Mosg2's DK Manifesto

[Slats]

Yeah I think at least a summary of this one is in order. It has been a most excellent discussion so far with alot of good theory and testing and debate.

My kids got me up at 5:45AM and I wnt to bed at 1:30AM.

Don't they know we all want a sleep in for New Years Day? *sob*.

[Kromtor]

@Ualaa:

I think you can go wrong--Druid They bring virtually no offensive buffs, very little survivability while still being able to heal, no offensive dispel, and no Mass Dispel.

I think for Arenas you want the Paladin but for BG's you want the Shaman or the Priest. That's my experience so far.

Today I will probably put up another Manifesto that's updated. No promises. I'm thinking time for a new thread too?

druids arguably have the best passive offensive buffs: MoW 5% stats, resists, and FF 12% armor reduction on target
now in arenas there's no debating that mass dispel is actually the best active offensive spell (correct me if wrong) for a healer, but then you have to play a priest. Purge is awesome too but blizzard said they are eyeballing it (and spellsteal) for nerfs. They're nerfing bearjuv too so that kinda put the nail in the coffin of my druid idea. Having a bunch of hots on your team before even engaging kind of makes up for the fact that you can't heal in bear form when they switch to you. I dunno - druids are hard as hell for my pally team to kill but thats probably just cause they're the best mobile healer.

[genghiskhan]

@mosg2 I vote yes on new manifesto and thread @mercbeast Thanks. Ill go 4x frost dks + healer, id like to reach as high a rating as possible.

[JackBurton]

I posted a few questions a page or two ago. can anyone give me a few crumbs of wisdom?

[genghiskhan]

@jackburton It seems like a damn sound strategy to me. What sort of feedback are you looking for?

[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).

[Boylston]

Ualaa-- Here's what I'm doing, it's very similar to your Option C.

I'm running two specs. A frost PvP/PvE spec which uses a one-button IWT/Howling Blast AoE type setup. I have Hungering Cold on round-robin if necessary. It's useful even when you break it (sometimes immediately) to freeze casters or buy yourself just a little bit of time during a rough pull. I will eventually setup two DPS keys that spam different combinations of keys so that I have the option of going single-target frost or Howling Blast frost. It's easy enough to make that happen.

Second spec is Blood Spec, with the glyphed Death Strike and Rune Tap and Heart Strike, IIRC. I leave them in 2Her mode, which works fine. (I don't have decent 1H weapons, admittedly). The group's Rune Taps and Bloodworms and Death Strikes do a fantastic job of keeping everyone topped off. I just use Death Strike and Heart Strike in my "rotation". I've tried using both a runic power dump as well as leaving it at 100% and gaining extra 40% death strike damage-- both work fine. I don't round robin taunt or anything, I just let aggro bounce around (all in Blood Presence).

On trash, Frost clears packs faster with a bit more healer involvement, but Blood is very safe and efficient as well. On trash in 4xBlood, there is so little healing needed that I play Smite-spam with my Disc priest and just let its healing hit anyone who needs it.

I generally switch to Blood for bosses, but there are some that the AoE damage of Frost is more helpful (Keleseth in UK, for example). Switching on a non-mana class is trivially easy, takes a few seconds. I bounce back and forth a lot depending on my mood and the instance needs.

Hope that helps!

[Mercbeast]

I find that one of, if not my biggest problem in arenas are paladin main healers. They pop shield and there is basically nothing I can do to finish them off before I start losing DPS or the paladin drops.

Usually when I lose, that is the reason why, that or I got blades edge or dalaran and they kite me off and then onto the platform I don't really ever primary paladins anymore. I target pretty much anything but mage or paladin first.

As a DK group, this is a sprint, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest of priest/dkx4 works out better because it allows you to primary the paladin and not have to worry about shield.

[Boylston]

I find that one of, if not my biggest problem in arenas are paladin main healers. They pop shield and there is basically nothing I can do to finish them off before I start losing DPS or the paladin drops.

Usually when I lose, that is the reason why, that or I got blades edge or dalaran and they kite me off and then onto the platform I don't really ever primary paladins anymore. I target pretty much anything but mage or paladin first.

As a DK group, this is a sprint, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest of priest/dkx4 works out better because it allows you to primary the paladin and not have to worry about shield.

A couple of comments.

We faced bubble paladins when a lot of us ran 4xShamans competitively. I think you do the same thing-- force the bubble early, then switch targets and come back to the Pally when the bubble is gone.

Secondly, in both Blade's Edge and Dalaran, you have the option to fight in places where "falling off" isn't as big of a problem. If you don't want to get knocked off the bridge-- don't go on it in the first place.

[Mercbeast]

It doesn't really matter on blades edge or dalaran, if they are smart there is really nothing you can do to stop them from kiting you.

In blades edge I never go up top, but the other group can stick people up there to free cast etc. On Dalaran I am not sure which I prefer, fighting on the platform, or trying to pull them off the platform and fighting on the edges, I've had success and failure both ways. I think fighting off the platform is best, since one guy can totally screw you over by jumping off and pulling a couple DK's off with him. Then to get everyone back on DPS you gotta run down collect them and run them back up.