Mosg2's DK Manifesto

[remanz]

Obliterate uses 1x Unholy and 1x Frost runes, per use.
Two hits of Obliterate has used 4 of our 6 runes in the first 2 seconds.
Which leaves us two blood runes, and three seconds before we get runes back.

In the first case (Obliterate), we have (in a 5 second window):
- 2x Obliterate
- 2x Blood Strike
- 1 second of damage without runes.



Howling Blast and Necrotic Strike each use one rune, 1x Unholy and 1x Frost respectively.
The two blood abilities will also use two blood runes, so whatever we pick for the first (Blood Tap & Blood Strike or 2x Blood Strike), that will likely be consistent.

In the second case (Howling Blast + Necrotic Strike) we have (in a 5 second window):
- 2x Howling Blast
- 2x Necrotic Strike
- 1x Blood Strike.



Which will be higher damage, to a single target?
Even if Obliterate is higher damage, would we want:
- a single target DPS move; and
- a multi-target and/or healer resistant move
Or to just go with one move over the other?

Hmm, shouldn't your target be dead by the 2nd obliterate ? This thing hits harrrrrrrrrrrrd.

Anyway just a thought. Either option is fine, not a game changer. The HB range though is ridiculous. It hits hella far.
I guess I will open with HB and obliterate to kill my target.

[Mosg2]

@Boylston:
Did I do something to piss you off? I really don't think I'm overhyping this. The team is solid and comes with all the tools a team needs to be successful.

@All:
All of these hypotheticals about whether or not this team will beat that team etc are worthless. All this manifesto was supposed to be about was a concise way of explaining why I think this is going to be "the" melee team of Cata. I've outlined all the positives I see in it and all the weaknesses that I see and through it all I'm still sold hook line and sinker that this team will continue to be a powerhouse. This isn't an e-peen contest--It's supposed to be an honest sharing of information. Can't we all just get along?

In any case, Cata goes live in 4 days roughly. I'll be live streaming my whole leveling process and have taken a week off work. I'll make sure to mark all of my instance runs on JTV so they get saved.

[Boylston]

@Boylston:
Did I do something to piss you off? I really don't think I'm overhyping this. The team is solid and comes with all the tools a team needs to be successful.

ZOMGosh, no!!

I am trying to be devil's advocate for this. I'd love to see it work out as well as you hope it does. I just don't want to level my guys up before my shaman team...

I still love you long time!

[Shodokan]

I'm going to level this first as well... just dang 79, i'll be 80 by morning.

Not like leveling a new team is going to take forever anyway, only 30 hours which aint bad at all.

[Ualaa]

I'll probably go in this order:
- My Ferals.
- Pally or Priest (undecided), with 4x DK's.
- Pally, Warlock & 3x Shaman (or 5x Shaman, if Pally joins DK's)

Then not sure.
Tempted to mix my teams up a bit.
But will likely level at least four teams to 85th, fairly quickly.

[Mosg2]

Obliterate also doesn't snare the target.

The reason I like HB as much as I do isn't because it's ranged or does AE damage--It's because it does good single target damage and meshes with Necrotic Strike really well.

[remanz]

Well. It hits like a train and long range, and disease, and AOE.

This is the only AOE blizzard forgot to nerf.

I think enough has been said about the DKs. About time to make it happen.

As good as rets, they were/are an one trick pony, gimmick team. Lack the staying power and heavily rely on frontal burst zerg fest. If my frontal burst doesn't kill, I just flat out lose. Rarely I see come backs.

Hope the DKs can take it to new height.

[Boylston]

I think enough has been said about the DKs. About time to make it happen.

As good as rets, they were/are an one trick pony, gimmick team. Lack the staying power and heavily rely on frontal burst zerg fest. If my frontal burst doesn't kill, I just flat out lose. Rarely I see come backs.

Hope the DKs can take it to new height.

Despite poking at the topic a little bit, I am also very optimistic about this composition. I am going to dance with the Shamans that brought me, however, at launch. I made a mistake at WotLK launch and leveled a team first that I thought had potential but hadn't been proven. Then I leveled my shamans, just in time to be behind the gear-curve in arena. Switched to DK+Rets after that, again, just in time to see the resilience nerf hit hard. I regret not having just played the shammies first and stuck with them totally.

I think the things that are positive about the team are that there's a good way to keep people in your swarming melee blender without being kited all over the place, the damage should be strong and consistent, I think there are some decent tools for managing fear and other MBer problems, and the unique tools of Necrotic Strike and high Howling Blast range/damage/AoE look like they'll scale well for boxing.

I worry that the DK class will undergo some tweaking and some of these factors evaporate, but honestly, that's an issue with any team. Shamans could get the Lava Burst nerfbat tomorrow that would have a big impact on their effectiveness. The Frost DK mechanics are both new and have big PvE/PvP impact, so I think they're more "at risk" for change.

That said, I have a little team of DKs that's out of the starter area and ready to go should you guys prove that this is a winner comp. Even if it's not a quad-shaman killer, I'm sure I'll have a second melee team of DKs at some point...

Hugs and kisses,

Boylston

[Shodokan]

Despite poking at the topic a little bit, I am also very optimistic about this composition. I am going to dance with the Shamans that brought me, however, at launch. I made a mistake at WotLK launch and leveled a team first that I thought had potential but hadn't been proven. Then I leveled my shamans, just in time to be behind the gear-curve in arena. Switched to DK+Rets after that, again, just in time to see the resilience nerf hit hard. I regret not having just played the shammies first and stuck with them totally.

I think the things that are positive about the team are that there's a good way to keep people in your swarming melee blender without being kited all over the place, the damage should be strong and consistent, I think there are some decent tools for managing fear and other MBer problems, and the unique tools of Necrotic Strike and high Howling Blast range/damage/AoE look like they'll scale well for boxing.

I worry that the DK class will undergo some tweaking and some of these factors evaporate, but honestly, that's an issue with any team. Shamans could get the Lava Burst nerfbat tomorrow that would have a big impact on their effectiveness. The Frost DK mechanics are both new and have big PvE/PvP impact, so I think they're more "at risk" for change.

That said, I have a little team of DKs that's out of the starter area and ready to go should you guys prove that this is a winner comp. Even if it's not a quad-shaman killer, I'm sure I'll have a second melee team of DKs at some point...

Hugs and kisses,

Boylston

There are a lot of factors for the DK's that could get the nerfbat, but they like shaman remained mostly the same throughout beta. The damage factor isn't that high for howling blast, i mean it scales with AP and nothing else, so you're looking at maybe 5k base damage. The weapon damage and weapon swing attacks do a lot though, especially obliterate. But most people probrably wont be using that one much.

As far as nerfable things:

HB scaling via amount of targets. Damage won't be lowered... even at 85 it's not that much extra compared to now unfortunately (at least a GEARED dk)
Necrotic can be made to only have 1 of the debuff on the target at once
Runic power generation for 2 handers could go down
Reworking of some talents
Nerf to mastery (with reforged crap, and no mastery from gems and stuff my dude has 35% extra frost damage)
Nerf to obliterate damage
Nerf to glyph of howling blast

There's quite a bit, but the class as it stands is pretty balanced in comparison to a lot of other classes. All those nerfs are manageable though. Would they suck? yeah, they would really suck... but every attack does 100% weapon damage at least and you get like 6 attacks every 5 seconds or so plus autoattacks... and all the utility.

The thing that really makes this team for me is deathgrip x 4, and all the anti-CC + damage mitigation they possess along with their consistent damage. Being behind in pvp gear might hurt a bit, but it wont make or break the team... we've seen people get to 1800 in full furious when people were in wrathful... two seasons of gear behind and still do well.

[Slats]

Just hit 66 don't think I'll make it to 80 before Tuesday but I will be at least in Northrend and have my Priest setup.

Need to move all my Shaman CC and toggles and focus crap for Cata instances onto my X-keys and I'm ready to rock.