DKs are the new 4x Shamans IMO

I have some new thoughts after I entered my first night in AV on my 4x level 71 DK team the other night.

I just happened to run into 5x shamans - all level 80 in pvp gear in AV, someone said - oh #$#$ mutliboxing shamans.

What happened you say???? Well, I kicked their ass, and there's nothing they could do about it.

They got me a couple times, but I got them just as many, probably more. Yes, level 71 DKs kicked the ass of 5x 80 shamans.

Guess who I ran into the next game? 5x shamans. Yes, kicked their ass again, won the BG - and at level 71 wtf???.

And if the situation was reversed, I'm sure I would have gotten my butt kicked by the 71 DKs just the same.

It's so imbalanced it's not even funny.

I've have 4x level 80 shaman and I'm by no means the greatest in arena, only got up to about 1800 in s4 with my shamans.

Personally, I think the best days of the 4x arena shaman are behind them. I do, however, believe some very talented PvPers will make them work to a certain degree, but nothing like before. Down the road, there might be some changes to help shamans out in arena, but that's a LONG way away.

Everyone has NASTY AOE now (mage, druids, locks, hunters, DKs, Warriors, Rogues). Before I could heal through this stuff, but now 1 mage can take down my team while I'm frost novad. Shamans burst damage is crap and they have no "outs" e.g. bubble, ice block etc... A shaman can get burst down in seconds in 5's.

Shamans lost their best killing combo, EM+NS+CL, and we're even losing EM as far as helping burst.
Shamans lost 13% damage on LB as well when they changed the coefficient.

We're getting a few buffs in 3.0.8, but nothing that helps our burst or survivability to any significant degree.

I do think shamans are going to be great for PVE still, and not a total loss in PVP by any means. It just might be S6 before they give Shamans any type of pvp love.

Thats sad! 71 dks beating 5 shamans. As a 5 shaman player I freaking hate dks. Once they throw up their anti magic bs you cant do any damage to them. That thing is way overpowered. Just thinking of 4 anti magic shields makes me wonder if the poor guy could even do any damage to you. I have 4 dks at 58.. I think they will be my next project after I level my pve team.

There's no escape - 4x death and decays (which has a 80% chance to make them cower- lol), 4x round robin death grips, 4x anti magic ZONE (50K magic damage absorbed), 4x anti magic SHIELD, bone whatever, Ice bound fort.

You're not killing ANY DK quickly. I've killed up to 3x level 80s who tried to gank me. No one can get away with the Death grips and the 15% run buff to group - including rogues.

And the sad thing is, I really don't even know how to play DKs yet, I'm not using half of the good spells.

It sounds nice, but what about a multiboxers worst enemy? Fear.

Fear is my biggest concern, but there are a few solutions
1) I have my pvp trinket hotkeyed and it's a 2min CD
2) I have anti magic shell, which gives me fear immunity for 12 seconds - 1 min CD
3) Death and Decay on top of me almost all the time which means that it's REALLY hard to go in and fear. When they do, they usually get effected by cower, not many are brave enough to charge into Death and Decay
4) I am leveling with my shaman with my 4x DKs, anytime I hit my follow key it puts down a tremor totem (unless I am mounted) It's only 48 mana for a tremor totem

Honestly, in normal PvP, the trinket is fine for 80% of cases. Once you blow the trinket, I go for the person who feared me and kill them first.
And if my trinket is down, and I see someone who can fear is close to me, I'll usually blow anti-magic shell which mages me immune.

I'm a bit worried about Arena though, if it turns out to be a big problem, I might have to roll with a shaman for tremor. Although I do have a few outs, so it's not as bad as other classes.

Yes yes, but you're being heavily nerfed, and shamans heavily buffed. :)

I would be interested to see your macros. If you ever have time pm them to me. I dont know nothing about dks. I do have 4 waiting and your really making it sound fun. Even if I only did my 10 games in arena the bgs sound like they would be more fun than my shaman.

Hail and well met Kicksome, those were my shaman which you roflstomped :)

I'm not PROest multiboxer out there but it's not like i'm total fail either...my guys are geared fairly decently too I might add (18-20k hp, 500-600 res, 2k spellpower self buffed) and I usually steamroll through people in AV games. I believe the times I was able to zerg down your team was in the open a few times and you were probably distracted by everyone else that was trying to kill you or something, i'd say insane surviability is a gross understatement here. After seeing your guys in action theres no doubt in my mind that your team will be a force to be reckened with in BGs with level 80 / epics / experience, etc. Seriously, when you were in confined areas like the towers the field of DnD fears was so rediculus that being on the receiving end just makes you laugh IRL as your health is helplessly widdled down by the insane spam of crazyness they just eminates from your team. Man IDK what the hell was even going on when I was in close quarters with your team

So, i've been on the fence about rolling a DK team...after those encounters i'm sold hook line and sinker. I love my shaman team, but they are getting a bit old and the DKs just seems like alot of fun. I gotta ask, what are your thoughts on level 80 specs? Rune tap + the runetap glyph seems perfect for 5box DK groups and seems like you could squeeze that in with an unholy build. And wow, while 3.0.8 might be a nerf to the solo DKs, theres also some cool buffs in there that seem awesome if your boxing...4% blood aura, 45 second AMS, super buffed corpse explosion, etc

Anyway it was cool to see another boxer in the BGs, your the first one i've ever come across in BGs TBH. See you around, next time we cross paths though ill be 5 belf DKs though :)

I would think what happened was a bit of an exception - with 4x shaman at 78 the only DK's that are able to wipe my whole group are 79 and have 20k hp and are usually Frost. Granted a lot of good ones 76+ can take 1 or 2 of my shaman but the only thing that has wiped my whole group really is a arms warrior or frost mage casting blizzard from 40 yards away.

DId he just not even bother to cast or turn his alts? I just don't get it. When anti magic shield is up you just spam chain heal, or have all slaves bomb heals on the main and you can easily survive 12 seconds then the DK blows up. I just can't see a lvl 71 DK killing 5 80 shaman unless they were all afk.

Kinda hard to choose between UD DKs and Belf DKs!

Will of the forsaken + anti magic shield = WIN against fear

But deathgripping casters into your group and chain silencing them sounds fun too.

Team up with a Resto shaman for WF+Bloodlust and purge and my guess is that they will be the strongest AOE healer next patch with the incomming priest/druid aoe healing nerf.

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Originally Posted by 'heyaz',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164245#post16 4245

I just can't see a lvl 71 DK killing 5 80 shaman unless they were all afk.

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He's boxing 4 DKs.

It's impossible to chain heal when 4x death and decays is under you, each with a 20% chance to make you cower and interrupt you spells. You MIGHT get 1 chain heal off if you're lucky. Not even close enough to help with all the damage you're taking. Also, there are all sorts of diseases going on besides death and decay. Also, I have pestilence 4x on the ground, makes you go 50% slower. It's a death trap for sure.

I have 4x 80 shamans too, along with the 4x DKs. You can't move your guys out of death and decay because at least 1/2 are cowering, the ones that do get out get death gripped back in, and they are moving at 1/2 speed with pestilence going on.

Right now I'm all unholy spec. I like the ghoul pet and all the AOE stuff I get. That way it's not quite as bad if one of my guys is facing a different direction.

Right now, I spam this macro
/startattack
/castrandom [target=focustarget] icy touch, Pestilence, plague strike, blood boil, Scourge Strike, Unholy Blight, Death Strike

and I also throw in a manual death and decay, that's about it.

LOL @ people making entire group compisition changes before the very first balancing patch has been made post-expansion.

Seriously, if you think the "current balance" is going to remain for long you'd have to be mental, there hasn't even been a single patch yet, and I guarantee the next 2-3 will be full of balancing changes.

Hi Suprafro, fun going against you the other night. I almost wish I would have brought my shamans!

Someone said - oh #$#@ multiboxing shamans. I was thinking to myself, wait, I'm not playing my shamans. Then I look on the who and see you - I was like oh crap!

I'd probably roll 4x DKs and 1x Shaman, or 5x DKs and drop one around level 70 and use one of your 80 shamans for a healer.

I leveled up 4 shaman to 80, so I had one stuck at 70 that I used to replace one of the DKs. So I'm using 4x DKs, 1x Shaman, just about all 73 now.

It REALLY sucks not having a healer while leveling, it also sucks not being able to rez, that's why I finally dropped a DK and put a shaman in. Now I can run instances etc... Also having a tremor totem, windfury and healing stream totem comes in really handy.

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Originally Posted by 'Hachoo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164276#post1 64276

LOL @ people making entire group compisition changes before the very first balancing patch has been made post-expansion.

Seriously, if you think the "current balance" is going to remain for long you'd have to be mental, there hasn't even been a single patch yet, and I guarantee the next 2-3 will be full of balancing changes.

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I only go off of what I actually see. Not what I hope for, or what I THINK Blizzard MIGHT do in the future.

You realize that it's close to 3 months since the talent tree changes came out? Before that they were on the beta server for months. Shamans have been bitching about bad DPS for the past 6+ months and now we're FINALLY getting a 10% dps increase (well, not yet), with a nerf to PVP. I waited 6 months for a 10% increase to dps, after getting a 13% DECREASE when the new talent tree came out. So at best, we're back to where we started. And EVERYONE else got MUCH better. We lost our instant crit CL and gained thunderstorm.

There's nothing that's even been mentioned that will buff shamans in PvP. It's pretty obvious ele shamans have been put on the back burner (look at the caster mail itemization in naxx).

Doesn't the Death and Decay proc have diminishing returns? I heard it was 2 seconds > 1 seconds > .5 > immune.

good question, but problem is... by that time half your team is dead from the spell interrupts. Oh and the person who said "chain heal if AMZ is up" uh... you gonna chain heal for 2mins? (4 DKs x 30sec a piece if you dont do enough damage to take it down) Ya that aint gonna work. Not to mention they can blow AMS after that. Trust me, once DKs get into my shamans and drop their shield it's game over. That's why I do my best to never let them near my shaman, grounding totems for their pull and roundrobin Thunderstorms... which is only good against the bad DKs. ;(

edit: P.S. Hoping Blizzard nerfs a class is FUTILE. HELLO ROGUES/DRUIDS 2s all of BC... ya they needed a ridiculous nerf and it never happened. Even if it did it would probably be talked about for months before they actually did anything. God I have been waiting for my shaman changes forever.

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Originally Posted by 'Kicksome',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164274#pos t164274

Right now, I spam this macro
/startattack
/castrandom [target=focustarget] icy touch, Pestilence, plague strike, blood boil, Scourge Strike, Unholy Blight, Death Strike

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no /follow leader after each? I manually do my rotations so after each cast I make the slaves /follow the current leader. Makes them more mobile, although Im sure this isnt the only way to do it.

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Originally Posted by 'Ellay',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164293#post16 4293

Doesn't the Death and Decay proc have diminishing returns? I heard it was 2 seconds > 1 seconds > .5 > immune.

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It's getting nerfed next patch to be 10% proc AND diminishing returns. Right now it doesn't have diminishing returns, at least from what I've seen and heard.

I used it tonight at the gate to Wintergrasp (right before the orb), it was insane, I must of had at least 50 horde cowering for 30 seconds.

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Originally Posted by 'Multibocks',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164302#p ost164302

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Originally Posted by 'Kicksome',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164274#pos t164274

Right now, I spam this macro
/startattack
/castrandom [target=focustarget] icy touch, Pestilence, plague strike, blood boil, Scourge Strike, Unholy Blight, Death Strike

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no /follow leader after each? I manually do my rotations so after each cast I make the slaves /follow the current leader. Makes them more mobile, although Im sure this isnt the only way to do it.

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I have another button that does the same macro with a follow built in. I need to start using it more, I get a lot of runners spamming follow.

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Originally Posted by 'Hachoo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164276#post1 64276

LOL @ people making entire group compisition changes before the very first balancing patch has been made post-expansion.

Seriously, if you think the "current balance" is going to remain for long you'd have to be mental, there hasn't even been a single patch yet, and I guarantee the next 2-3 will be full of balancing changes.

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The incomming changes to Death Knights will be balanced with overall improvments so i hardly see them any weaker next patch.

We could get a 100% dps increase on lava burst and lightning bolt and Dk's wouldnt go down much faster.

A well geared DK can keep on forever against me in certains specs (blood i assume)

Anti magic zone,anti magic shield and bone shield.

I cant even IMAGINE singel boxing my warlock atm when all bgs is filled with dks,ret paladins and rogues.

Yeah boxing dks owns atm.. I killed a shaman(67), warlock(66), pala(71), dk(60) and a warrior(64) with my 4 lvl 61 dks.. i lol'd..
My ghoul army owned them so fast :D

btw: how do u cast DnD on ur toons? oO

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Originally Posted by 'Dominian',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164325#pos t164325

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Originally Posted by 'Hachoo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164276#post1 64276

LOL @ people making entire group compisition changes before the very first balancing patch has been made post-expansion.

Seriously, if you think the "current balance" is going to remain for long you'd have to be mental, there hasn't even been a single patch yet, and I guarantee the next 2-3 will be full of balancing changes.

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The incomming changes to Death Knights will be balanced with overall improvments so i hardly see them any weaker next patch.

We could get a 100% dps increase on lava burst and lightning bolt and Dk's wouldnt go down much faster.

A well geared DK can keep on forever against me in certains specs (blood i assume)

Anti magic zone,anti magic shield and bone shield.

I cant even IMAGINE singel boxing my warlock atm when all bgs is filled with dks,ret paladins and rogues.

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Can't you thunderstorm DKs out of their magic shield? When I get death gripped by one first thing I hit is TS then flameshock/lava burst his ass.

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Originally Posted by 'blast3r',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164356#post 164356

Can't you thunderstorm DKs out of their magic shield? When I get death gripped by one first thing I hit is TS then flameshock/lava burst his ass.

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Yes, you can TS them out of the shield, but they'll only take about 300 damage from the TS since you hit them in their shield. The biggest problem is that the Shamans need to move since they are probably standing in DnD and tons of other AOEs. So you can TS them out, then you need to move to get out of the AOE. By that time, the DK are back on top of you, if they haven't death gripped at least one of your guys.

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Originally Posted by 'Kicksome',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164406#pos t164406

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Originally Posted by 'blast3r',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164356#post 164356

Can't you thunderstorm DKs out of their magic shield? When I get death gripped by one first thing I hit is TS then flameshock/lava burst his ass.

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Yes, you can TS them out of the shield, but they'll only take about 300 damage from the TS since you hit them in their shield. The biggest problem is that the Shamans need to move since they are probably standing in DnD and tons of other AOEs. So you can TS them out, then you need to move to get out of the AOE. By that time, the DK are back on top of you, if they haven't death gripped at least one of your guys.

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This is the case and running is hard vs DK's!

I am a 5man boxer of deathknights. I have 5 level 80's atm. Their horribly geared and don't survive in arena. However as of this patch, they are awesome in world pvp and battlegrounds such as AV. The only problems I have are with paladins and other Deathknights. I'm unholy specced so I get all the damage buffs such as bone shield, IBF and AMZ/AMS. They are what keep me alive. Bone shield is super amazing.

The problem lies in this next patch. When you go from 40% damage mitigation to 20%, then 50% from IBF down to 20%, you will feel the hurt. A problem we face already as full unholy is the lack of a 3rd disease amongst the other 4 deathknights. I haven't tried multispeccing my DK but if anyone has let me know how it's going. I recently respecced my DK into blood just to watch my army of the dead x5 and then x2 again with dancing weapon. I tried some PVP with it and I realized I die super fast. After patch will it be worth it to stay frost presence for the extra armor, damage mitigation? As of now we can switch to blood presence and still have our crazy mitigations. They did talk about buffing AMZ to compensate, but how much will be enough? Another 2,000?

Like I said my gear is horrible my money is shot and what I am doing now is grinding honor for the pvp gear that hopefully will make a difference. I'm still using my quest blue deraged waraxe x5.

I would like to try full frost next patch just for the hungering cold x 5, or mix it up for some HC and AMZ. Lots of shitty bugs having multi-dk atm to really make it worth having multi-dk. You could prob. be better off switching some DK out with some paladins.

For instance if you Pestilence icy touch and have the chillblains talent, it will not give chillblains to other targets. Descecration only applys to the DK that procced it making you spec it 5 times to get all DK to have the effect, and its only 5%. Only aura's that stack are blood in frost presence, and it's still not alot of healing. Next patch increases to 2/4% but the bug could be fixed. Usually Bugs that benefit get fixed first before bugs that hurt us.

Interesting, on paper it seemed like the self healing potential of DKs was unreal and benefited nicely from stacking. Even with only 1 4% blood aura, with 5x UB and 5x DnD down thats what.. like 500-1000 dps per target per DK in the area of effect or (20-40 *5 = 100-200 hps * num targets in AOE). Not insane vs 1 target but 1:1 scaling is just crazy , especially in large Wintergrasp/AV battles....and thats not even considering any other damage outside of the passive AOEs. Also rune tap + improved rune tap + vampirism + rune tap glyph seems like a pro team heal ability as well, when your geared out and sitting at 25k hp thats an instant ~4k * 5 team heals to play with every 30 seconds, seems like you could fit that into a decent unholy build but points are certainly tight. What are your thoughts of this talent?

About the class mix, I was considering 1 ret + 4dk but 5 dks just seemed better... I could certainly be wrong here ofcourse as your level 80 and im 57 :) , just wondering what your reasoning on wanting the pally is. I do have shaman at 80 was thinking that 1 resto shaman + 4dks would be nice for the totems and heals but again I dont have much DK experience atm

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Originally Posted by 'FIra',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164492#post164 492

...Their horribly geared and don't survive in arena.

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Do you have a healer in arena with you?

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Originally Posted by 'Ellay',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164293#post16 4293

Doesn't the Death and Decay proc have diminishing returns? I heard it was 2 seconds > 1 seconds > .5 > immune.

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I'm normally the healer in the 'Tilce' team with my pally, but i also have a 2v2 team with a DK from our guild.

We often duel eachother after an arena match if something happened that we weren't expecting or we wanted to double check how well some abilities work etc (since DK's are still a bit of an unknown enitity)

We tested this exact thing because we were both wondering exactly how it worked. So i stood there while he put a death and decay under me, and for me at least, i was 'feared' for around a second or two only once, and then was immune until he put another death and decay up.

The same thing then happened where i was 'feared' for around a second and then immune.

I don't know a thing about DK's yet, so i don't know if you talent this to get a longer effect or w/e. But as far as i can say it looks more like it's useful as an interupt to spell casters, or a nice way to stop someone running away from you. Basically like a 1-2 second stun. And i was definately immune after the first one. ;)

The reason you go immune so fast is that it's proc rate is so high, it has a chance to proc about 5-7 times per seconds instead of attempting to apply during damage. Which is the main problem that needs to be fixed :(

Ok, so basically you're saying that i was feared for 2 seconds, and while still feared i was again feared for 1.5 and then 1 then .5, or w/e the numbers are, making it look like it was just 1 fear, and then immunity?

Is this something that is being 'fixed' or, because it is still only chance (albeit high) that you will get feared, then technically it's possible to be feared for 2 secs.....and then every single fear misses until it breaks, and then the 1.5 second fear hits again etc etc? (if this makes any sense to people)

It's intended, as it is not fun being perma-feared or CC'd.

You said D&D has an 80% chance to hit, is that 80% for a single DK casting and you have 4 of them, or 20% chance per DK and you have 4 so that adds up to 80?

If its a 20% chance per DK, is that multiplied by the number of DK's... as in will a team of 5 (or more DK's) have a 100% chance to affect their targets?
Or is 80% just an abstraction of 20% per DK times 4 DK's?

I can see 20% hit chance is 80% miss chance. Four opportunities to apply means...
0.80 miss chance x 0.80 x 0.80 x 0.80 = 0.4096 chance to miss four applications in a row...
Which means almost 60% chance to land at least one application, when there are four simultaneous 20% chances.

Just curious.

with all the people boxing DK's I wonder, do DK's not have the usual issues with melee boxing?

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Originally Posted by 'heyaz',index.php?page=Thread&postID=164675#post16 4675

with all the people boxing DK's I wonder, do DK's not have the usual issues with melee boxing?

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i guess death grip kinda puts mobs in melee range easily.. dunno, not playing a DK

I just picked up some DK's for the fun of it tonight, amazingly fun class to play. They get so many nifty abilties ;p
The death grip helps minimize the annoyance of melee.

Posted today on http://www.mmo-champion.com/ regarding latest 3.0.8 changes:

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Glyph of Death Decay has been changed to grant 20% additional damage instead of its current effect.

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oooh super nerf =(

Icy Clutch: This will now be applied properly in all cases to targets that gain Frost Fever via the Pestilence ability.
Blood Aura Will now always do the correct amount of healing, based on the actual damage taken of the target. - dunno if this is good or bad.

That DnD nerf does suck. Although, it was so OP it was nuts, far better than the shaman at their best. I guess I better get the DK silence on round robin now, I've never used it.