It happens frequently that you are wondering whether you chose the best spec, gemmed and reforged optimal or made the right decision in this or that match?
The guessing might be over. Just leave a comment on this post about everything you ever wanted to know about your DK, including maybe
- your amory-link,
- your screenshot,
- your stream-link,
or whatever you need to explain me your problem and I solve it for you! The advantages: It’s completly for free and everyone else is learning from your questions as well.
And to everyone asking now: “Why should I ask this guy??”. Well, I’m a decent DK, an average player at high levels, two-time gladiator in S4 (with druid) and S7 (with DK), currently rated a bit above 2.7k in 3s with multiple 2.5k+ teams in 2s. I’m not special, but I’m fairly good at what I’m doing.
With that being said, go ahead!
Syreene DK Guide
|Syreene| |DK Blog| 
Syreene where are you! Have missed your blog updates!
Quick question – running Rogue/DK/Disc. One glad (rogue) and two duelist (DK/Disc 2400 exp). I’m currently Unholy and wondering if I should stay that way? Rogue told me that my transformed pet doesn’t “jive with rogue abilities” – back to 2h or dual wield frost for this comp or no?
Hey syreene, really helpful blog by the way and very well written. I am a new dk player and loving it at the moment especially frost. Despite the recent nerfs I was wondering your views on frost’s viability in s10 and also any thoughts on dual wield in arena as frost now. Or is it really go unholy to be viable?(sorry if you’ve mentioned this before I had a look round and couldnt find any comments on this on your blog) Wasn’t sure where else to post this so sorry if it’s in the wrong section.
I should mention I will be playing with a resto druid/ arms warr due to rl friends and similar time schedules hence why I feel that despite HC and DS nerfs that frost would still be a better match for those classes than unholy with it’s longer ramp up time (plus i hate controlling pets) 😀
Any help would be massively appreciated!!
Thank you Syreene for this wonderful resource! I just hit 1800 in 2’s after dinging 85 less than a month ago, thanks to all the information on here.
What are your thoughts on the viability of Unholy/Disc in 4.2? What about Unholy/RSham?
Thanks and cheers;
Hey Syreenee! thanks for this awesome blog once again.
Playing disc priest / dk in 2s atm, at about 2.2k but we seem to lose every f*cking time against druid/melee, what’s that plan? Please assist with some specific strats if you dont mind.
Much appreciated..
Mat D
“Here’s my armory link, if you could check if i have any gem/spec or enchant flaws i would love to hear that aswell!”
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/steamwheedle-cartel/fapro/advanced
Hello Syreene, your website is awsome and its really helping out.
I would like some tips on my gear setup and see if it´s good or bad. http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/tarren-mill/b%c3%a4verbonkarn/simple
I know my back is wrong atm but going to change it after i get full vicious.
And do you have any general tips for the TSG comp? Getting back to arena from a break and i+m probably going to play that comp.
Thanks!
To your armory link:
– Enchant Str on bracers instead of haste.
– Enchant Str on gloves instead of haste.
– Enchant 50 mastery on boots instead of haste.
– You have 220 spellpenetration, cap is 195, use a 20 resil/25 spellpen gem instead of a 50 spellpen gem.
– Your gemming is a bit undecided.You should decide whether you want to go for full
resilience: then 40 resil in red, 40 resil in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue or
strength: then 40 Str in red, 20 Str / 20 mastery in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue.
A mix isn’t efficient.
TSG strats you find in this thread.
Thank you! i appreciate it.
Hey Syreene, i can see it’s almost been a week since anyone posted.
And i’ve kept on reading almost all replys etc. but still i can’t figure sxomething out in 2v2.
I play with a Disc. Priest and i can’t figure out what to do vs Holy Paladin DK or Warrior.
I try to get the pressure with a pull in HC and NS the DK or Warrior low to pop ERW and go for a kill. But they go defensive and the nuke is gone. If they go for me my Priest gets CC’ed easily, or simply go’s oom. If they go for the priest he is pretty much dead in a minute or 2. That is while i am helping him with Chains on the DD
So i have a dilemma weather i sit on the Healer or the DD, as the DD can hit my Priest quite a bit even with some chains. And the Healer is able to free-cast. But if i go for the paladin i pressure, get him to bubble. I switch meanwhile, but once i go back i keep getting disarmed, kited etc by the DD. So by the time i get him low again he’s got his bubble back. That is if my Priest managed to stay alive for so long.
Do you have any tactic that could work for me against these teams? Also Double Mage or Mage/Rogue is a pain. DK/Ret is just nuke the DK before my healer dies everytime (Am i right?)
Here’s my armory link, if you could check if i have any gem/spec or enchant flaws i would love to hear that aswell!
With kind regards,
/Sapro
I’m sorry but I’m quite busy atm, I can’t cover all your questions about comp strategies.
Basic strat for dk/priest:
You basically you decide in the beginning of the match whether you want to play it on nuke or on mana.
When you decide for nuke you try to force as much cooldowns as possible by playing extremely offensive.
Mindspike/smite spam (if he specced into it) with shadowfiend on first hungering cold.
Always line up your CCs, hungering cold -> fear -> strangulate -> mind control is devastating.
On mana means you manaburn the enemy healer while you drink every possible option you get.
Use every hungering cold for either chains -> burn -> chains -> burn or drink the full 8 sec, minimum.
Against mage/caster: If they’re not completely retarded then you shouldn’t have a chance,
especially against mage/mage and mage/shadowpriest. All you can try is being super defensive.
Get on the mage and try to prevent his CCs, when he deepfreezes your healer you strangulate him to not let
him cast Ring of Frost. Time your defensive CDs and be aware of the fact that you can die anytime in any kind of CC.
Use grip -> hungering cold when you’re in trouble, but as early as you can. The first one will be trinketed by both enemies,
the second is full though, so make sure you can use the second one pretty soon.
Against mage/melee: Most likely that will be with rogue, just stand next to a pillar and just
deathstrike/froststrike the rogue all game while you try to prevent the mage from CCing, strangulate him when he
deepfreezes your healer, grip -> HC big shatters when your healer is CCed, and be careful with disarms
(where you can’t deathstrike) and smokebombs. You should trinket the frist smokebomb and IBF the second,
use deathpact when you’re disarmed.
To your armory link:
– Enchant Str on bracers instead of haste.
– You have 4.46% hit, cap is 5%, I use 4. Decide if you want to sacrifice 1% for more mastery or not, but go either for 4 or 5%, not smth inbetween.
– Your gemming is a bit undecided.You should decide whether you want to go for full
resilience: then 40 resil in red, 40 resil in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue or
strength: then 40 Str in red, 20 Str / 20 mastery in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue.
A mix isn’t efficient.
Thanks for the reply!
Helps alot on the tactics, i kept telling my priest to be offensive ^^
About my gems, i actually gemmed pretty much the same way as you did on the Arena Tournament Realm, checked your armory.. but you are in PvE gear atm. Missing out on mastery yourself on ATR 😉
And damn i totally forgot i still had Haste on bracers, such a waste.
I need 3 Red gems for my meta, but i can change the meta if i go full resi, any idea which 1? (If worth it)
I see my personal progress and its going better since ive read alot on your blog, thanks for the help and keep up the good work on improving DK’s all over the world 🙂
Damage Percentages.
Thanks for the site and info!
I am following the guidelines you lay out in the ‘nuke or be nuked’ thread and am curious if I have the right damage spread. The following is a break down of my abilities in about 10 or so 2s games as frost/resto shaman (not a big sample, but most were cloth/leather). Please take a look and let me know if I should be focusing on a certain attack more.
Frost Strike 31.2%
Auto Attack 19.4%
Frost Fever 15.4%
Obliterate 10.8%
Necrotic Strike 10.2%
Howling Blast 7.0%
Death Strike 2.8%
Is that about how the should look or am I doing something terribly wrong (like not keeping blood plague up enough)? Also, i’m running about 27% mastery @ 3710 res in mostly visc gear.
Thanks
I usually don’t have skada running when I’m doing arenas, although the numbers look pretty plausible to me.
I’m not sure if your programm counts the heal-absorb factor of necro strike into damage, or just the strike dmg itself.
I guess just the strike damage, as NS should be the ability you use most.
Most DKs only apply blood plague by using outbreak, so that’s quite normal.
Mastery and resil values are normal, pretty much the numbers I would expect overall.
Posted in the wrong section, so reposting here:
Hello Syréène!
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/laughing-skull/brorl%C3%A5rt/advanced
http://img838.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot052911162829.jpg/
I am atm playing RDKP in 3s and we’re quite stuck at 2100. We rushed to 2100 in like 2 hours, but we seem to be stuck here.
Earlier in the lower rated matches, we were able to burst down a warrior in a bomb, popping trinket+pillar and spamming NS and FS and tricks on me, but it doesn’t seem to work anymore.
Any chance you could give me/us a tip how to play it better at relavtive high rating?
I normal fight would go like this:
Sap on healer
Me rushing the war/dk (if SP/mage we go SP, if lock/rogue we go lock)
I start out with trinket+pillar, starting to spam NS and FS
right after I pop erw and go NS + FS
At this point we got smokebomb up and healer is out of sap
I try to chain him and grip warrior back in to keep pressure on him, but at this point we seem to fail at this rating, since we simply cant get him down.
If war/dk gets out of bomb I try to strang healer, not sure if that’s the right thing to do though.
But please if you don’t mind writing me some guidelines how to start out on different setups and who to switch etc it would be much appreciated.
Thanks a lot.
Mat D
You’re doing it pretty good, although your comp is probably the most terrifying healer-killing comp out there. Try to adapt your tactic more to killing healers.
Just sap a DD and rush down the healer, stay on him if he pops cooldowns, he will most likely die (except for pally ofc).
Start with all CDs; bomb, dance, pillar, erw, strang after kidney, there is nothing the healer can do to survive it.
You can also CC the DDs pretty hard: sap, hungering cold after sap ran out, blind the DD that trinketet, fear afterwards.
Although they DR each other, the time you get should be enough.
Make sure to sap mages to avoid being kited away from their healers. Apart from that there is pretty much nothing to stop you.
Hi, syreene
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/khazgoroth/zeyroy/advanced
Need some advice from you on 2’s and 3’s. For 2’s Vs Frostmage and Rogue. My 2’s team restro druid/frost dk usually get owned badly due to cc on healer. I start attacking the mage and wait for the rogue to come out then i will ds and fs spam him. Also self heal with death pact and ams and still lose in the end. For 3’s My set up is arms warrior/ frost dk/ restro druid. Still lose to mostly Rogue lock priest. Any ideas or stratgy for them?
Against mage/rogue: There’s a difference between the bad teams and the good ones.
-Bad: They’re not kiting properly and you can engage mage without many peels, just use CDs and force an early block, force the mage to kite defensively and the rogue to peel, use AMS/IBF to stay offensive. You have to deal pretty brutal damage though to let them feel under pressure the whole game, but don’t tunnel, when the mage get’s away switch to rogue, he can die while the mage is still casting evocation.
-Good: They will not let you reach the mage because you die on your way. Just stand next to a pillar and just deathstrike/froststrike the rogue all game while you try to prevent the mage from CCing, strangulate him when he deepfreezes your healer, grip -> HC big shatters when your healer is CCed, and be careful with disarms (where you can’t deathstrike) and smokebombs. You should trinket the first smokebomb and IBF the second, use deathpact when you’re disarmed. Tranquility works trough smokebombs, use it to your advantage (but out of line of sight ofc, otherwise it’s a free full counterspell).
If they know when to nuke and when to reset properly you will have a pretty hard time though.
And let your druid only trinket blind and use tree for a full sheep, everything else he has to sit in, avoiding CC and surving is key here.
Haven’t met any rogue/lock/priest for a very long time, but you can use my RLS tactics from my Strategy section.
Quote:
Your druid should cyclone pretty often, rotate between the DDs. E.g.: You start hard on lock, rogue opens, your druid cyclones rogue 2 times, lock drops pretty good, rogue gets immune to cyclone so druid cyclones warlock (even with low HP) and you switch with throwdown to the rogue, rogue drops, you interrupt the priests heal with a deathgrip and freeze all three, you switch back to lock (who still is on low HP) and cyclone priest – incredible and unhealable pressure if this works out. This is just what I would do, try out a bit what works best.
Ok syreene will try it..but what do you mean by tunnel.
Abbreviation for tunnelvision. It means you stay on one target and don’t switch even if there are really good other choices of target.
Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/burning-blade/mønta/simple
UI: http://img837.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot052711010619.jpg/
I am a little bit confused from your replies. Do you use Festering Strike or not?
To your armory:
– Use the mastery cloak, it’s superior to the haste one.
– Your gemming is a bit undecided.You should decide whether you want to go for full
resilience: then 40 resil in red, 40 resil in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue or
strength: then 40 Str in red, 20 Str / 20 mastery in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue.
A mix isn’t efficient.
Your UI is pretty clear and well-arranged, although I can’t see any unitframes for player/target/focus/party,
I guess that’s hidden out of combat.
To your question, you never use Festering Strike as frost and I never claimed different.
Maybe you’re confused by the abbreviations?
FS = Frost Strike
FeS = Festering Strike
Don’t mix them up. ^^
Hi, I just finished levelling and gearing my Death Knight.
My armoury: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/sporeggar/mesaan%C3%A1/advanced
I just started playing 2s with a Disc Priest and would like general tips on that, I also might play with a Ret Paladin for double DPS.
For 3s, I will likely be playing Ret/Frost (me)/Disc or healer. I know you have never come across the team, but perhaps general advice on what my role would be for this?
Thanks.
To your armory link:
– You have hit and spellpen cap, reforged, gemmed, specced and glyphed correctly.
– You should get a pvp weapon asap, you need the extra resilience.
– Enchant Str on bracers instead of hit and reforge the hit elsewhere.
– Enchant Str on gloves instead of mastery.
Apart from the blue items which should be upgraded to epic ofc, you gemmed/reforged/specced/glyphed flawlessly.
To your questions regarding the tips, well, I could write a new article about how to play dk/disc, and I will in the future,
but it’s not easily summed up in a few lines. I try.
You basically you decide in the beginning of the match whether you want to play it on nuke or on mana.
When you decide for nuke you try to force as much cooldowns as possible by playing extremely offensive.
Mindspike/smite spam (if he specced into it) with shadowfiend on first hungering cold.
Always line up your CCs, hungering cold -> fear -> strangulate -> mind control is devastating.
On mana means you manaburn the enemy healer while you drink every possible option you get.
Use every hungering cold for either chains -> burn -> chains -> burn or drink the full 8 sec, minimum.
Regarding your 3s comp, you basically play it like TSG, just with the option to play super defensive after your opening with
pillar/wings/HC/HoJ/Strang. For strats and general tips you should read those two posts of mine:
The Comps and Strategy .
Hi, im back again for some tips in duels 1v1. I cant manage to win vs good mage/rogues/ferals that are 2.2k ++
vs mage all they do are morph,nova,freeze,lance the shit out of me and end up winning. As I cant build up any pressure.
vs rogue they just manage to cc chain me to reset their own cds, as i save my ibf for the 2nd stun, and trinket for blind. but that disarm is really making it impossible to get back up. And by that rogue dances and lock me down again.
Vs feral they either ns root or ns cyclone me, and hot them self up and get back in the fight..As I stand bleeding to death without managing to do anything. The feral I duel against that beat me always root/clone and gets as far as he can and hots and bleed like that..
Any comments and protricks would maybe make me winning, As I can beat all the other comps, struggling a bit vs good warriors still but its 50/50*
cheers again
vs. mage: Stand next to the mage when the duel begins, use shell right from the start to not get novaed and try to deal as much damage as you possibly can with pillar of frost. When he novas you for the first time he should be below 50% HP, you will get deepfrozen which you should trinket when he’s casting a frostbolt. Mindfreeze that cast and try to kill him while he is locked.
If he is able to stay alive then grip the next shatter-attempt and use dark simulacrum on the mage right before you use grip, possibly you steal the blink. Use howling blast/deathcoil spam while you are rooted away from the mage and use death pact early if you get damaged. When the mage tries to sheep you right at the beginning of the duel then use lichborne, makes you immune to sheep when you use it preemptively.
vs. rogue: You do it pretty good, just use deathstrike/froststrike all the time, sometimes a necrotic strike for desecration and a CoI for the extra RP. Try to use IBF for a kidney only when you’re in trouble or for the first shadowdance and when you trinket the blind and get disarmed use AMS instantly and spam chains on the rogue, he is rooted and your poison will run out, you can kite him till he uses shadowstep.
vs. feral: Trinket only when the feral is on low HP and tries to heal, or just use AMS there preemptively and strike him down while you’re immune to his magic CC (or combine both). Should be pretty easy with deathstrike/froststrike spam.
K thanks 🙂 great tips, maybe i can beat lisá, one of the best mages on my server.. got schooled last time lol :).
And were stuck around 2.1 atm because we lost vs MLD and MLS, asked on junkies but havent got en respond..I play rogue/dk/rdruid. And they always peel on of our DD so we cant build any pressure, and if we go out in the open were pretty globaled down fast.
Thanks again syreenee
With your comp you can kill healers like probably no other comp can. MLS should be easy, sap mage, get to shaman and tunnel him down with cloak/shell/smokebomb. Against MLD the druid will start in stealth, so you should fake an opening on a DD, probably sap mage and start lock, switch healer. Make use of your unique capability of killing healers, won’t go much into detail here, comp section on how to play in 3s is here.
Hey, My partner and I are at about 1750 rating and going up pretty quickly but the only problem is we struggle against double dps teams with a frost mage. He is a resto druid and im a frost DK but the mage teams always seem to give us trouble. Wondering if you can give me any insight on how to better handle them, whether it be LoSing them, killing them, or focusing on their partner.
Against mage/caster: If they’re not completely retarded then you shouldn’t have a chance, especially against mage/mage and mage/shadowpriest. All you can try is being super defensive. get on the mage and try to prevent his CCs, when he deepfreezes your healer you strangulate him to not let him cast Ring of Frost. Time your defensive CDs and be aware of the fact that you can die anytime in any kind of CC. Use grip -> hungering cold when you’re in trouble, but as early as you can. The first one will be trinketed by both enemies, the second is full though, so make sure you can use the second one pretty soon.
Against mage/melee: Most likely that will be with rogue, just stand next to a pillar and just deathstrike/froststrike the rogue all game while you try to prevent the mage from CCing, strangulate him when he deepfreezes your healer, grip -> HC big shatters when your healer is CCed, and be careful with disarms (where you can’t deathstrike) and smokebombs. You should trinket the frist smokebomb and IBF the second, use deathpact when you’re disarmed.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/malygos/wilhem/advanced
I play 2’s with a Retadin partner who is, admittedly, better than I am at Arena and PvP in general. This is my first season doing Arena on my DK (last season I did 3’s with my rogue and that was my first season ever. From reading here I know the Spell Pen cap is 195 so I will be changing out some gems to fix my issue (currently at 270 after getting my cloak).
I just switched to Frost from Unholy for the burst because it makes sense to me that a double damage team would burst down one target or another. For a while I was having damage dealing issues but, that was primarily due to the fact that I was Unholy and it is more sustained than burst and doesn’t really seem suitable for 2’s to me.
I’m having two main issues. First, we are having issues beating teams with either a Disc Priest, Resto Shaman or a Frost mage. It feels like CCing the Frost mage is almost worthless. His own slows, and his pets slows, blink and eventually IB are all things we are trying to manage. Our usual strategy with a mage are to nuke it hard and make him pop IB, switch to his partner, then once IB is done I chain him, wait for a blink, Death Grip and either HoJ or Chain him again and try to finish him off. Is there anything better we can do on forst mages? Is killing the pet something we should do consistently?
Disc Priests and Resto Shamans cause us issues because we don’t have a dispell for the Shaman and they are excellent at kiting. I’m really not sure what the Priests are doing that’s ‘causing us issues, they’re just hard to kill… It could’ve been my lack of burst.
I’m going to replace the haste enchants on my bracers/gloves with strength enchants and try to pick up an on use trinket for more burst (is macroing it to Pillar of Frost a wise thing to do?).
Thanks in advance.
Your strats sound pretty advanced and well thought, but I suggest to try a more aggressive playstyle. With your comp, just go all in on any healer.
It’s hard to heal even one melee atm, both on one healer is simply unhealable. AMS/freedom in the first few moments and just global down any healer you want.
Try to coordinate CC, repentance DD/ HoJ healer at the same time, hungering cold/stangulate if DD trinkets. Just burst with pillar and wings through all cooldowns,
you don’t have to play outlast-wise, be the team creating pressure.
A few notes on your gear:
– Reforging and gearing is optimal, you should be gemming either Str and Str/Mastery or Resil and Str/Resil though, a mix isn’t efficient.
– You should gem your shoulders with a yellow or an orange gem, the socket bonus is worth it.
– Gem 40 Str or 40 Resil (whatever you chose) in your bracers and use two 50 Spellpen gems instead of the 20 Resil / 25 Spellpen ones.
– Enchant 50 Mastery instead of 50 Haste on boots.
– Get the Str-on-use trinket instead of the blue proc trinket, it’s far superior if you can chains it with pillar of frost.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll make sure that I share it with my teammate.
What about the frost mage? Is it worth killing is elemental or should we just focus on him? Any tips for CCing them? Is forcing the IB early a good strategy? Also, would it be smart to save AMS for mirror images or is there a better time to use it?
Looking at my gems I can change around some and squeeze extra stats out, thanks for that. Same goes for the haste enchant on my boots, that had escaped my attention. I’m changing those as I type this.
Killing the elemental (twice) is only a possibility if you survive longer than 1 minute. I can’t really evaluate how long you survive mage teams. In mage/DD teams (e.g. mage/rogue) I wouldn’t recommend that, I would start with a death and decay on the spot where the mage uses invisibility.
Run to him and just nuke the mage into block as fast as possible, cc rogue with repentance/hungering cold. After he blocked you should force a blink with deathgrip into a full HoJ in which you should kill him pretty easily. Use freedom/shell early and yeah, best moment probably is when he uses mirrors.
If mage doesn’t use invis you can just repentance him and run to him without his peeling, pretty helpful.
Against mage/healer you can slowly kill elementals and then mage by constantly resetting behind a pillar.
I would prefer brute force zerging the mage’s healer (most likely disci). You have repentance -> grip + hungering cold -> strangulate for mage, in this time you should get the priest pretty low with wings/pillar.
Please im playing 2’s i reached 2050 rating and now im starting to lose all duels against something with disci priest… my healer is always on cc and with a fear every 20-30 secs i can’t kill that sacer… we are almost winning on every battle but we lose all…. i don’t know what to do my comp ys a Holy pally… and my armory link http://eu.battle.net/wow/es/character/zuljin/trullys/advanced
im using all your macros fine and dunno what to do more… sorry my english is so poor
You’re Spanish I guess? Nice to be that international, welcome. 😀
Well, your gear is pretty much flawless, so that’s not your problem.
First of all, you should read this thread, where I described what to do against warrior/shaman, but you can apply that to any sort of healer/dd team you meet in 2s.
Here is a simplified version of what I usually do against a priest:
Start on his DD, do some damage and wait for the priest’s first heal. Grip the priest in and use hungering cold, your aoe freeze. Switch to priest with outbreak/pillar of frost/ap trinket and spam necrotic strike and frost strike.
Try to use your antimagic shell here to luckily immunize a fear. When he uses Inner Focus then deathgrip the heal, if he uses Pain Supression spam NS and interrupt his heals. Use pvp trinket and lichborne only when your healer can’t dispell your fear.
Finish the priest with a full mindfreeze into a strangulate while he has high NS stacks / low HP.
I may suggest the addon Icicle, it display the cooldowns of your enemies just above their nameplates so you always have a quick overview what they can use and what they can’t.
Especially against priests it’s pretty useful, you may immunize one or two fears by using AMS right when fear comes off cooldown, and you know when their Inner Focus is ready again and can use your cooldowns accordingly.
If I can help you any further, feel free to ask. 🙂
thanks alot for all advices, yes im spanish ^^ that addon (icicle) is very nice and i will read the shaman-warr text now thanks again i love your “blog-guide”
Hey Syreene. Great site you got going here.
I need a little advice on Rdruid/dps teams in 2s. Im playing with a Disc priest and we are having a really hard time scoring kills vs those teams. If i go for the dps he will simply get some hots and i wont be able to get any pressure on him. If i switch to the druid he will just hot himself, then he can tank me just fine. Im also having problems with travelform spam, im finding myself spaming HB alot just to keep him in range.
So how do we score kills vs Rdruid/dps teams? when is the optimal time to use strang? should i be spaming NS to proc desecration when he travelform spams?
Any help would be much appreciated 🙂
The most helpful advice I can give is this link, a description of what to do against warrior/shaman.
You can easily apply the scheme to any sort of healer/DD comp in 2s you may meet.
Against druids you have to create great pressure before he is fully HoT’ed. Switch hard like I described it in the link above, after you used HC and nuke him down with NS/FS spam, if he
heavily abuses travelform than root him with chains. Spam NS to spread your desecration all around him.
He only has two cooldowns you have to deal with: Treeform and Nature’s grasp (instant roots when you hit him). You simply leave the druid alone when he uses tree and has more than 30% HP.
The nature’s grasp you have to shell, meaning you have to recognize the buff on him before you get rooted, use your AMS and hit him 3 times, so all the grasp stacks are immunized by shell.
If you do that he is in great trouble and has often no possibilities left to survive. Barkskin and Nature’s Swiftness are pretty ignorable as you can still kill him when he uses this.
Heyas Syreene! First things first – love the blog, keep it coming!
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/nordrassil/murkon/advanced
Is that overkill on mastery?
I don’t really care about 2v2 as me and my friends just use it for quick points as needed.
I run with a marks hunter/disc priest in 3s. When we got to 2200 I was still unholy and our hunter at the time was still undergeared. We didn’t play for a couple of weeks so our hunter could get his weapon. However he quit WoW shortly after and we have a new hunter. This was my first week as frost in 3v3. We got rolled.
I’m trying hard not to get a HB glyph disease on our hunter’s CC target. That hasn’t been a huge problem so far. However I can’t really spam HB/FS as much as I’m used to. So now it’s FS/NS spam which seems to be working ok. I keep frost disease up obviously either by positioning myself so I don’t HB our CC target or just using good old fashioned icy touch. I try to get all three of them together to HC and then we pick a CC target to scatter/trap/fear/strangulate and burn something down. It just hasn’t been working though. I’m not sure if it’s my spec or the way I’m utilizing my abilities. I do feel like I lost a bit too much haste when going all out mastery.
Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. This entire thread was extremely helpful!
Your mastery is fine, but that’s not your problem. You wear way too less resilience. When you gear up, you generally have three choices:
1. Full pvp gear with Resil/Str+Resil gems, a pvp trinket and a pve trinket, ~3600 resil.
2. Full pvp gear with Str/Str+Mastery gems and both pvp trinkets, ~3750 resil.
3. Full pvp gear with Resil/Str+Resil gems and both pvp trinkets, ~4000 resil.
Less than 3.6k resil is very very dangerous, you get steamrolled in one switch through all cooldowns. On live realms I chose possibility 2 and that works pretty good.
I play actively on the ATR though and I tend to number 3 there, get all the resil you can get against KFC/TSG/NecroCleave.
Try both pvp trinkets with Str/Str+Mastery gems and go for about 3.7k resil.
You don’t have to howling blast necessarily if you don’t want to break CC, just use chains instead. Start the game with double aimedshot out of camouflage on a DD open field. Let your hunter scattertrap the healer.
Let your priest run in to fear. Now use grip -> HC on healer. He will have to trinket one of these CCs. Just finish the DD with a strangulate/silencing shot/readyness-> scatter on the healer.
Use defensive cooldowns when you need them to stay offensive, particularly also those of your teammates. Sometimes a Master’s call from your hunter can save you without any further cooldown usage.
Try to be the team creating the pressure, use the momentum.
From your comment “so I don’t HB our CC target or just using good old fashioned icy touch” I conclude you specced into Rime, maybe? Don’t do that, use that spec, OaPH is far superior.
And you never use Icy Touch, it’s a waste of resources. CoI if you want to root/peel/apply desease/don’t want to break CC, HB if you want to deal dmg/ranged aoe peel/have no CC’ed enemies.
I’m 8/31/2 with no Rime.
I’ve been doing a lot of researching lately and the spec you linked is exactly what I was going to try.
I was running #2 before I tried going all out mastery. The max-mastery reforging I was using rocks in 2v2, but doesn’t shine as well in 3v3. I’ll go back to #2. Maybe #3 if I start getting trained but they usually go for hunter -> priest.
I’m definitely going to try the strategies you posted. I don’t know what I was thinking when I said that about Icy Touch. I don’t even think that’s bound to a key atm.
I really like the CC suggestion. We’ll give that a try for sure.
Thanks for the info Syreenee! I’ll let you know how it goes.
your amory-link:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/trollbane/supernanny/simple
My questions:
1. I wonder if I have reforged and gemmed right? I do want more resilience since im mainly the target in 3s. Atm I am on 3500 resilience, disregard my cloak if it is the summon to stormwind one. I do have the viscious one with mastery. And im using fury of angerforge with the on use trinket. since I get alot of nice mastery from fury.
So any tips and directions on the way i gem/enchant would be nice 🙂
2. Do you use PS? and I often use NS-rotation, but tend not to use FS (bad idea?) I can never pressure a rshaman down enough with NS-rotation is quite frustrating tho, and im trying to use Obli on KMproc, but often happen that I dont have the rune so I need to use FS.
Edit 1: Im at school so Im not able to switch the cloak, and I will post a SS when I get home.. ty in advance
Edit 2: Sorry for a 3. post. But im on 2k rating in 2v2 and 3v3, but I cant manage to get 2.2 in 3′s, I play a bit TSG twists, but I just play around with other comps to have some fun as well.
and i will fix the reforge on legs from haste -> mastery
I meant wrong on FS btw, i do use it, but not festering strike is what i meant..Sorry again for this massive posts
Edited your three posts into one.
To #1: Few notes on your gear:
– Your hit rating is a little bit too high, try to reforge for about 5%.
– You have 125 Spellpenetration but you cloak is missing so i guess you have enchanted it with SPen.
– Your reforging and gear choice in general are pretty flawless. Although I might suggest to use both PvP trinkets for a resilience gain,
while you gem your gear with Str and Str/mastery. The net dps gain will be huge, as you have 193 crit rating on your trinket slot.
Crit is absolutely horrible stat weights-wise. If you gem Str and Str/mastery sockets in every slot, but leave out the trinket, you will end up with:
+200 Str, +-0 resilience, -68 mastery, – 128 crit (roughly estimated).
As you can see from the stat weights I have posted, that you gain a huge amount of Str, which is avery good stat, while you lose a bit of mastery (which is ok)
and a huge amount of unnecessary crit, while remaining a (not so huge but much more reliable) Str-on-use trinket.
Will clearly lead to better results in the end.
to #2: Often I apply bloodplague only by outbreak, so I’m very rarely using PS.
Using FS is what you’re supposed to do. A killing rotation with cooldowns relies on heavy NS stacking to a point where 1 or even 2 heals
aren’t enough to heal efficiently. Then you create pressure by dumping your RP through FS/HB.
You have to look at your NS stack as kind of a backup for your interrupts. E.g. you create a 50k NS stack, mindfreeze the healer’s heal at 80%,
damage him to 50% where you strangulate him. Here he trinkets and uses a major healing cooldown like nature’s swiftness. But he isn’t
healing himself thanks to NS. Now he’s at 20% and you mindfreeze the next heal; he dies. Simple principle.
Thank you very much for the help. Would you mind take a look on my armory again?
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/trollbane/supernanny/advanced
I have now gemmed and switched out the trinket as you told, which leaves me at 3575 resilience, is that good enough? Or should I increase to be over 3600 with some resilience gems? I am now using medallion of the alliance for 301 resilience, but maybe I should change it to BM trinket or proc trinket?what you think?since I am human
a screenshot of my ui, maybe not classic but I enjoy it that way 🙂 but if you have any comments i would love to hear. My party frame is on the left, and gladius is on the right..
I think I should be at my optimal now if I followed you right
Yeah pretty much the way I gemmed. Your resilience is ok with some blues, when you’re fully epic geared you should have somewhat between 3700 and 3750.
That should suffice. Both Str trinkets are optimal (proc and on-use), don’t take BM, not worth it generally.
To your UI: you have Festering Strike on 3, you never ever use it as frost. Drag it off your bars. A good replacement on this keybind would be deathstrike,
shift+3 isn’t good – take a keybind without modifier for DS. Apart from that your UI is quite ok, the target of focus frame is a bit huge for my taste. A sidenote:
I find it most optimal to drag the target castbar to the middle of the screen, maybe a bit below, to have maximum awareness what your target casts.
Under the buffs/debuffs bar it’s hardly visible in a few situations.
Thank you very much for the help. Just having fun with rdruid-rogue-fdk in 3’s 🙂 Anyways ive been doing some changes on the bars as well as the castbar as you told. Now I just hope I can reach 2.2 lol
thanks again, and keep doing the blog its great:)
I play TSG (war/dk/pally). I use a Darkmoon card instead of the second trinket because of the resil nerf that came with patch 4.1 (I still sit at almost 3600 resil). I was wondering if there are any tips for my gear. The highest we have been is 1800 and all of us want to be 2200+ if possible. Seeing your strats are very helpful and I feel that when I did 2s (Pally/DK) I was more vocal and we went 4-2 (2 losses to a rogue/spriest comp who got 2 clutch fears). Thanks for your time.
First of all: what prevents you from getting higher ratings is not your gear most of the time.
Gear notes:
– Get haste bracers instead of expertise and enchant 50 Str on them, get the hit elsewhere by reforging.
– Get Str enchants on gloves.
– Get mastery belt instead of crit.
You have both hit and spellpen cap, reforged correctly, a few mistakes in gear/enchant choice and a pretty resil based gemming. I would prefer Str and Str/mastery gemming while wearing both pvp trinkets which will result in more damage most likely but that’s optional. I don’t think gear is your problem. Work on your damage priority, your pressure, your decision-making for offensive and defensive cooldowns, your positioning, your keybinds and maybe your partners.
Thanks! I really appreciate your time and your help!
Hi syreene and thanks in advance for your effort!
My arms warrior friend and me (frost DK) have begun with 2v2 2 weeks ago, wich should be pretty doable from reading forums and watching vids. Nevertheless, we are stuck already at around 1600 rating. Most DD/Healer comps are absolutely doable. We lose against rouge/mage (wich seem to be 50% of our opponents already), or any mage+x comp, and also many double DD comps. From observing ourselves, we seem to always fail from not getting a good start into the match. Our gear and speccs are how they should be.
1. Do you have any valuable advice against rouge/mage? We dont seem to stand any chance
2. Is there a general tactic for opening with this comp? I usually try to run in, pop ams instantly an go for oure kill target with the warrior following
Thanks again in advance!
#1: If they’re not completely retarded then you shouldn’t have a chance. All you can try is being super offensive. Run to the mage, pop lichborne halfway to not get sapped, warrior can break it with berserker rage, charge/chains, spam damage and try to force a block without bladestorm, AMS if you must, instantly dispell the block via throw and kill the mage with bladestorm/ranged attacks/strangulate etc before the rogue is able to peel you away. Use all cooldowns in the first 15 sec or die. Trinket disarm/blind.
#2: Yeah you’re doing it pretty much like I am when I play it with my warrior for fun. Try to save your AMS as long a possible in the beginning though. Best case scenario would be to AMS when you’re at your target.
And a quick note: it’s 2s and very very imbalanced atm; you will be able to completely destroy a 2k healer/dd, but don’t stand a chance against a 1.5k double dd, because they control you to death. Get used to it. The best way to avoid it would be to play with a healer.
Yo Syreene!
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/skullcrusher/mangoh/simple
Started disc/f.dk/warr yesterday, so would appreciate if you got any optimization for it. Mby switch to dese specc?
Sweet website!
Pz out!
Thought I might add an screenshot for optimal assistance 🙂
Your gearing/gemming/reforging is pretty much flawless, I wouldn’t use pure resil gems, rather the 20 mastery / 20 resil gems instead, but thats preference. And you got 220 spellpenetration, cap is 195. Switch one 50 SP gem with a 20 resil / 25 SP gem.
Gear is pretty perfect, UI is clean and well-arranged. Do you really have bound 7 for HC, 8 for CoI, 9 for strang and 0 for MF? I guess there are secondary bindings which are not shown on this shot.
Regarding the spec … well, you use the standart frost/sub-blood spec which is perfectly playable. Although I would still prefer the alternative, frost/sub-unholy for desecration.
Especially in a priestTSG you are grateful for any kind of mobility (or mobility-compensation, as desecration clearly is).
Apart from that you are well prepared, good luck. :>
Thanks alot mate! Agreeing on all your proposals, giving em a shot. 7,8,9,0 are ofc binded with x,c,g,f 😉
Take care and keep the good work up for the DK community! ❤
Yeah, I thought so. 😀
I will, thank you.
yo syreene,
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/auchindoun/colaknas/advanced
I was wondering a bit about shadowcleave comp with a Rdruid, wondered a bit about how it should be played, what do you’re supposed to go for, look out for and so on.. thanks alot in advance
Yeah it depends on what you’re specced into. With Unholy (which is perfectly playable, especially in this comp) it’s a dotcleave which slowly overwhelms it’s enemies with dots/solid CC/steady damage.
With Frost however, it’s much more bursty. You simply nuke one target and have a heavy switching potential through the flexibility of frost’s burst and affliction’s soulswap. The key in FrostScleave is to build your CC/nuke around hungering cold and don’t let your lock screw it with dots, as HC breaks from anything but desease damage. And take this spec when you decide to play frost in a shadowcleave, the additional peel from desecration is pretty mandatory.
Can’t say anything to your pvp gear as the armory shows you in pve gear.
Okay, seems like a good basic interesting info. Will make sure to log out in pvp so that if you wouldnt mind have another at my actual pvp specc and gear,
then again, I got a decent resto druid mate that I am playing with majorly. So i was wondering are there any site(guide, forum) for my dear hot machine.
and then. What to you suggest a decent pvper should play in 3s that is`?
check my armory again, linked up there 🙂 THx for help and understanding
Hi,
At first I wanna thank you for creating this wonderful website. It really helped me get into PvP overall and especially arena. I have started gathering the epic pvp set by playing 2s with my friend who’s a warrior, which might be a bad idea. Anyways, I would like to ask you about specific LU’s we have lost to the last days.
1. What can we do against double mage (frost)
2. What about double invisible setups, like druid/rogue or double rouge/double druid (cat)
Forgot something at the end 😀
I dare to read your answer!
Thanks again for setting up the website and for offering the coach possibilty.
Greetings
Niggurath
to #1: If they’re not completely retarded then you shouldn’t have a chance. All you can try is being super offensive. Pick out one mage, get to him on mounts, charge/chains, spam damage and try to force a block without bladestorm, AMS if you must, instantly dispell the block via throw and kill the mage with blastorm/ranged attacks/strangulate etc. Use all cooldowns in the first 15 sec or die.
to #2: Stand 30 yards away from each other but in LOS, opener on dk = charge, opener on warri = deathgrip, try to work together, take one target and destroy it, especially against r/feral, the rogue can also be a viable target; you can kill them in a throwdown.
And help each other, they’re training your warrior? Run a few steps away, let the war intervene you and charge one of your enemies, gives you a free stun and a couple of extra seconds. Try to be creative.
Hello Syreene –
Armory:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/gnomeregan/deathtongue/simple
I play with an affliction lock from guild. Yes, we see all sorts of comps in 2’s. Anything with Rogues give us absolute fits. Suggestions?
Oh, and please look at the gear and make suggestions.
Thanks
To the rogue question:
Well, you should decide first whether you want to zerg rogue or cc him and nuke his teammate. With DK/lock you can destroy rogues, dotdamage really counters their playstyle. I would suggest to peel the rogue from your lock and dot him up, fear him and nuke. And use cooldowns early, the defensive ones as well, if you don’t you maybe won’t get a chance.
To the gear question:
– Reforge crit to mastery on relic, you don’t need expertise.
– You have 120 Spellpenetration, cap is 195, use one more 50 Spellpen gem and one 20 resil / 25 spellpen gem.
Your reforging is pretty good, your gemming is a bit undecided. You should decide whether you want to go for full
resilience; then 40 resil in red, 40 resil in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue or
strength; then 40 Str in red, 20 Str / 20 mastery in yellow, 50 spellpen in blue.
A mix isn’t efficient.
Syreene, I play 2s with a Resto Druid and lately we seem to be playing a lot of 5+ minute matches against other DPS/Heal teams where I spend the entire match trying to kill the other team’s healer while they do the same. Is that the correct strategy when going up against say Warrior/Resto Druid or Warrior/Resto Shaman?
I feel like my gear is strong enough that I should be able to get a healer down in a timely fashion, but it just doesn’t work out that way. Thanks for any advice.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/moknathal/terathis/simple
I have made a post about the strategy against warrior/shaman, you can apply the scheme to almost any melee/healer team out there.
Shamans can be hard, druids shouldn’t be a problem. But 5 minute games are pretty ok, I mean, I sometimes even kill 2.5k healers in one switch, but when they get peels from their mates it can be hard.
To your gear:
– Get the hit neck, you don’t go for expertise as a DK.
– Reforge expertise to mastery on shoulders.
– Reforge haste to mastery on bracers.
– Reforge haste to mastery on boots.
– Reforge crit to mastery on ring.
– You only got 170 spellpenetration, cap is 195. Gem one 20 Resilience / 25 Spellpenetration gem in free blue socket.
Your problem with killing healers is, that you have to low mastery I guess. Expertise isn’t worth it atm. Quick reminder regarding stat weights:
Resilience (roughly 3.7k) > Strength > Hit to 5% > Spellpenetration to 195 > Mastery > Haste > Crit
Thanx for the quick reply. I’ll get back to you soon ….hopefully 🙂
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/blades-edge/argyll/simple
Hi Syreenee
I was wondering if you could give a PvP arena Noob a few tips. I do ok in BG’s but struggle like hell in arena’s. I play Frost and would be grateful if u could help me in anyway i.e. With macros, keybinds and the like. As you can see im not fully geared in pvp equipment but am working hard on it. Thank you in advance.
Can’t really help you aside from the things I posted in the different sections of this blog.
Keybindings are here, Macros here.
Your gear is hardly ready to enter the arena tbh. Get a decent amount of pvp items, around 3k resilience for the start, read through this site following the order of the header from left to right,
and when you’re still struggling, you come back and tell me what’s wrong, because really, you’re in a phase where you grind gear in BGs.
Get near to full blue pvp gear and we talk again. And get a decent 2hander, dual wield isn’t quite as effective as 2h.
Greetz
Hey, thx for last reply on my RMP question. I actually had more questions about specific comps we face and problems we get when opening on anything but healer. Looking at what u wrote here so far i feel like general strategy is open on a target which can be trained fairly easy (warlock for example) without poping cd’s, wait till their healer has to heal, cc him wait for his trinket and then pull him in and nuke while aoe cc rest of his team… which makes me wonder why bother at all about anyone except their healer if u rly aint planning to kill different target. Why is getting his trinket that important in the first place – if none myself or my warrior are peeled at all then no matter if he can trinket throwdown or silence he will lie dead in 5-10 seconds coz thats enough time to do 70-80k necrotics and warrior will do around 100k dmg in those 10s so healer is dead. Momentum is hard to achieve (lower raitings) if u have to bother with first letting them CC u (coz i dont pop ams and icebound if i dont go for kill) and then having like hungering brake coz guy had rend on him already so i just CC one guy and then he trinket + continue to faceroll me with CC and warrior fear was already used to force trinket on healer. I mean i know im wrong and u are right coz u are high rated and im not but its just not very logical (for me its more like over-complicating stuff) so pls enlighten me on that matter. Thx in advance again – this is great blog – much ❤
First of all: I’m not right because I’m highrated. It’s just what I experienced so far, that any healer beyond 2.4k will survive a hard switch when he still has trinket up and in some comps you just can’t take the risk of letting them survive, like LSD2.
The pressure for the enemy healer when you damage his DD, CC him, let him trinket and then switch with throwdown followed by strangulate on him is just insane. Either he pops all CDs he has, or he dies (often both).
If this works for you without pressuring the DD and switching to healer, then do it. Use what applies to you best.
To make this clear: highrated TSG is not tunneling the healer till death in many cases. It’s rather find the weaknesses of enemy comps and pressure them with switching to a point from which they can’t recover. Sometimes we switch 4 or 5 times in a 30 seconds window, because our interrupts are just well coordinated and all three oponents have to pop cooldown after cooldown to stay alive.
Thx for answer again. We gained 250 rating (2k now) and start to notice that it is indeed much harder to just zerg rush healer from the start. Its especially visible vs mirror when enemy start on me with chain of ice – it fuck’s up our momentum big time. I guess we will have to reconsider our first target in some match ups if we gonna try to push for t2 weapons. Anyway thx for help – its nice to have a place where u can ask question and get answer – on my server there are no players above 2.3k in 3’s so this is only place where i can get some help ;d gl with blog
thx for answers )
hey syreene..i play frost dk feral druid resto shaman at almost 2400…and i also want to know if u think desecration spec is better for me in that combo…and i am also waiting for a strat vs affliction balance druid and resto shaaman..thx alot..and great blog imo )
Yes, definately spec into desecration for EbolaCleave, the additional AoE slow has a great synergy with the high mobility of ferals, and the insane CC chains are strong enough without Hand of Doom.
There will be a tactics sections in the upcoming next weeks I guess, as the questions about specific strats start to pile.
LSD2 is probably the most insane comp that ever came up in WoW Arena, a strat is literary “do or die”. What I would do: start on lock without greater cooldowns, nuke him to a point where the shaman is behind in healing, cyclone him full and when he trinkets you switch with every little CD on the shaman while CC’ing lock and druid with HC. If the shaman survives, you’re screwed, sad but true.
If you’re forced to play the long game because shaman survives you NEED to double CC the druids starfall (double because he will prob. trinket first CC). But really, if you do not end the game in less than 1 minute, you’re fighting an uphill battle that you can’t win pressure-wise.
Hey Syreene, few questions about some comps in 3s ( playing frost tsg )
1.) Against LSD2 do we nuke rshaman hard from a start with full cds or boomkin and then do the switch or?
2.) strat vs KFC?
3.) strat vs mirror and ret/dk/rshamy?
Thnx in advance 🙂 http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/sylvanas/coilboil/advanced
Strats- section will be there within the next few weeks. Can only tell you quickly what we’re doing:
1. LSD2: Start on lock (start on lock, switch on moonkin fast in blade’s edge and dalaran) without greater cooldowns, get lock decently low, CC shaman with a warrior fear, a Hex, HoJ or Cyclone (whatever your healer is), wait for his trinket, than grip shaman in, freeze both other DDs and nuke shaman with all CDs. If he is able to survive you’re in trouble and probably will lose.
2. KFC: Start on warrior, survive burst (especially recklessness) with good cooldown rotations, get the scatter-traps for your healer and switch to whatever you can. The longer you survive the match, the better. All 3 are killable in late game. Most optimal is an early forced shieldwall; HC all 3 and destroy warrior than.
3. Mirror: Take the initiative, it’s all about the momentum in the beginning. Rush in, start on DK, when he pops any sort of cooldown you grip their healer in, HC and roll over their warrior. You can kill their healer after he used trinket (or bubble if pally).
Try to shell his grip -> HC to stay mobile, don’t pop cooldowns too fast when you’re getting trained, but that shouldn’t happen. Most TSG mirrors we face are all about zerging warrior till healer trinkets and then zerging healer till death. A Perfect warrior fear and a well-timed mindfreeze can be key here.
4. DKRS: Never faced it, would prob. zerg the shaman from the beginning. Ret is a good target as well since patch 4.1, try to start on him if shaman is well-positioned.
Quick notes to the armory link:
– Get the mastery cloak, it’s superior to the haste one.
– You got too much spellpenetration, 3 gems + cloak enchant is 220, cap is 195. Use 20 resil/25 spellpen in, e.g., legs.
– Str enchant on bracers, instead of haste.
– 50 Str on hand, instead of 35.
– Mastery enchant on boots, instead of haste.
A general thing: You gem for resil mostly, though you wear IoY as 2nd trinket. It should be much more optimal to take 2nd resil trinket and then gem for Str and Str/Mastery. You will lose mastery, but the net Str gain and the overall higher resil should balance that, as Str has a much higher stat weight than mastery. You’ll deal more damage in the end.
Thnx man, rly helped out a lot 🙂 ( didnt know there is mastery cloack xO )
Hey Syreenee i want to ask u about advice about comp matchup. Im playing Frost TSG low raiting (1700-1800 atm) we struggle a lot against any Mage teams in general – RMP is main problem but also double mage and mage + warlock. To make it simple i just wanna know what’s ur advice against RMP and how exactly should we open. As TSG our game usually lasts around 1 minute so i run desecration spec. We usually open with me rushing to them and per-emptivly poping hungering cold – might be luck but i got fair succes rate with catching at least 1 of them + priest. Then if they trinket warrior use aoe fear and we just train priest. But good RMP’s just peel us and priest run away while one of us (usually warrior) dies in smoke bomb very fast – i cant stick enough to solo priest with mage cc’ing me. Feels like if i go rogue he will just vanish and run away and if we go mage he just kite us spamming ice lance while priest mana burn our paladin. As u can see need help lol – thx in advance
Against RMP you zerg the priest, against warlock teams usually the lock, although in Blade’s Edge I’d probably take the healer as well. You should open with a triple-HC, stand next to two of them, grip the 3rd in and freeze. Then stun/silence priest and nuke the hell out of him. Will force trinkets on both DDs and most likely a Pain Sup. on Priest. Same thing with lock zerg. Your warrior really shouldn’t die so fast, Trinket first smokebomb stun, heroic leap the 2nd. 3rd you can probably freeze rogue and grip or silence mage, smth. like that. It’s really all about how hard you hit the priest vs. RMP. If the priest drops low in the first zerg and the mage trinkets HC, just use lichborne (or even shell) and bladestorm to be unsheepable.
Thank you very much!Indeed i am tanking MS.
Ok i will do all this changes…I use tank gear becouse i am tank in arena and i do quite well at low rating(1000-1400),even 2 vs 1, however i wana get dps gear!
Thank you again.I will come back after i get the gear u told me.
Hey, I have another question..
What I must do vs disci priest, shaman resto, and mage? they’re so hard to nuke..
Hey Syreenee i wanted to ask you about my gear:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/hellfire/nihall/advanced
This is my caracter..So the question is, should i use bloodthurst or pve epics, couse if some1 is focusing me i’m dead 4 or 5 sec later!
Thank you
You should definately wear PvP items in every slot, while gemming Str, Str/mastery, Spellpen.
Few notes on your char:
– Enchant head.
– Get hit PvP Neck.
– Reforge expertise to mastery on shoulders.
– Get mastery PvP cloak, enchant it with 70 Spellpen.
– Reforge crit to mastery on chest, gem 20 Str/20 mastery in the yellow socket.
– Get haste PvP bracers, enchant with 50 Str.
– Enchant Rune of the Fallen Crusader on your weapon.
– Get PvP Hands, enchant 50 Str.
– Get mastery PvP belt, use the extra socket.
– Get haste PvP boots.
– Get crit PvP ring.
– Get 2nd PvP Trinket.
I see that a lot of those items are from tanking gear, just wanted to point out what to aim for. 🙂
us.battle.net/wow/en/character/bloodhoof/Xoah/simple
I’m always up for constrictive criticism. I know I have a long way to go. I’d love to post a screen shot but I’m on my phone at work.
Couple questions. How do I get get spell pen? Gemming? I tried to reforge some and didn’t have the option. Also I know my gemming is not the greatest so please advise.
Also, do you have any vids posted, I love to watch you in action. Do you have your armory link anywhere?
Stat weights:
Resilience > Strength > Hit to 5% > Spellpenetration to 195 > Mastery > Haste > Crit
You should get full epic PvP gear with both resil trinkets, which will get you roughly to 3.7k resil. This allows you to gem for Str in red sockets, Str/Mastery in yellow and SpellPen in blue. I use all three JC gems for 67 Str.
There is a +70 Spellpenetration enchant for your cloak, it’s vastly superior to the crit one.
I only use 170 Spellpen instead of the 195 for cap. If you want the cap I advice you to reskill JC: cloak enchant (70), 1 Stormy Ocean Sapphire (50), and 1 Stormy Chimera’s Eye (84).
Oh and to your armory link: you did fairly well with gearing and reforging, you obviously need to upgrade to get more mastery etc. Get the Mastery belt btw, it’s superior to the crit one.
Use 20 Str/20 Mastery in your chest as yellow gem.
Use 50 Spellpenetration in your hands as a blue gem.
Use 50 Spellpenetration in your (new mastery) belt as a blue gem.
Use 20 Mastery Rating/20 Hit Rating in your legs as a green gem, if you want to keep the hit.
Use 50 Mastery on Boots for enchant, you don’t need the movement speed increase as you’re fighting in unholy presence anyway.
I don’t see anything else worth changing right now.
I’m sorry, I don’t have any vids, my PC is way to crappy for that. Will have to wait till I get a new one. Upcoming. Some day. Maybe. *rolleyes* 🙂
I’ll update my SS in the Gearing section.
My armory link is here; although there’s mostly tank or frost pve gear.
Thanks! I’m going to work on your sugestions as soon as I get home. I’ll repost after I get done and see if there is other improvements. As far as gear, I am working on conquest I max out weekly it’s jut slow accumulating it all.
You should work on getting some vids made for sure!! I know I’d watch them haha! I’m a visual learner.
HI! http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/xavius/fress%C3%A9/advanced
Having a small problem. Dont know if i should go ressi or regemming Str. And for now i have reforge most of the parts to Mastery and running with the Tol Barad Trinket, I got the pvpone also. Have seen other dk’s stacking haste in frost and just gem everything ressi. U have any idea of what’s best?
Definately go resil to the magic 3.7k mark, that’s the point where I feel comfortable … these days you should have enough resil to not get 3shot in a deepfreeze.
3.7k means full epic pvp gear (meaning both resil trinkets) with everything gemmed for Str and mastery.
Reforge everything after hit/spellpen cap to mastery. Mastery>haste>crit after caps, in that order.
To your armory link: get the mastery cloak, enchant Str on bracers (and reforge the hit somewhere else), and yeah, get the 2nd resil trinket. Everything else is fine.
Hey syreene,
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostwolf/samús/simple
just would like your tips gem/gear/reforging wise.
Also i play with a shadow priest for 2’s and were doing pretty decent, were around 2100 and steadily going up.
the single only team we’ve never beat has been resto sham/affliction lock.
Got any suggestions for taking that team down?
Edit: oh and what in your opinion are the best PVE trinkets to use since im human? unless you think x2 pvp trinkets are better, with the new softcap i was just wondering
Edited the two posts into one.
Edit: Armory is updated, here are my suggestions:
A quick reminder: Stat weights:
Resilience (to roughly 3.7k) > Strength > Hit to 5% > Spellpenetration to 195 > Mastery > Haste > Crit
– Gem 40 Str in your head.
– Get the hit neck, expertise isn’t worth it.
– Reforge expertise in mastery on your shoulders.
– Use the 67 Str JC gem in your relict and the 50 Spellpen gem in your Hands. Gives you 10 Str for free.
– Reforge haste into mastery on your legs and gem 40 Str in their red gem.
– Gem 20 Str/20 Mastery in your boots if you want the bonus, and enchant the boots with 50 mastery instead of haste.
– Use the 2nd resil trinket instead of DMC:H, you need the resil.
Lock/Rsham is pretty beast, the lock puts out insane pressure while simply not dying. Only way I would see a chance to win is to start on lock, dot up shaman and than just switch with literary everything to the shaman. Coordinate your interrupts/silences and try to kill him through NS/Totem, HC the lock when you switch (if you are Frost). If the shaman does not die immediately, try to keep up the pressure with a good MF interrupt and hope that the shaman will kite you away from the lock. Against a very good team won’t stand a chance though.
To the trinket question: in any pvp situation you will want 2 resil trinkets, even as a human. 3700+ resil is still mandatory post-patch as a DK, maybe even more.
alright thanks a lot man
Why does it seem common knowledge that x% frost damage is better than x% haste? Is using haste>mastery really detrimental for dmg output for Frost?
HB & FS will hit for less in a +haste set, but the rotation goes much smoother. MotFW allows you to have more RP via more hits, and dumping that RP allows you to have more RE proc, which you can use again for more RP…
Is it a scaling thing? What is the conversion formulas? I know 1%mastery = 2% frost damage, but is there a point where the frost dmg just sheerly outpace haste?
Regards,
It’s simply a question of math and a question of logic. Haste and mastery were close even before the patch. Why did you take haste over mastery pre patch? Because you wanted the fastest rune-regeneration to have maximum burst in minimum time. With buffs to Froststrike and Howling Blast and your priority still being maximum burst in minimum time, the choice is easy.
The reason why haste is still better than mastery in PvE is the following: in PvE you use your runes almost exclusively for Obliterate, and you want haste to do that as often as possible. In PvP you mostly spam NS/HB/FS, sometimes a few obliterates, situationally.
I can assure you that mastery now is definately better than haste in PvP.
Parts of the early discussion you can find here.
One more question regarding Desecration for frost. What does it bring that Chilblains doesn’t?
Does the fact that it sticks on the ground for a few seconds make that much of a difference?
To quote myself from the Arena Junkies Thread to this topic:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/ravenholdt/tyrii/simple
Gears not the greatest at the moment. Working on replacing what i can. Im sitting at like 1700ish and cant seem to push past. I feel like me and my ret pally partner could do it but seeing as our healer is our best friend irl.. anyways any pointers would be appreciated 🙂
Sorry that I didn’t answer sooner, raiding can last ages sometimes.
Spec: Absolutely viable choice, although I would never enter 2s arena without being specced into Desecration. Alternative here as you will know already.
Glyphs: You skipped Glyph of Hungering Cold, absolutely necessary for frost in any ladder games. HC/DS/Strang or HC/DS/Shell, other choices are inferior.
Reforging and gemming is fine, gear should obviously be upgraded, one last thing: you will want the Resil/on-use-Str Trinket, combined with Pillar of Frost it’s simply amazing burst.
Link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/crushridge/xharu/simple
Screenshot: http://img4.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot050311123650.jpg/
For the streaming link need to wait a lot of time..
I have some problem to kill priest and mage now.. don’t know why..
Thank you for the attention
Can’t say anything to gear/gemming/reforging because your armory shows PvE gear, I’ll edit that when it’s updated.
Your spec/glyphs are fine, the interface is pretty clean, although some keybinds are a bit misplaced.
Example: Deathstrike on F1 but Death and Decay on R, F1 is hard to reach, R is the opposite.
Or: Necrotic Strike on 5, but Blood Boil on T.
You could optimize that by switching them.
And another tip: you could drag your player and traget frames to the sides of your rune addon, which allows to keep track of your targets debuffs much more efficient. Pretty important if you want to AoE Freeze your target but you need to know if there are any dots up that could break it.
Greetz
why 4% though? I am just a little puzzled on the specific choice on numbers.
That was just an optional proposal, most DKs run with 5% hit, but for your important abilities (like mindfreeze, strangulate, hungering cold) counts the spell hitcap aka 4%. That gives you the opportunity to save yourself 1% hit to maximize your mastery. I can’t really feel the lack of hit on melee strikes, but I feel the increased mastery.
This used to be unholy gear, that is why it is haste, i was unaware, thank you very much.
I will continue to upgrade my gear and get the other cloak once i am finished with the rest of my vicious gear.
Thanks, I am sure i’ll be back 🙂
Yeah your gear and reforging seems pretty solid, few things:
You should switch your haste-cloak with the mastery one.
Reforge haste to mastery on your boots.
And with 4.1 making all interrupts a 100% hit, you may want to get only 4% hit, it’s fully sufficient, and you gain a bit more mastery.
Greetings
Hey Syreene
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/garona/abgelaufenes/advanced
I am just going to ask that you take a quick look over my gear and stuff and see if it all checks out. I can’t find any decent 3’s teams because I am on a really pvp dead server. So me and my cousins brand new 85 ret pally are doing 2’s, got him full pyrium and just starting to fill up his bloodthirsty, in regards to that I am pretty sure we have almost flawless strat since he played a pally on EU for 4 years. But still any basic tips would be nice.
Also, if i can afford them, is it adviced to get the +50 str glove and bracer enchant?
thank you very much in advance, this post was rushing because i gotta leave, but again, thanks 🙂