Mosg2's DK Manifesto

[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.

[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-a...e-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.

[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).