31 replies to this topic

[Slaggy]

Playing Holy Survival Unholy with a few RL friends of mine and just need to have 1-2 things cleared up for me if possible please.

Firstly, I'm the Death Knight and when we lose its becasue the Hunter died. I find myself trying to the best of my ability to peel for him but outside of gripping/rooting melee I struggle to CC. I know DK's arent CC bots were just midless necro machines now but any suggestions? (Do keep in mind the hunter is rel. new to the class and only has like 1700 exp)

Secondly, Were kinda playing this like TSG but with better CC. As in where just focusing down the clothie or healer depending on opposing comp with trap/stun/fear on the off target. Should I be using Asphy on the kill target and let the hunter+priest worry about CCing healer/off tagret(s)? Are we "tunneling" the clothie to much or is this really ranged TSG(lawls) and shoul dbe played as so?

Lastly, Any general tips from other people more exp. with dk hunter healer? Anything is appreciated. How-to's or why-you-should's are great too. Thanks

[Forumz]

It sounds like your Hunter is being pressured more than your team is pressuring their squishiest player (yes, you go for the squishiest targets as PHDK)

Basically what you do is asphyx into trap into fear and then you have chastise / scatter / wyvern sting for some more instant CC. Do that every 30 seconds and you should win fairly quickly against most castercleaves and melee/caster/healer teams. Meleecleaves can be a pain because they can just sit on your hunter but that's where he should be using his cds properly (crit-immunity, disengage at the right times, priest should help him out with feathers on his freedom so he can kite super easy).

You're the DK. Your job is to put pressure on the enemy team through damage. You're not there to peel a lot. You are generally able to keep death grip for this purpose if you want to however.

Also you should use scatter shot to bait intervenes / groundings etc then when they leave because no trap you asphyx>trap and go from there with your instant unavoidable cc chains.

[Orlglnated]

Yeah really as a dk your peel duty is just to focus chains of ice melee, grip them twice and for casters just try to kick as often as possible, PHDk is a really tunnel comp with alot of nice cc thrown in but really your best peels are going to be counter pressure.

[Slaggy]

Sooo.. just constantly blow my load into the squishy and let the hunter/preist worry about CC outside of Asphy? Sounds like a plan to me, sadly:P Being a tunnel kill clothie comp im assuming that vs any priest healer where there isnt a fellow clothie he/she is prolly the priority target?

[Forumz]

Never go for the healer tbh. It's much easier to just CC chain him forever and kill his DPS.

You could kill any healer, that's not the point. It's just safer to go for the DPS.

[Slaggy]

Gotcha now, thanks for the advice. Anyone have anythign else to add or is it really as simple as CC chain healer forever and shit on the squishy harder than they shit on my hunter?

[Ownu]

I played this to glad last season and to was okay then. The comp is in a much worse position right now though. It was alright in the first couple of weeks when no one had weapons and priest healing was not yet nerfed. Yet when warriors got weapons (the class that has alway scaled the best with just a weapon change) and Pom/lightwell got fixed. You simply can't keep up with the damage as a healer.

As far as comp weaknesses go, phd has always been weak against other hunter cleaves. Even last season KFC when warriors were pretty much the worst real class+spec combo a good KFC could beat a good phd. This is because hunter cleave vs hunter cleave is almost always about who can burn though deterrences first. Just about every other melee in the game has some other way out of roots, and thus more uptime on the hunter. As a dk, you're trinket on a root and getting hunter freedomed out of another. Eventually their root break cooldowns will start to come up more often, and you find yourself sitting in roots while your hunter dies. Not saying DKs need a root break, that's just how phd vs other hunter cleave go.

As you other DKs know, chains of ice isn't the most effective peel, and sometimes it does just about nothing (example: vs beast cleave, jungle cleave, and to a lesser extent KFC), and grip isn't always available for a peel, and on top of that not always the best idea to use as a peel (especially when you're trying to chase another hunter down, or any ranged other than a warlock for that matter).

Pressure:
Phd pressure comes from damage. It's not a heavy cc comp, though some might argue that anything with a hunter is a heavy cc comp, but at least in comparison to other hunter cleaves (where it literally feels like you're doing nothing but sitting in cc), about all you really have as phd is the hunter cc, which every other hunter comp has, is asphx. Typically when we play, we asphyx into trap as soon as possible and pop gargoyle and other fun things. Scattering out followed by a fear as long as our healer isn't sitting in 10 years of cc. As long as the dk can remain on his target during the next 30 seconds, you should put out enough damage to force plenty of cooldowns. As phd, damage is consistent and not bursty, giving that season 8 beast cleave feel. Falling behind in damage, or being out pressured by front end damage comps like Mage warrior is about the worst hung that can happen to phd. Going defensive means low pressure and low pressures as a comp without a lot of cc means you're most likely going to lose. So "playing it like tsg but with more cc" is a good way to play this comp. phd and tsg feel very different to me though, because as phd training a healer is usually what you don't want to do. Hunter cc is pretty muh made for healers alone, and will get dispelled if not used on a healer. Additionally, since the comp doesn't have a lot of peels, training a healer usual means you're givin the other team's dps free reign to rape your hunter, which usually has bad results.

I typed this on my phone at work, so please excuse grammatical and spelling mistakes. I'll probably revise and add more comments specific to your post later.

[420blazeitlikeBalotelli]

I play this comp with various healers. Basically you switch alot, hunter can also throw traps anywhere and dk can grip things onto them which is nice vs teams that have grounding , massreflect intervene etc because generally they are waiting for asphix or scatter to tell their teammates to use such etc. Melee cleaves are the hardest especially enhancement warrior. Just dont be afraid to swap after natures swiftness from rdruid, bubble from palas, lifeswap from priests etc, line up 4 deathrunes on the target you were on in the first place swap to healer 4x necros at least combined with asphix, pet stun, silencing shot and gg things just drop to that. Vs spell cleaves we just play gay around pillars, hunter and healer should have good communication as to defensives cooldowns and enemy cc and traps etc in this comp. DKs job is basically build pressure that the hunter can come in on and deliver burst to. Try not to overlap cc's too much, call them out ahead of time. gripping rogues and enhancements is great, worthless against warriors unless hunter can get los of him.

I usually garg very early with every trinket etc the comp quickly falls to shit when you are behind.

[Slaggy]

Has anyone had any experiance playing this as a full haste frost build? Gem/Froge Straight haste, try to get as low as possible Rune Gen speed. If you don't mash your keys wildly and try to wait for KM procs it might make playing in blood pres more acceptable. The downfall I know is that as frost if you get peeled off target for 1 sec 90% of your pressure is gone, and as PHDk if you lose pressure you lose the game. Play Death Pact over conversion and use asphy soley to set up trap fears.

[Ownu]

If the other team knows you're death pact, even as unholy, they will sit on you all game. Being sat on as a frost Dk pretty much means you're going to have no pressure. Frist is also prone to breaking CC. When I played it, I played it as full haste Unholy.

[Slaggy]

This brings up the haste vs mastery discussion again. Full mastery or Full haste as Unholy in PHDk. Seeing as how i need as close to 100% uptime as possible and im a mindless damage bot in the comp could a full haste build work this season? Turn those runes as fast as possible for machine gun necros?

[420blazeitlikeBalotelli]

ye but whats the difference between gemming strength > haste > rest over gemming strength > mastery > rest in terms of rune speed recovery. Would you even see a 0.2 second difference between runes? im not sure maybe someone knows just how much it would change.

[Forumz]

ye but whats the difference between gemming strength > haste > rest over gemming strength > mastery > rest in terms of rune speed recovery. Would you even see a 0.2 second difference between runes? im not sure maybe someone knows just how much it would change.

If you'd gem 320 haste in every socket you'll gain 3.2k (3.840 for BS) haste. That's equal to 7.52% (9.03% for BS) haste, which is ~0.5 seconds off your previous rune speed. This means you gain 3 globals for every full cycle of runes.

It may not sound like much, but it will actually completely lock you on globals when playing Unholy.

[Volcanyx]

True story

[420blazeitlikeBalotelli]

If you'd gem 320 haste in every socket you'll gain 3.2k (3.840 for BS) haste. That's equal to 7.52% (9.03% for BS) haste, which is ~0.5 seconds off your previous rune speed. This means you gain 3 globals for every full cycle of runes.

It may not sound like much, but it will actually completely lock you on globals when playing Unholy.

I wouldnt mind trying swapping mastery on reforge etc to haste and the strength/crit in my yellow gems to str/haste. but i dont think i can give up strength for anything. I guess i wouldnt see much of a difference if i did it that way.

[Forumz]

I wouldnt mind trying swapping mastery on reforge etc to haste and the strength/crit in my yellow gems to str/haste. but i dont think i can give up strength for anything. I guess i wouldnt see much of a difference if i did it that way.

I think you'd get 0.2 ; maybe 0.3 seconds out of it like that at most. You really wouldn't notice the increase (you get about 3 globals for every 2 rune cycles)

[Slaggy]

So if, say, you gemmed for socket bonus' (so STR in red, STR+XX stat in yellow, and STR+Hit Power in blue.) in full greivous assuming normal DK play (not Mes, Revy, Another, ect - just your avg DK) would making XX stat and reforging to haste or mastery most often yield the most pressure output.

Also, I tend to use festering alot, I feel I shouldnt. On avg is it better to use Touch / Boil or festering to turn runes. Assume playing with touch glyph and roiling.

[Itsnel]

I play this comp with various healers. Basically you switch alot, hunter can also throw traps anywhere and dk can grip things onto them which is nice vs teams that have grounding , massreflect intervene etc because generally they are waiting for asphix or scatter to tell their teammates to use such etc. Melee cleaves are the hardest especially enhancement warrior. Just dont be afraid to swap after natures swiftness from rdruid, bubble from palas, lifeswap from priests etc, line up 4 deathrunes on the target you were on in the first place swap to healer 4x necros at least combined with asphix, pet stun, silencing shot and gg things just drop to that. Vs spell cleaves we just play gay around pillars, hunter and healer should have good communication as to defensives cooldowns and enemy cc and traps etc in this comp. DKs job is basically build pressure that the hunter can come in on and deliver burst to. Try not to overlap cc's too much, call them out ahead of time. gripping rogues and enhancements is great, worthless against warriors unless hunter can get los of him.

I usually garg very early with every trinket etc the comp quickly falls to shit when you are behind.

no

[420blazeitlikeBalotelli]

works for me, rather cycle my runes on something i can hit than chase something that has clearly gotten away around for 20 seconds. Druids really dont appreciate being hard switched to and stacked full of necros but if you think training a fully hotted target forever is the only option good luck to you. Paladin can also do precisely jack shit when switched to without bubble, Rogues are vulnerable when they have run out of cooldowns, I could go on and on....

[Forumz]

works for me, rather cycle my runes on something i can hit than chase something that has clearly gotten away around for 20 seconds. Druids really dont appreciate being hard switched to and stacked full of necros but if you think training a fully hotted target forever is the only option good luck to you. Paladin can also do precisely jack shit when switched to without bubble, Rogues are vulnerable when they have run out of cooldowns, I could go on and on....

It's just that... you don't go for healers as PHD.