2008/12/18
Good company...
It is so good to see that I as a DualWield DeathKnight am in good company... thx to the lore of WotLK :-)
Naxxramas
Clearing 4 wings in Naxxramas is really exciting. I like this dungeon very much, nice flair and many many mobgroups for my spec ;-)
This was really awesome, mobgroups with 3 or 4 mobs push the DPS way over 4000 per group for me. The only thing I try to focus on now is the single target damage which could be higher. I might try a deep Frost/Unholy spec for that with a very slow mainhand for Froststrike. But having a shaman in the group helps, and if you add a warrior and feral to it, it is getting near perfect.
To give you an example, this was the recount after yesterdays run:
- Howling Blast
- Melee
- Icy touch
- Frost Fever
- Death & Decay
- Blood Plague
- Death Coil
- Blood-Caked Blade
And this was the recount just for finishing Patchwork:
- Melee
- Howling Blast
- Icy Touch
- Death Coil
- Frost Fever
- Blood-Caked Blade
- Blood Plague
- Blood Strike
Very nice to see is that Blood-Caked Blade is doing some acceptable damage and is also procing regularely. Necrosis isn't really doing much damage, but it helps push the DPS a bit. I am now thinking of using 2 fast weapons to get faster attack speed => more crits => more killing machine => way more damage with IT and HB.
And then I have the idea of the second spec with slow MH and fast OH going deep Frost for FrostStrike and more weapon damage...
This was really awesome, mobgroups with 3 or 4 mobs push the DPS way over 4000 per group for me. The only thing I try to focus on now is the single target damage which could be higher. I might try a deep Frost/Unholy spec for that with a very slow mainhand for Froststrike. But having a shaman in the group helps, and if you add a warrior and feral to it, it is getting near perfect.
To give you an example, this was the recount after yesterdays run:
- Howling Blast
- Melee
- Icy touch
- Frost Fever
- Death & Decay
- Blood Plague
- Death Coil
- Blood-Caked Blade
And this was the recount just for finishing Patchwork:
- Melee
- Howling Blast
- Icy Touch
- Death Coil
- Frost Fever
- Blood-Caked Blade
- Blood Plague
- Blood Strike
Very nice to see is that Blood-Caked Blade is doing some acceptable damage and is also procing regularely. Necrosis isn't really doing much damage, but it helps push the DPS a bit. I am now thinking of using 2 fast weapons to get faster attack speed => more crits => more killing machine => way more damage with IT and HB.
And then I have the idea of the second spec with slow MH and fast OH going deep Frost for FrostStrike and more weapon damage...
2008/12/14
Sartharion Experience
Today was the first time I got the chance to participate at a raid, we did 10-man Sartharion and it was really exciting. I tried the new spec which was posted by Norjena: 0/32/39
Basic rotation:
IT - PS - HB - BS - BS - DC
PS - IT - IT - DC - HB - DC
Pushing the magical damage to a higher level with this build, including more Icy Touch because of the Death Runes. I need to stack more Hit and Crit to get Killing Machine going, and I also think of using two fast weapons for more hits and more crits.
At the end of the raid recount was the following:
Basic rotation:
IT - PS - HB - BS - BS - DC
PS - IT - IT - DC - HB - DC
Pushing the magical damage to a higher level with this build, including more Icy Touch because of the Death Runes. I need to stack more Hit and Crit to get Killing Machine going, and I also think of using two fast weapons for more hits and more crits.
At the end of the raid recount was the following:
2008/12/09
DualWield Guide
For all of you out there who speak german:
My DualWield Guide is doing some progress, I gathered many interesting facts and started work on the core topics. Maybe you are interested in it and can find something you can use:
Official Forums - DualWield Guide
My DualWield Guide is doing some progress, I gathered many interesting facts and started work on the core topics. Maybe you are interested in it and can find something you can use:
Official Forums - DualWield Guide
2008/12/08
Trispec Reloaded
Being level 80 for some days now, I tried out a new sort of Trispec. I wasn't quite sure about it, because it goes a bit in frost and unholy as well, but not deep enough in both trees to get the bigger stuff. So I thought this would be a decrease in DPS. But I was wrong.
The Spec I am talking about is: 15/31/25
The big deal with it is the increased damage against single targets, thx to "Necrosis" and "Blood-Caked Blade". Howling Blast keeps things going for groups and still crits nice, even without "Tundra Stalker" or "Guile of Gorefiend". With the Deep Frost DW Spec I used before, crits where above 4500 or even 5000 with Howling Blast. Now it is between 4000 and 4500. Still doing well. Really interesting is, that thanks to "Killing Machine" HB is between 60% to 70% critical, which is really awesome!
BCB is about 5% of the whole damage I do, Necrosis about 2% to 3%. Most of the damage is done with HB and Melee.
I also did some heroics now, and in every single dungeon I was 1st place in damage with this spec. I am able to do 2800 to 3000 dps on mob groups, single targets are up to 1900 to 2100 dps for now. Still improving my gear!
Basic Rotation for mobgroups:
IT - PS - Pestilence - HB - BB - DC - HB
But I don't keep it always like that, I am very flexible during fights, so sometimes after HB I do another Pestilence to keep Diseases spreading out and ticking, or I through in some DnD for more AoE.
Rotation for Bossmobs:
IT - PS - HB - BS(BB) - BS(BB) - DC - HB - DC
If you have questions, please go ahead and comment!
The Spec I am talking about is: 15/31/25
The big deal with it is the increased damage against single targets, thx to "Necrosis" and "Blood-Caked Blade". Howling Blast keeps things going for groups and still crits nice, even without "Tundra Stalker" or "Guile of Gorefiend". With the Deep Frost DW Spec I used before, crits where above 4500 or even 5000 with Howling Blast. Now it is between 4000 and 4500. Still doing well. Really interesting is, that thanks to "Killing Machine" HB is between 60% to 70% critical, which is really awesome!
BCB is about 5% of the whole damage I do, Necrosis about 2% to 3%. Most of the damage is done with HB and Melee.
I also did some heroics now, and in every single dungeon I was 1st place in damage with this spec. I am able to do 2800 to 3000 dps on mob groups, single targets are up to 1900 to 2100 dps for now. Still improving my gear!
Basic Rotation for mobgroups:
IT - PS - Pestilence - HB - BB - DC - HB
But I don't keep it always like that, I am very flexible during fights, so sometimes after HB I do another Pestilence to keep Diseases spreading out and ticking, or I through in some DnD for more AoE.
Rotation for Bossmobs:
IT - PS - HB - BS(BB) - BS(BB) - DC - HB - DC
If you have questions, please go ahead and comment!
2008/12/05
Level 80
I reached level 80 tonight:
So now it is time to get things rolling, I may try to gather some better equip / weapons before I start testing some specs on the poor dummies ^^
If anybody is interested, I could do a new video about level 80 dungeons or even about some heroics. So, anyone who wants to see a DW DK in Heroics? And also something important: I think I am going for tank... but I am not quite sure about that for now.
So now it is time to get things rolling, I may try to gather some better equip / weapons before I start testing some specs on the poor dummies ^^If anybody is interested, I could do a new video about level 80 dungeons or even about some heroics. So, anyone who wants to see a DW DK in Heroics? And also something important: I think I am going for tank... but I am not quite sure about that for now.
2008/12/03
Drak'Tharon and Gundrak
The next step with my DeathKnight, now level 76, was to do Drak'Tharon and Gundrak. I got the chance to visit those 2 dungeons with a group of very nice random players, lead by a druid tank. I took the chance to record some fights and boss fights to cut a new movie for all of you - you can download it there:
In this movie you can see, how DualWield Frost is working out. You will see some nice crits, triple crits, some basic tactics and you can study my rotation in different situations. Hopefully you like the video, I did my best to put some new music in it ;-)
First we got to Drak'Tharon, it was very interesting, beautiful design, I liked it a lot. I was there with a new, some kind of "Offtank" Frost build, which is good for leveling and can be used to tank or help in hard situations. You can check it out here: 15/52/0
We had no problems, no wipes, everything was going fine, the druid tank pulled of some nice damage, but I was able to catch up at the end of the run, recount showing the following:
After this run, we decided to visit the next dungeon, which was Gundrak, and switched the enhancer with a shadowpriest. After I warmed up in Drak'Tharon, I was able to work on my rotation and do some better damage. I love mob groups, and there were a lot in this dungeon. I also had no big aggro problems, which was very surprising because I did not skill "Subversion" in Blood. Sometimes I got close to pulling aggro, and in 1 or 2 cases I pulled it from a mob, but that was no big deal, thanks to the offtank build I am using. I even pulled off some adds that were disturbing our healer, or pulled some ranged mobs to our tank with Death Grip.
Recount after finishing the dungeon:
As you can see, Howling Blast is showing some nice amount of crits: 57,4%
After that, Melee , Icy Touch and FrostStrike are following.
Those are also my main attack skills I use in most of the fights. I did not use RuneStrike much, because I was behind the mobs and not really parrying anything. I kinda missed this, because after a rotation using Howling Blast and spending RunicPower, I was missing something I could use.
BloodStrike isn't really doing any damage, I just use it to keep my Death Runes up and the cooldown running to keep Blade Barriere.
To see melee on 1st or 2nd place most of the time, it really gets more and more important to stack Hit, Crit and AP. This will push the damage for a DualWield DeathKnight a lot, resulting in more white damage, more crits and as a result of that, more Killing Machine !!
In this movie you can see, how DualWield Frost is working out. You will see some nice crits, triple crits, some basic tactics and you can study my rotation in different situations. Hopefully you like the video, I did my best to put some new music in it ;-)
First we got to Drak'Tharon, it was very interesting, beautiful design, I liked it a lot. I was there with a new, some kind of "Offtank" Frost build, which is good for leveling and can be used to tank or help in hard situations. You can check it out here: 15/52/0
We had no problems, no wipes, everything was going fine, the druid tank pulled of some nice damage, but I was able to catch up at the end of the run, recount showing the following:
After this run, we decided to visit the next dungeon, which was Gundrak, and switched the enhancer with a shadowpriest. After I warmed up in Drak'Tharon, I was able to work on my rotation and do some better damage. I love mob groups, and there were a lot in this dungeon. I also had no big aggro problems, which was very surprising because I did not skill "Subversion" in Blood. Sometimes I got close to pulling aggro, and in 1 or 2 cases I pulled it from a mob, but that was no big deal, thanks to the offtank build I am using. I even pulled off some adds that were disturbing our healer, or pulled some ranged mobs to our tank with Death Grip.Recount after finishing the dungeon:
As you can see, Howling Blast is showing some nice amount of crits: 57,4%After that, Melee , Icy Touch and FrostStrike are following.
Those are also my main attack skills I use in most of the fights. I did not use RuneStrike much, because I was behind the mobs and not really parrying anything. I kinda missed this, because after a rotation using Howling Blast and spending RunicPower, I was missing something I could use.
BloodStrike isn't really doing any damage, I just use it to keep my Death Runes up and the cooldown running to keep Blade Barriere.
To see melee on 1st or 2nd place most of the time, it really gets more and more important to stack Hit, Crit and AP. This will push the damage for a DualWield DeathKnight a lot, resulting in more white damage, more crits and as a result of that, more Killing Machine !!
Blue News
An interesting bluepost was made about the DK and upcoming changes:
We’re not prepared to announce specific changes to DKs yet, but here are some general areas we are tinkering with. Most of these changes apply predominantly to tanking death knights, so I avoided cross-posting this thread, but there are probably items of interest to dps specs as well.
This isn't everything we're talking about of course, just a little preview.
Sigils
We are aware that DKs may be struggling more to get defense. They lack tanking weapons, shields and guns, all of which can provide defense to warriors. It's something we're working on.
AoE as Blood
We're also working on Blood AE.
Horn of Winter Glyph
We would change the Horn of Winter glyph (to something like duration).
Tanking oriented 2H Weapons
I would not expect full itemization for two-handed tanking weapons. We wanted DKs to tank with dps two-handers (and have their mitigation benefit somewhat from the dps stats). We might add a craftable weapon or something down the road, but only if that felt like an option for the DK, not a mandatory piece of gear. You can also dual-wield tanking weapons if you want, but again, it isn't the intent that is the only way to play. (Please don't turn the rest of this thread into a discussion of whether or not DKs should be able to dual-wield.)
Rune Strike
Rune Strike is a tanking ability. It was designed to let DKs make up for the fact that their threat suffers so much from hits that fail to land. It does suffer from a confusing tooltip (which we have since fixed) but it is the DK who must avoid the attack to get Rune Strike to light up.
Active abilities usage
We still like DKs as the "active abilities" tank. We just think it might be a little too extreme right now. Icebound Fortitude was intended to be something you use when a big, predictable damage spike is coming, but DK tanks seem to want to keep them up 100% of the time for fear that they will die without them.
We’re not prepared to announce specific changes to DKs yet, but here are some general areas we are tinkering with. Most of these changes apply predominantly to tanking death knights, so I avoided cross-posting this thread, but there are probably items of interest to dps specs as well.
- Death knights seem to tank well when they have cooldowns available and take too much damage otherwise. The change here seems obvious – boost Frost presence’s mitigation while reducing the mitigation of some other abilities, especially Icebound Fortitude and Bone Shield.
- One idea we have for Icebound Fortitude is to scale the mitigation based on defense skill. This lets the ability be less of a paladin bubble in PvP for dps knights, while still letting it act more like Shield Wall for tanks. It also has the side effect of making defense slightly more attractive to death knights. (Let me add before it’s asked that yes we understand Ferals have this problem too and we are working on it.)
- Unholy is a very popular tanking spec, largely on the strength of Bone Shield. Expect to see some buffs to tanking talents in the Blood tree especially.
- Rune Strike was intended to be a reactive tanking tool, not a rogue killer. We will probably chill its weapon damage and increase its threat.
- We don’t like the behavior where DKs feel like they are supposed to drop Death and Decay to generate runic power before a pull. It just looks goofy. We will probably lower the runic power costs of Unholy Blight and Horn of Winter, which seem to be the primary reasons to generate RP. Horn of Winter will probably be something like no cost, 30 sec cooldown, generates 10 rp. (EDIT: I am refering to using DnD outside of combat just for the runic power (kind of like Bloodrage for warriors). It's totally legit and intended to use it to start a fight to gain threat and hurt the bad guys.)
- There are some odd situations caused by Shadow of Death that we would like to fix. The talent isn’t designed to let you escape durability damage or rez by zoning into an instance.
- There are some annoying parts of the non-pet ghoul. We want to lower the aggro range (for less accidental pulls) and spawn the ghoul in quicker when dismounting. The ghoul, at least Unholy’s version, could also use some AE avoidance like other pets.
- We are probably going to add a new spell to let you raise fallen allies so that you don't have to make the decision between bringing back another player (which was just supposed to be a fun bonus) and bringing back your ghoul, which can be pretty crticial for some specs.
This isn't everything we're talking about of course, just a little preview.
Sigils
We are aware that DKs may be struggling more to get defense. They lack tanking weapons, shields and guns, all of which can provide defense to warriors. It's something we're working on.
AoE as Blood
We're also working on Blood AE.
Horn of Winter Glyph
We would change the Horn of Winter glyph (to something like duration).
Tanking oriented 2H Weapons
I would not expect full itemization for two-handed tanking weapons. We wanted DKs to tank with dps two-handers (and have their mitigation benefit somewhat from the dps stats). We might add a craftable weapon or something down the road, but only if that felt like an option for the DK, not a mandatory piece of gear. You can also dual-wield tanking weapons if you want, but again, it isn't the intent that is the only way to play. (Please don't turn the rest of this thread into a discussion of whether or not DKs should be able to dual-wield.)
Rune Strike
Rune Strike is a tanking ability. It was designed to let DKs make up for the fact that their threat suffers so much from hits that fail to land. It does suffer from a confusing tooltip (which we have since fixed) but it is the DK who must avoid the attack to get Rune Strike to light up.
Active abilities usage
We still like DKs as the "active abilities" tank. We just think it might be a little too extreme right now. Icebound Fortitude was intended to be something you use when a big, predictable damage spike is coming, but DK tanks seem to want to keep them up 100% of the time for fear that they will die without them.
2008/11/27
Tanking
Today I got the chance to tank Azjol-Nerub as
Frost DW, I was very curious because I never
got the chance to visit this Dungeon during Beta.
There were no big problems, the second DK was
Unholy and was keeping up in damage, but at
the end I was the lead.
Healing was done by a Retribution Paladin in
Healgear... sometimes it was a bit close to
0% hp, but THX to Icebound Fortitude and
Antimagic-Shell I managed to hold on.
Was really fun, my Runestrike triggered so often I was even running out of Runicpower.
When pulling a mob group, I parried really often... even 3 or 4 times in a row,
getting no damage.
This will be really interesting at 80 in decent gear, I can imagine to parry / dodge
very often. My gear is improving for now, gathering more and more tank items.
Hopefully I can tank the next Dungeon pretty soon.
Build used: 5/53/7
If you have questions, do not hesitate and go on!
2008/11/25
Nexus Adventure Part II
Today I was feeling a bit better and got a fast chance to get Nexus going again and finish those damn quests... Random group, another DW Frost Tank was our Maintank, interesting thing was that he was not able
to keep up in the damage.
I was just duelling with the Rogue, but at the end of the instance he was not able to keep up with me. It was
really fun, I did some offtanking and protected the
healer when there was an add. There is much
more potential in DualWield, really looking forward to
do more!
And for all of you out there who speak german, I started my DualWield Guide in the official forums:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6986629797&sid=3
to keep up in the damage.
I was just duelling with the Rogue, but at the end of the instance he was not able to keep up with me. It was
really fun, I did some offtanking and protected the
healer when there was an add. There is much
more potential in DualWield, really looking forward to
do more!
And for all of you out there who speak german, I started my DualWield Guide in the official forums:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6986629797&sid=3
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