Adventures of a Pally and 4x Death Knights

[Ualaa]

*EDIT*
Here's my setup: My 4x Frost DK / Paladin Setup - Based on DK Manifesto





I initially set up the Paladin as the healer for the team. Then decided Mass Dispel would be a superior choice for offense, versus bubble for defense.
My priest joined the team and did a dozen or so quests in Hyjal with them.
Then I decided the superior defenses of the Paladin outweighed the ability to negate immunity effects on the initial kill target; my focus is and always will be battlegrounds and not arena, although arena is a necessary evil for Conquest Points.



Anyway, Juds has agreed to take care of the little Gnomettes as they seem to be too much for Aethera to handle.
Juds decided to take them to the playground (AV) yesterday.

With the starter PvP set on both sets of toons.
Plus enough honor to buy one pvp piece on the Pally.
Nothing but the base 1200 res blue crafted set on the DK's (who are using quest iLV 319 Axes); pally has the Holy Plate blue crafted set too, plus the honor bought gloves.

I've primarily run AV's, to gear up.
Did 22 yesterday, winning 8 of them.

But I can see the potential for the team.
Anytime the focus is on the DK's and not on the Pally... Which is surprisingly, the majority of the time.
Well it doesn't go good for the horde, as long as the Pally has mana.
Sure the DK's go down shortly after the mana has ended, but they invariably take down many more horde.
Even a horde DK or Warrior with 40k more health, so a lot more gear, lasts only 3 or 4 GCD's of attacks.
The majority of opponents are dead on the 2nd GCD of attacks (not counting Death Grip as a GCD of attacking).

The best AV... someone suggested we defend Belinda, and give the horde the same crap they give us, when they defend Galv.
Enroute to Galv, six players actually entered Belinda's area, so I joined with my team.
A bunch of horde came in, so I did Army of the Dead x4.
And we killed ten or so that came in immediately.
And then I deathgripped in another ten or so, that over the course of a few mins kept poking their head around the corner.... that was rather fun.
We ended that AV up 585 resources to 0, winning through attrition (with several whiners complaining there were no tanks or healers for Drek).
Twenty one minutes, not that long of an AV either.

A typical AV seems to be...
5-10 deaths total, across my five toons.
Anywhere from 50 to 200 HK's each, with a mean around 90 or so.
I've lead the HK's in a few games, and am usually in the top quarter for both sides.

Most of the time, I go directly to IB graveyard.
Cap that, then support the area between Tower Point and Iceblood Tower.
A group of five coordinated horde totally destroyed me, twice in the same AV.
They did the cyclone on the Pally healer.
And took the team out relatively fast.
That's probably what arena would be like, as a very undergeared team against a coordinated team.
Cannot win them all.




After day one.

The Paladin got her second piece of PvP gear, which gives the set +400 Res bonus.
She's human, so did not bother with the pvp trinket.

Meanwhile the Gnomettes...
They figured they knew all about PvP... run into AV, cap the graveyard and try to burn the two towers, before losing... then get their 60 honor, and repeat.
They were ecstatic, when they won the first AV; and actually won four in a row.
And they have their first shiny, which they were rather excited about -- PvP Trinkets.

Pally has jumped to 1700 Res and the DK's are around 1500 Res.

[Tim]

Hey Ualaa, really fun story to read there. I didn't pick up on 1 thing: Are you the healer and your friend is the DK, or are you all 4?

Also, did you do rated BGs?

I'm started to want to play a team of Pally 4x DK now. I wonder how they would handle heroic farming?

Could you give some good scenarios for how you handled particular situations in BGs?

[Ualaa]

I am the healer (Judsea, Holy Pally; formerly my Tank on my PvE heroic team for the last two expansions).

I am also all four of the Death Knights, who are sure to inspire fear into hordies across all the servers... with their pink pig-tails and awe inspiring names: Cuddlés, Hugglés, Ticklés and Snugglés. (Alt 130: é... for the final é, in all their names.)





These are normal battlegrounds, as the team is still in the process of acquiring the honor purchased pvp sets.

Quite a few people have taken their 4x DK's into heroics, with their 1x Healer (who for PvE can be anything).

Two approaches have worked well.

If your main (healer) is a non-Paladin and therefore has stronger AoE healing, I would lean towards running one DK as a Blood (Tank), leave three as Frost (DPS), and go from there.

If your main (healer) is a Paladin (and therefore severely lacking in AoE heals), or you don't mind killing at only 2/3rd's of the speed of the previous composition, run all four DK's as Blood.
Put them into Blood Presence, and if you have decent one-hander weapons, dual wielding is preferable for PvE as you'll get a lot more Blood Worms.
You don't really care who gets aggro, as they'll all be able to handle it.
Rune Tap every 30 seconds, is a 25% team heal.
You could round-robin their taunt keys, but shouldn't need this with Rune Tap for splash/aoe damage and healing for whoever the boss goes for.





Day 2: 9th of March, 2011.
Alterac Valley, 30sec to 3min queue times.

5 Wins, 10 Losses, 15 Total Games, 33% win percentage.

Not enough additional honor for any new pieces of gear.

[Ualaa]

Day 3: 10th March, 2011.
Alterac Valley, insta-queue's to 2 minute queue's.

9 Wins, 12 Losses, 21 Total Games, 42.85% win percentage.

The first eight games were prior to midnight (4 wins, 4 losses), the remainder were AV weekend games.

The DK's added:
- Gloves
- Shoulders
(Two piece bonus), sitting near 2k resilience now.

Juds added:
- Legs
(3/4th's to the Four piece bonus).

[Tim]

42% win percentage and rising it looks like, not bad at all!

Are all the BGs you are doing non-rated, just normal BG que ones entirely, right? Do you have any thoughts of doing rated BGs? I think the concept of rated BGs, how Blizzard has done it, is pretty dumb. Rated BGs are nice. Requiring a full BG team (eg, 15 people) for a rated BG is stupid.

So why did you pick a Holy Pally for BGs over other ones? I would guess it is because they are durable, but so are Shamans too right?

Also, lets say you are in a BG. What is the most challenging situation that typically can wipe your team? Also, how are you handling fear bombs?

For BGs, is that 1x healer better than a 5th DK? Really curious about this since I rarely heal in BGs myself.

[Ualaa]

Correct, all of the BG's are non-rated.
I did a single Eye of the Storm last week, during EotS weekend.
And have been doing AV exclusively since then.



I think I would enjoy rated BG's more so than arena.
But I agree the implementation is stupid.
The only rated bracket now is 10-man, which means you either get Capture the Flag or a 3-base version of Arathi Basin.
The canceled the 25-man rated versions of the 40-man battlegrounds, towards the end of beta; and because it is hard to get 15 together, have since canceled the 15-man rated battlegrounds.

The only reason to arena at all, is Conquest weapons.
Most likely will queue 2's or 3's.
Haven't decided if I'll box it, or run each independently each week (three weeks of points... five arena wins a week) to cap on points each week and buy the weapon after three weeks.
I'd rather if they ditched arena/rated BG's, and gave the same reward for normal BG's, but that's dreaming I guess.



I didn't like a solo Druid healer... hots have too much of a ramp up time, so the choice of healer was tough between Shaman, Paladin and Priest.

Shammy gets Tremor, which is an extra party-wide Fear_Trinket. Also gets Bloodlust/Heroism, but most of the totem buffs (enhancement) are redundant with DK buffs.
Running exclusively in battlegrounds, this is probably as good of a choice as any.
Decent survivability, better than the Priest but behind the Pally...

Priest was my original choice.
The gearing is a lot more painful, in cloth without a shield.
This is the offensive choice, as they can now Dispel more buffs than a Shammy can purge; Mass Dispel, basically guarantees the original kill target automatically dies, during the time the DK's are immune to almost all CC's.
If you spec Holy, Spirit of Redemption gets you longer time with heals than even a Pally with Bubble, but once you die (and that is a given for arena... an early death every match) you're immobile.

Paladin is the defensive choice.
Plate Armor and Shield, resilience plus armor is close to 70% melee mitigation already; Divine Protection is 10-15 seconds (forget exactly) of 20% reduced damage taken each minute.
Bubble is the big thing; a Warrior or a Priest can remove it, but most classes cannot... which make this a poor initial target for many compositions.
Because I will likely have to arena with a healer... the Pally is the top choice because of the Bubble.



Pally is extremely easy to macro.

My DPS sequence alternates two keys.
I have two castsequence macros, and if a spell is cast in one macro it will advance in the other macro as well, if they're both at the same spell in their sequences.

Basically if I have a Focus set (and I have a clickable button for each DK, for the Pally and for my Current Target, plus one to clear Focus), the Pally puts out massive healing throughput, better single target healing than anything by a large degree.

Macro 1:
/Castsequence [@focus,exists] Flash Heal, Flash Heal
/Cast [@focus,exists] Holy Shock

Macro 2:
/Castsequence [@focus,exists] Holy Shock, Holy Shock, Holy Shock, Word of Glory

Anytime, after the first press, that Holy Shock is available... macro 1 will cast it automatically.
Because I am spamming, I am as likely to hit macro 1 as macro 2, when HS is available; casting either advances both macros.
Meaning each cast of HS generates a charge of Holy Power automatically, and advances the second macro towards Word of Glory.
Word of Glory cannot cast until the 3rd HS has cast.
But WoG does not have a cooldown (although for non-Holy Pallies, it will in 4.1), so as soon as I press "2" and it is at that stage of the sequence it fires off automatically.
Anytime HS/WoG is not firing off, Flash Heal is spamming.

In addition to this, I have Repeater Region healing set up over Column One of my Grid Custom Layout, which is my own team.
For world stuff or instances if I do them, there is only the one column.
Meaning I can click heal any member of my team, from any member of my team.

I run the healer in BG's.
So don't need a Repeater Region for this toon.
My Clique has four binds.
- Left Click = Flash of Light.
- Right Click = Cleanse.
- Alt Left Click = Holy Shock
- Alt Right Click = Word of Glory.

In practice, I will run until I'm barely able to heal someone.
And my Pally will usually heal others for 75% of my healing done.
Healing makes more of an impact than damage dealt.

I will be spamming my "1" key.
Which is my seven button priority sequence spam for the DK's.
With a Focus set, it is those two macros for the Pally.
Without a Focus set, it does nothing on the Pally.

So I can click heal the raid, while click targeting for the DK's.
The DK's are used to Death Grip (defensively) players off of very hurt friendlies, who (the Death Gripped Horde) are then slaughtered.
I will move my Pally away from my DK's, or spam my "1" key which does IWT periodically, so the DK's are not on top of the Pally.
It is amazing the number of horde that ignore the Pally who is 15-20 yards out of the battle but spamming heals.
Also not being on the DK's, I can target someone who attacks the Pally and Death Grip them 20-30 yards away from the Pally... and the spam does a lot of Howling Blasts, which are a 50% snare because of talents/glyphs.

The DK's also offensively Death Grip targets.
Especially those on vehicles.
If they do not choose to dismount, a vehicle is faster than DK's in Unholy Presence, so I will need to DG someone 2-3 times to continue to bring them into range, but they cannot escape.
Glyph A increases the range of Death Grip.
Glyph B auto resets the cooldown to zero, when DG is used but the target is immune.
Talents also increase the range, and auto refresh DG when a target is killed.
With Four DK's, I have unlimited Death Grips, or close enough.
And Death Grip essentially renders the DK's immune to all snares and all roots.



DK's have several cooldown abilities.

Lichborne is 10 seconds every 2 minutes, and makes them immune to Fear, Charm (Succubus) and Sleep effects.
It will even break a Fear, the same as the Trinket.

Anti-magic Shell, glyphed is 7 (5 base) seconds of immunity to every affect that places a debuff icon on the DK's, as well as some damage mitigation while active.
This is a 45 second cooldown, which is very short.
This is the single-target version, base for all DK's and not the AoE bubble thing that Unholy gets as a deep talent.

Icebound Fortitude is a short (10 second?) every 2 or 3 minutes ability which breaks Stuns and renders the DK's immune to Stun.

Pillar of Frost, is 20 seconds of immunity to Knock Back effects, on a one minute (I think, maybe 2 mins) cooldown.
This rocks against Boomkins or Elemental Shamans who want to Knock you off of a ledge.

The Pally has Bubble, which is a get out of jail free card, versus everything.
But that is one ability only, while the DK's have four abilities which have to be managed.

They both have Trinkets, well the Pally has the Human racial so did not buy the PvP trinket; the DK's did as their first acquisition.
So two minute trinkets, as well.

Also the DK's are gnomettes, so they can click their racial to break immobolize effects, but I rarely do that since I just Death Grip anything back to them.

I try to keep the Pally a little back from the DK's, because the DK's have a lot of click immunity effects, but the Pally only has bubble.

The pally does have a Big Button, which makes her very awesome for a short duration.
That's not an escape so much, although it allows me to survive being focused for its duration.
/Cast Divine Favor
/Cast Avenging Wrath
/Cast Aura Mastery
/Cast Divine Protection
/Cast Guardian of Ancient Kings
/Use 13
/Use 14

DF = Casting Haste.
AW = +20% Healing/Damage
AM = Immune to Silence.
DP = 20% reduced damage taken.
GoAK = Casts the same heal I do, at my target for the same amount.



Most challenging for me...

If the horde decide to defend Galv, and none of the other alliance decide to go in with me... well Galv is a lot tougher then Belinda, so even five defenders is too much for me; I usually kill all the horde, but cannot solo Galv with my five toons... not even close even with 4x Army of the Dead.

If I decide to defend Belinda, I can usually take 8-10 horde pretty easily when they focus on the DK's... which is 90% of the time.
If they focus on the Pally, I can heal through (via the God Mode macro) 3-4 people beating on me, or without the macro 1-2 cannot kill me while I have mana.
Plus the DK's can Death Grip people off of me.
However, while I have mana I am tough, but once its gone... or if I am silenced/stunned/cycloned, etc... same thing as no mana, dead (at least the DK's die... and then the Pally follows).

I use Divine Plea, pretty much every cooldown (2 mins or so).
I try to time it along with the God Mode macro, as half healing power for the duration, but the Yellow Knight pet that heals for as much as my non-reduced (Divine Plea) heals.
Divine Plea is 18% of my mana, over 15 or 20 seconds.

If the horde camp Galv, I try to cap Iceblood Graveyard, so any that die are split back from the offense (rezzing at Frostwolf Graveyard) which should be easy pickings for our offense.
And then head to outside Iceblood Tower, to Death Grip and slaughter any that come out of Galv.
I'm happy if they sit in there... and let us burn two of their towers.

Fearbombs, while within a tower defending it so it can burn.. that is hard.
The DK's can Lichborne or AntiMagic Shell, but the Pally cannot do much.
IWT spam will almost always have a DK run off of the ledge too.

Taking back bunkers can be a pain.
With one ally to click the flag, I can occupy and kill a lot more horde than we have people there.
But my DK's act in sync together, and I cannot have one not DPS with the others.
So the choice is... Pally clicks the flag and does not heal... or DK's click the flag and none of them DPS.
Retaking bunkers is challenging.
Preventing twice my number from taking a flag/graveyard/bunker is easy... unless they CC my Pally.



Day 4: 11th March, 2011.
Alterac Valley, Insta-Queue's all night (Fri of AV Weekend).

11 Wins, 22 Losses, 33 Games, 33.33% win percentage.
Basically lost 90% of the games, during the day.
And won 75% of the games, in the evening/night.

The DK's added:
- Legs
- Helm
(Four Piece bonus, free Runic Power when Rooted... Half a Frost Strike x4)


Juds added:
- Chest
- Helm
- Trinket #1
(Five set pieces, chance on cast +Spell Power).

[Ualaa]

Dungeons and Dragons afternoon/evening... so didn't start to play until midnight or so, so technically this was Sunday morning, but I'll call it Saturday since I've not slept.

Almost six hours of play.

6 Wins, 10 Losses, 16 Games, 37.50 Win Percentage.

Added:

Death Knights
- Chest (for 5 of 5 set pieces)
- With the chest, the DK's have enough Red Gems to activate their Meta (Crit rating and Percentage increase to Crit damage).

Juds
- Trinket (+spell power on click, 302 res).

[Tim]

All in all, do you feel like the DKs do really good in BGs, or really crappy, compared to other teams?

[Ualaa]

Comparable... probably a little better than 4/5x Shaman during Burning Crusade.
The team is easily the best PvP composition I've played.

Unfortunately, while undergeared... if you do the smaller battlegrounds you are definitely the reason the team loses.
You have the double penalty of being 50% (10-man) or 33% (15-man) of the team, that is inflexible and has to be in only one place at once... combined with a third or half the team is undergeared.

Which leaves the larger battlegrounds, where 5 out of 40 is only 12.5% of the team; not that bad of an issue boxing while gearing up.
However, as such a small portion of the team, you can be dominant in an area but the overall team can tank badly.

Pretty much if the alliance works together, doesn't matter what it is they're doing:
- Swarm Galv to kill the horde that defend him
- Send 15 to IBT to hold it, against the hordies who defended Galv
- Send 25-30 to Drek as a rush strategy
If they're onboard and working as a team, we win 90% of those games.
I'm sure when the horde are onboard and doing the same, they win 90% of their games.
What sucks is 75% of the time (and talking to people who play both factions, this is true for both sides), the majority of the players go off and do their own thing.

Today's games (Sunday) were the worst in terms of a total lack of cooperation.
My team is getting to be fairly geared; the Pally is sitting at 2791 resilience and the DK's are 2600 and change.
And despite being able to take out ever larger numbers of hordies, or last being focused much longer... well the wins were not there today.

Usually the alliance does a lot better during graveyard hours, and more poorly in the afternoon (I assume because all the kids are home from school and playing).
But rather than play until 6am and then sleep till noon, and play as long as I can stay up thereafter... I'm actually quitting now.
Better off to have a new group of players.



Sunday March 13th, Alterac Valley Weekend.

3 Wins, 19 Losses, 22 Games Played; 13.63% Win Percentage.


The DK's added:
- PvP Cloak (Put the spell penetration enchant on this).
- Most of the way towards the Belt, which will be the last spell penetration blue gem for spell penetration cap.

Juds added:
- PvP Cloak
- PvP Necklace





*Edit*

Forgot to add today's fun tactics.

Assuming the alliance were losing, the horde play a game of attrition with the alliance between Stormpike Graveyard (alliance rez point) and Stonehearth Graveyard (horde rez point).
They don't really push for the PvE win, and instead pvp in the battleground... go figure.

So I clear the NPC's from Stonehearth.
And then move through the crevasse to almost the spawn point of the hordies.
And then pick them off.

Waves are generally 2's and 3's, but sometimes 10 rez at once.
With cooldowns, the "Big Button" or the Pally Bubble, either one... 10 average horde aren't an issue.
At least they weren't tonight.

In one BG I farmed 40 or so hordies in the graveyard.
And there is no honorless target, plus every death hurts the horde resource count.




The other tactic, is to go under the bridge at Stormpike (bridge that leads into the alliance area).
And cut through the field (with harpies/rams), until I'm adjacent to but under the path between Stormpike and Icewing Bunker.
While the hordies are really pushing... and the choke is blocked, this is my "fun" tactic.

Death Grip one of them off of the road.
And spam my DPS to kill it.

If other hordies come, run away down the hill.
So they don't have support of those up top.
And then turn on them and kill them.

If the horde are oblivious, then repeat the process.

That seems to work for 10-15 horde during the push.
And for 3-4 battlegrounds in a row.
After which, they are especially aware of it.

Death Grip is such a fun toy.

[Tim]

Ualaa you are totally inspiring me here. In a few days I'm going to be creating a new team, 1x Pally 4x DK.

Couple of questions... Are you able to do heroics? Also, what would you suggest I do to start gear-wise. Imagine I'm level 80 on the whole 5x team and I'm heading into 85. What should I do to get started with gear? PVP craftable?