Quote Originally Posted by Ualaa View Post
Not sure how strong healing is going to be, at 85th.
And that will probably be a key point.

If we have four Necrotic Strikes landing every five seconds.
Or eight every ten seconds, and sustain that.
We're looking at approximately 6k off of every heal or every HoT tick.
A new necrotic strike will almost always overwrite the previous as soon as it is depleted.

While the composition might not have FS/LvB to instantly down someone.
It does have a lot of DPS pressure and the resistance to heals.
Howling Blast punishes everyone in the area, meaning you can kill large groups at once.
And unlike the level 80 game, even discounting Necrotic Strike, healers won't be able to full heal anyone virtually instantly.
Mana is a finite resource, one of the goals of the expansion; runes on the other hand, cycle at their pace indefinitely and never run out.




My biggest questions for the team are how they deal with the banes of boxing and melee in general.

Priests, Warlocks and Warriors have AoE fear, which can suck pretty bad.
Thunderstorm, especially staggered but spammed, is basically the same result.
The team will have trinkets against the first effect.
If the Pally is not hit, we have cleanse at least until our DK's run out of range.
We can make fear classes priority targets, but regardless will have to deal with this a lot.

The other concern is Snare and Root effects.
Death Grip, will bring targets to us frequently, which mitigates this to a degree.

Will Anti-Magic Shell protect us against the freezing effects of Frost Nova.
How about Entangling Roots/Cyclone, Sheep/Seduction or Frost Trap?

How about an Earthbind Totem or Mages snaring shield.

What do we have against those rogues who like to Sap one team member, but not engage?

I realize single boxers will go down fairly fast.
And with Death Grip, we can bring them into the killing zone often.
But don't like Snare/Roots or Fears as a boxed team, especially as a melee team.
This team has such incredibly front loaded DPS that lichborn and AMS are imo all you need to get that definitive upper hand in a fight. Once cooldowns are blown, the other sides ability to counter your heavy DPS load is essentially spent. By laying your cards out on the table and unloading Lich and or AMS pre-emptively you force their hand. They simply have to react to your DPS spike and hope they don't lose anyone.

In Arenas good teams, really good teams will still pick you apart. I don't think there is really any question about that. However in BGs and mid-tier Arena there is no reason why this team won't be a run-away freight train.

From what I have read, the dynamic of PvP will change in Cata. Fights will be longer, healing will be more critical, yet less effective. From my perspective this is where HB shines. It is a momentum changer. You run into a group and unload 8 HB's in 1s and the other team is in the red, INSTANTLY. This forces them into reactive, defensive play. You now have the impetus of the fight in your hands. By now you have probably gripped their primary healer, silenced him/her and they are dead in another 1s. If this is arena, you've all but one the fight at this point.

The beauty of DK's is as Mosg2 put it I think, reverse mobility. It doesn't matter if they snare or root you. You can still grip them, snare them and keep DPSing, and you can do this several times.

One neat little trick I started playing around with in AB was the chain grip. I'd setup at the Farm, I'd put 3 DK's inside the farm house with LOS out the door to my lead DK. I would wait for allies to roll in, I'd grip a healer to my main DK, and then grip him inside the house were it was instantly silenced and gang banged. The ability to use grip like this, is in my opinion hilarious. You can literally jerk someone well out of range of their friends and or out of LOS long enough that no help is possible. The first person who saw me do it in the BG's thought it was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen in WoW.