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The Art of Death Knight Pugging - "Beginning Raids for Death Knights"
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Post by
Eleazer
Getting into A Pug
How many of us Death Knight fanatics have trouble pugging into raids? Raise your hands! wait I can't count that high. Let's be clear there are alot of Death Knights out there, and it will continue to be that way so let's make this clear this is a basic guide to getting into beginning raids and not how to pug into Ulduar and so on. I will also explain very simply how to build full clear beginning pug raids OS1D/Naxx (EoE and Ulduar different worlds altogether)
There are two huge keys to getting into a pug as a death knight and building a pug as a death knight. First off when people ask for stats always give them your stats with Horn of Winter on you. Don't tell them it's self-buff simply use your Horn and then give the stats. AP and crit is nice, but the biggest key is to get yourself hit capped and get some expertise going. So someone is asking for your stats your line should look something like this. Secondly, get some gear. Here is a great source or pre-raid gear
Gearing up in Northrend for Tanks
and
DPS Gear
that should help you get started. Personally I just used Atlas Loot and went a hunting
3.6k ap/30 crit/hit cap/19 expertise
- these are my stats. Granted this is self-buffed, but the truth is with those numbers I usually always get into any raid. I never need to say much more than that. Good raid leaders see the numbers and go "A DK who knows what hit and expertise." If I am tanking I simply state stats like this
27k/27k/548 def/45 avoid
- Granted some people go what only 27k health you can't tank. I have successfully tanked Ulduar first 5 bosses with these stats so it all depends on what type of raid you are pugging into.
Let me help out a bit too. If you enter a 10 man raid and see 3 DK's I recommend leaving that pug. It will most likely not go well, as you have too many of one class for a smooth run, plus it will be tougher for you to gear up. If you join a 25 man and see more that you are the 4th DK once again I would leave.
Once you join the group immediately let the raid leader know whether you plan on Main spec rolling on tanking or dpsing. If you are dpsing and are going to main spec roll on tanking here is an easy phrase so the raid leader and tank will say sure.
"I am more than willing to dps this raid, but I would like to know if it's okay for me to roll main spec on tank gear. I am trying to get my tank gear together so I can tank for my guild and pugs. Once my tank gear is solid you could even use me to tank :P. I have no problems not rolling on dps gear."
This is my phrase when I am dpsing for a pug, but am working towards my tanking gear.
Now if you are beginning raiding and don't have achievements yet. The key to remember is that some blues are better than epics. Run heroics get out of every green, work on your reputation so that you can have gear people recognize. Bring Food and Flasks to any raid you don't overgear. I bring food and flasks to all 25 man raids, but I overgear all 10 mans except ulduar.
Finally when I am leading a pug and inspecting gear I always look for enchants on beginning raiders. If I see a DK who has enchanted his weapon I kick him. If you don't know runeforge is better you are a moron. Plus an enchanted geared player will usually know where to go and what to do in a fight and shows the ability to gear up for a raid. If you misenchant your gear or have a green or no epics you are more likely to see the "You have been removed from a group".
Remember there are more dk's out there than you can shake a stick at. So making yourself stand out among the scrubs before even entering the raid is a huge plus.
Post by
Eleazer
Organizing a Pug as a Death Knight
With over 300 raids as raid and guild leader under my belt and a few more than that as simply a participant. Most of my experience comes from BC where grouping was of a major importance. Now it's still important but not as much. In WotlK, I have ran full and partial pugs of every raid except Ulduar hard modes or Ulduar 25. Organizing and building a pug as a death knight has it's own unique issues and problems. On one hand alot of people are wary of death knights leading pugs as the reputation of death knight is not that high. On the other hand, organizing and building a pug is probably the fastest way to get yourself a non-guild raid.
So what do you look for in building a pug, well there are some basic premises to follow. If you have followd my advice in pugging above than you will have a list of a few people you can ask to come with you, this will greatly simplify your pugging experience. However if you are just out of luck and organizing a pug group there are several thing you must remember. Building a 10 man raid and a 25 man are pretty similar, for one thing you want variance of classes the more classes you get the less loot issues will come up.
For just about every 10 man raid I like to get 1 of every class if possible 2 healers/2tanks/5dps. This is not essential, but getting 3 of any one class is usually not advisable. Now as a deathknight putting together a pug is not that hard except you will usually get 3-4 dk's that ask to come dps for you. For a ten man raid I would recommend not bringing in another dk unless he outgears you or is dps while you are tank or the other way around even then DPS is easy to find.
There are two ways to build a raid one is to build the raid to showcase melee. The other is to showcase ranged dps. Remember that you want to get a group that buffs your dps not your tanks or healers. With 5 raid spots open. The two major ways to go is 2 Mellee and 3 ranged or 3 melee and 2 ranged. I usually like to get at least 2 pure dps classes and go from there if I get a hunter and Mage I get a 3rd ranged such as boomkin or ele shaman. You can figure it out from there. If you are showcasing melee dps, such as yourself, than it usually is advised that you get a pali tank and warrior OT/MT and build to focus melee dps.
For 25 mans, I follow a simple philosophy 2 of every class plus 5 healers. I know you need 6 healers in some cases, but 5 is usually more than enough for beginning raids. Sometimes you can make some adjustments, but this usually allows alot of variance and makes most people happy to raid with you. I like to go 2 Main tanks and one OT/dps with 7 melee dps, 10 ranged and 5 healers 3 tank healers and 2 raid healers. Now the problem you might forsee is too many paladins. I really try to limit myself to 3 or 4 paladins.
The benefit of a 2 of every class plus 5 is that you get more happy raiders, people will stay through wipes because they feel they have a higher chance of getting loot. Happy raiders means more people who will pug you in when you are looking to pug and more friends to raid the next time.
Finally, DPS charts are a personal tool, not something to show off every boss and fight will cause some dps to shine and others to lose out. The important thing is to down the boss and to use the damage meters to track which dps is not pulling their wait. Do not get in the habit of posting dps or allowing other people to do it. Good raiders don't post it, they make whisper you for it, but they know and understand that dps is suggestive and that sometimes the hunter and mage stuck on trapping or kiting duty is going to be far behind in dps.
The following are some very simple rules to advise on.
1. Learn the Hit cap for every class, and then ask them what their hit rating is. IF they don't know or are below that rating don't bring them (unless it's a rogue if they are over 8 percent for 10 man they are fine, and around 400 for 25 man; casters should be close around 11 percent for anything)
2. Ignore Achievements unless it's EoE. They don't matter. Stats matter.
3. Never organize a pug reserving something. Not for anyone ever, it's selfish and shows no class.
4. Clearly state the rules ahead of time. Make everyone who is rolling on a spec they aren't raiding with notify you, and keep that list so you can explain why someone is going to roll on it.
5. No waiting by boss when boss dies. Keep moving on. Stress this to the tanks. A fast run is a good run.
6. Get the loot divied up quickly and get to the next boss.
7. Encourage your tanks to keep pulling as long as the healers have mana (except on bosses). There is a reason you have two tanks.
8. If someone is causing problems, warn them privately if it continues a kick will sometimes save a raid.
9. Do not accept people that are in pvp builds or gear to 25 man raids. 10 man raids you can get away with pvp gear, 25 don't even let them talk you into it.
10. If someone needs to afk, let them go, but don't hold the party while waiting for them.
Remember a fast run with alot of different classes makes for a fun run with loot spread out. Add any healers and tanks to your friends list this will make it easier to pug next time.
Post by
Eleazer
Tanking a Pug as a Death Knight
First off let me recommend two threads to read, though I have disagreed at times with Nystali and Lynri their threads are valuable starting places to go from.
Nystali's tanking thread
is a very basic outlook on beginning tanking, while
Lynri's tanking thread
spends more time arguing over glyphing and rotational issues and specifics. Both are great for beginning tanking. EJ's is good as well, but more for math lovers. However this is not about beginning tanking or rotations as you should have this pretty much down before pugging as a tank. Now I am not going to spend time talking about glyphs and such on off-tanks. In my opinion any dps with decent tanking gear can offtank the beginning raids (though Naxx 25 Thaddius and the adds on another will need some good tanking gear). Main tanking is where the focus is and always should be.
First off beginning raid tanking stats should be around
24k Health/24kArm/40 avoid/540 defense
for Main tanking. Offtanking stats should be around
22k/22k/30-40avoid/540 defense
. If you are not at these stats than I would recommend going dps or heading back into heroics and farming or enchanting your gear to get it up there. I would also recommend enchanting your gear especially the
increased threat on gloves
. It's expensive but worth every penny when trying to tank with dps that out gears you.
There are two major components to main tanking as a DK. One is single target boss tanking, the other is AoE trash mob tanking. Naxx/OS/EoE can all be solo tanked through the trash, and should be solo tanked by any Death Knight MT. In fact, if you join the group as main tank or Off-tank, let the raid leader and/or main tank know that you will be tanking all the trash and they can dps until you arrive at bosses where a second tank is needed. Just about every tank that tanks all the time will gladly take you up on the offer.
Now you are geared and you are in Naxx 10 or 25. I have 3 major rules of thumb as a tank, that I enforce religiously on raids and heroics.
1. Pull until healer needs mana - I don't care about dps casters or afking dps you can drink and catch up, but the healers are all that matter in trash pulls.
2. Always mark first target. This allows all single fire dps aggro pullers (shamans/pali's/arms warriors/dks) to hit your main target and allows you to build threat on other targets.
3. Turn your targets around so that your view looks like this tank - mob - melee dps - ranged/healers. If dps comes to my side I can see right away and whisper them to stop standing on me and dps.
The above is general tanking stuff. Now lets talk about tanking in a pugg as a DK.
Cooldown Timing:
Tanking as a DK in a pug is either a win or a constant proving ground. I was in one where a rogue kept screaming that he hates dk tanks because they should be dpsing. However that's not what's important. One of the major issues that most healers have with DK tanks is that they get crushed and are so tough to heal. 100 percent of the time this comes from misuse of cool downs. DK's have 4 Major CD clickies IBF, AMS/AMZ, UBA, and Bone Shield. I believe Blood has Vampiric blood and Rune Tap, but those are emergency clicks and not standard tanking clicks.
Frost tanks Should Have UBA/IBF/AMS all sitting ready to go. Use UBA as often as you can during trash pulls, alternating it with IBF for melee users and AMS for casters. On Bosses, I routinely switch alternate IBF/UBA whenever one is off it's time this gives me only around 30 seconds of non protected time. By using cooldowns appropriately, and in a timely fashion you will be given high marks by healers and dps. AMS use is very valuable against every caster boss I keep it up every cooldown. AMS can be used on diseases as well to soak up some of the damage.
Unholy Tanks have Bone Shield which is an absolute must to keep up at all times. They should also keep IBF up as often as possible though after patch 3.2 this will be really tough.
Blood has the least amount of mitigation issues, so timing of IBF is of the utmost importants, especially on fights like Patchwerk and Mighty Max.
Threat Generation
:
One of the great parts about being a DK tank is the ability to generate alot of threat through dps attacks and is one of the major reasons that I favor glyphing for "dps". Howling blast/UB glyphs are big time threat producers and are a great idea for tanks. The idea behind threat generating a target is to mark one mob with a skull, typically the one that will do the most damage, and have all dps focus fire on that while you pick up the rest. For frost tanks, spamming Howling Blast/BB is a great way to keep threat high on AoE targets. Blood and Unholy guys can hammer away with BB and DnD. Once your first target is almost done simply switch to the next and start building up threat there.
Positioning
Perhaps the biggest thing to learn in trash mob fighting is how to position yourself and the mob for maximum effective tanking. For the most part charging a target is a bad idea, but in some cases it works. Scroll back from yourself and position the mob so their backs are towards the rest of the raid. Keep an eye out for pats and shades that will come from nowhere most of the time. If you have a target that likes to kick (think Grobbulus room) than position yourself in a corner where you will be kicked into a wall and not across a room pulling more threat. On bosses like Patch, be considerate of your dps and don't position a target over something that is likely to get them killed (this problem I see alot in OS runs where a void zone appears underneath the drake and the tank never moves the drake). Remember keeping your healers alive and happy is the easiest way to get yourself invited to tank more heroics and raids. Giving your dps the least amount of chances to screw up will keep them happy.
Communication
Learning to talk with the raid leader and your healer is the biggest key to effective pug tanking. I like to claim one healer as mine and keep in constant conversation with him through whispers throughout the instance. I will generally talk about random stuff in the instance. Thank him for keeping me alive or make jokes about some of the dps. The idea is the more he likes you the more willing he will be to keep you alive and run with you a second time. Communicating with the raid leader is simply a way to let him know your intentions. Such as pulling pats and stuff as they come and making sure your healer is always on you. If the raid leader and healers know where you are and what you are doing there is never any confusion. Confusion = wipes = long run. Communication = effective raiding = fast runs.
A good tank by the end of a raid is usually loved and commented on because you control the flow and speed of the run. Keep the flow going until you get to boss and then wait till you get the command on bosses to pull.
Post by
Eleazer
DPS Pugging as a Death Knight
Not very complicated, but this is where many death knights tend to fail miserably.
After a long delay, I have decided to come in and finish this up. DPS Pugging is where a majority of your Death Knights exist and either shine or fail miserably. There are many advantages to dpsing as a DK in a pug. I started off as DPS pugging grew bored, and now solely pug as a tank unless I am asked to do more from someone. I have been told several times in pugs to tank, because they don't trust the other two tanks. That is more of a reputation thing than a DK is better for tanking option. However the benefit of being a DK is dual speccing for both tanking and dpsing. Because it's much better to have your OT Pali main-tank a boss because usually their dual spec is heals so you can dps.
There are several basic rules of thumb and things to keep in mind while DPS pugging. Every DK should be dual specced to tank/pvp. A pvp dk can get away with some offtanking if need be. The main reason for this is it gives you versatility if say one of the other OT's is getting clobbered, but there are some fights such as 4h where a dps dk in offspec will do better on the back two bosses than any other dps option. AMS is a life saver back there, and the amount of damage a DK can tank and deal out while in tank/pvp gear will allow the others to stay on the central bosses. The second reason for dual speccing to tank is for versatility. One of the key things about pugging especially in dps searching is whenever I find a dps willing to go offspec (shamans and druids willing to heal are the major ones you see) to allow for easier filling or to help facilitate certain pulls or boss fights.
First, we will go over basic dps in a pug raid thoughts than we will cover DK DPS specifically. DPS in a pug is usually composed of three types of people: the geared who are bored and want to raid something below them for one or two items, the geared/ungeared who are in a casual or non-raiding guild, and the ungeared attempting to get geared. So you will have a multitude of different styles and skill levels who will either outshine you or prove to be irritatingly bad.
Basic DPS Thoughts
One of the most common mistakes that DPS make is not dpsing from behind. Not only does this decrease your dps because it allows for parries and blocks and not just dodges and misses, but it severely irritates both healers and tanks, as it makes it harder for the tank to know if he has lost threat to you or not and increases the chance you can get damage from cleaves or frontal attacks. Any heals wasted on you is a healer who isn't watching the MT.
Failure to get out of an aoe or whirlwind is a huge cause of concern. Yes, you can take more damage as a plate wearer but that does not excuse doing it. Watch for aoe situations and position yourself to be able to maximize the amount of time on a target before getting away. This will not only endear you to the healers, but will maximize your effectiveness during raids (I see more dk's fail at the 10 yard range from the tank on KT than any other class).
Watch your threat! The easiest way to do this is to target skull if there is one placed if there isn't simply click on the tank to find out who his initial target will be and then make that your first target. DPS that randomly attacks whomever is closest not only diminishes their own dps, but has a higher chance of pulling threat off the tank. Do not get in the habit of AoEing before a single target tank can build suitable threat generation.
Do not get in the habit of linking your dps or of strutting around showing your supposed greatness. It is quite irritating as a tank. Sometimes in a pug one of your healers or tanks will be able to put out more dps in their dps spec than you , and have no desire to see how your dps is rolling along (This happened in a recent Uld 10 run with me, the warrior dps kept posting his dps unaware that I put out close to 1k more than he does, but chose to tank). Recount and other dps spreadsheets are tools for your use, not methods to post your greatness. Rogues and DK's seem to love to do this, and I would like to see a stop to it. It's irritating to any dps whose job is to kite, or those whose take a dps hit to battle rez or cleanse a target (Had a ret pali on maxxena whose job was to cleanse poisons on the MT, this caused a severe hit on his dps, but a severe love from me and the healers for doing it).
Always watch your ranged dps. When a runner gets away from a tank, there is nothing better than a dps who will come to the aid of healers and ranged dps. Taunts/stuns/traps/slows, all of these can and should be used to help the raid as a whole, and allow the tank a chance to recover or resume threat on a target. There are just too many instances where a healer or raid wipe could have been prevented if dps would have prevented a healers death or brought a random add back to the tank. Please remember that tanking and healing requires a lot of concentration and they will miss things from time to time.
DK DPS Pugging tips
The Key to DK DPS pugging is our ability to give solid raid buffs, top 5 dps, and the ability to offtank in dps spec for a short period of time. Death Grip and Dark Command are absolutely beautiful in helping bring runners back to the tank.
(will come back to this at work at the moment)
Post by
188262
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138722
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Post by
Nystali
I've pugged into a guild naxx run where they allow free rolling on all bosses except Sapph and KT. They stated ahead of time that their guild members would get preference on those bosses simply because all their members were quite overgeared for naxx and really only needed stuff from those two. That meant that me and the few other pugs were pretty much able to get the rest of the loot without much competition.
That's the only case where I can see "reserved loot" being acceptable. It was mostly a guild run and there really was a sort of compensation for not being able to roll on the last bosses.
However, if you're starting up a true non-guild sponsored pug and you're saying "Death's Bite belong to me, no other rolls will be accepted when it drops" then yes, as Eleazer said, your pug is just classless and not worth running with and you'd probably not make it to KT anyways.
Post by
Eleazer
Updated tanking in a pug. I will get to dpsing in one later tonight or tomorrow. Wartorn, there is a reason I posted the don't reserve in organizing a raid. My idea was that dk's are frowned on anyways, why be a tool and reserve something the idea is to allow yourself to get into as many runs as possible. Not be an egotist and say my gear or the highway.
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410715
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367325
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Post by
neomasterc
IMO BEST WAY FOR DKs TO GET GEARED UP.
GO BE A TANK!
no one likes DK dps, everyone likes tanks..
i was in scrubby gear for the longest time... till i went tank...
because u r a tank, u get into more groups...
and most likely, the tanking gear that drops is urs..
also the dps gear that drops can go to ur offspec..
as u become better geared as a tank, u start tanking harder stuff..
because the dps in harder raids all are pretty well geared.. the chances of u getting dps offset is quite high...
when i went tank... my tank set went from like rep blues to almost full naxx 25 in 1 or 2 weeks...
as for my dps gear... it went to almost full naxx 25 too..
another trick is... u can continue to run naxx 25 or something as a tank, but each time u get t7.5, u turn it in as dps gear after the raid..
so every time u pug, u can still roll for it as main spec...
right now im 33k hp, ~30% dodge,~20% parry, with 3700+ AP self buffed.. so i can pull quite a bit of threat and stay alive.. (more often than not i pull entire groups of adds so well that other tanks have trouble helping by pulling off me). naxx 25/uld 25 gear.
as for dps gear. 31% crit, hit cap, 33.78% arpen w/o talent, ~5k AP self buffed. almost full uld 25 gear.
i have not raided for THAT long.
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138722
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358543
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79224
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Post by
Eleazer
I need to do some editing still on the entire guide. I appreciate the love of this guys. I pugged 5 people into a 10 man uld team last night and we downed 3 bosses with one wipe, before we had to go for time reasons. The main reason for the guide is that my guild and my game friends have constantly commented on the success of my pugs, and wanted to know how I do it. I have told them every time that it wasn't me leading that made them successful, but rather the following of basic principles that gives you a group working towards a common goal. I will say this much I ticked a good hunter off last night because we pugged her in did one boss than had to call it (always get two or three bosses in when adding someone or give them 100 gold for getting them saved to a one boss). I will probably go and apologize to her today and try and talk her into coming back tonight to do a few more bosses.
A main reason for the guide is to help death knights with the grouping and learning of pugging. I see alot of bad pugs, and I have been in a few. I was in a pug that I didn't build for a 10 man VoA last night or as I like to call it 30 minutes and we are done. It was brutal, because the grouping was bad. I was tanking Emalon and would go 10-20 seconds without a heal. Proper cooldown usage kept me alive, but once my cooldowns were used I was sitting there just praying for a heal before I died.
If others outside of death knights wish to use the guide they are welcome to do it. Though I think only the first two sections would work. It would need a total reworking of the next two sections in order to be able to give a general guide. I am not sure I would post this in the pve forums, but I will think about it.
Anyways, Neo is correct in that the easiest way to get geared is to be willing to tank. In the dps section, I will mention this that every Death knight should work on their offset so that they can do either one depending on section. I have a death knight tank friend who has Ulduar 10 gear for tanking, but blue dps gear. When we get to a boss where a warrior will tank his dps is so low he is virtually useless at that point. So he has to basically start over and build a dps set.
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188262
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Post by
Eleazer
Sam I like your add's the linking stuff is annoying, same with recount I am going to make an updated in organizing about not linking dps or hps.
Post by
188262
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Post by
Eleazer
Rufus while I appreciate your tips. This is not about heroics. It's about pugging a raid. As much as I would enjoy turning this into a general tanking tips. There are enough threads containing general tanking information. I do appreciate the advice though as both tips can and would be applied to tanking raids. Heroics are an entirely different animal many of the raid rules and responsibilities of a raid are not usually applied in heroics.
I state this because I don't want this thread to fill up with I was tanking a heroic when or my guild raids like this stories.
This is a beginning pug raid guide, meaning you are ready to raid and want to know some basic priniciples of tanking, dpsing, organizing, and getting into a pug raid.
Guild raids are entirely different and so are heroics.
So I encourage advice, correction and any input when it comes to that specific topic. Thank you for your input though. It was very well written and a good example as to how much damage you can do if you don't pull or mark correctly due to a lack of knowledge. Btw in OK, you can use AMS do eliminate alot of that spell damage.
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