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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Talent Build Examples for Blizzard's New Death Knight 130

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the balance-is-always-a-fun-game dept.
With Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King NDA out of the way, there has been the inevitable flood of information about the new expansion hitting the streets. One of the most sought-after pieces of information is anything about the new class being introduced, the Death Knight. Massively has a great summary, with video examples, of the three different avenues available to the Death Knight. From the AE strengths of unholy, to the life-stealing blood tree, to the control of the frost tree, it seems that this new juggernaut is certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with.
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Talent Build Examples for Blizzard's New Death Knight More

Talent Build Examples for Blizzard's New Death Knight

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  • It'll take another piece of your soul!

  • Too soon! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2008 @02:44PM (#24278435)

    Heath just died, and already you're calling it "The Death Knight"?

    Too soon guys, too soon.

  • Class balance finally revealed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wylfing ( 144940 ) <brian@@@wylfing...net> on Monday July 21, 2008 @02:50PM (#24278539) Homepage Journal

    Now we finally understand Blizzard's strategy of class balance and all this "e-sport" nonsense! You see, they'll introduce a new class that is so vastly superior to all the others that everyone stops playing the other classes.

    Balance issues solved!

    • Balance can also be achieved when the only players left playing are those who don't care about whether they have the most powerful class or not.

    • Obligatory Penny-Arcade: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/7/14/ [penny-arcade.com]

    • Re:Class balance finally revealed (Score:4, Informative)

      by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Monday July 21, 2008 @03:08PM (#24278781) Homepage Journal

      Well from the videos I have seen I would sadly have to agree.

      Yet as a HERO class what else can they do and still set the class apart? I think their biggest mistake with this class is the fact only one HERO class is coming. They should have had at least two. Still, TBC and further additions of content have turned the game into Monty Hall. You either PvP or Raid else you don't get the shiny stuff. No long drawn out quests compete with raiding epics or welfare epics.

      This class seriously risks replacing some classes or variants of classes. Yet I expect the one place where it will be put in its place is among raiders. They don't suffer so much the flavor of the month. So if it shows up in significant numbers during raids that will truly indicate whether or not it is overly powerful. Hardcore raiders are of a different mindset than arena players or pvp bg play. Whereas gimmicks rule the day for pvp (arena,bg) its teamwork and synergy that rule raids.

      If anything I guess we needed a monty hall class to go with the monty hall loot.

      • The DK class will serve one major purpose and that is as a tank. As anyone who plays WoW knows, there is a massive shortage of viable tanks (prot-spec warriors or tanking druids, with the proper gear). Since most raid spots only need 1 or two tanks, if you still want to be guaranteed a raid spot or be nigh-unkillable in PvP, roll a healer.

        • Re:Class balance finally revealed (Score:5, Informative)

          by archen ( 447353 ) on Monday July 21, 2008 @03:34PM (#24279187)

          Things will be changing however. Currently tanks (and healers somewhat) simply cannot do enough damage to solo things very well. In the expansion everyone will do more damage, and thus have some solo viability. Threat generated will also be changed and it looks like people will be able to tank more with an off spec. And from what I've seen the tank shortage (aside from the large responsibility) often comes down to the fact that when you are spec'd to tank, that's about all you can do, and many would like to do other things.

          The Burning Crusade made a lot of good changes and made many classes viable, but it also seemed to pigeon hole just about everyone into one spec and/or one job. It looks like Blizzard is trying to allow people to have much more versatility in the way they play, while still being viable.

          • Re:Class balance finally revealed (Score:5, Insightful)

            by bwindle2 ( 519558 ) on Monday July 21, 2008 @04:38PM (#24280179)

            If they really want to fix the soloing problem AND the tank/healer shortage all at once, they need to make respecs free. My paladin has a great healing set, and a decent tanking set, and a meh ret set. I am not willing to drop 100G to respec prot and back again to tank some pug that'll likely suck anyway. I also can't afford to drop 100G to respec Retibution to do (some) better damage for soloing.

            But if re-specing were free, or at least a heck of a lot cheaper, I might.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by archen ( 447353 )

              Actually they're looking to do something like that. I can't recall the details off the top of my head, but it was something like you could switch between builds or something to that effect. I'm not sure if it would be free, but I seem to remember them saying it would be more or less.

              Blizzard is actually quite perceptive here in my opinion. Some servers are really starting to suffer the talent drain from the gamers who came to World of Warcraft, they played, they conquered, they left for the next challeng

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by shermo ( 1284310 )

              Talent stables will allow you to freely switch between 2 specs.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by andi75 ( 84413 )

                Just two specs? Druids need at least 11...

                PvE:
                - Tree
                - Boomkin
                - Pure Feral DPS
                - Hybrid Tank/DPS

                PvP(Battlegrounds):
                - Healer
                - Boomkin
                - Feral

                PvP(Arena)
                - Healer 2vs2+3vs3
                - Healer 5vs5
                - Boomkin
                - Feral

                I guess shamans & paladins won't ask for much less :-)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Squiggle ( 8721 )

              Free respecc-ing made Guild Wars a million times better. I would push really hard for this in WoW, it will make a world of difference. We (mainly the expert PvP players teamed up with the casual players) had to complain and advocate for months on the forums for the change.

              The only real problems it caused were that people strengthened their "the right way" attitudes, where there were particular specs that were deemed the best way to tackle any particular challenge. This happens anyways and people get left ou

          • Don't play anymore, but as much as I loved my warrior it is probably the worst class in the game. You're at the mercy of every other class until you can (if you EVER can) get close enough to use your anti-caster talents. And, that's if you're a TANK! Any other spec and you're worthless save soloing. Though, going dual wield and berzerker is fun just to watch your rage build up.

            Warriors need natural magic resistances, or better anti-caster tricks. The only other option is to hope you always have an equ

        • You left out paladins. Druids cannot block. There are fights that still have crushing blows. Also, with the latest buffs from the released specs on Paladins, it looks like their successes will only continue.

      • You either PvP or Raid else you don't get the shiny stuff. No long drawn out quests compete with raiding epics or welfare epics.

        AFAIK there will be three different levels of raiding epics (heroic, 10-man, 25-man) with their own tier progression so it should be possible to get nice gear with casual gaming in lich king. I'm also guessing that the rating changes in season 4 are a sign of things to come, so the pvp/arena in lich king will require good ratings for epics. I.e. no more welfare epics.

      • You either PvP or Raid else you don't get the shiny stuff.

        Huh. I guess I imagined my shiny crafted epics. Oh well.

  • news? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zironic ( 1112127 )

    What exactly makes this newsworthy? The NDA was lifted over a week ago and it's still alpha and in my experiance alot changes between alpha and release when it comes to blizzard.

    • Re:news? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MooseMuffin ( 799896 ) on Monday July 21, 2008 @03:01PM (#24278657)
      You're in the games section. The newsworthy requirement is significantly reduced.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Narpak ( 961733 )
        Indeed. The idea of a headline listing is to give you a wide range of selection; interesting to some; not so to others. You do not need to read or comment on that which do not interest you.

        • I'm interested in games, i'm even directly interested in WoW and i'm planning to get myself a deathknight, it's just that this isn't terribly new or interesting information.

  • Deathknight needs a nerf.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PhilHibbs ( 4537 )

      Woah, a DK with a nerf gun! That would be awesome, it would... hey, hang on, that's silly.

  • All classes are imbalanced in certain situations or against certain classes. Resto spec druids are a good example, almost impossible to take down. Not a huge deal in most situations as they eventually run out of mana, run away, or 5+ people eventually mow them down but for WSG for instance, they make almost unstoppable flag runners. Rogues are another good example: cheat death (although recently nerfed), vanish, cloak of shadows, and stun/mace spec makes fighting most classes one on one or two on one a joke. Once again not a big deal until half the team is rogues and your team gets mowed down as they spawn.

    WoW already has unbalanced classes or specs... why makes us think they are going to really care if the Death Knight is out of whack? Isn't that the whole idea as it's a "Hero" class?
    • There's really no imbalance since you can always roll any of the classes. Flavor of the Month got you down? Roll one.

      This won't be any different from the DK. Everyone will be able to roll one. At first I thought it'd at least require you to sacrifice a character you already leveled or do a series of quests but I haven't heard anything more about that in a long time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Durrok ( 912509 )
        I agree with you and actually my resto druid just hit 64 last night. ;) Mostly just because our Battle Group is severely lacking in healers while it seems like all alliance has on our side is healers and rogues.

    • I agree with all of the above. WoW is all about RPS [wikipedia.org]. I am a Mage, so restoration Druids could as well be immortal when we fight one on one, but on the other hand I can run away from virtually any class (even hunter, unless BM) and so, in a way, I get to choose my battles.

      I don't see what the commotion is all about. DK will fit into that picture just fine, and will probably change considerably over the first six months.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Durrok ( 912509 )
        You can run from a rogue? With slow poisons, deadly throw, blind, stuns, etc? My main is a frost mage and while from time to time I can get away generally a rogue on me is eventual death unless I have someone helping me out. Usually it's not even worth trying as I have to blow most of my cool downs to get away... and the rogue is still alive.

        • He could be a fire or elementalist mage. Blazing Speed is a pretty frequent proc against fast attacking Rogues.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by aikouka ( 932902 )
            Blazing Speed has a chance to fail if the rogue has enough points in Assassination to get Vile Poisons. This is also true of Gnome Mages that try to use Escape Artist. There are a ton of different variables that can go into how easily (or how difficult it is) to get away from a rogue as a mage.

            Rogues are the one class you don't want to let get close to you and with Blizzard's nerf of Adrenaline Rush and the buff to Shadowstep, it pushed more rogues to the latter (where some use Mutilate now with the Imp

        • Without slowing poison, I just need to blink, slow, and keep running. If a rogue is well prepared with poisons and stuns, it may end badly, but with some luck I can simply insta-sheep and walk away.

          • Cloak of Shadows + sprint + stunlock. Makes it tough to get away. However, as a rogue, I find a lot of clothies to be very soft and chewy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by brkello ( 642429 )
        True. WoW's classes are rock, paper, scissors. Except Warlocks...they are mushrooms. (hope someone else gets this reference)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fitten ( 521191 )

      Welcome to class based systems... All that time invested in a single toon and as soon as the nerfbat swings, you're hosed. Your only solution is to have a toon for every possible combination of race/class so you can switch whenever the flavor-of-the-month changes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eht ( 8912 )

      Blizzard has said repeatedly that "Hero" class only means it starts as level 55, not that it should be considered special in any other way.

  • Sadly Blizzard seems to have lost the point behind expansions first with Outlands, and now with this new class. My greatest concern is that rather than focusing on new content that everyone can enjoy as they did in the original, instead they have just ramped up the difficulty on mobs so much that only insanely well geared people will even SEE most of the end game content. Now I'm not sure if this was an attempt by Blizzard to introduce more of the 'teamwork' element that served them so well, but it seems t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tridus ( 79566 )

      Tanks get replaced by Druids? (Feral tanks actually scale badly past T4 content, Warriors and Paladins are safe, and Warriors are in fact specifically required.)

      Vanilla WoW not having content only the most hardcore with the best gear can do? (Never heard of the great blunder, Naxxramus? So few people saw that one they're redoing it and putting it back in Wrath.)

      Man, did you stop playing 2 years ago or something?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk ( 25521 )

        Feral tanks don't scale badly past T4 content, it's just a real pain to get the required gear. Feral tanks can handle all of Hyjal and all of BT except for Illidan and RoS, since Illidan requires shield block and RoS requires spell reflect. Having said that, the best feral tanking weapon drops in the first real 25 man raid (SSC), the only tanking options for certain slots are tier gear, whereas warriors and paladins get lots of options, and maintaining crit immunity actually gets harder as you progress,

    • A few points:

      1) Only insanely well geared people saw most of the endgame content before BC.
      2) BC raiding is more casual friendly than pre-BC raiding.
      3) Heroic Dungeons were a good idea implemented badly.
      3b) The development resources used to create Heroic Dungeons wouldn't have been enough to create a new raid (they're probably separate teams anyway).
      4) There's plenty of fun to be had already, and Blizzard looks poised to improve further still.

    • First off, your entire post makes you seem like someone who hasn't even experienced most of the game you're trying to talk about.

      My greatest concern is that rather than focusing on new content that everyone can enjoy as they did in the original, instead they have just ramped up the difficulty on mobs so much that only insanely well geared people will even SEE most of the end game content.

      There was a gear reset at 70, everyone was on an even level. You have just as much of a chance at getting to the end-game as everyone else who's seen it has. How do you think they got that gear? It didn't just fall from the sky. There will be a gear reset at 80 as well. The entire point of an MMO is to entice people to want more and better stuff. If you got to a point where t

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by aikouka ( 932902 )
      You don't find a lot of tanks in WoW, because of how the spec is so poor at doing anything other than tanking. Sure, you can kill a mob, but hand-in-hand with it taking forever... it's awfully boring.

      Blizzard is actually changing this in WotLK by taking a few key talents in each class that has a tanking capability and adding them into the skills. For example, warriors will now get Shield Slam at level 40. Also, Defensive Stance will now receive the additional threat enhancement from Defiance by default

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brkello ( 642429 )
      Actually, Blizzard would probably be the most trusted name in balancing thanks to their work in Starcraft and Warcraft. They have to balance many classes for both PvP and PvE. There is no way that one won't end up stronger than another. Heroic Dungeons was a very good idea because it allowed people to continue to get gear without having to be in a raid. I agree that it becomes boring content-wise, but raiding does the exact same thing so I don't think the criticism works here. I agree that the smaller r

  • ...that will make it overpowered. If does not get the gear to push those talents and skills they may very well flop. Druids specced feral before the expansion was released where considered sub-par DPS and not a great threat to players PvP wise. After when the gear designed for them was released, the weeping was so great they have to scale back some of the abilities.

    If they are not thought of in the itemization then or their gear is itemized poorly. Then no matter how cool the abilities are, Deathknights

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Achoi77 ( 669484 )

      Which is tragic, because these Hero classes don't feel so... heroic.

      I thought hero classes should have been progression based depending on class. As it stands essentially the hero class is nothing more than 'just another tank' or 'just another melee dps' or 'omg war with deathcoil? NERF!' It appears to have nothing to do with the main avatar you are playing.

      Yes yes, I understand that the leveling curve in WoW has gotten so easy that many people have multiple characters on one account, but seriously, this

      • While I agree with your proposition about unlocking abilities per-toon, I think the problem is that Bliz is facing is that they want to get new people interested. However, without them nerfing the leveling curve and/or doing this whole hero class toon starting out so high up thing, they're only going to appeal to existing players.

        Of course, if I were Blizzard, I'd be more concerned about keeping my existing player base interested, figuring that I'd rather see slower but consistent long-term monthly account

  • you can find anything you want to know about all the class changes http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Classes [wotlkwiki.info] they get updated there as they become available.
  • The biggest problem with WotLK won't be balance it will be the new abilities. Most people are at the limit of what they can fit on hotbars already. It looks like in WotLK they won't be adding new features to existing abilities (garrote), or obsoleting a new ability (claw -> mangle) but instead will be adding even more abilities. If you have 57 abilities you can use at any one time, it will just be overwhelming.

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