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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.
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.
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.
You're in the games section. The newsworthy requirement is significantly reduced.
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've seen just as many asswipes in other games as in WoW. While many of them leave for WoW eventually, most don't -- some even bring back bad habits from WoW.
I think the other poster is right -- it's got nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with the scale.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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 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
...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..."