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When to use AoD?Follow

#1 May 05 2010 at 4:19 PM Rating: Good
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So the warlock that died in third phase of 5 man h-ToC called me a noob for using AoD between the time The Black Knight died in phase 2 and rezzed as ghost in phase 3. I took no dmg during the cast and no group members took agro. I asked him why he wanted to flame me, but he wouldn't say. Was he bitter about not getting heals or are there a times when you don't use AoD? I figure anytime I can fit it in while not taking dmg is just fine.

I don't see what negative effect me using it had. Please inform me.
#2 May 05 2010 at 4:25 PM Rating: Good
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I used to use it on phase 2, to deal with the ghouls. But now I just throw an HB or use DnD and let anyone who tries to hit them so as to fluff their meters die.

But using it between 2 and 3 is fine. They don't taunt the boss or buff him in any way I am aware of. Just free DpS.
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#3 May 05 2010 at 6:17 PM Rating: Good
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Agreed, phase 2 is where it's at. Though, I can see a case for phase 3 as well.

And for the record, if you kill the ghouls they don't explode. So that's why I tend to AoE in that phase. If I pull one off the tank, they don't hit that hard =P
#4 May 05 2010 at 10:17 PM Rating: Good
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Definately for P2, the ghouls from your army taunt whatever/whenever they can which reduces alot of looking around for where all BK's ghouls are going.

That said I normally drop DnD after AotD as well to try and keep the ghouls on me, follow it with Empower rune weapon and you have army and DnD down with a full set of runes and some RP to spare. P3 I'll normally raise my "pet" ghoul and UBA/IBF to give the healer a chance to keep some DPS alive.

As a general rule for AotD: never use it for fights where keeping the boss on/facing towards you is important. But if a boss fears, the first boss in HoR whose fears ignore tremor totems and fear ward, your ghouls are handy to keep him from chasing a random DPS.
#5 May 05 2010 at 10:32 PM Rating: Decent
I honestly don't even use army in 5-mans, there are too many pug tanks that freak out and are unable to deal with it OR there are too many situations where it can really mess up a mechanic
#6 May 06 2010 at 4:11 AM Rating: Excellent
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I like it when DKs AotD before P2 in H ToC. Ghoul on ghoul action is hawt.
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#7 May 06 2010 at 4:48 AM Rating: Good
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Basically you can use Army of the Dead on any boss fight that doesn't have frontal cone attacks and/or cleaves and tail swipes. Using the Army on dragon bosses is usually a bad idea and most raid bosses are probably best left alone as well. Having Koralon turn around and Meteor Fist a ghoul and your random DPS guy is usually not well-received. Smiley: lol
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#8 May 06 2010 at 7:42 AM Rating: Good
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Having Koralon turn around and Meteor Fist a ghoul and your random DPS guy is usually not well-received.


But REALLY funny.

Honestly, though, I almost never use AotD in Heroics anymore. Things die too fast for me to care. P2 BK is literally the only time I even consider it.

As for P3, he generally dies so fast in most groups at this point that AMS means I'm taking pretty much no damage, and if I'm Unholy, AMZ means no one else is either (except if we have a hunter). :P

Honestly, you could even use AotD on P1. It just wouldn't be as good since it's the shortest phase, there aren't multiple targets and I'm pretty sure the gap from 1 to 2 is longer than 2 to 3, so that's wasted time if they are still alive.

I do love when DKs use it though. Just something really fun seeing 20 ghouls dueling it out. :P
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#9 May 06 2010 at 9:11 AM Rating: Good
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Want to **** off your healer... use AoD and the gargoyle within first 4 seconds of Devourer of Souls fight and pray you don't get mirrored soul :)
#10 May 06 2010 at 9:30 AM Rating: Good
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Wait, those are reflected?!?!

I would have thought they weren't, since they have separate aggro tables (which means the encounter is programmed specifically to include them)... That's stupid. :/
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#11 May 07 2010 at 2:08 AM Rating: Good
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Mazra wrote:
Basically you can use Army of the Dead on any boss fight that doesn't have frontal cone attacks and/or cleaves and tail swipes. Using the Army on dragon bosses is usually a bad idea and most raid bosses are probably best left alone as well. Having Koralon turn around and Meteor Fist a ghoul and your random DPS guy is usually not well-received. Smiley: lol

When will people learn? Army of the dead DOES NOT TAUNT RAID BOSSES. And if youre tank cant hold aggro to a ghoul, he is doing something wrong.
#12 May 07 2010 at 4:44 AM Rating: Good
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Maz was referring to mechanics, not to taunting. But it is still a problem on any fight that there are adds.

Plus, casting AotD is a strict DpS loss for all specs unless you can do it during a period that you otherwise cannot do any other DpS, like if the boss goes immune or out-ranges you (and you can't close the gap). But that rarely happens in situations where there aren't adds of some sort.

Most DKs use their army at the very start of the battle, precasting it (based on their tank's threat countdown), or not at all.

Regarding Heroics, though, I remember I was once in this TERRIBLE Occulus group where we had all melee DpS (2 DKs) and a new healer, so Urom was a B*TCH. On our third attempt, we tried all using Army of the Dead (all three DKs that is). VERY funny to watch. WE still wiped though. Shaman couldn't heal through the DoT, people were too stupid to kite him (and died to his Nova). I was #1 DpS, and this was many months ago.
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#13 May 07 2010 at 9:13 AM Rating: Decent
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On our third attempt, we tried all using Army of the Dead (all three DKs that is). VERY funny to watch. WE still wiped though. Shaman couldn't heal through the DoT, people were too stupid to kite him (and died to his Nova).

Just as a little 'nitpick'... Wasn't the reason that people didn't kite him simply that your ghouls had aggro and didn't move the boss? Would make sense if I read your sentence like this.
#14 May 07 2010 at 12:42 PM Rating: Good
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Just as a little 'nitpick'... Wasn't the reason that people didn't kite him simply that your ghouls had aggro and didn't move the boss? Would make sense if I read your sentence like this.


No. The aggro of AotD is pathetic. I was the tank--the problem wasn't actually moving him. It was that the DpS had no clue what they were supposed to do. Yes, they were so dumb that "attack him while moving" was too hard. They would run ahead and stand still while he passed, then do it again when they were out of range. So like 40% of the time they weren't attacking.

Plus, even though I was taking very little damage besides the DoT, the Shaman healer didn't want to move and always died before any of the DpS did. I was even using Death Strike instead of Obliterate to make their job easier.
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#15 May 07 2010 at 2:34 PM Rating: Decent
idiggory wrote:
No. The aggro of AotD is pathetic.


You know they auto taunt right? The only time they don't taunt is on boss (level ??) mobs. That is why you never use them on anub in toc, they will taunt the adds. Sure if you're fighting a boss level mob (and heroics bosses are level 83, not ??) their aggro is negligible, but in heroics they wipe the group more often than help.
#16 May 07 2010 at 3:02 PM Rating: Good
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You're right, I forgot about that. But it still has nothing to do with the group's epic fail. We used the three AotD casts at the start and stood behind a pillar (the point was to try and get his health as low as possible so the healer wouldn't go OOM and we could cut the fight time).

I think they took out 1/3-half his life before they died, lol. But even then we wiped. Frickin' Occulus.

[EDIT]

If I remember correctly, I was doing 1.5K DpS and the next highest was 1.1K. All the rest were under 1K. It was a joke.

I also have a question, if anyone knows. Do the ghouls use a true taunt or an immitation taunt (like most pets). Meaning, will the cast actually force the target to attack them AND generate a lot of threat, or just the latter part?

[EDIT2]

Two more questions:

1. Can you use Corpse Explosion on them? Might be nice for that last bit of AoE damage in WG or something.

2. If so, can you target ENEMY AotD ghouls with it? Because that would be super awesome. : D

Edited, May 7th 2010 5:10pm by idiggory
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#17 May 07 2010 at 3:23 PM Rating: Good
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Yes, they were so dumb that "attack him while moving" was too hard.

And people ask me why I don't tank in LFG PUGs anymore.

Smiley: banghead

In other news I wanted to note that I've also pretty much stopped using AotD in heroics as well. In raids they can be useful if you consider any of the "random target" boss mechanics, which can be an issue. As for dragons... I dunno why, but it's kinda fun to watch a few of the little bastards fly across Ony's room. =)
#18 May 07 2010 at 5:49 PM Rating: Decent
Were you always a guru therion?
#19 May 07 2010 at 6:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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#20 May 08 2010 at 7:24 AM Rating: Good
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It is kinda a shame though. AotD is easily one of the DK's most fun abilities. But it's kinda designed oddly. For one, the taunt would be way more useful when leveling, but you don't get it until 80. But the taunt means you often can't use it as a tanking CD. And the fact that you can't do anything for (6?) seconds while it casts is harsh. And since it is channeled, it can get interrupted.

I dunno--it would nice to see it get a buff as this expansion winds down. I mean, it is only going to scale less and less as gear gets better and better. And it shouldn't be that hard to balance--it will only be used once a fight. Even if it was only part of the Unholy rotation on bosses, would be cool.
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#21 May 08 2010 at 9:06 AM Rating: Good
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EbanySalamonderiel wrote:
When will people learn? Army of the dead DOES NOT TAUNT RAID BOSSES. And if youre tank cant hold aggro to a ghoul, he is doing something wrong.


Guess it's been a while since I raided or did much on my DK anyway.

But Eba, srsly, get to 80 before you start flaming me, nab. Smiley: oyvey

Smiley: lol
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#22 May 08 2010 at 4:26 PM Rating: Decent
idiggory wrote:
It is kinda a shame though. AotD is easily one of the DK's most fun abilities. But it's kinda designed oddly. For one, the taunt would be way more useful when leveling, but you don't get it until 80. But the taunt means you often can't use it as a tanking CD. And the fact that you can't do anything for (6?) seconds while it casts is harsh. And since it is channeled, it can get interrupted.


You're completely missing one of the best parts of this. Granted you can't use it on heroics or bosses with adds, but if you are fighting a boss with no adds (of which there are plenty) you can use this as a tank cooldown. If you read the description, while you are channeling this spell you have a damage reduction of your dodge plus parry. Have 20% dodge and parry? While channeling you take 40% less damage. That's pretty much as good as a second IBF. Granted you can only use it every 10 minutes, and granted you generate no threat during the cast, but if you know how to use it right, it's a pretty cool spell.

AotD also is a GREAT tool for soloing group quests.

That said, I still wish we had the anti-heal we had from pre-beta.
#23 May 08 2010 at 7:53 PM Rating: Good
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You're completely missing one of the best parts of this. Granted you can't use it on heroics or bosses with adds, but if you are fighting a boss with no adds (of which there are plenty) you can use this as a tank cooldown. If you read the description, while you are channeling this spell you have a damage reduction of your dodge plus parry. Have 20% dodge and parry? While channeling you take 40% less damage. That's pretty much as good as a second IBF. Granted you can only use it every 10 minutes, and granted you generate no threat during the cast, but if you know how to use it right, it's a pretty cool spell.


As a CD, it is still fairly mediocre. While casting, it completely shuts down your Dodge/Parry. You just convert that into pure mitigation. Slightly better than avoidance? Yes. But not by a ton. And I'm not convinced it is worth 3 runes for such a small boost.

Now, if the boss uses some kind of spell that hits hard and you know when it's coming, sure--it's useful. Because your Dodge/Parry won't have* reduced that. But you need 3 runes, of all 3 types, to cast it. So you will not be able to use it without burning ERW/Blood Tap or you prep for it. Both mean lost threat, but prepping is worse since you will be constantly behind on your generation waiting for this to happen.

But this requires you to be REALLY quick, and for there to be a cast time/warning before it happens.

And, even then, it is a (say) 55-65% reduction on ONE hit the entire fight. And that hit will eliminate some ghouls from your cast, so you may not get any threat from it.

Gimmicky for the most part, occasionally useful in raids and/or Heroics.

But, like you said, it is good for soloing elites (like Chillmaw).

[EDIT]

*potentially

Edited, May 8th 2010 9:57pm by idiggory
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#24 May 12 2010 at 4:48 PM Rating: Good
for ToC, Phase 2. unless the group I'm in just can't take down the summoned shadow monster w/ fighting the Women.
Then I use it there.

All other times, I use it for fun..or to get that final boss killed asap.

During VoA's I use it usually at 50% on the Frost Boss.

I use it from time to time in PvP too, when I zerg into a group and want that ONE healer to feel some heat.
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