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Cataclysm Class Changes: Death knight analysis
I'll be completely honest: If I were to describe the death knight update with three words, it would be these: We need more. PvP-focused death knights will likely be pleased with the new revealed skills, but for PvE death knights, all three hold little to no PvE applicability. The new rune system's original explanation is somewhat convoluted, and while I think I have a handle on it after some extensive testing and theorycrafting, we really can't say much about how well it will work until we know more about how our abilities will be rebalanced. The talent discussion mostly focused on telling us what we learned a few days ago when we were told blood will be the only tanking tree. Essentially, given this update, a large part of me wishes they had just held off until the beta. Right now, we just don't have enough information to make anything more than vague educated guesses about how the new rotations and abilities will play off of each other. That said, it's still worth a look at what's going down, so let's start it up and see what we can surmise.
Thoughts on the death knight tanking change
I actually entertained the possibility of blood becoming a solely tanking tree in Cataclysm about a month back, so I was somewhat pleased and only slightly surprised to see the announcement that that's exactly the route the developers will be taking in Cataclysm. Certainly, there's a bit of bittersweetness and regret to see the great death knight experiment come to an end. But at the same time, it's worthwhile to ask: Is this truly for the good of the game? Is it for the best that we give up some reach and flexibility in return for solid ground and ease of balance? Let's chat a bit. Why one tank tree? Balancing death knights has pretty obviously been a constant battle. There's essentially been six different trees to balance for both PvE and PvP, a tall enough order that almost every major patch has included a large handful of death knight tweaks. Not only did the devs have find a niche for dual wielding, but they had to balance tank talents against PvE talents on the off chance that the interaction would overbalance or underbalance a certain spec in the right combination. They had to squelch diseaseless specs and one-button DPS specs, and Unholy alone took them until Patch 3.3 to get to some semblance of balance.
Cataclysm: Blood will be the only Death Knight tanking tree
In a complete about-face, Ghostcrawler just announced that there will be a dedicated tanking tree in Cataclysm for Death Knights: Blood. Rather than having all three trees try to be good at both DPS and tanking, Blizzard will be taking the tanking talents from the other two trees and adding them with some other changes to the Blood tree. They announced this today, knowing that this news will overshadow the rest of the DK class preview. The complete text is after the break.
Lichborne: The rise of PvE frost DPS on the patch 3.3.3 PTR
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at the world of the death knight. With Patch 3.3.3 on the PTR and looking closer and closer to going live, the buzz around death knights is just about where you'd expect it to be, squarely on the frost talent tree. This is especially true of frost DPS. While it once reigned supreme as a cornerstone of the famous 39/32 builds, it's fallen out of favor, and even Threat of Thassarian hasn't been enough to keep it from being consigned to the status of third rate, a pariah from any raid that already has a shaman to provide Windfury. Blizzard's obviously dedicated to getting the tree properly buffed in Patch 3.3.3, but have they succeeded? Let's take a look at the frost tree thus far, and what we may be doing with our own builds and talents in a few weeks' time.
Lichborne: Icecrown Citadel - Lower Spire loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, where your host is still figuring out the perfect roleplay celebration macro for when he downs the Lich King -- when he's not writing about death knights, of course. With Icecrown Citadel now properly breached, hopefully even some of the less uber among us are making our way into the breach to say hello to the father of all death knights, the Lich King himself. Of course, as we start upon the final leg of the journey that started so long ago at Light's Hope Chapel, as we trudge ever closer to our destiny to the fight that will bring our story full circle, that may lead to our damnation or to a brighter new destiny, there's certainly a question that's on everyone's minds: What about the loot? It's a good question. Let's take a look at the loot from the first few bosses up in the citadel. Before we do, though, it's a good idea to take a quicker refresher course in why we choose what we choose:
Lichborne: Emblem of Frost gear for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column. This week, Daniel Whitcomb is really regretting turning on his boombox in Acherus at the new year's party. By now, I assume a good portion of you have managed to get on your daily heroics at least a couple times a week, maybe even have an ICC raid or three under your belt. If so, you're starting to amass enough Emblems of Frost to maybe possibly think about buying a piece of gear. Of course, the problem with Emblem of Frost gear is that it's a little bit more expensive than, say, Emblem of Triumph gear. You're not going to get away with gearing up quite as fast, at least not until all of ICC is open and you have a good group for the place. No 25-emblem tier gear here. So that also makes it important, especially for the more casual player, to pick what you buy carefully. Let's take a look at the various options.
Lichborne: 2009 in review for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb has decided that Boom Boom Pow is our class anthem for the new year, if only because those chickens are totally jackin' our style. So here we are, at the end of 2009. This marks the first full year of the Death Knight class, and it's definitely been an eventful year as Blizzard's balanced and rebalanced our class to help us fit into the ranks of the more established classes. We've been called flavor of the month and overpowered. I dislike the former label on philosophical grounds but grudgingly admit that the latter label has probably been correctly applied at certain points in time. Still, overall we've definitely had the ride of our lives over the last year as the devs have worked on a patch by patch basis to get us all figured out and settled in. Lets look at each tree and look back at the highlights and lowlights.
The Daily Grind: What produces a visceral reaction in you?
Every RPG has giant spiders. Inevitably. Despite the fact that such creatures couldn't possibly support their own body weight and other natural physics problems, you will find them. And arachnophobes the world over will cringe, because it will usually culminate in having to dive into an entire dungeon filled with spiderwebs and chittering eight-eyed things the size of a Hummvee. Not to mention all of the quests where your character has to smash them and then rifle around in what's left of their corpse and you get the general idea. If you're not comfortable with the idea of unholy, bulbous, overlegged creatures scuttling about, these parts aren't terribly comfortable even though you know it's just a game. Today, we ask you what produces that sort of bred-in gut reaction when you come across it? Giant bugs, blood, and slimy things are all common ones for a negative reaction, but there are others, and some of them might even be unique to your own sensibilities. So we'd like to know, what gets you at a basic level, even when you're totally aware it's just a game? (And if any developers are reading right now, bonus question: why all the spiders, guys? Come on.)
Lichborne: Death knight leveling 68-80
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's column for all things deathly, knightly, and death knightly. So, death knight. You're through with Outland. You just dinged 68 in Nagrand and want to move on to whiter, snow covered pastures. Maybe those pastures are in Northrend. Maybe those pastures are in Alterac Valley. Either way, let's discuss getting through those final levels and pushing you through to the end game.
Requiem updates to "Memento Mori"
Requiem, the free-to-play MMO that insists on making sure that all living creatures squirt out 20 gallons of blood upon their deaths, has recently updated the game with a new expansion -- Memento Mori.Memento Mori, the Latin phrase meaning "Remember you will die," is a great description for the expansion that focuses on integrating learned skills and DNA directly into the character as they level. Previously, players would have to visit a trainer to learn skills, or assemble DNA strands with a DNA scientist in order to equip DNA mutations. Now these two aspects of character development have been placed into the game as talent-esque windows, which allow you to spread your points amongst new upgrades the moment you level. It's almost like you're "remembering" your skills and DNA abilities instead of learning them. We appreciate that.
Lichborne: Analyzing the latest Patch 3.2.2 PTR changes
Avast ye swabbies! Welcome to Lichborne, where Death Knights rule the Seven Seas and the rest of ye lubbers walk the - Oh. Wait. Talk like a Pirate Day is OVER? Well, dangit. At least I still have this cool buff for a few more hours. These past few weeks have bought a flurry of updates the Patch 3.2.2 PTR servers, and a lot of the updates have a lot to do with Death Knights. Since we were the most changed class in Patch 3.2, it might be expected that we got a good amount of tweaking in 3.2.2 to complement and compensate the Patch 3.2 changes. Thus, it would behoove us to take a look at said changes and see where they'll leave us coming into the likely rapidly approaching patch.
Bloodbot draws blood, inspires fear
We've seen our fair share of scary robots in these parts, and we're not going to mince words here: there is no way we are going anywhere near one that's armed with a hypodermic needle -- and we sure as hell aren't going to sit still and let it draw blood! Currently being developed by a team at Imperial College in London, the Bloodbot is designed to probe your arm for the presence of a vein, stick you with the needle, puncture the vein, and then stop short of rupture. The system, which has thus far only been tested on one patient (sounds like we're not the only ones with reservations regarding the device) has been accurate about 78 percent of the time, meaning it only resulted in screaming fits 22 percent of the time -- unlike your friendly neighborhood nurse or medical technician, who is accurate nearly 100 percent of the time (and still inspires the occasional fit, but that's another story). [Via Switched]
Lichborne: What Cataclysm might mean for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column that dares ask the hard-hitting questions of Blizzard. Questions such as: Can I make a Worgen Death Knight now? Pretty please with sugar on top? We've now had about a week and a half to digest all the new information from BlizzCon about the Cataclysm, and while it's not a complete picture of what we can expect from the expansion, there's enough information now that we can make some pretty good educated guesses about the direction of the game and the new theorycraft of being a Death Knight. Let's take a look at we can learn from the latest information. New Races The new races definitely have some pretty awesome racials. The Worgen's plus damage racial will make them a very solid choice for a DPS Death Knight, and the sprint will be excellent for closing distance in PvP, especially when paired with Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude to avoid CC. Even the skinning racial will be nice for a leveling Death Knight who decides to take some time out to level the money making gathering tradeskills. Goblins are definitely going to be a nice little convenient race, with low buy and sell prices and a free bit of banking. Combat-wise, the Rocket Boots should be nice for closing distances or running away. As far as whether these races will end up being the "best" races for Death Knights, I don't think I can say. Part of this is because I think the idea of a "best race" is, to at least some degree, rather subjective, but also, the devs strongly hinted they'll take a look at everyone's racial abilities as they move into Cataclysm, so its certainly possible that other races will get some new or upgraded racials that will keep pace with the awesomeness that are the new races' racials.
Fallen Earth's "Three Bs of the Apocalpyse" trailer now showing
B is one of those letters that you never think of when you're doing lists. Yet the team over at Fallen Earth has put together a few reasons why B is a great letter, especially for the apocalypse. Their newest trailer for their upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO focuses in on all of the blood, beasts and... er... babes?While we're pretty sure that the game has enough blood and beasts to keep the average rabid gamer hungry, babes might be a little harder to come by. But it is the apocalypse and we guess that the human race does need babes to survive. Very important for the race to continue onwards and what not.The video is being shown over at IGN's video site if you want to take a look at it, but you do need to input your birthday to see it. Lastly, if you ask us, the last babe that they show off at around 0:20 is truly the hottest of them all. She's a bit heavy set, and her skin is a little on the grey side, but we see a heart of gold in there.
Lichborne: The Future of Death Runes in Patch 3.2
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight class column, with your host, Daniel Whitcomb, who's still wearing mourning black for AE Unholy Blight. And also because black looks awesome.I admit to being a bit underwhelmed by the Death Knight Q&A. To be fair, this is primarily because most of the things covered were already in the 3.2 patch notes, and the rest was pretty common sense stuff. However, one little comment by Ghostcrawler did catch my attention: His praise of Death Runes. This caught me more than a bit by surprise, since, if anything, the Death Knight changes in Patch 3.2 seem tailor made to discourage the use of Death Runes, at least for Frost and Unholy.Between the damage buff to Blood Strike and diseases, and the nerf to Scourge Strike, we have a pretty good chance of seeing people move away from using Death Runes. The major reason to use Blood Strike in both trees right now is to create Death Runes so you can use higher damage abilities on your next refresh cycle. If Blood Strike becomes the higher damage ability, it's not worth it to use the Death Runes on something else. There's a off-chance, I suppose, that you might want the Death Runes handy for an emergency use of Ghoul Frenzy, in theory, but that chance is so slim that no-one's going to want to waste the talent points in Reaping, at the very least.
Carnivorous Clock eats bugs, begins doomsday countdown
It's not enough that humans gave robots a place to congregate to plan our demise, now we've adapted them with the ability to extract fuel from the very nectar of life. All that innocent experimentation with fuel cells that run on blood has led to this, a flesh-eating clock. This prototype time-piece from UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau traps insects on flypaper stretched across its roller system before depositing them into a vat of bacteria. The ensuing chemical reaction, or "digestion," is transformed into power that keeps the rollers rollin' and the LCD clock ablaze. The pair offers an alternative design fueled by mice, another contraption whose robotic arm plucks insect-fuel from spider webs with the help of a video camera, and a lamp powered by insects lured to their deaths with ultraviolet LEDs. Man, this is so wrong it has to be right.[Via Hack a Day, thanks Isaac]
Lichborne: Patch 3.2 Death Knight changes in-depth
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column, with your host, Daniel Whitcomb.On my first read-through of the Patch 3.2 Death Knight patch notes, I had to chuckle a bit. If the theme of the Retribution overhauls was making Retribution DPS a bit more complicated, it was definitely very much about the simplification for Death Knights. Simplification is a relative term, of course, given that rune rotations are still in full effect, but there has been some streamlining of techniques and adjustment of cooldowns that will lead many of us to do some tuning up on our rotations. Let's take a deep look at the changes and see what they'll mean for us going forward into Patch 3.2.
Patch 3.2 Death Knight changes
Death Knights are among the most-changed classes in the first PTR version of patch 3.2, which is not terribly surprising for such a young class. Because of such significant changes, all DKs will receive a free respec. Blood Strike will scale more from disease (up to 50% per disease), while Frost Strike is receiving significant nerfs: it can now be dodged/blocked/parried, and only gets a 55% bonus from weapon damage, instead of 60%. On the tanking front, one of our major cooldowns was nerfed, although DKs are still probably the king of tanking CDs (disgustingly powerful new Ardent Defender aside). Icebound Fortitude's CD was doubled to 2 minutes. Veteran of the Third War's Stamina bonus was cut in half, and Toughness was cut by a third.
Lichborne: Leveling through Outland (Levels 58-68)
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at the mechanics, issues, and zen of the Death Knight class. With 3.1 sort of leveling out for now, It's probably a good time to switch our views to leveling. It's a good a time as any to welcome any new Death Knights into the fold and give them a few tips for getting through that silly old Outland content and into Northrend.
Lichborne: A Patch 3.1 talent build cookie platter for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your (usually) weekly (I swear) source for Death Knight news and tips.So now that Patch 3.1 is underway, the basic cookie cutter tank and DPS builds have begun emerging. The Patch 3.1 nerfs really haven't slowed us down in any major way, and with dual specs in, we're doing better than ever on the whole versatility front. In recognition of this, let's give you some straight information, no chaser. Here's a handful of cookie cutter DPS and Tank builds for each tree to get you on the right path to DPS or tanking dominance in Patch 3.1, or both if you've dropped that 1000 gold. All of these builds also included recommended glyphs at the link as well.
