Death Knight Partner? (WoW)

[Nomak]

So i've been playing a Warlock/Priest Duo for close to 3 years now in WoW and I enjoy the combo. I would like to potentially swap to a DK main when the expansion comes out and was wondering if the priest would still be the best partner. What do you guys think about a DK/Priest vs. DK/Paladin duo? I guess the toughest part would be having to physically move both of them to the mob and start the autoattack of the pally as opposed to /assist and /cast in a macro. Any thoughts? (I have played every class in the game to lvl 60 before BC came out so I know the mechanics of the other classes, melee/caster/hybrid, etc. - in case this helps at all). I defnitely am not interested in making a druid for 2nd box though, even though they are probably the best melee power levelers in the game. Thanks in advance for any creative discussion!

[voodoogriff]

Could go DK/Healer?

[kllrwlf]

Yeah, you could have the main as DK, and the 2nd as a healer/casting dps.

Before I started 5-boxing, I was dual-boxing 2 rogues. I eventually got the hang of it... but what a pain in ass it is to control 2 melees.

[Tdog]

Considering we don't have all the details on DK's or the new wotlk talents for the other classes It's a bit too early to really make this call imo. As far as moving your melee classes around I really don't have a problem with it although yes it will take a bit longer to get use to then simply spamming spells from afar. TBH there are actually times I perfer melee multi-boxing to ranged, there are of course times I perfer ranged over melee though as well.

[thyrm]

Nervermind, didn't read one part right, so my advice was for naught...lol.

[Nomak]

With all of the new information on DKs, what do people think might make the best for a partnership with a DK for PvE grinding/instance farming?

I like having a holy priest with big heals but Paladin 10% blessing + Dmg or AC aura + consecrate always on sounds great for tanking elites or AE grinding mobs. Has anyone had the chance to 2box with a DK or worked out what would be best for longer fights? I saw a DK/Priest kill Magmadar and was wondering if a DK/Paladin would be able to do the same, assuming the paladin is just healing/buffing/possibly auto attacking. Any theorycrafting here? I would have gone Paladin long ago if I didn't have to roll an Elf... I am still considering it though, especially with the RAF ability and the whole RP-ability of a DK/Pally partnership.

[kayb]

As of current beta builds DK's are alot better than paladins at tanking and especially aoe-tanking. It does however require alot more micromanagement than a paladin. I'm playing up a DK atm, level 77. Geared for tanking. It's riddiculously overpowered now, and will be nerfed alot before retail. Still I expect that DK's are gonna be alot better than paladins as tank/antimagictank/aoetank, unless they do some major changes to the class.

When I tank I'm primarily concerned with dps, unless I know for a fact that the healer is really shitty. Castsequence for aoe tanking is something like this:

Icy Touch (ranged ability, does some damage and reduces targets attackspeed by 10%, also applies frost fever disease)
Plague Strike (damage/applies blood fever disease)
Pestilence (Instantly spreads diseases to all targets in meleerange. Feels like up to 7-8 yard range to me)
Death & Decay (Might cast this one second, depends on whether or not I need healing and/or think that I might loose aggro)
Unholy Blight (constant aoe around self for 20 seconds)
Bloodboil X2 (diseases on all targets within 10 yard range or something like explodes and does damage, diseases continue to tick down)

If you add up, the total damage output is insane. I have absolutely no problem in crushing a top geared mage going all out with arcane explotion for instance.
Diseases tick for around 2-300.
Death & Decay tick for around 500
Unholy Blight tick for around 500
Bloodboil Explotions tick for around 3-400
In addition I'm specced so all my diseases trigger other diseases to tick for extra damage. I'm not sure how well this ability works, but every "extra tick" will be partially resisted by the mob. I expect this talent to probably be removed alltogether since even with partial resists, it's quite insane.
And if I bothered I could also corpse explode, but you really dont have the global cooldowns/runes available to do so if you need to refresh diseases for instance. Exploded mobs leaves no loot, but many of the instances are not yet itemized (drop nothing) so thats not really that important.

On a standard 4 mob pull you're looking at like 10000 dps or more once you're at full capacity. Bring another DK or two into the party and you'll aoe through instances in 20 minutes.

Pretty much any class of any gearlevel can go all-in on a target that I'm not even paying attention to, and never be able to take aggro from me. It's THAT insane.

[Nomak]

In addition I'm specced so all my diseases trigger other diseases to tick for extra damage. I'm not sure how well this ability works, but every "extra tick" will be partially resisted by the mob. I expect this talent to probably be removed alltogether since even with partial resists, it's quite insane.

A bit off topic but Wandering Plague is not taking into account your level it seems, which is why so many resist are occurring. the same seems to be happening with Blood Caked Blade.