jadefury
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Lichborne: Guys and Ghouls
Welcome to Lichborne, where we ask the tough questions: Will Death Knights be ready for launch? Will they really have 3 trees that can tank and DPS? And what kind of a ghoul name is Eyeslobber? Ghouls have been one of my most beloved features of the Death Knight for some now. I like having an undead squire by my side, and they can be pretty useful for some extra dps and even some lifesaving interference in a pinch. However, they also felt like one of the least firmed up aspects of a Death Knight for some time now, with abilities coming and going on a patchly basis, and bugs that kept the ghoul from being summoned or allowed to summon a massive army of ghouls in no time flat. Still, they have their uses, and despite still being incredibly flimsy healthwise, do offer a decent amount of extra damage when they're up. The drawback is that 50 silver is a lot for a pet that lasts less than 5 minutes, and without points in the Unholy tree, the Ghoul is completely uncontrollable, and may have a tendency to run into suicidal situations without listening to a word you say. As far as perfecting the Ghoul and deciding on its place in the class, there seems to be two schools of thought. The first, mostly made of Unholy specced Death Knights, sees the Ghoul as a fun and useful part of the class, and wants to see it tweaked to have good survivability, good dps, and generally be worth keeping out. The other class see Ghouls as mostly a novelty, a thing to be bought out occasionally, and such a pain to upkeep that they don't really want to have to deal with it as a pillar of the class. They'd rather be able to forget it exists when they want to. Both positions have their passionate supporters, but Blizzard seems to have found a rather ingenious way to give both sides what they want: Talents. Recent talent changes provide a lot of buffs, and if you collect them all, you should have a much easier time using your ghoul to your hearts content.
Death Knight Gameplay Video: Unholy PvP
Jadefury continues to deliver with the Death Knight videos. This time, he runs around in one of the Northrend starting zones and preys upon unsuspecting Alliance. It's a bit of a gank video, so fair warning if you're not into that. He uses this level 73 Unholy/Blood build. Jadefury himself admits, of course, that the first thing he had going for him was the element of surprise -- not only ganking, but people panicking as they had to face down an unfamiliar class. We wouldn't be surprised if PvPing with a Death Knight for the first few months of Wrath is easy if only because of that deer in the headlights phenomenon. Still, he also showcases some very nice uses of Death Knight PvP skills. My favorite is his use of Death Grip, which looks like it's fast becoming the signature Death Knight move -- not only does it take care of people trying to run away, but he uses it as a spell interrupt in a pinch. There's also some freezing action going on as well with what looks to be Chains of Ice. Of course, having Magic Suppression probably helps a lot as well. Of course, it's worth noting that he leapt upon people in combat (with some rather sweet looking Nerubians at that, we can't believe we'll be able to solo those, Wrath is going to be so epic), and this is only at level 73, so level 80 organized PvP may look somewhat different. Still, it's yet another good look at Death Knight gameplay to prepare all of us rerollers.
Death Knight Gameplay Movies: Frost and more Blood leveling
We bought you Jadefury's Unholy and Blood Death Knight game play videos yesterday, and now he's released another batch. This time, his Death Knight is a bit higher level, and he puts two new talent builds through their paces. In the video above, he focuses on the Frost tree. You can see the control that Frost provides specifically - the freezing effects actually seem to last a remarkably long time, certainly long enough to set up a nice chain of abilities and spells for maximum damage. A Hungering Cold followed by a Deathchill and finished up with a Howling Blast can be particularly devastating. Jadefury also points out that if you have any lingering diseases on any of your targets, you can use Blood Boil to quickly wipe them out, doing extra damage and making them susceptible to being frozen again. Frost, reports Jadefury, is probably the least solo-friendly build. Because you need to go very deep into the frost tree to get all the abilities you need for maximum control and damage, You can't get the self-sustainability talents in the Blood tree such as Vendetta. That said, Frost should still be amazing for groups, since you'll be able to provide some very passable crowd control and damage, and I myself am still looking forward to seeing what a good Frost Mage/Death Knight team can do in PvP. Now that his Death Knight is a bit higher level, Jadefury also released a second Blood tree video that showcases a higher level build.
Death Knight Gameplay Movies: Unholy and Blood trees
Jadefury, also known as Leiah, writer of the World of Feedback blog, has fast become one of the most recognizable names in Deathknighting of those following the Wrath Beta. Among his contributions have been 2 videos that showcase the leveling playstyle of Unholy and Blood trees. They're definitely worth a watch for anyone who's seriously thinking of playing a Death Knight in Wrath of the Lich King. The Unholy video, shown above, uses this spec. It actually relies quite heavily on two Blood talents: Butchery and Vendetta. Those 2 talents provide the Death Knight with health and runic power after every mob death, which helps power Corpse Explosions and allows the Death Knight to stand up to lots of monsters at once. Jadefury also shows the power of Death and Decay, Lichborne, and Bone Armor, and even throws in an exploding Ghoul or two, following it all up with a showcase of the awesome Death Gate animation. I have to admit that I have some concern that this style of AE farming won't be viable for Death Knights everywhere, since in this video, he relied extensively on getting Runic Power via Vendetta due to quick kills on the low HP slimes in the Pools of Aggonar. On the other hand, it looks like a lot of fun, and solidifies my personal resolve to try an Unholy build first. After the break, we'll watch the Blood video.
