There's been a lot of random information trickling out about the newly introduced "Hero" class for WotLK. Damage-dealers, ability to tank, possible "over-powered" abilities incoming for the arenas.
Who plans on re-rolling one as their new main?
What are people's thoughts on ANOTHER possible tanking class being added?
They apparently can't use shields. What could this represent for the Tanking Aspect of WoW?
Crazy Runeswords!! Could this be the new "omgWarlock" class, or does it smell like another Paladin in the making?
Theory-crafting. GO!
Death Knights
* All players with a level 55 character will be able to create one Death Knight per realm, per account. (Gamespy.com)
* Blizzard's designers decided to start the class with a full complement of abilities right off the bat, figuring that any player that has advanced a character to level 55 would be able to learn to handle the new class with minimal difficulty. (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights will have a summonable Skeletal Deatcharger Mount. (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights aren't using Mana or Energy, the runes are their primary source of power and are slotted into their "blade," which lies underneath their health bar as a visual indicator of what resources are available to the player at any given moment. (Gamespy.com)
* Spent runes automatically refresh after a set period of time, much like a Rogue's energy bar. (Gamespy.com)
* There are six slots in the blade, and the player is free to fill those slots with any given number of Blood, Unholy or Frost runes. (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights also have a secondary resource called Runic Power generated by using your rune abilities. It will use the same mechanics as rage and increase when you deal damage, or slowly decrease if you're not using it. (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights will have a lot of abilities that cost all available Runic Power with varying levels of effectiveness based on total Runic Power spent. (Same mechanics as Execute for warriors, or finishing moves for Rogues) (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights will have spells equivalent to auras called "Presence", providing them with powerful self-buffs depending on their role in the group. (One for tanking, one for damage dealing, etc ...) (Gamespy.com)
* An instant lifedrain spell (described as death coil without the fear component) will be available. (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights will be the first class to use diseases as a source of damage, with abilities that become strong depending on how many diseases are already applied to the target. (Gamespy.com)
* "Army of the Dead" will spawn numerous undead minions to attack nearby hostiles targets. (Gamespy.com)
* Death Knights will also revive an enemy (or ally) as a ghoul to use it as a pet with its own special abilities like a disease-inflicting strike and a stun. (Gamespy.com)
* When an ally is risen as a ghoul, a pop-up will appear and this ally will have the choice to control the ghoul if he wants to. (Gamespy.com)
* The Death Knight's particular niche will be in tanking magic-damage-dealing bosses. They will have an ability much like a banshee's anti-magic shell, greatly diminishing the amount of incoming magic damage they'll receive in combat (Gamespy.com)
Death Knight Skills
* Death Coil -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing 600 damage to a non-Undead target, or healing 900 damage on a friendly target. (Curse.com)
* Death Grip -- This is the Death Knight's "taunt" ability. It also pulls the target to the Death Knight, forcing them to attack the Death Knight for a short amount of time. Yes, I said pulls the target; Blizzard is going to allow players to move mobs in the expansion both with Death Grip, and other knockback/pull abilities. This works on players too, so PvP balance ahoy! (Curse.com)
* Chains of Ice -- Roots the target in place. When the spell fades, it places a snare on the target that reduces in potency as the duration runs out. (Curse.com)
* Death Pact -- Sacrifices the raised ghouls to heal the Death Knight. (Curse.com)
* Death and Decay -- Targeted, AoE Damage-over-time which pulses similar to the Paladin spell Consecration. Anyone affected by Death and Decay has a chance to be feared. (Curse.com)
* Frost Presence -- Increases Armor by 45% and allows the Death Knight to generate 25% more threat. Only one presence can be active at any time. (Curse.com)
* Unholy Presence -- Increases Attack Speed and Movement speed by 15%. Only one presence can be active at any time. This was described by Tom Chilton as the "PvP" presence. (Curse.com)
* Anti-magic Shield -- Reduces the damage of the next magical spell cast on the Death Knight by 75%. It also converts the damage reduced into Runic Power. (Curse.com)
* Strangulate -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing minor damage and silencing the target for up to 5 seconds. (Curse.com)
* Summon Deathcharger -- Allows the Death Knight to summon a Deathcharger mount. This mount is acquired through quests, similar to the Paladin and Warlock land mounts. (Curse.com)
* Raise Dead -- Raises a nearby corpse to fight for the Death Knight for 2 minutes. If used on a player corpse, the player has the option to play as the ghoul for the duration -- gaining access to the ghoul's abilities. (Curse.com)
The ghoul has the ability to do the following:
Leap to the target
Rend for decent damage-over-time
Stun target, and of course more
Being casually elitist in WoW since 2005.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
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This crazy "radiance" buff that they have, as well as the Boss Abilities themselves. I read somewhere on these forums that the Sunwell bosses either can't Critically Strike or can't land a Crushing Blow. Someone clarify that for me, if you will.
I know that a couple bosses before Sunwell can't land certain types of attacks on your tank (Archimonde and Bloodboil during Fel Rage comes to mind), so what I wonder is if Blizzard is testing out a new Boss Mechanic, in preperation of this new class.
So, does that mean that Druids/Death Knights might be getting ready to make their debut as the "go-to" tanks for WotLK? Illidan has his crazy attack that can ONLY be stopped by a Warrior Shield Block, so what's to stop them from becoming the "gimmick boss" tank that you have to have, while Druids/Death Knights become the new workhorses?
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
Bwuh?
Edit: I do wonder if it's a good idea to add another tank class. We run one of each tank class right now and I can't imagine fights in WOTLK requiring four tanks. But I guess the druids and DKs will be able to DPS better when they're not needed to tank.
They could have a greater tank requirement on raid trash instead, and DKs and ferals just dps on the bosses.
edit: The sunwell radiance buff on sunwell stuff exists because druids were getting very close to 100% avoidance.
So, perhaps DKs will have some crazy new abilities for tanking certain types of mobs.
I still wanna' know what those Sunwell bosses are capable of doing, as far as tank damage goes. Crits/Crushes/ect. I'm wondering if DKs are going to become the "Caster Bear Tanks". Will make for some interesting PvP.
Okay, so it's a Dodge reduction, and the bosses can't crush. So, does the Death Knight use a Big 2h weapon, or does it Dual Wield?
Dual Wielding could be how it tanks, with equipping the OH weapon granting the DK a crazy +Parry bonus or something.
Interesting..
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
Let's play world of talent-tree-craft.
Unholy: Debuffs/reversals of enemy beneficial spells. Enemy heals do damage to their allies.
Runic: Weapon "inscriptions" that the deathknight inscribes onto his/her runesword to cast their spells. Melee skills like 2h mastery, chance to crit, flurry, parry, and all that basic stuff.
Undead: Erm...raise undead? Spell damage mitigation/absorption.
OR, what about a boss that you have 2 OTs for, both of which are Warriors, with the MT being a DK. They have to Spell Reflect a debuff onto the boss, A'la RoS, which in turn allows the DK MT to use some super spiffy tanking ability.
Interesting.
I still want to see more info released on them, simply to see what Blizzard has planned for their roles in Arenas/PvP. That Healing turned into Damage ability looks scary, but will it be something that is easily Dispelled off?
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
I hope they put it in just for the gigantic asshole factor.
(Seriously though I'm going to miss the War3 DK)
Maybe Death Knights will be caster killers, and that's why they don't use shields and focus on magic.. because that's what they'll be best at fighting. Not to say they won't be able to tank melee things also, but perhaps they'll have a focus on being an anti-caster tank.
The first sunwell bosses can't crush. The 4th one reportedly can, and is supposedly like playing dice due to it+random other abilities.
Still it only took Nihilum 14 hours to kill, so it'll stay unnerfed for a while.
If DK's were anything like War3, I would be back in an instant. Seriously.
...I think I will go install War3 now.
Maybe later. By install now I meant finally buy it, finish my homework, go to work, then install it.
Pallies own as trash-clearers, Droods own in general as boss-clearers. Warriors (and this is after tons of mathcraft I can dig up but can't find right now) apparently only start to get competative in T6 with Windfury up. It was on WoW-insider in their Warrior section.
Warriors are fantastic boss tanks. Like, awesome.
warriors have pummel for positioning a single caster mob, and can abuse LoS for the others
paladins and druids have to LoS
I can tank ten+ mobs in most heroics, shattered halls for example. but put me in front of the 2x greenkeeper 1x mender pulls in the beginning of heroic Botanica and I can only tank one pull at a time before magic damage overwhelms me
I wonder if they'll get some sort of special skill for parrying/dodging like pallies and wariors have for blocking, or if they'll go the route of druids and just have tons of stamina to be a damage sponge...
I think they'll have very heavy parry. They're duel-wielding, right? That seems conducive to lots of parries.
This is actually a good idea, if most of their threat generation was from parrying or on-parry abilities, it would allow them to tank only when they wanted to without needing a specific tank form or stance.
If they do this, I will roll an alliance character to gank them. Repeatedly. It's Zoro, goddamnit. Not to mention the fact that neither Kenshin nor Zoro dual wield.
That was probably for the best.
Steam: pazython
Anyway, a little history (wowwiki's) to maybe fuel more deathknight-craft:
The DKs of the 2nd war were undead necromancers created by Gul'dan to replace warlocks slaughters by Doomhammer. See: Teron Gorefiend.
The DKs of the 3rd war were in service to the lich king and created from living and undead humans (and sometimes other races) who were granted unholy runeblades, and most were former paladins who had forsaken the Holy Light.
For the purposes of WoW, DKs would probably be 3rd war born (and since no dk's of the 2nd war outside of Teron are known to have survived. Maybe Attumen in Kara), so we'll skip 2nd war DKs histories.
Arthas being the first DK of the 3rd war, gave himself over to Frostmourne, swore allegiance to the Scourge and invested with dark powers. Since then paladin warriors who answer the call of the Scourge and make a pact with the Lich King are granted vampiric runeblades.
These black (either in actual color or as in evil) runeblades are slowly charged with the life energies of those it injures and slays thereafter.
Weaknesses:
Holy Spells do extra damage to DKs.
Can be physically damaged, poisoned, petrified, etc.
Spell Abilities:
They gain the ability to inflict disease, may project a beam of necromantic energy (death coil), hurting enemies and healing undead).
Summon undead, leech life force, immune to all death spells and magical death effects.
Unholy aura: heal's undead and himself, while hurting enemies.
Magical fields:
Death, Shadow, Fire, Ice, Fire, and Holy in order.
Army of the Dead - summon undead minions
Unholy Embrace - corrupted healing and effects on the target. Consumes damage shields and deal damage.
Death and Decay - aoe
Blood Boil(?) - DoT that refreshes 2 blood runes
Death Coil
Design notes:
Tanking and DPS, 2h weap or dual wield(ack!). No shields.
Currently 1h and 2h swords/axes.
From what I just read (but didn't post...), the blood, unholy, and frost are types of runes that are inscribed into the DK's weap. They may not be the names of the talent trees.
I've got a 70 lock, 70 warrior and a mage, shaman, hunter, and rogue all in outland and I'm quite sick of all of them to be honest. It's about time WoW introduced a new class.
This would ensure that not all DeathKnights are using the same 3.8 speed weapon.
I will be rolling one, but I'm not sure it will be my main. I've pondered it, but I remain stubbornly attached to my current one (lawlrogue).
As of Blizzcon they have said they are not giving us more character slots per account, which I think it bullshit, but I have yet to delete my wee horde rogue. I won't play/level/spend time on her until I hear one way or the other, but I think deleting anything just yet would be acting hastily.
Yes, adding another tank capable class to the game is certainly a good idea. A shortage of tanks is what makes building groups on most servers (from my perusal of the forums, and annecdotally from my own experience) the toughest part of building a 5 or 10 man crew, as both run approximately 20% tanks. 25 mans suffer slightly less, as most run ~12% tanks (3/25) or less, with certain classes pulling 'double duty' on the same spec (feral tanks/dps through a gear swap). By being "the new thing" and a big draw of the expansion, Blizzard is guaranteed to have millions of Death Knights running around within weeks/months of release. Making them a tank class makes them more self sufficient and lessens the stress on players in the new content by providing DK's with their own 'tank' at will/respec. I predict many "4 DK's LF Healer" groups in the future.
The question of their tanking and dps viability in raids will be a point of contention, that is a guarantee. If they're too good, you risk alienating members who have struggled to retain their raid spots for years, but who can't bring X buff/debuff/utility, and thus you have to trim down the raid spots available for certain classes. Worst case scenario; the math works out and you replace melee with melee, aiming for a group that is a Feral Druid, Enhancement Shaman, DPS Warrior, Rogue, Deathknight, and rogues become a "one per raid, lawl" class. High dps, but not enough utility to justify trying to build two full melee groups out of.
If it's crappy, then new and 're-rolled' players will feel ripped off that they only get brought in as token deathknight so that loot doesn't rot and that the raid has one on hand for gimmick encounters or places where a unique skill comes in handy, or a bit of utility makes them too good to not have at least one on hand.
I'm very curious where Blizzard is going to go with this, and remain cautiously optimistic. Cutting the raid slots to 25 wasn't too bad, but introducing yet another class (and admitting that they want to introduce more hero classes with each expansion) is going to put the cramp on raid crews, particularly established high end ones.
For further information, someone has compiled a fairly decent amount of info and links on the official forums, found here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1777869906&sid=1