What I'm going to find interesting is the accelerated learning curve required to play one well at 80. When you roll a standard character, you've got 70 levels to learn all its abilities, strengths and weaknesses incrementally as you level. With the Hero Class - bam, you're given a nearly lvl 60 character with all the abilities and spells at once. You've then got only 20 levels to learn, gear and get skilled at a completely new class. Ever pick up a PTR character of a class you've never played? Yeah, it's kinda like that - whoah, this is cool...now what the hell do I do?

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Enter the Wipe Knight.

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It doesn't take 70 levels to learn to play a class well. Any decent player (I know I know, they are like smart blondes and bigfoot, but go with it ;) ) doesn't need 70 levels or 100-200 hours of play time to get the hang of a character. Starting the DK out so high won't be that bad, since the hardest part of it will be the rune system and learning how that works. There is no reason to force players to start at lvl 1.

The people who get it will get it and those that don't will go back to huntards.

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I disagree about the need to level from 1-70 to learn your character. I leveled my shaman to 60 being elemental then went resto for raiding. Until 60 I had never healed a group before. Then I went enhancement to level to 70. I had to learn how to play melee within those 10 levels and I believe I did a fairly good job. Anyone who has ever played a shammy I am sure will agree with me that elemental and resto are far different than enhancement melee fighting.
I went thru a similar process with my rogue leveling him from 1-70 sword combat and then switching to a more traditional PVP dagger spec. It took me about a week to get it figured out but there certainly was no need for me to go back and re-level my rogue to learn how to play it.
I am currently leveling a priest who, of course, is shadow specced and will remain so until endgame raiding in which I will respecc him to a healer so I can leave my shammy enhancement.
I hear people all the time claim you need to play a character thru a significant amount of levels to understand how to play the class correctly, but really now, who has truely needed to spend months playing a class thru 60 or 70 levels to "figure out" how to play it?

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I never said you NEEDED to go through 70 levels to learn a character. I do however think those that spend 70 levels playing a class have a distinct advantage over those of us that might pick up a PTR character when we've never played that class (which seems to be a similar experience to the Death Knight class).

I would also submit that changing specs and playstyle is a very different thing from grabbing a new class. I can switch to protection from retribution on my paladin and figure out tanking far quicker than I can pick up a druid and learn to play it properly.

Further there are the examples found all over realms and forums everywhere - of clueless level 70 characters, that even after they play through 70 levels still don't know some key elements of their classes (now imagine those people only going through 20 levels...how much more will they miss). And there's of course the players who you can tell ebayed their characters...they just don't know it as well as someone who spent 70 levels with it.

Even those of us that are really good at our characters and pick up solid playstyles early in the leveling are still learning new tricks when it comes to 70 - about once a month I pick up a new tip from someone that improves my playing.

All I'm saying is that the learning curve is going to be drastically steeper with the Death Knight, because you don't have 1-60 available to you as a learning experience.

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My Pally will kill all DKs on sight. :)

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While its true that you don't need '70 levels' to learn to play your class. Starting at 30-40 seems more reasonable. When you start at a high level there is the instant shock of having a full spell book and talent sheet that you have absolutely no idea about. So you have to sit there and spend hours just mousing over abilities to memorize what they do. Then you just have to guess at what sounds useful as you create your hotbar.

Switching specs is no big deal. You will still be familiar with the spells, approx damage, cast times, icons of your class. Not to mention likely discussed in depth with other members of your class about alternate spec pros and cons.

It's basically a given that someone will be (noticably)better at his/her class if they have played it from low levels, rather than starting maxed out.

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"I would also submit that changing specs and playstyle is a very different thing from grabbing a new class. I can switch to protection from retribution on my paladin and figure out tanking far quicker than I can pick up a druid and learn to play it properly."

I think I could take a class I'd never seen before, and just by doing a bit of reading instantly be a better player than the majority of nubsauces out there.

Learning a new character really isn't that hard. I think there are really three classes, which we tend to call roles: tank, DPS and healing. The "real" classes only change the trimmings of those roles. Since the Death Knight is a tank and DPS class, anyone who has done those roles before and isn't a complete idiot should pick it up in about 5 mintues, not 70 levels.

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LF1M Full on DK

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I don't think people are giving proper credit to how different some classes really are when you respec. As a warrior, I can respec from Protection to Arms/Fury or Fury/Prot on a whim and I know pretty much what I'm going instantly (this is why my respec cost stays fixed at 50g, I tend to respec once a week at the least) - but my resto shaman might as well be a different class from when he was enhancement. Shocks? I never even use them.

In the case of Death Knights, I think starting at 55 will be enough, since anyone who unlocks one will probably have at least one other alt he or she has played. The more classes you play the easier it is to switch between them.

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A better way to treat hero classes (considering they'll simply be new classes and supposedly not superior) is to make them much much harder to play.

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@6... What are you going to do? Heal them to death?

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>>>>Ever pick up a PTR character of a class you've never played? Yeah, it's kinda like that - whoah, this is cool...now what the hell do I do?

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what kinda gear will they start out with all greens

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@14: No, butt-naked wearing nothing but a "knave's shirt" ... Your first task will be to kill 20 level 54 wolves :)

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This makes me wanna play a DK even more, though I may have to delete on of my chars if they don't give an extra char slot for it :(

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honestly, it will be the same situation as we had before BC. Every body was like "WOHAAAAAA DRENAIS BLOODELFS" "ZOMFG SHAMANS ON ALLY SIDE..NEED NEED NEED"
but after some time the hype died down and people didnt want to invest the extra time in playing from 1-60 and then from there to 70. With the DK i think it will be rather similar. Big hype till the release but then a lot of people will be like "naa, fuck it" and play there old class and wait for a hero class that fits them more.

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"Enter the Wipe Knight."

Or perhaps more appropriately, the "DEATH" Knight
Buh Dum, Ching!!

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I'd like to think that choosing runes will be similar to applying poisons on my rogue. (albeit with less consumables) Anticipate who or what type of fight I'm about to enter into, and adjust accordingly. Though, overcoming the instinct to blind/vanish/sprint when I draw aggro will probably be more difficult.

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Oh, great. Introduce a class that might possibly help to alleviate the tank shortage, and then make it hard to play, thus restoring the initial shortage. Way to go, Blizzard. *sighs*

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