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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.
Not to start a big flameware about games. I realize that World of Warcraft is a massive game, with much more in-game content (for now) - but in my personal opinion, Age of Conan is a much more interesting game.
The main reason, for my part, is that it's based on a much more interested universe that has been explored in (mature) comics for many, many years. Now, with the release of the game, a whole new part of the universe has opened. A universe I personally find way more interesting and appealing than the universe of World of Warcraft.
(Of course, there's still the stability bugs, the memory bugs, the lack of content in many areas - and even the lack of areas .. but all that will be fixed in a timely manner. :-)
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
It'll take another piece of your soul!
Heath just died, and already you're calling it "The Death Knight"?
Too soon guys, too soon.
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.
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.
Obligatory Penny-Arcade: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/7/14/
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Deathknight needs a nerf.
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.
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.
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.
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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...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..."
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.
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.
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.
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