[DK+4xRet] Freshies and Arena Strat

[Boylston]

Back on topic, please...

I'm a little split, I guess. My rets are currently at about 3200-3800-- they *just* got a complete set of Garfrost iLvl 219 hammers last night. My DK is significantly beefier due to having 6 iLvl245 pieces, but he also has some major trinket/sigil holes and could use more overall health.

I am able to easily do several heroics and a lot of bosses, so I can generally fill my 2-3 hour night full of heroic farming, but there are a lot of instances that I have to bail out of if I was to just spam random heroic runs for bonus triumph badges. My gear is low enough that I can't even random Heroic Pit of Saron or Forge of Souls yet (as well as other instances).

So, strategy A would be to buy some PvE gear (which is cheaper, badge-wise) in order to jump start my team into a badge farming machine. If I thought that a team full of 232 PvE gear could go into arena and clear the magical 1500 mark, I would go this route for sure. I still get Arena points each week, so I can spend badges->PvE and arena/honor->PvP and cobble together a mixed set.

Strategy B is to foresake most all PvE gear and spend badges on L232 PvP gear (for the pallies). While not the best gear for PvP, the 232 badge stuff is miles ahead of the iLvl 187 and 200 gear the pallies have now in many spots. I have no doubt they would farm heroics faster and safer in a set of arena gear, even if it was L232. Arena point gain would be the same as Strat A, with the possibility that I might start to do better as I got a more complete set of Resilience gear.

Anyhow, I guess I'm conflicted. The badge-PvP gear is more expensive and not as good for PvE, so it's bothering me that I'd buy it first right when I'm desperate to get over the hump with really clearing heroics in style.

[Void]

What i did is fully gear pve then stomped every heroic in like 10-20 min each depending on the instance.This made getting furious gear alot faster. WG honor and all stonekeeper shards turned in for honor then some bgs when tired of pve for wrathful offsets. This is what i did my team is almost 1600 now with that gear+4 battered hilts.

[Kalros]

Ok, so I'm running this same team as well, got to 80, and grinded the crap out of BGs. My guys are all in full PvP gear, and I just did my first set of Arenas and I got completely STOMPED! They just Mass CC/Feared/Stunned/etc. I never had a chance to do anything. They all jumped and ran around and I couldnt even figure out who and where the healers were until a couple of my guys were already dead.

So whats the main strat for the DK/4xRet team? Do you pop all cooldowns (Divine Shield and DK cooldowns) right at the start until you get your bearings? How do you deal with 2 healers?

HELP!

[Mosg2]

The resilience changes have made this team much harder to run now imo~. Without MS you have to BURST a target to zero--That means have a focus-Strangulate and such setup along with splash Repentance and splash HoJ.

Even with that... The amount of AE CC that messes up an all-melee team is ridiculous--Even with HoF

[Boylston]

So whats the main strat for the DK/4xRet team? Do you pop all cooldowns (Divine Shield and DK cooldowns) right at the start until you get your bearings? How do you deal with 2 healers?

HELP!

I have to admit, I'm struggling with this as well. My team is progressing along through the gear-up process, although I am still largely using lvl 219 weapons, which limits overall DPS+burst significantly.

Part of the problem as a player who's in the middle of the gear-out process and doesn't have great weapons is that a lot of what should work at better gear levels is inappropriate for now. For example, I've achieved some mild success with "going for broke" and being very aggressive. We're talking about charging in with 4xAvenging Wrath, Hysteria buff active, and using Art of War procs for Exorcism-- hoping to kill 1-2 people before they drop one of your guys. I think this is a bad tactic later, but it does seem to work from time to time at lower rankings.

Same with the use of Death Grip and Strangulate. I heard Kromtor say once that he preferred to use DG to pull a second target into his melee group once he was engaged with someone (probably a healer, I'd guess). This probably works well when you have a lot of resilience and decent weapons, but at the point I'm at right now, I think I stick with DG as an opener and pray for a successful first kill. I try to DG someone out of position of their healer and get an early kill down since I struggle with overcoming 1-2 healers on my kill target.

I'm undecided about Hand of Freedom-- seems like later I should save it until CC has hit my team, but maybe I need to use it proactively now to avoid the first big CC. Maybe Trinket + HoF is the way to go?

I'm keeping my DK in Frost Presence a lot too... No idea whether this is a good early arena tactic or not. He sure seems to be the focus target 95% of the time, so I lose some DPS but gain some survivability.

I'm hoping to push my way up to 1000 rating and then get a look at the super seeekrit forums and glean some advice from the more experienced players. As popular as this combo has been, there's relatively few "How to Get Started in Arena" nuggets of wisdom out there. Timing of these key abilities and combos is important, and I still feel like I'm fumbling through it all...

Must... get... better... weapons!

[Shodokan]

I have to admit, I'm struggling with this as well. My team is progressing along through the gear-up process, although I am still largely using lvl 219 weapons, which limits overall DPS+burst significantly.

Part of the problem as a player who's in the middle of the gear-out process and doesn't have great weapons is that a lot of what should work at better gear levels is inappropriate for now. For example, I've achieved some mild success with "going for broke" and being very aggressive. We're talking about charging in with 4xAvenging Wrath, Hysteria buff active, and using Art of War procs for Exorcism-- hoping to kill 1-2 people before they drop one of your guys. I think this is a bad tactic later, but it does seem to work from time to time at lower rankings.

Same with the use of Death Grip and Strangulate. I heard Kromtor say once that he preferred to use DG to pull a second target into his melee group once he was engaged with someone (probably a healer, I'd guess). This probably works well when you have a lot of resilience and decent weapons, but at the point I'm at right now, I think I stick with DG as an opener and pray for a successful first kill. I try to DG someone out of position of their healer and get an early kill down since I struggle with overcoming 1-2 healers on my kill target.

I'm undecided about Hand of Freedom-- seems like later I should save it until CC has hit my team, but maybe I need to use it proactively now to avoid the first big CC. Maybe Trinket + HoF is the way to go?

I'm keeping my DK in Frost Presence a lot too... No idea whether this is a good early arena tactic or not. He sure seems to be the focus target 95% of the time, so I lose some DPS but gain some survivability.

I'm hoping to push my way up to 1000 rating and then get a look at the super seeekrit forums and glean some advice from the more experienced players. As popular as this combo has been, there's relatively few "How to Get Started in Arena" nuggets of wisdom out there. Timing of these key abilities and combos is important, and I still feel like I'm fumbling through it all...

Must... get... better... weapons!

You should have plenty of burst if you set it up right.

DMC: Death + judgement + rockets + divine storm SHOULD kill someone with a decent weapon. Especially if you pop wings. You really need to kill someone who can CC the crap out of you (warlock, priest, warrior)

Not having MS will hurt, but DMC and rockets are on a 45 second timer... if you can last that long and kill one person from the get go and then go for the healer next you should be able to pull off a win unless something goes awry.

An important part is to know what cooldowns to use and when. Hand of protection glyphed reduces damage taken by 20%. Divine sacrifice + bubble will reduce damage taken by your team by 20% for 6 seconds... And your bubble negates the damage taken from it.

Knowing when to pop cooldowns is important, especially when to use hungering cold, HOJ and repentence. This along with being able to effectively mindfreeze and strangulate as well as the ability to DG to stop large heals (holy light). If you are BE you have AOE silence that lasts for 2 seconds as well which can be helpful and IIRC it is on a 25 second timer for DR.

Making sure that sacred shield is up at all times can also make or break a fight... one FOL that has 50% more chance to crit can help... odds are you will get that crit and more life. Knowing when to summon ghoul + sac it for health is also important and you should have macros to do that as well.

This team requires HUGE amounts of micromanagement and understanding of other classes to be truely successful. Cleansing what can be and knowing not to cleanse when an affliction lock has UA on you is a perfect example of this type of knowledge... where a destro lock's immolate can be. Things as simple as taunting to get into combat so a rogue can't sap one of your guys can help too.

[Mosg2]

I appreciate what you're saying Shodokan but there's a gap between intellectually understanding all of the tools you have available and actually being able to pull them off.

1. Many teams have no good target for initial burst. Almost every class has a get-out-of-jail-free card nowadays that can and will stop you cold.

2. AE CC is ridiculous right now. Yeah, you can Cleanse and Freedom but they only go so far. Those are precious GCD's where you're putting NO pressure on the other team and they're faceraping you.

3. Any team with a Paladin is probably going to take points from you--What do you do when your primary target get's HoP'd and the only other decent target is 40 yards away?

Overall I do love the team but the utter frustration of being chain CC'd and kited is hard to deal with.

[Boylston]

The good news is that I really like the team for BGs, and I can feel my power slowly growing in BGs with each gear increase. I think Shodokan nailed part of my problem... There's so many useful things you could be doing that it's hard to pick one. With shamans, you can somewhat set up a lot of your defensiveness via totem-farms, but it's a little harder with the DK/pally setup.

At my level of (in)experience in arenas, I guess I'm trying to find a good first strategy that's going to help me get to modest ratings levels and allow even more gear upgrades. I just haven't hit that groove yet.

I want to blame my 219 weapons for a lot of it, but comparing DPS numbers in something like Rawr, there isn't a huge sustained difference (I suggest that it's all about the burst difference though).

I've been using Seal of Command, but I'm thinking of ditching it for a glyphed Seal of Righteousness. Any thoughts, gang?

[Shodokan]

The good news is that I really like the team for BGs, and I can feel my power slowly growing in BGs with each gear increase. I think Shodokan nailed part of my problem... There's so many useful things you could be doing that it's hard to pick one. With shamans, you can somewhat set up a lot of your defensiveness via totem-farms, but it's a little harder with the DK/pally setup.

At my level of (in)experience in arenas, I guess I'm trying to find a good first strategy that's going to help me get to modest ratings levels and allow even more gear upgrades. I just haven't hit that groove yet.

I want to blame my 219 weapons for a lot of it, but comparing DPS numbers in something like Rawr, there isn't a huge sustained difference (I suggest that it's all about the burst difference though).

I've been using Seal of Command, but I'm thinking of ditching it for a glyphed Seal of Righteousness. Any thoughts, gang?

Not using SoC = mistake. You are bursting people down... and it hits more than one target which forces healers to pick and choose who to heal. SoV / SoR are good single target but not really much else as SoR requires time to build up to full potential.

[Boylston]

Not using SoC = mistake. You are bursting people down... and it hits more than one target which forces healers to pick and choose who to heal. SoV / SoR are good single target but not really much else as SoR requires time to build up to full potential.

Ok, good to know. I knew I had been using SoC for a reason.

I have been playing many more BGs lately, so I am getting more practice with timing things like DG+Strangulate on healers/mages/warlocks. I'm trying to formulate the best kill strategy for each class and just get more PvP experience overall with this group. I am very close to having my PvP armor situation squared away (will buy legs with arena points next week, and then just have a 1-2 honor-based odds and ends to finish out).

I deliberately delayed getting engineering trained up on all my guys until I decided whether I liked the team enough to commit the resources/time to raising the skill. I made that mental commitment this week and am starting the skill-up process for engineering. 5x1600 rocket damage will certainly help.

I also am considering devoting some significant time to farming battered hilts, although I wonder if it might just be easier to farm gold and buy them for 7-8,000 g each. I also have been trying to do GDKP runs in ToC for a shot at 245 weapons. With ICC 251 items out there, it might be reasonable to offer up a 3-5,000g fee to any guild that will let me tag along for a shot at the 3 decent weapons that drop in there. I hate the idea of spending money on Hilts this late in the WotLK expansion.

Anyhow, thanks for the discussion, guys (esp. Shodokan). This is a learning process and given my limited playtime, I haven't been able to go from Lvl 1 to 2000 arena rating in 4.5 days like Kromtor!