johnathan-lecraft
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The earliest beginnings of the death knight and other class abilities
Following Alex Afrasiabi's example, both Cory Stockton and Jonathan LeCraft have posted some of their earliest design brainstorming notes to Twitter. Stockton's notes focus on the death knight class and what you're looking at was originally penned back in 2006, before Burning Crusade was even launched. Now that's planning ahead! It's interesting to see what aspects of the class survived those initial thoughts scribbled down on paper, such as no shield for tanking and runes as a resource. LeCraft's notes (image after the break) date back even further to show the earliest workings of class abilities like Ice Lance, Snake Trap, and Spellsteal. Rogues and warlocks, you were once considered for that latter spell but it appears the mages won that round. The "jumpy heal" didn't end up in the druid's spellbook and instead went to priests as Prayer of Mending. It's a fascinating look into WoW's development process and makes one wonder what notes are being scribbled today for expansions we don't even know about.
