Observations On Class Spec Landscape In WoTLK

It's been almost a month and a half already since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out so it's probably safe to make a commentary about my observations about popularity of certain class specs. You can tell that the game has changed quite a bit when certain class specs that were quite popular before suddenly aren't as popular now and it seems like that's exactly the case for Wrath of the Lich King.

Perhaps the most glaring example that I have seen (at least in my experience) is the Protection Paladin. In TBC, they were very popular for their EZ-Mode tanking ability because of their mastery at AoE tanking. If you ran dungeons often, especially with a PuGs, then you would definitely have run into a Prot Pally back in the day. But with the introduction of Death Knights in the expansion and the recent rise of Retribution Paladins, it seems like Protection Paladins are a very rare sight nowadays. Holy paladins, in my experience, are also quite rarer than they used to for some reason.

In TBC, feral druids were also very popular because of their sudden viability as tanks, especially as off-tanks. Because of Death Knights and the improvements to the balance and resto tree and the not so impressive changes to the feral tree, it seems like ferals have also pretty much suffered losses to their numbers. In fact I have a friend who played a feral druid for all of TBC but suddenly decided to be a tree for this expansion.

The shadow priest is another example of a spec I haven't seen much of. In TBC, they were very useful as mana batteries - a niche that gave them some importance in raids. Perhaps because of their mediocre dps compared to other dps classes and the fact that the mana battery role has been made available to others like Ret pallies, the shadow priest isn't as popular as they used to be. In fact, I've only encountered a shadow priest in a dungeon run just today!

It's amazing how much things can change in just a small amount of time. I'm sure these vary from server to server but I'm sure at least some of these observations are true for some of you. What kind of changes to the class spec landscape have you experienced so far?

Ghostcrawler Leaves The Door Open For Healing Hero Class

The current success of the Death Knight as the first hero class has made me quite optimistic that future hero classes could possibly thrive in the game. The death knight has its appeal stemming from the fact that it's something new and fun. Its potential as a killing machine can be reached without much effort, making it pretty user friendly for people who want to try it out. It's also different in the sense that it's made dual wield tanking viable and joins the feral druid as another class/spec that tanks without a shield.

As someone who found the joys of healing (something I thought I'd never do if you asked me in vanilla-WoW) while playing a holy paladin in TBC and currently plays a restoration druid, I would really love to see the same brand of innovation and appeal applied to a healing class. Shortly after Blizzard announced the death knight as a hero class, I always wondered about the possibility of a healing hero class. Later on after learning about the death knight rune system, I actually expanded that thought to the possibility of a healing class that doesn't use mana at all but something different just like the rune system. Apparently these thoughts I've been having are shared by Blizzard's Ghostcrawler himself as shown in his forum post below.

I could totally see several ways to design a new healing class that used mana in a different way or didn't use mana at all. You are right that it might not appeal to players who hate healing, but it might appeal to players who just haven't found a class that heals in a way that is fun for them. source

The most obvious problem with designing a healing class that doesn't use mana is that mana is center of what healing is currently about. Intellect, spirit, and mp5 all have something to do with mana and they are important to healers. The corollary to this problem is itemization since healing gear across all armor types use these stats. the only way I see this problem being solved is to design a system that translates these stats to affect the new resource system

Ghostcrawler mentioned something about healing in a different way than the current healing classes do. If they did implement a new healing hero class, it would certainly have its own style and niche and that's something I'm really excited to see in the future.I know that we're all supposed to be focused on the current expansion but Ghostcrawler's thoughts are already getting me excited and hoping that this idea gains some steam.

Early Outsider's Observations And Thoughts About Death Knights

For a lot of us, the moment we got the expansion we immediately took our characters to either to Northrend, making the decision to go to either the Borean Tundra or the Howling Fjord first. Quite a number of us decided to abandon our 70's in the meantime to make a Death Knight to be the new main character.

I only got my copy of the expansion a few hours ago so I've had a lot of time to mess around in the Outlands for quite a bit on my characters. I'd usually go herbing to supply my druid's inscription and do some dailies and not much else. Out of boredom from not having the expansion the past few days, I'd just end up logging out early. But in my travels the past few days, I noticed one thing which will end up becoming the trend for quite some time - a ton of Death Knights going around the Outlands! For now, it's the Hellfire Peninsula but I imagine the swarm could follow all the way Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley.

Everywhere I went on my druid, I saw a Death Knight whether Alliance or Horde there was at least one. But it's usually swarms! General chat was full of them and the stories are quite funny. A priest in my server who was leveling in Hellfire Peninsula was talking about a 5 man group he was in where there were 4 Death Knights and he was healing. My guild mate who plays a Death Knight was remarking that he didn't notice unless much later in the fight that he was actually fighting an elite because his health never went below 90%.

Another thing I was noticing was the choices on Death Knight races. As I said, I saw tons of them running around Hellfire Peninsula and I was keeping a rough score in my head. For the Alliance in my server, it seems like I only saw Humans and Night Elves and nothing else. I thought Gnome was going to be quite popular? I know that if my DK was Alliance, I'd be Gnome. I noticed that for the Horde in my server, Blood Elves were the most popular but I also saw a lot of Taurens and Undead and slightly less but still plenty Orcs. In my journeys, I only saw one Troll and it was a female.

This brings me to my Death Knight. I decided a long time ago that my Death Knight was going to be either Troll or Orc. I have an Undead Mage, Blood Elf Paladin, Tauren Druid and a Blood Elf Warlock I'm still working on. That left Orc and Troll as the only horde races I didn't have yet. All the guild mates I asked said I should go Troll and i seemed to agree since I liked Berserk and the new Voodoo Shuffle as racials. Seeing that Trolls didn't seem to be a popular choice also made me feel a bit unique or at least give me a sense of cheering the underdog or going against the norm. Of course it might be a while until I seriously get to play my Death Knight if ever i even decide to play it seriously at all.

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Ghostcrawler's Thoughts On Death Knight Tanking

We've been seeing several Death Knights running around and it seems like, in my experience, they aren't afraid to tank whenever you need one. In fact it seems like the presence of Death Knights have really helped the tank shortage problem as was intended. Healers seem to be harder to find now than tanks, at least in my experience leveling up.

Being a new class, it still has some issues that need to be addressed. Ghostcrawler floated around some ideas about Death Knight tanking in a post he made in the official forums. He mentions that they are not prepared to announce specific changes yet so don't be disappointed if some of the thoughts don't get implemented. His thoughts are summarized below. Click here to see the actual post.

1. Boost frost presence mitigation, lower mitigation of other abilities. DK's tank well with cooldowns and don't do as well without them.

2. Icebound fortitude could see mitigation scale based on defense.

3. Expect buffs for Blood tree tanking talents

4. Rune strike might get decreased damage and increased threat

5. Death and Decay is not supposed to be a tool used to gain runic power out of combat.

6. Horn of Winter and Unholy blight could get decreased runic power costs.

7. The Shadow of Death talent isn't intended to be used for escaping durability damage or resurrecting by zoning into an instance.

8. A new spell might be added to let you raise fallen allies (wait... they're getting a battle rez? 0.o) so you don't have to choose between bringing back a player or your ghoul.

Although I'm not really very familiar with Death Knights much less Death Knight tanking since I don't play mine much yet, it seems like the ideas being floated around look interesting. Being a new class, it's acceptable that Death Knights still have some issues but it's good to see an effort to make things better.

Thoughts On Death Knight, the Hero Class

The next expansion will offer players to play the first of many planned hero classes, the Death Knight. Here are my thoughts about the much anticipated class based on the information we have now.

First of all, almost everything we know about the Death Knight class is not set in stone but what is confirmed is that it will start out at a much higher level. While other classes start out at level one, the plan is for Death Knights to starts out somewhere between 55 and 70. Starting out at higher levels is part of the prestige they will get out of being a hero class but this also opens up a whole new set of issues, good and bad. Starting out at higher levels will shorten the grind to 80. Leveling is fun but Im sure everyone will agree that it can also be a painful and long grind.

Starting out at higher levels also brings more pressure to learn the class as soon as possible. You dont have that leisure to go through the more forgiving low level instances like Deadmines and Wailing Caverns. If someone screws up in the higher levels a wipe is almost always imminent. Yes that a learning experience but its not the way we always want to learn. The Blizzard CM Bornakk says the following about having enough time to master the class.

Just leveling up to reach Northrend will take time and should provide players some great experience in learning the new class.

worldofwarcraft.com

That is enough time indeed but that depends if the player uses that time to learn the class. I play a paladin as an alt and shes level 32 right now. Putting aside the runs my high level guild mates have brought me too, I can say Ive never ran an instance at all. Im level 32 and I cant say I learned how to heal and tank since I soloed my way up. Whats stopping me from going all the way to 70 now and skipping all the dungeons along the way? Whats stopping me from doing that and deciding that Ill heal or tank in instances at 70 without prior experience? Whats stopping me from rolling a Death Knight come expansion and soloing my way to 80 and as a result not knowing exactly how I should act in groups? Nothing! But as a result Ill be hated in groups for sucking at playing the class. So while starting out at a higher can put pressure into learning your class sooner, it also could give rise to more and more high level players who dont know how to play. Its no coincidence that hunters, the easiest class to solo with, is also generally the most idiot filled class around, thus was given the huntard title.

Death Knight Starting Level Update

"Ooh an update about the Death Knight's starting level! We'll finally know after all these months!"

Well not exactly.

The starting level of the Death Knight hero class has been an uncertainty ever since Blizzard announced it was going to start at a pretty high level. It has been the subject of many speculations even up to now. All we knew was that it could be 55, or 60 or even 70! Well CM Bornakk gives us an update about the subject.

We haven't completely finalized a number, but we plan to have them start at a level lower than 70. We didn't have Draenei or Blood Elves start at a higher level when they first entered the game so we are aiming to make this Hero Class at a good level to learn abilities but also get to Northrend a little faster. source

So there you have it. They plan to start the Death Knight at a level below 70. So it's NOT going to start at 70. Yeah not much help, was it? We'll take what we can get I guess. We'll just have to wait.

A Few Tidbits About WoTLK - 5 Mans and DK Creation

CM's Bornakk and Nethaera give us a little something about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and I figured they are probably stuff you guys would like to know. Bornakk tells us something about the 5 man dungeons while Nethaera clarifies how Death Knight creation and server transfers are going to work.

WotLK 5 man Dungeons

We are currently planning to keep the 5 person dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King fairly short in length, but with a boost to their overall epicness - the preview we have of The Nexus is a great example of this.

The more vast and sprawling dungeons will be found in the raid dungeons which more players will be able to experience with the changes to the setup. Source

Death Knight Creation and Server Transfer

An online poster in the official forums wrote this:

Bornak (I think) clarified that if a server is not yet open to transfers, then you need a level 55 on that server to create a Death Knight. Once it's open to transfers, though, it's fair game.

Nethaera replied:

This is correct. At this point in time, we don't have any further limitations on the creation. As always, I like to give a caveat that this could change if we feel it's necessary.

taken from here

It's good to hear that the 5 man dungeons of the next expansion won't.be too long. It's not that fun if a dungeon takes so long to finish. Dungeon length sometimes factors into whether or not someone can do the dungeon. Many times, I've been turned off by Botanica runs since it's pretty long.

On DK's And Adding New Classes To The Game

When the Death Knight was announced as a hero class, I was quite surprised since it was something I didn't think they would do. But now, in a way I'm quite disappointed that only one new class would be added to the game. The game has been with us since late 2004 and until now the only new addition to the class selections is still on its way. I was actually expecting a new class when TBC was announced to come out. instead they just made shamans and paladins available to the opposite faction. I know it's a different situation but when the Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction expansion came out, it came with 2 new classes to choose from. I was hoping WoTLK would come with another hero class aside form the DK. But of course, I understand the situation. CM Nethaera explains below.

Here's the skinny, the lowdown, the 411 etc on the death knight choice.

First off, it fits in with Northrend extremely well for obvious reasons.

Second off, many people tend to have this strange belief that adding a new class is simple, easy as pie, and a cakewalk all on a Sunday afternoon, but it's not. There is a lot of work that goes into it and many considerations for how it will work, how it will work with other classes, how the lore ties in, how quests and npcs also can tie in to this new class, itemization, and a whole lot more. It takes a lot of forethought, testing, and care to add something this major to the game and for each new class that is added to the game, come the concerns about not maintaining the uniqueness of each class that already exists.

I'm not saying that the possibility of more classes being added in the future isn't a possibility. We had many ideas of what class we'd add in for Wrath of the Lich King prior to settling on the death knight. There are many more possibilities for classes we'd consider in the future as well, but we aren't going to rush to add them in and risk creating a situation where other classes lose their uniqueness and their value within the game. source

I think the plan is to have one hero class released per expansion from this point on although that may not be followed if it doesn't turn out to be what the designers want. But even at that pace, one per expansion seems a bit slow. Of course, balance is the key and the more classes there are, the harder it is to balance all of them.

DK Talent Tree Descriptions Changed On WoW Website

Blizzard recently changed the Talent tree descriptions on the Death Knight page. The changes, while less descriptive, are very telling of what Blizzard plans for the Death Knight now.

Old Talent Tree Descriptions

Blood: Talents in this tree focus on damage-dealing abilities. Blood Presence increases damage output by a percentage

Frost: Talents in this tree focus on tanking abilities. Frost Presence increases threat and lowers damage taken by a percentage

Unholy: Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases and PvP-focused abilites. Unholy Presence increases attack speed and reduces the global cooldown on death knight abilities.

taken from World of Raids

New talent Tree Descriptions

Blood: Talents in this tree focus on weapons, armor, and strikes.

Frost: Talents in this tree focus on control, counters, and combos.

Unholy: Talents in this tree focus on spells, summons, and diseases.

The most telling difference that the new has from the old is that it seems like you could fill your role of tank or dps with any tree unlike the old where you needed to be Blood specced to tank and Frost to be dps. It seems now that the death knight just might be like a feral druid in that a change in gear and presence used could turn a DK from tank to dps or vice versa on the fly. of course this is just me speculating here. What do you think?

Death Knight Talents As Revealed In WWI (for those who are looking)

Ever since the Death Knight class was announced as a hero class, information about the class was always sought after. When the first set of information about the class was released a while back, it painted a picture of a class that is different what what we've seen in the past with the runes and runic power system, the spell damage tanking niche, disease based spells and many more.

I've heard that the talent trees were lurking around the internet a few days ago but I never really went out to look for them. but after I read a few interesting things about the trees, finally I decided to look. After some looking, I decided that the most complete and best presented on can be found here at Warpirate, which is a web site you can use to make your own talent trees. Someone made one for the DK talents that was going around. So for those looking for the talent trees, finally you found them!

What's very clear to me based on the talent trees is that no matter what spec you are, it's always important to keep your targets diseased because each tree has something to increase your Death Knight's effectiveness against diseased targets.

Based on the talents as they are now (since we know that we'll defiantly see a lot of tweaking from now until release), I can say that the Death Knight will be a fun and interesting class not play!

Just in case the link above from Warpirate disappears for any reason, the blood, frost and unholy talents of the death knight class can be seen at Blizplanet, although some of the slots are not filled up.