Mosg2's DK Manifesto

[Noids]

You don't have to be good at games to be good at WoW. I play WoW because it is polished and there is nothing else out on the market currently worth playing. Achieving high level PvP status in WoW means absolutely nothing to me. I've run into "elite" WoW guilds in other games. In the past 6 years of facerolling these guys in other games, what I have come to realize, is that skill!=treadmilling. Achieving anything in WoW is not about inherent player skill, it is about chasing a carrot. It is a relationship where time invested + above average competence = success. That is what you meant right, high level wow PvP, not high level PvP in general.

WoW is PvP lite. I personally multibox because it is actually challenging.

Probably enough of the off topic stuff; would be a shame to have such an awesome thread locked due to petty behaviour from a couple of decent contributors.

With regards to the comp itself, I have achieved some improvement myself over the last week with the 4DK + priest version. I still find the priest gets locked down and taken out first, but I have gotten better at having 1-2 targets down during this situation. This has been due to a few things.

1. My priest last a bit longer now, have gotten up to almost 2k resil and have led the DKs to thebattle and actually stayed mounted initially to dodge attackers whilst the DKs dismount and unleash frosty hell. I'm also better at using Guardian spirit pre-emptively and getting all of my preheals off in time.

2. I have not changed the DKs setup at all, they have roughly 500 extra AP on what they had and about 2k resil each but still plugging away with the CoC weapons. What I think has made a significant difference is building up a decent amount of Spell Pen (150 on each) to increase the effectiveness of my frost damage.

In response to Mosg2's idea of priests being a superior offensive healer due to Mass Dispel, I find that this is often not the case. The level to which I am locked down and defensively healing or being stunned means that I will only get off MD maybe 25% of the time.

Looking at the vids of Mokoi's I think the way the pally draws initial fire, then takes a few seconds for them to switch off after bubbling then back afterwards is much more effective for defensive healing in this comp. Considering the way the priest gets universally targeted and burned I have considered even becoming shadow just to improve my surviviability during the initial burst. Shadow form + dispersion is the most effective means of damage reduction priests have available, plus I have the horrify CC for my first dps target. I think this is another pro that the pally has over the priest, Hammer of Justice is nice just to slow your first dps target enough to cop a significant amount of melee damage.

Anyway, a bit more to think about for the comp for now, I'm sure things will only continue to improve with better gear and whilst 4.0.6 will likely reduce the DK effectiveness a bit, the priest changes will hopefully make me stronger.

[Shodokan]

Probably enough of the off topic stuff; would be a shame to have such an awesome thread locked due to petty behaviour from a couple of decent contributors.

With regards to the comp itself, I have achieved some improvement myself over the last week with the 4DK + priest version. I still find the priest gets locked down and taken out first, but I have gotten better at having 1-2 targets down during this situation. This has been due to a few things.

1. My priest last a bit longer now, have gotten up to almost 2k resil and have led the DKs to thebattle and actually stayed mounted initially to dodge attackers whilst the DKs dismount and unleash frosty hell. I'm also better at using Guardian spirit pre-emptively and getting all of my preheals off in time.

2. I have not changed the DKs setup at all, they have roughly 500 extra AP on what they had and about 2k resil each but still plugging away with the CoC weapons. What I think has made a significant difference is building up a decent amount of Spell Pen (150 on each) to increase the effectiveness of my frost damage.

In response to Mosg2's idea of priests being a superior offensive healer due to Mass Dispel, I find that this is often not the case. The level to which I am locked down and defensively healing or being stunned means that I will only get off MD maybe 25% of the time.

Looking at the vids of Mokoi's I think the way the pally draws initial fire, then takes a few seconds for them to switch off after bubbling then back afterwards is much more effective for defensive healing in this comp. Considering the way the priest gets universally targeted and burned I have considered even becoming shadow just to improve my surviviability during the initial burst. Shadow form + dispersion is the most effective means of damage reduction priests have available, plus I have the horrify CC for my first dps target. I think this is another pro that the pally has over the priest, Hammer of Justice is nice just to slow your first dps target enough to cop a significant amount of melee damage.

Anyway, a bit more to think about for the comp for now, I'm sure things will only continue to improve with better gear and whilst 4.0.6 will likely reduce the DK effectiveness a bit, the priest changes will hopefully make me stronger.

The amount of healing that priests do NEXT patch is why, their pre-emptive healing with pw:s is equal to about 20k in pvp gear per toon. You are also healing as holy where as we are talking about disc healing and the use of resil (3k+) and pain suppression (which can be done during a stun) is equal to ~80% damage reduction for 8 seconds, where the paladin (if dispelled) is much less than that with bubble though it is 100%. Priests also have two instant cast pre-emptive heals in renew + pw:s, a flash heal equiv that also heals themself for equal healing, pennance, life grip, power word: barrier for hairy situations, AOE fear to force trinkets, 16% damage reduction in total when you take damage equal to 10% of your HP and last but not least you have inspiration for 10% damage reduction after a crit plus desperate prayer for a big heal on yourself instantly when you need it.

The priest has as much as a paladin does minus the holy radiance but has mass dispell which makes all targets good targets.

[thedreameater]

MOSG has vids on most of that stuff and he plays worgen now.

http://www.justin.tv/mosg2/b/275194639

That video cuts off at 10:03.

Is there another video where Mogs2 continues with his set up? I've watch the one where he discovers how suck Archaeology is, the other recent BG match, and the first narrated intro to the comp.

[Shodokan]

Theres no step by step guide really, just ideas to get you started.

[Ualaa]

Pain Suppression not being dispellable.
Can cast it, even when stunned.
That is looking pretty good.

And the boosts to the PW: Shield will help too.

I really like the Mass Dispel capability.
But we might need a lot of resilience from gear, before that is a factor.

[outdrsyguy1]

I run this combo with a priest healer also. I'm still tweaking a lot of things and figuring out how to play certain maps still. he has roughly 3200 resil and about 124k hp's during a match. He's gemmed/outfitted for stam/ resil. He survives okay, but not when focuesed by 4 dps for sure. I also play him as holy for the 21 seconds of free heals which is way better than a 10 second bubble that can be removed. Once the change to desperate prayer comes in, that will be a huge buff. I tend to find i'm either going to win or lose and the type of healer hasnt' made a huge difference in my mind yet. I do find that 90% of the teams go for my priest first so a lot of times i end up kiting them on my mount while the dk's pwn. A lot of high level teams tend to go for the dk's first for some reason. They have crazy dps and the dk drops seriously fast. I'm still setting up my defensive cooldowns for them so we'll see how this week goes. I get the conc weaps this week, so should be big boost there. I love mass dispel when I can get it off, but it can definitely be tough. I get it off a lot when there's only 3 opponents left or so, but it's tough when 5 are alive.
the fear is pretty handy, but it gets trinketed pretty quick generally.

[Mosg2]

Them trinketing your fear means you get a full duration Strangualate and/or leap/Gnaw combo. C-C-C-C-C-C-Combo!

[remanz]

The power word shield change is going to be very big for the priests.

I played holy paladin a bit. Facing multiple targets (2-3melees), you simply get 8 second of free healing. You can spamm a couple FOL + WOG + Holy Shock. That's about it. Outside of bubble, don't really have much. Can only heal with Holy Shock + WOG.

During 8 second bubble time, the heal per second is about 20k-25k / s. So about 200k heals as output for healing. The target you are healing should not die during that time. After that, you either can't cast anymore, so your HPS drop to like 6k/s. or after a couple more FOL, you will be OOM. So better make something happen during bubble.

[Mosg2]

If Death's Advance goes live as it is on the test realm then Unholy is going to be the best spec, hands down. Can't be slowed below 100% movement speed? Thank you.

[remanz]

After a gruesome honor grind over the weekend, I did some arena matches with my Holy + 4 dks team. They are not too geared yet, but do have 4 piece pvp set. The rest are mixed quest greens.

Now that I have both teams, I can finally draw some real comparisons between dk + rets and holy + dks.

• Necrotic Strike + Howling Blast. Without a ton of gear, Necrotic Strike is the only reason my targets fall. Not only does it stack amoung DKs, it also stacks with itself. As a single DK, you strike once it abosrbs 7k. You strike again before the debuff end. The debuff will show abosrbing incoming heals for 14k. and You can keep refreshing. To confirm this, simply mouse over the debuff after you necrotic strike twice on the target. During the arena match, the only reason I killed anyone is because of necrotic strike. My target jumps around and dies slowly due to no heal. So you would think if my target always have no heal then I should kill them all the time, right ? Not really.

The problem is that It takes me too long to peel off the 120k hp. and I get kited around too much where the only



real damage output is Howling Blast. As Kromtor said, 3k HB is killing no one.

• Holy paladin heal is ok. I don't really have a priest to compare. But paladin feels alright with the team. The only thing is to bubble early and pray it doesn't get stripped. But still, at least I get to bubble. For a priest, even with all the good tools from the priest, 1 stun => slience, you die. I don't think the other team would just let the priest free cast. Mass dispel ? I don't even have time to cast flash of light without bubble. All I get are holy shock, and WOG. Then I just drop dead. a note on WOG, the only real difference between Retribution's and Holy's WOG is Holy has a talent to crit 60% when using WOG on target below 35% hp. The amount healed is about the same. 15k non crit, given that Ret's WOG used on someone else. 1 single 15k is nothing in 5 v 5 arena. Without FOL spam, holy paladin is near useless.
• I am thinking to switch 1 DK to unholy for 8% spell buff. and frenzy (maybe even 2 unholy)

DK + rets are not in a better position. But the play style is a little different. First, you lead with DK. so at least you have some control over where you are going. The rets have ok burst with wings. So in an arena match that only lasts 2mins, Rets are not too bad. I can't say it is better than the DKs simply because of necrotic strike stacking.

and IMO, having 1 healer is almost like having no healer since this one healer just gets pwned every time. 2 healers + 3 DKs, for the endurance (relatively longer) match, and kill people with NS stacking. 2 healers would be spamming heals and dispels. Something like holy paladin + restore shaman.

With upcoming buff to retribution, and minor nerf on the dks, its hard to say where they will be after the change. But both teams have potentials. Not to glad of course as I previously said, but 2200 may be within reach.