I deleted four toons today. I know that Wrath of the Lich King is quite a ways off, but I wanted to be prepared. First of all, I wanted to ensure I had a character slot free for my Death Knight. Although I'm not sure I'll be leveling it all the way to 80, considering the jump start at Level 55, it's a much better leveling grind than the alts I deleted, the highest of which was a Level 40 Shaman. I sold all my Soulbound items, mailed all not-so-junk items to my wife's toons, and promptly hit the 'delete' button.
Deleting my toons wasn't as hard as I imagined it to be, the hardest part was getting rid of all the items I'd accumulated. I did this primarily as a way of cleaning house... after all, I hadn't been playing with my alts all that much and one or two were mere bank toons. I haven't deleted my Level 42 Tauren Hunter and Level 28 Blood Elf Rogue because I'm still considering leveling them (unlikely). Of course, what I'm really hoping for is for Blizzard to finally allow PvE to PvP transfers just so I can finally bring my Level 60 Hunter and Rogue over to my server. With two toons leveled to 70 on a PvP server, I think I've paid my dues. Whether or not that happens, I'll probably end up deleting those two toons anyway.
So there, I'm making space for my Death Knight. I needed more character space because I'm reserving some character names. When Wrath is finally released, there'll be a mad rush for cool Death Knight names and I don't want to be stuck with a lame one. In a way, I'm streamlining my character inventory the way Blizzard's cleaning up the game in the expansion. I guess conditioning my mind for a Death Knight has allowed me to remorselessly excise my alts. Are you doing anything drastic to prepare for Wrath?
I know, I know. It's too early to actually figure out how Death Knights will work in PvP. Humor me for a bit. The new class, with its juicy talents and abilities, even if they will get changed before Wrath of the Lich King hits the shelves, have got me really excited. They have some pretty cool spells and a new resource mechanic that promises to shake things up as far as gameplay is concerned. I'm not big on alts, and I play mostly on my main and a secondary toon that really needs more love, but I actually want to make a Death Knight. I'm not an alt-o-holic, but I think I'll be taking it all the way to Level 80.
Of course, while I tell all my friends that I'm finally making a toon I'll be happy to tank with, what I'm really thinking about is PvP. I had initially wanted to make a Death Knight class when the game was announced, Death Knights being my favorite Hero in Warcraft 3. I thought Warlocks were the going to be it, considering the Death Coil spell, but I ended up never making a Warlock at all. But now here's the real deal. Plate armor, badass Rune weapons, Deathchargers, and all things ooky, spooky, and vile. Sounds like a lot of fun to me.
Moviewatch commenters are always asking to see some action. I've decided to cave in and give you what you want! Devlin filmed this epic battle scene on the EU Coldarra beta server on the 19th.
Weighing in at a whopping 383mb and 1680x1050 resolution, this video focuses on the Death Knight's introduction questline. It deals with lore involving Arthas, the Fordring and Mograine families, as well as a new alliance. For more WotLK beta gameplay videos, check out Daniel Whitcomb's in-depth look at the quest. Note: As you might expect from that description, this video may involve spoilers about Death Knight lore and the starting area.
Remember a little while back, when someone accidentally added the Death Knight to the Classes page on the official site? Now the DK class description page is there, although it seems that this too is probably an accident (the DK entry is still gone from the Classes page). As expected, it contains nothing in the way of new information, aside from a fetching misspelling of "Alternative" and a frankly terrifying picture of what looks like a Dwarf Rogue (obviously faked; everyone knows there's no such thing).
Still nothing mentioned in "standard bars" about runes or runic power. Also the "Allowable Weapons" (listed as Axes, Defenses, Polearms, Swords, Two-Handed Axes, Two-Handed Swords) still doesn't match up with what we expected (one- and two-handed Axes, Swords, and Maces are what we've been told before). And Blizz doesn't usually call it "Plate Mail;" typically it's just "Plate." Anyway, I vote "slip-up" on this one as well – anyone want to take bets on how long it'll stay up?
Okay, this is so massively spoiler ridden for Death Knights, their role in the lore, and how you will be experiencing their gameplay that I cannot in good conscience post it without first warning you, and more than once. This is pretty darn epic, and thanks to the folks at DeathKnight.info, I can finally say I now actually want to play a Death Knight. (If you follow that link you may well see spoilers, so be warned.)
No, I'm completely serious here. This is levels upon levels of spoilers that deal with years of Warcraft lore. If you want to see this fresh when you first roll your new Death Knight, then you don't want to read any further. It involves factions and characters we've all come to know. I personally love this kind of thing, but if you're someone who just can't stand finding out before you get to experience it yourself, then you shouldn't read any further.
You still here?
Okay. I'm not going to post the link or explain what I'm talking about here on the front page. I don't think that would be cool. So we're going to take this into the dark, shadowy places Death Knights are pretty at home in anyway. Follow me, if you will... after the jump.
You can now get your beta discussion going on with Blizzard via the Wrath of the Lich King Beta Forums, which have been made open to the public. This means you do not have to be in the beta to view the forums, but you do have to have to be in the beta to post in them.
This is great news for those of us who want to keep track of all things Wrath, with comments and discussion happening right from Blizzard. They'll surely be a treasure trove of knowledge during the upcoming testing phase.
It's turning out to be quite an exciting beta night. Stay tuned for more.
With new talents and spells for all the other classes having come to light by now, it would be easy to understand if Paladins and Hunters were feeling a little bit left out. I don't have talent trees or anything to share with you right now, but I do at least have a few tidbits that appeared in the official Wrath of the Lich King Alpha forums yesterday:
Hunters:
Loyalty is being removed for pets, though you will still have to feed them to keep them happy.
They're looking at pet stat scaling, especially in PvP, and particularly resilience; they want pets to be killable if that's what other players want to do. The idea is to make you, the Hunter, strike a balance between damage and mitigation for your pet.
There will be new abilities in the pet talents, including "some that will make it less painful when your pet dies just a few moments into a fight."
They want all pet families to be viable (Wryxian mentioned specifically turtles; they should have more DPS now while still having powerful defensive abilities).
Update: New pets will only need to gain a maximum of five levels, implying that if you're level 80 and tame a level 17, it instantly becomes level 75 [thanks, Wabbajack].
Paladins: The devs recognize that Holy is at a bit of a weak point right now relative to the other healing classes. The goal is for Holy Paladins to be powerful single target healers: they should be tank healers, or be able to spot-heal a low-health target "super fast." They're working on building "mechanics that don't make running fights so punishing," as well as new talents and skills.
There's also a note for Death Knights: Death and Decay and Army of the Dead are feeling too similar, both being long-cooldown AoE abilities. To remedy this, Army of the Dead is going to become an emergency button (Wryxian compares it to Retaliation or Recklessness), while Death and Decay is having its cooldown lowered to let it become more part of your normal spell rotation.
Ooh, someone on the Blizzard web team is going to get in trouble. I took the above screenshot straight from the official Classes page, and obviously it wasn't ready to be published quite yet (click for a slightly bigger version). But can we actually glean anything new from the Death Knight text? (The "Find out more about death knights" link returns to a 404, so no help there.)
No. There is absolutely no new information here. There are some obvious mistakes though:
Type: should probably be "Tank and melee DPS" or some such (so should Warriors, come to think of it).
Available weapons: as far as we know, DKs won't be able to use daggers, fist weapons, staves, or polearms. I guess that may have changed, but I'm just not seeing "rune staff."
Standard Bars: no mention of runes or runic power.
And it's pretty amusing that they clearly made the Death Knight section by copying and editing the Warrior section (which is how these inaccuracies crept in there). Anyway, I take this as a sign that development on Wrath is moving forward and the beta is approaching (after all, the alpha is over).
With the advent of the Burning Crusade, flying and epic flying mounts at 70 became a sink for the extra gold floating around Outlands in player's pockets. There has been speculation ever since about what a similar sink might be in Wrath of the Lich King.
In jest, Nethaera put forth the following: Animal rescue centers will be set up by D.E.H.T.A (Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals) and the movement to rid the world of Nessingwary will need funding! Save the penguins! Save the world!
Considering what a pain the Nessingwary quests can be, it's almost sad that he gets to continue recruiting for the butchering of beasts. Still, at least there will actually be penguins to "save!"
She also hinted at some of the actual possibilities for our next big purchases. Inscription will be the next trade skill, which will likely see many players dropping other professions and paying to level it, as well as all players shelling out hard-earned gold in order to purchase inscriptions on a regular basis.
Death Knights are in the unique position of being open to every race (Warriors can choose any race but Blood Elf). This means you will have a lot of options for trying to pick the best racial bonuses for your new DK; complicating the matter is the fact that DKs can both tank and DPS. Milkgas, of Anvilmar (US), recently wrote in with the opinion that Dwarves would be optimal for a tanking DK, due to their frost resistance (speculating that frost will be prevalent in Wrath). But let's go over the options (listing only the racials that seem relevant to DKs):
Horde:
Orc: Blood Fury would be handy for DPS, not so good for tanks; Hardiness, on the other hand, would be nice, if not essential, for a tank to have; and Axe Specialization is helpful, given that axes will be available for DKs to use as rune weapons (as well as swords and maces)
Tauren: War Stomp is great for PvP. Endurance is probably the best overall tanking racial out of all the races. And Nature Resistance will probably be handy somewhere, though it's not a huge deal.
Troll: Berserking is a useful, if occasional, boost.
Forsaken: I still contend that Will of the Forsaken is overpowered. May certainly come in handy while tanking, and of course in PvP. Shadow Resistance, like Nature Resistance, is a marginal benefit.
Blood Elf: It remains to be seen how the Mana Tap/Arcane Torrent system will work with DKs' Runic Power, but this has the potential to be very useful. Magic Resistance is, numerically, stronger than any other race's inherent resistance - you wind up with 25 points of resistance overall.
I've been having fun with Wowhead's new Wrath of the Lich Kingtalent calculators lately. Since I couldn't fiddle around with my favorite class' talents just yet, I decided to play with the Death Knight talent trees. Although I have yet to actually playtest the class (keeping my fingers crossed for that elusive Beta key...), studying the new talents and spells made it apparent to me that Blizzard was now working on a completely different level. The class design is so bold, fresh, and completely unlike any class we've seen before.
With each patch and expansion, Blizzard has demonstrated a keen sense of learning. One of the things I truly enjoy about their talks, such as the panels during the Worldwide Invitational event in Paris, France last month, is when they illustrate their learnings and what they've come up with in response. For the most part, each iteration of their designs is progressively better than the last. Take World PvP, for example. Their first attempts were silly and laughable, such as the sandlol in Silithus. In Outlands, however, they implemented several World PvP objectives that were more successful, particularly Halaa and the Bone Wastes. In Blizzcon 2007, they talked about the things they learned so far, which make me truly excited for Lake Wintergrasp.
The Death Knight is another matter altogether. It's a new class. With the Burning Crusade, Blizzard simply added new races, which wasn't too difficult to balance. With the coming expansion, they've designed a class from the ground up -- and from what I can see so far, they've broken the mold and created something that doesn't quite follow the conventions we're become accustomed to. If anything, the Death Knight is a shock to the system. Looking through the talents and spells, a few key design points stood out for me.
For some of you, it may strike you as a little early to be thinking about your level 80 talent builds - especially given that Wrath is still in alpha and everything we think we know about it may change - but I say, it's never too early to theorycraft. That is why I'm pleased to report that Wowhead, having gotten a chance to play some Wrath at WWI, made talent calculators for the Wrath alpha talents, including Death Knights. Now we can play with our shiny new builds to our hearts' content. Paladins and Hunters have not had their talents implemented in the beta yet, so you won't find them there, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.
Inveterate priest fan that I am, the first thing I did when I got my hands on this was make a build for my holy priest, and this is what I came up with: 14/57/0. Yes, I'm finally excited enough about Holy to spec away from Improved Divine Spirit; Guardian Spirit just looks too good to pass up, at least in its current form. As far as my Rogue goes, it depends on how Murder Spree ends up working, but I'm thinking either 21/50/0 (Cold Blood combat, yay!) or 20/51/0. Death Knights I still can't quite get my head around, but it sure is fun to play with their talents.
Last Saturday, as always, we sat down and spent about an hour discussing the latest and greatest in the World of Warcraft, and the results are now online for your listening enjoyment. Turpster and I were both on, as well as John "BigBearButt" Patricelli, and Kyle Horner, a blogger on our sister sites Massively and Big Download.
Turpster talked with us about WWI, what he thought of the big event in Paris, what it was like to play a Death Knight, and why he thought it was even better than last year's BlizzCon (including why this year's BlizzCon might be even better).
Kyle spoke with us about being a player who's just now getting back into WoW, and what he's excited for in the next expansion.
We talked a little bit about TCG cards, and whether it's fair for Upper Deck to give away the TCG loot.
We talked about the timing of the beta, and what the plan is for the rest of the Wrath release.
Definitely a fun show (and it features the only time I've ever gotten really angry at Turpster, though it turned out to be no big deal, and he's probably not fired from the show. Probably.). Give it a listen over on the WoW Radio page, and if you have a question comment, or insight about something we said, don't hesitate to email the show itself -- theshow@wowinsider.com is the address.
Thanks for listening as always, we'll see you next week.
Ever since we heard way back at BlizzCon last year that Death Knights would be available for all races, the lament has been heard: Gnome Death Knights will ruin it for everyone else. Death Knights are, by their very nature, supposed to be pale and scary and imposing, and given the fact that there are bound to be a ton of Gnome Death Knights out there just for hilarity's sake, the Death Knight starting area is going to look more like a nursery than a gothic bed of evil.
But will it really ruin the lore? Daniel already pointed out very insightfully that Gnomes definitely have a dark side -- we all seem to overlook the fact that Gnomes can be Warlocks, and that doesn't make the Felguard they send after you any less scary. And while yes, on launch day, there'll be a lot of Gnome DKs running around (the starting areas will be chaos no matter what gets rolled), after that it should settle down for sure. After all, if Gnomes were all people wanted to play, we'd never see Humans or Dwarves on the realms, and there are plenty of those.
So I'm all for Gnome Death Knights, pigtails or otherwise. If nothing else, it'll give us Horde something to laugh at -- right before we go in for the kill.
This isn't the first time we've seen Blizzard willing to put a strong counter to Resto Druids in the hands of a single class. (Arguments about Hunters/Druids being the strong counter to Warrior/Druids are kind of aside here - both comps still have Druids.) You don't see how this new damage type is the Druid counter? It's pretty simple -- Druids don't have a cleanse that works against Disease.
If Death Knights become a favored arena class, then the presence of Disease in the Arena could help provide solid reason to go Paladin or Priest over Druid. Of course, that assumes the disease effects are significant enough to matter. And cleansing all that Disease is still going to be a pain even for our Paladins: they can only cleanse one at a time, and they'd blow through quite a few global cooldowns trying to clear their partners.
I don't know if this dynamic was intentional, but I would find it hard to believe that Blizzard's ignorant of it. They tend to have an idea about what's going on. We don't know what new gear will be available to combat diseases (Resistance? Resilience?), and it's still way early to be hedging bets -- but introducing the Death Knight and their diseases should certainly mix things up.
Edit: I've not forgotten about Shamans, but I was mostly focused on Druids in this article. My apologies to any Shaman who issued a rightful reminder for the call out.
Okay, this is so massively spoiler ridden for Death Knights, their role in the lore, and how you will be experiencing their gameplay that I cannot in good conscience post it without first warning you, and more than once. This is pretty darn epic, and thanks to the folks at 
Last Saturday, as always, we sat down and spent about an hour discussing the latest and greatest in the World of Warcraft, and 
Ever since 
As we're already starting to see, our good friends the 
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