New PVE team

[Cyrberus]

After seeing the ridiculously high dps of Ebony's DK's i gave up on getting my 5 druids to work for PVE.
What would work best in PVE? (Focussing mainly on Heroic instances and ignoring most of the cc)

I've already got 2 possible teams at 70+ levels:
Paladin tank, 3 mages and shaman healer (or any other healer).
4 deathknights and a healer.

But really my favorite tank is a blood-dk and my favorite healer is a resto druid. What would go best with that or will that never work well?

[Ualaa]

Well, we have the video of 4x Blood DK's, in PvP gear...
Doing a heroic, with I believe a Priest (also in PvP gear).
Basically a 4x DK + 1x Heals team.

The other gimmick/non-traditional teams that have reported success are the double-healer teams.
The equivalent of 2x Holy Paladin (Beacon a DPS, and Protector of the Innocent heal themselves) who can double heal through burst or alternate heals for longevity.
The other combo mentioned a lot was double Resto Shammies, with 2x Riptide + Earth Shield on the tank.

If you want a more traditional team...
Nothing is going to stop you from running...
Tank: Blood DK
Heals: Resto Druid
DPS: 3x Anything.

[Cyrberus]

Thanks,
going to give the priest and dk's a try. You can't really go wrong with deathknights it seems
i like the idea of replacing 1 dk with a 2nd healer. But let's level them first...

[valle2000]

Sorry for borrowing this thread but I want to make a plate only group. My first thought was five paladins, but how is retr pally compared to DK as a dps class? Will I get higher damage output with 2 pally + 3 DK?

[Ualaa]

Sorry for borrowing this thread but I want to make a plate only group. My first thought was five paladins, but how is retr pally compared to DK as a dps class? Will I get higher damage output with 2 pally + 3 DK?

PvP, PvE, or both?

[wyofiddler]

I've always been a bigger fan of DK over Ret for dps. Lots of success with pally healer + 4 DKs, either frost or blood or 1 blood/3frost. Look back at Mosg2's manifesto posts from December when he ironed the kinks out of this team.

Other thought would be pally tank, 3 dks dps, and pally heals.

I've played DK + 4 rets back when they were awesome (2nd half of Wrath), and made a healer + 4 DKs team and loved it as well. I'm a fan of melee teams tho, so go with what you like and find easy and effective to play

[valle2000]

PvP, PvE, or both?

A bit of both, but mainly pve I'd guess.
And if chosing DK, is frost better than unholy as dps or doesn't it matter?

And another thought. If I activate blood presence on all DKs (to get the armor/stamina/dmg reduction buff on all), can I somehow make sure the tank DK still generates a bit more threat than the rest so healer mostly can focus on healing one of them?

[Ualaa]

If you want the Tank to have most of the threat...
I'd run the tank in Blood Presence and spec'd as a Blood tank.
Then run the others as Unholy or Frost (your preference), either way in Unholy Presence.
It is worth noting, Frost spec currently does a lot more damage than Unholy.

If you don't care who has threat, because they're all in Blood Presence, and with Blood tanking specs...
Then aggro can bounce around, and you won't need a healer often prior to heroics.
Especially with Rune Tap, every 30 seconds.
Death Strikes.
Dual-wielding, for a lot of Blood Worms.
Round-Robin of the taunt key.
The ability to summon and sacrifice your pet.
The option to Lichborne whoever needs the heals and Death Coil them.

[valle2000]

Thanks for these tips, I really like DK as a class and the idea of several tanks sounds very interesting.

Also nice to see dual-wield is mentioned. I have always been a fan of dual-wielding in every game I've played, but here I often hear I'm doing it wrong and people keeps telling me blood tanks always should use 2handed weapons.

[Ualaa]

As a tank, you don't want the big nasty mob to Riposte your attack.
Dual-wielding is more attacks, so more chances for it to Riposte.

If you're doing heroic level content, and not raids, this probably isn't a huge issue.
If you are boxing 4 DK's, each attack has a chance to generate a Blood Worm.
So dual-wielding is more Blood Worms out and about.

There was a video a while back.
Four Blood spec DK's, in Blood Presence.
With a Priest.
All of them were PvP geared entirely.
And they did a heroic successfully.

If you want to run four tanks, you won't beat any enrage timers.
And trash will take a long time to kill, etc.
But you won't care who has threat, and it will never be your healer.
The team will have massive survival.

If you want to run one tank, you'll probably be better off with an "optimal" spec, gearing, gems, enchants, etc.
And have a healer (pve) spec for your healer, if that differs from your PvP spec.
And then take your other DK's and run them as Frost.
You'll kill a lot faster, maybe twice the DPS or more.
But all of your non-healer toons are in melee, so they're subject to PBAoE or Cleave effects, ie all the melee crap to deal with still.

Either approach will likely work fairly well.