BlizzCon: New content playable on Friday

[nobbie]

Or you just have decent starting gear designed specifically as starting gear, with a sell value of (near) 0.

I assume that every death knight starts with an assorted set of "green" plate gear and a rune blade/axe (as seen the BlizzCon ingame trailer).

[Tuftears]

Just make the starting gear for death knights be non-vendorable and they can get it back from an NPC if they destroy it 'accidentally', like the ZG quest rewards.

[Brista]

It seems that the definition of a "hero class" is a class that does not start at level 1.

Quoting Vaneras (an EU blue):

They are not planned to be more powerful, them being a hero class simply means they're introduced at a higher level, and in general will reference the more powerful hero types of Warcraft history.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html;j...394469665&sid=1

Next, I have doubts about how powerful they will be. They can't be under-powered, they want people to like them, to play them, to rave about them on the web. They have to be MS Warrior/Holy Pally level in PvP and Aff Lock/SPriest level in PvE because it will be a marketing disaster if they are flat-out worse. Remember too that any Death Knight will be playing catch up as there will be at least one level 80 out there when the first player makes a server first death knight. For most of us there will be numerous Naxx geared dps rivals when we hit 80 with our DK. I think they will over-power them to allow them to compete with better geared rivals

I guess what will happen next is what happened to Feral Druids and S Priests in TBC. They wanted people to play hybrids as non-healbots, they achieved that by over-powering them, then they nerfed them back into line. I'm expecting that is how they will bring Death Knights in as a popular class

We may also be heading to a more Diablo 2 style of play. In Diablo 2 you don't especially need the other 7 players to play a specific role since the characters are self-sufficient. I'm guessing DKs will have some sort of life leech and play a little like early D2 Barbarians where you rely on damage + life leech for non-stop killing fun. Blood runes possibly suggest this and it's an answer to the issue of lack of healers. We did RFK once with 5 Warriors, simply taunting when someone got low and the only real downside was downtime. Had we had decent lifeleech it would have been a very viable way to do an instance

And there will certainly be a lack of healers. Kaplan when interviewed has suggested that players like a certain play style so not everyone will roll a Death Knight. That's true of some but for the vast majority they would rather play the new flavour of the month I win cool new character than the same old boring character. They said something similar about not everyone stopping being a healbot when they boosted hybrids in TBC and we are kinda short on healers despite the gain of a new heal-capable class. Nothing has been announced that would mitigate the drift of healer into playing non-healing roles in WOTLK. Even people who prefer healing will likely try DK out. In fact the only reasons to not be a Death Knight are
1) you love your character so much that you couldn't possibly play wow any other way
2) you want 24/7 instance invites and a cooler guild than your gear/skill would normally permit
3) you don't like beating stuff up
4) you can't be bothered to level one up, even with a head-start

However the first patch will probably see the second hero class, a healer class

In conclusion in planning for WOTLK I would suggest bearing the following in mind

1) If you want to enjoy a DK in it's full over-powered glory unlock it fast and play it lots before they nerf it
2) DKs seem absolutely made for fun in pvp zergs so I would recommend doing loads of AB etc rather than worrying too much about raiding (unless you can 100% count on your healers not re-rolling)
3) Healing will be very fun at this stage. Consider if you have multiple characters unlocking your DK slot with a heal-capable class so if you want you can play your healer if the lack of being able to get group stuff done on your DK drives you nuts
4) Expect to be nerfed
5) Tank shortages will be a thing of the past. If Prot Pallies are still borderline viable they will be toast when Death Knights come in, in fact the only thing that will save Prot Pallies is a period of over-poweredness before WOTLK
6) Any hybrids who choose not to be healers will be constantly reminded by random strangers that they would be more useful if they respec. Expect to be bugged a lot, even more so if you are competing for Death Knight roles
7) Very very few people will ever re-roll a non-hero class since most people would rather start at 50-60 than at level 1. This may eventually become a barrier to starting the game. If you wanted to start WoW in 2 years time and had to level to 80 then re-roll then level to 80 again you could be forgiven for thinking it's rather a lot of hassle. I expect they will drop the requirement to play a regular non-hero class first sooner or later
8) if you have any options at all don't level a Rogue or a Fury Warrior to level 80 when WOTLK comes out. I expect there will still be some options for a decent tank but why would any pug take a DPS Warrior when there are 15 DKs in every queue?

[oldmandennis]

Well that's an awful lot of speculation considering we have probably a year to go. Their exact level of tanking abilities is totally unknown.

I guess what will happen next is what happened to Feral Druids and S Priests in TBC. They wanted people to play hybrids as non-healbots, they achieved that by over-powering them, then they nerfed them back into line. I'm expecting that is how they will bring Death Knights in as a popular class

The nerfs to druids were cosmetic and overhyped. Everything that a druid could do before the nerf they could do after. They still had the same basic advantages compared to warriors, just the numbers were a bit lower. They also reitemized the sets - essentially giving back what they took.

The one substantive nerf to shadow priests I can recall (VT % reduction) didn't hurt the priest herself that much or make it less fun to play.

We may also be heading to a more Diablo 2 style of play. In Diablo 2 you don't especially need the other 7 players to play a specific role since the characters are self-sufficient. I'm guessing DKs will have some sort of life leech and play a little like early D2 Barbarians where you rely on damage + life leech for non-stop killing fun. Blood runes possibly suggest this and it's an answer to the issue of lack of healers. We did RFK once with 5 Warriors,

Some sort of life leach might be a good thing, but acting like it can really replace a healer is a bit of a stretch. Feral druids have a passive life regen, it doesn't change anything much on most fights.

I'd wait at least until there is a guided demo being shown to the media before making long lists of things to do to prepare for DK.

[Brista]

The nerfs to druids were cosmetic and overhyped. Everything that a druid could do before the nerf they could do after.

That's just nonsense. We were mainstream raid main tanks before the nerf, after we weren't. A multi-role class lost a role. That's pretty major

I'd wait at least until there is a guided demo being shown to the media before making long lists of things to do to prepare for DK.

Please feel free to wait. Me and just about everyone else in this thread will carry on speculating thank you ;)

[oldmandennis]

That's just nonsense. We were mainstream raid main tanks before the nerf, after we weren't. A multi-role class lost a role. That's pretty major

That's crazy talk. The difference between prenerf quested gear and post nerf T4 is very small - certainly not a game breaker. To the best of my recollection I lost about 1.2k armor and 500 hp - stats I more then made up when I started picking up T4. What was your drop, and which boss is so finely tuned that it made such a difference? The top end of mangle is still lower, but you still should out threat a warrior, easily. Plus lacerate can generate more threat.

[Quark]

That's just nonsense. We were mainstream raid main tanks before the nerf, after we weren't. A multi-role class lost a role. That's pretty major

I'll take WoW-Forum style overreactions for 200, Alex!

[Tal]

That's just nonsense. We were mainstream raid main tanks before the nerf, after we weren't. A multi-role class lost a role. That's pretty major

I have seen druids maintank in T-4 and T-5 content. Given the last time this subject came up you didn't believe to the contrary I doubt you'll see it this time but I still have to say it - Druids can maintank. I've seen it with the Lurkers. I've seen videos on other servers with other guilds with first kills that used druids in T-5 instances.

When you say things such as this it really makes me wonder just how much of raiding you've seen.

[Warlock]

Yeah, the nerf didn't hurt Druid PVE much. Bear could still tank and tank well, it just didn't have the damage it did before the nerf - though it's still well ahead of pre BC numbers (remember 83 point unscaling Swipe?). Heavy Clefthoof was dramatically improved as well as the tier gear. It did mean that Bear - the form that could actually catch people - became pretty harmless in PVP but that's never been my focus (and if it was, I wouldn't use a Druid for it).

Having played around with a 50 Paladin tank on a friend's account I do wonder at why the nerf was so hard, though. A couple of times I've done 40% of the groups damage while PUG tanking. Not sure how that holds up at higher levels.

[Mavfin]

That's just nonsense. We were mainstream raid main tanks before the nerf, after we weren't. A multi-role class lost a role. That's pretty major

Brista, you're still flogging that dead horse? Give it a rest. Seems like every time you get the opportunity, you post about the druid 'nerf'. I still see druids MTing T-4/T-5 content all the time. I'm really getting tired of hearing the same old song from you, over and over.

This isn't even the only forum I see it on, but it's the one I can say something about it on. Put up your whip. No one's listening.

[Taelas]

Brista, you're still flogging that dead horse? Give it a rest. Seems like every time you get the opportunity, you post about the druid 'nerf'. I still see druids MTing T-4/T-5 content all the time. I'm really getting tired of hearing the same old song from you, over and over.

This isn't even the only forum I see it on, but it's the one I can say something about it on. Put up your whip. No one's listening.

Even I'm not, and I was pretty adamant that it was a heavy nerf when it happened.

Give it a rest, Brista -- Feral druids are perfectly fine in PvE. (What they lack is decent, high-end gear designed for them, and even that's not nearly as much of a problem as it was.)

Druids can tank any encounter which isn't strictly designed to preclude them (such as the Kael'thas encounter).