What Meow? Ret / Unholy lolarena

I recently hit 85 on my DK. With only running 2 accounts the past many months my multiboxing has been quite limited. So has my time to even play the game. As many IRC regulars can tell you I've been pretty damn close to being done with WoW. But it's always something that draws me back in. The past couple of weeks I've been doing 2v2 on my Shadow Priest and Frost Mage. I haven't boxed them, I'm just pugging from trade chat for points until I can get a bit more gear.

I figured since I've got 2 melee toons I can run together, why not? So I setup some very rudimentary (read: Bad) macros for button spamming (cause that's how pvp pros do it amirite?) and leveled up Blacksmithing so I could make 2 sets of the Bloodied Pyrium set. My expectations are really, really low. I'm not going to be a 2v2 hero or anything. I'm just aiming to blow up some people in 2v2 if I can and maybe get some gear.

So both toons are ~1200-1300 Res. Only 1 has a stun / fear trinket. The Paladin is rocking the 333 CoC Weapon. Death Knight has the 2H axe from Ozumat in Heroic Throne of Tides. I qued up Sunday and just got rocked. I lost probably 7 or 8 matches. Some where kinda close, where I'd lose one, but manage to kill one of the other team as well. It was a decent starting point. I was actually really discouraged and didn't think I was going to be able to even win a match until I could get some honor gear. I really need to go back and tweak my specs. I'm certain I'm not specced too well for PvP.

Monday night I had some unexpected free time so I decided to que up and see what happened. I ended up losing a few matches that were *really* close. Then I won one. That first win I almost screamed. The wife came into my office giving me funny looks. Then I got rolled the very next match, then I won the next 4. It was really awesome and probably a lot of blind running luck, but I won and got my points capped. With the Honor change with the 4.1 patch it should be easier to get a bit of gear before I que up again. But at least I've got the conquest points started. Even though I went 5-14, I consider it a victory since I was able to get point capped. I'll keep gearing up and hopefully I can get capped again this week. I'll post an update after my next round of matches, until then it's time to tweak some macros and fix some keymaps and grind some honor.

Unholy Death Knight - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rhate/advanced
Retribution Paladin - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...vadin/advanced
2v2 Team: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/arena/ki...2/what%20meow/

That's definitely encouraging for others, who might be in a similar position.
Starting... mid-season.

The honor changes are definitely excellent news.
You can at least get full Honor gear, with half the effort (granted still a fair bit of time... but less of a grind).
And a set of Honor gear, is close to 2.2k resilience.
Which will put you a lot closer to competitive.

My first foray into 5's did not go that well.
A good composition of 4x Frost DK's + 1x Holy Pally.
The team had poor weaponry, and not even full honor gear yet.
And definitely lacked a lot of tweaks, macros, combinations, etc.
Played 18 games, and did not kill even one opponent... so much for the Death Bunnies...
The excellent community here gave suggestions to improve... http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=36048

Since then, I've run 2's... playing one toon, and getting a partner from Trade chat.
Each toon plays, until at least five wins that week.
Which has ranged from five to fourteen games per toon.
Yesterday was six weeks of points (they have full Honor gear in the other slots).

Cuddlés actually ran extra games beyond her five...
Played with a Shadow Priest, going 5 Wins & 5 Losses at the start of the week.
Then yesterday, after finishing points on Snugglés (who was the last of my five to get their wins)...
Cuddlés played with a brand new Frost DK...
He copied my talent spec and glyphs, asked what rotation to use, etc.
He died every game, but we went 5 Wins & 3 Losses.
So I got to return the favor, and carry some random undergeared players this week... similar to how random players pretty much carried my DK's (some of them bribed... with Gold per Win) the first three weeks until they got their Conquest 2-Handers.

Juds (Holy Pally) also played with an undergeared Subtlety Rogue.
Fresh to 85th, on the day we played our games.
He had four pieces of level 80 Arena gear, quest 85 greens/blues in the other slots, and was using a Heroic Lich King level 80 dagger.
On the plus side, he had previously earnt Gladiator in two different seasons... so knew what he was doing.
It took us 12 Games to get 5 Wins.

Perseverance pays off.
It does get better/easier.
I've found Monday (last chance for points each week) and Tuesday (first chance for points each week) to offer the easiest opposition; the other weekdays offer the most challenging opposition, while the weekend is somewhere in between the two difficulty levels.

grats sn9

When I was getting my warrior gear, he had about the same gear as your dk when I started and I used my ret pally who is fully geared.

I would run in and blow reck/pop wings and 50% of the time I killed someone within the first 10 seconds. food for thought.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tire

grats sn9

When I was getting my warrior gear, he had about the same gear as your dk when I started and I used my ret pally who is fully geared.

I would run in and blow reck/pop wings and 50% of the time I killed someone within the first 10 seconds. food for thought.

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I definitely had the most success blowing all my CDs at once and taking an alternate path to try to throw them off a bit.

Nice job Svpr. I've had some real hit or miss with 2's. The last 2's game I played lasted 30 mins. They couldn't kill me and I couldn't kill them, so they finally left. With the new arena changes, far more people are Qing and it seems the matches are much, much closer in skill level. So the games are a lot more even - which is good. No more going up vs. 2200 players and just getting steam rolled.

So I tried to jump directly into 2v2 again last night, only difference from Monday night was I had Fear/Stun trinkets on both toons now. I did pretty good @ 6-15. I quit for the night after about 6 losses in a row. Some of them were real heart breakers. Definitely shows me that I have some potential with this comp and just need some gear. With the Arena point nerf it looks like I'll need about 4 or 5 wins to cap this week. Once I cap next week I should be rocking the PvP weapons and maybe the relics.

Here are my wins from last night. I may end up recording my games so I can watch them later and see where I went wrong like I do on my priest. (only 5 screenshots because 1 team left before gates opened)

http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/sv...611_190545.jpghttp://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...611_190545.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...611_191450.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...611_192350.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...611_192758.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...611_194230.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/sv...611_191450.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/sv...611_192350.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/sv...611_192758.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/sv...611_194230.jpg

Grats on your success and I am sure you will get better over time and with upgrades.

did I see a 372 mmr?

[off topic] Hey Svper - did you download the latest Elvui? I got it last night and can't find the options to adjust the number of bars shown. Any advice on where they moved the settings to? I could only get the main action bar to show up.

[on topic] Grats on the wins. Glad you are having fun with it. Are you leading with the Ret or DK? How are you managing your procs?

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Originally Posted by Fat Tire

Grats on your success and I am sure you will get better over time and with upgrades.

did I see a 372 mmr?

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Yah I lol'd when I saw that. Hopefully I won't get that low >.<

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kang

[off topic] Hey Svper - did you download the latest Elvui? I got it last night and can't find the options to adjust the number of bars shown. Any advice on where they moved the settings to? I could only get the main action bar to show up.

[on topic] Grats on the wins. Glad you are having fun with it. Are you leading with the Ret or DK? How are you managing your procs?

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Yah, newest Elvui but I've not adjusted anything. it kept all my settings from the previous version. I'm normally driving with the DK. I manage procs like a cracked out epileptic at a rave. I'm slowing tweaking keymaps to be a bit more precise.

Got 2 PvP rings on the DK, No other upgrades on the Pally yet. I did fine tune some macros. The DK is pulling ~ 8k on the level 85 dummies and the Pally is pulling about 6k. We just won't talk about how much DPS the pally was doing before :_X

Points capped for this week. Got the 2 wins I needed just now, and didn't even lose a match. Got this team twice in a row. Both times I got the rogue out of stealth. The first match I ate the bladestorm but still managed to kill them both before they could kill one of my toons. The second match I was a bit late popping my AW/HoW macro for burst and the pally got eaten in the bladestorm, then I was able to finish off the Rogue and the Warrior on the DK.

Time to farm some BGs before next week!

http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...711_190701.jpg
http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...711_191408.jpg

well looking over you screen shots...I have one tip.

Dont make baby jesus cry. Why are you in blood presence in all the screens? That should never happen in pvp, unless you got disarmed,but really no.

and you might want to go frost atm, frost dmg is very nice and its an overall easier rotation. Use freedom for your dk and clease yourself with the pally for novas etc.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tire

well looking over you screen shots...I have one tip.

Dont make baby jesus cry. Why are you in blood presence in all the screens? That should never happen in pvp.

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Presence fail. I noticed it in the next BG I did after those 2 matches. I'm normally in Frost for the extra damage. I've tried unholy a bit and didn't see much benefit.

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

Presence fail. I noticed it in the next BG I did after those 2 matches. I'm normally in Frost for the extra damage. I've tried unholy a bit and didn't see much benefit.

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You need DK 101. 1s global > all

There is no comparison, its not even debatable

over the period of a fight and burst wise you are looking at roughly 2x the dmg via cd reduction over a straight +10% dmg.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fat Tire

You need DK 101. 1s global > all

There is no comparison, its not even debatable

over the period of a fight and burst wise you are looking at roughly 2x the dmg via cd reduction over a straight +10% dmg.

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I realize it's more damage via cd reduction. I think my issue was in my macros in why I wasn't seeing a difference (which is what was puzzling me and led to my macro rework). I'll have to retest since I cleaned up my macros.

Frost basically has two dps sequences now.
- Howling Blast > Frost Strike > Necrotic Strike
- Obliterate > Frost Strike

You might want a key purely for HB or NS, to force one or the other as spam.
And possibly use Death Strike, in he place of Obliterate at times.

I found in two's, I was using Chains of Ice a lot, because of the root.
But in BG's, and I imagine in five's, the HB spam would always be superior... especially with essentially unlimited Death Grips.

You might go:
- DK (Blood Tap > Strangulate... [target=arena1]
- Pally HoJ [target=arena2]
Or something similar?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

Frost basically has two dps sequences now.
- Howling Blast > Frost Strike > Necrotic Strike
- Obliterate > Frost Strike

You might want a key purely for HB or NS, to force one or the other as spam.
And possibly use Death Strike, in he place of Obliterate at times.

I found in two's, I was using Chains of Ice a lot, because of the root.
But in BG's, and I imagine in five's, the HB spam would always be superior... especially with essentially unlimited Death Grips.

You might go:
- DK (Blood Tap > Strangulate... [target=arena1]
- Pally HoJ [target=arena2]
Or something similar?

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I'm actually running unholy since it's the spec I'm most comfortable in, and PvE wise, it edges out Frost 2H and spanks Frost DW.

Fair enough.
No clue on the Unholy rotation.

I just assumed, DK PvP = Frost.
My mistake.

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

I'm actually running unholy since it's the spec I'm most comfortable in, and PvE wise, it edges out Frost 2H and spanks Frost DW.

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Problem is UH is only good if you are spreading aids(dots) with other aids classes. It can work in 2s if you can get all you cc on the healer, if it healer/dps.

UH really only has 1 burst opportunity, if you time it with your ret then you will score a kill.

I have some tips for blowing UH burst for kill.


Step one: I get on a target with my ret and apply both of my diseases via COi/Plague Strike. (Frost/Unholy Rune)

Step two: I Festering Strike once to get my 2 death runes rolling. (Frost/Blood Rune)

Step three: I then necrotic strike once to get the debuff on the target. (Unholy Rune)

At this point i have 1 Blood Rune up and the Frost Rune from the initial COI should be about to refresh.

Step four: I Festering Strike again to get my other 2 death runes rolling. (Frost/Blood Rune)

At this moment you should have 2 Unholy Runes, 4 Death Runes and between 80-100 runic power.

Now that you have everything you need its time to call out for your ret to blow his wings/trinket to burst.

Step six: Strangulate the healer(or if its dps,stop his peels), Death Coil 2 times to dump some Runic Power, (You should have 2-3 second left on the healers strangulate, if you can follow this up with some more cc , like a hoj you should score a kill.) Necrotic strike 2-3 times to be safe if there are hots, now rotate between Scourge Strike and Death Coils to get the kill. NEVER let your runic power reach 130, dont waste runic power.


OR....

You can DC people using Death grip and (frost)chains at the same time - it currently DCs people. ^^

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

I'm actually running unholy since it's the spec I'm most comfortable in, and PvE wise, it edges out Frost 2H and spanks Frost DW.

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While preference, fun & being familiar with are genuine reason, since 4.1 patch your unholy > frost pve statement is debatable to say the least. Parses backing me up, and our frost dk (vanilla hard core raider who knows what he is doing) is pulling 3-5k more on single target bosses.

Frost dk is so faceroll in pvp now that I'd strongly recommend giving it a go in arena.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

While preference, fun & being familiar with are genuine reason, since 4.1 patch your unholy > frost pve statement is debatable to say the least. Parses backing me up, and our frost dk (vanilla hard core raider who knows what he is doing) is pulling 3-5k more on single target bosses.

Frost dk is so faceroll in pvp now that I'd strongly recommend giving it a go in arena.

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Yep, it would appear the thread I got my original information has been updated to reflect frost's buffs in 4.1 Looks like I'll be learning frost.

"Learning" in this sense is a misnomer. You need three buttons on your DPS bar--Frost Strike, Howling Blast and Necrotic Strike.

It's so simple a caveman could do it!

Possibly two more buttons.

Hungering Cold, as a CC to burst down the one not in it.
And Obliterate as a power with more burst that won't break the CC.

Svper I saw you in EOTS today. I was on my enhance shamans. You need to come back to alliance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pinotnoir

Svper I saw you in EOTS today. I was on my enhance shamans. You need to come back to alliance.

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lol he became finally a man, let him be please

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pinotnoir

Svper I saw you in EOTS today. I was on my enhance shamans. You need to come back to alliance.

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lol yeah, I couldn't get the hordetards to stay ahead of your zerg.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

lol he became finally a man, let him be please

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I lol'd.


For those keeping track at home...

DK is frost now, and it's definitely hitting harder. 9-11k on target dummies. The retadin is starting to feel quite sub par.

So last night I had to finish capping points on my mage and a guildie helped me out, so I ended up helping her out to get 2 of her toons capped. The only notable game here was when we needed 5 wins for her Disc Priest and we brought in my DK. We faced this team before this match and we got rolled so hard. We were having a huge issue with getting double plate teams that would just train her and I just couldn't peel. So this was the second time we saw this team and I just had to wonder how hard they were raging when they saw my DK's AWESOME 606 MMR. Frost is OP as shit. Can't wait for the reset to get capped this week. I should get Vicious weps this week.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/svpernova...211_232717.jpg

I ended up winning a few games alone on my dk, when my partner got basically 1 shotted. Mages? Muhhahahaha no longer a big problem.Warriors? Well I heal better and I heal harder. Rogues? Come to papa you little stealthy cunts. Hunters & locks? Yeah put your pet on me so I can los and heal myself the entire time.

Any class that has been busting my balls in the past 5 months on my elemental shaman are now a pure joke on my forst dk. I feel like fucking rambo. Revenge is sweet.

The only ones I seem to have probs with are feral druids. But that might be most likely be more of a personal issue than a dk issue.

Oh and did I mention dark simulacrum is the best spell ever?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

So last night I had to finish capping points on my mage and a guildie helped me out, so I ended up helping her out to get 2 of her toons capped. The only notable game here was when we needed 5 wins for her Disc Priest and we brought in my DK. We faced this team before this match and we got rolled so hard. We were having a huge issue with getting double plate teams that would just train her and I just couldn't peel. So this was the second time we saw this team and I just had to wonder how hard they were raging when they saw my DK's AWESOME 606 MMR. Frost is OP as shit. Can't wait for the reset to get capped this week. I should get Vicious weps this week.

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This is just win, I think I can sometimes feel people's(kids) rage coming thru my computer at me.:D I play for the rage.


I enjoy 2s myself alot, its really the only thing I enjoy in wow anymore, I enjoy BGs (as horde only). Think I have 80% win across all but AV/Isle on Nightfall Bg. The ability to play arena and gear up by myself and not have to pay for 4/5 accounts to do it is win.