Saturday, May 10, 2008

Some Thoughts On The Recent Lich King Information

Well, that certainly was a sudden flood of information, wasn't it? I caught wind of the news coming on WoWinsider just before heading to bed last night. Let's just say I ended up going to bed at 6AM instead of 3AM...

I'll touch on my personal highlights of all the new media and info...

1) The whole 10/25man version of every dungeon news. I'm all for it. I never understood how people could be so against something that's just letting other players enjoy the game. So long as the 25-mans have better loot I can't voice a single concern. Hell, since Blizzard won't have to create different dungeons for different crowds it really let's them make the most of their development team talent, which hopefully means new content will roll out quicker! To anyone still against it: It sure beats Blizzard trying to find some middle ground between casuals and raiders that won't suit either group and make everyone pissed. I think with this change the only people who will truly be upset will be raiders who take themselves and their egos *too* seriously.

2) Deathknight information. A few things were clarified about the class mechanics. Notably the "Runic Power" mechanic which acts as another resource type that builds up as you use runes, effectively allowing stronger moves to be charged up over time. This really adds another level of depth to the class that I wasn't expecting. Another interesting tidbit of info was the whole "Presence" mechanic, which functions similarly to Warriors stances. Frost Presence increases your mitigation and threat, Blood increases your damage output, and Unholy increases your movements speed/"other PvP stuff".

I really like this concept as it adds a lot of choices to how you play your class. What spec? Which runes do I put on my blade? What presence will I be using? Add Runic power on top of that and you've got what *appears* to be a pretty intricate and customizable class. I just hope the Unholy talent tree isn't necessarily just PvP focused like the Unholy Presence would infer... I hate how they did that to Warriors with Arms=PvP, Fury=RaidDPS, Prot=Tanking. Each talent tree should be raid and PvP viable, not be pigeonholed...

Krigus, the Dwarven Unholy Deathknight raider may never exist if this is true. =(


3) Visuals. I'm in love with "The Nexus" dungeon. Check out this video of the Borean Tundra that shows The Nexus. Holy crap that's pure awesome. I've wanted an icy style dungeon ever since that blue dragon cave in Winterspring! Really looking forward to this one!


All in all it was nice to get some clarifications and get some new info, but my appetite simply will not be sated until I can get a look at the Deathknight talents/abilities, and the new Affliction talents/abilities. I'm dying to see these, discuss them, theorycraft them, and maybe even get in the beta and get a chance to try them out an offer feedback on 'em.

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