg2]

Yeah, Holy Paladins atm are pretty f'ing amazing healers. I have more to say but I'm exhausted.

[outdrsyguy1]

Holy paladins when left free heal for insane amounts. I had one heal for over 700k in a match I lost. Not sure how that's even possible with the current mana pool situation.

I play with 4dks/priest and basically spec /gear him to just survive and die. he's all hp and resil and when he finally dies, i get 21 seconds of free uninterupted healing. As long as i'm careful that he doesn't die out of los' it does help. Sometimes i go for pallies first because as long as i can get free for .5 secs, they are toast. half the time they are too slow to bubble anyways.

I've found shaman hard to kill also, but the worst is a druid. i've chased them all over the arena and did hundreds upon hundreds of thousands and they just don't go down. it's insane how much healing and damage they can soak up.

The hardest part for me is healing while dps'ing. I spend so much time trying to keep my guys from being kited/cc'd that I don't do a lot of healing. Matches usually end up with the other team doing 200 to 500k healing and me around 150 to 200k at best.

I have my silence on RR, but i think i need to change it to arenatarget-1 through 4.

Also, i'm having issues with the angel, because for some stupid reason, you can't cast on "targets target" with macros while in that form. I have to make a macro to target party1,2,3 etc to spam heals while in angel form.

[Mercbeast]

I'm the same way, if I put out 100k healing that is usually a sign the other team blows :)

While I usually put out 200k damage minimum per DK and sometimes 2x that.

[Noids]

Holy paladins when left free heal for insane amounts. I had one heal for over 700k in a match I lost. Not sure how that's even possible with the current mana pool situation.

I play with 4dks/priest and basically spec /gear him to just survive and die. he's all hp and resil and when he finally dies, i get 21 seconds of free uninterupted healing. As long as i'm careful that he doesn't die out of los' it does help. Sometimes i go for pallies first because as long as i can get free for .5 secs, they are toast. half the time they are too slow to bubble anyways.

I've found shaman hard to kill also, but the worst is a druid. i've chased them all over the arena and did hundreds upon hundreds of thousands and they just don't go down. it's insane how much healing and damage they can soak up.

The hardest part for me is healing while dps'ing. I spend so much time trying to keep my guys from being kited/cc'd that I don't do a lot of healing. Matches usually end up with the other team doing 200 to 500k healing and me around 150 to 200k at best.

I have my silence on RR, but i think i need to change it to arenatarget-1 through 4.

Also, i'm having issues with the angel, because for some stupid reason, you can't cast on "targets target" with macros while in that form. I have to make a macro to target party1,2,3 etc to spam heals while in angel form.

Grab Vuhdo. I used it from setups where I would click heal using repeater regions. It allows quick targeted healing using a range of spells and works fine in Spirit of Redemption form for me.

[remanz]

DOes it allow "click castsequence"

so I click it once for holy shock, 2nd time for Flash of Light. etc. Instead of me going left click, shift click, alt + click, ctrl middle click etc. Too many spells, things don't go very smooth when I try to manage all of them.

[outdrsyguy1]

i already use it, but i'm not sure about the calling a macro remanz, it might be able to do that. Someone who knows it better than me would have to say how. maybe instead of putting the left click heal spell you put in the macro or something.

[Ualaa]

I know you can do a macro with Grid.
But have not tested how well that would work.

I'll assume, if you can attach a macro instead of a spell with Grid.
That Healbot and Vuhdo will have something similar.

[ashlor]

DOes it allow "click castsequence"

so I click it once for holy shock, 2nd time for Flash of Light. etc. Instead of me going left click, shift click, alt + click, ctrl middle click etc. Too many spells, things don't go very smooth when I try to manage all of them.


Yes it will work as you want it to, you will want to get installed.
open your spell book and you will see the clique tab below your guild perks tab click on that and you will be in clique binding mode.
from there you will see three options at the bottom from left to right bind spell bind other and options
you will want to choose bind other, and run custom macro.
and then it is as simple as following the on screen directions on how to bind it. word of note Make sue you add the [@mouseover] to your cast sequence macro in order for it work.

[Noids]

Vuhdo can do this also. Create your click sequence macro and call it something that is not the same as a spell name.

Open the Vuhdo config and click on the spells tab. Tick the box which allows macro casting and type in the name of your macro next to the left click key.

I use a mouse with 6 buttons which allows me to call 6 different spells with my right hand, whilst I drive and dps with my left on the keyboard. I know some of the guys have a naga configured with click heals which lets you cast a lot more spells/macros from your mouse hand without key modifiers required.

The other thing I like about this setup is that for BGs it lets me be an effective raid healer whilst still watching and healing my team fine too.

[TeamGrizzly]

I see some specs with points in either Annihilation or Rime. What's the rational for this since Obliterate is not in the DPS sequence?

[Boylston]

I see some specs with points in either Annihilation or Rime. What's the rational for this since Obliterate is not in the DPS sequence?

I found that there's a need to put 1 point somewhere to unlock a later tier. It's just filler.

[Shodokan]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1765534540

"Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell."

40%... thats a huge ass nerf purely because of the AOE dps they were doing in PVE.

on a positive note...

"Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them."

[Mercbeast]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1765534540

"Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell."

40%... thats a huge ass nerf purely because of the AOE dps they were doing in PVE.

on a positive note...

"Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them."

That is a big nerf to HB.

[Shodokan]

"Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon."


extra damage is nice too, 12% extra damage overall is nice for the 40% loss of pressure damage.

[Fat Tire]

"Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon."


extra damage is nice too, 12% extra damage overall is nice for the 40% loss of pressure damage.

LOL holy shit!

I know this is a dk thread but I just had to poop all over the dks


Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.

Mastery: Hand of Light has been revamped - Your Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm deal 20% additional damage as Holy damage. Each point of Mastery increases the damage by an additional 2.5%.

Insane-

[Kromtor]

LOL holy shit!

I know this is a dk thread but I just had to poop all over the dks


Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.

Mastery: Hand of Light has been revamped - Your Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm deal 20% additional damage as Holy damage. Each point of Mastery increases the damage by an additional 2.5%.

Insane-
wow.. nice. ret team is looking better now.

[Ualaa]

12% melee damage increase, which makes the unhealable Necrotic Strike that much better.

But the loss of initial pressure from HB will suck.
Still HB provides, ranged AoE snare.

The team retains its defensive cooldowns, even improving on some of those.
And Death Grip retains its power to overcome any root/snares on us.

If you were running with a Priest healer, PW: Shield & Pain Suppression are buffed.
If you ran with a Shaman, Bloodlust/Heroism is a loss, but for most of us it is more likely a loss to the opposition which equates to a relative power increase for our teams.

Not crazy about the change to HB, but this is still a very strong composition.

[Shodokan]

LOL holy shit!

I know this is a dk thread but I just had to poop all over the dks


Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.

Mastery: Hand of Light has been revamped - Your Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm deal 20% additional damage as Holy damage. Each point of Mastery increases the damage by an additional 2.5%.

Insane-

I agree its a nice change, but none the less it makes them into plate rogues with random instant finisher procs (via talents)

[Mosg2]

Honestly the biggest change to this team comes from... Wait for it...

The nerfs to Ring of Frost.

The HB change isn't that bad. You gain a 12% damage increase to your main target, you are now much more immune to CC, and you don't have to worry about getting RoF'd to death all the time. I'll totally trade that for the AE pressure that HB lost. The nerf to NS was totally justifiable--2's and 3's were pretty crazy.

Also, Unholy is looking better. Now that NS gives you Desecration... Hmmm :) 4x splash Leap/Gnaw combos are dancing like sugar plums in my head.

The changes to Paladins are, in a word, awesome. The mastery change is amazing and the talent change may make the Paladins a great choice. Only time will tell.

[outdrsyguy1]

I feel like the HB change is a pretty big nerf honestly. It's usually a huge percentage of my damage at the end of any match. I also play with a holy priest, so the spirit of redemption glyph nerf really hurts, before I had 21 secs of healing... now it's 15. Course the buffs to shield and desperate prayer might help a little, but i tend to really just get locked down so bad i could have another 50k health and i'm not sure it would matter.

I am loving the bloodlust nerf though, wiz cleave teams had freaking insane burst from it. Even with 125k health and 3k resil, my dk could easily be dead before I even noticed.

[Mercbeast]

I am faction changing to alliance tonight and my obvious choice was human, but then I saw the Draenei racial change and it got me to thinking. My paladin always gets targeted first. 5 of those HoT's ticking away on my Paladin, or anyone who is about to go down is a decent amount of emergency healing.

In arena at least this could be game changing. What do you guys think, would the new HoT mechanic for Draenei make this a worthwhile pick over free PvP trinket on humans?

Oh, and I am transferring because I can't stand 15 minute BG queues anymore, even though I've all but finished my honor grind, for future groups I can't deal with it despite loving my sweet sweet AT.

[Mosg2]

@HB damage nerf:
Yes, you lose splash damage. Yes, this means you'll probably be going for other stats than mastery. You know what? Who cares. My single-target DPS is *insane*. The fact that overall it's going UP means I have even less need of target swapping and making use of the damage from HB.

We now are basically immune to CC for the first 7-10 seconds of a match. You can't be feared, rooted, polymorphed, horror'd or snared. You can be disarmed, that's it. With the single-target DPS we have this means at least one person is just going to melt.

Buck up everyone :) These changes are great for us overall!

[Ualaa]

HB is still a long range, large area of effect, snare/debuff.

It hasn't even changed yet, but will hit the primary target as hard as ever.
So our ability to down the primary target won't change much, if at all.
Especially with the 12% increase to damage with a two-hander.

The loss of Bloodlust/Heroism or the equivalent for the opposition makes a lot of teams easier.
And the Frost Circle nerf, makes the most annoying caster a lot easier too.

[Kromtor]

any nerf to aoe damage - even to frost DK's is a buff to melee boxed teams. i've been getting hit with 12-14k dps (in an arena thats insane) frost DK's due to HB's craziness and can't spread out to avoid it like a normal team. the 12% damage bonus for 2 handers is substantial.

that being said after testing it myself I think you're overestimating the power of this comp, mosg2. it may feel powerful compared to previous seasons, however, you have to remember that if you enter a 5's season early and prepared it's pretty easy to initially do well. i was #1 on my BG with a 90% win ratio in the first few weeks but that slowed down quickly as the pro 5's teams started throwing their hats in after first gearing up in the more populated 2's and 3's divisions. this 5's season is in it's infancy stages and i predict we won't see any top teams running just 1 healer without uber CC.

[Shodokan]

any nerf to aoe damage - even to frost DK's is a buff to melee boxed teams. i've been getting hit with 12-14k dps (in an arena thats insane) frost DK's due to HB's craziness and can't spread out to avoid it like a normal team. the 12% damage bonus for 2 handers is substantial.

that being said after testing it myself I think you're overestimating the power of this comp, mosg2. it may feel powerful compared to previous seasons, however, you have to remember that if you enter a 5's season early and prepared it's pretty easy to initially do well. i was #1 on my BG with a 90% win ratio in the first few weeks but that slowed down quickly as the pro 5's teams started throwing their hats in after first gearing up in the more populated 2's and 3's divisions. this 5's season is in it's infancy stages and i predict we won't see any top teams running just 1 healer without uber CC.

Depends on your battlegroup. If you were on emberstorm you'd have been top 2 for sure.

WE may be overestimating the team, but paladins are certainly no better, and nor are ferals. You'd have to play a multi-class team to get everything to function the way you want like zug did and that requires a 2nd person for healing. But this team is extremely powerful, especially fully geared. Also you have to realize, you are the ONLY person to be truly successful with the dk/ret team, and blizzard is not going to keep resil the way it is i don't think, it will get nerfed like it happened to you mid season before either.

The whole point is to have fun. I honestly think that getting glad on any boxing team in 5's is nearly impossible playing by yourself, but as you are the only person to get to 2500+ with your team i guess you'd be the person to take advice from in that regard.

[Mosg2]

If the IBF changes go live then the DK team has 7 seconds once they charge in where they are immune to every form of CC in the game. I can burn a 3k+ resilience target to the ground in that amount of time, even through healing.

I never expected this team to be able to get Gladiator solo before Cata hit--After playing them geared at 85 though I'm positive that it's doable.

[Kromtor]

If the IBF changes go live then the DK team has 7 seconds once they charge in where they are immune to every form of CC in the game. I can burn a 3k+ resilience target to the ground in that amount of time, even through healing.

I never expected this team to be able to get Gladiator solo before Cata hit--After playing them geared at 85 though I'm positive that it's doable.
i do still have my pally goggles on. when they pop a defensive cooldown i have to change targets whereas with a priest you don't. 7 seconds doesnt seem like long when you're switching targets. i also am not geared properly at all - but i've tried to take these things into consideration when making my assessment. i definitely want to see a solo boxer get gladiator so let's hope i'm wrong.

[remanz]

Not to be negative in this, but how to reach gladiator with a 50-60% winning ratio. What Kromtor did with DK + 4rets is as closed as it gets as I see it.

So we go 50-50 in most of the matches. That is no where near gladiator. Heck I'd be jumping up and down if we can reach 2200.

If your MMR and your real ratings meet at 1800, I think that's it. You are likely to get 100-200 more. You are not going higher than 2000.


basically, you won't all of sudden one day start winning more than you do now.

[remanz]

When you look at melee zerg boxing really, is there a lot of rooms for improvement on the execution ? I see we got the execution down pretty well. But it is capped.

and put it into a ratings perspective, I see it capped around 2k ratings. That is NOT bad in any sense. But that is what we have to work with. I can't imagine all those 2200 teams just suddenly forget how to play and let us zerg them down.

I say this from experience. I've played enough melee zerging. When I lose a match to a good team, I ask "is there anything I can improve on ? " and frankly, most of the cases, there is nothing I can think of. I did the best possible. The weakness of melee boxing just cannot be overcome if your opponents know them.

[Ualaa]

Still, the fulcrum is 2200.

Playing all five toons, by yourself.
You're not that far away from superior gear.

Would a separate healer push this team over the edge?

[Kromtor]

ya that's essentially what it boils down to, losing games because people know how to counter you, not due to making mistakes or not being tricky enough. thats at least how it was with the pallies. with the DK team that's a lot of dark simul action that currently probably isn't being used at all by any boxers yet, but has potential. you see someone casting a big heal you can DS them and let it go through and then have 4 of them of your own (i think it works that way, maybe there are stacking issues). or the same with a big damage cast.

[Shodokan]

ya that's essentially what it boils down to, losing games because people know how to counter you, not due to making mistakes or not being tricky enough. thats at least how it was with the pallies. with the DK team that's a lot of dark simul action that currently probably isn't being used at all by any boxers yet, but has potential. you see someone casting a big heal you can DS them and let it go through and then have 4 of them of your own (i think it works that way, maybe there are stacking issues). or the same with a big damage cast.

You can use it on any mana casting spell and it applies itself to you. I've done it on pally aoe, some heals etc. They all work.


Not to be negative in this, but how to reach gladiator with a 50-60% winning ratio. What Kromtor did with DK + 4rets is as closed as it gets as I see it.

So we go 50-50 in most of the matches. That is no where near gladiator. Heck I'd be jumping up and down if we can reach 2200.

If your MMR and your real ratings meet at 1800, I think that's it. You are likely to get 100-200 more. You are not going higher than 2000.


basically, you won't all of sudden one day start winning more than you do now.


The way to do it is to dodge ques against high rated players who can straight out beat you. Defeating lower teams give 1-2 points and it just is a GRIND simply put... you will need well over 1000 games to do it but it is mathematically possible.

[remanz]

The way to do it is to dodge ques against high rated players who can straight out beat you. Defeating lower teams give 1-2 points and it just is a GRIND simply put... you will need well over 1000 games to do it but it is mathematically possible.


Can't argue that. I agree. if you can do that, then higher ratings are within reach. But that's not so much about the combos.

[Fat Tire]

When you look at melee zerg boxing really, is there a lot of rooms for improvement on the execution ? I see we got the execution down pretty well. But it is capped.

and put it into a ratings perspective, I see it capped around 2k ratings. That is NOT bad in any sense. But that is what we have to work with. I can't imagine all those 2200 teams just suddenly forget how to play and let us zerg them down.

I say this from experience. I've played enough melee zerging. When I lose a match to a good team, I ask "is there anything I can improve on ? " and frankly, most of the cases, there is nothing I can think of. I did the best possible. The weakness of melee boxing just cannot be overcome if your opponents know them.

Even then-

Anyone who has played with the mindless children who care about rank 1 and to a lesser degree gladiator know that there is a high school popular cool kids mentality among the good arena players.

They snipe,dogde, wintrade, level alt teams, tank mmr to friends while their mains already have glad. In my opinion no muti boxer, no matter how good will ever get glad in 5s. 5v5 is such a small pool of teams that it just wont ever happen, even on BL which is not even the highest/best/most populated BG anymore. Most all the cool kids went horde/illidan/rampage when cata came out.

If you could even get into glad range every counter would snipe you. You would have lvl 1 watchers on your server to see when you were playing the second you were in glad range towards the end of the season. They would queue and you would lose points. If you tried to sit on your rating, they would wintrade/dump mmr to their friends team and farm you when you tried to play.

I could see it in 3s just for the fact that there is a larger pool, but I think even that is almost impossible playing all by yourself.

You could pull a krush and get glad solo on each of your characters and then log them all on at the same time. huzza

With all that said, I give mad props to all the 5s boxers who play arena. Arena =/= BGs. I say if you are able to get to 2200 for the weapons, that in itself, no matter how accomplished is something to be proud of in this stupid game.

[Mosg2]

@Dark Simulacrum:
It uses your coefficients, so it's basically worthless to steal a heal or a damage spell. You want cool stuff like Ring of Frost (I got that once in IoC), Frost Nova, Death Coil, Fear, Psychic Scream etc.

@Possible Gladiator:
I have all blue PvP gear with the Conquest weapons and legs right now. I can burn through most classes in under 5 seconds. With single-target DPS going up for us post-patch I think that you're realistically going to be able to make it a 5v4 right off the bat--With immunity to CC for 7 seconds plus 4x Death Grip you'll be able to stay on the target for the entire duration.

The only bad targets for me are Hunters, Priests, Mages and Paladins. my Priest is 77 and he'll fix the Mages and Paladins. Anything else is just plain dead.

@Separate healer:
Having a separate healer would certainly let you focus more on Dark Simulacrum and Hungering Cold.

[Fat Tire]

@Dark Simulacrum:
It uses your coefficients, so it's basically worthless to steal a heal or a damage spell. You want cool stuff like Ring of Frost (I got that once in IoC), Frost Nova, Death Coil, Fear, Psychic Scream etc.

@Possible Gladiator:
I have all blue PvP gear with the Conquest weapons and legs right now. I can burn through most classes in under 5 seconds. With single-target DPS going up for us post-patch I think that you're realistically going to be able to make it a 5v4 right off the bat--With immunity to CC for 7 seconds plus 4x Death Grip you'll be able to stay on the target for the entire duration.

The only bad targets for me are Hunters, Priests, Mages and Paladins. my Priest is 77 and he'll fix the Mages and Paladins. Anything else is just plain dead.

@Separate healer:
Having a separate healer would certainly let you focus more on Dark Simulacrum and Hungering Cold.

Looks like someone is drinking the kool aid




http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDQ8Youkusuu-CmJe4N6Q3HFm2aXCfeX8_xPa6W-AqVoLwCbWXkQ

[Mosg2]

@Fat Tire:
I honestly don't understand why you're even posting in this thread. Could you possibly be constructive or helpful in some way, shape or form? Otherwise go find something else to do?

On topic:
Immunity to CC + 5 second Strangulates x4 + Leap/Gnaw x4 + Awesome pressure works. It's obviously early in the season and with the 2200 weapons not available for another two weeks or whatever 5's activity is low. I don't understand why everyone is being so negative-Nancy about it. Get your team to 85 and get them geared with at least the Conquest weapon and THEN post your thoughts. Of COURSE if you're sitting on a target with the Tol Barad weapon or the OOOO from Crucible of Carnage you're going to have a skewed perception of what this team can do.

[Mercbeast]

If you were to stop using HB, other than as a ranged snare, with the 12%+ to 2h DPS it seems to me like playing 4 DK's + a pocket healer will be pretty effective with you having the ability to use hungering cold on a more proper rotation.

[Shodokan]

If you were to stop using HB, other than as a ranged snare, with the 12%+ to 2h DPS it seems to me like playing 4 DK's + a pocket healer will be pretty effective with you having the ability to use hungering cold on a more proper rotation.

Watching for runes on all toons to make sure you can effectively use obliterate isn't going to be possible really, unless you make a priority rotation like

Obliterate > Howling > Frost strike > Necrotic Strike

But even then you need to worry about howling and necrotic using the runes for oblit... which WILL happen way too often. So in order to do that you'd need to play the dks like you would manually. Theres no way we can use things like "dont use howling blast if we have killing machine up" type statements in macros.

So what would you use the extra frost runes on? make them sit there? Ssing oblit also makes it so you are NOT using necrotic and maximizing the usefulness of the stacking of buffs. Obliterate on plate targets is a really bad choice as it gets double mitigation through plate armor and resil.

[Mercbeast]

Watching for runes on all toons to make sure you can effectively use obliterate isn't going to be possible really, unless you make a priority rotation like

Obliterate > Howling > Frost strike > Necrotic Strike

But even then you need to worry about howling and necrotic using the runes for oblit... which WILL happen way too often. So in order to do that you'd need to play the dks like you would manually. Theres no way we can use things like "dont use howling blast if we have killing machine up" type statements in macros.

So what would you use the extra frost runes on? make them sit there? Ssing oblit also makes it so you are NOT using necrotic and maximizing the usefulness of the stacking of buffs. Obliterate on plate targets is a really bad choice as it gets double mitigation through plate armor and resil.

It would depend on the DPS feasibility of an Oblit rotation versus the regular rotation. I would have HB off the priority, I already have this key bound. Use it specifically for snaring. I would also take NS off the rotation.

Well actually I will quickly explain my setup.

I use R as my DPS spam. I use Shift-R as my PVE DPS spam (no IWT). I use T as my HB, I use shift T for nothing currently. I would change shift R to my oblit rotation, and set shift-T as my necrotic strike.

I now have on demand NS or HB via T and Shift-T. I also have my IWT HB/NS/FS/BS spam with R, and with Shift-R I have my oblit/bs/FS IWT spam.

I don't think it is a bad idea to set up your keys in a similar fashion anyways. Gives you more control over what you are doing with NS and HB, it also gives you the flexibility to switch between single target sniping with controlled round robin hungery colds, but also aoe pressure from the HB spam.

I can see an opener being something like this. Open with your HB+blood tap spam until all runes are on cooldown, making sure you get a big fat NS stack on the target. Then you hit empower rune weapon, hit your first hungering cold, and switch to your single target oblit/bs/fs rotation. Pop a second hungering cold the instant you see people start trinketing out.

You've come out of the gate and thrown down heavy pressure on the other team even when taking into considering the HB nerf on the PTR, figure close to 200k damage dealt via HB aoe(dependent on how many people you hit with it)

I think if someone becomes proficient with this sort of setup, this is going to take you higher than the the current HB spam zerg fest we currently do. This is because incorporating 4x well timed hungering colds gives us something we don't have normally. Control. You give us this sort of control and you pressure any dispeller you are going to lock down any melee constantly cutting their DPS down dramatically.

[Kromtor]

fat tire isn't trying to be mean he's just being realistic. we can't stress enough - you won't understand how correct he is about 5's until you're in the last month stretch of the season dealing with the highly social nature of the tiny, tiny (even smaller now thanks to rated BGs) pool of top end teams in the 5's division. the 2400 club. it's a queue dodging, wintrading, friend farming extravaganza based far more on scouting and availability to play when appropriate than your team strength.

i'm impressed though that you haven't even had the chance to use your priest yet - it will be very interesting to see how that helps you (or hurts you due to the fact that he's behind in gear and catching up is going to be hell). you might even end up wanting to play him shadow, it's super powerful in 5's right now.

[Mercbeast]

fat tire isn't trying to be mean he's just being realistic. we can't stress enough - you won't understand how correct he is about 5's until you're in the last month stretch of the season dealing with the highly social nature of the tiny, tiny (even smaller now thanks to rated BGs) pool of top end teams in the 5's division. the 2400 club. it's a queue dodging, wintrading, friend farming extravaganza based far more on scouting and availability to play when appropriate than your team strength.

i'm impressed though that you haven't even had the chance to use your priest yet - it will be very interesting to see how that helps you (or hurts you due to the fact that he's behind in gear and catching up is going to be hell). you might even end up wanting to play him shadow, it's super powerful in 5's right now.

So what you're saying is, most of these teams will have two teams. The primary team and the dummy team. They get both up to a high rating with a similar MMR rating. Then teams from this community will arrange to play each other where the dummy team and a primary team queue at the same time. If they don't both get the arena at the same time they leave the queue and try again? This allows the primary team zero risk wins against other high ranked teams. They then return the favor for the other group?

[Kromtor]

they dont necessarily need a second team of their own in the queue to find out who else is queuing, just using scouts on the servers of specific teams that they dont match up well against to make sure they aren't queue'ing works but this is just one tactic. i've never been in a normal 5's team so i dont know everything that is done, but i know they definitely cooperate with other teams to take turns pushing the other team over 2200 to get access to the better gear earlier. i've been offered gold by other 5's teams to let them beat me. i'm not angry at these people, i dont think they're evil. the fault lies with blizzard by not properly incentivizing 5's.. when the queue's get empty it opens the door for arranged matches and that sorta crap.

i also like your idea of making better use of hungering cold. CC is still the name of the game and breaking our own CC when not necessary needs to be minimized as much as possible. i play friggin undead DK's with licheborne and trinkets and in long matches (which i have many) fear bombs are still one of the biggest pains in my ass. i can't stop whining :)

[Shodokan]

It would depend on the DPS feasibility of an Oblit rotation versus the regular rotation. I would have HB off the priority, I already have this key bound. Use it specifically for snaring. I would also take NS off the rotation.

Well actually I will quickly explain my setup.

I use R as my DPS spam. I use Shift-R as my PVE DPS spam (no IWT). I use T as my HB, I use shift T for nothing currently. I would change shift R to my oblit rotation, and set shift-T as my necrotic strike.

I now have on demand NS or HB via T and Shift-T. I also have my IWT HB/NS/FS/BS spam with R, and with Shift-R I have my oblit/bs/FS IWT spam.

I don't think it is a bad idea to set up your keys in a similar fashion anyways. Gives you more control over what you are doing with NS and HB, it also gives you the flexibility to switch between single target sniping with controlled round robin hungery colds, but also aoe pressure from the HB spam.

I can see an opener being something like this. Open with your HB+blood tap spam until all runes are on cooldown, making sure you get a big fat NS stack on the target. Then you hit empower rune weapon, hit your first hungering cold, and switch to your single target oblit/bs/fs rotation. Pop a second hungering cold the instant you see people start trinketing out.

You've come out of the gate and thrown down heavy pressure on the other team even when taking into considering the HB nerf on the PTR, figure close to 200k damage dealt via HB aoe(dependent on how many people you hit with it)

I think if someone becomes proficient with this sort of setup, this is going to take you higher than the the current HB spam zerg fest we currently do. This is because incorporating 4x well timed hungering colds gives us something we don't have normally. Control. You give us this sort of control and you pressure any dispeller you are going to lock down any melee constantly cutting their DPS down dramatically.

I'm using crap weapon and crafted pvp set and my oblits crit for 13k (1 talent point, no glyph both diseases up) and for 23k with talents (HUGE difference). Now after 40% reduction you get 13.8k or so per obliterate crit and for 6k non crit. Your string of 3 oblits in PVP per dk is equal between 18 and 41k . This puts your total damage from the string of oblits at between 72 and 164k damage. Scaling with gear and weapons i'd say this goes up to about 180k ish max with 90k minimum. So yes this damage is enough to kill someone if you get at least 1/2 crits putting your damage at around 120k (not including white attacks or frost strikes)

A rotation of obliterates will kill someone with higher ranged weapons than what i have, but after that initial kill you need to make sure you can get back on the offensive, because a kill is worthless if your entire team is vulnerable for 20 seconds after the fact. Not to mention that obliterate requires both diseases up as pressure meaning you can't just use an oblit macro/priroity system you need to watch your disease timers. This just isn't possible to do effectively without a dedicated healer that you can concentrate on all that shit. I am 99% sure that you need your own diseases up in order to make oblit hit harder, so yea.

[Mosg2]

With the way Runic Empowerment works for Frost I don't think you're going to get a satisfactory single-target rotation with Obliterate. Unholy opens up a lot of options because their Runic Empowerment isn't random. I intend to try out some different DPS sequences today at some point and see.

@Kromtor:
Vis a vis Fat Tire I'm referring to his Kool Aid post and then the one where he admits he just wanted to come shit on the DK's.

@All:
The team is in its infancy. There are a lot of people who've been 2k+ in arenas multiboxing that are playing this team now. I think that without a doubt the DK's are more viable as an arena team than any other melee variety due to defensive cooldowns and their ability to stay on target.

[Fat Tire]

@Kromtor:
Vis a vis Fat Tire I'm referring to his Kool Aid post and then the one where he admits he just wanted to come shit on the DK's.





I called all the theorycrafting gladiators out. I am not the one who said they would/could get gladiator(legit). Everyone who thinks they can is drinkin their own kool aid, for the simple fact that is doesnt matter how good of a muti boxer you are and my proof was in my earlier post. I also gave props to all who arena 5s- guess you missed that, I am not hatin on what is a very good thread.

I will revisit this thread at the end of the season.

[Mercbeast]

I called all the theorycrafting gladiators out. I am not the one who said they would/could get gladiator(legit). Everyone who thinks they can is drinkin their own kool aid, for the simple fact that is doesnt matter how good of a muti boxer you are and my proof was in my earlier post. I also gave props to all who arena 5s- guess you missed that, I am not hatin on what is a very good thread.

I will revisit this thread at the end of the season.

I'm pretty sure, there isn't a single person in this thread who said 2200+ rating would be likely or even possible with this group.

Stop being butthurt. You're looking like a giant douchebag.

[Fat Tire]

I'm pretty sure, there isn't a single person in this thread who said 2200+ rating would be likely or even possible with this group.

Stop being butthurt. You're looking like a giant douchebag.

Reading comprehension is a talent you lack. Back up and re read a couple pages back.

If I am a giant douchebag, then youve got to be a fucken idiot. See what I did there.

[Mercbeast]

Reading comprehension is a talent you lack. Back up and re read a couple pages back.

If I am a giant douchebag, then youve got to be a fucken idiot. See what I did there.

Your logic fails completely. Reading comprehension has nothing to do with reading every post in a thread this long. You're calling people out? That is comedic. You neither have the tact, or wit to call anyone out. You're a dullard who is upset for some reason so you're coming to take a big whiny emo dump over here, yet still failing spectacularly.

You've got a chip on your shoulder, like you're pretty serious business.

You couldn't flame your way out of a paper bag. So, unless I'm missing something, that chip on your shoulder has nothing tangible backing it up.

Now, I'd rather not hijack this thread for a couple reasons. Child abuse is wrong and I'm pretty sure people in this thread want to talk about the team. I'm also pretty sure nobody wants to listen to you cry in your fuckin' cheerios.

See what I did there?

[thedreameater]

Reading comprehension is a talent you lack. Back up and re read a couple pages back.

If I am a giant douchebag, then youve got to be a fucken idiot. See what I did there.

I've always noticed the black cloud above your posts. You're always mocking someone or calling someone else out.

Must be something bad going on in your life to be spewing so much negativity. Hope it gets better. Life's too short.

[Fat Tire]

Your logic fails completely. Reading comprehension has nothing to do with reading every post in a thread this long. You're calling people out? That is comedic. You neither have the tact, or wit to call anyone out. You're a dullard who is upset for some reason so you're coming to take a big whiny emo dump over here, yet still failing spectacularly.

You've got a chip on your shoulder, like you're pretty serious business.

You couldn't flame your way out of a paper bag. So, unless I'm missing something, that chip on your shoulder has nothing tangible backing it up.

Now, I'd rather not hijack this thread for a couple reasons. Child abuse is wrong and I'm pretty sure people in this thread want to talk about the team. I'm also pretty sure nobody wants to listen to you cry in your fuckin' cheerios.

See what I did there?

Even a clueless 30 year old with a helmet can see that I said a couple of pages back where is was discussed. Where does having to read the whole thread come in. Did I hurt your feeling calling you an idiot? Truth hurts I can tell.

Mogs2 said he could hit glad and I said there is no way anyone could as a boxer. Your jumpin on me like I dont know what I am talking about, where if you were any good at pvp you would know that what I talked about in my post a couple of pages back described high lvl pvp to a T.

the fuck says I am cryin about anything you scrub.

[Fat Tire]

I've always noticed the black cloud above your posts. You're always mocking someone or calling someone else out.

Must be something bad going on in your life to be spewing so much negativity. Hope it gets better. Life's too short.


There is a difference between being negative, having perspective and coddling cute fluffy bunnies. I understand that a majority of wow players have low self esteem.

[thedreameater]

There is a difference between being negative, having perspective and coddling cute fluffy bunnies. I understand that a majority of wow players have low self esteem.

I should have said insulting.

[thedreameater]

To get things back on the right track, I'm finally dipping my toes into the DK pool and have read most of this epic thread. Here's my questions (I'm a helmet wearing scrub in WoW, but I don't draw my self esteem from a video game, haha):

1
Mosg2 - you're Paladin's UI looked like the following:

1 and 2 were your Deathknight's rotation
3 - invisibility? (your guys were Orcs tho?)
4 Light of Dawn
5 - trinket
6 - Avenging Wrath
7 - Divine Favor (for oh crap heals?)
8 - Bubble
9 - Divine Plea
10 - Lay on Hands
11 - Arcane Torrent
12 Rez

Are these all you push or are these just what you click?

2
You also mentioned a one button rotation that is perfectly optimized. What is that button?

2a
I found in Ualaa's this in Ualaa's post (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=305676&postcount=88). To understand that with my dinosaur brain, I'm to create two cast sequences; one with Howling Blast as a priority, the other with Nec Strike... do I set this up in ISBoxer? This can't be the cast sequence, cause I don't see Plague Strike or Obliterate... Could you further explain your code?

3
Spells to set up on Round Robin:
- Hungering Cold
- Mind Freeze
- Death Grip
- Anti Magic Shell?
- That it?

4
Mogs - you had Orcs in your video. Still with Orcs are have you made belfs?

Thanks all!

[Shodokan]

To get things back on the right track, I'm finally dipping my toes into the DK pool and have read most of this epic thread. Here's my questions (I'm a helmet wearing scrub in WoW, but I don't draw my self esteem from a video game, haha):

1
Mosg2 - you're Paladin's UI looked like the following:

1 and 2 were your Deathknight's rotation
3 - invisibility? (your guys were Orcs tho?)
4 Light of Dawn
5 - trinket
6 - Avenging Wrath
7 - Divine Favor (for oh crap heals?)
8 - Bubble
9 - Divine Plea
10 - Lay on Hands
11 - Arcane Torrent
12 Rez

Are these all you push or are these just what you click?

2
You also mentioned a one button rotation that is perfectly optimized. What is that button?

2a
I found in Ualaa's this in Ualaa's post (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=305676&postcount=88). To understand that with my dinosaur brain, I'm to create two cast sequences; one with Howling Blast as a priority, the other with Nec Strike... do I set this up in ISBoxer? This can't be the cast sequence, cause I don't see Plague Strike or Obliterate... Could you further explain your code?

3
Spells to set up on Round Robin:
- Hungering Cold
- Mind Freeze
- Death Grip
- Anti Magic Shell?
- That it?

4
Mogs - you had Orcs in your video. Still with Orcs are have you made belfs?

Thanks all!

MOSG has vids on most of that stuff and he plays worgen now.

[thedreameater]

MOSG has vids on most of that stuff and he plays worgen now.

Oh crap! Just found em. Didn't realize there were more than the first.

Doh!

This one, right?
http://www.justin.tv/mosg2/b/275194639

[Mosg2]

@Fat Tire:
I didn't say I'd get glad. I said this comp is capable of pulling it off.

@thedreameater:
The original video has a complete explanation of how it works. I'm going to bed now but if you have any other questions about my setup I'll be around tomorrow.

[Mercbeast]

Even a clueless 30 year old with a helmet can see that I said a couple of pages back where is was discussed. Where does having to read the whole thread come in. Did I hurt your feeling calling you an idiot? Truth hurts I can tell.

Mogs2 said he could hit glad and I said there is no way anyone could as a boxer. Your jumpin on me like I dont know what I am talking about, where if you were any good at pvp you would know that what I talked about in my post a couple of pages back described high lvl pvp to a T.

the fuck says I am cryin about anything you scrub.

You don't have to be good at games to be good at WoW. I play WoW because it is polished and there is nothing else out on the market currently worth playing. Achieving high level PvP status in WoW means absolutely nothing to me. I've run into "elite" WoW guilds in other games. In the past 6 years of facerolling these guys in other games, what I have come to realize, is that skill!=treadmilling. Achieving anything in WoW is not about inherent player skill, it is about chasing a carrot. It is a relationship where time invested + above average competence = success. That is what you meant right, high level wow PvP, not high level PvP in general.

WoW is PvP lite. I personally multibox because it is actually challenging.

[Noids]

You don't have to be good at games to be good at WoW. I play WoW because it is polished and there is nothing else out on the market currently worth playing. Achieving high level PvP status in WoW means absolutely nothing to me. I've run into "elite" WoW guilds in other games. In the past 6 years of facerolling these guys in other games, what I have come to realize, is that skill!=treadmilling. Achieving anything in WoW is not about inherent player skill, it is about chasing a carrot. It is a relationship where time invested + above average competence = success. That is what you meant right, high level wow PvP, not high level PvP in general.

WoW is PvP lite. I personally multibox because it is actually challenging.

Probably enough of the off topic stuff; would be a shame to have such an awesome thread locked due to petty behaviour from a couple of decent contributors.

With regards to the comp itself, I have achieved some improvement myself over the last week with the 4DK + priest version. I still find the priest gets locked down and taken out first, but I have gotten better at having 1-2 targets down during this situation. This has been due to a few things.

1. My priest last a bit longer now, have gotten up to almost 2k resil and have led the DKs to thebattle and actually stayed mounted initially to dodge attackers whilst the DKs dismount and unleash frosty hell. I'm also better at using Guardian spirit pre-emptively and getting all of my preheals off in time.

2. I have not changed the DKs setup at all, they have roughly 500 extra AP on what they had and about 2k resil each but still plugging away with the CoC weapons. What I think has made a significant difference is building up a decent amount of Spell Pen (150 on each) to increase the effectiveness of my frost damage.

In response to Mosg2's idea of priests being a superior offensive healer due to Mass Dispel, I find that this is often not the case. The level to which I am locked down and defensively healing or being stunned means that I will only get off MD maybe 25% of the time.

Looking at the vids of Mokoi's I think the way the pally draws initial fire, then takes a few seconds for them to switch off after bubbling then back afterwards is much more effective for defensive healing in this comp. Considering the way the priest gets universally targeted and burned I have considered even becoming shadow just to improve my surviviability during the initial burst. Shadow form + dispersion is the most effective means of damage reduction priests have available, plus I have the horrify CC for my first dps target. I think this is another pro that the pally has over the priest, Hammer of Justice is nice just to slow your first dps target enough to cop a significant amount of melee damage.

Anyway, a bit more to think about for the comp for now, I'm sure things will only continue to improve with better gear and whilst 4.0.6 will likely reduce the DK effectiveness a bit, the priest changes will hopefully make me stronger.

[Shodokan]

Probably enough of the off topic stuff; would be a shame to have such an awesome thread locked due to petty behaviour from a couple of decent contributors.

With regards to the comp itself, I have achieved some improvement myself over the last week with the 4DK + priest version. I still find the priest gets locked down and taken out first, but I have gotten better at having 1-2 targets down during this situation. This has been due to a few things.

1. My priest last a bit longer now, have gotten up to almost 2k resil and have led the DKs to thebattle and actually stayed mounted initially to dodge attackers whilst the DKs dismount and unleash frosty hell. I'm also better at using Guardian spirit pre-emptively and getting all of my preheals off in time.

2. I have not changed the DKs setup at all, they have roughly 500 extra AP on what they had and about 2k resil each but still plugging away with the CoC weapons. What I think has made a significant difference is building up a decent amount of Spell Pen (150 on each) to increase the effectiveness of my frost damage.

In response to Mosg2's idea of priests being a superior offensive healer due to Mass Dispel, I find that this is often not the case. The level to which I am locked down and defensively healing or being stunned means that I will only get off MD maybe 25% of the time.

Looking at the vids of Mokoi's I think the way the pally draws initial fire, then takes a few seconds for them to switch off after bubbling then back afterwards is much more effective for defensive healing in this comp. Considering the way the priest gets universally targeted and burned I have considered even becoming shadow just to improve my surviviability during the initial burst. Shadow form + dispersion is the most effective means of damage reduction priests have available, plus I have the horrify CC for my first dps target. I think this is another pro that the pally has over the priest, Hammer of Justice is nice just to slow your first dps target enough to cop a significant amount of melee damage.

Anyway, a bit more to think about for the comp for now, I'm sure things will only continue to improve with better gear and whilst 4.0.6 will likely reduce the DK effectiveness a bit, the priest changes will hopefully make me stronger.

The amount of healing that priests do NEXT patch is why, their pre-emptive healing with pw:s is equal to about 20k in pvp gear per toon. You are also healing as holy where as we are talking about disc healing and the use of resil (3k+) and pain suppression (which can be done during a stun) is equal to ~80% damage reduction for 8 seconds, where the paladin (if dispelled) is much less than that with bubble though it is 100%. Priests also have two instant cast pre-emptive heals in renew + pw:s, a flash heal equiv that also heals themself for equal healing, pennance, life grip, power word: barrier for hairy situations, AOE fear to force trinkets, 16% damage reduction in total when you take damage equal to 10% of your HP and last but not least you have inspiration for 10% damage reduction after a crit plus desperate prayer for a big heal on yourself instantly when you need it.

The priest has as much as a paladin does minus the holy radiance but has mass dispell which makes all targets good targets.

[thedreameater]

MOSG has vids on most of that stuff and he plays worgen now.

http://www.justin.tv/mosg2/b/275194639

That video cuts off at 10:03.

Is there another video where Mogs2 continues with his set up? I've watch the one where he discovers how suck Archaeology is, the other recent BG match, and the first narrated intro to the comp.

[Shodokan]

Theres no step by step guide really, just ideas to get you started.

[Ualaa]

Pain Suppression not being dispellable.
Can cast it, even when stunned.
That is looking pretty good.

And the boosts to the PW: Shield will help too.

I really like the Mass Dispel capability.
But we might need a lot of resilience from gear, before that is a factor.

[outdrsyguy1]

I run this combo with a priest healer also. I'm still tweaking a lot of things and figuring out how to play certain maps still. he has roughly 3200 resil and about 124k hp's during a match. He's gemmed/outfitted for stam/ resil. He survives okay, but not when focuesed by 4 dps for sure. I also play him as holy for the 21 seconds of free heals which is way better than a 10 second bubble that can be removed. Once the change to desperate prayer comes in, that will be a huge buff. I tend to find i'm either going to win or lose and the type of healer hasnt' made a huge difference in my mind yet. I do find that 90% of the teams go for my priest first so a lot of times i end up kiting them on my mount while the dk's pwn. A lot of high level teams tend to go for the dk's first for some reason. They have crazy dps and the dk drops seriously fast. I'm still setting up my defensive cooldowns for them so we'll see how this week goes. I get the conc weaps this week, so should be big boost there. I love mass dispel when I can get it off, but it can definitely be tough. I get it off a lot when there's only 3 opponents left or so, but it's tough when 5 are alive.
the fear is pretty handy, but it gets trinketed pretty quick generally.

[Mosg2]

Them trinketing your fear means you get a full duration Strangualate and/or leap/Gnaw combo. C-C-C-C-C-C-Combo!

[remanz]

The power word shield change is going to be very big for the priests.

I played holy paladin a bit. Facing multiple targets (2-3melees), you simply get 8 second of free healing. You can spamm a couple FOL + WOG + Holy Shock. That's about it. Outside of bubble, don't really have much. Can only heal with Holy Shock + WOG.

During 8 second bubble time, the heal per second is about 20k-25k / s. So about 200k heals as output for healing. The target you are healing should not die during that time. After that, you either can't cast anymore, so your HPS drop to like 6k/s. or after a couple more FOL, you will be OOM. So better make something happen during bubble.

[Mosg2]

If Death's Advance goes live as it is on the test realm then Unholy is going to be the best spec, hands down. Can't be slowed below 100% movement speed? Thank you.

[remanz]

After a gruesome honor grind over the weekend, I did some arena matches with my Holy + 4 dks team. They are not too geared yet, but do have 4 piece pvp set. The rest are mixed quest greens.

Now that I have both teams, I can finally draw some real comparisons between dk + rets and holy + dks.


Necrotic Strike + Howling Blast. Without a ton of gear, Necrotic Strike is the only reason my targets fall. Not only does it stack amoung DKs, it also stacks with itself. As a single DK, you strike once it abosrbs 7k. You strike again before the debuff end. The debuff will show abosrbing incoming heals for 14k. and You can keep refreshing. To confirm this, simply mouse over the debuff after you necrotic strike twice on the target. During the arena match, the only reason I killed anyone is because of necrotic strike. My target jumps around and dies slowly due to no heal. So you would think if my target always have no heal then I should kill them all the time, right ? Not really.

The problem is that It takes me too long to peel off the 120k hp. and I get kited around too much where the only



real damage output is Howling Blast. As Kromtor said, 3k HB is killing no one.

Holy paladin heal is ok. I don't really have a priest to compare. But paladin feels alright with the team. The only thing is to bubble early and pray it doesn't get stripped. But still, at least I get to bubble. For a priest, even with all the good tools from the priest, 1 stun => slience, you die. I don't think the other team would just let the priest free cast. Mass dispel ? I don't even have time to cast flash of light without bubble. All I get are holy shock, and WOG. Then I just drop dead. a note on WOG, the only real difference between Retribution's and Holy's WOG is Holy has a talent to crit 60% when using WOG on target below 35% hp. The amount healed is about the same. 15k non crit, given that Ret's WOG used on someone else. 1 single 15k is nothing in 5 v 5 arena. Without FOL spam, holy paladin is near useless.
I am thinking to switch 1 DK to unholy for 8% spell buff. and frenzy (maybe even 2 unholy)

DK + rets are not in a better position. But the play style is a little different. First, you lead with DK. so at least you have some control over where you are going. The rets have ok burst with wings. So in an arena match that only lasts 2mins, Rets are not too bad. I can't say it is better than the DKs simply because of necrotic strike stacking.

and IMO, having 1 healer is almost like having no healer since this one healer just gets pwned every time. 2 healers + 3 DKs, for the endurance (relatively longer) match, and kill people with NS stacking. 2 healers would be spamming heals and dispels. Something like holy paladin + restore shaman.

With upcoming buff to retribution, and minor nerf on the dks, its hard to say where they will be after the change. But both teams have potentials. Not to glad of course as I previously said, but 2200 may be within reach.

[Kromtor]

remanz, agreed - having 1 healer with the 4 dk's is kinda like having no healer, just a taunting totem that works in pvp and heals itself. That's why I think you want a healer with instant cast spells that can help in the offense (priest or sham's dispels) or another DPS with some decent CC that's usable for a boxer.

the new talent death's advance - honestly I don't know what they were thinking. Unholy didn't really need a buff, the only reason frost was preferred by some (some... not all) was due to the massive AoE potential. Unholy is definitely the way to go for boxers now like mosg2 said.

Having a healer with the 4 rets might be a good idea because the rets could defiintely keep him alive during the initial assault. It'd work great with a disc priest provided he didn't oom as the match dragged on. The DK is not a necessary component of the team.

I'm definitely disappointed by the purge nerf, my 4 enh + war team will suffer. I don't really have time to play all 3 teams seriously, however, I'm having a very difficult time deciding which to play or if i should try to combine components from each.

[Lpwned]

Oh yea, almost forgot to give credit!

You have sold another on Quad boxing DKs. Level 65 and counting! My shammy team is on hold and likely dead (until / if) they make us PvP viable again.

Thanks for the inspiration!

[Ualaa]

Disc Priest is getting 2/4 seconds of Silence/Dispel immunity after self casting PW: Shield, via Strength of Soul.

I still like having the healer.
Gets you decent buffs.
And the possibility to debuff or remove bubbles etc.

But the PvP Taunt Totem that works comment...

Compare that to a 5th DPS.
Or possibly a stealthed Resto Druid who has the advantage of not being an initial target, even if they won't necessarily last a long time after their first heal.

[Fat Tire]

Inscription: Glyph of Dark Succor - Causes your Death Strike ability to always restore at least 20% of your maximum health when used while in Frost or Unholy Presence.

Dont really know what to say except. I love unholy and its getting so much better with passive freedom and this....

[Toned]

That glyph is amazing.

[Fat Tire]

Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.

Speachless, although I like the UH mobility buff better

[Vociferate]

I am looking at Unholy Specs, and I have been playing with specs and still a bit unsure of what to take (They all look good). ;)

Not sure whether to take over the other's. So here is a basic spec, and maybe you all could sway me in which things to take:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZZdGMdfIzdbo

[Mosg2]

Honestly, with bubble my Paladin lasts long enough so that I get more "dps" via his healing than I would with another dps. So far :)

I'm stuck on the healer problem. I don't know what I'm going to do from here.

[remanz]

Inscription: Glyph of Dark Succor - Causes your Death Strike ability to always restore at least 20% of your maximum health when used while in Frost or Unholy Presence.

Dont really know what to say except. I love unholy and its getting so much better with passive freedom and this....

First I thought it was 20% of base health. Now read it again it is 20% maxmum health, and "at least" What!?

At 120k * 0.2 , that's 24k. It heals more than anything in the game if I am not mistaken. No single non crit heal is this big. Divine Light is close, but not quite.

So, huh !???

and if I am a blood tank, I just switch presence and death strike for like 160k * 0.2 = 32k???? This is so not going to be on live.

[Fat Tire]

First I thought it was 20% of base health. Now read it again it is 20% maxmum health, and "at least" What!?

At 120k * 0.2 , that's 24k. It heals more than anything in the game if I am not mistaken. No single non crit heal is this big. Divine Light is close, but not quite.

So, huh !???

and if I am a blood tank, I just switch presence and death strike for like 160k * 0.2 = 32k???? This is so not going to be on live.


Ya that might have been the datamined glyph change. I found the official change that will be on the ptr.

Glyphs

Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raise the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 20% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.

[remanz]

So.................. 4 or 5 blood DK in unholy presence ? With all these improvements to DK, just seems like can't go wrong with any specs for the death knight.

[Kromtor]

it's substantial healing but it comes at a price - frost and unholy DK's won't do good damage if they're spamming DS - probably even less than a ret pally would if he uses all his HP for healing. blood still does good damage with DS (using DS glyph) but leaving blood presence means you take a significant amount more damage and don't really gain much if any DPS (you lose a lot of AP along with the armor and you're not speced for improved frost or unholy). it's a great glyph and most will want to use it, but i don't know that it's a game changer. i still think death's advance is the most amazing talent that has ever been in a melee tree and honestly i'll be surprised if it makes it.

edit: the glyph will be OP as hell for all DK's in low damage environments like 1v1's and 2v2's. i was just looking at it from a 5v5 perspective where you're already taking massive damage prior to DS and usually already doing close to 20% max health in healing

[Mosg2]

Death's Advance is probably going to get changed. It's the most overpowered talent I can see in the game. I can honestly say I think it's better than Ring of Frost and anyone who has talked to me in the past three weeks knows what I think of Ring of Frost.

Being unrootable and unsnarable while your Unholy runes are on CD means that all you have to do is get them into melee for 3-4 seconds and then they will NEVER be able to leave melee range. Ever. All that uptime means you're going to be raping people.

[outdrsyguy1]

I agree that death's advance looks amazing. It's going to be a terribly tough choice to make once the patch hits. Course, having the entire other team rooted for 3 seconds is totally amazing too..
I wonder what diminishing returns would be, cause with 4 death knights, i'm not sure anyone would ever come un-rooted to be honest.
Desecration, with 4 anti-magic zones chained would really limit the incoming damage, and with desecration lasting 20 seconds, and putting down roughly 20 desecrations over the course of 20 seconds, the whole damn arena will be under a slowed by 50% advisory.
I'm totally torn on how to handle this lol.

Oh, btw, picked up the conquest weapons today and went from 1400 to 1650 in the blink of an eye. I beat a bunch of 1700 and an 1800 rated teams. I was never really able to do that very well last season with dk/pallies. And I still don't have my DK defensive cooldowns setup right nor my strangulates. Also don't have mind freeze on RR yet lol.

[Negativ1337]

I'm loving my DK's right now.

I've got 4x Orc Deathknights on level 65 atm. I am leveling in Nagrand and i have soloed every ring of blood quest except the last one, so i'm gonna try to get a guildy to help me tonight.

I'm loving Blood Tap, also i like Festering Strike and i'm using that as the last ability of my rotation (so i can increase the time on plague), not sure yet if thats the right way to do it but i'm gonna try to level my team to 70 tonight. I really hope i can get that axe from the ring of blood because it looks really cool. Also in Howling Fjord is a really nice 2h axe i can get from the questline there.

We will see how things goes, haven't done that much dungeons yet BUT i've managed to clear Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slavepens and Underbog with a random healer with no problem. 4x Death Grip is awesome to grab people from the sky aswell ^^

Kind regards,

Negativ1337

[Kromtor]

Death's Advance is probably going to get changed. It's the most overpowered talent I can see in the game. I can honestly say I think it's better than Ring of Frost and anyone who has talked to me in the past three weeks knows what I think of Ring of Frost.

Being unrootable and unsnarable while your Unholy runes are on CD means that all you have to do is get them into melee for 3-4 seconds and then they will NEVER be able to leave melee range. Ever. All that uptime means you're going to be raping people.

the way i read it was currently written, you can still be rooted. it only prevents movement impairing effects from slowing you below 100% whereas roots are in their own category despite technically also being movement impairing. it's still crazy powerful.

[outdrsyguy1]

hmm... it seemed powerful, but if you still get rooted with death's advance.... I mean most of the things that put me behind start with a root and it taking a couple seconds to dispel. once you've lost that 2 or 3 seconds it's hard to catch them again. i really look forward to seeing in action. I may have to speed up my RR on death grip as I have a 1 sec delay to keep me from accidentally blowing 2 or 3 with spamming the button a little.
I played a little with unholy vs target dummies and the dps between unholy and frost seems pretty similar when you include the pet dps. Until they nerf HB though, the pressure created from the aoe damage just can't be beat.

[Mosg2]

Currently Death's Advance works thus:

Once both of your Unholy runes are on cooldown you gain a debuff that lasts ten seconds. This means you won't constantly be ping-ponging between 115%, 100% and whatever % you are snared based off where your cooldowns are.

[Vociferate]

Pinging 115% is that with Runic Power?

Sorry, just woke up, so my comprehension is a bit dusty without a cup of coffee. :S

[Mosg2]

In Unholy Presence you move at 115% run speed.

[JackBurton]

I only see one DK's runes with Pitbull. My (masters) runes. Does anyone know of a good frame addon that will show me all the dks runes?

[Ualaa]

Not sure off-hand.

But, if you use the priority system, which is essentially mashing six keys together.
You can prioritize which are cast, because there are more of a given spell than another spell.

At the same time, you don't need to micro manage your runes.
Which would be a real pain, with four Death Knights.
Honestly, it is a lot easier to mash one key (which is six keys), than to manage runes independently on four DK's.



Sorry if my answer basically dismisses your question.
Was not my intention to do so, but that is my take on the rotation and tracking runes.
I'm not sure of an addon that will do that.

[Noids]

With the thoughts on switching to unholy as of 4.0.6 what are people thinking for rotations then.

Playing on test I haven't really found a good priority system as with frosties so I have been running a castsequence.

Basically open with diseases, icy touch and plague strike. I have actually been trying glyphed chains of ice to get frost plague on which only costs 1-2k damage but gets the snare on ASAP. For my blood rune I have been using pestilence first up to help with the aoe pressure component that unholy lack over frost.

Once diseases are up the rotation is just festering strike, necrotic strike/scourge strike. I use death coil as a drop through off the castsequence.

Not sure if this will operate as efficiently as the priority system we have with frost currently when we are in PvP. On dummies it works great and with the pet gives me an extra 25-30% dps over a frost build, but in effect, it is quite dependant on getting diseases up first and staying in melee range.

Interested to know what other people are thinking of using if the switch to unholy is made.

[Mosg2]

I've got a sustained 10k DPS single target priority one-button setup on live that works great. I'll be spending the next few hours testing it and optimizing but then I'll post'em here.

[Mosg2]

All right, here we go with the Unholy single target DPS mash. I've played with it a lot over the past week and I went at it again today--I just can't seem to squeeze any more DPS out of an Unholy rotation. What I get with this mash is comparable to what I get when I play the character solo manually doing the buttons. To me, that's a pretty good indication that something is as efficient as you can make it. In any case, here we go:

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike

So, here's what happens. I have one of each button on my mash lineup of seven keys except the Scourge Strike one, which has four copies. The Dark Transformation macro is on the downpress button. Each of these castsequences advances to the next step when any are pushed--Which means you're guaranteed to get a Chains of Ice and then a Plague Strike on a target from each of your DK's followed by spamming Scourge Strike, Death Coil, Festering Strike and Dark Transformation with Scourge Strike and Dark Transformation 'preferred' via one being on downpress and one having multiple copies.

I get about 9800 single target dps on the 85 dummy and a spike up to 11k or so once their pets enrage.

The problems as I see them:

1) This rotation does not 'automate' usage of your Gargoyle. To me this is something that *must* be fixed. We need a system that will first get 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion on your ghoul, enrage it and then only use Runic Power for your Gargoyle unless it's on cooldown. I haven't played with this at all--I think it'll be doable. Somehow :)

2) This rotation gets out of sync if you're on the target too long. Since the Scourge Strike macros advance much faster than the Death Coil and Festering Strike macro you will get points where you will Chains of Ice and then Plague Strike off of your Scourge Strike macro and then moments later do them again via your Festering Strike or Death Coil macro. In practice this should never happen--You will never need to be on a single target so long that both macros would cycle around :) I tried to fix this but lost serious DPS in the process.

3) Once the patch hits (and arguably even now) Unholy is one of the most bloated talent trees of any class. It's going to be hard to get everything you need (Endless Winter plus 3/3 Bladed Armor) while still grabbing all the DPS talents out of Unholy.

Thoughts?

[tanknspanker]

soooo, I just dinged 85 with the team ^^ tried some arena was crappy (ofc)
but my question was, what starterweap were u using and did you fully grind bg's for the pvp set ? or just some parts?


greetingz

[Mosg2]

I started with the CoC weapon and ground ALL of the honor gear. I upgraded to the Conquest weapon on week two.

[tanknspanker]

I started with the CoC weapon and ground ALL of the honor gear. I upgraded to the Conquest weapon on week two.


thx for the fast reply ;-)
its just a pitty i only dinged today and not earlier, alot of people are already good geared .. and stupid combo's are being formed..
like 4 frost mages and a holadin

greetingz

[Shodokan]

All right, here we go with the Unholy single target DPS mash. I've played with it a lot over the past week and I went at it again today--I just can't seem to squeeze any more DPS out of an Unholy rotation. What I get with this mash is comparable to what I get when I play the character solo manually doing the buttons. To me, that's a pretty good indication that something is as efficient as you can make it. In any case, here we go:

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation, Dark Transformation

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge Strike

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil

/castsequence reset=target/combat Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike, Festering Strike

So, here's what happens. I have one of each button on my mash lineup of seven keys except the Scourge Strike one, which has four copies. The Dark Transformation macro is on the downpress button. Each of these castsequences advances to the next step when any are pushed--Which means you're guaranteed to get a Chains of Ice and then a Plague Strike on a target from each of your DK's followed by spamming Scourge Strike, Death Coil, Festering Strike and Dark Transformation with Scourge Strike and Dark Transformation 'preferred' via one being on downpress and one having multiple copies.

I get about 9800 single target dps on the 85 dummy and a spike up to 11k or so once their pets enrage.

The problems as I see them:

1) This rotation does not 'automate' usage of your Gargoyle. To me this is something that *must* be fixed. We need a system that will first get 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion on your ghoul, enrage it and then only use Runic Power for your Gargoyle unless it's on cooldown. I haven't played with this at all--I think it'll be doable. Somehow :)

2) This rotation gets out of sync if you're on the target too long. Since the Scourge Strike macros advance much faster than the Death Coil and Festering Strike macro you will get points where you will Chains of Ice and then Plague Strike off of your Scourge Strike macro and then moments later do them again via your Festering Strike or Death Coil macro. In practice this should never happen--You will never need to be on a single target so long that both macros would cycle around :) I tried to fix this but lost serious DPS in the process.

3) Once the patch hits (and arguably even now) Unholy is one of the most bloated talent trees of any class. It's going to be hard to get everything you need (Endless Winter plus 3/3 Bladed Armor) while still grabbing all the DPS talents out of Unholy.

Thoughts?

you had a null setup to prevent that before, what happened to it?

[Nsaeyn]

also where is the necrotic strike going in? Is this not setup the same way in isboxer any more?

[Mosg2]

@Shodokan:
Nils prevent that from happening but they also mean that you will "cycle out" on a target and have to retarget them to be doing any DPS. I guess I could probably add them back in for the non-Scourge Strike buttons. Hmmm. I'll think about it.

@Nsaeyn:
No Necrotic Strike. This setup just goes for straight up DPS. NS may or may not be better than SS post patch. We'll see what happens :)

[thedreameater]

Create an Action Target Group, call it Melee.
Add all of your Melee toons to this group.

Action Target Groups screw my toons up for some reason.

This is the second team I'm adding in ISBoxer. The first don't have a ATG. If I have my repeater disabled on the first team and hit the jump key, well, the repeater is off so the other toons don't jump. Only the first. WITH the ATG, all the toons jump, regardless of my repeater being disabled or not. All key sends are sent - which makes chatting and such impossible. Any idea?



Now make a new mapped key (I put mine in the General Keymap).
Call it Melee IWT.
No hotkey, nothing in advanced.
One step, Actions:
Send (Your warcraft IWT keybind) to the current window.

Modify whichever mapped keys you use in the FTL DPS Keymap.
In my case, I've modified DPS 1 through DPS 3.

By default we have:
Hotkey: 1
Steps: 1
Actions:
- Do Mapped Key: FTL Assist Me, Target: Current Window
- Send "1" to all windows.

We want to change this a little.
Right click on Steps and add a second step.
Set the mapped key to execute a step on press and release.

Steps 1
Actions:
- Do Mapped Key: FTL Assist Me, Target: Current Window
- Do Mapped Key: Melee IWT, Target: Group (All Of) Melee [or whatever you called the ATG, from the first step.]

Step 2
Actions:
- Do Mapped Key: FTL Assist Me, Target: Current Window
- Send "1" to all windows.


I set this up exactly, even with the ATG, and it doesn't work.
http://i52.tinypic.com/2weevxv.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/33yi0m0.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/qri3c6.jpg

HALP!

EDIT - what I've been doing is hitting my dps keys (don't have any others set up like this, since 1 doesn't work) and mixing in my Interact w Target keymap; that is based off a key press of the Home button, which triggers the InteractwT key map. Thus, I know the InteractwT key map, noted above, works.

[Shodokan]

Did my first arena matches today... 5-5 with not even full pvp gear. I lost mostly to mage teams. It's really different playing from the perspective of a healer in arena, opposed to bgs where i can have a healing macro and do more than fine.

It's something i'm just going to have to grind out. After the changes i feel for some reason that it might be easier to burst someone down due to scourge strike getting buffed... all pets etc etc. Looking foward to the changes i suppose.

At the same time i love me some howling blast.

Honestly the most fun i've had on a team is pvping on this team this weekend (first time i sat down and pvped, mostly made gold for the past month... but sitting close to a mill again and don't feel i need anything else)

[Noids]

Have just been doing some testing on PTR to look at unholy again. I could not get the anti-snare talent to work at all against a mage I was duelling. Would not work to remove/avoid frost snares and definitely did not stop roots. I realise this is a bug but hopefully once owrking properly it does prevent roots also.

At this stage, SS also seems a lot better than NS. On target dummy in blue PvP gear with purple 2her, SS glyphed and about 8% mastery I was getting SS to crit for about 10k with the shadow portion hitting for an extra 9k. NS on the other hand was critting for about 6k with another 8k absorb on top of that. I guess it is getting close enough that it may be worth using in PvP against casters but otherwise SS looks like a nice big chunk of damage.

[Noids]

Action Target Groups screw my toons up for some reason.

This is the second team I'm adding in ISBoxer. The first don't have a ATG. If I have my repeater disabled on the first team and hit the jump key, well, the repeater is off so the other toons don't jump. Only the first. WITH the ATG, all the toons jump, regardless of my repeater being disabled or not. All key sends are sent - which makes chatting and such impossible. Any idea?



I set this up exactly, even with the ATG, and it doesn't work.
http://i52.tinypic.com/2weevxv.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/33yi0m0.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/qri3c6.jpg

HALP!

EDIT - what I've been doing is hitting my dps keys (don't have any others set up like this, since 1 doesn't work) and mixing in my Interact w Target keymap; that is based off a key press of the Home button, which triggers the InteractwT key map. Thus, I know the InteractwT key map, noted above, works.

If Home is your hotkey for your IWT mapped key have you tried replacing the second action of the first step with calling the keyboard command "Home" with the target being your melee character?

I can't think why your ATGs aren't working properly. It almost sounds like you have a new keymap set up which is not part of your keymap toggle switch. If you setup an ATG an add your melee toons to it, this should not change your keymaps at all. Try doing this without changing any of your mapped keys first and see if it affects anything. If it does not, then try adding a new key using your melee ATG as the target and see what happens?

[Mosg2]

After playing more arenas I've come to the conclusion that...

http://www.wowhead.com/item=62471

...Is a mandatory trinket for a melee team. Period. End of sentence.

[thedreameater]

If Home is your hotkey for your IWT mapped key have you tried replacing the second action of the first step with calling the keyboard command "Home" with the target being your melee character?

I can't think why your ATGs aren't working properly. It almost sounds like you have a new keymap set up which is not part of your keymap toggle switch. If you setup an ATG an add your melee toons to it, this should not change your keymaps at all. Try doing this without changing any of your mapped keys first and see if it affects anything. If it does not, then try adding a new key using your melee ATG as the target and see what happens?

When I press Home, ISBoxer sends End to all my toons. End is set up to IWT in game. You're suggesting I send End to my toons, right? Wouldn't the target to be my current windows target, ie assist? Gonna try this as soon as I get home, solid idea (but not what Ualaa set up, which confuses me how it works for everyone else).

As for the ATG, I wonder if that is the origin of all my problems. I'm going to export my isboxer file and start fresh; see if that works.

Another question: when I have them target and unmoving target dummy and spam IWT they circle it like rabid dogs. If I do this to a mob, they tend to scatter and run off into random directions. Is this because of a combination of click to move and the mob moving? Is there a way to prevent it? Currently, I just hit follow to pull them back and hit IWT again to have them face the mob.

Thanks!

[Kromtor]

so for 10 seconds the chance of any of your guys getting slowed, stopped , or CC'ed is greatly reduced, plus the majority of damage sources will also be greatly reduced. you really need to be playing with a team that starts out with 195 spell resists to get full effect from this as most pvp builds have around 200 spell pen. you're definitely right, it's all about time on target and this is a trinket that helps you do that then it's almost like having a second PvP trinket which is priceless.

[Shodokan]

After playing more arenas I've come to the conclusion that...

http://www.wowhead.com/item=62471

...Is a mandatory trinket for a melee team. Period. End of sentence.

I have to start doing my dailies.

[remanz]

I have to start doing my dailies.

I thought about that trinket but decided to get the master + str on use trinket. GG I guess. Spent 125 tokens already.

edit: On a more serious note, have to see what 400 resist do in PVP. Did anyone actually test this out. we are obviously not interested in the partial resist damage reduction part, but looking at the chance on full resist CC. Simply use the trinket, and let the mage sheep you. See what's the chance he misses.

[Mosg2]

Yeah, I'll just run resistance aura for a base of ~100 resist post spell penetration (most people run ~200). That'll be 500 resist to everything--That's like 70% magical damage reduction and a VERY low chance you'll get snared/rooted/stunned/whatever'd. Combined with Death's Advance, AMS, IBF and trinket you should be able to basically have 30 free seconds of no-CC pain train wreckage.

Petitioning Blizz to see if they'll replace my TB trinkets :)

[remanz]

Yeah, I'll just run resistance aura for a base of ~100 resist post spell penetration (most people run ~200). That'll be 500 resist to everything--That's like 70% magical damage reduction and a VERY low chance you'll get snared/rooted/stunned/whatever'd. Combined with Death's Advance, AMS, IBF and trinket you should be able to basically have 30 free seconds of no-CC pain train wreckage.

Petitioning Blizz to see if they'll replace my TB trinkets :)


Hmm, 200 spell pen vs 195 + 400 resist. spell pen to resist is not 1 to 1 ? Also what's the chance of full resist. I can't imagine it is 70% for full resist.

[Mosg2]

It's basically 1:1 for spell pen to resists. You get 200 for resist aura and 100 for Blessing of Kings, making 300 plus the 400 for this trinket--700 spell resist. Figure they have ~200 spell pen (the number most casters shoot for). That makes 500 resist.

[remanz]

I am not certain but following wowwiki.

400 resist is 40% resist on binary spell.


Binary spells are spells which deal a debuff (http://www.wowwiki.com/Debuff) (like Frost Nova (http://www.wowwiki.com/Frost_Nova) or Vampiric Embrace (http://www.wowwiki.com/Vampiric_Embrace)) or, for some other reason, must take full effect or no effect at all.

So 40% chance that the magical CC will miss for 10 seconds per 1min. Not bad, not bad at all.

[Noids]

I don't think BoK or MotW resists stack with resist aura/totem which is why most casters stack to 200 spell pen rather than 260. So if you are a team that already runs with these buffs, you are looking at +400 resist which is significant, but if you are a priest team then you are really only looking at a +200 resist buff which may not be worth it?

[Ualaa]

When I press Home, ISBoxer sends End to all my toons. End is set up to IWT in game. You're suggesting I send End to my toons, right? Wouldn't the target to be my current windows target, ie assist? Gonna try this as soon as I get home, solid idea (but not what Ualaa set up, which confuses me how it works for everyone else).

As for the ATG, I wonder if that is the origin of all my problems. I'm going to export my isboxer file and start fresh; see if that works.

Another question: when I have them target and unmoving target dummy and spam IWT they circle it like rabid dogs. If I do this to a mob, they tend to scatter and run off into random directions. Is this because of a combination of click to move and the mob moving? Is there a way to prevent it? Currently, I just hit follow to pull them back and hit IWT again to have them face the mob.

Thanks!

What I've done is:

1. Melee toons into a Melee ATG.
2. Mapped key, that sends IWT Keybind to the Current Window only.
3. Added a "Do Mapped Key", to my spam DPS that does this IWT mapped key, for all members of my Melee ATG.
4. Created another mapped key, two steps that enables/disables the inserted Do Mapped Key.

When #4 is on, I press my spam DPS key.
It does FTL Assist, Calls the IWT but only for the melee toons, and sends the DPS Key to all windows.

When #4 is off, I press my spam DPS key.
It does FTL Assist, Cannot call the IWT for melee toons as that mapped key is disabled, and still sends the DPS Key to all windows.

The reasoning for my setup like that, I spam the same key irregardless.
But can control whether the DPS swarm (IWT Spam) or not, via the toggle.



The scattering is because the mob is dead, but they're still moving towards it.
You could spam slower; I sometimes hit my normal follow key to end the IWT movement, and then IWT once and wait until the toons are in range and then spam away.
Or if swarming is desired behavior then IWT something else, click back on the mob/horde and IWT spam now from a distance so they'll swarm as they arrive.

[Kromtor]

It's basically 1:1 for spell pen to resists. You get 200 for resist aura and 100 for Blessing of Kings, making 300 plus the 400 for this trinket--700 spell resist. Figure they have ~200 spell pen (the number most casters shoot for). That makes 500 resist.
you only get up to 195 with kings and resist aura as far as i can tell

[Fat Tire]

Only reason people get 190 - 200 SP is Mage Armor, thats it, that is the only reason. If blizz took out mage armor there would be no reason to run near as much SP as we have to now or ever. Furthermore, I think its a extremely stupid stat for a DK to have to gem for or any melee type.

[Noids]

Only reason people get 190 - 200 SP is Mage Armor, thats it, that is the only reason. If blizz took out mage armor there would be no reason to run near as much SP as we have to now or ever. Furthermore, I think its a extremely stupid stat for a DK to have to gem for or any melee type.

I agree its a strange thing for DKs to have to gem for but in reality it is only frost DKs that gem for it and more specifically multiboxing DKs because we don't use obliterate in our rotations.

Getting rid of Mage Armor wouldn't remove our need to run with spell pen either. Almost every team I come up against has either a paladin or a shaman both of which have a team wide buff that provides 195 frost resist.

[BrothelMeister]

A DK without spell pen is making a big mistake. Deathgrip is the most clutch spell, and if its resisted , you just missed an important opportunity to grab the kill target. Since they can resist it 25% of the time, you would be a fool not to get spell pen.

It might be less necessary on a 4 DK team when you have access to multiple pulls, but its still only 4 gems to get 200.

[Fat Tire]

I agree its a strange thing for DKs to have to gem for but in reality it is only frost DKs that gem for it and more specifically multiboxing DKs because we don't use obliterate in our rotations.



I play unholy, always have and I have always used atleast 150+ SP. What I was refering to in my post was that wars/rogues as melee dont have to waste gem/chant slots on SP like Enh/DK do. Granted I only play 1 DK, boxing with another melee so ymmv boxing 4/5.

[Noids]

Not only do wars.rogues not have to worry about SP though, our holy counterparts the ret pally do not need to worry as there is no holy resistance :mad:

I've only really played DKs in PvP since cata (not including the occasional run of leading my 4 shams with an unholy DK in LK :P) so I'm new to the whole spell pen thing. How much of your damage in PvP is done by death coil and diseases? Is the shadow portion of SS affected by spell pen? Considering how awesome strength is for unholy (ie. more valuable than hit even before cap) I would've thought it'd be better to grab it whenever possible? Obviously the cloak chant is a no brainer as there isn't a str one, but surely you should gem str over spell pen regardless of cap?

[Mosg2]

If you go to Arenajunkies they all state that getting ~200 spell pen is more important than any other stat first.

[Noids]

I can see that but they also recomend getting to the hit cap prior to getting to spell pen "cap".

Looking at the elitisjerks website however strength is actually more valuable than hit even before being capped. I realise EJ is a PvE website, but as such there is actually some fairly detailed calculations behind their recommendations as opposed to what I can see on AJ.

The same article recommending the spell pen also refers to vicious gladiator as viscous gladiator :P

Honestly, I don't know for sure, I am just throwing the possibility out there for consideration that considering it is such an annoying stat to gem for, it would be nice to quantify if it is actually worth it.

[Mosg2]

+70 enchant to cloak and then some +50 gems. It's even easier if you're a JC.

[outdrsyguy1]

the spell pen thing hit home with me when I was on my priest and noticed that the shadow resist buff gave me a 24% reduction in shadow damage done to me. Then applying the same principle to frost damage I do to others, it's a no brainer since such a huge component of a frost dk's damage is frost. The loss of a measly amount of strength to negate the spell resistance is well worth it imo.
I'm still on the fence about hit though, I probably should cap it for pvp but i'm undecided. hate to lose all the extra str gems.

[Mosg2]

Well, the "best" thing to do in my opinion is to be a Jewelcrafter. +70 pen to cloak, one +84 JC gem and one +50 gem. Then all the rest of your gem slots are +strength and you reforge all that shitty expertise and crit until you get the +hit cap.

I have heard and I believe I read somewhere that currently it's even better to ignore +10str gem slot bonuses in favor of the pure +str gems rather than use the hybrid gems--IE, 30 strength and 20 haste/hit/crit is worth less DPS than 40str in EVERY case. I can't find the post I saw that at though, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Noids]

the spell pen thing hit home with me when I was on my priest and noticed that the shadow resist buff gave me a 24% reduction in shadow damage done to me. Then applying the same principle to frost damage I do to others, it's a no brainer since such a huge component of a frost dk's damage is frost. The loss of a measly amount of strength to negate the spell resistance is well worth it imo.
I'm still on the fence about hit though, I probably should cap it for pvp but i'm undecided. hate to lose all the extra str gems.

Not arguing with it for frost as strength is not such a winner as it is for unholy and as you say spell damage is also a greater proportion.

Saying that having the number of 24% from 195 resist gives us something to work with. This means each point of spell pen gives 0.12% of increased spell damage. So a 50 SP gem will give a 6.15% bonus to spell damage which for DKs at a very conservative estimate is 3% total dps increase. Considering it costs 120 hit rating to get 1% melee hit, SP is clearly better. Now using the EJ comparison between hit and str, even if str were twice as good (it is not) SP is still at least 7 times as good.

Back to Mosg's idea about the 400 resist trink idea then with numbers. If you are already running resist auras then the 400 will give you approx 50% DR against spell damage. If you aren't and assuming all casters are running 195 SP then its more like 25-26%

[Noids]

Well, the "best" thing to do in my opinion is to be a Jewelcrafter. +70 pen to cloak, one +84 JC gem and one +50 gem. Then all the rest of your gem slots are +strength and you reforge all that shitty expertise and crit until you get the +hit cap.

I have heard and I believe I read somewhere that currently it's even better to ignore +10str gem slot bonuses in favor of the pure +str gems rather than use the hybrid gems--IE, 30 strength and 20 haste/hit/crit is worth less DPS than 40str in EVERY case. I can't find the post I saw that at though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Yeah, EJ says, go for pure strength unless you get a 20str bonus from a single slot or 30 from a double. AFAIK these bonuses don't exist.

[thedreameater]

What I've done is:

1. Melee toons into a Melee ATG.
2. Mapped key, that sends IWT Keybind to the Current Window only.
3. Added a "Do Mapped Key", to my spam DPS that does this IWT mapped key, for all members of my Melee ATG.
4. Created another mapped key, two steps that enables/disables the inserted Do Mapped Key.

When #4 is on, I press my spam DPS key.
It does FTL Assist, Calls the IWT but only for the melee toons, and sends the DPS Key to all windows.

When #4 is off, I press my spam DPS key.
It does FTL Assist, Cannot call the IWT for melee toons as that mapped key is disabled, and still sends the DPS Key to all windows.

The reasoning for my setup like that, I spam the same key irregardless.
But can control whether the DPS swarm (IWT Spam) or not, via the toggle.



The scattering is because the mob is dead, but they're still moving towards it.
You could spam slower; I sometimes hit my normal follow key to end the IWT movement, and then IWT once and wait until the toons are in range and then spam away.
Or if swarming is desired behavior then IWT something else, click back on the mob/horde and IWT spam now from a distance so they'll swarm as they arrive.

Got it - my IWT set up was flawed. I was using an IWT I set up a while back that toggled click to move on and off. Deleting that IWT with a new one (which assists current window in the first step, then send the IWT keybind (in game = END) just like a regular DPS keybind) worked.

Now, I need to figure out how to stop my toons from prioritizing corpses or each other when attacking.

I pull 4 mobs. One goes down, but they toons will never switch to the next mob (this doesn't happen with my ranged shaman). I click TAB to cycle to the next mob, it cycles for a second THEN GOES BACK TO THE DEAD MOB! I will wait a second or two before spamming attack again, but it always goes back to the dead mob. My current window is my pally tank (not in the melee ATG). Why is this happening and how do I prevent it?