runeforging
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Lichborne: Patch 5.3 and other news for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With patch 5.2 having, if not solved, at least soothed most of our balance problems, patch 5.3 seems like a relatively quiet patch for death knights. Our class changes are a handful of relatively small fixes. That said, there's still a good amount of content coming. Today, we'll look at patch 5.3 content and what it offers for the death knight. Note that what we're discussing today is primarily PTR content, and thus may not make it live, or will make it live in a slightly different format.
Lichborne: 3 popular death knight requests that won't (or shouldn't) be fulfilled
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Death knight complaints and requests can change with patches, dealing with current issues or balance problems, but there are other death knight requests that come up time and time again, and will probably be asked about until the day they finally shut down the servers for good. This week, we're going to look at three requests that probably will be around that long, just because it seems very unlikely Blizzard will ever fulfill them. The power of the hero class The "hero class" moniker has a long and storied history. It comes from Warcraft III, where hero units like paladins and death knights towered over the rest. By design, you only had a few of these every game, and they had more powerful skills that allowed them to dominate the battlefield when deployed. When WoW came around, rumors of the hero classes spread throughout beta, but in the end, Blizzard went away from the model. Paladins, a hero class in WCIII, were made a regular class, for example, while other hero class mechanics, such as the Far Seer's Chain Lightning, went to regular classes.
Lichborne: Gemming, reforging, and other gear tweaks for blood death knight tanks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Last week, we discussed the basics of death knight tanking, including finding your perfect spec and figuring out which stats to aim for. This week, we're taking it one step further. Once you're all geared up, you need to put the finishing touches on your gear. Today, we'll look at how you can use gems, reforging, and enchants to bump your tank gear up to the next level.
The Queue: There are no Roombas in Azeroth
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good afternoon, everyone. I have a very important question for all of you. Recently, I purchased a Roomba. I'm not allowed to have pets where I live, so a little robot that makes chirping noises and cleans the house for me will have to do. There's only one problem: We need to name it. My girlfriend and I each picked our preferred names. Help us decide, o readers! Name that Roomba! Oh right, and we have some of our usual Q&A after that, too.%Poll-28871%yossarian asked..."Can Death Knights use Runeforging on BoA Heirloom weapons? I'd love to level my DK with an Arcanite Reaper lookalike, but it may not be worth giving up Runeforging. If not, are there plans to "fix" this so that Runeforge enchants don't transfer along with the item?"
Lichborne: PvE Enchantments for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW Insider's weekly stop for Death Knight news, analysis, and guides. Fresh on the heels of last week's gemming guide, we have an enchanting guide. Like gemming, enchanting is an easy way to go the extra mile to get your gear the best it can be so you can properly keep aggro without dying and/or top the damage meters in your next Naxxramas raid. Since there's so few enchants available, it's a lot less complicated than gemming too. DPS will just want hit to the cap and attack power (Sorry, there's not many strength enchants), while tanks will want defense to 540 and stamina. It's also worth noting that almost every slot with an enchant has a weaker version and a more powerful version. Although it's usually frowned upon to go weak when can go strong, in the case of enchants, it's probably okay at the entry level to go with the weaker version of an enchant. The more powerful ones generally take Abyss Crystals and the like, and may be a bit steep. In addition, there's a few other quirks and special enchantments to watch out for. Let's take a look, by slot, at some of the best choices for enchanting for both DPS and Tanking.
The Queue: Proto-drakes, Brilliant Glass, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Since you all need to sit through an extended maintenance today, we're going to have an extended version of The Queue! Well, a little. I guess about two more questions than usual. Or just one, really. Actually, I'm not sure it's extended at all. Maybe if you read through it twice? Yeah, let's do that. Just read it twice, that works.AbsalonPrieto asked...Do Death Knight enchants (rune enchant) stack with regular weapon enchants? If not what would be the best choice rune or regular enchant?
The Wrath of the Lich King Death Knight roundup
Good Thursday morning, everyone. I'm sure by now that many of you rushed home from your midnight openings, installed the game, and started up a new Death Knight. Many others may, like me, be expecting to do that tonight after work or school, while others are looking at rolling a Death Knight in a few weeks or months after the rush has died down or they get a main to 80. Whatever your plans, if you're playing a Death Knight anytime in the future, you'll want to read on. We have a nice selection of some of the best news, information, and analysis of the Death Knight class after the break, including a lot of information that the new Death Knight will find useful.
Death Knight galleries to tide you over until tomorrow night
While the Blizzard team goes postal trying to find your missing in-game mail (see what I did there?), WoW Insider has you covered with an overview of Death Knights in pictures. You can decide on your race, get a look at Rune Forging or explore the Death Knight starting experience. In the mean time, we're going to check out more 7-11s for Wrath boxes. At the very least, we may come back with a Mountain Dew Slushie.%Gallery-28716%%Gallery-28602%%Gallery-29391%%Gallery-28750%
Lichborne: On Blood leveling and Beta
Welcome to Lichborne, where every week Daniel Whitcomb makes sense of the amazing, ever-changing betatastic Death Knight class So here's yet another example of how mutable Death Knights are at the moment: This week, I decided to spec Blood all week and make a genuine effort to learn all the ins and outs I could so that I could bring you a good solid overview of Blood for this weekend's column. Then build 8820 came along, and Blood, while having the same basic mechanics, got a rather big hit to its health regeneration and DPS abilities, and I'm left trying to figure out the extent of the damages. In the end, I don't think Blood was horribly nerfed in this build, but it might have been slightly overnerfed.
Taking a look at Runeforging
Death Knights certainly feel like a Hero class in every sense of the word. Aside from their impressive abilities, they also have a brand new resource system called Runes and Runic Power. These coupled with the fact that they jumpstart to Level 55 ensure that Death Knights feel epic. They are also unique in that they have a special bond with their weapon, called Runeweapons, and Blizzard wanted to give them a different mechanic here, too.Death Knights have a class-specific profession called Runeforging, similar to the Rogue-specific Poisons and to a lesser degree, Lockpicking. However, unlike Rogue poisons, Runeforging a weapon supercedes weapon enchantments. Inscribing Runes onto the Death Knight's weapon also requires a Rune Forge, kind of like a Moonwell for making Mooncloth or a Forge for smelting metals. Currently, Rune Forges can only be found in Ebon Hold, the Death Knights' exclusive clubhouse.There are currently six runes available for Death Knights to inscribe into their weapons -- Rune of Cinderglacier, Rune of Frostfever, Rune of Lichbane, Rune of Spellbreaking, Rune of Swordbreaking, and Rune of the Fallen Crusader. Some runes mimic existing enchantments, such as Crusader, while others seem very task-specific such as Spellbreaking for taking on caster-type mobs. Death Knights can change the rune on their weapon as often as they like, provided they have access to a Rune Forge. Inscribing weapons with runes also endow the weapon with an animation similar to enchants (Swordbreaking looks like Savagery, for example). Check out the gallery for screenshots of the Rune Forge and the different runes. %Gallery-28602%
Death Knight News: Rune swapping gone, Runeforging to be powerful
The introduction of runeforging to the Wrath Beta was a bit of surprise and slightly unexpected. Instead of rune swapping -- the idea of being able to change the nature and configuration of the runes on your runeblade -- Death Knights got a solid 2 Unholy, 2 Blood, and 2 Frost runes. Runeforging itself became a weapon enchantment system whereby Death Knights could enchant their weapon with various special procs and buffs for various situations. There has as of yet been no sign of an ability to swap runes, and Jayde, aka Jadefury, recently asked if there were still plans for one. The short answer, according to blue poster Ghostcrawler, is no. The long answer is perhaps a bit more complicated, and reinforces Blizzard's stated goals with the Death Knight class role and the new runeforging ability.
More Runeforging weapon enchantments unveiled
We've already shown you screenshots of some of the new Runeforging abilities for Death Knights. Now, we have them all via MMO-Champion. As expected, they should let you customize your weapon for whatever role you expect to play, whether it be tanking or DPS, and what type of enemy you expect to go up again, be they undead, spellcasters, or melee. It looks to be an exciting system. Read on for a full list of the Runeforging Enchantments.
Death Knights get new starting zone, Runeforging skill
No more spawning at Tirion Fordring for new Death Knights, it looks like the Death Knight Citadel of Acherus, The Ebon Hold, is now implemented on the Beta servers, reports beta tester Jayde. The Ebon Hold, which is located on the eastern edge of the Eastern Plaguelands, will be where all new Death Knights start. What's more interesting is that some of the first new quest text seems to imply that new Death Knights are still under the control of the Lich King, as the quest "The Eye of Acherus" sends you to a beacon on top of the hold to report to the Lich King himself. So apparently, you will in fact have to quest to break free of the Lich King -- but you start the quests on the Death Knight. Of course, we'll know as soon as we can get more information from the servers. Another mechanic of the Death Knight that seems to have popped up for the first time is the concept of Runeforged Weapons. However, this is not the switching of Blood, Unholy, and Frost runes that has been previously discussed-- rather, it appears that the forging instead applies buffs to your weapons. The two examples shown by Jayde's screenshots are as follows: Rune of the Fallen Crusader: Affixes your Rune Weapon with a rune that has a chance to heal you for 3% and increase Strength by 30% for 15 seconds. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold. Rune of Lichbane: Affixes your Rune Weapon with a rune that has a chance to strike the undead for extra fire damage and stun them for 5 seconds. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
