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Talent Build Examples for Blizzard's New Death Knight
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.
It'll take another piece of your soul!
Translation: Not to start a flamewar, but let's talk about something off topic, since it's sure to be something that will get under the skin of the types of people who would read this particular article..
Maybe it's just me, but isn't that the definition of trying to start a flamewar?
Heath just died, and already you're calling it "The Death Knight"?
Too soon guys, too soon.
AoC is more interesting visually, and from levels 1-20.
That's about all.
Crappy content, annoying bugs, stealth changes/nerfs every tuesday.
Yeah, I subscribed for 3 months to give them a little boost, but I knew I'd stop playing after 1.
I'd expect this to be a great digg topic, but /.?
WoW has one good thing with MMOs. It keeps all the bad players in one place, so other MMOs (DAoC, EQ1, EQ2, Vanguard, CoH/CoV, etc.) have far better quality of players to group/raid with.
Ever since I became aware of AoC a few years back, I have been holding out hope that it will address what feels like the biggest failing of WoW: that content is spread so freakishly thinly across the world. I like the way Tycho on Penny-Arcade put it, that standing in Lakeshire makes you wonder why they don't bother making a game out of all the raw material they have in the world. You show up in a place, do a quest for 6 minutes, and then you leave the area, never to return.
Anyway, I hope that AoC invests more deeply in each location, building richness into what's already there instead of racing to build a hundred empty areas like WoW has.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
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!
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
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.
Axiom: "Not trying to XXX" should and will automatically be followed by something devoted to do XXX.
Although I agree with you, the OP is flamebaiting and offtopic, you should be aware of the aforementioned axiom.
Obligatory Penny-Arcade: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/7/14/
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Deathknight needs a nerf.
I like the way Tycho on Penny-Arcade put it, that standing in Lakeshire makes you wonder why they don't bother making a game out of all the raw material they have in the world.
It might not be the game Tycho wants. They made their game, and while somewhat entertaining it wasn't what I wanted.
And that's the heart of the problem. Some people want crazy continent-wide PvP. Some people just want to explore. Some people want to destroy the largest monsters in the world. Some people want shiny stuff. Some people want to be involved with, or be the focus of, a story. And some people just want to buy/sell/create stuff and never leave town. And everyone wants to do it at varying speeds (the casual vs. hardcore).
You can't please everyone. You can certainly try, but Blizzard has certainly given up in a lot of places. World PvP and crafting are definitely two that come to mind right off the bat. They are going to try for some things in regards to world PvP in WotLK but we'll see how that goes. They tried updates to world PvP in BC as well and that didn't turn out so great. Crafting is more of a money sink than anything else and is considered by many to be one of the worst crafting systems in MMOs. I doubt that will change.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
I always loved that comic :)
AoC has solved the issue in one regard: Due to travel requirements you have to at least RIDE THROUGH the old content again to get to the higher level content. Granted, it wastes 20 minutes of your time, but at least you can appreciate how nice it was to level in zones with sufficient quests to level you.
Sadly, I have to agree with the above poster that while interesting for levels 1-20 and having some nifty visuals, the game has failed on too many other levels from obviously rushed (read: buggy) code/patches to sparse higher level content. There are some design decisions too, but implementation is their biggest hurdle and as the 3 month subscriptions come around for renewal, they are quickly running out of time to address them.
I raised a HoX to 80 and called it quits. I suspect my attention will be directed towards WAR or WotLK by the time things are cleaned up.
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?
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
Embrace the deathport, the only *real* way to travel in AOC. (43 PoM before realizing the game was only half baked.)
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Most of the people whining about how their game is ruined by others ARE jerks, assholes, and selfish pricks out to ruin everyone else's day. Normal people just stop playing.
Pfft. That's not even true.
I'll have you know that my barbarian in EQ2 had some delicate earrings and a delicate necklace with a butterfly pendant. And let's just say that the "monk outfit" showed so much skin that you'd think skin cancer was all the rage. If you think being grouped with some Faeries made him look "teh ghey", you haven't seen him ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Any game that features PvE and PvP is never going to please everyone. It takes a great deal of effort to fairly balance a game for either PvE or PvP - it's almost impossible to do. People who play PvE want big weapons (or spells or whatever) that do massive damage, and if it can kill your opponent in one swing (casting, etc.) that's even better. In PvP, no one wants to go into a fight knowing that they can be one-hit-killed, so weapons, spells, etc. have to be toned down.
Crafting is another touch situation. If you can craft anything that is profitable, then everyone will jump on that wagon and drive the value down.
I have played a lot of MMORPGs (the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL back in the early 1990s, right up through WoW and have yet to find a game that can fairly and accurately balance a PvE and PvP situation to keep a majority of people happy - WoW comes closest, but there will always be people who are unhappy.
BTW - I'm playing Dungeon Runners right now and it's a blast (if a bit simple) and you can't argue with the price (free, or $5/mo if you want all the features).
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
And then you hit Hellfire Peninsula and spend three or more long, painful levels staring a the Mars like terrain getting squished by random fel reavers. Then you leave and are happy never to return to it.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
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 to have come at the cost of alienating the casual gamer. Tank classes in particular seem to have it the hardest since they are REQUIRED to have nothing but the best in order to survive, and often get replaced in favor of Druids and their 'I Win' tank form (Dire Bear). Now granted all classes are situational but it seems that in their haste to apply a multi-use class system, they have succeeded in seriously unbalancing key aspects. Needless to say this will come as no surprise to long term players, as Blizzards track record at 'balancing' classes is spotty.
Heroic Dungeons were also a poor idea, since by the time you are capable of doing them, your... well, sick of doing them. A better idea would have been to create more Zul'Aman type instances for heroics so that once a player can run them he will have new content to explore, rather than repeating the cookie-cutter method of getting through the instance as fast as possible for the badges. At the end of the day I believe this expansions success will have less to do about what new bells as whistles they add (after all everything gets old eventually), and more about how well they cater to the casual gamers. Please Blizzard remember that some of us want to have FUN, not farm gear endlessly.
The problem with BC world PVP is that there isn't much of a reward for doing it. The item rewards are pretty useless. You will out level them before you get them. Since there isn't really a compelling reason to control the world pvp areas, people rarely bother.
I'm sure if they opened up a level 70 PVP area in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley and rewarded badges of justice that would see some activity.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I'm not sure what you mean about there not being enough quests in each zone to level (in WoW). A few months back they released a massive patch that changed the whole 1-60 game. They changed quests to give a lot more xp, reduced the amount of xp you needed to level, and re-itemized quest rewards and instance loot so that they're actually somewhat useful rather than being random garbage.
In the latest patch, they threw a bone in to make it even easier - mounts are now gotten at 30, for less gold, instead of at 40.
Also, when Burning Crusade came out, both the new starting zones for the 2 new races were put in, and those will easily get someone to 20, are (in my opinion) interesting, well designed, and generally a lot more fun than the old starting areas.
I agree that vanilla WoW was pretty meh at points, but they've done a bit to change it. I wouldn't mind if they kept on adding new zones, but there's a fair amount of content there now.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
age of conan and world of warcraft are two close competitors for the top slot of mmo genre. the two games also generally employ very similar concepts. although age of conan generally expands on many of them.
whomever modded the parent offtopic is either someone who didnt play both of the games or a fanboi of world of warcraft. or clueless. either applies. combinations may apply too.
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Personally, I loved Hellfire Peninsula. The first time I walked through the portal, heard the music, saw the rampaging demons and the spacious sky I was simply awed.
Then I got squished by a Fel Reaver a half dozen times and became paranoid. I remember weeping once when I watched a line of Alliance and Horde questers get squished one after the other as they fought quest mobs, oblivious to the shaking ground.
Good times.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
The real problem with world PvP is that too many servers are faction imbalanced. When one side outnumbers the other 2:1 at ANY encounter, the whole thing becomes pointless.
Making it give rewards makes the problem worse, since the bigger side always wins, it'll also outgear the smaller side. It also encourages people to leech (such as AFKing in BGs and the rampant cheating in Season 3 arenas) to get the rewards faster, instead of actually playing.
(Honestly, world PvP was at its best in the days of the original Taren Mill vs. Southshore fights, which had no rewards whatsoever. People did it because it was fun, not to get l33t shinies.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Sorry, I got sidetracked by the off-topic parent and thus was off-topic myself. The mention of skimpy content was directed at AoC rather than WoW (which has never deserved a criticism for lacking content).
...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 may not become the uber class some fear it will.
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
Apparently you missed last week's patch that modified the fast travel points(wagon/boat) in the major cities to take you to the middle and furthest zones beyond - not just the nearest zone. ;)
you can find anything you want to know about all the class changes http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Classes they get updated there as they become available.
Mark of Conquest was a great Hunter item for long fights, at least back before I stopped playing. Dunno what it's considered now.
Of course, that was practically the *only* world pvp item worth anything.
Offtopic yes, though when was stating ones opinion over something trivial like a computer game in a calm fashion a fucking flamebait? Hell, this post is more flambait, it has hell and fuck! *gasp*
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 is nothing more than just a partial reroll. It would have been more interesting to see the culmination of progression based on existing toons - you do the 'hero' quests on your warlock,then you unlock the warlock 'hero' deathknight ability - to wear plate. Or do it on your priest, and unlock the 'hero' ability of the deathknight - to raise the dead and make your own skeleton army. Or on your shaman/druid and get the ability to cast 'death and decay.' That would have been more interesting - and you wouldn't feel like you're just shelving another toon out of the way to play the deathknight.
He did miss it, like a lot of other people, because he's not playing any more. Like him I left but I'll be back to Age of Conan some day. However I suspect I'll have burned out on WotLK before I do. Hopefully by then Funcom will have stitched something worthwhile from their corpse of a game, assuming it doesn't go the way of Asherons Call 2, which WOULD be a shame.
I'm glad I tried AoC but I'm glad I quit too.
Any game that features PvE and PvP is never going to please everyone.
That's very much true. Shamus Young wrote an interesting article about that just that last week. In it, he has a neat little analogy involving Will Wright and Cliff Bleszinski, representing the two types of players, making sandcastles on the beach.
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 growth rather than a high rate of turnover where I'd be more likely to have bigger ups and downs.
Eh, I'm a sucker and I'll plop down my money for the update on both my accounts, dual box my way up to 80th on both my mains, and get bored again until the next update. :)
The Digital Sorceress
I'm leveling a paladin and Hellfire is great! A lot all the mobs are demons and are melee. Then I tried to fight some naga in Zangarmarsh and the casters that freeze you tore me up.
Yeah, I had similar problems with WoW even though I started after it had been out a few months. Always crashing and disconnecting. Assertion errors in live code, etc. I should have learned my lesson to give the game a longer time to become release quality before starting to play. But I had several real life friends that wanted to play together, so here I am. :)
Unless you were lvl 30 or so and trying to quest, and instead kept getting one-shot by bored level 60s. The biggest problem with world PvP in WoW is that there's no reward for winning a fair fight, and no punishment for destroying someone who isn't a challenge to you.
In Team Fortress 2 there are advantages/disadvantages based on class, but for the most part, it's all about player skill. In WoW it's about level difference first, gear difference second, class difference third, and player skill last. Occasionally an undergeared, under-leveled, highly skilled player can defeat someone, but for the most part the wins go to the pvp-specced, pvp-geared, level 70, regardless of skill -- in particular if that level 70 in pvp gear is a rogue who can start from stealth.
WoW PvP needs an overhaul. On a typical horde-dominated PvP server, there can be twice as many active horde players as alliance players, which means that when a new area opens up (like the new island) the Horde can basically dominate the area and keep Alliance out until they get bored. On a typical PvP server your first PvP experience is walking into Redridge or Ashenvale and getting smoked by a player so many levels higher than you you can't even tell what level they are. Even if a bunch of lowbies gang up on a high level player they can't do anything, now that level-based resists work on players too. And don't get me started on afk epics...
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.
WAR IS EVERYWHERE WAAAGH