The Proven Defender as Deathknight (Advice please)

[dixincide]

Hey everyone, I've been working away at earning this title but I've been having a rough time with it. I got the proven healer and assailant so I figured I should complete the set.

Anyway, I've been having trouble figuring out which mobs to prioritize and when I should use my cooldowns. I know damage is front heavy and these require more planning than anything. So any advice would be helpful. I've only been able to make it to wave 19... so all advice is welcome.

Here is what I've been doing so far:

• Wave 1: Rune weapon with bone armor on the start for fast damage always assisting the NPC's target so they go down faster
• Wave 2: I use my shado pan trinket for the dodge chance initially, then when the first monkey spawns I Remorseless Winter, when second monkey spawns I rune weapon
• Wave 3: I grab one of the melee mobs and pull it to the opposite side caster. leaving the one casting NPC alone. I tank these three in the fire from the channel (making sure I'm not in it and having AMS in case I need to reposition)
• Wave 4: I rune weapon out the gate and try and get as much damage on the conqueror as I can, then I'll switch to the monkey when he spawns (after the conqueror goes down) and Ill remorseless on his spawn if the conqueror isn't down by this time it helps to relieve some pressure.
• Wave 5: I try and get all the mobs bunched up in the fire similar to wave 3.
• Wave 6: I've been popping army before it starts and focusing them down. I'll remorseless when army is about to fall off.
• Wave 7: Remorseless when it's back up. And open with rune weapon for the initial damage boost
• Wave 8: take the mobs to the fire as I do with every other caster wave
• Wave 9: Remorseless
• Wave 10: I tank the big guy in the fire and try and kite a bit with my engineering belt when he's enraged

As you can see my strategy sort of falls apart towards the later waves.... I've been stuck after wave 6. But I've been able to get through to wave 19 a few times, luck was involved. I feel this whole strategy needs a facelift.
If it helps I'm an engineer the trinkets I'm using are. Resolve or Niuzao (on use 2 min dodge trinket with mastery baseline) and the shadopan assault tanking trinket (on use 2 min dodge trinket with mastery baseline)
Talents are: Roiling blood, purgatory, asphyxiate, deathpact, runic corruption, remorseless winter
glyphs areutbreak, regen shield, vampiric blood.


I know it's a long read but I appreciate all the help I can get, and I'm sure other deathknights would as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Nevermind figured it out.

If you hit the mob right away the NPC will assist you, and she will always follow the target you've put the most damage on after the previous one dies.
This made things 1000x easier.

[Müdür]

I'd use Army of Dead on 7th or 8th wave. Gear-wise I went mastery and stamina, so I lowered my hit and exp to minimum. (well you know they dont get diminished, and other stats get the diminish more) Glyph of Dnd kiting helps on crowds in tight situations. Conversion is a crazy heal actually but I assume you suffer from spike damage so you can keep Death Pact. Afaik purgatory is useless (needs confirmation - I think the fight stops when you hit 1 hp. It doesnt trigger.) Even if it is not, I find Lichborne more useful. There's a nice macro to death coil-heal yourself.

#showtooltip Lichborne
/cast !Lichborne;
/cast [target=player] Death Coil

[Zerk]

Afaik purgatory is useless (needs confirmation - I think the fight stops when you hit 1 hp. It doesnt trigger.) Even if it is not, I find Lichborne more useful.

Not true. Purgatory does in fact work. It has saved my life on multiple occasions.

[Deleted]

Cannot remember the numbers on the waves well, but the most trouble I've had was vs the 3 mantid wave, and some occasional wave with banana tossers.

I did Proven Defender with Roiling Blood - Lichborne - Asphyxiate - Conversion - Blood Tap - Remorseless Winter
Icy Touch - 100% Anti-Magic Shell - Death Grip, un-glyphed AotD, though other configurations work too!

Lao Chin's liquid courage stamina-mastery, and Malkorok's stamina - cooldown reduction thing, gemmed quite a bit for Mastery/stamina. What can I say, I like having much health! Britomart with Stoneskin Gargoyle as weapon, w/e armor RNG gods bestowed upon me, there was quite a bit of evasiony stuff, I only min-maxed weapon and trinkets. Legendary cape, legendary metagem ._.

Virmen waves
I use Remorseless when stacks build up, I think around 10-ish on the waves with lots of Virmen. Move away till stacks fall off. Dancing Rune Weapon can delay stuff and clear them up sooner! Virmen are easy to control otherwise. So easy you should actually just use Remorseless/DRW on them.

Casters
I Death Grip a caster, while I taunt and icy touch or coil another, and corner pull. I dislike the idea of running after them, but that works too. Arcane Torrent is quite something! Needless to say, try let them create lava pools, and make enemies stand in the fire as much as you can, but with care!

3 Large Mantid of Death
Asphyxiate one whenever you can to mitigate, if the damage gets too big. Remorseless Winter with care, sometimes being tossed around the room turns out to save you. Or removes your Remorseless Winter stacks. Make sure you get knocked somewhere still close to your panda!

I used the short cooldowns more, combined Vampiric Blood with Mastery trinket. Asphy and Remorseless to CC and avoid getting overwhelmed. Dancing Rune weapon to try my luck, but more to burst and clear waves sooner. Truly your damage matters. Try clear waves fast, you noticed some waves begin with adds still standing, and that caused wipes for me too. Nice thing you seem to have a firmer grasp on the Panda's AI than I did, should help you a long way, she annoyed me quite a bit lol

Save IBF/Lichborne/Empower for 3 Mantid Wave, the Nasty Hozen wave, and wave 9/19/29. 9/19/29 are pretty overwhelming. Should get Lichborne, due to the way your glamorous panda heals you'll just dip -1% HP, then she heals you 1% and Purgatory falls off and you die.

Lichborne is beast, it instantly tops you. And then it tops you again.

You got a good plan, there, I'd advise saving stuff for wave 9, perhaps you should use Army at that point instead. Or, another way I went about it was blow everything on wave 9 and get your AOTD to distract the Large Conqueror that comes in wave 10, togheter with the Banana tosser they can be tricky without CD's at 30.

Ditching the evasion trinkets for something more reliable would help, even with Dancing Rune Weapon, there can be bad RNG. Activated Mastery seemed more dependable but it needed runes. But that's where Blood Tap comes along nicely! ^_^

Cooldown Reduction felt like it really made a difference, small as it was. Stuff with 1 min CD that can be used every wave get much more dependable with 5 seconds less in the cooldown. Looking at Vampiric Blood! ^_^

Lastly, Soul Reaper haste is king! Soul Reaper lots if you don't. Soul Reaper won it for me! Didn't gem haste but had a piece of armor or two with Haste.

Guess you knew most, but it should confirm quite a bit if you got doubts! It's all up to you, after all! Good luck there :3

[dixincide]

I've come a long way since posting this, I keep getting overwhelmed on wave 29 now... which is beyond frustrating.

I've been following this guide here which is amazing. It took some getting used to but now that I'm in sync with it I find I can get through most waves with out any need for cooldowns. I'm actually making it to the 25th wave without needing to use IBF. Problem is now I'm forgetting to even use those cooldowns when i need to which is just stupidity on my part but I'll fix that in time. I highly recommend it to anyone still working on this.


The video teaches you how to use death strike to get through every wave with blood charges. And then teaches you how to really get rid of a lot of the RnG associated with the actual attempt. It's a really different style of play from what I'm used to though so it took some adjusting but since adapting the strategy I've gotten to wave 29 about 8 times. I'm gonna try and push for the title tonight.

Update

I got the title earlier today, that makes it all 3 Proven titles for MoP. So I can join the tiny percent (which has probably grown a lot since this post) of the wow population to boast all three titles
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...Tweets-Fan-Art