Heya guys!!  For a full write up on the new Death Knight Q&A by Ghostcrawler, please click here for the official WoW forums link.  I will only be copying a few particular quotes here, but feel free to refer back to the original post by GC for complete details.

I jest again, but my point is that we introduced a new class to a game that didn’t really have a niche that needed to be filled.

Blizzard lead their players to believe that the major reason that Death Knights were chosen for the new Hero class was specifically because the expansion was spun around Arthas himself, the main character of Warcraft 3.  Had they taken the expansion in a another direction it is entirely likely this Death Knight blog would not even be here, as things would have unfolded differently.

But regardless, the simple truth in the revelation becomes quite clear.  WoW didn’t need a new class, Hero or otherwise, because every possible role in the game was adequately covered.  And because of that, Death Knights will never truly feel needed.  And it seems obvious with Blizzard’s new game design that they intend for that to stay static.

We’ve asked ourselves several times if the death knight is overly complicated — perhaps you could accomplish 90% of the design with a 3 rune system instead of a 6 rune system — but we aren?t changing it to that large a degree soon.

Just be aware that when the big bad blues mention crap like this, that it’s something they are considering doing in the future.  Heads up is all.

In terms of 3.2, we want to chill out the death knight AE damage and defensive cooldowns a little. It’s fine for a melee class to have strong area-effect, but they shouldn’t be so much better than warriors, rogues, and Enhancement shamans.

This is where things break down with Blizzard sometimes.  They forget that a “Hero class” really can break the mold, and it’s ok to tell the players “tough, deal with it” from time to time.  Having a hero class, in and of itself, that can break the mold by doing more AoE damage than a traditional melee role is not bad.  It’s a “hero class”, things are supposed to be shaken up some. 

However the design team is taking the tunnel vision approach and soothing the bruised egos of other players by making DK’s fit more into the preconceived notions of melee class balance.  While it’s a fundamently design flaw on their part to cave in (imo), it’s something we’ll have to get used to it seems.

What we are going to do with dual-wield in 3.2 is just provide the Frost tree with the talents necessary to prop-up dual wielding, including a new talent that lets Frost Strike, Death Strike, Obliterate etc. hit with both weapons.

Well, Blizzard is finally getting around to supporting the Dual Wield die hards in the DK community.  It’s about time…  Short of some major catastrophy or mythic revelation on Blizzard’s part, DW’ing DK’s will now be pigeonholed into Frost specs.  While it’s probably a good thing from a balance/design stand point, the only upcoming fear is that DW’ing will entirely replace 2H Frost specs.

I want to reiterate though that our vision hasn’t changed — we still want death knights to be able to tank every encounter.

DK tanks have been ridiculously OP for the entirety of LK guys.  Sorry, but it’s true.  In cast off gear, I was 2% away from the armor damage reduction cap (75% cap).  And I still had multiple CD’s available, etc.  DK’s needed some nerfs when it comes to tanking.  The only fear now is whether or not the nerfs will be too heavy handed. 

It’s obvious that Blizzard desperately wants as many viable tank classes as possible, though finding that happy middle ground is far more difficult to accomplish than imagine.  Where we will land when 3.2 launches is still a scary prospect.

It is a problem that, say, Blood wants armor penetration and Unholy does not. But our answer to that problem is going to be to make all specs regard the stats more similarly, not to provide lots of different armor choices.

Well, this is a bad bad bad thing honestly.  More and more, each and every DK spec becomes a carbon copy of the next.  Gargoyle and DRW becoming the same, Unholy losing it’s AoE advanatge, and who knows what else.  Part of the epic flavor of DK’s is that each spec plays totally differently. 

With this new promise you have to ask yourself if the class will lose some of it’s core flavor if homogenized much more.  I think this path is a catastrophic mistake, but as it saves Blizzard both “time and money” I can’t see any way to avoid it sadly.

One particular spell that was brought up a lot is Mind Freeze and the “delays” in it taking effect on the target which often causes the interrupt to appear on a combat log but not actually stop the spell.  We have never been able to duplicate the situation that the players describe, that sometimes it has a delay that other interrupts do not.

This has been an ongoing problem since day 1.  Not sure if you guys have experienced it like I have (in both PvE and PvP), but it’s a massively annoying problem.  Looks like there is no upcoming fix to this issue.

Do we have plans to change any of the death knight’s self-healing abilities?  The healing is one of the core mechanics of the class, and one of the things that helps them feel distinct from warriors.

Yay!!  Honestly, after so much rigamarole basically talking about how they intend to ner…uhm…”balance” the class it’s nice to hear something on the upswing.  No more healing nerfs for Death Strike, woot!!

We have a long-term plan to add the ghoul voices back. We pulled them because they were using the vendor voices, which sounded weird when your ghoul would ask you to buy or trade. We just need to get some audio made without the vendor text. It’s in the plan, but not super high priority.

Who in the hell was complaining about their ghouls talking?  I mean seriously, it made more people laugh than cry.  I mean…  Damnit, give Bonechewer his voice back already!!  *HUFF*  Jerks!!

Recap

So, that’s basically the gist of the Q&A with some SJ translations in there for those who were not able to read between the lines.  The core concept of DK’s seems to be changing honestly.  Blizzard is afraid of getting any more flak from players because a “Hero Class” is potentially more powerful than a base class.  Whether that be by versatility, breaking the mold on potential, or you name it.

While DK’s are an OP class, there are many other OP classes as well.  Anyone else got multiple horror stories about being stun locked to death by a rogue?  Or seen the crazy HoT heals from a druid in a raid?  Or been non stop locked down by a druid in PvP?  Or…well you get the point.

Expect to see DK’s become more of a baseline tank, lose any special AoE tricks, watch damage leak from your primary strikes and bleed into Blood Strike, and become more homogenized.  It’s not the death of DK’s by any stretch.  Just we’re losing some of that “epic” feel is all.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Blue