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6.2.2 Frost DK PvP Survival
COME AT ME BRO
It doesn’t matter what your iLevel is, a dead man’s DPS is zero.
A couple of weeks ago during the battleground event weekend, I learned a thing or two about myself. I discovered that I’m not that bad at the whole PVP thing. Also, fun fact, if I’ve got someone throwing heals at me I can wreck some serious face.
Such is the dilemma of a Frost Death Knight. I can pull some serious deeps, but staying alive can be a bit of an issue without a pocket healer. That’s where my boy Hazzed comes into the picture. He is one of the top Frost DK’s in the PVP scene, and he’s a great teacher too. The man can drop some serious knowledge.
For example, Hazzed turned me around as far as my thinking about self-heals go. Blood Death Knights are damn near unkillable. Frost DK’s tend to be a little more squishy. That all changed once Hazzed showed me the light when it came to keeping my ass alive. Who knew that Frost Death Knights had such great heals?!
Check out his video below. Watch. Learn. Survive.
And kill.
Frost DK in WoD
I was a little disappointed when I first started replaying my Frost Death Knight. Granted I was still relearning everything, but the downtime was a little frustrating. When you’re the kind of person who is used to dealing damage, killing things face to face with whatever you have in your hands, every tick that goes by without doing something fatal feels like an eternity.
The oft-mentioned Preach brings good tidings from the WoD test servers. Now while this is still alpha/beta, and one should not hold their breath when it comes to class tweaks until things go live, Blizzard has done something very cool (no pun intended) – no more downtime for the Frost DK.
Warriors, on the other hands… /mourn.
WoD Alpha – Frost DK Is Still OK
You can’t put too much faith in what you see during alpha testing. It’s alpha testing, after all. But reports from reliable sources, and I believe it when a guy like Preach tells me, says that Frost Death Knights might be in a pretty good place in Warlords of Draenor.
Patch 5.4 – Frost Death Knight DPS
Ah, the joy of getting up to speed when one has been away for so long. It’s like waking from a coma and picking up an old newspaper, boggling at stuff that people today would simply yawn at. Not quite the case when one talks about Death Knights though. Honestly, I think Blizzard got this class very right. They seldom make big changes to the Death Knight, a minor tweak here and there at best.
Still, I’m relearning everything so I might as well start from scratch. And who better to learn from that Preach over at Preach Gaming. The man plays all classes, and plays them well. More importantly, he instructs very well too. So I was very happy to see that he’d posted a recent (Nov 2013?!) update on the Death Knights. It’s Patch 5.4, probaby the last major patch update until 6.0 drops.
Speaking of dropping, here’s the Preacher Man dropping knowledge on Frost Death Knights.
Pros and Cons of Leveling Through Pet Battles
My currently grinding Death Knight has had the pleasure of stomping his way through level 86 to his current halfway point in 88, all just by doing Pet Battles. Even at a real casual, non-stressful pace I’ve managed to… well, not dread the leveling experience. Call it burnout, call it Post Traumatic Leveling Disorder, but Pet Battles has been just what the doctor ordered.
Or Nurse, as the case may be.
As my Death Knight closed in on level 89, I started to wonder if maybe I should start questing in Dread Wastes once I crested. Thankfully for blog content, I decided to weigh the pros and cons of leveling via Pet Battles rather than by traditional questing.
XP
Con: At lv 88, quests give around 196,000 xp. Pet Battle victories net you roughly 145,000 to 165,000, depending on the level of the pets you are fighting. Basic math tells you that 196k is more than 165k. If you’re blankly staring at the screen, just trust me on this.
Pro: Depending on where you are picking your battles, Pet Battles can bring in more XP per hour than questing, if you can knock them off back to back. Zhu’s Watch in Krasarang Wild is a great spot with plenty of battle pets roaming around, if you’re sick of fighting the ones in the Vale of Eternal Blossom.
Loot
Con: Well, any loot you get from Pet Battles is going to be something for buffing your pet. You can level from 85 to 90 by running Pet Battles until your eyes bleed, but at the end of the day you’re still going to be wearing the same level 85 gear you started with in Pandaria. Quests give you gear you’ll be able to use to get into dungeons.
Pro: There is an entire section of Achievement Points dedicated to Pet Battles. Most of them really aren’t that hard to get, and if you’re levelling up through Pet Battles you’ll probably get a great deal of them by default. While you might not get gear from unlocking these achievements, you will get some titles as well as more pets (the Celestial Dragon is BEAST MODE for Pet Battles.)
Gold
Con: You don’t make any gold by winning Pet Battles. You get gold rewards by completing quests, and if you get a quest reward that you don’t really need, you can sell it and double dip into the gold pool.
Pro: You can make gold by buying level one blue pets off the auction house on the cheap, then selling them for a hefty profit once you level them to 20 (or 25 if you feel ambitious). I would suggest stopping before 25 because you might get some people who want the achievement for getting a certain family of pet to 25. I’ve bought pets for 300gp and sold them for 3000gp.
Intangibles
Con: Well there’s a few things here where Pet Battles might come up short. You’ll have zero rep at level 90, locking you out of valor and justice gear. But that won’t matter since you won’t have any justice points due to lack of running dungeons on the way to 90. Good luck getting into heroics having never set foot in the regular dungeons to start with. And aside from a handful of zones, you really won’t see much of Pandaria since you’ll only be grinding in a couple of spots on the entire continent.
Pro: The reason I decided to level through Pet Battles is because I’d already run the quests a few times and wanted something different. I’m not suggesting you level this way on your Main. This is more for the person who wants to level their alt a different way, a little more casually while still progressing in levels. You can start a battle, toss a load of wet laundry in the dryer, and finish the battle. Nice and painless.
Conclusion
I’m certainly not saying that Pet Battles is the best way to level. Questing is still king, since it provides everything you need as you level – you learn your class through combat, you get experience, gold, and gear. You gain rep with various factions, some of which you might actually need. But if you’re rather dive into a swimming pool filled with syringes rather than play with yaks one more time, Pet Battles are definitely a great way to level up.
No. Just no.
Rokk Talk 