Mosg2's DK Manifesto

[Mercbeast]

Overall I'm concerned about the same things you guys are--I'm just optimistic that this team has the varied tools to be super effective--There's no ability that this team doesn't have a counter for (I forgot about Pillar of Frost on the video). One last thing I want to stress is that 4 Death Grips is insane considering you get a free one every time you kill someone AND you don't "lose" one when the target is immune due to cooldowns.

Hungering Cold might even make this team even more viable. Setup a second DPS key that drops HB for single target DPS. Rotate hungering cold and just knife through groups one person at a time.

If you feel like being surgical, switch to your single DPS rotation, and round robin hungering cold. It will be like old school DaoC 8 man midgard zerker trains. Mez/hungering cold everything and then start blowing fools up

[Shodokan]

I like the looks of this team, I'm just pissed that I only just got my DK + 4 Rets to 80 a few days ago :X

I see your point about how Necrotic Strikes will reduce incoming healing, but since we expect this to get nerfed (I'd wager a guess that it will stop stacking between DKs, or have diminishing Returns like a CC) what kind of burst will you have? My DK + 4 Rets are actully not even as geared as your team, but when I pop Avenging Wrath, it's still a 1 hit kill with the Hammer on targets that are pretty geared, and Avenging Wrath lasts long enough to get 3 kills.

Basically this team trades Burst for Pressure, but I wonder if that might be too much. Keep us posted !

Um... necrotic strike as it stands is not overpowered for a single DK, so it will not get the nerfbat for no reason. Howling blast on the otherhand might.

[heyaz]

Lots of good points brought up regarding the team--And a lot of totally valid points about their weaknesses. I think Mercbeast and Zenga have succintly answered most of them. I'll reiterate and add my point(s):

1. This team epitomizes "Shock and Awe". You use your defensive cooldowns to pre-emptively force the other team to play defensive catchup. With that in mind...

AMS pre-empts Roots/Polys--You can kill anyone, even getting heals, in 6 seconds.
Lichborne/Trinket/Racial/Cleanse pre-empts Fear--Lichborne is enough time to kill two+ people.
Pillar of Frost pre-empts TS/Typhoon--Pillar of Frost is long enough to kill an entire Shaman team
Snares/DG pre-empts Snares--Your snares are equal but you have near-infinite Death Grips.

2. As an arena team I grant that it would be really tough to make Gladiator--But if you drop your healer and just run the 4 DK's I think it's still totally possible. Virtually zero incoming healing on a target coupled with MASSIVE AE damage is insane, especially if the primary dps target is their healer. Shock and Awe baby.

3. Sure, for rated BG's eventually everyone will get same gear and weapons that are just a hair worse than Gladiator-tier weapons. This is just a team that, to me, is a blast to play and is terribly effective in BG's. This coupled with point 4 makes them my favorite team

4. By running the healer main and 4 plate classes that are capable of tanking, literally any PvE content is doable. You can offspec as many guys as you want into the tanking tree. With no enrage timers your worst case scenario is 4x Blood DK's chewing through a boss in 10 minutes

Overall I'm concerned about the same things you guys are--I'm just optimistic that this team has the varied tools to be super effective--There's no ability that this team doesn't have a counter for (I forgot about Pillar of Frost on the video). One last thing I want to stress is that 4 Death Grips is insane considering you get a free one every time you kill someone AND you don't "lose" one when the target is immune due to cooldowns.

Current pve content, in ilvl 232+ gear sure, but what about cataclysm heroics? All the videos I've watched show bosses with strategy and annoying mechanics, at least for boxers (how about the one that summons like a dozen tornados?). Even then, wotlk heroics weren't easy for boxers, people have forgotten the days of wiping on the snake boss and doing only a few bosses from select dungeons until like 2Q 2009 when we massively outgeared the instances people were doing with ilvl 180 gear.

[Fat Tire]

Current pve content, in ilvl 232+ gear sure, but what about cataclysm heroics? All the videos I've watched show bosses with strategy and annoying mechanics, at least for boxers (how about the one that summons like a dozen tornados?). Even then, wotlk heroics weren't easy for boxers, people have forgotten the days of wiping on the snake boss and doing only a few bosses from select dungeons until like 2Q 2009 when we massively outgeared the instances people were doing with ilvl 180 gear.

heyaz keepin it real. Remaz's post was spot on also.

Since the removal of personal rating needed for all but the 2200 junk, play want you want., how you want, when you want. Its a cyclical game, pve will be easy if not right from the start then once people out gear them. I have no desire to box a pve team again, LFD is just too easy and convenient to me against spending hours setting up CC macros for boxing pve in cata(that will be needed until you outgear it). I only did 4 heroic runs on beta so someone else can comment more on how much CC will be needed, but my groups used it. /shrug

I love double healer teams in pvp, other people dont, so I say play what you want, play what you are conformable with and we will most likely end up in the same place. I for one would love to go up against your team Moq2 on my lock/double healer 3s team. I think it would be alot of fun. If youre ever on the nightfall BG.....

[Ualaa]

Howling Blast, doing the AoE damage is huge...
Anytime they clump, you basically have a spell cleave.
For me, that's probably the top thing for the team; it's pressure in arena, but probably the main reason we'll take out larger groups of opponents in battlegrounds too.

And then Necrotic Strike, on whichever target you're going for.
That is icing.





What do you think about including Blood Tap, as one of the random casts?
It converts the Blood Rune into a Death Rune, which counts as any type of rune, whichever is most beneficial.
We effectively trade a Blood Strike for an extra Howling Blast, every 30 seconds.

It wouldn't be that hard to adapt the mind freeze.
So it hits your focus, if you have a hostile focus, otherwise defaults to your primary target.
That way, especially in arena, you could focus a healer and DPS whoever you feel like.
With the Mind Freeze automatically hitting a caster/healer, rather than the melee you're currently on.

[JackBurton]

wow nice. is Mosg the Day9 of Multiboxing? any other good wow video blogger out there besides the tankspot one?

[Shodokan]

Howling Blast, doing the AoE damage is huge...
Anytime they clump, you basically have a spell cleave.
For me, that's probably the top thing for the team; it's pressure in arena, but probably the main reason we'll take out larger groups of opponents in battlegrounds too.

And then Necrotic Strike, on whichever target you're going for.
That is icing.





What do you think about including Blood Tap, as one of the random casts?
It converts the Blood Rune into a Death Rune, which counts as any type of rune, whichever is most beneficial.
We effectively trade a Blood Strike for an extra Howling Blast, every 30 seconds.

It wouldn't be that hard to adapt the mind freeze.
So it hits your focus, if you have a hostile focus, otherwise defaults to your primary target.
That way, especially in arena, you could focus a healer and DPS whoever you feel like.
With the Mind Freeze automatically hitting a caster/healer, rather than the melee you're currently on.

Fine tuning will take a bit of time, but this is the same sorta thing that people are going to need to come up with for any team really.

I do like the use of Blood Tap though

[Mosg2]

@Heyaz:

Yes, heroics were hard... Until you had gear from heroics. Then we started beating them consistently. It won't surprise me if we can do random bosses out of the heroics after hitting 85--And then once we get equal level gear we'll start clearing the whole thing.

/shrug

[Mercbeast]

Howling Blast, doing the AoE damage is huge...
Anytime they clump, you basically have a spell cleave.
For me, that's probably the top thing for the team; it's pressure in arena, but probably the main reason we'll take out larger groups of opponents in battlegrounds too.

And then Necrotic Strike, on whichever target you're going for.
That is icing.





What do you think about including Blood Tap, as one of the random casts?
It converts the Blood Rune into a Death Rune, which counts as any type of rune, whichever is most beneficial.
We effectively trade a Blood Strike for an extra Howling Blast, every 30 seconds.

It wouldn't be that hard to adapt the mind freeze.
So it hits your focus, if you have a hostile focus, otherwise defaults to your primary target.
That way, especially in arena, you could focus a healer and DPS whoever you feel like.
With the Mind Freeze automatically hitting a caster/healer, rather than the melee you're currently on.

Opening with blood tap just puts this over the top. 3x4HB = total apocalypse for the other team. Anyone caught in all 3 from everyone is dead. Period. End of discussion.

[Shodokan]

Get on skype before you stream =P I wanna watch. 3 levels to go on my 75's >_>