DK + 4 rets - struggling in heroics

[booker]

many thanks.

And how fast you must consume the foL spell? And how did you see,when toons hit critical ? Hope you understand my question

[remanz]

I'm running a frost spec DK, 3 retribution and 1 holy paladin as a healer. I'm having a seriously hard time with heavy aoe boss fights like Novos the Summoner, Ingvar the Plunderer, Drakkari Colossus, Slad'ran etc. The problem is paladins dont have any aoe heals.

Is there anyone in here with the same setup? How do you do it, spec all paladins as retribution? How do you deal with heals, AoW proc FoL on the tank, and burn the boss down as fast as possible?

Any input would be great.

I run 1DK 4 rets. All in gearscore 2600ish. And I can tell you. I am not rolling any bosses in heroics lol. Every single boss is a tough fight. To put it in perspective, for the first time ever, I had meathook (http://www.wowwiki.com/Meathook) enrage on me after fighting him for like 4 mins. My rets are doing a whopping 800 dps because they are constantly healing the tank.

4 rets is a solution once you have gears. But before that it struggles even more than DK 3rets, 1holy. For boss AOE on your melees, the way I see it. There are only two ways to solve this. Either you spread out avoid the damage, Or pop some defensive cool down (bubble + sacrifice) and continue to dps.

In details,
1. spreading out. Bind a spread out key to a place that is easy to access. 'E' for me. Hit this key for the AOE. Once you move out. Immediately start to heal tank. Once AOE done, move back with follow or IWT.

2. defensive cool down. No brainer here. Just use it in a castsequence. Bubble first. Sacrifice later.

One thing I would like to emphasis is that You have to know when the boss is going to AOE ahead of the time. So use DBM or whatever, know the timer. because when you see the AOE, and then cast bubble + sacrifice. that takes about 1.5 sec due to GCD. Its already too late. You have to pre-cast it before you get the AOE

[Mosg2]

I believe that if a mob would yield experience (IE, within the level band) then you get the heal. I guess I'll have to test it.

[Multibocks]

I have Dk + 4 rets and I wish that I had a paladin tank instead. I switched my paladin tank to my shaman group, so I replaced him with a DK. Talk about a headache. Too much clicking on a DK. I also have a mixed team with a warrior tank. Another mistake. Paladins for tanks. Always. It's one less thing you have to think about.
Now should I level another paladin or just switch my paladin back over to the ret team and try the crappy DK on my shaman team? DK even has good gear... too bad they require solo play to be the same effectiveness of an afk paladin watching TV.

[Mosg2]

It's pretty easy to make a castsequence for DK's that work great. Yeah, it's not as easy as running a Paladin but you gain a lot of melee damage buffs or 13% magic damage. Rets are so easy to run as followers anyways.

[Multibocks]

I use a castsequence for DKs, but problem is that for an ice tank (which I took for the haste buff to rets) you have dead time in castsequence you need to throw in rune using abilities to cover the dead time. For AE packs, it's frustrating that DnD uses 3 runes and totally messes up your sequence. It barely keeps the other mobs off the rets. Add in that DKs seem to take a lot more damage than my tankadin and you got a recipe for bad tank. I really dont understand it either. DKs have a ton of anti caster stuff and yet its casters that totally F up my tank. FoS is one zone that he can die in about 3 GCDs to those GD frost spamming gnomes. He sits at about 38k health with kings, not as much as my paladin, but close enough.

On paper they look fantastic, but in use they are just.... clunky. Same with warriors. I havent tried druid tanks yet, but I dont plan on leveling another class to 80, so guess I wont see that.

[Mosg2]

Shrug. My DK only has 34k with Kings and I breeze through all the trash in the new instances. I've been playing him since the launch of WotLK though, that might have something to do with it.

[Multibocks]

Do you breeze through PoS, FoS and HoR heroic? I'm not talking pre3.2 heroics.

[Mosg2]

Yes, the trash at least. Some of those bosses are a pita for melee boxing but the trash itself is simple.