Having had a few hours to sleep and then a few more to digest the new information on the Death Knights, I'm finally getting a clearer picture of what the Death Knight will be able to do and how they'll fit into the existing hierarchy of classes, and I have to say, I'm still just as excited. There's a lot of questions that have risen from a lot of corners, but new information has come to light that may answer at least a few of them. First, let's look at some of the clarifications the CMs have been offering, and clear up some other questions from the comments of this morning's article about how creating a Death Knight will work: You have to have a character of at least level 55, not exactly level 55, to unlock the Death Knight. You do not sacrifice a character to make the Death Knight. They will be a completely new level 55 character. It is one Death Knight per realm, but not per an account. You can have multiple Death Knights on different characters. The unlock is currently account-wide. You can make your new Death Knight on any server, and on either faction (unless it's a PvP server where you already have characters). Anti-Magic Tanking and other Death Knight tricks This is also a good time to link yet another useful Death Knight article, this one by Ten Ton Hammer, which covers another aspect of the Death Knight's role. Just like the Paladin's niche is AE Tanking, the Death Knight's niche will be Anti-magic tanking (which will probably translate well to anti-magic PvPing). Ten Ton Hammer lists a few of their Anti-Magic abilities, as well as clarifying some of the other abilities we've already heard mentioned: Anti-Magic Shell: This ability uses a rune to surround the Death Knight in a shell that absorbs 75% of the damage from the next incoming spell and converts it to runic power. We've seen similar abilities before from Banshees, so it certainly fits within Scourge lore. Mind Freeze: All TTH says about this ability is that it interrupts casting, but with a badass name like that, you'd think it'd do more. wow gold Strangulate: One of the Runic Power finishing moves, which drains the Death Knight's Runic Power to silence a target for up to 5 seconds and cause some damage. Death and Decay: It causes AE Damage, of course, but apparently also has a chance to fear affected targets. We also learn from the TTH article that raising a Ghoul will last for 2 minutes. wow gold No mention if you can raise the same corpse more than once. Despite the two-minute limit, TTH quotes Tom Chilton as saying that he expects Ghouls to be one of the class defining features of the Death Knight, so it sounds like they'll be rather powerful while they're up. " "Some more information on Wrath has bubbled to the surface. wow power leveling This is like Christmas every day for me! I'm very excited. New bits in today's installment of Facts of the Lich King: Some Wrath mounts will be able to take passengers (!), and ground passenger mounts will work in the old world as well! This sounds awesome -- although it might be boring to be the one who's not driving, it could also let you take a break. And being able to cart around lower-level characters in the old world will really speed up those instance runs. mp3 players Trainers and AH will stay in the old world. Not surprising, but incredibly irritating. At best, it's a minor inconvenience and burns your Hearthstone timer. wow gold At worst, you're stuck in Stormwind for an hour when you could be doing much more interesting things, all because you wanted to respec or buy some mats. Not to mention the leveling-up process -- going back to the old world every level to train was obnoxious in BC, and it'll almost certainly be obnoxious in Wrath. Dalaran will be in one of the final Northrend zones. wow gold I'm not sure where I stand on this. Shattrath being in one of the earlier BC zones meant that players raced to it to be able to get back and forth between Outland, and possibly skipped content.
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We've seen similar abilities before from Banshees, so it certainly fits within Scourge lore. Mind Freeze: All TTH says about this ability is that it interrupts casting, but with a badass name like that, you'd think it'd do more. Strangulate: One of the Runic Power finishing moves, which drains the Death Knight's Runic Power to silence a target for up to 5 seconds and cause some damage. Death and Decay: It causes AE Damage, of course, but apparently also has a chance to fear affected targets. We also learn from the TTH article that raising a Ghoul will last for 2 minutes. No mention if you can raise the same corpse more than once. Despite the two-minute limit, TTH quotes Tom Chilton as saying that he expects Ghouls to be one of the class defining features of the Death Knight, so it sounds like they'll be rather powerful while they're up. " "Some more information on Wrath has bubbled to the surface. This is like Christmas every day for me! I'm very excited. New bits in today's installment of Facts of the Lich King: Some Wrath mounts will be able to take passengers (!), and ground passenger mounts will work in the old world as well! This sounds awesome -- although it might be boring to be the one who's not driving, it could also let you take a break. And being able to cart around lower-level characters in the old world will really speed up those instance runs. Trainers and AH will stay in the old world. Not surprising, but incredibly irritating. At best, it's a minor inconvenience and burns your Hearthstone timer. At worst, you're stuck in Stormwind for an hour when you could be doing much more interesting things, all because you wanted to respec or buy some mats. Not to mention the leveling-up process -- going back to the old world every level to train was obnoxious in BC, and it'll almost certainly be obnoxious in Wrath. Dalaran will be in one of the final Northrend zones.
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I'm not sure where I stand on this. Shattrath being in one of the earlier BC zones meant that players raced to it to be able to get back and forth between Outland, and possibly skipped content. wow gold On the other hand, if you have to go back to the old world just as much in Wrath as you did in BC, it'll be a giant pain not to have easy access to portals while you're leveling. We'll see. Blacksmiths may be able to add sockets to items that don't have them. Obviously this will have to be balanced with caution, since it could easily become overpowered; there are some nice gems out there. They want all professions to have some unique draw, similar to the epic BoP blacksmithing weapons. wow gold I approve. One new metal will be Cobalt. The new cloth is Frostweave, but we knew that already. Lake Wintergrasp (the outdoor PvP area) will have daily quests, a continent-wide buff, and probably something like today's Spirit Shards. I plan to stay well clear of it, but hopefully the world PvP fans will have something to keep themselves entertained. Chamber of Aspects will initially be a short Onyxia-like raid, and they may use that area to expand with other aspects later if they want to. Another raid, in the Nexus, will allow players to ride on the back of drakes and use their abilities during the fight. mp3 This sounds quite chaotic and also pretty cool. The devs think they didn't reward PvE enough in BC, and will try to reward it more in Wrath. I tentatively agree; PvP seems to be an easier way to epics for many players. We may see PvE ladders on the Armory, so we don't have to resort to WowJutsu. Honestly I like Jutsu, so we'll have to see what the Armory brings to the table. They want changing runes, for DKs, to be somewhere in between as difficult as respeccing and easy enough to do it between fights. wow gold Reset at inns, perhaps. Or anywhere, but with a 60 second cast time. DKs can use maces, as well as swords and axes. buy wow gold For some reason I thought maces weren't going to be allowed, but I guess swords and axes would be pretty limiting, and would also restrict Blizz's itemization potential. Blizz plans on introducing some more money sinks prior to Wrath, so we don't all go into the expansion with several thousand gold. wow gold Good luck making them attractive, guys -- I didn't fall for your silly ""of the Shattered Hand,"" so you'll have to do better than that. "