So far this season the only viable tree in my opinion is Unholy, going Frost really isn't an option once you hit the higher ranked teams. Frost has a very unreliable snare and there is no getting around that. I have tested out Blood and Frost some this season and I could immediately see a disadvantage to those specs compared to Unholy.
The damage from Frost and Blood are both higher than Unholy but damage isn't the only thing that wins you matches. Here is the spec that I currently use and it seems to be a very solid spec. I also choose to opt for the extra 3% to crit on SS which does make a difference.
I confirm Missinglink's observation, as I've returned to Unholy as well and recently acquired my T1 2h.
Unholy strikes back as being the most useful for PvP situations especially due to the ridiculous burst of Gargoyle, diseases and Scourge Strike nukes.
However, I have found that it is more beneficial to take out the 3 points in Reaping and throw them into Unholy Presence as well as finishing off Dirge. Being able to run as fast as Unholy Presence and dealing 15% more damage? I say yes <.<;
That is, however, your choice. I feel any variation of the 3/17/51 spec is any good choice, as long as your points aren't allocated to some place retarded.
Subversion doesn't seem all that great. Scourge Strike is not going to be a that big part of your damage. Even if you don't want the utility of On a Pale Horse, Dirge or Chill of The Grave, either Blood-caked Blade or Wandering plague would probably provide a much bigger dps upgrade than Subversion. Sure, Subversion is slightly more burst than the other choices, but I doubt the burst upgrade is big enough to justify the dps loss.
Complete with the 2 slow furious weapons, I've been able to pull some retarded amounts of damage, and live for quite a bit if my healer is not preoccupied (of course).
The idea, of course, in such a team, is to go in, punch something in the face so hard their grand kids will feel it. In terms of using HC, I've found it most useful to make the blow their trinkets while we bust up someone hard (Granted, you will find cases where you will pop HC, and find your warrior friend lawlstorming and making it useless, be wary of that ._.)
So far, we've found one team that has fucked us again and again, and that's a Ret/Rogue/Disc team. We left with the inability to sit after each team.
Though, for any future reference for any dk/pally/war team, kill the rogue. If you can take down the rogue and keep him playing defensively, that shuts off a lot of their damage and can save you.
As well, does any one have any tips against RMP teams? We figure that we can punch a hole into the priest and then start on the rogue while they're either busy on me or on our warrior. Any tips are greatly appreciated.
That's really an interesting spec. Question, why not pick-up Improved Icy Talons, especially if you're playing melee cleave? The haste bonus for yourself and the group seems very solid. Is Necrosis and 1% STR that much better?
Since there is a semi stable build on the PTR and the mechanics for Scourge Strike has settled down has anyone taken time to check out the damage we can expect in PvP3.3? The PvE thread is getting crazy numbers like 15k and there abouts self buffed while Arena Junkies are picketing the streets with 'The end is nigh' signs.
The new scourge strike looks really promising in PvE. The problem though is that it's power lies in its ability to double dip on all buffs.
If you subtract the buffs, add armor (in case of mail + shield and plate classes) and add resillience, you're left with awfully little.
If the level 55 dummies are tested to provide a "hint" at what the pve dps will be like, i guess the best way to observe pvp damage is to hit a level 80 target and manually subtract the resilience factor. (Assuming the level 80 dummy has some armor).
Anyone know a working macro for healing yourself, via Death Coil, during your Lichborne cooldown? Lichborne makes you undead for 10 seconds, and Death Coil heals undead targets. I've tried a ton of different macros, but I cannot find a working one. Thanks for the help
Yea, I would've posted the macros I was using earlier, but if it didn't work, I would erase the macro and start over. Couldn't remember the ones I had used, sorry. Anyway, your macro works perfectly. Doesn't lose my current target, either... Thanks for the help
I mainly play bgs and it seems to go well, using DS with diseases up to heal, and HS to snare, using rune tap when needed, and Vampiric Blood + DS and Rune tap when i get realy low for extra healing. Also i like the fact that i have a ghoul around all the time.
So i was wondering on peoples opinions on this spec,(advantages / disadvantages) also whether its viable for 2v2s
Can anyone point out a good 2H Frost Spec for BGs? I played a lot before and even had decent arena ratings but I've been out of the game for 6 months, so I'm trying to get acclimated again.
Also can anyone point me to a some information about key-bindings? Is there a discussion about DK PVP keybinds, particularly for frost? Thanks all!
I run Blood in arenas and with 52% arpen I facerape ppl when it comes time to gib. I am orc so I get an extra trinket so what I do is I have a macro that hits my discs, blood fury, hysteria and Dancing Rune Weapon. DS's crit non prot plate for 8-9k with decent resil and cloth/leather for 10k sometimes.
So I just put pressure on the target we AREN'T gonna gib until we get an opportunity (their rogue opens on our healer, healer has his cd's down, someone gets stupid and is los of healer) then my rogue opens up, blinds the healer which I follow up with strang, we switch to whoever we are gibbing and he lays wound poison, follows with with his armor reducing finisher (cant remember name) and 99% of the time they die in 3 globals or less. Then its 3 on 2 and its GG.
The main thing ppl screw up on as blood in pvp though is, they wanna use HS as their gib strike. We run basicly diseaseless except for CoI applying frost fever, which normally gets cleansed or whatever, so HS hits like a limp noodle. Use HS as your pressure strike. When you get ready to gib use DS spam, with ERW you can get 4 DS's and 4 HS's easily although it normaly doesnt take that long to kill.
Plus we have most of the other abilities that Unholy has, no aoe snare but we do have the HS glyph that keeps out target from kiting us as easily, instead of gargoyle we have DRW, We dont have a perma ghoul but I normally use my ghoul to heal anyway.
And our defensive CD's are redicluous, mark of blood, rune tap, vampiric blood and we still get anti-magic shell plus frozen fortitude. So really, blood only lacks a few things that unholy has and it makes up for it in HUGE burst. It all hinges on Arpen though. If you dont have it, dont bother.
Recently a friend of mine who runs a Ret Pally and myself started a 2v2 team together. We're usually found in BGs and have never really done much arena in the past.
We started off pretty poor, but that was expected whilst we got our bearings and knew what the basics were. Most threads I've found have been criticising this 2v2 set up for being a faceroll team and far too easy and requiring no skill.
We've worked our way up and are currently sitting at around 1050, we got stuck for a while around 900 but finally managed to push passed the small wall we'd hit.
One thing I'd stress to anyone who's just starting out with this set up is the importance of the paladin's resistance auras.
Our major problem is coming up against shammys of any kind. We've tried a couple of things against them and neither seem to work well.
The first strategy we tried was to run in (like we do with every fight in the hope to catch them off-guard) and drag the shammy with Death Grip away from his totems and try to set my pet on them (does anyone have a working macro for this?). This almost never worked as they'd just ghost wolf and have us running around after them whilst the other DPS is nuking us.
We tried another strategy of running at them, dropping AMZ over their totems and trying to kill them as fast as possible with silences and stuns on them as often as possible, whilst all out nuking them.
If we can't manage to kill them in the first 10 seconds, it's pretty safe to say we lose the match. Enhancement's put out so much damage (even with my CDs up like AMS etc.) that if we're not pressuring them for a split second one of us winds up dead and the other follows shortly.
Any advice for killing our nemesis Shammys would be appreciated immensely, as well as any advice for playing this 'very easy faceroll setup'!
So my dk has ran out of things he needs to get for pve stuffs with triumph badges, so i thought i would nab some furious pieces and give some arena a shot. ive tried all 3 specs out for him, and i really havent came to any real conclulsions. i really love blood spec, but in the pvp area it seems to be really lacking any sort of cc ability. if anybody knows a good spec for this dks in arena it would be most appreciated.
So my dk has ran out of things he needs to get for pve stuffs with triumph badges, so i thought i would nab some furious pieces and give some arena a shot. ive tried all 3 specs out for him, and i really havent came to any real conclulsions. i really love blood spec, but in the pvp area it seems to be really lacking any sort of cc ability. if anybody knows a good spec for this dks in arena it would be most appreciated.
Well it depends on what you want to go for, unholy with desicration/chains of ice makes you good for at least slowing down some one if not full cc'ing.
Blood can put out some high amount of damage extermely fast if you have the amr pen for it.
Frost.. well to be honest i have not seen a frost dk in arena yet and my 3's is at 1750 on my priest.
If you want one thats not to complicated and helps you just get the feel for arena i'd say go unholy, i know as my priest being my main that the ghould is extremely annoying unholy with anti-magic zone will help you against casting teams. With its slowing abillites it slows down the action for you just a bit until you get a feel for how you need to enter each game. I know that going from my priest where im usually running for my life trying to kite two dps, from usually just trying to work on a healer (usually a druid).
Now im new to arenas on my dk also and Unholy was just what i found worked for me being new to the class.
So my dk has ran out of things he needs to get for pve stuffs with triumph badges, so i thought i would nab some furious pieces and give some arena a shot. ive tried all 3 specs out for him, and i really havent came to any real conclulsions. i really love blood spec, but in the pvp area it seems to be really lacking any sort of cc ability. if anybody knows a good spec for this dks in arena it would be most appreciated.
Frost can work in certain comps but its loss of a solid snare makes it inferior to other specs. Blood has a good snare but lacks some key talents for utility, which you need badly, and it also under-performs on plate. Unholy really has all the talents needed to be successful in arena, decent snare and good utility, along with better cc abilities. Not to mention the fact that Unholy has a pet as well just makes it that much better.
I've been doing arenas for the past month now, and last night i seen the most brutal dk ever, he was frost, and unfortunally i didnt get his name or i wouldnt be on here asking these questions... ive been looking on a talent calculator, and figured out that u can get frost stike, but also keep the ghoul, thus would make a pretty mean combo if you did them together, the build i was thinking of doing is
My next question, anyone have a idea what weapons are currently the best to Dual Wield with??i was sorta thinking of the tankard o terror, and the Aledar's Battlestar
however they both stack stam/agil, last i checked i want to stack str/stam, any ideas?!?!
Atm i am using savage saronite for my pvp, it worked good for lvls 78-79 but now im 80 and while im farming honor points for pvp gear, whats the gear i should be using? and where can i get it?
BiG_DeE- I'm no expert in arena having only been doing them for a month or so on my DK. I currently run unholy spec with a Retadin. It's a tough combination we're finding but having fun whilst learning. Regarding frost in arena I've played it a couple of times and not really liked it due to the reasons others have mentioned. However I've never had the ghoul with frost. I'm going to play around with that kind of spec when I get home and I'll certainly let you know how I find it. I know I'll miss the extra burst/finishing a low target that gargoyle gives though.
With weapons for DW until you're hitting raids or the 1800 mark I'd probably stick with Adelar's or Tankard. For my DW spec I have DW Adelar's with duel rune of CG. Although I also have the 1h axe from Ony Empowered Deathbringer and Horseman's Blade with the pumpkin summon, which can be fun.
Heizen- Whilst you're farming for the deadly set and furious accessories the savage saronite is the best (resillience) gear that you'll find. Either carry on using that and replace periodically with the 80 gear or mix in some pve gear with it. Remember you can farm heroics to get some pve gear and use the emblems to get your deadly set at the same time.
I am currently leveling a Death Knight after playing and Shaman & Mage for the last couple of years. I have never really got into PVP except the odd bout of arena, this was mainly down to wanting to play melee. Anyways I am level 79 at the moment and plan on getting stuck right in as soon as I hit 80.
I plan on doing alot of battlegrounds (solo probably) maybe I will do some arena if i enjoy it alot. I like the idea of playing unholy because it comes with some awesome stuff - that being bone shield and ghoul.
I was wondering if anyone has a spec I can use, my friend who is schooling me a bit rolls with (The World of Warcraft Armory) not sure if it would be good to complete dirge though.
I am currently leveling a Death Knight after playing and Shaman & Mage for the last couple of years. I have never really got into PVP except the odd bout of arena, this was mainly down to wanting to play melee. Anyways I am level 79 at the moment and plan on getting stuck right in as soon as I hit 80.
I plan on doing alot of battlegrounds (solo probably) maybe I will do some arena if i enjoy it alot. I like the idea of playing unholy because it comes with some awesome stuff - that being bone shield and ghoul.
I was wondering if anyone has a spec I can use, my friend who is schooling me a bit rolls with (The World of Warcraft Armory) not sure if it would be good to complete dirge though.
Hi guys hope you're good. Just need to get a few things across and ask for a lot of advice.
First of all- Is Ret/DK ever going to work? We've been stuck at 1200 for a while and keep bouncing around between 1000-1200. We've also respecced the paladin to prot in ret gear, he lasts a lot longer but I get nuked instantly, switch defensive and wind up dead, then the paladin cannot do enough damage to finish the other team off!
Second- Any ways to improve our basic strategy? We usually try to catch people by suprise and don't give them time to think. Focus the squishy one (i.e. the one that can't heal, bubble etc.) and nuke hard as possible. If it's healer DPS we start on the DPS then switch to the healer and try to panic them. Two DPS teams we just go for the weaker first and try to get a 2v1 situation. Rogue/Priest and RDruid/Warrior are two teams we struggle with a lot.
Third- Any addons you suggest that I play with? I'd like a decent enemy CD tracker if you guys could suggest one.
Four- Macros (like castsequences or pet macros), Keybinds? Anything you can suggest to get us out of this ditch.
Sorry for wall of text, and I hope this isn't counted as asking for hand-holding just we're really struggling. We've played around 500 fights and have won 50% or so. This week our win/loss is slightly lower than it has been so we're going down rather than up overall.
Hi guys hope you're good. Just need to get a few things across and ask for a lot of advice.
First of all- Is Ret/DK ever going to work? We've been stuck at 1200 for a while and keep bouncing around between 1000-1200. We've also respecced the paladin to prot in ret gear, he lasts a lot longer but I get nuked instantly, switch defensive and wind up dead, then the paladin cannot do enough damage to finish the other team off!
Second- Any ways to improve our basic strategy? We usually try to catch people by suprise and don't give them time to think. Focus the squishy one (i.e. the one that can't heal, bubble etc.) and nuke hard as possible. If it's healer DPS we start on the DPS then switch to the healer and try to panic them. Two DPS teams we just go for the weaker first and try to get a 2v1 situation. Rogue/Priest and RDruid/Warrior are two teams we struggle with a lot.
Third- Any addons you suggest that I play with? I'd like a decent enemy CD tracker if you guys could suggest one.
Four- Macros (like castsequences or pet macros), Keybinds? Anything you can suggest to get us out of this ditch.
Sorry for wall of text, and I hope this isn't counted as asking for hand-holding just we're really struggling. We've played around 500 fights and have won 50% or so. This week our win/loss is slightly lower than it has been so we're going down rather than up overall.
I run with a ret pally as my partner(im unholy atm) and we are at 1600 and rising steadily its a pretty akward combo to get used to. We both can last pretty long by ourselves but alot of the time i depened on my ret pally partner to make key "saves" such as hop and that emergency holy light. the ret pally has to be prettty aware for you to survive long against good teams.As for strategy this differs from match to match. for an example if we go against a team with a pally we try to force bubble asap(we both have relentless/toc 25 gear) so we do some pretty bursty dmg, usally if we can force the bubble fast its a win if we get peeled or cc its usally a 50/50. When we go against a priest/dps team most of the time we split dps as it puts a huge strain on the priest's mana and makes him blow healing cds to survive and after a while of this we hard switch to the priest(who now has low mana and no healing cds) and usally catch him off guard and win or we put so much pressure he goes oom. so yah we usally go through a trial/error with every different setup we go against. rogue/priest teams never give us much trouble and we handle resto/druid warrior teams pretty good also our hardest matchup are hunter teams(makes splitting dps hard for us seeing as the hunter is so mobile).for macros the only one i really use is the one for ghoul to kill totems and he uses one that uses hand of scrafice on me and bubbles himself. so yah sorry that was longwinded in conclusion yes it can work(prob wont be able to make it deep in the 2000's tho as pro healer/dps teams always seem to beat us out) hope this helped some
I run with a ret pally as my partner(im unholy atm) and we are at 1600 and rising steadily its a pretty akward combo to get used to. We both can last pretty long by ourselves but alot of the time i depened on my ret pally partner to make key "saves" such as hop and that emergency holy light. the ret pally has to be prettty aware for you to survive long against good teams.As for strategy this differs from match to match. for an example if we go against a team with a pally we try to force bubble asap(we both have relentless/toc 25 gear) so we do some pretty bursty dmg, usally if we can force the bubble fast its a win if we get peeled or cc its usally a 50/50. When we go against a priest/dps team most of the time we split dps as it puts a huge strain on the priest's mana and makes him blow healing cds to survive and after a while of this we hard switch to the priest(who now has low mana and no healing cds) and usally catch him off guard and win or we put so much pressure he goes oom. so yah we usally go through a trial/error with every different setup we go against. rogue/priest teams never give us much trouble and we handle resto/druid warrior teams pretty good also our hardest matchup are hunter teams(makes splitting dps hard for us seeing as the hunter is so mobile).for macros the only one i really use is the one for ghoul to kill totems and he uses one that uses hand of scrafice on me and bubbles himself. so yah sorry that was longwinded in conclusion yes it can work(prob wont be able to make it deep in the 2000's tho as pro healer/dps teams always seem to beat us out) hope this helped some
Thanks for the reply Spartan, really appreciated.
Can I ask how you deal with Warrior/Druid teams? The problem we have with them is the warrior. I usually try and get on the Druid and pressure them so my pala can finish the warrior. However even with me on the Druid, Mind freezing, pet stunning and Strangulating he still keeps himself and his warrior alive. The warrior is never too far from me, and even with my pala hassling him he still seems to kill me. Leaving my pala 1v2 with Druid/Warrior. Similar story with Priest/Rogue!
Against Hunter teams we have a pretty easy time. Our usual plan is to run right for the hunter no matter what his parnter is. I'll DG and Chains of Ice to keep him at melee range, then he'll disengage and shoot back 30 yards or so when I run right back at him and Chains of Ice again. With us both on him he's usually dead leaving is one up on his partner.
10/14/09, 6:11 PM
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